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Home >> Old News Items What's New Archives 2008 - January to June June 30, 2008 - What a bloody hot weekend we had in Vancouver. Sunday saw much of the Vancouver area hit temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius and when I was in downtown yesterday morning, the sun quickly became a bear to deal with after only a couple of hours. By 9 am, the sun was high and hot, creating flat light and high contrast. Time to go home and prepare for another scorcher of a day. At least this time around, I remembered to bring my polarizers for the Canon lenses I was using. I even brought a blast from the past, a Cokin Blue/Yellow pola filter. The Cokin BY filter is not a true polarizer despite the name and it's generally used in landscape photos by photographers looking to add some extra punch to certain photos (think water and morning light). It is for the most part, a cheesy effect that has all the subtlety of an axe when a filet knife would be more appropriate. Below are some photos taken with the Cokin BY filter with the last one in the quartet being taken with a regular circular polarizer to saturate the blue sky.
After walking around in the downtown core for a few minutes, I headed down to Gastown to see if I could retake a photo of the steam clock I photographed on film some years back. Coincidentally, I took the film shot with Canon gear too (EOS 3 and 28-70 f2.8 L lens back then whereas, I used a 40D and 17-55 f2.8 IS lens this time). When I got to the steam clock, I looked up and seemed to recall that the tree was not so big and did not get in the way of my film shot, which I could only recall the basics of by this point. I took my shot, but I kept thinking that the angle was wrong and damn it, why did there have to be blue cables in the way, ruining the shot (the cables are being used to hold a up banner sign strung over the street). When I got home, I dug out the film shot to compare and yes indeed, my recollection about the angle being wrong was correct and the tree was less of a factor, because I took the film shot in late fall when the leaves had fallen. The cool fall air also helped to make the steam more visible. D'oh! I prefer the film photo more than the one I took yesterday. Colors are different because I goosed up the digital version a bit, whereas the film shot was scanned and left alone, so what you see is the color of the Fuji chrome film (Provia 100F is likely what I used back then) via a Minolta film scanner.
June 29, 2008 - The calm before the storm. Only a few more days before July 1 and realization of a lot of Nikon users' dreams or disappointments if the hyper-rumoured D700 does not materialize. Lost in the shuffle is the also expected D90 replacement for the D80. One of the alleged D700 photos has now been revealed as a fake. Sheesh! The lengths that some people will go to to spread such BS. Almost as bad as those idiots writing viruses (virii?) and trojans, with the way they get everyone worked up. Ever have to resize images upwards to print an enlargement and ever wonder just how good or how bad resizing techniques can be? Bicubic interpolation, the default standard available in Photoshop has been around for ages, but there are others such Genuine Fractals, which costs a bundle to buy. There may be another option coming, as David Bertholot has developed his own algorithms and created a website, www.imagiris.com, to show people his method of resizing images. At this time, there is no commercial product available for download and purchase; however, you can upload a file and try 2x and 4x enlargements at the Imagiris website. There is a file size limit of 1 MB, so you can't go crazy and try and create a billboard sized enlargement from your SLR. I tried it out with one of my images converted to JPEG via Nikon ViewNX (Nikon's free browser, as well as a limited, quick and dirty RAW converter). I converted the RAW file two times to have a reference and a test file to work with:
The results indicate that Imagiris is much superior to any of the Bicubic methods available in Photoshop, as seen in the screen shots below. In the four-shot image, you can see the file names and which enlargement method was used for the image. The last one is the original full sized conversion to JPEG, which again is just here as a reference.
Below is a comparison between regular Bicubic interpolation at left and Imagris at right, and just as above, Imagiris produces superior results:
Notice how the Bicubic methods have pixelated the diagonal lines found in the top left and right corners of the image and how much sharper the Imagiris version shows those lines. Imagiris did not do quite as well with the diagonal lines representing ropes to the sail's mast, as those are pixelated, but overall, there's little doubt that the Imagiris method of enlarging holds much promise and kicks on any method of Bicubic interpolation. Below is a sample of the whole image used for testing. It's the doorway to the Marine Building in downtown Vancouver. The Marine Building has been shown in TV shows and movies, with the last major exposure fronting as Reed Richards' home and lab in the two recent Fantastic Four movies.
June 28, 2008 - As some may have noticed, there is a new advertiser on the website, BlueCubit. BLueCubit offers printing software, which is described as:
And, of course we still have the intriguing and very fun Lensbaby and the always reliable and solid retailer, B&H Photo, helping to support this website. It would be just dandy with me if you made some purchases from these fine vendors. Unless I get hit by a bus, I will be in downtown Sunday morning at around 7 am, give or take some minutes. 666 Burrard, Park Place at Burrard and Dunsmuir. Nothing fancy or formal, just another walkaround session to try and notice more of the architecture of Vancouver. Last time, I used the D300 and three zoom lenses. This time around, I will probably bring out the Canon 40D kit to give a couple of the lenses a much needed workout. June 26, 2008 - I just realized that I have not posted any comments about the much rumoured D700 FX SLR that many are speculating to be announced on July 1. It's not that I haven't been keeping up in reading the rumours and viewing alleged photos, just slipped my mind to talk about it. Based on what I've seen, it looks pretty real and I have a nice warm and fuzzy feeling about Nikon offering more or less D3 quality in a D300 body. It's a given that such a camera will not be a speed demon like the D3 and will not be as well sealed against the elements and will lack that last bit of Abrams tank build quality, but hey, I can be very happy with a Bradley instead 8^) I would love to own a couple of D3 SLRs like my buddy Rob in California, but whereas Rob actually has legit business to warrant $10,000 worth of cameras, I, alas, do not. There is also a sense of ridculousness of blowing $5,000 for a single D3 now, only to find that maybe 2-3 years later, Nikon will announce the D4 and expect you to pony up all over again. I gave into my desire to own a state of the art SLR in 2006 by buying a D2X and while it did not cost me $5,000, it's close enough to the amount and not very far in the past that I don't still shake my head at how much I spent. Today, a D2X might be worth $1500 and I heard of one well worn unit going for under $1000 (and I do mean very well worn, as in a local PJ's cast off). If you do photography for a living, or at least earn decent money from photographic activities, the cost is just business, but I'm not there yet and each buck spent is mostly my own. However, enough of my kevetching. The alleged D700, if rumours hold true, looks like it will be a very sweet wedding photographer's camera and will finally give the long-lived and respected Canon 5D some competition. Of course, as soon as the D700 is official, Canon will announce its replacement for the 5D (6D or 5D Mk II?) I'm sure Canon learned its lesson when not too long after it announced the 1D Mk III to the world, Nikon trumped its long-time rival with the D3 and D300 announcement. A tremendous one-two punch that caught Canon by surprise. The 1D Mk III's early AF problems just rubbed salt into the wound and momentum swung over to Nikon for the first time since the original D1 came out in 1999. This time around, it would certainly seem that Canon has held back the announcement of a camera that many felt should have been out many months ago. And, of course, I expect that whatever replaces the 5D will have an increase in resolution. Just as the 5D seemed to offer 1Ds quality in a consumer body, I'm thinking the replacement will offer 1Ds Mk II quality in a 40D type body, which mean a 16 MP SLR that will keep the 5D's vaunted high ISO image quality. Also, you would think that Canon has to respond to Nikon's science fiction-like high ISO settings and offer at least ISO 12800. A bump up in MP should keep the fanboys happy and give some sensitive Nikon users feelings of agnst and inadequacy about not measuring up if the D700 holds at 12 MP (yes, Freudian analogies done on purpose 8^). Other rumours floating around for July 1 is a replacement for the SB800, the much mentioned 24 MP D3X (or D4, or D7, or F7) and some lenses (which ones, I haven't seen anyone pinpoint). Should make for a nice holiday week for those of us in North America with July 1 being Canada Day and the US having the 4th of July a few days later. I'm thinking about doing another early Sunday morning walkaround session in downtown and as per the last one a couple of weekends back, this is an open invitation to anyone that wants to join me. If I do go (not confirmed at this time yet) I expect to be out a bit longer and perhaps end up in Chinatown at the Sun Yet Sen Gardens, which opens at 9:30 am. It's the kind of walk that requires a bit of flexibility, so sans tripod and the distance walked means that I hop on the bus instead of driving and paying the stupid meter fees that the city of Vancouver charges. If anyone is interested, I plan to be at Burrard and Dunsmuir, in front of the Park Place building at 7 am, give or take 15 minutes. I will try to post Friday night, if I will be heading out. June 23, 2008 - A look at the OWC Mercury on the Go portable hard drive is now posted. I finally got around to playing around with the iTouch and converting some movies to MPEG4 format. I'll reserve my comments about the video quality for later on when I'm more prepared to offer final conclusions on the iTouch as a whole, but sheesh, what a difference computer processing power makes for rendering video. I converted the Transformers movie on my cheap Sony notebook, which has a lowly 1.5 GHz Core2Duo processor and 2.5 GB of RAM. The whole process of rendering the video to MPEG4 took about two hours (give or take a few minutes). Then I converted Quigley Down Under (QDU) via the desktop with its dual quad 2.66 GHz Xeon processors (eight cores) with 8 GB of RAM. Now granted, the data from QDU is not as much as the Transformers, so if I were to have converted the Transformers via the desktop, the time would have been slightly longer, but the desktop rendered QDU in about 25 minutes (give or take). For both jobs, I used the free HandBrake application to convert to the iTouch's MPEG4 format. When I opened up the Task Manager on the desktop, I could see all eight cores being used for the rendering job. While having eight cores may seem like overkill for a computer that is used predominantly for photo editing, it actually isn't, espcially if you shoot RAW files. Rendering RAW files to TIFF or JPEGs involves processing power over RAM and editors such as Lightroom and Bibble can use all the cores you can offer them. For local readers in the market for speedy UDMA compact flash cards, on Tuesday, June 24, London Drugs will have a sale on Lexar 8 GB, 300X, UDMA cards. The price is normally $250, but the sale price is $180 and you get a free Lexar USB 2 UDMA card reader too, which results in a $130 value back to you ($70 off the card and a $60 card reader). London Drugs also has the 4 GB version for $80, but no card reader. Other retailers may be offering an $80 rebate instead of the card reader for the 8 GB card. Remember my brother-in-law's computer that died a little while ago? The timing of it pointed to the then recently released Windows XP SP3 update offered by Microsoft. It seemed the most logical explanation, but I was never fully convinced that it was XP SP3 that caused the hard drives to go wonky. SP3 may have caused some users some grief, but using a workaround generally ended the grief; however, this presumes that the user experiencing problems still has access to the file structure on the OS drive to use the workaround. My brother-in-law's computer had no file structure left at all after whatever mishap befell the box. There was nothing left to attempt a workaround solution. The only silver lining was that the hard drives still appeared to be functional and there was a possibility of extracting them to try and rescue the files on the data drive. I finally got my hands on that data drive to see if I could do anything with it. Alas, from the time of the computer dying to the time I got the hard drive, it appears to have died an ignoble death. I could not get the drive to mount no matter if I placed in an external case or inside a spare computer and no matter which jumper setting I used. The one last option left to try and recover the lost photos will be to get the camera's flash card and use some image recovery software and see what kind of box of chocolates Forrest Gump will leave me. June 20, 2008 - Okay, stop me if you've heard this one: you're at work near the end of the day and just about to pack it in to go home, or you're on the way home already and the phone or cellphone rings and it's your wife asking where you are. Um, well, I'm on the bus heading back home. Oh good, when you get off at your stop, could you stop by Safeway and buy a block of cheese for tonight's dinner. Uh, sure. My wife calling me up and asking me to do exactly what's typed above made me think of a recent National Geographic story in the May issue that's all about China. One of the stories describes the life in a poor, interior village, far away from the hustle, bustle and wealth of Beijing or Shanghai. The village, while considered a minority, because the residents are not ethnic Han Chinese, nevertheless, still seem to live a pretty Chinese life, including a strong belief in the mysticism of feng shui. While poor, it does not mean that the modern world is kept at bay with technology making inroads into the village with televisions and now cell phones. The writer of the story described how the cellphone has allowed the wife at home to be able to call the husband working the rice paddies, to ask if he might stop and pick some wild vegetables for that night's dinner. Global village indeed! Incidentally, there are some other things described by the writer about the village life that fascinated me. When new babies are born, the parents go into the forest and select a coffin tree. It's a relatively young tree that will grow stout as the baby grows up and ages. When the tree is sufficiently thick, it is cut down and carved into a coffin that will be stored in the basement or shed of the intended person until needed. The story also describes a feng shui ceremony that the villagers used to find out why their village seemed to have been afflicted with bad luck. The ceremony involves some of the village men blindfolded and seemingly put into a trance to ride "ghost" horses that eventually lead them deep into the spiritual realm to find out the answer. Surprisingly, the bad luck has been caused by someone burying a body in a rice paddy, which the village men were able to divine the location from the feng shui ceremony. To a westerner, it seems bizarre and a bit too much mysticism, but then I have to wonder, how did those men find the body? However, there are assorted other rituals involving the dead that would probably make us in the west scratch our heads. Tibetans have their sky burials (Google it if you really want to know) and the Chinese again, sometimes have weddings for the dearly departed. For example, if a man or woman die young, the parents may try and find another deceased person of similar age and circumstance and wed them so that they are not lonely in the afterlife. A news story I read a few years ago, described how some living relatives would resort to kidnapping dead bodies to conduct the wedding. Again, bizarre.
If you read National Geographic (and Life when it was still around) then you've seen Joe McNally's photographs plenty of times. Joe is noted for being the photographer to convince the mighty National Geographic to finally allow a major cover story to be all shot digitally. This is the article that celebrated the 100th anniversary of flight and McNally covered it with the Nikon D1X and D100 SLRs, along with privelaged access to the then prototype Nikon 12-24mm f4 AF-S DX lens. Joe is also noted for being a master with light, whether it be on a massive scale, such as maybe to photograph a radio telescope, or the ultra portable of an SB800 flash to light a portrait. I recall seeing in the section of the magazine that highlights the issue's writers and photographers on assignment, there was a shot of Joe in a driveway or parking lot with a massive amount of cases and boxes that he had gathered to light some of the subjects for his story. If I recall correctly, all that gear was to light the aforementioned radio telescope. The forward of the book, written by noted Photoshop guru, Scott Kelby, describes how the book came to be and why. The book is not another technical how to manual, but a written version of Joe's live presentations wherein he discusses an idea and then shows you a picture that perfectly fits the idea or suggestion that he gives to you. Ideas and suggestions, hard won over many years of photographing for some of the most demanding and prestigious publications in North America. I do find amusing that Joe uses a lot of photographic jargon, but that he has thoughtfully provided footnotes to provide a definition of the jargon. There's also a glossary at the end of the book for some other terms. I mean, I could probably have figured out that "ripping film" probably meant shooting film at a pretty fast pace, but the exact definition used by Joe is to shoot in bursts by never lifting the finger off the shutter release button, which obviously means ripping through a lot of film. Even though I've just begun reading the book, I think it's going end up being a favorite of mine when I'm done and I've always been taken with general, editorial photography. The type that has no particular genre, but is just the photographer working in a manner to capture the best photograph he or she can. It could be a simple, single-person portrait one day or the largest laser in the world. I should have a look at the OWC Mercury on the Go portable hard drive posted on the weekend. Other things to be eventually looked at are:
It might seem curious that I have some vdeos and publications on Nikon Capture NX 2, but I do plan to get this RAW convertor to supplement my set of tools for the digital darkroom. The Adobe Camera Raw tutorial might also seem curious since I'm big into using Adobe Lightroom and the two convertors share a lot of the same processing DNA. However, I generally use Lightroom for editing photos that I plan to keep and want to archive, whereas I use ACR for photos that are one offs and that I have no intention of keeping, e.g. product shots for articles and reviews. I haven't bought a specific camera tutorial book since I first bought my Nikon F90x, but given all that the D300 can do and the lack of time to get my butt out and about to try all that the D300 can do, I figured that I could cheat a bit and buy Thom Hogan's eBook. I've said it many times before that I think Thom Hogan is the best Nikon reviewer/writer on the Internet and I expect a lot of good materials and tidbits of info from his D300 guide.
The book, Landscapes of the Spirit, offers the kind of images that made me want to become landscape photographer way back in 1997. Excellent landscape art and a nice way to wind down from a hectic day. The $15 gets you two PDF files, one as a single page presentation so that you can focus your attention on one image at a time. The second PDF offers the traditional two-page view of the original book. The electronic version also gives you an extra couple of pages of technical information about each image, which were not included in the original book. I enjoyed it thoroughly and it's probably been the best $15 I've spent in recent times. More information here and you can also check out William Neill's blog page. June 16, 2008 - Busy father's day weekend. Had hoped to get out on Saturday morning to do some comparison test shots, but got thwarted by the wife's early morning dentist appointment. Then it was babysitting time in the afternoon for me while the wife was out and about and then a big family barbeque at her brother's place for a father's day dinner. I did get out on Sunday morning into downtown for about an hour and a half and spent a pleasant time with a reader who was an even earlier bird than I was in making it out to the Park Place building. After getting back home, time for me to cook up some breakfast for my own father and then getting the kids off to a birthday party in the afternoon. I also managed to put together a look at a couple of Lexar products, a 4 GB 300X UDMA compact flash card and the USB 2.0 UDMA card reader.
If any of you have been keeping up with Scott Kelby's blog, you know that he's been railing against the need for permits to photograph using a tripod in many US cities. Related to the topic is how security guards and police officers often don't know what the rules and regulations are for the use of tripods or even just for general photography. I figured that with the early Sunday morning outing that we might see a couple of security guards come and approach us. My hunch was correct, because as soon as I got off the transit bus (it stops right beside Park Place) I saw John talking with a security guard. I wondered if John was getting some hassle from the security guard, but it was actually just conversation and maybe some admiration of John's 70-200 VR lens. The security guard was quite pleasant and said no problem with photographing the building since we were not media. Later on, as we walked along West Hastings, I was photographing the main entrance to a building when one of the doors opened and another security guard popped his head out and wondered what I was doing. I just smiled an mumbled something about photographing the doorway and he went back inside and left me alone. While I can understand the frustrations felt by innocent photographers just wanting to take a photo of an interesting subject, security guards have it tough when they may not know exactly what the regulations may be. They will generally take the conservative choice and say no rather than take a chance that they may be wrong. Security guards just don't get paid enough to take any potential flak from higher ups. Last week a reader asked about the Epson R2400 printer and wondered if my recommendation to bypass the R2400 and buy the Epson 3800 still stood given that Vistek in Toronto is now clearing out the R2400 for CDN $600. After doing some quick calculations, I replied that yes, my recommendation still stood in buying a 3800 at CDN $1250 instead of the $600 R2400. It all comes down to ink and below is an exerpt of my reply:
And, of course, with the 3800, you will have 16x20 inch print capability in a relatively compact desktop sized printer instead of being limited to 13x19 with the R2400 (the R2400 is capable of using rolls though, so you can print longer than 19 inches, but are still limited to a 13 inch width). June 13, 2008 - Interesting news from HP about a new high performance, color critical LCD computer monitor developed in connection with noted animation studio, DreamWorks Animation. Only USD $3500 for one billion colors... Another item of interest, also from HP, is the Blackbird 002 custom PC. Fairly impressive PC that seems to have taken into consideration the thermal (i.e. heat) characteristics of high performance PCs and attempted to mitigate it as much as possible. Liquid cooling is de rigeur, but also plenty of copper heat pipes for the mobo, RAM and CPUs. In fact, inside the Blackbird, each of major heat generating components (CPU, GPU and PSU) are isolated in their own chambers so that cool air coming in does not get mixed up with hot air coming off of the components. Smart wire dressing for improved air flow finish off the interesting design. Finally, the kind of custom PC that "I" would have designed 8^) All yours for around USD $7000 for the top model with the best performance and cooling features. As much as the the Blackbird sounds pretty sweet, I think I'm leaning towards Mac next time around. As I was telling another reader in a private email, I'm driven towards Mac because of the hardware rather than the software. I'm not a software zealot and Vista versus OS-X is a meaningless debate. I've discussed the MacBook Pro before, but the two key features that I like about it is that it offers a Dual-Link DVI connection to drive a 30-inch LCD, as well as Firewire 800. HDMI and eSATA, as seems to be becoming popular on PC notebooks are not features I consider of much value (well, maybe eSATA would be nice, but there are adapter cards available if I really want it). I'll be interested to see how long it takes Apple to update the MacBook Pros to accomodate more than 4 GB of RAM. HP now offers notebooks that can take two 4 GB RAM modules for a nice 8 GB. I'd also like to see more hard drive options than a measly 250 GB running at 5400 RPM. Where are the 320 GB, 7200 RPM or the 500 GB, 5400 RPM options? The Mac Pro desktop is elegant and seems very well designed with all the flexibility and performance options to give me some wood (ahem)! I love that you can install up to four video cards inside the box, but it would be even better to be able to fit more than four hard drives. Six SATA ports would be nice, along with faster burning optical drives. The iMacs, well, maybe nice if you can't afford better, or good for the wife and kids, but wake me up when the 30-inch version arrives, or when the 24-inch version offers Dual-Link DVI. Another interesting thing about Apple is that since going with the Intel chips, the prices have steadily come down at regular intervals. Where once not so long ago, a 4 GB RAM upgrade on a MacBook Pro would have cost you $900, you can now go from 2 GB to 4 GB for a not unreasonable $200. And, lastly, if worse comes to worse, I can always boot up Vista... ;^) June 11, 2008 - First up on deck for review is something that is actually not on the list at left, which is the National Geographic Earth Explorer Shoulder Bag (Medium size). Reader's comments and question:
That is really unfortunate and I feel for you. I know a little bit of what you feel, as I had my first Nikon F90X, a lens and flash stolen from me years ago, but that pales compared to what you and your family just went through. I’m sure there is a litany of emotions being experienced by everyone from violation to anger. Your warning and suggestions ties in somewhat coincidentally with that of my brother-in-law who experienced the computer problems a couple of weeks ago. Since I didn’t have time to look into the problems, another brother-in-law did and reported back that the hard drives are toast and all the files are gone. If true, the first brother-in-law has lost many family photos taken this year, including wedding photos taken at his brother’s wedding, none of which were backed up. While the computer can be rebuilt with new hard drives, the brother-in-law rightly thinks that hardware is meaningless without the data that used to be stored inside. It’s a tough lesson for him to have learned and now he’s resolved to establish a backup process using external drives. However, I do have some hope for him, as what I observed of the computer indicates that the hard drives were detected and working, just that the data on the OS drive was gone. However, all the photo data had been saved to a second drive, which I’m hoping to get my hands on and see for myself if the data is truly gone. The suggestion to note serial numbers is another good one and taking stock of all that on has is an excellent idea, along with photo documentation of each item in case something happens to me too. Part two of your email is a bit of a dangerous question for me to answer J This really depends on when you ask and what is currently available, because I’m somewhat of a sponge that absorbs data and what I think today could be 180 degree different tomorrow. However, here are my thoughts on the current situation: If, and this is a big if…if you can afford to wait to buy, I would bank away the cash for the short term and see what the summer holds for us as we get closer to the Olympics. There is the much rumored 24 MP Nikon SLR that some speculate as being announced sometime next month. Now, I’m not suggesting that you spend the kind of money that would be needed to buy a super high resolution, FX Nikon SLR, but it would be interesting to see if the much hoped for FX version of a D300 comes out at the same time. There is also the somewhat overdue Canon 5D replacement and this would be a very interesting camera if it were to receive an upgraded body, such as found in the 40D. Faster AF, with a modest increase in resolution could make it as much of a giant killer as the original 5D was compared to the high priced 1Ds SLR. The dark horse in this so far two horse race is Sony. When the 24 MP SLR finally arrives it could trigger a nice arms race that should benefit us, the photographers, by having a third full frame contender. No idea about the price, but there’s always hope that Sony uses its considerable size and financial clout to make the price very competitive, which would put pressure on Nikon and Canon to keep their prices somewhat sane. Pentax, Olympus, et al. hardly register on my radar, because I don’t find any of their products compelling enough to look beyond Nikon, Canon, and the somewhat behind, Sony. Sorry to any Pentax and Olympus users out there reading this, nice products and all, but just not for me and no doubt that you probably say the same about Nikon, Canon and Sony. If you feel that you need to do an immediate replacement due to pressing needs, then I would simply suggest that you get another D300. Note to readers, I know the person asking the question and a bit about his previous equipment, hence the familiarity. This would also be an opportunity get some nice, new f2.8 AF-S zoom lenses, such as the 24-70 and 70-200. Throw in the 12-24 for the wide angle and then supplement with a Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens for low light. I would not go beyond these four lenses for the time being simply because everyone expects Nikon to revamp its prime lens lineup and many are hoping for AF-S versions of at least the 50 and 85mm lenses. Maybe even hold off on the Sigma lens to see if an AF-S version of the 35mm f2 lens will be forthcoming. However, if you wanted to add in a macro lens, either of the 60 or 105 AF-S Micro lenses would be sweet, immediate additions. I expect that the water will be far less muddy after July and August for Nikon users. On the Canon side, the 40D is a very nice, capable camera, but given how long you and I have been Nikon users, the Canon UI takes some getting used to and going back to a Nikon SLR is like putting on that old, leather baseball glove that just opens and closes effortlessly. The three-inch LCD, which you’ve already enjoyed, is simply a joy to use and while there are many features and customization available in the D300, the Nikon menu system is more informative and intuitive to use than the Canon menu system (kinda like going from DOS command line to Windows GUI). Add in the much heralded new zooms and the powerful and flexible wireless flash capabilities and it’s not really not that hard to suggest sticking with Nikon. There’s also that awesome travel lens in the 18-200 VR that Canon does not offer (although Sigma and Tamron have their own variants now, Canon users can certainly have all-in-one convenience). However, at the end of the day, results matter and I like the results that come out of the 40D while I’m still getting a handle on what the D300 can do, so cannot offer much comparative comments at this time. June 9, 2008 - While the title of the photo of the week is "Ugly" that also sums up my weekend. My exam was written last Saturday and the less said the better about the most challenging exam I've ever had to sit through. Good news though is that I have my life back for the next little while and I will now slowly try to make my way through the products listed in the left column. Lots of little personal projects to try and work through too, but there are these little things called work and family that seem to get in my way. I just hope the breather lets me reduce some stress and get back on an even keel. Man, photographing a 12-hour wedding is no stress at all compared to trying to remember formulas and ratios that have little meaning for me on a practical basis. So, stay tuned for the new articles and reviews as they slowly trickle out. Also, for any local readers with nothing better to do this coming Sunday, I'm planning to do an early morning walk about in downtown Vancouver to photograph some of the office towers. By early, I mean around 7 am, so as to avoid as much humanity as possible. Will probably be out for a couple of hours. Anyone wanting to join me is welcome to do so and I will probably start with the Park Place building on Burrard and Dunsmuir - it has the rather ominous address of 666 Burrard St. If there are any changes to my plans, I'll post them on this page. June 5, 2008 - About the much heralded, highly regarded Nikkor 14-24 lens. Many complain about the huge front element and the lack of ability to use filters with it; however, if we really desired to, couldn't we work around this problem? I was thinking about it and remembered an old PopPhoto article by landscape photographer, Tim Fitzharris. Fitzharris came up with a quick and dirty method of quickly attaching large, rectangular graduated neutral density filters to his Pentax (now Mamiya) medium format lenses...gaffer tape. I was thinking that if I got a filter large enough to cover the 14-24's front element then I could workaround the issue of using filters. The 4x4 and 4x6 inch size should do as the 14-24's front element is about 1/4 inch shy of being four inches wide. Get a couple of these and use Fitzharris' trick of attaching via gaffer tape and Bob's your uncle. The only quibbling issue is the cost of such filters. While graduated neutral density filters in 4x6 size are not too bad at around CDN $160 or so from Lee or Singh Ray, the circular polarizers get pricey with the cheapest I've found to be Lee's at CDN $290. Over at TOP there is a recent posting about the lamented bridge cameras once made by Sony, which through the comments section, later evolved into a general lament about the demise of the high-end bridge camera of every brand. Prior to the purchase of KonicaMinolta's photographic assets, Sony was a leader in this class of camera with the R1 the pinnacle, albeit too short lived despite so much potential. I liked where the R1 could have taken us even if I didn't care much for the somewhat high cost. The R1 was the first and only bridge camera that used a DX sized sensor, which given what Nikon and Canon have done wth their most recent DX format SLRs for image quality, points to lost opportunity. Just think of what an R2 or R3 could be if still made and developed by Sony? An all-in-one, sensibly priced, SLR-like camera with high ISO quality like the D300 or 40D that is completely silent in operation - no mirror box, no mechanical shutter. In other words, the perfect camera for use during wedding ceremonies, court trials, movie sets, recording studios and any other noise-sensitive environment where photos are desired, but not the noise from an SLR. While the original R1 had a very nice, generalist focal length Zeiss lens, succeeding cameras need not have been tied to the "normal" range zoom lens. For sure offer one for choice, but also throw in a super zoom version and while I'm dreaming of lost opportunity, how about a single focal length version, say a 30 or 35mm f1.4 lens, which would equate to a 50mm lens in the FX world. Unfortunately, no one seems interested in making such a camera, what with SLR prices having fallen so much in the last couple of years, but still offering the best profits for the camera makers. While bridge cameras are still made by Olympus, Panasonic and in particular, for being best in class, Fuji, it seems to me that if you're serious about quality, but need to go simpler and/or lighter, you gotta look towards one of the consumer SLRs, such as D60 and a small complement of lenses. You can pick up a D60 along with two VR zoom lenses for less than what the R1 sold for back in 2006, when it was last available. And, if memory serves me correctly, the D60 with a consumer zoom lens attached is actually even more compact than the R1. One of the reader's comments at TOP offered that all that most consumers need is a good, compact, all-in-one bridge camera because it would be taken everywhere and be available for taking photos. Well, I differ on that, because one person I know did buy the last bridge camera made by Nikon, the Coolpix 8800, and while it is, when compared to an SLR, compact and fairly lightweight, the size was still an issue for the owner. The CP 8800 was eventually supplemented by a Fuji digicam to truly be the take anywhere camera, which incidentally is what I've been preaching for a couple years now. Buy the good, capable, do anything SLR for those times that you have the desire for the best quality, but also get yourself a compact digicam to put in the shirt or pant pocket for those times where you're not out trying to be Ansel Adams. Even the smallest bridge camera won't fit in any pocket save for those of a winter parka and it's always nice to have the choice of choosing the best camera for the occasion, which I certainly admit is not always an SLR, even if I'm somewhat allergic to pretty much every digicam available now. Even if that mythical R3 existed today, I would still tell a prospective purchaser to budget for a tiny digicam to supplement the bigger camera. Speaking of which, I suppose I should be following my own advice... June 3, 2008 - Nikon has announced Capture NX 2, which was already known to be ready for imminent release due to a showing at a photo show in France a few days ago. As much as many hated Capture NX 1, kudos to Nikon for listening to users and making what appears to be significant improvements to its RAW converter. Dual monitor support is now provded (always big in my book) and the UI is said to be improved. Check out the review links at my other site, NikonLinks. Yesterday's post mentioned how I felt I didn't have NTI Backup Now setup correctly. I've now set it up the way I want. As seen below, I set NTI Backup Now for Incremental Backups:
