Screamin' pink Barbie cam

Screamin' pink Barbie cam!
Oh my god! Can you believe it! They're selling Barbie Digital Cameras at the local cheapie bookstore for £25! I have a digital camera! Finally! Yay!

And it's actually not that bad, either, considering that the poor thing must have been practically obsolete when it was built. It runs on 95 with a serial port, so was happy enough on my chunky NT box,runs on a 9v battery (!) and produces teeny-tiny photos. Six, if it's not connected to the computer. If it is, it'll shoot 20 at a time into a Barbie clipboard, which are then saved into a Barbie scrapbook. It exports, too, either as practically unusable jpeg or 150dpi 160x120px bmps. Which isn't very big, but ooh it's enough to play with, and just look how pretty they come out!

The one on the left is raw, as it comes from the camera, the one in the centre has been helped out by Mr Adobe. This is taken inside -- the camera can handle quite extreme dimness, but burps and won't take photos if it gets too dark. That said, an extra 60w light cleaned up the too dark problem no problem. Check out the one on the right. It may even actually be using long exposures.
	The camera is tiny, almost as light as my action sampler. It has a huge pink flower around the lens, which is nowhere near the viewfinder. It's rather hard to aim. However, just as with the Action Sampler (and some of my more extreme disposables) the freedom from the constraints of composition actually creates a composition of its own. Most of these shots are composed by chance; for many of them, I've not even bothered to look through the viewfinder. Shoot 'em all, and let Barbie decide!
But none of this is the coolest thing about Barbiecam. No no no. The coolest thing of all is this:
Back		Next