decker labs

Every once and a while, I find that I need to just take a quick snapshot with my webcam at work. Since I’m on a PC, so I don’t have Apple’s pre-installed Photobooth app, or any other simple program (that I’m at least aware of). I also didn’t want to install any bulky 3rd party software that might come with the webcam that I’m using, since all I need in order for it to work is the driver, which more or less Windows installed all by itself. Photoshop has an option to capture from webcam, but the util is pretty limited as it only lets me capture a very small thumbnail size image.

So I decided to make a really simple webcam capture utility using Flash. Even if there was some really simple app out there, as I am sure there is, the developer urge inside me just wanted to create one anyways. I figure this way is pretty cool, since all you need is the webcam driver (so that the webcam actually works) and Flash Player 10 installed (which is current at 94% penetration). It’s just a simple little tool, you can re-size the image and save it as a jpeg. That’s really all the functionality that I needed from it.

Anyways, you can check it out here:
experiments.eric-decker.com/webcam_snapshot

I’ve also used it to take some macro snapshot, as apparently my webcam can focus insanely close on things, and I’ve uploaded them to my flickr account:
flickr.com/photos/ericdecker/sets/72157623403965642

So I haven’t had much time to work on any personal projects recently, as my current project at Firstborn has picked up and I’ve been focusing 100% on that. Additionally, last weekend I was out in The Land that Law Forgot, better known as Las Vegas. I like to say the reason is because I am a professional sports photographer, but in reality it’s because I knew how to use a camera and won an inner-office Twitter contest.

Every year my boss along with a bunch of 35+ year old basketball fans fly out to Vegas to attend Michael Jordan’s Sr. Flight School. MJ  teaches them ways to improve their game as well as gives them all a detailed analysis of Space Jam. This year the camp didn’t happen, so the die-hard fans put on their own show and organized it themselves, sans Michael Jordan. I went along with some other Firstborners to help document the occasion though photo, video, and interpretative dance. If you’re interested, the photos are on flickr.  And yes, they actually did call it “Old Balls ‘09.”

We rented a Nikon D90, which was a great camera. It can shoot HD video in up to 5 minute segments, and while it doesn’t replace having a video camera it’s a nice addition to have. The feature that blew me away the most was how well it handles low light. Yes, shooting with and ISO of 6,400 becomes fairly noisy, but really what can you expect. Additionally, the noise on the high levels of the D90 are not that much worse then the higher levels (1,600 I think being the max) on my D70. And from what I’ve seen with the D700, it handles low light and extreme ISO even better. I can’t imagine what it will be like in another five years.

Oh, we also managed to steal a Bugatti Veyron,  hijack someone’s bachelorette party, get in a fight with a mob all dressed like Elvis, and ‘accidentally’ knocked a chair off of the top of the Palm’s Ghostbar. Okay, those things didn’t happen. Probably…