I don’t usually review non-photography-related items here in my blog but this is a great add-on to your photo gear.

Humans are all easily affected with environmental mood and music is a great way to change a mood of a photoshoot to turn a tense session to a fun-filled photoshoot.

Almost all of us own an MP3 player whether its a dedicated unit or coupled with our mobile phones, having music available on-the-fly is now a norm rather than an exception. In a shoot, having the ability to share our music collection with others at the same time is something our headphones can’t accomplish and the solution would be an external speaker system. The DiVoom iTour-10 is a mini speaker that packs a wallop and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Most portable external speakers in the market for MP3 players are often bulky, requires external power, requires several batteries, or have a bunch of cords to contend with. The DiVoom iTour-10 solves all of those common issues in less than 2-inches of space.

The DiVoom iTour-10 (I’ll call it iTour hereon out) measures a small 50mm in diameter and 35mm in height when collapsed. The battery is integrated and rechargeable with the cord neatly tucked at the base of the speaker.

SPECIFICATIONS

Output： 2.4W
Rating Power： 1.8W
Size： 50W x 50L x 35H(mm)
Driver Size： 36mm Micro Speaker, 4ohm
Battery Charging Voltage： 4.2V_+0.05V
Battery Voltage： 3.7V
Charge Time： DC(2.5 hour), USB： 4hour
Available Color(s)： Black, White, Blue, Green, Red

There’s a power switch that doubles as a volume control, a USB port for power charging, and an LED indicator.

Standard package includes a USB cord and three different mobile phone jacks: a standard mini 2.5mm aux jack, a Sony-Ericsson jack, and a Nokia jack. While the mini aux jack that’s attached to the speaker is short (3 inches), it can be easily extended with inexpensive female-to-male extension cords.

The unique aspect of this speaker is the sound. Twist the top part of the enclosure off and you’ll be presented with an accordion that connects the base and the actual speaker cone (which is made aluminum, I think). The accordion acts as a speaker enclosure, allowing more air pressure to move the speaker cone, which allows for more cone travel, which yields cleaner bass and volume.

Most small speakers suffer from tinning bass even at low volumes, the iTour provides a reasonably solid frequency response for such a small package and it’s very usable even in busy city parks, for example.

Battery life is great, it lasts at least 5hrs with a low-to-medium volume setting (which is more than adequate in most cases) and the speaker suffers no strain even after prolonged use. Charging takes less than 4hrs if the battery is drained.

Going back to how it relates to photography, using the appropriate music allows your subject to relax and get into the theme of your photoshoot. If you’re shooting a romantic engagement session, for example, some romantic music can set the mood for your subjects to get more intimate with each other. Some kiddie tunes from popular cartoon shows can take out the fear of younger kids in front of the camera, while some rocking dance tunes can make subjects dance and pose more naturally when shooting casual portraits.

The iTour is so small, it slips into your camera bag’s side pocket and it’s always ready to provide seriously good tunes regardless of music genre. Go get a DiVoom iTour-10 to have some more fun in your photoshoots!