The Many Camera Changes

Although I'm technically on holiday, I've been as busy as hell running around getting stuff done, and as of such haven't had much time to blog. Running errands has kept me very busy just about all the time, so I thought I'd spend some time blogging here.uranium238 went through similar camera changes - although my schedule was vastly accelerated due to certain coincidences, so to speak.

I went through quite a few cameras in the past half year, all of which you'd agree are progressive upgrades - and the surprising stories behind them.

The first upgrade occured when my Sony CyberShot DSC-S40 point-and-shoot camera just died on me. It didn't actually die of course, just a series of malfunctions that renders the camera difficult to use - the lens cover started having mechanical problems, although nothing a little ingenuity couldn't fix. Soon after, the LCD just failed to operate altogether. I did have a viewfinder, and I could indeed use the camera viewfinder style, but having no way to set flash settings or anything, I set about looking for a new camera.

Now, at the time, I had the misconception that dSLRs were difficult to use and that I wouldn't get my money's worth spending the several hundred extra dollars on an dSLR - I wasn't much of a photographer and I didn't spend all that much time taking photographs. Why buy a complex dSLR that would cost me over double and do less and cover less zoom range? I did a lot of research - running all over the place, considering most of the superzooms (with the exception of the Canon Powershot S5 IS, which has since been superceded by the Canon Powershot SX10 IS - which is a superzoom.)  - since they gave a lot of control over the how the camera worked, and were both smaller and cheaper than dSLRs.

I ended up settling with a Panasonic DMC-FZ18 for a short while. It was great - 18x zoom and a 28mm wide end for the less gave a lot of leeway for getting stuff done - and the close focusing for macro was great. I took several hundred shots with this camera. There was something wrong with it though: it was a great camera, but like many point and shoots (no matter how glorified and how big) - taking photos in low light just sucked. Still - it was the first camera I had with image stabilisation: and I was amazed at how well it worked for those crazy shots at 18x (504mm).

The next upgrade was much a surprise - someone had put up a Nikon D60 + twin VR lens kit up for sale for cheap. I quickly snapped it up (egged on by chewxy), whether for the opportunity to sell it for profit or just for use myself was a matter for another day. It took a while to get used to using a viewfinder again (I used to use my dad's film SLR.) after so many years of using an LCD to compose and shoot. Of course, now I love using a viewfinder so much that even when I picked up my FZ18 again, I looked through the viewfinder to compose. What was I surprised by? The camera was actually easier to use than a point and shoot. Sure, you have to hold the camera to your eye, and yes, you no longer have a 100% viewfinder to compose with - but guess what, the camera actually makes it difficult for you to screw up. Photos are rarely too dark or too bright, the camera knows when to fill flash (so you don't have to),  that's not even mentioning there is quite a gain in sharpness and detail from the mere camera change. And of course, I finally found the feature I was looking for all along - great high ISO performance. Life was good. Well, for a while.

Forking out the extra money on the D60 was indeed a problem:  this actually threw a spanner into my plans to eventually acquire a Nikon D90 sometime in 2009 or 2010. This caused me to accelerate my plans. I quickly sold my D60 and my FZ18 (and several other odds and ends). Amazingly enough - this raised me just enough cash to buy a Nikon D90. The jump from the D60 to the D90 may not seem like much. The D90 has 2 more megapixels, an AF motor, live view, movie mode, slightly better viewfinder, better AF system and so on. That's of course, all in the specifications. Stuff you don't see in the specifications? On the D60 - you had to consider whether or not to turn on ADR - on the D90, it's a no brainer - just turn it on. The D90 is so much faster at processing photos, even slower shutter speeds actually seem faster. It's also a lot more aggressive at keeping the LCD off - no wonder it no longer has an eye sensor.

Now that I'm back on my original plan - I don't think I'll be changing cameras for the next few years. Heh.

Funny Item Review: Energizer USB Charger

A week ago, I followed Shockrave on his quest for a new printer. He settled for a brother HL2140 from Officeworks - which I think is a decent laser printer. On the other hand, something else caught my eye:

The Energizer USB battery charger. It's no secret I'm a big fan of Energizer USB rechargable batteries, I have over 16 of them littered all over my apartment in many many devices. It's a nifty little device that charges battery via USB, and it even works with those USB adapters you may have laying about. While to most people this may not be a big deal, to me it is - when I travel, carrying one USB AC adapter and several USB cables saves a lot of space. (I chose the green coloured one simply because that felt like the most "Energizer Rechargable" brand oriented.)

The cable coils nicely around the device and the USB plug tucks in neatly into a slot built into the charger. Some of you may not value this simple aesthetic yet functional design, but I do.

Fully uncoiled, it looks like this:

Like other Energizer chargers, it supports charging AA and AAA batteries (it actually comes with two 900mAh AAA batteries.

The AAA batteries charge using the familiar fold down piece.

Curious about what it looks like inside underneath the batteries?

This charger can charge just one battery. (Handy for those who use rechargeable in mice like the VX Revolution  that only use one battery.)

Once you've loaded the batteries, and closed the cover:

Then, download their software, plug it into the computer and:

(The timer did correct itself to 4 hours after a while. Not sure why it went down all the way to 9 hours 14 minutes.)

