A while back, photoblogopunditographer Thom Hogan asked a sensible question: It’s easy to shoot a photo and email it with a $299 smartphone, so why is it so hard with an $8,000 Nikon D3x? Hogan argues that the camera needs to be redefined to achieve photo/communication convergence. He thinks that’s coming soon.

Guess what? I know convergence is here now; lately I’m using it almost every time I shoot. I’m planning a more detailed post later — but for now, here’s a video walk-through of how I do it:

Feature update! The latest version of ShutterSnitch (v1.1.5, available now from Apple’s App Store) has a cool new feature that will appeal to anyone who ever has to shoot photos to fit a layout.

The new “image mask” feature lets you import any image into ShutterSnitch and superimpose it over the photos ShutterSnitch is receiving. This means that in addition to reviewing the photos as you shoot, you also can check that the composition works with the layout that the photo will have to fit.

Here’s an example screenshot from within the ShutterSnitch app. The light-gray text is the image mask: it’s a poster layout I set up in a word-processing app. Having the layout “ghosted” over the photo makes it easy to see how the image will fit with the text.

More goodness: You can vary the opacity of the image mask (so it can be as faint or as visible as you want.) You can store multiple image masks within ShutterSnitch and change them on the fly (for example, a cover-shot template, a web-banner template, etc.)

And you can zoom and re-position the photo underneath the template — which means that in addition to composing as you shoot, this feature is great for reviewing a collection of existing photos to see which one would be the best fit for a layout.

Meanwhile, the new version also adds other new features including faster loading of collections, easier setup for Eye-Fi cards, and better overall stability.

Note that I am not associated in any way with SnutterSnitch or its developer — other than the fact that I sent in so many feature suggestions to their website that they finally caved in and invited me to be a beta tester! But I admire small, responsive companies that respond to their customers by improving their products with features that solve real-world problems, and that’s exactly what ShutterSnitch does. If you’ve got an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, give it a look!