Canon finally seems to have come clean with defects on its flagship Powershot camera... the Canon Powershot G10. This same defect was identified by yours truly last November. Spotted the defect within the first week of shooting and the first time I took the camera out.
But one major question remains, why has Canon taken so long to admit the problem? As I have mentioned in my November post, the problem is so glaring it could easily be spotted... IF Canon had done any quality control at all. Perhaps now that the camera is more than 6 months old and sales have tapered, that Canon thinks its safe now to announce the problem and offer to have it fixed. sigh. If my conjecture is correct, its another instance of corporate greed and Canon arrogance at work again.
However, all is not fixed yet. Canon has still to address the "blur band" across the center of the viewfinder. This "blur band" gets larger has you zoom in and was also identified in my November post. I guess for Canon, if they think they can get away with it, they will try to. And if they get caught, the company will try and lie its way out of things. Only when it can't get off by lying will it offer to remedy the defect.
Canon is getting its ass kicked by Nikon now. It can continue to bury its head in the sand and pretend that all is fine. Suites me one way or the other because I use whatever is the best tool for the job at the time. Be it Canon or Nikon or any other brand.
Good luck Canon.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Apple MacMini Upgrade
Well, my Apple MacMini finally arrived some days ago and yesterday I finally upgraded a.k.a. hacked my Apple Personal Computer....
From 120GB low capacity and slow hard drive to a Western Digital 500GB big and faster hard drive.
And from 1GB of inferior Apple supplied RAM which incidentally comes from a little known supplier in Singapore to 4GB of OWC DDR3 RAM, which exceeds Apple's specs. This memory runs rock solid on the MacMini.
Of course, before I did the upgrade, I cloned the existing HD to the new 500GB WD HD, tested it by booting from an external drive before installing it into the MacMini.
Piece of cake.... heres the shots...
Oh and incidentally, this is my first Apple Computer. The Apple II PCs in the '80s never did capture my immagination. There lacked the graphics and usability of the Atari 800 Home Computer, which had 5 CPUs... one each for graphics, audio etc. But I digress...
From 120GB low capacity and slow hard drive to a Western Digital 500GB big and faster hard drive.
And from 1GB of inferior Apple supplied RAM which incidentally comes from a little known supplier in Singapore to 4GB of OWC DDR3 RAM, which exceeds Apple's specs. This memory runs rock solid on the MacMini.
Of course, before I did the upgrade, I cloned the existing HD to the new 500GB WD HD, tested it by booting from an external drive before installing it into the MacMini.
Piece of cake.... heres the shots...
Oh and incidentally, this is my first Apple Computer. The Apple II PCs in the '80s never did capture my immagination. There lacked the graphics and usability of the Atari 800 Home Computer, which had 5 CPUs... one each for graphics, audio etc. But I digress...
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Open Vs Closed System
Last week, I ordered my first Apple PC. For those who feel confused with "Apple PC" it simply means Apple Personal Computer. An Apple is a Mac you say.... no PC stands for Personal Computer. An Apple computer is a PC. Forget about the silly Mac Vs PC commercials you see on TV. That's just clever sales promotion to attract the gullible and brand conscious user. More on that other day perhaps but tonight, I want to talk about Open Vs Close computer systems.
As mentioned I ordered my first Apple PC last week. And lo and behold, the delivery will take a few days to assemble as my Apple is considered a "custom order" simply because I opted for a slightly faster CPU. Gosh, this is ridiculous you can install a CPU on the system-board in less than 3 minutes.
That just goes to show Apple's mentality. Change a single item in their closed box, upgrade-less, dead end boxes they sell you and its considered a custom order. And it takes an extra few days. I ran Apple yesterday and the girl said that I should check again today and it should have been shipped out.
I checked when I got home today and lo and behold, the date just got extended from 16th April to 21st April. Ridiculous. I ordered Gateway 2000 PC years ago and it got delivered in less than a week. Ordered a DELL monitor and it got delivered in 3 days.
