Kathleen, Jimmy, and I went to Roberts Ridge Park in Newtown Township earlier this evening so that Jimmy could play on the playground there. While we were at the playground, a man began flying a kite. This attracted Jimmy and another boy who is about the same age.

I took out my iPhone and started shooting photos. I was surprised at how good many of the photos looked when I got home and docked the iPhone to my Mac. You can see more in my Jimmy and the Kite photo set on Flickr.com.

I'm not a photography expert, but I am struck by how good the pictures from my iPhone look to me when I'm shooting in the "Golden Hour" right before sunset. The pictures in tonight's set are quite different from the ones I published in my First Photos with My iPhone set from last July, but a couple of the photos Kathleen and I took while we were on the Circle Line cruise around Lower Manhattan have that same sort of "Oh wow" feel for me in their unretouched state. The photo above called "Statue of Liberty at Dusk" is a great example.

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• Stuff We Like: The Dave Laptop Stand on Lifehacker: "The Dave (oh Ikea, you and your names!) features adjustable height and angle, and can double as a TV tray or simple end table when you're not computing. If you've been looking for a better way to surf the internet from the comfort of your couch, the $25 Dave might be just the ticket."
• Optimizing File Sharing on Your Home Wi-Fi Network on Web Worker Daily: "A lot of people who have successfully put in a Wi-Fi network neglect to optimize the way files are shared between computers in a home or workgroup. You can choose ways to organize shared files, and ensure that files are shared securely or not visible to other users on your Wi-Fi network very easily...." Good instructions on how to do this whether you have Windows or Macs
• StrechCordz Short Resistance Training Belt on Cool Tools: "The StrechCordz resistance training belt makes expensive, complex, "endless" pools obsolete. At one end of a 4-foot, black rubber tube is a nylon belt with a simple plastic snap-clip that slips around my waist. On the other end is a loop I attach to the deep-end ladder of our modest home pool. That's it... just tether up and start swimming. Swim as hard and fast as you like yet stay in place."
• Cycling Photography Tips: Shooting Head On on Spare Cycles: "Shooting head on is both difficult and easy: difficult in that the rider is moving at you very fast so your margin for error is very little, but easy in that you don't have to move your camera very much at all."
• Easter's early this year. Deal with it. on God Plays Dice: "...the cycle of Easter dates repeat themselves every 5,700,000 years. The cycle of epacts (which encode the date of the full moon) in the Julian calendar repeat every nineteen years. There are two corrections made to the epact, each of which depend only on the century; one repeats (modulo 30, which is what matters) every 120 centuries, the other every 375 centuries, so the air of them repeat every 300,000 years. The days of the week are on a 400-year cycle, which doesn't matter because that's a factor of 300,000. So the Easter cycle has length the least common multiple of 19 and 300,000, which is 5,700,000." [ via Slashdot ]

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The 2007 Amgen Tour of California is taking place this week on the West Coast, so the cycling blogs are back publishing cool content for the new season.

My friend Frank Steele from TDFblog.com published a great article on photographing a bike race that comes from personal experience Frank has had taking pictures at races in Georgia including the Atlanta Olympics and the Tour de Georgia.

Frank points out that you don't have to have the newest Digital SLR to get good photos at a pro cycling race if you know your equipment and choose your shooting locations carefully. He shows off a bunch of photos he took at the Tour de Georgia, some of which he chooses because they show the problems with trying to capture action shots with modestly-priced digital point-and-shoot cameras.

Frank and I were together for the 2005 Tour de Georgia Individual Time Trial and my photos from that day are in the 2005 Tour de Georgia Album in the Operation Gadget Photo Gallery. My shot selection was different than Frank's that day. The big reasons were that I covered every stage of the 2005 Tour de Georgia, I had already taken hundreds of photos with my old Canon PowerShot A95, and I knew intuitively how much shutter lag I had to deal with.

I was also at the Tour de Georgia in 2005 with the goal of capturing what was going on behind the race, things like how the race officials supervised the race on the road and how the television camera crews captured the action. I guessed correctly that people wouldn't care about my action photography with so many pro photographers following the peloton.

