Category Archives: Cool Stuff

Old but great commercial

I took a day off to catch up with somethings at home and saw this again on the TV. Every time I see it, I just laugh.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

Adorama Equipment Rental saves the day

Quantum Turbo Battery

Ok, As lots of people know, Photography is a hobby of mine. I also volunteer to cover events for my friends at work. As I always pack my camera, no big deal right?

Except I naturally forgot to pack my flash for an event that had about 300 people scheduled to attend…

After I freaked out for a second, I called Adorama’s Rental Dept on 18th St. and reserved a Nikon SB-800 and a Quantum Turbo Battery as well. It was a little weird renting a flash I own, but the battery pack was a great idea. I ended up shooting close to 150 shots and the battery pack kept up without any problem at all. It’s really nice NOT having to worry about the flash batteries dying unexpectedly.

Next time I need to shoot an event, I’m renting one again.

Related: DXO has updated their DXO Optics Pro to version 5.2 and the results are a lot better. On my old PC, Ver. 5.04 used to take over 5 minutes to just start and had a host of bugs. Ver. 5.2 started right up, properly recognized my 18-200mm lens, and I was off. Seriously, I nearly wrote off DXO as a loss, which would have been a shame as version 4 was great. I think DXO is a good company and I’m glad the software is better.

Edit: I Wish my brother would warn me when he upgrades MY blog software…

Music I’m listening to now:
Hero/Heroine“, by Boys Like Girls from the Boys Like Girls album. You can see the video here.

Nikon is officially Evil…

Nikon D700Of course, I’m joking, but I know several Canon users who are jumping up and down right about now. Naturally, I’ll be teasing them next time they mention the Canon 5D.
😉

What am I talking about? Nikon just announced the new D700 Full frame DSLR.
From DPReview:

Nikon D700 Key Features

  • 12.1 megapixel full-frame sensor (8.45µm pixel pitch)
  • Image Sensor Cleaning (vibration) *
  • ISO 200 – 6400 (with boost up to ISO 25600 and down to ISO 100)
  • Also supports DX lenses, viewfinder automatically masks (5.1 megapixels with DX lens)
  • 14-bit A/D conversion, 12 channel readout
  • Same ultra-fast startup and shutter lag as D3
  • Nikon EXPEED image processor (Capture NX processing and NR algorithms, lower power)
  • New Kevlar / carbon fibre composite shutter with 150,000 exposure durability *
  • Multi-CAM3500FX Auto Focus sensor (51-point, 15 cross-type, more vertical coverage)
  • Auto-focus tracking by color (using information from 1005-pixel AE sensor)
  • 95% coverage, 0.72x magnification viewfinder *
  • Auto-focus calibration (fine-tuning), fixed body or up to 20 separate lens settings
  • Scene Recognition System (uses AE sensor, AF sensor)
  • Picture Control image parameter presets
  • 5 frames per second continuous with auto-focus tracking*
  • Optional MB-D10 Battery Pack (same as D300), increases burst rate to 8 fps *
  • UDMA compatible single CF card slot *
  • 3.0″ 922,000 pixel LCD monitor
  • Live View with either phase detect (mirror up/down) or contrast detect Auto Focus
  • Virtual horizon indicates if camera is level (like an aircraft cockpit display)
  • HDMI HD video output
  • ‘Active D-Lighting’ (adjusts metering as well as applying D-Lighting curve)
  • Detailed ‘Control Panel’ type display on LCD monitor, changes color in darkness
  • Magnesium alloy body with connections and buttons sealed against moisture
  • Improved Info display on main screen *

* Different to D3

Mind you, I’ve liked Nikon long before I was lucky enough to be selected to be part of their D80 advertising campaign, but I have to say, this sounds like a great camera. You can read the well written preview here at DPReview.com.

Me, I’m still saving up for a D300, but if I wanted a Full Frame DSLR, I’d seriously consider the D700.

I’m not one of those people who ONLY like “their” own brand. I just happen to really like the feel and capabilities of the Nikon line of SLR’s starting with a Nikon F and now I’m on a Nikon D80. When people tell me that they are thinking about buying a DSLR, I’ve recommended that they find out what features they want, Spend time actually handling the camera (very important!), and purchase what feels right. In the last few months, I’ve helped enough people buy a DSLR that the sales staff recognize me at Adorama (which, BTW, is a great place with a great staff And no, this is NOT a paid endorsement…). In the last 6 months, the count is 4 Nikons,  2 D80’s and 2 D60’s, 1 Canon 40D.

Image from DPReview.com.

