Washington Apple Pi

Washington Apple Pi Garage Sale June 2000

Pi Unsteadicam^TM: Technology At The Edge of Obscurity

Washington Apple Pi's Summer Computer Sale and Show featured the debut of Pi Unsteadicam^TM before a live collection of unwilling victims. See what you can do with a modern, state-of-the-art (for this week) digital still camera in the hands of someone misusing it as a motion picture camera.

Near the end of the show, our intrepid photo journalist walked around the edge of one corner of the show site, holding a Nikon CoolPix 990 digital camera up and firing off images (using available light) at a rate of roughly 15 frames per second.

There is no sound, but you do watch as the photo journalist runs down a small child. Near the end, you also see what happens when someone comes up and says, "Ah, is that one of those digital cameras?"

Grab.

While probably not up to normal Hollywood special effects standards, the resulting footage (pixelage?) definitely "grabs" you.

This clip is 11.3 megabytes in size, and 40 seconds in length. Click on the image to the left to download. If you want to just download the clip and not have it play within your browser, press and hold this link until prompted to save the file.

Alternate version of the clip shown above. Also 40 seconds in length, this clip is 3.7 megabytes. If you want to just download the clip and not have it play within your browser, press and hold this link until prompted to save the file.

Still somewhat shaken by the grabbing incident, our intrepid photo journalist (who is definitely not a fast learner) tries again, walking in the opposite direction. This clip doesn't feature any small children being run down, nor does it have another now-infamous

Grabbing

incident. At 25 seconds and 7.1 megabytes, it is also somewhat smaller. If you want to just download the clip and not have it play within your browser, press and hold this link until prompted to save the file.

Alternate version of the clip shown above, 2.3 megabytes, 25 seconds. If you want to just download the clip and not have it play within your browser, press and hold this link until prompted to save the file.