This saturday I had the chance (again) to go to Paris. Scince I’d been there before, I thought that not taking a “real” camera wouldn’t matter, so I decided to put Chotto Shot (PSP cam) to the test by using it as if it was a main camera.

The results of this “experiments” can be found by clicking the “more” link. There are sample pictures taken, as well as comments and something interesting I found apparently which I don’t know what happened. Hopefully somebody will read this and give some feedback.

A PSP Fanboy reader commented one possoble explanation for the blackout: “I’d suspect that much like the PS2 eyetoy camera, the PSP camera adjusts its aperture artificially. This means it makes sure your photographs aren’t too bright or too dark using software instead of a mechanical method that most standalone cameras use (which physically limit the amount of light that hits the sensor/film.)

Therefore, because the sun was so bright on the CCD sensor of the PSP camera, the software tried to adjust for the amount of light hitting it but instead just hit a wall where anything less bright than that would appear completely black. Possibly a small software glitch. Which would be why resetting the PSP solved your problems.”

To me, this seems like a very logical explanation, so I think this is what happened. Plus, I’m using 3.10 OE-A, which can be quite unstable sometimes. This morning I tried pointing a the sun, and nothing happened, so…it could be a one-time-only thing, but what’s important is that it’s still working just fine.

Of course, all the pictures had to be taken with a 4:3, 1280*960 resolution instead of 16/9, 480*272 scince it’s supposed to be a full camera, and it should be viewable on PC. Therefore the pictures don’t look very well on the PSP’s screen unless you zoom at least 50%.

When I arrived the weather was horrible. There wasn’t any rain, but it was very foggy and ugly. However, the chotto shot took the pictures just like a normal camera would do. It wasn’t the cameras fault if the weather was so bad.

A few hours later, the sun came out slowly, and the camera did an amazing job considering it’s only 1.3 mp. One thing I didn’t like about the camera is that after the shooting sound, the picture is actually taken one or two seconds later, which can be very upsetting when moving in a car.

The other pics look just as good, so let’s get indoors. Once indoors, if the lighting is good, you can get really, good pictures, like the Venus statue on the Louvre museum on the picture below.

These are examples of the pictures indoors, and outdoors. All the others look just as good , under the same circumstances. So instead of posting 50 pictures that look the, just look at the examples and if you want to see the rest visit my flickr stream (link below).

Now to the discovery. We all know Chotto Shot is not an expensive camera. Therefore, even if it’s lens take good quality pictures, the camera is made with the cheapest materials possible to keep its 50$ pricepoint. Well, before I left Paris, on my way to the train station, I wanted to tak a pic of the et (eiffel tower) with the sunset. And guess what happened: for one little second, the sun was SO bright my eyes hurt and I had to close them, and the camera went completely black. The sun killed the lens for some time. I watching and taking pictures, all black, until I turned off the PSP completely, and rebooted it, and it was working again. My hypothesis is that the Sun might kill the lenses for a little time if it’s too bright. I would like to recive some feedback on that.

Well, overall, the camera did GREAT. Now you know it works like a main camera. It’s not the greatest camera in the world, and you should not use it in the dark because it won’t work. I’d like to see a flash mod for it from acidmods or somethin’. I shall give it an 8/10: -1 for no flash, and -1 because for the size it could have been 2mp. That’s all! Oh, and by the way, you can check out my Filckr stream by clicking here. (all th epictures aren’t up yet, and I willl take as much pictures and videos as possible)