About five years ago I began teaching myself HTML. I had a single $300 Toshiba laptop and a 3.2 Mp camera. I spent hours learning about HTML, CSS and how to use FTP and the CPanel on my web host. Some time passed and I discovered WordPress, PHP and MySQL. I bought another laptop. A year and a half ago I bought my first Android phone, an HTC Evo 4G. It changed my life. It has revolutionized how I look at technology and how it can be used in the outdoors. A year ago I bought a netbook to play with. In June I upgraded my phone to a Samsung Galaxy S3. Several point and shoot cameras have come and gone. Currently I’m using an Lumix LX-5, which seems like the most robust point and shoot camera I’ve ever owned. I’ve played around with Linux (complete noob), rooted my phones and flashed more ROM’s than I’m willing to count. I’m currently taking a basic programming class, trying to learn JQuery, and teaching myself how to use Blogger to build simple yet effective websites (way more than what most people use blogger for) that integrate all the Google tools into a low cost, easy to maintain website. On my desk most of the time are 3 computers, a smartphone, a Panasonic point and shoot and a printer/scanner – quite the mess.

The point is that I’ve become a major tech nerd. Climbing and technology are both passions of mine. I’m dying to get a tablet (a Nexus 7) and bluetooth keyboard, which I think is going to practically replace all of my devices except my phone. Tablets, with the touch interface but slightly larger screens (7-10″) may very well replace laptops for most people in the next few years.

My HTC Evo 4G was amazing, and with good lighting I occasionally captured nice images. More often than not the images were alright, and if I bumped up the saturation and contrast in a photo editor they would look good on a computer screen. I still felt the need to carry around a nice point-and-shoot camera (Panasonic LX-5, robust and dependable). My Galaxy S3 has changed that. Samsung has clearly figured out the camera software for smartphones. As evidence they’ve just released a Galaxy camera. If I was a producer of point and shoot cameras I’d be nervous right now. My guess is that they’re going to all but disappear as people upgrade to camera equipped smartphones.

Most days now I carry my GS3 in an Otterbox Defender and use it as my camera at the cliff. I removed the screen protector from the Otterbox Defender and added a Zagg Invisible Shield HD to the phone. This protects the screen and but still lets me see things clearly. I keep it in my pant side pocket nearly all the time and whip it out at belays to shoot photos.

I don’t always like to transfer images from my phone to my computer for editing and batch resizing. Photos I’ve taken of clients during the day usually remain on my phone until they’re resized and sent to people in a single compressed .zip file.

Just a few years ago this would have been impossible. Now though, with a 1.5Ghz dual core processor in my phone, plus 48Gb of storage (16Gb on phone/32Gb external card) and 2Gb of RAM I can do nearly all quick photo-editing tasks from the road using my phone. One entire homescreen on my phone holds photo-related apps. There are camera apps, gallery apps, photo editors, recovery programs, etc. all in one place.

Once I get a tablet there won’t be any looking back. Using a touch UI (user interface) to edit photos just makes sense to me. One of the nicest thing about the apps – they transfer across all devices. When I upgrade I keep the app, and good apps are constantly being updated by the developer. Generally, if I like an app I usually buy the paid version so that the dev makes a little money. Below are the apps that I like and have begun to use more and more.

Camera apps

Manual mode, aperture priority and shutter priority feel like they’re just around the corner for these devices. I’m not really an instant upload, media sharing type of person so apps like Instagram don’t really appeal to me. I like to take photos and play with them or post them later. Still waiting for Photosynth to come to the Android world…

• Stock Galaxy S3 camera – The stock GS3 app works well. It snaps photos and processes them quickly. The panorama stitching software is the best and fastest I’ve seen yet in any Android stock or aftermarket camera app. The interface is easy to use. I’ve tested a handful of other apps, and unless you’re after a certain effect the  stock GS3 camera is the way to go. Even when using the AOSP ROM’s like CyanogenMod 10, the GS3 camera works well. Were I using another phone I might have a different story. On my old Evo I used other apps, like the ones listed below.

• ProCapture – This app, which I only bought recently, reminds me a lot of the GS3 stock camera. The interface is similar but there are more options. You can view the histogram to check and see if lighting is good and choose from lots of different effects. It’s panorama software is also very good, but works much more slowly than the stock GS3′s. In the future I’ll be playing around and reviewing this in more depth. ProCapture is $3.99 on Google’s PlayStore

• Camera360 – I’ve mentioned this app before and it’s remained at the top of my list. It’s one of the easiest camera apps to use, there are lots of effects and it’s free. The developer has recently added a cloud storage option which requires an account and login information (I’m wary of creating more accounts than I need). Otherwise this app is great. Images are taken at the specified resolution and then resized to 1280×960 if you apply any filters. Generally the effects are good and you can touch the screen to compare the original and the filtered image. I’ve had pretty good luck shooting screen quality images with this app. It’s free.

