How To Turn Your MacBook Pro Into A Video Camera.

Once in awhile someone comes up with a great product idea that looks cool right away.

Huckleberry is the latest gizmo to add something your MacBook or Pro’s iSight camera lacks. Perspective.

I have a couple of the original iSight Firewire video cameras. One for my desktop PowerMac and Apple Cinema Display. One for my aging iBook.

To be fair, I’m just about ready to spring for a new MacBook Pro, especially with rumblings of a new 12-inch model on the way. Why?

Seriously? What’s better than a small MacBook Pro? Pop in a new wireless broadband card, fire up the iSight camera and iChat and Skype from anywhere.

The built-in iSight camera in the MacBook and MacBook Pro models is a big hit with Mac users and switchers. If you haven’t tried it with Skype, do so already.

However, there’s just one problem with the built-in iSight camera in those shiny new MacBooks. It’s stuck to the lid. Mobility sucks.

At least with the original Firewire iSight camera, you could twist it, tilt it, move it, to get a better view. It was great as bar code reader and scanner.

Don’t try doing that with the iSight camera in the MacBook or MacBook Pro. You’ll break something. The best you can hope for is to tilt the Mac’s lid up or down.

Along comes Ecamm, the folks who make iGlasses for the Mac. They saw the same problem with the new built-in iSight camera and came up with Huckleberry.

Simply put, Huckleberry is a mirror in a tough plastic frame that sits right on top of the built-in iSight camera on the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

It’s an acrylic mirror with mounting brackets. What’s it do? It reflects what you see in the iSight camera, expanding the camera’s field of view.

That means you don’t have to move the MacBook to expand what iSight sees. Huckleberry does that. Hmmm. See a problem? Mirrors reverse things, right?

Yes. Whatever image Huckleberry sends to iSight will be reversed. Am I sharp, or what? My daughter will not be able to pull anything over on good old mommy Alex.

Ecamm figured that mirror problem, too, and included their popular iSight software which, ta da!! Has a “mirror” function which reverses the mirror reversing caused by iSight viewing life through the Huckleberry mirror.

Got that? Don’t worry. It means whatever iSight sees will still look OK and you can keep your hands on the keyboard, your eyes on the screen, and let iSight look at something besides your smile.

Huckleberry also means it’s ultra easy to turn your MacBook or MacBook Pro into a video camera. You’ll be able to point your Mac at a subject, click to record the video via QuickTime or iMovie, and see the whole thing on screen.

$20 is modest for adding such a cool little utility that expands, literally, the vision of your MacBook.

The question of the day is basic? Do you have an iSight camera, built-in or Firewire? How do you use it? iChat or Skype? Movies? Photos? Share your experience with other Mac360 readers via the Comments section below.

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