Slow Swing [Original Mix] by Klassy

I discovered it a while ago, but I saw it once again just a couple of minutes ago. It filled my heart with passion once again, so I just had to post it here. Enjoy!

While working at Basilicon, I made a few full browser video intros for Pågen’s sites in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The videos are integrated using a extremely flexible technique that also features instant bandwidth measuring and automatic quality adjustments.

Note: The film itself was not made by me. Only the technique behind it the intro.

I’ve done a few video intros like this before, but these video’s were first off to be featured on a new powerful media server. The server was specially configured at Basilicon with custom scripts to enable lots of customized video features. This solution enables very cost effective fully customized video services for Basilicon’s clients, any way they like. The video is mainly H.264 up to HD quality desktop playback or high quality mobile viewing. Also the videos are controlled by a schedule using a custom built media manager.

The application had to be really easy to use, since the target group was really young kids. At the same time, there was a big challenge putting it together because we had a lot of games to do in extremely short time. So all the games we made were each made in less than a day. That’s not what we do normally, but this was a very special project. The application was made entirely in Flash, even the image tracing.

Fun fact
The storyteller is actually my ex-boss Anders Ekström, who will figure as the new storyteller in most of the upcoming Bamse productions.

So now I will be working as a User Interface Designer in the mobile industry. You’ll probably see things I make in the BlackBerry product line from now on.

TAT has really made some cool stuff so far. Make sure to check out their demos & concepts.

This means I’m no longer working for Basilicon. It has been more than 3½ great years there and it has really given me a lot of great skills and experiences. Not to forget; the Swedish Design Award!

I will still carry on some web design, but in my own company Instinct Media from now on. So if you’re interested in getting a nice design – don’t hesitate to contact me.

The design follows the previous graphic style I used for a folder earlier this year. If you want some you can get your hands on them at the office of Helsingkrona Nation.

Did you know that you could get lenses for your mobile phone? A couple of months ago, I found an article at Gizmodo about these lenses. I did some googling and found a retailer in Hong Kong, selling all kinds of strange phone gadgets and more importantly, the kind of lenses I was looking for.

At the moment they are selling three kind of lenses; a 2x tele lens, a 180° fisheye lens and a combined wide/0.67x macro lens.

It was a bit unclear which lens to buy and what size, since the video guides I found were a bit confusing. It didn’t get easier with the fact that the website of the dealer was a bit messy when it came to finding products. But after some comparing I decided that it didn’t matter which one I chose, since they all were unbelievably cheap. About $10-$16 including shipping.

I was worried about the delivery and how trustworthy the company was so I just ordered one lens the first round. I decided to go for a combined wide/macro lens. After about a week I got a mail saying that the package had been sent and about two weeks after that, the package arrived to me in Sweden. The customs declaration on the package actually declared the value of the lens to no more than about $3.

After the first successful delivery, I also ordered a 2x tele lens and a 0.67x fish eye lens. The tele lens was also delivered recently after about 3 weeks but I’m still waiting for the fisheye lens. I will put up some sample images when it arrives. To my joy, the note saying the other order was delayed, was really a piece of beautiful design!

The lenses are mounted onto your phone with a pretty strong magnet. Most phones isn’t ferromagnetic metal, so the package comes with three attachable metal rings to put around the camera on your phone. They are 13 mm outer width and 9.5 mm inner width. You have to make sure that the surface around your camera is flat and that the ring doesn’t cover the flash.

The metal ring fitted perfectly on my Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro and it doesn’t seem to fit on iPhone 4, since it covers the flash. However, when attaching the lenses, they’re in the way of the flash on my x10. Hopefully, they will develop phones with prepared lens mounts in the future.

The lenses comes with lens covers and a strap for keeping hold of your lens. At first, I put the strap on the phone, but I discovered that it wasn’t a great idea since the magnet of the lens affected the compass on the phone, which made the navigation act weird. But then moving the lens away from the phone, everything went back to normal.

The back cover is actually also magnetic and attaches strongly to the lens.

13mm wide/0.67x macro lens

The first lens I tried was the wide/0.67x macro lens. This is an amazing lens which is a wide lens in normal mode and acts as macro lens when mounted apart. The wide mode makes great pictures, but the macro is really stunning.

13mm 2x telephoto lens

The 2x tele lens I got a week ago is not as great as the wide lens. It gets a heavy vignette when used with my phone. I guess its because it has a rather wide angle camera. This makes the lens a bit useless but adds a somewhat cool effect. It would probably be a bit better if the lens was a bit bigger.

13/15mm 180° fisheye lens

The fisheye lens seems the coolest, but I haven’t tried it out yet, since I’m waiting for the package to arrive. This lens comes in to sizes; a 13mm and a 15mm. From what I read, they both comes with the same size metal rings. The 15mm is said to give sharper images with less distortion, so that convinced me to order the bigger one.  Let’s just hope it fits!

The images are untouched.

The images are untouched.

Thanks for the update Mateusz!