CES: TV Reporter Is Shooting Tech Show With iPhone And Owle Video Rig

LAS VEGAS — Ed Curran is a reporter for WBBM-TV in Chicago, and he’s shooting CES using an iPhone.

Curran has outfitted his iPhone with an Owle bube, a fancy iPhone holder designed to enhance video shooting with Apple’s cell phone. Standing for “Optical Widgets for Life Enhancement,” the Owle helps Curran hold his iPhone steady for shooting video. The Owle also features a wide-angle lens on front and several equipment mounts on top and bottom.

The Owle’s built-in lens vastly improves the iPhone’s lens, Curran said, while the mounts allow him to attach several pieces of professional equipment, including a LED video light and a wireless microphone.

“I would not hesitate to put this stuff on the TV,” he said about the video he’s obtained at the show.

“I’ve been at the show for years and years with $90,000 video cameras,” he said. “This allows me to shoot with a cell phone.”

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Curran will be posting his CES videos on his Tech Blog starting on Wednesday.

11 comments »

About the author

Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, Cameras, CES 2010, iPhone, News |

http://duckeatapple.com Claris Li
This is cool. It would be even better If he uses apps like UStream or Qik to live broadcast his videos.
Oskar
Thankfully, the stand itself is quite cheap (USD 129) but I still can’t imagine any good reasons for getting this particular setup instead of a (even cheap) handheld camcorder, except media attention. The end result in terms of video quality is still rubbish.
http://twitter.com/Goodhewn Darla Goodhewn
Not so, Oskar. Unless you’re James Cameron the video quality is just fine for the purposes 99% of us shoot for – the web. Just look at the quality of vids that I’ve found just this morning on YouTube that say they were done with iPhone and Owlies:
http://tr.im/JzMy Sunset
http://tr.im/JzML Mountain Biking
http://tr.im/JzNc Lego Time Lapse
http://tr.im/JzO3 Happy Pills
and czech out the vids on their own website: http://tr.im/Jyns
Besides, i think the real ‘killer app’ for this device – and something it has over any camcorder – is not really about video quality at all. it’s about access: the user can shoot, edit, title and upload to the web in the time it would take a camcorder user to transfer the data from a CF card to his laptop. That’s a pretty powerful piece of equipment in the end, don’t you think. If we could effectively stream video via the F’d up AT&T network, you’d be watching things like Saddam Hussein’s execution live – or damn near – and it will be shot by an amateur journalist with a $300 rig!
David Sutula
Oskar
David Sutula
Oskar:
The end result for Edison’s first light bulbs was pretty poor, too. The quality of iPhone video is not the question here. We all know that there is only so much you can do with a couple megapixels, but it’s still good enough for the vast majority of video shot today that goes straight to YouTube…
Also, examining the output for razor-sharp quality is missing the point of a device like the OWLE altogether: Think about it, Ed Curran will be able to shoot a short interview video, chop it up with transitions in an app like ReelDirector, Put a title on it and upload it to his YouTube channel, facebook, twitter and blog, etc. (via posterous) in the time it took me to write this reply. That’s if he’s not streaming live already. That is the power of a rig like this. It takes the already impressive power of a mobile device like the iPhone and makes it be all that it can be to the mobile video warrior – or the soccer mom for that matter.
http://twitter.com/Goodhewn Darla Goodhewn
Pretty great videos made with Owlies found on Youtube:
tr.im/JzMy Sunset
tr.im/JzML Mountain Biking
tr.im/JzNc Lego Time Lapse
tr.im/JzO3 Happy Pills
and the videos on the Owle website: tr.im/Jyns
Dave Rilstone
“Ed Curran is a man of vision while the rest of the world wears bifocals” (with apologies to Butch Cassidy)
Aaron
If he’s going for “simplicity”, then he should be looking at one of the canon DSLRs. That move would still equate to an easy setup…but with stunning HD capabilities.
If he just wants attention, he got it. I can appreciate anyone doing what they can to make something better than it is
O E B
Thats just great. Imagine him shooting, Steve Jobs is about to announce the ‘one more thing Jesus Tablet’ and BAM…Curran gets a phone call. There goes the money shot.
Oskar
You’re right. I missed the point, especially about the easy access. Also, the youtube links were much better than I anticipated.
robert kearney
hello i felt the story very interesting and have always felt a person could shoot a quality video with a cheep camera.