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Filling The Gaps: The Kodak Charmera, A Keychain Digital Camera
It’s the ‘must have’ camera of late 2025, so of course, I must have one. The Kodak Charmera is a small ‘keychain’ camera. As many have observed, it’s small. Just a few cm long and maybe 15mm wide, the Charmera has a 1.6MP sensor and a tiny little screen. The controls are minimal, an on/off button, which also doubles as a menu button, the shutter button, and three buttons on the back. One for playback/select items and two toggle buttons that cycle through the different filters.
There’s no shutter speed selection, which is fixed at around 1/30s, and pressing the shutter makes a synthesised shutter sound that’s not all that loud, so sometimes you’re not actually sure if an image has been taken. Images are stored on a microSD card (not included), and apparently it’ll accept cards up to 32GB. Since file sizes are relatively small, I’m running my Charmera off a 1GB microSD card filched from the cheap Photo Creator MiniCam. That’s enough room for thousands of images, although I tend to download mine after each outing with the camera.
The appeal of the Charmera is it’s lo-fi aesthetic, although the Shitty Camera Challenge community have pounced on it as a ‘normal’ Shitty-compliant camera, to great effect. Other in the US, everyone seemed to be getting them, but over here in Europe they’re much hard to get. Also, there’s a premium, the $30 Charmera is more like 40—50€, depending on where you shop. They also run out really quickly. Fortunately, I managed to nab two from the second run in November, and have a third on order at the moment.
There are six different designs of the Charmera, with a seventh transparent design as a ‘special’, and they’re sold in ‘blind’ boxes, so you don’t actually know which one you’ve got until you open the box. This is kind of half the fun, the rest is fiddling around with the camera. On the bottom of the device, next to the microSD card slot, is a USB-C socket for charging the camera or transferring files. I have a recent Android phone and it’s easy to transfer files from the Charmera to my phone, though apparently with some older phones this is not that straightforward.
So how does it perform? Not too shabbily really. It’s definitely better than the Photo Creator MiniCam, another keychain camera that I picked up recently, although actually taking a photo takes practise. Instead of pushing the shutter firmly, you just need to tap the button to take an image. Colour images came out nicely, though there’s nothing too exciting about them, but a lot more fun can be had with the filters. Like a lot of users, I’ve settled with the ‘grey’ filter, which is a two-tone grey and black image. There are a number of these, red, blue, and yellow, but I like the grey one.
One thing I did wonder, as I do with all my cameras, is what it’s infrared sensitivity is like. The Charmera is a cheap camera, and I hoped that this cheapness extended to the IR cut filter used on this little camera. I set the camera to black and white, held a 720nm infrared filter over the lens (and covered the’flash’ LED to prevent any light interference), and took a snap. It was great! At the same time I took black and white images with red, green, and blue filters, to make digital aerochromes and trichromes. These came out pretty darned good, too.
So what next for the Charmera? I bought two when I could get my hands on them, and have just added a third. My original Charmera I’m going to keep in its natural state, aside from covering the flash. The second I’m hoping to open up and remove the IR cut filter to make it truly full-spectrum. All being well that’ll be the subject of a future post. The third, still in its box, is hopefully to be used for a ‘thing’ that I have in mind that I’m not going to talk about yet in case it doesn’t happen.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow my WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline on Mastodon.
#Abstract #Charmera #Experimental #Infrared #Kodak #KodakCharmera #LoFi #Retro #Shittycamerachallenge #ToyCamera #VintageVibes
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Keith Rowley rechaza actitud sumisa de primera ministra de Trinidad y Tobago hacia EE.UU.
