More Little Cyclops cameras available for Christmas

A new version of the camera is going to be available for Christmas delivery - on sale from Friday 30th August at 7pm UK time from: http://www.cyclopscameras.com/

Ideas for a new Little Cyclops?

There's a crowd sourced document looking for ideas for upgrades to the current camera and ideas for a new camera at:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19p-t4E38g8QsD1Fj5lyHypmWDGQDC1Cpdatrl9bwua8/edit#heading=h.prbe9naqdsm1

Charging the Little Cyclops battery again...

I don't really understand it - the lights I get when charging my Little Cyclops seem to have changed over time.

Maybe my microSD card has dodgy contacts - I sometimes have trouble reading it in the microSD slot of my card reader - but it always works if I plug it in via the SD Adaptor that came with the microSD card. Then again, I did first try charging my Little Cyclops without a card in the slot - as I mostly use Linux and wanted to read my one and only card at the same time.

Now, what I seem to get is steady BLUE and flashing YELLOW when charging connected to a PC. Or, steady RED and flashing YELLOW when charging connected to a USB charger.

When charging from a USB charger you can change mode and take photos as normal - and the lights then change to what you would normally expect when taking pictures (the YELLOW light switches off) - so that allows you to run the camera for a long while if you wanted to do a long term timelapse video.

WARNING - Don't format the Little Cyclops drive...

A warning has appeared on the Little Cyclops Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/fisheyedigicam

When you plug the camera into a Windows computer and see a 512mb device this is not the SD card but is the camera itself with all the files needed to run - please don't format or it will result in the "blue light error" - where the camera just displays a blue light when you try to switch it on...

You have been warned!
 

Single frame stepping the Totem (Linux) Movie Player

When you've recorded your Little Cyclops time-lapse video or even a full speed video you may want to select a single frame for use as a still photo.

On Windows video editors it's usually easy as you can typically single step through the frames to find the exact shot you want.

So, I was disappointed to be struggling in Linux with the Totem Movie Player only offering me the ability to jump to whole second positions.

But with a bit of web searching I managed to find the solution: The "dot" and "comma" keys ("." and ",") can be used to step the video forwards or backwards by one frame until you find the exact shot you want...

Meanwhile... When I edited SETUP.INI I quickly moved from the default video size (1280x720) to the larger 1600x1200 size for the benefit of the greater number of pixels. But, I now notice that the 1280x720 picture doesn't have a border and the aspect ratio is much wider - however, the horizontal field of view is still the same at around 115 degrees - so the wider aspect ration is losing information at the top and bottom...

What colour LEDs do you get when charging the Little Cyclops battery?

You'll see from my earlier post that I always seem to get flashing BLUE and flashing YELLOW LEDs when I'm charging up my Little Cyclops.

But the chart on the Little Cyclops FAQs page: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ma-FZabe-rtCpW2ixXAreCN3jgzgBWMF1vuZwxDAFpQ/edit?pli=1 shows different colours as being associated with charging...

I suspect the lights can vary on circumstances.

Today I got the usual flashing BLUE and YELLOW, but then had to shut my Linux PC down before charging was complete, so switched to using a USB charger. As the Linux PC powered off the LEDs went to steady BLUE - I had to reset the Little Cyclops to get the camera to recognise the USB charger, and then it switched to flashing RED and flashing YELLOW (the first time I had seen this colour combination associated with charging the battery) and when charging was complete it switched to the usual steady RED (ready for video).

But, what do you get?

I've set up a couple of polls on the right for you to vote on what LEDs you see when charging and when charging is complete - just for fun... Let's see what the majority view is?

Charging the Little Cyclops battery

Having used my Little Cyclops as an MP3 player for a while (and taken plenty of photos) the battery eventually ran out.

The symptom of this was that the camera went into shutdown mode (flashing RED and YELLOW lights then off) whenever I tried to take a photo - it would power up again as normal, but as soon as I tried to take a photo it shutdown.

