Finally—An HDR Workflow That Works

A Guide for Filmmakers, Content Creators, and Video Pros using ProCamera for iPhone, Lightroom, and Premiere Pro

Make sure HDR is enabled in ProCamera

Note: Premiere Pro does not display HDR correctly in the preview window during editing—colors may appear washed out or grey. The true HDR effect will only be visible after export.

Tip: To improve color accuracy while editing, temporarily switch the working color space to Rec. 709. Before exporting, be sure to switch it back to Rec. 2100 HLG to retain HDR in the final output.

Make sure your footage contains HDR information after importing

Best Export Settings in Premiere Pro for HDR

Saving a Photo as an HDR Video Clip in ProCamera

If you’ve followed all the steps as outlined above, your video is ready to share with the world in its full HDR glory! Social Media platforms like YouTube will now recognize your video as HDR once uploaded. Keep in mind it might take a day or two for the video to finish processing and appear in HDR. So be patient! Be sure to check out our latest ProCamera video filmed entirely in HDR (with HDR photos too!) on the beautiful island of Crete.

The Colorful Art Déco District of Miami Beach Shot on iPhone

Photographer Nicolai Boenig explores the pretty pastels and iconic architecture of the ever-popular Florida vacation destination

While Miami may still have a reputation as the seaside resort for retired people and excessive party location for spring breakers and celebrities, intensive efforts are made to transform the metro area into a multifaceted cultural hub. The historic Art Déco architecture around South Beach is one of the elements that make this region so unique and definitely worth a visit.

Q: Nicolai, how did you develop this set of images and what kind of photo equipment did you use?

» This photo series was not an assignment – as a matter of fact, it wasn’t even planned. On a brief stay at the coastal city, I headed to the beach and simply got lost in the playful facades and lovely color palette.
The equipment? An iPhone 11 loaded with ProCamera, flip-flops and a beach towel

Q: Do you have a personal favorite from this series?

» Hmm, maybe the following image because of the serendipity. The light tones in the whole scene match beautifully, and it looks like the woman on the giant poster is checking out the car.

From a compositional standpoint, it’s interesting that the buildings consist of all these straight lines whereas the car is all curves – and the big arrow on the street is a nice visual lead-in.

Q: How did ProCamera help you in capturing these architectural travel impressions?

» By using ProCamera’s Auto Perspective Correct (APC) feature, I was able to emphasize the geometrical character of the ornate facade designs. Let me show you a side-by-side comparison to illustrate the difference perspective correction makes:

Perspective Correction

Every time you angle your camera and photograph a subject from below, you will get converging lines. Especially in architecture photography, you will probably want to avoid such leaning-in lines as buildings otherwise seem to fall over. This is where ProCamera’s Auto Perspective Correct comes in very handy. The feature automatically corrects perspective distortion in real time by using the iPhone’s built-in gyroscope.

The innovative Auto Perspective Correct is part of the “ProCamera Up” feature bundle. You can find more information about this optional add-on via ProCamera app > Shop > ProCamera Up.

In the in-app shop, you can easily start a free 14-day trial to see how these special features work for you. In case you are interested in temporary access for a specific vacation or photo project, there also is a very affordable 1-month plan. Recently, we also started offering ProCamera Up as a one-time purchase.

Thank you for this tropical photo series, Nicolai. It definitely fueled our desire to travel!

>> If you want to see more of his photography, check out @nicolaiboenig on Instagram.

Packing Light and Working On the Road

Times change, and sometimes that’s actually a good thing

For this travel-themed guest post we didn’t need to look far. We asked Lindy and Roy – who are part of our ProCamera support staff – to tell us more about their lives as digital nomads. Internally, we like to call the Dutch couple our “mobile support unit” since they are working from somewhere on the road most of the time. Let’s hear how to bridge the gap between mobile photography and a mobile workplace. 

Let me take you back in time: Eight years ago, we decided to travel to Peru. We went on a 4-day hike to Machu Picchu, only able to bring one daypack each.