My advice after taking photos at two Tours de France, one Tour of Georgia, and one USPRO Championship is:

• If you're serious about capturing action shots, get yourself a Digital SLR with as many manual control capabilities as you can afford. These can be bought if you have that kind of money, or you can rent them from professional camera stores.
• Use glass lenses with the lowest F-stops you can afford. These are the lenses with the fastest response.
• Get media credentials if you have the connections and a legitimate publishing capability. I did this for the 2005 Tour de Georgia and the 2005 USPRO Championship and it gave me the ability to ride in official cars, park my car in places that spectators couldn't get to, and just be there when the key moments happened.
• If you just want to take your point-and-shoot and get some good close-up photos of the riders, go to the stage start. Arrive 90 minutes before the start if you can. Look for where the riders "sign-in" and decide which side of the cordoned-off area will be the best place to shoot from. Focus on getting good pictures. Don't try to mix taking pictures and getting autographs.

Frank also pointed out an article from Spare Cycles called Shooting cycling photographs with a Canon Digital Rebel that was published last year. This article goes into even more technical detail about Digital SLRs and how best to use them to cover this sport.

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Jimmy at the Christmas Meeting
of Kathleen's Book Club: Here's the
picture of my son Jimmy that
everyone in Kathleen's Book Club
wanted.

Kathleen took our new Canon PowerShot A540 to the Christmas meeting of her book club on Sunday. This is always a really nice affair, and it got everybody who was able to attend in a festive mood.

When I got home from my hockey game on Sunday night, Kathleen showed me the photos she had taken, using the LCD screen on the back of the camera. When she got to this photo of our six-month-old son Jimmy, she said that this was the photo that everyone said they wanted a copy of.

I thought a few of Operation Gadget's regular readers would want to see it as well. Seeing it puts me in a little more of a holiday mood myself.

I think that this is the kind of photo that shows the PowerShot A540 at its best: a snapshot of a person or a small group of people where the subjects are relatively still and well within the camera's flash range. We keep the PowerShot A540 in the "Pets and Kids" scene mode most of the time, so that we get the best possible photos when Jimmy is part of the picture.

This is a very good camera for the money, although it isn't as good at stopping subjects that are in motion as our old Canon PowerShot A95 was.

Technorati Tags: Canon PowerShot A540, digital camera reviews, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

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I bought a Canon PowerShot A95 in December 2004. Over its life my wife and I have taken hundreds of pictures with it, and it's been well worth the $325 we paid for it.

A couple of weeks ago my wife took the PowerShot A95 with her to the American Academy of Pediatrics National Convention and Exposition in Atlanta. While she was there, the camera developed a power switch problem that apparently caused the batteries to drain quickly. I confirmed this problem when she got home.

I started looking into the cost of repairing this problem using a Canon-approved repair method. I went to Canon's Online Repair Estimator, and found out that Canon will repair the A95 for a flat fee of $97 plus tax. That sounds reasonable until you look at the cost of replacing the A95.

The Canon PowerShot A95 is a 5-Megapixel camera with 3x Optical Zoom. The cost of purchasing a similarly-featured camera from Amazon.com, the Canon PowerShot A530 costs about $130.00 this week at Amazon.com. So, for a little more than 1/3 of the price of the A95 two years ago, you get a 5-Megapixel 4x Optical Zoom Camera that requires two instead of four AA batteries, and uses SD memory instead of Compact Flash.

Needless to say, I decided to buy new rather than repair a two year old digital camera.

However, I didn't buy the A530. I stepped up to the Canon PowerShot A540 for about $170.00. This is a 6-Megapixel camera with a 4x Optical Zoom. The biggest reason I chose the A540 was that reviews I read said that the cycle time between shots was better on the A540 than the A530. My wife and I take a lot of pictures with our A95 indoors using the flash, and we would like the cycle time to be lower if that's possible.

I was surprised at how much the cost of digital cameras had come down in two years. The prices fell so much that it really didn't make sense to repair our trusty old PowerShot A95. Hard to believe a two-year-old digital camera would qualify as a "trusty old" camera, but in these times, I guess it does.

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I was really disappointed when I read the extent of Kodak's restructuring announcement earlier today. The deal to outsource "certain camera design and development functions" to Flextronics sounds like the end of the Kodak tradition of innovation in the consumer-oriented camera market.

It's one thing to outsource manufacturing to a company like Flextronics. That's Flextronics core competency. Lots of companies with strong growth prospects do that. Apple is a great example of this. When they do that, however, the companies keep R&D in house.

Over the past year, Operation Gadget has talked about potentially ground-breaking projects like the Kodak EasyShare One and the Kodak EasyShare V570. The V570 in particular is a camera that's received favorable reviews. Do you expect Kodak to produce unique cameras like these in the future, if they are paying a contract manufacturer to do R&D for them?

