This just arrived in the mail from Hong Kong (via usbfever.com):
You can either just hold it up to your cameraphone’s camera or use the included metal rings (with tape) to attach it magnetically to your phone:
Here’s a shot taken with the iPhone normally:
Here’s the wide angle lens attachment:
and the fisheye lens attachment:
which was a little misaligned when I took the photo :(
Pretty cheap cameraphone fun.
Update: corrected the link to the proper Wide Angle lens I ordered.
Just started playing with video in iMovie ’09 at lunch today and thought it might fun to see how it deals with hand held video.
Here’s the stabilized version of the fisheye video I shot with my D90 at WordCamp Whistler:
and here’s the original:
The color differences are just my output settings in iMovie and then uploaded to Flickr (and compressed down to flash)….I just wanted to focus on the movement, rather than color matching/correction.
It does seem to stabilize the shaky-cam-ness of the original but at a cost…it seems to me that the video looks like I had it mounted on a tripod that was slightly off kilter…as opposed to straight on. As well, just like the straighten photo option in iPhoto/Aperture, it’s done a slight zoom in to properly rotate the video…which means that the wide fisheye effect is diminished a little (a good thing?).
I’ll continue to play around with this and see how it works with other things like video shot from a moving car.
This is so cool:
New York 2008 from Vicente Sahuc on Vimeo.
It was shot with a Casio Exilim EX-F1
I really don’t need another camera….
UPDATE: Just stumbled across this post about highjacking the liveview feed over USB which comes ‘down the wire’ at 100fps…at least on the D700. So it *may* be possible with my D90 or other Nikon gear.
Finally back home from Whistler after a great weekend up there for WordCamp Whistler where I met a ton of new people and was able to spend time with many friends. It was nice to get out of Vancouver for a change of scenery and yet have so many familiar faces around. I thought I’d post some photos and video I took during the course of the conference and weekend.
I wanted some video to use as part of my talk so I shot this quick fisheye video of the conference room and all the attendees before things got started. This is easily my favorite lens to play with:
Dave Olson ended the day with his talk and had the entire audience hanging on his every word. He invited people to sit up front and close since he wasn’t using the projector…and lots did. It was a great session to end the conference with:
I also wanted to play around with my Lensbaby Composer (especially in video mode on the D90) so here’s a quick video I shot during lunch where Lorraine was interviewing Dave for the live stream she was doing on FearlessCity.ca:
Watch it in HD on Vimeo too.
Some more fisheye fun at lunch:
See all the photos/video from WordCamp Whistler in my Flickr photoset.
During my talk at WordCamp Whistler, I mentioned a number of plugins you can use on your WordPress site. I created a demo site to show how these things work…don’t know how long I’ll leave it up but it’s all in use on my main site here.
For pulling in your Flickr photos into your site as a themed gallery, I use FAlbum. You can see it in action on my photography page here on this site.
For managing many different types of media, especially video, check out pb-embedFlash Media Manager. It lets you fully customize how video is presented on your site, whether it’s locally hosted or on an external site like YouTube or Vimeo.
Unfortunately, not all video sites are supported in pb-embed Flash. Like this timelapse Flickr video I made of the drive up to Whistler for example:
We’re just about to have lunch at WordCamp Whistler so follow along on Twitter and on Flickr and see how the rest of the conference goes.
Big thanks to Duane, John & Rebecca for pulling together an awesome event.
UPDATE: Just heard from kk that FAlbum choked on his Flickr stream when he tried adding it to his site….he does have over 20,000 photos so perhaps if you’re a prolific photog like Kris, you may have some performance issues with FAlbum.
See what happens when you leave your camera on while you’re at work?
Shot out my bedroom window over twelve hours. 842 stills. Yeah, I’m really enjoying my P6000 camera.
Only downside is that when doing longer (multi-hour) time lapse shots, it creates separate folders for each time you use the interval setting (this is a good thing) but it maxes out at 200 frames before it starts another folder. So I had to assemble five separate videos to make the above video.
Update: went back and added some music (The Smiths – Oscillate Wildly) and titles to the original video.
This weekend, my pal Duane packed all his belongings into a UHaul and trucked them all to Chilliwack. I brought my P6000 along to capture everyone help him lug stuff out of his apartment down to the truck:
All the best in your new place, Duane!
