The Manchester Digital Development Agency
October 31, 2008
This week I was asked to go along to the Manchester Digital Development Agency and talk at an event called AmbITion, an Arts Council project that’s helping arts organisations in the East and North West regions of England make better use of technology.
It was a quality day, well organised in a great venue. Whenever I make the journey up to Manchester I always end up returning inspired after mixing with the masses of creative minds involved in some great projects.
Here are a few moments from the day:
Big thanks go to the MDDA, in particular Phil Birchenall and Gerry Scappaticci.
If you get the chance, show your support for the first Manchester Social Media Cafe on the 11th November.
The music used in the video is entitled ‘Depeche’ by Moriarty
Polaroid PoGo Portable Bluetooth Printer
October 14, 2008
Polaroid Kindly sent me one of their PoGo Zink (Zero Ink) bluetooth portable printers to have a play with and over this last week i have done just that.
It’s not that bad, pretty good fun in fact and I can see lots of uses other than the ones they advertise.. but be warned some of them may get you into trouble…
There is no ink to buy as some kind of crystal technology is incorporated into the paper but at £2.99 for ten 76×50 mm photo stickers.. You may want to use them sparingly unless you have massive pocket money or a decent job.
I found the battery pretty good and love the fact i could send from my laptop’s bluetooth too.
As far as the print quality goes.. I found it as good as i expected for a device this fresh out. Make sure you occasionally place a photo in upside down to clean the device (or whatever it does) this seems to remove banding in the colours that can happen. Once again it’s the content that’s the star.
If Polaroid come out with a 6×4 version I would certainly buy one if the image quality was up to scratch..
Please check out the video for a look..
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PM in the AM
October 13, 2008
Thomson Reuters is hosted a NewsMaker event on the present economic crisis and in addition to it’s regular text, streaming video and picture coverage, they opened up their doors and minds to social media.
In addition to making live and edited video content available worldwide over the web, myself (@Documentally) and Mike Atherton (@sizemore) were given unprecedented access to the event and asked to utilise some of our favorite social media apps in order to facilitate conversations around the day.
In addition to the following places I will no doubt attempt to blog what else we did as soon as i know what exactly what it was. 
Documentally on Twitter.. Phreadz.. 12Seconds.. Qik.. Plurk.. and Seesmic
Sizemore on Twitter.. 12Seconds.. and Seesmic
Ourmaninside says: Find Me
October 12, 2008
I have been getting back into Geocaching recently. It all happened when I installed a couple of new gps based apps on my iPhone and one of them allowed me to check for geocaches in my area. There are loads! So now when on a dog walk I occasionally turn on my gps just to see if there may be some hidden treasure in the area.
It’s a great way of just getting out to enjoy the land around you.. be it in countryside or the areas of a city you haven’t explored yet. On top of that.. You never know what you might find.
I will probably write about this more in depth in the coming weeks.. I just felt i had to talk around the subject in order to justify a blog post where I can hide the coordinates to a real life social media treasure hunt going on right now..
Good Luck!
Nikon D90 video test.
October 10, 2008
The D90 is Nikon’s latest mid range consumer DSLR. It does everything a good Nikon does and brings relief to my shoulder that normally carries the weight of a D3.
Although compact compared to other 12.3 Megapixel DSLR’s it has most of the guts of the D300. It’s a DX format sensor and shoots up to 4.5 FPS with ISO settings up to 3200. More than most consumer users will need and enough to keep even some pros happy.
The screen is a hi-res 3″ LCD, and is a long way from what I remember on my first Nikon DSLR, the D100.
The sensor has vibrating dust removal and on the whole, the camera feels good in my hands, even if the layout of the controls is very different to my normal everyday camera.
It would be a great tool in the hands of any keen amateur and even a great back up camera for any pro.
This was not my reason for buying it though. The reason I bought this camera was that it’s the world’s first DSLR with HD video capability.
There are limitations yes.. and I don’t think i will be shooting any feature films on it, but this is an important time in the history of photography and I did not want to let it pass without getting absorbed in this new direction for the digital SLR.
