Homemade Videos | At Home with Tech

November 6, 2016

I Destroyed this Camera While Wiping Out on My Bike

This is the story of the tragic, final mission of my trusty Canon S100 pocket camera. And I’ve even got the video to show. But after I heal, I must face a tough decision…? Should I get one of those wicked-expensive 1-inch sensor compact cameras? Or go it alone with just my iPhone?

This sad tale falls under the category of ‘dumb daddy.’ Straight and simple. I had absolutely no business trying to videotape my six year old riding his new bicycle… while I was following him on my bike. It was an obviously dangerous stunt trying to grip my old Canon S100 camera in my right hand while steering with my left.
(They make GoPro cameras for these moments!)

I wasn’t careful to stay far enough behind my boy in case he braked hard, requiring me to do the same.

But come on… I’ve been riding bikes for decades. I could this handle this, right?

Nope.

Daddy Wipes Out Big Time
So I ended up squeezing the brakes a little too hard right after my son suddenly hit his own brakes and wobbled a bit. He recovered nicely, but I felt a slight loss of balance. Then time began slowing down. My brain started screaming at me…. “Do something, you fool!”

But all of that extra ‘neuro-time’ wasn’t at all helpful to correct my new downward trajectory or prevent my ultimate wipeout. At the very last nanosecond, I remember thinking how silly this all was… that it was actually me… who couldn’t stay on his bike.

BAM!

The Final Shot Tells the Whole Story
After impact, I quickly realized that I had some pretty gooey road rash across the underside of my left forearm and on the base of my right palm.
(Big ouch)

A bit dizzy, I looked around for my camera, which had been recording through until the ‘accident.’

A few feet away, I saw it on the ground, frozen in time from its final seconds of operation.
(Oh no!)

Its still extended lens was bent and mangled by the blunt force it had also received from my fall. I think this was a career-ending moment for my compact camera.

There were no signs of life…

I pulled out the SD media card from my dead camera’s underside, and the card remarkably looked undamaged.

Then, I had a thought…
Did my dying Canon successfully save its final movie file right up until the crushing end?

It did!

Wanna see?

R.I.P. Canon Camera.

So now what…?

This Camera Had Two Lives
Why?
WHY??
WHYYYYYY!

It was so young!!!

Well, actually it wasn’t. I had it for four years already.
(Which is like 87 years in camera years)

And no, I didn’t have a service contract on the camera.

Sure, I could try to have it repaired and foot the bill myself, but I’ve gone down that road once before. It had simply fallen from my lap onto a wooden floor. That time, there was no visible damage, but it cost me over a hundred bucks to get it working again.

Two lives are enough. It was time to let my Canon S100 go…

Live Your Life in Full HD
And time for an upgrade!

Sure, I liked my Canon S100, but the biggest problem with my old point and shoot was it was stuck recording videos in a time before 1080 HD and 4K. It recorded its videos at a paltry 720P at 30 fps.
(It could only record 1080 at 24 fps.)

The HD video world has moved on!

It’s really not a good practice to compile archival family videos using yesterday’s technologies and file formats. It just makes it that much harder to future proof them.

And one day, when you want to edit together your family history video, you’re not going to be happy trying to use your puny 720P HD files along with your 1080P, 4K, 5K and 8K files.
(I expect one day, they’ll figure out how to jam 8K into a pocket cam!)

The Smartphone Solution is Good
You might be wondering why is silly Barrett even talking about getting another point and shoot camera? Can’t smartphones handle most daily family point and shoot moments these days?

And don’t they also shoot video at 1080P HD and 4K?
Well, yeah…
They do.

So where’s the method to my madness?

Your Smartphone Still Isn’t Good Enough
Two reasons:

iPhones have limited memory and HD video files are huge. So that solution is only going to be a short-term play… unless you’re exceptionally diligent about offloading your video files from your device. Standalone cameras can use an unlimited number of SD cards. (As many as your wallet will allow)
A dedicated point and shoot camera with a good zoom lens and solid low light capability still can’t be beat by any smartphone out there today.

The Sudden Evolution of the Compact Camera
And a funny thing has happened to point and shoot cameras over the past few years. Engineers gave them a secret weapon…

Large sensors!

