{"id":7408,"date":"2012-04-22T21:49:53","date_gmt":"2012-04-23T01:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/?p=7408"},"modified":"2012-05-08T23:18:37","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T03:18:37","slug":"the-strange-world-of-the-808-car-keys-micro-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/22\/the-strange-world-of-the-808-car-keys-micro-camera\/","title":{"rendered":"The strange world of the 808 Car Keys Micro Camera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/d11bf62c8e5111e180c9123138016265_7.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-7432\" title=\"808 #16\" src=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/d11bf62c8e5111e180c9123138016265_7-320x320.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/d11bf62c8e5111e180c9123138016265_7-320x320.jpg 320w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/d11bf62c8e5111e180c9123138016265_7-160x160.jpg 160w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/d11bf62c8e5111e180c9123138016265_7-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/d11bf62c8e5111e180c9123138016265_7.jpg 612w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/a>They have no viewfinder, no way of focusing, no controls beyond a power button and a multi-function shutter button (and two other seemingly useless buttons). They come with no manual, no readily identifiable manufacturer and you don&#8217;t really know what you&#8217;re going to get until you turn them on \u00e2\u20ac\u201d yet they sell in their thousands. They are the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chucklohr.com\/808\/\">808 Car Keys Micro Camera<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I first heard about them from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metafilter.com\/106442\/This-Camera-is-an-Adventure\">This Camera is an Adventure<\/a> on MetaFilter, then someone suggested one as a solution to my Halfbakery idea \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<a href=\"http:\/\/www.halfbakery.com\/idea\/Tiny_20high_20quality_20digital_20camera\">Tiny high quality digital camera<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. So I bought two:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chucklohr.com\/808\/C3\/index.html\">#3<\/a> from ebay seller <a href=\"http:\/\/stores.ebay.ca\/liangmin9888sworldofelectronics\">liangmin9888<\/a>. Total cost $14.59 shipped from Hong Kong.<\/li>\n<li>a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chucklohr.com\/808\/C16\/index.html\">#16<\/a> from ebay seller <a href=\"http:\/\/stores.ebay.ca\/elehomegood\">elehomegood<\/a>. Total cost $40.99 shipped from Hong Kong.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I chose these sellers for their high reputation, and they didn&#8217;t disappoint. The cameras? They&#8217;re no Leicas.<\/p>\n<p>The #3 is supposedly the best of the standard resolution cameras. They have a large yellow timestamp permanently inscribed in the corner of any image or video. The one I have is loaded with lens aberrations, and makes a Lomo look like a view camera. Still, I see some potential in it.<\/p>\n<p>The #16 is a bit better. It still is miles behind my phone camera, and it only takes slightly soft 0.9 megapixel images. No video samples yet, but here&#8217;s a squinty picture I took in Lakefield today:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7410\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7410\" style=\"width: 320px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/MINI0002.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7410\" title=\"Lakefield, rather wonkily by 808 #16\" src=\"http:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/xMINI0002.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/xMINI0002.jpg 320w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/xMINI0002-160x88.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7410\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lakefield, rather wonkily by 808 #16<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I do feel a bit self conscious about using such a covert camera, but I&#8217;ll see what I can do with them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They have no viewfinder, no way of focusing, no controls beyond a power button and a multi-function shutter button (and two other seemingly useless buttons). They come with no manual, no readily identifiable manufacturer and you don&#8217;t really know what you&#8217;re going to get until you turn them on \u00e2\u20ac\u201d yet they sell in their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[2494,29,422,1519,1093],"class_list":["post-7408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers-suck","tag-2494","tag-camera","tag-cheap","tag-tiny","tag-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQNZZ-1Vu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7408"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7433,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408\/revisions\/7433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}