9W6RIN @ T_Rex1301

Par 3 , 400m - hole in one will win $1million

2009-04-18T03:14:00.001+08:00

It's the golfing equivalent of climbing Everest.

This is the hole that has taken over the mantle of the world's toughest.

From the top of a mountain in South Africa, players must hit a shot 400m over a near forest onto a green 400m below.

If you manage to overcome vertigo tracking your ball through the air, looking to see where it landed requires a mountaineer's bravery.

And the gauntlet has been thrown down to the world's best golfers: anyone who gets a hole-in-one will win an astonishing $1million (£671,000).

Tee off: Padraig Harrington attempts the hardest golf shot in the world from the top of a 400m mountain in South Africa

The Extreme 19th hole is part of the Legend Golf and Safari Resort at Entabeni in the Limpopo province in South Africa.

It's so high that it takes the ball 30 seconds to reach the green.

And you can forget golf carts - players willing to take their chances on the million-dollar prize have to take a helicopter to get there.

Making the shot: The ball takes 30 seconds to reach the green as it falls 400m through the air

It is both the longest and the highest par-three on the planet.

'I think this hole is awesome,' reigning Open champion Padraig Harrington said.

'This is the type of innovation and excitement we need to get more people playing golf.

'There aren't many new innovative ways to play the game - but this is certainly one of the best.'

To launch the hole - which does not form part of the round - double Open champion Padraig Harrington and fellow pro Raphael Jacquelin, from France, were drafted in to give it their best shot.

Incredibly, they both managed to hit the green - but a hole in one was beyond even their illustrious reach.

Source

NIKON D5000

2009-04-14T22:41:00.001+08:00

Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 14th April 2009 - Nikon Europe is pleased to announce the introduction of a new DSLR for the hobbyist and for family fun: the D5000. Packed with features that make taking pictures easy and fun, this camera stands out above the competition with its unique vari-angle LCD monitor, which allows you to shoot easily from any angle you can imagine.

The D5000 has inherited the D90’s groundbreaking HD movie capability, Nikon’s proprietary D-Movie function. Coupled with extensive in-camera editing features, a wide choice of scene modes, 12.3MP sensor and high-sensitivity between ISO 200 and 3200 (which can be extended to ISO 100 and ISO 6400 equivalent) for shooting in a wide range of lighting conditions, this camera makes it easier than ever to take great quality pictures.

View life from a different angle
The D5000’s 2.7-inch vari-angle LCD monitor offers a whole new perspective on photography, allowing you to take pictures easily from any angle. Its flexible, moving screen allows you to position the camera perfectly to suit the angle or shot you’re trying to take - so whether you’re at a concert and you want to get a clear view above the crowd for your shot or you want to take a picture from ground level, you can adjust the vari-angle monitor to give you the best view of your subject. Close it to protect the monitor or place it in the standard position for regular shooting using the viewfinder. You can even reverse the monitor for effortless, perfectly-framed self-portraits. Thanks to Nikon’s ergonomic design values and the downward opening direction of the screen, it will never get in your way, and you’ll be able to maintain a steady grip on the body which will prevent camera shake. The choice is limitless.

D-Movie and Live View
Shooting movie clips with a DSLR will allow you to get really creative. For example, you can change the lens for a new perspective and enhance the emotional impact of your movies using the Picture Control settings before you even start shooting. The D5000 offers D-Movie (with audio) - high-definition movie capture perfectly compatible with the latest television screens and an HDMI output for easy connection. The single button access to the Live View function allows you to view and compose your shot or movie on the vari-angle LCD monitor for optimal framing. When taking still shots, the camera offers four types of contrast AF (wide area, normal area, face detection and new subject tracking) to make capture as easy as possible. In subject tracking AF mode, the camera will even restart tracking the subject once it leaves the frame and then returns, so your target will always be in focus.

Setting the Scene
With a total of 19 scene modes, you don’t have to know the ins and outs of digital photography to take great pictures. Simply turn the dial to ‘scene’, choose the appropriate scene mode setting and the camera will do the rest for you. The camera will even display a sample scene to make the scene selection easier for you. Another easy-to-use feature is the camera’s extensive range of built-in editing function, with which you can edit your pictures and create visual effects in-camera, before you even get to a computer.

There’s more
In addition to all these features, the D5000 is a high quality camera in its own right. With its high-sensitivity 12.3 effective megapixel CMOS image sensor, Nikon’s innovative EXPEED high-speed image-processing system, fast and precise 11-point AF system and highly-durable, high-performance shutter, it is also perfectly suited to those with a higher level of photographic knowledge. Image quality is guaranteed further by the image sensor cleaning mechanism with airflow control system, Active D-Lighting and Picture control. The different playback options of the D5000 are as enjoyable as they are practical. You can view photos in batches of up to 72, and there is also a calendar view that organises images by date and time. And for serious photo enthusiasts, the D5000 can display a histogram on magnifies areas of the image to facilitate exposure control. It feels good to handle, too, with Nikon’s typically ergonomic design in a compact, light-weight body. Those who shoot pictures in quieter settings will appreciate the new Quiet shooting mode and, the built-in pop-up flash which will automatically detect when the flash is needed. For those on the move, GPS-compatibility with Nikon’s GP-1 unit will come in handy when pinpointing shooting locations as will the HDMI output when you finally want to present your great shots to your family and friends. The Nikon D5000 is compatible with a wide variety of AF-S and AF-I Nikkor lenses.

Nikon D5000 specifications

Price (body only)	• US: $ 729 • UK: £ 719 • EU: € 699
Price (with 18-55 VR)	• US: $ 850 • UK: £ 799 • EU: € 799
Sensor	• 23.6 x 15.8 mm CMOS sensor • 12.9 million total pixels • 12.3 million effective pixels • Supports high ISO sensitivities • Nikon DX-format sized CMOS sensor
Dust Reduction System	• Airflow control system • Image Sensor Cleaning • Image Dust Off reference data (optional Capture NX 2 software required)
Image processor	Nikon EXPEED
A/D conversion	12 bit
Image sizes	• 4,288 x 2,848 (L) • 3,216 x 2,136 (M) • 2,144 x 1,424 (S)
File formats	• NEF (compressed RAW) • JPEG: Fine (approx. 1:4), normal (approx. 1:8), or basic (approx. 1:16) compression • NEF (RAW) + JPEG (any size) • AVI Motion-JPEG
Movie	• File format AVI (Motion-JPEG) • Image size (pixels) 1280 x 720; 24fps, 640 x 424; 24 fps, 320 x 216; 24 fps • Audio: Monaural on/off selection • Exposure: Determined with matrix metering utilizing output from the image sensor • Exposure lock available • Exposure compensation available in P, S, A, M modes • Maximum single clip length: 1280x720/ 5 minutes, others 20 minutes
Lens mount	• Nikon F mount with AF contacts • Approx. 1.5x lens focal length (Nikon DX format)
Usable lenses	• AF-S, AF-I • Other Type G or D AF Nikkor • Other AF Nikkor/AI-P Nikkor • Type D PC Nikkor • Non-CPU • IX Nikkor/AF Nikkor for F3AF - All functions supported - All functions supported except autofocus - All functions supported except autofocus and 3D Color Matrix Metering II - All functions supported except some shooting modes - Can be used in mode M, but exposure meter does not function; electronic range finder can be used if maximum aperture is f/5.6 or faster - Cannot be used
Auto Focus	• 11 focus points (1 cross-type sensors) • Multi-CAM 1000 • AF working range: -1 to +19 EV (ISO 100, normal temperature) • Contrast Detect in Live View mode
Lens Servo	• Single Servo (AF-S) • Continuous Servo (AF-C) • Automated selection of AF-S or AF-C, (AF-A) • Focus Tracking automatically activated by subject's status in (AF-A) • Manual focus [M], Electronic range finding supported
Focus Point	• Single point from 11 focus points • Center point narrow or wide zone • Liveview (Tripod mode): Contrast AF on a desired point anywhere within frame
AF Area Mode	• Single point AF • Dynamic Area AF • Automatic-area AF • 3D Tracking AF (11 points)
Focus Lock	Focus can be locked by pressing shutter-release button halfway (single-servo AF) or by pressing AE-L/AF-L button
AF assist	AF-assist illuminator (range approx. 0.5-3 m/1.6-9.8 ft.)
Exposure modes	• Program Auto [P] with flexible program • Shutter-Priority Auto [S] • Aperture-Priority Auto [A] • Manual [M] • Auto • Advanced Scene Modes (Portrait, Landscape, Child, Sports, Close-up, Night portrait, Night landscape, Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Pet portrait, Candlelight, Blossom, Autumn colors, Food, Silhouette, High key, Low key)
Metering	TTL full-aperture exposure metering using 420-pixel RGB sensor • 3D Color Matrix Metering II (type G and D lenses); color matrix metering II (other CPU lenses); • Center-weighted: Weight of 75% given to an 8 mm dia. circle in center of frame • Spot: Meters approx. 3.5 mm dia. circle (about 2.5 % of frame) centered on selected focus point
Metering range	• 3D Color Matrix Metering: 0 to 20 EV • Center-Weighted Metering: 0 to 20 EV • Spot Metering: 2 to 20 EV (At normal temperature (20°C/68°F), ISO 100 equivalent, f/1.4 lens)
Meter coupling	CPU (not AI)
Exposure lock	Locked using AE-L/AF-L button
Exposure bracketing	• 3 frames • Up to +/–2.0 EV in 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps • ADL (Active D-Lighting) bracketing: 2 frames (one with ADL, one without)
Exposure compen.	• +/–5.0 EV • 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps
Sensitivity	• Default: ISO 200 - 3200 in 1/3 EV steps • Boost: 100 - 6400 in 1/3 EV steps
Shutter	• Electronically-controlled vertical-travel focal plane shutter • 30 to 1/4000 sec (1/3 or 1/2 EV steps) • Flash X-Sync: 1/200 sec • Bulb • Time (optional Wireless Remote Control ML-L3 required) • Tested to 100,000 exposures
Active D-Lighting	Can be selected from Auto, Extra high, High, Normal, Low, or Off
White balance	• Auto (Using main imaging sensor and 420-pixel metering CCD) • Presets (12) with fine tuning • Manual preset • White balance bracketing (3 frames in increments of 1, 2 or 3)
Picture Control	• Standard • Neutral • Vivid • Monochrome • Landscape • Portrait • Storage for up to nine custom Picture Controls
Image parameters	• Sharpening: Auto, 10 levels • Contrast: Auto, 7 levels • Brightness: 3 levels • Saturation: Auto, 7 levels • Hue: 7 levels • Quick Adjust; 5 levels • High ISO Noise Reduction (High, Normal, Low, Off)
Color space	• sRGB • Adobe RGB
Viewfinder	• Eye-level pentamirror single-lens reflex viewfinder • Frame coverage Approx. 95% horizontal and 95% vertical • Magnification Approx. 0.78x (50mm f/1.4 lens at infinity, –1.0 m^-1) • Eyepoint 17.9 mm (–1.0 m^-1) • Diopter adjustment –1.7 to+1 m^-1
Focusing screen	• Type B BriteView Clear Matte Mark V screen with focus frame • Superimposed on-demand grid lines over the viewfinder display.
LCD monitor	• 2.7 " TFT LCD • Approx. 230,000 dots • 100% frame coverage • Brightness adjustment
LCD Liveview	• Contrast-detect AF anywhere in frame (camera selects focus point automatically when face priority is selected) • Face priority • Wide area • Normal area • AF tracking
Shooting modes	• Single frame • Continuous 4 fps (at shutter speeds over 1/250. 67 Large Fine JPEG, 11 RAW) • Self-Timer • Delayed remote, quick response remote (optional Wireless Remote Control ML-L3 required for remote shooting) • Quiet shooting (doesn't re-cock shutter until shutter button is released)
Self-timer	• 2, 5, 10, and 20 s
Flash	• Auto pop-up type (auto pop up in Auto, Portrait, Child, Close-up, Night portrait, Party/indoor, Pet portrait modes) • Manual pop-up in P,A,S,M and Food modes • Guide number of 17/56 (ISO 200, m/ft.) or 18/59 with manual flash (ISO 200, m/ft.) • Guide number of 12/39 (ISO 100 equiv, m/ft.) or 13/43 with manual flash (ISO 100 equiv, m/ft.) • Sufficient to illuminate the picture angle of an 18mm lens
Flash control	• TTL: i-TTL balanced fill-flash and standard i-TTL flash for digital SLR using 420-pixel RGB sensor are available with built-in flash and SB-900, SB-800, SB-600, or SB-400 • Auto aperture: Available with SB-900, SB-800 and CPU lens • Non-TTL auto: Supported flash units include SB-900, SB-800, SB-28, SB-27, and SB-22s • Range-priority manual: Available with SB-900 and SB-800
Flash Modes	•Auto, auto with red-eye reduction, fill-flash, auto slow sync, auto slow sync with red-eye correction, reat curtain with slow sync.
Flash Accessory Shoe	ISO 518 standard-type hot shoe contact; Safety lock mechanism provided
Flash Sync Terminal	No
Flash compensation	• -3 to +1 EV • 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps
Creative Lighting System	• Advanced Wireless Lighting supported with SB-900, SB-800, or SU-800 as commander and SB-900, SB-800, SB-600, or SB-R200 as remotes
Playback mode	• Full-frame playback • Movie playback • Thumbnail (4, 9, or 72 images or calendar) playback • Playback zoom (image size L up to approx. 27x, M up to approx. 20x, S up to approx. 13x) When one or more faces (up to 10) were detected with shooting, the faces are enclosed in white borders. When playback zoom is applied, different faces can be displayed by rotating the sub-command dial. • Slide show playback • Pictmotion • Histogram display • Highlights display • Auto image rotation • Image comment (up to 36 characters)
Retouch functions	D-Lighting, red-eye correction, trim, monochrome, filter effects, color balance, small picture, image overlay, NEF (RAW) processing, quick retouch, straighten, distortion control, fisheye
Languages	Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
Connectivity	• USB 2.0 (Hi-Speed) Mini-B connector • PTP transfer protocol • NTSC or PAL video output • HDMI video out (version 1.3a, Type C mini connector provided) • Remote control / GPS terminal
Storage	• SD (Secure Digital) memory cards, SDHC-compliant
Power	• Lithium-Ion EN-EL9e (Approx. 510 shots, CIPA) • Included battery charger MH-23 • Optional AC adapter EH-5a with EP-5 connector
Dimensions	Approx. 127 x 104 x 80 mm (5.0 x 4.1 x 3.1 in.)
Weight (no batt)	Approx. 560 g (1 lb. 4 oz.) without battery, memory card, body cap, or monitor cover
Operating environment	Temperature: 0 - 40 °C / 32 - 104 °F, Humidity: under 85% (no condensation)
Box contents	Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL9e, Quick Charger MH-23, USB Cable UC-E6, Audio/Video Cable EG-CP14, Camera Strap AN-DC3, Eyepiece Cap DK-5, Rubber Eyecup DK-24, Body Cap BF-1A, Accessory Shoe Cover BS-1, Software Suite CD-ROM (Supplied accessories may differ depending on country or area)
Optional accessories	• Remote Cord MC-DC2, GPS Unit GP-1, Photofinishing software Capture NX 2, AC Adapter EP-5/EH-5a, Magnifying Eyepiece DK-21M, Eyepiece Correction Lens DK-20C, Eyepiece Magnifier DG-2, Eyepiece Adapter DK-22, Right-Angle Viewing Attachment DR-6, Semi-soft Case CF-DC2, Wireless Remote Control ML-L3, Sync Terminal Adapter AS-15, Camera Control Pro 2

