Assignments for the Week of May 3
UK Daily
Assignment: British Elections
Description: Polling Activities – people voting, the activity around the polling stations, local politicians and/or celebrities turning out to vote.
Image: $5
Video: $15
Ends: 2010-05-09
UK Daily
Assignment: Politicians out canvassing
Description: In the run up to the general election in England on May 6th we’re looking for photos and videos of candidates out canvassing in their constituency
Image: $10
Video: $20
Ends: 2010-05-06
celebloft
Assignment: Celebrity images for new blog
Description: We are a new blog looking for images of celebrities in normal situations..shopping, filing car with gas etc, we don’ want galm shots, preferably gap jeans and little make-up!
Image: $100
Video: $200
Ends: 2010-05-31
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15,000 Registered Users for fizwoz
After being live for only 3 months, fizwoz.com has just registered its 15,000th user, known as “fizers”, and is growing rapidly.
fizwoz.com™ is the first a
nd only online auction site that allows you to make money off pictures and videos you take with your cell phone! fizwoz connects “photographers” (consumers) not just with thousands of individuals, but with more than 45,000 media professionals worldwide. Within seconds of your image being captured, professional organizations can start bidding on your content. TV networks, newspapers, magazines and blogs are competing to see who can be first to use the images, so don’t just give your content away, make money off it.
For the full press release, please visit PRWeb here.
Assignments for the Week of April 19th
Daily Cal
Assignment: Video reviews of Berkeley Restaurants
Description: Looking to write about how camera phones are changing the art of travel photography. I want to buy pictures of spectacular travel destinations. Please include the location in the description.
Images: $5
Videos: $5
Ending Date: April 5, 2010
Music Choice
Assignment: Karaoke Videos
Description: Capture a video of someone (even yourself) doing a Karaoke sing-along and submit it to the Music Choice Assignment under the Assignment Category on the fizwoz mobile application
Video Price:$ 20.00
End Date:2010-08-31
John Wilson
Assignment: Earthquake Videos
Description: I am looking for videos of earthquakes and their aftermath.
Video Price: $5
End Date: 2010-05-01
Bay Area Media
Assignment: People driving while using their cell phone
Description: Take a photo or video of someone driving while using their cell phone and submit it to the Bay Area Media assignment under the Assignment Category on the fizwoz mobile application
Photo: $50
Video: $75
End Date: 2010-12-31
UK Daily
Assignment: Politicians out canvassing
Description: In the run up to the general election in England on May 6th we’re looking for photos and videos of candidates out canvassing in their constituency
Photo: $10
Video: $20
End Date: 2010-05-06
Nokia N900 Camera Review
Mark Jaremko
At fizwoz, many interesting phones pass through our labs, but one of the more interesting ones to date is the Nokia N900 (Maemo). This phone certainly has a lot going for it, with a touch user interface capable of challenging the iPhone. That aside, a phone’s camera capability is something that we pay close attention to at fizwoz. So how does the Nokia measure up?
In this first part of our two-part review, we’ll take a close look at the N900’s camera features and capabilities. We’ll follow up in part two with a detailed comparison of the image quality of Nokia compared to our current benchmark, the Apple iPhone 3GS. We love the iPhone’s clean and automatic camera app, but something the lack of any manual controls can be rather limiting. How does the N900 compare?
Without even turning the phone on, it’s clear that the camera is no afterthought. This phone is serious about its picture taking. A dedicated Camera button on the top drops you directly into picture taking mode. The sliding lens cover on the back is more reminiscent of a more serious point-and-shoot than a mere cell phone. This ensures the lens and LED flash are clear and clean (one of the best ways to take better cell phone pictures is to make sure the lens is wiped clean before you shoot). The Nokia sports a 5MPixel sensor with a Carl Zeiss 2.8 autofocus lens. And like a real camera, a half press on the shutter engages the autofocus operation, quickly bringing the image on the screen into sharp focus. The N900 can go from standby to full capture in under two seconds, just by sliding the lens cover to the open position.
Contrast this with the iPhone, which takes many taps, and at best, seven seconds to launch the camera app. While the iPhone does not have a dedicated shutter button, nor a dedicated autofocus engage, it does constantly focus on the image in front of the camera, and does a rather good job of it. Chances are, by the time you’re ready to take a photo, the iPhone will have already focused on what you’re about to shoot.