Camera manufacturers realized that point and shoot cameras were rapidly becoming obsolete as smartphones were taking over the world. So they attempted a game changer by jamming large, 1-inch style sensors for bulky DSLR cameras into their tiny cameras.

And that little trick creates a compact camera that takes better pictures.
(Especially in low light)

Huge Price Tags
And tiny cameras that are twice as expensive!!!

Canon’s current flagship pocket camera is the Canon G7 X Mark II. It’s a beauty with its 1-inch sensor, but it sells for a whopping $649.
Even on Amazon!
Even at B&H Photo!

This Canon has a 24-100mm F1.8-F2.8 lens
And takes HD video at 1080/60p video capture

Sweet!

But it’s not the only game in town.
The Canon G7 X Mark II has two major competitors:

Panasonic DMC-Lumix ZS100: $699.99

25-250mm equivalent F2.8-5.9 lens
4K video

Sony RX100 V: $899

24-70mm equivalent F1.8-2.8 lens
4K video
(The RX100 series is commonly viewed as the camera to beat.)

But among these high-end compact cameras, there’s still no perfect choice…

The Canon can’t shoot in 4K.
The Panasonic has a slower lens.
The Sony costs 40% more.

In Search of the Deal
Sure, there are still way-cheaper pocket cameras on the market… but the question of how they’re any better than your smartphone’s camera becomes more difficult to answer…

For me, I continue to pursue the ‘rare’ ability to capture great family moments in low light with a camera. The better your tool, the greater the chance for success.

But these are admittedly expensive tools. It would certainly help the decision-making process if you could find a sale on one of them.

Hmmm…

The holidays are just around the corner.
That could be my ticket to the deal I’m looking for.

For the time being, I’ll struggle through with my iPhone 6 Plus and an old Canon PowerShot Elph camera I’ve still got.
(That I haven’t destroyed yet)

While I wait to find my deal on my holiday camera purchase, I’ll ponder the following questions:

Should I future-proof now and go all 4K video?
Is it smart pocketing such expensive gear?
Should I abandon my life-long commitment to Canon?

I welcome any suggestions out there regarding which camera to go with…

How Many Cameras Have You Destroyed?
A final thought on my ongoing (and sometimes dangerous) pursuit for the perfect family camera…

Do you recall that once upon a time, I bemoaned my questionable wisdom when I gave my son his own camera a couple years back…?
(Which he accidentally dropped and broke)

To be fair, I think it’s time to update the Lester family’s camera destruction stats:

1 broken camera- 4-year-old son
1 broken camera- Daddy
1 destroyed camera- Daddy

So I’m ahead 2 to 1!
Maybe I should really think about camera insurance for my next purchase!

October 2, 2016

Try This Time-Lapse Idea with Your iPhone

I’ve found numerous opportunities over the past couple of years to shoot slow motion videos with my iPhone. (My six-year-old boy usually moves so fast… it’s often fun to slow some of that down.) But time lapse? Not so much.

In fact, I’ve rarely attempted time lapse. Part of the challenge is you’ve got to plan for it, and it’s going to take you some time to capture.
(That’s the whole point.)

Imagine my glee when I spontaneously generated a time-lapse sequence over the weekend during one of my more mundane of chores… recycling cans and bottles at my local Stew Leonard’s supermarket.

The new variable this time was my son had accompanied me…

What makes this 28-second movie more than the sum of its parts is the fact that my first grader took over all of the heavy lifting.
(I quickly realized I was just along for the ride.)

Take a look at the top of this post!

DIY Tripod
Being an observer for fifteen minutes allowed me the opportunity to try this time lapse.

The hard part was figuring out where to put my iPhone without a tripod. I ended up propping it up against a two by four near the ground, hoping it wouldn’t fall over.

Repetition is the Key
I think this movie is fun because it magnifies repetition to tell its story…
What is boring in normal time is something entirely different sped up.
(Though it’s clear my son was not particularly bothered by the challenge of popping over 300 cans and bottles into the recycling machines. I suppose it didn’t hurt that I told him he could keep all of the redeemed nickels for his piggy bank.)