https://www.vtv.gob.ve/rowley-rechaza-sumision-primer-ministra-trinidadytobago/
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Keith Lee named ‘creator of the year’ at first-ever US TikTok awards
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Keith Lee named ‘creator of the year’ at first-ever US TikTok awards
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Keith Lee named ‘creator of the year’ at first-ever US TikTok awards
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Keith Lee named ‘creator of the year’ at first-ever US TikTok awards
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Keith Lee named ‘creator of the year’ at first-ever US TikTok awards
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Keith Lockhart from Oxygen Forensics joins the Forensic Focus Podcast to examine how remote digital evidence collection is changing investigative workflows across DFIR, eDiscovery, and corporate investigations. https://www.forensicfocus.com/podcast/oxygen-forensics-on-smarter-faster-remote-dfir-collections/ #OxygenForensics #DigitalForensics
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Wann ist Keith Caputo eigentlich so massiv falsch abgebogen? Fuck, ey. #lifeofagony #keithcaputo
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@keithedwards.bsky.social discusses to the breaking new regarding the 95,000 photographs released by #HouseDemocrats from the #Epsteinestate, #SteveBannon 's involvement and apparent CLOSE friendship with #Epstein, and slew of high profile names both left AND right leaning youtu.be/24SUE-i3MvY?...
Trump PANICS as New Epstein Ph... -
@keithedwards.bsky.social discusses to the breaking new regarding the 95,000 photographs released by #HouseDemocrats from the #Epsteinestate, #SteveBannon 's involvement and apparent CLOSE friendship with #Epstein, and slew of high profile names both left AND right leaning youtu.be/24SUE-i3MvY?...
Trump PANICS as New Epstein Ph... -
@keithedwards.bsky.social discusses to the breaking new regarding the 95,000 photographs released by #HouseDemocrats from the #Epsteinestate, #SteveBannon 's involvement and apparent CLOSE friendship with #Epstein, and slew of high profile names both left AND right leaning youtu.be/24SUE-i3MvY?...
Trump PANICS as New Epstein Ph... -
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Keith Richards’ opinion on Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler
https://rockandrollgarage.com/keith-richards-opinion-on-dire-straits-and-mark-knopfler/
#keithrichards #rollingstones #markknopfler #direstraits #rock #music #article
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KEITH STEWART
Take Me Back To Jamaica
Year Unknown Jamaica pressingA moody and thoroughly enjoyable #Calypso / #reggae album for the early morning hours.
I’ve posted a few Keith Stewart albums in the past (Yellow Bird, Keith Here And There), as I’m a big fan of his.
Before this week, THIS one was the only one of his albums I didn’t have, so I was happy to finally get it!According to the Discogs entry for this, its year of release is unknown (along with the previous My Own Jamaica and Yellow Bird), but it’s listed as his final album.
Before his solo career, Stewart made his name as one half of the duo Keith and Enid, with Enid Cumberland.
THEIR one and only album from 1962, Keith And Enid Sing, is one I’ve been after for a very long time and an album I’ve never actually seen before.
Until I find one, I’ll just keep on enjoying Stewart’s excellent solo records.
#vinyl #vinylrecords #vinylcommunity #vinylcollection #retro #vintage #art #music
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Lens-Artists Challenge #377: Holiday Fun
We’ve got the builders in, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make an entry for the Lens-Artists Challenge this week. Fortunately, I found myself in the nearby town of Agueda on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon and found the perfect subject for the Lens-Artists Challenge. Kind of. This week it’s Ann-Christine’s (Leya from To See a World in a Grain of Sand …) to host the Challenge, and her theme is ‘Holiday Fun‘. ‘The Holiday Season is approaching’, she says. ‘This week we invite you to share some Holiday memories with us!’
Although Christmas is approaching, Ann-Christine didn’t actually specify which holiday. In fact, she writes: ‘Pick any fun and/or happy memories from holidays you enjoyed – your own or others´, at home or abroad.’ Well, I thought instantly of our trip to the Maldives, but I’ve posted far too many from there already. So here’s a quick shot I grabbed of Santa’s giant ass in Agueda. Apparently, this is the biggest Santa in the world (to date), and although I was only able to grab it from behind (no pun intended), it’s worth sharing. Happy Holiday Fun!
Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here, and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag ‘Lens-Artists’.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.
