You might have noticed that I don't spend a lot of time here talking about products that I don't like or that you shouldn't buy. Although I review technology and gadgets, the purpose of this blog has always been to concentrate on the things I actually use, not the things I don't use or have no interest in. I'm going to break tradition here a bit and talk about a product that I just got that I may not actually use going forward. It's called the HoverCam X500. The reason I'm going to cover it here is because many of you have asked me about solutions for doing presentations of mobile devices like the iPad, iPhone, Droid, etc. Since very few mobile devices actually have video out that you can show the user interface of the device with, I wanted to share with you my experience with this device and what you should look out for.
What is it?
The HoverCam X500 is a USB2 Document Camera. It's designed to allow you to scan both documents and objects into your computer. Think of it as a downward facing webcam on a stand that comes with (well actually you download it) software to allow you to capture what the camera sees as either still images or video.
What's good about it?
It's light weight and easy to setup. There really isn't much too it. You plug in the supplied USB cable and flip up the lens. That's it! There is a built-in LED light that you can adjust on the X500 itself, but all other controls are in the App. The software gives you a variety of features to allow you to zoom, adjust the quality, capture at different resolutions and save what you capture in various formats. So far, so good!
What's not so good about it?
Although this sounds like a great idea (yeah, I know it's been done many times before. I have an Epson document camera already), the thing that's really keeping this from being a really great gadget is the camera just isn't good enough. The built-in camera suffers from two problems. The first one I noticed is that it's way too slow. You get some serious motion blur and lag if you are doing anything that moves. So you can forget capturing swiping gestures or tapping of your finger say on a mobile phone. You will get about what seems like 2-3 fps. The odd thing about this that it's clearly designed to capture video! The second problem is that even if you're not recording anything that moves, the contrast on this camera is really high and no matter what adjustments I've made in the software or lighting conditions, I'm not happy with what I'm seeing. Whites/Highlights are completely blown out! I tried capturing a white salt shaker and you can't even tell what it is.
Why did I buy it?
I have no desire to use this as a scanner. I already have great scanners that do what I need. My hopes for this device was to possibly replace/supplement my Epson document camera. My Epson camera is BIG and heavy and the built-in camera, is just OK. This looked like a great device to allow me to do two things: do live product demonstrations of mobile devices and to allow me to more quickly capture gadget photos and videos of the things I review. Also the Epson goes out to a VGA source like a Projector, but doesn't really have a connection to your computer beyond S-Video.
Why wouldn't I keep using it?
Although I love the size and weight and the fact that it takes up minimal desk space, the quality is the deal breaker. It's not as good as the HD video I already capture with my Canon or Kodak Zi8 or even the stills I capture with my iPhone camera. I rarely return things, but I think this will be going back to the store.
I still want one
If you're not doing a lot of motion and you're wanting to capture things that are difficult to capture on flatbed scanners, then this device could still be of some use to you. You can order it here for about $195 (List price $279). You can learn more about HoverCam products here.
The iPhone. Is there anything that device can't do?
Your cellphone/smartphone (make/model):
A MotoW385 that really needs to be upgraded
Won't leave the house without -
My laptop, it's an extension of my arm!
Blogs you read regularly
Too many to list here! All of the NAPP sites, and a lot of the personal blogs of members and instructors of NAPP, as well as Rands In Repose – I love that guy!, Design Informer, and my brother's site- stevegast.com
Mac or PC
Both! I have a PC laptop and a Mac desktop. I'm a crossover kid!
Laptop or Desktop
Both, but mostly my laptop because it's portable.
Favorite App/Software
PHOTOSHOP! And a FireFox plug-in called FireBug. I really love that program and I recommend it to every designer that works on or with the web. My life wouldn't be the same without either of these programs.
Technology that you're most looking forward to that hasn't been invented yet?
Teleporting. Or anything that makes it easier and cheaper to visit people that live far from you.
What do you wear to work?
My PJs. I work from home.
Favorite Quote
"If you're going through Hell, just keep going." Winston Churchill and "There comes a point in your career when you have to stop asking questions and just figure it out." Zack Arias
Favorite Restaurant
A Chinese restaurant in Chinatown called Lao Sze Chuan – the food there is amazing!
What time do you go to bed?
Usually between 1 and 3am.
What time to you wake up?
Usually between 8:30 and 10am.
What's the first thing you do when you wake up?
Curse. I'm not a morning person.
