In the picture above you can see two skydivers jumping out of a CASA 212 airplane at high altitude about to freefall down to earth at high speed. This is roughly what Canon’s Director and Chief Executive of Image Communication Products Operations, Masaya Maeda, did recently in an interview with DPreview. The only difference is that Mr. Maeda forgot his parachute inside the airplane. Read more ⟶
Canon EOS 50D: Not worth it. Save your money. – Part II
A while ago, I wrote about the EOS 50D camera from Canon, and it wasn’t very positive. At that time, the camera wasn’t yet available but now that people are starting to get their 50Ds and are able to test it and see the images it produces, we can get more information on its performance. And from what I have seen so far, it has no improvements over the 40D and I was right in my previous post. Read more ⟶
Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Not all it could have been
With the release of the EOS 5D Mark II camera by Canon recently, I have begun to wonder if the people in charge at Canon’s DSLR division know anything about photography at all. This camera had the potential of becoming a great hit for many different types of photography. But as it is now, it will only be really useful for studio and landscape photography, unless you can put up with its shortcomings. Read more ⟶
Canon EOS 50D: Not worth it. Save your money.
Canon has recently announced their new DSLR body, the EOS 50D (official site). From the information that has become available up till now, I can already conclude that it’s not going to be a very popular camera. In fact, I won’t be surprised if it sells less copies than the EOS 40D. Why? Well, for starters, this is a very half-assed (technical term) attempt by Canon to try to compete with the Nikon D300. Read more ⟶
Canon’s DSLR division in trouble
In the picture above you can see a car belonging to a Korean photographer, with banners attached containing a message about Canon’s EOS 1D Mark III camera. The text on those banners translates to: “Camera that is a piece of trash – Canon EOS 1D Mark 3.” Apparently, the problems with this camera drove the photographer so insane, he printed these banners and put them on his car to let the world know about it. Read more ⟶
Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L – Defective by Design
The Canon EF 50mm f1.2 L lens is another good example of the complete lack of quality control at Canon for the last few years. If you thought the 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco was a big problem, this seems to be much worse and up till now, after about 2 years, Canon simply refuses to comment on the issues hundreds, if not thousands, of users have mentioned with this lens. Read more ⟶
Canon Quality Control SUCKS, Part II – Judgement Day
After receiving a lot of feedback from my previous post on Canon Quality Control sucking bigtime, I thought it would be good to write an update. Before you read on, please read my previous post including the comments to make sure you know where I’m coming from. A day after my previous post, I noticed that I got banned from the forums at DPReview. And my thread on that forum where I discussed my blog post got deleted as well. Read more ⟶
You are about to become DRM roadkill, Part II – Judgement Day
Microsoft is at it again. Back in 2006, I had already written about them stopping support for Playsforsure on new devices, which meant that people who bought music using Microsoft’s Playsforsure DRM infection, would not be able to play their music on new devices, including Microsoft’s own Zune player. This was called one of the more massive screwings of customers by Microsoft. Read more ⟶
Canon Quality Control SUCKS
It looks like everywhere you look on the Internet, you come across messages from various users complaining about their Canon photography gear. The forums at DPreview for example are filled with posts about camera bodies giving the ERR 99 error message, dying very soon after purchase, can’t focus correctly out of the box and have to be sent in for calibration etc. Read more ⟶
A few notes for Canon
The last few weeks, and especially the last week, I’ve been drooling all over the latest digital camera announcements from Canon, namely the EOS 1D Mark III and the EOS 1Ds Mark III. The 10 FPS shutter speed on the 1D and the 21.1 megapixel resolution on the 1Ds are amazing. If you just look at the specifications and features of the cameras, and the amount of complexity that goes into their designs, it’s impossible not to be amazed. Read more ⟶
DRM in trouble and Windows Vista sales lacking
While the RIAA is still busy suing children and dead people, music companies are now looking more and more at distributing their music without the use of DRM. It looks like people are finally becoming wiser: Almost two-thirds of music industry executives think removing digital locks from downloadable music would make more people buy the tracks, finds a survey. Read more ⟶
HD-DVD a clear Winner
In a previous post I mentioned how I would never, ever, buy HD-DVD content and that if I did, I hoped I would get struck by lightning that very instant. Well it looks like I might have to take that back, and probably risk getting struck by lightning in the future too. It seems the porn industry has decided that HD-DVD will be its format of choice over Blue-Ray. Read more ⟶
Piracy, The Better Choice
As crazy as this may sound, we’re heading into a time when it seems like piracy is going to be the better choice compared to legally owning content. The Inquirer’s Charlie Demerjian explains why this will be the case in a recent article. Head on over and read the article. Read more ⟶
Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
Peter Gutmann has written up a paper analyzing the costs that are being introduced with the content protection mechanisms in Windows Vista. You can read the paper on his website here. Most of what’s in his paper is not new information to those of us following the development of Windows Vista, but he does a good job of summarizing a lot of the disadvantages of the new content protection mechanisms in Windows Vista. Read more ⟶
You are about to become DRM roadkill
The Inquirer’s Charlie Demerjian reports that we’re all about to become DRM roadkill. Or, at least the people who were stupid enough to buy DRM protected music. Microsoft is setting the example and is showing everyone what corporations can do to those who buy DRM protected content. Just head on over to Microsoft’s PlaysForSure website and take a look at the companies listed there. Read more ⟶
Photography Session Update
If you’ve browsed around the Art section of my website, you probably already know I’m also into photography. Mostly just as an amateur and for my own projects. I’m really more interested in software engineering, and that’s what I do most of the time, but there are many other things I also do. Sometimes it’s so difficult to explain to people what I do for a living. Read more ⟶
What you should (not) do when your iPod won’t turn on…
A miracle happened today. People who know me are probably reaching for their phones right now to call an ambulance and send it to my address, suspecting I might have lost it since they know I don’t believe in miracles. Not usually. But today has to be an exception. You often hear people talk about how Apple is incredibly good at marketing and design of their products. Read more ⟶
Alienware has a problem: The Acer Aspire 6800
For the past 30 minutes, I’ve been busy cleaning up the drool off of my desk and keyboard and it looks like I’ll be busy doing that for another hour or so, as it just keeps flowing. And I’m blaming it all on the Acer Aspire 6800. Click here for a bigger picture. More pictures here. Read more ⟶
Does AMD seriously expect to sell the FX-62?
AMD has announced the latest pricecuts for its intire line of processors. It’s looking really good except for the FX-62 CPU. That one is still priced at $827. Read more ⟶
Intel strikes back, AMD looking at serious pricecuts
Intel has launched their newest line of desktop processors yesterday, called the Core 2 Duo and the Core 2 Extreme. From what I’ve read, they won’t actually be available in stores until 2 weeks from now. But boy am I glad I waited a while before buying a new PC. Read more ⟶