![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
New helmet cam video
May. 1st, 2012 01:15 pmShot this yesterday, edited and posted direct from Sony Vegas Studio Platinum 11 which I've been playing with (trial version) and am going to buy a copy.
The low light performance on this camera is good (admittedly it's the first camera I've tried that wasn't some cheap keychain thing), and it's nice having a waterproof camera as well.
The low light performance on this camera is good (admittedly it's the first camera I've tried that wasn't some cheap keychain thing), and it's nice having a waterproof camera as well.
New thing published
Apr. 28th, 2012 10:32 pmI got a new helmet cam today, a Contour Roam. I didn't like either of the mounts that it shipped with. They have some better ones but they cost $40. I designed and printed one that I like which secures with zip ties.
Helmet mount for Contour video cameras, thing # 22212
Helmet mount for Contour video cameras, thing # 22212
Weird camera issue
Jan. 4th, 2009 01:01 pmMy A710 got damp last spring, and it made it start complaining about low batteries quickly. Previously, a charged set of NiMH AAs would go a month before complaining, after this event, it was only 2 or 3 days. I never bothered to figure out the exact nature of the drain, but I suspect it was draining the batteries while off.
Then it was OK for a while.
Starting about a week ago, I can drop in freshly-charged NiMH AAs and turn it on, and it immediately is complaining about low battery, and about 2 shots later it shuts off.
It does seem to work OK on alkaline AAs, though I've only taken a dozen shots or so with the set I put in there. Even though alkalines are generally pretty sub-optimal for digital cameras, I have an absolute RAFT of alkaline AA cells that I've rescued from the recycling bin and are actually still almost full, so I could probably use the camera for a year just on the alkalines I have piled up already.
If it comes down to it, I suspect I can take the camera apart a bit and I bet there will be an obvious place where there are water-placed deposits of some kind of mineral on the boards. A blast of MAP cleaner would probably take care of that. But I'll just keep using the dumb thing with alkalines for now.
Then it was OK for a while.
Starting about a week ago, I can drop in freshly-charged NiMH AAs and turn it on, and it immediately is complaining about low battery, and about 2 shots later it shuts off.
It does seem to work OK on alkaline AAs, though I've only taken a dozen shots or so with the set I put in there. Even though alkalines are generally pretty sub-optimal for digital cameras, I have an absolute RAFT of alkaline AA cells that I've rescued from the recycling bin and are actually still almost full, so I could probably use the camera for a year just on the alkalines I have piled up already.
If it comes down to it, I suspect I can take the camera apart a bit and I bet there will be an obvious place where there are water-placed deposits of some kind of mineral on the boards. A blast of MAP cleaner would probably take care of that. But I'll just keep using the dumb thing with alkalines for now.
Camcorder observation
Nov. 28th, 2008 10:38 pmThe new camcorder has something in common with all my other camcorders; the lens doesn't go wide enough. Luckily I stopped by Meijer before we left and I picked up a Targus wide+tele add-on lens set. The tele is 2x but I just left that at home. The wide is 0.45X, and honestly I left it on the camera about 80% of the time.
With the wide adapter on, the widest zoom on the camera is just about right for taking typical shots like inside hotel rooms and other inside spaces, and wide shots of typical open spaces. We were at the Kennedy Space Center visitor's center a couple of days ago and a few other places, and without the wide adaptor, it wouldn't have been nearly as good.
Even shooting into the Florida sun, there was little lens flare. The coatings seem pretty good. And there wasn't really much extra distortion at all.
$30 at Meijer for both lenses. Native 37mm which is what my camcorder uses so it looks pretty natural on mine. It's an aluminum body, nice looking construction and even has filter rings on the front of it. It also comes with 4 or 5 adapter rings for different filter sizes. The wide is actually 2 parts, if you remove the front part, the remaining part is a macro adapter, though with any camera I've had recently that's unnecessary; they'll all focus to about 1cm anyway.
Recommended.
With the wide adapter on, the widest zoom on the camera is just about right for taking typical shots like inside hotel rooms and other inside spaces, and wide shots of typical open spaces. We were at the Kennedy Space Center visitor's center a couple of days ago and a few other places, and without the wide adaptor, it wouldn't have been nearly as good.
Even shooting into the Florida sun, there was little lens flare. The coatings seem pretty good. And there wasn't really much extra distortion at all.
