Tech: Shoot a Better iPhone Adventure Video With Tips From Camp 4

If you spend any time watching adventure videos and films, then you know Camp 4 Collective. The powerhouse production team includes some of the world's best climber-photographers—Jimmy Chin, Renan Ozturk, and Tim Kemple—shooting in the world's most extreme, least seen places. Last week they released The Denali Experiment, featuring an all-star crew of mountaineers, skiers, and snowboarders blending their skills to climb up and shred down North America's tallest peak (definitely a must-watch). The Camp 4 guys are total pros—both at staying safe on the most grueling, exotic adventures and shooting incredible footage. 

Gillian Chase - iPhone 4s Music Video from Camp 4 Collective on Vimeo.

Recently, Camp 4 conducted another experiment: They shot a music video on a camera phone. While normally this would sound like a waste of time for filmmakers of their expertise, that was not the case. Shooting on the iPhone 4S, with its 8-megapixel camera and 1080p hi-def video, the team produced great results.

"The first digital video cameras we took with us into the mountains four years ago—to Pakistan—were shooting lower resolution and weighed significantly more," says Tim Kemple, who directed the music video featuring singer Gillian Chase. "But even bigger than that to me is the idea that you can always have this camera with you—no set up, no setting down your backpack." Pretty ideal for documenting your adventures.

Here are Kemple's tips—including how to stabilize your shooting, optimizing for iOS5 features, apps for extreme environments, tethering to send dispatches, and dealing with low light—so we all can shoot more like the pros. Just don't forget to put your iPhone in airplane mode. —Mary Anne Potts

iPad 2 For Travel: New Travel Apps, iMovie Trip Videos, Battery Life Tips, More

By Mary Anne Potts; photograph courtesy Apple

When the first iPad came out just over a year ago, we were sure it would transform travel: Apple's tablet computer married work and play utilities so well, it rendered a laptop excess weight on a vacation. Thirteen months later, our computing behavior has already evolved drastically. Everyone from VPs to restaurant sommeliers to preschoolers are using iPads everywhere. It did not take long for the tablet to find a place in our lives.

Since the second generation iPad was released a month ago, much has been said about the new lighter, smaller, faster model. And the fact that Apple has added significant new features to iPad 2—such as the front- and back-facing cameras—without raising the price (it starts at $499). Let’s consider what the iPad 2 does to further transform travel with its smaller size, new cameras, innovative new travel apps, and iMovie travel videos.

Travel Tech: Smartphones' Personal Hotspot Wi-Fi Saves Travelers Time, Money

By now, we’ve come to depend on our smartphones to be very smart, smarter than we are. They solve our every logistical conundrum: Where should we eat? (Yelp.) Where are you now? (Beluga.) Where am I? (Google Maps.) And a growing number of smartphones offer a new feature that cements these devices in the center of our lives: the personal hotspot, which turns the 3G connection into a Wi-Fi signal wherever you are. Any coffee shop. The airport. Your hotel room. A park bench. A park bench in London. Your campsite in Yosemite. A moving taxi. And with this feature comes a sense of relief that, finally, you will not need to hunt down a Wi-Fi signal to send an email, update the apps on your iPad, whatever. You are your own moving Wi-Fi zone.

For example, the long-awaited Verizon iPhone 4, which launched earlier this month, has this feature. Turn on the personal hotspot and you have a password-protected Wi-Fi zone for up to five devices. This mean your Wi-Fi-only iPad or tablet is suddenly so much more useful on the go. The 3G iPad, with its service fees, seems like overkill. Home Wi-Fi even seems unnecessary. Random Wi-Fi charges in airports and hotels are a thing of the past. Cut these to expenses from your life and you stand to save a good deal of money over time.

Travel Tech: A Case That "Doubles" Your iPhone's Battery Life

By Contributing Editor Steve Casimiro, editor of Adventure Journal. See more of Casimiro's gear recommendations in our must-have gear gallery >>

Back in the pre-digital dark ages, I’d pack for long flights by loading up with stacks of magazines and a book or two. Today I still load up, but it’s with batteries and extra juice to keep my laptop, iPad, and iPhone running all the way from Los Angeles to Johannesburg. Cause it sucks to be you when you’re eight hours into 24 hours of travel with nothing to ward off boredom but a tattered copy of SkyMall.

