Category Archives: Photography

Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 APS-C zoom

Nikon lenses

An interesting innovation.

Sigma has just announced an 18-35mm zoom for APS-C sensor DSLRs with a fixed maximum aperture of a speedy f/1.8. It works out to 27-53mm full frame equivalent.

It’s no lightweight at 29 ounces – 5 ounces heavier than the stellar 35/1.4 – but the finish appears to be the same, meaning excellent. Like that prime, the new optic will be programmable using Sigma’s dock. I would guess pricing at $900 for the lens and under $100 for the dock. The lens comes in Sigma, Nikon and Canon mounts. I’m sure my D2x would love one, but I am very happy with the inexpensive 35/1.8 Nikkor G prime.

It’s good that an independent maker can challenge the big boys on both quality and price. It seems that true innovation is mostly coming from Sigma and Fuji today.

Sample images appear here.

Lightroom 5 Beta

Lightroom

Out now.

Adobe has announced the free availability of Lightroom 5 and as in previous releases the enhancements are substantive. Lightroom 4 brought greatly improved Highight and Shadow sliders and the team at Adobe has been diligent in bringing the latest RAW converters to LR in a timely manner. Most recently, they distinguished themselves with a revised release of converters for the Fuji X series of cameras which use a non-standard arrangement of pixels, resulting in enhanced image quality. Impressive.


Click the image to go to the download page.

Adobe reckons to have the bugs out by the summer and they have to be commended on the way they obviously listen to users. The final release will allow conversion of your existing LR4 or earlier catalog(s) of images. The current Beta version does not permit conversion, so I simply imported a handful of RAW images to see what was of interest.

These were the significant new features which caught my eye:

Automatic verticals and horizontals:

One click in the Lens Corrections panels and keystone distortion (leaning verticals) is (reversibly) removed, automatically. You have a choice of verticals, horizontals or both and it’s instantaneous. Be sure to apply your lens correction profile of choice to render lines straight (meaning you are removing barrel or pincushion distortion) before using this tool.

Visualize spots:

A new control renders the image in high relief to make finding spots easier. Very effective, along with a slider to change the degree of ‘spotiness’:

Simply click on the spot removal tool to invoke, then click the ‘Visualize Spots’ box.

Non-circular healing brush:

You can now elect to define an irregular area for use with the healing brush. The old circular functionality is retained. The size of the irregular area cannot be varied with the mouse’s wheel, whereas the size of a circular spot can be, as before:

Variable aspect ratios:

This allows stretching or squashing of an image with a simple slider. Very useful, and ideal for obese Americans:

I have an image where fixing verticals loses too much content. So I first squeezed it in LR5 using the new aspect ratio slider, then applied the verticals fix and the result was identical to what I achieved in DxO Viewpoint, and in a fraction of the time. Very nice indeed.

No code bloat:

There are many enhancements to other modules like the Book and Slideshow ones (the latter now allows embedding of videos). It seems that LR is on a 2 year upgrade frequency and this new release looks very promising. I’ll let smarter (?) users help Adobe work out the bugs and I expect the upgrade will be the usual $100, which is a bargain.

BBC iPlayer

Photography

Finally in the US.

I have complained before about the unavailability of BBC’s iPlayer web app in the US. When some priceless program was shown on the BBC in the UK with no export contemplated, the only way to view it was to impose on UK friends for a copy, a laborious process.

It’s no great secret that the taxpayer-funded British Broadcasting Corporation puts out the best TV and Radio on the planet. While taxpayer funding is seldom an attractive proposition it does allow the continued existence of culture in a UK market increasingly dominated by the criminal vulgarian Murdoch, a man who has systematically corrupted legality, good taste and decency in any market and medium he has touched.

Sadly, the BBC has the business acumen of a third world country, thus iPlayer is not available in the world’s largest market. However, thanks to instructions from a (British!) friend, a fellow expatriate, you can now easily enjoy iPlayer from the US.

To accomplish this sleight of hand, click the picture below to go to Overplay.net.


Click the image.

Sign up for the SmartDNS service only, for $4.95 a month, cancelable at will. You will be issued two DNS numbers either or both of which have to be entered in your device’s DNS settings. This accomplishes the simple goal of fooling iPlayer into believing that your device’s location is in the UK, allowing you to access iPlayer’s programming. Overplay.net accomplishes this by routing your program demands through a UK-located server. Quite why the BBC does not offer a like service for a similar fee, preferring to cede the revenue to an outsider, is way over my head. It’s hard to imagine a more trivial technical effort. Licensing too tough? Bosh. Look at what Apple has done with iTunes, all third party content, whereas most of the Beeb’s shows are home grown. They mostly already own the rights.

Here’s the entry in OS X in System Preferences->Network->Advanced->DNS:


These work only with an Overplay.net subscription.

In iOS the entry is in Settings->WiFi>right arrow. This also allegedly works with Windows – good luck with that.