From the Camera app itself, the N900 gives you several touch areas in which to control the camera.
The N900 has enough camera control to rival any mid-tier point-and-shoot camera.
One nice feature that we liked about the main screen is that any custom setting that you might have enabled show up as small icons in the bottom left part of the screen. This not only acts as a reminder that the camera is not on full auto mode, but also lets you tap on them to quickly change that setting.
The Camera Mode setting allows you to pick from four different shooting styles. In our tests, Automatic did a reasonable job of switching the camera into the correct mode.
Macro mode managed to focus down to about 4” from the subject, a little further than the iPhone. Where the N900 really shinned was indicating focus lock. When the subject is in focus, the focus area turns green with a slight audible click. The iPhone has no such confirmation. The 3GS will tell you what it’s trying to focus on, but it might fail and still allow you to take an obviously blurry image. This is rather frustrating when trying to take any macro photography, as you won’t know if you got the shot until you download the photo. Not with the Nokia, you know before you take the shot if you have a focus lock or not.
Both Landscape and Action change how focus works. You no longer see the camera hunt for the correct focus, as its now optimizing for either infinity focus in Landscape, or fast action shooting in the Action mode.
Action mode also sets the camera’s ISO setting to the top speed, ISO 400, to bump the shutter speed to the maximum speed.
In the Capture Settings menu, you have a host of custom controls to manually set the camera.
White balance gives you the standard set of preconfigured settings to pick from, although missing is any ability to set a custom white balance. Still, this is a far cry from the iPhone which gives you nothing. Having some White Balance setting is more important on a camera phone or point-and-shoot since these numbers are baked right into the JPG file that the camera creates. With a high end DSLR, you can change this after the fact if you shoot RAW, but not so with JPG.
ISO gives you a set of options from 100 to 400, but the phone has a far greater range in Automatic. We’ve seen recorded ISO values anywhere from 100 all the way to 800 during a night time shot. The iPhone 3GS, on the other hand, automatically sets the ISO based on the image, with no manual settings and typical values are anywhere from 70 all the way to 1016, giving the iPhone a slightly greater theoretical sensitivity in low light environments. However, the N900’s LED flash can make a far larger impact on image quality.
The LED Flash on the N900 can make a huge difference in low-light photography. Common settings include On, Off, Automatic and Red eye. In the Red Eye mode, the N900 will flash the LEDs three times before taking the actual photograph. Unfortunately, the iPhone has not such flash.
Exposure setting, something very useful in a regular camera, allows you to change, in real-time, the exposure setting of the image. You actually see the image in front of the camera get brighter or darker as you drag the slider to the left and right. This is invaluable in cases where you’re shooting into the sun or into the shade.
As for exposure speed, the top exposure time for the N900 seems to be 1/1000 second, which should be fast enough for most action conditions. The iPhone 3Gs seems to top out at around 1/623 second.
Finally, Resolution gives you two options, the standard 5 Megapixel default, or a lower resolution 3.5 Megapixel widescreen. This option is a little puzzling, as the widescreen format doesn’t actually give you a wider photograph, it’s merely the 5 Megapixel photo with the top and bottom cropped off in order to fit the Nokia’s screen. Still, this is a far cry from the iPhone’s 3.1 Megapixel sensor.
Finally, there is a General Settings area in the N900 which allows you to set your name, LCD review time and memory card location.
So how good is the quality of the N900 photo, and how well does it compare in the field to the iPhone? We’ll take a close look in the second part of our review.
Assignment for the Week of March 29th
Travel Blogger
Assignment: Looking to Purchase Photos of Popular Travel Destinations
Description: Looking to write about how camera phones are changing the art of travel photography. I want to buy pictures of spectacular travel destinations. Please include the location in the description.
Images: $5
Videos: $5
Ending Date: April 5, 2010
Afghanistan Captured Through An iPhone
David Guttenfelder, an AP photographer, used an iPhone to capture amazing photography of the largest military operation in Afghanistan since 2001. To check out his iPhone photography of this event, please visit Depth of field: Afghanistan.