Incremental means that only new and changed files will be backed up to my assigned drive, whereas when I had set Differential, it seemed to more or less do a whole backup again, which is redundent and not necessary since I would have already done one in the first place. My first, whole backup of my chosen folders and files is about 35 GB and the first Incremental backup done last night resulted in a new backup that is all of 714 KB in size, which would just be updated website files. Now that's more like it instead of having to do a whole another backup lasting 30 plus minutes. My backup drive is a spare and "naked" 3.5 inch Seagate 320 GB hard drive. I say naked, because it is not mounted in a traditional external case, but in on of those new, perhaps faddish, hard drive docking stations. The one I bought for about $34 can accomodate naked 2.5 and 3.5 inch SATA drives and connects to the computer via USB 2. Instead of spending $30 or more each on individual cases, you get a single docking station that you can rotate the drives in and out of as needed. Of course, you don't get the protection of a dedicated case, but for use with backup drives that don't travel far from the desk, it's a handy item. For those of you interested in creating custom photo books on your own for a reasonable cost, Epson has a kit available called Storyteller Photo Book Creator. First off, this is not the kind of book that a pro would flog onto his or her clients, but for consumers wanting something a little bit more interesting than the usual 4x6 album, it looks interesting and seems reasonably priced at CDN $30 per kit. The basic package is an 8x10 sized book (5x7 also available) and comes with 22 sheets of Epson glossy paper. I'm hoping the paper is the good stuff, as in Epson Premium Photo Glossy Paper, but I haven't looked at the paper closely enough to tell if it is and for only $30, I have my doubts. The kit also includes two plastic protected book covers. Two of the 22 8x10 sheets are meant for you to practice with and the extra book cover is also meant for practice too. The kit comes with a CD with the Epson design software (Windows only) and a pretty detailed instruction booklet. While one would assume the kit is ideal for use with Epson printers, Epson is marketing the kit to users of other brands such as HP, Canon and Dell. Additional details available at the Epson USA website. I bought a couple of kits and will try them out to finally create some long overdue baby albums of my youngest, Harrison. So, stay tuned along with all the other planned for updates listed in the left side column. Incidentally, the reason why I don't consider this as something a pro would offer is that the way the book is created is with individual sheets of prints. Unlike the Unibind system which also uses individual sheets of prints to create a true bound book with those individual sheets, the Epson kit uses adhesive strips bound to the book cover to attach the prints. Once I've created a finished album, I'll post some product shots to show you what I mean (easier to show than to describe). June 2, 2008 - A reader sent along this suggestion for backup software, Cobian's Backup. I've not tried it, but an interesting aspect of it is that the backup files can be browsed normally on the backup drive rather than being in a proprietary file format, as with NTI Backup Now and other similar backup applications. I've noticed that every scheduled backup using NTI Backup Now generates a large file of around 30 GB in size on the backup drive, even though I've set it up for an incremental backup of only files that have changed since the last backup. I'll have to look into this, because 30 GB is certainly not an incremental one, but the whole she-bang. A while back I talked about the Wacom Bamboo tablet and how I didn't like the manner in which the pen's position on the tablet is absolute to the where you want the cursor to be on the screen. For example, if I want to click on the Start button on the lower left corner of the screen, the pen also has to be positioned in the exact same lower left corner of the tablet. I mentioned that I would prefer if the pen could set for relative positioning like a mouse, in which case you could life the pen off the tablet and the cursor would remain where it is on the screen and not jump around to where you next positioned the pen on the tablet. Well, what a dummy I feel like not to have noticed that you can choose between absolute and relative positioning of the cursor when using the pen and all it is just clicking on the appropriate box in the tablet's settings. As seen below you can choose to use the Bamboo in pen mode (absolute positioning) or mouse mode for relative positioning:
Even the very old Graphire tablet I complained about now offers this change in mode, as I discovered when I downloaded the latest driver for it to be used with my kids' computer (my youngest daughter likes to draw and scribble using MS Paint). May 30, 2008 - With next week being the home stretch leading up to my exam, I'm gonna cover a few items to tide everyone over, as I bunker down. On the continuing theme of backups, I decided to give NTI Backup Now a try, since it came loaded on the Acer, as part of its bloatware. Of all the Acer-included applications, NTI Backup Now might actually be a good and useful program. I set it up to first do a full backup of all the important files on the Acer's two hard drives, then I setup a schedule for it to do incremental backups at a regular time that I'll likely have the computer on, but probably would not be doing much with it. It seems to work okay, except that Vista's User Account Control blocks the automated schedule aspect of NTI Backup Now, which rather defeats the purpose of having an automatic backup process that I don't need to worry about. I also wonder about the utility of using NTI and other similar applications that seem to backup to a proprietary file format that only it can read and restore. I mean, what if I was too stupid to have created restore discs for the Acer and then had a system crash that left my drives kaput? Would I have to get another copy of NTI in order to access the backup file? Hopefully, I won't have to worry about this. I'm also a belt and suspenders kinda guy. While NTI is my belt, I still plan to do my own manual backups to separate drives, which would be my suspenders. These backups would be less frequent than NTI's daily, incremental backup, but would be a mirror and obviously not in some kind of proprietary format. On the topic of backup drives, I received my OWC Mercury On-the-Go portable drive a couple of days ago. I ordered the Firewire 800/USB2 interface version with a Hitachi 160 GB 7200 RPM drive. Unfortunately, I've requested an RMA to send it back to OWC, because it died shortly after I started testing it out. I was looking forward to getting this drive to see how speedy Firewire 800 would be. To prepare, I ordered an ExpressCard FW800 adapter for my notebook computers and PCI-E FW800/USB2 card for my desktop. I thought I was all set to finally taste the kind of speed that Mac users were crowing about. My taste will have to wait a bit longer now, because of the drive's failure. When I first set it up, I tried the USB 2 connection first to give myself a baseline performance for comparison. I created a test folder of 100 Canon 40D RAW files on the Acer to copy over to the OWC MOG drive. The USB 2 performance was not impressive and at best, it's middling with a sustained speed of about 10.5 MB per second. This version of the OWC MOG costs USD $190 (not including exchange, S&H, and taxes) and its performance is whipped by the half as much 160 GB portable Western Digital Passport drive I bought at Costco last year. The WD averages about 17-18 MB/second when connected to my Acer and it sure as hell ain't no 7200 RPM drive unit either. My other 2.5 inch portable drives, also with 5400 RPM drives also have better speeds than the OWC MOG with typical speeds of 12-17 MB/second. Ah well, I didn't buy the OWC MOG for its USB connection, so in goes the ExpressCard adapter and I'm full of anticipation that I'll get to see speeds reaching 30-40 MB/second. Firewire 800 is theoretically faster, but theory usually does not translate into reality. Has anyone ever come close to getting the full throughput of USB 2's theoretical speeds? Everything's connected, I turn on the OWC drive and...nothing. No juice. Everything's connected properly, but nothing's happening. I pull out the OWC instruction manual and notice something about some FW interfaces may not work if the device connected does not have its own power supply, like the OWC MOG. I read the FW ExpressCard instructions and see that in fact, it will not work unless the device has its own power, or I supply some power to the ExpressCard itself. SNAFU! I look at the power connection for the ExpressCard, then I read the power specs and I wonder if I might already have a power supply to fit it. As luck would have it, the power supply/charger for my Nexto backup drive has exactly the specs needed to juice the ExpressCard. I'm in business. Firing up the OWC MOG worked and I begin my little test of moving the 100 RAW files over to the new drive. My anticipation turned into severe disappointment when the speed was all of 1.5 MB/second, an incredibly slow spec and far worse than the already slow USB 2 speed. At this point I figured that something was wrong with the drive to be so slow, but to be sure, I tried it with my Sony notebook and desktop computers, but the drive failed to mount to any computer, including the Acer, whether it be with FW800 or USB 2. Dead as a paperweight and FUBR. The ExpressCard needing external juice to work with a FW800 drive is another disappointment, because it defeats the notion of being able to enjoy FW800 in the field. My other new toy that also just arrived at least works, the Blue Circle Thingee, which is a USB DAC. I'll have more to say about this interesting device later on. The Thingee won't win any prizes for build or parts quality given that it looks like something even I could throw together, but it's quite a versatile device if you get the fully tricked out version that I bought. As a USB DAC, it's entirely bus powered, meaning no need to juice it independently. It gets its power and data feed from the USB connection and then you have a plethora of output options. I have the following:
When outputting a signal, both digital and analog outputs are live, so I can feed another external DAC, as well as self-power speakers and even a headphone amp, which is currently how I have it setup at the moment. However, my home office is always a work in progress for changes and reconfigurations and it can change from week to week as I try and get the optimal setup. As good as the Thingee seems to be, even it cannot turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. The Acer has ground loop issues when used in certain setups with my larger Behringer self-powered monitor speakers and internally, there's contamination of the music when running iTunes with other applications at the same time. However, using the Acer and Thingee with my smaller Behringer multimedia speakers eliminates the ground loop problem, which is a big point in favour of the Thingee. Using an optical digital output to the Benchmark DAC-1, which feeds the big Behringer speakers, also keeps the ground loop in check. Prior to getting the Thingee in-house, I was lusting big time after the HeadRoom Desktop amp, but now, believe it or not, I might finally be satiated with my current setup. It's not quite the simple and stripped down system that I wanted to build with a HeadRoom amp as the heart, but there's enough flexiblity to cover all the bases now. More to come in June. It's been said by more than a few people that women don't like big and heavy devices compared to men that like their toys bigger, louder and more obnoxious. Many female wedding pros eschew the big and heavy pro SLRs from Nikon and Canon and prefer working with the consumer models because they are much smaller and lighter. Along these thoughts, back when I upgraded to the Acer, I gave my wife my old 17-inch, P4 Toshiba notebook. She never cared much for it, even though as a notebook, it's still much smaller than a desktop. Around the time that I was shopping around for another, smaller notebook for mobile studying, my wife asked her brother if he might have something to lend me. I think it had a lot less to do with helping me study than it was to try and stop me from spending more money. No such luck, as I still bought the Sony notebook ;^) However, she still took her brother's spare notebook, a very compact 12-inch Fujitsu wth the old school 4:3 aspect ratio and somewhat lowish resolution. She immediately banished the poor old Toshiba, because she much preferred the smaller Fujitsu. The Fujitsu is also a bit more sprightly havng a Core Duo processor (not Core2Duo like the Acer and Sony). Looking at and handling the Fujitsu, I have to say that for studying purposes, it would have been quite dandy. It weighs so little and its size allows it to fit in just about any bag or case I might use on the road. However, being a man, I still like my gear to be big, loud and obnoxious... The Toshiba is now much used and appreciated by my kids though, as they paint and draw pictures along with playing games on it. Speaking about my Sony notebook, regular readers may recall that I found trying to profile the LCD was quite troublesome no matter which monitor calibration package I used. I could profile it, but then it would disappear whenever I opened certain applications, making it unstable and next to useless for doing any image editing. The profile would also sometimes disappear when I plugged in peripheral devices like external hard drives. By accident, I discovered if I turned off Vista's UAC, the profile generally stayed put, making it more reliable. Since I don't keep any important data on this notebook (unless someone really wants my CFA Level I formula and ratios notes), I'm not concerned with turning off UAC and have been using it this way for some time now with very good stability for the monitor profile. May 27, 2008 - Seems like everyone is talking about backups and crashes this week. Check out Scott Kelby and Terry White for their backup procedures. Some of what these two Photoshop masters use can only be done with Macs (Time Capsule and Time Machine), but the basic ideas are relevant for everyone no matter what platform you use. Luminous Landscape linked to a review of the 30-inch HP LP3065 LCD monitor and this looks like a pretty sweet unit. Nice and large like my own older 30-inch Dell, but much closer to Adobe RGB color gamut (90 percent) without the high price of an Eizo, or the 30-inch NEC that I was eyeing for a future upgrade. Aside from the image quality, another feature I like about the HP LCD is that it offers three dual-link DVI connections. This would allow me to use it with another computer than just the big, noisy and hot running desktop. The old Dell only has one dual DVI connection. My idea is to get the HP and a MacBook Pro to rejig my digital darkroom. The MacBook Pro is the only notebook I know that offers a dual-link DVI connection that can drive a big 30-inch LCD at native resolution. It would replace the Acer I'm using at the moment as my day-to-day computer. The Acer offers regular DVI, but it maxes out at 1920x1200 resolution (currently, it's driving my 24-inch Acer LCD as my main monitor while the 20-inch notebook screen is my second monitor). The extra dual DVI connections on the HP would allow it to be connected to the desktop, so that I can also work with my long planned for dual 30-inch LCDs. Now, to just come up with the $4000 or so needed to get that MacBook Pro and HP LCD... Thanks to everyone that responded to my query about the rebooting loop. I'm probably going to leave well enough alone and stick to my original advice given to the user, which is to reinstall the OS. Given his user habits, this is probably a good thing anyway. Cruising through the Imaging-Resource website, I read a press release from Samsung about how it will launch a high capacity, solid state hard drive. This would have Samsung offering two high capacity solid state drives with 128 GB and 256 GB, with both offering faster speeds than current mechanical hard drives. This sounds really sweet and I hope demand takes off so that the prices can come down quickly to allow us mortals to afford a notebook running one of these drives. Right now, as I check the prices at my local computer parts shop, 64 GB SSDs are over CDN $1200 from OCZ or Crucial. It would seem ridiculous to buy one of these to put into something like my cheap Sony notebook, which cost significantly less money in total, including RAM upgrade. However, I'd expect Apple to jump on the SSD bandwagon in a big way and offer the Samsung drives as options with its MacBook Pro notebooks - Apple already offers an SSD option with the MacBook Air. Of course, SSD points the way towards desktop computers and who's gonna argue against less heat, noise with greater durability and security for our files. Hopefully, if I don't already get a MacBook Pro in between, when it comes time to do the next round of upgrades, SSDs will be common and more importantly, cheap. May 26, 2008 - Related to the topic from the May 21 post, last Friday evening, I got a call from a bro-in-law, asking for some help with the computer I gave him about a year ago. Seems the dual processor HP box with Win XP Pro is stuck in a continuous reboot loop. The Windows XP splash screen shows up with the little scrolling bar at the bottom to show that boot-up is in progress. Unfortunately, after a few seconds, the blue screen of death flashes for a brief moment and then the computer crashes and tries to reboot, and so on and so on. Trying to figure out what could be wrong is rather open ended since it could be hardware or software related, or a combination of both. No new hardware had been installed and the timing seemed to coincide with the recent Service Pack 3 update for XP, so I figured maybe something went wrong during the updating process and we would have to roll back SP3. Worse comes to worse, we could try repairing the XP install using the original installation disc. Or, so I thought. After trying a Recovery Console fix to uninstall SP3 with no success, I then tried to repair the XP install by going in through the install disc and treating it like a new install. Doing this should still get the install disc recognizing that XP is already installed and then ask if I want to repair it. No such luck either, which is rather odd. After this set back, I realized why the Recovery Console method failed, because somehow, the C drive's directory structure was completely toast and without the ability to access any folders and files, there's no way for Recovery Console to work. I should have also suspected something was wrong when Recovery Console didn't ask which install to repair, as it normally would along with an administrator password. Going in through the install disc, when the repair option should have come up, all I got was that there was a partition available on C drive and that I would need to format it in order to continue installing XP. I realized at this point that something had totally corrupted the OS and that it would have to be reinstalled, which I wasn't going to do given my studying time constraints. My first thought is some sort of virus, but I don't know enough about this set of circumstances to go beyond this and I don't know anything about the kind of stuff downloaded and installed by the user. The experience did serve a leson though, which is backup, then backup again, and then backup a third time. The user did at least follow one piece of advice I gave him when I gave him the box, which was not to save any important data on the OS drive and to save everything to the second, data drive I installed in the box. It's maybe a bad assumption, but I'm hoping that whatever toasted the C drive didn't kill the D drive and that his data is still okay. If anyone can shed some light on the origins of the OS becoming corrupted and leading to the reboot loop problem, I'd be interested in hearing from you. May 23, 2008 - My Nikkor 24-70 f2.8G AF-S arrived yesterday, which now completes my revamping and updating of my basic kit. As most know about the 24-70 lens, it is longer and slimmer than the 28-70 AF-S lens it replaces. The hood is no less large though and just as with the 28-70 lens, the 24-70 gets longer as you zoom wide and shorter as you zoom in. This is a good thing, as the lens hood remains stationary when zooming, so as you zoom wide, the lens barrel extends and the hood effectively becomes shorter. Thus, the hood is always optimized for the focal length you choose. It will be a while though, before I can really use the lens in any serious fashion (same with the 14-24 and D300). Other misc items that may interest readers and for which you can check back on me in about a month's time are (I say a month, because while I expect the items to arrive next week, I won't have time to do much with them):
My search for an easy, cheap and convenient way to get audio from a computer-based system has now led me to an interesting product offered by Canadian hi-fi brand, Blue Circle. It's called...the Thingee...and the description of it sounds like it's put together by a guy in his garage, but it could be just the, ahem, thing I need for my system given that my big Acer notebook doesn't seem to get on well with either of my M-Audio external sound card/DACs. The Thingee is a bus-powered DAC with both analog and digital output. Bus-powered means it has a USB connection and no need for an external power source. It bypasses the low grade sound card offered in pretty much every notebook computer, no matter what the brand or even price level. You can output the digital output into another DAC, or use the analog outputs to feed an amp. I plan to use the Thingee to interface the Acer with my new Behringer MS20 multimedia speakers that now sit astride the Acer. The Behringer MS20, if compared to regular bookshelf speakers are small, but could be considered large for computer speakers (consumer variety). The MS20 is self-powered with the amp residing inside the right side speaker with the left side speaker fed from the right via a single RCA interconnect cable (you need to supply your own interconnect). All the controls are on the right speaker, which include power, bass, treble and volume. With an audiophile background, I set the tone controls to the middle, never to be touched again. The volume controls kinda threw me for a loop when I set the MS20 up. There are two volume pots on the MS20, which I initially thought were to control the left and right speakers individually, which would actually be annoying to have to turn down or up the volume individually, but not so. The MS20 offers two analog inputs (RCA and 1/8 inch mini jack) and with no obvious switch to select the source, I wondered how I would be able to choose the inputs. As it turns out, using the volume pots; one pot controls the RCA input and the other the mini jack input. Very clever. The MS20 also offers a 24-bit, 192 kHz DAC built in, so there are coaxial and optical digital inputs available (also volume controlled individually), but let's not kid ourselves about what kind of quality is going to be available from a DAC built into a set of CDN $120 speakers. Consider the digital inputs more as a convenience item. Behringer has made a name for itself (or himself, since the company is named after its founder) for offering low cost, pro audio equipment. Not the last word in absolute sound quality, but certainly not bad and I think very good cost-to-quality ratio, as both sets of my Behringer speakers are well made. With the pro audio background, the MS20 has no conflict with the inputs being used and outputting sound at the same time, e.g., if I have a digital coaxial cable feeding the MS20, it's controlled by volume pot 1. The mini jack analog input is also controlled by volume pot 1 and if both are used at the same time, I can hear both sound sources without the MS20 breaking a sweat. Same with using the two analog inputs at the same time. No comments on sound quality, as I find speakers generally need many hours of break-in before they settle down (100-200 hrs), so again, another work in progress. At lower volume levels, I find nothing particularly objectionable, but at higher levels, the sound gets hard, which has me reaching for the volume to turn it down, but this is expected of small speakers with low power output (especially new ones). I will say though, that like most small speakers, the MS20 disappears and images quite effortlessly. When the Blue Circle Thingee arrives, I'll connect the Thingee via its analog RCA outputs to the MS20, which will allow me to connect an iPod to the MS20 via the mini jack connection. That should do it for a basic Acer based system that will be used primarily for computer sounds (listening to Podcasts, watching YouTube movies, etc.) and background music listening. Serious listening, these days generally done via headphones or in-ear monitors (my newish Shure SL-4), is still done with the Sony notebook being fed AIFF files from an external hard drive and driving the HeadRoom Portable Micro amp - the big Acer is a "dirty" notebook that cannot consistently output clean audio signals no matter which connection I use, thus it is unusable for serious music listening purposes. I purchased the Blue Circle Thingee from UHF Magazine in Montreal for CDN $190 and the Behringer MS20 from Oakwood Broadcast in Winnipeg for $116. As a Canadian making a purchase over CDN $60, UHF covers the S&H by Canada Post, but Oakwood ships by courier, so expect a somewhat hefty charge relative to the value of the speakers. Oakwood also appears not to carry inventory, so what you order has to come from the distributor or factory, so it may take a while. May 21, 2008 - Studying financial ratios and calculations made me remember why it is I majored in history and why I wrongly thought back in the late 1980s, when I left high school for university, that I would never have to deal with numbers (academically) again. Markowitz, Sharpe, Du Pont, time value of money, discounted cash flows, Gordon Growth...argh! Taking brief breaks every now and then, I listened to Brooks Jensen's latest podcast about using our memory machines, both organic (our brains) and inorganic (our cameras). Jensen tells a story of an explorer who had set out to hike the Grand Canyon and photograph his journey. Unfortunately for the explorer, at the beginning of this journey, a gust of wind blew his camera over a cliff side and he was left with no means of recording his Grand Canyon exploration. Instead of giving up, he continued on and and took in the sights with even more intensity than when he had the camera, because he knew that he would only have his memories when the journey was completed. This story reminded me of my own, single trip to the Grand Canyon, along with several hundred other tourists streaming in by bus and car. It was back in 1997 and the day before, my wife and I did some quick nuptials in Vegas (yes, it's true, we kinda eloped). At the little chapel, I took a brochure of a Grand Canyon tour and the chapel folks were quick to help out and arrange everything for us, including an early morning wake-up call and pickup at our hotel. A four hour bus ride ride, including a stop at the Hoover Dam (the surrounding terrain is otherworldly, like a Martian landscape) took us from Nevada to Arizona. Once at the Grand Canyon (Southern Rim), I found myself wanting to take so many photos with my Nikon F70 that I hardly stood still to just take in the majestic natural wonder. I shot slide film, color negative film and B&W film; probably 5-6 rolls in less than two hours. And, you know, to be honest, when I did take time to just look, I found it difficult to take in the physical size of the Grand Canyon. I also found the colors to be muted in reality, which probably added to the difficulty to find scale and contrast in the mile deep gorges. When I got the prints back from the lab, the color negative prints were a little bit more saturated than reality, but not unduly so. The Velvia slides, though, were dazzling in contrast (early to mid afternoon sun) and saturated colors that did not match the reality as seen through my eyes. However, relating back to Jensen's story and podcast, there are definitely times that my memory is a blur and I can barely recall how time has past and I'm thankful that I took pictures to remember those times. Case in point, I have four kids and while memories of my first child is still vivid in my mind, memories of the next child is less and so on with each child. With my fourth, I wondered where did the preceding ten months go, as he's crawling around and getting into everything now. If I didn't have pictures I'd have a tough time recalling how he's grown and changed so much with every month. On another topic, I had better get my butt in gear and start printing all those pictures of my kids this summer, because so many exist only as digital files on my hard drives (thankfully, at least three copies spread out over three storage devices, along with older DVDs). My first and second kids' first year of life is all on film with 4x6 prints in albums. My third is mostly digital with a sprinkling of film prints here and there. My fourth child is 100 percent digital with nary a film print in existence taken by me. It makes me wonder how many parents are in a similar situation as me, with most, if not all of their precious memories buried away in the digital equivalent of a shoebox, aka, the hard drive. Unfortunately, unlike me, I suspect many parents do not have robust backup systems with two, three and even four copies of the digital files available incase the inevitable hard drive crash occurs. I think it was Brooks Jensen again (or maybe it was TOP's Michael Johnston) that wondered out loud if the early 21st Century will become known as a lost era in human history, because instead of having long-lasting film, we transitioned to bits and bytes (or zeros and ones) to record and store our memories, with many not bothering to back up those files. Assuming websites like Flickr, PBase, Picasa and other photo hosting/sharing websites continue to exist, as much as I have some disdain for them, maybe they're not such a bad thing afterall, because it will help our era archive our memories, even if it's all in the public domain. May 15, 2008 - Been busy with the day job this week; doing field visits then coming home and logging in a couple more hours documenting my findings. Doesn't leave much time to ponder things photographic, but then again, there has not been much in the way of news recently. Some interesting items of note though:
I was thinking, wouldn't this be a nice little camera to throw into my everyday bag and always have a camera with me, but then I'm also missing that ultra compact, truly pant-pocketable digicam (is that a camera in your pants, are you just happy to see me?) However, after some thought, the S100FS doesn't make sense for a person like me. I think the S100FS would be fine for those wanting better than the typical digicam, but without the desire to spend more dollars on a real SLR kit. For a person, such as me, with SLRs and available lenses, getting a D60 makes more sense if I really want an everyday camera to throw into my work bag. Slap on the 18-200 lens and Bob's my uncle. I'd be missing the extra 150mm of telephoto reach that the Fuji offers, but would have more flexibility in being able to use my Nikon flash units and faster lenses, as needed. Not that I'm rushing out to buy a D60, just thinking out loud, that's all. Nikon Canada has reduced the prices on some SLR kits, SLRs and lenses. This would twig my mind into thinking that replacements will soon be coming for the D40 and D80 SLRs and the now elderly 80-400 VR lens, but Nikon also reduced the price on the D60 and D300 SLRs, which are not going to be replaced anytime soon. With the lead up to the Olympics and Photokina, the rumours of a D90 and D10 (a FX chip in a D300 shell) will ramp up, along with anticipation of the 24 MP FX SLR. May 13, 2008 - A reader sent me this blog posting written by wedding pro, David Ziser. It describes a new motion by New York City Council to require wedding boutiques and studios to be licensed and post a bond. The motion also suggests that wedding photographers not be paid until the photos are delivered. All of this stems from a recent incident where a large New Jersey wedding photography studio closed its doors and left many brides high and dry with no photos and no refunds. While the Ziser post details a specific incident of bureaucrats involving themselves in something they don't necessarily have business in, it's along the same vein as banning photos of specific landmarks, such as bridges, and forbidding the use of tripods in many urban settings. Closer to home, if I want to photograph in a little dockside park that happens to be on land owned by Ports Canada, I need a permit. No matter if it's early in the morning, there's no one around and I'm not in anyone's way, the publicly accessible land is still private property and I'm offside if I did not obtain prior approval. I was told by another reader that the restriction is about liability issues. Follow this thread further and we have churches and pastors restricting what photographers can do in churches and ceremonies. Anglican and Catholic churches come to mind as being fairly strict, but even these very old and traditional segments of Christianity can pale in light of restrictions imposed by some Protestant churches. All of this, I'm sure, has been caused by jackass photographers that bent the rules or threw them out to get the shot. Or, in the case of NYC motion, by a poorly run business that went under and stole the dreams of a number of brides. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats' solution is like an amputation to treat a scab and you can never legislate ethical or moral behavior. May 10, 2008 - Bibble Pro is now at version 4.10 and if you visit the news release page, you will see some screen shots of the future Bibble 5. Looks pretty slick. Instead of discussing my disturbing consumer spending habits, let's discuss something else instead. For Vancouver-area readers and photographers, here's a chance to give back and do some good for the community (as sent to me in an email):
BC Lions Society website (contact information at bottom of page) May 8, 2008 - The 28-70 lens is now sold, which means I can move onto the remaining piece to complete this round of upgrades, the 24-70 lens. If anyone is interested, my Benchmark DAC-1 is still available... May 7, 2008 - I picked up the 14-24 lens yesterday. I asked my store contact to hold one for me last Sunday evening and as it turned out, mine was the last one available. My contact forgot that he held one back for me and told me I'd have to come back when they received a new shipment. Then he remembered, oh, wait, I put one on hold for you. He walks to the back room and comes out with my brand new lens. Whew, maybe he was just messing with me.