So, I took the MicroSD card out to read the contents and plugged the Little Cyclops into a USB charger. And this is where some confusion happened.

When the Little Cyclops is fully charged it switches on - the lights for charging are flashing BLUE and YELLOW - and the lights for there being no card in the camera are (you guessed it) flashing BLUE and YELLOW. So, I never noticed when the camera switched from being charged to reporting there was no card in its slot.

So, the moral of this story is to always leave a working MicroSD card in the slot when charging the Little Cyclops. That way when it's fully charged it will switch from flashing BLUE and YELLOW to steady RED to indicate that it's ready to take videos.

Horizontal field of view and MP3 Player...

With apologies for the quality of the image - the 5cm radius child's protractor I found isn't quite in focus when taken with the Little Cyclops from the centre spot.

But, you can just about make out that 90º is in the middle of the shot and that means that the extreme left is at 32º and the extreme right at 146º - so the horizontal field of view is approximately 114º.

This compares well with the 80º quoted for the Big Shot camera.

It means that the Little Cyclops doesn't provide you with the full field of view quoted for its lens - of 170 degrees - but we can see that this has been cropped to provide a conventionally shaped image.

It does mean that the Little Cyclops is useful for Estate Agents, Garden Designers and the like in getting a complete photograph of a room or whatever. If you go to one corner of the room (or garden etc.) assuming that the angle at the corner is 90 degrees, then aim the Little Cyclops at 45º to the walls (and probably slightly down as you tend to shoot from eye level so you can see the LEDs) then you will include everything in the room. To make sure, you probably want to take a photo from every corner.

I'm starting to use the Little Cyclops as an MP3 player - it's smaller and handier than the other technology I've got. Just put your MP3 files in the VOICE folder on the MicroSD card and plug it into the camera.

The instructions for the Little Cyclops that have been published tend to be confusing as to which button is which - calling them 1, 2 and 3 or A, B and C - but 1 isn't A just to confuse you. So, I tend to think of them as POWER (the big round button with the conventional broken circle and line), MODE (to the left of POWER with a left pointing arrow on it) and FRONT (on the front with an arrow in the other direction).

To use your Little Cyclops as an MP3 player, switch the camera on (hold down POWER until you see BLUE and YELLOW flashing LEDs) then wait until the RED (ready for video) LED shows. Then press MODE and FRONT together and the colour LED changes to LIGHT BLUE. Press the POWER button briefly and the LIGHT BLUE flashes and your first MP3 track starts playing (through the headphones you plugged into the jack socket on the right of the camera). You can pause and restart the track with brief presses of the POWER button.

Volume is reduced by holding in the MODE button and increased by holding in the FRONT button. Skip to the next track by briefly pressing the MODE button and skip to the beginning of this track by pressing FRONT briefly once, then press FRONT again for the previous track and so on. To switch out of MP3 mode press MODE and FRONT together again and the LED changes to RED to indicate the camera is ready for VIDEO again.

Finally, to switch off, hold the POWER button until you have flashing RED and YELLOW LEDs.

Little Cyclops Lofi Fisheye camera arrives

Well, it's been a busy week since my camera arrived, trying everything out.

It does seem to work as described and has produced some good pictures.

However, my pictures don't compare to those on show at the Filckr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/littlecyclops/

More of the camera's features are fixed than expected - the shutter speed seems to be fixed at 1/125th of a second and the ISO (film speed) at 100 - but it still seems to cope in daylight or bright room light.

The photo size and other parameters are set in a file called "setup.ini" on the microSD card. The battery is rechargeable via USB and if you have a Windows PC you can set the camera's internal date and time through the USB connection too.

An instruction manual is being crowd sourced at:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ma-FZabe-rtCpW2ixXAreCN3jgzgBWMF1vuZwxDAFpQ

I'll try to write more when I get the time.

In the meantime there's also news of a US Boffin Bodger camera at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23579866