It was twinkly.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Canon 5D MkII test day
It came as a bit of a surprise when, as a mildly bigoted Nikonian, I was asked along with a few other photo bloggers to spend the day with the shiny new Canon 5D MkII last week. What follows is a mostly objective review with a few comparisons to my D300 and current baby, the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8.
I'd put the word out I'd be doing this test and got back various requests, mostly amounting to:
Our professional guide was the reknowned if not quite yet legendary photo-journalist Edmond Terakopian, famed not least for his shots of some of the victims of 7/7.
We assembled at Canon's shiny offices on the edges of the City, introduced ourselves and got a first play.
My first impressions:
We were bombarded with various factoids, some of which even made sense to me:
So off we went on out walkabout. We started at the British museum, then as dusk fell, moved to around the London eye and then back over the river to Trafalgar Square.
I've dumped some pics here in full resolution so you can zoom right in and check the noise and overall quality.
There seem to be slight chromatic aberrations in sudden light-to-dark transitions however, this is much more likely to be to do with jpeg artifacts than the kit.
Overall, it's an impressive piece of kit. The menu system is slightly better organised that the Nikon's and there are some great
features. The low-light performance is excellent, but as with the D300 sometimes needs some persuasion not to try to capture daylight levels of light from a night scene.
Would I trade that combination for my D300? Well of course. It costs two and a half times as much. Is it worth that premium? Not convinced. It's a serious piece of top-end amateur kit though and if you have the money and will make use of the features, then go for it.
I'd put the word out I'd be doing this test and got back various requests, mostly amounting to:
- What's it like in low light?
- How fast and accurate is the focusing?
Our professional guide was the reknowned if not quite yet legendary photo-journalist Edmond Terakopian, famed not least for his shots of some of the victims of 7/7.
We assembled at Canon's shiny offices on the edges of the City, introduced ourselves and got a first play.
My first impressions:
- It's heavy! Or at least the configuration they gave us was heavy. It had the Canon 28-70mm f/2.8 which was probably half the weight of the whole kit. I found my wrists aching after a couple of hours, much like my wrists ached after shooting my first couple of gigs with a D70 and the kit lens!
- The basic grip is good. There are sculpted grooves for the thumb and middle finger to rest in. On a simple ergonomic level, the Canon wins. Just don't go quoting the "Canon wins" out of context.
- At f/2.8, apprently given the full-frame sensor, depth-of-field effects are enhanced. My pic of the Evian bottles at f/3.2 shows this!
- I really, really missed the two wheels under the thumb and forefinger. Being able to futz with both aperture and shutter speed independently is a big win for me.
- I also immediately missed having the focus/exposure point rocker under my thumb. It's something I use a *lot* when shooting to expose exactly on what I want and not let the camera try to do what it thinks. It turns out that the little joystick by the LCD could be repurposed to do that. Shame it doesn't out of the box though.
- The LCD was dull compared to the D300. Then I found the brightness option and all was well. What effect that would have on battery drain, I have no idea.
We were bombarded with various factoids, some of which even made sense to me:
- Despite being a "MkII", it's a complete overhaul of the original 5D: the sensor is new and lower-powered, the on-board CPU is newer, being faster and les power-hungry. Certainly after a day of shooting and chimping around 250 pictures, the battery was still full according to the LCD.
- It's a full-frame sensor with 21 Mega-pixels. This is a Good Thing apparently, although I can imagine disk manufacturers rubbing their hands together with glee. A straw-poll showed the participants had between 2TB and 10TB of disk. Each. And various issues with offsite backup. Business opportunity there methinks.
- The RAW drivers weren't out yet so we'd be shooting jpeg.
- There is vignetting correction on board that knows about a selection of lenses. This raises the question about whether to
trust a poky little on-board CPU with doing stuff, like making colour temperature decisions and compressing to jpeg, or let your mighty dual-core computer do it. This is a pub discusion. However, something like lens-correction done on the camera is certainly convenient and obeys the "don't make me think" principle. - The HD video was trumpeted as a major feature. I deliberately ignored it. A major regret now but it's something I'm definitely going to play with on the D300, not sure if that's HD though! As a photo journalist, Edmond was very excited about it and I'm sure his notes of the day will have more on this. It's a major shift in thinking about shooting and one I didn't really want to have to deal with on the day.
