I first heard about this on Drew's blog, The BenSpark. It's called the XShot, and it's a camera extender that allows the photographer to be in the picture, too. I have a Canon S3 IS, and it has a handy LCD screen that flips out and spins around and lets me see myself while trying to get a picture. However, I never can seem to get the camera far enough away and my nose looks funny. I guess my arms just aren't long enough!
That's where the xshot comes in handy. You fasten your camera to it and can extend it out up to 37 inches. That means I could get the camera far enough away to get a more natural looking shot. And I could get into some of my pictures. Fully extended, the XShot lets you get 5 people in the picture. I was just going through my Thanksgiving pictures, thinking I should upload them to Facebook and maybe change my profile pic, but I wasn't in a single one of my pictures. I guess I'll have to steal Dad's for now.
One of these would have come in handy at the last concert we attended, too - when the tall guy just happened to be standing in front of me. That makes it really hard to take pictures of the performers on the stage, or see for that matter. I also think Cory could have a lot of fun with this, shooting his videos for YouTube.
Anyway, the more I look at the XShot, the more I think I'm really going to need one of these. If you think it sounds like something you could use, click on the graphic - I put one in the sidebar, too - and check it out. Then let me know some of the things you're going to use your new XShot for, and show me the pics, of course.