One of our packs was filled to the brim with camera gear: camera bodies, lenses, flashes and batteries were dragged up and down the mountains. The other pack contained our clothes, toiletries and some snacks. I don’t think we’ll have to tell you carrying this amount of camera gear is no fun. It’s somewhat okay the first day, but your back and shoulders are getting more and more sensitive. After 21 kilometers (~13 miles) on day three my forearms were cramped from holding the heavy camera in my hands all day. Time to downgrade!

Luckily, you can find yourself a decent system camera these days weighing only a fraction of what we lugged around back then. Making better quality images, too. But aside from that, technology has now brought us an even more compact camera that never leaves our sides. And the quality of the images never ceases to amaze us. Our iPhones!

We’ll be the first to admit we like to be lazy every once in a while, which means we don’t always take our big camera with us. And while traveling, we often leave it at our hotel because bringing a dedicated camera is too big a risk. And of course when we don’t have our camera’s we run into the most amazing landscapes, sunsets and situations. Luckily, our iPhones are always with us and with ProCamera we get this great selection of pro camera features.

Picture this: the two daypacks we carried with us back then are the only bags we now bring on a round-the-world trip! Yes, we travel hand luggage only, for months on end. And yes, aside from our clothes, toiletries and other travel necessities we also bring a camera, lenses, a GoPro and a drone. Not bad huh?

During our travels, we never stay at a single location for an extended amount of time (unless we’re enjoying ourselves a bit too much). So we need to be able to quickly pack and unpack, but also easily grab what we need for a long hike or mountain bike ride. We had to downgrade a fair amount over the past years to enable ourselves to travel like this, and we kind of made bringing just what we need a goal of itself (though the contents seem to magically grow every time we need to repack).

Another thing we embrace nowadays is cloud services. Where we’d have to find a dubious internet cafe back in the days, have the contents of our memory card burned on a CD, send it home and wait for a confirmation that everything was received in good order we now use cloud services for backups. This workflow sure can be a bit of a hassle, too. Many places around the world still don’t provide fast WiFi or mobile network, and we really don’t want too lose our memories of that beautiful (way too early) sunrise, that endless walk to the world’s tallest palm trees or that bizarre bike ride to the refuge on top of the mountain.

We always try to sort out our favourite images as soon as possible, and immediately upload them to a could service (aside from iCloud backups on our iPhones). You’ll likely find us locked in our hotel room at the end of the day, editing images to prepare them for our dutch travel blog and social media, and uploading our favourites to make sure we always have a copy. As we were once taught: if you don’t have at least two versions of an image, you might as well have none at all. 

Now that global travel has been off the table for a while, we started working on another project we had our minds set on for quite a while: our very own self-built camper van. Since we’ve been home a lot we now have the time to build it completely to our taste.

We’ve been traveling around in camper vans in the past, and for us there’s nothing like waking up in the most beautiful places you wouldn’t normally go to, have breakfast and a great cup of coffee together and slowly start our day. What beats designing and building the tiny home that brings us this joy all ourselves?

We’re both sportive and adventurous so our van has to comply with quite some demands: It has to be comfortable, fit our clothes and personal belongings, photo equipment and two mountain bikes. All inside the van, as we hate to come back from a long hike hoping everything we hung on the van’s back it still there.

Current events also turned out to create the perfect time to browse through our old photos. Let us tell you: this brings great travel inspiration for the future!

The underwater world is a magical place. Wouldn’t it be great to take photos with your iPhone in this beautiful landscape?

Last week we tried just that: We put an iPhone loaded with ProCamera inside an underwater housing and jumped into the Mediterranean Sea. Grab your snorkel and come with us!

INFO: This is a follow-up post to our previous subsea iPhoneography article.

What equipment did you use this time?

We used an iPhone 7 Plus inside a Watershot Pro housing. The main benefits of a professional housing are the robustness and the underwater control. This means you don’t have to worry about penetrating water (depth rating of 195 feet/60 meters) and physical buttons allow you to reliably trigger the shutter button subsea.

How did you set up ProCamera before the dive?

The physical buttons allow you to control the most important features once the iPhone is inside the housing (shutter button, exposure correction, 1x – 2x zoom switch). Yet, some settings need to be entered before storing the iPhone in there:

Continuous Autofocus: Tap in the middle of ProCamera’s Capture Screen to activate. The switch to Continuous Autofocus is indicated by the larger blue reticle and the word “AUTO”. This way, the camera will continuously adjust focus and you are not limited to one fixed focusing distance. This setting is important, since you won’t be able to manually focus once the iPhone is inside the housing.

