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Home / News / .giffing all day just became a whole lot easier, thanks to this crazy wind-up camera

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.giffing all day just became a whole lot easier, thanks to this crazy wind-up camera

Warning to cats: run now, lest your antics be immortalised in moving pictures forever

Esat Dedezade

We’re not one to brag, but our mastery of the humble .gif is second to none. We can hold entire conversations using nothing but a string of relevant moving images, and we have an intricate point system in place which highly rewards the use of adorable subjects like baby hedgehogs (150 gifpoints™).

If you share our passion then you’ll be happy to hear that a miniature camera designed purely for creating gifs now exists.

It’s called the Otto, and it looks like a camera you’d give to a child in the hopes of inspiring them to become a world-famous photographer.  

But beneath its toy-like appearance lies an f/2.0 35mm optical lens equivalent, a 5MP sensor capable of shooting 1080p video at 30fps, and a Raspberry Pi.

The reason for the inclusion of everyone’s favourite micro computer, is that the Otto is designed to be an independent gif-creating machine, without any extra hardware or software required.

Everything – from shooting and saving – happens on the Otto itself, and you can share your creations instantly thanks to a connected smartphone app, which also lets you apply filters and overlay effects.

READ MORE: Rasbperry Pi review

Instead of a traditional shutter button, the Otto has a miniature crank handle which only initiates video capture while you’re turning it.

It’s a little like the finger on/off system in Vine, except more complicated, with the bonus of extra camera shake. Being different for the sake of being different? Perhaps. But hey, at least you’ll stand out.

The Otto is also hacker-friendly too, thanks to its Raspberry Pi innards, microUSB port and open SDK.

At US$200 on Kickstarter, it’s a little pricey for an unproven novelty, but if you’re a gif connoisseur then it might very well be the best purchase you’ll make until someone releases a gif flick-book printer. When that day comes, we’ll be lost to the world forever.

READ MORE: All the hottest stuff, on one scorching page

[Kickstarter via Pocket-lint]

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About

Esat has been a gadget fan ever since his tiny four-year-old brain was captivated by a sound-activated dancing sunflower. From there it was a natural progression to a Sega Mega Drive, a brief obsession with hedgehogs, and a love for all things tech. After 7 years as a writer and deputy editor for Stuff, Esat ventured out into the corporate world, spending three years as Editor of Microsoft's European News Centre. Now a freelance writer, his appetite for shiny gadgets has no bounds. Oh, and like all good human beings, he's very fond of cats.