Flat-packed tripod

Manfrotto is a well-known brand among camera enthusiasts for its sturdy (and expensive) tripods. That's not to say it doesn't have anything for the casual user. Here's one of its cheapest and smallest models, the Modo Pocket. When folded, it can be easily tucked away. When you need a stable surface for that difficult flash-free shot in low light, whip this baby out, unfold it, and you have an instant tripod. Well, quadpod, if you want to be anal about it.

There are other cheap mini tripods around which will cost significantly less than this one which goes for US$30. But hey, it's a Manfrotto, a brand that gives you bragging rights immediately. The company has distributors almost everywhere in the world, so check with your local camera store if the Modo Pocket is available in your country.

Via Red Ferret Journal

Image banking the Swiss Way

Swiss banks are known best for its integrity and safety. So it is a natural choice to go with the Swiss when choosing an image bank to back up your digital images.

Swiss Picture Bank is an online storage site for your digital images. Pretty much like a real bank, you can "deposit" or/and "withdraw" your images anytime, anywhere with an Internet connection.

Swiss Picture Bank promises to keep the images you deposit with them safe for up to a lifetime, depending on which plan you purchase. The pricing starts from US$0.03 per image for 30 years to US$0.06 for 99 years. What's more, you only have to pay once. There is no monthly or yearly subscription plan that you have to look out for.

The Swiss Picture Bank is partner with Swisscom IT Services and its subsidiary company, Comit. The latter provides the IT infrastructure to Swiss banks so you can have a peace of mind when you choose to store your pictures with the company.

Swiss Picture Bank is backed by the Picture Guarantee Foundation, a non-profit, independent foundation that was established to ensure that the images would be secure. All the files are duplicated, encrypted and stored on several different servers in Switzerland so you can be sure that there will always be a copy.

In the unfortunate event that Swiss Picture Bank loses any of your images, it will pay you back 30 times the amount you spent to back up that particular picture. But it is so confident that this will never happen that it states on its website, "...we’ll never have to try".

Uploading is a breeze with the Photobot Guardian. The program is installed in your computer and you can set it to monitor several folders. When you add new images to these folders, the Photobot Guardian will automatically upload them to the database. This free program will be available soon for download here. Alternatively, you can also upload your images via the Swiss Picture bank Web site.

For the environmental conscious, you’ll be glad to know that Swiss Picture Bank’s data centers are powered by hydroelectric plants (energy supplies that is 98 percent carbon-free) scattered across Switzerland.

EazzzY USB camera

This little concept idea from Korean designer Sungwoo Park harks back to the funky plastic toy cameras that run on ISO film, are dirt cheap and plenty of fun for impulse shoots that test your creativity and imagination. This is nowhere near a Lomo camera, however. It's so stripped-down, there's no buttons save one, a pinhole viewfinder and, gasp, no LCD display.

Try framing a decent group shot with this! That said, this tiny snapper ingeniously utilizes USB connectivity to directly download images, which means there has to be some memory onboard (no specs given) and a battery to power all this. Which also means you can conveniently plug-and-play your efforts on any device with a USB port anytime and hit the Del just as conveniently. Smile, and say Simple Simon.


Via Yanko Design

Sony Ericsson's most powerful Cyber-shot phone yet

It's true when they say the best stuff can usually be found in Japan only. While the rest of the world is ogling at the latest mobiles from Sony Ericsson at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Japanese-Swedish phone maker has already announced in Japan the W61S--possibly the most feature-packed Cyber-shot to date.

Set to debut with operator KDDI this March/April, the W61S is loaded with an extensive camera feature set that puts it almost on par with some midrange standalone cameras. Onboard are a 5.11-megapixel CMOS sensor (employing the same "Exmor" technology as the Sony Alpha dSLRs) and 3x optical zoom lens. In addition to anti-shake and autofocus, the camera-phone also comes with Kaokime Lite (auto brightness with face detection for natural skin tones) and Smile Shutter Lite (similar to the Smile Shutter for the T200).

What's noteworthy about the W61S is that its cutting-edge features extend beyond its camera profile. For instance, it comes with onboard GPS which allows geotagging of images. A 2.8-inch WVGA (480×800) screen equipped with Bravia technology will also be something worth looking out for, not to mention a microSD card slot, Bluetooth, TV-out, LED flash and automatic lens cover. Unfortunately, the W61S will work on only CDMA 1XWIN networks supporting EV-DO Rev.A technology. So until a GSM version comes out, if it ever does, this remains pretty much a Japan-only handset for the rest of the Asia and the world to get green-eyed over.

Could JPEG XR deliver cheaper, better burst shooting?

When Canon's Chuck Westfall popped by last month to give us a sneak preview of the EOS 450D, I expressed my disappointment that the camera's RAW continuous-shooting maxed out at a mere 6 frames. I asked Chuck if there was anything on the horizon that might deliver a better RAW burst-shooting experience for the can't-afford-a-Mark III set. His immediate and somewhat unexpected response: "JPEG XR". A few weeks later, I put a similar question to Casio's Scott Nelson, a product manager in the camera division, as he showed off the company's burst-mode blitzkrieg, EX-F1--a camera which doesn't support RAW for burst shooting. He, too, indicated that JPEG XR held the key for delivering higher-quality, high frame-rate photos at reasonable prices.

Never let it be said that I couldn't recognize a trend once it whacked me on the head a couple of times.

RAW files--data straight from the sensor--place a heavy performance burden on a digital camera. Though they're same dimensions as JPEGs, RAW files support 12-bit or deeper color, while JPEG and its widely ignored successor, JPEG 2000, support only 8 bits. That makes the RAW file footprint bigger, even when compressed, and increases the required amount of buffer memory. Furthermore, while JPEG-processing chips are cheap, the proprietary nature of RAW files makes it necessary to use dedicated silicon for processing them with any speed. That's a lot of cost to add to a sub-US$1,000 dSLR or enthusiast shooter.


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