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.