So off we went on out walkabout. We started at the British museum, then as dusk fell, moved to around the London eye and then back over the river to Trafalgar Square.
I've dumped some pics here in full resolution so you can zoom right in and check the noise and overall quality.
There seem to be slight chromatic aberrations in sudden light-to-dark transitions however, this is much more likely to be to do with jpeg artifacts than the kit.
Overall, it's an impressive piece of kit. The menu system is slightly better organised that the Nikon's and there are some great
features. The low-light performance is excellent, but as with the D300 sometimes needs some persuasion not to try to capture daylight levels of light from a night scene.
Would I trade that combination for my D300? Well of course. It costs two and a half times as much. Is it worth that premium? Not convinced. It's a serious piece of top-end amateur kit though and if you have the money and will make use of the features, then go for it.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Perl is dead
Ovid blogs here about the death of perl. OK, so the quoted survey is flawed. How about numbers off jobstats?
Not looking a very healthy parrot there either.
SQL 15.1%
C# 6.3%
Java 5.7%
JavaScript 4.5%
C++ 4.2%
C 3.4%
PHP 2.9%
VB 2.5%
Perl 1.6%
Python 0.7%
Ruby 0.5%
Delphi 0.5%
Not looking a very healthy parrot there either.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Testing the Canon 5D Mk2...
On Thursday I will be privileged to spend a day with Canon testing the Canon 5D Mk2.
As a Nikonian myself, they might be taking a risk with this :)
I'll try to be fair.
However, lazywebs: is there anything you want to know about it? Anything you'd like me to test?
Requests in the comments please!
As a Nikonian myself, they might be taking a risk with this :)
I'll try to be fair.
However, lazywebs: is there anything you want to know about it? Anything you'd like me to test?
Requests in the comments please!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Taylor Wessing Photography Prize exhibition at the NPG
I was going to write a long and rambling rave review of this exhibition but The Times did it for me.
I'll add a couple of things:
1. It didn't piss me off. This is important. I have a visceral reaction to other people's pictures and this exhibition, like the Tillmans, made me smile.
2. I've seen it three times now and enjoyed it as much each time.
3. If you want to go see it, I'll tag along too again.
That's all.
I'll add a couple of things:
1. It didn't piss me off. This is important. I have a visceral reaction to other people's pictures and this exhibition, like the Tillmans, made me smile.
2. I've seen it three times now and enjoyed it as much each time.
3. If you want to go see it, I'll tag along too again.
That's all.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Twighlight Silhouette
Regent's Park this afternoon. In an otherwise horrible afternoon for shooting, the sun came out for a few moments, revealing this.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
High Holborn night
Last night was the first of my "Photographing London" course. I signed up mostly to get out of a rut. I've been doing plenty of sessions and some portraiture but was feeling stuck. I'm embracing being a "Londoner", have been doing lots out and about like the museums and stuff like the Globe, but I've not really felt I've "caputred the essence" of London.
I feel like I did it last night. Grimy, saturated and packed with action.
Like London.
I feel like I did it last night. Grimy, saturated and packed with action.
Like London.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
London Expo
A very weird experience. All that pent-up sexual energy going into dressing up as things with pointy ears. What was more bizarre was the Muslim even going on at the Excel at the same time. Hijab as cosplay anyone? Very confusing.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Nokia launch thing.
Nokia have a new flagship shop on Regents Street.
It's cool but no as cool as the Apple store.
They launched something tonight and whilst the cocktails were nice, the nibbles cool and the catering staff (big up to the unfortunately named Mange crew) excellent, it totally failed to engage me.
What was it FOR?
Apart from snagging a mouse mat, T-shirt...
It's cool but no as cool as the Apple store.