The 24-70 lens is sold out as well and my contact indicated that it could take a while to get more in due to a shortage (or, is it just high demand - six to one, half a dozen to another). The 14-24 lens is indeed a large lens, or at least the front of it is, but it's not "quite" as big as I thought it would be given some comments I read. However, that front element is indeed bulbous and seemingly vulnerable to potential knocks and dings. The integrated hood is hardly any protection at all and I will be keeping the slip-on hood very close by to cover the front element whenever I'm not using the lens.
It's too bad that Nikon did not copy Sigma's implementation for its 15-30mm lens. This Sigma is similarly bulbous and also has a a very short lens hood, but Sigma had an eye towards DX format shooters when it allowed a front filter to be attached to its two-piece lens hood (a filter ring and lens cap that covers the filter ring). According to Thom Hogan, using a filter on the Sigma causes vignetting even on DX format cameras, so it's not ideal. In the case of the Nikon 14-24, maybe something along the lines of a 95mm sized filter - yes, they do make such large filters, because I have one for my Bronica 40mm wide-angle lens.
While 14-24 is a helluva full frame, wide-angle zoom lens (Sigma actually does better with a full frame 12-24 lens), on the D300, it's merely wide and not anywhere close to being ultra wide, as it would be on a D3. The 14-24 becomes a rather prosaic 21-36 lens on the D300, a range that's been around a coon's age and harkens back to one of the original wide-angle zoom lenses in the much heralded Nikkor 20-35mm f2.8. So, does this mean that I "need" to get a D3 just so I can make full use of the 14-24 lens...I shouldn't answer that ;^)
Below are a few quick snaps of my electric guitar, taken with the 14-24 lens on the D300...oh yah, I bought the guitar that I've lusted after for many a year a few weeks back.
The Fender Stratocaster (Strat) is the quintessential electric guitar. The shape is iconic and is immediately what most people think of when they think electric guitar. There was never any doubt that for my first electric guitar, it would be a Strat. The hardest choice was, which Strat to buy. There are so many to choose from at varying price levels. There are the cheap knock-offs, such as Squire Strats, then there are the real Fenders, but made in Mexico and then there are the higher-end models made in the good old USA. I eventually settled on an American Standard model in Candy Cola Red. I really wanted my Strat in a natural wood finish, but within each series, Fender only offers limited color choices and if the finish you desire is not available with the series you want to buy, tough luck. Maybe the custom shop models allow you to choose a color or finish, but I was out of luck for the natural wood finish with an aged stain. Red was my second choice finish. The American Standard Strats are the lowest cost models made in the USA and go for about $1k in Canada. The American Deluxe models go for a few hundred more and was what I thought I'd be going with, but amp and effects pedal costs had to be factored into the overall budget, so I went down a level for the guitar. The sales guy assured me that I would not be slumming it all with the American Standard Strat and that it's not so much lesser than it is just different, but he did acknowledge that the Deluxe models do have some better parts.
I'm not big into accoustic guitars, which is why I've been looking at the hollow and semi-hollow electric guitars, but if my skills improve, I eventually would like to get a 12-string accoustic, because the sound is so much richer than the standard six string. The first tune I've trying to learn is Dick Dale's Misirlou, but let's be honest here, I'm only trying to learn the opening riff to the song made famous by the movie Pulp Fiction. It seems like a simple enough riff to learn, because it's all on the first E string. You have to pick like mad with the right hand while the left hand slides up and down the frets along the single string. If I do it slowly, a person listening could probably hear a semblance of the classic surfer tune, but trying to do it with any speed results in a mess of uncoordinated fingers and picking. Chew gum and walk at the same time? Ah...no! This is definitely a situation where that old hoary chestnut of it's the carpenter, not the hammer rings true. Or, as you readers would usually hear, it's the photographer, not the camera. My Strat is fine, even if it's not the top-of-the-line model (photographically, it's equivalent to a Canon 40D). So, the brutal mess of noise emanating from the amp when I play it is indeed the result of an incompentent, axe-wielding carpenter. I feel like I'm back in 1997 when I bought the Nikon F70 SLR and had no inkling how to use the damn thing. You all know what's happened to me since that fateful summer in '97 ;^) Maybe in a few years, I'll have enough hours on the Strat to start GuitarHobby.com...
May 6, 2008 - Comment from the reader that called me on the "sucker's game" comment:
I want it all and I want it now! However, I tend to always think about weddings, events and sports in low light whenever I think about gear, so while a D3 would be very nice to have, the 200 f2 has been serenading me like a siren, beckoning me to come crash myself on the rocky shores.
The 200-400 lens is another wished for item and it's dropped about $2000 since it was first introduced, which puts it right in the D3 range. This would allow me to play at Mr. nature and wildlife photographer wannabe.
Lots of choices, so little money to make them with. May 5, 2008 - Two more lenses are now gone (12-24, 18-35) leaving just the 28-70 lens left from my garage sale. Take a wild guess as to what I'll be putting the proceeds to... Taking stock of what I sold versus what I bought and/or will buy and I'm (only a little bit) chagrinned by it all. Two D200 SLRs with MB-D200 grips had to be sold to finance the purchase of one D300 with the MB-D10 grip. Three lenses (12-24, 17-55, 18-35) had to be sold in order to generate enough moola to buy one new lens (hey, you're supposed to guess). And, I'm still hoping to sell one last lens, which would go towards the purchase of another lens. With the D300 and the 14-24 (was your guess right?) I at least did not have to invest "new" money for the purchases; all of it was from the sale of older gear. If the 28-70 lens also sells then I would have to invest some new money to complete the desired goal of getting a D300 along with the 14-24 and 24-70 lenses. If the 28-70 goes then the final tally of old versus new kit leaves me short one SLR and two lenses. However, given how I've come to feel about the D200, I'm more relieved and happy to say good riddance than to be non-plussed about being a camera short. The D200 was a good camera in its day, but its day has come and gone with the current D300 and Canon 40D being superior. With the lenses, I cannot recall the last time I used the 18-35 lens in a serious fashion, so selling it was no tear-jerker for me. Selling the two DX lenses means an eventual transition towards an FX SLR, on the hope that Nikon comes up with a 5D equivalent of its own. However, I'm keeping an eye on the pricing of the D3, which is now available for CDN $5000 in some shops and by the time the 2009 wedding season rolls around, the price could be palatable enough for me to swallow - on the assumption that I get enough jobs to warrant the purchase. Having a D3 (or D300 FX) along with the D300 would be a pretty nice kit to have. The D3 for the obvious available light moments, as well as for wide-angle photos, while the D300 would be more or less permanently attached to the 70-200 VR lens. I still have the 18-200 VR and Sigma 30 f1.4 lenses and they are the only DX lenses left now, but I see no reason to sell them. Together, they make a nice travel kit with the basic D300 in tow, because hauling around a D2X (or D3) is rather overkill unless the travel is photography-oriented. Of the other lenses remaining I would not mind dumping the two 50mm and one 85mm f1.8 lenses, but only when Nikon finally gets it act together and offers AF-S versions of them. These three lenses are now the only non-AFS ones I have (not counting my two old AI lenses). A newly designed 50 f1.4 (or f1.2) and 85 f1.4 AF-S would be lovely additions. Throw in a 24 f1.4 and I'd be in hog heaven. All just a matter of time...I hope. I said something about this being a sucker's game and a reader called me on it and said I was a sucker too, because I'm playing the game as well. Damn it, I guess I am 8^) May 4, 2008 - Further to my last post about upgrading lenses more frequently than previously thought, DPReview has posted its review of the Nikon 70-200 VR lens. Most users of this lens would have probably thought that the review would be another homerun style report for Nikon. Not so. As a DX lens, the review found little to fault the highly regarded medium telephoto zoom lens and indeed the words used were along the lines of, nearly flawless. However, on the D3, the reviewer was quite disappointed and found its performance more or less unacceptable for an expensive pro lens. It adds some fuel to the fire that maybe, just maybe, the rumour of a replacement holds some credence. The timing would be right given that Nikon has replaced the also highly regarded 28-70 for the 24-70 and the 17-35 for the 14-24 (although some might question whether the 17-35 should be retired by Nikon). The 70-200 VR is now five years old and while superb with DX SLRs, the high demands of the FX chip maybe showing up the DX biases of Nikon engineers back when the lens was on the drawing board. While I was not bothered by its flaws in the corners with full frame, that was with 35mm film (remember that), whereas most would agree that digital capture is more demanding and exacting of lens quality. If the D3 is showing the lenses flaws in the corners, imagine what a high-resolution 24 MP SLR will reveal. If I did own the D3, I wouldn't be too bothered by the performance of the 70-200 lens, because for the most part, I'd expect that I would still use it mostly with the D300 thanks to the 1.5x crop factor. However, if a Mk II version of the 70-200 VR lens does show up, I would probably be hammering away at the piggy bank and rushing to buy one, just as I did with the original five years ago. May 2, 2008 - A reader sent me this link about one person's custom storage array: http://www.mymovies.dk/forum.aspx?g=posts&t=6755 My response back was: HOLY SHIT! That is one f@#$ing awesome setup. The guy is my hero :-) Seriously, that is one mean-ass storage setup and once the 24 MP Nikon and Sony SLRs arrive, I can imagine a few photographers will need something similar once they start churning out those massive RAW files. Hell, probably more than a few pros shooting with the big-buck Phase, Leaf and Hasselblad digital backs could use something like this custom array. God, if I keep going, I'm gonna mess myself up 8^) I've been thinking about cameras and lenses (really, what a surprise), but not in the usual sense of lusting after the latest and greatest (well, not as much). The idea that lenses are for the long-term while cameras can come and go is one that some adhere to and I've heard of some photographers keeping almost every lens they've ever owned. Bjorn Rorslett comes to mind as a pro who has probably kept every single lens he's owned with his 100 or so Nikkors (give or take a few). While in the film era, one could at least hold onto a good camera for 7-8 years before a new one showed up, in the digital age, the time span is now, at best, three years and usually sooner, like two years. So, holding onto good lenses for the long-term sure as heck makes senses it seems and was what I thought I was going to do back in 2006, when I did my last major round of purchases. However, I'm not so sure about this long-term, Warren Buffet style, buy and hold strategy for lenses anymore. I sold my 17-55 DX lens and hopefully, sometime this week, I will receive word that two other lenses will also be sold too (I have a person helping me out). My oldest lens that I bought new is now the 70-200 VR lens, which is now a mature five years old. My newest is either the 105 VR Micro or the 18-200 VR lens - I can't remember which one I bought last, but I'm thinking the 18-200 lens. If the two lenses sell, it gives me, along with the 17-55 sale, enough to buy the 14-24 lens, while the 28-70 still remains in the stable. That's not so bad and it means I only lose the 4mm difference from 24mm to 28mm, in a three zoom lens kit that covers most of 14mm to 200mm. I wanted to sell the 28-70 lens too, because I also want the new 24-70 lens. A few people have asked why I want to sell the 28-70 lens, because I've stated that its a good sample and much better than the 35-70 lens that it supplanted. All I can say is that the 24-70 looks really nice and those in the know like it more than the already excellent 28-70. Time does not stand still and technology advances. Long-time readers might recall reading about 35-70 lens wherein I stated quite boldly that I would never sell it despite some shortcomings with ergonomics and lens range. The 28-70 lens changed all that and why would I ever want to use the 35-70 lens when I have a superior alternative available? There was no point keeping the 35-70 lens that I regarded as a paperweight after seeing the difference from the 28-70 lens. After that experience, I've been careful not to make such declarations anymore, because even the awesome 70-200 VR lens will eventually be replaced and so too will the much heralded 14-24 lens. It may be for a much longer period than SLRs, but nothing is forever. And, no, I'm not trying to make excuses to justify my latest desires...really 8^) May 1, 2008 - Reader's question:
If you're choosing between the D200 or D300, go straight to the D300 and never look back. While the D80 is considered to be a bit better than the D200 for higher ISO, the D300 appears to be much better - but, a caveat that I've taken very few photos with the D300 at this time. Physically and ergonomically, the D200 and D300 are nearly identical, but the D300 with its companion MB-D10 adds some nice upgrades. The most obvious is the three-inch LCD, but the grip also adds a small thumb controller so that you no longer have to do a big finger stretch to change focus points. The grip feels more solid than the MB-D200 and I like not having a stem that has to go into the camera's battery chamber. This makes the grip easier to store away in the camera bag if I decide that I want to go with a more compact camera. There's also no need to remove the original camera battery door either. Small things for sure, but nice that Nikon can continue improving the design. AF is faster and more sure, but in a quick test of using the outer focus points, those points still falter when trying to acquire focus on a low contrast subject. The center point and maybe the immediate one or two points surrounding it are more reliable, which is still much better than the D200, wherein even the center focus point still faltered when pushed, e.g. sports and fast moving subjects. I was using the 18-200 lens for this quick test, so the faster pro lenses could be better for this. Speed is very nice and as you might expect when using the larger EN-EL4 battery, the 50% increase in frame rate is noticeable. There will definitely be a more duplicates and triplicates if you set the D300 to 8 fps and Continuous focus mode with release priority, but I don't mind at all to get the faster frame rate. So, outwardly, while there does not appear to be huge differences between the D200 and D300, there's no doubt in my mind that the D300 is a worthwhile upgrade and I'm not looking at the Canon 40D as much as I used to :-) I've not used the D80, so cannot offer any comparison, but for event photography such as Bar Mitzvahs or weddings, I'm happier having the D300 available now with the ability to get cleaner ISO 1600 files and being able to push up to 3200 if need be. I'm quite confident that if you get a D300, the D80, D70 and D50 will quickly start to gather dust, because of its immediate superiority. Again, don't even bother with the D200. I can only imagine what a D3 would be like to cover an event... April 29, 2008 - Boy, what an embarassment to be at work and just happening to go to one of my websites, only to see some outrageous ads being posted by one of the advertising feeds I signed up with to generate some revenue. One day, I see iPods, digital cameras and printers being flogged and the next day I see stupid ads wanting people to test out their IQ or flashing that they may have won something. I've taken down all the offending ads, because they are not what I had signed up for. Speaking of which, I'd be mighty grateful to y'all if you make your purchases through the B&H Photo link found top left of this and every web page of this humble site. Every little bit goes to the equipment slush fund ;^) April 28, 2008 - Okay, call me weak, call me a hypocrite, call me inconsistent, call me whatevery you want, because I didn't have the discipline to hold out any longer. After getting a pocketful full of cash from selling the D200 SLRs, I bought a D300 with MB-D10 grip and a BL-3 battery cover to allow me to use the EN-EL4 battery from my D2X. If things go well this week, I might be able to sell off a couple more lenses and one of the two new Nikkor zoom lenses could find their way into my camera bag too. I know that I said I was in no rush, and truly I was not. I know I said that I wanted to see what Canon is going to do with its 5D replacement and truly, I still do. However, as I pondered what I should do, I decided that I was going to spend this cash sooner or later, so might as well spend it sooner. Plus, I owed my sales guy at my usual shop a favour for helping me with the D200 sales, so why not reward him with a sales commission. The Canon grass is still a factor, but I finally clued in that with the 40D lender fully intending to buy whatever replaces the 5D and that I would have access to it whenever I need it, that there was no need for me to spend any of my money on any Canon gear. As it is, I still have the 40D, 17-55 and 70-200 IS lenses on hand and I can snag the 10-22 wide zoom and 580 EX II flash whenever I desire. I could have actually sat pretty using the borrowed Canon gear until I really needed to buy a new Nikon SLR, but I'm sure you'd prefer that I have something meaningful to compare it to. And, you know, as I pondered my recent spate of purchases, I "could" have afforded that D3 afterall, but then I'd have none of the other goodies that I have now if I had actually bought a D3, e.g. i1 Photo, Nik software, Wacom tablet, etc. One of my other new purchases is a bit out of left field and while it's tangentially related to audio, it's actually more music related, if that makes any sense. It's something I've desired ever since I was a kid after I bought my first record, AC DC's For Those About to Rock, We Salute You. Take a wild guess if you wish 8^) Back to the D300, I've only used it sparingly for family snaps this past weekend, as my oldest turned 10 and I covered his party with the new camera. I'm still evaluating the AF, but that 8 fps is sure nice after the 5 fps speed of the D200. It's very easy to let rip 2-3 frames in a single burst - unintentionally, just like with the 40D. However, my subjective impression is that the 40D still has a slightly more hair trigger than the D300. That three inch LCD is indeed very nice and while I've not done any serious review or pixel peeping (just no time at all and haven't even uploaded the party pics to my computer yet), just going by what that LCD shows, the D300 has a more neutral color cast than the D200 and there seems to be more punch, but that could also be the effects of a more accurate white balance. Obviously, more impressions to come in the weeks ahead. Unlike in 2006, I won't be rushing out to buy a second D300 anytime soon. That I can be strong on at least. April 26, 2008 - My speaking notes for last week's presentation to the Pacific Digital Photography Club is now available. April 24, 2008 - I'm closing down the garale sale. Although I did not sell everything, the two key items, the D200s, have sold and I'm happy enough with that. The lenses are still available if anyone is interested, but I don't see much point in continuing with a dedicated page to try and sell them. April 23, 2008 - I survived my presentation to the Pacific Digital Photography Club. I did a presentation on my digital darkroom, e.g. what kind of hardware and software I use, and it seems to have been well received. The club members were very friendly and welcoming and I hope that I was able to give them an interesting presentation. It's always nice to be able to walk into a room and immediately be able to connect with everyone in it, because we all share the same passion. Later on, as time permits, I will post my speaking notes and the slides used for everyone else to read and see. April 22, 2008 - The two D200 cameras are gone and only the lenses are left in my garage sale. Later this evening I will be doing a presentation at the Pacific Digital Photography Club in Port Moody. It will be the first time that I will speak in front of a large group of photographers. Wish me luck. April 21, 2008 - The Nikon Historical Society was in Vancouver last weekend for it biennial conference. About 50-60 people from around the world get together to meet, discuss and present on the topic of Nikon historical data, principally on the topics concerning Nikon optics used in binoculars. While I was not allowed to stay for the presentations, I was allowed to come to the opening half hour for mingling around and to take a look at the collection brought in by a major collector from the USA. I've posted some pictures taken during that opening half hour. April 16, 2008 - I've added an audio item to my garage sale, the Benchmark DAC-1. Depending on how one potential sale goes, additional items may be added in the next day or two. April 15, 2008 - Interesting news from Adobe employee, Terry White, about Adobe TV. Reader's comment:
Hmm, I think I just got served 8^) Allow me to clarify... For me, a hobbyiest these days instead of merely semi-professional, spending $5000 on a new SLR every few years would be foolhardy. Or, put another way, I ain't got $5k to buy a D3. That doesn't mean that a $5k D3 is not a good buy. If you're able to shoot regularly and make money from your photography than $5k is just a cost of doing business and ensuring that you stay competitive with your rivals chasing the same clients and dollars. It wouldn't take too much for me to change my tune and start thinking about the D3 in a serious way. A couple of big weddings per month during the season would be all that I'd need to do it, but I'm not even at that low rate, because of studying for a blasted course that I'm probably going to fail anyway, has taken me away from being photographically active. Thus, at this time, there is no business justification for a D3, whereas, as a hobbyiest, I can afford $2000 every few years for a D300 class SLR. That could definitely still make me a sucker, but just not as big as the next amateur buying the D3 just because he wants the latest and greatest. Also, the D200 no longer satisfies like it used to. As I've written previously, its AF and speed is lacking compared to the Canon 40D, While this was made very apparent during the close of the hockey season when I was photographing my son, I can't see how an improved SLR won't be a benefit for future weddings and other event photography. However, the real investment is in the lenses and my garage sale is as much about the new Nikkors, as it is about the D300 - while also keeping an eye out on Canon's next move. Again, no rush into any new purchases, as I can take my time this summer to see what arrives. Speaking of lenses, the 17-55 is now sold and the 12-24 has sparked some interest. Send me an email if you're interested in any of the items at the garage sale. And, if you don't want to buy anything from me, hey, I'm cool with that so long as you buy something from B&H Photo using my link ;^) Thanks to everyone that has bought from B&H Photo and have helped to support my equipment slush fund. April 14, 2008 - After getting that tip from a reader that the Nik ColorEfex filters are indeed compatible with Photoshop CS3, I bit the bullet and bought the 52 filter kit for US $300. After installing the filters, I'm quite impressed with the variety available and can see some very interesting uses in the future. Below is a (small) screen shot of the Nik filter screen that provides a before and after review of the image and the filter chosen.
Some of you might be thinking that I've blown some big bucks in recent weeks with the Wacom Bamboo pen tablet, X-Rite Eye One Photo and now the Nik filter set. I also bought some other software as well and all together I think I've blown enough to buy a D300. If my coworker is reading this, he's probably thinking, uh oh, it must be fiscal year end time and bonus payouts are coming soon. Ah, well, yes it is, but it doesn't have anything to do with this...well, maybe a tiny a bit ;^) While I'd love to have a D300 to use right now, what I'm doing is trying to take care of my digital darkroom first and get it as complete as I need it to be. This actually started late last year, when I finally purchased Adobe Lightroom and plunged head first into the way digital photography is going to be edited (along with Apple's Aperture) in the 21st Century. Next up was finally getting myself equipped with the CS3 suite and concluded with my most recent purchases. I have a very nice desktop system, a 64-bit OS to utilize all of my RAM and now the software to take advantage of that power. I also have enough storage capacity and backup systems at the moment with my Drobo and NAS. It's not to say that I'm finished, because there are a few last accessories to look at and decide if I need them, but I'm pretty satisfied with what I have now. The final piece of the puzzle would be a camera upgrade and the D300 is the obvious choice (along with the two enticing Nikon zoom lenses), however, believe it or not, even if I did sell everything in my garage sale, I don't feel the need to rush into making the new purchases. Based on how impressed I am with the Canon 40D, I want to wait to see what Canon does with the 5D replacement, before I make any committments. A wholesale switch to Canon? No, not at all, but more a supplement to the Nikon kit. Look, a D3 would be awesome, but having blown $5000 on a high-end SLR in 2006, I'm in no desire to tread that path again, because this is a sucker's game to always upgrade with each generation of SLR. April 13, 2008 - Garage Sale 2008 is now on. Looking at what's for sale, you can probably make a good guess as to what it is I want to upgrade to ;^) April 12, 2008 - The X-Rite i1 Photo LT arrived Thursday afternoon and as soon as I had the time to install the software and calibrate my Acer system, it paid immediate dividends in providing me with a more neutral and stable profile than my old Monaco Optix XR and EZColor software. Don't get me wrong, the Optix XR is still considered one of the best colorimeters available and the EZColor software is good, but since I've gone with a dual-LCD system with the Acer, the old Monaco software has not been stable in keeping my profiles. The Acer without a second LCD was fine when I profiled with the Monaco products, but adding in the second LCD seemed to throw the profiles for a loop, especially since I profile both LCDs. Profiling the main Acer screen with the X-Rite spectrophotometer and iMatch software now gets me good neutrality and just as important, stability of the profile staying instead of disappearing as it was wont to do prior to the X-Rite profiling. Seen below is the result of the new profile from iMatch:
Curiously, the target luminance (brightness) was set for 120.0, but I ended up with 222.5, which is quite far off the target. However, trying to adjust the Acer's LCD means having to use the nVidia software, which doesn't seem like a good idea to me. However, I'm pleased that the Acer is very close to the desired white point of 6500K with a native white point of 6700K. Profiling the Viewsonic LCD did not result in a match to the Acer, but I profiled using different parameters. Initially, profiling the Viewsonic at its native white point resulted in a very blue profile at 7300K. I adjusted the RGB settings in the Viewsonic's OSD to get it set to my defined 6500K. I also used a luminance setting of 140 instead of the suggested 120 for LCDs, which I find is just too dark for day-to-day use (even 140 seems a bit dim). Notice the curve for the Viewsonic is very linear except in the lower left corner when it drops off sharply to zero in the last cube, whereas the Acer's curve covers more range with less linearity for the blue channel.
