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Home >> Old News Items What's New Archives 2008 - July to December August 22, 2008 - A co-worker showed me a little 7x7 inch album of her wedding photos that now has me rethinking the concept of do-it-yourself (DIY) or outsourcing. The co-worker had her photos taken in Hong Kong and as part of her package, she received the edited digital files. Due to the formal album being expensive and too big to haul around to show everyone, she went to www.blurb.com, uploaded her files and received a finish, soft cover 7x7 inch album for about $25. The quality is decent and it looks very much like some of the digest sized photo books you would buy in Chapters (or Barnes and Noble for the US readers). I was impressed that she could get all the photos printed (50 plus) for such a reasonable price. There’s no way I could produce a similar album for the price she paid and therein lies the rub. With the proliferation of low-cost, photo book producers and kits, is it worthwhile for say a wedding photographer, to try to do anything in-house? Chances are, even with the best Epson printers and good book binding equipment, your results will still not be as good as the professional photo book producers. By outsourcing, you can take advantage of images spanning two pages seamlessly. You can get a cover that wraps both front and back. You can get dustcovers, etc., etc. You design it, they print it. No longer will you have to sit around nursing a clogged inkjet printer into cleaning its tubes so that you can print a project. Hell, no longer will you even need a printer…okay, that’s going too far. Even if for nothing else but proofing, having your own printer is just about mandatory in this digital age. However, with outsourcing, you can now keep the budget sane and get nothing more than a standard 13x19 inch unit that does not weigh as much as a 10-year old and does not cost as much to feed it. Many professionals have long outsourced their work, but the cost used to be fairly high for amateur photographers to consider unless it was for something pretty special. Now, with outfits like Blurb.com, the cost is so affordable that everyone can have photo books created. While, I’m impressed, there is one aspect of the Blurb book that I don’t like, which is the inclusion of a UPC barcode on the back cover and some of the inside pages. The purpose is for enterprising photographers that want to sell their books in a commercial venue, but for many, such an adornment is useless and a mar on an otherwise good product. I do hope that the wedding books Blurb offers do not have such barcodes (why they ever would, I have no idea, unless you really think that retail consumers would want to buy your wedding album). While low-cost sources of photo books can be an advantage for photographers looking to cut capital costs and maximize profit, it might also be a double-edge sword that cuts them. A knowledgeable bride might try and squeeze the files from the photographer and bypass him or her to create her own album at the same online sites. You know, in thinking about how some brides are, things have not changed much from the film era to the digital era. In the film era, some brides pushed for getting the negatives as part of the package and many photographers refused, as reprints and enlargements were a big source of income. In the digital era, some pros still balk at selling their files; however, others that are more open and savvy with consumer demands, offer the files as part of the package, but price the package appropriately to make up for lost reprints or enlargements. I haven’t photographed a wedding job since 2007, but the last bride I worked for told me that she was going to have me do some enlargements for her. I did a couple of custom designed 16x20 prints for her that she gave as gifts to her family, and she said she’d back for more personal prints. I haven’t heard from her since late last summer and I suspect that she found more favourable prices for enlargements elsewhere. This is too bad, because I merely gave her what I consider proof files and never had a chance to do some custom edits. The files are all full resolution, but I consider them proofs, because they only went through a basic first edit. Meaning white balance adjustments, a bit of straightening if needed, exposure adjustments, etc., but no touch-ups and no glamorization. While I purposefully stopped doing weddings in 2008 for personal reasons, the absence and lack of pressure to edit thousands of files all at once has been nice. I have to wonder now if I really have the desire to keep at it, also keeping in the back of my mind, the pressures of work and how it can really mess up my summers. I was asked about August 8, but not knowing what work would do to my personal schedule, I had to turn down an opportunity to photograph on one of the most auspicious days of this young century (all those eights must have caused more than a few Asian weddings to occur). As it turned out, I was down in Kansas City that day, which if I had accepted the job, would have made my life really awkward and complicated. I may end up just photographing weddings on a referral basis from friends and family rather than formally as a business. While walking home from the bus stop a few days ago, I saw something that caused me to do a double take. On a side street corner, close to where I live, someone had placed a Styrofoam tray (the kind that raw meat would be packaged on) with a plastic knife and fork on either side with the words, “For you” written on top of the tray. It was the, er, meal that caused some comedic revulsion…a tray full of doggy doo. I thought about taking a photo of it, but I decided that I really didn’t want a picture of a doggy doo dinner. However, the fact that someone created this little piece of, dare I call it, art, made me wonder about the motives. Was someone just having some fun and making a statement, or was it a protest by a homeowner weary of the neighbourhood dogs fouling up his lawn? The timing was interesting too, because in Burnaby, many are concerned with a recent incident in one of our parks. A dog died after playing with and chewing on a stick that may have had some poison on it. The vet that treated the dog thinks that the poison is a common street drug, but official results are still pending the autopsy report. This has raised some discussion between dog owners and non-dog owners. Dog owners want to be able to walk and play with their dogs in public places. Non-dog owners want dog owners to be more responsible by keeping dogs on leashes and especially to clean up after their dogs when they do their thing on other people’s lawns. While I’m sure most dog owners are responsible people, it only takes a few irresponsible people to tar and mar everyone else. I’ve found doggie bombs on my lawn a few times and I really don’t like the idea that dogs come pissing on my lawn that my kids play on. However, the dogs annoy me less than their owners. A dog’s gotta do what a dog’s gotta do and while dogs can be very intelligent animals, they’re not human. I sometimes wonder about the intelligence and arrogance of some dog owners who don’t carry plastic baggies to gather up their dog’s business. I also suspect more than a few dog owners carry a plastic baggie more for show than actual use. Which victimized home owner wouldn’t love to be able to scoop up the poop and deposit it on the irresponsible lout’s doorstep (inside a flaming baggie perhaps)? Now, don’t get me wrong, I love dogs (I also like cats too). I had a dog as kid, despite my dad being horribly allergic to cats and dogs. If I could convince my wife, I’d want a little dog of our own for the kids to enjoy and understand what it means to be responsible in taking care of a pet. While I love the big dogs, like German shepherds and labs, if I were allowed to have a dog, I’d likely get a Maltese or a poodle, because these dogs have real hair and not fur. They’re also small and it would be less constricting on them to raise them in an urban setting. And, I for one would use a plastic baggie for its intended purpose. Hey, as a father of four kids, cleaning up poop ain’t no big thing anymore – the best is when the kid releases a bomb in the baby bath tub right after you’ve done the soap-up and rinse off. I would say that cleaning up after a dog is a walk in the park compared to cleaning up after babies with squished up, messy diapers, but that’s perhaps not the best choice of words at this time. August 19, 2008 - The summer heat has arrived in Vancouver and I’m sweltering and suffering through temperatures in the high twenties (Celsius). I hate heat, even though I grew up with it in my hometown. Hot days and nights means less time spent in front of heat-emitting computers and writing new content. However, we have a bit of a cool break, so here are some thoughts du jour: The D90 rumours are pretty strong and the timing is right for Nikon to replace the D80 with an SLR that takes advantage of the current technology. I think there is little doubt that Nikon will announce this camera in September for the Photokina show. The big thing people are considering the ramifications of is the video and sound recording capabilities of the D90, which Nikon apparently wanted to test the waters with a consumer SLR instead of a pro SLR. Many talk about the convergence of video and still photography and it seemed inevitable that a still photography brand would take the plunge and try and offer some merger of the two mediums. News photographers are the ones at the forefront with many carrying camcorders to supplement their coverage. While stills are useful or both print and electronic media, video has only one function, to feed the online versions of publications. Personally, I thought Canon would have been the first out with a camera pointing towards this future convergence, but here’s little old Nikon with another first. While I certainly don’t expect the D90 to offer anything near the capabilities of even a cheap Mini DV camcorder, I will be interested in how the convergence is integrated by a company known for stills technology. The really interesting product will be future pro SLRs that Nikon provides with video capabilities. It’s a bit like the Apple MacBook Air. Great concept to make a notebook as light and as thin as possible, but the implementation in the first generation is not ideal. Processor and hard drive choices are limited and are too slow, there is not enough RAM, and users have complained about how the USB ports are accessed and the limited space provided around them. The really interesting product will be the successor to the original Air and hopefully, Apple will have heard and addressed the issues. Back to the D90: enough information has leaked out that we can expect a similar SLR with the D80. I’d expect that it will have the D300’s sensor, which means pretty good high ISO to 3200 in a smaller, lighter, and cheaper package than the D300. This makes it an attractive second camera for those already with a D300, or even for those with an FX camera. Travelling with a smaller and lighter camera is no bad thing, but the issue for me is how crippled will it be? Will it be so basic in operation and devoid of meaningful features that I would prefer to pack and carry a larger SLR? This is what I feel about the D40 and D60 and despite their attractive weight and size for travel, I’d rather not lose out on the D300’s useful features that allow less thinking about the camera’s technical settings and more time in taking photos. If the D90 follows the model of the D80 offering most of the D200’s features for less money, it will be another hot