Cameras | Gear Diary

Did You Catch Last Night’s Lunar Eclipse?

Last night Kevin and I watched the lunar eclipse. It was cold but clear outside as we watched the earth’s shadow pass over the moon, and I was able to snap a few photos with my Canon G11. I didn’t have a special lens attachment, I wasn’t using a tripod, these aren’t going to win any awards, and I sure wish that I had planned ahead and got a camera mount for our telescope … but even so, we had a lot of fun watching our fully moonlit yard go dramatically black. How about you? Did you catch the eclipse?…

Reviews

TWIN VIDEO Review: The World’s First Dual Lens Video Camera

Vlogging is a very popular activity these days. If you’re not familiar with it, the process involves recording a video-diary of your life and then posting it online for the world to follow. It seems everywhere I look there’s someone who’s decided to record a portion of their life and post it on the internet. If you’ve ever tried to record yourself while “out and about” you know it’s not easy. Using a standard video camera requires what I like to call the “one arm reach” where you hold the camera in one hand and turn it around. Then you…

News

Random News: Woman Who Put Cat in Trash Pleads Guilty to Animal Cruelty

Do you remember the story from a couple of months ago about a woman in Coventry UK being caught on a security camera tossing a cat into a trash bin? Well, take a look to refresh your memory: Well, after tons of international outrage and attention, the woman was charged with animal cruelty and was fined 250 British pounds. The reason for a fine compared to a more severe charge: District judge Caroline Goulborn said the potential for harm to the cat had been “substantial” but the reality was she had not been hurt. “The media interest in this case…

Editorials

Use Your Cell Cam, Go to Jail

Photo courtesy of ABC News© We don’t talk much about politics here at Gear Diary. It’s not our thing. We’re geeks and nerds here, not PoliSci majors. We like to talk about the positive side of tech. But every once in a while, tech news and politics do bleed into each other. One of the classics is Net Neutrality, of course. Gizmodo being raided by the police for purchasing an allegedly stolen device. Early in my career, encryption software being treated as equivalent to a munition was a hot topic. You get the idea. Since 9/11, a lot of the…

How to Do It Yourself!

Fun on the Fourth and fabulous fireworks photos

While preparing for part II of my ‘Picture This’ digital photography series I discover the calendar has turned to Independence Day here in the States. Many of you will be heading out to catch your local fireworks displays this evening, and some may have already been treated to early celebrations that lit up the night skies. This is not intended to be the definitive authority on fireworks photography, but I hope to assist you in getting better images with some advice I have learned over the past digital decade. First, and perhaps foremost especially given my new series covers photography…

Editorials

Do I Still Need a Flip Camcorder If I Have an iPhone 4?

We received this question from one of our readers… here are the answers from our editorial staff… Dear Gear Diary, Does iPhone 4 kill the flip? I’ve wanted something like that for a while but think the new iPhone might be as good or better. Signed, Flipping Out For The iPhone 4 Dear Flipping Out, Dan: I love my Flip Video Camera. I really do. But I do worry about their future… unless they make one significant change in a hurry. When the iPhone 3GS came out and had the ability to shoot video, I questioned how it might impact…

Reviews

Flip Video Slide HD – Review

I like Flip’s products a great deal. I bought the original Flip and loved it. I loved the on-board software that let you edit and share videos as soon as you plugged it into a computer. And because the software was on the device it didn’t matter what computer I plugged into. I then got to review the Flip Mino and the Flip HD Ultra. Each got better and better. Then came the iPhone 3GS. It shot video. No, it wasn’t HiDef video but it did the job and, thanks to an assortment of apps and the ability to upload…

Reviews

Aluratek Cinecam HD DV Camcorder- Review

all photos are thumbnails; please click to enlarge I am doing more than ever before by way of shooting video these days. No, I’m not like Larry with his 3000 You Tube subscribers, but I am taking some video pretty much every day. In part, this is the result of the iPhone having a “decent enough” video recorder. More than that though, I have come to appreciate that there is nothing like video when it comes to sharing an experience or review with the world. The iPhone is great. It allows you to shoot and then edit video on the…

News

The Imaging Source Allows Amateur Astronomers to Take Amazing Photos

What an amazing thing! The Imaging Source has introduced a line of low-noise astronomy cameras that provide amateur photographers with the necessary tools to take amazing photographs using their telescopes. Priced from $390 to $640, the monochrome and color camera models are available “with and without an IR cut filter in three resolutions: 640×480, 1024×768 and 1280×960. The astronomy cameras deploy low noise CCD chips from Sony, which have an exposure time of up to 60 minutes and a maximum frame rate of up to 60 fps.” Granted, the quality of your pictures will also depend upon the strength of…

News

Car Cam Voyager with LCD, because ‘stuff’ happens

New York-based BrickHouse Security is not only dedicated to assisting the public and government with their security, safety, protection, covert surveillance and counter-surveillance needs, but they also want to offer peace of mind for our mobile environments as well.