A quick look at Kodak's web site indicates that it's in three core businesses: digital cameras, health imaging, and commercial printing. I think Kodak wants to stay in all three markets, but it realizes that it's not competitive in the consumer digital camera space at the moment. In order to continue to grow the business, they are right-sizing the consumer digital camera business and pouring additional resources into their other, more profitable businesses for the time being.

This may make Wall Street happy, but I think it will constrain the company's growth potential in the future.

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Thom Hogan wrote a great review of the AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF DX VR. That's a Nikon 18-200mm Superzoom lens to you and me. This is a great review because Hogan goes into great detail about why it's so unusual for a camera manufacturer to ship a great all-purpose lens with a high-end prosumer camera like the Nikon D200. Most people don't buy the D200 with this lens, but it is an option. Hogan writes:

One of the surprises with the D200 announcement was that it could be purchased with a new DX wide angle to telephoto zoom lens. Having a kit lens for {a} consumer camera isn't new for Nikon, but this was a doozy: 18-200mm focal lengths plus vibration reduction and AF-S speed. This looked like the do-all, be-all lens for virtually everything except extreme wide angle, extreme telephoto, extreme macro, and extreme low light. In other words, a lens you would use most of the time....

He goes on to point out that this lens performs as advertised, for the most part. He delves deeply into the technical details, including the significance of the "DX" designation on Nikkor lenses when used with Nikon digital SLRs.

The key take-away for me is that these DX lenses (there are six others) are a lot more compact than previous lenses with similar performance characteristics. However, it's not the ultimate telephoto lens for sports; Hogan says:

What VR (or VR II or even VR III when it appears) won't do {his emphasis} is to allow you to shoot your daughter's night soccer game at 200mm and 1/15. That's a recipe for fuzzy players on sharp grass.

I know we dwell on sports photography sometimes here on Operation Gadget, but I also shoot digital photos in every day situations that are far from the hockey penalty box or the roadside at pro cycling event. This lens is a spectacular choice for everyday photography if you have a Nikon DSLR.

Technorati Tags: Nikon 18-200mm Superzoom, Nikon D200, Nikkor DX lens, Nikon DSLR, digital cameras

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Popular Photography and Imaging recently published a useful review of the Kodak EasyShare V570. The V570 is a compact camera with a unique dual lens / dual imaging sensor image capture mechanism. According to the article:

Kodak's dual lens design is useful. For example, if you combine the ultra-wide, fixed focal length 23mm (equivalent) f/2.8 lens with the V570's in-camera stitching function, you can easily create an almost 180 degree panoramic photo without a computer. Plus, the fixed focal length design lends itself to less distortion. Even with the V570's distortion correction feature turned off, we measured less distortion from the Kodak's 23mm lens than we did from the 24mm setting of the Zeiss T* zoom lens built into Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-R1.

The review includes "certified test results" that rate its color accuracy as extremely high, and the image noise as low to moderate between ISO 64 and 200 light sensitivity. You can jack up the sensitivity to 400 or 800, but the results are deemed unacceptable. [ via The Digital Photography Blog ]

Technorati Tags: Kodak EasyShare 570, digital camera reviews

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A new cycling blog called Spare Cycles has published an excellent how to article called Shooting cycling photographs with a Canon Digital Rebel. The author is a novice cycling photographer with a Canon Digital Rebel 300D who shot photos at a several stages of the Amgen Tour of California. He also spoke with a professional photographer named Tim Gasperak who published a pretty amazing set of Tour of California photos on Flickr.

One of the key insights in this article is that you need a better lens than you will get in a complete Digital Rebel Kit. This will seem obvious to you if you walk the finish line at a pro cycling race, but it's still a useful tip. The lens that's recommended in this article is a Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM Telephoto Zoom Lens which is similar to the Nikon lens that Harvey Levine used to shoot the cycling photo of me at the Covered Bridge Metric Century in 2004.

Congratulations to Spare Cycles for a great cycling photography how to article. I learned some things about cycling photography from this article that will help me for when I can afford to step up to the digital SLR level. I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for more interesting stuff from this new website.

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Martin O'Donnell pointed out an article by Dave Gussow of the St. Petersburg Times that talks about a number of new developments in the digital camera and photo printing businesses that were publicized at PMA 2006 earlier this month in Orlando.

The main focus of this article is that digital camera manufacturers have discovered that women are the main photographers in many traditional families, that they purchased a slim majority of the digital cameras in 2005, and that they buy almost 60 percent of the photo paper to be used in printers. Many of the marketing approaches discussed at this industry trade show were designed with this research in mind.