These are just some initial results and I'm going to be fussing around a bit more to see if I can't get a better match between the two LCDs. When I posted about the Wacom Bamboo Fun, I speculated that I may be inclined to try out the larger and more expensive Wacom Intuous 6x11 tablet. Having looked a bit more, I'm liking Wacom's Cintiq line a lot more, because these are real LCD monitors that allow direct on-screen editing with a pen stylus. The new 12WX is getting rave reviews as the newest offering from Wacom, but 12-inches is...ahem...too small - I'm sure John Holmes never had that said to him 8^). There is the older 21-inch Cintiq, which offers the traditional TV aspect ratio of 4:3 and 1600x1200 pixel resolution. It's a rather kingly sum though to buy at around $3000. There is also a wide aspect ratio 20-inch Cintiq offering 1680x1050 pixels, but it is princely at around $2100 or so. The 20-inch wide model appeals to me the most, but at $2100, I think I'd rather have that second 30-inch LCD instead and still be able to buy the 6x11 inch tablet to boot. April 10, 2008 - Reader's tip:
April 9, 2008 - In thinking about my comments posted yesterday about the photographer refusing to take a big family photo, there might have been another reasonable explanation. The photographer may have thought that the young lady asking him to take a family photo, may have misconstrued the request as a family photo of the young lady's own family and not of the bridal couple's extended family. The photographer is Caucasian and the young lady is originally from Hong Kong, so maybe something got lost in translation. However, if it were me, and even if the family photo was of just the young woman's own family, if there was nothing pressing to take photos of, I'd have taken the shot and made her happy. Another possibility, but one that I'm treading on thin ice, is that the photographer may have thought the time for group photos was over, because he covered all the groups the couple had wanted after the ceremony (curiously, taking group shots with a 70-200 lens, which required him to be somewhat distant to the subjects). Last weekend, I finally had time to send the person that cribbed my website design, text and photos, a message requesting that he stop passing off my work as his own. I gave the person a week to comply in my polite message. He responded the next day with a short apology and confirmation that my content would be removed. I didn't look at his website again until Tuesday night, but noticed that the whole site was down. I'm glad that an email was all that was required to resolve this matter. Now, take a visit to this photographer's webpage and read his text on the left side of the page under Our Service. Then visit my About Me page and tell me what you think - and again, I assure you that the text on my About Me page came directly from my own grey matter. While I'm definitely cheesed about another dude cribbing my text, this is less egregious than having almost every element of your website copied, as done in the first instance. April 8, 2008 - As seen at left, you can now search the vast inventory of the awesome B&H Photo store, the largest photography store in North America, directly from this website (all the other pages at this website will be updated with the B&H search function). Needless to say, when you make a purchase at B&H Photo from CameraHobby, a little bit comes my way and goes into my D3 slush fund. And, I promise that every red cent that comes through to my paws will be spent on photographic gear ;^) After a recent family dinner, which I did not attend due to being somewhat flu-like and needing to study, my wife told me about one of the conversations that came up about the recent wedding I attended. One of the sisters-in-law of the groom had asked the photographer to take a big family photo, which is standard fare at Chinese weddings, and I suspect most other Asian weddings. The photographer said no and speculation was that the photographer may have felt that he was hired by the couple and therefore only took instructions from the couple and not peripheral family members. Dumb and dumber! Dumb for saying no to such an obvious photo opportunity and dumber for being ignorant of the rather dominant Chinese culture in Vancouver. Family is huge in the Chinese culture and when weddings happen, family photos are taken everywhere by any means. The worse thing for any pro would be to say no, especially if the photo asked to be taken includes the wedding couple. And really, taking family photos cannot just be a Chinese thing either, it's gotta be done at every wedding, no matter the culture or country. If you're old school and still sell prints individually, it's potentially lost sales, but if you're 21st Century and you charge enough to cover lost print sales and give the couple high-resolution digital files on DVDs, you've lost goodwill and some credability. You never know when one of those mothers, aunts or sisters-in-laws will be in on the discussion about the choice of photographer and they pipe up:
So, a tip for all those aspiring wedding photographers, if some nice young or old lady approaches you to take a big family group shot, you don't walk, you run to the key spot, take charge and command to direct all the subjects. Everyone will remember you for it, especially the Chinese mothers, who rule the roost on the home front. I forgot to mention in my posting about the Wacom Bamboo Fun Medium, that it comes with some free software too. Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 and some Photoshop filters from Nik. Since I've never used Photoshop Deluxe and have no intention in doing so now (freebie copies I've received with other peripherals have always been given away to others less geeky than me), I only installed the Nik filters. Unfortunately, the Nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 GE filters kept crashing Photoshop CS3 and it was not until I removed the folder from where they were installed that Photoshop worked properly once again. That's not particularly confidence inspiring and to think that back in January, I was giving some serious thought to buying the whole she-bang for USD $300.
I wondered if I didn't take to it, because I didn't fork over the big bucks to buy one of Wacom's high-end Intuous models, which would have forced to have used it more regularly, due to the cost. However, in thinking about it, I think there were technical limitations to that old Graphire that made the good old mouse a relief to return to. As much as using a pen-type of stylus would seem intuitive (intuitive - Intuous, get it, ah, never mind) I didn't find it to be over the mouse. Pretty much every reviewer states that after using the pen stylus for some time, they much preferred it over the mouse, both for hand positioning to relieve stress, plus the more natural way of pointing. The old Graphire I bought was first, too small at 4x5 inches to make it useful for navigating the desktop, especially as monitors have gotten larger and resolution has increased. Second, the cursor was mapped point for point on the Graphire's pad. What I mean is that if you wanted to click on say, the Windows Start button at the bottom left of the desktop, the Graphire's mouse or pen also had to be exactly at the bottom left corner of the 4x5 inch pad. You could not lift the Graphire's mouse or pen off the pad and reposition it to a more comfortable area, like you could with a regular mouse. The Graphire's mouse, while wireless, could only work within the 4x5 inch sensitive portion of the pad, which also made it less than useful. As I mentioned above, once I gave up on the Graphire, going back to the old mouse was a welcome relief, as the mouse is indeed more intuitive and faster handling - there's gotta be a reason why the ubiquitous mouse has lasted for so long since its development at Xerox PARC in the 1970s, which Apple very wisely copied (along with the GUI and other landmark developments from Xerox PARC that found their way into the first Macs of the 1980s). Today, I'm trying out another Wacom graphics tablet, but this time, in the form of Wacom's mid-level Bamboo Fun Medium - I'm still a bit gun-shy about blowing $400 on an Intuous tablet, but if it's as good as the Bamboo, I may end up being a lot less shy about it.
While, I'm still not big on using a pen stylus for everyday pointing, the mouse action has been much improved over the old Graphire I tried circa 2001 or 2002. The Bamboo Fun Medium provides a more useful 5.3x8.5 inch sensitive pad area and more importantly, the cursor is no longer mapped to specific points of the desktop, so that you can lift up the mouse and reposition more comfortably. However, the pen still is mapped precisely and I don't see any settings to change this. This is probably the biggest thing to get used to if you use the pen, that you must think in terms of mapping your desktop with the tablet's sensitive area. I think I would take to using the pen more if it could be like the mouse and not require precise mapping. For now I made two changes to the pen's default setting, which is to make the first button equivalent to a mouse double-click and to disable the equivalent of the right mouse button click when I hold the pen on the pad. The first change is obvious and convenient for not having to double-tap the pad everytime I want to open up something and the second change makes using the pen just like a mouse in being able to hold and drag to select items or highlight text. However, I still need more time with the pen before I decide if it's something I can live with.
The Bamboo's mouse also has a downside, which is its shape and feel. This is a 20th Century mouse design that has long been superceded by ergonomic designs from Microsoft and Logitech (I have mice from both companies, so I know from experience). The Bamboo's mouse is like a bar of soap and has minimal grooves for the fingers to rest on compared to the sexy grooves from Microsoft and Logitech. The Wacom mouse also seems to lack the snap of my optical and laser precision mice. The Bamboo's base/pad has four buttons and a circular sensor that can be used to zoom in and magnify a page or an image, or to scroll. Since my eyeshot isn't completely shot yet, I changed the sensor's default zoom to scroll for general use, but for Photoshop, this would be handy for zooming in on an image. The buttons can be configured for different functions and in Photoshop, the immediate practical use would be to have one button to reduce a brush size and another to increase the brush size.
Depending on how I get along with the Bamboo Fun Medium with my everyday Acer computer, I may consider the 6x11 size Intuos for the desktop system, but I'm in no rush at the moment.
One benefit of buying the Bamboo Fun Medium and then registering it online is a discount on an X-Rite Eye One Photo LT. At 25% off, I bit and finally gave into my longstanding desire to own an X-Rite (formerly GretagMacbeth) spectrophotometer to profile my monitors and printers. While 25% seems pretty generous, upon further research, I found that it was not quite as generous at first glance. The price of the Eye One Photo from the online X-Rite store that I made the purchase is $995, minus the 25% for a price of $746. Add in the UPS Expedited delivery and the price goes up to $795 (all USD $ except as noted) - having been bit bad by standard UPS delivery and its high brokerage fees, I paid the extra for Expedited, so that there should be no brokerage fee charges upon delivery. However, I will still have to pay 12% PST and GST taxes when delivered, which means that my final price is going to be around CDN $900. Going to the regular, non-Wacom tied page for the Eye One Photo LT and I see that the Eye One Photo LT is listed at $895, or $100 cheaper than the Wacom-associated X-Rite webpage that I ordered from. Thus my 25% discount is actually only a 17% discount. Bogus! Rubbing more salt into the price wound is that some US retail outlets sell the Eye One Photo LT for only $800, so now the discount is a scant 7%. Double bogus!! Ah well, a discount is a discount and I think I still saved money from having to buy from a Canadian retailer, but my spending on the Eye One Photo LT won't end there though. The Eye One Photo LT is the standard Eye One Photo package that comes with the much revered and coveted Swiss-made spectrophotometer, the much improved backing board and ruler system to make printer profiling quick and easy and some accessories to place the spectrophotometer on an LCD for monitor profiling. So far, so good, but the reason why the Eye One Photo LT is priced at $995 (or $895 or $800) is because the iMatch software only allows for monitor and printer profiling without the ability to profile scanners, projectors or digital SLRs. I'm fine with that, because I don't need to do any of that, but the iMatch software is also basic in that the printer profiling software is the small test chart type for making RGB profiles instead of the large test chart type that comes with the higher priced versions of the Eye One Photo. No CMYK profiling capabilities either, which I'm also fine with, as I have no use for this feature. The difference between the small and large test type technology is something like 250 color patches for the small test target versus almost 1,000 for the large test target. While X-Rite is trying to make a big deal about its small test chart technology, especially with its new Colormunki, serious users still create profiles with many hundreds, if not, thousands of color patches. Consider that the HP Z series of printers can come with an optional X-Rite spectrophotometer built-in to create custom printer profiles. The base color target has 500 patches and the advanced target has almost 1,000 (reference, Luminous Landscape review of the Z3100). And, I don't know how many times I've mentioned this now, but noted photographer and color management expert, Bill Atkinson creates profiles using 4,000 or more color patches. Technology does advance, so perhaps fewer targets are needed as the software and hardware improves, but I'm not convinced yet and there has to be a reason why there is a price discrepancy between the Eye One Photo kits that only offer the small test target versus those offer the large test target (aside from the increase profiling capabilities for scanners, projectors, cameras and off-set CMYK printers). I just hope the upgrade price won't be as inconsistent as X-Rite's pricing on the Eye One Photo LT. I also wonder how long it will be before the itch sets in to buy the Eye One iO Scan Table, which automates the scanning process. A robotic arm takes over the tedious part of scanning color patches for you, but for a hefty cost at CDN $1569 from Vistek. Spending that much money to save about five or ten minutes of time doing manual scanning is maybe too much even for me 8^)
I was just messing around with some photos (one of which is at right) I took the previous weekend, using some Craig's Actions to add some glamour to the photos, but I used the JPEGs I rendered from Lightroom, which led to some brutal looking images. Normally, when doing edits in Photoshop, I prefer working with 16-bit TIFF files tagged with the ProPhoto RGB color space. The JPEGs were files that I rendered for burning to a CD for the couple and I was only taking a look at some different looks available with the actions. After seeing the ugly artifacts, I rendered 16-bit TIFF files from Lightroom to see how they would fare. Below we see the two versions side-by-side and it should be pretty obvious which is which:
Close-up of the same image:
Notice the splotchiness of the JPEG at left compared to the smoother tones at right, although, even the TIFF shows artifacts from this initial phase of the particular action I was using. Although this example might be somewhat extreme, if you plan to push an image hard in post production, there's little doubt that you will need a 16-bit file to keep the integrity. There are good reasons why so many people recommend shooting RAW and then rendering to 16-bit TIFFs or PSDs for editing instead of shooting in JPEG mode. April 4, 2008 - I didn't mention another upgrade in Lightroom Beta 2 that could have some significant implications for photographers, as opposed to retouchers. Lightroom 2 will offer localized edits, whereas Lightroom 1.x only offered global edits. Before, if you needed to get really deep down and dirty and muck around at the pixel level, Photoshop was still the only effective way to do this kind of editing. For example, if you wanted to change the color of a person's shirt from bright red to baby blue, you could give it a shot in Lightroom, but by changing the red in one part of the scene, you had to effect a change to red everywhere else in the whole scene. Whereas Photoshop allows you to select and/or mask the shirt and make changes just to it and not to every other part of the scene. With localized editing supported in Lightroom and with a spotting tool already available, we're getting to the point that one application can do it all. There's still room for improvement though and this is where third-party plug-ins can play a role. Lightroom already offers good capture sharpening thanks to the efforts of Jeff Schewe, who is part of the Pixel Genius group that gave us Photokit Sharpener. There are hints that Pixel Genius are working on a sharpening routine for Lightroom that will cover the creative and print sharpening aspects of image editing, just like Photokit Sharpener does for Photoshop. For photographers that don't mess around in Photoshop too much (like me) with every upgrade and update to tools such as Lightroom and Aperture, I can import, browse, edit and output files quickly and efficiently and never touch Photoshop for the basic workflow. This was actually how I handled the almost 5,000 hockey photos I ended up with over the winter. I probably took close to 10,000 photos, but whittled them down to less than 5,000 in Lightroom. Did the basic edits and output to sRGB JPEG files to burn to DVDs for the other parents. The only time I used Photoshop were for one offs and for printing enlargements of the players at the end of the season. Wedding photography wise, there are still times that I'd want to do further editing in Photoshop, whether for blemishes or using some of my Craig's Actions to glamorize the brides - you know, that soft, diffused glow thing that blurs the skin and hides blemishes. If I want to design a custom album, well, that's another Photoshop thing too. So, there's still a place for Photoshop in my digital darkroom, but it's not as much the go to app anymore. However, I'm stoked that Adobe plans to make Photoshop CS4 64-bit compatible for PC users and surprisingly, Mac users will have to wait for CS5 before they get a 64-bit version. CS4 is exactly why I built a new desktop running 64-bit Vista Ultimate, so I'll be itching for it when it does arrive. April 3, 2008 - Lightroom 2 is available as a beta download and trial. While there are a number of little tweaks, the biggest one for me is dual monitor support. I'm trying out the 32-bit version on my Acer notebook system and after importing some files, I was taken back to those very unimpressive early days of Lightroom 1 beta. Which is to say slow, incredibly slow and buggy. I tried one little white balance tweak in beta 2 and I immediately got a spinning circle that would not go away. After 6-7 minutes of waiting, I shut it down and started over, which, while a bit slow, at least worked as expected. Below are a couple of screen shots of my notebook system, the larger one being an external 24-inch LCD and the smaller one being the notebook screen, used as the secondary while the external acted as the primary monitor (the screen shots are not exactly to scale).
The benefit of having a second monitor is to be able to do larger image views or comparisons without having palettes getting in the way. You can make adjustments on the main monitor and the image on the secondary monitor will immediately reflect those changes. Alternatively and perhaps more useful, you can have the second monitor show all the images in a grid view for selection to edit in the main monitor. Coming hard on the heels of the recent Aperture 2 updates, Adobe has rather impeccable timing to ensure that it instills FUD amongst those wanting to take a bite out of that white fruit. My only beef is why it's gonna take so long for beta 2 to become production 2, because I want it now! April 2, 2008 - I haven't found the time to deal with the person that ripped off my wedding website design, text and photos, but I will in a couple of days. Another photographer also ripped off my text from the wedding website's About Me page. I noticed that others have also plagerized my short article about the Rule of Thirds and past it off as their own either partially or wholly. It's the wild west... On another note, I just clued in on an interesting juxaposition of events the previous weekend. As mentioned previously, I attended a wedding on Saturday night, a celebration of life and new beginnings. The day after, I was at the cemetary to pay respects to some aunts and uncles and my grandparents. Right around Easter (but not always coinciding with it) is a time when Chinese go to the cemetaries to pay their respects to the ancestors. The ritual can be quick and simple with placing flowers on the grave to rather elaborate with some families having what amounts to a picnic at the grave site. As a child, whenever my mother and I visited Vancouver, we would visit the big cemetary in Burnaby and place flowers on my grandfather's grave. With our visits rarely lasting more than an overnight stay, a ten minute trip was about all that we could spare, as we met up with and paid our respects to the living relatives and friends. Now that we live in Burnaby, my parents have gotten a little bit more ritualistic in bringing a cooked chicken, hard boiled eggs, and pastries to the grave site and making a symbolic offering to the ancestors. My dad places little cups in front of the food, pours some alchohol and then burns paper money in a metal pot. You gotta make sure the ancestors have enough food, drink and money for those heavenly games of mah jong. However, we sure as heck do not have a picnic in the cemetary. We do the symbolic thing, pack up then go home. As a kid, visiting the graveyard conjured up thoughts of ghosts and ghouls, but as an adult, it only serves to remind me of my own mortality and that some day, I'll be six feet under and hopefully, the kids will at least lay a flower or two on my own plot. When we arrived last Sunday, my father carried my youngest in his arms so that the youngest could be around his great grandparents. There we were, three generations of Leongs visiting a fourth with my eight month old being held by his nearly eighty year old grandfather. April 1, 2008 - So, my buddy Rob Greer from California, sends me an email with the subject line "Site Raping." Well, quite provocative, so I opened it up to see what was up. Turns out another wedding photographer ripped off much of Rob's website and passed it off as his own. I suppose this fellow being from the East thought that he wouldn't be found by Rob over here on the west coast. Unfortunately for him, Rob did find out (try www.copyscape.com if you want to see if you've been ripped off) and contacted him directly about the matter. The fellow claimed that his hired web designer was at fault, right down to ripping off Rob's photos and passing them off as his own. All I can say is BRUTAL! Actually, I was saying a lot worse once I got to the guy's website and noticed that he had copied so much of Rob's original design. Ironically, the budding photographer also claims to be a website designer, which Rob is also - guess whose website designer description he also ripped off... What's even more brutal is that Rob posted about his website being copied and ripped off on DWF, a pay-for forum catering to wedding photographers and frequented by some well known pros, such as Joe Buissink. Coincidentally, the fellow is also a member of DWF and started a thread trying to explain away his actions. Shortly after he started the thread, Rob posted with a straightforward, "I'm a member of this forum" message. DWF has apparently banned him until all the offending pages have been removed. Now, Rob's a fine photographer and unlike me, he's put in a lot of work to build up his site with galleries. There's a lot of content available and I guess it was too much for this person to not steal it away. He claims to be starting out in the wedding photography business and geez, isn't it so much easier to use another person's hard earned work and pass it off as your own. After things had settled down, I was thinking, well, at least Rob has worthy content to steal, unlike me...then, for a chuckle, I used copyscape.com to check out my own wedding photography website and lo and behold, three websites popped up that had used some or much of my text from my About Me page. I thought, well at least they didn't steal my photos...then I checked out one of the three websites in detail and well, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling like I've been bent over now and without even a kiss. And no, this is not an April Fool's day joke. Look at my website, then look at his and tell me what you think (tell him too ;^) And, I assure you, my website design, such as it is, is all my own work and those photos, such as they are, were taken by me. I'll be sending Mr. Roy a note soon requesting that he try designing his own website and using his own photos instead of taking mine and passing them off as his. Such is life in the Internet age. March 31, 2008 - I was at a wedding on the weekend, but for a change, I was just a guest instead of a photographer. I brought along some gear, but I kept my gearhead tendencies to a minimum and never left my seat to snap a few shots here and there during the ceremony or the dinner. Having the equivalent of a 300mm lens does that to you, as I was using the 40D with the 70-200 IS lens. I brought along a D200 with 18-200 VR lens and SB800 for another person to use, as it was his brother getting married, so I thought I'd let him be the "man" this time around. Despite being a guest, I couldn't avoid watching the hired photographers work and seeing what tools they were using and how they were using them. One fellow used a Canon SLR and a few different lenses with the same 70-200 lens being the most used, while the other used a very familiar looking kit, a D200 with the 18-200 VR lens. Both used flash at various times, but it was how they used them that made me somewhat curious, as both tended to bounce the flash...with 30 feet ceilings that are not white or neutral. Without knowing what their exposure settings are and without seeing the files in detail, I can't comment on this technique. However, they did produce a slideshow using photos taken earlier in the day and during the ceremony, so I did get to see a few of those shots from afar and truthfully, they didn't look too bad, but I just wonder if they wouldn't have been better off shooting ambient, as I did the whole time. Just to be clear though, I shot ambient, because I wanted to see what the 40D would do at ISO 1600 and ISO 3200 in a setting other than a hockey arena and also because the owner reclaimed his new 580EX II flash for his own photographic project. Taking a look at the venue where the ceremony and dinner were held at, I was noting where some nice photos could be taken to incorporate some of the interesting features. However, after a little while, I beat up the inner geek and stuffed the bloody corpse in my mental trunk, as I mostly hung back and enjoyed the night. As a guest I could observe and note that the working pros, whether photo or video, do in fact tend to get in everyone's way and view in doing their jobs, but the guests trying to get their happy snaps are even more annoying as they get up from their seat and obscure what little view was left. Digicam flashes were going off everywhere and I wonder if perhaps, subconsciously, I abhor on-camera flash, because of this regular occurrence at every wedding I attend...nah, it's the actual photographs produced by on-camera flash that does it in for me. However, after shooting everyone in just ambient light, unless I cough up the big bucks to afford the D3 that can shoot cleanly at ISO 3200, flash is going to be a necessary evil for me. While shooting ambient only tends to be easier, the low light in most reception halls is going to wreck havoc with one's ability to get sharp photos without motion blur. I found that I could reliably handhold the 70-200 IS lens at 1/20, but going any slower killed the majority of my shots due to subject motion blur. Nothing like getting that static bottle of wine sharp in the image only to have your subjects look like so-called ghosts from photos of old. I would have loved to have been able to see what a full frame SLR could do at ISO 3200 in the same venue and light setting. Match it up with some f1.4 or f2 lenses and I'd expect that some nice photos would result. March 27, 2008 - By now most that are interested in it will have heard about X-Rite's new ColorMunki. It's a way for X-Rite to broaden its marketbase from the middle, dominated by X-Rite's Eye One line, as well as the high-end, which are covered by the reminants from its takeover of Monaco and GretagMacbeth. Both images courtesy of X-Rite The ColorMunki will allow X-Rite to compete head-to-head with ColorVision, which has done quite well at the entry to mid-level color management market. At USD $500 for the ColorMunki Photo, it's very competitive to ColorVision's USD $600 Spyder3Studio. Whereas the Spyder3Studio separates the monitor calibration and printer profiling tools into two devices, the ColorMunki does it all in a device that looks like and is about the same size as a good tape measure. It appears to have the functionality of a stripped down GretagMacbeth spectrophotometer, which is a device that I covet, but lack the CDN $1700 to afford. The ColorMunki can read the ambient light, profile projectors and even measure color in the real world so that you can plug in the numbers in Photoshop to ensure that you see and use the right color. When I heard about this feature, I immediately thought of a friend and former co-worker that is now making his way in the real world as a professional photographer. Last time we met, he was telling me about how he had some jobs for painters and how difficult it can be to get the colors in his photos to match exactly to the colors in the painting and that the artists are very demanding of color accuracy.
For me, like I mentioned already, I covet the ColorMunki's cousin, the Eye One Photo, which is the 800 lb gorilla of color management. Hmm, I suddenly have a craving to watch King Kong and eat some bananas... The ColorMunki has a two-part printer profiling process. Print out one 50 color target sheet then measure, then print out a second 50 color target based on the readings from the first target, then create a profile. X-Rite has been making a bit of a deal about its small target technology, whereas the traditional process has been to print off sheets with hundreds, if not thousands of color targets to be measured by a spectrophotometer. Bill Atkinson, the noted fine art photographer and teacher (and former Apple programmer) creates profiles using many thousands of color targets. So, I'm rather curious as to how good a mere 100 color targets will do in producing a high-quality printer profile. While I have made a request for a review sample, I don't know if this will come to past. March 26, 2008 - I was ribbed about one of my posts last week, about how I would do an event shoot compared to what a real pro actually did at the hockey tournament I've been talking so much about lately. In my post, I mentioned how I declined to be the tournament's photographer, because I didn't think I could do it right, but it had less to do with my photographic skills, so much as the logistics of being an event photographer trying to make sales at the event. However, a coworker took my comments to mean that I didn't want to cover the tournament because I didn't think I'd be able to produce good photos and thus his ribbing was that what I consider as "bad" or less than ideal surpasses what most people would be happy with. It was an interesting comment to make and I think quite accurate. What I strive for in my photography is merely to be as good as I can be, damn whatever other people might think...well, actually, if I'm photographing a wedding, I would care very much what the bride thinks of my photos ;^) Anyway, I think it is accurate that what I would consider so-so would probably make others very happy. The parents that received the DVDs of all the game photos I took over the course of the season were very happy to receive the files and be able to print off photos that are likely better than anything they would have been able to do on their own. Througout the season, I noticed the occasional parent on the other teams taking photographs of their kid playing hockey, but only one ever had anything near what I was using. Consumer D-SLRs and consumer tele zoom lenses were generally as good as I saw compared to the D200 with 70-200 VR lens, or the 30D and 40D with the 70-200 IS lens that I used. The one parent that did have as good a rig as me had the same 70-200 VR lens and what appeared to be a D200 SLR. Curiously, he used a full sized external Nikon flash, as did some of the other parents (alas, only the pop-up found on all consumer SLRs). While I'd have some confidence in the parent using the good Nikon rig, I'd be pretty skeptical of the quality produced by the other parents. I shudder at the thought of what all the digicam users got from the stands 20-30 feet up, using their slow zoom lenses and tiny little flash. One of the parents commented that it was obvious I used an SLR because of the quality of the photos I had given to them. However, I was somewhat sheepish, because I took all the photos at ISO 1600 and f2.8, which are not the kind of settings needed to get the best out of my kit. Due to my lousy composing at the beginning of the season, Lightroom's crop tool was my best friend to edit the files, which often meant some pretty severe cropping and throwing away a lot of resolution. My silient wish was that no parent would try and enlarge any of the files to anything bigger than 8x10, so as to keep some measure of quality. I've tried taking a small crop from one of the 10 MP files and printing it to 11x14 inches and what I got was a print that looked less like a photograph and more like a watercolor painting. Great if you actually wanted the effect, but pretty damn lousy if you wanted a real photograph (and only passable as such from at least three or more feet away). One of the coaches, who has graphical skills, used my photos to produce laminated posters for all the players. It was a great idea and very well received by everyone, but I cringed at some of the images used, because even at the small poster size, it showed off all the lousy attributes of a high ISO D200 file. I wanted to give the kids real photos, worthy enough to frame and hang on the wall if they wanted to, so when an opportunity presented itself that had all the kids in their game uniforms, but without a game to play, I lined up the kids and had them come in front of me on the ice, one-by-one so that I could photograph them in a static pose. I used the 40D with 70-200 IS lens set to ISO 400, which on Canon SLRs means pretty much noise-free quality. I tried to maximize the framing as much as I could while keeping in mind that I wanted a final 11x14 inch print. Even though I handheld the camera and lens, what I ended up with were photos that are night and day difference in quality compared to my high ISO files and sharp and crisp enough that I could have probably printed quality 16x20 sized prints. With the kids posing on the ice, if I say so myself, the photos are much more pleasing to me than the professionally shot, studio style photos taken earlier in the season for individual and team photos. For those photos, the individual players were taken in front of a fake hockey net backdrop and white carpet that just smells of fromage. The only good aspect of these photos is the soft box quality lighting, but again, clearly artificial compared to my naturally lit portraits (with plus 1.5 compensation to keep the ice white). If it were me doing the individual and team photos, I'd do them on the ice like the pros do. The major problem would be trying to get a clean, natural background that isn't marred by the detritus usually found in municipal arenas. I'd probably get around that by hanging up large backdrops behind the glass instead of letting the background go to black as seen in many pro team photos. All this is just a verbose way for me to say that yes, I think my idea of passable is probably a layperson's idea of good. March 25, 2008 - I need some help from those more knowledgeable than I am about CSV files. Is there an easy way to get CSV data into HTML format or tables? I'd like to create a page to display a large number of items from the CSV file, but I'm a techno-fool when it comes to more complex web editing. Any help would be much appreciated. March 24, 2008 - More D200 vs. 40D comparisons - the files were processed in Adobe Lightroom at default settings with only white balance adjustments made to the files. Some images were cropped from 100% screen captures of the Lightroom work space, as Lightroom provides very easy and convenient side-by-side comparison views. The D200 has a noticeable red/magenta cast to images taken in Auto White Balance mode. It's an easy fix in Lightroom to neutralize the color cast, as seen below, but in the conditions I've been photographing in recently, the 40D is closer to neutral with its AWB mode.
