Leaf remote viewer iPhone review

[frank]

Although it's still in beta I have permission to write something down about the Leaf remote viewer which I think is one of the coolest thing a camera manufactor has come out with.

What is it ?
Remote viewer is a small application that runs on both your main computer and your iPhone.
When installed (which is a breeze) you will be able to see the shots you take directly on your iPhone, you can zoom, scroll and look at them 1:1.

So what ?
Maybe the first time you hear about this the idea is, so what ?
I can look at my laptop and see what happens ?

Well yes and no.

The utility excells in the following situations.

Can't see the laptop
This will happen sometimes (more than you think), you're shooting in a hotel room or other location and the laptop is placed behind you or simply in another location where you can't look at the screen directly, by placing the iPhone in front of you you can see immediatly if the shots are coming in and you can check composition and focus on the iPhone screen.

AD (Art Director
Most of the times you have an area of conflict within the photoshoot between the assistant from the photographer and the Art Director/Customer.
I as a photographer want to see if the focus on the eyes is 100% correct, or if the lighting is correct.
The Art Director or customer wants to see composition and if the look/feel is what they have in their minds eye.
With this solution just hand your customer or AD an iPhone and he/she can knock him/herself out with browsing through all photos in real time or waiting on one photo to really look at it.
In the mean time the photographer can continue his/her work.

Demos
I'm teaching and demoing alot on exhibitions or in smaller/bigger groups in most cases the students are standing in front of the screen to see what happens and now I can just look at my iPhone what happens instead of having to ask people to remove themselfs from my screen.

How does it work ?
The utility is based on a server part that is running on the main computer.
From this computer you must have a wifi connection to your iPhone, on the iPhone another utility is running that will make a connection with the server part on the main computer.
That's all, and it works flawless.
Although I'm running with the beta version the browsing is fast, the quality of zoom is very good, and above all it all works fast.
When you want to change position from landscape to portrait just tilt the iPhone and the pictures will turn to landscape or portrait mode.

Improvements ?
After a few sessions I have some things I would love to see added, and reading from the website from Leaf some of them are already on their to do list.

What I would love to see:
1. Flagging files (this way the customer can flag their favorites shots)
2. Browsing with finger action (now you have to tap next or previous, with the finger action this can become much faster I hope, although this already works very nice by the way).
3. Browsing with tumbnails

What could also be nice is controling the camera from the iphone, although for my area of photography this is not really something I would use, I think for landscape photographers and stilllive photographers this will be a superb addition to an already amazing utility.

For me Leaf is a company that keeps surprising me with things that are unique and simply working (everyone who switched to MF and works with the tethered solutions knows what I mean).
I allready worked with the iPhone connection on Photokina and during the workshops in Denmark and I could not wait to test it out within my own workflow.
With the remote viewer utility Leaf takes another step into the realm of coolness and most of all useability, because in the end the realm of coolness will wear off but what we have left is a simply VERY usefull application.

[frank]

I have to add one thing.

When working with a MACBOOKPRO you can create a privat network straight from the laptop and connect to this.
There is NO need for a router or other wifi device, it will connect straight with the laptop.

[andrewlu73]

Which model of leaf back can use the Leaf remote viewer iphone?
I am using the 65S. Can use the iphone to view the picture i took?
Thanks

[frank]

Hi,
I think so.
I'm using it on an Aptus 22 so the 65s should work also.
You can check it on the Leaf website by the way.

[Anders_HK]

Hi Frank,

Very interesting indeed. As I understand it is a requirement to shoot teathered to use it. For landscape it would be even far more interesting if there was a WiFi connection to the backs (also Aptus older backs), thus to use the Iphone as a viewer.

Of course even more so if Apple made a 5-7" mini tablet that could be used, e.g. a media/storage/internet access device...

Anders

[frank]

I would love to see a minimac notebook with powered firewire and a battery that would last 12-14 hours.
But who knows

At the moment you indeed have to be connected to your PC/Mac.

[yellowspotlight]

Looks very interesting. is there a link to download the beta and try it out?

[frank]

It will be made public when leaf is ready with the final version, at the moment I believe there are very few photographers trying it out.

[frank]

Just a small update after some time running the app.
It didn't crash once, browsing is fast, zooming is fast.
Would love to see some additions like flagging and in the future maybe live view (can't test that here with an Aptus22) but as it is it's a very nice and stable app.
This weekend I will be showing it in work on the pro-imaging in Nieuwegein with a Leaf Afi-II7 on the Elinchrom booth, so drop by with questions or just to see the Leaf Afi (and me ) in action.

[frank]

In the meantime I have been testing a new beta version this week which will be released soon.
As it looks now everything runs stable and fast.
It's still an awesome application.
Only shame is the battery of the iphone really runs down quickly.