MOBILE PHONE: Wireless Network Operator
Wireless Network Operator. MIS-Asia - Spectrum clash builds around bionic
implants. Access to frequencies is at the center of complex disputes over
would- be ...
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Tuesday 29 November 2011
Nikon 1. Counterintuitive. Crazy. And a whole lot of fun.
Nikon 1. Counterintuitive. Crazy. And a whole lot of fun.: 
Another fun review by one of the VSL readers: http://www.b-vong.com/journal/nikon-j1-review-by-a-girl/
Nikon V1 Camera with Kit Lens. Sweet.
I got some money for my birthday on Thurs. and it was still around when I decided to drop in and see what was new at Precision Camera, my local, grown up candy shop. I was thinking I'd take a look at the Canon SX40 because Ben and I have had fun with the super zoom cameras from Canon in the past and it's a lot of camera for $400. My camera guy, Ian, and I played with the SX40 for a few minutes and then I asked him, "What's new?" And that set of the chain reaction that led to the insertion of VSL into yet another camera system.
When the Nikon 1 Series was announced I thought it looked pretty cool but I didn't take time to understand any of it, and the howl from the denizens on the web forums threatened to kill the whole system before it even hatched. It is amazing to me how entrenched people get with their current systems and the level of disbelief they have that technology can march onward. People are shaking their heads at the "small" sensor while gushing over cameras like the Panasonic LX5 and the Canon G12 which have much smaller sensors.....
Ian sauntered over to the case that holds the Nikon goodies and pulled out the V1. He asked, innocently, "Have you played with one of these yet?" and he put the camera in my hand. Can I say, "love at first sight?"
I have average sized hands and this camera fit perfectly. The thumb rest on the back and the finger grip on the front are as close to perfect for me as I can imagine. If you have gorilla hands you may have a different experience. While I love the control covered carcass of the G series mini-pro cameras from Canon I was pleasantly surprise how much I loved the minimalist control protrusions on the V1.
But let's back up for a second and I'll describe the V1 for those who haven't kept up with new introductions lately. Nikon supposedly has been working on this camera system since 2007. It's got a smaller imaging chip than the micro four thirds cameras and the chip has a 2.7X crop factor compared to full frame 35mm. There are two bodies available but the cheaper one doesn't allow for an EVF so I pretend that it doesn't even exist. The body I am interested in is the V1. It has a built in EVF with a 1.4 million pixel res screen in the eyepiece. The camera can be set up like the old Minoltas and Sony's so that the screen on the rear is live until you bring the camera up to your eye and then it switches to the electronic viewfinder. Nice, but the first thing I did was to use the display control to turn off the rear screen all the time.
The camera is small but not too small which makes it easy to carry but nice to hold. You'll hate this camera if you like all your major controls front and center. Just about everything on the camera is menu driven. And it's the Jekyll and Hyde opposite of the EP-3. The menus is barebones. Where you can fine tune and finesse just about every setting imaginable in the Olympus the Nikon is almost delightfully straightforward and uncluttered. You can't fine tune many of the settings but maybe that's because it's intended to be a raw shooter.
You can look at the picture of the product at the top of the page and you'll find it to appear very rudimentary. I like it. But I like Mid 20th Century Russian Industrial too. I think, once you hold it in your hand and shoot it you'll find it's a cross between "collective functionality" and the kind of simplified interface that makes Apple products so usable. If you are the kind of guy who likes to replace the motherboard in your PC just so you can say you built it yourself then.....nope, this one might be something different. To me, clean, spare and functional are attributes.
When Ian and I were playing around with the camera in the store we shot photos of the inside of a camera bag. Silly test, but at ISO 3200 we saw very, very little noise and lots of non-smushy detail. There was a little bit of evidence of noise reduction taking the edges off eyelashes and what not but not much. On par with a Canon 7D at that setting. Maybe a little better.
I beat Ian out of a 4 gigabyte card because I wanted to go out and shoot immediately. The battery had a 40% charge fresh from the box so I saddled up, asked my full service camera guy to put the strap on the camera and set the date and time and, a grand lighter, I was out the door and headed for downtown. I thought I'd head to Cafe Medici and read the owner's manual. Something I do with every camera I buy.
OMG!!!! Nikon managed to do the IMPOSSIBLE. The manual is only about 60 pages long and yet manages to cover everything I needed to know with good, clear explanations. Amazing, since even the most rudimentary cameras these days come with books that rival War and Peace for length. I was back out the door one cappuccino and ten minutes later.
I'd write more stuff but I just spent three hours and 200 files with the camera. Look above. It's a shot right out of the camera in Jpeg. Click on it because I uploaded some big files. You'll see lots of detail and lots of dynamic range. I know the sensor is small and I won't be able to put lots and lots of stuff out of focus but I also know that I can lean over a bridge, shoot in total automatic, and come away with a shot I like.
What are the "gotcha's" that I've found so far?
1. I don't like the fact that they use a brand new mechanical interface for the flash. I'll have to use their dedicated flash and figure out how to use it to trigger studio flashes if I want to use it that way. They haven't shipped flashes yet so I'll see what that's all about when they get here.
2. "Wake from sleep" takes far too long. When you turn on the camera from the "off" position it leaps into action and is as ready as a teenager. But when you've let the camera go to sleep it wakes up like a grumpy old man. Figure on several seconds and some pressure on the shutter button before it says hello and asks for Sanka.
3. Shot to shot recovery is too slow in the single shot setting. You click, it shoots, then it pauses and then it shows you the shoot and then waits for you to put a little pressure on the button before it comes back to pre-shoot readiness. Fine for still life and things that don't move much but not so good for my kind of shooting. Switch to continuous and gain immediate shot to shot responsiveness and a 45 shot buffer.
What do I like about the camera?
Can you say, "Image Quality?" Forget all the crap you hear on the techno sites and just look at the images. They're gorgeous. I don't remember which ones I uploaded at full size but if you click around I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding them. I think the out of camera jpegs are very, very good. Maybe the color is different than Jpegs from Olympus Pen cameras but it's not necessarily worse color and the sharpness and resolution are second to none in the tiny class.
The other major thing I like is the use of the big, D7000 style battery. It's rated for 500 images. I'm tired of tiny batteries that cough up the spirit after only 200 or so images.
Do I like the camera better than my EP3? No. But I do like it just as much. The EP3 is very elegant and so beautifully designed. The V1 seems more industrial. Will I get rid of the Olympus stuff to replace it with Nikon stuff? Naw. I still like using all my legacy lenses and Leica lenses on the Olys. And I still love their color. What do I like about the Nikon? I love the crisp feel of the files, the perfect meter, the fast autofocus and the incredible ten frames per second I can get at the full 10 meg image res.
There's a lot more to this camera and I've barely scratched the surface of it's capabilities in video (can you imagine 400 fps video played back at 30 fps for incredible slow motion?). The camera is small, discreet, focuses faster than my Canon 5Dmk2 (the whipping boy of modern focus...) and fun to handle.
I've only had my hands on it for five hours and I'm still learning. But I've learned on thing: If most people who've never handled a camera hate it.......it might be really good. More. Much more to come.
©2010 Kirk Tuck. Please do not re-post without attribution. Please use the Amazon Links on the site to help me finance this site.
Source : Google Reader
Nothing says, "You’ve made it!" better than a hair net.
Nothing says, "You’ve made it!" better than a hair net.: 
deep in the secret basement of the Visual Science Lab world headquarters we're experimenting with some new gear that will replace conventional cameras. If we are successful all you will have to do is strap in, think of an image and the cyber-snap 2011 can create it, add beautiful pole dancers in stripper heels to the image, dip it in red hot HDR sauce and then incorporate cat whiskers for SE (sharpness evaluation), shove in some gratuitous backlighting and a gel or two and for only $96,000 you too can sport a masterpiece. Without ever touching a camera or going outside.
But seriously, I have a confession to make. I'm supposed to do an hour long presentation at 10:00 am tomorrow morning at the Austin Photo Expo and I'm totally unprepared. If you ever wanted to see "major fail" tomorrow might be your chance.
Usually I'm the guy my friends and clients look to when then need stuff that's meticulously planned, double-checked and fault tolerant. I make back-ups of everything and I have back up gear for every potential pitfall. But not this time. You see, I've been doing the real work of photography instead. I won't bore you with the details but I went from a hoity-toity (but long and richly nuanced) conference assignment on Sunday-Monday-Tues to a recording studio gig and tons of post production on Weds. to a 4:15am wake up call and drive to San Antonio on Thurs. a.m. And I've been there ever since.
The photo of me, above, is from today's shoot. I'm standing in front of a DaVinci robotic micro surgery machine and I'm wearing a tyvek lab coat and hairnet because I've just come from shooting a procedure in a nearby operating room. I've documented "preemies" and helicopter rescues and giant machines that stare into your guts (or your brain) and I'm about 1,000 big fat raw files into this project.
It's stacking up like jets over O'Hare in a blizzard. Everyone needs their stuff yesterday. And here I am, at 10:47pm on Friday night, downloading files and applying metadata and captions and wondering what the hell I'm going to say in fewer than 12 hours to a couple hundred people about LED lighting.
Bright spot. My client, Bryan, reminded me that I am going to talk about Lighting Portraits with LED lights. And he also pointed out that I'd just written the book on the subject and, given how much I talk, he'd be pretty surprised if I couldn't fill up an hour. And I'm sure he didn't mean that in a snarky way......
But I have an ace up my sleeve. Super assistant, Amy, will be there to help. It should be a wild two days. We have two master classes a day to teach this weekend. I can hardly wait to tell you what happens.
Just wanted to check in and tell you that I haven't gone AWOL. Just doing my other job as fast as I can.
If you are in Austin, check out the expo. Fun stuff for us photo nerds. (comment about idiots who review cameras by long distance removed) See you there...
©2010 Kirk Tuck. Please do not re-post without attribution. Please use the Amazon Links on the site to help me finance this site.
Source : Google Reader
Thoughts while sitting at the Honda dealership, waiting for the Element.
Thoughts while sitting at the Honda dealership, waiting for the Element.: 
Taking your car in for routine maintenance puts you in touch with the rest of humanity. At least the part of humanity that can own cars and get them repaired. And it brings me out of my little compound in west Austin to mix and mingle with the other fine citizens in the waiting "lounge." Most are well over 40 years old and are doing exactly what I'm doing.....reading stuff on their laptops and iPads or typing stuff on same. Several very plump women get intermittent cellphone calls and their ring tones are annoyingly cloying. They talk in sing-songy voices to whoever has called and make little to no effort to moderate the volume of their voices. I am now listening to an older woman talk about her upcoming surgery and radiation therapy. In the next breath she's explaining that she's having her oil changed. But I think she means the oil in her car.
In one corner of the waiting area the dealership has mercifully glassed in a play area for small children. I can only guess that it's a lab for infectious diseases. Inside the play zone today are four children under the age of four and they are currently having and contest to see who can scream the loudest while slamming plastic toys against the one of the glass walls. One mother has abdicated all responsibility and is staring, empty and resigned, at the screen of her smartphone as if it will provide the equivalent of a Star Trek transporter and deliver her from the maelstrom. The other mother rocks back and forth and occasionally tries to intercede in whatever "Animal Farm" contest of hierarchical ranking the savage children have devised. People outside the glass shake their heads and look back at their screens. I keep writing.
Once in a while a "service advisor" named Craig or Chip or Steve or Armando comes up and calls out a name. Then it becomes a "luck lottery" for the designated customer. Will it be the "all clear", your car is ready? Or will it be the dreaded pronouncement, usually delivered bent over to show the documentation to the seated customer, "....we found a few things that you really need to take care of...."?
The room goes quiet for a few minutes and all you can hear is the tapping of keyboards and the labored breathing of the larger customers. The silence is broken by the person from the dealership who asks, "Does anyone need a shuttle ride this morning?" And then all hell breaks loose as the four, three year olds resume a chaotic, tag team, death match in the almost-but-not-quite soundproof child and parent detention zone.
When I arrived today my young service writer noticed the camera hanging over my shoulder (really? would you go anywhere without your camera?) and asked me what I do for a living. In retrospect I might have said that I spend most my time ensconced in very quiet neighborhood, with my wife and studious son, far away from the sturm und drang of fluxing humanity, but I admitted to being a "photographer." He asked if I had a website. (Really, do I look that old?) I showed him some work. We talked about my camera. He seemed pleasant. Maybe he won't find the dreaded "few things you need to take care of..."
