Mark Dalton

Be sure to play this full screen @ 720p

iPad + Velcro from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

For a long time now I have been slowly drawn into the field of Digital Photography and more recently Digital Video. I don”t have any great artistic leaning, or for that matter skill but I do like the idea of capturing memories. It wasn”t until I returned from India that I realised that looking at a picture only reminded me of the event but didn”t convey anything more to others. Take for example the day we stopped at traffic lights in New Delhi. A normal day, the normal sounds, and the normal chaos of horns beeping and young children running between the cars trying to sell there wares before the lights changed. When all of a sudden I look out of the car window to see an Elephant standing at the traffic lights next to the car. I smiled as my driver said “Elephant Sir!”, like I had never seen one. Well, he was half right, I have never seen one stopped at traffic lights. As the lights changed I saw the little man sat on his back. He had no cane, no whip, and no saddle. This fellow was just sat high up there on the elephants back, almost asleep. The elephant didn”t need any instruction when the lights changed, its like he knew!

The photo I took was out of the back side window and the elephant is clear to see. Now I remember what happened but anybody else looking at the picture would just see a photo of an elephant taken out of a car window. It was this that attracted me to the idea of digital video. On one of my trips back to the UK I purchased a Sony HandyCam (HDR-SR7).

This is a great camera but is still a little big to carry around every day just incase you see something interesting. All is not lost however as technology hasn”t stood still. In fact it has moved on in leaps and bounds. Now just before Christmas I was in Liverpool and Don McAllister had a new toy, the Kodak Zi8. He had brought it to play around with an idea he had for YouTube and was putting it through its paces. At the time we all had a look at it, discussed it strengths and weaknesses, and then forgot about it. Well, it wasn”t until a couple weeks ago when it snowed heavy I thought it would be great to get some video footage. I did this without any problem at all using the Sony HandyCam, but got me thinking about the Zi8, and in the end I ended up ordering one.

Well, I have been playing around with it for a couple of weeks now and I must say I am quite impressed. Some of the issues we had discussed in Liverpool have subsequently been fixed by way of a firmware update and it now goes everywhere with me. So watch this space for some hopefully interesting video footage in the near future.

Technical Specifications.

Sensor type: 1 / 2.5–type 5 MP CMOS
Lens: 6.3 mm, f/2.8, fixed focus lens. 35 mm equivalent: 61 mm (1080p), 46 mm (720p/60 fps, 720p, WVGA), 42 mm (still)
Zoom: 4X digital
Display: 2.5–type LCD
Storage: 128 MB internal memory*, SD/SDHC card expansion slot
Focus modes: normal, macro;Focus range: normal: 100 cm–infinity. macro: 15 cm
White balance: auto
File formats: video: H.264 (MOV), AAC LC, still: JPEG
Capture mode: 1080p (1920 × 1080, 30 fps),720p/60 fps (1280 × 720, 60 fps),720p (1280 × 720, 30 fps),WVGA (848 × 480, 30 fps),Still (5.3 MP, 16:9 widescreen, interpolated)
Microphone: yes (monaural)
Speaker: yes
I/O interface: USB 2.0 (high speed), AV out, HDMI, DC in, external microphone jack (support stereo)
Tripod mount: 1/4 in. standard
Power: KODAK Li-Ion Rechargeable Digital Camera Battery KLIC-7004, AC adapter;Dimensions: 62.0 × 113.2 × 21.5 mm (2.4 × 4.5 × 0.9 in.)
Weight: 110 g (3.9 oz) without batteries