$30 at Meijer for both lenses. Native 37mm which is what my camcorder uses so it looks pretty natural on mine. It's an aluminum body, nice looking construction and even has filter rings on the front of it. It also comes with 4 or 5 adapter rings for different filter sizes. The wide is actually 2 parts, if you remove the front part, the remaining part is a macro adapter, though with any camera I've had recently that's unnecessary; they'll all focus to about 1cm anyway.
Recommended.
Camcorder thoughts
Nov. 1st, 2008 02:54 pmJust because I've had people ask me about stuff in the past...
I'm really liking the new camcorder. In particular, recording to memory cards is something I really like. I'm VERY glad to be done with tape (except I need to archive the old stuff).
The quality is outstanding. Every time I come home I can pop the card in the machine and back up 30 minutes worth of video in 3 minutes. I don't have to worry about jostling the thing and either damaging the mechanism or causing a tracking failure from the impact.
I suppose there's a chance of card failure causing me grief down the road, but I'm not really worried about it.
Once I turned the sharpening and saturation down to minimum, the 3 megapixel still photos are good enough that I feel I can leave the still camera at home for casual use. It's certainly not my choice for dedicated still photography, even semi-casual use that I'd use the P&S instead of the SLR for. But it does mean I can carry just one relatively small camera.
Sample from last night, Tom with a member of his favorite mammalian species:
I'm really liking the new camcorder. In particular, recording to memory cards is something I really like. I'm VERY glad to be done with tape (except I need to archive the old stuff).
The quality is outstanding. Every time I come home I can pop the card in the machine and back up 30 minutes worth of video in 3 minutes. I don't have to worry about jostling the thing and either damaging the mechanism or causing a tracking failure from the impact.
I suppose there's a chance of card failure causing me grief down the road, but I'm not really worried about it.
Once I turned the sharpening and saturation down to minimum, the 3 megapixel still photos are good enough that I feel I can leave the still camera at home for casual use. It's certainly not my choice for dedicated still photography, even semi-casual use that I'd use the P&S instead of the SLR for. But it does mean I can carry just one relatively small camera.
Sample from last night, Tom with a member of his favorite mammalian species:
Some camera tests
Oct. 17th, 2008 05:15 pmI took some photos outside today using the HF100 HD camcorder in still mode. It's a 3.1 megapixel camera in that mode.
( Photo and more words behind the cut. )
( Photo and more words behind the cut. )
Took the HD plunge
Oct. 13th, 2008 02:30 pmWe have a daughter who's a senior this year, and a vacation coming up, so I decided it was time to upgrade the camcorder that I bought last year to tide us over from when the old one broke to when HD was more stable. I really wanted to go HD last year, but at the time all the decent HD camcorders were $1000 and up, so I bought an SD camcorder open box from Amazon for under $200 bucks, fully intending to upgrade in a year or two.
It was in the cards, I knew that once we got a good-sized HD TV, the SD camcorder would really start to bug me. Seeing my daughter's last concert where she appears as 6 or 8 skooshy pixels pushed me over the edge on this; I want us to have something better to keep for the rest of our lives.
( Cut because I do tend to ramble on so )
It was in the cards, I knew that once we got a good-sized HD TV, the SD camcorder would really start to bug me. Seeing my daughter's last concert where she appears as 6 or 8 skooshy pixels pushed me over the edge on this; I want us to have something better to keep for the rest of our lives.
( Cut because I do tend to ramble on so )
Camera software
May. 9th, 2008 09:04 pmThis hack software for the Canon Powershots is going to be a LOT of fun. I tried playing with it with a "motion detection" script running this evening, and results are promising. I screwed up in that A)I had the ISO set to 800, so the results are unacceptably grainy, and B) it was set in RAW mode (normally not supported by this camera, but capability added via the software and I must have bumped the setting while crusing menus). So the results weren't that great, but still, it's nice to just point the camera at a feeding area, turn it on, and go inside while the camera shoots whenever something gets in front of it. And that's just one script that someone wrote for this addon. You can pretty much do anything you can think of. Heck, they put some games in while they were at it.
I'll try again later with better settings and more light; this was taken in the evening.
I'll try again later with better settings and more light; this was taken in the evening.
Canon Powershot new features
May. 7th, 2008 10:50 amMost excellent:
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
This is a piece of software that you can load onto many Canon powershot cameras. It does not alter the firmware, merely enhances it. But it does a TON of cool stuff including supporting BASIC scripting. It also adds a whole lot of new features to the camera.