The article goes on to say that women prefer shiner, more stylish cameras, while men like cameras with black cases. Kodak promotional materials say that women focus on features like the print size cameras can produce, rather than more technical specifications like megapixel resolution and zoom lenses.

I find this type of market intelligence very interesting, but I wonder if everything the digital camera manufacturers' research tells them is actually correct? I don't think I ever cared if my digital camera was black or silver, although I've owned cameras of each type. All I want in a digital camera is something that takes good pictures, has understandable controls, has a reasonably fast picture-taking cycle, and is fairly compact. I think cameras like the Canon Powershot SD450 do pretty well on all of those criteria.

Who cares what color the camera's body is? If you do, I'd love to know why.

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This Chistmas, my father and my sister-in-law both received digital cameras as gifts. My father got a 5-Megapixel Nikon Coolpix 5600 and my sister-in-law got the 4-Megapixel Nikon Coolpix 4600. This was an interesting coincidence, because the cameras were purchased independently by different people.

In my sister-in-law Mary's case, she received the camera and a set of four rechargeable AA-sized batteries, but didn't receive a memory card on which to store photos. This means that she has plenty of power available to shoot photos but can only store between 10 and 15 shots in the Coolpix 4600's internal memory before having to upload the photos to her PC. The question then became which memory card should be purchased for this camera?

I shot about 150 photos on my Canon PowerShot A95 on Christmas Eve and didn't fill up a 256-Megabyte memory card, so I recommend that people buy memory cards for their digital cameras that have capacities of 256 Megabytes or higher.

I looked at the cost of SD memory cards at Amazon.com and I was surprised to find that you can get a 512-Megabyte SD Card for less than $35 including shipping. Look for the Kingston 512 MB Secure Digital Card for that deal. In my opinion, if you are willing to buy a memory card from an on-line retailer like Amazon.com and you're not in the market for anything else at the moment, you need to try to buy one that costs a bit more than $25 to take advantage of the Free SuperSaver Shipping offer. Most of the 256-Megabyte SD memory cards I saw at Amazon.com fall just above or below the $25 minimum order threshold.

I also want to point out that most of the digital cameras currently being marketed by Canon, Kodak, and Casio generally take SD card memory. Fujifilm cameras take xD memory cards instead.

Technorati Tags: digital cameras, Nikon Coolpix 5600, Nikon Coolpix 4600, Secure Digital Memory Card, xD Memory Card, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

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Last Saturday, Scott Shalom, Bill Maurer, and I officiated a men's college ice hockey game between Drexel University and Villanova University in Philadelphia. I thought it would be interesting to see how Nokia N90 video clips of a hockey game would turn out, so I lent the camera phone to my friend Shane Hanlon who was at the game to evaluate our on-ice performance.

Before the game began, I gave Shane a 90-second explanation of how to shoot video with the N90. I showed him how to open the camera so it went into video camera mode, how to start and stop recording, and how to zoom in and out using the Carl Zeiss Optics Tessar 2.95/5.5 lens. Shane gave the N90 back to me with three video clips of the game on it. I decided to publish two of them as-is. I'm not publishing the third clip because it's very short and doesn't really show anything. It's pretty clear that Shane was just getting used to the camera at that point.

When you look at these two video clips, you'll probably ask, "Why is the camera focusing on the officials and not the play?" It's because Shane is there to watch the officials. He spent a lot more of his time taking notes than playing with the N90.

Drexel vs Villanova, December 10, 2005, 1 minute 09 seconds.

The point I'm trying to make by publishing these clips, however, is that the Nokia N90 is very easy to use and does a surprisingly good job of capturing the action in one of the fastest sports commonly played in the Northern Hemisphere. The lighting conditions inside the Class of '23 Ice Arena at The University of Pennsylvania in Philadephia are not very good, yet you can easily see the action and identify individual players and officials on the ice.

Drexel vs Villanova, December 10, 2005, 3 minutes 24 seconds.

Remember, these videos were shot with a palm-sized Nokia N90 mobile phone, not some dedicated video camera. These video clips are displayed at 246 x 210 pixel resolution here on Operation Gadget, but they are recorded at 352 x 288, so the image you see when playing the video directly off your PC with a media player is approximately twice this size.

