Ethereal Shard

It just doesn't look quite *real*, it looks like a sympathetic digital rendering of London...very interesting light indeed... ;)

HTC One Camera

So I had a bit of a chance to play with the camera on my new telephone this morning (after picking it up yesterday)...you can click them to zoom in...

This one I took (and to the naked eye it was practically pitch black - if you need proof, just look below the street light and you can clearly see the pool of orange light it was shedding on the ground - *invisible* in daylight) very early in the morning on the walk up through the woods over the hill...it's a bit spotty and blurry, but frankly I'm blown away...this is the sort of picture I would have expected from my Canon 600D in these extreme low light conditions - not a telephone.

Again, still *really* dark to the naked eye (just a hint of the sunrise to come in the clouds on the horizon) the HTC one manages to find every single spot of light (and an incredible amount of detail) - this would have been a blurry mess on the Galaxy...


In bright sunlight now, at serious risk of over exposure (especially with the light in the background), it seems to have managed to get *everything* in focus...really impressive and absolutely pin sharp.

Now, the "Zoe" feature...this is an interesting one, it takes a bit longer to take a picture (you watch a red thermometer bar for what feels like about 3 seconds) but the effect on the telephone is like something out of Harry Potter...suddenly browsing through the gallery, the pictures come alive!  Each one contains a few magical extra seconds of video on either side of the shutter (it's clearly pre-caching the "before" footage)...the effect (especially in the slideshow where it tinkles in some appropriate music) is like -well- magic!  Check out a demo video here to get a better idea, but here are a few where I managed to pull the video out and into flickr (not quite the same) -

- so this sort of shot would just magically jump into life like this -

- you'll have to manually do it here on the web, but I hope you get the idea, if not watch the demo, keep in mind that these are regular photos - just with about six seconds of video context around them to "bring them to life"...a completely new thing and astonishing to see in action...another example -

Static pic in the middle...and surrounding HD video -

Now imagine these examples as romantic "Perfect Family Day Out" shots, where the kids spring to life being charming (no nose-picking, hitting each other, loud shouts of "NO DADDY!" or falling over), Mummy laughing and swishing her hair (minus "POPPY - DON'T EAT THAT - ITS POISON!" and "THOMAS THAT'S A MAIN ROAD - STOP RIGHT NOW!!!") and my goodness...you may have something like the marketing piece! ;)

Overall, it's got to be one of the best cameras I've ever had the pleasure of using, combine that with the 1080p display on the handset and...just - WOW!  Not even touched on the proper video mode, or the HDR capability!  More on that later! ;)

Random Mobile phone pics...

...just been tidying up my telephone memory, found an old folder full of a few *rather* random pictures, thought I would share... ;)

(wow, look how small Thomas was!)



I dunno, I was obviously half way to a blog idea and then forgot about it (several times!)...more over here... ;)

Crude Panorama - View from One Canada Square

So I get up nice and early, hear the favorable weather report, grab my camera and rush into the office, gasp at the great conditions when I hurry from the lift, fiddle with my settings and boot the camera up -*AaaaaND*- dead batteries, 2 seconds of life, it *almost* manages to auto focus, then it just shuts off, so we'll have to make do with what the crappy camera on my phone can do, I even stitched them (very crudely) together...originals are below (you can click to zoom if you feel so inclined, very big version here, although you may need to log into Yahoo/Flickr to view it)-



...and now I promise to stop going on about it... ;)

Arty pictures of Christmas at Canary Wharf

Sorry, feeling a bit abstract at the moment...it's sort of liberating not to worry too much about focus (and things) for a while... ;)

Test picture...my Xbox... ;)

This is just a first try at upping a picture...this is my Xbox, lovingly modified by Mr Rat for my Christmas present. After viewing the disasterously eye straining blue L.E.D. "decorations" at the London Eye over Christmas, and the almost fit-enducing scrolling message bars that appeared briefly in Kings Cross station, I have to say I was slightly dubious about his choice of colour, but by then, the purchase had been made...I think I made him feel pretty bad about it...whoops... :(

As you can see though, the final result turned out to be absolutely stunning...! A thing of beauty...especially the circlet of cold cathode around the logo on the top! 8)

Thanks again Ratty...

Fink... ;)

Update - I forgot to mention that I took that picture with my Orange SPV C500 which gives me something in common with this fellow...