PocketWizard Tests Prototype Nikon Triggers PocketWizard, the off-camera flash-triggering company, has finally begun testing prototypes of its Nikon FlexTT5 units. Normally, Nikon cameras communicate with the strobes via bursts of light, coded flashes which chatter back and forth in the moments before the pic is taken. The problem is that the range is limited, and you need line of site. That’s […]
PocketWizard, the off-camera flash-triggering company, has finally begun testing prototypes of its Nikon FlexTT5 units.
Normally, Nikon cameras communicate with the strobes via bursts of light, coded flashes which chatter back and forth in the moments before the pic is taken. The problem is that the range is limited, and you need line of site. That’s where PocketWizard comes in. The FlexTT5 sends these signals via long-range, corner-proof radio waves. Previously, these were manual only, and after some teething problems, PocketWizard successfully added an auto mode to it’s radio-powered flash Canon triggers.
The new prototypes, seen in the video above, are still far from production, but Nikon-shooting flash-freaks should be getting excited already. The Nikon CLS system is pretty close to magic already, letting you get great flash-shots with tiny effort. These new PocketWizards should make the experience even better.
If you just can’t wait, try to track down some RadioPoppers, a rival product which already works with Canon and Nikon and is cheaper: The PocketWizards are around $220 each, and you’ll need two. The RadioPoppers are $180 each for the TTL versions. The problem is that the RadioPoppers are selling so well it’s hard to get ahold of one.
Hands-On With Lensbaby Fisheye and Soft-Focus Optics For the last month, I have been testing out Lensbaby’s new fisheye and soft-focus optics, two glass cores which are drop-in replacements for the optic which comes inside the Lensbaby composer. The Lensbaby composer itself is a lens with a ball-and-socket arrangement which grants the front section to be twisted in any direction and place […]
For the last month, I’ve been testing out Lensbaby’s new fisheye and soft-focus optics, two glass cores which are drop-in replacements for the optic which comes inside the Lensbaby composer. The Lensbaby composer itself is a lens with a ball-and-socket arrangement which grants the front section to be twisted in any direction and place the focus “sweet spot” anywhere in the frame. This is combined with an optic which is heavily blurred away from this spot, leading to some dreamy, tilt-shift-like photos.
Standard Lensbaby Composer on Panasonic GF1 with sharpening and auto-levels applied.
The new fisheye and soft-focus optics replace this blurry-edged glass for some new effects. The fisheye is a 12mm ƒ4 lens with a massive 360-degree angle of view, enough to catch both your feet and the brim of your hat in the same shot. Trying it out on a Panasonic GF1 (via adapter, although there is a proper M4/3 mount version), it gives a mild distortion, and a very low contrast image. You can twist and turn the Lensbaby, but as the Micro Four Thirds sensor only see the center portion of the image from the lens, it doesn’t make much difference.
It also fooled the camera into underexposure when indoors. As the lens is all manual, for both focusing and aperture (in fact, you’ve to use a magnetic “pen” to drop in and retrieve separate aperture rings), this isn’t a surprise. Just watch out, is all.
Put the same rig directly onto a full-frame D700 and the world turns inside out. Even in a tiny room, you get almost all of it in the picture, and the entire image is contained inside a dark circle. Swapping in apertures up to ƒ22 will increase depth-of-field, but there’s tiny point: With a lens this wide, it’s nearly impossible to get anything out of focus.
Fisheye on Nikon D700, sharpened for screen on output. Notice the edge of my finger, actually just under the lens.
On this camera, twiddling the front end moves the circle around and you can obscure half the image this way. It’s superior to leave it in the middle. Image quality isn’t incredible, but as you can see, it’s sharp and contrasty out of camera, and the effect is great fun.
The soft-focus optic is a tiny less interesting. The lens still focuses sharply, but gives the effect of shooting through a pair of white pantyhose (actually an old movie technique to soften an actress’ skin). Included are aperture disks which have many pinholes punched in them instead of a single central hole. These have a great effect on any highlights in your shot:
Soft-focus, multihole aperture on Panasonic GF1, sharpened on export for screen.
A few notes on the operation of the system. As I mentioned, it is all manual, even though a modern camera will still expose properly in aperture-priority mode. Focusing is easy enough: DSLRs usually have some form of manual-assist in the viewfinder, and the Micro Four Thirds cameras (mine, at least) lets you zoom in on the image to check focus.
Actually swapping out the optics is a knack gained after a few tries. When you insert the removal tool (cleverly the lid of the plastic storage case), the focus ring of the main unit twists with it and therefore drops the part you’re trying to unscrew out of reach. You’ll need to grab the fixed silver bands surrounding the focus ring and be bold with a good hard twist. The build quality is very good, and the optics are reassuringly solid and heavy.