They launched something tonight and whilst the cocktails were nice, the nibbles cool and the catering staff (big up to the unfortunately named Mange crew) excellent, it totally failed to engage me.
What was it FOR?
Apart from snagging a mouse mat, T-shirt...
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Heavy Metal in Baghdad
Just got back from seeing Heavy Metal in Baghdad at the ICA.If you have any RAWK in you soul you must see this movie. The story of four guys with metal in their souls trying to ply their trade as the only metal band in war-torn Iraq is deeply moving and left me wanting to get on the blower and organise an airlift of guitars and drums to Damascus (where they ended up).
SEE THIS FILM.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Jimmy Doherty's Farm Food and Wine @ Vinopolis
Thanks to those lovely people at Londonist I was able to procure a couple of tickets to the above session. My companion was French and
has spent many years in Taiwan and China so could easily be described as a foodie.
Apparently Jimmy Doherty is some kind of TV pig-breeding good farming evenagelist type, but not having a TV, I wouldn't know about that. Also involved were Paul Kelley the Turkey Guy and Nigel Bartle the Tomato Geek.
First up Vinopolis itself. With the Thames Festival going on, Vinopolis was a haven of calm and in itself and amazing building.
Then were were all seated, the presenters took their places at the table and Vinopolis' resident wine expert Tom Forrest.
All the speakers were excellent and above all passionate about
their subjects.
So, to the tastings.
First up, we were were presented with pork sausages and roasted tomatoes. Jimmy described them as "both kinds: meat and meat with herbs". These are 97% meat and a tougher chew than your average supermarket banger. Accompanying these were a Malbec from Marta's Vineyard (geddit?) and an IPA from Greenwich brewery Meantime Brewery. Everything was lovely and the common vote gave the edge to the beer with the sausages.
Next was the belly pork. Oh yes. This is Chinese soul food so we were anticipating it and were not disappointed in the least. Accompanied by a Booker's Vineyard Blanc de Blancs which was so full of apples it was perfect. Much ooh-ing and aah-ing ensued.
Finally the turkey. We were also treated an exhibition on how to properly carve a turkey. I have to say, this was much better than the usual rubbish we serve up on Christmas day but not quite as stunning as the first two. Kelley's impression of the male and female turkey calls more than made up for it. The wine was a fizzy Shiraz which was a real perception-challenger.
In between all that, there was lots of chat and interesting questions. Some factoids I noted down:
o If hail hits Andean vines, it sets them back four years.
o Screwtops on wine are *great*. Especially for picnics.
o Flavour comes with maturity (something I keep telling my girlfriend).
o The fat in matured meat tends towards unsaturated
o Don't try to sell "love sausage" opposite a church
o Dry tomato seeds on a paper towel and grow them!
o Bees are really, really important to tomatoes! In fact, to all agriculture.
o In the absence of bees, use a vibrator to stimulate the pollination.
o We only grow 60% of our food. Food security is important.
o Look for black hairs on your pork and turkeys. It's a sign of a rare(r) breed.
o We eat 36 million turkeys a year.
o All turkeys originated from Mexico.
o Food labeling like "organic" is misleading. Bartle's tomatoes don't use pesticides but can't be classed as organic as they're grown in gro-bags. Inorganic apples have no pesticide residue when they arrive in the shop, yet organic apples may well have elevated copper levels from the "organic" pesticide.
o Real turkey takes half as long to cook and should be rested for an hour before dismembering.
o Make stock!
o Using bananas or ripe tomatoes to ripen green ones is an old wive's tale. Tomatoes should be ripened on the vine. Got green tomatoes? Make chutney.
o Bartle heats his 20-odd acres of greenhouse with heat drawn off from a power station
o If you see tomatoes from "Norfolk, UK", they're Bartle's. Buy them.
That's all.
I'll leave you with one word that sums up these guys and what they do: "passion".
has spent many years in Taiwan and China so could easily be described as a foodie.
Apparently Jimmy Doherty is some kind of TV pig-breeding good farming evenagelist type, but not having a TV, I wouldn't know about that. Also involved were Paul Kelley the Turkey Guy and Nigel Bartle the Tomato Geek.
