2012 Jan 04
I’ve been using my new camera for the past couple months, and have learned that there’s one thing that I really love most about it. Sure the performance is excellent and light-years beyond my old Konica-Minolta 7D, but what I like best about the A77 is the articulating rear screen. It makes it so easy to take shots from a variety of angles, especially low-angle photos. When I have the camera around my neck, I can quickly flip the screen down (I usually have the screen facing inwards for protection) and have a waist-level camera. It’s almost like a modern-day TLR but without the reversed image. I think that it’s a more interesting (or at least less-common) view angle for photos than the standard eye-level.
And if I want to take a shot even closer to the ground, I can just bend over and lower the camera; no need to get down on my stomach to look thru the viewfinder! In fact, these are the kinds of shots that I would never take before because they were just such a hassle that I wouldn’t even think of doing it. Not only can I take kids-level photos, but now even dog-level photos!
Here’s a shot where I flipped the viewfinder out and then sideways. I should have leveled it a bit, but still, I like the angle.
2012 Jan 03
We went to watch ”The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” the other night at the Flix Brewhouse. I hadn’t heard of this movie until pretty recently and when I saw the trailer, I thought that I had to go see it. It’s set in a time period that I really like (maybe the 30’s or early 40’s) and is full of adventure in exotic places. It really reminded me of the Indy movies, which isn’t surprising since this is also a Spielberg movie. When they were on the ship, I thought I heard a little bit of Indy music (John Williams!)!
I really enjoyed the animation (it looked amazing!) and the action, but I felt that there was maybe a little too much action. The chase scene where Tintin goes after Sakharine’s bird went on for way too long. I felt that the entire continuous scene was tiresome. There were some cool little puzzles like how the bulletproof glass was shattered, but I wish there were more of those. Instead, there was just more action. I thought the crane duel was actually pretty silly. But I was blown away by the pirate battle. That was really well-done! So for next time, I’m hoping for more evenly-spaced action sequences with a decent amount of “downtime” and clever puzzles.
2011 Nov 08
I’ve been using my second pair of Sony MDR-V6 headphones for a couple years now, and the fake leather on the earpads started deteriorating. My first pair of V6s had the same problem and I ended up throwing them away. I remember finding little black pieces of fabric around my ear and on my shoulder and wondering what they were! That was way back in the early 90’s before the Internet became popular. This time, however, I did some research online and found out that not only is this a widespread problem, but there is a widespread solution as well. Basically, ditch the Sony earpads and buy some new ones (even before the Sony ones go bad). The most popular pads are Beyerdynamic DT250/DT280 Replacement Earpads. They are made for a different brand/model, but they fit the Sonys perfectly. I bought mine from Sweetwater for about $19. Installing them was very easy — just pull off the old Sony pads and you will see how the new ones fit. Next, place the foam cover over the speaker and then carefully stretch the new pads over the rim. The pads came with another plastic part which is not needed and can go in the trash. The velour pads feel so good compared to the old pleather (although they do get a little hotter than the stock pads) and the sound really improves! This improved sound quality is why people recommend getting rid of the Sony pads immediately. At any rate, I’m very happy with the new pads and the headphones are now better than new!
2011 Nov 07
I uploaded a photo last week of my old Minolta camera straps and trying to decide which one to use on my new Sony A77. I ended up going with the smaller one because I wanted my camera rig to be more compact. Plus I like that the Sony (especially the 7-series) has Minolta DNA. To add to the brand confusion, I attached a folded piece of exposed 35mm film over the Sony logo using some gaffer’s tape and now the camera is really in “stealth mode”. It’s not that I intentionally want to hide the Sony logo — that piece of exposed film has a practical purpose! I’ll explain below.
This past weekend had a little photoshoot in which I could try the new camera out with studio lighting. I have an Alien Bees AB-800 strobe with a shoot thru umbrella. I use that as the key light (main light), and then use my Sony HVL-F56AM flash unit as a back light to blowout the background or as a fill light. To trigger the AB-800, I connect it directly to the camera with the PC Sync cord. To trigger the flash gun, I use the camera’s built-in wireless flash system which basically uses the onboard flash to send signals to trigger the flash unit. This signal is not itself supposed to be strong enough to affect the exposure, however if you are close to the subject I’ve seen that it can leave a little bit of shadow. This has been the case with the Minolta wireless system since it was introduced back in 1992.