Technorati Tags: Nokia N90, N-Series, Nokia, N90, hockey

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The New York Times published an article by David Pogue called Digital Photos Even a Miser Can Enjoy. In it Pogue and a group of 20 friends rated the images produced by 12 cameras priced at under $300. According to the article:

The {Canon Powershot} A610's photos were top ranked in an astonishing 12 out of 20 tests; this camera just takes fantastic pictures in almost every situation. Not bad for $250, especially considering you also get a 4X zoom and a flip-out rotating 2-inch screen - great for shooting over people's heads, or down low for baby shots.

On the other hand, the A610 is the biggest, ugliest camera here. Canon seems to be forcing the issue: Do you want good-looking pictures, or a good-looking camera?

I have a Canon Powershot A95 which is quite similar in size to the A610. I honestly think calling the A610 the "biggest, ugliest camera" is a bit excessive. It's only considered big because the fashion in digital cameras is as small as possible. I'd say a camera was big if it didn't fit in my coat pocket. Every Canon Powershot A-Series camera I've ever seen fits in my coat pocket.

I've always preferred photo quality and performance over style, so my preferences from their group of cameras they evaluated are:

1. Canon Powershot A610
2. Fujifilm Finepix F10,
3. Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ2,
4. Kodak EasyShare v530,
5. Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z57,
6. Nikon Coolpix S1,
7. Olympus Stylus 600,
8. HP Photosmart R817,
9. Konica Minolta Dimage X1, and
10. Pentax Optio S6

Technorati Tags: digital cameras, Canon Powershot A610, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

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A friend of mine told me that Rush Limbaugh has been raving about the Sony Cybershot DSC-N1 digital camera. Apparently, he got one from a national sponsor that is a computer retailer, and he was struck by the high resolution and the 3-inch touch-sensitive screen on the back of the camera.

I did some research into the camera and found that it has a pretty unique design. The DSC-N1 is supposed to be both a digital camera and a portable photo viewer. In spite of the small size, the Cybershot N1 can shoot an 8.1-Megapixel image that's optically zoomed up to 3x. It's also designed to allow you to organize your photos into albums so you can play slide shows of your recent photos. To me this means that it's unlikely that a DSC-N1 user would also have a Video iPod, but I doubt that most DSC-N1 or Video iPod users would push the limits of either machine for storing and showing off photos.

The DSC-N1 has very few controls other than the touch screen. This is probably a good thing in the minds of people who like to take their camera out of a pocket and snap a picture immediately. It would take getting used to for a lot of veteran camera users. On the other hand, on-screen menu navigation can be quick once you get used to it, thanks to the large screen and absence of buttons. The N1 also comes with on-board photo editing tools, including tools for simple line drawing and cartooning. So, the Cybershot DSC-N1 actually has more UI features than could easily be represented in physical switches and dials.

Another potential issue I see with the DSC-N1 is that it requires Memory Stick Pro add-on memory, such as the 1-Gigabyte Memory Stick Pro. The price of this memory has come down a lot, but it's still more expensive than widely-used SD cards.

More good information about the Sony Cybershot DSC-N1 is available on The Digital Photography Blog.

Technorati Tags: digital cameras, Sony Cybershot DSC-N1, Video iPod, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

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The Canon Powershot SD200, on clearance at Amazon.com, is currently the number one product on the Amazon.com Camera & Photo Top Sellers List. This compact, 3.2-megapixel camera with 3x Optical Zoom is a very good choice for people who have never had a digital camera before. The SD200 has a sleek design that attracts attention whenever you pull it out of your pocket. It has enough resolution to produce very good 5x7-inch prints, it has plenty of automatic functions that can make a newcomer to digital photography look like a pro. The Powershot SD200 also uses Secure Digital memory cards which have fallen substantially in price recently and are faster than Compact Flash memory.

Canon digital cameras are occupying all of the top 5 spots on the Camera & Photo Top Sellers List at the moment. The models on the list are:

1. Canon Powershot SD200, 3.2-Megapixel, 3x Optical Zoom, great deal
2. Canon Powershot A520, 4-Megapixel, 4x Optical Zoom, slightly larger and more expensive than the SD200
3. Canon Powershot SD450, 5-Megapixel, 3x Optical Zoom, similar in size to the SD200
4. Canon Powershot SD400, 5-Megapixel, 3x Optical Zoom, slightly less expensive than the SD450
5. Canon PowerShot A510, 3.2-Megapixel, 4x Optical Zoom, really inexpensive

I have a Canon Powershot A95 which I bought about a year ago. It's just a terrific camera for the money, and it's successors in the Powershot A-Series are even better. The Powershot SD-Series are terrific cameras as well. While not the smallest digital cameras on the market today, they combine small size with excellent photo composition and great ease-of-use.