After correcting the white balance, I brought up the 40D image for a side-by-side comparison. The histogram display for each image has been copied and pasted below the respective images. You can see that the D200 has a slightly slower shutter speed than the 40D (1/160 compared to 1/180), but that the 40D image is still slighty hotter than the D200, as the histrogram nudges closer to the right than the D200.
With the net centered in the viewfinder and using only the centre focus spot, I focused on the vertical cross bar at the back of the net. At this small size, both images appear to be in focus, but have a look at the 100% crops:
The D200 image at left is softer and noisier than the 40D image on the right. This is consisetenly seen in other image files. While the goalie and player images below are not identical, I kept the subjects centred and again, only used the centre focus spot.
The shot above is the back of my son's hockey pants and while not identical in position (taken within seconds of each other, as I quickly shot with one rig and then brought the other one up for more shots), they are consistent with what I see when comparing other D200 vs. 40D files. Basic exposure settings were the same as the others (ISO 1600, f2.8 and +2 compensation). The D200 is again, noisier and lacking in shadow detail, however, the 40D shows blooming along the edge of the black pants against the white ice, which the D200 does not exhibit. Caveats - as is always the case when showing some sort of head-to-head comparison, someone will inevitably point out discrepancies and inconsistencies, so let me try and get some of those out of the way:
Handling wise, when both cameras are equipped with their companion vertical grips, I find both feel good in the hand, but I do find the D200 to a bit better. The MB-D200 grip is also more flush with the D200 than the BG-E2N with the 40D, especially on the left side of the camera. The MB-D200 also has a very slight recess where the index finger would rest, which makes it more comfortable than the straightline of the Canon grip. Interestingly, when I took the BG-E2N grip off the 40D, I noticed that it had a side slot to store the original 40D battery cover door. I thought, hey, great idea and handy to have the little door with you all the time for whenever you want to go from a big camera to a small one and vice versa. I wondered why Nikon didn't do the same, but then curiosity got the better of me and I took the MB-D200 off the D200 and sure enough, there's a side slot to store the D200's original battery cover door. I find it curious that Canon did not include an AF-On button on the BG-E2N, which was a Canon innovation from way back in the earliest days of EOS. I normally disengage the AF from the shutter release and just use the AF-On with my Nikon SLRs. Having the AF-On on the vertical grip keeps this shooting style consistent, but with the 40D, I had to keep the AF tied to the shutter release, so that I could AF when shooting in portrait mode with the BG-E2N. Weight and size wise, both are very similar and while I could make a subjective comment about the D200 feeling more substantial, there's nothing in that other than long-time brand bias for Nikon. Neither camera is bombproof like their bigger, professional SLR brothers. Ergonomically, I find the Nikon UI to be more intuitive and easier to use, but again, that's nothing more than a long-time bias in using Nikon SLRs for over a decade. I generally do not need to refer to the manual to understand what a button does on a Nikon SLR, but the same is not true of Canon. While I can figure out the majority of the settings and functionality on the 40D, there was one button that I didn't figure out, which is the * button. Embarrassingly, the * button is the exposure lock button, but where Nikon makes it simple and intuitive to figure this one out on the D200 (AE-L), Canon is rather cryptic using symbols instead of letters for some of its buttons. The exposure compensation button is another one that I think could be more clear. The large rear command dial serves as the exposure compensation dial, but only when the camera's power switch has been set to the top-most setting, which resembles a 7 lying on its side. Selecting an AF point can be done three ways on the 40D, which for me, is two too many. On the D200, use the rear selector pad that the thumb falls naturally on. For the 40D, use a small little joystick operated by the thumb, or press a button and use the top command dial, or the rear command dial. Whichever method used, I would have liked an option to be able to cycle through the AF points continuously by holding down the joystick in one direction like I can with Nikon SLRs. With the 40D, pushing the joystick in one direction, say to the right, locks me to the far right AF point and does not cycle me through to the left point then centre and then back to the right. It's a small thing, but I find it quite useful. More to come once I've taken some static test shots and printed out some sample photos to determine what differences there are between pixel peeping at 100% and actual prints. March 23, 2008 - Reader's comment:
Yes, you’re right that it would be more appropriate to compare the 40D to the D300 and I do hope that in a few months, I will be able to write about that experience, but in the meantime, the D200 will have be the guinea pig, as much as it is not a fair comparison for the two-year old D200 to be compared to the current 40D. Working this theme of comparing a current SLR to one that has now been superceded, one aspect of the D200 that I always did find suspect is the AF module used by Nikon for an otherwise fine camera. In the Nikon world, the higher the number for the AF module, the superior the performance. Look at these examples:
What we see here is that the D100 had a relatively low-grade AF module and the D200's module is not that much higher rated. Compare the D200 to the comtemporaneous D2X with a CAM 2000 module, which had a highly regarded AF module. While the D200's AF was superficially similar in layout to the D2X module, the D200 only had one crosshair AF point in the center of the AF array compared to 9 crosshair AF points in the D2X module. This would not be so bad if that single crosshair point offered good, reliable performance, but as I found in comparing to the 40D using its centre AF point, it does not. While the 40D's AF is certainly not perfect, in the same shooting conditions (a hockey arena), photographing the same subjects (fast moving hockey players), using as similar settings as possible (centre AF point, AI Servo or Continuous AF, High Speed frame rate) the 40D was superior and not by a small margin either. In the last game, I used the D200 during the warm-up and found it sluggish and near useless, as I had already been spoiled by the 40D. It was actually a relief for me to put the D200 down (horrors) and pick up the 40D instead when the game started. I switch again during the second period and found the D200 just could not pick up on the moving players and track them with any success whereas the 40D was swift in acquiring focus and keeping focus locked much more consistently than the D200. Based on everything I've read so far, the D300's AF is much improved and if/when I get my own D300, I'll be sure to see how it compares to the 40D. March 22, 2008 - It's the end of the season for my son's hockey team. They fell short in the tournament playoff and lost both games played. Losing the first game meant no shot at the trophy and losing the second game meant no bronze medal for the players. As a parent, it was tough watching the kids play their hearts out, but fall short and I knew that the dressing room would be subdued, what with this being the last game and all. When I walked in I could see my son was emotional. His eyes were a bit red and he was near tears as he told me he really wanted a tournament medal to finish the season. I like to think that he learned some life lessons throughout the season as the coaches encouraged all the kids to play hard and have fun and that winning was not the most important thing. Patrick's already talking about the next season and which of his teammates will be back in Atom division as ten year olds like him. It's also sad that many of his teammates will move up to Pee Wee and it will be another year before he has a chance to play with them again. Throughout the season, many remarked at how well Patrick was progressing and that he was the most improved player on the team. The coach said he's a very smart player and once he picks up some speed, he could be a very good player in a few years, which gives me encouragement knowing that Patrick had a tall wall to climb over in his year of playing organized hockey. I won't be making the same mistake of starting late with my other son Harrison, and as soon as he's old enough, I'll be putting him into skating and hockey lessons ;^) With the season a wrap, I have some semblance of a life and weekends back again...well, actually no, as I still have much studying to do for a coming exam and the past month has been a waste for that aspect of life. However, the past week has given me some good time with the Canon 40D and I'll have more to say about this camera along with some comparisons to my D200. The 40D will probably be my last gasp before I lock myself down into strict study mode until the first weekend of June.
March 20, 2008 - Okay, this is getting ridiculous when Sigma, a third-party lens maker, can beat Nikon in producing a lens-motor driven, auto focus 50mm f1.4. What's up with this and where are the heck are those new prime lenses rumoured about? I know, I know, my own suggested timing would be in the summer in the lead up to the Olympics, but still, it rankles when Nikon is so laggard in updating a number of old lenses. If Sigma has any sense, it would pump out this new lens as quickly as possible to take advantage of some pent-up demand for a fast focusing, quality prime lens, just like it did with the 30mm f1.4 HSM lens. Continuing my look at the Canon 40D, one of the last games I photographed, I set the exposure compensation to +2 stops and have now brought them into Lightroom for a look and edit. Geez, it gives me no pleasure to say this, but the files are easier to work with (or are cleaner) than from the D200. Most of the files require little in the way of post-production edits. I still do a few defaults for cleaning up a bit of noise (like the D200, the 40D shows more noise when underexposed necessitating a bump up in exposure, hence why I wanted to try +2 stops instead of my previously used +1.5 stops of compensation). I also set Clarity at 50%, throw in a bit of Vibrance and Saturation and a touch of sharpening and there's nothing left to do except crop the images or fix my off-kilter way of seeing the world (diagonal instead of straight lines). Throw in the cleaner ISO 1600 files and the D200 is looking to be put out to pasture. Now, I don't want to make it seem like a huge night and day difference between the two cameras, because it isn't, but there's enough of a difference that I'm happier with what the 40D offers, even if the UI still bothers me. There's also the reverse direction for zooming and focusing, which gets me every now and then, but those are minor things to get used to. Less editing and fussing around means more time to move onto other things, which is a good thing. I'm certainly not afraid to sit in front of the computer for a few hours and edit my files, but for the working pro, time is money and the less fussing around, the better for the bottom line. Battery life seems very good, but I haven't figured out if the 40D offers the same preciseness as the D200 for battery life information. I'm using two cells in the 40D's grip, and I've taken some 1400 frames without any indication that the batteries are dying yet. The same cannot be said of the D200 with its voracious appetite for juice. While the AF is a definite notch up from the D200's sometimes sluggish performance, it's not perfect, but then one shouldn't expect Canon 1D3-like performance in a camera that costs 1/3 as much. However, I'm still able to get more sharply focused photos than the D200, especially in sequence shots. There are times when I would take the camera down from my eye then back up again to activate AF, as I see something develop. Unfortunately, with the D200, it would at times be unable to acquire focus on a fast moving player and I end up with four or five shots of out of focus garbage. Doing the same with the 40D has resulted in a lot less aggravation that the camera is not ready when I am. Who says the equipment doesn't matter... 8^) Our last round-robin game ended up as a tough loss against another suburban team, one that our team had not played against during the regular season, as they are in a different league. Some of the other team's parents were the types of hockey parents that make people cringe, as every little slight against their kids is seen as a penalty, even if the kids trip over their own skate laces. They noticed every little slip by the referees that went against their team while ignoring any that favoured them. If one of our kids accidentally brushed up against them, well that should have been a five minute major, the kid tossed out of the game and the coach burned in effigy. While any organized sport is competitive and you want your team to win, in the hockey world, there are house teams and rep teams. Rep teams compete at a high level and are expected to go far with each kid committed to hockey the whole year. These are the teams that the best players try out for and hope for a shot at the big leagues via major junior or a full ride to a college when their amateur playing days are over. House teams are for players that don't make rep teams, or don't want to put up with rep team politics and the tremendous time committment required of players and parents. House teams are also for newer players like my son, that have to learn the game and the positional play required of the game. House leagues are meant to be more for fun than competition and no matter what the skill level of the players, everyone is supposed to get equal ice time. For the most part, I've seen a lot of respect and comaderie amongst the parents from the Burnaby, Vancouver, Richmond and New Westminster teams our team has played against. Everyone that came out for our team last night (including other Burnaby teams) was taken aback by the parents being such poor winners (as opposed to being poor losers, which I would not have liked to have seen from this group). The irony was that despite losing badly to them, our team still ended up in top place in their conference for round-robin play and we edged out this team by a point, a point that was awarded to us for having six minutes or less in penalties. In house league rules, a safety point is awarded to teams, win or lose, that have no match penalties and six minutes or less in minor penalties. We squeaked by with the six minutes and got our point, which carried us over other teams with the same 3 and 1 record as us. The team that beat us lost out in being able to play in the playoffs, because they lost out to another 3 and 1 Burnaby team that beat them, which incensed some parents that cried foul for the rules that were known and posted at the beginning of the tournament. I heard one excuse being, but our team just beat the so-called best team and you're saying we're out on the basis of a safety point and losing to another Burnaby team? The organizer facing the heat, said put it in writing and we'll consider it for next year. Is it the best way for teams to go on or lose out, on the basis of safety points? I don't know, but given the way those parents acted throughout the game, I consider it poetic justice (I suppose you could consider this as sour grapes on my part, but in fact it isn't, because as long as we kept the penalties down, we were guaranteed to go on and losing made no difference to us in that regard). March 19, 2008 - Hockey season is winding down for my son's Atom division team. We didn't do so sell in the playoffs and thus are not destined to play in the championship game at the end of March, but we are in the hunt for a Spring Break Tournament hosted by our local Burnaby Minor Hockey Association. The team sits pretty on top of the round-robin at 3 and 0 with a final round-robin game later tonight. We're in great shape to be amongst the top four teams to continue playing on Thursday when the championship and consolation games will be played. My son, Patrick, got a nice treat on "his day" Monday, which was St. Patrick's day. He skated hard and was chosen MVP for the first game and later that day in the second game played, he scored a goal, although, when he did, I detected a foul aroma wafting up to the stands where I was positioned, taking photos. In hockey parlance, when a goal is jammed in through a scrum gathered around the goalie's net, it's called a "garbage" goal, hence the odor wafting up. I don't think Patrick even knew he jammed it in until the ref's gathered, conferred and noted it for the record on the score sheet, however, one of the grandparents watching said he saw Patrick put it in, so who I am to disagree. Our coach, a tournament organizer who more or less lives at the arena for the four days of the event, asked me some months back if I wanted to be an official photographer, which would give me photographic access to the games and the right to sell the photos during the tournament. I begged off, because I know nothing of how to photograph an event properly - I don't mean the photography, I mean the logistics of being able to edit and make available images quickly to make sales. My assumption of covering an event like a hockey tournament is that you need to be able to turn around photographs during the game itself, so that when the game is over and as the parents and kids leave the arena, your table is strategically located so that they walk by and will notice the images on display. It's trying to make sales while the moment is fresh and the kids see themselves and beg the parents for a print. My idea of how to do this is this:
What I actually saw the photographer covering the tournament do was this:
A big difference between how I would like to cover an event versus the actual reality by the pros ;^) The photographers were using Nikon SLRs and they looked like D200s, but could have been D300s - I was not close enough to see for sure and I'm no longer keen enough to approach working pros and shoot the breeze with them. One, I'd come across like another geek, pro-wannabe (which I am) and two, pros are usually too busy to be able to give you a few minutes of their time. One fellow clamped a White Lightning strobe to a railing to fire off the dull aluminum foil-like finish of the ceiling in one arena. Pocket Wizard transceivers were used to fire the strobe from the camera. However, I only saw this setup once, while other times, I saw another fellow use an on-camera SB800 to light the subjects. Both were using the 70-200 f2.8 lens, one shot handheld while the other used a monopod. It was interesting to see both use some flash to augment the exposure and the contact sheets looked okay and I could see that there was some flash lighting the subjects, but more of a fill flash effect rather than key, which is rather obvious given the distances involved. Given the speed a which games are played and how I like to shoot a sequence of photos, unless the flash is firing at pretty low power, I don't think it can recycle fast enough for me unless a big-ass battery pack is used to supplement the flash. If my son's team does make it to Thursday's final games, it could be interesting and maybe awkward having the pros show up in the same place that I've been standing to take photos of the games. March 17, 2008 - Reader's comment:
Why I or anyone else would consider doing a brand switch, is what I hope would be about problem solving. Moose Peterson wrote an article many years ago about buying equipment that help to resolve problems he faced out in the field photographing critters. Sometimes, you give into desire and buy something that isn't really necessary, but for the most part Moose buys or upgrades equipment based on tangible needs. The 600mm f4 AF-S is an obvious example, as Moose bought the new 600 f4 VR lens to replace his original AF-S version. He gets the VR benefit and closer minimum focusing distance, both of which are important for his wildlife photography. Another example would be changing from an Arca Swiss B2 head to a Wimberley, because it makes it easier and more efficient to use big telephoto lenses. While I love my Nikons, it's no secret that until recently with the D3 and D300, Nikon was lacking compared to Canon when using high ISO settings. This feature is not important to all photographers, especially those that shoot with a tripod all the time, for which at low ISO settings, Nikon and Canon are even. Having clean high ISO image files helps to solve problems for me photographing in low-light venues, such as cave-like ball rooms, churches or dark hockey arenas built 50 years ago. It also helps to reduce the use of flash, which I find is disruptive and unattractive unless I can bounce the flash output off a wall or ceiling. The question to consider though, is the 40D output good enough to spend that much money to supplement an existing and incompatible kit? Is the output, combined with the faster 6.5 fps and 14-bit RAW output good enough to turn the tide into a full-blown brand switch? At this point I don't know and thankfully, I don't actually need to know (but, I will try to answer that as I use the 40D more), because there is a D300 available that is even better than the 40D, per the recent review posted at DPReview. While an $1800 D300 is expensive, it's a helluva lot more cheaper than having to buy over $5000 worth of Canon gear. So, as you pointed out, economics plays a big role in any decision making process, but at the end of the day, one also has to consider whether the present equipment is solving current problems. If it isn't then one may well have to spend some big bucks to resolve them. March 16, 2008 - I took the Canon 40D with the Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS lens out to a morning hockey game to do a little test run and compare it to my D200 with the 70-200 f.8 VR lens. I used the Canon kit for the first and third periods with the Nikon kit in the second period as a control and comparison. All of this is subjective at the moment, until I have some more shooting time and experience using the 40D, but a few things stood out for me during actual usage of the cameras:
I set both cameras as similarly as I could, but I'm mindful that I may have missed something here and there with the 40D. The lenses, I believe, are even, given how well-regarded both brands' 70-200 f2.8 lenses are, although the Canon is slightly older in design and does not offer a removeable tripod mount like the Nikon lens does. I set ISO 1600 on both cameras with plus 1.5 exposure compensation to counter the ice fooling the in-camera meters. As already mentioned, I shot in RAW mode and ran a couple of files through Adobe Lightroom at default settings to see what both cameras had to offer. My presumption, before seeing the image files, was that the 40D would offer better quality files, as it is newer than the D200 by a couple of years. I was correct, the 40D does offer cleaner image files than the D200, but at this point, it's hard for me to quantify by exactly how much cleaner the 40D is, e.g. one stop or half a stop or a third of a stop. Pixel peeping at 100% with both files open side-by-side, I thought the D200 extracted more detail than the 40D, but I need to do more shooting to determine if this isn't just the noise fooling my eyes into thinking I'm seeing detail. The 40D file also seemed sharper, as in accutance than the D200 and while I could bump up the Sharpening settings for the D200 files, I would also be bumping up the visibility of the noise. From this first trial of the 40D, there's not much doubt that it produces better looking high ISO images than the D200, which helps to make up for the clunky user interface. Of course, I really should be comparing the 40D to the D300, but that will have to wait until maybe bonus time at work ;^) March 15, 2008 - According to Japan's PEN News Weekly, Canon has regained number one spot in Japan for D-SLR sales with almost 47% market share. Nikon follows with 42% share with Pentax taking 4.9% with Sony unknown. Now remember in previous discussions about Japanese market share, I talked about how Nikon and Canon had about 80% between them with the remainder being fought after by the also-rans such as Sony, Pentax and Olympus. Now we see that 80% was being too conservative and that Nikon and Canon command 89% of the market with only 11% available in Japan for the other brands. While both Sony and Olympus have long-term, five-year plans to gain market share, the thought that either one could gain 20% seems like pie in the sky, or maybe a few too many Lucy in the sky with diamonds trips by the dreamers coming up with such fanciful figures. There's a mild peeing contest going on between Luminous Landscape and Ken Rockwell, about a hoary old chestnut of a statement: it's the photographer, not the equipment. As a third-party observer, it's amusing to read and watch, especially Rockwell's changing response to Michael Reichmann's rebuttal to an article written by Rockwell. First, there was a relatively reasoned response by Rockwell on the same night that Reichmann posted his article (he usually posts the evening before the date of the article), then the next morning, Rockwell's response had been amended to become a jingoistic, America is great diatribe that had little to do about photography (it incorporated the Apollo moon missions and Lance Armstrong's testicles, as symbols of America's greatness). By the evening, the response had morphed back to being more or less the same as the first response. Bizarre, is all I can say for Rockwell to make it seem like Reichmann had slighted God, stolen the girl next door, dissed mom and apple pie and then burned the stars and stripes. At some point, Rockwell referred to Luminous Landscape as a gear-oriented website (which, also seems to have disappeared in the latest response), which is rather ironic given that...er...Rockwell's website is just as much if not more gear-oriented than Luminous Landscape. Both Reichmann and Rockwell have their supporters and detractors and seem to polarize people. Reichmann because he's wealthy enough to buy whatever he pleases and he's not afraid to spend his money, which I think generates a lot of jealously and resentment. However, who wouldn't do the same if they had Reichmann's kind of money? I know I would be doing more or less the same as Reichmann if I were in his shoes. Rockwell...gawd, where do you start with a guy that you never know if he is serious or just trying to pull a joke on you. I think the less I say about him the better for me ;^) March 13, 2008 - I HATE camera phones...