#agueda2 #ass2 #challenge #holidayfun2 #lensartists #santa2 #tongueincheek2 #lensArtists
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Lens-Artists Challenge #377: Holiday Fun
We’ve got the builders in, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make an entry for the Lens-Artists Challenge this week. Fortunately, I found myself in the nearby town of Agueda on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon and found the perfect subject for the Lens-Artists Challenge. Kind of. This week it’s Ann-Christine’s (Leya from To See a World in a Grain of Sand …) to host the Challenge, and her theme is ‘Holiday Fun‘. ‘The Holiday Season is approaching’, she says. ‘This week we invite you to share some Holiday memories with us!’
Although Christmas is approaching, Ann-Christine didn’t actually specify which holiday. In fact, she writes: ‘Pick any fun and/or happy memories from holidays you enjoyed – your own or others´, at home or abroad.’ Well, I thought instantly of our trip to the Maldives, but I’ve posted far too many from there already. So here’s a quick shot I grabbed of Santa’s giant ass in Agueda. Apparently, this is the biggest Santa in the world (to date), and although I was only able to grab it from behind (no pun intended), it’s worth sharing. Happy Holiday Fun!
Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here, and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag ‘Lens-Artists’.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.
#agueda2 #ass2 #challenge #holidayfun2 #lensartists #santa2 #tongueincheek2 #lensArtists
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Lens-Artists Challenge #377: Holiday Fun
We’ve got the builders in, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make an entry for the Lens-Artists Challenge this week. Fortunately, I found myself in the nearby town of Agueda on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon and found the perfect subject for the Lens-Artists Challenge. Kind of. This week it’s Ann-Christine’s (Leya from To See a World in a Grain of Sand …) to host the Challenge, and her theme is ‘Holiday Fun‘. ‘The Holiday Season is approaching’, she says. ‘This week we invite you to share some Holiday memories with us!’
Although Christmas is approaching, Ann-Christine didn’t actually specify which holiday. In fact, she writes: ‘Pick any fun and/or happy memories from holidays you enjoyed – your own or others´, at home or abroad.’ Well, I thought instantly of our trip to the Maldives, but I’ve posted far too many from there already. So here’s a quick shot I grabbed of Santa’s giant ass in Agueda. Apparently, this is the biggest Santa in the world (to date), and although I was only able to grab it from behind (no pun intended), it’s worth sharing. Happy Holiday Fun!
Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here, and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag ‘Lens-Artists’.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.
#agueda2 #ass2 #challenge #holidayfun2 #lensartists #santa2 #tongueincheek2 #lensArtists
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Lens-Artists Challenge #377: Holiday Fun
We’ve got the builders in, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make an entry for the Lens-Artists Challenge this week. Fortunately, I found myself in the nearby town of Agueda on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon and found the perfect subject for the Lens-Artists Challenge. Kind of. This week it’s Ann-Christine’s (Leya from To See a World in a Grain of Sand …) to host the Challenge, and her theme is ‘Holiday Fun‘. ‘The Holiday Season is approaching’, she says. ‘This week we invite you to share some Holiday memories with us!’
Although Christmas is approaching, Ann-Christine didn’t actually specify which holiday. In fact, she writes: ‘Pick any fun and/or happy memories from holidays you enjoyed – your own or others´, at home or abroad.’ Well, I thought instantly of our trip to the Maldives, but I’ve posted far too many from there already. So here’s a quick shot I grabbed of Santa’s giant ass in Agueda. Apparently, this is the biggest Santa in the world (to date), and although I was only able to grab it from behind (no pun intended), it’s worth sharing. Happy Holiday Fun!
Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here, and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag ‘Lens-Artists’.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.
#agueda2 #ass2 #challenge #holidayfun2 #lensartists #santa2 #tongueincheek2 #lensArtists
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Lens-Artists Challenge #377: Holiday Fun
We’ve got the builders in, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make an entry for the Lens-Artists Challenge this week. Fortunately, I found myself in the nearby town of Agueda on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon and found the perfect subject for the Lens-Artists Challenge. Kind of. This week it’s Ann-Christine’s (Leya from To See a World in a Grain of Sand …) to host the Challenge, and her theme is ‘Holiday Fun‘. ‘The Holiday Season is approaching’, she says. ‘This week we invite you to share some Holiday memories with us!’
