Eye Fi with my little eye

I've lamented before that the only real drawback of the Lumix camera is that it won't get full use out of Dragon because you can't upload the large images to the hard drive while also having the live feed attached. I think Mysterious Ron may have solved the problem. He emailed me tonight about this amazing new device called the Eye-Fi wireless SD card. You just stick it in the SD card slot and it automatically uploads your pictures to a folder on your hard drive ~ WIRELESSLY!!! How freakin' cool is THAT!!??!

Here's the website for the product...www.eye.fi.com/products/. Actually they now have 3 different cards.... the original (now called the Eye-Fi Share) uploads to both your computer and to the internet for sharing images on sites like Flickr or Picasa. That one costs $99. The Eye-Fi Home (the one we want) only uploads to your computer, and costs $79. Then there's some complicated one called the Explore that does crazy stuff like make toast and eggs. We don't need to do any Exploring while we're immersed in our studios.

It took me a while to find a store that carries the brand new versions... everyplace seems to carry only the original card. But finally Google turned up this site: Eyefi Home card at Buydig.com and I couldn't resist the temptation. Soon I'll know... though of course I guess I need to buy Dragon first!!! Come to think of it, my 10 day trial version will expire before it comes in. Though maybe I can get another trial to test it out.

Anywho, just thought I'd share. This could be revolutionary folks!!

An empty head and nickel plated nuts

Hey wot all....

About halfway through constructing a stand in puppet for a massive practice animation session. I'm afraid to use any of the Radkins for fear they'll break before their starring role even commences. So I'm just whipping one up in a jiffy here to work the rust off my technique before filming begins. Think I'll also download a trial of Dragon to test out at the same time. But meanwhile, two things to post about -


Here's my solution for making a hollow head, to reduce weight and save sculpting material. We've discussed it on the board, but had difficulty figuring out how to make it hollow or filled with a lightweight material and still not jiggle freely on the neck wires. I came up with this.... a spherical shell of wire stuffed with scrap plastic (could be anything.... styrofoam, foil, paper.... just make sure it won't react badly with your sculpting material... IE no styro or plastic for super sculpey cause it would melt in the oven etc). Then a thin shell of epoxy putty left rough to sculpt onto after it cures. Voila!


Also, here you see a pair of nuts. Thumb nuts to be exact, from www.smallparts.com. They make fantastic tie-downs. But I noticed as I was working tonight that I couldn't wrap two strands of wire into the channel in the brass ones. Strange... I know it worked on the REAL puppets! They all had nickel-plated thumb nuts though. Now I'm using the cheaper brass ones. Turns out they're actually smaller! Fancy that! (yes, I seem to be turning british)

As this pic shows, they're also quite a bit smaller in diameter. Something to keep in mind.... from here on out I'll get my nuts nickel-plated, thank you.

***
Added links for nickel-plated thumb screws and nuts at Smallparts to my ever-growing Resources section.

Teeny tiny steps are better than none!

Flickr'd

First we must expose the brain

Hoppy is getting fitted for his cap. More pictures on Flickr.

Update:

Head surgery for Hoppy

I had to take the knife to Hoppy - I'm afraid his hair was too badly damaged to fix. I finally worked up the courage to grab a chisel and just go to town... hacking away layers of paper and epoxy putty. The plan is to bust out some epoxy putty of my own and sculpt him a baseball cap - appropriately backwards or sideways or somesuch.

Learning the curves

Click image to see it on Flickr
Tonight was spent learning the intricacies of using the Lumix in full manual mode. Turns out the white balance was set to outdoors, while I'm using halogen! That's why my original pics were so red/orange. In my initial animation tests there's no flicker at all, but it kept refocusing, even though I had it set to manual. Turns out I wasn't supposed to be using the "manual focus assits", which finds focus only for one shot. I needed to use only the focus ring on the lens barrel, and then click the focus lock button. Worked like a charm. And since this one was shot at the full 7 MP rather than only 2, and because I figured out how to use the built-in light meter to get good exposures, I was able to do some photoshop processing without any ill effects this time. Kel has used this camera professionally and says it's never flickered at all for him or anyone who used it in the studio.

Oh, one note on photography technique.... the Lumix is notorious for poor low-light performance. Kind of scary for someone like me who yearns to do dark expressionist films. But the trick is to get a good exposure, don't blow out the whites and don't let too much of the image be dark, and then you can darken it as much as you want in post. That's how I got the image above... it was a lot brighter to begin with.

High on Definition

I'm all giddy! The Lumix is in, and now I have opened the secret and magical world of HIGH DEF STOPMOTION. Click the pic to Flickr it (then click on All Sizes to see it in all its glorious glory). Please excuse the crappy lighting and setup..... I was impatient!