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Archive for August, 2007


Panoramas for train spotters

(Saturday, August 18th, 2007)

Panoramic photos that will naturally attract pathological train lovers.

By Branislav Kropilak.

Canon EOS 40D. It’s near!

(Friday, August 17th, 2007)

This time, we are nearing the full confirmation that the Canon EOS 40D will be present in the photo stores on September 2nd. Some US Internet users tried to collect direct data and learned that the camera is expected in stock at Best Buy (pre-orders would be accepted from some brick-and-mortar stores) at this date and with a $1599 price sticker (seeing the buzz around it while there is still no official announcement and no camera has been seen out of very closed circles, I have to understand the position of Canon willing to take advantage of the public rush and keeping relatively high prices compared to the $1500 normally requested for a Canon 30D).

Canon 40D promo materialMeanwhile some Canon web sites (including China) started experimenting with the removal of the 30D from very visible lists (for example, removal of the 30D from a graphical list of products). All is well in accordance with the preparation of an imminent launch for the EOS 30D.

The AF (auto-focus) system of the 40D would come from the Canon 1D Mk III but in a slightly simplified version. Since we already knew that it would only have 9 AF zones (instead of 19 crosses). “1D Mk III-lite” merely seems to mean that they will use a common algorithm and a simplified AF-sensor set. Hard to say if this will have a performance as impressive as the 1D Mk III.

Nobody is expecting weather-sealing anymore (the 40D will have about the same build as a 30D) and everybody seems to be convinced that the sensor will be a 10MP CMOS sensor with a crop factor of 1,6 (but I keep wondering whether they would bring an even more attractive 12MP in a market already full of 10MP sensors) along with 14-bit Digic-III for the best possible RAW image quality. The ISO-sensitivity should be a major pro of this camera with ISO 100-3200 + 6400h (image quality would be significantly improved from the 30D, leading to one of the best images of the market). All this is protected by active dust cleaning of the sensor (but we are still hoping that they did not copy the relatively poor 400D and went for the excellent DC technology of the 1D Mk III).

The Canon EOS 40D would be able to go as fast as 6,5 frames/second to beat the direct competition of the Nikon D200 (let’s wait for the Nikon D300) with a big buffer (60 JPEG images, 12-15 RAW images). But this enormous speed could be limited by the user from the menus (normal photographers would certainly be in a hot spot trying to avoid double photos with this feather-light-trigger machine; So, Canon decided to offer a confortable saddle to the cow boy who would be afraid to ride bareback this hot-blooded stallion).

If you add the superb 3″ LCD screen, you get a magnificent photo machine that should excite most expert amateur photographers, even more if she has a set of good Canon lenses already available.

Spirals

(Thursday, August 16th, 2007)

A few images collected all around the place to celebrate this nice form.


Spiral staircase - by davesag
by davesag
Spiral - recursive daisy - by gadl
by gadl
Spiral by Martin Sweeney
by Martin Sweeney
Square Spiral by whatdavesees
by whatdavesees
Spiral - inside a banana leaf - by GardaWind
by gardawind
Spiral by s e u s s
by s e u s s
Esk Spiral by Pascal
by Pascal
Spiral - Stairway to heaven - by blue fam
by blue fam
Spiral - Wave - by optik
by optik
Spiral - by roddh
by roddh
Spiral - Ammonis Cornua
by NeverB4Breakfast
Spiral - I saw a tendril looking to entwine - by purefinder
by purefinder
Spiral - by tom Q
by tom Q
Spiral - by 0olong
by 0olong
Spiral - by [ Petri ]
by [ Petri ]
Spiral - Hell’s pit - by fdecomite
by fdecomite

Collected on YotoPhoto, Flicker and FlickrCash.

Maximum temperature acceptable by a CPU

(Thursday, August 16th, 2007)

Even if you don’t go the the extremes of CPU overclocking, you may sometimes wonder whether your CPU is too hot or not. For example, my own Athlon XP 2600+ currently displays 62°C. Is it too much?

Chris Hare comes to our help with his table of CPU characteristics. You will find there (among other things), the official max temperature of your CPU. Don’t even try to reach that temperature: It is merely the hottest point before failure (AMD and Intel will not warrant anything past this) and you should have a cooling fan or system good enough to maintain the CPU far from this, but it is an important data.

Acronis True Image as a free download

(Wednesday, August 15th, 2007)

Acronis True Image is one of the best disk utilities of the market: Like Norton Ghost it allows to make a full-image copy of one hard disk drive and to restore it later in one pass. Unfortunately, up to now, it was a little expensive at $49.95.

did you know that a lot of us can have it for free? And legally, too? You just have to be the happy owner of a Seagate (I have several of them) or Maxtor disk drive. Seagate’s Disc Wizard and Maxtor’s Max Blast actually contain a very extensive OEM version of the original software from Acronis. Why not use it?

