camera

Integral Compact Camera Case Review

25th March 2013 1 Reply Christopher Roberts

It’s been about two weeks since I last posted an article, and to get back into the swing of things, I am going to do a review.

Camera Case Review

The beauty of today’s review, is that it is a case that is suitable for the majority of compact digital cameras. In my most recent case review, I looked at a case for the BlackBerry Curve 8900, which was a great case that I am still using, however it wasn’t a general case for use with all phones, which meant it was more of a niche market product. The camera case I am going to review today, can protect most modern, small and medium sized compact cameras.

Integral Compact Camera Case

The case in question is an Integral Compact Camera Case, which (at the time of purchase) costs £16.99 GBP. You might be wincing at the price already, as you can pick up a reasonably good camera case for just a few pounds these days. So what makes this case special?

As you would expect, the case is secure. The case has a strong zip, with two metal pull tab sliders, so you can open and close the case with ease.

Inside the case, there is an additional storage pocked. I use it to store the batteries, although you can use it for anything really, a spare memory card, credit cards, whatever you like really.

The case feels very firm, yet the inside is softer to ensure that your camera doesn’t get damaged. I think the case would be better were it to have slightly more padding on the inside, as it is a multi-camera case, small cameras could potentially break easier, as the case is fairly roomy.

The case has a belt loop and a strap, so you can either wear it over your arm, attach it to your belt, or carry it in your pocket.

Additional Features

A fantastic additional add-in that comes with the case is a 16Gb SDHC memory card. Most compact digital cameras now support SDHC , and 16GB is a lot of photos! On one of its best settings, my camera can take around 4,000 photos, which is a lot! The memory card has a transfer speed of up to 20Mb per second, which is pretty fast, meaning that when taking photos, and downloading them to your PC, the memory card shouldn’t ever slow you down.

Overall I really like the case, it is simple and does the job of protecting my camera well. It is easy to carry around, and is reasonably sturdy, so that were I to drop it (not that I plan to) I think it should protect my device. 🙂

The camera case used in this review was provided by Love Cases, who have asked us to point you in the direction of their camera cases, so if you liked this review, you know where to get a case!

An analysis of the iPhone 5

19th December 2012 10 Replies Christopher Roberts

Is is nearly 3 months since the 6th incarnation of Apple’s iconic iPhone, the iPhone 5, was released. Often I think it is more interesting to discuss a technology a few months after its release, rather than just straight away, as faults have been exposed, and there are opinions about long-term use.

In this article I am going to explore what the critics think of the iPhone 5, the good, the bad and the faulty!

So what makes the iPhone unique from any other phone? Samsung would argue very little, because as soon as Apple’s latest smartphone was released, Samsung announced that it was filing a lawsuit against Apple, because it had infringed many of its patents.

Size and Weight

The iPhone 5 is bigger than its predecessor (the iPhone 4S). It is taller, the same width, and slightly thinner. When smartphones first hit the market, there seemed to be a race to make them smaller. Now however, the trend seems to be towards developing a bigger screen. Tablets are getting smaller and smartphones are getting bigger – will the two ever merge? I think they might, so watch this space!

Despite being bigger, the latest model is 28g lighter than the previous model, weighing an amazing 112g. Considering the technology inside the device, that is an impressive weight!

The pace of development of inbuilt cameras in mobile phones is staggering. The iPhone 5 has an 8 megapixel camera, which is very competitive considering that just a few years ago, 8MP was pretty good for a digital camera – which isn’t also a phone.

Reception

One of the main criticisms of the iPhone 5 is that it has stopped being a phone. Logically the primary purpose of a smartphone should be to call and text people, browsing the internet, using apps, taking pictures and other features are optional extras, and shouldn’t be the main function of the device. That said, there have been many reports about people finding that the iPhone 5 has really bad signal problems. I know of two people who are on the same network, one with a Samsung Galaxy S III and one with an iPhone 5. The person who owns the Galaxy can almost always get signal, whilst the person who owns the iPhone can’t. When the phones are in the exact same place, the Samsung device can get signal, but the Apple device can’t.

Speed

Because of all the new features of the phone, it needs to have a good processor, and it does. There was hope that it might have a quad-core processor, which it didn’t, however it does have a pretty good A6 processor, which is very speedy, and is what makes the iPhone 5 feels quick and slick. Match that performance with the 4-inch Retina display, and you have a very fast and flashy phone!

Siri

Siri has seen a few updates, but nothing major. The initial introduction of Siri in the iPhone 3GS was revolutionary, and there is still relatively little viable competition out there for Siri, however one expects an iPhone to come with Siri these days.