First up Vinopolis itself. With the Thames Festival going on, Vinopolis was a haven of calm and in itself and amazing building.
Then were were all seated, the presenters took their places at the table and Vinopolis' resident wine expert Tom Forrest.
All the speakers were excellent and above all passionate about
their subjects.
So, to the tastings.
First up, we were were presented with pork sausages and roasted tomatoes. Jimmy described them as "both kinds: meat and meat with herbs". These are 97% meat and a tougher chew than your average supermarket banger. Accompanying these were a Malbec from Marta's Vineyard (geddit?) and an IPA from Greenwich brewery Meantime Brewery. Everything was lovely and the common vote gave the edge to the beer with the sausages.
Next was the belly pork. Oh yes. This is Chinese soul food so we were anticipating it and were not disappointed in the least. Accompanied by a Booker's Vineyard Blanc de Blancs which was so full of apples it was perfect. Much ooh-ing and aah-ing ensued.
Finally the turkey. We were also treated an exhibition on how to properly carve a turkey. I have to say, this was much better than the usual rubbish we serve up on Christmas day but not quite as stunning as the first two. Kelley's impression of the male and female turkey calls more than made up for it. The wine was a fizzy Shiraz which was a real perception-challenger.
In between all that, there was lots of chat and interesting questions. Some factoids I noted down:
o If hail hits Andean vines, it sets them back four years.
o Screwtops on wine are *great*. Especially for picnics.
o Flavour comes with maturity (something I keep telling my girlfriend).
o The fat in matured meat tends towards unsaturated
o Don't try to sell "love sausage" opposite a church
o Dry tomato seeds on a paper towel and grow them!
o Bees are really, really important to tomatoes! In fact, to all agriculture.
o In the absence of bees, use a vibrator to stimulate the pollination.
o We only grow 60% of our food. Food security is important.
o Look for black hairs on your pork and turkeys. It's a sign of a rare(r) breed.
o We eat 36 million turkeys a year.
o All turkeys originated from Mexico.
o Food labeling like "organic" is misleading. Bartle's tomatoes don't use pesticides but can't be classed as organic as they're grown in gro-bags. Inorganic apples have no pesticide residue when they arrive in the shop, yet organic apples may well have elevated copper levels from the "organic" pesticide.
o Real turkey takes half as long to cook and should be rested for an hour before dismembering.
o Make stock!
o Using bananas or ripe tomatoes to ripen green ones is an old wive's tale. Tomatoes should be ripened on the vine. Got green tomatoes? Make chutney.
o Bartle heats his 20-odd acres of greenhouse with heat drawn off from a power station
o If you see tomatoes from "Norfolk, UK", they're Bartle's. Buy them.
That's all.
I'll leave you with one word that sums up these guys and what they do: "passion".
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Victor Menace, Troubadour
The light was awful but this should give you some idea of the bouncy ninja gypsy that is Victor Menace.
Way better than that Gogol Bordello rubbish.
Way better than that Gogol Bordello rubbish.
Monday, September 08, 2008
God: a modest proposal
Here's a proposal:
Before all kinds of religious people start imposing their morals on us, everything from opening hours to censorship, from creationism to wars, could you all, and I mean you Jews, Christians and Muslims on behalf of the Abrahamic faiths, just get together and agree on *one* version of the truth between you. By all means then put that up for inspection by the rest of us. It's all too confusing trying to take in all these differing ideas.
Just an idea.
Until you sort yourselves out, we should remove all religiously sources laws and rules from our schools, governments and so on.
Thanks.
Before all kinds of religious people start imposing their morals on us, everything from opening hours to censorship, from creationism to wars, could you all, and I mean you Jews, Christians and Muslims on behalf of the Abrahamic faiths, just get together and agree on *one* version of the truth between you. By all means then put that up for inspection by the rest of us. It's all too confusing trying to take in all these differing ideas.
Just an idea.
Until you sort yourselves out, we should remove all religiously sources laws and rules from our schools, governments and so on.
Thanks.
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