It's amazing how inexpensive digital cameras have gotten. Now is a great time to be in the market.

Technorati Tags: digital cameras, Canon Powershot SD200, Canon Powershot A520, Canon Powershot SD450, Canon Powershot SD400, Canon PowerShot A510, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Toy Wishes Magazine has released its ever-popular Hot Dozen Toys for 2005. This list is intended to forecast which toys will be the most popular during the 2005 holidays. We can safely assume that if the magazine is correct, many of them will also become hard to find in stores at some point in the near future.

Dora's Talking Kitchen: One of my
favorites on the Toy Wishes Hot
Dozen Holiday List. Product photos
courtesy of Amazon.com.

The Hot Dozen List includes (in alphabetical order):

• Black Belts Karate Home Studio DVD: an inexpensive active play set with a video component.
• Dora's Talking Kitchen; My wife Kathleen says that the kitchen play set at her pediatrics office is the most popular toy in the waiting room.
• Fly Wheels Assortment; Couldn't figure out which toy this was, so I'm recommending the Fly Wheels Rapid Fire Launcher for the moment.
• Furby: an electronic friend that comes in multiple color combinations.
• iDog: an electronic dog that dances to music that's being played in the room. Accessories are also available.
• iZ: an interesting combination of cartoon character, speaker for music playback, and music mixing tool. You change the beat of the music by twisting iZ's ears and pressing on his belly.
• Leapster L-Max Learning System: portable version of Leapster learning system. Requires new games, available separately. Works in conjunction with TV, if connected.
• The Magnetix MagnaWorld Series: lead by Magnetix MagnaWorld City. MagnaWorld Clock Tower, MagnaWorld Magna Central, Rescue Center, and Airport also available.
• Pixel Chix: including Pixel Chix Cottage House, Beverly Hills House, and Miami Loft. Interesting electronic house simulators. Kids interact with a Pixel Chix Pal, paying attention to the Pal in order to keep advancing in the game; Ignore and Pixel Chix Pal moves out.
• Shell Shocker Radio Controlled Toy: a toy with a "bio-mechanical design" that can shift from a rolling bowling-ball type shape to a reptillian-looking robot and back. Requires a Tyco Pro Flexpak Battery and Charger and a 9-volt battery, which adds to the cost.
• VCam Now: digital camera / video camera designed for kids. Holds 480 pictures or 7 minutes of video.
• V-Smile Pocket: portable version of V Smile-- a 2004 favorite. Uses the same cartridges as the bigger unit, potentially a big savings.

VTech V-Smile Pocket:
Little brother of the V-Smile Learning
System, which was a big hit in 2004.

If the 2004 Hot Dozen list was heavy with electronics, the list is overloaded in 2005. There are only two toys on this list that don't have a big electronic component: Black Belts Karate Home Studio DVD (also available in VHS) and the Magnetics MagnaWorld Series. I bought a set of Magnetix building toys for my nephew, Ben, a year or two ago, and I really wish they had been around when I was a kid, because they're fun to build with.

Last year, Operation Gadget readers bought a lot of VTech V-Smile, a video game-based learning system for preschoolers. In my opinion, this either means that V-Smile Pocket will be a similar hit, or it will be a dud. VTech has a strong lineup of add-on cartridges compatible with both devices based on Winnie the Pooh, Mickey and Friends, and the Little Mermaid. If these cartridges are entertaining as well as educational, I'm sure parents and grandparents will buy them, and many hours of fun will be had by all.

I'm concerned that the mix of electronic and non-electronic products in the Hot Dozen has tilted too far toward the electronics this year. Will there be hits in the non-electronic genre this year, in spite of the lack of attention? What do you think?

Technorati Tags: Hot Dozen, Toy Wishes Magazine, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

Nikon has released two digital cameras with built-in WiFi capability. The Coolpix P2 is silver and has a 5.1-megapixel image sensor and a 3.5x optical zoom lens. The Coolpix P1 is black and has an 8-megapixel image sensor and a 3.5x optical zoom lens. Both cameras have nice-looking 2.5-inch LCD displays.

Wilson Rothman of Time Magazine featured the Coolpix P2 as the Time.com Gadget of the Week back in September. He felt that the camera was a little less capable than it should have been, because its WiFi reception wasn't as strong as two laptop computers that he was using in the same part of his house.