My difficulty with time lapse to date has been my limited belief that time lapse is supposed to show something grand that’s playing out very slowly.
(You just can’t do that in the moment without some planning.)

Something like this turns that equation on its head. Now we’re looking for repeating, ‘simple’ moments to capture that are anything but grand.

But by collecting the sum of them, you’re creating more of a ‘point of view.’

Now that’s interesting.
(And if you find this obvious, please cut me some slack. We all learn at our own pace!)

Lots of Cans
You might be wondering…
Why so many cans and bottles?

One word – seltzer.
My family loves the stuff.
(But to be fair, I was long overdue for this recycling trip. This represented all of our summer seltzer fun.)

Find More Time Lapse in Your Life
So keep an open mind as you traverse your day to day.
If you find yourself thankfully sidelined during an otherwise mundane series of moments, that series could have some fun visual value as a time-lapse video.

Try it out!

March 1, 2015

Counting Coins for Free

It’s time to redeem all your extra change and find a self-serve, coin-counting machine. The trick is to find one that does it without taking a bite out of your loot!

How much spare change do you have at home? Ten bucks? Fifty? More?
For me, this has been a growing problem for years…

You collect all these extra coins every week, and there’s simply no use for them. How many more quarters do you really need?
And dimes, nickels and pennies? Forget about it!
Useless!!

But in its totality, it’s not exactly valueless…

You’re probably thinking, why not just cash in all your extra coins at the local bank?
Well, who’s got the time to roll up 1,400 pennies?
So it all sits.

Year after year…
Growing in piles.
Filling up jars.
Expanding everywhere!

And you don’t exactly want to throw it all away.
(Isn’t that technically illegal?)

Then, someone finally came up with a consumer-tech solution and changed the game with a coin-counting machine that you can easily toss your spare change into.

Voilà!

Now the only catch is businesses that now offer this convenience, also tend to charge a hefty service fee.

And that doesn’t feel quite right.
(Though few services in life come for free)

And so your change continues to weigh you down.
Until one day a free option emerges…

Free Coin Counter!
On a whim, I called my bank last week and asked if there was a coin counter at my local branch. No dice. But the manager on the phone told me the bank down the street had one.

Really?

So I called up the competition and asked about their little self-serve machine.
Yup. And here comes the really good news:

You don’t have to have an account there to use it. Plus, they don’t charge a fee or a percentage of the overall haul.

What? A free coin counter?!

You heard me correctly.

And the name of this game-changing bank?
People’s United Bank

It’s a regional bank headquartered in Bridgeport, CT with more than 400 branches throughout New England.

So I eagerly loaded up my car with what felt like twenty-five pounds of currency and headed off to make my long-overdue deposit.

Cha-Ching!
When I arrived, I made a beeline for the standalone machine.

I set down my aging loot and started pouring change into the little conveyor belt that feeds the counter inside the unit.

And then the fun really began…
I watched the digital display as the dollar count continued to grow.
(It was better than Vegas!)

As I waited, I was offered a free cup of coffee and an opportunity to open up a new CD account.
You can’t fault the marketing attempt to ‘up-sell’ me.
(A free coin-counter business strategy can’t be entirely altruistic…)

About twenty minutes later, I was done.
And the grand total to cash in my useless pile of change?

Sweet!

Begin Your Search
This smart marketing tactic from this bank chain is certainly a differentiator.

I wondered if every People’s United Bank branch sports a coin counter, but in fact there isn’t one everywhere. The easiest way to find out is to look up the branch online on peoplesunitedbank.com and go to the ‘Branches and ATMs’ page.

The services for each branch is listed… including ‘coin counter.’

(For those folks who don’t live near a coin-counter branch, does anyone know of other banks elsewhere that offer this service?)

Don’t Dismiss Your Piggy Bank
I can’t tell you how good it felt to rid myself of decades of unused coins. And I walked out a little wealthier and wide open to our evolving cashless society.

Of course, I immediately began considering all the ways to put this ‘found’ money to work on my home tech front:

Wow…
These moments are also sobering reminders that consumer tech is not a cheap hobby.

Where’s my piggy bank?
I think I’m going to need to find a little more change!

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