Additional images

LCD images

Nikon D400 DSLR Surfaces on Nikon Germany Site With 15.3MP Sensor, Full HD Video

2009-04-12T01:13:00.002+08:00

Camera nerds, this is exciting. Just a couple of days after Canon's 500D pops up, Nikon's D400 supposedly made an appearance on Nikon's German site. And the specs are just what you'd expect.

It's got a 15.3-megapixel sensor with a standard ISO range of 200-6400, 6FPS bursts, and yes children, full HD video recording, which would make it Nikon's first to shoot in 1080p. In other words, a pretty solid bump of the current D300, the main new hotness being the addition of full HD video.

That is, if this screencap isn't a Photoshop. The specs are a little different what was rumored a few months ago—but both are pretty plausible. Even if it's a fake, the noise is starting to build, so there's likely something to the D400 whispers, since Nikon's not the best at keeping secrets. [Nikon Rumors]

Review : 5D Mark II v D700

2009-02-27T02:14:00.001+08:00

Canon 5D Mark II vs. Nikon D700 Review Shoot-Out

By John Mahoney

For the last few months, we've been shooting with the two hottest cameras on the market. Lucky us. If you've been eyeing either one of these for purchase, here's everything you need to know.

Camera makers love to invent new categories. And while that can often lead to endless bloat, the Canon 5D Mark II and the Nikon D700 represent a sweet spot that had never been hit before—the semi-pro body with a full-frame sensor. And it's the category with the most bang for buck we've seen to date.

Yes, let's just get this out of the way: Both the D700 and the 5D Mark II give you more for your dollar in terms of features, image quality and overall excellence than anything else we've used. Period. We know not everyone is prepared to drop $2,000 to $3,000 on a camera body these days, but if you're thinking of investing for the long haul and, more importantly, have a good collection of either Nikon or Canon lenses, these are the two cameras you want to look at.

Why? Because they give you almost everything from Nikon and Canon's uber-pro top end for a whole lot less, most importantly the full-frame sensor (FX in Nikon parlance). With a sensor the same size as a piece of 35mm film, your old Nikon or Canon glass will produce beautiful results on these new bodies (assuming they're new enough to autofocus and couple to the cameras' meters). And if you don't have a collection built up already, your choices for new lenses will be significantly more exciting without the APS-C (DX, again, in Nikon's world) sensor's 1.6x crop factor changing their effective focal lengths.

The sensors in these two cameras are also responsible for their absolutely stunning high-ISO sensitivity performance—if you would have told me a few years ago that I could get 100 percent usable and almost noise-free shots in the dark at ISO 4000 with hand-holdable shutter speeds, I would have laughed in your Nostradamus-looking face. But that's the reality here, and it's awesome.

But of the two, which to choose? Now that's the question, isn't it. Here we'll share what we've learned from shooting with the 5D Mark II and D700, for work and for play, and hopefully you'll be able to make your own call.

Image Quality/Sensor Sensitivity
Again, both of these cameras will blow your mind with their high-ISO performance. Both go up to a ridiculous 25,600 ISO rating. The magic does not lie in their gaudy top-range though, which as you can see in our galleries below is still prit-tay, prit-tay noisy. No, the crazy thing here is that with both of these DSLRs, you can shoot at 3200, 4000, even 6400 in the right light and still have photos that look practically noise-free on screen. That's just crazy, and you can't accurately describe what this means to you as a photographer until you've shot your friends—handheld at quick enough shutter speeds—around a candle-lit table, and gotten photos that look absolutely gorgeous. Before, it took a crazy expensive lens to even come close to this, and even then, sensors (or even high-ISO film) couldn't keep up.

Shooting With the 5D Mark II

With the 5D Mark II and the D700, you're basically shooting with night vision. Like I was doing here at Snowscrapers a few weeks back. As you can see, there are floodlights, but it's dark. These guys are moving fast. But I can crank up the ISO high enough to pan with them without blurring them out, and grab stuff like this, without the sky turning into a snowstorm of noise.

Snowscrapers With the 5D Mark II

Let's compare the high-ISO range of both cameras head-to-head, shall we:

5D Mark II ISO Range

D700 ISO Range

As you can see from these unprocessed (save for JPEG conversion and re-sizing with Aperture) RAW shots files from each camera with high-ISO noise reduction at its highest setting on both, the D700 has a slight edge. The 5D Mark II's higher resolution leaves lots of room for chroma noise, the bursts of mostly red and green you see in the full crops.

But still, unless you look at them at full-res, both cameras produced almost noiseless images up to ISO 3200. I exposed each shot at f/5.6 so the shutter speeds for the ISO 1600 and 3200 shots were upwards of a few seconds each, which makes the fact that they're almost noise-free at any decent print or display size a phenomenal sign of both cameras' noise-busting powers.

One big difference head to head in the imaging department is resolution. At 21 megapixels, the 5D Mark II has almost double the pixels of the 12.1 megapixel D700. As you well know by now, megapixels are not as important as sensor size/quality, but here, we're dealing with two evenly matched, high-performance sensors, both of them full-frame. So in this case, an extra 9 million pixels does give you something: The added ability to heavily crop down shots without losing detail, like I did here with Mr. Shaun White.

5D Mark II Crop

Folks shooting in RAW will also notice the extra resolution with added RAW headroom (meaning, more detail can be salvaged in post-processing from highlights that would be blown out to flat white in a JPG). But on the other hand, a 21-megapixel RAW file from the 5D Mark II weighs in at around 30MB give or take, so unless you're ready to buy a huge RAID drive to go along with it, the higher resolution may not be your choice in most situations. In all honesty, for 800-pixel-wide shots intended for Gizmodo pages, I never shot above the smallest JPG size, which is still a massive 2784x1856.

Advantage: Draw The D700 does slightly better at high ISO, but the 5D Mark II has a significant upper hand in resolution.

Shooting Features
Here's one area where there is a definitive leader, and it's the D700. Its Multi-Cam 3500 auto-focus processor has 51 AF points, compared the the 5D Mark II's nine (it inherited the same autofocus system from the original 5D, which was itself a bit outdated). It is decidedly better at tracking moving objects with all of these focus points, and also tends to lock in to the correct focus considerably faster.

Even without shooting, it's easy enough to spot the difference by looking through the viewfinders. The 5D Mark II's focus points are concentrated mostly in the center of the frame in a diamond shape, whereas the D700's central points cover far more ground, and zone points cover the outer areas of the frame. So with autofocus, this is cut and dry: Although the 5D Mark II's AF is quite competent, the D700 wins if you frequently shoot fast-moving kids, animals (same thing?) or sports. The D700 does have a focus-assist lamp (the 5D Mark II doesn't) to help get this level of detail in low-light, but you can shut it off.

As far as metering and image processing goes, I also lean toward the D700. As most Nikons do, the D700 tends to saturate colors more in its default settings (which of course can be changed). I'm a fan of this look, but that's all about settings, which should most likely be done on the computer. So a toss-up there, for the most part.

More important is my completely unscientific but still notable feeling that the D700 tends to meter scenes with more skill than the 5D. Here the difference is subtle, but I feel like I had to hit the exposure compensation knob a bit more frequently on the Canon to keep it from blowing out highlights, where the D700 would expose the frame more naturally.

Here are some D700 shots that Matt and I took:

D700 Shots

Advantage: D700

Interface/Handfeel/Menus
Here's where the Nikon vs. Canon flames start to get intense—both cameras take a decidedly different approach to menus and basic shooting controls. For me, I like a dedicated button wherever possible, even if this means the body is littered with switches and knobs of all sorts. This is the Nikon approach, more or less; ISO, file size, white balance, autofocus point selection, metering mode and even mirror lock-up get their own dedicated switches on the D700, which makes switching all of these things easier. On the 5D Mark II, all of these major settings share a button—press it, then rotate the thumb wheel to change one setting, and the index-finger wheel on the front for the other. I almost never remember which dial changes which setting, so that can be annoying.

On the other hand, I am a huge fan of Canon's jumbo thumb wheel in general—something no Nikon has. Being able to always change EV with the thumbwheel is huge, and in manual mode, you can't beat having that big knob down there. It's also great for quickly scrolling through your images. I also much prefer the traditional Canon shooting-mode selector wheel; on the Nikon, you have to press down a button and turn a wheel at the same time. But these all come down mostly to personal preference. And in the on-screen menus, again, preference: Canon tends to split their menus out into multiple screens with every option on the screen at once without scrolling, where Nikon gives you long scrolling lists. Canon did provide a nice quick-access menu to most major settings via the LCD, which is an improvement for them.

And even though the D700 is a good 300 grams heavier than the 5D Mark II with lens, it feels a bit more balanced (almost gyroscopic) in your hand, so that's good, if you don't mind the extra weight.

Advantage: D700 Another tough call, but I'm giving it to D700 by a nose for all the dedicated switches.

Extras
Let's not ignore the elephant in the room: The 5D Mark II is the first DSLR in the world to shoot 1080p (30fps) HD video through its live view mode. By now you've thoroughly ogled Vincent La Foret's amazing demo film—let me tell you, nothing I shot can come close to that. But what even the least video-inclined person will find is that videos look absolutely incredible shot with the limited depth of field of an SLR lens feeding a big FX sensor.

There are some drawbacks though, which will ensure your HD camcorder still has some time left: Autofocus is non-existent. When you press the autofocus button during video capture—and that's the only way to activate it—you'll need to be prepared to edit out the part in your video where either the mirror slaps up to expose the AF sensor or the contrast detection system cranks the exposure way up (accompanied by the sound of your lens squeaking into position after a good 4 to 5 seconds of hunting). If you're cool with that, then you'll be OK, because the autofocus does work, after mangling your videos for a few seconds. Thankfully, manual focus works just fine. You can zoom in to make sure you've nailed the focus, although this can be kind of tricky to juggle while twisting the focus ring and trying to keep the shot framed at the same time.

Another drawback is that, aside from shifting the EV exposure compensation, you can't change exposure or ISO settings while you're filming.

But for grabbing quick 90 to 120 second clips of relatively stationary subjects, or things far enough away to be covered by your infinity focus (like the snowboarders here), then you're absolutely golden. Your clips, with their popped colors, low-light sensitivity and limited depth of field will be far more beautiful than anything spit out by a Flip video cam or, in some cases, your dedicated camcorder.

Here's a quick montage of some stuff I shot around town:

On top of the video shooting, the 5D Mark II also comes with a better kit lens than the D700, a 24-105mm L-series that's f/4 throughout the range. I would normally feel the constraints of f/4 pretty hard and long for my f/1.4 50mm, but with the 5D Mark II you almost don't notice, when you factor in VR and the crazy-bananas low-light sensitivity. The D700 comes with a capable but not nearly as performance-centric 24-120 f/3.5-f/5.6 zoom.

