I got an email the other day from a N82 user and professional artist Marc Dalessio showing off ways he uses his N82 to help him record his work. I love getting emails like this especially when I see how much the N82 draws in the extra creative people of the world. Using geotagging and time lapse photography (as talked about earlier at this blog), Marc is able to keep track of where he paints and show off his painting process in a short video.
Marc said,As a landscape painter I need to remember where I go painting, and can also pass the locations onto other painters, so I set up a flickr page with the best spots around Tuscany. Find link here.
I've also started doing time lapse movies of my portrait commissions, as before I had to remember to take the picture, now the n82 does it all for me. Here is the first attempt:
I'm extremely impressed at how Marc decided to "think out of the box" and come up with these ideas to enhance his painting experiences. Thanks for sharing Marc!
If you want to learn more about geotagging with the Nokia N82 click here.
If you want to learn more about time-lapse photography, click here.
To see more artwork by Marc Dalessio and check out his blog, click here.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
An Artistic Painter Finds Creative Ways To Use The N82 To Make Job Easier
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Photos: Another Day On The Waterfront
Update: This post was uploaded directly from my Nokia N82 during my lunch break. My Blogger.com account provides an email address to upload pictures and words to my blog from my phone or any email device. I could have also used Shozu to add these pictures, but I found it easier to just email them to the blog account. If your interested in any of these techniques let me know and I'll go into it deeper.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Take Me Out To The Ball Game Says The N82
Watching the LA Dodgers at the ballpark eating dodger dogs and pounding the beers. Feels like a hundred degrees out here but its beautiful. Thanks to the Panoman application for letting me take this panorama with the n82.
Click the image for high resolution.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Squirrels & Lizards Captured In Darkness With The N82
Hopefully Ravindra from Symbian Life Blog didn't blind these poor little fellas haha. I'm sure there fine. He got a chance to try out the N82 and shows off the xenon flash capalities - in pitch black darkness.
Looking at all the pictures on his article you would think there was a light on in the room. I had a discussion with Devin from The Nokia Guide today and we agreed how hard it would be to give up xenon flash. I was telling him that myself, living in the USA we don't get to take advantage of the N82's 3g speeds. I could opt to go for the N95-4, but there is no way in hell I can get good use out of the N95's camera in low light conditions. I take a lot of night photos so this is definetly a problem.
Click here to head over and check out the article by Symbian Life. It's very interesting as are the photos he took.
What do you think? Would you be Europeans be able to give up your 3g speeds to keep xenon flash? Or would you switch to a N95 with 3g and no xenon? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.
I'm actually going to find out this question for myself soon. I will be trialing a N95-4 (N95 8gb with North American 3g) for a few weeks thanks to Nokia. I'll check back here with my initial thoughts in a few days.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Photo Sharing: Point Ferman Lighthouse, Sunken City, & The Korean Bell In San Pedro, CA With The N82
Today my sister, girlfriend and myself headed out to San Pedro, CA. to visit Point Ferman Park where you can find a lighthouse and something even cooler called Sunken City right below the park. San Pedro is located on California's coast. We also visited the Korean Bell of Friendship that was given to America as a gift from South Korea over 30 years ago.
As we all know "Storytelling Rediscovered" is the catch phrase that Nokia uses to promote NOkia N82. In this post I'll share the story of my day by showing off the photos I took. Ever since I got the N82 I find myself taking a lot more pictures than I ever have and then sharing them later with friends and family. Storytelling with photos has been discovered for me.
The map below has a handful of the photos I took laid out in the exact GPS location they were shot. Using Location Tagger the N82 automatically tags all my photos with the GPS location. Location Tagger is a free application still in beta that you can try out on your phone. With the next firmware update and the release of the black N82 this will be built into the phone.
navigate and zoom using the controls on the top left to see more pictures
View Larger Map
Using the new Share Online 3.o the photos are tagged and uploaded to Flickr with one touch upload where I can then grab the feed and embed the photos into the Google map that you see below. I can go in and add titles and descriptions to each photo to explain the story of the photo. The map is live so if I go back there tomorrow and take some more shots I can upload them to Flickr and tag them accordingly. The pictures will show up on the map automatically so I can share them with friends and family. I find this great for recording trips and vacations to go back a look at them later.
