Before going to Russia last January I bought a Kodak Playsport (Zx3). I knew the harsh Saint Petersburg winter meant I was going to have condensation problems moving from cold to warm environments. Having a pocketable waterproof camera seemed a good idea, especially one capable of shooting 1080P video. Also the camera is small, discreet and the shutter absolutely silent.
At the time it cost 114 euros on Amazon. It has since been replaced by the Zx5 which has very similar specifications. I assume most of what I write here will still apply to the newer model.
Since January’s Russia trip I have worked in Haiti, Benin and China. The Playsport has accompanied everywhere with varying degrees of usefulness which I will describe here.
I had better start by (1) stating the obvious – that the Playsport is exceptionally good value for money and (2) that an additional reason for choosing it was my reserves about using the iPhone as a camera which you can read about here. There’s no Hipstamatic for the Playsport!
In Russia I ended up using the camera relatively little. This film was made mainly with my Canon 5D MKII. The sepia-coloured panning shot of the inside of the tent was made with the Playsport because (1) I didn’t have time to let the Canon warm up when coming in from the snow outside (2) there was no space available on the floor to place a tripod (you can’t shoot the 5D MKII handheld in video mode, at least not easily) and (3) I wanted to remain as discreet as possible. Using the footage in monochrome isn’t just an aesthetic decision: it also helps hide a little the luminance and colour noise in the image from shooting in such low light.
In Haiti I shot stills with my Canons, and made a short film with the 5D MKII. As an experiment I also shot a great deal of video from a moving car. It was a relatively short trip with lots of traveling between shoots. My vague idea was to try to make a film that reflected some of the fleeting, half-formed impressions you get when discovering superficially a country that way, perhaps using recordings of the car radio as a soundtrack.
In Haïti the light outdoors was very, very bright indeed. There are virtually no controls on the Playsport and the user manual contains little in the way of technical information. There is a fixed f2.8 lens and I suspect that the camera is programmed to deal with varying light levels by adjusting the gain (ISO) and the shutter speed. I believe that in bright light the camera gained down (reduced ISO) to a minimum low value and then upped the shutter speed in response. For stills this works okay but for video once the shutter speed is over twice the frame rate you start to get stuttery images. In 1080P the Kodak films at 30 FPS so 1/60th of a second would be the correct speed for a 180° shutter. In the absence of detailed technical information this is supposition but in Haït’is sunlight I definitely ended up with video images that were far too stuttery to be usable.
Note: if you open stills from the camera in Lightroom (for example) you can read the EXIF information and get an idea of how the camera “thinks” when deciding to gain up or down or use a faster or lower shutter speed.
In China the Playsport was most useful. I was commissioned to do a series of portraits of Chinese peasants. For this, because the sitters were aware of my presence and happy to be photographed, using a bigger camera (in this case my Canon 5D MK II) wasn’t a problem.
But making spontaneous images while walking around was something else. I feel increasingly uncomfortable using a DSLR for street work and decided to have a go with the Playsport. There was no risk involved: the job was taken care of, this was an experiment. The great thing about the Playsport is that nobody really knows what it is: a camera? a phone?
The first thing to say about the stills is that straight out of the camera they look pretty dull: low contrast and flat colours. Like this:
At first I was disappointed but on closer examination in Lightroom I discovered something interesting about the files: the flatness is anadvantage. Kodak seems to have set up the Playsport so it retains a lot of detail in the shadows and highlights making the JPEGs (fofiles coming from a cheap camera) surprisingly good for retouching. Meaning you can turn the above image into this:
There’s a great deal of room for adjustment in the files. Yes, I know that retouching 8 bit JPEGs is far from ideal but what do you think the iPhone does when you use Hipstamatic et al? Nobody seems particularly worried about that…
The smallness of the camera’s sensor means that there is great depth of field, even at f2.8. Further than a meter away, everything is pretty much in focus. One problem with this is that you have to be very careful about keeping the glass over the lens clean. Anything on it shows up far more clearly that you would expect on a larger camera.
So here, then, is a small selection of “street” images from China, all taken with the Playsport..
Note: clicking on the images will open them up full size in a new window. I don’t normally do this but thought it would be useful here so you can see exactly what I’m talking about.
And finally, despite all I’ve written about it, there are a couple of photosets from China here that show I still can’t resist a little Hipstamatic from time to time.