seller and homerun for Nikon. If you read my Kansas City piece, you now know that I have an Apple MacBook Pro on order. It’s probably already been delivered to my contact, but since he’s been out of town, I won’t be getting it until sometime this week. This should make for an interesting experience with plenty of fodder for blogging, as I work my way around Leopard. This is also the reason why I have not upgraded to Lightroom 2 yet, as I need to see how I get on with the Mac OS first and then take stock of what I really need in my transition to the Mac platform. As written about earlier though, I will not be abandoning Windows and it’s a matter of some research and decision making about how I will keep Windows. I may dual-boot via BootCamp, or run it virtually via Parallels, or possibly just have a dedicated PC around for kicks. I don’t consider my Sony notebook to be good enough to be that dedicated PC though, as its very modest 1.5 GHz Core2Duo processor is just not up to snuff for the things I want to do with an all around computer. August 18, 2008 - A little write-up about my trip to Kansas City is now posted. A link to a photo gallery is available at the end of the article, but if you want to see that first, click here. The larger your browser window, the larger the main image will be (about 1000 pixels for the large version). Lightroom's Flash gallery feature creates galleries with three versions of the main image, from small, to medium, to large. The size will depend on how big the browser is set. August 13, 2008 - Man, do I feel out of touch and behind the times after only five days away. Russia invades Georgia, the Beijing Olympics have started, and Nikon once again makes a dumbass move by introducing a new RAW format with the P6000. I understand the P6000 NRW format is already raising a stink and many others have already commented on it, so there's not much for me to add other than after several good moves forward, this is a step or two back for Nikon. This especially hurts because the P6000 had some promise as a flagship digicam that would herald Nikon being back in the game, much like the D2X and D200 laid the groundwork for Nikon's SLR resurgence. The D90 rumours seem pretty hot, so will Nikon introduce another dynamic duo in September with a D3X and D90? Who knows and no matter for me, as I won't be buying for some time to come. August 12, 2008 - I'm back from Kansas City, but my luggage is still in Denver, as of this writing. Will have a write-up of my KC experience and photos once I've sorted through them. August 7, 2008 - Reader's comment:
Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Sean Connery, er, die at the end of that scene... Ah, to eat sushi rolls off of a geisha's bosum...oops, thinking of another Sean Connery film with more direct ties to Japanese businessmen, Rising Sun. Anyway, I hear ya about how Nikon (and Canon) are not about to let Olympus, et al., try and muscle in on their SLR duopoly. Whatever Olympus and its partner, Panasonic, can come up with, Nikon and Canon will fight back hard to keep their marketshare. However, I'm all for the smaller players to try and shake things up and keep the big boys a bit more honest. In thinking about what kind of potential the Micro 4/3 has to offer, some have considered that you could have a Canon G9, or the now announced Nikon Coolpix P6000, type camera with exchangeable lenses. Intriguing and if the quality holds, a traveller's and backpacker's dream system perhaps. Others are speculating about rangefinder type cameras to come, which makes some sense given Panasonic's partnership with Leica. Personally, I wonder why Panasonic has not already bought up Leica. I'm sure the Panasonic management could just use the massive company's petty change account to buy the fabled company. I'm off to Kansas City until next Monday night. Have a good one and I'll catch up with everyone next week, as I exchange the west coast sushi for some midwest barbeque. August 6, 2008 - There's a big buzz going around the big photography sites about Olympus/Panasonic's Micro 4/3 announcement. Biggest news of the year, say a couple of sites...er...it's August and we still have the big Photokina show coming up next month. Mite bit premature sez I... The original promise of the 4/3 system was supposed to be smaller sized SLRs and lenses. Didn't really happen with the E-3 as big as any other capable SLR and the lenses didn't shed too many pounds either. The only real difference in size was due to the 2x crop factor that allowed you to substitute a much smaller and lighter 300mm lens in the place of a big, honkin' 600mm lens. While the size difference between 4/3 and APS sensors is not dramatic, they are there and while APS sensors have taken significant strides in quality, especially at high ISO settings, 4/3 has not kept up. There are many that suggest that the advances in APS can be similarly realized in the 4/3's sensor, but if so, why are we still waiting for D300 or 40D-like quality at ISO 1600? However, let's not be the wet blanket to spoil the debutante's entrance at the ball. With the need for a mirror box and prism gone, I (and a few others) can immediately see that the Micro 4/3 could really do well with digicams and bridge type cameras. While Micro 4/3 holds the real promise of smaller SLRs and lenses, how small can we go and still maintain ergonomic functionality. Look at the Nikon D40, it's tiny and lightweight, far more so than I would want for my hands. Olympus itself already makes a very small 4/3 SLR in the E-420, so how much smaller do we go before it becomes too small? Thus, I'm not certain this is where Micro 4/3's potential is. With digicams and bridge cameras, this is where Micro 4/3 could offer much larger sensors with superior high ISO quality. Whereas regular 4/3's high ISO quality is not keeping up with the Joneses in the SLR world, that same quality would be significant in the digicam and bridge camera world. Who wouldn't love to see a Canon G9 or the coming Coolpix P6000 come with a 4/3 sensor? The flies in the ointment, the other big brands that would take notice and produce their own digicams using APS sized sensors. However, while APS' advantage is its size for SLRs, the size could be a disadvantage, because a camera can only be made so small with such a large sensor (or, so I think). The other fly in the ointment, decreasing sales of digicams while SLRs are still going strong. Everybody and their grandmother has a digicam. If sales are now declining, we've already reached market saturation and maturity. August 5, 2008 - A reader asked if I might have some influence with Photodex, a site sponsor and producer of the excellent ProShow slideshow application. The reader, being a Mac user, would love to see a Mac version of ProShow. I have no influence, but it never hurts to ask, so I did and received a response that Photodex is aware of the demand for a Mac version, but at this time, there are no plans for such. Not to say that there will never be a Mac version, but it ain't gonna happen anytime soon. Thus, for Mac users wanting to enjoy ProShow, BootCamp, Parallels, VMware Fusion, or some other method of running Windows on a Mac is your only means at this time.
From day one, the tower quickly winds itself up to a scream within 30 minutes of boot-up. After an hour, no one can stand to be in my home office for any length of time. It also outputs a lot of heat, but that I can deal with to some degree since I did grow up in a dry, desert-like environment as a kid in Kamloops. With so much noise driving me nuts to the point of no usage, it's stupid to have so much money tied up. I had to do something to mod the box and get my money's worth out of it.
I went to my local computer shop and bought an ASUS EN9600GT Silent. This is a $200 graphics card based on the nVidia chipset and offers 512 MB of video RAM. As its name suggests, this graphics card is silent...completely so, as it has no fan unit unlike most other high performance GPUs. The ASUS card uses large heatsinks to keep the card cool. Looks and I hope, will "sound" good to me. Measuring the noise The analogy of sounding like a jet airplane taking off is often used, but that’s hyperbolic since a real jet airplane taking off gets into ear-damaging noise levels if you are anywhere near the engines at full blast. However, I’m sympathetic to the analogy, because I’ve wondered if sustained exposure to my computer’s noise would damage my “golden” ears J There’s only one way to really tell how loud my computer is, which is to measure it with a sound level meter.
I did two tests with the sound meter placed in different positions. Why I did so, I will explain later on. For the first test, the meter was mounted to a tripod and set up in front of my main LCD to mimic where I spend most of my time when working in my home office. The height was set to approximate where my ears would be, which would seem logical enough. With nothing turned on and the door closed, the sound level in my home office does not register on the meter at the lowest setting of 60 dBA. The meter’s analog gauge goes down to minus 10 dBA, so that means the meter actually reads down to 50 dBA when on the lowest setting of 60 dBA. I played back some music from my iPod through my smallish multimedia speakers and at what I consider background listening levels, the meter registered around 55 dBA for classical music and between 58 to 60 dBA for rock music. According to some sound level comparison guides, this is around where close, but normal conversation would be. I cranked the volume to a level that I would never listen at with the multimedia speakers and hit 70 dBA with rock music. At this level, I found the sound to be quite grating and annoying, but this could also be an indication of the relatively low quality of the speakers. The better your speakers, the louder they will play without a sense of strain and without causing listening fatigue. The little Behringer multimedia speakers are inexpensive at around $120 and do not compare to their larger brothers, the Behringer powered monitors, which at $400 are still quite inexpensive for monitor speakers. With some frame of reference for noise in my room, I turned on the computer and did some measurements at different time intervals. At boot-up, the noise from the computer is definitely audible but is not what I would consider intolerable. The volume did not measure on the sound level meter, which means the noise is less than 50 dBA from where the meter has been positioned. After 30 minutes, the computer is starting to get warmed up and the noise is now measurable at 52 dBA. The subjective difference is quite noticeable from boot-up noise levels. After one hour, the noise measures 54 dBA and the computer is pretty much at full blast and unless you are already hard of hearing, few would want to spend more than a few moments being exposed to the noise. The measured noise surprised me, because 54 dBA is less than the measured level for the background music. Before measuring the computer’s noise, I was expecting the computer to be in the 70 dBA range. So what gives that I bitch so much about my computer being loud and here it measures less than background music and normal conversation volume? I initially thought that it had to do with some pseudo, psychological mumbo jumbo about how music is pleasant and that we enjoy listening to it. Thus, a pleasant noise that’s a bit louder won’t be as grating to us as unpleasant noise. Music also has lots of ebb and flow. It’s not constant and Romantic era classical music in particular, has huge dynamic range, going from whisper quiet one minute to full out rock concert level blasts the next.
