MetaInstaGram

April 28, 2011 9:11 PM

Any other MeFites use Instagram?

It's a sort of social networking (iPhone, etc.) app based around photography. I like the idea, but I have a feeling that MetaFilter, as a population, probably takes better photographs than average and uses twee filters less than the phone-camera-using world at large.

posted by cmoj to MetaFilter-Related at 9:11 PM (58 comments total)

I'm "doctoracula" on there.
posted by cmoj at 9:11 PM on April 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm "maxsparber."

I use twee filters more.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:24 PM on April 28, 2011

Perhaps I should say, "more judiciously," rather than, "less."
posted by cmoj at 9:32 PM on April 28, 2011

and uses twee filters less than the phone-camera-using world at large.

Gonna hafta go on record as disagreeing there. *twitter feed full of sepia*
posted by BeerFilter at 9:39 PM on April 28, 2011

I don't have an iPhone, but I've got an old Polaroid camera that's been dropped several times and a rather sketchy scanner. Same thing, right?
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:44 PM on April 28, 2011 [4 favorites]

dhammond
posted by dhammond at 10:05 PM on April 28, 2011

I'm seawallrunner there too.
posted by seawallrunner at 10:09 PM on April 28, 2011

Breebo
posted by monkey!knife!fight! at 10:24 PM on April 28, 2011

I'm magnakai on there.
posted by Magnakai at 12:11 AM on April 29, 2011

I can't figure out if this post is an ad for Instagram or Facebook, help me out here...
posted by tomswift at 3:07 AM on April 29, 2011

gnfti (mostly cats and office furniture)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:06 AM on April 29, 2011

mikepop there with the occasional guest-shot by my kid when she commandeers the phone.
posted by mikepop at 5:16 AM on April 29, 2011

joelhunt (mostly pics of a 2 1/2 year old reading comics)
posted by joelhunt at 6:15 AM on April 29, 2011

Metafilter: Tweefilter
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:27 AM on April 29, 2011

Every time you use a twee filter, FSM kills a kitten. Actually I am tempted to kill a kitten myself whenever I see those stupid things.
posted by desjardins at 7:16 AM on April 29, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm wordnerdy on there (only two pics so far though).
posted by leesh at 7:32 AM on April 29, 2011

I'm immlass. I don't even know which filters are supposed to be twee, but if it makes me use my camera more, it's all right with me.
posted by immlass at 7:33 AM on April 29, 2011

Don't be so negative, desjardins.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:54 AM on April 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

I just downloaded it but I don't know how to make it be social. Mostly I just upload to Facebook. So is there a Metafilter filter?
posted by Miko at 7:54 AM on April 29, 2011

So is there a Metafilter filter?

It places all the photos on a professional white background.

It adds claws to any pictures of de-clawed cats.

It adds hamburgers to sarcastic pictures.
posted by mikepop at 8:05 AM on April 29, 2011 [2 favorites]

Unlike 90% of the Internet, I don't take photographs. =(
posted by Eideteker at 8:07 AM on April 29, 2011

I thought I was over twee filters but then there was a firmware update for my GRDIII that added a gimmicky cross-processing option with a little bit of vignetting and

yup

not over twee filters.

Anyway. papatangosierra on instagram.
posted by pts at 8:07 AM on April 29, 2011

Wait so it's iPhone only? I want to be cool but my Android phone won't let me.

Also I hated the twee filters when I saw people use them until I got an Android phone with twee filters and then I was like 'wait these look like not shitty phone photos this is clearly better.'
posted by shakespeherian at 8:08 AM on April 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's just not very social. Yet. AFAIK there's no public profiles, you just set to post to Flickr/FB/Twitter etc. I believe I have heard public profiles are in the works.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:09 AM on April 29, 2011

I'm "aliwilgus" and probably post too many pictures of my cats. The rest of it is miscellaneous Brooklynish nonsense, for the most part.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 8:13 AM on April 29, 2011

I'm with the other android-carrying mefites: I don't understand what this is. When I look at the description, it says it is uploading photos to facebook and flickr. How is that a new social way of sharing photos?
posted by achmorrison at 8:16 AM on April 29, 2011

I think I am cjorgensen.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:21 AM on April 29, 2011

I'm mpricemitchell

Filters can be fun. :)
posted by melissa at 8:25 AM on April 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm jamesmatt. Weeee! For twee!
posted by m@f at 8:25 AM on April 29, 2011

grobstein

I don't really know what this thing is for. . . .
posted by grobstein at 8:37 AM on April 29, 2011

Yeah, no Droid app yet. The freebie FxCamera app is OK, with fewer filters than InstaGram and no social features. Sometimes it's better than the default camera app, sometimes it's twee without reason.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:26 AM on April 29, 2011

I'm 'deaccession.' I don't think I've ever used it for anything, so, hey, maybe today'll be the day.
posted by box at 9:55 AM on April 29, 2011

I use Retro Camera on my Android, but I also just got the phone like two weeks ago so I haven't really done a lot of comparison to find the best available.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:58 AM on April 29, 2011

I'm pretty sure it's iOS only, but I also think there's an Android equivalent. It's just that they can't play together.

