Theta S spherical Samples and scheisser downtime

yesterday my friends and I were at a Bockbieranstich in Bamberg. I was brave enough to bring the Theta with me and we tried around with the settings and long time exposure. The photo quality is quite nice and much better than I expected. We were most surprised about the results in the night at ISO100 and 8 seconds aperture. In the photos we registered even stars! Video works well too even at bad light situations and at night.

Bamberg @ Night – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

But there are few bugs in the whole setup. The wifi connection refuses sometimes, the theta app hangs up often and in the photos there are sometimes pink spots where I am sure they are affected by the material of the spherical lenses itself. This is not a big problem and makes the photos much interesting in my opinion.

For sharing photos there is only the theta360 portal there… which is a little weak. For sharing there are only a few options like facebook, twitter and tumblr. I don´t use one of these and don´t plan to jump on the horse in the future.

Two days ago I tested around to bring the 360×360 panoramas into the scheisser.net blog. While changing settings I killed the whole website but since yesterday evening all is back in best conditions. I hope to get it done until tomorrow. Here are the samples from yesterday. Feel free to place a comment here if you do or don´t like it.

Post from RICOH THETA. – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

Microsoft Band 2 waterproof

After the unpromoted press conference of microsoft I decided to buy the brandnew Microsoft Band 2. First problems where given by how to order. This device is not planned to be offered in Germany yet so I had to order it via the Microsoft Shop UK.

While waiting for it I read around the web about the band 2. Today I found some informations because in every hands on the people talking about weak waterproofness of the band  and band 2.

Microsoft steps back and will not do it like Sony promoting devices as waterproof and after a while refusing everything. No they do it the exact different way:

  • Your Band is not waterproof. Light rain and hand washing shouldn’t harm it, but do not immerse your Band in liquids of any kind. Do not wear your Band while swimming or in the shower.

but…

Microsoft Band and Microsoft Band 2 meet these standards for dust- and water-resistance

  • IP6X: No ingress of dust. Complete protection against entry of dust.
  • IPX7: Protection against temporary immersion in water (at depth of 1 meter for 30 minutes).
  • IP67: Meets both the dust- and water-resistance standards above.
  • Microsoft Band and Microsoft Band 2 have tested to the IPX7 standard. Although they meet this standard in testing, Microsoft Band and Microsoft Band 2 are not intended to be immersed in water and immersion is not covered by the warranty.

Maybe they´ll go with this tactics because they don´t want to get in warranty problems or because of the fact that both bands still are early adopter devices.

http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-band/en-us/support/safety-guide