Smartphone Apps for Photography: HDSLR Slate

One of wonderfully fun things photographers are doing today with their digital Point and Shoot, and DSLR cameras is making videos.

Some of the videos are merely travel log type videos, or family videos, but some are deliberately made videos which may have several scenes, and/or several takes to get it right.

Videographers making commercial videos use “sync-slates” such the Denecke TS-C Compact Time Code Slate - Color Clapper, which costs $1,180, to track their takes of scenes which they will eventually put together to make their video. That cost is certainly out of the realm of possibility for amateur or even pro travel photographers, seeking to capture video while traveling, document their travel work, or possibly create some instructional videos.

To the rescue comes HDSLR Slate ($1.99) for the iPhone and iPad. It's not currently available for Android smartphones or tablets. (Android users have the more expensive SL DigiSlate ($9.99) available to them, which performs the same basic function as HDSLR Slate, for iOS. I have not personally used or tested SL DigiSlate.)

I've been using HDSLR Slate for several months now, and it's extremely helpful in keeping my scenes together when I'm creating some simple videos for instructional purposes. HDSLR Slate is very easy and actually fun to use.

All the expected fields are the slate: Production Name, “Roll,” Scene, Take, Director, DP, Date, Int/Ext, Day/Night, Mos/Sync. It's easy to enter your data. The time for the timer comes directly from your iPhone, and there's a button to set the date to the current day.

All data is saved, even if the app is closed via the task manager, or your iPhone is powered down.
The “Take” field is automatic incremented with each use of the clapper, and if you tap on the Roll, Scene, or Take, they will increase by one.

The Timer Freezes for 2 seconds after slate clapper is tapped, and you have a choice of a clap or beep sound when it's activated.

The one negative aspect of the app is that it works only vertically, not horizontally.

I'm always on the lookout for new photography apps for my iPhone and for Android apps too. If you have a good one to suggest, contact me. If I like it after testing, I'll give you credit for your suggestion in my Blog article about it. Thanks.