When the boxes were all out of the way, I spun the camera around for some last shots out of his 15th floor window:
I find I’m impatient with the time lapse videos….you can view them in a few seconds or minutes but I have to stand by the camera forever waiting for them to be captured ;)
As a follow up to yesterday’s post (which I updated with a better version), here’s a time lapse video of the drive home, recorded a little differently than the drive to work:
Drive Home from John Biehler on Vimeo.
Unlike the drive to work, this video was recorded with the still photo time lapse mode on the P6000. This means more photographic stills (rather than lower quality video stills). I then took all the stills and created a quicktime movie with each still representing one second of video. I then sped it up a little to make it more video like in Final Cut Express. You may want to play it again as Vimeo seems to play it very fast the first time you play it for some reason.
Still have some workflow issues in the conversion process but the idea comes across better in this version. I’ll just have to keep playing around.
Shot with my Nikon P6000 in the 30s interval time lapse movie mode. P6000 attached to my Manfrotto tripod in the front passenger seat. The tripod legs are basically double jointed and can be adjusted perfectly to fit in the seat and remain very solid.
I just did the math….3 seconds of video @ 30 frames per second = 90 ‘stills’ = one shot taken every 30 seconds over approximately 45 minutes of commute time (no carpool bonus since my wife was off today).
UPDATE: Here’s the 6mb AVI file straight off the camera – it has a fair bit more detail than the compressed version embedded above. I also had a chance to play with it a bit more at with Final Cut so I stretched it out to 30s so you can see a lot more detail:
Morning Commute from John Biehler on Vimeo.
Once again, it’s time to start planning for SXSWi which is coming up pretty fast in just under two months. It’s the annual ‘geek summer camp’ held in Austin, Texas every March. Check out my previous posts about it to see why you might want to go.
Now is the time to start doing a few things to maximize your time in the Lone Star state. If you haven’t already booked a hotel room, expect to be spending a lot of time in cabs getting to and from your room out on the interstate and the Austin Convention Center….all the close hotels (walking distance) were booked up last summer.
If you haven’t already registered, you should do it soon since the price goes up the closer it gets. Peter and I booked our flights last weekend….airline prices are down thanks to the current economic situation…$100 less than last year.
If you want to use your iPhone (or any other phone not from the US at least), you’ll probably need to unlock it and acquire a US Sim card. Cheapest route I’ve found still is an AT&T Pay as you go phone which can found almost anywhere in the US (Target, Walmart, 7-11, etc.) for as little as $15 (with a $10 airtime credit). You then add the $19.99 Medianet data plan for unlimited data for a month while you’re in Austin.
When you activate your cheap phone, make sure you choose the option to pay $1 per day of use. It means that you’ll only pay $0.10/minute for most calls (plus $1 for each day you use it) and calls to other AT&T users (like say, anyone following these instructions) are completely free (aside from that initial $1/day). If you don’t use it on a certain day, you don’t pay. Text messages are still a rip off at $0.15 per (incoming or outgoing). Keep in mind you probably won’t be able to use a foreign credit card to top up these phones but plenty of places (including gas stations) sell top up cards.
Now is also a good time to order some Moo cards. I just ordered another batch and it came in less than 2 weeks….last year lots of people were upset because they ordered either too late or it took longer to deliver due to increased demand (not sure if it’s SXSW related but possibly).
I know a few people haven’t been happy with the quality of their moo cards but I’ve ordered at least 5 batches with no issues at all and have been very happy with their quality. I’ve got a few 20% off coupon codes if you’re placing a first time order so leave a comment if you want one.
Finally, now is a good time to start scoping out the activities. Sites like Upcoming already has a number of the parties listed so you can at least start RSVP’ing to those that interest you. Most things you can simply walk up to on the day while you’re there but some require being on a list of some kind in advance due to the huge crowds that get bigger every year. Hopefully Jeremy Kieth will update his fantastic Adactio Austin party list for 2009 soon too. My pals over at Raincity Studios have already booked the biggest party at Southby each year. I stumbled across an Austin Flickr meetup last year that turned out to be really special and it wasn’t on any SXSW agenda.
There is even BarCamp Austin to check out while you’re in town if you want to skip out on SXSW for awhile.
I’ll leave you with an awesome three-letter-word reason to go to SXSW:
and maybe the fried pickles at B.D. Riley’s too:
