Category Archives: Gadgets

I’m a Nikon Lurker

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Just a little confession :D I truly am a Nikon lurker but with good reason. I’d so love to own the Nikon D3X right now But alas! :)

Canon & Nikon are both top-notch camera makers — but they both have slight advantages over each other in different areas of their game. If you’re new to the field of photography and have to choose one over the other its relatively easy to weigh your options. But it sure as hell gets complicated and very expensive if you’ve gear vested in one particular brand, sadly Canon over the years and looking to go the other way: Nikon that is. More so if it is a hobby. Winning the lottery would help but I never seem to be in luck.

Its been over ten years I’ve been shooting with Canon and with more concentrated effort in the last probably four odd years. From my limited experience, travels on the Internet… Canon seems to make great camera bodies and lenses and seemingly dominates the Landscape world. Nikon on the other hand dominates Sports, Journalism, Portraiture, Low-light all around. Not everything is rosy for Nikon either, one has to lug extra weight and the menu system is hideous is some ways. Resetting a Nikon setup or changing quickly between one type of shooting to another type is not as easy as it is on Canon. But when you see how Nikon gets its colours spot-on without any extra tinge of blue(outdoors) yellow(night-time) and red(on skin tones) then the extra weight and hideous menu system seems like a small price to pay isn’t it? Nikon also has excellent AF points while Canon only gets good AF measurement on the middle spot mostly(sorry Canon). Nikon offers very good low-light captures, far lesser noise both at low-light and high ISO and higher burst. Canon of course fights back with higher resolution(file-size) but unless you’re going to print every image and crop every image heavily higher file-size is good but not an imperative. What is important however is to fix Canon’s back-focusing on its lenses and noise! Canon’s low noise reduction in the current model I have(Canon EOS 5D Mark II) is over-hyped. If you are a Canon shooter check your shadow noise at any ISO with an equivalent Nikon shot.

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Canon 5D Mark II

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My new camera has finally arrived! I’m very excited, much like a kid in a candy shop. The Canon 5D Mark II is truly a dream camera. Back when Suresh gave it to me for a trial run in November 2009 I remember how pleasing the photos were. After using it just for two days it was hard going back to the Canon EOS 40D. This isn’t to say that the Canon EOS 40D is bad, but to put it simply: the Canon EOS 5D MarkII is just — outstanding. If you appreciate good imagery and optics this will blow your mind away over and over again! Truly! There’s a very good reason why so many users rave about it. I’m a little late to the party but its good to be on board for sure.

Here are some photos from the first few days of shooting.

Way to work
Way to work, now you know why its often a s-l-o-w walk :)

A leafy outlook
A leafy outlook, green is the new black!

View from Cremorne Point
Not much fun when its overcast but still good to be out and about! View from Cremorne Point

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Canon 5D Mark II weekend loan

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Sydney Harbour Bridge - a different perspective
Sydney Harbour Bridge – a different perspective

Under the Jacaranda Sydney Harbour Bridge from McMahons Point Tealight Candle set by twilight Walk along Mosman wharf leading to Cremorne Point

Sometime back in April I’d talked about Canon 5D Mark II, well guess what I finally got to try one because of the lovely people at Kayell NSW. And truly it blew me away just like every other review of Canon 5D Mark II I’d read thus far! There is a very good reason why everyone wants to own this Canon body! Its outstanding. The things that jumped right out at me in these two days of trial was its ability to handle noise, increased dynamic range (without HDR), clarity and ability to focus well in low light, responsiveness, softer shutter click compared to my Canon 40D, 3″ viewing LCD, peripheral illumination compensation, full HD movie capability. If there is one complaint, its the radial distortion on 17-40mm at 17mm. You’ll only notice this if you look very closely on straight lines around the edges of a 17mm shot! There is also a little vignetting on the corners at 17mm. But the wide-angle goodness you get out of a full frame is worth every drop of gold. Should you frame your shot carefully you can work around the radial distortion.

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Amazing iPhone

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iPhone App store picAt long last I’m a proud iPhone owner and like the rest who has tapped into the power of iPhone I am in sheer, awe, delight and joy of this marvel of technology!

Think I’ve done well to fight the temptation for a whole year since they were available in Australia around July 2008. Over the years I’ve had quite a range of mobile handsets but nothing has ever come close to the goodness of what apple brings in an iPhone. Really nothing comes close or is comparable to the iPhone! It is a masterpiece. A marriage of technology and superb interface. It is a love story of epic proportions if such a phrase could be used to describe a ‘gadget’. it just is! I’m truly floored by the design, the finish, the response, the crazy addictive App Store where thousands of people across the globe write jaw dropping Apps. It has considerably cut down my time in front of the computer! And dare I say I’m loving every bit of iPhone juice I can have.

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Sennheiser CX 500

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Sennheiser CX 500My age old iPod Nano still works fine but not quite the same when it comes to the earphones. The sound quality is not the best and often there is a cracking noise. I have always found that the earphones slip off easily, or maybe I just have funny ears.

I have been looking for a mid range compact earphone for a while and thanks to some good suggestions from HD and finally bought it from JB Hi-fi this afternoon. It really seems to offer a much richer sound experience. In fact I’m listening to Pink’s recently released Funhouse album as I write this. (Thanks DS, its a really nice album).

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Google Chrome and Canon EOS 50D

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UPDATE: Google chrome is now available for download. The Speed and functionality on the beta software is noteworthy. Still working out the beta browser before I write more. It looks promising.

Canon EOS 50D

2 items hot off the press — well actually one of these is no longer hot as I let this sit in my draft way too long. Canon has indeed released its EOS 50D last month. and is already making some news. This would be one fantastic upgrade… for previous Canon DSLR users. There is a huge jump in the image resolution to 15.1 megapixels and a maximum burst for 90JPGs, ISO expandable to 12800, Face detection technology! I was a bit surprise to see that the 50D didn’t come with a 1:1 CMOS conversion. Would have been nice but good still.

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My first moblie phone

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Back in the days when mobiles, or cellphone as they are known in America weighed like bricks and looked more like an upright shoe brush I had sunk my teeth in all that mobile gluttony just to see how good they really were. It was a Nokia, I don’t really recall the model number if there was one but it looked close enough to this. It had a rather nice digital screen for its time but did cost me lots of Indian rupees to receive incoming calls and even more to make outgoing ones! Aaah! Mobile technology was here to stay — people had figured out how to make money on the go. Even though it was somewhat awkward due to its size and weight they still were handy at best and mobiles seemed a great tool while commuting. It was a fashion statement for some and lots seem to take photos of them using a mobile even if it wasn’t their own — as if the handset were a new pet. Something to cherish for posterity! You guessed it, it was early to mid 90′s. people mostly kept their word of honour and sense of time. And those that had a mobile had the luxury to run late at the cost of a call. It was the start of a new disease! The running late disease which is so rampant today.

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d2 LaCie with LightScribe rocks my world

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image of d2 LaCie with LightScribeAs of this afternoon, after much deliberation I picked up a d2 ±RW LaCie with LightScribe for burning and labelling all my CD/DVDs and miles and miles of photos that I have collected over the years. My macbook’s internal CD/DVD RW drive broke down in December last year purely due to too much wear and tear and possibly way too much movement and dare I say I had dropped my macbook a good few times too. And considering it use it about 10-12 hours every weekday … its a surprise it still works… plus it has travelled ✈ to India, Singapore, UK, France, Barcelona, HK, and as far as Perth in Australia all in less than 2 years. So there, having broken my burner and not having taken Apple Care I thought an external drive was the best way to go. Thanks Harry for your help and suggestions too. He reckons I’m a bit biased towards LaCie products. :) I think they are good and we do like the French. :)

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Nokia N95 – the X-Series

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Nokia N95 phoneI’m excited as a kid would be in a lolly shop… allow me to explain… yes I’m very excited that Paris Hilton is out of jail and Tony Blair is not the prime minister of UK anymore but unfortunately none of those really make me happy or excited as much as the fact that I am all set to get my first ever X-series enabled phone. If you’re wondering what X-Series means: its very best that a mobile and the internet has to offer packaged together. Read here for more information about what X-Series is. It would be good to have Skype on phone and the much needed Mobile Broadband. In a day from when this is posted iPhone would be hitting the US and there is much hype on it already…. but it possibly wouldn’t be before another three quarters of a year or so till they come down to Australia and are as easily available and usable with existing Phone carriers. In the meantime I might as well indulge in the all new Nokia N95. And with a 5 MegaPixel and Carl Zeiss lens you sure can leave your camera back home but my main reason for going forward with the N95 is speed, compatible with Three’s upgraded HSDPA network for ultra fast Mobile Broadband. Thanks for all your help Jez and Harry.

I want the revolutionary iPhone

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iPhone…real bad :) Better still I could grab one when we’re in the US in a few months time but will it be compatible in Australia? Am guessing the short answer for now is NO. But it will be in the near future. The internets abuzz with iPhone. I’d rather not bore you with my analysis of it as a lot is being said about it even as I type this now…. almost half a day after the announcement was made by Steve Jobs. What a revolutionary idea. Wow another blow to a hundred odd Mobile handset makers out there! Well done Steve.

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PowerBook in Mac heaven. RIP

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Over the last few years… I have used my mac to the fullest… at least 15 hours a day most days, if not more… dragged it through the dry arid Death Valley in Nevada, to the chilling snows of Yosemite, a few road trips, outings, roughly 16 flights and about 5 of those where I couldn’t take it on board with me (American Eagle, and United flights)… everyday to work and back, on the train, the bus, the beach, the mountains… its gone with me almost everywhere. And now… after all these loving tender moments… the Toshiba HardDrive that Apple used for my PowerBook wouldn’t mount. It has what is technically called: a S.M.A.R.T. failure… after I ran my last program Onyx!
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Sennheiser PXC250. I’m spoilt

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photo of Sennheisser Head PhonesAm I spoilt or what? Eli, Neville and I went to Gilroys up the road from where we work and had a rather scrumptious lunch and of course if you go to Gilroys you have to have Kilkennys beer :) thats a given. On our way back the conversation drifted to wheather I was talking my iPod nano. Well I wasn’t going to but now I am. Trust me when I say I’m spoilt… Eli gave me his Sennheiser Headphones for my US trip. WOW. This is the PXC250 Sennheiser that has the amazing noise cancellation.

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