Oh, and I almost forgot: The D700 has a built-in flash, and the 5D Mark II does not. Which is something I would only ever think of using as a fill in the day time. So that's not that big of a deal for me, but it might be for you.

Advantage: 5D Mark II Easy call there.

Conclusion
Today in the DSLR world, wedged somewhere in the middle of entry-level DX, semi-pro DX, pro DX and pro FX, we now have a nice semi-pro FX option to consider. The categories may be piling up, but we are so happy this new one came along. Now that getting an FX chip doesn't require going into hock to get the same body that photojournalists are taking to Iraq, we serious-but-still-recreational shooters can use these FX chips to get great shots at ISO settings so high it's ridiculous to think about. And on the 5D Mark II, we can film 1080p video. Holy crap.

In the end, for me, I give the trophy to the 5D Mark II for the 1080p video. It's got its drawbacks, sure, but being able to switch seamlessly from stills to beautiful movies with my awesome 35mm DSLR lens is just too good to be true. The D700 has an edge, albeit a slight one, in some categories like high ISO, but in the new world order, 1080p video from your DSLR is an ace that can't be beat.

Things are even more clear cut when both cameras were selling for MSRP: Adding insult to injury after nearly matching Nikon in ISO sensitivity and adding 1080p video, Canon priced the 5D $300 lower than the D700 at MSRP ($2700 vs $3000 for body-only). The D700's been on the market a few months longer, though, and the prices are starting to come down. With the 5D Mark II still backordered just about everywhere, this disparity will probably last for a while.

So for you it may be an interesting decision. The option to save a few hundred bucks and get a smidge less noise at high ISO is surely attractive. Either way, you've got an absolutely amazing camera. I would imagine most people considering a $2,000 to $3,000 body already have a lens or two of one of these two systems—so in the end, you may go with the one you already have glass for. If you're a Nikon person, this may mean holding off on the D700 and waiting a while for 1080p.

We based this review on real-world experience, and we didn't spend any time in a lab for testing. Consider supplementing our impressions here with the labcoated folks over at DPReview's takes: here is their D700 review and their 5D Mark II review. And, while we focused here on Canon and Nikon, the Sony Alpha 900 is also a contender in this price range for a full-frame shooter, though in our experience, it doesn't touch either of these two, especially in high-ISO performance.

Picture of 100ft-long 'snake' sparks fears of mythical monster in Borneo

2009-02-21T01:36:00.001+08:00

According to legend, the Nabau was a terrifying snake more than 100ft in length and with a dragon's head and seven nostrils.

But now local villagers living along the Baleh river in Borneo believe the mythical creature has returned after this photo of a gigantic snake swimming along the remote waterways has emerged.

The picture, taken by a member of a disaster team monitoring flood regions by helicopter, has sparked a huge debate about whether the photos are genuine or merely the work of photo-editing software.

Borneo's Nessie: The image that sparked fears a giant serpent was stalking the river Baleh

Even the respected New Straits Times newspaper in Kuala Lumpur has asked readers to make up their own minds about the photos.

Villagers who claim to have seen the snake say they have given it the name of Nabau, after an ancient sea serpent which can transform itself into the shapes of different animals.

People who have studied the photograph of the shape taken from the air have dismissed suggestions that it's a log.

As one writer asked: 'A log can't be that winding, can it?' Others have suggested it's a speedboat, but this has been dismissed because of the twisting wake.

The most common accusation is that the photo has simply been manipulated on a computer, while others complain that the river is a different colour to the real Baleh rover which is a murky brown.

Mythical: A second frame appears to show something snake-like in the water off a remote village

But villagers who insist the snake exists say that photos of the creature being taken in different parts of the river prove it is swimming about.

Earlier this month scientists unearthed the fossil of a killer snake that was longer than a bus, as heavy as a small car and which could swallow an animal the size of a cow.

The 45ft long monster - named Titanoboa - was so big that it lived on a diet of crocodiles and giant turtles, squeezing them to death and devouring them whole.

Weighing an impressive 1.25 tons, it slithered around the tropical forests of South America 60million years ago, just five million years after the last dinosaurs were wiped out.

Partial skeletons of the boa constrictor-like prehistoric killer were found in a Colombian coal mine by an international team of fossil hunters.

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923 managers have lost their jobs since Fergie took over at Old Trafford.

2009-02-12T00:52:00.001+08:00

Liverpool: 4

Kenny Dalglish (1985-91), Graeme Souness (1991-94), Roy Evans (1994-98), Gerard Houllier (1998-2004)

Aston Villa: 6

Graham Taylor (1987-1990), Ron Atkinson (1991-94), Brian Little (1994-98), John Gregory (1998-02), Graham Taylor (2002-03), David O’Leary (2003-06)

Chelsea: 11

John Hollins (1986-88), Bobby Campbell (1989-91), Ian Porterfield (1991-93), David Webb (1993), Glenn Hoddle (1993-96), Ruud Gullit (1996-98), Gianluca Vialli (1998-00), Claudio Ranieri (2000-04), Jose Mourinho (2004-07), Avram Grant (2007-08), Luis Felipe Scolari (2008)

Arsenal: 2

George Graham (1986-95), Bruce Rioch (1995-96)

Everton: 7

Howard Kendall (1981-87), Colin Harvey (1987-90), Howard Kendall (1990-93), Mike Walker (1994), Joe Royle (1994-97), Howard Kendall (1997-98), Walter Smith (1998-2002)

Wigan Athletic: 12

Ray Mathias (1986-89), Bryan Hamilton (1989-93), Dave Philpotts (1993). Kenny Swain (1993-94), Graham Barrow (1994-95), John Deehan (1995-98), Ray Mathias (1998-99), John Benson (1999-2000), Bruce Rioch (2000-01), Steve Bruce (2001), Paul Jewell (2001-07), Chris Hutchings (2007)

West Ham: 6

John Lyall (1986-89), Billy Bonds (1991-94), Harry Redknapp (1994-01), Glenn Roeder (2001-03), Alan Pardew (2003-06), Alan Curbishley (2006-2008)

Manchester City: 12

Jimmy Frizzell (1986-87), Mel Machin (1989), Howard Kendall (1990), Peter Reid (1990-93), Brian Horton (1993-95), Alan Ball (1995-96), Steve Coppell (1996), Frank Clark (1996-98), Joe Royle (1998-01), Kevin Keegan (2001-05), Stuart Pearce (2005-07), Sven-Goran Eriksson (2007-08)

Fulham: 12

Ray Harford (1984-96), Ray Lewington (1986-90), Alan Dicks (1990-91), Don Mackay (1991-94), Ian Branfoot (1994-96), Micky Adams (1996-97), Ray Wilkins (1997-98), Kevin Keegan (1998-99), Paul Bracewell (1999-2000), Jean Tigana (2000-03), Chris Coleman (2003-07), Lawrie Sanchez (2007)

Sunderland: 9

Lawrie McMenemy (1985-87), Denis Smith (1987-91), Malcolm Crosby (1992-93), Terry Butcher (1993), Mick Buxton (1993-95), Peter Reid (1995-02), Howard Wilkinson (2002-03), Mick McCarthy (2005-06), Roy Keane (2007-08)

Hull City: 11

Brian Horton (1984-88), Eddie Gray (1988-89), Colin Appleton (1989), Stan Ternent (1989-91), Terry Dolan (1991-97), Mark Hateley (1997-98), Warren Joyce (1998-2000), Brian Little (2000-02), Jan Molby (2002), Peter Taylor (2002-06), Phil Parkinson (2006)

Newcastle Utd: 11

Willie McFaul (1986-88), Jim Smith (1988-89), Ossie Ardiles (1991-92), Kevin Keegan (1993-97), Kenny Dalglish (1997-98), Ruud Gullit (1998-99), Sir Bobby Robson (1999-04), Graeme Souness (2004-06), Glenn Roeder (2006-07), Sam Allardyce (2007-08), Kevin Keegan (2008)

Bolton Wanderers: 6

Phil Neal (1985-92), Bruce Rioch (1992-95), Roy McFarland (1995-96), Colin Todd (1996-99), Sam Allardyce (1999-2007), Sammy Lee (2007)

Tottenham: 12

David Pleat (1986-87), Terry Venables (1987-91), Peter Shreeves (1991-92), Doug Livermore (1992-93), Ossie Ardiles (1993-94), Gerry Francis (1994-97), Christian Gross (1997-98), George Graham (1998-01), Glenn Hoddle (2001-03), Jacques Santini (2004), Martin Jol (2004-07), Juande Ramos (2007-08)

Portsmouth: 14

Alan Ball (1984-89), John Gregory (1989-90), Frank Burrows (1990-91), Jim Smith (1991-95), Terry Fenwick (1995-98), Alan Ball (1998-99), Tony Pulis (2000), Steve Claridge (2000-01), Graham Rix (2001-02), Harry Redknapp (2002-04), Velimir Zajec (2004- 05), Alain Perrin (2005), Harry Redknapp (2005-08), Tony Adams (2008)

Stoke City: 13

Mick Mills (1985-89), Alan Ball (1989-91), Lou Macari (1991-93), Joe Jordan (1993-94), Lou Macari (1994-97), Chic Bates (1997-98), Chris Kamara (1998), Brian Little (1998-99), Gary Megson (1999), Gudjon Thordarson (1999-02), Steve Cotteril (2002), Tony Pulis (2002-05), Johan Boskamp (2005-06)

Blackburn Rovers: 9

Don Mackay (1987-91), Kenny Dalglish (1991-95), Ray Harford (1995-97), Roy Hodgson (1997-98), Brian Kidd (1998-99), Tony Parks (1999-00), Graeme Souness (2000-04), Mark Hughes (2004-08), Paul Ince (2008)

Middlesbrough: 5

Bruce Rioch (1986-90), Colin Todd (1990-91), Lennie Lawrence (1991-94), Bryan Robson (1994-01), Steve McClaren (2001-06)

West Brom: 12

Ron Saunders (1986-87), Ron Atkinson (1987-88), Brian Talbot (1988-91), Bobby Gould (1991-92), Ossie Ardiles (1992-93), Keith Burkinshaw (1993-94), Alan Buckley (1994-97), Ray Harford (1997), Denis Smith (1997-00), Brian Little (2000), Gary Megson (2000-04), Bryan Robson (2004-06)

Wolverhampton Wanderers: 6

Graham Turner (1986-94), Graham Taylor (1994-95), Mark McGhee (1995-98), Colin Lee (1998-2000), Dave Jones (2001-04), Glenn Hoddle (2004-06)

Reading: 8

Ian Branfoot (1984-89), Ian Porterfield (1989-91), Mark McGhee (91-94), Jimmy Quinn/Mick Gooding (1994-97), Terry Bullivant (1997-98), Tommy Burns (1998-99), Alan Pardew (1999-03)

Birmingham City: 8

John Bond (1986-87), Garry Pendrey (1987-89), Dave Mackay (1989-91), Lou Macari (1991), Terry Cooper (1991-93), Barry Fry (1993-96), Trevor Francis (1996-2001), Steve Bruce (2001-07)

Cardiff City: 14

Frank Burrows (1986-89), Len Ashurst (1989-91), Eddie May (1991-94), Terry Yorath (1994-95), Eddie May (1995), Kenny HibbItt (1995), Phil Neal (1996), Russell Osman (1996-97), Kenny Hibbitt (1998), Frank Burrows (1998-99), Billy Ayre (1999-2000), Bobby Gould (2000), Alan Cork (2000-02), Lennie Lawrence (2002-05)

Sheffield United: 8

Billy McEwan (1986-88), Dave Bassett (1988-95), Howard Kendall (1995-97), Nigel Spackman (1997-98), Steve Bruce (1998-99), Adrian Heath (1999), Neil Warnock, (1999-2007), Bryan Robson (2007-08)

Preston North End: 8

John McGrath (1986-90), Les Chapman (1990-92), John Beck (1992-94), Gary Peters (1994-98), David Moyes (1998-2002), Craig Brown (2002-04), Billy Davies (2004-06), Paul Simpson (2006-07)

Swansea City: 12

Terry Yorath (1990-91), Frank Burrows (1991-95), Bobby Smith (1995), Kevin Cullis (1996), Jan Molby (1996-97), Micky Adams (1997), Alan Cork (1997-98), John Hollins (1998-2001), Colin Addison (2001-02), Nick Cusack (2002), Brian Flynn (2002-04), Kenny Jackett (2004-07)

Queens Park Rangers: 12

Jim Smith (1985-88), Trevor Francis (1988-90), Don Howe (1990-91), Gerry Francis (1991-94), Ray Wilkins (1994-96), Stewart Houston (1996-97), Ray Harford (1997-98), Gerry Francis (1998-2001), Ian Holloway (2001-2006), Gary Waddock (2006), John Gregory (2006-07), Luigi Di Canio (2007-08)

Bristol City: 12

Terry Cooper (1982-88), Joe Jordan (1988-90), Jimmy Lumsden (1990-92), Denis Smith (1992-93), Russell Osman (1993-94), Joe Jordan (1994-97), John Ward (1997-98), Benny Lennartsson (1998-99), Tony Pulis (1999), Tony Fawthrop (2000), Danny Wilson (2000-04), Brian Tinnion (2004-05)

