Time-Lapse Photography on the N73!

Yup, you read that correctly. In case you're not familiar with the term, time-lapse photography involves the manipulation of time to speed up processes.

Processes that would normally appear subtle to the human eye -- such as the motion of clouds in the sky, the opening of flowers or the growing of plants, people commuting, everyday traffic in the city or even an ice cube melting -- become very pronounced.

Although time-lapse cinematographers use sophisticated (and often expensive) equipment, S60 users can now do the same at no added cost! Infact, all that you need is a simple Python script for your phone, and ofcourse, some sort of a mounting system if you're going to capture moving pictures at any rate slower than the standard 24 frames per second.

Credit goes to Anteater @ the Foozia Blog for developing a Python script for the N80 -- although it is incompatible with the N73. Hence, I decided to play with it a bit and voila! Click here to download! Before running, create a new folder called 'timelapse' in e:\Python

Once you set this up and run the script, it'll ask for a project name, followed by the number of images that should be taken along with the time delay. Other parameters include image size (0.3MPix to 1.3MPix), flash mode, exposure mode and white balance. When its done snapping, you'll get a prompt on the screen. You can later use QuickTime or a GIF Editor to make your own movies. Enjoy!

P.S You need to have Python installed on your phone first. In case you're not familiar with that, follow the steps below:

• Download the Python for S60 interpreter application and the script shell for your phone from here



• For the N73, the files you need to get are named as follows: PythonForS60_1_4_0_3rdEd.sis and PythonScriptShell_1_4_0_3rdEd.sis



• Send these to your phone and install Python, followed by the Script Shell to your memory card.



• Send any python script (*.py) to e:\Python



• Next, run Python from the Menu and select the script you want to run.

UPDATE: This script also works with the E90.

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Review: PhotoAcute Mobile

I've been a fan of the 'original' PhotoAcute (v2.0 and v2.1) ever since it first came out for the Nokia 3650 and Nokia 6600. With its remarkable capability of taking a full 1.3MPix snap using a tiny 0.3VGA camera, it was sure to make waves.

And it did too, since it wasn't really as gimmicky as it sounded. The 'superresolution' algorithm employed by it basically worked by using a series of continuous snaps and combining them together to produce a larger sized and higher quality image.

Although it wasn't as good as a dedicated 1.3MPix camera, it still did do a fairly decent job at getting a greater amount of detail as compared to the installed VGA camera.

However, with the introduction of newer handsets -- the 6630/80/81, N70 etc, the software market saw another, updated release of PhotoAcute (v3.1) for the newer platform. Since this app offered nothing new, the original hype wasn't really there. After all, it was just a port to the newer version of Symbian OS and nothing else. Quality was quite pathetic too and the installed camera always seemed to yield better images than the ones processed by PhotoAcute.

Come 2007, and there's yet another version of PhotoAcute (v3.5) out for S60 3rd Edition devices. I tested it recently and found it to be better than the previous release, but obviously not as great as the first release.

The reason why I said 'better' and not 'revolutionary' or anything else is simply because the N73's 3.2MPix camera is a delight to use by itself. The only problem lies in the high amount of jpeg compression that it does in saving the final snaps – most probably to keep a check on the file size, which is quite ridiculous as the N73’s supposed to be an imaging specialist! You can spot these compression artifacts in areas where colours sharply contrast. And the problem seems to have been made worse with newer releases of the N73's firmware. Another caveat is the blue haze you encounter on some photos under ordinary room lighting conditions.

Anyway, the latest version of PhotoAcute transcends this barrier somewhat, yielding 7MPix images with a resolution of 3072 x 2304 pixels with lesser compression artifacts. That’s more than two times the resolution of the N73’s camera. Check these comparisons out and decide for yourself:

P.S All snaps to the left are taken with the N73’s default 3.2MPix camera. The ones to the right are processed with PhotoAcute, after setting jpeg compression to low and enabling brightness as well as geometry correction, and resized to make the comparison easier to understand. Finally, to your extreme right is the self-explanatory magnified view :)

- Have a look at the first picture of the calculator keypad. Although both snaps look quite the same at first glance, it’s only when you magnify portions that you see the difference. Notice the area around the “Multiply” key in both photos.

- In the second photo of the calendar, you can immediately make out the varying levels of compression in the unprocessed photo.



- The final photo’s more of a closer match, even though PhotoAcute does show lesser compression artifacts than the default camera.



Verdict: I'll be frank. The latest version of PhotoAcute isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Sure, you can in no way compare it to a top-of-the-line 7.2Mpix digital camera, but it does tend to improve on the images taken with the default camera, albeit slightly.

However, the reason why I wouldn't give it a 'Recommended' rating is because practically, it is quite stunted since photographing anything in motion (and I mean even the slightest motion) is totally out of the question as it gets you blurred results.

Also, I feel future releases should definitely offer something more than just selecting a group of photos and clicking OK as has been the case for so long now. A nifty photo editor, maybe...or perhaps the option of selecting the final image resolution would be some welcome additions.

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