Ever think that something looks cool, but not get it, and pass on being the early adopter? Then suddenly everyone is reviewing the item and it is at the top of everyones Christmas list? Now you start to think, well, I’m not going to get it just because everyone else has it… Ok, were not in grade school, but I sort of felt that way when I say a review of the Black Rapid camera strap on Photoshop Insider. I had seen an ad on David duChemin’s site for awhile, looked at their site, and thought it was pretty cool looking. Back in July David did a review of the strap. I was hooked, but held off due to price. I dislike my default Nikon neck strap. I usually wear it just on my shoulder, but it can’t reach my eye easily, and it keeps slipping, especially with a jacket. I got a “better” strap from a local camera store, but it just seems too bulky, and still slips off. That was a waste of money. In September, David mentions that the buzz about this strap is growing. Now in October, a reader posts a review on Scott Kelby’s site. I gotta think that this would spike sales over there. I would love to say that I now have one and that I can’t live without it, but my pennies are all spent from the D90 purchase, so the little black strap with yellow lettering will have to due for now.
Category Archives: Hardware
Shiny new D90
I got a call from National Camera yesterday. I had been on a list for a body only D90. They had got in a shipment and given me a call. I left almost immediately. I grabbed the cash I had been squirreling away and headed to the bank for the rest. I now have a shiny new D90 in my hands.
I spent last night pressing buttons and looking through menus. It is definitely a new experience to be able to set most things from buttons on the top and back with out going through menus. The addition of the LCD on top (over the D40) takes some getting used to, but something I think I will grow to really like.
I put my 50mm f/1.8 on and took some low light auto focusing 1600¬† ISO indoor photo’s. Sweet. I love that the 50 will auto focus on this camera, and the higher ISO performance over the D40 looks to be great. I will have to do a more formal review of some of these things later.
iPhone NDA lifted
I really would like a phone/device with a data plan that allows web browsing and running of applications. The recent lifting of the iPhone NDA is really got me wanting an iPhone. If only the data plans didn’t cost another $30 on top of a voice plan… I really like the idea of apps that you can download, and like the idea even more of writing something myself. What you ask? Good question, but it would be fun to try.
Some part of me was holding off (other than price) waiting for the Google Android to see the light of day. The T-Mobile phone (whose network sounds better than AT&T’s) is unfortunately not an iPhone killer. It was disappointing to see this attempt from google fall short. I am also not very impressed that a phone and platform that is supposed to be open has been so restrictive.
Now that the iPhone NDA has lifted, I am getting tempted again. I gave up running linux as a desktop to run a Mac, I may just give up on Android to get an iPhone too.
Resizing a logical volume
I backup my photos from an iMac to a Ubuntu linux box with a simple rsync command.
rsync --exclude=".*" -ave ssh /my/masters userId@x.x.x.y:/media/pictures
This will copy everything new from /my/masters to the backup machine at /media/pictures without copying any “dot” files. This also does not delete anything from the new machine.
Anyway, I was doing the rsync, but ran out of space on the backup box. A ctrl-z, and now I need to make more space. I am running ext3, so it should be just a few commands. First I unmounted (umount) the filesystems just to be sure. Then :
lvextend -L +40G /dev/vg/pictures
This will grow the logical volume by 40 gig. Next we need to resize the filesystem to fill up the space.
resize2fs /dev/vg/pictures
I have done this before, but this time I got a message to run e2fsck first.
e2fsck -f /dev/vg/pictures
This finished without issue, and I then ran the resize2fs command and it finished after a couple of minutes. Remount the filesystem, a “df” and it confirms that there is more space available.
I removed the last file copied to make sure it wasn’t wrecked somehow, and then kicked off the rsync again. It just picked up where it left off.
Nikon Anounces the D90
Woo Hoo. The D90 has finally been announced. This is definitely my next camera. If I could just stop buying new running gear, I could start saving for this thing.
It will move me up from 3 to 11 focus points, and from ridiculously slow to 4.5 frames per second shooting. A better viewing screen, and a 12.3 Mpix sensor that borrows from the D300. We will have to wait for reviews to see if this is the same sensor as the D300 or more likely a slightly toned down version.