I could understand if my config had custom or hard to source components.... but Apple just offers a few options. And it charges heaps for extra memory or storage. More on that next time when I hack my Apple Mac Mini to give it 4GB of RAM for one third the cost that Apple wants to charge you and as for the 500GB HD... well Apple just wouldn't sell you one.
And whats the SATA header on the Mini's system-boad doing there but its not offered? Silly. If I get time I'm going to hack it so that it becomes an eSATA port too. Well more on that next time.... I'll definitely post when I upgrade to 4GB RAM (using memory superior to what Apple offers) and up the ridiculous and slow 120GB HD to a faster 500GB one.
The Mini is nothing but a laptop without the screen, keyboard, or mouse. One can get a laptop with similar specs and about the same cost. I'm buying a Mini simply because of the OS. Lets hope I don't regret this buying decision. That Leopard OS had better be worth the cost of that Apple.
As mentioned I ordered my first Apple PC last week. And lo and behold, the delivery will take a few days to assemble as my Apple is considered a "custom order" simply because I opted for a slightly faster CPU. Gosh, this is ridiculous you can install a CPU on the system-board in less than 3 minutes.
That just goes to show Apple's mentality. Change a single item in their closed box, upgrade-less, dead end boxes they sell you and its considered a custom order. And it takes an extra few days. I ran Apple yesterday and the girl said that I should check again today and it should have been shipped out.
I checked when I got home today and lo and behold, the date just got extended from 16th April to 21st April. Ridiculous. I ordered Gateway 2000 PC years ago and it got delivered in less than a week. Ordered a DELL monitor and it got delivered in 3 days.
I could understand if my config had custom or hard to source components.... but Apple just offers a few options. And it charges heaps for extra memory or storage. More on that next time when I hack my Apple Mac Mini to give it 4GB of RAM for one third the cost that Apple wants to charge you and as for the 500GB HD... well Apple just wouldn't sell you one.
And whats the SATA header on the Mini's system-boad doing there but its not offered? Silly. If I get time I'm going to hack it so that it becomes an eSATA port too. Well more on that next time.... I'll definitely post when I upgrade to 4GB RAM (using memory superior to what Apple offers) and up the ridiculous and slow 120GB HD to a faster 500GB one.
The Mini is nothing but a laptop without the screen, keyboard, or mouse. One can get a laptop with similar specs and about the same cost. I'm buying a Mini simply because of the OS. Lets hope I don't regret this buying decision. That Leopard OS had better be worth the cost of that Apple.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
United States- A Land of Violence
This past week or so saw some of the worse high profile gun violence and killings in the USA. With 14 dead in a NY citizenship center and 3 police officers gunned down in Pennsylvania, the violence is just overwhelming. In the latter case, the gunman was reportedly wearing a bullet-proof vest and armed with an AK-47, shot gun and a hand gun. He gunned down 3 police at the door step before pinning down a SWAT team as their vehicle approached the house.
Terrible. I remember an ex-colleague of mind relating his experience of the USA. He was ex-Army reserve, served in Bosnia, had real firefights and so on. While on exchange in the USA, his team was sent out on a mission to rescue two police officers who had stumbled upon a drug deal and were engaged in heavy firefight with heavily armed gangsters.
He tells me he remembers coming in on board a Blackhawk chopper and as they were "ropping" off the chopper onto the ground below, the gunner in the chopper was firing away with his 7.62mm machine gun down at the "terrorists" below. And he remembered thinking to himself, "Gosh, this is America. This is supposed to be the land of the free." His team was fully armed with automatic weapons and body armour and it was a full on firefight against the drug dealers before they eventually had the situation under control.
I think the USA is no longer the land of the free. Many parts of the country is wrecked with violence and killing. I think its time the US government started tackling terrorism at home first instead of meddling in other countries problems and usually making the problems worse.
On a side note, think if something like this were to have happened in China, the international press would definitely play up the issue and suggest that the violence is somehow linked to some repressed ethnic group or of some ill-treated and marginalised Chinese citizen who finally lost it after not getting "justice" from the local government. Either way, the Chinese government almost always gets blamed NO MATTER what they do or don't do. And we've seen this time and time again in the international news.
