OTaL: Chat Thread
 

Morning All,

I've been pondering an idea for a while, I've got an old digital camera that is sat gathering dust. I'd like to set a brief outline of what to do with it and then pass it on to another orger, who passes it on to another and so it continues around the country and through our combined area.

It'd need a little planning (a signup list most likely) so that it doesn't get down to Essex and and then someone in Wales wants it etc.

The idea I was thinking is, each person gets up to 5 pictures, the first must be the person with their forum name, second ideally some landmark or place sign to show where it is and the rest, anything you want to try and take a picture of. Once you are done, pass it on to another person in your area and hopefully because of the regional overlap it can get passed between org regions, snowballing our collective as it goes.

Of course I might be wrong and no-one wants to do it anyway, hence the poll.
No offence taken if you don't of course!

I'll put up some more details if it looks like enough people might be interested to get it around.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

sounds brilliant Brettus :) thats a yes from me :)

I'm up for it and as I travel regularly to London/ Manchester, can always accommodate passing it onto another member.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

We could create a virtual digital camera with something like google docs or picassa and a bit of discipline.

Effectively all can view but each "passer" changes the owner password and only the new person and a "super user" knows it. That way it stops a free-for-all of posting pictures and would save the camera getting lost and the effort/cost of shipping it around.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

That's a damn smart idea, but it would mean that people are comparing camera phones to point n shoots to DSLRs etc.

Although passing a single camera would mean people having to familiarise themselves with a different camera but it could also allow people that don't have a camera (I assume such people exist but I dont know) to have a go perhaps?

Maybe we should have an org virtual relay one anyway given the ease with which it could be done. This idea may be dead in the water yet.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Go on then, I'm in. Single camera may be best as it will allow time to absorb and organise the photo's.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

I'm game for this, I'm usually in either Reading or Cambridge.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

im in either method would be a great idea depending on how many people want ot get involved.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Sounds like a cool idea!

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

I'm in.

Hope you're planning on passing the charger on too? Or it's the type that takes AA's rather Li+?

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Yup, it's a canon S3IS. I'm not sure whether to send rechargeable batteries and a charger or just a large pack of duracells. I've got a 2 or 4 gb card for it which should last it for its journey without deleting any but it'd be nice for anyone competent enough to back it up online to ensure nothing is lost. This also makes it more accessible I think. There shouldn't need to be postage costs as most of the travelling can hopefully be planned by orgers.

The pictures of location and/or a thread should let us keep track of it and map it's journey.

I don't need the camera back in any specific time frame and I appreciate it might get broken on its journey so no hard feelings if so. I see a week per person as a reasonable guide timeframe but it is up to whoever has it at the time I guess.

It could be interesting to see what different people can do with the same hardware. It's got a pretty decent zoom on it and can do 15 second exposures natively IIRC so it offers some scope for creativity.

Looking like a positive response so far, will let the poll run and suggestions flow and then formulate some plan at the end of the week if so.

Thanks for all the replies so far.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Yes :0) I'm in.

I'll play.

They did this on the canon forum I frequent, but did it with a 50mm lens and the user posted the photos in a special.thread. it went around the world until it died.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Sounds like a laugh - I'm in.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

link please to the photos.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Sounds like a good one to join in on

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Yes.

Yeah, definitely up for that.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

I'm up for that. This year or wait till next summer though?

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Fantastic idea, would give me a chance to mess about with a camera better than my now battered Fujifilm bridge lol. I'm definitely in :D

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Just whatever you do don't give it to Fallout - his missus will nick it

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

I'll give it a go.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

i'm in...

good idea to start a virtual one first. start a thread and make the time frame the same as it would normally take and each person has to physically meet the receiver to post in the thread that they have 'virtually' passed on the camera.

this should be interesting and fun and could possibly go on for years :-)

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

i'm in...good idea.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Sounds like fun :)

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Cool, more interest than I expected!
how best to go about it?

• let the next candidates arrange with the current holder
• try and organise a thread with a route? (probably a bit difficult)
• Leave it up to the current holder to post and see if anyone in the area responds? (might leave dead ends)
• Or just leave it up to people to organise as best suits them?

A thread or post to be updated with each person saying they have handed it off to.... might help track the route though, I can then update a map to show progress visually.

I don't want anyone to have to travel any huge distance, we are all reasonably well spread from what I can tell so it shouldn't be too difficult to arrange, perhaps a thread that relies on other orgers that aren't wanting to participate but will relay it to the next person.

I suspect a big pack of batteries to go with it is easiest for power rather than getting it from someone and its flat or having to charge it before you can take a picture you really want etc.

It should form quite an org family album as it grows each time, full of faces, places and scenes.

You'd be welcome to take as many pictures as you like in your time but to export any that don't fit into your 5 shots before you pass the camera on..

Any feedback on method greatly appreciated as it looks like this idea might be a goer now. I'm out of the country for a couple of days and busy at the weekend but I could get the ball rolling next week.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

What I'd do:

Get a userlist together from this thread once it's lasted long enough.
Each user gets it to the next one on the list. How they do that is entirely up to them.

As each person gets the camera, they take their pictures, post them up in the thread (separate chat thread will probably be needed) and then they get the camera to the next member.

This would be made easier by grouping by section, i.e. all the pennine massive together, but I think that ends up being less fun perhaps, certainly it could mean the camera spends a couple of months in one section.

So I might go the other way, no batteries (or a pair of rechargeables) and a small postable box, and we all try to keep royal mail in work.

Jambo

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

I'll play along too. :)

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...d.php?t=167850

Here it is, can't find the first thread but you get my drift...

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

I'm definitely up for this. There's a lot of good ideas being thrown around here, but prefer the local area option, mainly because we get to meet other orgers in our area. Posting heavy batteries may work out expensive, unless we go for the rechargeable route.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

I think being out of the UK means Im out :(

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Air mail!!! :D

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

If everyone taking part were 'pinned' on a map the route for the camera might write itself.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

What country are you in, no reason someone travelling there couldn't take it with them for you. For example, I'm off the the US in December so could post it more cheaply to anyone over there.

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Portugal... happy to post it back.

Sounds like a good plan!

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

I'm in the US and would post it back to any country.
Count me in if this works out.

Actually if ravingdavis brought to the US and I sent it to Portugal only Anna and i would have to pay international post rates. (just a thought)

I don't see the point in people meeting for a handover. The post is there for that reason!

Posting batteries is stupid, everyone has batteries, as long as the camera takes AA or AAA.

Lets get this started otherwise we will be talking about it for weeks before anything happens.

I'm more than happy to pay postage to a member abroad. I recently posted a tomtom charging dock (motorbike) to Canada for around £8 and that weighed probably more than the camera without batteries.

I'm happy to have the camera first or last, just PM me for the address!

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

could be a photo opp at the hand over - get someone to get a photo of the two peeps at handover and make it part of the journey - just a thought :)

agreed about batteries

Re: An experiment, would you be up for taking part?
 

Nice idea..
No reason we can't do a mixture of both - handover & postage.
Lets get this started soon.