I redid the test again, but this time with the meter positioned low, about two feet away from the back of the computer. This time, as soon as the computer booted up, I hit 54 dBA and an hour later, the box was screaming at 67 dBA. While not hitting my assumed estimate of 70 dBA, it’s close enough to understand that it’s loud and obnoxious. With the noise measurements done, it was time to replace the old ATI graphics cards for the new ASUS nVidia card and then re-measure again with the same setup as before.
Result #1 The fans are stock Intel units and while I’m sure they are technically effective in preventing the CPU from meltdown, are worthless if they scream so badly that you don’t even want to use the computer. Time to look for another solution. Doing some research on CPU coolers, I found a whole slew of CPU coolers for Intel socket 775 chips, which is fine if you run a standard Core2Duo processor. Unfortunately, I run Xeon chips, which are socket 771 and the forest of CPU coolers suddenly burnt away like a California wildfire on a tinder dry hill and left only a small handful of choices. The best of the bunch seemed to be Thermalright’s HR-01 X (X for Xeon). The HR-01 X can be used two different ways, depending on your needs:
In both instances, you need very good ventilation for this configuration to ensure the hot air gets vented out efficiently. I won’t bore you with the technical details of how to install the HR-01 X, but I do provide some pictures below. If you can read an instruction manual then you’ll be fine. One of the nice features of the HR-01 X6 is that you do not need to remove the motherboard from the case to install the cooler. I will note though that for my particular case and motherboard, installation took a while due to some very tight spaces that required a patient hand at using the small, supplied wrench to tighten down the coolers on the CPUs and the motherboard.
Result #2 Pre-mod and after one hour of idling, the CPU temperatures ranged from around 40 to 50 degrees Celcius (eight cores). During a video conversion test to render a DVD to iPod Touch format, all eight cores were used and the Windows Vista gadget that shows CPU usage was red-lined much of the time during rendering. CPU temperature hit a maximum of 72 degrees Celcius. Post-mod, the tower's noise was so silent that the Radio Shack meter did not register. I can hear the case fans running, but these big 120mm units are very quiet. For the first time, I can hear the hard drives operating, something that I never heard prior to the mod. Even after one hour, there was no increase in noise and now the tower is quiet enough that I would be happy to run it all day long. However, I do have a concern about how much hotter the CPUs would run with only passive cooling. At idle, after boot-up, the temperature ranges from 50 to 65 degrees Celcius, or 10 to 15 degrees hotter than with the noisy fans. After one hour at idle, the temperature has increased in range from 55 to 70 degrees Celcius. I pop in another DVD and render that to see how hot the temperature will reach. It does not take too long for the temperature to rise and hit 80 degrees, then 90 degrees, and then 100 degrees. Not all eight cores reach such high temperatures. I notice that one CPU seems to do the bulk of the work while the other lazes along at lower temperatures. The harder working CPU is the one hitting 100 degrees and I notice that when it reaches this very high temperature, it will suddenly drop by 20 or more degrees before rising again. I'm not certain, but this may be CPU throttling or shutdown to protect itself from the high heat. I also notice that the CPU gadget does not show the CPU performance red-lining, as it did with active cooling. While I love the modded computer's now very quiet operation, it's obvious to me that passive cooling is not going to be enough and that I should look into adding more fans to the big ThermalRight coolers. The problem though is space and whether I can install two large fans in such a tight space. Installing a fan on the top CPU shouldn't be a problem, but the bottom one may be an issue, because my Lian Li case has a ledge that separates the top 2/3 of the case with the bottom 1/3. The addition of two more fans will likely add more noise, but 120mm fans are generally pretty quiet and there are some that cater to the silent PC crowd, so I don't expect that the noise will increase by too much. More to come on this in the coming weeks, when I have time to check out how much space I have and which fan units will work best with the CPU coolers. I may also be re-doing the installation of the coolers, because as you may have noted in my pictures, I likely glopped on too much of the thermal compound needed to mate the cooler to the CPU. I also did not clean away the old compound after removing the old fan units. August 4, 2008 - So, my cousin comes by with a question about why his Lensbaby 2.0 doesn't work with his new Nikon D40. Now, some of you know that the D40 and D60 cameras do not meter or focus with manual focus or non-CPU lenses. However, in racking my brain about why the Lensbaby would not allow the D40 to operate, well that didn't make sense to me. Even with no focusing and metering, you should still be able to take a photo on manual mode. And, so it was when I mounted the Lensbaby on the D40, set the dial to M and took a shot. Checked the preview on the LCD and saw that it was dark, so we swapped out the f5.6 aperture disc inside the Lensbaby and shot it wide open (no aperture discs). Adusted the shutter speed to go with the lighting inside and I got a decently lit shot with a nice histogram. My cousin seemed surprised that I was able to immediately take a photo on manual mode, as he said he tried it, but the camera wouldn't take the shot. Obviously, he thought he was in manual mode, but really wasn't. He also wondered why the flash would not go off when he tried it with the Lensbaby. For this problem, I had no luck either and while a little message popped up on the LCD to suggest changing the flash settings or use a CPU lens, I could see no flash settings in the D40's menu. My cousin now senses that the D40 is "very" basic, perhaps more so than he had expected. I commented that I told him as much about the D40 and for that matter, the D60. Although, I did suggest that the D60 would have been the more appropriate camera if he wanted something now. Otherwise, my consistent message had been, wait. Wait for the D90 to come out and buy that as it will be the right mix of size, weight, and features for a budding photographer instead of buying SLRs that cater to the soccer moms and dads. He wondered if Canon should have been the choice instead and I said that as far as the Lensbaby is concerned, it would not have been much different and both systems need some experimentation with manual settings to get the right exposure. After he left, I thought to myself, hmm, he wouldn't be the first or the last to ask me for advice and then ignore it, because he didn't want to pay the piper. Some people ask about something, say printers, and me thinking that they're serious about wanting to get as good as they can reasonably afford, I suggest an Epson 3800. Then I hear them balking, or rather, choking at the cost, for which I ask, what exactly is the budget for a photo-quality printer. At which point I discover that spending $500 on a printer is already considered ridiculously extravagant and that all they really want is a reassurance that the $100 special at Best Buy will suffice. Now, I'm exagerating a tiny bit for effect with the above example, but it isn't too far off the mark. And, this doesn't have to be about printers, as it could be about cameras and lenses. I think the number of people who have seriously considered everything I've suggested and made the right decisions based on where they wanted to go with photography (or audio) can be counted on one hand. One of those few people is one that just went with my first suggestion of a D700/D300 combo after a few, very long emails back and forth about what he needed and where he wants to go with his gear. In between, we discussed getting a D60 or waiting out a D90, but in the end, he went with the kind of kit I'd be estatic about having. He also followed my suggestion about buying a MacBook Pro and he's adding a few more other items that I've mentioned. It's a nice feeling knowing that someone has considered what you have to offer (and the reasons for making those suggestions) and then followed through on it. It's even better when they rave about the gear afterwards, which validates my own thoughts for recommending those products. July 31, 2008 - Some quick items that I'm sure all of you know by now:
As you may have noticed on the right side column, Photodex, the makers of the very impressive ProShow slideshow program is now an advertiser at this website and also at NikonLinks. I've been using ProShow Gold for several years now and I don't think there is a better slideshow program out there that provides power, features and ease of use with a good UI. Thus, it was a very pleasant surprise when Photodex contacted me about advertising. Note though that other than the advertising rate, there is no other consideration provided. I paid for my current version of ProShow Gold 3 last year. If and when I transition to the Mac platform, ProShow Gold will be one of the key applications that will still have me run Windows, either separately or via BootCamp or Parallels, because I'm not aware of a Mac application that is, overall, as good as ProShow Gold. Following this train of thought about conflicts of interest between reviewers and advertisers, TOP has had a pretty interesting serious of posts about magazines and reviewers. While I'm not big-time reviewer/writer, I have had unsolicitated review products sent my way from time to time and the conflicts of interest issue always lurks in the background in my thought process as I prepare to write the review or article. Regardless of what you may think of me or others, I do urge you to read a series of reviews and articles written by the person. This will allow you to get a sense of where the person is coming from with his or her biases and preferences. From there, you can determine how relevant those biases are for you. For example, my biases for a camera is about image quality. If the product has stellar image quality then I can forgive other shortcomings, unless those shortcomings are such that they get in the way of the picture taking process. At the moment, as you may have read in my last post, I don't think much of the Nikon D40, but I don't want to make final judgment until I have had a chance to use it and determine its image quality and how much its shortcomings