To get around this, Minolta photographers have been using the ol’ “exposed film over the onboard flash trick”. The flash signal will still travel through the film to the external flash unit, but it blocks out any light that might affect the exposure. It’s an effective hack that has been used for a long time now and it really works! It makes the camera look a bit less pretty, and more of a workhorse, which I kind of prefer.
2011 Oct 28
I’ll soon be updating my camera collection with a replacement for my 6-year old Konica-Minolta 7D. The new Sony A77 camera actually shares the same lineage as the 7D, but I skipped a generation (the Sony A700). The 7-series of cameras is the higher end of the consumer models by Sony/Minolta. I still own my Minolta X-700 film camera, still want to buy the super Minolta Maxxum/Alpha 7 film camera, and seriously thought about getting the Sony A700 when it was released. But my 7D has kept chugging along, taking nice photographs so I decided to wait. It’s a very reliable camera. But within the past year, the body has started falling apart a bit. The little clip that holds the battery in place broke, but the door is strong enough to hold it securely. Just a couple months ago, the small sliding door that covers the USB cable connection busted. I still have the pieces, so a little glue should take care of it. But after 6+ years, I think the time is right to upgrade to the new Sony A77.
Six years is a long time in terms of camera technology. Not only has image quality improved, but Sony has invested in a new kind of system (SLT) which has some great advantages over the traditional SLR mechanics. The SLT system’s mirror does not flip up to let light hit the sensor. Instead, it is a semi-transparent mirror which reflects some light to an Electronic Viewfinder, and the rest to the main imaging sensor. Because the main sensor is always evaluating the scene (it has no traditional mirror blocking it), it can constantly autofocus, even while shooting video. Plus the FPS has been increased to 12 FPS even at full 24 Megapixels. The Electronic Viewfinder is OLED and is supposedly almost as good as a traditional optical viewfinder. The advantage of the EVF is that information can be overlaid onto the image and it shows you pretty much how the photo will turn out (white balance, aperture, exposure). Also, the viewfinder is as large as a full-frame camera’s and it shows 100% of the captured image.
Here’s a small list of the things I am looking forward to on the A77:
- GPS: It’s cool that the camera can geotag photos, but what’s really neat is that it can auto-adjust the date and time. I know, it’s silly, but so convenient!
- High ISO: With a range of 50-16,000 ISO low-light images will be much better than my 7D
- Peaking Mode: When you are manual focusing, the EVF will draw highlights around the parts of the image that are in focus. This is going to be a pleasure to use when I attach my old manual focus Minolta Rokkor lenses. I can’t wait to use my 135mm f/2!
- 3D Panorama: We recently got a 3D tv, and have looked at a few 3D images using it (and the PS3). It will be fun to make my own 3D images.
- Flash: My 7D never was able to get consistent exposures with my HVL-F56AM flash unit. I am anxious to be able to use it with confidence now.
- Weather Sealing: It’s not waterproof like my Panasonic Lumix, but it will be more resistant to rain and dirt than my 7D.
I’m sure everything about the A77 will be an improvement over the 7D, but I will miss a couple things about the ol Konica-Minolta; the beefy dials. These are so well-made and fun to use, that I don’t think anything can compare. It’s got a button on the top which you need to push in order to turn the dial. It’s so high-quality and I think it looks pro. It’s actually got two dials, one hidden below the main one which is turned by a lever. It’s so slick. I wish Sony would have kept them. I know the exposure compensation dial is probably unnecessary (I had re-programmed the rear control dial to adjust exposure anyways) but it looks so cool!
Thankfully Sony has kept many of the buttons in the same place from the 7D to the A700 and now to the A77, most importantly the AEL and AF/MF buttons. Of course most of these can be programmed to do most any function, but it will be great to not have to relearn them.
The new camera should be delivered soon and after I have some time playing around with it, I’ll write a follow up post with my impressions.
2011 Oct 20
Last December, one of the hard disks on my computer went kaput. It was a 1 TB drive that I used exclusively for data. Thankfully, I’ve been in the habit of backing up the entirety of that drive to an external 1TB hard disk, which I keep locked up at my office and bring home for the monthly backup. After restoring my data from the backup, I found that the only thing I had lost was a few .mp3s which I retrieved from my laptop. I’m such a believer in backing up data, even if you are using a brand new computer! External hard drives are cheap these days, so there’s no reason not to. Plus there is some decent free backup software that is out there.