Although Christmas is approaching, Ann-Christine didn’t actually specify which holiday. In fact, she writes: ‘Pick any fun and/or happy memories from holidays you enjoyed – your own or others´, at home or abroad.’ Well, I thought instantly of our trip to the Maldives, but I’ve posted far too many from there already. So here’s a quick shot I grabbed of Santa’s giant ass in Agueda. Apparently, this is the biggest Santa in the world (to date), and although I was only able to grab it from behind (no pun intended), it’s worth sharing. Happy Holiday Fun!
Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here, and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag ‘Lens-Artists’.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.
#agueda2 #ass2 #challenge #holidayfun2 #lensartists #santa2 #tongueincheek2 #lensArtists
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Keith Hernandez left ‘speechless’ by Pete Alonso’s Mets exit https://www.rawchili.com/mlb/471539/ #Baseball #EdwinDíaz #KeithHernandez #Mets #MLB #MlbFreeAgency #NewYork #NewYorkMets #NewYork #NewYorkMets #PeteAlonso #Sports
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Keith Hernandez left ‘speechless’ by Pete Alonso’s Mets exit https://www.rawchili.com/mlb/471539/ #Baseball #EdwinDíaz #KeithHernandez #Mets #MLB #MlbFreeAgency #NewYork #NewYorkMets #NewYork #NewYorkMets #PeteAlonso #Sports
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Filling The Gaps: The ’72MP, 4K Ultra HD’ Digital Scamera
This always happens to me: I had this urge (again) to try some circuit bending. This involves getting a cheap digital camera, taking it apart and poking some wires into the connectors on the sensor, which if done right can produce some lovely glitchy images, but if done wrong can wreck the camera, so it has to be a device that you don’t mind possibly losing.
The second-hand electrical discount store CEX (Computer Exchange) is an excellent source for cheap digicams. In addition to specific models, quite often they offer ‘generic’ digital cameras for just a few Euros, and whenever one of these appears on the website I am tempted to get it. The thing is, you don’t know what you’re going to get. It might be a no-name brand camera fit for the bin, or sometimes an absolute classic, like the mint condition Canon Powershot G5 that arrived for just 3€. The point being, although I always intend to get one of these cameras for circuit bending I always end up ‘falling in love’ with it, and not having the nerve to potentially destroy it.
Anyhow. Last weekend a 12MP ‘generic’ digital camera appeared on the CEX website for 10€. Normally, I would be reluctant to pay so much for a digicam, but this time I wanted some decent resolution and this seemed to fit the bill. When the package arrived, it was quite heavy, and I wondered if it might be a decent camera again, like something from the Canon Powershot range. Instead it was something even better; a ’72MP 4K Ultra HD’ Chinese made scamera.
It’s a real vlogging camera. See, it has a rotating screen and a cold shoe for the microphone (no input for it, though).I first noticed these appearing on reputable websites in Portugal like Worten and Fnac when I was looking for a decent resolution digital camera for myself a couple of years ago. At the time they were priced at well over 100€, although often as not were heavily discounted. It was obvious it was a scamera, though not as blatant as those 35mm ‘Cannon’ cameras that were around a while ago, cheap plastic fixed lens ‘SLRs’ with a lead weight in the bottom that made them heavier.
Advertised as a, ‘4K Digital Camera for Photography, 72MP Autofocus Vlogging Cameras for YouTube with 64GB SD Card and Battery, 18X Digital Zoom 2.8″ 270° Flip Screen Compact Travel Camera for Teens’, they would pop up in the ‘marketplace’ of these websites. When I can, I generally avoid the marketplace, since they’re often Chinese sites offloading tat at vastly inflated prices. And this was no different. It’s a terrible sounding description. That entry was from Amazon, where it’s on sale for $36, but I’m certainly not going to provide a link for it. No one deserves that.