I remember the time when it was reported in India that a pick-pocket who was caught by the police was tied by the ankles and dragged through the streets on a police motorcycle. No one in the international press raised any questions. Is it because India is a democracy and China is not? If this were to happen in China, the international press would be all over the story. They'll claim among other things, human rights violations, police brutality, and government inaction and corruption. These seem to be the favourite topics raised.
Irony. Full of irony.
Terrible. I remember an ex-colleague of mind relating his experience of the USA. He was ex-Army reserve, served in Bosnia, had real firefights and so on. While on exchange in the USA, his team was sent out on a mission to rescue two police officers who had stumbled upon a drug deal and were engaged in heavy firefight with heavily armed gangsters.
He tells me he remembers coming in on board a Blackhawk chopper and as they were "ropping" off the chopper onto the ground below, the gunner in the chopper was firing away with his 7.62mm machine gun down at the "terrorists" below. And he remembered thinking to himself, "Gosh, this is America. This is supposed to be the land of the free." His team was fully armed with automatic weapons and body armour and it was a full on firefight against the drug dealers before they eventually had the situation under control.
I think the USA is no longer the land of the free. Many parts of the country is wrecked with violence and killing. I think its time the US government started tackling terrorism at home first instead of meddling in other countries problems and usually making the problems worse.
On a side note, think if something like this were to have happened in China, the international press would definitely play up the issue and suggest that the violence is somehow linked to some repressed ethnic group or of some ill-treated and marginalised Chinese citizen who finally lost it after not getting "justice" from the local government. Either way, the Chinese government almost always gets blamed NO MATTER what they do or don't do. And we've seen this time and time again in the international news.
I remember the time when it was reported in India that a pick-pocket who was caught by the police was tied by the ankles and dragged through the streets on a police motorcycle. No one in the international press raised any questions. Is it because India is a democracy and China is not? If this were to happen in China, the international press would be all over the story. They'll claim among other things, human rights violations, police brutality, and government inaction and corruption. These seem to be the favourite topics raised.
Irony. Full of irony.
Friday, April 3, 2009
The Importance of Post Processing Software
Post processing software is indispensible today. With cameras being digital, you have to process you digital files. Having good PP software which gives not only excellent IQ, reliable results and excellent user interface is therefore critically important.
Here are several important ways how NOT to do it...
Taken from a couple of quotes from Lloyd Chambers, renowned online author, software engineer (20+ years), blogger, camera equipment tester, Apple PC user and photographer tells of what he thinks of Nikon's Capture NX2 RAW image processing software.
Where NX 2 falls flat is with overall usability, and it is downright painful working with batches of files where each file needs some tweaks of its own. This author is hard pressed to think of a worse user interface design in a RAW file-converter. The user interface design seems to be a literal translation of some engineer’s stream of consciousness thinking about the code and data structures, as opposed to thinking about how to ease the workload on the user. The NX engineering team should study Apple’s Aperture, or Adobe’s Lightroom for example. This author, having been a software engineer for 20 years, would lay odds that the NX team has never consulted a skilled user interface designer.
Here are several important ways how NOT to do it...
Taken from a couple of quotes from Lloyd Chambers, renowned online author, software engineer (20+ years), blogger, camera equipment tester, Apple PC user and photographer tells of what he thinks of Nikon's Capture NX2 RAW image processing software.
Where NX 2 falls flat is with overall usability, and it is downright painful working with batches of files where each file needs some tweaks of its own. This author is hard pressed to think of a worse user interface design in a RAW file-converter. The user interface design seems to be a literal translation of some engineer’s stream of consciousness thinking about the code and data structures, as opposed to thinking about how to ease the workload on the user. The NX engineering team should study Apple’s Aperture, or Adobe’s Lightroom for example. This author, having been a software engineer for 20 years, would lay odds that the NX team has never consulted a skilled user interface designer.