I write this with a sense of re-engaged wonder. I spend far too much time sitting in my office on my little plot of land. It's only 600 square feet of white space but it's comfortable and when I look out the window from my desk all I can see is trees and lantana and, occasionally deer. Tulip (my dog) keeps track of the perimeter, between naps at my feet. The only time I interface with people (other than swimmers and family) is when I willingly seek out friends or when I make appointments and venture out from my hide to talk to people about work and projects. I go to the same coffee shops because I've found the ones where the customers are the most civilized (unusually silent) and the employees most civil. I have been accused by my assistants of never wanting to leave my zip code. But that's not true. I like to get out. But there's something about mixing with a general cross section of society that makes me uneasy. Almost as if I've dodged some sort of bullet (or more likely a barrage) and I should be thankful. Instead I'm always looking for the next contingent of snipers.
But I share the same feelings for the idea of having a conventional job. To be constrained to be in the same place for x hours every day and to have to interface with people chosen at random by someone else seems to be an odd trade for the non-secured promise of security. I am probably an anomaly. Most people probably enjoy getting out there and mixing it up. Why then do they look so joyous when the service advisor calls their name and they shuffle off toward the payment counter, anxious to gain the isolating freedom of their cars?
Yesterday I got a package in the mail from someone I never met. I'd exchanged two e-mails but never so much as talked on the phone. The package contained three proprietary circuit boards. A terse note about angles and technical parameters was enclosed. I photographed them. I retouched them and then uploaded huge files to their FTP server. This morning my invoice was settled with a Paypal deposit.
No driving. No parking. No meetings. What a wonderful way to do business. And it reinforces the idea that we evolved to spend hours alone, tracking and hunting our food. We spent tens of millions of preparatory years to run for hours after our prey and then to drag it home to share with a select few. Even in sales meetings today I hear the phrase, "You only get to eat what you kill." But it's a false admonition because what they really mean is, "Show up and plow and we'll share a tiny bit of the harvest with you...."
So, I got off light today. I knew I needed to have the fluids and filters replaced and I knew that I needed to have a leaky strut replaced but I feared the words, "brakes" and "transmission." When the service writer knelt next to the table where I was writing (and eating up their kolaches and swilling their coffee) he looked serious. He told me the only thing they'd found was that my wiper blades all needed to be replaced. Another fusillade of bullets dodged. Now back to the isolated freedom of my car. Who were all those people?
When I wax euphoric about the new generation of small cameras I have one little wince somewhere in my brain that wonders, "Why didn't they set the market on fire 40 years ago?"
I'm sure I'll be blind-sided by some glitchy "gotcha."
In one corner of the waiting area the dealership has mercifully glassed in a play area for small children. I can only guess that it's a lab for infectious diseases. Inside the play zone today are four children under the age of four and they are currently having and contest to see who can scream the loudest while slamming plastic toys against the one of the glass walls. One mother has abdicated all responsibility and is staring, empty and resigned, at the screen of her smartphone as if it will provide the equivalent of a Star Trek transporter and deliver her from the maelstrom. The other mother rocks back and forth and occasionally tries to intercede in whatever "Animal Farm" contest of hierarchical ranking the savage children have devised. People outside the glass shake their heads and look back at their screens. I keep writing.
Once in a while a "service advisor" named Craig or Chip or Steve or Armando comes up and calls out a name. Then it becomes a "luck lottery" for the designated customer. Will it be the "all clear", your car is ready? Or will it be the dreaded pronouncement, usually delivered bent over to show the documentation to the seated customer, "....we found a few things that you really need to take care of...."?
The room goes quiet for a few minutes and all you can hear is the tapping of keyboards and the labored breathing of the larger customers. The silence is broken by the person from the dealership who asks, "Does anyone need a shuttle ride this morning?" And then all hell breaks loose as the four, three year olds resume a chaotic, tag team, death match in the almost-but-not-quite soundproof child and parent detention zone.
When I arrived today my young service writer noticed the camera hanging over my shoulder (really? would you go anywhere without your camera?) and asked me what I do for a living. In retrospect I might have said that I spend most my time ensconced in very quiet neighborhood, with my wife and studious son, far away from the sturm und drang of fluxing humanity, but I admitted to being a "photographer." He asked if I had a website. (Really, do I look that old?) I showed him some work. We talked about my camera. He seemed pleasant. Maybe he won't find the dreaded "few things you need to take care of..."