Burnley: 7

Brian Miller (1986-89), Frank Casper (1989-91), Jimmy Mullen (1991-96), Adrian Heath (1996-97), Chris Waddle (1997-98), Stan Ternent (1998-2004), Steve Cotterill (2004-07)

Ipswich Town: 7

Bobby Ferguson (1982-87), John Duncan (1987-90), John Lyall (1990-92), Paul Goddard (1994), George Burley (1994-2002), Tony Mowbray (2002), Joe Royale (2002-06)

Sheffield Wednesday: 12

Howard Wilkinson (1983-88), Peter Eustace (1988-89), Ron Atkinson (1989-91), Trevor Francis (1991-95), David Pleat (1995-97), Ron Atkinson (1997-98), Danny Wilson (1998-2000), Paul Jewell (2000-2001), Peter Shreeves (2001), Terry Yorath (2001-02), Chris Turner (2002-04), Paul Sturrock (2004-06)

Crystal Palace: 14

Steve Coppell (1984-93), Alan Smith (1993-95), Steve Coppell (1995-96), Dave Bassett (1996-97), Steve Coppell (1997-98), Attilio Lombardo (1998), Terry Venables (1998-99), Steve Coppell (1999-2000), Alan Smith (2001), Steve Bruce (2001), Trevor Francis (2001-03), Steve Kember (2003), Iain Dowie (2003-06), Peter Taylor (2006-07)

Coventry City: 14

George Curtis (1986-87), John Sillet (1987-90), Terry Butcher (1990-92), Don Howe (1992), Bobby Gould (1992-93), Phil Neal (1993-95), Ron Atkinson (1995-96), Gordon Strachan (1996-2001), Roland Nilsson (2001-02), Gary McAllister (2002-04), Eric Black (2004), Peter Reid (2004-05), Micky Adams (2005-07), Iain Dowie (2007)

Blackpool: 9

Sam Ellis (1982-89), Jimmy Mullen (1989-90), Graham Carr (1990), Bill Ayre (1990-94), Sam Allardyce (1994-96), Gary Megson (1996-97), Nigel Worthington (1997-99), Steve McMahon (2000-04), Colin Hendry (2004-06)

Derby County: 9

Arthur Cox (1984-93), Roy McFarland (1993-95), Jim Smith (1995-2001), Colin Todd (2001-02), John Gregory (2002-03), George Burley (2003-05), Phil Brown (2005-06), Billy Davies (2006-07), Paul Jewell (2007-08)

Plymouth Argyle: 12

Dave Smith (1984-88), Ken Brown (1988-90), David Kemp (1990-92), Peter Shilton (1992-95), Steve McCall (1995), Neil Warnock (1995-97), Mick Jones (1997-98), Kevin Hodges (1998-2000), Paul Sturrock (2000-04), Bobby Williamson (2004-05), Tony Pulis (2005-06), Ian Holloway (2006-07)

Nottingham Forest: 10

Brian Clough (1975-93), Frank Clark (1993-96), Stuart Pearce (1996-97), Dave Bassett (1997-98), Ron Atkinson (1998-99), David Platt (1999-2001), Paul Hart (2001-04), Joe Kinnear (2004), Gary Megson (2005), Colin Calderwood (2005-08)

Doncaster Rovers: 9

Dave Mackay (1987-89), Billy Bremner (1989-91), Steve Beaglehole (1991-93), Ian Atkins (1994), Sammy Chung (1994-96), Kerry Dickson (1996-97), Dave Cowling (1997), Mark Weaver (1997-98), Dave Penney (2002-06)

Norwich City: 12

Ken Brown (1980-87), Dave Stringer (1987-92), Mike Walker (1992-94), John Deehan (1994-95), Martin O’Neill (1995), Gary Megson (1995-96), Mike Walker (1996-98), Bruce Rioch (1998-2000), Bryan Hamilton (2000), Nigel Worthington (2001-06), Peter Grant (2006-07), Glenn Roeder (2007-09)

Barnsley: 12

Allan Clarke (1985-89), Mel Machin (1989-93), Viv Anderson (1993-94), Danny Wilson (1994-98), John Hendrie (1998-99), Dave Bassett (1999-2000), Nigel Spackman (2001), Steve Parkin (2001-02), Glyn Hodges (2002-03), Gudjon Thordarson (2003-04), Paul Hart (2004-05), Andy Ritchie (2005-06)

Watford: 11

Graham Taylor (1977-87), Dave Bassett (1987-88), Steve Harrison (1988-90), Colin Lee (1990), Steve Perryman (1990-93), Glenn Roeder (1993-96), Kenny Jackett (1996-97), Graham Taylor (1997-2001), Gianluca Vialli (2001-02), Ray Lewington (2002-05), Aidy Boothroyd (2005-08)

Southampton: 15

Chris Nicholl (85-91), Ian Branfoot (91-94), Alan Ball (94-95), Dave Merrington (95-96), Graeme Souness (96-97), Dave Jones (97-2000), Glenn Hoddle (2000-2001), Stuart Gray (2001), Gordon Strachen (2001-2004), Paul Sturrock (2004), Steve Wigley (2004), Harry Redknapp (2004-2005), George Burley (2005-2006), Nigel Pearson (2008), Jan Poortvliet (2008-09)

Charlton Athletic: 7

Lennie Lawrence (82-91), Steve Gritt/Alan Curbishley (91-95), Alan Curbishley (95-2006), Iain Dowie (2006), Les Reed (2006), Alan Pardew (2006-08)

Leicester City: 14

Bryan Hamilton (1986-87), David Pleat (1987-91), Gordon Lee (1991), Brian Little (1991-94), Mark McGhee (1994-95), Martin O’Neill (1995-200), Peter Taylor (2000-01), Dave Bassett (2001-02), Micky Adams (2002-04), Craig Levein (2004-06), Robert Kelly (2006-07), Martin Allen (2007), Gary Megson (2007), Ian Holloway (2007-08)

Milton Keynes Dons: 11

Dave Bassett (1981-87), Bobby Gould (1987-90), Ray Harford (1990-91), Peter Withe (1991), Joe Kinnear (1992-99), Egil Olsen (1999-2000), Terry Burton (2000-02), Stuart Murdock (2002-04), Danny Wilson (2004-06), Martin Allen (2006-07), Paul Ince (2007-08)

Scunthorpe United: 7

Frank Barlow (1984-87), Mick Buxton (1987-91), Bill Green (1991-93), Richard Money (1993-94), David Moore (1994-96), Mick Buxton (1996-97), Brian Laws (1994-2004; 2004-06)

Peterborough United: 12

Noel Cantwell (1986-88), Mick Jones (1988-89), Darren Lawrenson (1989-90), Dave Booth (1990-91), Chris Turner (1991-92), Lil Fuccillo (1992-93) John Still (1994-95), Mike Halsall (1995-96), Barry Fry (1996-2005), Mark Wright (2005-06), Keith Alexander (2006-07), Tommy Taylor (2007)

Oldham Athletic: 8

Joe Royle (1982-94), Graeme Sharp (1994-97), Neil Wrnock (1997-98), Andy Ritchie (1998-2001), Mick Wadsworth (2001-02), Iain Dowie (2002-03), Brian Talbot (2004-05), Ronnie Moore (2005-06)

Millwall: 16

John Docherty (1986-90), Bob Pearson (1990), Bruce Rioch (1990-92), Mick McCarthy (1992-96), Jimmy Nicholl (1996-97), John Docherty (1997), Billy Bonds (1997-98), Kieth Stevens (1998-2000), Alan McLeary (1999-2000), Mark McGhee (2000-03), Dennis Wise (2003-05), Steve Claridge (2005), Colin Lee (2005-06), Nigel Spackman (2006), Willie Donachie (2006-07), Richard Shaw (2007)

Leeds United: 10

Billy Bremner (1985-88), Howard Wilkinson (1988-96), George Graham (1996-98), David O’Leary (1998-2002), Terry Venables (2002-03), Peter Reid (2003), Eddie Gray (2003-04), Kevin Blackwell (2004-06), Dennis Wise (2006-08), Gary McAllister (2008)

Stockport County: 9

Colin Murphy (1986-87), Asa Hartford (1987-89), Danny Bergara (1989-95), Dave Jones (1995,97), Gary Megson (1997-99), Andy Kilner (1999-2001), Carlton Palmer (2001-03), Sammy McIlroy (2003-04), Chris Turner (2004-05)

Tranmere Rovers: 7

Frank Worthington (1985-87), Ronnie Moore (1987), John King (1987-96), John Aldridge (1996-2001), Dave Watson (2001-02), Ray Mathias (2002-03), Brian Little (2003-06)

Huddersfield Town: 14

Mike Buxton (1978-86), Steve Smith (1986-87), Malcolm McDonald (1987-88), Eoin Hand (1988-92), Ian Ross (1992-93), Neil Warnock (1993-95), Brian Horton (1995-97), Peter Jackson (1997-99), Steve Bruce (1999-2000), Lou Macari (2000-02), Mick Wadsworth (2002-03), Peter Jackson (2003-07), Andy Ritchie (2007), Ternant (2008)

Colchester United: 12

Mike Walker (1986-87), Roger Brown (1987-88), Jock Wallace (1989), Mick Mills (1990), Ian Atkins (1990-91), Roy McDonough (1991-94), George Burley (1994), Steve Wignall (1995-99), Mick Wadsworth (1999), Steve Whitton (1999-2003), Phil Parkinson (2003-06), Geraint Williams (2006-08)

Walsall: 11

Tommy Coakley (1986-88), John Barnwell (1989-90), Kenny Hibbit (1990-94), Chris Nicholl (1994-97), Jay Sorensen (1997-98), Ray Graydon (1998-2002), Colin Lee (2002-04), Paul Merson (2004-06), Kevin Broadhurst (2006), Richard Money (2006-08), Jimmy Mullen (2008-2009)

Hartlepool United: 14

John Bird (1986-88), Bobby Moncur (1988-89), Cyril Knowles (1989-91), Alan Murray (1991-93), Viv Busby (1993), John MacPhail (1993-94), David McCreery (1994-95), Keith Houchen (1996-96), Mick Tait (1996-99), Chris Turner (1999-2002), Mike Newell (2002-03), Neale Cooper (2003-05), Martin Scott (2005-06), Danny Wilson (2006-08)

Southend United: 14

Dave Webb (1986-87), Dick Bate (1987), Paul Clark (1987-88), Dave Webb (1988-92), Colin Murphy (1992-93), Barry Fry (1993), Peter Taylor (1993-95), Steve Thompson (1995), Ronnie Whelan (1995-97), Alvin Martin (1997-99), Alan Little (1999-2000), David Webb (2000-01), Rob Newman (2001-03), Steve Wignall (2003-04)

Bristol Rovers: 12

Bobby Gould (1985-87), Gerry Francis (1987-91), Martin Dobson (1991), Dennis Rolfe (1992), Malcolm Allison (1992-93), John Ward (1993-96), Ian Holloway (1996-2001), Garry Thompson (2001), Gerry Francis (2001), Garry Thompson (2001-02), Ray Graydon (2002-04), Ian Atkins (2004-05)

Northampton Town: 11

Graham Carr (1985-90), Theo Foley (1990-92), Phil Chard (1992-93), John Barnwell (1993-95), Ian Atkins (1995-99), Kevin Wilson (1999-2001), Kevan Broadhurst (2001-03), Terry Fenwick (2003), Martin Wilkinson (2003), Colin Calderwood (2003-06) John Gorman (2006)

Yeovil Town: 2

Gary Johnson (2001-05), Steve Thompson (2005-06)

Carlisle United: 18

Harry Gregg (1986-87), Cliff Middlemass (1987-91), Aiden McCafferey (1991-92), David McCreery (1992-93), Mick Wadsworth (1993-96), Mervyn Day (1996-97), David Wilkes (1997-99), John Halpin (1997-99), Michael Kensington (1997-99), Nigel Pearson (1998-99), Keith Mincher (1999), Martin Wilkinson (1999-2000), Ian Atkins (2000-01), Roddy Collins (2001-2002), Roddy Collins (2002-03), Paul Simpson (2003-06), Neil McDonald (2006-07), John Ward (2007-08)

Brighton and Hove Albion: 13

Allan Mullery (1986-87), Barry Lloyd (1987-93), Liam Brady (1993-95), Jimmy Case (1995-96), Steve Gritt (1996-98), Brian Horton (1998-99), Jeff Wood (1999), Micky Adams (1999-2001), Peter Taylor (2001-02), Martin Hinshelwood (2002), Steve Coppell (2002-03), Mark McGhee (2003-06), Dean Wilkins (2006-08)

Swindon Town: 14

Lou Macari (1984-89), Ossie Ardiles (1989-91), Glenn Hoddle (1991-93), John Gorman (1993-94), Steve McMahon (1994-99), Jimmy Quinn (1999-2000), Colin Todd (2000), Andy King (2000-01), Roy Evans (2001), Andy King (2002-06), Iffy Onuora (2006), Dennis Wise (2006), Paul Sturrock (2006-07), Maurice Malpas (2008)

Leyton Orient: 8

Frank Clark (1983-91), Peter Eustace (1991-94), Chris Turner (1994-95), John Sitton (1994-95), Pat Holland (1995-96), Tommy Taylor (1996-2001), Paul Brush (2001-03), Martin Ling (2003-09)

Crewe Alexandra: 2

Dario Gradi (1983-2007), Steve Holland (2007-08)

Hereford United-0

Cheltenham Town: 12

John Murphy (1983-88), Jim Barron (1988-90), John Murphy (1990), Dave Lewis (1990-91), Ally Robertson (1991-92), Lindsay Parsons (1992-95), Chris Robinson (1995-97), Steve Cotterill (1997-2002), Graham Allner (2002-03), Bobby Gould (2003), John Ward, 2003-07), Keith Downing (2007-08)

Source

Bugatti left in garage for 50 years by obsessive doctor sells for £3million at auction

2009-02-08T22:56:00.000+08:00

A car abandoned in a garage for 50 years by an eccentric doctor who was a compulsive hoarder has been sold at auction for more than £3million.