bar me from getting the photo. Other reviewers may accept lesser image quality from a camera if the UI provides outstanding access and usability. Of course, ideally, we would want both outstanding image quality and UI in one package, but camera makers have to make compromises and sacrifices. The balance of those compromises is up for us to weigh and decide on. And, speaking of conflicts of interests, I will shamefully ask that when you're ready to make some equipment purchases, you consider doing it through this site's B&H Photo link ;^) July 28, 2008 - After bringing home the D40 kit, I asked my cousin if he wanted the package to be "virgin" or if he wanted me to put my grubby paws on it and set it up for him. He said go ahead and set it up, so it gave me a chance to play with the D40, which prior to this, I had only seen on the shelves of the camera stores. Now, keep in mind that my following comments are first impressions only and I didn't even have enough time to do any test shots with it to compare to the D100 and D300. My cousin came by much sooner than expected to tote it all away. The D40 is tiny and while my hands are not large, I find it to be too petite for my hands. Even with the D300, I find the amount of grip to be just enough, which is why I prefer using an accessory grip if available. However, the small size makes for a very lightweight camera that can be packed along all day long without stressing your neck or shoulders. There is no top LCD display, so one has to use the rear LCD to display the information or peer through the viewfinder. A dedicated button at the top provides access to the information displayed on the rear LCD. If the D3 and D300 have too much menu choices and customization, the D40 is the opposite and some features I had hoped for are not available. Whenever I use flash with the D300, I set the slowest shutter speed to 1/30 to allow for as much ambient light to come through while still having a shutter speed that won't expose my shaking hands too badly. The D40's minimum flash speed seems to go no slower than 1/60. While there is an auto ISO feature, it does not appear as advanced as the D300, which allows you to set a nominal ISO to begin with, such as ISO 200, and then set the maximum ISO the camera is allowed to use, such as ISO 1600 or higher (I set mine to 3200). Thereafter the D300 will automatically adjust the ISO to suit the exposure settings. Working with the auto ISO feature is the ability to set the slowest shutter speed, similar to the slowest shutter speed for flash use. With this set, the D300 will adjust the ISO to match the slowest speed, which I also set to 1/30. The focusing with the 18-55 kit lens is not the slowest I've encountered, but it won't be giving the D300 any fits of concern. Focus lock does not seem as sure and able as the D300 when focusing in low light or on subjects with relatively low contrast. Honestly, the overall package is not one I have much desire to use; however, I will see if I can steal it for a couple of days from my cousin when the newness has worn off. Results are what really count and if the D40 delivers the goods for image quality, I can forgive many of the ergonimic shortcomings. I also have to keep in mind that the D40, camera alone, can be bought for under CDN $400 and when packaged with the 18-55 II lens, for about $460. This is less than a Canon G9 digicam, which helps to keep things in perspective. With my cousin buying a new camera and me unable to afford that snazzy new D700, I felt a little left out. I consoled myself with buying a new digicam, a Sony W170, for less than $300. You may have recalled me mentioning that I was thinking about buying a new digicam and I was predisposed to Sony, because I already had Memory Stick media. The W170 was always high on the shortlist thanks to its reasonable cost and a zoom lens that goes as wide as 28mm. The W170 also has Sony's SteadyShot technology, as well as ISO sensitivity to 3200, which I take with a huge bag of salt. There are a few other features that I don't think I'll find of any use, such as the slideshow capability and face detection. Compared to my old Sony W1 digicam, the W170 is about 1/3 slimmer and noticeably lighter. The W1 uses two AA batteries, which helps to account for much of the thickness, that and also being four years older in design. The W170 uses a slim Li-Ion battery. The W1 uses the full length Memory Stick Pro, whereas the W170 uses the half-length Memory Stick Pro Duo (I had the Duo version thanks to buying a Sony camcorder a year and half ago). A 1 GB Duo stick can hold a minimum of 246 JPEG files, but I suspect the actual number could be around 300, as JPEG resolution will differ from subject to subject. The W1 was a decent digicam in its day with its fast startup and nice feature set that allowed you to enjoy some manual control of the shutter speed and aperture settings. While the W1 maxed out at ISO 400, the image quality was a step above other digicams at that speed. The W170 does not offer control of the shutter speed and aperture as the W1, which is taking a step backwards to me. However, the wider lens with stabilization makes up for this and if the high ISO quality delivers then I'll happy to make that trade off. Having more resolution (10 MP with the W170 and 5 MP with the W1) is usually a good thing, but I'll have to see if it's too much of a good thing with such a small chip. Other good features to note are:
I always find it interesting to see how far technology progresses in a few short years. The W1 is a 2004 camera that in burst mode could take about nine 5 MP JPEGs before the buffer filled up and you couldn't shoot anymore. The W170 can shoot so many more shots at the full 10 MP resolution that I gave up before the camera did at 21 shots and no sign of slowing down. More impressions about the W170 will follow, as I will be taking it with me to Kansas City. July 27, 2008 - I was at my local shop yesterday taking care of a purchase for my cousin, who finally decided on what to buy. The first thing my contact mentioned after greeting me was if I wanted to see the new D700. I knew the D700 was showing up in the retail channels as of a couple of days ago, but I was still surprised that my own local shop had a few available at CDN $3300. The new SB900 was also on display with several available for purchase at CDN $540. I could have easily walked out with one yesterday, but I remained strong and fought off the temptation...made easier by the fact that I knew I had nothing left in the bank to make that kind of discretionary purchase (I only make purchases when I have the money in the bank to pay for it). I handled it and yes, it did feel chunkier than the D300. The viewfinder is nice and large, as expected, but I cannot make anymore comments about it since I didn't compare immediately to the D300. My cousin decided on the low cost D40 with the 18-55 II kit lens (non-VR version). He also picked up the 55-200 VR lens and a little Lowepro bag to store and carry the gear. After using my D100 for a bit, my cousin decided that he's not interested in editing photos and worrying about RAW versus JPEG. I guess he figured that he did not need anything more than just a basic SLR to snap his shots and get them printed wherever is most convenient. Looking over the lenses, I was taken back to 1997 when I bought the F70 and the equivalent lenses from that era. Lightweight, cheap and aside from the glass, all plastic. A foul whiff of fromage wafted from the boxes when I opened up the boxes. While both lenses are AF-S, there is a clear difference between AF-S on a pro lens versus AF-S on an entry-level consumer lens. On the pro and better consumer lenses, it does not matter if the lens is set to A or M for focusing. If on A, with the better lenses, you have auto focus but manual override whenever you want by simply rotating the focus barrel. Not so on the cheapo AF-S lenses. Set the lens to A and the focus ring (certainly not a barrel) is locked and there is no manual override allowed. The 18-55 lens also comes with the very cheesy, white plastic rear lens cap. The 55-200 VR at least gives you a real Nikon rear cap. In short, first impressions do not inspire confidence and if I were a lens snob, I wouldn't give these lenses a second look (or a first look at that). However, that would be a mistake, as Nikon is known to provide pretty decent optical quality in even the cheapest entry-level lens. If you have to live with compromises, Nikon has done the right balance of tilting towards the optics than the lens materials and construction. For that matter, how many typical users of these lenses are going to push them to their limits? The 18-55, being a very short and compact lens, can focus fairly quickly, but not as smoothly as the big 24-70 AF-S on the D300. There is a little bit of noise heard coming from within the lens, whereas the big lens is very quiet (but, not completely silent either). The 55-200 lens being longer is slower to focus. It's been too long since I used the original non-VR version of this lens to make any comparisons, but the current version is still sluggish. Going from near to far focusing is an exercise in waiting and there's even more noise emanating from the lens. Depending on how quick my cousin is to take his new kit, I may or may not have a few more things to say about the kit. July 25, 2008 - Man, I love the internet. I received a few messages with suggestions about what to see in Kansas City. Looking forward to the trip now that I have better sense of what's down there, and yes, I love barbeque! Thanks to everyone for their responses. July 24, 2008 - I'm headed to Kansas City, Missouri in a couple of weeks. Just wondering if anyone knows of the local attractions. While I'm sure the hotel will offer an internet connection, I won't be travelling with a computer like I did to Victoria. An iPod Touch will be about it in addition to my Blackberry. The airplane ride down will give me an opportunity to use the iPod for its intended purpose of being a multimedia travel device offering music and video playback. I can also see how effective my Shure SL4 in-ear monitors work to keep the airplane noise at bay. July 22, 2008 - A kind reader sent me a link to an article about the WD VelociRapter drives. To refresh everyone else's memories, the new VelociRaptors are 300 GB drives claimed to some 35% faster than WD's previous generation 150 GB Raptor drives (two of which are used in my desktop for OS and scratch disk). The VelociRaptor is somewhat unique being a 2.5-inch drive, but needing a massive heatsink to keep it cool, which physically makes it the same size as a 3.5-inch drive. However, as the article points out, the VelociRaptor does not have the same