Greetings everyone.

I am so excited I just can't stand it. After more than a year of working on this project, our iPhone app for photographers is now available on iTunes.

It's called PhotoToolsPro, and it has a bunch of features that just about every Large Format user needs - all of the time.

PhotoToolsPro has a very extensive note-taker feature that allows you to create a record of your photos, organizing them by trips and photo sessions. You can enter the details of your cameras, lenses and film, while creating defaults for everything from favorite film for this camera to preferred f-stop for that lens. This makes entering data on a photo page very easy.

On a photo page you can specify your holder and side, or a negative number. Of course it takes your GPS location automatically. You then specify your exposure - either manually, or you can put in your Zone 3 and Zone 7 readings - and it DOES THE ZONE SYSTEM CALCULATIONS FOR YOU! Can you modify them? Absolutely. Corrections for Reciprocity, Bellows Extension and Filter Factor or Filter stops? Of course!

Once you've done that you may want to take a picture of what you are doing; so you snap a pic with the camera and, well, you find that it's not really what you were shooting. So why not rotate it and crop it to match your photo exactly? Then you can add a note - with text or a voice recording.

So how, you may ask, did we start down this creative path? It was an idea from one of us here - Tim Povlick.

One year ago, we talked about a vibration sensor that could alert the photographer if the camera was moving - from a little too much wind, vibrations from trains and trucks; whatever. It then occurred to me that the iPhone was a perfect device for it because of its built-in accelerometer. It wasn't easy - acceleration isn't movement - so we had to teach the app what vibration is. However, we did all of the work to make sure it's easy for you to use. You simply place the iPhone onto the bed of the camera, press 'start', and it will trigger an alarm if things are moving too much. Is the sensitivity configurable - I know you guys too well - of course it is!

And it wouldn't be a large format tool without a level. Want to make sure the back and front standards are at the exact same angle? No problem. Want to check to see just how much forward tilt you are adding? You got it - it's all there!

The app is totally configurable; from adding and removing fields from the entry screen, to specifying how many stops you think N should be for your development. It's got reference items (a treatise on a very simple approach to the Zone System) and Photo Tips from yours truly.

I am really very proud of PhotoToolsPro, and I wanted to share my news with this community first because, frankly, I wrote it for you. Yeah, you can use it with all sorts of cameras, but it was written for Large Format folks. Those people who demand extra quality and are willing to lug around those large cameras to get it. You all deserve a great tool that works well for what you do. I hope you like it.

Here's the iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photo...ro/id374359605

Warmest regards to all of you,

Lenny