Backing up to the external drive can be as simple as dragging and dropping, then choosing “replace” when it comes across an existing file. This is the easiest backup to do. However, there are some disadvantages. First, since you are copying everything each time you backup, it can take a long time (depending on how much data you have). Also, if you delete data from your source location, it won’t automatically be deleted from the destination. This may or may not be what you want. If you want to keep them in sync, then you’d have to completely delete your backup data and do a full copy. There’s that small window between deleting the backup and making the copy when you will only have a single instance of the data.
Fortunately there are several free pieces of software out there that can help. I’m using Windows, so I have no experience with Mac backup software, but I also don’t have any experience with the built-in Windows backup software, but I generally want something that creates a backup folder that I can treat like a regular data drive. In other words, I don’t want the backed-up data to be encrypted or compressed or in some wacky format that I cannot do anything with unless I use the backup software. GFI Backup is pretty good in that you can specify what folders you want backed up and where you want them backed up to. It also has scheduling and options to overwrite files only if different, keep two files, delete files in the destination directory if it no longer exists in the source, etc. I used it when my hard drive failed and it restored all my files with ease. It also keeps track of what files change in the source and destination so that the backups are quick (doesn’t have to copy everything).
A few months ago, the GFI software was updated, and it started asking for Windows permissions. Even though I put in my password, this never worked and I soon gave up on GFI. I did a little research and found another program called SyncBack and it does much the same thing. It’s even simpler than GFI, and I love it. The explanations of what files will be copied and what will happen when it encounters a conflict are written in easily understood language. It seems pretty quick and is also lightweight.
I’ve also tried the online backup service Mozy, and while the idea was great, the execution was lacking. First of all, I have about 1TB of data to back up so the initial upload took a few weeks. Also, the Mozy system tray program was slowing down my system. It also cost about $6 per month. The price of my 2 TB drive was $69, so as long as it lasts more than a year, it will be cheaper than Mozy. Of course Mozy will keep the backup up-to-date whereas my system is once-per-month, but that’s a tradeoff I can live with.
2011 Aug 31
This past summer I was trying to describe to my family in California this wonderful shamoji (rice spoon) that we’ve been using, but I guess it came out sounding gimicky. I think I mentioned that it had feet which is why it sounded like a toy or something. So I decided a blog post was in order since I really love this shamoji and it deserves a better explanation! We’ve had a few different kinds of shamoji through the years, from a plain black plastic one (used when I was growing up) to a white plastic one with “teeth”, and then shomoji with the small raised dots. The small raised dots work great to keep the rice from sticking. But our latest shamoji goes a step further by having a nice base that it balances on when not in use. This is super-convenient! No longer do you have to look for a place to rest the spoon, whether it’s a spoon holder on the side of the rice cooker, or just laying it on top of something (and getting that something dirty). Even if there are some grains of rice still stuck on the spoon, they won’t get stuck on anything since the spoon is standing vertically. It’s so simple but so convenient. I love it! I’m not sure where you can get one, but I think it is definitely worth the effort to seek one out. Ours looks like a little fish, doesn’t it? Or a smiling cyclops…
2011 Aug 30
I’ve had my eye on the REI Transit laptop bag for a while now, and since it went on sale a few days ago I couldn’t resist! I took my old bag into the store and proceeded to “test drive” the new bag by throwing in my laptop, charger, mouse, Kindle, and p&s camera to see how everything fit, and the bag swallowed it all up nicely! The padding is really plush, even the shoulder strap pad and carry handle are nicely padded. This bag is great because the main compartment is accessed from the top via a zipper. As I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t really like having to lift up the big flap to get in there. Anoher nice feature of this bag is that the zippers have a nice waterproofing seal on the outside. Of course it’s not waterproof like a Pelican case, but it seems like it would hold up in a decent rain (not that we’ll see rain ever again in Texas). I got the greenish-brown/orange one instead of the boring black/grey version.
Another bonus is that the little clip has holes in it which seem perfect for attaching a cell phone strap. I went through our collection of keitai straps and found this Totoro strap. The colors match nicely, I think! BTW, I gave my other two laptop bags to Bay and Koa. Luckily there was no fighting over who got which one since the each took a liking to different bags. Whew!
On another bag note, I ironed on my Ravenclaw patch to my canvas camera bag. The colors don’t match so well, but I like it anyways.
2011 Aug 22
I’m not a huge fan of the Muppets, but Animal just cracks me up! I’m hoping this movie is good.