configuration as regular 3.5-inch drives for power and data connections. Depending on your computer, this may make for some difficult installation. I'm thinking most PC users using readily accessible drive cages and bays won't find much issue since the cabling is generally free and loose in most cases. However, not so for a MacPro Tower, which most people would use one of the four standard trays, which seem to require plain Jane, 3.5-inch drives with standard data and power connections. The article also made me aware that MacPro Towers actually have six SATA connections and all are available immediately instead of having to jump through hoops and hurdles, and then sacrificing a chicken and spilling its guts to read the innards to see if the PC Gods have been appeased, before you might be able to access more than four SATA ports on a PC motherboard. I have six SATA ports on my Intel server board, but the PC Gods help me if I can actually get the last two working without having the whole box freeze up. Using a third-party kit, I can install two non-standard VelociRaptors in the space allotted for a second optical drive in a MacPro Tower. With a RAID card installed, I could set up a 600 GB RAID 0 boot disk! If I want to get really stupid and crazy, I could setup another 600 GB RAID 0 scratch disk and still have two drive spaces available for data, which could be setup as another 600 GB RAID 0 array. If you don't need an optical drive at all, you could install up to eight hard drives inside a MacPro Tower. I believe the configuration would be six SATA drives and then two IDE drives (using the two IDE slots available for the optical drives). This could actually be reasonable since you can always install an optical drive in an external case and connect with USB or Firewire. I used to have one of my spare optical drives mounted in an external case and never had any issues with burning via USB 2. July 21, 2008 - Thanks to those of you that responded to my query about configuring a Mac. The answer, as can often happen, is simple and I over thought what I need to do. Now, if only Apple would announce a new MacBook Pro, I'd be set to begin my journey to the dark side with Darth Jobs 8^) Short book review: Single Exposures: Random Observations on Photography, Art & Creativity by Brook Jensen For those of you that enjoy black and white photography, you no doubt know about Lenswork, a magazine devoted to fine art B&W photography. Brooks Jensen is the editor and publisher of Lenswork and regular readers will know that I listen to his podcasts whenever he finds the time to record them. Single Exposures is a collection of the first year and a half of those podcasts, covering February 2004 to July 2005. To my surprise, I found myself recalling the original podcasts for almost all of them in the book with only a handful that did not twig the old grey matter. To my chagrin, I was astonished that it’s already been four years since Jensen’s first podcast, because it just means that I’ve gotten older, greyer, and miserably fatter in those years. I think I have some ability to talk competently about the technical aspects of photography, but I wished that I were only half as good as Jensen is in talking about the creative aspects of photography. While it’s certainly easy enough to go the Lenswork webpage that links to all the podcasts, having a collection in a small novel sized book is actually more convenient. You don’t have to click and then listen to each individual podcast in one go. You can sit and take your time whenever it suits you. There’s no need for the computer, AC power, and the internet to access Jensen’s thoughts. While not new content, I found myself enjoying them as much as when I first heard the original podcast. Single Exposures is available directly from Lenswork and if you buy all three books offered, you’ll get a discount and each book will be signed by Jensen. I'm now onto Letting Go of the Camera, which is a collection of essays written by Jensen over a 10-year period. The very first essay is a great intro about becoming an artist and it's the kind of jaded sarcasm that only an old hand at the craft like Jensen can offer. One interesting comment that Jensen makes in the second book is that the first 15 years of his photographic life is not worth much and it wasn't until after 15 years that he finally found his groove. Hmm, I've been doing and following photography for 11 years now, so it seems that I have another four years to go before I find my groove. This seems to make sense since the last few years have been rather dry in me being anything but a photographer and I find it a constant struggle to keep at the craft. July 20, 2008 - A question for the Mac users out there about cloning hard drives. If I use an application such as SuperDuper or Time Machine (?), can I create a mirrored clone on a separate hard drive that can be used to replace the original drive? To break it down, here's what I'm thinking:
Although this seems like a weird question coming from a PC user, I'm sure you can read between the lines of what I'm thinking about doing. However, this is not something about to happen in the short term (next month or two), but more middle term (within next year). July 19, 2008 - Reader's comment:
Okay, I think we need to calm ourselves down and not get ourselves messed up thinking about what Nikon might or might not do ;^) There's a lot that we "think" Nikon should or could do, but at the end of the day, Nikon is a business and it's going to produce products that help the bottom line. Although, the idea that Nikon's board of directors is taking a more aggressive stance is very promising and hopefully that will allow for more creativity for the engineers. July 18, 2008 - Reader's comment:
Aw shucks, this ain't a zero sum game, we just having a nice little conversation about Nikon's next camera 8^) Seriously though, no matter what camera Nikon comes out with, whether it's a 24 MP D3X or a 24 MP D700X, we Nikon users are going to end up being winners. With some comments indicating that a D3X version will be priced at $6000, heck, even Canon users thinking about buying the 1Ds Mk III should benefit, because there's not a snowball's hope in hell that Canon would be able to justify an $8000 price tag for a camera that won't be able to match up to what we expect from Nikon. Assuming that the $6000 D3X price holds, I wouldn't be surprised to see the 1Ds3 being dumped down to $5000 very quickly. The idea of Nikon producing a D700X version later on is a nice one and I would love to see this happen, but we don't actually have precedent for this. Nikon is still a newcomer to the world of FX format and we cannot assume that a D700X is in the works. If we look to the past and say that the D1X begat the D100; D2X begat the D200; the D3 has begat the D300 and the D700. That's already one more than expected and who's to say that the D700 isn't actually supposed to be a match for the coming D3X even though there's a mismatch in resolution. With three high level SLRs introduced in the past year, expecting another one relatively soon is optimistic considering that a D700X would likely be produced at the already full capacity Sendai plant. At best, I wouldn't expect such a camera to be announced until close to the 2010 Olympic Games hosted by my home city, Vancouver. This would give Nikon some time to sell the D3X just as the D3 had some time all to itself before the D700 arrived. So, with Nikon going gangbusters with SLRs (consumer models expected to be refreshed by mid 2009 if you read between the lines of Thom Hogan's recent comments), the Coolpixes getting their regular annual updates (whether needed or not), what about the lenses? We have two new pro zooms, three new specialized PC-E lenses, three new prime super telephoto lenses, and one higher end consumer zoom lens. These include, respectively:
The current lens lineup looks like this (manual focus lenses have been ignored):
Ignoring the duplicates that I think will soon be removed from the current list of lenses, we have 45 lenses. Add in the PC-E lenses and we have almost 50 AF lenses. This is a nice amount and pretty comprehensive to cover a range of price points and quality; however, a significant number of these lenses need a refresh and there needs to be a few more additions made. DX Lenses Where I think improvement is needed is for that fisheye to be AF-S and the 17-55 to have VR, just like the Canon 17-55 has IS. While Nikon is moving full steam ahead with FX, there are still a great many DX format users out there and many would appreciate it if Nikon would offer them a prime lens or four instead of forcing them to look to Sigma for some gratification. DX format 13mm, 17mm, 30mm, and 60mm primes would be nice to see (give or take a mm or two) and having them as f2 lenses would be even nicer. Zoom Lenses The 17-35 lens is still highly regarded, but a Mk II version would be nice since it's now almost a decade old. The 18-35 is a nice little lens, but a refresh and constant f4 aperture would be preferred. The two older 24-XXX lenses should be morphed into one 24-105 f4 AFS VR lens. The 70-200 is rumoured to see a Mk II version introduced. Meanwhile, put the elderly 80-200 on a diet to make it a smaller and lighter f4 version with AFS and VR. I understand the need to offer consumers a cheaper 70-300 alternative to the newer 70-300 AFS VR version, but at least give it an AF-S motor. The 80-400 should become a 100-500 constant f5.6 AFS VR lens. I really don't see the point of any lens starting at f4.5 and ending at f5.6. There are some other fanciful ideas such as 300-600 f5.6 lens, but now we're treading on territory owned by Sigma 8^) Wide and Normal Lenses Seriously though, what can I say, but the entire group here needs to be redesigned and given AFS motors. The 14mm lens seems out of place now with the 14-24 lens available, although the prime is smaller and lighter, but I don't think it's much cheaper though. It may seem foolish to put an AFS motor in a fisheye lens, but I'm just going for consistency, because I want all lenses to be updated to this standard (PC-E lenses excepted). The old 18mm lens is gone and I'm not sure a new version really needs to be resurrected, but the 20mm should be refreshed, as should the 24mm. A faster 24mm f2 version has long been wished for, but I think I'd rather see a 24mm f1.4, but I don't know if this is feasible with the F mount. If no 24 f1.4 then bring back the 28 f1.4 to go with the refreshed f2.8 version. While we're on a f1.4 kick, get some major brownie points with a 35mm f1.4 to go with the f2 version. The two 50 lenses are getting really old and tired and while a 50 f1 would be phenomenal, I think the F mount will only allow for a f1.2 