Going to the Dark Side, or Eyes on Tomorrow?

This is a slightly stylized view I made of our iON Air Pro WiFi 3 camera. Experienced readers will recognize the red reflected light on the bottom of the piece as coming from light striking a red blanket I placed at the bottom of the setup.
This is a slightly stylized view I made of our iON Air Pro WiFi 3 camera. Experienced readers will recognize the red reflected light on the bottom of the piece as coming from light striking a red blanket I placed at the bottom of the setup.

My wife Abby and I recently used some credit card rewards points to buy a camera know as either a point-of-view camera, an action cam, or a wearable camera. Readers might remember that in May Scott AndersEn and I used his GoPro camera to make some intriguing video imaging; Abby liked what she saw, and I have long thought that I would like to improve a largely unpolished aspect of my photography, filmmaking. Thus began a search for some kind of small, lightweight camera designed for action and point-of-view shooting.

The lens of the iON Air Pro 3 summons memories of the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The lens of the iON Air Pro 3 summons memories of the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

After a bit of research, I found myself drawn to a camera made by iON, the iON Air Pro™ 3 Wi-Fi. Cameras like this are designed to be mounted on cars, airplanes, ski helmets, bicycle handlebars, hiking poles, and on and on.

This particular camera is noted for being waterproof, and for having a couple of key features that led me to purchase it: a slide-switch that activates the record mode which makes the device vibrate to tell the use it’s on, and a WiFi “PODZ” unit that allows me to use an app on my iPhone as a remote control and remote monitor.

The iON Air Pro is equipped with a standard 1/4-inch tripod socket, so it will mount on any tripod, and also includes a tiny flexible tripod, a stick-on helmet mount, a sturdy USB cable, and a number of power plugs for different nations. Additionally, I hopped on Amazon and bought a clamp with a tripod screw so I will be able to clamp this thing to any purchase from drain gutters to the bill of my ball cap.

Point-of-view filmmaking is a slippery slope, and it’s easy to make boring or even offensively annoying videos with it, but my hope it to regard this new device as another tool in the tool box of imaging.

As you can see, this perspective from the iON Pro camera is like a fisheye lens, made so as to facilitate getting shots with the super-wide angle of view without really having to aim the camera. Also in this frame you can see that my iPhone is bunnied-up to the iON and is controlling it and being its monitor.
As you can see, this perspective from the iON Pro camera is like a fisheye lens, made so as to facilitate getting shots with the super-wide angle of view without really having to aim the camera. Also in this frame you can see that my iPhone is bunnied-up to the iON and is controlling it and being its monitor.

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