That toggle switch does nothing apart from reduce the resolution even further.In the hand the ’72M MEGA PIXELS’ scamera feels ‘plasticky’ and looks nothing like a quality camera should look. The camera can be turned on just by flipping the back open or, if the LCD screen is revealed, with an on/off button on the top. Incidentally, the red circled button is not the power button, that’s to record video. The shutter button is the big button on the top front, with the ‘zoom’ toggle. That does nothing, apart from digitally zoom the image. The ‘welcome’ screen is the tackiest opening screen I’ve ever seen, and the switch off screen is the same (‘bye bye’). The scamera beeps and chirps with a cheap-sounding tune, and the shutter sound is hopelessly synthetic.
Look at the built-in flash. It’s not got one flash symbol, but three. That flash must have the power of a thousand suns.Unfortunately, this 72MP camera doesn’t have interchangeable lenses. Or nearly any lens at all.The lens is amazing, and not in a good way. Described as, ‘5-axis stabilizer, 5K ultra HD, 3.95mm f1.8’, this lens looks like it’s a simple lens that projects straight onto a small sensor, like you’d get on a toy camera. Which I’m pretty sure it is. Although it says 5K on the lens, on the body the video resolution is described as 4K. I’ve not tested the video, or the sound quality, but I’m sure that it’s not either, at least not without a whole package of electronic jiggery-pokery. Which brings me to the claim of 72MP resolution. Is it? I suspect not.
Photograph of a garden globe light at the highest resolution of 72MP.If you take a typical 72MP image, the file size is 9856×7,392, or 72,855,552 pixels. But when you zoom in to that image it’s full of artifacts, so there’s certainly something going on there. I took a full frame image at 72MP, and a second at the lowest resolution offered by the scamera of 8MP. I zoomed each image to roughly the same size, and compared them. At 8MP, the zoomed image is ‘sharp-ish’, with details in the plaster and glass pieces in the globe. It’s still full of ‘rubbish’, mind you. At 72MP, which from a true 72MP you would expect to be filled with detail, it’s a mess. I suspect there’s been a lot of ‘upsampling’ going on here, where the software in the scamera interpolates and creates new pixels based on existing ones. This adds more pixels to make a much larger image but does not add any further resolution. So by my rough reckoning, this is at best an 8MP sensor. Truly, a scamera.
Photograph of the globe at 8MP resolution. The image was enlarged to show detail. This image is quite sharp.When the 72MP image is enlarged to the same magnification, clearly there is the loss of a lot of information.I took the scamera out and about during a trip to Oiã on a lovely sunny day, and here are the results. The images here have been resized to 1366 pixels at the longest edge, so there’s no 72MP here (not that there ever was, anyhow). The colours came out quite delightfully, actually, and I really liked how it appeared. I was very confused with the one image of the water tower, mind. This was taken in daytime but it looks like night. I did actually try to check out the infrared response of the scamera, and there was a horrible ‘hot spot’ in the middle of the image, so this may well be light reflecting in the lens.
An image of my favourite trees and well. Taken at 72MP resolution with a 720nm infrared filter.In conclusion, I finally got my hands on the 72MP digital scamera, a device I had been interested in learning about for a while. At 10€, it was still overpriced, and the scamera is truly a horrendous beast with absolutely zero appeal. Will I use it for circuit bending? Well, actually, although I was reluctant at first to do this, now I’m thinking that it might be a worthy contender. One of these days, I’m going to open it up, just to see what it’s like inside, and we’ll go from there.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow my WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline on Mastodon.
#cameraslscams #circuitbending #digicam #experimental #glitch #infrared #lofi2 #retro #scamera #toycamera #trashcam #upsampling
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Filling The Gaps: The ’72MP, 4K Ultra HD’ Digital Scamera
This always happens to me: I had this urge (again) to try some circuit bending. This involves getting a cheap digital camera, taking it apart and poking some wires into the connectors on the sensor, which if done right can produce some lovely glitchy images, but if done wrong can wreck the camera, so it has to be a device that you don’t mind possibly losing.
