Cheap Curiousities and Expensive Ones

Cheap Curiousities and Expensive Ones

Byrichard

Mobile Phones


We are in a pandemic and I am between contracts, two reasons for which having an interest in the latest mobile phones is a futile pass time. I tried to revive my old Android phone and succeeded. I sometimes find it hard to get the phone recharged, and when it is recharged I need to keep it charged. This time I had a bonus problem. No data connection



I tried to connecting to wifi, no luck. I tried using the mobile phone’s data connection, no luck. I tried using one phone as a hotspot. No luck either. Restart the phone, no luck. In the end I tried a factory reset and the problem was resolved. Data worked both on wifi and 4g. The phone is old, but at least it allows me to play with Android when I want to.


Nettle Tea


I read that Nettle tea tastes of various things, honey, grass, slightly minty, spinach and more. The combination of those tastes didn’t sound appealing, except for mint and honey. I also wanted to see what they taste of. I spent an entire 2.95 for twenty tea bags and I tried it. When it’s dry it smells like hay, and when you smell it in boiling hot water it smells quite bad, like fish, or some other unpleasant smell. I then tasted it and it tastes like it smells when it’s dry. Hay. It’s like drinking the smell of a barn. You can see why people mix it with other flavours. Now I have one less thing to be curious about.


Jungfrau Tea


Jungfrau Tea, named after the mountains is made from seven herbs. It is made from a combination of round leaved mint, citrous thyme, orange mint, fennel seed, Lemon balm, Achilles Yarrow and mauve. I am confused by the lat one. The taste is definitely different. It has texture and I consider that it could almost be good. I have not added sugar or anything else and it has had time to sit so I may not be getting the full experience.


For more info


The Pandemic


I try not to write about the pandemic too much. We are stuck in a loop where governments make mistakes, and people who don’t follow international news go along with it. We are four or five waves into this pandemic in Switzerland and it is only possible to remain positive if we expect little from our governments. England, Switzerland and Sweden have governments that are trying to ignore the problem, and pretend that it is endemic as soon as possible.


Meanwhile in most of Asia the pandemic is under control and there is less human suffering. Europe and the US are suffering, and yet other nations are not. Some people say that it is because in the West we have selfish cultures where the individual is put on a pedestal and community is ignored, while in Asia there is community spirit, and this helps to control the pandemic.


Either way, Covid-Zero should be prioritised over the fool’s errand of endemicity.


Now you understand why I avoid writing about the pandemic.

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Ingress and the Sony Xperia Z3

Byrichard

Ingress is a game that requires a data connection, GPS data and the screen to be on. As a result of this battery consumption is high. Earlier today I took the Sony Xperia Z3 out in the rain and played for two solid hours non stop walking from portal to portal and the battery was at 50 percent. This is excellent compared to other devices.

Screenshot_2014-12-14-16-25-59 Screenshot_2014-12-13-20-16-29

 

The phone is also waterproof to a depth of one meter therefore the rain we had this afternoon was no hindrance to game play. Every so often I had to wipe the screen as the touch screen stopped functioning as well as it should due to the signals it was getting from the rain.

 

On the HDR-SR12

Byrichard

It’s no secret that I now own an HDR SR 12. It’s a small light weight video camera that shoots in high definition at 1920x1080i but I’ve been shooting at 1440×900 most of the time. Recently I went through the streets of Nyon filming people as they enjoyed the first real day of spring.

I filmed a diversity of things. The White Castle, couples sitting by a wall drinking cans of some fluid and people walking around. There’s even footage of a guy filming a girl presenting products for something. I have no idea of their goal.

As I watched the video back on a 40″ monitor I was really happy with the results. The picture was sharp, the colours were great and you really could look around the image to see every little detail.

Recently I lent my camera to a very knowledgable friend of mine, when it comes to broadcasting and he was happy with the results too. He was telling me about watching images with XV colour, which I hadn’t paid much attention. He told me that for certain natural colours, green for example when the light was just right the saturation was really nice. He was using a Samsung screen whilst I was experimenting with Sony.

What I feel is particularly gratifying is that this, by broadcast standards, is a really cheap camera and already it delivers top rate results. Of course with progressive imaging it would be better and it does lack when subjects are back lit. I wrote about some of the drawbacks in a recent post but it’s still an excellent camera.

I have a few documentary ideas I will need to get round to filming as summer approaches. I do want to take advantage of having such a light camera.

My new Toy, the HDR-SR12E

Byrichard

After talking to a friend about possible collaborations in the near future I decided not to invest too much money on a new camera so I bought the Sony HDR-SR12. It’s a small easy to carry video camera that records in AVCHD at a resolution of 1920 by 1080i.

The hard drive is 120 gigs for a total recording time of over 30hrs depending on what you want to shoot. I chose the highest quality setting and I still get 1780 minutes of recording time, more than enough for a day’s shooting. It’s a small camera, much easier to travel with and there are no moving parts and no need for tapes. I love that, it means I can start editing as soon as I get home. I’m tapeless at last, I’ve been waiting years for this moment.

It’s charging so I can’t play with it quite yet but I’ll keep you informed as to developments on this topic.

As a side note video capture is easy, just use log and transfer rather than log and capture in Finalcut Pro. It’s shift option 8.

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The London Videoforum – Cameras

Byrichard

From the 30th of January to the 1st of February 2008 the VideoForum event was held at Earl’s Court in London so that Television and video professionals may meet and talk in a number of conferences, seminars and tutorials as well as on stands. During this time I got to see what were the major trends in the video producing environment in London and England as a whole.

Cameras

Two Red Cameras were on the Showroom floor yesterday, one owned by  Decodeuk and the other I am not sure about. It’s a nice camera in that it can shoot 2 to 4K but the price to rent per day is very high at the moment. It’s a technician’s camera rather than a cameraman’s camera.

Other camers that I saw and thought of interest were the Canon XH A1 which is a beautiful camera and all the controls are in the right place. Two drawbacks are that it seems to record in interlace and that it’s only tape based. If it recorded to hard disk i would seriously think of getting it. The second camera was the Panasonic HVX-200 because the controls are directly accessible from the body of the camera rather than sub menues. It’s interesting because it records as well to P2 cards as to tape so there’s the option of both. The PMW EX-1 XDCAM is another really nice camera. I’m fond of Sony cameras and this is one of the nicer ones. With the ability to take two two XDCAM EX flash cards it has a potential of around 32 Gigabytes. The Flash cards are small therefore easier to deal with and carrying spares should be good.

What I love about these three cameras as well as others is that they’re small as people move towards towards a new filming mentality. Of course you can go for the Sony F23, the F900 or others but these are small. Most of their size is due to the lens rather than the interior mechanism and they’re hand held rather than shoulder mounted. The VX1-E and subsequent cameras were great for shooting and once more these cameras are being made to create cameras that are very appealing to those that shoot video the same way as I do.