News

Pseudoscience at its best: the Uxsight 1.3M Pixels Portable Digital USB Iriscope

You’ve got to hand it to pseudoscience. Why? Because how else could someone like me – a person without an MD – have a chance to speak with absolute authority about things of which I know absolutely nothing. And there are even cool gadgets that you can use while practicing pseudoscience, things that can help make you seem professional and knowledgeable, things like the Uxsight 1.3M Pixels Portable Digital USB Iriscope. Allow me to digress for a moment… Back in the fall of ’86, I went home from college with one of my sorority sisters for the weekend. Before we…

News

Rollip Makes Your Photos Look Like Polaroids

OK, I am definitely a product of the 80’s & 90’s…nothing beats GI Joe (uh..the original!), Saved By the Bell, Alf (yeah that just happened), and Polaroid pictures! Unless you are able to track down one of these relics at a yard sale or flea market, what can you do?.

Reviews

Jelly Lens 6 Image Mirage Maker

Here’s another quick look at a fun gadget from BudgetGadgets.com The Jelly Lens 6 Mirage Maker gently sticks to the lens of your cell phone or digital camera. Once on your phone you can turn regular old photographs into morphed 6 headed images with ease.

Reviews

Mosiaca for iPhone Review

Mosaica is an iPhone application that lets you take panoramic-like images on your iPhone and then upload them to the web where they can be shared with your friends and family. The finished images, called Mosaics are created by taking several pictures in a sequence and then overlapping them to create an interactive panoramic style image. How does Mosaica stack up against the other photography apps of its type I’ve tried?

Reviews

PixRemix Review

Every once and a while an iPhone application comes along that makes you go WOW! Well for me PixRemix is one of those applications. WOW! In simple terms what PixRemix does is allow iPhone users to take a bunch of their pictures and turn them into a slideshow, complete with captions that you can then share via Facebook, Twitter, E-mail etc. The application allows you to create three different types of slide shows. Collage – which is an animated collage made up from as many photos as you select. Slideshow – which is a slide show of your photos. Pan…

Editorials

Pro’s and Cons of Integrated GPS and Cameras

It all started innocently enough when Christopher Gavula e-mailed the team about the Mapquest on iPhone article. Wayne responded with an email on how much he liked the Palm Pre’s navigation program and wished standalone GPS makers well because from his point of view the Pre’s included turn-by-turn Telenav software/GPS combination all but put the nail in the standalone automotive GPS coffin. And it all spun off from there. Join us in another behind the scenes look at the Pro’s and Con’s of integrated devices.

Reviews

Auto Stitch for iPhone Review

Remember those old point and shoot cameras that had the selector on the back allowing you to snap panoramic images whenever you wanted? With the newly released application Auto Stitch from Cloudburst Research, taking quality panoramic images on your iPhone is just as easy. photo courtesy of Auto Stitch

Reviews

USB Fever Borescope Review

Have you ever dropped something in your PC case, and then could not find it amongst the chips, resistors, capacitors and other various nooks and crannies? Next time, you can use this nifty USB Fever Borescope to find it.

Reviews

Blue Eyeball Web Cam Review

Blue has been well known for their microphones. They are of exceptional quality, they look good, and they are very well built. Well Blue has taken one of their most portable microphones, the Snowflake, and made it into a webcam called the Eyeball.

Reviews

Flip UltraHD Review

Yesterday we posted on the two new video camera’s from Pure Digital. The new Flip Ultra and UltraHD. Today a review unit arrived. 🙂 It is a definite step up from the Flip units I have used before, and yet it retains the small size, ease of use and reasonable price. Let’s take a look.

Editorials, How to Do It Yourself!

Bloggers Photo Guide

The idea for this post came from a little back and forth amongst the GearDiary team concerning getting better images to go along with our blog entries. Specifically, some were looking for tips to produce better tech gear images with monitor screens, i.e., multimedia devices, smartphones, laptops, video monitors, etc.