Undistorted & Undivided
You might be familiar with the stunning street photography of Martin U Waltz from our first In Focus episode, where he took to the streets of Berlin equipped with ProCamera. Since his work often captures real people within their “natural habitat” of the concrete jungle, we thought he might enjoy trying out our new Auto Perspective Correct (APC) feature.
APC uses the built-in position sensor of the iPhone in conjunction with a patented technology to make all lines that are vertical in reality also vertical in the image. The innovative feature is part of our ProCamera Up subscription, go to Settings > Shop inside the app, to learn more. Martin went on a new photo tour through Berlin, taking inspiration from the clean lines of the city’s more modern side. We caught up with him after the shoot to get his feedback on the feature, which he used for the very first time.
1. How did you like shooting with ProCamera again, but this time with APC? Was it easy to use?
I feel ProCamera is both powerful and easy to use. APC was no different. Perspective adjustment is normally a complex task, but ProCamera produced very good results without any user intervention – it does not get easier than that. That was very impressive.
2. Do you often manually correct perspective distortion in your photos?
Yes, very often. I usually try to adjust it by positioning myself and my camera accordingly. But sometimes it is simply not possible. Perspective adjustment is usually the first step in my post-processing workflow.
3. How much time would you say APC saves you per picture since it’s automatic?
It really depends. Manual perspective adjustment can be particularly tricky on a mobile phone, so I can easily spend 30 seconds per image. If I were to manually correct the perspective on 100 images, APC would save me nearly an hour.
4. What difference does it make for you being able to compose your shot with a perspective-corrected live preview?
The live preview is truly a game changer. You lose part of the frame when adjusting perspective. Without a preview, you have to estimate that loss and account for it when composing. That is not an easy task even for an experienced photographer, because it is applied 3D geometrical calculus. The live preview shows you precisely what the final frame will look like and how much of the original frame you will lose. All perspective adjustment has limits. At extreme angles, the live preview lets me know how I should position myself in front of my scene for the best shot possible. This is where APC shines.
5. Which motives did you find worked best when shooting with APC?
Architecture, cityscapes and landscapes are certainly the photographic areas where APC
makes a lot of sense. As matter of fact APC is helpful whenever you need well aligned
lines in the frame.
We’d like to thank Martin for sharing the results and feedback from his first photo tour using our APC feature. If you want to get your hands on it, open ProCamera and go to Settings > Shop > ProCamera Up. We offer a 14-day free trial to give you a chance to experience it for yourself.
You can see more of Martin’s photograhy here:
Website DE: https://streetberlin.net/de/
Website EN: https://streetberlin.net/
In this video from 2017, we documented our first meeting with Martin in the streets of Berlin.
This November, Apple asked Martin to walk the line where the Berlin Wall once stood and he captured a city reunited with the latest iPhone.
