I have always fantasized about being a photographer. I would love to capture intimate moments in peoples lives. To put thousands of words into one simple click of the shutter. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be. But that hasn’t stopped me from playing around with my digital camera and iPhone. The camera on the iPhone 4 has the ability to take great pictures but I have found that the features are lacking. Not only are the effects limited but the sharing feature isn’t as user friendly as it could be. Which is why I downloaded the free Instagram App (available from iTunes and Google Play).

Just today Instagram came out with a new update: Instagram 3.0 and it’s better than ever! Even the most amature photographer (ahem, me) can take pictures that are ready to frame. Here is one that I was able to capture today of the light house in Ludington, MI.

With the new Instagram 3.0 I was able to edit my picture just like before but now I had the option of adding it to my Photo Map.  With Photo Map you will never again have to look at another picture and think “Now where was this taken?”

Adding an item to Photo Map is really easy. With the new update the photo upload screen now looks like this:

You can geotag your photos before you upload them by selecting “Add to Your Photo Map” and let people know where you took your photo by turning “Add to Your Photo Map” on. You also have the ability to choose a specific place name (e.g. “South Park Cafe”) with your photo. In addition to the awesome photo map they also allotted more space for your description and hashtags.

Even the user profiles, explore tab, hashtag & location pages have been updated.

One of the most noticeable differences is that everything is bigger. Especially the photo grid which is really nice. I’m no longer playing the “I can’t quite make that out but I think it’s..” game.

They topped off the update with a few more updates such as infinite scrolling (automatic “load more”) and speed improvements to make the app faster & more responsive.

Here is a bit more of the fun I had today with Instagram 3.0