March 12, 2008 - Reader's tip:
March 10, 2008 - Writing and publishing a blog website (or pseudo blog site like this) is akin to being like a newspaper columnist in that often, you write opinion pieces to go along with any reviews or technical commentary that one might have to offer. What I've noticed in being a regular subscriber to the National Post newspaper is that the columnists often write about something they've read in another newspaper or publication. That is, they usually don't agree with the opinions offered by the other paper and they offer their own opinions about why they disagree. It's kind of a point-counterpoint style of debate and it's one that I've copied from time to time wherein I'll post a comment or opinion about something I've come across elsewhere. As one who also posts photography and audio-related comments that strike my fancy, sometimes those comments and opinions will strike some the wrong way and I'll get blasted for making them. You take your lumps, learn and move on, but hopefully you keep the style that got you noticed in the first place. Sometimes though, the heat generated from the opinion pieces gets so hot that you feel like you need some flame-resistant underwear. I've felt the heat a time or two in the years I've been publishing this website, whether it be about an opinion offered, or perhaps a review that someone did not like. When the heat is on someone else though, I feel for them, even if I did not agree with the opinion or comments offered. It can be a tough business, especially for most sites that do not generate anywhere near enough revenue for the writer to quit a day job and do it full time. You basically publish and post, because you enjoy it, not because you'll get rich from it, and really, the websites that probably do make decent revenue are usually the most annoying websites to visit (content words hyperlinked like mad to pop-up ads; content that requires you to view a full-page ad before allowing you to read it; a review spread out over dozens of pages, more to show ads than for any organizational purpose, etc.) Right now, it seems Johnston over at TOP has had the heat dialed up to 11 (to butcher an audio analogy) over the past week. While he has much praise and support from a slew of readers, there appears to have been many unkind comments thrown at him that he did not post in his comments section. While I did not agree with his, I believe, not particularly accurate comments about Galen Rowell's use of graduated filters (insinuating that Rowell used colored grads to get brown skies in his photos), like the reader's comments below, there is much to like and admire in Johnston's writings. I'm sure he'll get over this storm and continue making thought-provoking comments in short order. March 8, 2008 - Reader's comment:
As a photographer, I acknowledge my mediocrity rather than revel in it J The attack against Galen Rowell is classic armchair quarterbacking. This story has been told many times, but his most famous photo of the rainbow over the Dalai Lama’s Potala Palace, required Rowell to run for several minutes (about a mile away) to line up the rainbow so that it would appear to emanate from the palace. However, once he finally reached his ideal vantage point, the sun appeared and Rowell got off his last few frames of a convergence of sunlight, rainbow and storm clouds. He got lucky for sure, but he made his luck by first visualizing the kind of photo he wanted and then running to a location to make it happen. I have little doubt that even at an altitude of 12,000 feet, Rowell probably ran that mile in four minutes or less. Many photographers aren’t so willing to be such active participants in their photography and having read a few of Rowell’s books, I find the attack presumptuous and especially ignorant, as it goes against what Rowell was about as a photographer. It’s certainly true that Rowell used filters, but these were not the less than classic Cokin Tobacco filter, but high quality, neutral density filters. So, if indeed some of Rowel’s photos had brown skies, I’d be more inclined to believe that Rowell photographed what was before him than accuse him of contriving a scene using gimmicks. March 7, 2008 - David Cardinal (developer of Moose Peterson's favorite DigitalPro file management program) posted a news item that Nikon is being sued by a company known as e.Digital Corporation. Nikon is not the only one, as there are several other huge and well-known companies being sued by this unknown company, which reminds of the NTP patent trolling against RIM. TOP has another interesting posting about how some photographers have lost perspective on realistic colours and expect photographs to be punched way beyond reality. I don't know if it was just coincidence, but as I surfed over to another website that shall go unnamed (and is one that I only visit in my capacity as owner of NikonLinks, as I otherwise don't agree with much of what is posted), I was visually blasted with two super saturated photos that had colors punched up to the extreme and remind me more of cartoons than photographs - not that there's anything particularly wrong with that, as I've done a few extreme, cartoonish colored photos too. Interestingly, in the TOP thread, there was reference to an old article written by Michael Johnston about hating infrared photography, because Johnston feels it's a gimmick. Ouch! Infrared photography is a popular flavour-du-jour, because digital has made it so much easier to do than in the film days when Kodak HIE had to be loaded and unloaded in the complete dark. This is why I much prefered shooting Ilford SFX film with a red 25 filter. SFX was so much easier with much cleaner grain structure and while not truly infrared, was close enough to get the desired white foliage and black skies when shooting in sunlit conditions. Anyway, in that old article, Johnston rails against one of my photographic heros, the late Galen Rowell, due to the adventure photographer's use of graduated neutral density filters in many of his landscape photographs. Double ouch!! The article was written while Rowell was still alive, so it would be interesting if there was ever any response or acknowledgement of the criticism by Rowell. Some quotes from Johnston in his article:
Hmm, never heard of controlling contrast and holding highlights while exposing the shadows? Something you would expect an experienced B&W photographer to know something about, because isn't using graduated filters akin to dodging and burning in the darkroom? Brown sky? Well, actually, Galen Rowell wrote a short essay about using graduated neutral density filters in his book, Galen Rowell's Vision: The Art of Adventure Photography, wherein Rowell discusses using expensive Singh-Ray filters for their neutral color fidelity and mentioned that cheaper filters have a magenta or...brown shift. Should we now skewer Ansel Adams for all his darkroom shenanigans... ;^) Came across this interesting tidbit of info about Microsoft being pressured by Intel to dramatically water down the technical requirements for a "Vista Ready" PC. Intel had a slew of 915 chipsets that it wanted to sell off, which were not suitable for Vista's Aero graphics. March 3, 2008 - Sorry for the lack of posts; been quite busy with the day job. I did receive this comment from a reader though, about my last update:
That is indeed an impressive picture to compare differences in size, but do remember that the Sigma is a zoom lens and the Olympus is a fixed focal length lens; it is not entirely an apples-to-apples comparison. However, I do grant you that even if PopPhoto had more appropriately used a fixed focal length Sigma or Canon lens in this type of extreme comparison, the Olympus kit would still win out if physical size is the key criterion. Comparing less exotic kits would find less difference in size or cost between Olympus and the other brands. I would also say that f2 versus f2.8 lens speed is wash, because as you say, the faster speed allows the Olympus to shoot at one stop faster shutter speed, whereas Nikon or Canon can bump up the ISO by a stop (probably more like two stops) to compensate. There is little to no penalty for Nikon and Canon users to bump up the ISO, because, as you state again, the high ISO quality from Olympus "aren't great." While many consumers may be satisfied with what Olympus can offer for high ISO, I don't think I would be one of them if I were to use an E3. If I could afford the Nikon D3, I'd have one by now, because it addresses many of my practical needs for photographing in low light with fast AF and handling. While Olympus can take advantage of coming technology to improve its wares, it will not have a monopoly on those advancements and the other brands will not stand still either and allow Olympus to encroach on their market share. It's a nice effort by Olympus to design a wholly digital system from the ground up and as you pointed out, at the extremes, there are definitely some advantages available size and weight wise, but with the expectant arrival of the successor to the Canon 5D, plus high expectations that Nikon will eventually offer a similar type of SLR, a 2X factor sensor in the 4/3 system just does not have much appeal, given what I do photographically. However, I'm cognizant of the fact that what I need out of a camera is different from the needs of many others. I'm reminded that my co-worker that borrowed my D200 with 18-200 VR lens found it too big and heavy after a few days of use, whereas I consider it my "lightweight" travel kit. This hit home that a lot of people won't put up with larger and more capable SLR kits, even if they would enjoy the benefits, such as faster speed and handling. On another extreme, another friend took his new D3 on vacation to Hawaii along with a some pro-grade lenses, including his new 200-400 VR lens. Even for me, that's a whole lotta gear to be hauling along for a vacation, unless of course, the vacation was meant to be a photographic one, in which case, I'd do the same thing. I was advised that a number of sales have already been made through the B&H banners, for which I thank everyone for. It is much appreciated and I will be working on a little "store front" type of page, which will display Nikon and Canon cameras and lenses for sale directly from B&H. It may take a me a little while to set it up, so in the meantime, please keep shopping at B&H through the regular banners. If you would like me to add other brands, such as...Olympus...please let me know 8^) Also, don't forget the fine folks at Lensbaby that sponsor this website and NikonLinks. Cheers to eveyone! Over the past couple of months, as I've gotten into using Vista with my three computers, I found that Dreamweaver 8 would crash unexpectedly, especially when I would be trying to post an image that I've buried deep in layers of folders. It would sometimes be very frustrating as Dreamweaver 8 would crash and close itself, then I start it up again and try to resume work, only to have it crash and close again and again. Research into the matter found that Dreamweaver 8, which predates Vista, just won't play nice with the newish OS, especially for doing exactly what I do, which is to browse for files or images. Dreamweaver 8, in some instances even kills the main Windows Help and Support link found in the Start menu. This requires a download from Adobe to fix some registry changes made by Dreamweaver 8 on some Vista installations. I had this happen on my Sony notebook running Vista Business, but not on the Acer, which runs Vista Home Premium. Now that I've finally gotten around to upgrading to the full CS3 suite, I hope those crashes will soon become a dim memory. February 25, 2008 - Over at TOP, Michael Johnston has posted a two-part defense of the 4/3 sensor/system from Olympus (and Panasonic, which appears to be using much Olympus parts for its own SLRs). It's the usual robust and thoughtful commentary that we expect from Johnston and on his salient points, I agree that the differences between the 4/3 and the APS-C for sensor sizes is much ado about nothing for the casual photographer. The basic argument is that the sensor differences between the two competing formats is largely irrelevant and digital technology is still progressing so that 4/3 will eventually offer the same quality as APS-C. However, currently, as high ISO and low light levels are pushed, the 4/3 system appears to be lacking compared to APS-C. And, while many thought that the 4/3 would lead to smaller SLRs and lenses, that really hasn't been the case, as the leading brands have pushed the smallness of their SLRs quite impressively. Conversely, the Olympus E3 is just as big, heavy and expensive as its competition from Nikon and Canon. But, my thinking on the 4/3 system is always asking, what does the 4/3 system offer that APS-C does not? What problems does the 4/3 system solve that APS-C does not? If the 4/3 system doesn't offer anything more than what is already available from APS-C, for me at least, everything else is irrelevant. In the beginning, if I recall correctly, Olympus, to its great credit, did offer some problem-solving technology and features that were not available from Nikon or Canon. An automatic sensor cleaner was definitely a great problem solver and in-camera IS was definitely an excellent feature to allow all lenses in the system to enjoy stabilization. Unfortunately, the photographic industry is very competitive and a feature that sees commercial acceptance and success will be very quickly copied by the others. While Nikon and Canon are holding out for the time being in implementing in-camera IS/VR, both have adopted the automated sensor cleaning, while Sony and Pentax have adopted both technolgies for their APS-C SLRs. Given the market acceptance of in-camera IS, I don't expect that Nikon and Canon can continue to hold out and I'm hoping that they can come up with some kind of Super IS/VR that will allow in-camera IS/VR to work with existing IS/VR lenses for even better results than either one acting alone. Olympus claims that the E3, combined with certain of its lenses, offers the fastest auto focus of any brand...that is until you need to shoot in low light, at which point, the E3 lags behind the competition. Johnston talks about reaching a level of sufficiency that the majority of consumers will not feel the need for something better. However, it's clear that after reading the DPReview review of the E3 (which is the level, I generally live in), Olympus is not meeting the level of sufficiency that would allow it to fully compete against the likes of the Nikon D300 or Canon 40D. In the world of high ISO settings that I find myself shooting in more often than not, Olympus is also not meeting the level of sufficiency to warrant a further look from the "Canikon" duopoly. If I were a betting man, I wouldn't put much money on the 4/3 system being a long-term contender. For a system that goes against the grain, as the 4/3 system does, it's got to be markedly superior to what's available from the usual suspects, either in technology, or in truly reducing the size and weight of a capable SLR and its companion lenses. And, really, what's up with 4/3 as an aspect ratio? If Olympus had made it 4/5 (or, should that be 5/4) so that it aligns with traditional print enlargements, I'd be more excited by that because it means being able to compose and shoot full frame without worrying about cropping later on (sorry, but Nikon scooped this capability with the D3). As it is, 4/3 is close, but not quite there, but I do acknowledge it's closer than 4x6. So, is all this fair? No, but it just goes back to my original question, what does 4/3 offer that isn't available from APS-C. Looking at the system as a whole and then looking at the type of photography I do, I keep coming up with not a lot. So, even if all things were equal between 4/3 and APS-C (currently, they are not), I would still choose an APS-C SLR from Nikon, Canon, Sony or Pentax before I would look at a 4/3 SLR from Olympus or Panasonic. It's been mentioned here before and elsewhere that Nikon and Canon have the lion's share of SLR sales with about 80% between them. The remaining 20% is left to Sony, Pentax and Olympus to fight over. Both Sony and Olympus have made noises about wanting to be number three and taking 20% marketshare for itself. Even though I'm a dimwit when it comes to math, even I can see that this does not add up, because there's no way that Nikon and Canon will willingly give up their dominant positions and there's no way that one of the other three main brands can take away so much marketshare from what remains. I think it's a pipedream for Sony or Olympus to obtain 20%, but with Sony coming on with new consumer and prosumer SLRs and the promise of a full frame, high-end SLR, my money is on Sony attaining a solid number three position. Regular readers may recall that I had a Canon 30D in-house and that I had promised a comparison with the D200. That has obviously not come to past, but let me explain why and try to make amends. The 30D owner lending me the kit made no bones that he planned to upgrade sooner rather than later and that has now come to pass, as he just dropped off his brand new 40D for me to try out. Since I knew that he was planning the upgrade (I gave him the advice on what to buy), I saw little point in doing a comparison of the 30D (a warmed over 20D) to the D200. A 40D trial is much more interesting and I regret that I'm not currently in a position to be able to buy a D300 to make it more relevant. There are a few more hockey games left in my son's season, so I'll be putting the 40D to practical use and I will be very interested in how the 40D fares at ISO 1600 and 3200. I also have the Canon 10-22mm and 17-55mm f2.8 IS lenses to go with the big 70-200 f2.8 IS. This makes for a more comparable look with my Nikon 12-24, 17-55 and 70-200 lenses. And, as a final tidbit, the 40D lender has made clear his intention to buy whatever replaces the 5D (I also advised him to hold out for the replacement instead of buying the 5D), which now means that I'm as anxious as any Canon user in wanting to see this SLR come out, because I will have an extended trial session with it 8^) February 24, 2008 - A quick look at the Drobo storage robot is now posted. February 22, 2008 - Some time ago, I posted a note saying how much I liked the song used in Nikon’s 90th Anniversary Video. Admittedly, it’s a sentimental, saccharine, feel good song that will give some people tooth decay from hearing it, but I liked it enough that I wanted to buy it and utilize it for a little project I have in mind. Unfortunately, no amount of Googling got me anywhere for finding the name of the song and who sings it. In fact, on various forums about the video, many other people wanted the song too. I sent a note to Nikon USA hoping for some information. They referred me to Nikon Japan’s webmaster, who referred my enquiry onto Nikon’s Communications department, which did respond to me quite quickly. Unfortunately again, the news was not what I had hoped for. The song was commissioned specifically by Nikon for its own commercial use and is not available publicly. The song is titled “Stay“ and was written by Ms. Kaoru Aihara and is sung by a New Zealand singer with a last name of Clinton. Back to the search for another similar sentimental, saccharine, feel good song… Being promoted is nice and all, but sure is a pain in the ass photographically. When I started a new position in the summer of 2006, I didn’t think I’d have to change too much of my outside activities. However, business and training trips occurring in the summer of 2007 and likely happening again in 2008, on top of taking a demanding course and exam, are killing my ability to do any wedding photography during the peak season. I’ve already turned away a few people, because I can't make firm commitments. It’s also made my recent computer purchase rather dubious…at least to my wife who questions why I need a heavyweight box when there’s no business. Good question and one that I avoid answering as much as Bill Clinton avoided answering certain questions during Monica-gate J
My desire to build a good, but simple computer-based music system seemed to have gone down the toilet with all the noise and ground loop issues to deal with. However, all was not lost, as long as I could live with a bit more complexity and just as important, spare enough desk space to accomodate another solution. With the Acer offering a digital S/PDIF output (shared with the headphone socket) I could use a Toslink optical cable to connect the computer directly to the Benchmark DAC-1, but even with this setup bypassing the noisy USB, I could still hear static come through, so much so that I thought I was back in the 1980s listening to my hand-me down stereo that one of my older cousins gave to me. Actually, even with the low-cost turntable and 1970s vintage, mass market Japanese-made amp, I had less noise to contend with. Fed up with the Acer, I setup the Sony notebook to be the music server conduit. However, the Sony has no S/PDIF output like the Acer and the DAC-1 has no USB input, so I hauled out another M-Audio product to act as the go-between the two. The Transit is a USB bus-powered sound card, so no need for another AC adapter and socket and it offers an optical output, just perfect to connect to the DAC-1 via the Toslink cable.
The WD MyBook is still the source of the music files, connected to the Sony via Firewire and while this setup is not perfectly silent (the hard drives can be heard spinning during quiet music passages), it is as good as it's going to get in my home office. With the powered monitors sitting aside the Acer, it left me wanting for when I would want to use the desktop computer. However, with a set of Energy bookshelf speakers available, I was able to put them to use with my Rotel integrated amp with the iPod as the primary source. When I want to route some audio from the desktop, I can use the HeadRoom Portable Amp as a DAC/sound device outputting sound to the Rotel. However, I imagine that most of my audio listening when the desktop computer is on will be with headphones to mitigate the sound of all the fans churning inside the computer. It seems rather ridiculous to have two separate sound systems in one small room, but this is the life of a geeky audiophile craving music that's a few steps above that offered through cheap computer or multimedia speakers (okay, a few very large steps up). And, since I can't setup my big rig due to the number of prying tiny little hands in the family, this is the only way I can get my music fix.
February 19, 2008 - You know this whole computer-based music server thing is enough to drive a man to drink, or at the least, drive him back to spinning good old 20th Century CDs instead of trying to get various bits and bytes to play nicely with each other. All the evils of analog playback such as static noise, ground loops, etc. have reared their ugly heads in my attempts to create a computer based music system. I built a little home office sound system centered on my He-man computer system, except that I spend most of my time in front of the Mini-me Acer 9920 notebook computer, which sits 90-degrees from the big computer system. This means that when playing music, it comes from one side instead of being centered where my rear end is usually centered. Enough was enough and I wanted to remedy this deficiency, thus I moved the powered monitor speakers to either side of the Acer 9920 and dug out the old M-Audio Audiophile USB box, which is essentially just a sound card put inside a plastic case and connected to the computer via USB. The Audiophile USB has RCA output jacks, which allows me to connect directly to the powered monitor speakers via RCA-TRS adapter (TRS is just pro audio speak for 1/4 inch phono connectors, the same as used with good headphones). As the Acer runs 32-bit Vista, I was able to download the driver for the Audiophile USB and make use of it again, unlike with my 64-bit Vista desktop, for which there is no driver available from M-Audio. Flipping on the powered speakers got me a humming sound from both speakers, which was a ground loop. Due to the way the computer and speakers are setup I cannot plug the components into different electrical outlets to try and separate the grounds. Trying the HeadRoom Portable Amp in place of the Audiophile USB didn't work either, as the USB cable was transmitting the ground loop through to the speakers. I thought that maybe I had too many USB devices plugged into the Acer and banished the cordless mouse for an old school corded model, but that didn't work and I couldn't very well disconnect the external hard drive being used to feed iTunes full resolution AIFF files. With the ground loop being as bad as it was, what else could I do to eliminate the USB connection to the Audiophile USB? How about bypassing the USB and using the Audiophile USB to output digitally via a S/PDIF coaxial cable instead of directly into the speakers? I pulled out the Benchmark DAC-1 and set it up in pre-amp mode. The Audiophile USB would feed the DAC-1 a digital signal then the DAC-1 would feed the powered speakers directly. I even went so far as to connect the DAC-1 and the speakers via a pair of XLR terminated Wireworld Equinox cables to minimize as much noise as I could. I also bypassed the external USB 2 hard drive and used a Western Digital MyBook external drive, but connected via Firewire 400 cable to the Acer. A lot of fuss just to try and banish a ground loop, but I did have success...or, so I thought. The music playback was coming from a beautifully silent background and I thought I had finally built a suitably good computer-based music system...until I started to use the Acer 9920 for something other than music playback. As soon as I started using the computer for its real intended purpose, which is to cruise the 'net for new links and research, as well as to update my websites, I heard static emanating from the speakers, along with analog-like clicks, pops and dropouts in the music (when the music seems like it's skipping). Argh! If it ain't one thing, it's another. As far as I can determine, the activity in using the Acer is contaminating the music signal. Merely typing this update was making listening to the music unbearable. I'm no expert, but what this seems to point out is that internally, the Acer is perhaps poorly designed for EMI suppression. I setup my cheapo Sony NR160 notebook and connected the Audiophile USB and WD MyBook to it to test out how this notebook would fare. The low cost Sony provided exactly the silent operation that I had hoped for from the Acer and yes, I'm rather bitter about that. Some more fussing and testing will ensue in the days to come. February 18, 2008 - Busy weekend full of hockey and fussing around with my office-based audio system. Should have been studying instead given how lousy I am with numbers. Wanted to try some different configurations with my powered monitor speakers, but ended up with some bad buzzing emanating from my speakers when I was feeding them with signals from USB sourced sound cards or DACs. Turned out to be a ground-loop caused by the monitor speakers being plugged into the same circuit as the notebook computer. The ground-loop travelled through the USB cable and ends up farting through my speakers. Disconnect the USB cable and the speakers are dead silent. Disconnected the notebook's AC power cord and the ground-loop buzzing is gone, but I still get some high-pitched noise, albeit at much reduced level than before and definitely not as silent as disconnecting the speakers entirely from the computer. A pain in the rear end fussing and mussing with all this, just to get some decent tunes from a computer-based system. On another note, I took delivery of the Drobo storage robot on Saturday and installed four 500 GB drives for 2 TB of capacity. First initial backup of files took place from late Saturday night until early Sunday evening, probably some 18 hours to copy a little less than 900 GB of data to the Drobo via USB 2. That sounds like a long time and it is until you compare it to the Buffalo TeraStation, which took over 50 hours to backup a little less than 700 GB of data over a 100 megabit network connection. I'll have more to say about the Drobo and why I went with this option later on in the week. February 15, 2008 - You may have noticed the new B&H ad near the top left corner and at the bottom of the page. I've signed up as an affiliate with B&H, the largest and most reputable photography store in the USA. Shop at B&H via the banner ads and you will of course help out CameraHobby. I received two emails the other day from different folks, but about the same topic, headphones and amps to drive them with. First, my friend Rob in LA sent me a quick note to say how impressed he is with his new HeadRoom Desktop Balanced amp driving his Sennheiser HD650 cans with the upgraded Cardas balanced cable. Hearing his TV shows through such high resolution gear revealed limitations in his home theatre, which cost a pretty penny to buy. This of course made me quite happy to read that my suggestions of blowing big bucks on a headphone listening system turned out well and that Rob wasn't cursing me with words that would normally, as a kid, have gotten your mouth washed out with soap. On the other hand, my co-worker Allan, was quite ready to throw epithets at me for bringing to work my iPod Touch sourcing my HeadRoom Portable Amp/DAC to drive my own HD650s (single-ended Zu Mobius upgrade cable). I dropped off the kit for him to listen to and after taking a listen, he returned them sooner than I had expected because they were distracting him from work. Now, he tells me that he's thinking about buying his own HeadRoom Desktop amp and of course, I'd expect that he'll blame me for the purchase. Which is fine with me, because I'll regard it as payback for him getting me into high-end headphone listening back in 2005. But, then again, if he really does buy the Desktop amp, I'll be Jonesing for one of my own 8^) February 13, 2008 - Reader's comment:
Thanks for providing a different perspective on what Sony is marketing. Too often, those of us in North America see things through our narrow scope and forget that there’s 75% of the world that may have different opinions. It's always good to hear what others have to say to enlighten us further. February 12, 2008 - Sony is a bit of weird company. It must have so much R&D and product development that its right hand has no clue what the left hand is doing. The company is massive with a pervasive presence in the world of consumer electronics and is one of the most recognized and best known brands in the world. Some of its products are world class and regarded as the standard bearer for the category (high-end video cameras and monitors) and who can forget that Sony co-invented the CD with Philips, for which it has received a piece of the action for every player and probably every disc sold. However, Sony has had its share of duds, failures and curious abandonment of product lines. While it appears that Sony has won the battle for next generation digital format with Blu-Ray, we all know that Sony was the big loser in a previous format war in the early 1980s when its superior Beta format lost out to JVC’s VHS format. Although VHS won the consumer acceptance award, Beta actually kept on going strong in the professional ranks. In the early 2000s, Sony made a big splash with its Palm-compatible PDAs, some of which I thought were really good for features with good integration of other product lines, e.g. take your Memory Stick from your Sony digicam and insert into the PDA for a more detailed look at the photos. After only a few short years, the Sony PDAs disappeared from the market, never to be seen again, which would really annoy me if I had bought one. It makes me wonder from time-to-time if Sony’s D-SLR department will similarly be abandoned if it does not meet expectations. Given the amount of money invested you would think not, but Sony seems to march to the beat of a different drummer. Anyway, this is just an ambling look at Sony and its latest innovation to counter online music theft, the Platinum Music Pass. The idea is, you go to a big-box retail outlet, such as Best Buy, buy one of these Platinum Music Pass vouchers for US $13, return home, scratch off your secret code on the Pass, go online to Sony’s website, enter your secret code, download your music, and then finally enjoy the music you just bought. This, as opposed to staying at home in your PJs, go online to iTunes, buy whichever albums or individual tracks you want (sorry, the Platinum Music Pass is album only, no individual tracks available), download and then listen. Dumb, dumb, dumb and dumber. The Platinum Music Pass will come and go faster than Sony’s PDAs did, but this time, deservedly so. February 11, 2008 - My co-worker Allan, sent me some files taken from his Mexican/California vacation to see what I could do for a panorama style photo. He had created a massively long panorama already, amounting to about 45 inches in length, but only about five inches high. I suggested he try for a shorter one from the most interesting section of the original panorama, which was a view of some luxury homes and villas basking in what appeared to be the late afternoon sun. After cropping down the original panorama file, I could see one section where the stitch was obvious, but the rest of the image was remarkably good and seamless, as seen below:
After I received the original files, I tried my hand at creating a panorama via Photoshop CS2. Surprisingly, CS2 didn't do such a good job, as seen below:
There were four images and although all were taken in sequence one after another, because the shots were handheld there were some slight discrepancies with the getting an exact alignment. The villas were fine, but the background mountains were a bit off. This wasn't a big deal to deal with, but the discrepancies with the exposure created from four files with four densities to deal with required a few more minutes to correct. There may be easier and better ways to deal with varying densities, but this was my first time working with a panorama, so I opened up each file and starting from the left file, I visually matched the saturation from left to right in the foreground villas. Then I did the stitching again and this time the file looked much better, but there was still one section where I could clearly see the difference in the sky. I used the healing brush to blend the stitch and ended up with the version below, which has a bit more saturation and contrast than the other versions.
