Archive for June, 2008

So, the tiger is out of the cage and we know most of it. The Nikon D700 has been seen today with various photos and sources.

The French post on pixelistes.com

Nikon D700 (full scan from Profifoto magazine)

I assume that the lens choice was not the right one. Unfortunately, I could not find the author of this image.

In this beginning of the Summer, while many people are discussing about the arrival of the Nikon D700 (everybody seems pretty sure it will pop up this week), some are wondering whether the Canon EOS 40D will soon be replaced by a Canon EOS 50D. Nothing more than repeated wish lists in forums, but the trend is there still.

Here it comes! The German photo magazine ProfiFoto is just out in the stands (with a little delay probably designed to ensure compliance with the Non-Disclosure Agreements -NDA- about the Nikon D700) with a this description of the new Nikon D700:

• Nikon D3 sensor: Full Frame, 12 MP
• Dust cleaning on the sensor
• 200-6400ISO
• From 1/8000s to 30s (flash synchro at 1/250s)
• 5 frames/seconde (8fps with MB-D10)
• Virtual horizon?
• Viewfinder a little more limited than on the D3, with 95% field coverage
• Integrated flash, NG11
• Batteries: EN-EL3e
• Compact Flash cards
• Weight: 1076g
• Price: 2599€ (about the price I estimated previously, but for the more expensive end of the FF market)

Source: An email from a German Internet user.

Recenty, we looked at unusual swimming pools. Here comes an article about the most marvellous pools found around the world of luxury hotels.

I have been asked by some people about the price of the upcoming Sony Alpha 900 flagship digital SLR camera. The problem is that there is no information filtering down from Sony. The only thing that we can say is that there is a body of indirect evidence that points to some pretty serious competition figures.

Nikon Rumours affirmed last week that the Nikon D700 (or D700 FX) will be priced just under 3000 USD. It has been said that the Canon EOS 5D MkII should arrives around 3500 USD, but the Canon EOS 5D is already sold under 2000 USD now. And the Nikon D3 (already previous generation camera) is still near 5000 USD, except in some very small on-line shops whose reputation is a bit low.

Not taking into account the actual performance and exact features of each, I would say that Sony will be able to position itself around 2000 USD which is the price point that Canon is setting for all the others. But keep in mind that there is a large body of amateurs enthusiasts that are ready to pay much more than the usual 600-1500 USD price tag for a digital SLR, but the competition is heating to bring Full Frame capability to the masses.

Your guess is as good as mine, but I would say that the tendency is to prepare to a very low price point. 2000 USD will be considered a turning point (notice how Canon is letting the price of the EOS 5D plummet down). A camera willing to position itself as top-quality Full Frame will probably aim at $2500 (I think the price of the Canon EOS 5D MkII or a possible Canon EOS 6D could climb there, not even speaking of a possible Nikon D3x in 2009 with a stratospheric price), but a product aimed at a larger market would have to start around $2000 and preparing for a street price going under this limit (this should be the case of the Nikon D700 -the name is referring more to the D300 than to the D3/D3x pro family- and of the Sony Alpha 900).

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

It is often believed that wide-ranging oceanic sharks are so fast and powerful that they are quite resilient when it comes to fishing pressure. Actually, this is quite the contrary. Most sharks are carnivorous and thus rely on the availability of a lot of animal food, they also tend to mature slowly (so all early catches tend to reduce the possibility of reproduction), they usually have a small number of offsprings.

However, this is not taken into account in fishing practices. Probably under the pressure of Asian countries booming markets and culture-related food habits (like the “shark fin soup”), sharks and rays are fished extensively out of any quotas or limitations. Nevertheless, their populations are depleting quickly. An international study, organised by the IUCN Shark Specialist Group (SSG), shows that within the 21 species studied, the extinction rate “is ten to a hundred times greater than historic extinction rates“.

They also make sound proposals for how to manage the situation (like “establishing and enforcing science-based catch limits for sharks and rays” or “ensuring an end to shark finning (removing fins and discarding bodies at sea)“).

Source: IUCN Shark Specialist GrouP.

You loved seeing the arrival of AMD’s Radeon HD4870? Here comes her stronger sister in graphics cards: Radeon HD4870.

The first one was available for a measly 150€, what makes it a nice little entry point for the powerful 3D graphics cards (understand: “for video games“). The Radeon HD4870 has been spotted in France at 250€, with the first available boxes showing the Sapphire brand and logo. Your usual reseller should already have them.

There is so much uncoordinated turmoil on the Internet and all around the world (at Nikon, at distributors, at vendors) that it seems now warranted that the Nikon D700 -a sort of Full-Frame-sensored Nikon D300 or affordable Nikon D3- will be launched early next week.

Only 7 days until the week you’ll see what happens when people get bored.

This is the question asked by ArsTechnica in a confrontation between the latest of the fast-running graphics cards from nVidia and a few older cards. The conclusion is hard on them: The price is not right. It’s better to purchase a Palit 9800 GX2 for 150 dollars less. They even insist that all is in the price. You’d have to admit that 500+€ or $600+ cards could difficultly attract more than the most manic gamers.

Russia is fast becoming the new national home of FPS game development. We had S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – The shadow of Chernobyl (and we are awaiting its prequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – Clear skies), but an old project that was known to some but nearly never discussed before just surfaced in the flow of video game information news:

Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason arrives to transport us in year 1968 north of the Arctic circle in a Russian polar station named “Pole 21″. The hero will be able to crawl in the entrails of an abandonned nuclear ice-breaker. Abandonned, but not really empty.

You will appreciate the grain of the wood of the slightly outmoded guns and it will freeze you to death (beware, cold can kill you, too).

For once, here is a realtively good photo of the future Nikon D700 SLR camera. It could be a fake or a god Photoshopped image, but I doubt it. It looks a lot like a shot from a photo phone on a corner of a table in bad conditions.

Source: Photo.net.

• AceBackup: Free Windows backup
• Ad-Aware 2008: Free anti-spyware
• StarBurn: Free disc burning, audio ripping utility (download Nero for free)
• LogoEase: Create your own logo for free
• AutoGK: Rip your DVDs to DivX and Xvid formats
• Opera 9.5: an excellent replacement for Internet Explorer
• Comodo Friewall Pro Free: Free Windows firewall for Windows XP
• Antivir: Free anti-virus for Windows
• Avast: Free anti-virus for Windows
• AVG 8.0 free: Free anti-virus and anti-spyware for Windows
• Replace data backup with data sync, thanks to these articles from Tom’s Hardware: [1] and [2]

Have a good Summer working on installing and testing all these.

Sony can’t be stopped when they want to show off their upcoming flagship camera, the Sony Alpha 900 as everybody is naming it. But there’s still no official announcement. However, Chinese web site 163.com gives a lot of images of the camera (apparently still not working model).

Sony Alpha 900 along with the newest Sony flash

Will there be something before Photokina?

After years of preparation and beta-phase, finally, Wine has been able to reach launch as Wine 1.0. Why is it significant? Because this is the software package designed to be able to run many Windows applications from a GNU/Linux distribution. If you want to switch to Linux, you may not be willing to abandon some of the applications that were developped for Windows.

Wine is there to solve the problem. It runs many games and it runs Photoshop CS2 and CS3 from the box (I did not test it myself, though). It was the plain objective of Google when they allocated money and developers to support this project. They reached their goal.

It is probably the right time to try OpenSuse 11.0 (one of the best new Linux distributions) with Wine.

See also: Run Windows Apps in Linux with Wine 1.0.