I saw Max play only once, back in San Francisco in mid-2001. It was a great night for a lot of reasons, spending some time with good people and experiencing Max’s music firsthand. I’m happy to have had the chance to see him, and of course a great deal of recordings are available, so his music will live on for a long time.
iSight cameras are fun toys and useful tools. I’ve messed around with the built-in Photo Booth application taking all kinds of dumb pictures (none posted here, sorry), and there are various applications available that will trick out your iSight for all kind of silliness.
I was recently demoing various cataloging software (Delicious Library, Books, and Bookpedia) to try out iSight barcode scanning. It works as well as advertised with Delicious Library (really well, in fact — that Wil Shipley is a smart feller), and some of the time in the others (which share the same code-scanning library). That was good to find out, but after I was done messing around, I found that my iSight was permanently switched to black and white. I could get any of the color effects in Photo Booth to reset it.
Tonight I inadvertently found a way to fix it. The solution is to get some software that lets you change the iSight saturation setting. I used ProScope HR, but there are other options like iGlasses or iVeZeen that will do this for you. ProScope has the virtue of being free, which is nice for this purpose. ProScope HR is designed for use with their ProScope microscopes (which look cool, by the way), but will also take still pictures, video, and time-lapse video with an iSight as well. I haven’t played the time lapse video feature, but I could imagine that being a great way to waste time.
To fix your iSight, open ProScope HR, and click Image Adjustments. On mine, the saturation slider was all the way to the left, at 0%. Crank it up as far as you want, click OK, and everything’s back to normal.
The camera I’ve been using for the past several months has been great. It has a really pleasant and snappy user experience, so I never feel like I’m missing a photo because of the camera. I don’t always know what I’m doing, but at least I’m not feeling limited by the equipment (not any more than I would any small camera).
It hasn’t been without problems, however. I’ve had to send it back twice for repairs. The first time was because the camera was having trouble auto-focusing, only working about half the time when I pressed the shutter button halfway. It felt tweaky, like either the button was broken, or something else was wrong. Also, despite fastidiously protecting the LCD with screen protectors, there was crud on the screen that I couldn’t easily clean off. For these two reasons, I sent the camera back to Casio.
I had read on the dpreview Casio forum that Casio’s repair center was very responsive and good. To make a long story short, I agree. I phoned them, explained the problem, and they told me to send the camera in. I included a copy of the receipt to verify the one-year warranty, and in about a week and a half, the camera came back good as new, focusing correctly and with a completely clean LCD. They included a brief repair report with checkboxes for items repaired or replaced. The report said the circuit board was replaced, with a note saying “Strobe”, presumably something to do with the focus system. The LCD was noted as repaired.
Shortly thereafter, we had a family trip to Yellowstone where I shot over 800 photos (several were good, and may be found here). On the trip, I sometimes noticed smudges on the images (see an example). I only saw this on areas of flat color, and chalked it up to crap on the lens. After we got back, I messed around with a lens cloth and various cleaners, but eventually determined the lens was clean, and the crud was in the lens mechanism somewhere. Going back through older pictures, I didn’t see anything before the first repair. Since I’d never opened the camera, it had to have happened while being repaired. This was unfortunate, because otherwise the first repair experience had been very good.
So back the camera went. This time, I used the online system instead of calling them. I recommend this highly if you need to got a Casio camera repaired. Their website will tell you how much (not to the dollar, but within a range) the repair you’re seeking will cost, and allow you to check that your camera was received, approve the repair if it’s going to cost you anything, and track the return shipment after the repair is complete.
Again, the repair was relatively quick (nine days from dropping the camera in the mail to receiving it back by UPS), and this time it was truly good as new. There’s no crud on the images, and the focusing still works great. I think it’s disappointing that Casio sort of blew it on the first repair, but they made it right without a lick of hassle. Even if I hadn’t been under warranty for the second repair, they would have fixed it for free because they guarantee repairs for three months.
If you’re considering buying a digital camera, I’d definitely give Casio a serious look. I did have to get this thing repaired, but most people don’t have to do that from what I can tell, and those that do have a generally good experience. If I had paid a bunch of money for the camera, I’d be more upset that it broke within five months, but with the costs as low as they are, I expect there to be ones here and there that break. The repair experience is good, and the usability of the camera, and the images I get with it, are really good.