version, so why not? Telephoto Lenses I don't know that the two DC lenses are big sellers, but they are considered very sharp lenses, so it would be nice to see AFS and VR updates. Same with the very elderly 180 lens and while the 300 f4 lens is not that old, for the life of me, I do not understand why Nikon did not give it a VR motor. This is a no brainer and I suspect that if the original AFS version had VR, I'd own one by now (same could also be said of the 80-400 lens). The rest of the super telephoto lenses are all good since they have all the best technologies, but I think we'd be happier to see a 400 f5.6 AFS VR or thinking a bit more boldly, a 500mm f5.6 AF-S VR lens added to the mix. In a keeping up with the Jonese and then blow by them move, I want to see Nikon make big statements with the super, super telephoto range. A 800 f5.6 AFS VR is a given, but let's show that Sigma isn't the only innovator here and produce a 300-800 f5.6 AFS VR along with a 1500 f5.6 and while we're at it, how about something completely mind boggling and a big FU statement with a 2500mm f11 lens. It matters little that only the FBI, the CIA, NASA and the Sultan of Brunei would be able to afford it. It's all about perception and size matters baby 8^) Micro Lenses Teleconverters and Extension Tubes Speaking of macro (or Micro) how about those dual element close-up lenses like the much loved 6T, but bigger like 77mm to fit the popular 70/80-200 lenses? How many Nikon users have been forced to buy the Canon 500D, because we had no choice? The three teleconverters are fine, but while the TC14E has always been highly regarded, the TC20E and TC17E are less so. How about tweaking them to extract as much quality as we can from the telephoto lenses that we would usually use them with. For that matter, how about Thom Hogan's idea of VR enabled telecoverters? Is there a way that in-lens VR could work with a VR TC to offer SVR (Super VR). Or, carrying this idea to logical conclusion, how about in-camera VR working with in-lens VR for the same SVR? Conclusion So, I get a call the other night from the person lending me the 40D, wondering when the heck Canon is going to annouce the 5D replacement. He's chomping at the bit to get one like right now. Unfortunately, there's been nary a peep, but then I don't cruise the Canon forums so I have no idea what kind of rumours are floating around out there. The desire to buy is getting bad enough that he thought maybe he should just buy the tired old 5D now, but I told him no. The camera is at the end of the life cycle and there's just no point spending good money on something that could be replaced anytime. However, the little devil sitting on my left shoulder poked me and made me tell him about this lovely new, state of the art SLR that just got announced and should be available in August. The price, resolution, and specs are all right up his alley. Of course, it means he would have to become a Nikon user...as I chortled my evil laugh. This just might come to fruition and damned if I didn't wish I was on the take with Nikon, because of he converts, it could possibly translate into some good sales of multiple cameras, lenses and accessories. Speaking of being on the take, don't forget the support that B&H Photo provides to this website. Go on, spend some money. It will do you and me some good ;^) July 17, 2008 - Thom Hogan has posted comments that revise his original speculation that the coming 24 MP SLR from Nikon would be in a D700 style body. His information now indicates a D3 style body. Hogan has also posted a review of the D3; an excellent, as always, review by the man. July 16, 2008 - Reader's comment:
Well, Thom Hogan knows a heckuva lot more than I ever will and I'm sure he has "deep throats" within Nikon Corp., but a D900 is far too similar to the Sony A900 for me to agree with this guess. I think the default choice would be a D3X, as hinted in the hacked firmware, which would make the body style a D3 instead of a D300/D700. With the likely introduction date around the time of the Olympics or Photokina (probably Photokina) there's no way that Nikon is still choosing between a D700 or D3 style body this late into development. These types of cameras take a significant amount of time to R&D and there's no doubt that there's probably a team of engineers already working on prototypes of the D4 and even D5. The choice of body style would have been made long ago if not right from inception. While a D700X would certainly be nice at a reasonable price point, I don't think it's feasible at this stage with the D700 already at USD $3000 and the D3 at $5000. The D3X is either priced the same or similar as the D3 or higher like the Canon 1Ds Mk III. While I admire Sony for providing its users with some information about the coming A900 and what appears to be a reasonable price for what it will ofer, I doubt that Nikon will be quaking and be forced to compete at the same price point. I don't think Sony has the engineering at this time to compete against all of Nikon's technology and expertise. If anything, I'm more inclined to believe that Nikon might actually be helping Sony through the back door. Look at the A700's AF engine and tell me if that ain't a carbon copy of the D200's. At best, I think Sony's AF technology is a generation behind Nikon's and Canon's. But, I'm sure you're ready to point out that a 24 MP SLR ain't gonna be anyone's first choice for sports or action and I would agree. However, for a camera carrying the D3X name, it's gotta have Nikon's best and I think only Canon is capable of pushing Nikon around. While the Olympus E3 has been marketed as having the fastest AF, I don't hear of anyone praising it when using it in low or bad light. Whereas Nikon and Canon have generally been excellent performers all around (Canon's recent AF troubles being the exception). A $3500 Sony A900 is very welcome, because it will help to shake things out and I agree that it in the long run, it should help to push prices downwards. However, if and when Canon reduces its price on the $8000 1Ds Mk III, it won't be because of the Sony A900, but because of a $6000 Nikon D3X. However, given the surprising D700, we have to keep our minds open, because Nikon is making a stir and until the fat lady sings, we'll all be guessing. In December 2007, I was giddy with excitement in getting the Acer 9920 notebook computer. It was one of the largest notebooks on the market with its 20-inch screen and thanks to a Core2Duo processor, I no longer had to wait for my jalopy-like Toshiba P4 notebook to do various mundane tasks. Seven months later and the Acer has lost its sheen and I'm looking forward to retiring it. Unlike the Toshiba it replaced, it won't take almost four years to replace the Acer. In comparing the Acer to my Sony notebook, I'm struck at times with how the Sony seems to operate a bit faster and smoother than the Acer. While both notebooks have the same processor, the Acer benefits from having a discrete graphics card and 4 GB of RAM. The Sony slums it with an integrated Intel graphics processor and only 2.5 GB of RAM. I would simply replace the Acer with the Sony as my everyday computer immediately if not for the fact that the Sony simply cannot drive a 24-inch LCD with any reasonable quality. The Acer with is nVidia GPU can and thus, for the time being, it remains as my default, everyday computer. To be fair, I have installed a fair number of applications on the Acer, including demanding ones such as the Adobe Creative Suite, Lightroom, Office 2007 amongst others. Windows Vista is also known to be a resource hog and is not likely doing the Acer any favours either. However, the cheap Sony is almost a mirror of the Acer for installed applications, so I'm not willing to give the Acer too many breaks. There have also been driver issues causing BSDs, which some would immediately fault Microsoft with (isn't Bill the anti-Christ and Microsoft the root of all evil?) However, my suspicion is that the internal components inside the Acer were slapped together a little too haphazardly. Many PC troubles originate with lousy parts quality and integration and it's my opinion that the Acer suffers from similar issues. The inability to get clean audio without AC and other interference is another major grievance, especially since computer based audio is how I want to feed my audiophile addiction. As much as I would love to just keep the money set aside for that sweet little D700, or even towards that much desired D3X, at this time I need a computer more than I need another camera. I would immediately replace the Acer with a MacBook Pro, but there seems to be some hints that the MacBook Pro is due for a significant upgrade, thus my wallet remains shut at this time. Does this seem like a big waste of money to want to ditch the Acer so soon? Well, at first blush it would, but I can't say too much, other than no, it won't actually be a waste of my money ;^) July 14, 2008 - Over at TOP, there's an article that took me back to my teenage years, when I received my first component stereo system. When I was the same age as referenced in Michael Johnston's trip down memory lane, I was also 15 when I visited a cousin in Vancouver and he gave me his old stereo hiding away in his closet. It was a Pioneer integrated amp and a turntable along with four bookshelf speakers. While it gave me much musical joy in my young and foolish years, it has as much resemblance to high fidelity as a truck stop cafe has to fine dining. I took apart the speakers when a couple of them began to falter and found single driver units mounted to thin and cheap wood - while it wasn't as flimsy as delicate balsa wood, it sure reminded me of it. No bracing of the cabinet and no mineral wool fill or other dampening material and the integrated cable was probably 22 AWG. Using an iPod through one of the many crappy speaker docks would have produced higher fidelity than my first system. Michael Johnston, by contrast, has fond memories of his first piece of hi-fi and has been compelled to seek out a rebuilt vintage amp, I want nothing to do with anything I used throughout my teenage years and into my very early 20s. I didn't get a true hi-fi until I was 21, when my parents relented and gave me enough bucks to build a nice system as a graduation present. A few components from that original system are still with me, but languish in whatever corner I can store them in, away from my baby's prying hands and knock on wood, to a time when we can afford to buy a larger house to accommodate everyone comfortably in the family. I think about what my boys are going to be like once they get to the age where music will be very important for them and what will be their first true sound system. Unlike