To solve the batch selection issue, one must manually move desired images into their own folder. Worse, Capture NX attempts to batch-processes both NEF and JPEG files of the same name. Removing the JPEG files should not be required to batch-process a group of NEF files! And here’s the kicker: once a batch job is started, no more batch jobs can be added; you must wait. Given the folder orientation for batch processing, how does one process 10 folders... dump all the files into one huge folder? No, one waits and waits for the batch to finish. That is not batch mode, it’s waste-time mode, a colossally infuriating design.
In contrast in Canon's Digital Photo Professional, you select the photos you want to batch and hit Command B and you're done. And while the DPP worker is at it, you can continue working and add new batch processes which will immediately start working. How easy is that?
And here's the real show-stopper with Capture NX...
And here's the real show-stopper with Capture NX...
Make the tiniest change to a NEF (RAW) file and you lose—your time, your disk space. For example, change the white balance and save the NEF. A 14.3MB NEF file inexplicably becomes an 18.6MB file—30% larger. Worse, it takes 5-10 seconds to save (on a quad-core 3GHz Mac Pro with a 4-drive striped RAID capable of 350MB/sec). Do the NX2 engineers really think this is the way it should work? Canon’s DPP can save settings for hundreds of files in the time it takes NX2 to save them for a single file—and you don’t lose gigabytes of disk space in the process.
Worse, your file is put at risk of data corruption due to overwriting the original file. This is not an idle concern; Nikon itself warned of data corruption with Capture NX and Mac OS X Leopard (now allegedly fixed)! Your file date is modified as well. Capture NX violates a fundamental data-integrity rule: never write over an original file. At least with Canon’s DPP, space is set aside in advance for the settings, which makes it fast and low-risk.
The storage issue is a major nuisance, the potential data corruption a serious concern, but the performance issue is a show-stopper. Working through large numbers of images, one just can’t waste 10 seconds per file for a save (which includes answering the inane dialog about saving).
This is insane... it violates just about every basic rule of data integrity, efficiency, and common sense.
And now with the latest release of Capture NX2.2.0, it gets worse than "worst"
Run a batch job and the programme uses about 7% of only one of the CPU cores of the new MacPro. Or as the author states 0.4% of the available processing power of that computer. Thus, it takes 30 minutes or so to process 15 NEF files.
Lloyd Chambers calls the programme manure. Humm.... makes me wonder if Nikon even tested their software..... I shudder to think. It reminds me of Canon's QA of its L lenses.
But at least now with DPP3.6 released, more features are being added and more importantly, the programmes generally works well and its interface works pretty well too. Most of all its easy to use, fast to use and makes use of 2 to 4 cores efficiently, and it uses hyper-threading too. BTW, DPP3.6 is only available on the Japan website for now.
The problems with Nikon Capture NX 2 are so bad it actually makes it worthwhile to be shooting Canon. At least I feel better now and I'll give Canon time to launch better lenses and cameras which actually work as advertised while I enjoy my Canon EOS 50D and Powershot G10 cameras.
And now with the latest release of Capture NX2.2.0, it gets worse than "worst"
Run a batch job and the programme uses about 7% of only one of the CPU cores of the new MacPro. Or as the author states 0.4% of the available processing power of that computer. Thus, it takes 30 minutes or so to process 15 NEF files.
Lloyd Chambers calls the programme manure. Humm.... makes me wonder if Nikon even tested their software..... I shudder to think. It reminds me of Canon's QA of its L lenses.
But at least now with DPP3.6 released, more features are being added and more importantly, the programmes generally works well and its interface works pretty well too. Most of all its easy to use, fast to use and makes use of 2 to 4 cores efficiently, and it uses hyper-threading too. BTW, DPP3.6 is only available on the Japan website for now.
The problems with Nikon Capture NX 2 are so bad it actually makes it worthwhile to be shooting Canon. At least I feel better now and I'll give Canon time to launch better lenses and cameras which actually work as advertised while I enjoy my Canon EOS 50D and Powershot G10 cameras.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)