Archive for January, 2008

Is this really a tatoo? It uses no ink, it uses no needles, it is not permanent, but you cannot wash it.

It’s a sun tan drawn using a special shirt to make a nice pattern.

Windows XP (probably more after upgrade to WinXP SP2) has an unnerving habit of nagging you when it wants to reboot. Not only does it tell you that it wants/needs to reboot your computer, but it will keep opening nagging error message boxes to ask if you want to reboot.

My solution is simple: Do not answer to the question (keep the error message open), but move the small message box completely to the right side of your desktop. You’ll still have the side a small box appearing on the desktop, but it will be easy to forget about.

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Red-breasted blackbird (Sturnella militaris, Sturnelle militaire). Brazil, 2007.

As you can see, I enter the new year with a small variation of the style design of Roumazeilles.net.

Out are the light reflections on the front of a primary lens (I’m sure that you did recognize this in the circular figure that was ilustrating the top left of this site before, didn’t you?) Here comes a subject I met in Pantanal, Brazil in 2007.

Much less easy to observe, I updated all pages of the site to improve significantly the loading speed in cases where the connexion speed will be very low.

A design of Lim Sun Liang that was worth a Red Dot Design Award 2006 for its innovative concept in which water flows magically from a ring cut inside the heart of the faucet.

As far as I know, you cannot buy this kind of faucet.

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Greyish Saltator (Saltator coerulescens, Saltator gris). Brazil, 2007.

Since we did not see any announcement in today’s press conference from Canon, I suspect that we will have to wait a little more to see a replacement for the Canon EOS 5D.

After the announcement of the Pentax K20D, Samsung imemdiately rushed its own version under the name of Samsung GX-20. There is no surprise here since the contracts/agreements between Pentax and Samsung allow them to share the 14.6MP CMOS sensor developped by Samsung and to produce cameras that are essentially identical: same electronic hardware, slightly different body, distinct JPEG algorithms, menus adapted to each brand.

Finally, the announcement that we were expecting from Canon for today (in preparation of next week’s PMA) is about a low-cost consumer D-SLR camera: Canon EOS 450D.

The most significant features are:

• 12.2 MP CMOS sensor
• Improved 9-zone AF system
• Continuous shooting at 3.5fps for up to 53 JPEG (6 RAW)
• Spot metering
• 14 bit A/D image processing
• Highlight Tone Priority (feature borrowed from EOS 40D)
• Auto Lighting Optimiser (improves the shadows in the image)
• 3.0″ LCD monitor
• Live view mode, suported by contrast-detect AF
• Larger viewfinder
• Redesigned menus (including My Menu as seen in EOS 40D)
• New, larger, higher capacity battery
• SD/SDHC Flash cards
• New battery grip (BG-E5)

If you add the price to these features ($799 for the body only, or $899 for a kit with the 18-55mm stabilised zoom lens) , you get a camera that should be aptly located on the market. Not a revolution, not an Earth-shake, but a solid contender to give pleasure to many amateur photographers adept of the association of ease of use and performance, without the hassle of the complexity of an EOS 40D and its price.

Sources:

• DP review
• DP review brief hands-on
• PhotographyBLOG

First, here comes the Pentax K20D at the high end of the market:

• DP Review
• DP Review brief hands-on
• PhotographyBLOG
• Photos K20D @ PhotographyBLOG
• PopPhoto

Then comes the Pentax K200D, for a less expensive price point:

• DP Review
• PhotographyBLOG

Simultaneously, they also announce a batch of high-end lenses to add to the already interesting line of Pentax lenses for their photo reflex cameras.

• Press Release
• 200mm f/2.8 (Specifications @ DP Review)
• 300mm f/4 (Specifications @ DP Review)
• 35mm f/2.8 Macro (Specifications @ DP Review)
• 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 (Specifications @ DP Review)
• 55-300 f/4-5.8 (Specifications @ DP Review

I always thought that our neighbours of the United Kingdom could be stranger than most aliens (not people from other countries, but beings from outer space, mind you). Now, according to the Sun, Brit women find more relaxing to go surfing the web (18%) than having sex (7%).

You’re free to find the reasons why.

The new Samsung 14.6 mega-pixel sensor will be found in the new Pentax K20D. Probably a pretty good camera to be seen at the next PMA.

Source: DPR.

PhotographyBlog is wondering whether Sony’s promise to add some more new product in PMA next week will bring us a new D-SLR (either the entry-level Alpha 300 or the flasgship high-end Alpha 900).

We’ll see.

Pinto horses, five of them, in “Pintos”, one of many optical illusion-based paintings from Bev Doolittle.

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My photo is just Ok, but it’s not as nice as the one from Rémy Robin, hereafter, which I thank for allowing me to present it here:

Copyright R̩my Robin РAll rights reserved
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Orange-backed Troupial (Icterus croconotus, Troupiale orange). Brazil, 2007.

Just found on the net, a group of photos of what could be the next D-SLR from Sony: the Sony Alpha 300.

Update: this last image is of the Sony Alpha 200 and
absolutely NOT of a possible Sony Alpha 300 (in the previous photos).

I will try to find more about this.

Source: EK-gadgets.

Actually, Palm users were waiting for the release of a Vista-compatible version of the Palm desktop software (companion to the Palm PDA). Here it comes now under the cute name of version 6.2.

Download from Palm web site.