camera
Money
BestInClass Tells You Which Camera The Experts Would Buy
12:30AM Kevin Purdy | You’re a fan of photographing food in restaurants and your kids outdoors, and you’ve got about $300 to spend on a new digital camera. BestInClass can tell you what experienced shooters would recommend buying. The site, which compiles and sorts the reviews and blog posts of more than 750 professional shooters, hobbyists, and photography web sites, doesn’t make you do any sorting, sifting, or weighing of whose opinions matter more. You check off boxes to indicate what you like to photograph, choose a size (fits in jacket, pants, or doesn’t matter), and then slide to a price limit (though bear in mind that last one will be in US dollars). The results are a nicely streamlined selection of reviews and buyer information, topped off with a specific camera BestInClass sees as your best bet. The sites uses a “fancy algorithm developed over two years” to pick out which make and model fits what you picked as your typical uses, then ranks the rest on the same criteria. You get review outtakes, average customer reviews, technical specs on each model, and not too many ads to interrupt your dig. BestInClass expects to expand into different consumer purchase arenas, but is focused on digital cameras at launch. We can’t say yet whether its algorithms do a better job than an afternoon spent feature-comparing, but it’s at least a great starting point for narrowing the field. Free to use, no sign-up required. BestInClass [via MakeUseOf.com] More »
Fix
DIY Fibre Optic Ring Flash
8:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | Ring flashes fit around the barrel of a camera lens to provide an even and diffused light—and they often cost upwards of $200. Spare yourself the expense with a DIY model. Ring flashes are great for macro photography, as the light comes from all sides of the lens and provides extremely even illumination on your subject. They can also be used for interesting effects in portrait photography. Unfortunately the high price point makes it entirely uneconomical to pick one up just to mess around with photographing ants or casual portraits. Over the the website Fring—short for Fibre Optic Ring—there’s a detailed tutorial for taking about $5 worth of parts from your local cheapo store and turning them into a tool that channels your on-board flash’s light onto the rim of your lens. If you’re dabbling in macro shooting, it’s a great way to try out ring-flash style lighting without breaking the bank. Fring – DIY Fibre Optic Ring Light [via Hacked Gadgets] More »
Money
Amazon Mobile Looks Up Any Product You Snap A Picture Of
6:00AM Adam Pash | iPhone/iPod touch only: Amazon released a new mobile application for the iPhone and iPod touch today, ensuring that you can now get your online shopping fix no matter where you are. Not only does the Amazon app provide an excellent interface to search, buy, or add items to your wishlists, but if you’re an iPhone user, the application’s Amazon Remembers feature identifies any product you take a picture of—sort of like previously mentioned SnapTell. When you snap a pic, the app uploads the picture to Amazon, which looks for a match among its products. If it finds one (it can take anywhere between a couple minutes and 24 hours), it’ll send you an email and update the Amazon Remembers tab. So far it’s worked like a charm with all of the products I tested. I expected that my iPhone book might throw it for a loop, considering it has a picture of an iPhone on it, but even it was correctly identified within a few minutes. More »
Organise
How to Make the Most of Your CHDK Camera
5:00AM Adam Pash | We’ve already shown you how to turn your point-and-shoot into a super camera with the open-source CHDK software, but if you followed our instructions and hit a “Now what?” wall, the Hack a Day blog offers an excellent guide to finding and using CHDK’s best features. It includes details for taking long exposures, ultra-fast exposures, running time-lapse and other scripts, taking HDR photos, and even how to write your own scripts. Hit the jump for a look at a great time-lapse taken with CHDK and to head to the Hack a Day post. More »
Pack a Photography Survival Kit
9:15AM Kevin Purdy | Planning a long, leisurely trip through the wilderness, down the highway, or maybe around Thailand, and want to return home with some killer pictures to look through? David Hague, managing editor of Australasian Camcorder magazine, has been there, and back, many times. Hague keeps three separate backpacks for varying degrees of roughing it, but his list of potentially equipment-saving stuff is good for any on-the-go kit. Among the provisions, for still or video cameras (and yourself): Sealable plastic bags as emergency camera ‘raincoats’ Lens cleaning kit Jeweller’s screwdriver kit Small table top tripod (from eBay – around $10) Dry socks More »
Get Way More from Your Canon Digital Camera with Open-Source Firmware
12:51AM Kevin Purdy | You might think your consumer-model Canon digital camera can’t pull off the kind of fancy shots and tricks that make you stop and look on Flickr—until you unlock your camera’s potential with the Canon Hacker’s Development Kit. The completely reversible firmware upgrade, available for models running the DIGIC II or DIGIC III platforms, speeds up fast shutter modes (from 1/1,600th of a second to 1/60,000th!), allows for time-lapse photography and other scripted shots, unlimited interval shooting, better HDR pics, and much, much more. Wired’s How-To Wiki has a handy guide and introduction to the CHDK, available at the link below. I lack a Canon to try out the CHDK, so let your fellow readers know what you think if you’ve taken this step already. Supercharge Your Camera with Open-Source CHDK Firmware [Wired How-To Wiki] More »
Turn an Old Film Canister into a Flash Diffuser
3:00AM Kevin Purdy | Still have the remnants of your pre-digital photo-taking taking up space in closets (or perhaps put to other uses)? Photo blog Photojojo details the steps one Flickr user took to turn an old white plastic film container into a snug-fitting diffuser for a pop-up flash, using only a ruler and a utility knife. It’s a bit more rugged and adaptable than that other DIY diffuser, a coffee filter, and gets you the same reduction in pasty-looking portraits and over-exposure. Hit the link for step-by-step instructions and photos. Reduce, Reuse, Diffuse: Make Your Own Flash Diffuser from an Old Film Container [Photojojo] More »
Use Your Mobile Phone Camera to Find Your Parked Car
3:40AM Kevin Purdy | These days, it’s harder to get a new mobile phone without a built-in camera than with. If you’re not all that enthused about taking grain pictures with it, you can still get some value out of the little lens, as detailed at the Digital Inspiration blog. One idea in particular caught my eye: Car Parking – Most shopping malls here have huge underground parking but there aren’t any signboards so it gets tough to locate the car. So when you park the the car, just look towards the lift (or the exit) and take a picture or record some video. This will save lot of effort (and time) when you return with all those heavy shopping bags. If my area mall has parking numbers, I sure don’t notice them, so I’ll be giving this a try soon. What MacGyver-esque uses have you pulled from your mobile camera? Give up the secrets in the comments. Photo by Mrs. Gemstone. Interesting Uses of Camera Mobile Phones [Digital Inspiration] More »Camera
7:30AM Tamar Weinberg | New digicam this holiday season? One year ago we suggested some nifty photo projects for the New Year. More »
