PigPog

With their usual excellent style and depth, Digital Photography Review have looked at the new Canon PowerShot A620, and it looks very nice indeed. It’s the replacement for the A95, which was a popular camera, and it looks like this should be even more so.

• 7.1 megapixels (probably the same sensor that’s in my Ixus 750, which certainly performs well).
• 4x optical zoom (nice to see a little more than the usual 3x).
• Fast performance – the DIGIC II processor makes things much faster than previous cameras, and they seem to be getting better at focusing too.
• Usual Canon build and reliability – the main reason I bought a Canon.

It’s by no means pocketable like my Ixus is, but gives you a bit more control and a bit more zoom, both of which can come in useful. If you don’t mind having a compact that’s not very compact, this could be a great camera.

• Full review on DPReview.
• Look up PowerShot A620 on Amazon UK or Amazon US.

We’ve made a little change here – only registered users can comment now. It’s not intended to stop people posting comments – we’re hoping it will encourage more people to sign up and join in.

Signing up for a free account has other benefits…

• Take part in our forums.
• Comments don’t need to wait for moderation.
• See less ads – the most intrusive ads move out of the way or shrink when you log in.

Adrian at Found Photography has built a 35mm film camera from lego. Cute.

• Story with pictures

(Thanks to Make:.)

A Stanford graduate student has made a prototype camera that allows you to focus the image after taking the shot. The images are fairly low resolution, but then again, it’s only the first prototype.

Interesting idea. Not sure how practical it will be, but it all depends how the technology can be applied in real life. Certainly a different approach, though.

• Story on DPReview

An art group called Gelitin has made a huge sealed wooden box, with extensions for you to insert and retrieve objects. Somehow, inside the box, the objects are copied…

Eventually – the wait can be from a few minutes to more than an hour – a light on the other extension goes on. Open the door, and you’ll find your object joined by a brand-new, handmade “duplicate,” or at least something that more or less resembles the original.

• Story on Boing Boing
• Gelitin’s Site

Digital Photography Review have reviewed the Olympus SP-310, and sounds kind of interesting…

• 7.1 megapixel
• 3x zoom (yeah, yeah, everyone’s got one)
• 2cm Macro (pretty close)
• RAW format recording (unusual at this price point)
• 510 shot battery life (impressive)

Unfortunately, there’s down sides too… * Those stupid XD cards Olly and Fuji keep insisting on * 10 seconds to actually write the RAW files makes them almost useless

I think unfortuately, the downsides are pretty bad – I really hold the XD card thing against them, and the RAW ability was one real selling point that’s been blown by the slowness. Still, it’s quite unusual at quite a low price, so it’s likely to make a few friends. Oh, and they seem to have made quite a nice compromise between size and handling judging by the looks – nice and big where you’d hold it, small everywhere else.

Anyway, DPReview give it their ‘Recommended’ award…

• Review on DPReview

Douglas Johnston has written about a package called Celtx – specially written for scriptwriters and pre-production work for film or video…

…the functionality is, by far and away, one of the most comprehensive scriptwriting experiences I’ve ever encountered. Besides including a server synchronisation that permits others to see the script, its pre-production breakdown and database system allows you to insert text, graphics, video and audio which are all linked to the salient parts of your script. For example, when you mention a particular location, for example a park, you can have the script link directly into its database where you can keep a picture of the park and some key points to remember about it.

• Doug’s Review

I’ll probably grab a copy at some point and have a play. Not sure if I’ll be able to offer any sort of meaningful insight, though, so you’re probably better off taking Doug’s word for it.

Update: Fredboard? If I’m not going to bother to proof-read the articles, maybe I should at least have a glance at the title.

A new magazine has arrived for “musical instrument players, collectors, and builders.”

It’s lavishly produced with full color photos throughout, and as publisher Jason Verlinde writes in the introduction, it’s a magazine about stories, not gear reviews or tabulatures.

• Official Site
• Story on Boing Boing

Kind of pricey if you’re outside the US, but it certainly sounds like it’s a cut above the usual titles. Quarterly rather than monthly, too, so a year’s subscription doesn’t work out too bad

Raphi Giangiulio has built his own wooden pipe organ. It took a year just to research and design, then three years so far to build – and it’s still ongoing. Looks fantastic…

• Raphi’s own site – with pictures, and lots of detailed information.

(Thanks to Boing Boing.)

WordPress has long been a successful and popular platform for blogging, but you’ve always had to host it yourself – which means having a hosting account with PHP and MySQL. Now, you can just visit WordPress.com, sign up, and have it hosted there.

I’ve not tried it out, but from what I’ve heard, it’s a bit limited at the moment. Can’t be too bad, though, if they’re managing to keep Robert Scoble happy – he’s one of the best known and most prolific bloggers out there, and he’s currently running a hosted WordPress blog.