Automatic sensor cleaning will be nice, and live view will be interesting to play with, but a movie mode? That is crazy! I will be watching to hear what people have to say about this.
DPReview has more to say on the D90.
It is not shipping yet, as expected, but Amazon is pre-ordering for $999 body only, and $1299 with the new 18-105 f/3.5-5.6kit lens. Not sure about the lens. We’ll have to wait and see what people say about the quality of this lens. At $300, it might be a good investment. I have a 17-50 f/2.8 Tamron, and it is a great lens, but as a walkaround, 50mm is short.
Anyway, I have a little while to decide while Nikon makes the camera available, and I try to find stuff to sell on ebay to afford the new toy.
National Camera Tent Sale
National Camera had their yearly tent sale last weekend. That makes it exactly one year that I have had my D40. Wow. It seems like I have been taking pictures for longer than that. I guess I have, just not with a DSLR. It has served me well (enough), and now I await the next upgrade. This next year should be interesting. I have come a long way in a year. Will interest wane, will I improve, will I wish for a full frame camera? Who knows.
To mark the occasion, I bought a 67mm circular polarizer for the Tamron lens, and a set of close up filters. I haven’t got any pictures out of the camera yet with these, so I will write up more about them later. I am not expecting great things out of the close up lenses, but I thought I would give them a try as they were half off.
Tamron lens update
I finally got lens number three of the 17-50 f/2.8 lens from B&H. Before I put the lens on I cleaned the contacts very carefully with rubbing alcohol, and made sure it was dry before putting the lens back on. It seemed to work well, except once. I got the no lens attached thing again. This time no amount of turning off/on would work. I had to unseat the lens and reattach. It just happened once. I am going to hope that it is just a D40 issue, or just this D40 and keep it. It is really nice to have a faster lens. I found that I had to swap in my 55-200 often though at the Lantern Lighting event. I didn’t always need the upper end, but 50 was just too short most of the time for an event like this. The 55-200 works fine in the middle of the day. I like it a lot, it is just too slow as evening come on. Oh well. Can’t get everything with one lens.
The Rocket Blower
My summer vacation had just started when I noticed that I had dust on my sensor. Not something I wanted to deal with in South Dakota. So, I have had to photoshop out the dust spots on pictures that had small apertures, or didn’t happen to have darker areas right where the dust was.
When I got back I went and picked up a $10 rocket blower from National Camera. (amazon link) I thought I would give it a try. Cheaper than getting it cleaned, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to try the kits where you try to wipe the sensor (actually the filter in front of the sensor).
It turned out to work for me. Others claim it just blows the dust around and you get spots on other places in you pictures. For me, it just worked.
New gear I could maybe afford
David du Chemin has a post up about the hyperdrive he bought. Sounds like something you add to your car to get you 400 miles in 4 minutes (I wish) but it is a on site backup device. I have wanted one of these, not that I would really use it that much, but they still come in handy. Would have been great on my summer vacation. Epson makes the P-5000 that will store 80 gigs for OVER $600. Yikes. I am buying a lens before that. Amazon lists the 40 gig model for $279 and the 100 gig for $319. Much more reasonable. Not as big a screen, but getting approachable in price.
The new gear I can’t afford
Scott Kelby put up his review of the new Nikon D700. He calls it more of a field guide, as it is less technical than say dpreview, but more, this is what I like/don’t like. This camera at $3000 body only is way off the charts on my radar. The other thing that has people excited about the camera, but makes it an absolute no (as if it wasn’t already) is that it is a full frame camera. The Nikon D3 (also a full frame) goes for $5000. The cheapo lenses that I try to buy are made for the DX crop sensor, and don’t really work with the full frame cameras. They work, but the 12 Mpixel camera becomes a 5 Mpixel one. You would need to shell out for the “real” Nikon lenses in the $1500+ category. This just gets me more excited about the (hopefully soon) upcoming D90. Come on new camera!