A couple of great finds here. Watch the video first, then read on.

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That's how to make a camera dolly using a broom, a piece of paper (folded 4 times over) and some elastic bands.

Just gently lean back with the broom to make the shot.

The phone camera -


This week, I had tried using the video from this thing and it looked like a write-off.

The videos looked crap when played back on the phone.

Tried converting them from the 3GP format to AVI and it didn't even work.

As a last resort, I tried a different converter called "hamster video converter".

Result? Very nice clean and smooth AVI files.

This phone I got for free with my monthly tarrif a couple of years ago. I've seen it sold for $199.

Until now, I thought the video was unusable.

The AVI output from Hamster won't go through Avidemux for cropping, but it is still nice and usable video in AVI format.

It's only 320x240 but just try throwing the above video full screen.

Not bad for a cam I had pretty much written off yesterday.

I'm not shilling for that Hamster converter software in any way, just taking up a recommmendation from another LL're to try it.

You know who you are if you are reading this, and thank you very much indeed for putting a half-decent video cam back in my pocket.

I could adjust the lighting and colour balance of the video, but for now that's just the unprocessed result, which is quite a revelation.

Thanks again to LL for being so educational, and I hope you all like me sharing this stuff back.

Don't be afraid to throw me a private message if you want some help making videos, especially with this apparently shitty 3GP phone cam stuff.

Looks like it ain't so shitty after all :-)