The second-hand electrical discount store CEX (Computer Exchange) is an excellent source for cheap digicams. In addition to specific models, quite often they offer ‘generic’ digital cameras for just a few Euros, and whenever one of these appears on the website I am tempted to get it. The thing is, you don’t know what you’re going to get. It might be a no-name brand camera fit for the bin, or sometimes an absolute classic, like the mint condition Canon Powershot G5 that arrived for just 3€. The point being, although I always intend to get one of these cameras for circuit bending I always end up ‘falling in love’ with it, and not having the nerve to potentially destroy it.
Anyhow. Last weekend a 12MP ‘generic’ digital camera appeared on the CEX website for 10€. Normally, I would be reluctant to pay so much for a digicam, but this time I wanted some decent resolution and this seemed to fit the bill. When the package arrived, it was quite heavy, and I wondered if it might be a decent camera again, like something from the Canon Powershot range. Instead it was something even better; a ’72MP 4K Ultra HD’ Chinese made scamera.
It’s a real vlogging camera. See, it has a rotating screen and a cold shoe for the microphone (no input for it, though).I first noticed these appearing on reputable websites in Portugal like Worten and Fnac when I was looking for a decent resolution digital camera for myself a couple of years ago. At the time they were priced at well over 100€, although often as not were heavily discounted. It was obvious it was a scamera, though not as blatant as those 35mm ‘Cannon’ cameras that were around a while ago, cheap plastic fixed lens ‘SLRs’ with a lead weight in the bottom that made them heavier.
Advertised as a, ‘4K Digital Camera for Photography, 72MP Autofocus Vlogging Cameras for YouTube with 64GB SD Card and Battery, 18X Digital Zoom 2.8″ 270° Flip Screen Compact Travel Camera for Teens’, they would pop up in the ‘marketplace’ of these websites. When I can, I generally avoid the marketplace, since they’re often Chinese sites offloading tat at vastly inflated prices. And this was no different. It’s a terrible sounding description. That entry was from Amazon, where it’s on sale for $36, but I’m certainly not going to provide a link for it. No one deserves that.
That toggle switch does nothing apart from reduce the resolution even further.In the hand the ’72M MEGA PIXELS’ scamera feels ‘plasticky’ and looks nothing like a quality camera should look. The camera can be turned on just by flipping the back open or, if the LCD screen is revealed, with an on/off button on the top. Incidentally, the red circled button is not the power button, that’s to record video. The shutter button is the big button on the top front, with the ‘zoom’ toggle. That does nothing, apart from digitally zoom the image. The ‘welcome’ screen is the tackiest opening screen I’ve ever seen, and the switch off screen is the same (‘bye bye’). The scamera beeps and chirps with a cheap-sounding tune, and the shutter sound is hopelessly synthetic.
Look at the built-in flash. It’s not got one flash symbol, but three. That flash must have the power of a thousand suns.Unfortunately, this 72MP camera doesn’t have interchangeable lenses. Or nearly any lens at all.The lens is amazing, and not in a good way. Described as, ‘5-axis stabilizer, 5K ultra HD, 3.95mm f1.8’, this lens looks like it’s a simple lens that projects straight onto a small sensor, like you’d get on a toy camera. Which I’m pretty sure it is. Although it says 5K on the lens, on the body the video resolution is described as 4K. I’ve not tested the video, or the sound quality, but I’m sure that it’s not either, at least not without a whole package of electronic jiggery-pokery. Which brings me to the claim of 72MP resolution. Is it? I suspect not.
