Part 42 of elf's Apple PowerBook G4 Journal
Bad Mouse
hardware
Mon Oct 06 15:06:15 2008
In the past, when my Apple Mighty Mouse stopped scrolling, I
usually wiped the scrolly with an alcohol pad and it started
working again. Today, however, it did not work. After a bit of
googling, I found
a discussion
on the Apple Forums— it involved turning the mouse upside
down and rubbing the scrolly on a piece of paper.
Surprisingly, it worked.
Bookshelf: "A Distant Mirror" and "Ghost Wars"
reviews
Sun Oct 12 19:05:51 2008
Excerpts and brief reviews of “Ghost Wars” by Steve Coll (score:
7/4) and “A Distant Mirror” by Barbara Tuchman (score: 5/4)
now online.
Canon 50D
photography
Mon Oct 13 10:20:54 2008
After doing more research, following the announcement and previews
of the Canon 5D MkII (body ~CAD$3k), I am re-considering my
enthusiasm for it. I realized that I would have to buy a new
computer (to be able to handle the camera's HD video) and more
storage (possibly a RAID) to cope with the volume of data from the
camera.
Instead, I am considering the Canon 50D (body ~$1.5k). It is a
more reasonable camera to be stepping up from my S60 which needs
repair. I would pair the body with
the Canon
EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens ($400) after rejecting the lower-end
f/1.8II lens due to common complaints about focusing problems in
low-light and the high-end f/1.2L lens because I feel the price is
too high for a "somewhat flawed" lens. For a macro lens, I decided
on
the
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM lens
Henrys is out of stock of the
50Ds
but Vistek,
which has a much better website (I often get errors on the Henrys
website "_ERR_CMD_CMD_NOT_FOUND: CMN3101E The system is unavailable
due to CMN0203E."), is cheaper and has them in stock, hos their
downtown store located quite out-of-the-way for me. In terms of
physical access, I prefer Henrys because I walk by the store every
day, however their sales people tend to be be somewhat
snobbish.
Also, a nice DIY macro photography studio how-to.
$899 Macbook?
hardware
Tue Oct 14 05:24:52 2008
Based of
leaked BestBuy
inventory data, the rumour is that Apple is either going to
announce a $899 Macbook or a LED display.
I think it's a Macbook based on the "MB" prefix, which is given to
laptops (MB403LL/A Apple MacBook 13.3-inch laptop). The "MA" prefix
is given to the Mac Pro (MA970LL/A) while the solitary "M" prefix
is given to the displays (M9178LL/A 23 in. cinema display) and
other accessories (M8754G/A DVI to VGA display adapter).
Update Tue Oct 14 13:54:42 2008: Nope, it's the
display.
MacHeads
cinema
Thu Oct 16 09:12:49 2008
Trailer for the movie about the Apple Cult.
Canon 50D First Impressions
photography "delusions of grandeur"
Thu Oct 16 22:02:13 2008
Yesterday, one of my colleagues came in with a Henrys flyer which
had a promotion where the purchase of any 50D body or body and lens
kit would get a Canon camera bag, a grip and an extra battery. So
this afternoon, I called the Toronto store to confirm they had one
in stock and I picked one up just after 5PM along with the 50mm
f/1.4 USM lens; my boss and my colleague walked down to the store
with me. During check-out, when the salesperson asked if I wanted a
UV filter, I turned to my boss quizically and he nodded and
suggested I get one— it's $50 protection for the $420 lens
from poking fingers of young children. As I was paying, the
salesperson asked if I was a student (I had earlier said that I was
calling from Ryerson when he had asked if I wanted him to hold the
camera for me); Ryerson has a popular photography program.
After I got back, I cleared my work counter and while the battery
was charging, I read through the manual. After the battery charged
(100 minutes to full charge), I had to call my colleague over for
help with attaching the neck-strap, as the single diagram showing
the procedure was rather cryptic. Fortunately, he is experienced in
this, as his wife has a Canon Rebel (film). Next, I tried to open
the battery compartment and I gave-up, as I turned to the manual;
he calmly reached over, opened it and inserted the battery. I took
the 1GB CF card out of my S60 and inserted it into the camera and
powered it up. I took a couple of shots and I was quite impressed
with the bokeh (photos will be uploaded later). The view-screen is
HUGE and AMAZING; it seems to have some sort of optical coating
where the oil from one's face that rubs-off on the screen, does not
seem to distort the image being viewed.
We had a difficult time configuring the inside of the camera bag
using the velcro partitions, to hold the camera. More on this
later.
The true test of this camera's capabilities will be in
low-light. I tried taking some in my darkened apartment and it had
trouble focusing on the far door; it instead kept focusing on a
near-wall (I tried manually focusing but the results were blurry; I
haven't figured out how to tell it to focus on something else.)
It's easy to take great shots in good light with this camera (in
full auto mode). I am now thinking of going professional, hiring an
extremely pretty female assistant (interested parties please
include a recent photograph with your résumé) to walk around and
take readings with a light-meter. Since Toronto Fashion Week starts
next week, I wonder where I can get credentials to be able to
photograph the models.