me and Johnston, I don't think component audio will be much a part of their coming of musical age. I suspect that the first sound system will be iPod-based with maybe a good headphone amp and a nice set of cans, along with a set of powered speakers driven by the headphone amp. Add in a notebook computer to store all of the music files and it will be a pretty nice kit that would blow away what I had to suffer through when I was in high school and university. When I was in university, I was fortunate enough to have parents that allowed me to indulge and buy an LED printer. LED printers offered laser printer quality without the price and my 4th year essays were a step or two above other students that had to handwrite, type or print with dot matrix printers. By the time my kids are in school though, will physical essays still be a requirement, or will they email PDFs to their profs? Physical media will be something quaint that their old man has on the bookshelf in the form of CDs and going to a store to buy music will be a foreign concept as buying music online will be all that they will have known. If they want photos and liner notes, they can download them and display them on the notebook computer. Same with buying movies, tomorrow's kids will only know that movies are bought online and can be downloaded in an instant with fiber optic cables having replaced old school telephone and cable lines. Everything will be stored on super high capacity flash memory drives inside super thin notebook computers. Optical drives will be a relic of an age when we could not download and install applications. Or, perhaps Google will buyout Microsoft and offer Google OS and Google Office as online applications and your personal files and media will be available anywhere, anytime via Internet 3.0. Anyway, recently, I grabbed an old cassette tape off the bookshelf and played it back through an old and cheap Sanyo boom box. Cassettes, remember those? The cassette had a number of recordings from a record player, a 1980s vintage Oracle Delphi turntable. Even though the whole playback chain was compromised, analog vinyl through a cassette tape medium through a cheap tape player through old headphones, the sound was striking. The music on the cassette had body and flesh compared to the sterile and skeletal digital files. Am I merely hearing some euphonics or harmonic distortion (the good, even order type that tube amps are known for)? I don't know and I'm not suggesting that I plan to dump all my digital files and record everything onto cassette tape (can you even buy these anymore). What I think I heard is similar to what keeps sales of turntables and records brisk enough to support a large number of turntable makers. It is also similar to what I hear when music is played through tubes. The extra body makes the music more engaging and I've read that digital music files requires a lot more brain processing, so with analog, you can settle in for a relaxing music experience that's about music rather than equipment. Something to explore further when I win the lottery and can build a sound system built completely from technology that came of age in the 1950s. A nice, well thought out turntable, probably a Linn Sondek LP12, which is very good, but is no longer thought of as cutting edge, as more and more $50,000 plus players come out. A tube integrated amp, or a tube pre and power amp combo that is auto biasing so I don't have to crouch down and risk electrocution measuring and biasing the tubes (I exaggerate, of course). I'm thinking VTL here. Finished off with a set of Quad electrostatic speakers and all of it harnessed together with some no-nonsense Kimber cables. I would have said Nordost or Tara Labs cables, but while I'm a believer in the difference that cables can make to a system, it does seem ridiculous to use a full set of cables that cost more than the rest of the system combined. During the Victoria trip, I used the D300 sans MB-D10 grip and used only the 24-70mm lens. This provides a 36-105mm equivalent crop view and I have to say that I did miss going wider and longer that the 18-200 VR lens would have provided. Note to self, get my cousin to the store as soon as possible so I can get my lens back 8^) I tried the focus tracking feature of the D300 and while I've never been a big user of this technology, I found it quite delightful to have the camera position static and the seeing the focus points jump around to follow a moving subject (a slow moving ferry in my case). While intriguing, I'll reserve judgment until I've actually used it for something a bit more challenging, such as sports, or something a bit more important, such as a bride getting down on the dance floor. While I love what a D300 and 18-200 lens offers, I'm not sure that I'll be wanting to bring them to my next business trip in August, when I'm scheduled to travel to Kansas City, Missouri. It may be time for me to consider another digicam, something that I'm generally loathed to use, but one that makes more sense when wanting to travel as light as possible. Last summer, I took the Sony W1 with me to Savannah and while it did well enough, there were some moments when I really wished I had some more resolution and quality to the JPEG files. While I'm not all that enamored of what seems to be everyone else's favorite, the Canon G9, it is a definite shortlister. This despite it being a bit too big and a bit too expensive for what it offers, but it's still smaller than even the smallest SLR and kit lens combo. Another shortlister is the Panasonic DMC FX500, which offers a zoom lens that goes as wide as 25mm equivalent cropped view (ECV) at f2.8. That's pretty nifty to have in a compact camera. However, the current favorite would be the Sony W170, which offers a zoom lens that goes wide to 28mm ECV. It's cheaper than the Panasonic or Canon and I already have Memory Stick media for it. Sony has also come on strong to offer very good image quality in its digicams and noise is well controlled up to ISO 400. The Panasonic concerns me given how poorly Panasonic chips have fared for higher ISO noise quality. At this price range though, a 6 MP SLR such as the Nikon D40 is well within grasp and would certainly be a dark horse contender, even if the compact size consideration gets tossed out the window. On a private mailing list, there's some indication that the coming 24 MP SLR from Nikon will be much cheaper than Canon's 1Ds Mk III, which is around CDN $8500. A Nikon SLR in the range of $6000 is still very expensive, but easier to digest and if you figure that about a year after introduction, the price could be closer to $5000, that makes it within the realm of possibility for me. While a $5000 D3 made no sense to me, especially since the D700, a $5000 D3X offering 24 MP does due to the resolution offered in a pro-quality body. While I'm still of the mind that a D300/D700 combo for weddings would be killer, a high resolution FX SLR would be difficult to resist if the rumored price holds true. Another possible benefit is a reduction in price in the D3 since offering a 12 MP SLR near the same price as a 24 MP SLR does not make sense to me. Although it could be argued that each caters to a different market segment and thus should be seen as equal, but different in features and capabilities, e.g. 12 MP at 9 fps with usable ISO 6400 compared to 24 MP at 5 fps and a usable ISO 1600 (I'm speculating here). A 24 MP SLR still has a place in a wedding photographer's kit, because the D300 and D700 would be handheld, action cameras, while the D3X (or D4 or D7) would be a tripod-mounted camera for formals. It's a similar relationship to 35mm and medium format cameras sitting with equal prominence in a wedding pro's equipment case before the digital revolution changed all the old school, 20th Century ways of covering a wedding. July 12, 2008 - If you’ve been reading this website for a while, you probably know that I went to university in Victoria, BC. Victoria is the provincial capital city and is, depending on where you’re from, either a small city or a medium sized city of about 340,000. The 340,000 population is for all of greater Victoria, but the actual municipality is much smaller. Greater Victoria is made up of a number of small municipalities with the key ones being Victoria, Oak Bay, Saanich and Esquimalt.
For a city slicker like me where my own suburb is probably 500,000 and about as large geographically as greater Victoria, seeing Victoria fragmented into little fiefdoms is quaint. However, to some of the residents, it’s irritating to have so many little municipalities and amalgamation of some of the major ones would be welcome.
Victoria, being a popular retirement location thanks to its mild climate, is known for “blue hairs” or, senior citizens. With my alma mater attracting young students to its locale, and many deciding to remain in Victoria after their studies, Victoria has become known as the city for the newlywed and the nearly dead.
While much has changed since I graduated and left in the early 1990s, much has remained the same. While a coating of rust has settled on my familiarity with the city and how to get around it, I don’t think it would take more than a few days to become reacquainted. In contrast, Vancouver is sometimes as foreign now as it was in 1993 when I first moved to the big city.
Meeting a friend for lunch, he remarked that Vancouver is probably the only city in BC that has more condo development than Victoria. It was a comment that struck me as curious since I only saw one construction crane marring the Victoria skyline, such as it is with what, a single downtown “skyscraper” that might be all of 15 stories. In Vancouver, it seems you cannot drive more than a kilometer without hitting some major construction site, with the city continuing its building boom as we lead up to the 2010 Olympic games. While new buildings have gone up, Victoria still has an old feel to it with many historic buildings lining its streets. While nothing has matched my recollection of old Montreal, Victoria still has much of its old world charm, which again constrasts with Vancouver with so many gleaming steel and glass towers rising up in the last 20 years.
Victoria does seem to have gotten a bit rougher since I left it, with many a fight occurring after the bars close and more panhandlers than I recall. This is not to equate panhandling with busking, where street performers need a license from city hall to do their thing. However, the city is still a major tourist destination and while the streets seem less busy than in years past, there were still good crowds walking along the inner harbor walkways. As one would expect, tourists bring cameras and as you might expect of me, I took notice.
