Selfie Stick

Sak and I are now back from our vacation to Japan. It was a marvelous, marvelous three weeks, and I have some serious post-vacation depression as a result.  Luckily we have a new buddy to lift our spirits - a pre-teen cat named Konbu - but that is a story for another post.

Throughout the trip I noticed something interesting - many tourists had these telescoping monopods in which to place their cell phones. A "selfie stick", if you will.

I may have giggled at the silliness of it each time I saw one, but really it's no more silly than the gorilla pod I typically use, right?  Plus you don't have to be as worried about someone swiping your camera, as long as you hold onto that stick pretty tightly.

Even though I'm pretty sure you can find these on amazon or elsewhere, I thought it'd make a good souvenir, so we priced smart phone monopods at camera-store-staples Yodobashi Camera and BIC camera.  There are a lot of different brands at various price points, I suppose depending on what functions they have or how long they are.  Ultimately I ended up buying one from the random-everything store Don Quijote though, for about 30 dollars.

I gave it to my brother and his girlfriend, since they have lots of friends and like to take group selfies. They should be able to fit a lot of people in their pictures due to the stick's length as well as my tall brother's long arms!

The nice part about this particular selfie stick is that it is blue tooth enabled.  You stick your phone on the end, hold it out, and the button on the handle triggers the shutter.  Actually, you don't even need to put the phone on the stick, since it's basically a shutter remote.  The button worked with the phone from an entire room away! Not sure what purpose that might have, but I think it's pretty cool.

Though I personally will be sticking with my gorilla pod since I like the wide scenery it allows me to capture, a selfie stick is a great way to get a nice picture of both faces and location!  They seem pretty popular in Japan at least!