Time to watch Blowup again.
Update Thu Oct 16 23:16:43 2008: David suggested getting a
Gorillapod.
Canon 50D Second Impressions
photography
Sat Oct 18 10:48:20 2008
One of the problems I'm having, is adjusting to the weight of the
camera— my right hand and wrist are sore after a
shoot. Having become accustomed to holding my lightweight pocket
cameras in my right hand with my index finger extended over the
shutter button, I instinctively began doing the same with the
50D. However, since the 50D weighs 2+ lbs. and the body is taller,
it puts a strain on my wrist and hand. I have to keep reminding
myself to hold the camera with my left hand under the lens, relax
my right hand and index finger and only use it when i need to
compose and shoot.
Settings I have customized:
- Disable the beep (the camera would beep after achieving focus; I
prefer to watch for the AF point to hilight)
- Reduce LCD brightness -1 level from the default, to 4 (I would
probably need to increase this for outdoor viewing, but indoors, 5
is a bit bright)
- Enable Hilight Alert (blink over-exposed regions when
reviewing)
- Reduced photograph resolution from the default 15.1MP (~5MB files
average) to 8MP (~3MB)
I am finding the 50mm lens rather limiting for "landscapes" and
large group shots, requiring me to stand quite further back than I
am used to with my S60 and also not being able to get the same view
angles as with the S60. My next purchase will likely be a
wide-angle lens rather than a macro.
Update Sat Oct 18 16:34:15 2008: David responds:
The 50D has a 1.6x crop factor, so your 50 mm lens is acting like an
80 mm one--that's basically a portrait lens.
If you want a lens that has a field of view roughly as wide as your
eyes, you would need to get something like the 28mm (f/1.8 available).
Multiplying by 1.6, it will act like a 45mm lens; much closer to the
"standard" 50 mm view of the old 35 mm film cameras (and current full-
frame dSLRs).
If you're planning on doing more wide shots, it may be worth
considering getting a wider lens. In a lot of cases it's easier to
step in to get a close up than it is to step back to get a wide shot.
Also, you can always "zoom in" my simply cropping the picture to get
the proper framing that you want. If it's not possible to step back
any further you're stuck.
Update Sat Oct 18 21:45:58
2008: Eric
has a follow-up to David's comment, above, about a, "lens having a
field of view as wide as your eyes":
Your eyes have an angle of view that might be as much as
120° (wiggle your fingers off to the side while staring straight
ahead to see what I mean). On the other hand, your perception of
detail anywhere but straight ahead is atrocious, and then of course
there's the "blind spot". So it's meaningless to talk about your
eyes' "angle of view".
I'm pretty sure that standard lenses are standard because: the
45° field of view happens (for reasons I don't understand) to be the
easiest lens to make so for a given price, the 45°-field-of-view
lens is the fastest and has the highest quality.
Lenses have easily-determined fields of view; it's your
eyes that don't.
Maybe I should start blogging on blogger.com so people can comment
publically. I had created a test blog some time ago but it remains
unused.
I've created a separate journal for the Canon 50D.
Canon S60 Photos
photography
Sat Oct 18 16:35:39 2008
Note that these are not Canon 50D photos. They are the last few
photos I took with the S60. The 50D makes me appreciate the
versatility of the S60 so much more. But I think the 50D bokeh will
seduce me.
Poster Design
design
Sun Oct 26 12:43:51 2008
I was asked to design a poster to advertise graduate research
seminars in the department. I was given a Word document containing,
in tabular form, the dates, presenter names and seminar
titles. Based on the number of participants, I decided to make two
posters, one for the October seminars and one for November.
First, I Googled for posters to get an idea for what a seminar
poster should look like. I found several posters that could be
described as, "single column with large, centered Helvetica
text". However, there was one for a drama school that caught my
eye, it had two columns (proportioned 1/3 and 2/3) with the
narrower column which was filled with colour and listed the
participants, while the wider column contained an eye-catching
graphic. My first poster
(3MB PDF), advertising the October seminars, essentially copied
this design. I replaced the drawing with a stock photograph from my
collection.
I designed the November
poster with the same structure but with different colours (I
sampled the photograph in each poster to get a colour palette for
the poster).
After a few weeks, I decided that the design of the second poster
was too derivative and that I would use it for next year. Instead,
I thought about creating an original poster using colour only. I
thought about what the purpose of a poster— the primary
purpose of a poster is to grab a passerby's attention, make them
stop and read it. This is done using colour, a large graphic or
both. The main theme of the poster ("garage sale", "concert", etc.)
is typically written in the largest font; in this case, the theme
is "seminars". Inspired by discussions of the grid system
(see Thinking with Type), I created
a new poster for the
November seminars using a "calendar grid approach".
I haven't decided if it's too colourful (but from a
distance, it certainly grabs your attention) and whether it should
be toned down a lot or just a bit. I have until the end of the week
to submit a final copy.
The posters were created in Pages 2.1 on my Mac Mini running OS X 10.4.