(via Make)

For a long time my standing advice has been (a.) to use your mobile phone, stills camera, or whatever else you already have, (b.) to buy a miniDV camera with a microphone jack, and (c.) that you get get what you pay for, more-or-less.

However, I think we’re approaching some sort of transition, and I’m not sure I can fully recommend tape any more. My current picks are:

• Flip Video Ultra, ~£100. Small, trivially simple, not great, but surprisingly good for what it is.
• Canon FS100/10/11 range, ~£220-£350. Not unlike the Flip, but has a microphone jack.

Both these cameras record to flash memory, so they’re much quicker to work with than tape cameras. Long-term archiving is an issue, but hard drives are now around the same price as tape.

Neither the Flip nor the FS100/10/11 will be much good in poor light, neither shoots very high-resolution, and neither gives you much if anything in the way of manual controls. But they’re quick, simple, and relatively cheap. I’ll be reviewing the Flip properly, alongside its closest competitor the Busbi Video Plus, shortly. I’m also sorely tempted to buy myself an FS100, but there’s a review here.

For further reference, here’s a handy list of cameras supported by the current version of iMovie. Still worth a look even if you’re a Windows user, since these tend to be the cameras that do things ‘by the book,’ so you may find you have a smoother time with them than others.

Here’s another competition for you: Capture It!, from our friends at Films for Learning. Entry is open to schools affiliated with the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, and there are excellent prizes on offer.

Be very very quick, though, as the deadline for this one is June 13^th.

When people actually want an answer, however, things get trickier. Broadly, you get what you pay for. We’ve some basic notes on the main SciCast site to get you started, but it’s hard to know what you’re actually getting for your money.

Enter the BBC. Springwatch last week featured an excellent story with a pair of teenage brothers who are keen wildlife cameramen. It’s a lovely piece, but it’s also interesting (and useful) since it sets footage from their cameras alongside professional equipment. The brothers are using cheap-and-cheerful Sony miniDV cameras, and the footage from them looks rather flat and blurry, and somewhat purple-edged, next to the shots from the ‘proper’ camera.

But you know what? Once the clips are compressed down to web video quality, it doesn’t make anything like as much difference as you might expect. Having a good eye is more important than having the ‘best’ camera gear.

Don’t believe me? You’ve three more days to catch the film on iPlayer. It starts about 24 minutes in.

Tom Scott tests out the often-repeated notion that you can remove your fingerprints by soaking your hands in pineapple. His film is brilliant, even if the experiment… umm… isn’t the most sensible I’ve ever seen.

Credit for dedication, though.

Technology magazine show Click featured SciCast last November, as part of their Webscape strand, and they’re running an updated story this week. It played over the weekend on BBC News 24 and (perhaps — we missed it, sadly) breakfast news on BBC1 on Saturday. I believe it’s also playing on BBC World through the week.

If you’ve missed the broadcast, you should be able to watch it here, or for the next few days (for UK readers) there’s a higher-quality version on iPlayer. The SciCast part starts about 16:45 in.

Meanwhile: you may have noticed the total lack of films about environmental issues. Why? Simple — nobody made any. Seems like a hole that needs filling, no?

Also head to the main SciCast site for a film of last year’s competition, for an idea of what you’re letting yourself in for.

You could be there too, performing an experiment for her!

More details here, but be quick - the closing date is next Wednesday!

Good places to start are the Ceremony and Reception sets, or just dive in to the full album. As before, if you click through to individual photos you’ll find an ‘all sizes’ button that allows you to download large versions for printing.

We took the photos down, by the way, because we’d casually given everyone at the event a name badge. Since we’ve spent the last two years trying very hard to avoid publishing likeness, name and school for individual children, this wasn’t the brightest thing we’ve done. This new set of photos, then, has names painted out (some more neatly than others, I’m sorry to say), and next year the badges will be first names only.

Live and learn, eh?