Digital Photography Hacks

Go Low-Rez

There’s much more to digital photography than megapixel brute force. And if you’re artistically minded, you might try your hand at going low-rez, Jam Cam style.

As digital photographers, we’re often obsessed with getting every last pixel we can—the more megapixels, the better the shot, right? This hack allows you to let go of your pixel-counting tendencies and helps to remind you that photography, analog or digital, is all about capturing compelling images, regardless of the technology used.

Traditional photographers have long used cheap or low-tech cameras to capture interesting, artistic images. Perhaps the best example is the US$20 Holga camera that uses 120 film, tape, and a plastic lens and gives images a beautiful, halolike look. Fear not, digital photographers, there are many inexpensive digital equivalents to the Holga that will stretch your creativity.

For this hack you need to get the cheapest, lowest-resolution digicam you can find! I highly recommend the Jam Cam. This little plastic beast captures images at an astounding 640 480 or 320 240 pixels and has a focus-free lens. The built-in memory stores eight images and, believe it or not, it can connect to your Mac or PC via USB. The battery is the old standby: the 9-volt that powers up smoke detectors all across the land.

Does the Jam Cam create artistic images? Take a look at the picture in Figure 2-15, and you be the judge.

Figure 2-15. An artistic Jam Cam image

The great thing about the Jam Cam is that it is ...