Excellent Windows Phone Development Book

Sometimes you can’t beat a great big book. The internet is great for answering questions, but often you don’t know exactly what question to ask. In the Good Old Days™ you could thumb through a big thick book on the subject and find the answer you want. And Windows Phone 8 Development Internals brings back the good old days for Windows Phone developers. The content is well organised and presented and the coverage is vast.

The book will not teach you how to program. It is a book for seasoned developers who want to know how to make proper Windows Phone 8 applications. I managed to get my copy from an “alternative supplier” off the UK Amazon site for around 25 pounds. At that price it is an absolute steal. Strongly recommended.

High Dynamic Range Photography with the Nokia Lumia 1020

 

I really wanted to try some High Dynamic Range photography with the Lumia 1020 so today I took a walk around Cottingham and took some shots. High Dynamic Range photography is where you take multiple pictures of the same scene at different exposures. Then you use software to merge the images, taking the best exposed bits of the different shots and making one “perfect” pictures. 

You can see the effect in the photograph above. In a picture taken at normal exposure the dark shadow in the foreground would be completely black. This bit was taken from some of the overexposed shots, with the bright bits of the church being taken from the underexposed ones.

The Lumia 1020 is a good bet for this because it will automatically shoot the “bracketed” shots. In fact you can get it to take five pictures over a range of up to 3 EV (exposure values) each side. This means that you just press the button and the phone takes all the shots for you.

There are a couple of problems with this though. The first is the obvious one, in that shots take a lot longer to complete. The phone does a good job at shunting the enormous amounts of image data from the sensor into storage, but you still have to hold the phone up for 30 seconds or so while all five pictures are taken. Actually, I’ve not found the results of using 5 exposures to be much greater than 3, and so I’d just take 3 in the future.

The other problem with the Lumia 1020 HDR photography is that you have to select this “bracketing” mode before each shot. This is probably sensible, in that you don’t want the camera get stuck taking normal snaps five times, but it is a pain when you forget.

This is a single “ordinary” shot taken from the camera and just cropped slightly. You can compare it with the shot at the top of the post, which was made from five separate exposures.

I used Adobe Lightroom to import the pictures from the phone and this works fine. I plugged the phone into my laptop and then uses the normal Lightroom Import command to bring the pictures in to my collection. Then I used Photomatix to combine the different pictures. Photomatix also does all the tone mapping to get either a fairly natural result as in the top picture or a more artistic one like the one below:

This was taken from five images and then tone mapped using a “Painterly” pre-set that gives quite a nice effect. I’d be quite happy to print an A3 version of this, and from the look of the pixels, it would print out great too. Amazing.

In short I’m very impressed with the Lumia for HDR photography. I’d like to have the camera grip to make it a bit easier to hold the phone steady though. This also has a tripod fitting that would also be useful for longer exposures.

If you are into photography but bored with carrying your camera around, then you should take a look at this phone. The results really are impressive.

Lumia 1020 at Movie Buffs Fair

I’ve managed to get my hot little hands on a Lumia 1020. It arrived on Thursday, but owing to van driving commitments I’ve only just managed to pick it up.

I love it.

Now, remember that you are reading the words of a Microsoft MVP and Nokia Phone Champ, so you might expect me to like it a lot. But I really, really, do. People have been muttering that the Windows Phone operating system isn’t developing as fast as they might like, but I think that what has been happening is that everyone has been busy behind the scenes making it into a really “proper” phone contender.

For example, the installation of my new phone simply meant telling it which old phone backup that I wanted to use (it is going to replace my Lovely Lumia 920) and then letting the phone get on with it. Contacts, applications, SMS, call history, all magically appeared over time. The only things that caused the tiniest amount of grief were my own applications that I’d put on the phone because I’m a developer, and the ones from Windows Phone Application Studio, which couldn’t be restored because the new phone didn’t have the certificate. I can always put these back on later.

I told number one son about this and he just said “Hmm. Just like my iPhone does”. And yes, that’s precisely the point. Microsoft and Nokia have realised that for the phone to be a contender it has to be at least as good as the other offerings, and on the basis of my experience setting up my new device, it is getting darned close.

I took the phone to Hull Movie Buffs Collectors Fair, which was very, very busy with huge queues to get the signature of “Darth Vader”, or David Prowse as the man in the suit was called. There were loads of people in costumes. Above you can see the Ghost Busters striking a pose. This picture is interesting because it is actually a crop from the high resolution shot at the top of this post. If that doesn’t bear out the claims about digital zooming, I don’t what what does. I had my camera with me too, but in the end I didn’t bother with it.

It’s kind of intimidating when they all turn and face you at the same time. Although the Stormtrooper on the left did rather spoil the effect by then asking me how tall I am.

These guys were guarding the way out….

Anyhoo, I had a great look round and bought a 1966 vintage Thunderbirds board game that I’m looking forward to having a go with.

There’s another Collectors Fair on 30th November. I’ll be there and I won’t be bothering to take my camera.

Driving Home

If you have a white van, you have to go to Ikea. I’m sure it’s in the handbook somewhere.

We drove the last leg of the journey today. Used my lovely Lumia 920 for navigation and it worked really well, except for one bit where the program threw a strop on the way out of Ikea. Probably because I inadvertently asked for a walking route down the M62.

Anyhoo, I used to think that I’d never buy a car without a SatNav built in, but the Here Drive application has totally won me over to phone based navigation. It was very, very good. We even amused ourselves by watching the speed limit display on the phone change at exactly the point where we went past the speed limit signs. And it makes warning noises when you exceed the limits. At one point I had a light on the dashboard telling me to change up a gear, and the phone beeping to try and get me to slow down. Talk about mixed messages.

I think now that I’d never buy a car without a phone holder built in. Which I’m not sure they make. Rather strangely modern cars these days have magical unfolding cup holders that spring out of the dashboard, but nothing you can easily slip your phone into. I had to resort to buying a plastic clippy thing at a motorway service station and then wedging it on the dashboard with a pack of tissues. Well worth it though, made the journey much easier.

And now I’m back in Lovely Hull, the van has been returned, and I’ve just taken delivery of a box which should, if I’m lucky, contain a Lumia 1020 phone.

Nine Thoughts of a Van Driver

Weapon of choice.

For the next couple of days I’m leading a nomadic existence. Just me and a Bedford Luton van, hurting down the country, filling the van with stuff and then driving it all somewhere else. I’ve done this quite a bit in the past, helping families and friends move. and I quite like doing it really. There’s something about driving a great big van that is rather nice. You learn things:

1. People are more inclined to get out of your way if you are driving a big, rented vehicle with out of town number plates towards them at speed.
2. British roads are very lumpy. The number of bangs and crashes that we experienced on the M1 was quite surprising. The van suspension did the best it could, but we did have some teeth jarring moments.
3. You can plug your smartphone into the audio system of a Transit van, but the socket is right at the bottom of a glove compartment, and looks exactly like a bolt which is fitted at the bottom of another, much easier to get to, cubby hole.
4. Van sound systems are surprisingly robust and can go very loud indeed.
5. Smashmouth Astro Lounge is absolutely great driving music.
6. So is Pet Shop Boys Actually, although the first track has driving sound effects that can mask the siren of a police car coming up right behind you. Which can be scary.
7. After a while you stop missing the rear view mirror and just get good at using the wing mirrors. And looking for shadows of cars that might be behind you.
8. Nothing (speeding up, slowing down, going round corners etc) happens suddenly in a fully loaded van.
9. The sound of the sack barrow crashing about in the back of an empty van when you stop at traffic lights is very scary, until you figure out what it is.