The 1937 Bugatti Type 57S was found at the home of Dr Harold Carr amid piles of medical machinery, 1,500 beer steins, thousands of receipts and even a World War Two spy drone.

His family made the profitable discovery as they sorted through his possessions following his death.

1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante, one of only 17 made in the world

The vehicle was bought by a telephone bidder when it went under the hammer at Bonhams' Retromobile car show and sale in Paris for £3,043,293.

The car was originally owned by racing enthusiast Earl Howe, who was the first president of the British Racing Driver's Club.

He took delivery of the sporty two-seat Atalante after it was completed in 1937 and kept it for eight years.

After Earl Howe sold it, it changed hands a couple of time before Dr Carr bought the car in 1955 from Lord Ridley, a member of the Northumberland gentry.

Dr Carr, an orthopaedic surgeon who served as an army doctor during World War Two and also became a keen flier, bought the vehicle in 1955 for £895 - the equivalent of £15,500 today.

He drove the car for the first few years but in the early 1960s it was parked in his garage where it remained for nearly 50 years until his death.

The car was found in the house of Dr Carr among piles of other items he had hoarded

When the surgeon passed away in 2007 his nephew was left to clear out his garage and he found the car inside.

It was offered for sale with an extensive file of correspondence documenting its history.

It still has its original chassis, engine, drivetrain and body. The car even has what appears to be a remarkably low mileage with an odometer reading of just 26,284.

It is highly coveted by collectors as only 17 were ever made and at least four of those are thought to belong to the Musee Nationale de L'Automobile in Mulhouse, France.

Others remain in the hands of private collectors.

He never married and eight relatives are to share the proceeds of his estate.

A nephew, who wishes to remain anonymous, previously told the Mail: 'We knew he had some cars, but we had no idea what they were.

'It was a bit of local folklore that he had a Bugatti, but no one knew for sure. It's worth so much because he hasn't used it for 50 years. It was one of the original supercars.

'When it was built it could reach 130mph at a time when other cars could only do 50mph. Of course we are delighted and we're going to make sure the money is shared out among the family. It's a wonderful thing to leave.'

He described his uncle as 'a very eccentric old gent', adding: 'I suppose you could call him a mad doctor. People who saw him in the street thought he was a tramp. He would wear two pairs of trousers at the same time.

'All the children would laugh at him in the street when he tinkered with his cars because he wore a piece of rubber tube round his head to stop the oil getting in his hair. But he was always such a generous man.'

The car was snapped up at auction in Paris for more than £3m

In his later years Dr Carr suffered from a form of obsessive compulsive disorder and hoarded everything in the house he refused to leave.

Files were piled 6ft high at his detached home, including even receipts for pencils bought in the 1950s.

'Since he died, it has taken me 18 months to get where I am today,' said the nephew.

A spokeswoman for Bonhams said the car had been bought by a European collector.

She said: 'He is a big collector of Bugatti cars.

'The car will stay in Europe and it will be kept in good condition.'

Source

Nikon's Fabre Photo EX DSLR Stereoscopic Microscope Blows Things Up

2009-02-06T00:37:00.000+08:00

Nikon's Fabre Photo EX DSLR Stereoscopic Microscope Blows Things Up

By Andrea Wang, 7:38 PM on Wed Feb 4 2009, 7,546 views

This super crazy looking gadget is Nikon's new stereoscopic microscope that can be attached to your Nikon DSLR for some serious close-up photos. Don't have a DSLR? You can also attach this to some point-and-shoots.

After mounting it to the back of your Nikon DSLR, you can take detailed photos with a magnification of 20x on the FX camera models, 45x on the DX ones, and 66x with additional accessories. The Fabre Photo EX will be available for purchase starting February 20, and will cost you about $1,600 for both the microscope and the DSLR mount. [Boing Boing]

Limited Edition Black and White Pentax K2000 DSLR

2009-01-26T04:47:00.000+08:00

That slick-looking white limited edition Pentax K2000 DSLR we previewed and drooled all over in December got official pricing and availability info this weekend, and it was much less than we anticipated it would be.

For reference, the black version of this entry-level camera will set you back about $800. The limited edition, in cookies 'n' cream casing? Only $680, according to the Pentax store page that popped up on Friday.

What's that get you? Well, it gets you a kit with two lens with white highlights to match the body: The Pentax DA L 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL and Pentax DA L 50-200mm F4-5.6 AL zoom lens.

We'll see if the $680 price point stands, as this appears to be a pre-order, scheduled to ship in February. For now, it looks like a steal unless we're missing something (so long as you like the white, that is). [Pentax via Slashgear]

Source

Father stabbed estranged wife to death after she changed her Facebook status to 'single'

2009-01-24T01:15:00.000+08:00

A father stabbed his estranged wife to death in a 'frenzied attack' after discovering she had changed her Facebook status to 'single'.

Edward Richardson, 41, was high on a cocktail of cocaine and alcohol when he smashed his way into her parents' home and used a carving knife to kill 26-year-old Sarah Richardson as she lay in bed.

The carpenter stabbed his wife with such force he shattered her ribs. She also suffered puncture wounds to her liver and a slashed aorta.

Richardson was yesterday jailed for life after a jury took less than three hours to convict him of murder at Stafford Crown Court.

Sarah Richardson, 26, was stabbed to death by her estranged husband Edward Richardson after she changed her Facebook status to 'single'

Judge Simon Tonking ordered Richardson, of Biddulph, Stoke-on-Trent, to serve at least 18 years.

He told him: 'Whatever might have been in your mind before you entered that bedroom, the point came when you did intend to kill your wife.

'You subjected her to an attack which involved 13 stab wounds and 39 separate lacerations. It was an act of brutal mutilation.

'The effect of that act was to devastate an entire family, her parents, her brothers, her sister in law and young nieces.

'Her parents called her "the light of their life". By killing her in their home, you have violated their home of 40 years, where now, as far as Sarah's bedroom is concerned, they cannot bring themselves to go.'

Earlier, the court heard how the couple separated three weeks before the murder after arguments about the amount of money being spent on cocaine and father-of-two Richardson's refusal to have children with Sarah.

The kitchen knife Richardson used in the attack. He stabbed his wife with such force her ribs were broken

When Richardson discovered his estranged wife had changed her Facebook status to single, he drove to her parents Sandbach home with a knife and strips of black tape to muffle the sound of breaking glass.

After murdering Sarah, Richardson drove to a field and used the same knife to slash his wrists and throat.

Emergency services found Richardson in Fence Lane, Congleton, 40 minutes after the attack.

Detective Inspector Andy Wall, who led the police inquiry, said: 'Richardson had stopped a passer-by and asked them to call the police. He was taken to hospital and later arrested.

'During interviews he told police he knew he had stabbed his wife but couldn't remember the exact details of the assault.

'When he learned his wife had died he was upset.

'Mr Richardson was under an element of stress due to the break up of his marriage. But what he did was a brutal and calculated act.'

Sarah Richardson was in bed at her parents' home, above, when she was attacked

Fiona Cortese, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: 'We hope that today’s guilty verdict will go some way to easing the pain of Sarah’s friends and family after losing her in such a violent and abrupt way.'

Mrs Richardson's parents, Beryl and Alan Boote, issued a statement after the verdict.

'There simply aren’t the words to describe how Sarah’s death, and the awful way in which she died, has affected us,' they said.

'We miss her so much. Sarah was the loveliest daughter anyone could wish for. She was honest, loyal and sweet, and everyone loved her.'

Facebook, the 'social networking' website, allows people to advertise their current marital status.

Users can choose to list their relationship status as 'It's complicated' or 'In an open relationship' as well as more traditional options such as 'engaged or 'single'.

This is not the first time that a change in Facebook status has led to murder.

Last October, Wayne Forrester, 34, was jailed for a minimum of 14 years after hacking his wife to death with a meat cleaver in fury over her Facebook entry.

Forrester, drank alcohol and took cocaine before driving 15 miles to the family home to attack his wife as she lay in bed.

The couple had separated four days before the murder in February and Forrester later told police he had been provoked by his wife changing her marital status to "single" on her Facebook entry.

SOURCE

The Mother of all Telephotos

2009-01-18T00:33:00.001+08:00

If you're into bird watching, the holy grail would have to be the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, a huge (20" tall with a 30" wingspan), yet incredibly elusive woodpecker that despite reports of extinction, is spotted every now-and-then deep in the boonies of Florida and Arkansas. It's also known as the 'Lord G-d' woodpecker because that's what spotters have been known to blurt out - often accompanied by soiled trousers - when dive-bombed by one. 'Lord G-d' has also been exclaimed - minus the soiled trousers - by those seeing a Canon 1200/5.6L USM for the first time. At 36lbs, 33" long and 9" wide at the front element, calling this lens a 'tele' is like calling King Kong a monkey.


Photo Credit : Henry Posner

The Canon 1200/5.6L USM (priced at $99,000... and if you live out of state we don't need to charge you tax!) has been built on a special-order basis since 1993, and the ‘official word’ is there are "more than twelve, less than twenty" of them in existence. With a price tag equivalent to a pair of his-and-her sports coupes, they were produced at the rate of about 2-per-year and a delivery time of about 18 months. National Geographic magazine, Sports Illustrated, Canon Professional Services, and a few well-heeled enthusiasts are counted among the fortunate few who own these unique optics. A box of donuts says the Feds probably have a few squirreled away somewhere, but this is something we can neither confirm nor deny. What you get for your money is a monster lens with an angle of view of about 2° on a full-frame 35 mm camera.

For the record, the Canon 1200/5.6L USM contains 13 elements (including 2 Fluorite) in 10 groups, stops down to f32, and has a minimum focus of 45.9'. As for filtration, 48 mm drop-in filters can be inserted towards the aft section of the lens barrel. And before you start kvetching 'it's not an IS lens' keep in mind this hefty pup demands the sturdiest tripod and pan/tilt head you can muster up. An EOS Mark III mounted on this thing looks like a rear lens cap with handle bars. Folks, we're talking big here… really big.

To facilitate a measure of user-friendliness, a center-balanced, rotating handle / tripod collar assembly was smartly designed into lens barrel. If for whatever reason you prefer using a ball-head, make sure you have a firm hand on the lens handle before you loosen anything because the results can be painful in more ways than one.


Upper West Side Manhattan- About a mile away

Shooting with a 1200 mm lens is not a casual affair. The reinforced aluminum case is heavier than the lens and requires a wheelie cart to get around. For negotiating curbs, stairs, and cargo bays there are rubber-padded handles on three sides of the case. If you have visions of slinging this baby over your shoulder and going a stroll along the promenade be advised it ain't happening. And remember... lift with your knees.

The viewfinder is surprisingly bright, and though somewhat sluggish as compared to the latest-generation Canon EF lenses, the 1200 was usually able to nail the focus on the first pass. The hard part is figuring out what you’re focusing on because the angle of view is so narrow. If you’re not familiar with the landscape you’ll find yourself peering out over the top of the camera every so often trying to figure out what you’re looking at.

As for image quality, even wide open it's quite lovely. Stopped down to f/8 and f/11 it's actually quite remarkable. How remarkable? From midtown Manhattan we were able to read the street signs on the corner of JFK Boulevard East and 43rd St. in Weehawkin New Jersey when viewing image files at pixel resolution. It's important to keep in mind when you are shooting images of objects literally a mile away or further you start contending with haze, smog, and heat radiation that can greatly diminish the image quality of the best optics, especially during warmer months. Even on a cold, clear winter day we were able to detect heat distortions in some of the photos.


Field of View looking north with 50mm lens. Color detail shows field of view of 1200 mm lens

Actual photo through 1200mm lens of buildings 20 blocks north of 35th Street and Ninth Avenue


Rooftops in Hell's Kitchen... About half a mile

Weehawken, NJ as seen from Midtown... About two miles away

A few details of the above image at pixel resolution

Need something longer? A Canon Extender EF 1.4x boosts the beast up to a 1680/8, and the Canon Extender EF 2x will get you to a 2400/11. For what it's worth, if you couple this lens to a Rebel XTi or EOS 40D you end up with the 35mm-equivalent of 1920/5.6, a 2688/8 with a 1.4x extender, and a 3840/11 with a 2x extender. If you need to focus any tighter to your subject you'll have to hop a plane and fly there.

Apart from a few very minor cosmetic blemishes, this lens is tight and extremely clean inside and out. Included with this lens is a leather slip-on 'lens cap', a fitted aluminum shipping case, and a prodigious measure of ego satisfaction.