The lenses are a photography nerd’s delight, but should you buy them? If you want a fisheye, and already have a Composer, $150 is a steal, and I’d buy one right away. The soft-focus unit is a little harder to recommend, despite being just $90, especially as much of the value is in the neat aperture disks (which can be dropped into the other optics, too). If you want it, you probably know it. I’d stick with the fisheye.
HP’s Windows 7 Slate Strikes at the iPad The Apple iPad’s Oscar debut on millions of Televisions might have been the speak of the town Monday morning, but not for long. Rival Computer maker HP has launched a sneak attack on the iPad. HP released a video introducing its tablet called the Slate that will run Windows 7 operating system and support Flash — […]
The Apple iPad’s Oscar debut on millions of TVs might have been the speak of the town Monday morning, but not for long. Rival Computer maker HP has launched a sneak attack on the iPad.
HP released a video introducing its tablet called the Slate that’ll run Windows 7 operating system and support Flash — a jab at the iPad, which won’t display Flash-based sites or videos.
“With this slate product, you’re getting a full web browsing experience in the palm of your hand,” posted Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer for HP’s personal system group on the company’s blog. “No watered-down internet, no sacrifices.”
HP didn’t reveal pricing or availability for the device, though it has indicated the Slate will be available this year.
Since the announcement of Apple’s iPad in January, Personal computer makers are rushing to offer tablet devices that can position themselves between the 4-inch touchscreen smartphone and the 12-inch netbook or laptop. They say tablets could be ideal for web surfing, checking e-mail, reading e-books and viewing personal media while sitting on a couch.
Dell has stated that it will launch a family of tablets, the first of which will be a PlayStation Portable-sized device with a 5-inch screen codenamed Dell Mini 5. Dell hasn’t disclosed pricing or availability for its product yet. Apple’s iPad starting at $500 will go on sale April 3.
Though HP has not released the specs yet, the company’s video shows a device that’s closer to the 9.7-inch display iPad in its design and size.
HP’s slate seems to offer a full capacitive touchscreen and the familiar pinch-to-zoom gesture. Overall, the design resemblance to the iPad is startling, so the Slate could clearly be a tablet for those who want an iPad-like device on the Windows ecosystem.
The Slate has icons that lets users quickly access the browser and apps such as Pandora and the music player. And like the iPad, it will also display digitized versions of magazines and newspapers.
HP’s video also shows the Slate running a video from MTV, a web-based game designed in Flash, photo-editing tools and a digital version of The New York Times.
As for pricing, McKinney states HP could have released a slate two years ago, but it would have cost around $1,500.
“Since then, chip and screen advancements have given us the ability to create a product that can hit a size, weight, battery life and price point that’ll make this product a mainstream offering,” he wrote.
Rumor: Some iPhone Apps Scrapped From iPad by Steve Jobs DaringFireball’s John Gruber claims hearing from “well-informed little birdies” that the iPad will ship without some apps that were included on the iPhone. In his blog post today, Gruber responds to a question I posed last week about iPhone apps that appear to be missing from the iPad. Apple’s iPad press materials recommend the device will […]
DaringFireball’s John Gruber claims hearing from “well-informed little birdies” that the iPad will ship without some apps that were included on the iPhone.
In his blog post today, Gruber responds to a question I posed last week about iPhone apps that appear to be missing from the iPad. Apple’s iPad press materials suggest the device will ship with 12 built-in apps, and noticeably missing are a few wares that came with the iPhone: Stocks, Calculator, Clock, Weather and Voice Memos. So what exactly is going to happen to them when the iPad launches in April?
Gruber, who’s accurately leaked some Apple rumors in the past, cites anonymous sources who state Steve Jobs scrapped the apps in question because they didn’t look or feel right when refitted for the iPad’s more massive screen.
“Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated,” Gruber wrote. “It wasn’t a technical problem, it was a design problem.”
I made a quick guess last week that Apple would stick the missing iPhone apps in the App Store for a free download. Part of my reasoning was that Apple is already allowing the App Store’s 140,000 third-party iPhone apps to run on the iPad, so Apple could technically do the same with its own non-tabletized iPhone apps. But Gruber’s sources advocate we won’t see them at all. That’s believable, because it’s quite Jobs-esque to select to hold Apple’s apps to a higher standard.
With that said, the missing apps won’t be much of a loss, because there are plenty of third-party apps in the App Store that we have the ability to select from as substitutes. (Personally I’m glad I won’t have to see that Stocks app anymore, because I never, ever used it.) Gruber also shoots down blogger Kevin Fox’s speculation that Apple would introduce a “Dashboard” mode to run these missing apps in the background. That’s too bad: I thought that would’ve been a neat solution for multitasking.