• HDR Camera+ - Another app I’ve mentioned in an earlier post and keep coming back to occasionally. The developer has other camera apps yet none of them seem quite as appealing as HDR Camera+. All this app does is apply HDR (High Dynamic Range) to an image. HDR was originally accomplished on digital cameras using at least 3 images with different levels of exposure. Mulltiple images are merged to get vibrant and well-lit images. On the phone it’s all done with software which essentially bumps up color saturation and adjusts contrast, sharpness and brightness. The paid version of this app is $1.99

• Camera Zoom FX - Google celebrated 25 billion app downloads last week with sales on lots of different apps. This one was 25 cents. It’s a simple photo app similar to Camera360 that skins and edits images on the fly as you shoot them. Unlike Camera360, Camera Zoom FX maintains full size after edits, which is nice if you’re considering printing a larger shot. It’s easy to use and since it doesn’t automatically downsize image it will most likely replace Camera360 for me. I’ll be using it more extensively in the coming weeks.
• Paper Camera – Pure fun. Not really for images so much as for cartoon and sketch like manipulation. Another app that was $.25 last week.
• Photaf Panorama Pro - If you’re still using Android 2.3 or under, Photaf may be a good way to go. I used it with some success. As long as you have a steady hand and set the app to “manual” picture taking mode you can get good results. The panoramas produced by Photaf are cropped a lot, meaning they’ll look fine on a screen but might not be suitable for printing.

Gallery Apps

• QuickPic - There is no comparison. This is the fastest, best gallery app. I used it exclusively on the Evo and now I use it on the GS3. You can make folders hidden, so you don’t end up viewing things like icons, FB images and Picasa folders. Did I mention it’s fast? It’s not bad for image file management and small edits like cropping too. Free.

• Photo Mate Professional - Actually more of an editor, Photo Mate can be used to view images too, and has a cool slideshow function. It’s a bit clunky compared to QuickPic though. $7.69 from the PlayStore.

Photo editors

My mind was blown when I discovered the apps below. In a way, once most users discover that they can do light editing on a tablet, using a touch UI they’ll never use a desktop or laptop again. My phone instantly became way more useful since I’ve begun using these apps.

• PhotoEditor - Photo Editor is one of many lightweight editors available for a low cost on the Google PlayStore. It’s one of the most appealing to me. The interface isn’t the nicest, but it’s extreme easy to use and customize for your own preferences. A series of sliders allows easy adjustment of resize options, brightness, contrast and simple effects including the addition of text.

• PhotoMate Professional - I pulled the trigger and bought this one. It’s $7.69, which makes it one of the most expensive apps I’ve purchased (Backcountry Navigator was $9.99 and worth every penny). It’s a full featured photo editor that does batch conversions and resizing. It handles raw files as well, meaning you can do light duty editing to raw camera files from high-end point-and-shoot cameras and DSLR’s. It’s almost like using Adobe Lightroom. Images can be edited using a series of sliders and portions of images can be selected out so that lighting can be adjusted only for one portion of a photo. Batch resizing with PhotoMate is possible but seems to be limited by RAM or software limitations. When I set conversion quality to a low setting it will work, but leaving .jpg quality on high seems to stop batch conversion entirely. The app is constantly being updated and the dev is responsive though, so this app should improve over time.

• ImageResize V2beta - Despite a clunky interface, this app does batch resizing of whole folders easily. That’s all it does. It’s free and it’s useful.

 File Managers

It helps to have a few file managers. Some work better than others and none are perfect.

• Astro – Astro File Manager is free and popular. Most of the time it works well. The most recent update is crap. Otherwise this has always been my file manager of choice and as soon as the developer gets rid of the bugs things should be fine.
• ES File Explorer - Easy to use, but a little less intuitive, ES works reliably and can be used to compress files, and batch move entire folders or files.

Recovery Software

Every once in a while you delete something by accident. Recovery apps like Hexamob can help. Hexamob searches for deleted files and restores them. I’ve used it on several occasions and been really happy to have it.

Hexamob is good for recovering accidentally deleted photos

Email clients

One glitch in this process is almost a dealbreaker. The Gmail app on my Android phone (I suspect all Android phones) doesn’t handle zip files well. This is most likely for security reasons. As a result, I’m using K-9 Mail, an email client based on the stock Android email client, but with some really big improvements. It will handle compressed files and you can easily turn off sync so that the Gmail app is still your regular mail app.

If you have other apps that you think work well or have other ways you’re using your Android outside feel free to comment below.

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I posted recently about how to turn your smartphone into a useful backcountry tool. Since then I’ve delved deeply into the world of Android phones and discovered their extreme functionality. Along the way I found a few apps that I really enjoy, and think will be useful outdoors.

Before we get going I need to mention one thing. It’s great there are so many free Android and Iphone apps, but let’s not forget that developers make their living designing useful computer applications. If you like an app, upgrade to the pro version and buy that programmer a cup of coffee or one more day of heat in his/her abode.

Below are a group of photo apps that are really useful, and work especially well when you have all of them. I’ve included them as a “suite”. Two image-capture applications, one editing app, and a really good gallery app. If you have an Android phone check these out.

