Lunchtime, Aiptek Pencam SD

Posted on March, 8 at 7:00 pm

Palm Trees, taken with a $20 Pencam SD.

Playing around with a $20 Aiptek Pencam SD, a poor-man’s Digital Harinezumi. I shot some video this afternoon and am looking forward to playing with video editing tools. All of my creative work has been still photography, and I’ve never took a swag at video until now.

Aiptek uses the SP44 video codec, not something that comes with Windows Media Player. The codec is available online and with the installer CD. VLC Media player, my player of choice, plays them just fine.

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Disposable Film Festival – filmmaking workshop TODAY!

Posted on March, 7 at 11:23 am

The Disposable Film Festival was created in 2007 to celebrate the artistic potential of disposable video: short films made on non-professional devices such as one-time use video cameras, cell phones, point and shoot cameras, webcams, computer screen capture software, and other readily available video capture devices. With people everywhere gaining access to these devices, we felt the time was right to draw attention to the creative potential of this new mode of filmmaking. Far beyond its initial roles for video blogging and documentation, the DFF offers a forum to display how disposable media can be used for creative purposes. The DFF hosts screenings, competitions, and other events to showcase the best work within the disposable genre.

Disposable Filmmaking Workshop

Community Director at Vimeo.com, Blake Whitman watches a lot of videos, and so he knows a thing or two about what makes a good film. In this workshop, he’ll go over everything from basic shooting techniques, editing styles, and instruct how to stitch photos together to create an animation (known around the interwebs as photomotion). Class starts at noon and breakfast is provided. Free!

Sunday, March 7th, 12 noon at Artist Television Access [map]

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Aiptek Pencam SD — Digital Holga, or a better Digital Harinezumi?

Posted on March, 4 at 6:32 pm

I took this picture with a Aiptek Pencam SD, a camera I liken to the Digital Harinezumi. The Pencam SD is roughly the same size, and does 1280×960 max resolution (still), and 6-8 frames per second at 640×480. Like the Digital Harinezumi, the Pencam SD has 64MB of built-in memory and an SD card slot. Instead of an expensive CR2 battery, the Pencam SD uses AAA batteries – I have a stack of rechargeable AAAs at home.

Unlike the DH, the Aiptek is less than $20.

Is this a “Digital Holga”? Probably not, while it can vignette, it can take impressively sharp pictures in the right light.
Is the viewfinder a best guesstimate of the image area? Definitely.
Is it fun to shoot with? Extremely – I prefer not being able to see the photo until after I get home.

Being able to record sound with the Digital Harinezumi 2 would be interesting, but I really like the effects people have created by adding soundtracks to silent video created with the original Digital Harinezumi.

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Street Corner, San Francisco

Posted on March, 1 at 6:09 pm

Canon Powershot SD1000 @ 3rd and Folsom in San Francisco, long exposure with no tripod – leaning up against a solid post. This was on my way to the Rayko Juried Plastic Camera show, on display until April. Check it out!

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Blink

Posted on February, 24 at 6:46 pm

Taken with a Sipix Stylecam Blink. The Blink is one of the cameras I think comes closest to the “Digital Holga” that people are searching for. Plastic lens? Check. Soft focus? Check. Vignetting? Check.

It’s got some quirks – when you take out the battery, the pictures are gone. The camera eats batteries as soon as you take the first shot. The video mode is toy-camera at best, approximately 8 frames per second.

On the bright side, you don’t need to buy medium format film (expensive), have it developed (expensive) or develop it yourself and scan it (scanners that can handle medium format are expensive!)

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