Little Shot

Bought a PSP Camera (PSP-300X) last night for $70 from Funz Centre. Will post some pics of the camera + packaging and some pictures taken by it when i get out of camp tomorrow but you can check out the official site (Japan) here. It's called 'Chotto Shot' (Little Shot) in Japan. Cute name. Brought it to work today and Ming Wei was saying that i just wanted to show off my new toy again. Well if he thinks that way than all i can say is wait till he sees my GPS receiver (ordered through Funz Centre as well) for my PSP..

I found the image/video quality of the 1.3 Mega Pixel camera better than i expected when at the PSP's native resolution (480x272). Video capturing was especially lag-free (full 30fps support) and it comes with some nifty settings for photo taking such as adjusting exposure, picture quality (Fine/Standard) and adding effects (sketch, b/w, distort etc) on the fly.



The Chotto Shot's built in effects.
Resolution can be set for photos (320x240, 480x272 Default, 640x480 and 1280x960) and at default settings over 6000+ images can be taken on 800mb of free space on my memory stick! That number drops to 1000+ at max settings but that is still more pictures than i would care to take in a week. Video takes around 40MB for a minute's worth. Media saving to the MS Stick Pro is very quick as well. And it comes package with a UMD software called "EDIT" (that being the only non-japanese word on the UMD Cover i can read) that can has album, slideshow and some image/video editing functions. Not a bad package for $70.

Some issues i have with the device though:

- There's no way to keep the PSP with the Chotto Shot attached on top in my soft case or in any sort of case that's available on the market (as far as i know). So i have to detach and re-attach the camera everytime i want to use it, which would not be so bad if the USB connector on my PSP wasn't so screwy. Sometimes i really have to fiddle with the camera attaching screw quite a while before it gets detected. That's the 2nd thing on my PSP that's going crazy (the first being my analog stick) but i guess i have one of the oldest PSP around (coming to 2 years old this june) so that's to be expected.

- The USB connector doesn't fit with my Logitech Playgear Visor so i have to remove it everytime i want to attach the camera. Guess i can expect much more fingerprints/scratches on my screen in weeks to come.

- Can't figure out how to switch off the shutter sound when taking pictures. So much for trying to take voyeur shots on the sly...

- When you turn the camera upside down you will see "Made In China"...Arghh..

It was fun testing out the Chotto Shot today at work but of course i won't post any of the 'sensitive' pictures i took today online, except maybe the close-ups of the Teos (Cheng Wei and Ee Wei) sleeping during lunch. On 2nd thoughts i better not in case they whack me at work.