Technology that the Nokia N82 brings changes the way we view our media. My parents keep photo albums that they pull out of a closet to show off when people visit. Of course this will never go away. But now we have more options. I don't keep a physical photo album myself. Instead I'll pull up a map on the internet just like the one above and show off all the pictures that way. For long distant friends or relatives I can email the map to them instead of waiting years to see them and show off my stories.
I was going to write up a tutorial to show you guys exactly how to do this but remembered that Mark Guim from The Nokia Blog wrote a good article a while back ago. Click here to learn how to embed your N82 photos on a map then onto your website, myspace, email, etc.
In the slideshow are photos from the Sunken City, Point Ferman Lighthouse, and the Korean Friendship Bell. Sunken City is a chunk of a park and road that simply fell apart and into the ocean. The land is on a cliff overlooking the ocean and just gave way over 50 years ago. I don't really know much history behind it but it was an amazing experience walking around all the rumble that is still there. Of course its all been vandalized as you can see. Some of the photos of the bunker with the locked door is a place where the US military had cannons that they could shoot into the water since Japanese subs were thought to be creeping up on the West Coast. Not sure if they ever did get that close, but it's nice to know thatour forces were there to protect us during World War II. The bunker now just sits there for everyone to check out.
Making this slideshow was easy using Ovi, Nokia's new online photo sharing service which is also integrated with Share Online 3.0. There are also ways to do this with Flickr but I prefer Ovi because of the simplicity. To make the slideshow you just go to the Ovi Channel you want to share and off to the right click the link "embed this channel". You are then taken to a page that looks like this where you can grab the code provided and embed it into your website, myspace, etc. I couldn't use Ovi for the maps because they don't currently support geofeeds like Flickr does. I've contacted Ovi about this and they said they are working on it and it will be available in the future. Hopefully that means soon so I can do away with Flickr and their $25 a year once and for all.
If you have any photos of places or events that you would like to share here at the blog via a slideshow in Ovi don't hesitate to contact me so that I can make a feature article.
Friday, March 28, 2008
The Symbian Guru Getting Married - Streaming It Live With The Nokia N82
He's doing it. Tying the knot. Showing his ultimate love for his fiance. Ending his life. Just kiddin marriage is a beautiful thing and a another step to an amazing partnership with his soon to be wife.
Congrats to Ricky from Symbian-Guru on his upcoming marriage this Saturday. I know many of you have become huge fans of his writings over at Symbian-Guru.com. I know I have. That was one of the first blogs I started reading when I was introduced to S60 less than a year ago. Adding Rita to the mix only sealed the deal on making it my favorite blog to read. I always loved checking out her posts over at DotSiSx about her experiences with her Nokia device.
Cut to the chase.
Ricky and his soon to be wife will be live-casting the whole wedding to the internet - specificy Flixwagon.com - with four Nokia N82's. If you haven't checked out Flixwagon yet it allows you to stream live video from your phone to the internet. I personally haven't tried it out but I'm in the process. Right now its in beta phase and only alpha testers get to try it out. You can visit their website and sign up and I'm sure they'll include you.
Like Ricky mentioned in his post, the N82 is perfect for this type of event especially because of the "storytelling rediscovered" tagline that Nokia has been pushing. The N82's camera is the fastest and best cameraphone on the market. The xenon flash will capture all the amazing moments during the reception and on the dance floor. Autofocus I've found is way faster the the N95's in dim light conditions. You feel like your using a real digital camera with the N82. I wouldn't trust any other cameraphone for quick snapshots of an event this big, and neither is the Symbian-Guru.
Head over to Symbian-Guru and read all about the wedding plans. Congrats again Ricky.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
St. Patrick's Day Photos @ The Bar Captured By The Nokia N82
I took my one quarter Irish girlfriend out for St. Patty's Day to celebrate with some drinks. We hit up a real cool bar by our house called Lofflers and it was a party. Green beer and $5 Irish car bombs all night. Here are a few photos from the great night we had. The N82 is the only cameraphone that will give pictures this clear in a bar or pub. The N95 I had for a little bit failed miserably because of the lack of Xenon flash. Also the camera software on the N82 is much faster. Photos are taken in a few seconds which is great especially for shots in the dark like these were. People at the bar were amazed that the camera I was using was indeed a phone.
Here is the slideshow of images...
