Archive for June, 2007

The already excellent Pentax K10D (a nearly pro digital SLR camera hiding under a ridiculously small price tag) just got even better: The Pentax K10D Super still has its 6.1MP sensor but adds ultrasonic dust cleaning, and the price is going down to $519.95 for the body only.

On the frontline of new cameras for the digital SLR market, the Internet forums are agitated -again- with rumours and news quite surprising.

There was the publication of alleged photos of the Canon EOS 40D on a Korean web site (see below). The work of the graphic artist is quite sloppy (the 4 of the logo on the front of the camera is not correctly aligned with the rest and with the 0 of 40D ; The LCD on the back was stuck on the image without cheking the integration into the rest of the design : different colors for the plastic and parts are links quite quickly with little consideration for the manufacturability).

It’s less funnny than the nice work of Samuele Silva dreaming about the 40D.

But now comes that alleged Olympus document, supposedly intended to document the future E-P1 camera for the Olympus sales people and to provide comparison with its direct competition.

Here, we have a very complete PDF document. Parts of it are still availble here and there on the DPReview forums about the Olympus E-P1. The most interesting is certainly the table seen above. First, it is quite difficult to tell if the file is really authentic (if it really comes from Olympus). Then, even if authentic, it may not contain secret revelations Olympus got about its competition (personally, I tend to believe that if a company like Olympus had stolen such information, it would try to keep them near the body to avoid dirty legal consequences : sales people and marketing guys are notoriously bad at keeping secrets in any large company). Last but not least, it would be very surprising that data for two significant competitors such as the Canon 40D and the Nikon D300 would be of the same quality/precision.

In my humble opinion (but it is also the opinion I prefer to refer myself in most cases), it could well be reference data used internally by Olympus and based upon a mix of rumours heard here and there, and realistic projections that the marketing department must maintain in order to intelligently anticipate moves of other camera brands. Not even counting in the added publicity that Olympus gets for the E-P1 from people anxious to see news from the Canon 40D and Nikon D300.

Keeping these position and point of view, you can nevertheless read very interesting information from this table:

• A very probable resolution increase (12MP for Nikon and Canon)
• Olympus does not believe that either Nikon or Canon would abandon in-lens image stabilisation (adding an in-body stabilisation would blur the message to the public and could break the historical advantage of both brands). But Olympus sticks to the in-body solution that has been so positive for brands that could not easily close the lateness in adding IS in a full lens line.
• Nikon will stay with its exceptionally good Auto-Exposure (CCD with 1000+ pixels -for a long time now) but Olympus decide to keep the pace (49 zones on the E-P1).
• As we know it, reaction speed is no longer a real issue for modern SLR cameras, but the race is not finished yet with measurable (if not perceptible) differences between the three cameras.
• 5 frames per second is fast becoming the standard in high-end digital SLR cameras (I find it intersting how many forum talks are about whether 3fps or 5fps are enough for sports photo and how few are about the advantages of blindlingly fast shutter speeds).
• Olympus chose to have the best possible AutoFocus on the E-P1: The fastest and using 11 sensors (it will be interesting to see this in reality since this issue can be critical for fast shooting and sports)
• The viewfinders fields are still a little limited in Nikon an dCanon, but Olympus decided to reac for an excellent 100%
• VEry astonishing: the precision of information about the size of the LCD screen on the back. We know that the trend is to improve confort of the photographer with larger screens, but a Nikon D300 with a 3-inch LCD would be impressive and unpleasant to Olympus and Canon. However, this would present a serious ergonomic risk since the larger the screen, the less space left for fingers and buttons, if the camera body is not bulky…
• Then comes the body protection leaving only the Canon 40D as not splash-proof. You don’t have to work in Canon to understand that this is not their first priority : Even the outrageously expensive Canon 5D has only minimal protection. But the Nikon D300 has to follow in the footesteps of the D200 where it was already welcomed and while the Pentax 10D brought splash-proof designs to a price level never seen before.
• Being positive on the fact that the Canon 40D will include dust-remoal on the sensor does not require extra-sensorial powers since the technology is already here on the 400D/Xti. Nikon still uncertain about this? You bet! Olympus has no doubt for a long time since they even have the best technology on the market (ultrasonic vibration of the sensor).
• In the end, the presence of LiveView (or continuous display on the back of the camera) that requires a sensor low on power consumption and efficient on cooling is probably reachable for Canon, where Nikon (and Sony, their sensors provider for high-end cameras) seems not to be willing to epxlore the field yet.

I let you judge byb yourself, but everything shows that Fall will be very agitated (some even say that July could be the month of shockingly new announcements, but this is not the first time we heard this, is’nt it?).

Main source: Northlight Images.

Installing the GNU-Emacs text editor under Windows could not be simpler:

1. Uncompress all files in a directory
2. Run the ADDPM.exe program

But there is still a little improvement to add if you want additional comfort. Everywhere I install this program, I want to ensure that I can open any file with GNU-Emacs just by right-clicking on it (with an additional Emacs edit entry in the menu).

I add an entry in the registry database by running a file containing:

The file is ready to use: emacs.reg (but I guess that you would prefer to modify the installation path to adapt to your own GNU-Emacs installation directory - for me it was in \bin\emacs-20.7).

They are great those Futurismo Zugaousaku screensavers. This Japanese artist uses Quartz Composer to create works of art on your screen.

For Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

André Gunther has a very nice article titled “The Ten Most Common Photographic Mistakes” that i a good starting point for novice photographers self-improvement.

Hey! I like good wild life photos. Juza has more than a trick in his bag to bring great images of some of the nicest European birds. So, do like me and go visit www.juzaphoto.com.

Copyright Juza

It is clear that Flight Simulator, Microsoft’s PC video game, has become more and more complex and less and less playable with years. What should have been a simple neat little game using efficiently the PC ressources requires today a powerful PC (sometimes more powerful than what is needed for games of a complexity that would make MS Flight Simulator pale).

Today, I propose to go one step further: Play with paper planes. But this is not because this is Friday that I will offer to use paper and to launch your creations in the office. You’d better check the Paper Pilot web site to start a paper plan pilot career. And, beware of the PC sound!

This has been the big question of security for many years. You are told repetitively that this is critical. Over the injunction not to trust anybody with your valuable passowrd(s) and not to write it down, it is interesting to know what would happen if a hacker tried to crack your password with minimal knowledge (the brute force attack as the experts know it).

One Man’s Blog has an interesting article explaining how easy it is to crack most passwords. The table above gives a rough idea of the frailty of most short passwords. 8 characters all in lowercase are found in around 2 days. I hope that your dat is not worth more than this small effort…

At the minimum, never reuse the same password on different web sites and for different usages.

Note: For once, I will advise you to use a Microsoft tool. Password Strength Tester freely evaluates the strength of your password.

Canon is going to organize great opportunities to learn how to make better photos in great outdoor locations like the major US National Parks (Yosemite National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, or Yellowstone National Park ). They are opening free events named “Canon’s Photography in the Parks workshops”.

Do not miss these exceptional opportunities if you happen to stop by one of these National Parks.

Source: PopPhoto (and [1]).

It happened for the first time in captivity at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan.

Found on the Congo rangers blog, a gorilla very interested in the camera strap of a wildlife photographer too near to his model.

Michele is a friend, but she is also a photographer looking for the little photo surprise that comes from the cities where she travels to. If you like simple images with a strong presence of city life you must visit MicheleRoohani.com/.

Copyright Michèle Roohani