About the Facebook, etc., you don't have to connect it to Facebook, and I don't. I keep it in the Instagram world.

Alright, I'm a hypocrite. I use twee filters sometimes, but I do think they're misused in general. I trust you guys to wield your vintage-camera-simulating powers for good.
posted by cmoj at 10:25 AM on April 29, 2011

Yeah mostly I just think it makes the bad-lighting bad-digital-camera colors a lot more pleasant-looking, which is why I use the fake-vintage-camera. I realize no one thinks I have a real pinhole camera that I carry around and then print on hand-brushed photo paper to upload to Facebook so people know what I cooked for dinner.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:28 AM on April 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wait so it's iPhone only? I want to be cool but my Android phone won't let me.

I was just reading that there will eventually be an Android version, but till then I'll just be sitting here on the sidelines. Waiting.

(Or is there an iPad app? because I might be able to do that... though it wouldn't be as useful in terms of photos-of-stuff-I-actually-see-in-the-world-when-I-have-my-phone-with-me... but still.)
posted by quin at 10:38 AM on April 29, 2011

I'm still not sure how you take a picture with an iPad. I haven't seen anyone try, but in my imagination it is vastly comical because of the size of the iPad.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:42 AM on April 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

True, but it could be used if I combined it with dropbox on my phone, where I pulled an image over to the iPad and sent it from there.

Still seems like a lot of work for something that was meant to be easy.

(The new iPad does have a camera, but I haven't really used it much for exactly the reasons you pointed out, it really doesn't seem to have a form factor conducive to using it as a point and shoot.)
posted by quin at 10:57 AM on April 29, 2011

I mean don't get me wrong, I understand the thinking: Why not put a camera in there? What if someone wants a camera and they don't have one in their iPad? But at the same time it seems unusable.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:00 AM on April 29, 2011

I saw some people taking pictures with their iPad 2s last week at a conference and it did look pretty ridiculous. Also, it's doesn't take great pictures (I imagine it is primarily for FaceTime). But hey, if that's all you got and you want to grab a picture more power to you.

Are all the instagram filters twee or just some of them? Is there a list? I kind of just run through them all and go with the one (if any) that makes the picture look better (usually correcting for lousy lighting).
posted by mikepop at 11:11 AM on April 29, 2011

I trust you guys to wield your vintage-camera-simulating powers for good.

Oh, hell no.

And I take all my photos using my iPad. I also make movies with it. Actually, I made an entire album on my iPad. And I've only had it a month.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:23 PM on April 29, 2011

Here's one of my InstaGram photos, by the way. And another. I use them on my column, so they're at least high enough quality for a web publication.

We also made our album cover with it.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:25 PM on April 29, 2011

rinich.
posted by Rory Marinich at 2:57 PM on April 29, 2011

nellym. I have filtered cats and food and more cats.
posted by clearlydemon at 3:57 PM on April 29, 2011

sawdustbear, and i love me some twee filters.
posted by sawdustbear at 5:03 PM on April 29, 2011

i'm "tehloki"
posted by tehloki at 5:19 PM on April 29, 2011

haha no i'm not i just wanted to see if anybody would try and add me and fail
posted by tehloki at 5:19 PM on April 29, 2011

Now I want to create a tehloki login and take really offensive photos...
posted by saucysault at 7:03 PM on April 29, 2011

I'm rooschrader, and I use the twee filters to make fruit look much more horrifying.
posted by roobot at 9:39 PM on April 29, 2011

wlonkly
posted by mendel at 9:40 PM on April 29, 2011

I wish this was on Android. Instead, I use Vignette. The paid version is neat. It can edit existing images. So then I stopped using the filters before I took the shot and started screwing around with the images after the shot.

But no users etc. You can share to just about anywhere but, y'know. I don't much.
posted by bdave at 10:04 PM on April 29, 2011

bibliogrrl there (and pretty much everywhere else).

A lot of pictures of my shoes, and more bikes now that it isn't raining 100% of the time.

bdave - the app can edit existing images. You can pull them in from the memory.
posted by bibliogrrl at 9:22 AM on April 30, 2011

I imagine somebody already linked to this, but the NYT had this thing about Instagram spawning related startups.
posted by box at 11:03 AM on April 30, 2011

I'm "cldaniel" and I don't take many photos, but I sure like seeing all of yours.
posted by wzcx at 6:06 PM on May 3, 2011

I guess I'm newdaddy there as well. How did that ever happen?
posted by newdaddy at 6:37 PM on May 3, 2011

marisa_s. In my feed are continual pictures of our youngest cat, who has the crime of being insanely photogenic.
posted by Kitteh at 5:52 AM on May 4, 2011

Slipping in late, but I'm there under meghanbkelly. Mostly pics of my cute kid.
posted by sutel at 10:40 AM on May 6, 2011

I'm mike3k on Instagram.
posted by mike3k at 6:33 PM on May 8, 2011