New Camera!

I may, or may not be, a lucky man. It’s a bit of riddle, actually. I have escaped from the jaws of disaster on many occasions — does that make me lucky? I’m not wealthy or even prosperous, and yet I live a “comfortable” life — does that make me lucky? More lucky than average?

Is any of this about luck at all?

Well, whatever the answer to the above questions may be, I scored a major stroke of luck a few days ago when I saw a video showing the power of an amazing camera, and I found out that it was DIRT CHEAP. The only problem was the the camera came from Logitech, a company that I avoid whenever possible due to many unfortunate experiences that are too numerous and boringly similar to deserve mention here — let’s just say that, in general, Logitech is a typical corporate entity that does not care about its customers and is willing to do them wrong if they can get away with it.

So I hesitated…

But then, like a blinding flash of light, it came to me. This was EXACTLY the type of situation that I really, really like. It’s like those fools at Logitech ACCIDENTALLY did something right and all I have to do is reach out and pick up the goodies they dropped as they raced to screw another customer. It was time for a little cosmic justice.

The Logitech B910 is about ten times better than it has any right to be. It’s uncanny. It almost certainly is the result of some kind of major goofup by Logitech– where they accidentally contracted to buy some cameras from Germany that they thought would be the usual garbage, but instead the supplier provided something of rare beauty. These cameras are amazing. Words fail me.

For a total cost of less than about eighty bucks, I now have a camera that can make my videos as if it were built for the task — and (wait for it…..)

IT’S A WEBCAM!!

It’s a webcam. It sucks at being a webcam, because it will show every pimple on your lovely face, but as a camera to show model building up close and personal, it’s a marvel. It’s also “old” by computer gear standards, which explains the low price. Of course, Logitech realized their error and replaced this amazing camera with crummier ones as soon as possible (later cameras are crap by comparison) but this one remains on the market, and is a Godsend for anybody who is doing anything like what I’m doing. The only trick is that you have to use it in a way that is contrary to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Think I can do that?

The only tricky part was that I had to McGuiver a way to mount it on the camera boom arm… but this proved to be pretty easy once I realized that I could make a plastic bushing/sleeve out of a pen ink cartridge and thereby attach a camera mount from another webcam.

Problem solved.

The result is a miracle. I thought I’d have to spend $800 bucks (or something) to get this result — instead, I’m in business for less than a tenth of that amount.

Wow. Am I lucky, or what?