Aspect Ratio 4:3: Precise framing isn’t that easy under water due to shy and speedy objects, water movement and limited view. Therefore, we went for the maximum resolution (4:3) and cropped our favorite images afterwards.

Rapid Fire: For fish and other agile sea dwellers, our Rapid Fire settings can be quite useful. By holding down the shutter button, the camera will take a burst of photos. This will give you a variety of captures to choose from after the dive.

High image quality: The intrinsic properties of water make it harder to capture crisp and contrasty images. Most of the time, underwater photos need at least basic editing. To get as much image data as possible, set the JPEG/HEIF quality level to 100% or directly switch to TIFF file format.

Do you have more tips for people, who haven’t tried it before?

The most important tipps are already listed in the previous post. But these are additional things to consider:

– The housing is extremely solid and durable. Still, washing the case after a dive in the ocean is recommended, so that the clear front and the glass lens are freed from the layer of salt.

– When snorkeling, applying sun cream (to your back) is advisable. Just wait a few minutes before you touch the housing afterwards. Otherwise, you will cause unpleasant finger prints that obstruct your view at the iPhone display or you will put smudge marks on the lens.

– Try not to directly expose the housing to sand or tiny stones at the beach. The sand grains might scratch the acrylic front of the housing, which could affect the display visibility and the quality of selfies negatively. We put the kit inside a pouch in our beach bag before and after each dive and had no problems.

– Attach the little hand strap to the housing. You don’t want to loose your precious kit and all those wonderful water photos in crushing waves.

– If possible, snorkel or dive more than once. Within a day or even a few hours, an underwater scene can drastically change. You may encounter different wildlife and you may get an even clearer view. A spot that wasn’t very interesting on an afternoon, was fascinating just the next morning.

And last but not least: please take care down there!

Go on a virtual mini-vacation to the English countryside

ProCamera user Mark Allen went on a photo trip to the Lake District (UK) and came back with a beautiful series of calming landscape photos.The slideshow is best enjoyed in full screen mode and 1080p HD quality (gear icon).

Last June, we interviewed Lars Wibranski who used only his iPhone and ProCamera to document his trip to Thailand. When he mentioned that he used a waterproof housing in conjunction with ProCamera to capture vivid underwater scenes, it really sparked our curiosity. Now, he has returned to share the photographs and tips from this dive. 

The black dots on the clear front of the housing are the physical buttons, that assure reliable operation subsea.

Underwater images usually aren’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about iPhone photography. One might think that special equipment that costs thousands of dollars would be necessary. Yet, the photographs below are evidence of just how far mobile photography can be pushed. Lars has shared with us some great tips in case you too wish to give underwater photography a try:

• When (first) using the case, it’s best to make a quick security check. Put in a handkerchief, close the housing, and submerge it into water. The handkerchief must not become wet while in the case. Lars never had any problems with penetrating water.

You will achieve the best photo results…

• in clear water. If you can’t see a lot underwater with your own eyes, the camera is likely to not see a lot, too. Thailand, where Lars took these photos, has incredibly clear water.
• near water surface, since it’s a lot brighter there. However, some of these photos are taken at around 40-50 feet (12-15m) below the surface. So don’t let that limit you.
• close to your subject. The closer you can get, the crisper your photos will be.

Blue-Green Cast

• The deeper you dive, the bluer and greener your environment will appear. This is bound up with the intrinsic property of water and the fact, that white light is selectively absorbed and scattered when traveling trough water.
• You will gradually loose red and orange tones in your photos when going deeper. You can see that effect in the following photo of the clown fish (we all know that Nemo is orange…).
• With a White Balance adjustment, you can compensate by adding in warm tones. Strictly speaking, the White Balance is only correct for a certain depth. Since you can’t unpack your iPhone underwater and can’t use the touchscreen in conjunction with the housing, it’s best to try find an approximate value beforehand. Alternative ways of bringing back the reds are either additional lighting (dive lights) or screw on color filter (red filter for blue water, magenta filter for green water environments).

