Sun & Cloud
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| Sun & Cloud in a silicone jacket image by sonny rosenberg (Image rights) |
The Sun & Cloud is a novelty 3-Megapixel (2048x1536 pixels) digital camera made by the Japanese company Powershovel/Superheadz. The camera body is a simple black plastic box, with a solar photovoltaic panel on the top, and a folding crank handle for a charger, on the right side. The internal, rechargeable camera battery can also be charged via a USB cable, so there are three charging options.[1]
The focus can be set to one of three ranges: 'macro' (25-35cm), 'portrait' (60-150cm) and 'normal' (150cm-infinity), using a slider below the lens.
Most other functions are set with on-screen menus, using a navigation button-array on the back (up, down, left and right buttons arranged around a central Menu/OK button). However, there are three 'shortcut' buttons that can each be set to do one of several common menu operations. To the left of these is the Replay button to display photos and video already taken.
The camera has eight colour-rendition modes, and seven more monochrome modes:
- Colour modes
- Normal
- Old1: low-contrast and slightly sepia-toned
- Old2: faded but higher contrast
- Vivid: intense colours
- Cross: faded and with a colour cast reminiscent of cross-processed film
- Aqua: almost a monochrome image in levels of cyan
- Showa_C: faded, washed-out colours
- Tobashi_C: high contrast, blocked-in colours; supposedly reminiscent of hand-coloured photos
- Monochrome modes
- Mono (normal monochrome)
- Hard_M: high contrast and dark
- Super_M: even more so
- Noise: with added noise
- Showa_M: a reduced range of grey tones; no true blacks or whites
- Tobashi_M: high contrast
- Edo: low contrast and sepia-tinted; supposedly reminiscent of early photographs
Sensitivity can be set only to ISO 100 or 800.
The camera can record video (640x480 pixels, in AVI format) with a frame rate selectable between 30, 8, or 1 fps.
There is an LED lamp in the front, above the lens. This is turned on with its own switch on the back, independently of other camera functions (even if the camera is switched off).
The camera uses SDHC memory cards, up to 16 GB; the card slot is on the left side, under a cover. It measures 60mm(w) x 80mm(h) x 60mm(d), and weighs 190g.
Notes
- ↑ Publicity for the camera at the Bonzart webshop states that twelve hours in sunlight is required to fully charge the battery from the solar panel, and that one minute's cranking at 100-150 revolutions per minute provides power for four to eight exposures. It is clearly not intended that either of these be the normal method of charging. It will charge from the USB cable in 75 minutes, or faster with a mains/USB power adapter.
