Travel app helps you pick your shots

Picfari travel photo app
Free for iOS devices at the Apple App Store

With any luck, you’ll visit some new and unfamiliar places on your travels this year. No doubt you’ll take lots of photos. But of what? If it’s somewhere you’ve never been, how will you know the best places to get spectacular shots? Here’s an app to show the way.

Picfari is a social photography app, where travelers post geotagged images of interesting places. A user in Chicago might shoot photographs of its downtown area, the Loop. These photos are presented with precise geographic data, as well as the camera settings for each shot.

The pictures now serve as a guide for other Picfari users. If you’re going to Chicago, Picfari can guide you to the same area, and show you how to set your own camera for best results. The app comes with a basic photography guide to help you along. And of course, when you shoot pictures of your own, you’re encouraged to post them for the benefit of other Picfari users.

For now, Picfari’s photographic offerings are limited. No surprise, as it’s a brand new service. But as more people start using the app, it could build up a huge library of high-quality images, while encouraging visitors to shoot something even better.

Picfari--it’s a play on “picture safari”--is one of the worst names for an app I’ve ever heard. But wandering shutterbugs shouldn’t let that scare them away from this smart new app.