And how much will this honey set you back? A cool $99,000. But keep in mind we guarantee you’ll be the first and only one on your block to own one of these awesome creations. Operators are standing by.

Source

INSANE

2009-01-16T15:27:00.000+08:00

The story of a 13 year old girl sending 14,000 text messages in a single month got a lot of press, but truth be told, that figure is actually fairly low.

For example, Sprint has confirmed that a 14-year old Florida girl sent / received around 35,463 text messages in a month on two separate occasions. That works out to 1,182 a day. As sad and depressingly impressive as that is, those numbers don't come anywhere near the Guinness record. Apparently, that "honor" is held by a man...a GROWN man by the name of Deepak Sharma. He managed to send 182,689 messages in a single month—about 6100 messages a day (or 4.2 messages a minute). Yeah, that is insane. Good thing we have unlimited text plans—even though it is most likely a ripoff. [Herald Tribune via Fark]

Tips : How to use digital camera

2008-12-26T22:56:00.001+08:00

How To Use Your New Digital Camera

By Mark Wilson, 2:00 PM on Thu Dec 25 2008, 22,715 views

It's Christmas, and we're betting that at least some of you received new digital cameras (be they point-and-shoots or DSLRs). And if you're a photography n00b, we've got a few tips to help.

Turn On Burst Mode
It's harder to capture candid shots on point-and-shoots (let's call em PASs) than DSLRs, but in either format you should turn on "burst mode" or "continuous shooting." This allows you to keep the camera taking shots as fast as it can by holding down the shutter button. Even the greatest photographers don't predict magical moments down to the millisecond—they let their camera do it for them. And with today's cheap and gigantic SD cards, you can afford to waste plenty of shots to get the best.

Control the Color Temperature Yourself
Auto White Balance (AWB) does a good job on most cameras. But you know who can do a better job? You. Backing up for a moment, since every color has its own relative "temperature" that's measured in degrees Kelvin, even the orangey glow of an incandescent bulb or the relatively bluish hue of the sun's light can screw with your photos. Your brain factors it out when you're looking around, but it's important to notice whether the light falling on your scene is more yellow or blue, and to compensate.
Your camera uses auto white balance to get around this cacophony of color, but it's not always right. On some cameras, you can actually use "manual white balance" (MWB), shooting a white patch, such as a piece of paper, in order to say "THIS IS WHITE." That's the most accurate way, though the simpler way found on most cameras is to manually select the best white balance by choosing the tiny icon that identifies your light source: a sun for direct sunlight, a cloud for cloudy, a round bulb for incandescent, a rectangular bulb for fluorescent, etc.

Keep ISO to 400 on PASs, 800-1600 on Low-End dSLRs
ISO, a carryover term from the days of film, essentially signals the sensitivity of the imaging sensor to light. A higher number means grainier (noisier) but better defined shots in low light; a lower number means smoother shots in decent light. Most cameras will crank this number in medium to low light situations so that it can capture a shot without blurring, but you will get a grainy image. This may just be a rule of thumb based on the cameras I've used, but for optimally crisp shots, don't let the ISO exceed 400 on your PAS or 1600 on your DSLR. (In some older DSLR models, you probably shouldn't exceed 800.)
Use Diffuse Flash, Or Just Turn it Off
Any way you cut it, flash is a problem. When used instead of ambient light, it pulls the color and texture from skin, turns eyes red (a phenomenon caused when the flash is too close to your lens, which it is in most cameras) and often erases the background ambiance from your shot. A few things you can do will help tame flash:
1. Check your manual for minimum and maximum flash distances—probably around 6 to 12 feet away—and stay in those constraints.
2. Diffuse the flash. A classic trick for DSLR owners is to put a cigarette carton on large flash attachments, but in the absence of a large flash—and a cigarette carton—try taping some kind of translucent paper over your flash.
3. Turn it off. Even a grainier high-ISO shot is better than a washed-out flash explosion. If you use a tripod, you can get nice low light shots without resorting to flash or upping the ISO. Most cameras now have a flashless "night mode" to automate this process.

Carry a Pocket Tripod
Ultimately, if you want to take good shots in dark environments, you need to allow light to hit your camera's imaging sensor for a longer period of time. And the only way to keep your shots sharp in this scenarios is to stabilize your camera. Though even cheap cameras boast image stabilizers of all kinds, a $7 pocket tripod trumps all that marketing speak, allowing you to use a solid surface to set up the camera and then angle it to your liking. If you don't have a tripod, try resting your camera on the side of a table, or up on a (preferably empty) water glass.

Protect Your Images From Lens Flare
In any situation where sunlight or some other bright light source is hitting your lens indirectly (not associated with your subject), you may lose part of your image to stray light. Sometimes this looks cool, of course, but not always. The best and most common solution is a lens hood. The second best solution (and the one that works for PASs) is your hand, a piece of paper, anything, between that light source and your lens.

Exhale, Then Shoot
ISOs and tripods aside, maybe the best tip I've ever gotten to taking great shots was to exhale, then take the picture. Right after you exhale, the tension is released from your body, and you'll find yourself, for a brief moment, at your stillest and most relaxed. In low light especially, it could be the difference between getting a clear shot and getting a blurry one.

Use Sepia Filter Whenever Humanly Possible
Sepia is well known for making your lousy photography "deep." Helllllooo precious moments! (OK, I sort of despise sepia because it's been so overused, but that's just me. It can be beautiful, of course.)
For DSLR Owners...Shoot in RAW, Shoot in RAW, Shoot in RAW
There are many advantages to the average DSLR camera, but the best, by far, unequivocally, is RAW shooting. If you save your pictures as JPEGs, they can be beautiful, but they've been compressed and packaged into a product. If you save in RAW, you have a picture, but you also have the cold clay that shaped it.
RAW is the data pulled right off the imaging sensor of your camera, before it gets run through a bunch of optimizer and compression algorithms. This data allows for a complete do-over on many aspects of the picture, like color temperature. In other cases, it allows a lot of room for fudging, as with exposure. You'll need software that can handle RAW images—most cameras come with something proprietary, but Photoshop can also manage RAW from the major camera brands. Just don't be scared by it. It's why you're holding that shiny new DSLR you have no idea how to use.

And Your Own...
I realize this list will seem too obvious to some, but the goal is to help those who didn't know much to start with. Since we have more than our share of incredible photographers among our readership, I'd encourage any of you with pro tips to please offer them up in comments.

Music Video with nothing but 45,000 digital images

2008-12-08T05:58:00.000+08:00

Director Creates Music Video with Nothing But 45,000 Nikon D200 DSLR Digital Images

By Jack Loftus, 10:00 AM on Sun Dec 7 2008, 16,541 views

There's patience, and then there's the patience. Like shooting a 4:15 music video using nothing but the 45,000 images you captured with a Nikon D200 DSLR camera.

That's exactly what director Cesar Kuriyama did for the band Fat City Reprise. The video is, shall we say, quirky, with a wacky little plush doll engaging in what appears to be some kind of lover's tryst with a young blond girl in a bed. And a field.

The 45,000 images, 14 months of work and $3,000 it cost to create the video was actually an ingenious workaround for photographers who want to make high-quality videos at low cost, noted Wired in an interview with the director this week. Previously, directors were stuck with recording using the low-quality video features of their DSLR rigs; or with bulky high-end movie cameras that were expensive even when rented for a shoot.

But cameras like the Nikon D200, or comparable rigs from Canon, et al, are changing the way directors think about shooting video today. As Wired notes, the Canon 5D Mark II is fully capable of 1080p video, as for the tidy price of about $2,700. Or, go the Kuriyama route, and shoot the whole damn thing with the actors moving in slow motion, while your director of photography shoots them at four images per second. The result, as you can see, is the video above. [Cesar Kuriyama via Wired]

NIKON D3X ?

2008-11-30T03:39:00.000+08:00

Nikon D3x Specs Leaked: A Mighty Flagship Cometh

By Wilson Rothman, 1:30 PM on Fri Nov 28 2008, 7,965 views

The long rumored, medium-format-friendly D3x is profiled in detail in an upcoming issue of Nikon Pro, and Nikon Rumors published the pages themselves and a rundown of details, including 5fps 24.5-megapixel shooting, 51-point autofocus and a 922,000-dot LCD screen for Live View. Here's the basic spec rundown:

• World’s highes-res SLR with Live View
• 51-point MultiCAM3500FX autofocus system
• Scene Recognition System
• Expeed 16-bit processing to handle detail on the 75MB image files
• 3-inch, 922,000-dot LCD
• 35.9mm x 24mm FX format sensor (If you can't think in metric, that's 1.4" x 0.94")
• Weather-resistant magnesium body
• Designed for medium-format shooting
• ISO range of 100-1600 with a Lo1 (equivalent to ISO 50) with boosts up to ISO 6400
• 24.5-megapixel shooting at up to 5fps; cropped 10-megapixel shooting at up to 7fps
• 12ms start-up time; 41ms shutter-release lag time
• Writes files to dual CF slots at 35MB/s
• USB 2.0, HDMI and AV-out jacks, with 10-pin terminal for GPS and other accessories
• Same lithium-ion battery as D3

Believe it or not, there's even more data over on Nikon Rumors, plus some very interesting pictures, so go have a look. [Nikon Rumors]

Which Phones Deliver The Real Web

2008-11-19T19:05:00.001+08:00

Mobile Browser Battlemodo: Which Phones Deliver The Real Web

By matt buchanan, 11:00 AM on Wed Nov 19 2008, 22,658 views

Before 2007, using the internet on your phone would make you want to kill yourself, if you were dumb enough to believe the crap splattered across that tiny screen even was the "internet." But the combination of increased bandwidth and better mobile software means that more phones really are promising to deliver the real internet, in living color. We tested eight different browsers, and while some put smiles on our faces, others proved that rendering HTML correctly is a far cry from actually giving you an awesome web experience. And what about 3G vs. Wi-Fi? Everything the carriers have told you is a lie. This is the true state of mobile web.

Before we give you the rundown of each of the most prevalent mobile browsers, here's how they all stacked up in a timed test of how fast (and how well) they could render websites, chosen for their diversity and particular challenges:

CHART KEY: Number value is time for complete page load in seconds; page rendering is rated from "Fail" to "Excellent" for each; and the color (red, yellow, green) indicates overall performance taking into account both speed and rendering accuracy: Green = good overall, Red = fail overall.

This second chart runs through the same procedure with all of the phones that had Wi-Fi options:

It's a pretty daunting pile of numbers, so let's break it down into standard prose, rating each browser as we go:
Android
A fast, smart mobile browser based on WebKit. It tackles most sites with (almost) unrivaled grace and speed. Panning and zooming could be smoother and more responsive, but with a ton of options for getting around a page—various touch methods and the trackball—few sites will be challenging to zip around. The only thing we really miss is multitouch for zoom. Buttons just aren't a very elegant or precise solution, and while the whole-page magnifying glass technique is nice, we'd love something a bit more refined. Overall though, we're happy campers on Android's browser. Grade: B+

BlackBerry Bold
Leaps and bounds ahead of the browser BlackBerry users have put up with for years, it renders most pages correctly, even if scripts give it a conniption fit (hence its long load times for Wikipedia and the WSJ). It uses the standard "click to zoom" metaphor, which works well enough, though getting around a page with the trackball can be kind of a work out for you thumb. The Column View, which squeezes a whole page into a single column, is fairly convenient and makes it easier to get around wider pages, even if it doesn't work equally as well on every site (nice on Wikipedia, ugly on Giz). Hopefully they fix the script performance in the Storm, which is using an updated version of the Bold's browser. We humbly suggest they ditch their home-baked browser for one based on WebKit, which would help out there. Grade: B-/C+

iPhone
What can we say? It's still got the best mobile browser around. It crushes basically everything but Android's browser—which is also based on WebKit—in speed and outclasses its still classy brother-from-another-mother (and everyone else) with the ease and elegance of its multitouch zooming. Some pages still give it fits, and it's missing Flash support, but it really does deliver an unrivaled mobile web experience. We love it, but make no mistake we're eagerly waiting for something better. (Mobile Firefox? Is it you?) Grade: A-

Nokia E71 Symbian S60
Hey look, another web browser with WebKit guts! It doesn't perform quite as well as Android's or iPhone's iteration where speed or render accuracy are concerned (can any Symbian nuts explain why?), but it does a serviceable job. The big thing it has going for it is Flash Lite 3 support, though performance there is kinda assy and memory intensive. Navigation is tougher with the E71's d-pad than with a trackball, but the whole page magnifying approach makes it easy enough to get around (too bad you have to dig through a menu or two to get to it). Not bad, but short of excellent. Grade: B-

Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile
Jesus Christ. This is a joke, right Microsoft? Hahaha. No really, this is the worst smartphone browser on the planet. It couldn't render its way out of an ASCII-art paper bag. It totally screwed up every single test page, except for Wikipedia, which it only mostly screwed up. Good luck navigating a page if you're granted the miraculous occurrence of it being rendered in a state that's usable. Grade: F-