Source: The Inquirer.

Google crazy

(Tuesday, August 14th, 2007)

You really want to have a personalized Google and to have a gaga one? Go to google.com, then in the address bar copy the following text:

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

Press the Enter key. Enjoy!

Visit a motherboard factory

(Monday, August 13th, 2007)

If you never entered a electronics plant, seeing how one of the biggest PC motherboard manufacturer builds them may be interesting.

ECS Factory Tour – How A Motherboard Is Made

Very nice graphic textures

(Sunday, August 12th, 2007)

A graphic designer, a web site designer often need to find a reliable source for graphic data and more specifically for graphic textures.

Here comes an excellent small web site: In-Texture.com bring a very rich collection of graphic (and photographic) textures that are available for free. And a few very nice samples!

National Geographic’s photos

(Sunday, August 12th, 2007)

National Geographic’s environment photos & wallpapers.

Miracle cure to clean up your photos

(Saturday, August 11th, 2007)

It’s a bane for photographers: There is always a little detail in the picture that we would like to remove. If it is an ugly little spot your best graphics suite will do. If it is something much more annoying (a fence, people, etc.), it may be a near to impossible task.

Now, if you are willing to reproduce the exploit of some geniuses of graphics editing but do not have the talent, you may use a tool for Windows: PhotoWipe. You only have to brush over the parts you want to remove and the software program will remove it automagically.

Example of PhotoSwipe

You cannot expect it to work on all subjects, but removing a wire, a fence or over complex patterns in front of a relatively predictable plain subject is feasible. The utility will compute the most probable background from surrounding hints. It does not always work, but it’s worht trying to salvage a picture.

Japanese flora

(Saturday, August 11th, 2007)

BibliOdyssey, as usual, presents one more impressive antique book: Ten albums of Japanese flora containing more than 700 images from the Museum at the University of Tokyo: honzo database (English home page).

Museum at the University of Tokyo: honzo database

A medieval shooter!

(Thursday, August 9th, 2007)

You may remember it! I listed some games as the big FPS (First Person Shooter) games expected for 2007. I had named Project Offset with a perceptible hesitation since there was very little information available.

Now, the images are here.


HD version

It should be tested for real, but it seems really attractive. I won’t regret listing it.

Call of Duty 4: Beware of the blast

(Thursday, August 9th, 2007)

Using C4 explosives can have adverse effects on your health or on the health of others. This is correctly demonstrated by the following video from GameTrailers (keep the sound level down).

Also in high definition.

Jesuits always missionaries for Christ: Second Life

(Wednesday, August 8th, 2007)

Jesuits belong to a catholic church order that can be rightfully praised for its passion for spreading the word of God to all ends of the world and for science in general (and some less brilliant moments, I have to admit). Today, we learn from Antonio Spadaro in La Civilta Cattolica a Jesuit Rome-based journal, that Second Life, the simulation-based Internet game and environment , is not only a place where “the erotic dimension is very present” but “it needs to be understood… the best way to understand it is to enter it” and this must be read as a invitation to explore the possibilities of modern mission.

In a sense, it made me think about The sparrow, the excellent SciFi book of Mary Doria Russell, which is setting her story around a Jesuit sent to mission to a distant planet and into the core of human soul.

Source: Reuters.

Olympus, the tests

(Tuesday, August 7th, 2007)

Olympus has now two excellent products in its 4/3 family of digital single lens reflex (D-SLR) cameras: Evolt E-410 and Evolt E-510. Let’s list some of the most prominent tests/reviews published recently on the web.

Canon EOS 40D, on September, 2

(Tuesday, August 7th, 2007)

Posts about EOS 40D:

According to Fred Miranda’s forums, there should be a major electronics company ready to include the Canon EOS 40D into its catalog from September 2nd. Things are getting more and more precise. They should be accelerating now…

Sony Alpha: A blog for new photo products?

(Monday, August 6th, 2007)

Sony wanted to react to the (too?) many comments following their (simplistic) presentation of the new products of the SLR market (including objectives) at the recent PMA. For this they decided to include the photo issue in the Sony Electronics Products blog in order to better sequence the information that will be needed at the time of starting the new Alpha 200 in the middle of the other expected announcements by Canon and Nikon.

Sony Electronics Blog

It is becoming more and more critical to lure the public into company information to avoid the impact of rumours and grey-market information. We’ll see if Sony learns to handle this kind of communication.


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