Working with multiple files to create a panorama is quite interesting and something I'd like to try more seriously down the road, but I'll probably need some specialized panorama tools. I think it's also obvious that exposures must be taken in Manual mode to ensure that the exposures are consistent from one frame to another. To maximize the size of the image, I think I would also want to orient the camera for portrait mode. February 9, 2008 - The Friday edition of the Globe and Mail newspaper had an article about bicycle enthusiasts and their purchase of very high-end and very expensive mountain bikes, specifically, Cannondale’s Team Scalpel. The headline for the article is “Why buy a Chevette when you can have a Ferrari?” I bring this up, because it’s somewhat related to the experiences of my co-worker Allan and his recent thoughts about using my D200 and 18-200 VR lens for a family vacation at the beginning of 2008. (Some pictures of his trip have now been posted with his article) You see, Allan is, or at least was, a very serious bicyclist with I’m sure, quite nice and expensive road and mountain bicycles. He used to be one of those masochists that would ride their bicycles to work everyday from the suburbs, probably a solid 40 km roundtrip commute. That is until he bought his Teutonic sedan made in Bavaria. In the same way that I’ve tried to help Allan with my enthusiastic knowledge of photography and the tools needed to pursue this hobby, Allan helped me a couple of years ago in buying my own mountain bike. He offered me his knowledge based on years of experience riding and gave me his thoughts on what would suit me best, which in his mind was a hybrid bike that would see me do well on pavement with a modest bit of off-roading. His suggestion would cost about $400-$500, which is quite a modest cost and nothing compared to the $7,000 cost of the Cannondale Team Scapel. In the end, I chose not to follow his advice and instead gave into my longstanding desire to own a Rocky Mountain bicycle, even though with my budget, the Rocky Mountain is as entry-level as you can get for a mountain bike. After everything was said and done with a new helmet, gloves and a portable pump, I spent about $900. And, I assure you, I am no weekend warrior rider with a dedication to riding about on par with Allan’s desire to become a serious photographer, which is to say, next to none. My experience with photography and the Globe and Mail article just serve to show how far people will go when they find a pursuit or activity to become passionate about. One of the owners of the Cannondale Team Scapel interviewed in the article revealed that he owns a total of four bicycles. The article does not mention what the other bikes are, but one would expect that while they are not at the level of the Scapel, they are probably still pretty decent bikes. The rider uses the Scapel only for racing on the weekends and the weekday commutes to work is on done on a lesser bike. Coincidentally, I happen to own four D-SLRs, although I haven’t used the D100 at all since buying the D2X and D200(s) and I regard the D100 as a Chevette now compared to my sorta Ferrari D2X and D200 SLRs. On the forums, many wonder how good the D300 is relative to the D3 and whether the D3 is worth the extra money. There are definitely technical advantages and benefits the D3 offers over the D300, but only you can determine if those advantages and benefits warrant a 3X price premium over the D300. The same was true of the previous generation when the D2X was nearly 3X the price of the D200 (closer to 2.5X actually). For me though, buying the D2X was fulfillment of a desire to own a no holds barred, top of the line SLR, whether it be film or digital. Up until that fateful day in the spring of 2006, I had only been able to afford Nikon’s second tier SLRs such as the F90X (in the F4 era) or the F100 (in the F5 era). Buying a F100 for 2/3 the cost of a F5 made rational sense and allowed me to buy more lenses and accessories, but there was always that lingering desire to taste what the best there was. It's my only concession to Leicaphiles that buy, price be damned, because they know they own the best. For me, buying the D2X was fulfillment of owning Nikon's best at the time. When people ask about the D3 versus the D300, most of them are probably seeking some sober second thoughts and rationale comments. If money were no object, I’m sure most people asking would just as soon buy the D3, but alas, for most of us, money is and will always be a consideration. Thus, for Allan, who has no desire to spend over $1000 on a complete SLR package, the suggestion of buying anything better than a D60 is a pipedream. The same is true for me and the mountain bike purchase I made. I could rationalize spending up to $1000 for an entry-level bike, because that’s what I knew it would cost to get a true off-road bike, but spending anymore would have been ridiculous given how little I ride (truthfully, next to none). However, ask Allan about the kind of bike he’d like to buy and I’d venture a guess that if he was still doing some serious riding, the thought of blowing $7k on a Scapel would not be blown off like suggesting he spend $5k on a D3. Whereas I’d tell you what to do with yourself if you suggest to me that I should spend $7k on a bicycle, but would have no problem spending $5k on a D3…that is, if I had $5k to blow on a D3 J I also notice that on all the big forums, there is always a set of posters that don’t like change, which most reasonable people would call modernization. They also get upset when Nikon doesn’t produce anything that “they” want and perceive every single innovation needed by Nikon to stay relevant in the 21st Century as a conspiracy to abandon the past. Sheesh! As if 50 years of staying true to the F-mount is not commitment enough. Nikon, as a relatively large corporation, cannot answer to the whims of every subset within its users community and while it is has been slow and laggard in some areas, the company has shown that it does listen and that it can change to orient its products with that of its users. The serious users of Nikon equipment (amateur and pro) desire compatibility with older manual focus lenses and while the company lost its way with a generation of D-SLRs, it came back with that compatibility with the D2 series onwards, because of continuous complaining about the lost of this feature. Compatibility is also offered with the prosumer models (D200 and D300) while it is not with the consumer SLRs, which seems like an appropriate compromise since the majority of consumers won’t be interested in using 1970s and 1980s vintage AI and AIS lenses. I’d venture a guess that based on how most users feel about Capture NX, that the UI will be changed in the next major revision, because most consider it to be slow and useless, especially for volume editing. Users seem to be saying, keep the innovative U-Point method of editing, but clean up the workflow so that it’s more traditional and consistent with how other applications work. However, there will always be the cheap photographer, who should be buying a D300, but instead, opts for a D80 or lower and then complains endlessly about being abandoned by Nikon, because he can’t meter when using his $50 E series lens with it. Or, buys a D40, D40X, or future D60, and then complains about having to buy only AF-S lenses with it in order to get auto focus. And, here I am hoping for some of those rumoured fast AF-S prime lenses so that I can finally ditch all my non AF-S lenses and say good riddance to 1980s screw-drive technology. Hell, bring on that electronic diaphragm control J Februrary 7, 2008 - Regular readers may recall an article about making some D-SLR recommendations to a coworker. He's now written a semi-reponse to that article describing his experience in using my D200 and 18-200 VR lens for a family vacation he took at the end of December/beginning of January. I've interspersed some comments and responses of my own in this article. February 6, 2008 - Stereophile is reporting that the new firmware for iPod Classics (v 1.1) is causing the iPod’s to leak out DC through its analog and docking ports. DC can possibly fry upstream components connected to the iPod, so if you happen to use an iPod Classic, I’d hold off on the firmware upgrade. The Stereophile news story also points out the rather secretive nature of Apple for controlling all possibly bad publicity about the company. Past news items have also shown that Apple’s automatic updates to its flagship software have led to downgrades in quality, as discovered by Benchmark with iTunes 7.5 for Max OS X. Somehow, I think if Microsoft had been caught doing this, there would be a huge uproar and indignation from the computing world. For whatever reason, I was recently thinking of the December 2007 National Geographic article about 21st Century Cowboys. Photographer, Robb Kendrick’s photos conjures up memories of 19th Century sepia-toned photographs of those tough hombres doing a dirty, dusty, smelly, and usually, poorly paid job. Although Kendrick took photos of real life, modern day cowboys, his tintype process gave each that classic and nostalgia-filled look. The article and photos took me back to my own time as an 18-year old, working on a small ranch in my hometown of Kamloops. For two months, in the summer after my first year at university, I worked as a ranch hand, but not as a real cowboy. My primary duty was to look after the irrigation pipes on the grass fields owned by the ranch, which would be harvested in the fall into hay bales to feed the horses and cattle in the winter. The task was long, arduous and exceedingly boring, as I worked solo throughout the day – no Brokeback Mountain experience for this feller. In the mornings before working on the pipes, I’d have to feed some of the juvenile cattle and horses in the upper field, and in the afternoon the same. Prior to working on the pipes, for the first couple of weeks, I got to do some regular ranching jobs, such as mending fences, driving the old farm tractors around and most interesting of all, rounding up some of the calves into holding pens for de-horning, castrating and branding. For most calves, we had to push them in one by one into a special holding cage that once in, swung the calf onto its side. There, the nasty deeds were done to it, especially if it was a male calf. You quickly learned to stay away from the rear of the calf otherwise you get sprayed with wet, messy dung, as the calves shat themselves from the pain. A co-worker, a full timer that lived on the ranch, collected the mini prairie oysters as delicacies for his dogs. One of the great experiences of ranching, the round up via horseback was not mine to experience, as someone had to stay back and do all the usual chores of changing the pipes and feeding the juvenile cattle. I always looked at them and thought, boy would you taste good right now on a bar-be, rare and bloody 8^) I took the job, because I wanted to see what real ranching is like and wondered if maybe someday I’d lead the romantic life of a rancher. Two-months later and suffering severe bouts of hay fever, I had enough of the life and quit. The expensive gas bill to drive from Kamloops a half hour out of town each day in a gas-guzzling 1970s vintage, eight cylinder tugboat of a car also took its toll on being able to save any kind of money for second year university. I know now that I’m no farmer or rancher, but damned if I don’t wish I had a nice spread out in the hills to escape to from the city every now and then. Slowly getting the new computer configured and loaded with software and files. It’s so much fun (not) digging through all the external hard drives I have lying around and trying to remember what’s on them and what needs to be kept. Had a bit of a time trying to access my Buffalo TeraStation. I did all the things I thought I had to do, which was download and install some registry changes from Buffalo to allow the TeraStation to work with Vista. Then changed the security policy to allow Vista to work with the Samba 2 OS used by the TeraStation, but still no go. I could see the TeraStation through Buffalo’s Client Utility, but could not map a drive or see any shares. Finally, I decided to simplify my setup, and remove a gigabit switch I had used previously with Windows XP and connect the TeraStation directly into my wired router. Success, and finally full access to all my files on the TeraStation through the Vista Network folder – no need to map to a drive letter. Now if I could only figure out what the heck is up with my computer’s USB connection. Here’s the problem for those of you much smarter than I am with computers: My Intel motherboard has four USB ports at the rear, which all work fine. My case has two USB ports at the front, which have been connected internally to the motherboard. When I plug a peripheral into one of the two front USB ports, I get detection and usage for maybe half a minute before it cuts out, or slows down the computer to a crawl. The devices I’ve tried are bus-powered, external hard drives and a wireless USB adapter to connect to my Internet router (I disconnect the computer from the wired router to the TeraStation when I’m doing Internet updates). As I said, the wireless USB adapter works for a few seconds then cuts out. The USB hard drives just flash their LEDs without being seen by Vista and the computer slows down. Unplug them and the computer resumes normal operation again. Only when I connect directly to the rear USB ports will the devices work properly. I think I may have found the fix for the front USB ports, which would be to remove a pin from the motherboard, but there’s another issue that’s puzzling me, which involves the rear USB ports. With the front ports out of commission until I test out the pin connection theory, I dug out my old D-Link 4-port, powered USB hub and plug it into one of the rear USB ports. I then try out the offending USB devices and things seem okay…for about a minute before the same old lost of connection and slow down occurs again. Once again, as soon as I unplug the devices, the computer resumes normal speed of operation. This puzzles me since I’m using a powered USB hub and while I would be inclined to blame the hub as being faulty, I’m not so sure since it’s worked fine with Windows XP, albeit on an entirely different box. However, I'll probably buy another powered hub just to make sure something hasn't gone wrong with the D-Link hub. As part of this experience, I’ve tried USB extension cords with the same bad results and using my Dell LCD’s USB hub connected to the rear USB port is also a dud. I’ve not experienced this before with directly mounted to the mobo USB ports. I’m resigning myself to getting a PCI or PCI-E expansion card to get more USB ports, which would also give me the benefit of getting some Firewire ports at the same time, so it’s not a huge deal per se, but it is a PIA. Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated. Cheers! February 4, 2008 - I don't have too much to say at this time, which is rather surprising since we just finished off another PMA show that had Nikon introduced a new SLR and three fine new lenses. As more than a few people have commented on already, the D60 appears to be a D40X warmed over to help differentiate the SLR lineup a little bit better. The D40 remains in the lineup as the entry-level SLR, as does the D80, so materially speaking, little has changed. However, one would hope that the D60, despite being for all intent and purpose, a renamed D40X, will have tweaked image processing and improvements made. Otherwise, this is Nikon's emmulation of Canon's non-upgrade of the 20D to 30D. The 16-85 VR lens, while not overly exciting to the enthusiast is exciting for the consumer-level photographer that wants better than the 18-55 VR kit lens. Nikon gets a bum rap for producing too many of these normal range zooms for the consumer class, but let's not forget that the sales of all those 18-55, 18-70 and now 16-85 help Nikon's bottom line to R&D the products that the pros and enthusiasts desire. These include the new 60 f.8 Micro and 24 f3.5 PC-E lenses. I don't do much photography that requires a tilt/shift lens, but the 24 PC-E lens looks so cool and sexy that I just might save up to get one for the hell of it...after I've upgraded the SLR that is 8^) The new Coolpix cameras are as how Thom Hogan might describe them, same old, same old with nothing that breaks the mold of convention. I wonder if Nikon even bothers doing much designing of the Coolpix models, or if they just buy the things straight off the shelf from OEM maker, Sanyo. I think we've got a lot more to come from Nikon in the months ahead leading up to the Olympics. There are persistent rumours of more lenses to come, including the desired AF-S upgrades to the 28 f1.4 and 85 f1.4, which would be dandy, but I do hope that Nikon also wakes up to updating some classics such as the 50 f1.4 and 35 f2 (f1.4 would be smashing). Fast prime lenses are just about the last group of lenses Nikon needs to counter Canon effectively, but as Thom Hogan also points out, it would also be nice for updates to the longer Micro lenses, such as the 200 f4 and a resurrection of the much heralded, but relatively short-lived 70-180 Micro zoom lens (with AF-S and VR please). On another note, I thought I'd share a recent exchange of emails with a friend about ripping music CDs. Now, I certainly don't claim any expertise in digital music playback, so you'll forgive me if I've taken some liberties with my comments 8^) The original question in italics and my response in normal text below it:
Well, that depends – you like verbose answers don’t you J AAC is MPEG4, which means lossy compression just like MP3, but as far as I know, only Apple is using this format (I think it’s the only format from the iTunes store), so its proprietary to the iPod. Take a pass on this format. AIFF is Apple’s equivalent to Microsoft’s WAV audio format and the two are 99% identical to each other. Both AIFF and WAV are full resolution file types and can be used to create an audio CD. I rip to AIFF format, but it won’t make any difference ripping to WAV for audio quality; I just do so for some misguided thinking that because AIFF and iTunes are from Apple, I’ll somehow get better compatibility. File sizes will be identical and in some instances, weird as it may seem, AIFF/WAV files from a CD will end up being more than a CD-R can actually burn. While AIFF is an Apple format, as far as I know, any music player that can playback WAV can playback AIFF. You can use Windows Media Player to playback AIFFs directly without any conversion required. With AIFF/WAV, the bit rate is set to something like 1411 kbps and cannot be user changed. Apple Lossless is if you want the quality of an AIFF file without the file size penalty of an AIFF file. A single AIFF track can come in at around 35 MB for a typical rock song and that’s a lot of storage space to chew up on an iPod. However, there are those that don’t like MP3 files, so Apple Lossless is the ideal compromise for them. Caveat is that as the name would imply, this is an Apple proprietary format and only usable on an iPod, as no other player I know of supports this format. I don’t think you can define the bit rate for this format. MP3 is still the most widely compatible format and this is where you can define the bit rate for file size and quality. This is where you want to set a bit rate of 320 kbps, because I don’t believe in variable bit rate (where the bit rate is raised or lowered depending on the musical content in the track), or any lower quality bit rate. As I’ve mentioned in a previous email, the AIFF is analogous to my TIFF file and the MP3 is my JPEG. What I like about the AIFF/WAV format is that you can re-rip them to a lesser format for convenience. What I do is rip to AIFF first to create an archival quality music file. Once I’ve finished a batch of ripping some CDs, I set iTunes to rip MP3s at 320 kbps and then re-rip the AIFF files to MP3 to create a duplicate set of files for iPod use. I will use the AIFF files once I’ve figured out my own long-term solution for computer-based music playback. If you decide to rip two different file types of each song, keep in mind that iTunes will list both types in the library. You can add bit rate as a category to segregate the files from each other, but you would lose out the ability to more easily sort by artist or albums, as iTunes will once again list both files types together. What I did was rip the MP3s to a separate folder to keep the AIFFs separate then I deleted the old AIFF-based library in iTunes so I could add the MP3 library to copy the MP3 files to my iPods. Then I deleted the MP3-based library and added back in the AIFF-based folders again for computer-based playback. Clear as mud?
The lame-ass response would be, listen and let your own ears guide you for whether or not you can live with 320 kbps MP3 files, or if you need the full resolution AIFF. Some ears are more brass than they are golden… The more measured response would be, ever seen people in the recording studios using headphones? Why do they use headphones when they have monitor speakers sitting on top of the console? They do so because headphones are more revealing of details than loudspeakers, something that you discovered when you first listened through your HD650s. If you really want to hear what’s on the mix, it’s gotta be headphones and through a very transparent system, such as what you’ll eventually enjoy with the balanced HeadRoom amp, you “should” be able to hear the difference between MP3s and AIFFs. Having said that, even with my now elderly loudspeaker-based hi-fi, back when I bought my first iPod, I was listening to some Pink Floyd and felt something was wrong with the system. I couldn’t peg what was wrong until I looked at the iPod and realized that I was listening to a file ripped at 128 kbps. When I played back a 320 kbps version of the file, it was much closer to the original CD, hence why I don’t believe in ripping MP3 files to anything other than 320 kbps. In another listening session, I setup my old CD player and Benchmark DAC-1 in my office system. I used this setup for about a week before deciding that it was getting too complicated for a mere office system and went back to using the iPod with my 320 kbps MP3 files. Even though most of the playback was background music listening, I felt that the iPod is not as good as the CD player and DAC-1. The examples just serve notice that while proponents of compression would suggest that your ears cannot hear the missing the data and the difference between MP3s and CDs, those who care about quality don’t have much trouble at all. Rip to AIFFS and be done with it. February 2, 2008 - So, here I am using my new Sony NS160 notebook to edit some hockey game files during my lunch breaks at work and thinking, boy, I really hate editing on an un-profiled monitor. So, I try installing the EZColor software to use my Optix colorimeter, but that didn't fly for some reason, so I revert to using the old ColorVision Spyder2PRO for which the latest version of the software supports all flavours of Vista. The LCD is profiled and I have a new monitor profile installed. Now, I'm not going to suggest that the Sony LCD is anything special, but a profiled LCD is better than not even on a cheap notebook like the NS160. Unfortunately, something odd kept on happening with the monitor profile, it would disappear within minutes of boot-up. If by some luck, the profile didn't disappear, it would the moment I started up an application. There's nothing in the Vista settings that would indicate that anything is amiss, so I start looking elsewhere, which eventually led me to the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (IGMA). This made me wonder if the IGMA is having a conflict with the installed profile. Doing some Google searching got me some information that confirmed my suspicion, the IGMA does not follow ICC standards for managing monitor profiles and is the culprit for disabling my monitor profile. Brutal! This does not happen with the Acer 9920 notebook, which uses an nVidia graphics chip and driver. So, be forewarned if you're seeking a low cost notebook, because most of them use the IGMA. I was hoping that maybe Intel would have an updated driver for downloading and while there is a recent update from earlier in January this year, it does not appear to address the issue of disappearing monitor profiles. I downloaded it anyway since it's an updated driver meant for all 32-bit versions of Vista, but it failed to install, with an error box popping up advising me that the driver was not meant for my OS, which is 32-bit Vista Business. Double brutal!! Microsoft and Windows always seem to get knocked around for this and that, but I'm starting to believe that half the blame belongs to other vendors, such as Intel, that can't even offer a working driver update, or are laggard in supporting a new OS. Nikon is another such vendor that deserves a knock for not making its RAW codec compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista. The codec allows you to see thumbnails of RAW files when using Windows Explorer, which is convenient instead of having to use a dedicated image browser. January 30, 2008 - I'm gonna go out on a limb ;-) And, predict that a 24 MP FX SLR will be announced by Nikon prior to the Beijing Olympics. Rumours have abounded on the 'net about a full frame 24 MP SLR from Nikon since last year, but this recent news release from Sony gives much hope that both Nikon and Sony will have their own high resolution SLRs and prevent Canon from having this high-end market all to its own anymore. It should also end all the speculation about various MP figures bandied about from a low of 18 MP to a high of 27 MP. While many will rejoice that Nikon is likely to have an ultra high resolution SLR of its own, I don't anyone is going to like the price tag, which I cannot imagine will be any less than the US $8,000 precedent set by Canon. January 29, 2008 - As rumoured, Nikon has announced the new D60 SLR to replace the D40X along with already known 16-85 AF-S VR lens. Surprisingly, two new specialized prime lenses were announced with the 60mm f2.8 AF-S (why no VR like the 105mm Micro?) and much longed for and finally arrived 24mm f3.5 PC-E lens, which provides tilt/shift capabilities like its older brother, the 85mm f2.8 T/S lens. Links at my NikonLinks site. Prime lens devotees must be salivating and chomping at the bit at what other new primes are to eventually arrive, perhaps announced before the start of the Beijing Olympic Games. One would expect updated 50mm and 85mm f1.4 lenses to at least AF-S standards, if not a complete redesign of the rather elderly AF-D lenses. Frankly, and I've said this before, I want to see every single old AF-D lens updated with AF-S and VR in as many as possible. Obviously, I want the lenses' optical formula to also be updated to digital standards like the 14-24 and 24-70 lenses have been designed for. January 28, 2008 - After much delay, my new desktop computer is finally up and running. I've posted the bulk of the new article about it, but final conclusion and performance comments will need another week or so of usage before posting. January 23, 2008 - This post is not photography related: As regular readers may recall, I am from what was once a small town in the interior of British Columbia called Kamloops. When I was growing up in Kamloops in the 1970s and 1980s, the population was about 60,000 and remained at that level until I left in 1988 to go to university. Through the 1990s to current, Kamloops has grown with significant development in the areas that I knew were once barren. When I drove through the old hometown in September 2006 on my way to Edmonton, I thought I’d take a shortcut to get from Highway 1 (the Trans Canada) onto Highway 5 (the Yellowhead). Unfortunately, the town had changed so much that I got lost trying to find roads I had driven on so many times in my youth. I also missed an exit to cut through the northern part of town and in the end, I found myself taking the long way around after all. For those actually familiar with Kamloops, when you come out of the hills of Aberdeen and take Summit Drive down towards the Overlander Bridge, you either exit into downtown or exit onto the bridge to head over to north Kamloops. In my Kamloops days, the exit to the right took you into town and the left exit took you under the bridge, but looped back onto it to cross into north Kamloops. I don’t know when this was changed, but when I drove through in 2006, I took the left exit thinking it was like when I was a teenager only to find myself heading into downtown. The right exit now takes you onto the bridge. Today, Kamloops and its surrounding area (geographically, huge, larger than New York City) is home to about 100,000 residents. Kamloops is in an area that is its own, as it is neither part of the Cariboo (central interior of British Columbia, dominated by the city of Prince George) nor a part of the Okanogan (southern interior of British Columbia, dominated by the city of Kelowna, which is retired wedding pro, Gary Fong’s stomping grounds). It straddles both of these major regions of the province and is a gateway community to the other regions. Officially, Kamloops is the heart of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District. It’s an arid region, meaning dry and hot like a desert in the summer, but not so dry and hot that it cannot be an agricultural area. The Okanogan is renowned for its vineyards and orchards, but Kamloops was an oasis of orchards in the decades before major development turned those lands into residential lots. Dry in summer also means dry in winter and skiers love the dry powder that blanket the local ski hills. Sun Peaks, built on top of Todd Mountain, is grooming itself to be another Whistler. If you’ve ever driven the Trans Canada or Yellowhead highways from Alberta into BC, you’ll be impressed by the Rocky Mountains that separate the two provinces. I always like observing how the geography gradually changes from the impressive mountain range into the rolling hills of the BC interior. The hills eventually settle down somewhat as one gets closer to coast in the small town of Hope (where Stallone’s First Blood was filmed), but rise up again when you hit the town of Chilliwack. Kamloops is surrounded by rolling hills that are a thirsty brown in the summer, but a beautiful white in winter when covered with snow. The hills form around the three river valleys that merge in the middle of Kamloops. The North Thompson flows from, obviously, the north, almost from Alberta while the South Thompson flows from the calm waters of Shuswap Lake from the east. When the two rivers meet, they form the Thompson River, which flows west into the mighty Fraser River, which eventually drains into the delta that Vancouver is built on. The meeting of the rivers is the reason why Kamloops is a gateway and why fur traders built a fort at the rivers’ fork in the 1800s. The city’s name is derived from the Interior Salish "Tk'emlups", meaning the 'meeting of the waters' (Wikipedia reference). Now, if you’re wondering about why I’m writing about my hometown and taking a trip down memory lane, it’s because of the obituary I read Monday in the Globe and Mail, about Peter Wing, who passed away on December 27, 2007 at the age of 93. Peter Wing is a notable person who was born, raised and lived almost his entire life in Kamloops. His major achievement is being the first person of Chinese descent to become the mayor of a North American city, when he served three terms in the early 1970s. He had also served as a town council member (the old term is “alderman”) in the 1960s. Peter Wing’s life reads like the feel-good immigrant success story, although he was, technically, not an immigrant himself. His family came from rural China, which typically means “peasant” and very poor. Peter Wing’s father came to Canada to work as a houseboy for a Kamloops family. Already converted to Christianity, the father adopted the western values and turned his back on the traditional Chinese customs. The only concession to the Chinese culture was speaking Chinese at home. No matter what the culture or country of origin, the immigrant work ethic is often astonishing compared to the established culture of the new country. Long hours of work at menial jobs are the norm to scrimp and save every extra dollar for a future opportunity. For Peter Wing’s father, that work ethic eventually allowed him to save enough to invest in some local restaurants, which in turn provided enough money for him to return to China to find a bride and bring her back to Canada. Peter Wing himself worked hard to help his father in his businesses, dropping out of high school at 14. However, he became a successful businessman and very respected community leader. The obituary notes that in 1934, at the age of 20, he was accepted into the Kamloops Board of Trade, a club that at the time, had no other member younger than 50, and as one might expect, most likely all white males. This all the more remarkable, because of Kamloops’ history. Also, in the obituary, there is reference to the Klu Klux Klan being active in the town in the 1920s (similar to the US when the KKK almost became a strong political movement in that decade). In 1927, the KKK attempted to get the Kamloops council to vote on repatriating all the Chinese residents and confiscating their property. The vote was defeated by a close 3-2 vote. Peter Wing’s story has some similarities to my own in growing up in Kamloops. My father made his way to Kamloops in the 1950s and toiled at various jobs until he too could save up enough money to get married and eventually opened up some businesses of his own. Like the Wings, my parents owned and operated some restaurants and a little corner store (one restaurant or store at a time, not all at once) throughout their years in Kamloops until they retired to Vancouver where they now toil as my live-in daycare for my four kids (Retirement? What retirement?) Unlike Peter Wing, I didn't have to quit high school to work in the parent's business, but I did have to quit playing football in my senior year to help out after school. Also, I always knew that I would go to university, because my mother drilled it into my head from a young age that higher education would be my way out of the immigrant life that my parents led when they first arrived in Kamloops. Going to elementary and high school usually meant I was the only Asian kid in class. Despite Peter Wing being a well-respected mayor in the early 1970s, I was still taunted with racial slurs in my early years in school during that decade. Becoming accepted into western culture meant, as Peter Wing’s father did, turning my back on my Chinese heritage to the point that the other kids no longer saw an immgrant Chinese kid, but just another Canadian kid wanting to play ball hockey, football and soccer just like them. I refused to speak Chinese at home and now I have little to no ability to speak it even if I wanted to. My kids, being born and raised in Vancouver will never experience what I went through, because in Vancouver, in many areas, Chinese and other immigrants are the majority. However, they, like me, are always in danger of quickly losing their language abilities and not knowing their culture. I can see how my oldest kids have some ability now, but my younger kids will be lacking as they observe and learn from the older kids who almost always speak English. While Peter Wing’s story is remarkable, he is not the only person of note from Kamloops to break the color and/or race barrier. Len Marchand was the first aboriginal Canadian to be voted as a Member of Parliament and also the first to become a cabinet minister when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister throughout the 1970s. January 21, 2008 - Continuing recent comments about computers, Apple introduced the ultra thin notebook that had been rumoured for some time. The MacBook Air joins The MacPro Tower as the latest computer updates from the trend-setting company. Curiously, there was no update of the MacBook Pro notebooks (unless I missed something). The MacBook Air will hopefully start a new trend amongst PC companies to produce thinner and lighter notebooks. I’ve been looking for a new notebook to help me with my studies away from home, but there just isn’t much out there at the price point that I’m willing to pay. While I’m sure that the computer that would be just right for me does exist, the price tag would likely be far more than what I want to pay. Ideally, the notebook would be a balance between size and usability. A 12-inch notebook is about as small as I would want and weighs very little, but when you try to squeeze a 1280x800 resolution LCD in such a small form factor, eyestrain is going to be a concern for my aging and weary eyes. Back in 2006, my boss wondered aloud about buying a very small notebook for commuting purposes. I told him about the 12-inch Toshiba U200 that I had been eyeing myself back then. I was a bit surprised when a few days later he showed off his new U200 to me. Checking it out, the first thing I thought was, those are some damn small icons on the screen and I was glad that I did not actually buy the U200, as much as the size appealed to me. A 13.3 inch notebook seems like Goldilocks to me, larger and more usable than a 12-inch, while still being compact. Use a Core2Duo CPU running at a decent clock speed, throw in enough RAM to run Vista and a bit of Lightroom editing capabilities, add in a larger 200 GB and 7200 RPM hard drive, and top it off with a 8x DVD burner and I’d set. An Apple MacBook actually fits this list nicely, but I’m too cheap (make that too poor now) to pay the $2000 plus price tag for it ($1700 base, plus additional RAM, plus taxes). A Toshiba U300 series fits some of my criterion as a 13.3 inch size notebook, but in Canada, Toshiba has only made a limited number of configurations available, whereas in the US, there are quite a few varieties of U300s available. However, after reading some user comments about the U300, I decided to give it a pass. Given the mobile purpose of my next notebook, relatively silent operation is an important factor for me to consider. I don’t want to be in a public library and suddenly have the notebook’s cooling fans whip into high gear, because of an application I’m running. My old 17-inch Toshiba is notorious for doing this, which is fine when at home and I’m not bothering anyone, but not so good outside. The U300 apparently suffers from loud fans, which might be a result of cramming so much into a small form factor. With the rather severe price limitation I set, I determined that maybe I have to go bigger than desired to expand my universe. As I found, smaller does not mean cheaper, with smallness seemingly now considered a luxury option that users should pay for. I found a 14-inch HP notebook that seemed to be a good compromise choice, but with Futureshop being the only retailer offering it, there’s no competition. While the HP does go on sale from time to time, I happen to be looking at one of those times that Futureshop won’t put it on sale to make it worth my while. Looking at the specs, I determined that the CAD $900 retail is overpriced relative to other makes and similar models and it really needs to be at least $100 less for it to be competitive. I also found it curious that while Futureshop has plenty of stock of the HP notebook, the notebooks that are on sale and more price-friendly for me, always seem to be out of stock. As one notebook review website described it, the HP is a loss leader used by Futureshop to entice shoppers in and up-sell to a more expensive model. While the HP seems pretty solid, user comments about it made me think twice. HP is no different than any other major brand in installing a whole lot of applications that many users do not need. Another big criticism is the inordinate amount of time it takes the HP notebooks to burn recovery discs, somewhere along the lines of 3 hours, which is brutal. The HP also only comes with 1 GB of RAM, which necessitates an almost immediate RAM upgrade to make it usable with Vista. This further adds to the opinion of the HP being too much when sold at regular list price. As much as I wanted to avoid the larger 15.4 inch class of notebooks, I saw the writing on the wall that this is where I would get the biggest bang for the buck, literally. Looking at the various models available, keeping in mind that cost and silent operation are my biggest points, I thought I saw another Toshiba in my future. One of the many Toshiba A200 models was on sale at London Drugs for CAD $750, which appeals to my newfound frugality. The Core2Duo processor is not a speed demon at 1.5 GHz, but it’s quite fine for what I want out of this notebook. The hard drive is 160 GB, which is a tad on the small side, but assuming the A200 is as easy to access as my old Toshiba P4, I could upgrade to a faster 200 GB drive if needed. The RAM is 2 GB, which is the minimum needed to run Vista adequately, but again, if need be, I could upgrade it to 4 GB later on.
The NR series is Sony’s entry-level and thus, are not going to be the last word in build quality and performance, but I’m fine with that, because I know that I have to make compromises to keep the purchase within a tight budget. The NR160ES I bought was also on sale and even $50 cheaper than the Toshiba A200, but it only comes with 1 GB of RAM using two 512 MB sticks. I purchased a 2 GB RAM module to get me going immediately and also to give me flexibility to buy another 2 GB RAM module if I feel I need more. It’s otherwise very similar to the Toshiba A200 at 15.4 inches and having a 160 GB hard drive. However, somehow, the Sony looks sleeker than the Toshiba A200. It’s also considered a silent and relatively cool running notebook with a decent keyboard that doesn’t flex. Speaking of flex, when I was doing some research and reading assorted notebook reviews, many users commented on the flex of the keyboard as one sign of quality. The less flex the better and almost all commented on how bad the flex is on the Toshiba U300. When I tried it out at the store, I was surprised how much flex there was with the U300 and it became one of those bothersome things for me now – sometimes ignorance is bliss. The keyboard on the NR160 is also different than most other PC notebooks I’ve come across or have used. The keys are flatter and somewhat reminiscent of the Apple Macbook for touch and feel.
There’s no integrated webcam for video conferencing or other online communication, which is of no loss to me. There are four USB 2 ports, which is good and the typical 6-pin Firewire 400 port. While the usual VGA monitor port is available, there’s no DVI port. Curiously, instead of the ubiquitous 5-in-1 flash media slot, there are two slots for SD and Sony’s Memory Stick media. While I could care less about the lesser media formats such as xD and MMC, it seems silly to not have incorporated the SD and Memory Stick slots into one, but that probably wouldn’t jive with Sony’s master plan to takeover the world with proprietary formats and media. The LCD is the glossy type, same as with the Acer 9920, which some people find disconcerting and less than ideal when used outdoors in bright light. As I found with the Acer 9920, the glossy screen in everyday usage is fine and reflections are not a problem. As with all other major brands, the NR160 comes loaded with software and trials that I have no interest in and first major usage after firing it up was to uninstall all the junk. As with other notebooks in today’s world, there are no installation discs, not even a paper manual, as everything is shipped on the hard drive. While I do plan to load the usual suspects of photo editing applications, this notebook is not meant for any heavy-duty editing. It does not displace any other computer I have at home, but merely becomes another tool to be used when appropriate, which is primarily on the road.