While digicams are abundant, I did notice more tourists using SLRs than I’ve ever recalled seeing anytime and anywhere. Nikon and Canon seemed about equal and were dominant, but interestingly, I noticed a number of people using Olympus SLRs. Most people using the entry to mid-level SLRs stuck to using the cheap, thin and hard on the neck and shoulders strap that come with the cameras. Thus it was easy to spot the name brands. I did not notice any Pentax or Sony straps, only Nikon, Canon and Olympus.
July 10, 2008 - Just a couple more days left in sunny Victoria, before heading home to the family. Today's photo, a view of the inner harbour from the elevator of my hotel.
July 9, 2008 - Drobo has introduced a new FireWire 800 version of its RAID-like data storage robot. Same price as what the original used to sell for as USD $500, but the original has dropped in price to USD $350. FW800 is an excellent addition, but it would have been nice to have seen eSATA included too. Since the engineers were already working to add FW800, why not take the opprotunity to add in an up and coming interface, one that's more popular in the PC world than FW800, which is still predominantly Mac?
It's the tourist season, but there seems to be a bit less energy then I seem to remember when I spent some summers here years ago. The high gas prices and lousy exchange deal for Americans are taking their toll on the very important tourist trade. I leave you with a sunset photo from last night (colors goosed up a bit with some Nik filters). July 6, 2008 - I’ll be away next week for work in the provincial capital of Victoria. While I’ll try and post updates as warranted, this will depend on where I can find an Internet hotspot. Just as last year, I’ll be bringing along a camera for some photography during my off hours. Last year it was the D200 and 18-200 VR lens, but this year, it will be the D300 and 24-70 lens. I would take the 18-200 VR lens again, but it's currently loaned out to a cousin contemplating his first SLR purchase. I loaned him the D100 and the lens to give him some time with it while we see how the pricing and deals are for the camera that he wants to buy, the D60 with kit lenses. He bounced around between a higher end Canon and the D80 before deciding to go with the D60. I told him to go to the stores and check out the handling of the two brands to see which one felt the best. Now, you know that being the good cousin that I am that I would have advised him that Nikon has the best feel and design 8^) He told me that I was right and that the Nikons felt much better than the Canons in the hand and he tossed aside any thought of buying a Canon. My less than subtle hints about having access to my Nikon gear may helped towards that decision too ;^) In the meantime, have a good one and I leave you with these parting postings, just incase I'm not able to post anything next week: Having read some of TOP's book recommendations the past month or so, I decided to expand my meagre library and get some of the recommended books. I only received the shipment on Friday, so it will be some time before I can write about them.
For something out of left field and perhaps a hint of where my computing future lies, I also bought Scott Kelby's The Mac OS X Leopard Book ;^) And rounding out this order from Amazon Canada, the 1980s movie Crossroads, starring Ralph Macchio - hey, it's about guitar playing 8^) Speaking of the 1980s, I finally finished off my collection of one of the best TV shows ever (at least from the perspective of an adolescent 1980s male), Magnum P.I. I now have all eight seasons on DVD and God knows when I'll work my way through all the episodes, given how much I have on my plate. These came in my last Amazon order, which included Joe McNally's book, commented on two days ago. A short note about file recovery software: I now have two from Lexar and Sandisk. Both companies throw it in free with their high-end flash cards, but because I don’t own any Lexar cards, I bought Lexar’s Image Rescue through Lexar’s online store. The Lexar card that you’ve read about here came with the borrowed Canon 40D. Sandisk’s software is called RescuePRO. The two software obviously have the same basic function, which is to recover image files that were deleted, either by accident from hitting delete button, or even from an in-camera card formatting. I’ve used Lexar’s software (version 2 and 3) a few times for its intended purpose and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at what it can do to recover lost files. Once, I loaned out my D2X to a friend to shoot his sister’s wedding ceremony and after he returned the gear, it was me that accidentally formatted the card and lost his files. Yes, I felt like crap and I apologized profusely, but only after I sweated bullets hoping to God, Allah, Buddha, Shiva and every other deity that the files could be recovered with the Lexar software. Image Rescue 2 did recover all the files, but not in their original Nikon RAW NEF format. They came out as TIFF format, which is actually, what the RAW file format is built on. Unfortunately, they were bastard TIFF files that Nikon Capture and Adobe Camera Raw wouldn’t recognize. Only Bibble Pro came through and allowed us to edit the files with all the usual editing parameters one would expect with RAW files. At that time, if I were Pope, I would have canonized Eric Hymen without the usual necessity of having the canonized person being deceased and having two confirmed, unexplainable miracles to his credit (and you thought Pope John Paul II had a liberal sainthood policy). Image Rescue 3 improves upon IR2, by allowing you to choose different file formats, such as JPEG, TIFF or RAW, and by camera brand, such as Nikon or Canon (amongst many others). This implies that what happened to me with IR2 won’t happen with IR3 and that RAW files will be recovered intact and imminently editable by their appropriate converter. Now, I just need another mishap to test this assumption…
Well, wouldn’t you know, I did another screw-up with the flash cards and took a card that had some files that I had not uploaded to the computer, and reformatted it in another camera. This is what happens when you have too many flash cards lying around and a dimwit memory that seems to be getting worse as I creep towards that big 4 – 0 (thankfully, still a couple of years away). The card had files taken with the D300 and I formatted in the D2X. I didn’t take any photos with the D2X, so the card was in a clean state when I remembered that I still had some files and retrieved it from the D2X. I ran Lexar’s IR3 and not only did I recover almost all my files, I also recovered a large number of other files shot many months before. These included Canon CRW RAW files even though I set the parameters to Nikon NEF. The software is definitely good, but not perfect, because as I mentioned, I recovered most, but not all of my most recent files. Still, who can complain, especially if you did the accidental formatting with a card full of wedding photos. Losing a small number of files is a small price to be able to recover 95% or more of the rest (which is why you should always take two or three shots, memory is cheap!) I had another opportunity to try the software to recover a brother-in-law’s files. This brother-in-law had the recent hard drive melt down in the computer. This resulted in him losing everything on his hard drive, including recent family photos taken at his brother’s wedding. Since the wedding was only in March, I felt for sure that IR3 could recover those files without any problems. That is until he handed me the card and told me that it’s been acting up and there had been some corruption before… Looking at the file structure, I could see a mess of corrupt folders and files and sure enough, while IR3 could recover some files, it could not recover all, including the important wedding day photos. As this was before I got a copy of Sandisk’s RescuePRO, I tried some other file recovery apps, but they got me more or less the same files as IR3. The corruption was too much to deal with, so I blasted it clean with IR3 to prime it for a fresh formatting in-camera. Lesson here is, first sign of corruption on a flash card, stop using it, get your files off the card and then see where the corruption might originate. I suspect that it’s the brother-in-law's Canon digicam, but that’s speculation and it could very well be the no-name brand card. This also shows me how cavalier consumers are with their cameras and image files. Now, I’ll assume that I’m preaching to the choir to most people reading this and that most if not all of you, have some method and form of backup for your files. Consumers without an interest in photography somtimes take too much for granted. As much as my wife looks on in disgust with how much I’ve spent on backup drives and boxes, there’s reason to that madness. In this digital age, it’s too easy to lose precious memories that can never be recovered. It's too bad my brother-in-law never talked to me about the corrupt card. I have several small capacity cards that are otherwise useless for me with 12 MP cameras and I could have given him one or two to replace the corrupt card. Doing so would have at least helped isolate where the corruption is coming from. If the new cards remain clean for a time, then we can point to the old card as being the culprit and vice versa, if the new cards also become corrupt, we can point to the camera. But, he didn’t and probably thought that since the camera and card still worked and he could still get his files, no ha | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Confession time: last winter, I spent a pile of money on a new tower computer, but in the time since I've received it, I have only used it sparingly. It's got plenty of power, RAM and all that good stuff under the hood; however, there has been an aspect of it that I have come to despise and made me loathe to use it with any regularity: the noise.
First thing was to figure out where the noise is coming from. My first sound check led my ear to the ATI HD2900 video card. Doing a bit of research into the some recent ATI cards confirmed that ATI graphics cards are indeed considered noisy.
My Radio Shack meter is not very sensitive being only able to measure down to 50 dBA and it’s not the last word in quality; however, it’s all that I have and I have no use for another, more sensitive sound level meter. I set the meter to A weight, which apparently approximates human hearing and the response to slow to get an average of the noise level. 
Then the left brain slapped the right brain some sense and I realized that the placement of the sound meter was incorrect. As much as it seemed logical to place the meter at ear level, the microphone of the meter is a dumb, one way hearing device. Placing it high meant that it was measuring the reflected sound of the computer. It also meant that it was measuring my music directly from the speakers instead of indirectly, which is why the music measured louder than the computer, which, trust me, drowns out the music at background levels.
July 8, 2008 - Hello from Victoria. As luck would have it, my hotel has free Internet access in the room, so in the evenings, I can connect and get emails and keep myself up-to-date. Not much to say, other than Victoria is sunny and pleasant with temperatures in the low to mid 20s, not too hot and not too cold.