Opera Mobile on Windows Mobile
Microsoft's own intentions notwithstanding, you can use the internet on a Windows Mobile phone. You just need Opera Mobile. It's kind of hobbled by Windows Mobile's assy performance, but it usually gets the job done. Not as quickly or always as accurately as its WebKit rivals, but it's definitely usable. Interestingly, it benefits more from the extra bandwidth offered by Wi-Fi than the WebKit browsers do. Menu-based zoom is annoying and imprecise. Touch-based panning worked okay, though a little laggy. We mostly navigated with the Samsung Epix's optical cursor, which worked pretty well, somewhere in between a d-pad and a trackball. Grade: C

Sprint Instinct
Holy CRAP. This is not the painfully lousy browser the Instinct shipped with not by a long shot. The original was slow and fairly feeble, even if it was the head of its (dumbphone) class. The new 1.1 browser really is a life-changing upgrade. It suffers in the chart because it's much slower than most other browsers, and zooming is still clumsy, but once the page loads, it's much smoother to pan and actually move around. I got a bit annoyed that it lied about pageload time, hanging at the last 2 percent of the status bar for half the load, but it usually gets things right. This is the best non-smartphone browser you can get. Grade: C+

LG Dare
Like the Instinct, the Dare proves you can actually get a usable browsing experience on a feature phone. It's a little nimbler at loading pages than its Korean blood rival, but the reason it ultimately posts lower marks than the Instinct is that it buckles way more easily under a moderate to heavy pageload, turning it into an unresponsive picture of the website you were trying to look at. Still, it renders most pages fairly accurately, and we like the sliding zoom scroll bar, at least in theory, since it seems like an intuitive way to deal with the zoom issue. Unfortunately, it works more like a glorified pair of buttons. (Note: I don't think the speed was actually a piddly 300 Kbps—I think it just had a problem dealing with DSL Reports' mobile speedtest, even though it's text-based for the dumbest of phones.) Grade: C

Methodology
We tested every browser only using the full—not mobile—versions of selected sites, over 3G and, whenever possible, Wi-Fi. All scripts were turned on, and the cache was cleared before each round of testing. We took the average of a series of five sequential speedtests to give us an idea of the bandwidth we're dealing with, and timed how long it took to completely load a site according to each browser's progress bar. We assessed whether or not it rendered the page correctly, on a scale ranging from "excellent" to "good" (a couple things out of place) to "utter fail" (I've seen prettier train wrecks).

A few additional issues to note: Internet Explorer would not work on Wi-Fi. Opera yes, our Skyfire install, yes, Internet Exploder, no. (Samsung suggested it might be because of Opera.) We didn't pursue the matter because of how IE did in the 3G tests: A page that looks like a pile of blended dog poo is going to look like that no matter how much faster it loads. Sprint's updated Instinct and Verizon's Dare, which we included as best-of-class examples of feature phones, don't have Wi-Fi capabilities. We left out Opera Mini and Skyfire, since they both leave most of the hard work to servers which essentially spit out a kind of image file—besides, we don't think this kind of internet-by-proxy browser will be around for much longer.

The Big Gulp
Remember our mantra it's code that counts? It's true for mobile internet too. An awesome browser can make up for a mediocre network, but a terrible browser delivers a crappy experience no matter how great the network is. It's all about the browser. As it stands, WebKit is clearly the best thing going, but even then, software implementation matters, or Nokia would deliver as good a performance as Android and iPhone. Proving the point, it's striking how little Wi-Fi actually boosted speed beyond 3G—hell, WebKit browsers on 3G slid past some of the others that were running on Wi-Fi.

Another thing to note is that the zoom metaphor is a tricky thing to nail. Buttons are too brutish, the magnifying glass is imprecise. Multitouch seems to be the best way to handle zooming in and out in a way that's intuitive and precise. Hopefully we'll see other developers start to use multitouch interfaces in touchscreen phones (*cough*ANDROID!*cough*).

As much as this blow-by-blow battlemodo shows you all the problems we encountered, the big picture is that really, mobile web is pretty dandy right now, and getting dandier. It could be more reliable, faster, maybe a little more versatile, but for the most part, yes, you can access the internet on your phone. Compared to just two years ago, that's really saying something. We can't wait to see what it'll look like in two years. Maybe Internet Exploder will actually work. Nah, that's a little too sci-fi.

Microsoft Lowered Vista Hardware Requirements to Appease Intel

2008-11-15T20:45:00.000+08:00

Microsoft Lowered Vista Hardware Requirements to Appease Intel

By Dan Nosowitz, 10:30 AM on Sat Nov 15 2008, 2,771 views

The class-action lawsuit against Microsoft for its misleading "Vista Capable" marketing let loose another scandal when emails between Microsoft and Intel execs surfaced (PDF link), suggesting Microsoft cut Vista's hardware requirements to help out Intel. Originally, Intel's 915 series chipsets didn't qualify for the important "Vista Capable" sticker, but after a scheduling mix-up, Microsoft decided to throw Intel a bone by pretending the chipsets are up to Vista standards.

Apparently, Microsoft decided to begin their "Vista Capable" marketing program three months earlier than expected, which left Intel a bit in the dust, without time to ramp up production on their newer, more powerful chipsets. Intel execs complained to Microsoft execs through email that the losses would be severe, and Microsoft decided to appease their partner by relaxing their standards for Vista capability, even though the 915 series is incapable of running Aero.

This is a pretty damning piece of evidence, especially given emails like this one from Jim Allchin, then-co-president of platform products and services: "I believe we are going to be misleading customers with the Capable program. OEMs will say a machine is Capable and customers will believe that it will run all the core Vista features." He concluded, "We must avoid confusion. It is wrong for customers." Well said, Jim. [The Inquirer]

Movie review - Latest James Bond movie

2008-11-14T03:40:00.000+08:00

Quantum of Solace Is the Perfect Bond Movie

By Jesus Diaz, 1:00 PM on Thu Nov 13 2008, 8,465 views

The latest Bond is the perfect Bond Movie. Yes. It is. In fact, Quantum of Solace is not only the perfect Bond movie, it's the best Bond movie ever, period. Even surpassing Casino Royale—and I mean both the Craig's one and the original Peter Sellers, David Niven, and Woody Allen's delirium—which to me surpassed Connery's best (I know, sacrilege). It has everything a Bond film must have and more: Cars, cocktails, airplanes, boats, cocktails, smart hot girls, evil baddies, slimy baddie sidekicks, cocktails, and gadgets. Yes, the new Bond has some really cool gadgets in it. I don't mean cheesy stupid mini-rockets firing from the exhaust pipe of an Aston Martin or laser watches that can cut through steel and french lingerie. I mean cool, believable technology that integrates in the movie transparently.

To start with, real multitouch makes a stellar appearance with a giant Microsoft-Surface-style table which Judi Dench—the head of MI6—and other agents use with ease, simultaneously. In fact, the user interface on the table—albeit adorned for the required Hollywood eye candy—actually makes sense and is extremely attractive, gesture includes. Everything on it is doable with current technology, even the part in which they place a dollar bill and it gets automatically scanned and identified.

There's also the huge video wall at M's office. Unlike the multitouch surface, this is a CGI effect. However, with enough money and the use of transparent OLED technology and gesture recognition, the video wall is also perfectly doable. In fact, I saw something similar in my visit to Philips Labs last August, although that transparent video wall—a simulation of a glass storefront—used projection rather than OLEDs.

Only a couple of technologies were exaggerated. One was Bond's cellphone camera capabilities—with 007 taking pictures of faces with 3D depth of field information from a very long distance. The other was the speed of data transmission between the cellphone and MI6's headquarters. However, you can perfectly imagine that all that may be real in the military world and just not available to consumers, specially looking at some of the latest camera and communications research.

But what really makes this movie is not the technology. Yes, it plays an important role: Bond gets geolocation information on the baddies, and he uses his camera to get some of their pics, which then are analyzed and cross-referenced by MI6 databases. But none of it is a gimmick. There is no magic zippo lighter capable of launching kinetic rocket fire balls and save the day at the end of the movie. The technology in Quantum of Solace is realistic and it integrates naturally into the film, it flows with the plot.

What makes it the best Bond movie ever is what makes an action movie good. The script to start with. Serious, but also witty, and with the right amount of reality stretching. It even has an underlying social theme, which is interesting and relates to the current world's political climate. Marc Forster's direction makes you wish he directed Indiana Jones IV. His movie runs like clockwork, with the action scenes being masterfully choreographed and filmed, and painting a deeper, much more complex portrait of not only Bond, but also M, who gets a lot more presence in this one (and is Judy bloody Dench. I rest my case).

And then there is Bond himself. Daniel Craig really makes the movie work with his presence alone. He's a badass, but feels absolutely human. He has flair and a taste for luxury—wait until he arrives to Bolivia to see what I mean—but he gets gritty and dirty all the time. He could be a psychopath, but you can see that he has heart. He can seduce a women into bed like the best Connery would do, but you can actually see that he cares about her. You can feel that he is a hopeless romantic below the cold surface. A guy consumed by the need of vengeance and the contradiction of being betrayed by the love of his life. Yet, at the same time, he still loves her to the point of risking everything, even while she is dead.

And he likes cocktails.

Yes. Go. See it. Now.

GOLF new tech

2008-11-14T03:27:00.000+08:00

Air Force One Golf Clubs Use Compressed Nitrogen to Help You Hit Farther

By Sean Fallon, 1:50 PM on Thu Nov 13 2008, 1,313 views

Have you ever heard the adage that you can buy a better golf game? I really is true. Over the years my game has improved dramatically because of improvements in club design—but I never expected to be swinging anything like the Air Force One. On paper, PowerBilt's idea makes a lot of sense—by filling a clubhead with nitrogen at pressures of up to 150 psi, you can dramatically reduce the thickness of the face and increase the sweetspot because there would be no need for mechanical bracing. The result is increased flex in the clubface on impact which translates into greater distance.

PowerBilt is releasing their line of Air Force One drivers, fairway woods and hybrid clubs with variable face thickness—allowing players to tailor their club to their game. In other words, users with a low swing speed can opt for the thinnest face (for easier compression) while faster swing speeds would require a thicker face. Either way, PowerBilt claims that these clubs can add 10-15 yards of extra distance to your drive. That's remarkable if it is true, but what may be even more remarkable is that the clubs actually conform to USGA regulations—so you can avoid crippling cheater's guilt when you step up to the tee. The driver, fairway woods, and hybrids will run you $500, $350 and $250 respectively. [PowerBilt via DVICE and World Golf]

Waterfall

2008-11-13T00:49:00.002+08:00

Here are some photos i took at Kiansom waterfall . Some 20 min drive from town, and about 10-20 min walk depend on which waterfall you want to go .

The 1st photo is a HDR version.

What is 64 bit ?

2008-11-06T03:20:00.000+08:00

Giz Explains, ram, memory, vista, leopard, windows 7, windows 8...

Giz Explains: What's So Awesome About 64-Bit?

The phrase "64-bit" has been tossed around lately, the most it's been since the Nintendo 64. If you haven't heard it, pay attention. One of the most important steps forward in computer power is happening right under your nose, but most people don't know thanks to the sneaky efforts of Microsoft and Apple. Though fully 64-bit operating systems are the OSes of tomorrow, you can taste some of that power today with 64-bit versions of Windows and OS X. Here's why 64-bit computing is so awesome:

In a word, memory. We're not going to get super nerdy on you here (Wikipedia will gladly go there). To keep it simple, the whole bit thing (16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit) refers to how much data the computer can keep track of, or talk to, at once, and that's what determines how much memory it can handle. A processor with 32-bit memory addresses can roll with 4GB of RAM. A 64-bit system can rock, on the other hand, 16 exabytes of RAM. That's 16.8 billion terabytes. Of RAM. You're not going to get that kind of memory, not anytime soon; for now, from a user standpoint, this means there's simply no ceiling to memory expansion.

So while 32-bit hardware and software—the current norm in PC-land—limited you to 4GB of RAM (Physical Address Extension will let you have more, but 32-bit software will still only use 4GB), with 64-bit hardware and software, you can use vast amounts of RAM, which enables a whole new world of possibilities for applications, since they'll have a massive amounts of memory to work with.

The road to 64-bit rather conveniently dovetails with the multi-core processor arms race, using graphics cards for processing and growth of parallel processing in mainstream computing. In other words, in just a short generation, applications will be able to harness an exponential increase in power over what they can use today—a crapload of processors working together with a smorgasbord of memory at their disposable. With 64-bit, computers can also crunch bigass numbers way faster, so it's excellent for science-y things. So get ready for some cool stuff.

You're probably asking: Why not now? I've heard of this 64-bit stuff before. Well, the hardware has been around for a while—64-bit super computers go back decades, and AMD brought 64-bit processors to the mainstream a few years ago with the Athlon 64, for instance. The PowerPC G5 for Macs was also 64-bit. And if you buy a Core 2 Duo today, it's 64-bit. But the operating systems regular people use have essentially been slow to adopt 64-bit until recently, and won't plunge excluslively into 64-bit for another generation, Windows guru Ed Bott explained to us. Windows Vista ships with separate 32-bit and 64-bit editions, with Vista 64-bit being the first consumer-usable 64-bit version of Windows. Apple has been moving more and more of OS X over to a 64-bit architecture with every new version. Bott told us that while Windows 7 will have 32-bit and 64-bit versions, its eventual successor, Windows 8 (or whatever it's called) will likely be the first Windows that's exclusively 64-bit. Reportedly, next year's Mac OS X Snow Leopard will be 64-bit down to the kernel.