Mophie Juice Air Pack ($80) is the answer, at least for the iPhone. This case/battery combination snaps over the iPhone 4 and delivers 1,500 mAh of power, effectively doubling the phone’s capacity. Mophie says “virtually” doubles battery life, which is a nicely lawyerly way of putting it. And I say “effectively” because it depends on the usage. For relatively low-draw uses, battery life is spot on double. I ran the Pandora music at medium volume with Mophie’s battery assist and it consistently rocked the house twice as long as the iPhone battery alone. Higher-draw challenges, like watching videos while Bluetooth, 3G, and Wi-Fi gave me 80 to 85 percent more running time.

The Juice Air Pack battery charges via USB cable and weighs just 2.5 ounces. The weight isn’t much of an issue—but the bulk of the Mophie is. One of the best features of the iPhone 4 is its diminutive size; the Mophie turns it into a pocket-swelling 5 inches by 2.5 inches by .68 inches. Is that a deal breaker? No. Are iPhone owners spoiled by the size? Yes. But is the extra girth of the Juice Air Pack enough to make you think twice about taking it? Also yes. But then I think about the pain of reading and rereading about doggie orthopedic couches or foldable recumbent exercisers and it seems like a small price to pay.

Adventure Tech: New Google Translate App Opens Doors For Travelers

Not to undercut the value of actually speaking several languages, but the new Google Translate app is knocking down communication barriers—which just made it so much easier to travel. Just speak into the app and select a text or audio translation. The apps currently works in 57 languages—15 are available for speech to text and 23 languages available for text to speech. The menu includes Chinese, Croatian, Estonian...

We can't yet be sure of accuracy. And certainly slurring speakers out there might be in for a few fumbled translations. But in general, this is hugely practical for travel. So maybe you use it to order a burger in Greece? Or to strike up a conversation with an attractive local on your layover? Or why not even conduct your own boot camp and learn the language you've always wanted to speak? Try it and let us know what you think.

Free in the Apple Apps Store. 

Travel Tech: Handmade iPad Case Marries Analog and Digital (Perfect For Valentine's Day)

Valentine's Day edition Dodocase seen here; photograph courtesy Dodocase

By Contributing Editor Steve Casimiro, editor of Adventure Journal. See more of Casimiro's gear recommendations in our must-have gear gallery >>

When I first slipped my iPad into the hardback Dodocase ($60), I fully expected to remove it after a few days or a week of testing. Percentage-wise, it wasn’t that much bigger, but compared to a naked iPad it seemed so. Apple’s own case slips over the iPad rather condom-like and barely increases the heft. By comparison, the Dodocase felt substantially more...substantial.

But Apple’s case gets dirty and smudgy easily and doesn’t even sport nerd style, let alone the Bay Area bookworm aesthetic. Three months later, the Dodocase still lovingly embraces my iPad. I couldn’t be happier—whatever hesitations I had about size vanished as soon as I felt the wonderful tactile feel of carrying and holding a hardbound book. It was like the perfect marriage of analog and digital, the mashup of a tome and the pixelated portal to the e-world.

Dodocases are handmade in San Francisco using traditional bookbinding technique, and they look and feel almost identical Moleskines, only larger. The iPad nestles into a carved bamboo tray and is held with grippy rubber inserts at the corners. There have been reports of the rubber wearing down over time, but I rarely remove the iPad and so haven’t experienced any issues. My iPad nestles snuggly and seems to be happy in its cradle, with no tendencies to crawl out.

Functionally, if you open the Dodocase and flip the cover back, it will provide a slight tilt for typing. In this, it is inferior to the Apple case—Dodo provides an inch of lift, while Apple gives 2.25 inches. It’s an issue, but far from a deal breaker; simply slip a magazine or two under the case and typing gets a lot more comfortable.

The verdict? I’m calling the Dodocase nearly flawless. It’s worth every penny.

Best New Apps: PeakFinder Makes Virtual Peak Bagging Easy

By Keene Haywood

How often have you stood before a glorious mountain range and marveled at the peaks and wondered: “What the heck are the names of those spires?” Just a few years ago you would have been out luck unless you had a good map—and some solid range finding skills. Enter recent technology advances into the picture. Enter the iPhone.

Like a lot of things, the humble iPhone has changed our view of things—and literally, in this case. Using technology such as GPS and the compass embedded into the iPhone, a new app will help you impress those around you with name of that obscure peak off yonder. And when they were about to ask why you brought that vestige of modern urban life with you into the backcountry, you can now give them a solid answer!