Shooting film on the D90 is easy. Press the rear Lv button to get Live View, and then press the OK button.
There is no auto focus whilst filming so capturing anything that moves requires so much skill if you can manage it well, you have the dexterity of a professional Focus Puller.
This did not deter me in the least. This is for me to play with, to put some art back into my images and give me a different perspective when looking at scenes before me.
Get used to things being out of focus occasionally and instead enjoy the colours, shapes and textures captured by Nikons great glass in a way you may not have experienced before.. Moving. I have lenses 10 years old that still that cost more than this camera is today. Getting to put them on the front and shoot video is going to be a real adventure.
It is important to remember that this camera is just the first step. I think many of the much needed additional features may have been held back for the D3x or even the D4. Like more control over the exposure. I have managed to get over the randomly adjusting exposure by assigning the function button to hold the exposure when pressed. This is another moment where i’ve had to stop and think about what i’m doing. This is not a bad thing at all. We get far too snap happy and end up deleting a ton of pix. Why not take some extra time. You may even feel your photography improves through it.
I am not so keen on using the rear LCD as a viewfinder as this can be difficult in focusing, but it has made me return to looking at the markings on my lens which I have not done for an age.
The video clips are limited to five minutes, this apparently is so the cost can be kept down as the camera is classed as a stills camera that has video capability and not a video camera as such. I don’t mind as it keeps your clips easy to import/edit and stops things getting boring.
The sound captured by the internal microphone is a bit naff but ok just for an ambient holiday video postcard or the occasional blog post but I wish Nikon had had the foresight to add a mic input like Canon have.. Perhaps this will be another feature that comes out on the next model.
720p/24 is more than enough for the web and this is what i intend to use this camera for.
The main thing you see with the video results is how easy it is to throw backgrounds out of focus. This is what I had the most fun with.
I almost forgot during the test that this is a really competent stills camera. It more than holds it’s own with the D300 and is a great back up for the D3.
For the test film embedded, I only used the camera with a 50mm f1.4 AFD but the D90 works with every AF lens made since 1986.
If you want it to be wifi enabled you will need the amazing Eye-Fi card and you can expect your SD card to fill up in movie at a rate of 21.4MB for a 10 second clip set at 720p. If you don’t get the Eye-Fi explore with the built in GPS tagging, Nikon has a compact GPS sensor that can be fitted on the flash shoe and plugged into the side of the camera.
Keep checking back to the blog to see new photos and video shot with the D90. I have some Lumiere projects in mind and on the whole, having a lighter camera in my bag is going to mean my back feels the benefit.
Although pleasantly enjoying the present I am already saving for whatever amazing amalgamation of stills and video that may be on the horizon. Next year expect some really exciting developments from both Canon, Nikon and Red. I am not a purist when it comes to photography. A movie is just lots of stills.
In the not to distant future, we will be extracting out photographs from movie footage and the quality of these images will blow our minds.
Big thanks go to Ben Read for letting me spend longer in the bathroom than normal.. Mainly as I was filming it. 
Don’t forget you can support this blog and then i can bring you more reviews, interviews and of course eat!
iPhone Solar Charger Case
October 7, 2008
On this very wet British morning my postman handed me a soggy jiffy bag from China. Inside was a black box containing my new iPhone Solar powered sheath (as they call it).
It was well packaged and only took a week to get here. If i remember rightly i payed around $50 including postage and packaging from a company in Hong Kong called Brando.
Here is a first look..
So far so good, the instructions are pretty easy to follow and at the moment the iPhone is sat on my office window quietly charging.
I will tell you more after a proper test.
UPDATE:
After a day of testing my solar powered case appears to have died. Do not buy one of these until I find out what exactly has happened. It appears that during heavy use whilst with the battery switched to charge, the unit over heats and the battery breaks. It got really hot during use and now the lights won’t work and it doesn’t charge the iPhone. More info when i have it.
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