The reason 64-bit is the future and not the present is that 64-bit is a whole different architecture from the 32-bit status quo—different kernel means different drivers, application compatibility issues, that kind of stuff. A swift, clean break means lots of headaches, especially for the corporate world, which, as Bott told us, is as big of a concern for Microsoft as the consumer space. That's why Apple has been transitioning OS X to total 64-bit over time, and why Microsoft will still ship a 32-bit version of Windows 7. And likely, Bott says, an exclusively 64-bit Windows 8 would have a virtualization setup to run 32-bit apps. "Fortuitously," he told us, "an x64 system with lots of memory should scream at virtualization."

Another hitch on the path to true 64-bit glory that Bott raised is the question of "When will people outside of the specialized work software" like Adobe (Photoshop CS4 will be a native 64-bit application in Windows, though not in OS X) write 64-bit apps? With the coming wave of many-core parallel processing and ridiculous amounts of memory take advantage of, programmers have a lot to play (and deal) with. Applications have to be re-written to take advantage of the multiple cores and huge amounts of memory at their disposable, and that transition is going to take some time. The other slight downside 64-bit Bott mentioned—and it is slight—is that hibernation will be slower, since all that memory means more to write to the hibernation file, and more to read when it wakes up.

While that awesomeness sounds like it's too be good to be the norm anytime soon, it's not. Leopard already does quite a bit of 64-bit voodoo, like having a 64-bit GUI and Vista 64-bit is supplanting 32-bit on computer maker's systems, now that the driver situation isn't so abysmal. And while four totally usable gigs of RAM in a Vista machine is a thing of beauty, 6GB and 12GB will quickly become the norm for performance machines with the launch of Intel's Core i7, since it uses triple-channel memory—three delicious sticks of RAM—so 64-bit couldn't come soon enough.

WIndows 7 news

2008-10-29T02:48:00.002+08:00

Windows 7 Walkthrough, Boot Video and Impressions

Like Elvis in '68, Microsoft is itching for a "comeback," and Windows 7 is the perfect excuse. In fact, this week in LA at the Professional Developers Conference, Windows 7 officially shoved Vista aside. Having suffered through the often deserved criticisms of that ill-fated OS installment, Microsoft's people are thrilled to tears to be able to talk about something (anything!) else. On Sunday, they took journalists through a lively 7-hour orientation on Win 7, then handed off a Dell XPS M1330 loaded with pre-beta Build 6801. Thankfully for the overworked, underappreciated developers at Redmond, it's surprisingly stable, and its look and feel already puts Vista to shame.

Here's a walkthrough of the system I'm looking at, some videos showing its basic performance, and then shots of more interface and system details demoed at PDC that will show up in the first beta build.

It's really hard to piece together everything I experienced at the seminar, so I'm going to start with the real, actual improvements I see in the system I've been fiddling with, and then expand into the more rhetorical stuff.

WHAT I'VE ACTUALLY SEEN
For starters, even the early build of Windows 7 feels like a fast, stable environment. There's a lot going on behind the scenes to make the OS more usable, one monumental improvement being how video memory is allocated for unseen windows. (Hint: It's not.) The result is a highly responsive machine that gets decent battery life. Though specs aren't out yet, Windows boss Steve Sinofsky confirmed that it could run on systems with just 1GB of RAM.

As you might expect, I'm already seeing smarter user-interface decisions. Here are three great examples:

Choosing a Wi-Fi network now takes just one click, straight from the system tray. How much of a no-brainer was that? Instead of the clicking on the insulting "networks are available" pop-up, you actually get the available networks. Speaking of the system tray, it now gives you more complete control over what you see—instead of just hide or show, you can get it to display particular notifications, as you see here:

The dreaded User Account Control lives up to its name with more control. Yes, this slider is how you will be able to reduce the number of pesky pop-up warnings, eliminating all the ones that come from Windows, for instance. There are four tiers of security in total, so basically two settings between Vista's tell-me-everything and don't-tell-me-squat modes.

The sidebar is dead—the gadgets roam free! Why should keeping one or two gadget/widgets alive mean sacrificing a fifth of your clickable screen? Now when you add gadgets, they stack up on the right, but you are at liberty to put them wherever you want, and they're always there, hiding under your windows. This is an idea I wish Apple would incorporate too. Speaking of Apple and things hiding under windows, there's an upcoming "peek" feature that I will show below in the up-coming section.

There are some other new interface elements that might be quite useful. Microsoft is sort of the opposite of Apple when it comes to organizing your media files: Apple helps you put them all in one place, while Microsoft says it's okay to leave them scattered around. Up until now, though, it was hard for Microsoft's software to keep track of everything. But there are two new tools, one local and one networked, that will help you track all kinds of media files.

Libraries let you clump together same-type content no matter where it is on the system. If you have pictures in one set of folders, and other pictures in another, and you damn well aren't going to merge the folder, you can still track them together by adding them both to the Photo Library. Libraries even show the contents of local external storage drives you add to them, though when you unmount the external drive, Library offers to ditch its folder.

HomeGroup is a re-do of classic workgroup networking, only with the home in mind. The feature will only work on Windows 7, so to test it I'd need a second loaner unit. Still, having set up a basic HomeGroup, at least the initial interface and Microsoft's literature suggest that this will simplify viewing content across multiple machines, and sharing printers and other products. Let's hope so, because it could also be one of those classic "Why won't this work for me????" networking wizards. (Or is it just me who gets those?)

Here are some other shots from the pre-beta unit I'm looking at, including:
• Ribbon interface now appearing on WordPad and Paint (and nothing else so far)
• Solutions Center that will soon be re-branded as Action Center
• New fast-launching "lightweight" Windows Media Player
• Subtler, but still cool, improvements to the main Windows Media Player
• Windows information page, so you can see the attributes of the system

VIDEO
I shot the following videos to get you some immediate sense of what it's like to use the Windows 7 laptop, but though in some instances it is compared to a reasonably similar system that is also fairly clean, this isn't any kind of test. It is interesting to note, though, that while the Win 7 boots way faster here (even with the other computer's BIOS startup out of the way), it actually takes longer than the other system to shut down. But yes, these are totally unscientific, just a nice thing to observe:

Totally Unscientific Video of Boot-Up Time

Totally Unscientific Video of Shut-Down Time

Super Scientific Video of New Window Resizing Feature

WHAT MICROSOFT IS PROMISING
The sad thing about the build that Microsoft handed out is that it's missing a lot of the neat stuff that they showed off at the conference, and have been hinting at elsewhere. Though we did see a lot of this stuff running on systems, we couldn't take photos or video—not even of the slides.

User Interface Improvements In the last video above, I say more UI to come, and I mean "in the beta." Here are the new promised UI effects—all of which make Vista's Flip3D look like the OS equivalent of the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner.

While I'm a fan of the mouse hot-corner "Peek" function in the above photo, that lets you see gadgets or icons that windows could be obscuring, the biggest improvement to the Windows UI is probably in the Taskbar. It's gone through quite a few evolutions already, but this latest one is pretty great. Click on an app, and contextual menus pop up, giving you options like opening recent documents. The Taskbar can pull information that's already part of the program, so new apps don't need special programming to work here. Another aspect of the new Taskbar will be the preview feature, which will show you floating glimpses of hidden windows. (I'm still hazy on this one, so we'll have to revisit it once the beta comes out.)

Other improvements come in the natural-interface category: You can now write in math equations. (I think this is cool, even though it's been a very long time since I've actually written out any math more complex than a bar tab.)

Windows 7 will have great native touch and multitouch benefits too—none shown here unfortunately: Menus subtly enlarge when tapped with a finger instead of a mouse cursor; the mouse cursor disappears when the finger touches the screen; and iPhone/Surface-style pinching and stretching are now part of the OS.

Cool Device Tricks
As a gadget lover like most of you, one of my favorite parts of the conference was the device discussion. I am happy to report that, for starters, Windows 7 is itself a more aggressive media playback system, natively handling both AAC and H.264 as well as DivX and Xvid without third-party download.

It's also a DLNA 1.5 system with some neat tricks up its sleeve. Windows Media Player has a "play to" feature (at left) that you can reach via the Taskbar—one click and you can pull up a song, start playing, and even jump to the next.

But here's the coolness: You can use that same feature to pull songs from other places on the network. And you can send the song to play through a Sonos or other compatible player on the network, rather than through your dinky laptop speakers. You can even, theoretically, if everything's visible on the net, pull DRM-free AAC files from a Mac, and tell it to play on the Sonos, re-encoding it on the fly if the Sonos doesn't support AAC. In this case, the compatibility is only as good as the interface, and the interface is only as good as the compatibility, so I am eager to see how this is executed.

A nice servicey program for interfacing with gadgets and peripherals is called Device Stage. Yesterday in comments, it got maligned a bit as the new PlaysForSure, but that's a branding it doesn't deserve. Not yet, at least. The system allows camera, phone, MP3 player and printer makers to create mini interfaces for their devices. The products appear in the Taskbar when connected, with their own pop-up menus of activities, like offloading pics or uploading music. In addition to the pop-up Taskbar menu, each device will have its own pop-up page with links to ordering supplies or downloading the manual in PDF format, plus a photorealistic icon that will appear wherever the device is referred to.

For Device Stage to work, the third-party brands will have to provide their own content, but it will get served throughout the world by Microsoft. If there is no Device Stage present, you get the basic AutoPlay pop-up that we've seen for ages. When I asked Microsoft how aggressive they would be in getting companies on board with Device Stage, they said that the companies themselves were excited about the chance to do it. As someone who was bitterly let down by PlaysForSure, I can tell you, this ain't the same.

I realize I covered far more of the external bits and far less of the internal guts than some of you folks wish—nor I even touched on the new Windows Live and IE8 features, both of which are somewhat visible already—but it's early yet, and while I will always focus on usability, there will be a lot more to look at in the coming months as the builds get richer and the testing is more reflective of the final product. As far as exact dates go, Microsoft is reluctant to carve anything too deep into granite, but can you blame them?

For now, we should just be happy that Windows 7 appears to be on the right track. You can almost look at consumer-level Windows—that is, 95, 98, Me, XP, Vista and Win 7—like the first six Star Trek movies: They pretty reliably alternate between crap and quality. All I can say is, screw the Final Frontier, and hellloooo, Undiscovered Country. That, and thanks to Microsoft for talking about Windows 7 early and often. It helps. Just don't screw it up! [Windows 7 News on Giz]

Fireworks

2008-10-18T15:47:00.014+08:00

This is my 1st attempt to capture fireworks pictures. Week before i asked 1 friend for a tips who experienced taking fireworks pictures and help me a lot. And also read something on the internet. Equipment wise should be no problem an entry level DSLR will do , TRIPOD a must and i got it , REMOTE RELEASE this to ensure 100% that your camera will completely STILL during fireworks shots and yes i got this too and finally a place for you to take the shots .

When everything is setup , test shots taken everything is OKAY what left is waiting game. When i heard the count down , me and my friend rush to our cameras and ready to shot. When i start taking pictures BLODDY hell don't know why my heard start pounding hard LOL . Too exited or maybe afraid that i dint's get the shots . Mainly because the fireworks display last for 5 minutes , and my 1st time. I guess thats what you call ROOKIE, NOVICE LOL...

When the fireworks display is over , i took a look at the pictures that i took , i was disappointed, took some 20+ shots only 2-3 are OK. But when i reach home , grab my notebook and hey guess what i think i did well. I think i manage to get a good fireworks pictures .

Anyway you all can ask me anything you like later . Let me share with you few pictures that i took. This picture is unedited picture ok .

OK these 2 pictures are my test shots using BULB and F-9. Look good ehh for a ROOKIE. Oh ya that is part 1Borneo where the fireworks will take place.

Now lets get real, this is my 1st shot. Its a bit to the left. During the setup blindly i just aimed at the sky and when i heard the BOOM i just push the remote release button. No smoke yet during the 1st few second.

This will be my 4th shot , 2nd and 3rd didn't work. Check out the smoke , its started to build.

I guess that's the only pictures that i consider OKAY. The rest emmm no point of sharing. Will post these pictures on my FLICKR latest early next month or as soon as i got my 100MB limit LOL.

All these pictures taken from UMS Mosque. The fire works display is in conjunction with Sabah International Expo. Wanna congrat my friend ISA , he sold his CANON 400D and got NIKON D90 just last night , just in time to join me in taking some fireworks shots. And at the same time i felt sorry for him because his NEW 4 GB SD CARD gone KAPUT and i don't think he can retrieve his 500 ++ pictures that he took today but will ge a replecement for his faulty SD card. Special thanks to friend of mine SUMARDI who helped me a lot , give me a few tips and all his skills on how to capture fireworks display.

Ok guys till next time .

p/s just to let you know , you can click the pictures to enlarge or full size view :) LOL

Rain & Sunset

2008-10-11T21:40:00.002+08:00

What do yo get when you mix RAIN and SUNSET ?

SUNSET

2008-10-09T23:51:00.003+08:00

Check out the sunset . How red is the cloud ... Again from my still new DSLR Nikon D60.