This approach will allow any of your devices to access iPlayer whether at home or travelling where wi-fi is available. (Streaming video over a cellular connection gets to be very costly, very fast, and is not recommended). If your need is for home use only over your home wi-fi, you can enter the DNS address(es) in your Airport Extreme router and not bother with individual machines. Go to Applications->Utilities->Airport Utility->Edit and enter the DNS address here:

iPlayer allows you to save content to a local disk, just like with a DVR. The web app retains programming for 30 days and a local copy will last 30 days from the date saved.

What are some of the best features of BBC programming? Well, sports fans will immediately appreciate the absence of cloying, saccharine US commentary which immediately defaults to personal stories in lieu of focus on the sport to hand. You know, some utter swill about how the athlete overcame his dyslexia through professional cycling, abandoned a vocation as the next Shakespeare and triumphed against all odds, even if loaded to the gills with steroids. I’m a fan of Formula One and the British commentary is night-and-day better compared to the trash put out by the same Murdoch in the US on his truly wretched Fox propaganda channel. My other interest is cricket and of course that game is largely a stranger to these shores, though there’s fun to be had on the Stanford campus down the road where expat Indians enthusiastically apply willow to leather during summer weekends. The BBC’s cricket coverage on both radio and TV sets the standard.

The drama and comedy content on the Beeb is in a class of one, of course, and there’s ample programming for the culture vulture.

You can watch on an iPhone, iPad or iMac, and one of the best options is to use a MacMini connected to your big screen TV to enjoy shows on a large screen. Better yet, use something reliable and cool running like a HackMini which can be built for low cost. As far as I can tell, AirPlay is not implemented, meaning you cannot simply route content from a laptop to a TV connected to an ApppleTV device.


BBC Radio 3 – the last repository of all that is culturally great.

Best of all, I can now drop the premium pricing plan for my cable feed which I pay simply to get two Formula One races a month. Plus there are no commercials. What’s not to like?

The Hackintosh for 2013

Hackintosh

More attractive than ever.

Apple’s MacPro is now seriously obsolete. Memory is a slow 1333Mhz, USB 3 is not supported, Thunderbolt is not supported and the best video card option is the ATI Radeon 5870, now a generation behind and sporting but 1GB of memory. With 32GB of CPU memory and the 5870 GPU, along with one 1TB HDD, the rig will run you just shy of $4,000. Displays are extra.

Here’s the current Hackintosh build, not bleeding edge, just leading edge, which uses Intel’s i7 IvyBridge CPU, easily overclocked under warranty from stock:

That’s some $1,060 with no HDDs and no displays, keyboard, speakers or mouse. A keyboard, speakers and mouse of choice will add $100 and the rule here is anything but an Apple keyboard (foul chiclet keys) or mouse (the carpal tunnel special). Add $20 for OS X and $70 for a 1TB HDD to make things comparable and the all in cost becomes $1,250. Unless heavy video editing is contemplated, the $200 GPU can be omitted with the Hack using the excellent Intel HD4000 onboard GPU which comes with the CPU. Perfectly capable for LR and PS use. Further, 16GB of RAM is more than adequate, bringing the price down to $940. The power supply used is massively over-spec’d at 850 watts, but the marginal cost over a smaller power supply is so modest that there is no reason to compromise. You can spend as much or as little on storage and displays as you like, whether Mac or Hack. An exceptional value.

Apple has hinted that a new MacPro is in the works for 2013 and if this is true I expect that it will be far costlier than the current MacPro, Apple knowing that these are mostly used by design and video professionals spending someone else’s money. I also expect the new MacPro to be much smaller thus compromising cooling and it will, of course, use many proprietary parts meaning that when something breaks chances are the whole box will be out for repair. Meanwhile, the hospitalized Hack needs but a trip to Amazon or your local electronics store to fix what ails it at very low-cost in very short time indeed. It is a great comfort knowing that Fry’s Electronics is a 30 minute drive from my home though, like the umbrella never seeing rain, nothing ever breaks in my Hack.

Best of all, while there is still a need for a tinkerer’s mindset as Hacks can have quirks at the software – if not hardware – stage, the free tools available for today’s builder have never been better. It’s still not a plug-and-play experience, but it’s getting close.

The Hack build above sports a very quiet case (recommended by a reader – thank you PB) with superior cable management, adds two Thunderbolt sockets, front panel USB3 support, 32GB of memory which is more than anyone needs, an outstanding GPU ideal for still photographers and the best wifi in the business.

My slightly earlier SandyBridge i7 CPU Hack uses many of these parts and the only time it is restarted is when an OS X upgrade dictates that. Otherwise it’s on 7-by-24 and runs as cool as the proverbial cucumber no matter what it is tasked with. Used very hard, it is, in a word, as reliable as a brick.


Massive, silent cooling fans inside Corsair’s Obsidian case.

