Replace that stranger with a stick

We’ve all been there at some point. You’re out and about either alone or with that special someone or family member and you want to be in a picture with. The problem is that if you didn’t bring a tripod, you’d have to rely on a stranger to take your camera and take the picture. While this seems like a relatively simple task, I’m always floored by the way people act as if they’ve never even seen a camera before. Let’s face it, the shutter release has been in the same spot for the last thirty years. Yet we always hear “what do I press?” Next there’s the whole auto focus, press the shutter down half way thing. I don’t even want to go there with that one.

You might want to get an XShot

I was at my Mac User Group meeting a couple weeks back and one of the members (Wanda) came up to me and she was showing off her XShot. The concept is so simple, it makes me think “now why didn’t I think of that?” Basically the XShot is a telescoping arm with a tripod mount on the end that can swivel. The idea is that you set your camera to use the built-in timer feature, extend the XShot arm and press the shutter. You have a few seconds to pose or look natural while you hold the arm of the XShot out of sight. Being a gadget junkie, I had to order one of these and try it out.

How well does it work?

The XShot works as advertised. I mean there’s not much to it. I was taking pictures with it within minutes of taking it out of the packaging. It took me longer to figure out how to set the timer on my Canon Powershot 850IS than to actually get the XShot ready. Although the XShot does exactly what it’s designed to do, there are a couple of things you might want to think about. The first thing is that whole framing issue. Since you can’t see the LCD screen, you’re totally guessing on how to frame the shot. However, you’ll probably still do a better job blindly than the average stranger you were using before. The next thing is the auto focus feature. My Canon has Face Detection, but when I reach out to press the shutter and start the timer, I’m not quite in the frame when the camera focuses. In my testing with two people this wasn’t an issue, however, taking a picture of yourself might require you to bring the camera in closer to get the proper auto focus.

The Bottom Line

For the $19.95 ($29.99 list price) price, it’s not bad. It’s cheaper and smaller than most other solutions I’ve seen. It’s also can offer a huge improvement over the typical Myspace/Facebook profile pictures that I see out there so much (you know the ones where you see the person’s arm in the shot as they try to take their own pictures? Or worse the ones taken in a mirror in the bathroom?). The XShot folds down to 9″ and extends up to 37″. It weighs only 5 oz. Amazon has it for only $19.95.