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We recently looked at (and liked) a GPS solution for the digital photographer in the form of the GiSTEQ PhotoTrackrPro. This time we have a slightly different approach to the problem of geo-locating photos in the form of the PhotoGPS from German company Jobo AG.
Jobo have been making photographic accessories for a while but this is their first attempt at a GPS unit. It has a uniquely different approach to the competition that mark this as being tool geared towards the more serious photographer.
I’ve spent a few weeks with the GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr Pro – a GPS datalogger that’s aimed at the digital photographer. The idea is to use a GPS receiver to embed location information in photographs which can then be displayed on a map showing where they were taken. It’s not a new concept but it usually involves a certain amount of effort to match the pieces of the puzzle together and things only get trickier when you are using the RAW files produced by modern digital SLRs.
The PhotoTrackr claims to solve both of these problems by being easy to use and supporting a wide range of cameras – follow the jump to see how I got on.
Up front, you need to know that the Canon 5D Mk II is expensive. VERY expensive. Professional expensive. At nearly $3,000 for just the body, it’s not even an early adapter camera and is more for the wedding photographer or professional who’s looking to push the boundaries of their artistic skills. But for the money, photographers will find that the 5D Mk. II puts “every dime on the screen” and then some.
For those with tight desk space in the office, often times an all in one printer solution is a practical answer to the problem. All in ones have been around for over a decade and usually the bad wrap was that if one of the features failed, you couldn’t use the entire unit. So, if the scanner failed, for instance, then the printer was useless to you as well. Luckily, as the all in one printer design matured, much of that main problem has been engineered away. The results are that all in one printers are good solutions that are very affordable, offer nominal performance, and save a ton of space. They’re not perfect, mind you, but for the price it’s hard to argue a demand for perfection. Just performance. This is could have been true with the Kodak ESP 5 All in One printer, if it had been built a little more robustly.
Does it feel like we never get round to downloading our newly snapped photos onto the computer or when we do, its months later and they always just stay there in a file never to be fully enjoyed? Cibox answers this problem with its easy to use 7” Digital Photo Frame C107 from Red Save, applying its many functions such as the changeable frame colours, remote control and slideshow options, to make sure we get the best out of our photos.
As Nat mentioned a few days ago, the launch of the Flip Mino represents the next step in pocket camcorders that provides more on-board memory and decent quality video for the YouTube set. Easy to use, easy to upload. Very low cost. But I can tell you this, the Flip is dead. Killed and buried. With extreme prejudice. By the Kodak Zi6.
With the great success of the Flip Video Ultra selling more than 1 million units, the anticipated launch of the latest product from Flip Video is now just around the corner. Boasting to be up to 40% smaller than the Ultra, have faster image processing and an omni-directional mic, the Flip Mino also has a few other tricks up its sleeves.
As a ‘point and shoot’ revolution the Mino comes in either black or white, is sleek and slim with a 1.5-inch glare-free screen to enhance the notion of its stylishness. The operation of the Mino is simple, literally all you need to do is turn it on, point, press record using the red central button and then play back, but the simplicity of the product does not lose the overall quality. The touch-sensitive buttons glow when that particular function can be used and they are surprisingly easy to use and I rarely had problems with touching buttons that I didn’t want to be touching as the pad is quite spacious. The functions offer advanced playback options: the ability to pause, rewind, and fast-forward movies as well as settings available to lock the delete button for those ‘just in case moments’ and mute the sound for those instances to be sneaky when capturing that perfect video.
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As a kid, I remember my brother always working on his hot rod. He wasn’t a racer, per se. In fact, he had just gotten into the sport. But he wanted to look the part, feel the part, and even get some results on the weekend drag strip. And as such, he spent a lot of time at the local “speed shop” getting the parts he needed to trick out his rod. My other brother was the opposite. He hated working on cars in his spare time because as a mechanic, he did it for a living. As such, he went with a fast car that came that way straight off the showroom floor. The Canon Digital Rebel XSi is like that all in one solution. Packs a punch where it counts, has just enough features to get you into the game, and can grow with you.