I write this with a sense of re-engaged wonder. I spend far too much time sitting in my office on my little plot of land. It's only 600 square feet of white space but it's comfortable and when I look out the window from my desk all I can see is trees and lantana and, occasionally deer. Tulip (my dog) keeps track of the perimeter, between naps at my feet. The only time I interface with people (other than swimmers and family) is when I willingly seek out friends or when I make appointments and venture out from my hide to talk to people about work and projects. I go to the same coffee shops because I've found the ones where the customers are the most civilized (unusually silent) and the employees most civil. I have been accused by my assistants of never wanting to leave my zip code. But that's not true. I like to get out. But there's something about mixing with a general cross section of society that makes me uneasy. Almost as if I've dodged some sort of bullet (or more likely a barrage) and I should be thankful. Instead I'm always looking for the next contingent of snipers.
But I share the same feelings for the idea of having a conventional job. To be constrained to be in the same place for x hours every day and to have to interface with people chosen at random by someone else seems to be an odd trade for the non-secured promise of security. I am probably an anomaly. Most people probably enjoy getting out there and mixing it up. Why then do they look so joyous when the service advisor calls their name and they shuffle off toward the payment counter, anxious to gain the isolating freedom of their cars?
Yesterday I got a package in the mail from someone I never met. I'd exchanged two e-mails but never so much as talked on the phone. The package contained three proprietary circuit boards. A terse note about angles and technical parameters was enclosed. I photographed them. I retouched them and then uploaded huge files to their FTP server. This morning my invoice was settled with a Paypal deposit.
No driving. No parking. No meetings. What a wonderful way to do business. And it reinforces the idea that we evolved to spend hours alone, tracking and hunting our food. We spent tens of millions of preparatory years to run for hours after our prey and then to drag it home to share with a select few. Even in sales meetings today I hear the phrase, "You only get to eat what you kill." But it's a false admonition because what they really mean is, "Show up and plow and we'll share a tiny bit of the harvest with you...."
So, I got off light today. I knew I needed to have the fluids and filters replaced and I knew that I needed to have a leaky strut replaced but I feared the words, "brakes" and "transmission." When the service writer knelt next to the table where I was writing (and eating up their kolaches and swilling their coffee) he looked serious. He told me the only thing they'd found was that my wiper blades all needed to be replaced. Another fusillade of bullets dodged. Now back to the isolated freedom of my car. Who were all those people?
©2010 Kirk Tuck. Please do not re-post without attribution. Please use the Amazon Links on the site to help me finance this site.
Source : Google Reader
lens skins – pretty up your photo gear
lens skins – pretty up your photo gear:
LensSkins
Wildlife photographers have had camouflage for their equipment for years now, but now photographers have the option of prettying up their photo gear as well. Lens Skins (B&H) are vinyl cut-outs that fit the shape and contours of a wide variety of lenses, and come in a huge variety of designs. The Lens Skins easily attach, and are easy to peel off again.
I was curious about getting one for my one lens – wondering whether people would react differently to a pretty camera rather than the menacing bulk of a big camera and lens. The Lens Skins are spendy, but my curiosity was piqued enough to get one.
Sometimes I feel like the photo-geek version of The Terminator when I arrive at a client’s home with two Nikon D3 bodies slung over my shoulders, each with an f2.8 zoom lens and flash. Maybe this psychedelic flowery pattern would be an ice breaker. And true enough, this lens is a conversation starter – kids to older folks ask me about it and strike up conversations. So perhaps it makes me look less intimidating. Really, who can be afraid of this big bad wolf if his camera looks pretty …
This was snapped by my friend Josh Lynn earlier this year when I shot a wedding with him. I couldn’t resist hamming it up a bit. The rain came down hard, hence the tiny umbrella. Well, I wish the umbrella had been larger, but it is what I had.
If you’re interested in seeing the variety of Lens Skins available, check out the B&H affiliate link to see what is available for your lenses.
If you find these articles interesting and of value, then you can help by using
these affiliate links to order equipment & other goodies. Thank you!
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