Describe your perfect day
Any day that involves lots of sunshine and warm weather, lots of my NAPP friends, lots of laughter, lots of creative energy, lots of talking, and lots of good food. Also, any day where I know I've hit a home run with my writing.
Anything else?
If I had one piece of advice to give people it would be to push yourself. Be it in the direction of your dreams, to try new things, to learn more, to rise above, to take better care of you, or to just be a nicer person. If we all worked really hard at being better individuals, then we would also be a better "us" as a whole. Test your limits, the possibilities of this life are endless.
As a photographer one of the iPad accessories I was most anticipating was the iPad Camera Connection Kit. This kit consists of TWO adapters that connect right to the iPad's Dock connector. The first one is a standard SD (SDHC) Memory Card reader. You connect it to your iPad and then insert a memory card with images/videos on it and transfer those images to your iPad. No software to install because the iPad already has this ability built-in to the Photos App. The second adapter has a standard USB port on the oppositie end of the Dock connector. With this one you can not only connect your camera via USB and transfer images directly, but as my video above shows you can even use a Card Reader with it! This overcomes (although not as elegantly) the problem of wanting to use Compact Flash or other card formats.
How does it work?
The video walks you through it so I'm not going to spend a lot of time writing about it. I'm surprised at just how well it works though. My first test was an SD card right out of my Nikon D5000 containing RAW images on it and they came right in with no fuss. The next pleasant surprise was that the editing Apps (Photoshop.com Mobile and Photogene) had no problem editing those RAW files. Now it could just be editing the JPEG preview. I can't really tell, but hey it works!
How would you use this?
The most obvious use for this kit is to backup and review your photos on your iPad. When you look at the cost (still way over priced) of the Epson P6000, and what you can do with an iPad (beyond just backup and review) for not much more money (and even less money if you don't need as much storage), it's a no brainer. Also since the iPad doesn't have a built-in camera at this point, it provides iPad users with a way of getting images into their iPad more directly than having to sync them with their computer or use email/internet. I know this is obvious to many of you, but before someone asks, the images you import to the iPad can be sync'd back to your computer via iTunes/USB when you get back home.
What about Compact Flash?
The kit doesn't natively support Compact Flash Cards or any other card format besides SD. However, as I showed in the video there is a work around. Use a card reader. Again it's not elegant, but it works. Here's a link to my favorite USB multi-card reader that I tested and found to work great with this kit.
What about videos?
Of course there are lots of cameras that shoot videos these days including DSLR. So video support is important too. I imported video from both my Nikon D5000 and my Kodak Zi8 cameras. 720p video shot with the Nikon D5000 imports AND plays back on the iPad. 720p video shot with the Kodak Zi8 imports, BUT doesn't play back on the iPad. This is not surprising since it seems that EVERY camera out there that shoots video shoots it using different codecs and formats. Since the iPad has a limited number of video formats that it plays back, you mileage will vary as to what works and what doesn't. Bottom line is that it all imports at least from a backup perspective.
Two more things
After I shot the video above, I had two more ideas of things to try and they both worked! The first one was that I wanted to see what would happen if I not only connected my D700 to it, but I started shooting while it was connected. For a brief moment I got very excited thinking that they snuck in tethered shooting! sigh… upon further inspection, the images were showing up because they were being written to the card and I would still have to import them. So no live tethering. The second thing I tried was connecting my iPhone directly to it and bam it saw the iPhone as a camera and offered to import the 3 images sitting in my camera roll. Now I'm not sure that I would ever need to use the iPhone this way since there isn't much that I could do on the iPad that I couldn't already do with an image on the iPhone other than work on it with a bigger display, but it's cool to know that the option is there.
Anything else?
OK, two more things: Yes, as it turns out it also supports USB mics for audio input and USB keyboards. Having USB mic support could be great for VoIP apps and using your favorite mic/headset.
Importing Into LR From the iPad — UPDATE
I got this question on YouTube so I decided to connect my iPad via the USB cable to my MacBook Pro and then I fired up Lightroom and yep, it sees the iPad as a source to import from and you suck the images right in without having to launch or use iTunes as an intermediate step.
The Bottom Line
This kit makes me much more likely to want to travel with my iPad because it can now do one more thing and that is backup my photos and give me a nice big display to see them on while I'm on the road/in the field. The fact that it supports RAW files is a huge bonus for me. I know what you're thinking: Wouldn't it be cool if we had Lightroom for the iPad? All I can say on that one is…..
You can get the iPad Camera Connection Kit here from the Apple Store for $29.00. A real bargain considering all that it really does beyond just importing of images.