• Since you won’t be able to use the touchscreen, when your iPhone is packed into the housing, make sure you don’t lock focus beforehand. When your focus is locked in ProCamera, you will see a little lock symbol inside the focus reticle. Using the big focus reticle in the center of the viewfinder assures continuous focusing, which will give you the necessary flexibility underwater.

The wide screw on lens gets softer in the corners, so make sure you place your main subject more around the center. In this area the optical quality of the lenses is really good – Lars even used the housing in conjunction with the screw on lens for onshore photos, because of the wide field of view.

Maybe we could encourage some of you to give underwater (iPhone) photography a try. With ProCamera, some kind of waterproof cover/housing, and the tips from this post, you are ready to go. There also is a new version of the housing, that is custom made for the dimensions of the iPhone 6.

We at ProCamera love to see our app in action. So, in case you are doing something special, write us an eMail. We are very curious!

This week’s part of our #ProCameraTravel campaign is an interview with Lars Wibranski, who solely used his iPhone and ProCamera 8 to document his latest trip to Thailand.

Hello Lars, please tell us a little bit about yourself

Sure. I am based in Mannheim, Germany, and this is where I live and work as a freelance communications designer. I am 45 years of age, like to stay on the move, enjoy contact with people, traveling and cooking.
Creative work plays an essential role in my life, which also reflects in my job. Be it computer, camera or craft work –  these are things I am deeply interested in.

You just came back from a trip throughout Thailand. Why did you choose Thailand? What is it about that country that fascinates you?

As long as I can remember, I was fascinated by Asia and Southeast Asia. Thailand is a country with a very diverse culture, landscape and population. Traveling there is uncomplicated, and almost everything is easily accessible.
The Northwest is mountainous (Himalayan offshoots) and relatively cold,  compared to the rest of the country. Various indigenous groups are living in forested regions with a characteristic dry jungle. Because of extensive cave systems, there is a lot to discover in this area. For many tourists, the onward journey following the Golden Triangle to Laos, is a favored travel route.
Central Thailand offers various ancient ruin cities, and national parks.
Bangkok is by far Thailand’s biggest metropolis (10-12 million inhabitants), which more and more attracts people even from rural regions. It’s a city that never sleeps and that is always good for a surprise.
The South of the country is characterized by beautiful beaches and islands. Although it’s a bit touristy and overflown at times, you should still be able to discover a wonderful seashore or an island.
Another aspect of Thailand that I really like, is the people: They are very polite, courteous, and always willing to help. By now some Thais have become good friends of mine and I have visited their families.

What places/regions can you recommend?

I’ve been to Thailand three times now, and I can recommend the Northeast of the country to anybody who is interested in nature and likes to travel away from mass tourism. Beautiful landscapes, caves, waterfalls… My favorite spot in the North is the Guesthouse Cave Lodge, which lies in the midst of nature. The Northwest in general is not as touristy, either. Places like Nong Khai, idyllically situated by the Mekong, still are fairly unknown.
Another insider’s tip is the island Koh Jum, which sticks out with particularly splendid beaches.
Who really wants to find the heart of Thai culture should travel off the beaten tracks. If you are open to it, this is where it is easy to get in contact with the locals and their culture. Knowing at least some Thai words is useful in those situations, as English isn’t understood everywhere in the rural regions.

Why was the iPhone your camera of choice on that trip?

The iPhone is a very good travel companion. I really enjoyed having such a handy, simple, and multifunctional gadget. The decisive factor was the combination of the iPhone’s hardware (good lens) and the professional features of ProCamera, on the software side of things. That sealed the deal for me. Looking back at the journey and the photos, I have to say that the HDR feature is a favorite of mine. Another benefit of using a smartphone, is the capability to instantly send photos back home to family and friends. In Thailand, it’s very easy and inexpensive to buy prepaid sim cards (available in every SevenEleven)…
On top of that, nearly every Café and Guesthouse offers free W-Lan. This was a good opportunity for me to search for local travel information and book a room for the next night. Downloading maps for offline usage (e.g. citymaps2go) put me in a position to roam through new places and never get lost. When I was not sure about the way back, I could always have a look at my iPhone. That provided me with freedom and security – and it was way less conspicuous than big folding maps.
What really surprised me, was the fact, that I even started reading books on my smartphone. It’s super convenient to have everything on-hand when traveling.