HDR Camera+

High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging is a technology some photographers have been using to capture more vivid, life-like images. HDR images consist of several bracketed (different f-stops for each exposure) exposures which are generally merged using software afterward. The result is an image that looks more like what you see with your eyes. Most smartphones generally have at least a 5 megapixel camera and already act like a small computer, so it’s no surprise that someone’s designed an application that outputs HDR images.

I’ve been playing around with HDR Camera+ both indoors and outdoors, and the results are striking. There are fewer dark images. It’s nice to know I can leave my Lumix camera at home on days that I don’t feel like taking too many pictures. With HDR Camera+ I have a good way to get beautiful landscape images with my pnone.

Photaf

The Iphone has the mother of all stitching apps, Microsoft Photosynth. It takes images and stitches them together on the fly. You can take images of the entire sky or o fanything you see in front of you. When I saw this app I was hopeful that there was a similar app for Android.

It turns out there isn’t. The camera on most Android phones won’t take images quickly enough for Photosynth to work well, plus developers have to design a program that will work on more than one type of phone and operating system.

There are a number of photo stitching applications available. I settled on Photaf, an app that creates panoramas using either landscape or portrait view (for a taller image). It works well enough most of the time. After a few attempts I began using the “manual” mode. This seemed to work better, as I didn’t have to go as far between images. This makes for a better merge and a nicer looking final image.

Adobe Photoshop Express

After you’ve captured images that you’re pleased with it’s time to process them. If you don’t have a laptop along but you want to do some minor post-image processing, Adobe Photoshop Express should do the trick. You can easily adjust contrast, saturation and hue, crop or add effects.

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I’ll admit it. I’m a total tech nerd, but I’m definitely an everyman as far as paying for technology goes. I don’t have a Macbook, as I don’t feel the need to shell out $1500 only to do most of my computing on the cloud anyways. I have really useful, yet inexpensive PC’s with Windows or better yet, free Linux operating systems. I don’t have an Iphone either, but rather an Android phone (also Linux based). Finally, I love going down the technological rabbit hole and emerging with even more knowledge of the really powerful tools we all own but don’t use to their full potential. Interestingly enough, one of the most useful backcountry tools I have is my smartphone. I have an HTC Evo 4g, which I’ve been using since June, and I count it as the best digital device I’ve ever owned.

So, why is it so useful in the backcountry though? Obvious reasons, like the phone and camera functions for emergency use seem to stand out. However, it’s the less obvious uses that really make the phone shine. Here are the reasons I like having the phone with me in the woods:

• Kindle for Android – It’s not a paper book that you can wipe your butt or start a fire, but it’s nice to have several books along for a trip, without ever bringing a paper book
• Music – The HTC music player doesn’t even compare to Itunes, heck who cares, the same thing that’s your book can hold up to 32Gb of music and has a speaker loud enough to project inside a tent. It’s nice to bring a bit of home with you when you spend 60 nights a year in your sleeping bag.
• WordPress for Android – Yes, that’s right, I can post to this and other blogs from the backcountry as long as I have a 3G signal.
• Backcountry Navigator – Hold onto your hats folks. This is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’ll explain below.

For most of us on the east coast, we don’t use a GPS all that often. In fact, the only time during the year that I use a GPS is during winter trips on Mt. Washington and the Presidential Range. I have a Garmin Etrex Vista HCX, which is the device that many guides use. You can add a microSD card to it and underlay topographic maps on the display. The problem is that the display is approximately 1.5″ x 2.25″; it’s almost too small to be really usable.

Enter Backcountry Navigator Pro. For $9.99 you get an app that harnesses the GPS, compass and accelerometer in your smartphone and makes it incredibly useful for navigation. With Backcountry Navigator you can download USGS 1:24000 or Canadian 1:50000 maps right off of mytopo.com. Once saved, those map tiles can be used regardless of whether or not you have phone service.

During my recent AMGA Advanced Alpine Guides Course, I found that Backcountry Navigator was easier to use for trip planning than my National Geographic Topo! program, and I had my phone along for a backup should the GPS batteries conk out.  You don’t have to buy individual map credits or a full set of maps for each state either; it’s as easy as saving the maps to your phone ahead of time. For those of us who only need to use a GPS a few times a year, try out BC Navigator and save some money by not buying a GPS at all. The display on my phone is better than the GPS and the UI (user interface) on BC Navigator is faster and easier to use than my Garmin. Amazing.

One of the reasons I’ve been happy with the HTC phone is that I can replace the battery easily. In the backcountry I’ll carry up to two spare batteries which allows me to use the phone quite a bit and not worry about it dying inadvertently. To me this seems to be one advantage over the Iphone.

For those who are interested, there are other cool apps like Xclinometer to measure slope angle for skiing, and a few climbing apps that seem interesting. If you’re an Iphone user, Alpinewerx is also worth a look, as they have guidebook apps for several major rock climbing destinations. The screenshots taken for this post were made using Shootme, an application that works really well on rooted Android phones.