life, coding, technology, outdoors, photography
Cats are basically the official currency of the Internet. Combine them with science, and it's equally amazing. Lately, I've been getting an absolute kick out of Chemistry Cat.
Science puns are awesome!
[via I Can Has Cheezburger?]
This piece was originally posted on gdgt. Check it out, here.
Alright, I meant to post this awhile ago -- here are my impressions of the Fuji FinePix X100 after using it for a week.
Pros
The viewfinder displays all sorts of awesome live data. Holy awesome, I don't know why more camera manufacturers haven't done this yet, but the X100's viewfinder has a live histogram. For me, it's totally key when trying to nail a photo. I absolutely love using histograms to try and get proper exposure. Plus, there's all the usual information (aperture, exposure, ISO, grid view).
Another cool aspect of the viewfinder is that it shows a rectangle that shows the actual field of view of the image that will be captured. This means you can see outside this area and use it for anticipation, planning, or lining up your shot. I love it.
The lens is fast! It's a fixed 35mm lens with an f/2.0 maximum aperture. The bokeh at f/2.0 is nice. It's super sharp when stopped down to around f/4.
Hybrid viewfinder: So, this camera does something kind of interesting. It has a regular old optical viewfinder, but it also comes with an electronic viewfinder as well that can be manually engaged (or automatically engaged when in macro mode) that shows what your camera sees directly from the viewfinder. Sadly, there are cons to this (see down below!).
Design: The design is awesome. I love that retro style, and the camera is comparable in size to most micro 4/3's cameras. Except it has an APS-C sensor inside!
The camera sensor: It's an APS-C sensor -- this is the same type of sensor you'd find in most DSLRs. Micro 4/3's cameras (which are all the rage right now, and roughly the same size at the X100) have a slightly smaller sensor.
Cons
I wear glasses now, so when I put the viewfinder up to my face, I can't actually see all the information displayed in the viewfinder. I can see the field of view of the image, but that's about it.
Focus = slow: Oh, man. I lost a number of shots while waiting for the lens to lock focus. It's actually pretty slow! And this is a problem that I notice happens a lot in low light environments (which the camera should actually be really good at shooting in!).
Hybrid viewfinder: This camera does something particularly annoying every single time you take a photo using the optical viewfinder. After you take an image, the electronic viewfinder pops up and shows you the most recent image you took. There's no way to turn this off. Are you in the middle of trying to capture a series of action shots? Too bad! "Snap -- view photos for 1 - 2 seconds -- snap! -- view next photo for 1 - 2 seconds -- snap! -- oh, my God, just let me take photos and look at things later!"
The other issue I have with this (and all electronic viewfinders in general) is the general poor quality and low resolution of the image you see.
Slow to try and setup for a shot: This might be my limited amount of time with the camera and inability to truly get used to it, but I found it a pain to try and setup the camera properly for shots as I walked around Austin and San Francisco with it. Changing lighting conditions (which normally don't phase me, even on my DSLR), wrecked havoc on my ability to take photos. There's not really an automatic mode (for better or for worse) -- this camera is for really seasoned professionals who know their stuff (do you know your Sunny 16 rules? If so, you can probably be comfortable using this camera).
This piece was originally posted on gdgt. Check it out, here.
Apparently, my computer is going crazy because I have ZERO disk space left. What in the what?! Turns out, my problem stems from iTunes insane backup system. I have multiple redundant multi-gigabyte iOS backup folders eating all my space.
A few minutes ago, I had 0 bytes free out of 120GB SSD. (After deleting the iOS backups, I now have 12.5 GB free).
For the longest time, I've used the infamous Blue Screen of Death from Windows as the lock screen wallpaper on my iPhone. It's always elicited awesome (and even perplexed) reactions from people who see it.
In light of recent events, I've temporarily updated my lock screen wallpaper to use the almost-as-infamous Sad Mac background. The BSOD wallpaper will be back soon!
According to Foursquare, as far as the last 6 months are concerned, I've been to more unique airports (11!) than bars (10). And even more unique coffee shops (13) + cafés (11).
Is this what being a grownup is like?
Looking up! The view from the lobby at SF MOMA. Photo by Dave Schumaker
Earlier today, team gdgt took a field trip over to the SF MOMA, to check out the Dieter Rams exhibit. Known for his minimalist design aesthetic, the exhibit showed off timeless looking products that he has designed and influenced over the past 50 years.
Numerous quotes from Dieter Rams were posted around SF MOMA. Photo by Dave Schumaker.
One part of the exhibit was dedicated to his 10 principles of good design.
It was pretty awesome and inspiring stuff. Check it out at the SF MOMA. The exhibit runs until February 20, 2012.
This piece was originally posted on gdgt. Check it out, here.
A number of third party browsers have been developed and released for Apple's iOS. Despite the requirement that they must use WebKit, most of the browsers have executed some pretty interesting ideas and provided a lot of enhancements over the basic Safari browser found in the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
Some of the browsers off the top of my head:
What I would love to see is them offer some extra enhancements that would seriously make me switch. What are some of these enhancements?
What sorts of other features do you want to see in third party browsers that they don't currently offer (and aren't offered in Safari)?
This piece was originally posted on gdgt. Check it out, here.
Been using various iOS 5 betas (and now the GM) for awhile now. One of my favorite features (besides proper notifications, of course) is Safari Reader. Basically, it strips away all the cruft from a webpage and simply displays the content you want to read. It works similar to things like Readability.
It's especially nice, since it presents the content in an eBook like format and you can dynamically resize the text.
Something I find interesting though -- I haven't really been using the "Reading List" feature. Basically, it's a way to temporarily bookmark articles and websites you want to read late. As far as I can tell, it doesn't do offline access though (so, I'll still be sticking to Instapaper for my offline needs).
More info on Apple's website.
This piece was originally posted on gdgt. Check it out, here.
A friend of mine (see Marcie Lynn Photography) rented a Nikon D3x this weekend for a photo shoot. She took it along on a wine tasting trip a number of us went on, and I had a chance to play around with it.
The photos that came out of this thing were absolutely incredible. That said, it's a beast of a camera and you probably need a Sherpa or two to help you carry around the camera and lenses.
It's a 24.4MP full-frame camera. Coupled with a 50mm f/1.4 lens, this thing practically had night vision. It also absolutely nailed the focus on photos and the images were tack sharp.
The really interesting thing about 24.4MP is your ability to crop the image and still maintain high enough resolution for multiple uses. That was the most impressive thing, in my opinion. You could take a group photo of 10 people, then zoom into any one of them, and there was enough resolution and fidelity for a flawless 8 x 10 portrait. Incredible!
The other impressive thing was the image quality at ISO 6400. Properly exposed, you could barely see any grain! Seriously, that's insane.
This is totally going on my "WANT-but-probably-not-ever-own" list. Anyone have $9,000 laying around?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3skjZDM8qY
My friend Scott and I took the afternoon off this past Friday to check out the Blue Angels practicing over San Francisco. We somehow found ourselves on a boat and ended up having front row seats to the practice. It was incredible!
If you need some proper theme music, may I suggest the Top Gun soundtrack? You're welcome!
http://www.rdio.com/#/artist/Various_Artists/album/Top_Gun_-_Motion_Picture_Soundtrack_(Special_Expanded_Edition)/