He considers this is a problem because he wants to use the WiFi capability to transfer photos to a computer while he continues shooting. I believe that the WiFi capability is actually intended to be used to wirelessly upload your photos to a PC after the photo shooting session is over. Therefore, WiFi would only be used for short periods of time, and somewhat weaker reception could be tolerated because the camera would be close proximity to a PC and a WiFi access point.

Wireless photo upload with WiFi makes a lot more sense than Bluetooth when you think about it. I transfer a lot of data with Bluetooth when I sync my Treo 650 to my Blogging Workstation. I can't imagine trying to transfer a 256-Megabyte SD card full of photos using Bluetooth. Bluetooth just doesn't have the bandwidth to make big data transfers quickly.

I think wireless photo uploading will make sense to a lot of people, and the Coolpix P1 and P2 can deliver on that expectation. I don't think the functionality is there to upload photos directly from the camera to Flickr, muchless to do moblogging or photo journalism from the local Starbucks.

Technorati Tags: Nikon Coolpix P2, Nikon Coolpix P1, WiFi, Bluetooth

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just noticed that the Canon Powershot SD400, a 5-megapixel member of the Canon Elph digital camera family, has soared to number 1 on the Amazon.com Camera & Photo Top Selling Products Listin the past few days. The reason for this is that Canon has recently cut the price of most of the Canon Digital Elph cameras. The SD400, with it's 5-megapixel image capability, 3x optical zoom, and competitive price, occupies a particularly sweet spot in the digital camera market.

I think the Powershot SD400 is a great idea for holiday gifts. It would make a great upgrade for someone who already has a low-end, second-generation digital camera and has pushed its limits. I can think of a couple of people in my family who would use their digital camera a lot more if it had the features and the responsiveness that the Powershot SD400 has.

If you're looking for an even less expensive way to give the gift of digital photography, check out the Canon Powershot SD200. This is a 3.2-megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom that costs less that $190.

Other recently reduced Canon digital cameras include:

• Canon Powershot SD500, 7-megapixel with 3x optical zoom
• Canon Powershot SD450, 5-megapixel with 3x optical zoom
• Canon Powershot SD550, 7.1-megapixel with 3x optical zoom

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Flickr Offers Photo Printing at Target
[ image created by Dave Aiello, courtesy of Flickr ].

Flickr announced the introduction of a photo print ordering service for users in the United States. The service is offered in conjunction with Target Stores. You have the option of picking your photo order up at your local Target store or having the order mailed to you.

One nice feature Flickr added was the ability to control who is allowed to order prints of your photos. This is done through a Photo Printing preferences page where you can choose:

• Only You
• You and your family
• You and your friends
• You, your family and friends
• You and any of your contacts
• Any Flickr member

I think Flickr is a great service. I use it all the time to share photos with my friends and family. I'm sure the pressure will be on me to enable this feature and upload my photo backlog before Christmas.

Update: I posted on Operation Gadget this with the BLOG THIS feature of Flickr. It was an interesting experience. Flickr timed out waiting for a response from Operation Gadget confirming that the post had been successful, so I mistakenly triple posted this article. Flickr also doesn't check to see if you wrote all of the necessary HTML for the article; It goes ahead and adds line breaks for you and inserts some inline CSS for good measure. I had a bit of clean up to do when I came back to this site. [ via Atmaspheric | endeavors ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just noticed that Amazon.com is offering Corel Paint Shop Pro 9 while supplies last for as little as $19.99! Paint Shop Pro is a great photo editing tool for people who don't need all the complexity of Adobe Photoshop Elements, but who still want to do things like:

• fill flash filter correction
• digital camera image noise removal
• anti-aliased text addition

I use Paint Shop Pro to do quick image editing nearly every day. From what I hear about Version 9, you need a fast computer with plenty of memory and a large screen to take best advantage of the photo editing features, but it's hard to beat the price.

To get the $19.99 price, you need to apply for a rebate, but even if you don't, you get Paint Shop Pro at 50-percent off the list price.

Why such a great deal? Corel's going upscale with Corel Paint Shop Pro X, the new version which was released last month. The list price of Paint Shop Pro X is $129.99, it's on sale for $99.99, but you can get it for as little as $69.99 after rebate.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I wanted to ask for a photographer's vest for the Dodge Tour de Georgia, but I didn't feel that I had the right camera to make it worthwhile. If I had one of those vests, I could have stood inside the barriers just beyond the finish line and gotten shots of riders throwing their bikes at the line to try to be first.

