Win a Cam-Pod - New Digital Photography School Competition!
As I said in the last post, it’s time for another DPS competition. This time I’m excited to announce that we have a sponsor!
That’s right - instead of having to come up with prizes myself the wonderful people at Cam-Pod are putting up for of their innovative Cam-Pod products up for grabs to this month’s lucky winners.
What is a Cam-Pod?
You might have seen little bean bag tripods before - but the Cam-Pod takes the concept in a whole other direction.
The Cam-Pod has bi-folding cushions, enabling the user to mould to the shape of your camera and lens according to desired angle and height. In addition, this folding ability reduces the size and weight, allowing for a lighter and compact support bag. And because it contains plastic beads, you will not have issues with customs at airports.
Cam-Pods come in two sizes (regular, for DSLRs or mini, for point and shoot cameras). They are hand made in Australia (another reason I love them) and are a great way to help keep your camera still when shooting in low light or with longer shutter speeds.
The best way to say what a Cam-Pod is is simply to show you, so below you’ll find some pictures showing Cam-Pods being used.
The team at Cam-Pod are putting up 2 regular sized products and 2 mini’s for the winners of this competition.
How Can You Win a Cam-Pod?
All you have to do to be in the running for a Cam-Pod is sign up for the DPS forums and start posting.
Every time you post in the forums between now and 31 July you go in the running to win one. Each post/comment you leave you put another entry in. The more you post the more chances you have to win.
What can you post?
Regular DPS Forum members will know that there are lots of ways to be involved:
- Take part in a Weekly Assignment
- Ask other members to critique and help you improve one of your shots
- Show us one of your best images and tell us how you took it
- Show us an image that you manipulated in photoshop and tell us about how you did it
- Get involved in a discussion on Composition, Landscape Photography, Post Production, Portraits, Macro Photography or post in our Digital Camera section.
The ways to enter are limitless. Keep coming back each day over the next month, post a review, ask a question, share a photo, write a tip and while you’re learning more and meeting some great people you’ll be increasing the chances of winning your very own Cam-Pod.
Speaking of Cam-Pods - here are a few more pictures of them in action:
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June 27th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Not quite as awesome as $250 worth of Amazon products, but this is still a bit of a cool looking device.
I can see situations where it’d come in handy.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:44 am
great, post whores on the forums
June 27th, 2007 at 4:26 am
oh, I want this!!!
June 27th, 2007 at 5:26 am
we’re going to see a lots of short answers, one word, one smilie emoticons on the forums now.
June 27th, 2007 at 5:36 am
That third photo makes me nervous.
June 27th, 2007 at 5:37 am
I mean the last one. I’m waiting for the camera to slip off the rock. Eeeee…
June 27th, 2007 at 8:03 am
In terms of junkie comments - as I said in the post above - we’ll be policing this. People who are obviously leaving low quality comments in an attempt to get the numbers of posts up will have their comments deleted and will be taken out of the running for the prize. Be genuine and you’ll have a better chance.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Wow I love it.
Will wait and see if i win, but may be tempted to buy one if i don’t :-P
I hope I win though, not really in a position to be spending much more money on my photography gear….
June 27th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Meh, whats the point, Jimmy already won!
June 27th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Mike well he cant win all 4 now can he ;-)…
and I wont be putting up with crappy posts that have no meaning.. and neither will the rest of our team :)
June 27th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
What a great and simple to use product, I can see this being used between the fork in a tree trunk…with my remote…. while out hiking..and I do like the idea of taking pictures out of the car window also.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I got one. They are very useful, specially because they don’t take space and are not have at all. Also I showed to a friend who is a professional photographer in my home country (Brazil) and he was like.. hm.. cool, really nice, and he was explaining to me how long time ago he had to make his own bags with beans and sand.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Darren,
Can we also use the cam pod to wrap down the camera while travelling… as a shock absorber??? means is it so flexible in betweeen the ridges..?
June 27th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Is there a website we can get more info to purchase this little cutie, as we can’t all “win” one. But some of us are already interested in having it!
June 27th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
@ cwi27121
I dont see why not ;)
June 27th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Then some body please let me know what advantage this product have over some fold of neat and thick cloth or a cuisioned cloth?
June 28th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Great! Now if someone walks in to your shot you can throw a bean bag at them.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:04 am
That last photo reminds me of an SUV off-road bouldering photo. :)
June 28th, 2007 at 1:39 am
Ive been lurking around for some time taking advantage of everyones knowledge. I guess this is as good a time as any to get involved. The Cam Pod looks interesting. I tried to post a photo from my Zoto site not long ago but could not get it to work. Can someone please help me with that?