After spending a few days getting to know the NS160 and configuring it the way I wanted, I looked for the utility to create some backup and/or recovery discs. Whereas the Acer 9920 has an obvious Acer utility to use to create recovery and driver discs, I did not see any such obvious Sony utility in the list of Start programs. All I found was the Microsoft utility to create a set of backup discs, so I went for it. About three hours and ten 4.7 GB DVDs later, I was finally finished and flabergasted at the inefficient process. This was to create a full backup of my hard drive and it will be the first and last time I go through such a tedious process. The Acer also has a similar utility as the one Microsoft includes in Vista and I was surprised that the Acer would need some 32 GB of hard drive space to create and save a backup image of my data. As my bad luck would have it, digging in the Program Files finally did find the Sony utility to burn some recovery discs, which only require two standard DVDs (or a single DL disc). January 17, 2008 - I think this news has already been bandied about on the forums, but now it's more official (source: from the folks that put on the annual PMA show - another two weeks to before show time):
I don't know about you, but this sure as heck sounds like the D40X will be replaced imminently, like, say in about two-weeks time? Nikon's done very well the last couple of years and hopefully, the momentum will continue with some new SLRs to replace the D40 and D80. Surprisingly, Pentax came in third in 2007 for Japanese marketshare. With Pentax gearing up for some new SLRs, Sony stregthening its bench with the A700 and A200, and Olympus revitalizing itself with the E3, 2008 is going to be a dogfight for third place. And, let's not forget Canon with high anticipation of a 5D replacement and maybe a new Rebel or two? With this much activity, it's good times for all, as we have a number of solid choices. January 16, 2008 - Reader's comment:
I stand corrected as the Memory Stick Pro-HG has a theoretical transfer rate of 60 MB/s compared to the Sandisk Extreme IV at 40 MB/s. This is very impressive, but I don't think too many still photographers are going to be rushing out to buy these Memory Sticks to use in their non-Sony brand SLRs (Sony makes an adapter to fit the Memory Stick Pro in a Compact Flash slot). Reader's tip/comment:
Apple has introduced their newest notebook, the MacBook Air. Impressive and very desirable, but alas, not within my budget, even if I am looking for another notebook computer to help me with my studies outside the home and office. I'll have some more comments about this in the next day or two, as I narrow my search for a more mobile notebook than a 17 or 20-inch beast. January 15, 2008 - One of Dell’s most recent newspaper flyers caught my attention for some very low prices. You can now buy a Dell Vostro notebook for under CAD $500 retail and a desktop without a monitor can be bought for under CAD $400. The prices are now in the realm of use it till it breaks then toss it away like yesterday’s trash. Now, no one is going to mistake Dell’s low-end Vostro products for its high-end Alienware computers, but sheesh, there are iPods that cost more than some of these full-fledged computers. Coincidentally, the January issue of National Geographic has an article on high-tech junk and how the wealthy and materialistic west ships away its toxic problems to the poor, third world countries of Asia and Africa. It was eye opening and educational to learn what happens to much of our computers that we consider obsolete. Even Europe, the trade zone that is the most proficient in recycling its waste is guilty of having a significant amount of it tech junk shipped overseas. In the destination countries, people gather up the parts and start dismantling to extract the pieces that still hold some value. Benignly, old CRTs that are still functional are refurbished or the tubes are removed and used in low cost televisions. Not so benignly, circuit boards are heated until the precious metals, like gold, have melted and can be removed from the board. Unfortunately, there are other by-products of such methods, such as lead. One photo accompanying the article showed a man in India pouring melted lead from one frying pan to another. The caption read that the man’s family used the same pots for cooking (picture 9 at this gallery page). High-tech parts contain toxic materials that in a dormant stage, do not pose any health risks, such as in everyday use. Unfortunately, when taken apart, burned and melted down, those toxic materials affect the people doing the dirty task, as well as the environment. Some for food for thought as I consider what to do with a couple of “obsolete” computers of my own (most likely donated to a school, because obsolete to me does not mean it really is for general usage). January 14, 2008 - Irony: I've never been very good with numbers. Barely got through high school algebra to qualify for university and at times I wonder if the teacher took pity on me and marked my exam "generously" so I could go away. Sometimes I have this dream that for some reason, like maybe the authorities discovered the generous marking by the teacher and retract my high school diploma, requiring that I go back to high school again to retake that blasted algebra course. This despite me being a university graduate. After leaving high school and finding new found freedom to sign up for whatever courses I fancied in university, I thought I left the numbers behind and that I would never have to do a blasted calculation. Worklife has changed all that and while I don't need to be a numbers genius at work, it would be helpful for me to know a bit more about how financial professionals go about their work. Thus, I signed up for the course that many financial professionals undertake, the Chartered Financial Analyst course from the CFA Institute. Last week was when I finally got around to cracking open the curriculam books and the first section dealing with ethics was pretty straightforward, but then the course jumps right into some quantitative methods and formulas, i.e. numbers. The irony is that I thought I left the numbers behind and yet here I am inflicting torture on myself to take a very numbers-heavy course. So, you will forgive me if the postings are fewer in frequency, as I settle down to a few hours a day of studying until I write my first exam in June. Wish me luck. January 10, 2008 - So, I get this email from a friend down in LA, asking about headphones and wondering if some cheap Sennheiser gamer’s headphones would be suitable for his needs. From this simple and seemingly innocuous question, it eventually morphed, over a period of a week, to him now buying a set of Sennheiser HD650 cans and contemplating the purchase of an audiophile quality headphone amp from the good folks at HeadRoom, the high-end headphone listening pioneers. How did it come to this, from spending maybe $150 to now thinking about spending $1500 on headphones and an amp? My friend Rob will soon be taking delivery (or has already) of a new hotrod computer of his own, the kind I would have built if my inner greed had not consumed me to build a dual quad core Xeon processor box for more money than I have sense (gee, that sounds familiar J While Rob is a serious photographer needing a good box to edit his Nikon D3 files with (taken with his 200-400 f4 lens, no doubt, the bastard), he’s thinking about doing some serious gaming and to get the most out of today’s online gaming experience, he needs surround sound. Whoa! Surround sound gaming? Geez, where the heck have I been all these years…oh yes, with my snobbish nose buried in the latest issue of Stereophile and still stuck in the 1950s two-channel audio system. Apparently, surround sound is the in-thing to allow you to aurally locate online enemies and blast them to Kingdom come. The better your surround sound system, the better you can turn your gaming self around to the rear and blow the SOB (online, from the other side of the world) trying to sneak up on you. That’s pretty damn cool, I must admit from a guy who’s never thought much about a surround sound system, whether video or computer-based. So, Rob decides that he’s gonna get one of the best gaming sound cards available in the Creative Labs X-Fi Elite, but curiously, he wants to get the surround sound experience from headphones. Setting up physical, powered speakers from say, Audioengine, would have been the easiest way to build a computer-based surround system, but Rob advises me that trying to get rear speakers setup in his office space is not going to work. Since surround sound is important, Rob’s been looking for a set of cans that can do some justice to the experience. He found the aforementioned gamers cans from Sennheiser that come complete with a microphone. Well, ah, okay, sure, whatever you need, but for $150 or whatever they cost, it ain’t gonna be a special aural experience (for a $150, it should be a good oral experience though, okay time to get my head out of the gutter). We searched for some actual surround sound headphones that have multiple drives (three on each side) that apparently mimic the surround effect of front, centre and rear. Unfortunately, at their cost level, I don’t have much expectation that either of the options would actually be that great for audio quality. I also suggested a JVC processor for pretty cheap that offered Dolby Headphone processing, which is suppose to provide some pseudo surround effects through regular headphones. However, I wouldn’t have expected much from this either, as the effects are sometimes too subtle and I just can’t get past the idea that for a proper surround experience, you need however many discrete speakers for the setup of choice, e.g. 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 speakers (the .1 is a subwoofer). Rob did have the good sense to upgrade the headphone choice to Sennheiser’s excellent HD650, which just happens to be what I use, except that mine are rigged with the Zu Mobius cable. I bought the Zu Mobius back in 2005 for what was already considered a handsome price of US $225 (well before Canada hit par with the US), but today, the Mobius costs $100 more for the two-metre length I have. Rob wondered which HeadRoom amp configuration he should go with. I advised him to wait and see since he was going to have the X-Fi Elite card installed in his new computer. Try out the HD650s and see how the X-Fi’s headphone processing works for him before he considers blowing another possible $1000 on a HeadRoom amp. However, on the basis that the X-Fi doesn’t have the necessary juice to drive the big Senns, we went through a whole range of options and hook-up scenarios to try and get the best from his computer-based listening sessions.
Option 2 is what I’d want to go with, but option 3 is the likely route for Rob if he decides he needs better than what the X-Fi can give him. The X-Fi is suppose to have a good DAC, so by buying just a base Desktop amp, he can just run his sound files processed through the sound card and then analog output to the Desktop amp. The base Desktop amp is $650 and while buying the Home DAC option would make for a nice all-in-one option, it just may be that the X-Fi’s DAC is solid enough to forego another DAC. However, if Rob decides that the X-Fi’s DAC is also not up to snuff, he could still get a HeadRoom Portable DAC for $400 and only pay another $100 over the built-in DAC option. With this option of having a sound card with its own DAC and an external amp with DAC, Rob has all the flexibility to decide what his needs are. For gaming, he could continue to use the X-Fi's processing and output and for serious music listening, he could bypass the X-Fi and feed the Desktop Amp/DAC via a USB cable. If it were me with my bias for two-channel sound, I would dispense with the X-Fi sound card altogether and go with the Desktop Amp with built-in DAC. The HeadRoom amp/DAC would be fed from the computer via a USB connection and become the computer’s sole sound device. Even though I’m quite excited by Wadia’s new iTransport for the iPod that allows you to feed a pure digital output from the iPod to a superior DAC, I’m still attracted to the idea that I can have my entire music collection in AIFF format available all at once via the computer. With the iPod, I’d need at least three of the 160 GB Classic models to store all my AIFF files. That’s a $1600 cost when I include the iTransport, which is well over the $950 cost of the HeadRoom Desktop amp/dac combo. Remember, super secret D3 slush fund is always at play here and while I won’t forego my other wants and desires, I’m mindful of trying to sock away a little bit here and there ;^) And, unlike Rob, I no longer have wads of lucre to throw around...I did mention that he's a bastard didn't I. Hmm, maybe I should get into online gaming so that I can pump his rear end full of virtual heavy metal ;^) January 9, 2008 - Reader's comment about the Lexus Canon versus Nikon test:
I could make a guess, but it wouldn't be very kind ;-) To be fair, he tried his best within his abilities, but is this a case of a guy with more money than sense? Apple has a new MacPro tower and Canadian prices appeared to have fallen, or rather, become more in line with the US pricing. Instead of nearly $10,000 to build my desired configuration, it will only cost me $8549 without any monitors or additional software. Thankfully, being a PC user allows me to save a considerable amount of money; money that can go towards the super secret D3 slush fund. You won't tell my wife now, will you? Curiously, I thought there were going to be new MacBook Pros coming out along with the expected revised MacPro towers. Pretec 48 GB compact flash cards?! Holy shit! Now, that's some storage capacity, more than what many specialized backup hard drives can store. A person recently expressed to me that the compact flash card is obsolete technology compared to SDHC. A comment that made me scratch my head wondering what the guy had just smoked. The highest capacities and fastest speeds are coming from compact flash, not SDHC, not Memory Stick, or any other flash memory format available. SDHC is very much a consumer media that allows digicams and consumer SLRs to shrink in size, which consumers like, but ain't gonna make much headway into the professional market. Now that the D3 has dual compact flash slots and has been greatly and rightly lauded for it, you really think Canon's gonna continue with a CF and SD slot in their next generation of pro SLRs? Brooks Jensen, editor of Lenswork posted an interesting and a rather disheartening story of his time in Japan back in 1991. During his trip, he used a broken exposure meter that gave an overexposed reading to the tune of six stops! The experience served to make him stop shooting mindlessly, always trusting the equipment, when knowing the sunny 16 rule should have made him think twice about what the meter was reading. I'm sure I already told this tale from last summer when I photographed a wedding. During a break in the summer rain (ah, the Pacific Northwest) the couple went outside to do some family group shots. I took all the photos and all but one group sequence turned out okay. That sequence turned out to be a key photo for the bride, but for whatever reason that I couldn't even remember when it happened, my exposure was off and severely underexposed the photos (my dim memory points to the flash and ambient exposure being badly mismatched). It took a bit of doing and trying different RAW converters to extract the best looking file, but using Bibble Pro got me a usable image from the murky shadows and I was able to provide the bride with prints. Now, in this case, it was my lack of use of a tool that is considered a quintessential part of the digital experience, the use of the LCD for immediate review of the exposure. If I had used the LCD to verify all the group photos, there would have been no embarrassing admittance to the bride that I messed up the exposure. I could have checked quickly and made adjustments and then continued on with no one being the wiser for the original gaff. Next time, instead of cool, confident and sauve, I'll just act like a chimp 8^) January 8, 2008 - For all us iPod users and lovers out there, there’s some significant news coming out of CES. Wadia, a name familiar to long-time audiophiles, especially those into digital playback, has announced an iPod dock, the iTransport, that finally does away with the iPod’s internal DAC to allow streaming of pure digital data via the ubiquitous S/PDIF connection. This means CD quality, 16-bit, 44.1 KHz files - yes, I know, CD resolution isn't exactly known to be stellar, but it isn't that bad either. Bypassing the iPod’s internal (Wolfson DAC?) has been possible before the Wadia dock, but required an expensive modification to the iPod by a boutique firm. The price of a couple of thousand dollars to modify an iPod worth only a few hundred always struck me as ridiculous, especially since if the hard drive dies, you may have thrown away a whole lotta money for nothing (and no chicks for free) if you aren't handy enough to replace the drive yourself. The Wadia solution is much more affordable, elegant and practical as it allows you to dock any current generation iPod to access the digital files and if the iPod croaks, no biggie, you just dock in a new one. This is oh, so timely for me as I’ve been trying to figure out how to marry the conveniences of music file playback with some audiophile pretensions. The iPod is a fantastic little file server that has always had some suspect output devices, but given its compact size, how could you not expect compromises in its analog output, whether from the headphone jack, or through the docking port. Now, we don’t need to compromise with the Wadia dock soon to launch, and Wadia is a name to be trusted for digital playback quality. Some might not like the $350 price tag for a digital output dock since it’s as much or more than many of the different flavoured iPods available. However, Stereophile noted in its online posting of this news, Wadia is first, but don’t expect it to be the last, as there will be more names, offering similar products at probably lower price points. The next step to one-up Wadia would be for a company to incorporate the dock and a high-quality DAC into one unit, however, the Wadia does allow you to upgrade DACs as needed and desired, as time always seems to march a few steps more quickly in the digital domain. What does this mean for me? I can ignore the computer as a file server for the time being and look forward to the time that I can use a Wadia or other digital output dock to feed my Benchmark DAC-1, which, with its integral pre amp, would then feed my powered speakers via a Musical Fidelity X-10 tube buffer. Although the Wadia is a $350 cost, it means not having to consider spending $1000 on another headphone/DAC/pre amp combo to be the centrepiece of my office-based sound system (the Headroom Micro Amp wasn't the one I had hoped for). Or, more accurately, if I'm honest with myself, putting that $650 towards a couple of 160 GB iPod Classics to store full resolution AIFF files and not have to compromise with compressed MP3 files anymore. It’s also less hassle than having to dive into an computer OS’ audio settings and trying to find the right digital sampling mojo to ensure that you’re getting all the bits and bytes that you should and that something else in the computer audio chain is not downgrading or resampling inappropriately, i.e. 16 bit and 44.1 KHz 16 bit to 16 bit and 48 KHz. It also means not having to have the computer on whenever I want to do non-computer work and still have some music in the background – yes, it does happen, I do sometimes do other things than park my growing rear end (along with growing belly) in front of the computer’s LCD all day and night. As hinted at by Stereophile, this marks the emergence of the iPod as a true high-end music source. Consider that a 160 GB iPod Classic can be bought in Canada for $400. I'll assume that the Wadia iTransport also comes in at $400 even though we're at par with the US $. Throw in a capable DAC, such as the Benchmark DAC-1 (non-USB version) for about $1200, and for $2,000, we have the makings of a digital source that could potentially be Stereophile Class A rated. Consider again that some Stereophile Class A sources retail for over US $30,000! What happens when you mix curiosity, "relatively" good intentions, poor testing methodology, and fanboyism? Well, you might get a Nikon D3 versus Canon 1D3 test as conducted and posted by a Lexus forum participant (yes, Lexus as in the car Lexus forum). I won't describe too much of the test and the details of the flaws, as the DPReview hawks have already ripped it to shreds. Short of it is though, a Canon user (and obviously, Lexus driver) did a test using his high-priced astronomical lens to compare the output of his 1D3 to a friend's D3. His results at face value show the 1D3 blowing the D3 out of the water; however, his results are quickly shown to be suspect due to his ignorance of keeping the field of view the same and the use of a suspect RAW converter not known to be favoured by Nikon photographers (but, is favoured by many Canon photographers). It's too bad though, as the basic premise of the test was actually pretty good, to use a very high-grade piece of glass not made by Nikon or Canon for both cameras, so as to take the optics out of the equation. I would very much like to see a new test using the same cameras and lens, but factoring in the 1D3's 1.3x cropped field of view and using a more widely accepted RAW converter, such as Adobe Camera RAW or Lightroom, which are equally favoured by both Nikon and Canon photographers. If the new test were to still show the 1D3 being superior to the D3, I'd have no problem with such results. Moral of the story: don't be too blind to your own ignorance and assumptions (and perhaps biases) so that the petard that you dispense comes blowing back in your face. Sometimes, I think I need to keep that moral in mind 8^) January 2, 2008 - The current issue of the Canadian PhotoLife magazine has an article about photographing hockey. A very timely article since I happen to be photographing hockey on a regular basis with my son's Atom division team. Most of the sample photos in the article were taken at f4, 1/640 and ISO 1600, which made me quite jealous, because most of the time, I can barely squeeze out a shutter speed of 1/200 at f2.8 and ISO 1600. A lot of the time, my shutter speed dips to around or below 1/100 when shooting in the team's home arena. When I edit the files, I toss away a fair bit of the photos because of errors, whether caused by me or the camera for focusing, as in I didn't activate auto focus on time, or the D200 just couldn't acquire the focus at all during a rush in action. But, half the time, I'm tossing away the photos, because there is too much motion blur due to the shutter speed being too slow. I was getting used to deleting at least half of my photos taken until the last game I photographed for an away game in New Westminster's Queens Park Arena. As I reviewed and edited the files, I noticed that I was deleting less and most of them were quite sharp with only a few exhibiting any motion blur. I looked at the exposure information and found that most of my shots were at 1/320 with a fair number at even higher speeds up to 1/500 with the same f2.8 and ISO 1600 settings. That's an almost four-stop difference in lighting and ability to freeze motion when looking at the worse case condition at the home arena and comparing the best case condition at Queens Park Arena. It was a good lesson in understanding why sports pros seek out shutter speed like a crack addict seeks out the next hit. The PhotoLife article had some general comments that I disregarded, such as being able to use a digicam with a super zoom to take good hockey photos. With the high ISO quality available from such digicams, I have to wonder if the author has actually ever used such cameras in challenging conditions such as community arenas with poor lighting. Also, the sample photos are of professional quality and are not what the typical hockey mom or dad can capture in said community arena photographing little Johnny or Jane playing hockey. The sample photos were from the 2005 Memorial Cup championship and at such a high profile event, the arena is going to be wired and lit like an NHL arena, meaning radio controlled strobes in the rafters. For those that have attended NHL and/or NBA (or even Major Junior hockey) games, you will likely have noticed flashes popping regularly. Flashes with no discernable direction you can pinpoint, because they come from on high and provide the pros with the ability to freeze action (in conjunction with the fast shutter speeds) and obtain higher contrast than just shooting in ambient light. Ever collect hockey cards as a kid (or, even as an adult, as many do?) Ever notice that the photos of the players always look good, with great contrast and even lighting? You gotta figure that access to the rafter mounted strobes play a large part in getting such good photos, something that non-pros have no access to. The article also mentioned shooting through the protective glass, something I've done and something I don't recommend unless you do so at very close distances. The author correctly states that shooting through glass robs you of light, which results in slower shutter speeds, but shooting through glass also robs you of contrast and at longer distances, of sharpness. The protective nets that rise above the glass at the ends of the rink (IIRC, protective nets came about after the tragic death of a girl hit by a hockey puck some years ago) are also an impediment for getting clear photos. I've only been to one arena, Vancouver's Agrodome, that was large enough to not have such netting in the second level of seating, which allowed for photos that were more interesting than just shooting from the sidelines. Throughout most of the games I've photographed, I've always harboured a suspicion that the D200 was not good enough to handle sports adequately. I'm less inclined to think that way now that I've seen what it can produce when given a fast enough shutter speed. Unfortunately, it still does not diminish my lust for a D3 to be able to shoot at ISO 3200, but then again, I'd lose out on the 1.5x crop factor of the DX format and would have to get a longer lens to get the same reach as I enjoy now with the D200 and 70-200 lens. I just never seem to win 8^) January 1, 2008 - Happy New Year to everyone from my family to yours. May 2008 bring all that you wish for photographically and otherwise. A reader passed along this DPReview forum posting about a Canadian levy on recordable media and digital audio recorders, which will include iPods. If you buy an iPod with more than 30 GB of capacity, the levy will be $75. If you buy a high capacity SD card, the proposed levy will be $10 and levies on CD-Rs will rise so that in many cases, half the cost of the disc will be for the levy. And, let's call a spade a spade, the levy is a tax imposed on consumers by the Canadian music industry, aided and abetted by faceless bureaucrats. As the British might say, Bollocks! The music industry is headed for obilivion according to the billion dollar multinational corporations that dominate the recorded music industry. Lost dollars due to plummeting CD sales will mean fewer new acts being financed and introduced to the general public; artists are being ripped off by nefarious users worldwide sharing music files via peer-to-peer networks, etc, etc, ad nauseum. CD sales are plummeting because online music sales are taking off. Apple's iTune's music service is now amongst the top ten music retailers, but the music industry would perfer that you ignore that factoid and continue to believe in their sob story about how they've lost millions of dollars of CD sales. Maybe, if the industry didn't charge excessively for CDs that cost pennies to produce; maybe if the industry didn't package one or two hit songs along with eight or more shitty songs per CD; maybe if the music industry didn't go around suing 12 and 13 year olds, or their grandmothers; maybe if the industry actually had a freakin' clue about what today's consumers wanted, then they wouldn't be crying their sob story. I'm not going to downplay the file sharing issue, because it certainly did have an affect on the music industry, but this is yesterday's news. Instead of tackling the causes for why peer-to-peer file sharing occurred, the suits at music headquarters continued to grasp at what they knew, moving physical media per the 20th Century. The 21st Century is going to see the end of physical media as faster Internet access will lead to more content being downloaded. I would think that the majority of people do not purposely go about pirating media. Give them a choice of getting the content they desire available in a cost-effective and convenient manner and they would be happy to pay. But, stick them with an old school way of doing business that doesn't fit in with the way technology progresses and they will look for alternatives, legal or otherwise. I don't file share, but I do rip my own CDs so that I can enjoy the content conveniently with my iPods or computers. I'm offended that I will be labeled a thief in having to pay a levy on future iPod purchases, because that's what the Canadian music industry is doing, painting everyone as a thief, true or otherwise. It's also offensive for the Canadian music industry to try and force a levy on SD cards, the majority of which are likely bought for digital camera usage. DRM is another related pain in the ass. I've purchased DRM music files in the past and it's another huge pair of bollocks that I can only play those files back on the computer I purchased them with. Transfer the files to another computer or device and good luck trying to play them. However, one can easily circumvent the DRM by burning the files to a CD and then ripping them back to the hard drive again. Is this illegal, I don't know, but I don't share them or use them in anything other than devices or computers I own. I would think that I'm within my fair rights usage in being able to enjoy music files that I've legally purchased on the device of my choice. I'm sure music industry folks would say that if people did not file share, there would be no levy. But, from my perspective, if the music industry actually knew what consumers wanted, especially the young consumers that they covet so much, they wouldn't have shat in their own nest. I mean, why did it take a computer company to figure out what consumers desired (Apple and iTunes)? And, why was the music industry so slow to adopt online music sales based on an a la carte system? If these levies go through, what's it going to mean to Canadian retailers? With the Canadian dollar at par with the US dollar, Canadian consumers are going to flip the bird to the levy and order from US retailers, meaning Canadian vendors will lose business and the Canadian artists who are suppose to benefit from the levy, will still lose out. What's next, will every personal computer, PDA, cell phone, Blackberry or other device capable of storing multimedia content be subject to a levy? |
Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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I bought Joe McNally's new book, the Momen It Clicks, and while I'm still working through it, I like it and the kudos thrown at this first book by McNally, are all deserved.
June 17, 2008 - Making the rounds through some noted photography websites is that William Neill is now offering one of his older landscape books in electronic format for only $15.
At right is a shot of me during the Sunday morning outing (thanks to John for the photo) at Park Place.
A few posts back, I hinted at finally giving into a long-time craving I've had since I was a kid. I finally gave in and bought a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar and now I'm going to work on imitating my Fender-using guitar heros of Mark Knopfler, David Gilmour, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.
I also bought a Fender Blues Junior tube amp and a Boss ME-20 multi effects pedal to get me going. I love it all and I can't wait until mid-June when I finally get my life back and can put some time on the new axe. However, gear junkie that I am, I'm already thinking about my next guitar. I thought I'd get myself an American series Fender Telecaster (and pretend to be Keith Richards or Bruce Springsteen), but now I'm thinking of an Ibanez semi-hollow guitar, which is a copy of the classic Gibson or Gretsch guitars favored by BB King (Gibson), Brian Setzer and the late Chet Atkins (Gretsch).
April 7, 2008 - Years ago, I tried out a graphics tablet to see if it might help alleviate some stress I felt in my right arm (wrist and forearm area). It was an entry-level 4x5 Wacom Graphire model, which I never took to and abandoned shortly and is now relegated to a storage bin in my closet, ritualistically dubbed the "coffin," because this is where my unused items go to die.
April 5, 2008 - Some people like shooting JPEGs only, even when they can shoot RAW mode. If you're careful with your exposure and other settings and don't edit too much in Photoshop, shooting JPEGs could work, but if you plan to do some post production work, editing JPEGs can be really ugly.
The ColorMunki could be right up his alley for an all-in-one color management suite that can profile his notebook, printer and any difficult to deal with color in paintings.
With a bit more fussing and sussing, I determined that using my external USB 2 hard drive to feed AIFF files to iTunes will not work, as desired. This is because the NexStar case being used has a fan unit to keep the dual hard drives (JBOD) cool and the noise from the fan filters through the USB cable to contaminate the music signal. The WD MyBook keeps things quiet whether connected via USB or Firewire, because it has no fan unit. What is it people say about best laid plans...
The A200 is noted as being quiet running and does not run too hot either, and despite my grousing about its size, maybe my tired old eyes will appreciate the larger pixel pitch of the 15.4 inch LCD. Unfortunately, when I went to London Drugs to purchase it, the only stock the downtown store had was a returned unit. I wasn’t into taking an open-box unit, so I pondered my options for a few hours and returned to London Drugs to purchase a Sony Vaio NR160ES.
