What I look for in a cameraEchoing Eugenia's post about important features in a video-recording camera, here are my priorities when looking at a still camera, in this specific order.
- How large is the sensor?
- Does it have fast prime lenses that match the sensor size?
- Does it have aperture control?
- Does it have sensitivity control?
- How many pixels does it have?
The first two are really important: they are the ones that most fundamentally influence the final image quality (in terms of sharpness, low-light characteristics, and background blur).
Notice how the pixel count is at the bottom of the list. Yup. It doesn't matter. If you have a camera with a large sensor, a good prime lens, aperture control and sensitivity control, you're usually fine. Get your hands on a used 5D, stick a 50/1.8 on it, set the aperture around f/7, use the lowest sensitivity you can get away with, and you'll have files that can print to just about any size.
JBQ: now on twitterSince I obviously can't get myself to write long blog posts any more, I decided to open my own twitter account to get a taste for twitter. So far so good.
Looking back at internet fashion, I skipped Hotmail, did Geocities, skipped Myspace, Delicious and Facebook, hopped on Gmail, and now I'm on Twitter. I'm probably missing some in the list.
It's not the economy, stupid!Today was warm in tha area, and quite a few people showed up at the local Mexican joint to have a taste of summer in the evening, on the patio by the water.
The restaurant stupidly closes at 9pm, and barely after 8pm they were turning customers away as they didn't have enough waiters left on duty (even though neither the patio nor the room was full)
Based on the number of customers they turned away, I'd guess that thye missed several hundred dollars of sales just in the 10 minutes that they had us waiting.
Next time, plan better, and you'll be helping the economy!
Xbox 360: more impressionsI like:
-the community games. I haven't come close to checking them all out, but there are some real gems in there.
-the ability to install any game on the hard drive.
-the games that don't exist on the PS3.
-the fact that the video output is 1080p all the time, so I can set my TV to it "dot-by-dot" mode, which only exists in 1080p and sticks only as long as the video output doesn't change.
-the charging cable that's long enough to play while charging.
I dislike:
-the controller layout, with the asymmetry between the analog sticks.
-I'm still not a fan of the entire user interface, I find the menu hierarchy annoyingly deep, and the whole thing feels like it's overly tuned toward selling additional stuff all the time.
I'm still not sure about:
-the machine's capabilities as a games console. Forza 2 is a notch or two behind Gran Turismo 5, Kung-Fu Panda (bundled game!) falls into tearing and dropped frames as early as the first game scene.
Xbox 360: first impressionsWe bought an Xbox 360 (the elite variant), and it's been an interesting experience compared to the PS3 (and Wii). It's hard to pinpoint it, but overall it feels clunky. From the plastic of the device itself to the fact that the bundled controller is powered by AA batteries, from the fact that there's an external power supply and an external breakout cable for audio to the lengthy setup process, from the lame intro video to the overblown user interface of the main menu, from the odd trapdoor that hides the USB slots to the fact that the prices in the online store don't match an actual currency, it's definitely one full notch below the PS3 in terms of overall experience.
Going through the process, what comes to my mind is Joel Spolsky's "Hitting the High Notes" article, where it simply feels like the Xbox team can't hit the same high notes as the PS3 and Wii teams.
I'm looking forward to seeing what it's capable of in terms of games.