I snap

[imomus]

Last week I needed a new digital camera and saw a neat one -- something called an I Snap Camcorder AV-60, made by "Camson Japan" -- in the window of an electronics store on 5th Avenue. It was pretty hard to convince the burly men in the store -- I think they were Mexicans -- to part with the camera. It was the last of its kind, they said, and they weren't sure where its box and power supply were. They showed me lots of other cameras, but something about the Camson intrigued me. It had very tiny dimensions, recorded sound separately from video (good for podcasts and interviews) and had a flat base and swivel screen (both essential for tripod-free portraits). I haggled the Mexicans "down" to $120.



This camera has turned out to be mysterious, terrible, and great. I can't find a single reference to it, or its allegedly Japanese (but probably Chinese) maker, anywhere on the internet. Nobody on Flickr, for instance, uses a Camson. What's more, the pictures it takes are pretty awful: there's a blue cast on everything, the flash is pathetically inadequate, it's terrible in low light. As a result, I tend to take the kind of pictures I took in the early days of digital photography: full-on, broad daylight images of flat, graphic-designlike subjects. When I do take indoor shots, I'll often have a thumb in the region of the lens and have to boost the contrast (and therefore the grain) enormously in Photoshop, as in the shot above, taken at Jan's udon party on Sunday night.

The great part is that bad cameras sometimes take much more interesting images than good cameras. I suppose it's an extension of the lo-fi aesthetic -- why would someone choose 8-bit sounds, for instance, when they could have "sophisticated" digital synthtones capable of burbling across the sound spectrum in quad? Well, as the newly-released Germlin THRASHR album demonstrates (and Germlin is Joe Howe, also seen in the picture above, and of course responsible for the sound of the Joemus album), there's a ton of character in cheap and cheerful low resolution sounds.



Joe and his girlfriend Emma are Berlin residents now, and today they're biking down to Oderbergerstrasse to visit Bonanza Coffee Heroes. I'd join them, but Hisae and I have to head back to Jan's apartment: we're covering it for the next edition of Apartamento, the "everyday life interiors magazine" which applies lo-fi -- or perhaps "slow-fi" -- principles in its approach to design. Hisae is taking the pictures. Not with my new Camson, but her old analog Nikon. When it comes to capturing funky ambience, you don't want too funky a camera.

Joe and Momus play together at West Germany on June 24th.

Comments

[realrealgone.livejournal.com]

... more's the pity.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have paid $120 for that, Momus. My Korean cellphone takes far better pictures, and I got it for like $70 with a contract. And it makes phone calls!

It seems like kind of a cool little oddity, though, and the swivel screen does have some nice potential applications.

The problem with placing value on "crappy" digital technology, though, is that virtually any effect you might cherish in such a device can be easily reproduced in post-processing, even if taken by a better product. And of course, the nicer camera will also let you take all sorts of higher quality pictures as well. The "Camson" will only ever be able to take pictures like that.

Tangentially, I've found myself annoyed with many in the "lomography" movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomography), who champion amateurism and rulebreaking, all the while acting like elitist snobs toward anyone who dares to shoot digital photos.

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

It's easy enough to fake the Lomo effect in software (http://ocaoimh.ie/2005/02/26/gimp-lomo-examples/). One could even write a script to auto-Lomofy one's digital photos prior to uploading, to further rankle the hipsters.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Basically all you have to do is add some sharpness, max out the contrast, darken the shadows, blow out the brights, give it a red, green, or blue tint, and maybe add a vignette for authenticity.

If most of the lomography people I've met or read the thoughts of weren't such hypocritical douchebags, I wouldn't have such a problem with the "movement" in general. What they don't seem to realize is that their photos only really impress two sets of people: those who don't know the technical details of how such a visual effect is achieved, and other lomographers. Any great pictures I've ever seen in that style still required that the photographer on the other end have some idea what he/she was doing in the process.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's actually quite hard to achieve that "thumb-in-front-of-flash" effect in Photoshop! But yes, point taken, I was ripped off.

I did briefly consider an essay on whether this might be the digital equivalent of lomography.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

BTW, anyone who followed the Bonanza Coffee Heroes link and read the blurb will see that the cafe is boasting about its Synesso Cyncra coffee machine, one of only three in Europe, and "unusually thermally-sensitive". The opposite, in other words, of a lo-fi coffee machine. The proof is in the drinking, I suppose, but I wonder if it makes better coffee than a grungy, dirty old Gaggia?

cawfee tawk in WC1

[(Anonymous)]

Nick, barista science is all about getting the espresso made at a temperature of 78 degrees C. There is a Berlin-ness about having an anal preoccupation with the coffee machine but having it juxtaposed with the usual beaten-up sofas and scuffed tables.

Thrasr and d

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

Virtual truck is a rappers sampler's dream! Great!
No words about the the Strasbourg Zenith Concert hall or Massimilano Fuksas, Nic?

Re: Thrasr and d

[imomus.livejournal.com]

A very Joe description for Virtual Truck II (http://germlin.bandcamp.com/track/virtual-truck-ii): "This track is made from Vintage French Prog and an Alexander Jodorowsky Film Soundtrack, with rave-y synths added. wobble! The melody had been kicking around since my last album but never found a succesful host. One of my favourite tracks on the record. The name comes from something in the settings of Wireless Routers."