For the first time builder, the support community is so broad and so helpful that the risks of DIY are negated. Your sweat equity will total 1-3 hours of fun assembly time and another 2-5 hours installing OS X. What’s not to like?

Intel’s CPU for 2013 will be the yet to be released Haswell which will have lower power consumption (irrelevant for a desktop machine) and maybe the usual 7% or so speed increase. Integrated graphics will again be improved and a new motherboard will be required to accommodate the new CPU. I do not see any of these enhancements as a valid reason for delaying a Hack build.

Serial failure

Macintosh

The jury has left the building.

It is a good rule in life never to apologize.
The right sort of people do not want apologies,
and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
P.G. Wodehouse, The Man Upstairs

The old saw in banking has it that when you owe your local bankster $1,000, he owns you, but when you owe him $1 billion, you own him.


The last great iMac, the G4. Conceived at a time of great crisis.

It’s a lesson that the Serial Apologizer passing as CEO at Apple has never learned. When the Chinese make an organized propaganda attack aimed at Apple for allegedly poor warranty terms and service – ridiculous however you look at it – what does Cook do? He goes cap in hand to his main provider and apologizes. He has fallen into the $1 billion debtor trap, mistakenly believing that the Chinese own him. They do not. Apple owns the Chinese. Concentrating so much production in the hands of one man – the fella in charge in Beijing – was never a wise strategy, any more than concentrating retail lending in the hands of a few US mega-banksters extending credit based on fraudulent loan docs, the while contending that they are too-big-to-fail,is wise. With such concentration comes the need for courageous and robust leadership. The banksters were far smarter than Cook. They used walk away power and totally pulled one over on Uncle Sam. We own you, they said. Let us fail and you go down with the ship.

What is Cook thinking? That Foxconn will lay-off two million Chinese workers if he tells Mr. Xi where to stick it? Please. Maybe Cook needs to bone up on The Man with No Name. Go ahead, make my day. How about a spot of civilian insurrection, pal, should we walk?

Cook, having set three miserable precedents in his dreary catalog of apologia, is now a pushover for any number of bullies who smell fear and weakness. The right response here was “Go ahead, Mr. Xi. Make my day.” You do not bend over to a despot. Now Cook is stuck with that old military acronym. BOHICA. Bend Over, Here It Comes Again. He probably knows more about that than I want to think about.

Now I’m beginning to pine for that old SOB who was Apple, Steve Jobs. When did Jobs ever apologize for anything? When Dot Mac failed miserably he did not go around cap in hand beating his chest and chanting ‘woe is me’. No. Rather, he excoriated the development team for ‘…. letting down everyone at Apple ….’ then fired the guy in charge. Then he fixed it and we got iCloud.

Great businesses do not run on niceness policies, respect for your fellow-man and gentility. They become great by fostering internal and external competition – remember Jobs’s early hatred of IBM? – and inculcating a ‘cream rises to the top culture’. Successful businesses do not crave love or respect. All expect excellence and have at the core of their genetic makeup a protocol which demands winning. Being nice in competition is for losers. ‘Show me a good loser, and I will show you a loser’ as Vince Lombardi bluntly put it.

As a photographer, I very much want to see the likes of Scott Forstall driving Apple to greatness, even if it means his face appears on many dart boards in adjoining offices. People who threaten a CEO accomplish one of two things. The CEO either rises to greater heights, as did Jobs, or the threat is fired as was Forstall’s fate when Cook decided the usurpation risk was too much to bear. Churchill’s struggles to return to power in the 1930s are an apt precursor, weak leaders in Downing Street forever threatened by the firebrand who was finally only appointed at the moment of greatest crisis. An irritant is a requisite for success, not an obstacle to it.

And that’s what Apple needs today. A leader, an irritant, who is prepared to see that the company is already in crisis and a leader who places scant value on popularity. And one who will fire the losers, not the winners. Starting at the top. What Apple needs is …. Steve.


The last great piston engined fighter. Conceived at a time of great crisis.

The seed of Apple’s problems lies in the design office and it’s named Jony Ive, the much applauded designer of all that is thin, thinner and thinnest on Cupertino’s drawing boards. Hence the overheating iMac G5. The overheating iMac Core2Duo. The overheating iMac notebooks. The overheating MacMini. The hard and costly to make iPhone 5. The long time to market and to volume production. The high production costs. And Apple’s problem with China is also Apple’s problem with Ive. They have made him so famous, so indispensable, so adulated that instead of owning him, he now owns them. How do you get rid of an icon and Steve’s best buddy? Meanwhile Apple’s innovation is a day late and a dollar over, damned by ridiculous designs when what most buyers want is function, not form. Like the PowerMac and the MacPro. In other words, machines using reliable, cheap PC parts and the best desktop OS in the business. For more, check out ‘Hackintosh’ in the Sitemap.

Excellence in business is not tea and crumpets. It is war. America and Apple used to be good at that. And wars are won by the strong not by milque toasts who make a habit of bending over.