Scholarly Wisdom

Yup.

My Pencil as Seen by a Germ

Disclaimer - No hamsters were harmed in the taking of this photograph.  No duct tape was used (although it came close) and most of all no money was spent.

I threatened to do this a while back.  I was given a webcam a few years back as part of a package to get us experimenting with how to use technology in the classroom.  It was not an expensive webcam.  It was  not a great webcam but I did use it.  Then I got bored of it.  Close to a year ago I threatened to find a way to hook it up to a microscope to take close up macro pictures.  Well I finally did it.  It was really easy.  It was Friday and I had a prep last class.  Could you blame me?

On the Instructables site I found this how-to.  It was as simple as taking out the lens and reversing it.  A microscope was not necessary.  All you need is an external webcam.  While I had to do a little bit of work to get it to work it is completely reversible.  Focus is really touchy and you need a lot of light but I would love to see what could be done with a webcam that has better than 640x480 resolution.  Read the how-to and do it yourself.  Voiding warranties is a huge amount of fun.  Trust me.

Oh yeah - show a science teacher near you.  Mine was as excited as a kid at Christmas.

Time Lapse Holiday Cheer

Well I finally got it to work. My time lapse video works! Windows Movie Maker was painful to work with - but it did work. I shouldn't complain about a free tool - but I am going to. My computer crashed three times while trying to make the movie. Converting the photos into a video in the program was actually quite easy (read about how to do it here). Title and credits were easy to add. However I almost gave up when I tried to save the video. I could save the project quite easily but had problems trying to save it in a format that could be played in any other player. Turns out that I am not alone in having this problem. I think that the problem was that my computer did not have enough memory. I finally got it to work by lowering the output video quality. Thanks to the people who gave me any help getting Windows Movie Maker to work.

I took the pictures with a little Logitech webcamera that my school division bought for me. It did not handle the low light in my living room very well (as you can see). I think that it would work fine in a brighter room. I used the Microsoft Powertoys program Webcam Timershot to take a picture every two seconds. This guide pointed me to the tools I needed. It also showed some other methods that also looked good (both Mac and PC). Next time I try this I will use another camera - maybe a hacked Cannon camera like in this post.

I guess that I should also point to Dean Shareski's post Supper's Ready in 80 Seconds that originally gave me the idea.

My next step is to try to recreate this video (using the same pictures) on a Mac in iMovie. I will let you know how the process compared to Windows.

Hack Your Canon

Ever wondered if your electronic devices can do more than what the manual says? Well they can - at least in the case of Canon cameras. They have tons of features and abilities that are simply locked up for the average user. So unlock them. Here is the key.

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Supercharge_Your_Camera_with_Open-Source_CHDK_Firmware

I read through this particular wiki and turns out that you can edit the firmware on your camera. You can load userwriten programs to unlock those hidden features on your camera - features usually reserved to much more expensive cameras. Features like superfast shutter speeds (1/60,000), time lapse shooting, and HDR pictures.

Can you wreak your camera? Nope. The programs are loaded from your memory card and don't change anything on the camera itself. If the program turns your camera into a brick simply pull out the memory card and the camera reverts to factory settings.

Photo by Keoeeit.

Free Photoshop!!!

https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

Ok, so it is not the full version of Photoshop - it is Photoshop Express, Adobe's contribution to the world of online photos. It comes with 2GB of online storage - which is pretty sweet. Add in a bunch of tools to play with and it looks like fun.

Something neat is that it will link with other photo sites like Picasa, Photobucket, and Facebook. It was quite quick and simple to pull in my Picasa albums.

Lets wait and see how it compares to the other sites. Will it gain the huge following of Flickr? How about the simplicity and accessibility of Picasa? Time will tell.

Looking for Pictures

Well the title describes it. I am looking for a picture database. Blog entries always look better with pictures to spice them up. The problem is that thanks to some new found morality I would prefer to not break any copyrights (and most of my pictures are of my son). That leaves out the Google Image search, and Flickr, and most of the other picture sites. Anyone got any suggestions?

Photos - a Different Perspective

Well, Donna you asked for a slideshow. While I took these with my own camera I could do it with the work camera. Just kidding. I would only risk my own stuff. The slideshow is created using Picasa Web Albums.

Last winter I decided to set up an RC airplane with some photo gear. I got a little wild and crazy and set up a video downlink and a remote trigger for the camera shutter.

Well while trying to take some pictures of my father-in-law's farm I ran into some gusty wind. I ripped a horizontal stabililzer off of my plane and watched it go into a spiral of death. It fell for at least 9 seconds because I got 3 pictures of spinning sky (the camera was set to take a picture every 3 seconds). To make matters worse I only got pictures of the neighbor's farm and not his. I never got time to put the camera back together last summer. This winter I have it mostly fixed and will try it again this coming summer. Wish me luck!