There’s magic that happens inside the camera. Yes, magic. Most cameras expose the controls to that magic via some knobs and buttons and a small LCD screen. The knobs and other physical controls we like, but the screen pales in comparison to those on our iPhones. And that’s the thing, the hundreds of apps on our iPhones leaves us wondering why our DSLRs aren’t an open platform, ready to be reshaped by one app after another.
Studio shooters have long enjoyed tethered shooting, perhaps similar solutions for smartphones will open up our cameras to proper fiddling?
I delved into this some time ago, but since then Cameramator launched on Kickstarter and is planned to ship in March 2013. It promises wireless tethering support for iOS and other devices. Meanwhile, CamRanger is shipping and they promise an iOS solution, but its software support is currently limited to a beta version for MacOS X (oh the irony, that a product could ship first on Mac OS X and I’m sad I’m complaining because it’s not available on iOS).
There are also WiFi SD cards that offer no camera control, but do allow one to see the images as they’re taken.
And because we’re already adding doodads to our cameras, let’s complete the assemblage by adding the phone itself to it. This mount might do the trick.
Update: here’s a CamRanger video review, clearly it does work on iOS: