Archive for June, 2007

The Mig-29OVT is also known as “Fulcrum-F”. The latest version of the Mig-29 is such a jump-ahead in terms of propulsion that it has been named Mig-35 by some. Thrust-vectoring engine and fly-by-wire technology give it a really impressive maneuverability. See it in this December 2006 video.

Gee!

Here is a paper about how police interrogation really works. Far from CSI and other TV series stereotypes, but rather creepy.

As they say, no surprise that some innocent people claim terrible crimes.

Via GeekPress.

A North China breeding center has announced that they already had 84 births this year. The Amur Tigers or Siberian Tiger, or Machurian Tiger are the largest living big cats with more than 600 pounds for an adult.

They intend to breed some of them in order to prepare them for a future life in the wild (the species is threatened by poachers and competition for habitat with humans).

The 50mm f/1.7 lens from Minolta has the bad reputation of sometimes seeing its diaphragm iris locking itslef open (along with the excellent opticla quality of the glass – even better than for the bigger brother the 50mm f/1.4). Knowing that the repair services are expensive and remembering Minolta’s demise, here comes Internet and one pBase user who details the disassembling of your lens (with copies of the repair manual from Minolta, nothing less).

Dissasembly and Repair of Minolta Maxxum AF 50mm f/1.7 and f/1.4 Lenses.

This is astinishingly precise, I recently partially disassembled my own Minolta 2x focal multiplier (in order to add a tad bit of machine oil) but I would hesitate to start such a task. I don’t know if I recommend the reading of the information or the use of the information…

Once again, I stop by some black and white images. Ira Bordo comes from Russia and brings some very elegant nude images on IraBordo.ru/.

Copyright Ira Bordo

The proposal is a pragmatic one: Let’s try to reduce the use of plastics in our everyday life. It may not solve all the problems but it can reduce one.

A To-Do List For Reducing Plastic. [Deep Sea News]

1. No plastic grocery bags
2. No plastic “poop” bags
3. No plastic trash bags
4. No plastic produce bags
5. No plastic silverware
6. No plastic cup or cup lids
7. No plastic water bottles

After that, it will start to be a little better.

Canada’s National Archive experts are worried that we don’t have enough knowledge about how inkjet prints age. They fear that most of them will die early because the dried ink is much more exposed to external stresses than the pigments of traditional photo paper.

So, they turn to Henry Wilhelm of Wilhelm Research to get some additonal information.

Source: New York Times.

All is calm on the front of rumors about the future new digital cameras. The beginning of the year 2007 was rich in ideas about the replacement of Nikon D200 and Canon 30D, but there is only now beginning-of-Summer rebates and promotions (rather a classic move for the photo market) to help people’s imaginations. It probably indicates that noting will happen before the Fall international photo fairs.

Posts about EOS 40D: EOS 40D initial scoop All of them

Nonetheless, speculations are raging in the forums on a probable cooperation between Sony and Nikon where the former would bring a full-frame sensor (not merely an APS-C sensor with a correction factor of 1.5) and the later would build a magnificent successor to the beautiful D200 under the name of Nikon D300. It is known that both companies are quite discreet, so hopes are hightened by Sony’s announcement that there will be a new SLR before the end of the year (a simultaneous presentation of a Sony Alpha 200 or Alpha 500 and of a Nikon D300 in September would be ideal).

Interestingly, parallel reasoning is heating up Canon-lovers’ minds. Since the successors to the 30D (very nice medium range semi-pro D-SLR) and to the 5D (excellent full-frame sensor but a body that is less than what is normally expected by pro photographers), hopes and dreams are orienting themselves toward a shock-solution for next Fall: A full-frame Canon 40D that would draw the best from both products, a proven body with a slightly improved full-frame sensor and able to bring the best in image quality.

To all the readers that are interested in keeping in touch with us without even the effort to visit us every day, there are two options that you should keep in mind:

1. Using the RSS feed for the web site. You need to have an RSS reader (one is included in recent versions of Safari, FireFox, Opera and Internet Explorer; Several autonomous specialized software programs exist; BlogLines, Google, AOL and others offer such services -See the Add-To category in the let-hand-side column). It has the advantage of using a now-common interface symbolized by the logo: You can keep in touch with several web sites at the same time and you are informed any time something new is published.
2. If you prefer to receive an email each time some new article is posted, you can use the RSSFWD tool. it reads the RSS feed and sends you an email to inform you. Just go to http://www.rssfwd.com/ and give the following feed URL: http://www.roumazeilles.net/news/en/wordpress/feed/, the service will work in a matter of seconds.

While I’m on the subject of RSS feeds, let me offer a link to the RSS toolbox of Mashable. It gives information about 120+ ressources (readers and utilities) useful to RSS lovers.

In the spotlight: Sony Alpha 900 Canon EOS 5D Mk II Nikon D700 FX Download Nero for free

Do you happen to know that 5% of all male population is actually affected by some form of color-blindness (females are much less prone to it). It means that plenty of activities that tend to rely on color identification by the user is significantly flawed for about 2-3% of the user population. This can become a real issue for companies willing to support equal employment opportunities for all.

In software, if this was not reason enough to think seriously about it, we should also think about the impact of printing onto black & white printers (they are color-blind too and this affect 100% of B&W printer users). Most of the problems could be alleviated by following some simple rules that should be part of any software requirements.

(more…)

If you want to survive, live long and have siblings, you need to eat. This is not going to happen if your food is stolen:

To be clear, I did not see that when in South Africa two months ago, but I would have loved to be there shooting images… And I can tell from the sound (or lack of camera shutter noise) that there was no photographer in the car this day.

FreeMeter is a small Windows utility displaying a graph showing your network/Internet usage. Simply, tidy, you can try it.

July will be another month of price wars for Intel and AMD (after a very bumpy April). Both announced that they would shoot prices down once again in July trying to grab a larger market share (for AMD) or trying to asphyxiate the competition (for Intel). AMD will start at the beginning of the month. Intel will follow in the last week of July.

In this context, you should notice that analysts doubt that DRAM prices will grow again. It seems that they expect NAND Flash components to recover during Summer, but Vista -which was expected to help sales- does not appear to have a significant impact on DRAM (and graphics card) sales.

It is time again to loose time on a Friday afternoon. Today, you must click on parts on the image to rotate them in order to rebuild the original image.

Some people have been wondering how I did the random selection of 404 page not found messages that are used on this web site.

So, here is the nice little PHP script that I use here to redirect randomly to one of the right pages:

You can re-use it on your own web site if you want to. It’s free.

Last weekend was very fruitful in terms of photo opportunities: La Veillée Limousine (the Limousin evening) was having a public show of traditional danses and songs.

Danse Limousine	Danse Limousine
Jeune Limousine	Jeune Limousine
Limousin
(Click on the thumbnails to see the larger image)

Thanks to La Veillée Limousine.

Photographers are a bizarre kind of animals. So, they are themselves a subject for photography. And some of them are more surprising/funny than others.

Link: Legko.be (beware, one may be NSfW – Not Safe for Work).