[pulled-up.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

We actually tried to go to Bonanza yesterday, but it is shut on Wednesdays! Maybe today, or tomorrow we'll try again.

Here's Aaron Rose's photo blog, he uses a cheap digicam too - http://www.rvca.com/advocates/?cat=3

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Aaron gets some good effects!

Digital gippos and Teenies hippos swimming in worthless whizzing bits

[(Anonymous)]

Is the pendulum of snobbery swinging? Vinyl connoisseurs always felt superior to CD potatoes, with their flat sound and splintering jewel cases. Modern my ass. Suckers. Slick white space advertising begins to feel dated. Will haughtiness creep into pointless photos, disconnected ‘on demand’ schedules, villainous phones, fatso networking and dull-as-droid ebooks? Will dynamic Noughties ease become a swamp in the Teenies. The post-bit gippo, the hippo swimming in worthless whizzing bits. Or, as online advertising revenues suggest, has it happened already?

tinnitus

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,
I didn't know how to get in contact with you but your article in the wire interested me greatly. I play guitar in a band called Girls and have very slight tinnitus which I do not want to get any worse. I hate going to concerts as they are always too loud and sound awful to me. I am really scared. I never see anybody talk openly about this and so your article was really wonderful. There is so much which goes against making music quiet and I don't know how to deal with that. I like records. I am looking for help and advice.
Also I enjoyed the Gongs' record. Peter is friends of friends through Oberlin and I have liked all the music of his that I have heard.
Sincerely,
John Anderson
john_orbach@yahoo.co.uk

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

I like making pinhole cameras. This guy (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.foundphotography.com/PhotoThoughts/archives/Pinhole_Lego_Camera.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.foundphotography.com/PhotoThoughts/archives/2005/10/medium_format_p.html&usg=__k1VtEjSBpsyV_gYj0elNauHK--Q=&h=292&w=407&sz=65&hl=en&start=8&um=1&tbnid=nFx6rgpZzd8gdM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpinhole%2Bcamera%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1) made a pinhole camera out of Legos.

[(Anonymous)]

In the UK, the plural of Lego is Lego.

Just a little linguistic curio.

[(Anonymous)]

how does it serve the story to include that you thought the shopkeepers were "Mexicans"?

[(Anonymous)]

It's the one point that Twit Opera derived from this entry, therefore it must be important.

[bugpowered.livejournal.com]

how does it serve the story to include that you thought the shopkeepers were "Mexicans"?

How does it serve your OBVIOUSLY AMERICAN, POLITICALLY CORRECT stance to omit a a detail that's true and that makes the story livelier by giving more background context?

[(Anonymous)]

"Shady Mexicans sold me a dud camera"

lol!!

true colors

[milky-eyes.livejournal.com]

if you dont mine being called english.
Then calling them mexican should be just fine.

they were of 'latin decent' is probably the best way... or of non white origin... maybe.
I think mexician is sort of a bad word these days actualy... I was yelled at for calling someone amigo the other day. Yelled at by a friend, perhaps a white, self hating friend but friend no less.
So yeah, if you think they were mexican you should just say, 'men' and not mention anything about them being 'possibly' mexican men. Besides, south America is a big place, I dont even think many of them are actually mexican....

Re: true colors

[mrobot.livejournal.com]

maybe he recognized the dialect? give him some credit, i think momus knows there's more spanish speaking countries out there

[(Anonymous)]

Take it easy, no one is talking about "omitting" anything. The question was about how that particular detail served the story. It was just a question. That it made the story "more lively" is an interesting theory...

One still wonders if their assumed nationality would have been included had they appeared to Momus to be white Europeans of some sort...

Another question might be, why did Momus think they were "Mexican" in particular and not Honduran, Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, etc?...

Just more questions to make the discussion more lively...

[(Anonymous)]

there's also an ominous Michael Douglas "Falling Down" double entendre-like reading that's possible to the title, "I snap"---what with all of Momus' exasperation at the shop and all. making this piece that much more interesting.

[eclectiktronik.livejournal.com]

The first digital camera I got in 2002 was a strange little semi transparent green thing. It was basically a webcam, but you could take it out and about, as took AAA batteries and had an internal memory of about 16MB AFAICR. I will try and find out the make.

Sporting only a notched ring around the aperture allowing about 3 presets (including a handy macro option), and with no electronic viewfinder or proper display, I ended up taking it on a trip to Japan in 2003. looking back at those pictures today, (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7994577@N07/sets/72157619196976907/) I recall having great fun taking them, and I can fully understand the attraction of things like Lomo. You really have to think out your shots and experiment to get anything worthwhile. A couple even turned out slightly psychedcelic, recalling overexposed or out of date film! There are a few gems amongst the dross.

In fact this camera was quite a nice transition from traditional to digital potography for me, becuase it had no LCD display playback facility, you still had to wait till you got home to see if the pictures turned out!
i was actually quite sad when, after about 10 months, the PC stopped recognising it and I had to take it back to the shop. It was, by then, out of production and I so was given a horrible pen-styled Aiptek VGA camera which used to lose the pictures and was pretty nasty. Ended up buying a nice Fuji when pices fell. I'd love to get another one of those green ones though and am always on the lookout.

[(Anonymous)]

let's be honest: momus most likely could not tell the difference between a "mexican" accent (there are of course several states and accompanying accents within mexico) and a guatemalan, el salvadorean, columbian, or honduran one. hence the generalized assumption. i await evidence to the contrary.