Photograph of a garden globe light at the highest resolution of 72MP.If you take a typical 72MP image, the file size is 9856×7,392, or 72,855,552 pixels. But when you zoom in to that image it’s full of artifacts, so there’s certainly something going on there. I took a full frame image at 72MP, and a second at the lowest resolution offered by the scamera of 8MP. I zoomed each image to roughly the same size, and compared them. At 8MP, the zoomed image is ‘sharp-ish’, with details in the plaster and glass pieces in the globe. It’s still full of ‘rubbish’, mind you. At 72MP, which from a true 72MP you would expect to be filled with detail, it’s a mess. I suspect there’s been a lot of ‘upsampling’ going on here, where the software in the scamera interpolates and creates new pixels based on existing ones. This adds more pixels to make a much larger image but does not add any further resolution. So by my rough reckoning, this is at best an 8MP sensor. Truly, a scamera.
Photograph of the globe at 8MP resolution. The image was enlarged to show detail. This image is quite sharp.When the 72MP image is enlarged to the same magnification, clearly there is the loss of a lot of information.I took the scamera out and about during a trip to Oiã on a lovely sunny day, and here are the results. The images here have been resized to 1366 pixels at the longest edge, so there’s no 72MP here (not that there ever was, anyhow). The colours came out quite delightfully, actually, and I really liked how it appeared. I was very confused with the one image of the water tower, mind. This was taken in daytime but it looks like night. I did actually try to check out the infrared response of the scamera, and there was a horrible ‘hot spot’ in the middle of the image, so this may well be light reflecting in the lens.
An image of my favourite trees and well. Taken at 72MP resolution with a 720nm infrared filter.In conclusion, I finally got my hands on the 72MP digital scamera, a device I had been interested in learning about for a while. At 10€, it was still overpriced, and the scamera is truly a horrendous beast with absolutely zero appeal. Will I use it for circuit bending? Well, actually, although I was reluctant at first to do this, now I’m thinking that it might be a worthy contender. One of these days, I’m going to open it up, just to see what it’s like inside, and we’ll go from there.
If you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow my WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline on Mastodon.
#cameraslscams #circuitbending #digicam #experimental #glitch #infrared #lofi2 #retro #scamera #toycamera #trashcam #upsampling
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Filling The Gaps: The ’72MP, 4K Ultra HD’ Digital Scamera
This always happens to me: I had this urge (again) to try some circuit bending. This involves getting a cheap digital camera, taking it apart and poking some wires into the connectors on the sensor, which if done right can produce some lovely glitchy images, but if done wrong can wreck the camera, so it has to be a device that you don’t mind possibly losing.
The second-hand electrical discount store CEX (Computer Exchange) is an excellent source for cheap digicams. In addition to specific models, quite often they offer ‘generic’ digital cameras for just a few Euros, and whenever one of these appears on the website I am tempted to get it. The thing is, you don’t know what you’re going to get. It might be a no-name brand camera fit for the bin, or sometimes an absolute classic, like the mint condition Canon Powershot G5 that arrived for just 3€. The point being, although I always intend to get one of these cameras for circuit bending I always end up ‘falling in love’ with it, and not having the nerve to potentially destroy it.
Anyhow. Last weekend a 12MP ‘generic’ digital camera appeared on the CEX website for 10€. Normally, I would be reluctant to pay so much for a digicam, but this time I wanted some decent resolution and this seemed to fit the bill. When the package arrived, it was quite heavy, and I wondered if it might be a decent camera again, like something from the Canon Powershot range. Instead it was something even better; a ’72MP 4K Ultra HD’ Chinese made scamera.
It’s a real vlogging camera. See, it has a rotating screen and a cold shoe for the microphone (no input for it, though).I first noticed these appearing on reputable websites in Portugal like Worten and Fnac when I was looking for a decent resolution digital camera for myself a couple of years ago. At the time they were priced at well over 100€, although often as not were heavily discounted. It was obvious it was a scamera, though not as blatant as those 35mm ‘Cannon’ cameras that were around a while ago, cheap plastic fixed lens ‘SLRs’ with a lead weight in the bottom that made them heavier.
