Yet another great use for HiLO Lens (thanks for the suggestion Pavel) is taking photos of eclipses, with your iPhone/iPad, without risking your eyes! Attach HiLO Lens and hold your iDevice at waist level so you can look down to see the screen. By tilting the iDevice up you should be able to view the eclipse and grab great photos. Let us know how you get on!!
I’ve been watching Kickstarter for nearly two years. The site has evolved a lot during that time. I loved the spirit of product development on Kickstarter when I first found it. Everyone was literally working out of their garage and developing innovative products.
More recently there have been a number of very successful launches on Kickstarter. Behind many of these projects there are investor backed companies. The professionalism of the videos and the marketing investment made by these companies is beyond the means of the garage band. For these projects Kickstarter is a marketing platform. Kickstarter obviously makes a lot of money from those projects and it introduces more people to the crowdfunding model, so it may not be a bad thing.
Our project is an “original” kickstart. What I mean by that is – if we are not funded on Kickstarter then we cannot make the product. This is not a marketing exercise, it is life or death for HiLO Lens 
So we’ll make a committment to our backers. After our campaign succeeds we will not be taking pre-orders. Only backers of our Kickstarter campaign will receive product in February. We will not offer product for retail sale until after we have shipped to our backers.
Below are some “beauty shots” of HiLO Lens, yes that is a concrete brick in front of our sofa These photos were part of the recent press release we sent out. FYI there have been two press releases: one two
We’ve asked about your plans for using HiLO Lens and videography has come up often. We agree – HiLO Lens is awesome for getting unique video angles.
A few weeks ago I was in Union Square, NYC with a friend. We came across an amazing street performer playing the Hang instrument - a beautiful and unique sound. Javier from www.murugalas.com let us film his performance for Kickstarter – check it out below.
Please excuse my poor video skills – I need to practice more… The good news is that you can be confident of getting much better results yourself
It is easier to get attention for a new Kickstarter campaign. We are now 5 days into ours and have reached 33% - a great result and all the credit goes to you! Now we really need you to help keep the momentum going - please tip your favorite websites/journalists and convince your friends, family and random strangers to join us!!!
Previously Andrew B White took HiLO Lens out on a date. Now they have gone on a second date and the results are fantastic. I’ll let the photos do the talking, they are all taken with the HiLO Lens and edited on the iPhone. Thanks so much Andrew!
Yesterday was a while lot of fun. We shot the footage for the Kickstarter video!
I was not looking forward to seeing myself on Camera. We’ve confirmed my suspicions that I can’t remember lines, look terrible on film and sound worse : ) But I’m over all that now, thanks to the skill and patience of Reuben – who shot the video.
Friends joined in and it was great fun putting HiLO Lens into some scenarios. Having shots with wine and food involved is a good idea
We used HiLO on a table to replace a tripod:
Luca the cat stars in low angle shots:
A big shout out to Bhavesh, Valeria, Tracey and Reuben! Thanks for making a scary day into a great day.
Andrew B White recently took a prototype of HiLO Lens out into Auckland city. Below are some of the photos he took. All the photos were taken with the HiLO Lens app and have not been edited with any other apps.
Andrew says “instantly the HilO Lens presented me with a completely new perspective in the camera viewfinder. It was like using a completely new camera”. Continue reading
HiLO Lens makes some things easier, for example ground perspective photography, street photography, self portraits and taking shots in crowds. But lets get more creative.
Digital cameras have offered swivel screens for a long time. So the ability to take photos at an angle to the camera’s viewfinder is not a revolution. However most people don’t carry dedicated cameras with them all the time. Even at home the camera is probably not within easy reach. This might lead to some interesting uses for HiLO Lens. Because we carry our mobile phones all the time.
HiLO Lens has been designed to be extremely portable. It is tiny enough that even in a full handbag there is still space for HiLO Lens.
A few new uses that come to mind : Continue reading
It’s comfortable taking photos at hip level with HiLO Lens. You look down on the iPhone screen at hip level and HiLO Lens redirects the camera in front of you.
When taking photos of people, hip level shots just look better.
In the image below there are two photos side by side. On the left I took the photo with the iPhone4 held at eye level. On the right the photo was taken with the iPhone4 at hip level.
You’ll notice just how much longer our model’s legs are on the right. This is an easy way to becomes someone’s favorite photographer
It sounds like a contradiction in terms but please give me a minute to explain. A search for “retro camera” turns up about 60 apps on the app store.
Apps for the iPhone include 6×6 which takes 6cm square images, this size was popular with old medium format film. Squara takes square photos too. Both apps has some advanced features and positive reviews.
There is a wide range of camera apps that will apply retro filters such as Instagram, which also offers sharing and is free.
HiLO Lens allows lets you “shoot from the hip” which is a similar position to looking down on the old Twin-lens reflex camera. So we claim our piece of the retro pie ! Shooting from the hip while being able to frame your shot is fantastic for Street Photography.
Twin lens reflex camera
