Tag Archives: camera

conference, iphone, nokia, sony, video

Packing

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Well I have started packing for the Plymouth e-Learning Conference. Well less packing and more charging. I seem to take more and more equipment to conferences these days. Some of it will be used in my workshops, some I will use to blog and twitter, and some I will bring because I think I might use it, but generally don’t.

Apart from the workshop equipment I usually like to have the following on me at conferences (and a jacket with big pockets to carry it all).

Laptop – though I have a selection of micro-laptops or UMPCs I generally always fall back on my reliable MacBook Pro. In the main as it has a decent keyboard, partly as I have a spare battery for it and it has a built in camera.

Phones – normally two, this year three. Not for making phone calls mind you. I have my work Nokia which is what people at work will be able to call and SMS me on. I have my home T-Mobile Nokia N95 which I use for internet, either on the device or configured as a wireless router, a digital camera, a video camera and a broadcast camera using QIK. This year I will also be bringing an iPhone!

Digital Camera – despite having the 5MP Nokia N95 I do like to have a proper digital camera with a proper lense. I would love to bring my Canon DSLR, but it’s too heavy, so I have a little Sony pocket camera which does the job.

Video Camera – I have found my little Panasonic HD camera a great tool for conferences, at the ALT Conference I used it to create a little video that I then edited on my MacBook Pro (another reason to carry that around). Quick and easy to use, and records to SD cards so video clips can be easily transferred to the computer.

MP3 Recorder – I always carry this, thinking I should record some podcasts when I am at the conference and never seem to get round to it… this conference I hope will be different.

Chargers – as batteries never seem to last as long as the conference.

So what do you bring to a conference?

video

Sanyo CA9 Video Camera

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Our new cameras arrived, after a bit of a delay, our Sanyo CA9 video cameras are now in the hands of our learners and staff.

sanyoca9

With a conventional digital camera or camcorder, many users are understandably reluctant to film or shoot in the rain or other wet environments, for the obvious fear of causing water damage to the camera. The VPC-CA9, however, has earned the highest possible IEC 60529 waterproof rating—IPX8—allowing users to capture high-definition (1280 x 720-pixel) 30 fps footage without worrying about the effects of water or snow. The VPC-CA9 is operable down to a water depth of 1.5 meters (5 feet).

We wanted a camera which could be used outside, up mountains, in the countryside, on sports fields, in workshops and in classrooms.

It takes MP4 video and JPG still images, which are saved to an SD card.

Should be fun and allow us to use video for assessment and on mobile devices much more easily than the traditional DV tape camcorders we have used in the past. Also the sheer number of them will remove many of the barriers to using video that happens when you have to “book” a camera, or share a small number of cameras amongst a large number of students.

I will post some images and video later.

Post first appeared on Shiny.

psp

Sketching on the PSP (or teaching an old dog new tricks)

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One of the advantages of giving technology to learners is more often then not they will teach you what it can do.

We have been using PSPs (with the camera attachment) with a group of 14 year old learners. This is part of our MoLeNET project.

They have been using them to create stuff.

One of them today told their tutor about the effects option (something I had certainly missed) and the tutor told me.

One of the nice effects is the Sketch effect.

Sketching on the PSP (or teaching an old dog new tricks)

Now from a photography purist perspective you should really shoot in full colour and then use filters for this kind of effect.

Well that’s all nice and dandy if you have the computers (and software) to do this, but sometimes you don’t and come on let’s be honest a 1.3MP camera (which is what you have on top of the PSP) is certainly not a high end camera.

It’s actually quite an effective effect and much better than other sketch type effects or filters I have used.

Alas you can’t capture video with a sketch effect (though I am thinking if I can using a Pinnacle device we have.

Need to write a guide.

learning technologies

Eye-Fi

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An interesting product was voted best of show at CES this week, a wireless SD card for your digital camera.

Eye-Fi

The card allows you to upload photographs direct from your camera to a photo sharing site on the interent via your wireless network (or a wi-fi hotspot).

I have been using a similar function (via shozu) with my cameraphone, but Eye-Fi allows you to use any camera which uses a SD card slot.

Very clever, though not yet available in the UK or so I believe.

learning technologies

Amazing how much cheaper things have become…

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Just under four years ago (November 2003) someone on the ILT Champion mailing list asked about getting a “cheap” high end digital camera for printing images at A2 size.

I posted the following reply.

To be honest in order to get anything decent to scale up to A2 then you are going to need a minimum of 3000×2000 pixels (preferably higher than that) which means a 6MP digicam which will be at a minimum £1000, probably nearer £3000 to get something decent..

There is an easier way and you will get a much better quality image as well. As the need is for marketing purposes, the instantability (sp?) of a digital camera is not needed. I would use a normal SLR film camera (£300) and when it’s developed get it scanned onto CD. My local camera shop will put a whole 35mm film onto a CD scanning in at 3000×2000 pixels for just £10.00.

You don’t even need a SLR, as even those 35mm throwaway cameras can give you a better quality image than a 6MP camera. You could do what is needed for less than £20!

You could get an even larger number of megapixels by using a dedicated flatbed scanner.

Digital cameras are great and have their place, however for your needs I think that you will be better off with a film camera and get it scanned onto cd when you have it developed.

It’s incredible how much has changed in the last four years…

Sony Cybershot W35I now have a 7.2MP camera, a Sony W35, which costs just over £100!

It also has a decent Carl Zeiss lense and a lithium ion battery (so a charge will last all week).

The price of digital cameras has really come down in price. Look at all these 7MP cameras available from Amazon which show how cheap they have become.

Today you need to be less concerned about mega-pixels and be more concerned about the quality of the lense, the life of the battery, how quickly the camera starts up and how quick it is to take photographs.