This type of photography shows how powerful of a tool camera phones have become in the past five years. No longer are people limited by their traditional camera. Instead, people more often than not now have a camera with them at all times in the form of their cell phone.
Cell Phone Camera’s Soon To Be Rated On Image Quality
The International Imaging Industry Association will soon be testing all of the Cell Phone Cameras for overall image quality.
“The score is based on measurements of a variety of factors. First came basics such as sharpness, color uniformity, and lens distortion. Now the group is tackling image noise, white balance, sensitivity, blur, and other attributes” according to the article Help Coming for Judging Phone Camera Quality by CNET.
As cell phones continue to evolve, this rating system will make it much easier for buyers to distinguish between the different levels of quality in future mobile phones. The ratings will be displayed as a 5 star rating, accompanied with a more detailed chart for the more advanced users.
We at fizwoz think that this rating system will continue to encourage the innovation of the camera phone market, especially with Nokia, the iPhone and the Nexus One competing in the market.
Introduction to Visual Journalism by Nieman Reports
The team at Nieman Reports have just put out their latest edition. It is all about visual journalism, with the theme of “Fresh Approaches and New Business Strategies for the Multimedia Age” I thought it would be of interest to this group.
Here is how the editor Melissa Ludtke describes the focus:
“Photojournalism is changing, propelled by newsroom budget cuts, multimedia possibilities, and the ubiquity of digital images. In Visual Journalism, photojournalists write about emerging digital business strategies and their efforts to expand the reach of their photographs online and on gallery walls. They also share ideas about how to fund projects of personal passion and societal value. Their words tell vital stories about how they do their work; slideshows of their photographs—exclusive to our Web site—and multimedia presentations convey their visual stories. Read and watch as the future of photojournalism unfolds.”
Check out the Nieman Reports Introduction to Visual Journalism.
Technology is Changing Journalism: Why News Media is Looking to You to Share Your Story
There has been a lot of talk about how journalism is changing. The recent announcement that ABC News is making cuts in their staffing has pointed out how new technology is changing how even the networks cover the news. There are now a lot of discussions in journalism about what are called VJ, or video journalists, where one person using lightweight gear with laptops can do much of the work that used to be assigned to a reporter, photographer, editor and live truck operator.
The website Lost Remote interprets this move toward one person doing the work that had been traditionally done by a team this way. “The new tools of our trade make it easier to shoot and edit, and we predict that new voices will be found – people who never before had a chance to prove their storytelling chops nationally.”
If you would like to be one of those who would like to cover news using some of these new tools, the website Mashable looked at what tools are available for anyone to use, that can help you do everything with your smart phone equipped with a camera. They include the voice recorder from Google Voice, a way to stream live video from your cell phone using a product like Ustream, a video editor like Reeldirector for use on your iPhone, some small hints on how to type fast notes on your smart phone (with some instructions from a 16 year old girl) and Wordpress, the fast and easy blog that many people are using to post their content.
This movement towards using your phone as an all purpose tool captured the attention of one reporter at the BBC who was asked this question:
“can u give me a crash course in citizen reporting? What tech is best and are there rules/tips?”
He offered up a list of tools for new journalists here, everything you need to become ready for the next big breaking story. He touched on the how the a phone with a camera is now becoming an instant transmitter of live video: “You can go live for free using mobile applications like Ustream, Bambuser or Qik – though I’m still waiting for the first real breaking-news story to arrive via one of these services.”
We can say wait no more, a number of television stations are now using live streaming from devices using software like Qik. This winter’s storms on the East Coast were the latest opportunity for TV stations and the public to work together to share live video and thousands of pictures taken while the storm was closing down airports and roads around the region. One example was WTTG which actively sought out viewers who had mobile phones with live streaming software installed. Check out MyFoxDC asking users to share their weather stories through “ViewerCams” and through “MyWeather.”
The team at fizwoz can see more and more newsrooms looking to partner with the public to cover big stories as they happen. For those incredible shots of breaking news, there is a market place that is developing where newsrooms will pay for the very best of those pictures. If you capture breaking news, we hope you’ll think of the fizwoz website as where you can share your great pictures.
