Video Tutorial: How to Blur the Background of Your Phone Photos Without Apps or Filters

Got a great viewer question on my Instagram feed from follower kill.the.spiders who asks:

“Do you edit your photos or are they the way they are? The focus is amazing and the blur effect is impressive, also is it possible to make similar shots with phones, like the G3 for example?”

Let’s take a quick look at cameras, sensor size, and depth of field! This video should be watched full screen for the best experience, and don’t forget to increase the quality to 4K!

Viewer Question: What’s Up With the Black Bars When Photos are Shown on Video?

iphone photo camera review crop pillar box 4x3 somegadgetguyGot a question on my iPhone Camera review from viewer Huber, who writes:

What’s up with the black bars when taking a picture with the iPhone?There are two black bars making the picture small, kind of like a square. All of the other phones the image takes up the whole screen.

That’s called “pillar boxing”. You know how some movies are SUPER wide screen and you see thin horizontal black strips on the top and bottom of your TV? That’s called “letter boxing”. Pillar boxing happens when the aspect ratio of a photo or video isn’t wide enough to completely fill the format it’s being displayed in.

In this case, the video window is 16×9, which is a pretty wide rectangle, but the iPhone shoots photos in 4×3, which is a really squarish rectangle. As that chunky pic can’t fill the whole video window, the software showing the photo adds the pillar boxing. If it didn’t do that, you would either have to crop and zoom in (which would defeat the purpose of me showing the pics in this video) or you would have to warp and stretch the photo to fill the widescreen view.

Cameras like those found on Samsung phones use natively 16×9 image sensors, so both photos and videos are automagically wide screen. Most other phones use an almost square sensor, so any widescreen photos or videos are the result of a crop.

Hope that answers your question Huber, and for more examples of pics and vids taken from all the phones we test here, make sure to follow on Youtube and Instagram!

App Review: Protect your Android Phone or Tablet with Device Manager

We recently covered the news that California will become the second state to mandate a smartphone kill switch on all new smartphones sold after July 1, 2015.

Of course, that’s almost a year away, and for you folks using an Android here’s how you can better protect your phone or tablet today!

Why You Should Upgrade Your Memory Card When Buying a New Phone (Transcend 600X MicroSD Review)!

It’s something we don’t often think of, but after using a phone for a couple years, and buying a new one, many of us will just yank out our old SD Card and pop it into our brand new phones. As phones have become more powerful, we might also want to consider upgrading our cards when upgrading our phones.

Transcend sent us a new Class 10 UHS-1 MicroSD card to run a speed test!


Continue reading “Why You Should Upgrade Your Memory Card When Buying a New Phone (Transcend 600X MicroSD Review)!”

Show Name Contest! I need YOUR help naming a new segment for SomeGadgetGuy!

That’s right I need YOUR help naming a new segment here on SomeGadgetGuy! I want to do more long term usage and check in videos detailing my experiences using the gear we get to review. The problem is, I have NO idea what to call that segment! Hook up a good name, and I’ll send you a mini Kingston prize pack!

I’ll accept entries until July 13 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time, and I’ll announce a winner on Monday July 14th. This contest is open to any residents of countries which do not place egregious restrictions on shipping or contests. Winner must be a subscriber of this channel and at least 18 years of age (kids can have a parent enter on their behalf). There are no limits on number of entries or comments, but if two show names are similar, I’ll choose the person with the earlier time stamp on their comment. Good luck!

Viewer Pro Tip: Transfer Apps from Your Phone to an SD Card in Windows Phone 8.1

Got a great viewer tip from the comments on one of my other videos! This is how you can move an app from your phone’s storage to a memory card in Windows Phone’s Storage Sense!

This is why I love the comments you folks post!

App Review: Files for Windows Phone 8.1 -or- How to share full resolution photos from a Nokia Phone.

File management sounds boring, but it’s a really big deal, giving us control over what pics, vids, and documents live on our phone and who we can share them with. It’s something Android users take for granted, and now Windows Phone owners have the same capabilities!

Best of all, for people using Nokia handsets, this Files app finally gives us access to the full resolution pictures on our phones to back up and share online!

Samsung Galaxy S5 Camera Tip: Should You Leave Picture Stabilization on for Low Light Photos?

Samsung is doing something a little different with the electronic image stabilization on the Galaxy S5 Camera. Does it really result in better pics with less noise?

Let’s take a look!