Foot-Operated Extension Cord, Not for the Twitchy This week’s first power-strip comes from Woods Ind., supplier of cable-based products to, well, anyone. The six-outlet strip is rated to 1625-Watts and offers a ground-pin for each plug. This is, of course, not reason enough to get onto Gadget Lab. What the strip does have is a massive foot-operated power-switch so you can stamp […]
This week’s first power-strip comes from Woods Ind., supplier of cable-based products to, well, anyone. The six-outlet strip is rated to 1625-Watts and offers a ground-pin for each plug. This is, of course, not reason enough to get onto Gadget Lab. What the strip does have is a large foot-operated power-switch so you can stamp down under your desk and kill everything simultaneously.
Unfortunately, it sports a rather nasty “comedy” illustration of a foot on the switch itself. On the other - um - hand, it only costs $21, and has the added advantage of lacking the blinkenlights that so often blight anything with a power-plug. I’d advocate you don’t plug your actual desktop personal into this device, especially if you are one of those obsessive, foot-tapping types (actually, maybe you should hook up your delicate machine to this hair-trigger power-breaker as punishment for your annoying habit).
For the kind of junk that you should switch off, but leave powered up because you’re too lazy to reach under the desk, this looks like a great solution.
Android Phone Grows Up, Becomes Brain for Real Robot Playing with apps on an Android phone is fun. Building your own apps, even more so. But what about using the phone to operate a moving, talking bot? Tim Heath and Ryan Hickman have done exactly that. The bot they recently finished building — Truckbot — is still relatively easy. It’s got an HTC G1 phone […]
Playing with apps on an Android phone is fun. Building your own apps, even more so. But what about using the phone to operate a moving, talking bot? Tim Heath and Ryan Hickman have done exactly that.
The bot they recently completed building — Truckbot — is still relatively simple. It’s got an HTC G1 phone for a brain, riding on top of a chassis with some wheels and treads. All it can do is roll around on a tabletop, turn and head off in a specified direction. When I visit the workshop where they’re building it, Heath and Hickman show how it can use the phone’s compass to make itself point to the south. But the duo have much more ambitious plans in mind.
“I knew I could build this thing. I just needed a phone,” explains Heath, a Python web engineer. He posted on various e-mail lists looking for one, including that of Hacker Dojo, a Mountain View, California, hackerspace. Hickman, who works for Google’s Doubleclick division, but has no connections to the Android people, saw Heath’s pleas.
They got together and started building. The first bot they built was made out of plastic. They just finished constructing their second bot, called Truckbot, which is lighter and cardboard-based.
They could have bought the expensive $175 Oomlout kit, which includes wheels, motors and an Arduino-based brain. Hickman and Heath opted for making their own chassis. Here’s a full list of parts they used:
$16 Bare bones Arduino
$3 Micro servo
$0.25 Hex inverter (handled 3.3v to 5v conversion)
Total: $30 (plus shipping). To be fair, Heath and Hickman had access to a local workshop, the Tech Shop in Menlo Park, California, which helped tremendously in terms of having the tools to build some parts, like laser-cutting the cardboard chassis.
Their bot is more impressive for its potential than what it currently does. “Unlike most people out there,” states Hickman, as he types commands on the screen of his laptop, “we don’t want to use the phone as a remote control. Rather, it becomes the brain of the operation.”
This means they could utilize every hardware and software component of an Android phone, programming the bot to avoid obstacles, recognize faces and voices, pinpoint its location and go places. An Arduino board, which basically serves as a software-hardware link, isn’t smart enough to handle that, but an Android phone can.
For example, Arduino can detect when the bot bumps into something, but has to rely on the phone to decide on what to do next. As we’re wrapping up, the bot turns towards me and says, “Hello, Miran. Wired is awesome.”
Thanks, Truckbot! I like you too.
Wanna try building your own Android bot? Here is their five-step process:
Laser-cut pieces in cardboard or acrylic using PDF file
Attach breadboard, rear caster, 9V battery, servos, and Arduino using strap ties and glue
Glue servo arms to wheels and attach with the small servo screw
Connect wiring for servos, Arduino, breadboard, HTC USB board and battery
Mount phone with big strap tie and insert USB plug to bottom
To get it to work, you also need to do the following with the OS:
A-Box, A Speaker For Real Men We last encountered a speaker from Thodio back in January 2008, with the scarily Furby-alike iBox. Thodio is still making that teak double-speaker unit with a bass tube, but now it has been joined by a rather more macho model: the A-Box, a speaker which uses an old ammo-box as its case. There are two models, […]
We last came across a speaker from Thodio back in January 2008, with the scarily Furby-alike iBox. Thodio is still making that teak double-speaker unit with a bass tube, but now it has been joined by a rather more macho model: the A-Box, a speaker which uses an old ammo-box as its case.