Which generation iPhone did you use at that time?

An iPhone 5s.

What challenges did you face using an iPhone as your only camera?

A big challenge for me was the relatively short battery runtime. I charged the iPhone no less than one or two times a day. Charging my phone, when taking a break in a Café, became a daily routine for me. To be on the safe side, I highly recommend using a power bank to gain additional battery life.

When shooting a lot, the memory space of your phone may become an issue. I resolved it by uploading entire sets of photos to my Dropbox from time to time.
Having no optical zoom was a pity sometimes, but it also was a welcome challenge. Over time I really got accustomed to the lens resp. the focal length.
From past experience, I was used to just leave my smartphone in the pocket at nighttime. With the Night Camera mode in ProCamera, that is something I’m about to change. In the future I will give it a try from time to time, to see how those nightly captures turn out. The „blue hour“, the twilight period after the sun has set, generally is a great time to shoot.

How did you first get in contact with mobile photography?

I have to admit that it was ProCamera that brought me to mobile photography. I was really surprised when I saw the first photos taken with the app, especially the HDR captures. With my photographs, I want to collect interesting motifs, strange scenes, compositions and structures – rather than the typical holiday moments. It’s the ordinary, the everyday things, in foreign cultures, that interests me the most.

Now that you are back home in Germany, what do you like to photograph here?

When photographing I am not committed to a specific theme or subject. But most of the time I find myself shooting architecture, landscape and street. I like to find abstract compositions, patterns and structures.

As you journey, how did people react, when you were shooting with your smartphone?

It’s unobtrusive, and especially the iPhone is very popular in Thailand. Therefore you don’t attract a lot of attention.
Outside the urban areas, people are really open to tourists and oftentimes don’t mind a quick smartphone photo, when you ask them.

Did you utilize any other apps oder gadgets on your journey?

I solely used ProCamera on this trip. Before the trip, I had a look at some other pieces of software, but I always came back to ProCamera. I enjoy the user-friendliness, the ease of use, the intuitive handling and the various features. It’s great being able to quickly and easily shoot a scene, but still know, that you are able to set up things manually, when needed.
For underwater photos, I used a waterproof housing.

What features of ProCamera were the most important ones for you on this trip?

In a lot of situations, I switched to vividHDR in ProCamera with which I was able to achieve very good results. Particularly the rendition of shiny gold tones, that can be found on many temples in Thailand, was spectacular.
Being able to separately set focus and exposure is something I don’t want to miss.
When using my iPhone underwater, in that special housing, the white balance and tint adjustment was a crucial factor.

For me, like many others, underwater photography is something totally new. You have to tell us more about it soon! Thanks for the interview.

Sure, I would be happy to do so. My pleasure.

Before going on vacation, most people face the same dilemma of what to pack. A lot of us end up with bulky pieces of luggage…
At least for your photographic gear, you are able to pack light for some time now. Combined with the controls of ProCamera 8, the iPhone, which is anyway in your pocket, is a wonderful travel companion to capture memorable travel moments.
The best thing about it, is the possibility to not just photograph, but edit and share those images on the go. The wide range of geek-worthy features and manual controls in ProCamera, put yourself in a position to even shoot in otherwise difficult situations: Scenes with high contrast, backlight, night scenes,…

Capture the moment!

#ProCameraTravel

We have been amazed by the beautiful photographs our users took with ProCamera in the past and we think it will be just like that with this year’s travel photographs! Share the beauty of the moment with us on Instagram, using #ProCameraTravel. We would love to feature some of our favorites on our growing feed https://instagram.com/procamera_app

On our blog, we will provide you with interesting takes on travel photography in the next couple of weeks. All the information will be collected on the dedicated travel microsite; so have an eye on: ProCamera Projects: Travel Month 2015

If you want to tell one of your own travel stories and share photos with us, feel free to contact us:
travel@procamera-app.com