Category Archives: Hardware

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The future of ‘serious’ cameras

Cameras

Exceptional progress.


The Panasonic DMC-FZ1000. Click the image for the interactive Panny site.

This Panasonic fixed zoom lens DSLR is one of a handful of superzooms on the market (Sony’s RX10 is another) which heralds the demise not only of flapping mirror DSLRs but also the day of interchangeable lenses. It differs materially from earlier superzooms damned with small aperture and highly variable speed lenses, poor optical quality and minuscule sensors.

The sensor in this body is 1″ diagonally, and compares to the 1.80″ of FF and 1.25″ of MFT. Given that MFT (my reference is Panny’s GX7 which I use) easily prints to 18″ x 24″ the 1″ sensor in this body should be much the same, being fractionally smaller. And while the lens’s maximum aperture of f/2.8 drops to f/4 at the long end, only the churlish would complain once the realization dawns that the zoom range is a stunning 24-400mm. Early test site reports suggest the lens is excellent. All of this in a 1.2lb. package with 4K video included into the bargain for some $900. Stunning progress in machine and sensor design and construction.

Meanwhile, the duopoly of Nikon and Canon (no one can take Sony seriously as a pro FF competitor for their paucity of lenses and consumer image) insist on tinkering at the margins with their FF DSLR designs. They will milk those margins for as long as they can until one day they wake up and find their customers have left for greener pastures. By complacently avoiding ‘creative destruction’ they are sowing the seeds of their own demise.

Given the rapid advance in sensors I would expect a camera of like look and heft to sport an f/2.8 20-200mm world class lens with an EFT and 4K capability in a year or two, all at the cost of one used C or N ‘old tech’ DSLR FF body and with no more need for interchangeable lenses.

It was 7 years ago today

iPhone

Tech product of the century.


Mock ups of forthcoming iPhones.

The iPhone went on sale 7 years ago today and transformed a flailing enterprise into the world’s largest capitalization public company.

After its recent 7:1 split, the stock has risen from $20 to $90 in that time:


AAPL since the iPhone came to market. Up almost 400%.

I well recall watching Steve Jobs’s earlier product demonstration and it was breathtakingly good. I bought my iPhone on July 1, 2007 from the San Luis Obispo Apple Store – no crowds – and have never looked back. Back then there was no AppStore and what few apps there were ran over the air as widgets, slow and clunky. Look at the AppStore today. One million apps and counting and a like number of jobs created in China. Trillions in wealth have been created, whether for the manufacturers, Apple, its investors, developers, serial thieves (Samsung, Google, etc.) and the many connected factions. An event comparable in magnitude to the creation of the railroads, the automobile and air travel.

It has since leaked just how early the prototype Jobs displayed really was. Much of the presentation was faked, many functions did not work but the master showman got away with it and somehow Apple managed to bring a perfected device to market by the end of June.

That first iPhone had scant memory, no camera and cost an astounding $600, though Apple later issued $200 rebate coupons to early buyers like me, as well as to the unwashed herds of unemployed who camped out at Apple stores across the nation. AT&T (Cingular back then) was the only carrier choice for years. The telco subsidy model had not yet been crafted and, once in place, the price dropped to $200 with AT&T paying AAPL the difference of $400 and recovering the cost through inflated monthly use charges. When it comes to lack of integrity you need look no further than US telcos. When the two year subsidy contract expires do they drop their charges as they are no longer paying for the hardware? Of course not. Thus only a fool refuses to upgrade his iPhone every two years as the old one can be sold for $400 to some Russkie on eBay and the latest technology procured for $200. Apple of course loves this pricing/subsidy model for obvious reasons.

I can’t wait to get my larger iPhone this fall. Apple has been slow to market here, but you can bet the product will be every bit as perfect as was the original, 7 years ago. And in two years I’ll be selling mine.

Disclosure: Long AAPL bull call spreads.

Found, at last!

Cameras

A dream come true.

I can now disclose that this is the very camera I used to take that fabulous image of White Birches in honor of Saint Ansel. For the non-English grammarians amongst us, it’s “Adams’s” not “Adam’s”, unless the real owner was one Bert Adam, in which case it should sell for $19.95. About what it’s worth, come to think of it.

As for Ms. DeCock, no idea who she is, but a name change is definitely called for.

I expect bidding to start at $1mm (the Adam, not the Cock) with the winner a LuLa subscriber ever hopeful of actually taking a good landscape snap.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III

Cameras

Impressive.

Sony’s latest high-end point-and-shoot.

There’s lots to like here. A fast lens, a useful zoom range, a big sensor and an EVF. OK, so the latter pops up (ugh!) and there is no manual zoom control, replaced with one of those awful electric toggles. But this is the shape of things to come and while I’ll be sticking with my dual Panny GX7 outfit – with the 17mm and 45mm Zuikos, both outstanding – one day someone will get the small camera/large sensor/fast lens/rational manual controls combination right. This one is close.

Mac Pro 2009 Part XXIV

Mac Pro

Adding the Apple Hardware Test.

For an index of all my Mac Pro articles, click here.

In years past you could run the comprehensive Apple Hardware Test by restarting your Mac while holding the ‘D’ key on the keyboard. However, it seems Apple has ceased including this software in recent years, though that is easily remedied.

Because some of the AHT files and directories are ordinarily invisible, we need to make invisible files visible to see what we are doing.


Click the image to go to the site.

Once you have invisible files visible, download the AHT relevant to your machine by clicking the image below:


Click the image for the AHT download.

My Mac Pros are all 2009 models with firmware upgraded from 4,1 to 5,1 to permit the use of 6 and 12 core CPUs – the AHT files for the two firmware variants appear identical.

You want to create a directory named ‘.diagnostics’ (the period makes it ordinarily invisible) in the System->Library->Core Service directory, thus:


The ‘.diagnostics’ directory has been created.

Now move the downloaded files from the ‘.diagnostics’ directory in the download to the new directory on your Mac.

Go back to the first link and once more render the invisible files invisible.

Shut down then hold the ‘D’ key while starting up and you can run AHT – a useful diagnostic tool. Here it is installed in one of my Mac Pros with upgraded 12-core CPUs and lots of other aftermarket hardware installed:


Apple Hardware Test running on the 2009 Mac Pro.