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I went to Sim Lim Square to acquire my Chotto Shot. And as usual, with Sim Lim Square, it pays to visit all the shops selling the stuff you want before making a purchase. There are stores selling Chotto Shot at SGD99, SGD85, SGD80. I finally got mine from a friendly uncle at only SGD75.90. Fantastic service.

The image quality is fantastic, much better than up to 3.0MP cameras in most handphones. The camera used by most handphones, although higher in resolution, takes poorer quality photos than 1.3MP cameras used by Sony.

This is what Chotto Shot attached to the top of a PSP looks like.

Notice that the camera rest on a shrivel, and can be rotated through 270 degrees. It also has the ability to auto correct the orientation of photos when you turn it from facing you to facing the outside. Otherwise when you turn it from facing you to facing outside, the photos will be upside down.

I will not be reviewing the included Edit software in this article. Although it is feature packed, it is in Japanese and I had not figure out how to use ALL the features yet, although from what I know, it is a very powerful video and photo editor (think neoprint machines).

Photo

Photos taken at 1280*960 (1.3MP) are fantastic. Click for to enlarge for a better view.

Dark condition, with obvious camera noise

Taken under strong sunlight

Then I switched the resolution to 480*272. That is the native resolution of the PSP screen.

Notice that for the next two photos, the lighting is not ideal, and for a camera like this, it will result in lots of camera noise.

The camera comes with a 3.0X digital zoom, which is supposed to be rubbish actually because digital zoom allows you to zoom in with a compromise on the quality. The more you zoom in, the higher the pixelation. I took at photo at 2.8X digital zoom. Take a look.

For photo taking, the usual exposure setting (-1.5 eV to +1.5eV) and White Balance are available. Macro is available, but comes without an auto focus, so you will have to gauge the ideal distance yourself. Also, macro is not selectable from the menu. You have to twist the tiny ring surrounding the camera lens to switch to macro.

Macro mode for taking photos of things close up. I have not determine the optimal distance yet, so this looks kind of blurry.

Browsing through the menu, I found effects. And that rocks!

Sketch Effect

Sketch Effect

Distort Effect

Also included is a “Toy Camera” effect that makes photos looks like it was taken in some super lousy toy camera, and Text effect that allows you to add captions onto the photos.

All photos at 480*272 looks heavenly on the PSP screen, while those taken at 1280*960 looks crappy on the PSP without zooming in. However, once you view the photos on the PC, the whole thing is reversed. 480*272 starts looking abit pixelated, while those at 1280*960 looks much better.

A final thing to note is that at 1280*960, digital zoom is not available.

Video
Video is where the camera really shine. Although the maximum resolution of video it can take is only at 480*272 with framerate 30fps, the quality is amazing, something rather unexpected for such a small resolution camera. There is very high clarity, and audio recorded through the built in microphone is superb. I won’t be posting a sample video here, but I will say that the quality of the videos surprised me every time I look at them. Other video modes available are 320*240 15FPS, 320*240 30FPS and 480*272 15FPS.

Because of PSP’s wifi connectivity and fantastic websites such as youtube, it is possible to upload your videos directly from your PSP to youtube by accessing youtube through the built in web browser. Sweet:)

At SGD75.90, the price of an average PSP game, the Chotto Shot is well worth every penny. At 1.3MP, although it may not be ideal for serious photography, it is sufficient for taking casual photos on the go. The high quality videos taken by Chotto Shot gets the creative juice flowing. Maybe a documentary filmed entirely from a PSP? Finally, the Edit software transforms the PSP into a portable neoprint machine that you can use anytime and anywhere, and without huge amounts of SGD1 coins.

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