Just as slow motion video video is oddly compelling, there's something equally mesmerizing about watching things unfold faster than they should. Think clouds darting speedily across the sky, day quickly turning into night, or a flower blooming in a matter of seconds. Pico is a recently Kickstarter-funded, smartphone-controlled camera dongle designed to make shooting this sort of time-lapse footage easier. We go hands-on with a beta version to see what Pico can do, and what backers can expect.
Pico is a seriously small smart controller for cameras which is designed to make time-lapse photography easier. It looks like a chewable sweet (except for the presence of its 3.5 mm connector), and can be programmed with a smartphone via the 3.5 mm headphone socket, or with manual button presses. Once set, it automatically triggers a camera to take a series of images which can then be put together into a time-lapse video. A built-in battery is said to be good for 8 years.Before we start, it's worth stressing that the Pico unit we recently got to play with was a beta version, as was the companion iOS app. As such, not all of the features the product will launch with were available to us. For that reason this a hands-on impression rather than a full review.
In addition to the little round Pico unit, users will need a short cable to connect it to the remote port of a camera, and the free companion app. By launch, the app will be compatible with any iOS or Android device running iOS 6 or Android 2.6 and higher, and nine different cables allow Pico to be used with some 300 different camera models.
One press then sent the program to the device, with a handy little beep from the Pico letting us know the settings had arrived safely and we were ready to go. The Pico then needed to be removed from the iPad and connected to the camera via the supplied cable.
Once secured in place, the Pico automatically took charge and started triggering the shutter, with our camera chugging away at the right speed, for the correct duration. Once complete you're left with a card full of images ready to be processed and compiled into a time-lapse video.
The Pico app also allows you to set a start-time for interval shooting, while a manual setting option means you don't even need to use your smartphone for basic time-lapse settings. You can press a button in the center of the Pico to program settings manually, with audible beeps letting you select the interval and duration settings.
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