arduino, robots, cameras, and life

I have a Hp mini netbook, an xbox, a canon 7D dslr, a canon powershot point and shoot camera and an iphone.
The netbook is a hackintosh.
The xbox has a mod chip so it can act as a media server.
The powershot is running CHDK which enables an intervalometer and motion detection.
The iPhone is jailbroken so I can run non “approved” apps on it.
I paid full price for all of those devices and I haven’t caused any direct monetary loss for the producers of those devices. I consider that a win-win situation. The hardware manufacturer makes good hardware, and then I am able to do something with it that was not initially considered by the manufacturer. I paid for it, I should be able to modify it.

When I bought the 7D I knew that there was a ‘hacking’ effort underway and I was looking forward to some day when it would bear fruit. I have checked in every few months since then and I finally realized that instead of bearing fruit, Canon has killed the tree. With each consecutive firmware update, canon has locked the hardware down more and more. They have made it harder to develop for and now it is at the point where development has stopped. How does this help canon sell even one more camera?

I honestly don’t expect them to go out of their way to help us hack their hardware. I do expect them to help their bottom line by making innovative hardware cheaply, and making it as flexible as possible so that huge numbers of people buy it. Their continued efforts to encrypt and lock down the firmware on their cameras confuses me because their cameras still have a lot of flaws. The time that their programmers and engineers put into “locking the gates” could have been spent adding audio levels, reducing shutter effects, or enabling a record time greater than 12 minutes! As a law abiding purchaser of their hardware I am really offended. I am offended that they went on the attack instead of graciously acknowledging that their cameras are the focus of some innovative creative people. I am also saddened because I can not think of a way that it is good for the company, or the consumer, or the industry. This seems like equal parts greed and ignorance.

If you understand why they do this, I would love to hear it. If not, then I’m sure canon would love to hear it.

Public Relations Department
Corporate Communications Division
One Canon Plaza
Lake Success, NY 11042
E-mail: pr@cusa.canon.com

I can only hope that there will be a lot of other happy people unwrapping new cameras this christmas. I bought my 7d about a month ago, and the best/worst thing is that now I realize buying it is just the beginning. I want to buy sooo much gear to use with it, and it is tough to find well recommended, modestly priced gear. Here is the short list of what I have or want to buy, to wet your creative whistle.

bogen tripod with fluid head.
If you buy nothing else on this list, get a tripod and a fluid head. The 5d/7d do not have ANY image stabilization capabilities, so if you plan on using any lens longer than a 50 you will need to use a tripod. The fluid head is also critical because many other types of heads are built for still photos. They are easily adjustable, but not in smooth movements. A fluid head is designed for video, and is the only real way to get a smooth pan.

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here’s a quick video I put together with my new dslr: the Canon 7d. I’ll run down my gear and workflow in a lil bit, but for now, here’s the vid.
Canon 7d test / Coffee facts

There really are few magazines that I eagerly look forward to. There are even fewer that I can’t hold back from reading in the bookstore BEFORE my subscription arrives (I just can’t hold back!) MAKE is chock full of cool projects, ideas, and people. They have detailed build plans for some of their projects, and they are always a source of inspiration. To give a gift subscription click here of just go to http://www.makezine.com/ There seem to be a few different deals out there. Sometimes you can get a makers notebook for free, and sometimes you can get an extra issue. You get to pick your deal.

It should also be noted that their blog is one of my main interests on the internet. You can find it at http://blog.makezine.com/ and it is almost like a new issue that arrives every time you hit the refresh button!

Make seems to be about celebrating the unabashed love of technology, and I unabashedly love that. If you know of someone who might like it – get it for them. If you already get it – loan out a few copies to your friends. This magazine deserves some more evangelism!

I have always wanted to do this kind of photography, but with most digital cameras there is simply no way you can leave the shutter open and the sensor on for a few hours. My D40 starts to get some serious noise after a few minutes, and there clearly must be an upper limit due to the sensor overheating. Luckily for me there is a relatively simple way to compose LOTS of shots into one image and achieve the same effect.
For those who only want to mile high review of it, here it is. Take a ton of pictures with a long-ish shutter speed. (for this one I used 10 seconds) and then layer them all in photoshop on top of each other and use the
“screen” blending mode to get them all visible.
The actual application of this can be difficult, because it is either REALLY time consuming, or it requires some thought and scripting. I decided to go for the latter and use my noggin a bit.

Scripting a photoshop action.
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