Just what is the app that can do this marvelous thing? It is called PeakFinder and actually comes in two flavors serving different parts of the worl: one for the Alps and the other for U.S.A. West. You buy the one most appropriate for your needs as they are actually two different apps/databases. Swiss developer Fabio Soldati has made it so the entire database is loaded onto your iPhone or iPod Touch. So you can be off in the most remote part of the American Rockies without nary a cell signal or wi-fi hot spot around and still get the name of the peak towering before you.

Travel Tech: Into Thin Air: Apple's New Notebooks Are Ideal For Adventure Travelers

By Keene Haywood

There is only one person on the planet who can wrap up aluminum and glass and sell it to the masses in the form of a computer called the Air. That person is Apple's Steve Jobs, and he recently unveiled the new MacBook Air laptops.

Incredibly thin and light as the name suggests, these portables offer some great options for backcountry and adventure travelers who need the power of a full computer with mature operating system wrapped into a solid aluminum enclosure weighing less than your four-season sleeping bag. Two new models were released in 11-inch (2.3 pounds) and 13-inch (2.9 pounds) screen sizes. The 13-inch Air is more or less the same form factor as the original Air introduced in 2008, only slightly thinner and lighter. But this is where the similarities end. There are a number of improved features for the Air line, including the introduction of the second smaller 11-inch model. This smaller model may be the most compelling for those who travel with a backpack instead of briefcase.

Travel Tech: EveryTrail iPhone App Review (Part 2)

By Keene Haywood
  
Yesterday I reviewed the Everytrail.com website and service that allows users to upload trail information from their GPS, annotating their travels with geotagged pictures, videos, and text. It is a very rich site offering many options for sharing and documenting your backcountry treks. One area where EveryTrail goes further is with their mobile app development. They offer apps for the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry devices. Such an array of options gives just about every smartphone user the opportunity to use Everytrail on the go.

Today I will be looking at the iPhone app, in particular ,which does have many of the same features as the other smartphone apps. But it also has one that is unique to the iPhone, namely the ability to store Guides from the EveryTrail.com website. The EveryTrail app comes in two versions, a free one and a Pro version selling for $3.99 in the iTunes App store. A comparison link of the two versions can be found here.

If you are someone who spends a lot of time documenting your travels, then I would say the Pro version is money well spent. Among other things, the significant features of the Pro app is the ability to geotag video shot on your iPhone (the free app only does photos), sync trips with your account on the EveryTrail.com, download Guides and cache maps for offline use. This latter feature may be worth the $3.99 alone as many of us travel well beyond the reach of cell signals.

Travel Tech: EveryTrail Review -- Trail Mapping For Everyone (Part 1)

 
By Keene Haywood

Editor's Note: Read this review then find a hike in our Best Trails feature, with 30 weekend, city, park, and backcountry options.

In today’s world, our mobile devices almost always have the ability to provide location, giving us directions as well as many other location-based services on bright, sharp screens with good maps. Whether it is a dedicated GPS device or a mobile phone, location data has become an integral part of the data we now are used to dealing with on an almost daily basis. Like digital photographs and video, location data is becoming ubiquitous. We are starting to accumulate GPS waypoints, tracklogs, and what are commonly called POI’s (Points of Interest) by the handful. Until recently, there really has not been a great way to create, organize, and share one’s GPS data, especially when it comes to trails. You really had to know what you were doing to download this data, make sure it was formatted correctly, integrate it with a map, on and on. It took awhile but could be done by the determined.

This all began to change when a little mapping service opened its doors called EveryTrail. EveryTrail is both a web-based service and an application for your smartphone (iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry platforms are all supported). It has grown considerably in the past year or so and it keeps piling on the features. So, I wanted to give a review here of this most excellent service.

In Part 1 of this review, I’ll cover the main website http://www.everytrail.com. In Part 2, the iPhone app will be covered in detail. You can explore the website without an account, but in the end, I think you will find you will want to sign up. It is free so you have nothing to lose. On the site menu bar, you will find links to Guides, Find Trips, Destinations, Create Trip, My Trips, Mobile Apps and finally the Forum. I’ll briefly cover these to give you an idea of the features and then you can dive in and explore for yourself.