The right camera would be a very good digital single lens reflex camera, like the Canon EOS 20D. This is an 8.2-megapixel camera capable of shooting 5 frames per second for 23 consecutive shots. It has a startup time of 0.2 seconds. The EOS 20D isn't the most expensive digital SLR out there, but it has a good price/performance trade off, and it uses a better grade of some of the same technology that I already use in my Canon Powershot A95.

In order to do this right, I'll need a very large Compact Flash card that can be written to at the fastest possible speed. The Lexar Media 2-Gigabyte 80X Pro Series looks like a good choice. If I wanted to economize, there's a 1-Gigabyte version of the same product.

The lens that we would want to shoot finish line photos at a pro cycling race could easily cost us a lot of money. If you remember the article about the photo that professional sports photographer Harvey Levine took of me riding my mountain bike, he used a 400mm F/2.8 Nikkor lens for that. The cost estimate on it was $6,000 used. Most people rent it.

The closest Canon lens available through Amazon.com and its affiliates is a Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM Super Telephoto Lens. It's much cheaper and probably significantly slower. Some people say it's fast enough for sports and that might be true if the action is coming right at you, as in a pro cycling race finish line shot.

If I'm shooting, I want something smaller so I can use it without a tripod or monopod. How about the Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM Telephoto Lens? That's half the cost of the 400mm Canon lens, plus it's significantly smaller, lighter, and faster. I can deal with only having a 200mm telephoto lens if I have a photographer's vest. About the only thing to think about here is the lack of image stabilization.

If I need something to stabilize my shot I'm going to try a Manfrotto 684B Bogen Neotec Monopod, although I'm sure someone will come along and tell me I'm wrong. I've never purchased a monopod before, what do I know?

The whole rig, camera, memory card, lens, and monopod will set us back something like $2450 and we'll also get a Canon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 autofocus lens for the shots a normal person's camera could take. This setup won't turn me into Graham Watson overnight, but I'll be a thousand times more likely to get the shot that they use on the cover of VeloNews or Cycle Sport than I am with my PowerShot A95.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

FujiFilm Z1: One of the new compact digital
cameras announced today by FujiFilm. These are
cool cameras, but they lack an optical viewfinder.
[ Photo: FujiFilm ]

FujiFilm announced the FinePix Z1, a 5.1-megapixel digital camera that's thinner than a standard deck of cards and has a 2.5-inch LCD screen that is supposed to be bright enough to use to frame shots in low light. It will come in a satin black or brushed silver finish, and looks like the kind of camera that will come out in other colors as well, if the model proves to be popular.

I agree with the guys at Gizmodo who say that the FinePix Z1 is aimed at competing with the Sony DSC-T3 which is similar to the DSC-T1 currently on sale at Amazon.com affiliates like Ritz Camera. Time will tell if FujiFilm has hit the mark.

One of the things that concerns me about the Z1 and several other cameras that FujiFilm just announced is their lack of an optical viewfinder. I've found that my best digital camera photos are taken when looking through the optical viewfinder, because using the LCD to frame shots often results in a lack of steadiness that can best be remedied with on-board image stabilization.

FujiFilm marketing manager Ron Gazzola commented on their decision to leave off the optical viewfinder as follows:

Fujifilm U.S.A. conducted extensive consumer research concerning LCDs and our findings showed that with a palm-sized camera, consumers feel comfortable framing their pictures solely with a LCD as long as the monitor is large, durable and performs well in low light. The advanced LCD of the FinePix Z1 has it all and should be an attractive feature on an already attractive camera.

I'm willing to be convinced that this is a good thing. I'll have to get in touch with FujiFilm and try to get one for review.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Flickr Photo with Notes Attached:
John Cloninger added notes to a photo
that he posted on Flickr. I took
a screenshot of the photo and cut it down
to accentuate one of the notes. Follow
this link to view the complete photo.

My friend John Cloninger used his Flickr account to publish an interesting photo called storm2 which had a more informative description DOGGIE SMELL COFFEE!!!! The photo depicts a dog and his master standing in front of the Starbucks Coffee in Summit, NJ.

To the photo, John added two rectangles with notes attached: "Doggie" and "Overpriced coffee". When you view the photo on Flickr and mouse over one of the rectangles, both of them are highlighted and the rectangle overwhich the mouse sits shows its attached note (see the photo attached to this story for an illustration of this).

The "notes feature" in Flickr adds an additional entertaining or educational dimension to photos that employ it.

According to Corrante Many to Many the Flickr Notes feature is intended to be read/write compatible with Fotonotes. This is a technology that Greg Elin has been working on since at least 2003, but Flickr is the first place where I've seen it deployed in a