Tech and the Traveller

Currently as some people may already know I’ve been travelling in New Zealand, lots of fun here in NZ but as a techie travelling from Australia its posed a few interesting problems.

First of all is that in the land of OZ I have an iPhone as my normal mobile. But when I went to turn on ‘International Roaming’ through my carrier (Optus) I found that it would cost me $20 AUD per megabyte, not even considering the costs of calls internationally!

Mobile Phone:

I figured that even though I was attached to my iPhone I really only needed a phone to get me by if there were problems while travelling.

So I turned to my trusty Samsung SGH-E250 – basic phone, basic features, no 3G no EDGE, just phone calls.

This was an old handset so it was already unlocked, I was pleasantly surprised when as I walked out of the Christchurch airport I got a Vodafone NZ sim and 20 bucks credit for $50 NZD.

After a while though I found that the new mobile network 2 Degrees are just as good, and the sim card only costs $5 NZD (Vodafone cost me $30 NZD!)

Wireless Internet:

Lack of internet was my next problem, when my girlfriend and I had booked the hotels during our travel WiFi wasn’t a priority, so we had some pretty crappy internet during our travels.

Here’s a breakdown on the places we went in relation to WiFi.

Christchurch: Hotel SO – This place  is awesome, its a tech device filled place that clearly has a digital soul. Free WiFi was provided by the hotel which was cool, but it was extremely weak in our room, I was only on the second floor but needed to go to the lobby to get a decent connection.

• Speed: 512kbps
• Connection: Poor
• Restrictions: Unable to download mp3, zip/rar or exe

Queenstown: eCafe – yeah I know, Internet Cafe, how early 90′s, but when your hotel has WiFi that costs $20 NZD for 1 hour, what can you do! eCafe had a great deal going at $3 bucks for an hour and you could bring your own laptop so you didn’t need to use their terminals.

• Speed: 3mbps
• Connection: Excellent
• Restrictions: None Found

Franz Josef: Not much WiFi going around here, there were a couple of backpacker lodges that have WiFi included in the price of staying. The motel I was staying with luckily had a wired connection that they allowed me to use in their reception office. But even this was pricey at $2 NZD per twenty mins.

• Speed: 3mbps
• Connection: Wired (Excellent)
• Restrictions: None Found

Hanmer Springs: Green Acres Chalet – SurfSpot WiFi paid hotspot available, currently thats what I’m using at the moment to type this post. Its a decent price too, $12 NZD for 24 hours, the downside is the 500mb data allowance, but with a decent freeware bandwidth monitor (I’d recommend Networx) it is easy to track the use of the cap.

• Speed: 5mbps
• Signal Strength: Excellent
• Restrictions: 500MB Data Cap

Christchurch Airport: Airport Lodge Hotel – WiFi isn’t free at this location either, they also use SurfSpot WiFi hotspots, thankfully the $12.00 NZD 24 Hour 500mb card I bought in Hanmer Springs also worked at this location so I didn’t need to buy any more before leaving!

• Speed: 5 mbps
• Signal Strength: Excellent
• Restrictions: None Found

All in all its been not too difficult to find some sort of internet connection while travelling, although in hindsight I’d probably spend $99 for a 3G wireless device and a $50 credit to have a more solid connection, especially if blogging and uploading photos to social network / photography sites.

GPS:

I’ve only one thing to say about GPS units… BUY ONE NOW.

I bought a GPS a few months with the intention to use it in NZ (I have a TomTom XL340 – Awesome Unit), got the latest New Zealand maps loaded onto it and off we went.

It has been a godsend in the rental car, best couple of hundred bucks I’ve spent on a device this year.

It’s saved our ass more times than I can count with quicker routes, shaved off about 5 hours of drive time while we’ve been here, and saved my girlfriend and I the hours of map consulting and consequent yelling at each other as to which way / direction we need to go.

Once again… BUY ONE NOW.

So the trip to the land of the long white cloud has been a lot of fun, and travelling around has been easy with the GPS.

Camera:

If anyone has read my older blog posts you’ll know that I have recently purchased a Canon IXUS 80 IS.

I brought it over, its taken over 7GB of photos and video so far, which might seem excessive, but when you sort through the crappy shots you come out with some stunning photos.

On the video front it has been more than adequate, even when I was filming a street performer and ended up a part of the show! (I’ll upload the video once back in OZ)

So if you are travelling, take a look at the capabilities of your digital camera before you decide to lug around your whiz-bang HD recording video cam, that is unless you have one of those sexy little personal HD cams.

Overall:

So with only one and a half days to go here in New Zealand I’ll be winging my way back to Australia soon, keep watch on the blog as I’ll upload all my photos and video from the trip!

Canon IXUS 80 IS – Review

Canon IXUS 80 IS

Recently I’ve purchased a Canon IXUS 80 IS - its an older camera, sure, but its still the best compact I’ve seen on the market for a long time.