June 28th, 2007 at 1:50 am
I can think of many uses for this tool. There have been many times I have just wanted to set my camera down on a table, and nervous without any protection. I carry a soft towel with me, but the added protection would be more comforting. Great idea!
June 28th, 2007 at 3:28 am
The Cam-Pod is a pretty nifty idea. Granted, you probably could, as someone pointed out, do the same thing with just a rolled up hand towel, but I like beanbag material for this.
Which brings up a request for a topic of the day. Tripods. I am interested in what everyone else uses normally. I have a very old Slik tripod that now seems quite heavy and bulky. Have materials and construction changed enough to make a tripod that is worth carrying around everywhere/everyday? How many carry the smaller (I’ll call them) “Table-top” tripods similar to the Gorilla-Pods? Maybe this has been covered on DPS already…
June 28th, 2007 at 4:46 am
I’ve made these myself. Donated several to the camera club as door prizes. In a humid climate don’t use organic products [crushed corncobb, walnut shells] as they may grow mold. I’ve used both foam and plastic beads. The one I like best is filled with sand. A solid rest, but to heavy to carry.
June 28th, 2007 at 5:08 am
grat little item ,also works great as a head rest whlie your waiting to cut the cake.
June 28th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Hey Bryan, I’m trying to find the same thing - a tripod that’s compact enough to carry around with me but is fairly sturdy. The gorillapod has been the only thing close enough - might check this cam pod out too, but it’s still not what I’m looking for. Any suggestions?
June 28th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Hi! Actually I’m a passive member out here. Just reading your comments daily before I start working. Now this will push me to give my comments / share.
How many cam-pod are you giving away? Will they ship outside Australia for free?
Raymond
June 29th, 2007 at 2:27 am
I some how feel that the product is too much costly for what its seen. $250 for s cushion is a bit costlier in my opinion, but, would like to compete and win it for FREE.
=> Sunny Chau
June 29th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Raymond - we’ll get them to you wherever you are if you win one.
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
this looks great… I have a rice bag i heat for a heating pad
that is as close as I have.. but it’s not waterproof :)
July 4th, 2007 at 12:44 am
This product is very interesting.
July 4th, 2007 at 4:03 am
This looks like fun! Would like to have one of these :-D
July 4th, 2007 at 5:19 am
I have a joby SLR gorillapod with a manfrotto mini ball head. This is a great combo as you get a quick-release head with all the angles, and a nice solid grip on a railing, branch or whatever is handy. I don’t carry it everywhere because it is a little bulky, however, and maybe this is something I would throw in my bag under those circumstances.
July 4th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I was in Sardinia last weekend and could have done with one of these. Now and again I like to shoot from the floor to get a dynamic shot and I always resort to balancing all my lens caps under the lens!
July 18th, 2007 at 11:41 am
I think this is a great idea. I’m new to photography and carry a small table top tripod. Would love to have the flexiblity with this. What is the material? As others noted, the last photo on the rock, does the material grip the camera?
July 27th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Wow! I definitely need one of these!
I was going to make one, but hopefully
I win one instead ;-)
It will be much easier to carry one of
these to the park instead of a bulky
tripod. BTW~~~Any good ideas on a nice
light-weight tripod???
July 28th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Did you say the cost was $250????? That seems more than a bit steep to me, but I am certainly learning that the further you go into photography the more $$$ it takes! I bought my first digital in ‘04 and was immediately hooked again with the photo bug. It wasn’t long before people began asking me to do ’shoots’ for them. I used to be ‘into’ photography BC (before children) and had a Pentax SLR that I loved. It was, however, pretty ‘idiot-proof’ so I didn’t really learn how to use the aperture, depth of field, etc. manually(or if I did I have forgotten everything). I recently moved up from a very nice point & shoot (Kodak D7590) to a DSLR and I am struggling to get my photos with the Pentax K10D on par with what I was getting with my Kodak. I just cannot seem to get the crisp, clear images I was used to–and I’ve even tweaked the internal setting to sharpen them, but to no avail. I hate to say this, but the images I am getting now simply don’t compare with what I was getting before. I am surely hoping it is just ‘operator error’ (or more like operator ignorance :->)because I have spent lots of $$$ ‘moving up’ in the photography gear dept and am just sick that my pics are not as stunning as they were before. I am studying to become better, but know that I need lots of help with all the settings. I am learning, but am terrified when I have to do a paid ’shoot’ that I will not get the images I need. I am considering taking a course at a local college to improve, but am not sure exactly what type of course I need to enroll in. What I need most is help understanding what the settings actually DO, so that I will know how to get what I want consistently…guess I’m saying I KNOW what I want, I just don’t know how to get it!! Any advice?