Music I’m listening to now:
Pocketful Of Sunshine“, by Natasha Bedingfield from the Pocketful of Sunshine album. You can see the video here.

Update on the PG Mk II



Gundam MkII

Originally uploaded by S.D.

Always meant to update this post where I started to build a PG Mk II. I finished it and posted some images to Flickr, but neglected to update my Blog.  Not many photos, but You can see them here on Flickr. It was fun to build and I need to put the decals on to finish.

Music I’m listening to now:
Pocketful Of Sunshine“, by Natasha Bedingfield from the Pocketful of Sunshine album. You can see the video here.

MG Shin Musha Gundam

MG Shin MushaAs many people know, one of my hobbies is assembling Bandai Gundam Models. Over at Ngee Khiong’s blog, he found images from someone who got it and assembled it already.

I have to say, it’s an over the top model, and I Soooooo want one!
😉

I’m resisting on account of my having quite a queue of models to build. Currently I’m working on a a Bandai MG RX-78-2 Gundam. I’m not sure if I’ll paint it, but it should be fun in either case.

Update: Dalong.net has one already. Can’t wait for him to finish it. The images of the Instructions make it look pretty interesting.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

House painting

This week, my wife and I took time off to paint our dining room and bedroom. After painting our living room last year, we learned a few things when painting our house:

  1. Pick your paint carefully. We’re using Behr paint from home depot.
  2. Seriously, use primer. I bought our house in the end of 2002 and near as I can tell, the previous owner never did any painting since he purchased it in 1997. As a result, when we painted our living room without any primer, the paint bubbled up and I spent a lot of time fixing it. This time around, we are putting primer on every surface including the ceiling. Since we did that no crazy paint bubbles.
  3. Get canvas tarp for the floor. It absorbs spilled paint and prevents you from tracking it into the rest of the house. For the furniture, buy cheap plastic tarp and cover it all up from top to bottom.
  4. Use the basement sink for cleaning the brushes.

So far, after a day and a half or painting, we’ve painted most of our dining room.

BTW: Normally, I’d take pictures of what I’m doing for Flickr, but as paint and Nikon D80 does not mix, no WIP photos.

Music I’m listening to now:
If I Never See Your Face Again“, by Maroon 5 with Rhianna from the It Won’t Be Soon Before Long album. You can see the video here.

Home improvement

One of the things we were unhappy with our house is the basement windows. They were from the 70’s, drafty and leaked when water hit it. We finally got around to replacing them this weekend. It took all day, but are well worth it. They also repaired our gutters too.

The contractor we hired did very good work and we’re going to hire him in the future.

Next up, painting two rooms. Hopefully, we’ll be done by the end of the week.

We’re also pricing out a conversion from Oil heat to Gas heat.

Music I’m listening to right Now:
Headhunter VI.0” by Front242 from “Front by Front” Album. You can see a video here.

Time off from work

Finally managed to take some time off from work. Don’t get me wrong, aside from the middle of the night wake up calls (like last night at 1:00am…) I actually like my job and the work that I do.  I work on interesting projects, meet interesting people and help to solve a lot of technical problems. I get to play work with a wide variety of technology and literally solve problems in Europe, APAC and various sites in the US. If I don’t have a tool I need, since I’m a programmer, I tend to make any tool I need to handle the problem at hand.

But every now and then, I need a break to work on my house and or just to relax. This week, Janny and I will be painting two rooms, work on our yard,  and generally cleaning up the house. While I don’t particularly like painting, I’m looking forward to it.

I’m hoping that I’ll have time to complete this model too. It’s a Bandai MG RX-78-2 Gundam. You can see what it looks like assembled here at Dalong.net (A very cool Korean site about Gundam Models). I’ll also process and post photos I took to Flickr. I’ve been so busy at work that I’ve not been able to walk around and take much photos.

Music I’m listening to right Now:
Mercy” by Duffy from the “Rockferry” Album. You can see the video here.

Battlestar Galactica – The Ties That Bind

Episode 3 was interesting. I’ve always enjoyed the writing on the series (series that concentrate on effects and NOT the story don’t last) and the Final season is not disappointing. In this episode, not much happens with most of the crew, but lots of things happening in the background with the Cylons (all of them), Starbuck and the government. See spoilers after the break.

Also, you can see full episodes online at scifi.com here.

Music I’m listening to right Now:
The Taste” by Five For Fighting from the “The Battle For Everything

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How to photograph fireworks

A friend of mine is going on vacation where there will be Fireworks so she asked me how to take photographs of them. In looking into it, I found this really good tip page at Digital Photography School. Very good reading and advice that I’ll try to follow on July 4th.