I'm not going to lie, it was an impulse buy, and serves little purpose to me now. That being said, if I need to charge only two batteries, this is a lot more convenient than the slightly bulkier travel charger I bring around. It serves its purpose, and like most Energizer chargers, the batteries don't get as hot as some other chargers do - and if you like having a small USB device that can charge batteries lying somewhere in your room near your computer - don't hesistate to pick one of these up. :D

Review of iPod mini Review

Was my call on the iPod mini unjustified? I insulted it like it was something made of completely cheap material and byond what I would every pay for a player of that quality. I wouldn't buy an iPod mini until all the simple flaws I pointed out are fixed. Then again, would I buy any other iPod? I might consider. I'm hammering the iPod mini because of my unexpected disappointment with its audio quality and much more over its hype as a RM1000 player. It's actually fine by most standards - but my ears and m brain tend to demand more out an audio player - it's incapability to reproduce sound to my standards is actually quite normal, I've probably thrown out many players as useless out of my despair in looking for a player that can do the job that my computer is doing. Is it the earphones of the iPod? I don't think so - I'm quite certain they are fine although mine might be better. I'm hoping future incarnations of the iPod mini will improve considerably over its earlier siblings - but it's unlikely it'll be an iPod mini I'll be looking at by the time it does improve to my standards. I will review a new game after my exams - SWAT 4.

iPod mini Short Review

I'm pretty sure all of us has heard about the iPod mini. It's small, it's nice, and comes in four horrible looking colours (and still sells like hotcakes). My friend, drinkingcocoa recently purchased one of these highly desirable items. When we went out to 1 Utama recently, I got to try out this valuable little nugget of his. He, of course, loaded it with few songs, if I remember correctly, it barely topped 100 songs. Since I believed this item was a highly desirable item, I should take a go and give it a good review for the benefit of all the readers of this blog. Review: iPod mini 4GB (2nd generation)

First off, let's talk about the pros of the iPod mini. It's small. It can hold 4GB. It looks nice with the click wheel words being the small colour as the actual body. The click wheel is responsive enough for normal use, and of course, the earphones had pretty good bass. I'm pretty sure syncing is easy, if not, I might have gotten a few calls. *sweats* I won't comment on the intuitiveness of the menu system, because, frankly, I already know it head to tail, but when I didn't, it took a while to get used to.

This is a simple review, I'm not going to go so deep into why you should buy this. I'm going to go deep into why you shouldn't. All of us already know the pros. We want to know what's wrong with this thing that everyone is not telling us.

Apple skimped on having an AC adapter as well as on the FireWire cable - which is a big drawback to me, considering I have a FireWire 400 port, and an AC adapter would be good for on the go charging. I'm am also very picky when it comes to sound. I'm the kind of person that actually compares stuff like Ogg Vorbis at maximum bitrate to MP3 at maximum bitrate. Many people claim they cannot hear the difference between the two, or that the difference is negligible. When I decided to test these two at 'equal' bitrates, MP3 sounded better, and was only something like a megabyte or two larger. I could hear what Ogg Vorbis cut off and lost from the audio file - and the difference was not negligible - it could change certain pieces of music and make them hit with less impact (but yes, negligible for most, but not for me). Here, with the iPod mini, I was thoroughly disappointed. The sound it gave me - was worse than my simplistic 256MB audio player from Transcend. I knew it wasn't the stock earphones - I have neodymium backphones - and they should sound the same. I've compared simple 128kbps samples - and I know they sound worse on the iPod mini. The problem is old, and is well known. The power drain of the earphones causes the sound quality to fall. I've heard the iPod mini on AC-powered speakers before. They sounded like they should. Does it performing better on speakers matter? No. The iPod mini was built for mobility, not a mobile sound system (iPod + portable speaker + AC adapter). Now, I was looking forward to seeing if the equalizer would help. The iPod mini has a set of presets you can use, and after some vain attempts to find the best, I settled for one setting. The one setting to rule all other settings on the iPod. The one setting that would leave your sound at its best quality on the iPod mini. The one setting that sat at the very top. That setting is 'Off'. How is that possible? I honestly don't know. I had Green Day's American Idiot (128 kbps) blazing on my drinkingcocoa's iPod, and the best setting I found was to actually not use the equalizer to begin with. I don't use the equalizer at home, my Transcend revision B JetFlash MP3 player has no equalizer - I'm playing an American Idiot sample at 128 kbps also. My home computer has a DSP plugin, so it'll always sound good. I generally pamper my music, going for the highest possible bitrate with the best space savings. To me, this generally means VBR maxing out at 320 kbps. But for the sake of testing, I will take things a notch down.

The verdict on the iPod mini? Rethink your purchase. Are you certain that no other player fits your needs? Are you sure you want to buy something that doesn't sound quite as good as even the iPod shuffle? Tip of the week: Don't buy something out of cool or fad. Make sure it sounds right first. As for my recommendations on a substitute? I don't have one. I haven't heard every single player, and I do not intend to recommend one until I'm absolutely certain which one is the one to buy.