There are two models, both in 1mm steel-plate. One has glass-fiber speaker cones, the other kevlar, and both weigh in at just under 7KG (15-pounds). The more pricey unit has lights behind the speakers which glow a red to warn when they are being overdriven and distorted. Both A-Boxes have a battery statue light inside the bass-tube which changes color as the power runs down.
It’s pretty cool-looking, but it also looks very home-made, the kind of thing you’d come up with if you were building speakers on the cheap and just needed a box to put them in. They’re not cheap, however. The littler brother is €350 ($475) and the flashier kevlar-coned model is €475 ($645).
Blind Camera Takes Pics From Other Side of the World This blind camera will snap a picture for you, capturing a moment in time. It does this with no lens, no sensor and no viewfinder. In fact, the black box consists of little more than a red button and a screen. Point it where you like, press the “shutter” and the time of your exposure is […]
This blind camera will snap a picture for you, capturing a moment in time. It does this with no lens, no sensor and no viewfinder. In fact, the black box consists of tiny more than a red button and a screen.
Point it where you like, press the “shutter” and the time of your exposure is captured. The box, named Buttons, gets to work trawling the web for a pic taken at the exact moment you pressed your button and when it finds one (minutes or hours later, depending on when somebody else uploads their snap) it will display it on the box’s screen.
The guts of Buttons is a SonyEricsson K750i running custom software. This is what records the time and communicates with a server called Blinks. This server runs a PHP script that searches Flickr for photos matching your data. The massive red button is from an old Agfamatic 901 camera, one of those little flat 110 pocket-cams.
Buttons is a project by artist Sascha Pohflepp, not an actual product. I’d love to see this hacked into an actual trick camera, though: You could hand it to a friend who thought they were snapping pictures all day long, only when they got home, they’d have a bunch of strangers’ photos from around the world. It reminds me of the days when prints would get blended up at the lab: I’m still scarred by those photos I got of my geography teacher’s erotic cosplay.
Blind Camera Takes Photos From Other Side of the World This blind camera will snap a picture for you, capturing a moment in time. It does this with no lens, no sensor and no viewfinder. In fact, the black box consists of little more than a red button and a screen. Point it where you like, press the “shutter” and the time of your exposure is […]
This blind camera will snap a picture for you, capturing a moment in time. It does this with no lens, no sensor and no viewfinder. In fact, the black box consists of tiny more than a red button and a screen.
Point it where you like, press the “shutter” and the time of your exposure is captured. The box, named Buttons, gets to work trawling the internet for a pic taken at the exact moment you pressed your button and when it finds one (minutes or hours later, depending on when somebody else uploads their snap) it will display it on the box’s screen.
The guts of Buttons is a SonyEricsson K750i running custom software. This is what records the time and communicates with a server called Blinks. This server runs a PHP script that searches Flickr for pictures matching your data. The huge red button is from an old Agfamatic 901 camera, one of those little flat 110 pocket-cams.
Buttons is a project by artist Sascha Pohflepp, not an actual product. I’d love to see this hacked into an actual trick camera, though: You could hand it to a friend who thought they were snapping photos all day long, only when they got home, they’d have a bunch of strangers’ photos from around the world. It reminds me of the days when prints would get mixed up at the lab: I’m still scarred by those pics I got of my geography teacher’s erotic cosplay.
IPad Goes on Sale April 3; Pre-Orders Begin in a Week Apple announced Friday that the first iPads will be available on April 3 and that the long-awaited device will be available for pre-order on March 12. The launch is for the Wi-Fi-only version, with the 3G-enabled device on sale later in the month. The late-April release of the 3G version will also coincide with rollout of […]
Apple announced Friday that the first iPads will be available on April 3 and that the long-awaited device will be available for pre-order on March 12. The launch is for the Wi-Fi-only version, with the 3G-enabled device on sale later in the month.
The late-April release of the 3G version will also coincide with rollout of both models in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K., Apple stated.
Apple thoughtfully picked a Saturday for the debut, so fewer early adopters will have to make up lame excuses for not showing up to work and will not have to conceal their true appearances if they are near the front of the line.
This week’s first power-strip comes from Woods Ind., supplier of cable-based products to, well, anyone. The six-outlet strip is rated to 1625-Watts and offers a ground-pin for each plug. This is, of course, not reason enough to get onto Gadget Lab. What the strip does have is a large foot-operated power-switch so you can stamp down under your desk and kill everything simultaneously.
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