Upon completing a two day camera class, I walked down to the local park and put my new knowledge to work.
These shots were taken with my Ricoh GX100.
I have a thing for 'left field' type cameras. I'm surprised that I don't own a Lomo.
Casio EXILIM Pro EX-F1
This is one of these new 'hybrid' cameras which are bridging the ‘stills’ and ‘video’ markets.
This camera also offers some insanely high capture speeds.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0801/08010601casiof1.asp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UprZNWzUq0o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4WDMEUoF9M
Sigma DP1
This camera is unique in that it captures light data in a whole new way.
Usually an imaging chip has three red/blue/green capture points which are combined to produce a single colour pixel. This chip ‘reads’ all three colours at a single capture point.
What I like about this camera is that Sigma are packaging a full sized SLR chip in a Compact body.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0801/08013108sigmadp1.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveon_X3_sensor
Let's get that useless little cam on the front doing something.
Is anyone actually using it for video calls?
(Probably Snoyt knowing my luck.)
How bout using that pixel tracking tech to allow us to scroll around the screen by tilting the phone? Move the phone and the direction and speed of the pixels can be read by the cam. Currently I’ve only seen this tech ‘wasted’ on games.
The little cam probably has enough rez to read the texture on the pad of ones thumb so our thumb moving in front of the cam could be used as a trackball input.
Possibly throw in a bit of gesture recognition so that ‘circling the thumb,’ or ‘rapid back and forth’ movements could be assigned functions?
I'm now wondering about using both cameras. The Main cam on the back, for left right up down, and the forward facing cam used as a thumb trackball?
How bout using facial recognition so that when the user is looking at the screen, a nod is read as the green key, and a shake is the red key?
The interesting thing with facial recognition, is that we could get a cheap iPhone type experience by triggering the screen to change aspect as the phone is rotated from portrait to landscape.
When you rotate the phone, the front cam would see that the angle of your face (I'm assuming you’re looking at the screen when you rotate the phone) would change relative to the cam, and this would trigger the phone to change the aspect of the screen.
...and already I want to ‘punch out’ one of the other classmates.
Three days and we learn everything there is to know about film making (ha.)
I’m not taking it too seriously. I see it as a second step towards other stuff.
Don’t feel sorry for the aspiring punching bag. He’s fifty something, built like a brick shithouse, sounds like he’s cashed up, and a self made man.
WHICH MAKES HIM A TOTAL PAIN IN THE BUM, UNLESS EVERYONE IS INSTANTLY DOING WHAT HE WANTS.
This isn’t a problem if we’re stuck on a deserted Island, and he’s the only one who packed a hunting knife. He is a royal pain in the posterior, in a small group where we only have three days to get something filmed, and burnt onto a DVD.
The point of the exercise is that everyone is supposed to contribute, and get an equal share of the resources.
...which is starting to show its age.
It’s great that everything works with this format though, cause I have a mate with a new Sony video camera, which uses a format so new, that he has to wait six months before Sony software like Vagus will cut it up.
I keep thinking that I should get hold of a new camera, but then if you look at the quality of the feeds from YouTube and others. Why bother!