It's safe because it just loads into RAM, either on demand or every time the camera is powered on, your choice (easily altered in the field by just flipping the write protect switch).
I've been running a hacked firmware on my Canon SLR for years and wouldn't give it up. This is all that and more, plus you don't have the queasy feeling of updating firmware, which can leave you with an expensive brick.
I immediately glommed on to the ultra-intervalometer script which would support time-lapse by shooting a picture every x:xx seconds either until X pictures have been taken, or the shutter button is pressed again.
It claims that it will also take photos based on motion detection, and claims that it's fast enough to capture lightning strikes.
If you have a Powershot and want to try, this page has a nice description of how to do it:
http://lifehacker.com/387380/turn-your-point+and+shoot-into-a-super+camera
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
This is a piece of software that you can load onto many Canon powershot cameras. It does not alter the firmware, merely enhances it. But it does a TON of cool stuff including supporting BASIC scripting. It also adds a whole lot of new features to the camera.
It's safe because it just loads into RAM, either on demand or every time the camera is powered on, your choice (easily altered in the field by just flipping the write protect switch).
I've been running a hacked firmware on my Canon SLR for years and wouldn't give it up. This is all that and more, plus you don't have the queasy feeling of updating firmware, which can leave you with an expensive brick.
I immediately glommed on to the ultra-intervalometer script which would support time-lapse by shooting a picture every x:xx seconds either until X pictures have been taken, or the shutter button is pressed again.
It claims that it will also take photos based on motion detection, and claims that it's fast enough to capture lightning strikes.
If you have a Powershot and want to try, this page has a nice description of how to do it:
http://lifehacker.com/387380/turn-your-point+and+shoot-into-a-super+camera
Good weekend
May. 29th, 2006 09:18 pmI got the rest of the landscape plants in the ground, did some weeding, mowed the lawn, got a moderate sunburn (I meant to apply more sunscreen after getting a little bit of direct sun, but lost track of time), did some tree maintenance (reshaping some trees with pruning and ropes), and wandered around generally menacing the local flora with hand trimmers.
Finally, after 10 years, I got around to putting in an outside faucet on the east end of the house where most of the plants are, so watering tasks are a lot easier. Should have done this long ago, putting in the faucet was trivial, only about 2 hours work. Copper pipe has gotten expensive; even the little 1/2" stuff I used on this job was $16 for a 10 foot length, and I needed 40 feet to get to the unsoftened water source on the other side of the house; last time I did this stuff (maybe 8 years ago) it was more like $6. I even got in a nice bike ride into the hardware store in town, to get a few copper couplings I forgot. Only 9 miles, but better than nothing.
Today both kids marched in the parade, we had a nice 15 minutes in the very nice Chelsea cemetary for the end-of-parade speaker. I remember as a very little kid the 90 year old lady that used to read "Flander's Field" every year. I don't take many holidays seriously anymore, but Memorial day I believe in.
Then we went to Jenn's folks place, had a pleasant afternoon, Dad is ready to take the plunge into digital photography so he was interested in both my new camera and my opinion of the cameras he's considering. He gave us some plants from his greenhouse and we came home and planted them, except a few marigolds that have yet to go in.
This spectacular guy was hanging out on the flowers out there. I love the macro on this new camera.
Finally, after 10 years, I got around to putting in an outside faucet on the east end of the house where most of the plants are, so watering tasks are a lot easier. Should have done this long ago, putting in the faucet was trivial, only about 2 hours work. Copper pipe has gotten expensive; even the little 1/2" stuff I used on this job was $16 for a 10 foot length, and I needed 40 feet to get to the unsoftened water source on the other side of the house; last time I did this stuff (maybe 8 years ago) it was more like $6. I even got in a nice bike ride into the hardware store in town, to get a few copper couplings I forgot. Only 9 miles, but better than nothing.
Today both kids marched in the parade, we had a nice 15 minutes in the very nice Chelsea cemetary for the end-of-parade speaker. I remember as a very little kid the 90 year old lady that used to read "Flander's Field" every year. I don't take many holidays seriously anymore, but Memorial day I believe in.
Then we went to Jenn's folks place, had a pleasant afternoon, Dad is ready to take the plunge into digital photography so he was interested in both my new camera and my opinion of the cameras he's considering. He gave us some plants from his greenhouse and we came home and planted them, except a few marigolds that have yet to go in.
This spectacular guy was hanging out on the flowers out there. I love the macro on this new camera.