The images are hosted at Ovi.com, Nokia's photo sharing website I talked about earlier this week. They make it extremely easy to make slideshows like this to share on your blog, website, myspace, etc. All the pictures were uploaded with one click after each shot was taken. You can even set up channels and embed the specific channel into your website. Then every photo you add to that channel from then on will be shown in your slideshow or gallery on your website. For example if you want a slideshow gallery on your Myspace you can make a channel called myspace photos. Using Ovi's tools embed the slideshow of that channel into your myspace. Whenever you take photos now that you want to share with your myspace friends, you can just upload the photo after you take it to that specific channel. The photos will automatically appear in real time on your myspace. Awesome.
Don't forget to head over to Ovi.com and get yourself an account. Make sure your upgraded to the latest Share Online 3.0 application on your n82 as well.
Stay tuned for the Wednesday Themes that I'll be adding later today.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Photos: Capturing A Favorite Local Band With The Nokia N82
Saturday night was a great night for me. I got a chance to go see one of my favorite local hardcore/metal bands called Taken. These guys were around for awhile, and I went through my second half of highschool seeing them month after month. Keep in mind I'm 23 years old. Taken broke up a few years ago and it was a huge bummer for their loyal fan base. A few months ago they announced a reunion show, and I had to make it.
This would also be the first time I got a chance to use the Nokia N82 to a concert. I know I promised you guys Foo Fighters pictures from when I saw them last Thursday (which was amazing), but the seats I had were too far up and not facing the stage making the N82 useless. Too bad it doesn't have optical zoom. I got about 20 shots of Taken playing on Saturday and a good handful of the other band that played as well. Before you scroll down and look at the slideshow I'm gonna describe the nature and atmosphere of the show. Emotions were high, kids were rocking out everwhere jumping around everywhere stage diving and mosh pitting. I was hanging onto my N82 for dear life. The air was muggy and moist and the lighting was dark with occacional bursts from the strobe lights. Because of the random lighting the N82 sometimes blurred the photo. I personally like the effects the lightning gave to some of the photos.
I uploaded these to OVI Share, which is Nokia's version of Flickr. If you want to see a picture bigger simply click on it during the slideshow and it will take you to the Ovi website where all the images are located. Check out the slideshow below, there are about 20 photos.
Some of the pictures may not look like it but the Xenon flash proved to be a huge help. Without the flash the N82 gives off, a lot of these pictures would be extremely grainy and dull. The camera performed well especially under these lighting conditions. My hand was always up in the air being shaken around when I took these. It was crowded and the crowd was moving. In some of these shots I thought I was gonna get trampled by flying bodies.
In the past I would use a 5 megapixel Samsung digital camera to get these shots. The photos came out just as good, some maybe better. The N82 out performed the digital camera in a few ways. For one the digital took forever to take the show once I push the shutter down. Then when it was finally captured it took almost 20 seconds sometimes to process the image. I think the digital camera didn't like the lighting of the room. The N82 on the other hand was extremely fast. The shutter would go off and the camera would be ready for the next shot in five seconds. I turned off the "show captured image" setting since I need to save battery life. Thats another thing the Samsung camera sucked at - battery life. With it struggling to get these shots and process them, the battery would be dead in a half hour.
And now for the video. This is where the Nokia N82 failed. It got some great video footage and the quality is acceptable, even with the lack of a light. But one thing killed it - the audio. Of course this is harsh to critisize because it's such a loud environment in a room about the size of a large living room, but a regular digital camera or camcorder would have got me much better sound. The N82 with it's 30 frames per second video recorder should have came with a much better microphone. Everything in the videos I took just sound way too high pitched, you can't make anything out - at all. 100 percent unusable. Next time I decide to record a video of live music in a small room up close to the speakers I'm gonna bring a stand alone sound recorder and just keep it in my pocket. I've seen some concert footage with the N82 before and the sound was good. But thats because the phone wasn't up close to the band and speakers. I was at any given time between 1 foot and 10 feet from the speakers. I may end up overlaying the real cd audio tracks from a song on top of the video footage I got. I should be able to match it up pretty well.
While I got all this footage, it's amazing that the N82 had an extremely low battery. I wrote yesterday about how I handled the problem, click here if your interested in reading this.
What do you think of the photos? Of course I should brighten up some of them with Ovi's editing tool. I may post some retouched samples tomorrow. If you have any shots of live music email them over to me so I can check em out and show them off here at the blog.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Photo: Beautful Day At Huntington Beach, California
As you can see it was a beautiful evening at Huntington Beach today, and the afternoon was just as good. Went to hang out and grab a bite to eat. A perfect 74 degrees Fahrenheit today. Can't beat that.