I’ve had a few compacts, and looked at plenty more in the marketplace before settling on the powerhouse above, I’ve moved from a Kodak Easyshare C813 up to the Canon as I’m going on a trip to New Zealand (more on that later) and needed a camera with better features, more functions and most of all and improved image quality.

Now don’t get me wrong the Kodak was a good camera, for its price. Originally it retailed around the $150.00 AUD mark, that said you get what you pay for…

It is a snappy little cam, but the image quality leaves much to be desired, even from an 8.2 megapixel sensor. It feels plastic, looks plastic, and its lens although good still performs badly.

But this is something that most sub $200 cameras suffer.

Flickr: Muschel by Simon S.

The IXUS 80 IS on the other hand originally became available in Q4 2007 – Q1 2008, its a stable camera, lots of good features on board (although does lack manual shutter control) and overall gives an amazing photo with great colour balance, richness and sharpness that most in its price category struggle to achieve.

When it was released it was valued at $397.oo AUD – quite a lot for a compact camera in any ones book, and for the price at the time you could go to a fixed-lens SLR Digital for not too much more.

Thankfully, as Moore’s Law dictates, this camera has dropped in price significantly. (I got mine for $204.00 AUD)

Specifications

When it comes to the specs this camera is crammed full of them, lots of great options and features as well, although it does lack some features (like manual shutter control) remember that it is compact after all, and not to expect  features like a digital SLR.

While I could list all the specs for the camera, I won’t if you want to see them click the below link:

Canon IXUS 80 IS Features and Specifications

What I will do however is talk about some of its best features.

Portability, of course this is a no brainer as its a compact after all, but I mean in respect to its feature set, cameras that have similar features have traditionally been bigger, and bulkier that the IXUS 80 IS.

Image Quality, awesome image quality for a camera in its price range, while you can get better shots from something more expensive (check the Canon Rebel series) this camera makes most compacts look like a pin-hole shoebox camera.

Flickr: Winkworth Chestnut by natokie

Speed, its fast, even on multiple exposures its a fast camera – yes some people will tell you that the flash recycle rate is appalling, in normal sunlight or in a well lit location it takes a shot every 0.6 of a second (as far as I could time without expensive speed metering equipment), menu response times are great, you’ll never have to wait for a function to finish or for it to load its menu.

Looks, may not be a big thing for most people, but the IXUS range of camera look far from shabby. They are sleek and sexy for sure.

User Interface, and I’m not just talking about software here, both the software internal menu and the external controls are well placed, easy to use and intuitive enough for even the most ham-fisted person to deal with. The one gripe I could see though is that the W – T rotator (read: zoom in and out) is a little fiddly. If you have mammoth sausage fingers then you might need to play with it a bit before you are comfortable.

Image Size / Format Control, big tick in this area, everything from 3264 x 2448 down to 640 x 480, lots of options for changing quality, 3 options for resampled smoothing is a small point be wary of, but most of the time even on the medium smooth setting its wonderful.

Hackability

No, I’m not talking about installing Linux on the device, or turning it into an internet streaming camera (although both could probably be done), I’m talking about opening up some of the more undocumented and unavailable features.

Canon Hack Dev Kit;

CHDK is a community based firmware mod that supports “most” canon powershot and later cameras.

CHDK stands for: Canon Hack Development Kit

Its not a permanent mod for your camera and can be totally reversed, all the new software lives on your SD card that is inserted into the unit. If you don’t like it, just remove the data of the memory card.

Best of all, its completely free to use.

Now that said it comes with one of these…

WARNING

CHDK IS ONLY EXPERIMENTAL, IT OPENS UP MORE FUNCTIONS THAN ORIGINALLY AVAILABLE THROUGH YOUR CAMERAS SOFTWARE, IT MAY CAUSE DAMAGE TO YOUR CAMERA.

DUE TO ITS EXPERIMENTAL NATURE, NO WARRANTY IS GIVEN WITH THIS SOFTWARE.

But then when has that ever stopped anyone from hacking a device before?

All over the CHDK site you’ll find reference to this time and time again, but they also mention that to date they are completely unaware of a single camera that has been damaged, bricked, or unusable after the software has been applied.

Just remember that its your device, do what you like with it, but be careful…

This is a list of features that CHDK provides your camera.

For those more adventurous, you can download the CHDK firmware version for you camera below

DOWNLOAD HERE

Conclusion

All in all, features considered, judged and weighed against other cameras in its class, and even considering its age (almost 3 years now!), its features still stand up and get counted.

You’d be hard pressed to find a more well rounded camera at its current price (approx. $200.00 AUD)

I would totally recommend the Canon IXUS 80 IS to anyone, even if they were a photography nut, but for the most part you’ll be surprised how much this camera packs into its small chassis.

Canon IXUS 80 IS

Canon IXUS 80 IS - It’s an older camera thats the truth, came out early 2008… but boy can it take some good shots!

I only just got one of these cameras today, and it is AWESOME.

These shots above are some of the first few I have taken with minimal fiddling of settings (read: turned on macro) and all I can say is WOW!

Lots more to come once I start to explore more of its features!

Check out my Flickr Account!