picture a day: jul 2
I know this is similar to yesterday's picture. But A) I think it's a cuter capture of Pixel lying down and being cute at me, and B) I took the photo with an old gadgety camera I have called the DXO One. It came out 10 years ago and is a "headless" camera that connects to your phone via USB-C or a Lightning connector (they made iOS and Android versions; I bought the Android version). Your camera then becomes your viewfinder and controls.
The back of the camera (as seen in right-most picture) has an OLED touchscreen with a very low-res, bitmappy viewfinder that you could use if you wanted to take pictures without connecting to a camera. But this is very hard to use for framing. I know.
Apparently this has the same 20MP, 1-inch sensor as the Sony RX100 series of point & shoots, which is great indeed. I love how Pixel's paw is out of focus (a real case of being out of focus, not fake-y portrait mode), showing the shallow depth of field this little thing can capture with its F1.8 aperture.
It was kind of fiddly to get it working again. I had to find the latest version of the camera's Android APK online since it seems to have been removed from the Google Play Store, even though the app is still live in the Apple App Store. 🙄 Unfortunately, even though the app is live on the App Store, my iPhone would not recognize the DXO One, despite having a USB-C connector. There might be a way to hack this, but I went the easier route and got an Android phone going instead.
Once I found an APK that would install, I connected the DXO One to my Surface Duo 2 and it worked just as I remembered. It was quite awkward to use it with the Duo 2 thanks to its form factor, and the fact that the bumper protection I have installed on it makes it hard for the DXO One to seat completely in the USB-C port.
I'm hoping I can get another Android phone up and running to use with the DXO One instead for ease of use.
But anyway, I'm happy I got this "toy" going again, because I've been having fun playing around with older digital cameras and resurrecting old gadgets. Next up I'll be messing around with my Sony QX-10 to see if it'll connect to my iPhone.
