You may be tempted to show off a great Star Wars phone case, but this may be the best time to switch it up – unless you made it yourself, you probably won’t be the only one using it. Same goes for ringtones!Unless you’re a professional, or otherwise used to hauling around a large camera, take one that’s portable and small. I’m sure a lot of folks will be using cell phone cameras, which are usually both!
If you are planning on using your cell phone to take pictures, and you use an iPhone or Android device, it might be worth looking into Instagram. It’s a nifty little social photo app that you can either take pictures through or use to post existing photos taken by the default camera setup. Yes, it’s best known for the faux-retro filters, but you don’t have to use them – and you can link it to your Twitter account.
For old-school photographers, or those who don’t want to share on the go, I remain, always and forever, partial to Flickr. It may be losing ground to Instagram these days (and with good reason – there’s a mobile app, but it’s awful) but it still remains the best photo archive/browsing site out there.
Anyway, a few more practical tips:
Luci: “Take a Sharpie and masking tape and put your name and address (or cell phone number if it’s not your cell phone) on the camera. You will be surprised by how many get returned to you. At DragonCon people are always turning those things and iPhones in because they are honest but by the end of the con, no owner shows up.”
Erika: “Remember to pack some extra batteries in your backpack/bag within easy reach.” And a spare charger, cell phone users! In fact, bring two, and leave the one you use overnight at the hotel – that way you have a spare if the other one gets lost. You might also want to look into a battery case or something similar.
And don’t forget to keep an eye on your camera batteries. True story from James: “Thursday night at Comic-Con, I plugged my camera into the laptop to download the pictures, and left the camera on all night (the batteries use a separate wall charger.) When I went to take a pic on Friday, it was dead.”
“Tip 1: remember to charge your camera batteries at night and Tip 2: remember to grab the batteries in the morning when you grab the camera – if you need to, leave your camera battery door open to remind you that there’s no battery in it, since usually outlets are not in obvious places in the hotel. Having a spare battery pack is smart!”
I used Energizer Ultimate Lithium AAs in my camera at C5. I took about 600 photos and those batteries lasted almost the entire con. Expensive, but worth it to not have to fish for batts all the time!
If you’re going to use your phone as a camera/twitter/internet/video/call device, you might want to consider throwing $25 down to get something like this Duracell USB battery pack. At D*C last year, I could get through a whole day with the onboard phone battery and this thing. That’s with very heavy usage as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-Instant-Charger-Includes-Universal/dp/B002FU6KF2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344372113&sr=8-1&keywords=Duracell+usb
My camera came with a little square battery – I can’t recall the type, might be proprietary – but I have been known to go without charging it for at least two days at con – while actually using the camera. I bought this model for C4, so I’m sure the newer ones hold up even better. I’m more likely to leave it on all night than drain it in the course of a day.
I’m more worried about my phone, honestly, so I’ll probably get one of those cases or packs or whatever.
How many of the panels at Celebration VI will I be able to watch on a computer? Are any of them officially filmed, and are visitors allowed to film them? I can’t come, and I was wondering if I could see any of it.
Completely off-topic, of course
Probably none of them.
Someone will probably film the big panels, and put them up on Youtube. (This happened last time w/ both Hamill and Lucas.) But they usually get taken down quickly. Filming is usually forbidden at these sorts of thing, but people do it anyway.
LFL (or Reed?) may film panels, but as of yet they don’t share them.
We’re probably not going to film any panels this time.
In short: Don’t count on it.
okay, thanks. wasn’t sure what the rules were. I discovered beyond-the-movies Star Wars after CV, so I wasn’t sure.
With so much stuff using USB these days, remember to take a spare lead. How many wall-sockets will there be? A powered USB hub can connect multiple devices, but may be slower to charge them. Some devices can charge at a faster rate from a dedicated charger than a USB hub is supposed to deliver.
Good hardware doesn’t run hot. Another reason to test in advance.