With more and more people shifting their goods via eBay, auction sites and online shops, it’s important to be able to back up your sales patter with some high quality images.
Although digital cameras make it easy to quickly snap product shots, the built in flash often creates unflattering shadows and reflections, so Lastolite are hoping that people will be prepared to shell out for their economy-priced ePhotomaker kit.A much smaller and less complex affair than the three hundred quid Lastolite Cubelite Portable Studio set-up we reviewed last September, the ePhotomaker comes in two sizes, and promises pro-quality, studio-style shots at a cut price budget.
The package comes in a small round blue bag, with the igloo-shaped light tent almost bursting out, thanks to its super-springy wire skeleton.
Also lurking in the bag is a sheet of blue ‘gel’ (to compensate for the yellow hue of the average light bulb) and two crocodile clips for attaching it to a desk lamp.
Inside the igloo
Looking inside the igloo-like tent, there’s an all-white interior with the right side covered in reflective silver material.
The idea is that you shine your desk light through the left hand side of the tent, with the material diffusing the light inside and the silver material ‘filling in’ shadows from the opposite side.
In general, we got pretty good results, although you’ll almost certainly have to fiddle about with the EV compensation and/or white balance controls on your digital camera to get the best results.
Fortunately, the included illustrated instructions do a fairly good job of talking newbies through the process of setting up the camera, with directions for both digital and film users.
The desk lamp isn’t included by the way, but just about any old light source will do (indeed, we got excellent results sitting the light tent on a sunny table top).
Also included in the kit is a grey card for setting exposure and a wee tripod, but unless you want to see your expensive dSLR nose-dive into the ground, we would only recommend attaching this to small digital compact cameras.
Conclusion
If you’ve ever battled to produce a decent product photo at home and suffered the inevitable distracting backgrounds, inconsistent shadows and disappointing results, it may well be worth investing in the ePhotomaker.
Although you could just as easily make your own home studio with a white sheet, some stickyback plastic and a few shoeboxes, the ePhotomaker kit has the advantage of being easy to set up and quick to pack away – and it’s pretty cheap too.
Once you’ve delved into your digicam’s menus to work out the best settings for your camera, you should have no problem knocking out high quality images – and if the better product photos help you sell your stuff on eBay, the ePhotomaker kit may well end up paying for itself sooner than you think!
Our verdict
Features: 75%
Ease of Use: 80%
Value for Money: 85%
Overall: 90%
0Small ePhotomaker kit
Price: £50 inc. VAT.
Large ePhotomaker kit
Price: £80 inc. VAT.
At first, it was just an occasional background noise that would start just as quickly as it would stop. Then it started to become more regular. And louder. And more irritating.
‘No problem,’ we thought, we’ll just pop along to the nearest PC fair and grab a £2 replacement fan and silence will be, once again, truly golden.
A request for help on the 
Yesterday Microsoft confirmed that the Xbox 360 Elite is a real product and will begin arriving in US stores on 29 April with an expected retail price of $480.
Peter Moore, Corporate Vice President – Interactive Entertainment Business, Microsoft, turned the hyperbole meter way up to deliver the following, “Today’s games and entertainment enthusiast has an insatiable appetite for digital high-definition content. Xbox 360 Elite’s larger hard drive and premium accessories will allow our community to enjoy all that the next generation of entertainment has to offer.”
At the CTIA Wireless 2007 show in Orlando, Florida, tech firm Texas Instruments has been giving public demonstrations of its digital light processing (DLP) ‘pico’ projector – a teensy weensy movie projector that’s small enough to wedge into a mobile phone.
Using the phone projector (“phonejector?” “prophonetor”?”), the mobile phone will eventually be able to beam DVD-quality video on to a screen or a wall, making it a workable portable video player or TV.
A tiny 1-inch 128 x 64, 65k colour CSTN LCD display gives status feedback and if the promo pics are anything to go by, it’s a mighty fine looking little screen too.
The unit also packs in a handy FM tuner and voice recorder, with functions controlled by a wee joystick.
FM Radio Yes
Miglia have not only signed a deal with software suppliers Equinux, but have a package available already with the software, called The Tube. They’re calling the hardware and software bundle the TVMini Express.
Equinux are confident with the swift reaction of the software, as they tell us it was written “from the ground up” in Cocoa, Apple’s object-oriented application environment designed specifically for developing Mac OS X-only native applications. ie it wasn’t written for Windows and ported over to the Mac.
We mourned the lack of Mac and Linux support. Given that all Polycom needed to do was write a driver or two to get it running, we were disappointed that there was no movement on this 
Polycom have announced that they’re going to support more VoIP software than just Skype on the current 
Designed to be fitted under a kitchen cabinet, the Philips DCD778 sports a flip down 8.5-inch widescreen LCD display with an iPod docking bay (compatible with fourth- and fifth-generation iPods, the iPod mini, and iPod nano).
For a bit of Jonathan Ross while you create your Master Chef-challenging creations, there’s a digital AM/FM tuner onboard as well as a cooking timer and clock, and wireless remote.
The Philips DCD778 Docking Entertainment System is expected to start shipping in the US next week for around $400, although there’s no news on a UK release.