Some thoughts on the Kodak Playsport
Before going to Russia last January I bought a Kodak Playsport (Zx3). I knew the harsh Saint Petersburg winter meant I was going to have condensation problems moving from cold to warm environments. Having a pocketable waterproof camera seemed a good idea, especially one capable of shooting 1080P video. Also the camera is small, discreet and the shutter absolutely silent.
At the time it cost 114 euros on Amazon. It has since been replaced by the Zx5 which has very similar specifications. I assume most of what I write here will still apply to the newer model.
Since January’s Russia trip I have worked in Haiti, Benin and China. The Playsport has accompanied everywhere with varying degrees of usefulness which I will describe here.
I had better start by (1) stating the obvious – that the Playsport is exceptionally good value for money and (2) that an additional reason for choosing it was my reserves about using the iPhone as a camera which you can read about here. There’s no Hipstamatic for the Playsport!
In Russia I ended up using the camera relatively little. This film was made mainly with my Canon 5D MKII. The sepia-coloured panning shot of the inside of the tent was made with the Playsport because (1) I didn’t have time to let the Canon warm up when coming in from the snow outside (2) there was no space available on the floor to place a tripod (you can’t shoot the 5D MKII handheld in video mode, at least not easily) and (3) I wanted to remain as discreet as possible. Using the footage in monochrome isn’t just an aesthetic decision: it also helps hide a little the luminance and colour noise in the image from shooting in such low light.
In Haiti I shot stills with my Canons, and made a short film with the 5D MKII. As an experiment I also shot a great deal of video from a moving car. It was a relatively short trip with lots of traveling between shoots. My vague idea was to try to make a film that reflected some of the fleeting, half-formed impressions you get when discovering superficially a country that way, perhaps using recordings of the car radio as a soundtrack.
In Haïti the light outdoors was very, very bright indeed. There are virtually no controls on the Playsport and the user manual contains little in the way of technical information. There is a fixed f2.8 lens and I suspect that the camera is programmed to deal with varying light levels by adjusting the gain (ISO) and the shutter speed. I believe that in bright light the camera gained down (reduced ISO) to a minimum low value and then upped the shutter speed in response. For stills this works okay but for video once the shutter speed is over twice the frame rate you start to get stuttery images. In 1080P the Kodak films at 30 FPS so 1/60th of a second would be the correct speed for a 180° shutter. In the absence of detailed technical information this is supposition but in Haït’is sunlight I definitely ended up with video images that were far too stuttery to be usable.
Note: if you open stills from the camera in Lightroom (for example) you can read the EXIF information and get an idea of how the camera “thinks” when deciding to gain up or down or use a faster or lower shutter speed.
In China the Playsport was most useful. I was commissioned to do a series of portraits of Chinese peasants. For this, because the sitters were aware of my presence and happy to be photographed, using a bigger camera (in this case my Canon 5D MK II) wasn’t a problem.
But making spontaneous images while walking around was something else. I feel increasingly uncomfortable using a DSLR for street work and decided to have a go with the Playsport. There was no risk involved: the job was taken care of, this was an experiment. The great thing about the Playsport is that nobody really knows what it is: a camera? a phone?
The first thing to say about the stills is that straight out of the camera they look pretty dull: low contrast and flat colours. Like this:
At first I was disappointed but on closer examination in Lightroom I discovered something interesting about the files: the flatness is anadvantage. Kodak seems to have set up the Playsport so it retains a lot of detail in the shadows and highlights making the JPEGs (fofiles coming from a cheap camera) surprisingly good for retouching. Meaning you can turn the above image into this:
There’s a great deal of room for adjustment in the files. Yes, I know that retouching 8 bit JPEGs is far from ideal but what do you think the iPhone does when you use Hipstamatic et al? Nobody seems particularly worried about that…
The smallness of the camera’s sensor means that there is great depth of field, even at f2.8. Further than a meter away, everything is pretty much in focus. One problem with this is that you have to be very careful about keeping the glass over the lens clean. Anything on it shows up far more clearly that you would expect on a larger camera.
So here, then, is a small selection of “street” images from China, all taken with the Playsport..
Note: clicking on the images will open them up full size in a new window. I don’t normally do this but thought it would be useful here so you can see exactly what I’m talking about.
And finally, despite all I’ve written about it, there are a couple of photosets from China here that show I still can’t resist a little Hipstamatic from time to time.