Advertised as a, ‘4K Digital Camera for Photography, 72MP Autofocus Vlogging Cameras for YouTube with 64GB SD Card and Battery, 18X Digital Zoom 2.8″ 270° Flip Screen Compact Travel Camera for Teens’, they would pop up in the ‘marketplace’ of these websites. When I can, I generally avoid the marketplace, since they’re often Chinese sites offloading tat at vastly inflated prices. And this was no different. It’s a terrible sounding description. That entry was from Amazon, where it’s on sale for $36, but I’m certainly not going to provide a link for it. No one deserves that.
That toggle switch does nothing apart from reduce the resolution even further.In the hand the ’72M MEGA PIXELS’ scamera feels ‘plasticky’ and looks nothing like a quality camera should look. The camera can be turned on just by flipping the back open or, if the LCD screen is revealed, with an on/off button on the top. Incidentally, the red circled button is not the power button, that’s to record video. The shutter button is the big button on the top front, with the ‘zoom’ toggle. That does nothing, apart from digitally zoom the image. The ‘welcome’ screen is the tackiest opening screen I’ve ever seen, and the switch off screen is the same (‘bye bye’). The scamera beeps and chirps with a cheap-sounding tune, and the shutter sound is hopelessly synthetic.
Look at the built-in flash. It’s not got one flash symbol, but three. That flash must have the power of a thousand suns.Unfortunately, this 72MP camera doesn’t have interchangeable lenses. Or nearly any lens at all.The lens is amazing, and not in a good way. Described as, ‘5-axis stabilizer, 5K ultra HD, 3.95mm f1.8’, this lens looks like it’s a simple lens that projects straight onto a small sensor, like you’d get on a toy camera. Which I’m pretty sure it is. Although it says 5K on the lens, on the body the video resolution is described as 4K. I’ve not tested the video, or the sound quality, but I’m sure that it’s not either, at least not without a whole package of electronic jiggery-pokery. Which brings me to the claim of 72MP resolution. Is it? I suspect not.
Photograph of a garden globe light at the highest resolution of 72MP.If you take a typical 72MP image, the file size is 9856×7,392, or 72,855,552 pixels. But when you zoom in to that image it’s full of artifacts, so there’s certainly something going on there. I took a full frame image at 72MP, and a second at the lowest resolution offered by the scamera of 8MP. I zoomed each image to roughly the same size, and compared them. At 8MP, the zoomed image is ‘sharp-ish’, with details in the plaster and glass pieces in the globe. It’s still full of ‘rubbish’, mind you. At 72MP, which from a true 72MP you would expect to be filled with detail, it’s a mess. I suspect there’s been a lot of ‘upsampling’ going on here, where the software in the scamera interpolates and creates new pixels based on existing ones. This adds more pixels to make a much larger image but does not add any further resolution. So by my rough reckoning, this is at best an 8MP sensor. Truly, a scamera.
Photograph of the globe at 8MP resolution. The image was enlarged to show detail. This image is quite sharp.When the 72MP image is enlarged to the same magnification, clearly there is the loss of a lot of information.I took the scamera out and about during a trip to Oiã on a lovely sunny day, and here are the results. The images here have been resized to 1366 pixels at the longest edge, so there’s no 72MP here (not that there ever was, anyhow). The colours came out quite delightfully, actually, and I really liked how it appeared. I was very confused with the one image of the water tower, mind. This was taken in daytime but it looks like night. I did actually try to check out the infrared response of the scamera, and there was a horrible ‘hot spot’ in the middle of the image, so this may well be light reflecting in the lens.
An image of my favourite trees and well. Taken at 72MP resolution with a 720nm infrared filter.In conclusion, I finally got my hands on the 72MP digital scamera, a device I had been interested in learning about for a while. At 10€, it was still overpriced, and the scamera is truly a horrendous beast with absolutely zero appeal. Will I use it for circuit bending? Well, actually, although I was reluctant at first to do this, now I’m thinking that it might be a worthy contender. One of these days, I’m going to open it up, just to see what it’s like inside, and we’ll go from there.
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