Portable Camera Companion

The new Creative ZEN Vision W portable video, photo and MP3 player features a high resolution, 4.3-inch, 16:9 format, colour widescreen TFT display for viewing up to 240 hours of video, tens of thousands of photos, and it can carry up to 15,000 songs.

According to Creative , the ZEN Vision W is the ideal as a portable camera companion. Featuring a built-in Compact Flash slot, users can now easily import photos directly from a digital camera without a PC.

“The Creative Zen Vision W is the ultimate travel accessory. It has been designed for versatility with both 30GB and 60GB models available, and support for a large selection of video and image formats,” said Vaiju Deb Senior Product and Marketing Executive Creative Labs Australia.

Digital Video

The Creative ZEN Vision W supports a wide selection of video formats, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4-SP, MJPEG and XviD, for playback of video clips and movies downloaded from the Internet. The Creative ZEN Vision W also supports digitised home movies transferred from the PC. The removable rechargeable battery provides up to 4.5 hours of video playback.

Digital Photos

The Creative ZEN Vision W can carry tens of thousands of photos, making it the perfect destination for offloading photos to free up space on your digital camera’s storage card.

The convenient Plug&View™ slot on the side of the player supports both Compact Flash Type I and Type II media. An optional Compact Flash Adapter plugs directly into the Compact Flash slot to accept other popular memory card types including SmartMedia, MultiMedia Card and Secure Digital.

For sharing photos with family and friends, a convenient composite AV-out connection enables stunning full colour, 720 x 480 image output on any size NTSC TV screen, or 720 x 576 image output on any size PAL TV screen. Users can watch slide shows set to favourite music, which can be played through headphones, the built-in speaker on the face of the player, or by connecting speakers such as a Creative I-Trigue® 2.1 system.

Additional Features

The 4.3-inch colour widescreen on the Creative ZEN Vision W displays the patented ZEN user interface to access music, photos and video.

It also includes:

• Built-in microphone - Volume levels displayed on screen for optimum recording quality



• Organizer - Provides calendar, tasks and contact lists, and synchronises with Microsoft Outlook



• Extras - Enables setting of Date & Time, plus allocation of Removable Disk space for dedicated storage clock - A clock with wake-to-any-music alarm, colour themes and different languages for further customisation



• The Creative ZEN Vision W connects to the PC via USB 2.0 for fast, easy transfer of content. Other optional accessories, include a Compact Flash Adapter, screen protector, standing case, travel charger, wired remote and IR remote.

Creative Zen Vision W 30 GB Widescreen Multimedia Player

Halloween Photo Tips

October is a great month to take pictures. The humid hazy days of summer have given way to crisp cool days with clear air and bright blue skies. The perfect combination for sparkling photographs! The sun is lower in the sky, providing wonderful long shadows in early morning and late afternoon. So conditions are perfect for photographers — amateur or professional — to get out there and take great pictures.

Photojojo has a piece up currently titled Our Ghoulish Guide to Scary Snaps, a guide to help you get great photos on our favorite holiday.

How to Take a Photo a Day and See Your Life in a Whole New Way

Over on Photojojo website they remind us about Photo-a-day projects, or Project365.  Starting a project wherein you take at least one photo a day for a full year is a great way to improve your photography skills.  I did it once for a year solid and it really helped me force myself to look at the world in a more creative and analytical way.  Don't get discouraged if every photo you take isn't a prize winner.  It's about you and your growth

My PAD (photo-a-day) galleries are here.  I host my galleries on PBase who has a special place for photographers doing photo-a-day projects and people from all over the world share and compare their works. 

I highly recommend this type of project if you are a budding photographer!

Zingfu - Photo Fun for Everyone

Ever wanted to see yourself up on a giant screen in Times Square? On the cover of Rolling Stone? Ever wondered what you’d look like in a plane full of snakes, or as George Costanza in his infamous semi-nude portrait?

Introducing Zingfu.

A simple site, with a simple goal: to let you make campy compositions with your photos. There’s nearly 100 different templates (anti-motivational posters, celebrities, magazines, embarrassing situations of all kinds) and they don’t charge a nickel.

Photoshop Tutorial-Cool pop art effect

This has got to be one of the coolest photoshop tutorials I have seen in a while.  It is also currently the number spot on Digg.com, a site which lists currently popular webpages.

A very cool way of making a picture of anyone look like a lichenstein-esque drawing. Roy Lichtenstein became one of the leading pop artists of the sixties with his comic-strip paintings. His work also often included boxed captions and words such as "WHAAM!", commonly found in comic books.

Photoshop plugin for Black and White Conversion

LetsGoDigital found this Photoshop plugin from The Plugin Site which claims to recreate the look of film, lens filters, lab effects and photo papers that are popular in traditional B/W photography, but even goes beyond that.

"The Plugin Site released B/W Styler for Windows, which is another product in the PhotoWiz series. B/W Styler is a Photoshop plugin for B/W conversion, creating traditional B/W effects and styling B/W photos. B/W Styler works in dozens of graphics applications including Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop Elements, Photo-Paint, Photo Plus, IrfanView and PhotoImpact. It supports 8bit and 16bit RGB images. B/W Styler simulates the whole work flow of B/W photography from shooting a photo to processing it in the lab and framing the end result. It recreates the look of films, lens filters, lab effects and photo papers that are popular in traditional B/W photography, but even goes beyond that."

Halloween Photo Contest

Recognizing that Halloween is one of the most popular days of the year for taking pictures, Fujifilm, U.S.A., Inc. and Sprint, are adding to the fun by sponsoring the Picture Perfect Halloween Photo Contest.

To enter, Halloween lovers can go to www.HalloweenPhotoContest.com to register and submit photos and vote on other entries. The website is full of information for creating a spook-tacular Halloween, including great recipes, decorating ideas, collectible famous monster portraits, photo-taking tips from the New York Institute of Photography, scary stories and a map of haunted places across the United States.