Maps

The iPhone 5 was the first phone released by Apple with iOS 6 – which had Apple Maps installed. Apple Maps is Apple’s own version of Google Maps, which has replaced Google Maps on the operating system.

Some of the navigation features have been praised, as having better clarity and being more useful than the Google alternative; especially due to the inbuilt Siri compatibility.

That said, there are major issues with Apple Maps, in that it can be really inaccurate. Australian police have actually advised people against using the software, after they had to rescue motorists stranded in the wilderness of a national park who were trying to find a city, which Apple Maps thought was in the middle of the the wilderness, not where it should have been!

Many places are not where they are meant to be, some just a few miles out, others quite a lot further! One example is Berlin. You know, that city in Germany. The capital city of Germany. Well according to Apple Maps, Berlin is on the continent of Antarctica, which isn’t only the wrong continent, but also the wrong hemisphere! Have a search for Apple Maps fails, and you get some pretty funny results!

Apple Maps really does think that Berlin is in the Antarctic!

Awards

The iPhone 5 isn’t short of awards. The phone is top of Time Magazine’s top 10 gadgets list 2012, which is a big achievement!

Sales of the phone are something else for Apple to celebrate. In the first three days of the phone being on sale, there were 5 million sales! That is 1 million more than the iPhone 4S got in its first three days.

Your Thoughts

Do you own an iPhone 5? If so, what do you think of it? Do you like the phone and iOS 6, it it revolutionary, or was it a waste of money?

A look into the technology used in live television

28th September 2012 1 Reply Christopher Roberts

Around the world billions of people watched the Olympic Games last month. In this article I am going to explore the technology that is used in order to get the live action, be it aquatics, basket ball or shooting, from the event, onto our TV screens.

Live TV is a little different to recorded television. With recorded television, it has often been carefully chopped up and edited before it hits our screens. With live TV, the luxury of being able to remove mistakes isn’t there, as too much a delay would mean events were actually not live. There are a few seconds of delay between real events and what you see on your TV screen, like their is with radio, however this isn’t enough time for any extensive editing.

So imagine we are watching the men’s Olympic 100 metres final. Usain Bolt lines up along with two other Jamaicans, three Americans, a Trinidadian man and a Dutch man. The starters pistol blows and then what?

Well there is a lot more video broadcast equipment involved than you might think!

The Camera

The first part of the chain is the cameras. These capture all the events first hand. At an event like the Olympics, there will usually be tens, and sometimes hundreds of cameras, and a good broadcaster will always try to keep them out of shot of each other – so you don’t get a camera panning to a shot which features another camera in it!

The camera may be free standing, or it could be on a dolly or a jib. A camera dolly is effectively a track that the camera sits on, so that it is able to move smoothly to capture moving action. A jib is a device which has a camera on one end and a counterweight on the other. A jib allows a camera to be moved freely around an area. When you see a swooping style shot on television, that will usually have been achieved by a jib.

A camera dolly

The camera will have various different wires coming out of it which will ultimately lead to a monitor. Behind the monitor will be a director who decides how and where the camera is to move to get the best shot.

The Mixing Desk

The camera will then link into a mixing desk, which in a live event like the Olympics will usually be in a really big, extremely technical looking van. Inside the van will have a number of operators choosing which of the hundreds of buttons to press, and which shot should be used – don’t forget there will be loads!

This van will control the stream of visual and audio footage that is send to TV sets across the area, country and possible the world. Sometimes the format of the stream may have to be changed. To do this a digital media streamer is usually used. To see an example of what a digital media streamer looks like, have a look at the Sencore website – under the Signal Sources tab.

Once the finalised stream is ready, a great big satellite dish on top of the van (the one with the mixing equipment inside) will transmit the stream to a satellite high up above the earth.

The Satellite

The satellite then sends the signal to all the local masts where the stream will be broadcast from. These masts are usually called television masts and are often really tall thin metal structures with a flashing red light on top – to warn passing aircraft.

Your House

The television masts are transmitting the signal far and wide, and your areal on your roof will pick up this signal. It will then pass down the wires in your house and after an exchange box reach your TV, where thanks to either LEDs, plasma, or some other means, you will see Bolt steam to victory!

If you have a satellite dish the process is slightly different as you receive the feed directly from the satellite. Also if you have a portable aerial, you bypass all the wires in your house.

So, that is how a live event reaches your TV screen, and it does all of that in less that 30 seconds. Pretty amazing don’t you think?

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