Archive for March, 2011

Hands on with Sandisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS memory cards

John / March 28, 2011 / Photography / 1 Comment

During our recent roadtrip to Austin, Texas, I was able to try out the new Extreme Pro SDHC UHS memory cards from Sandisk. As far as I know, these are the fastest SHDC cards out there (technically they aren’t out in Canada until mid-April) with a whopping 45 MB/s read/write speed (300x) with the new UHS rating of 1.

I had a 32gb and a 16gb in my Nikon D7000′s dual SD slots for the entire trip and wow, what a difference from the class 6 and 10s I was using previously. I also used a 16gb card in the Olympus E-PL2 and could pretty much shoot continuously without stopping at all.

When I made the jump from my D90 to D7000, I noticed it would take longer to flush the write cache while shooting on continuous mode…I figured it was just the price of having a faster frame rate along with a higher megapixel RAW file. Fortunately, these cards will soon be available to make things happen a fair bit faster…although at a cost as these cards aren’t cheap. But neither is the gear you’re probably using them in.

So maybe the iPad 2 camera isn’t that bad after all

John / March 28, 2011 / Photography / 2 Comments

During the recent Twestival at the Vancouver Lookout, I played around with the iPad 2 camera and photobooth using the kalidescope mode.

I think the results turned out pretty cool, if not a little Inception-esque. Being on top of Vancouver probably helped too:

The Seabus couldn’t escape either:

Even night shots turned out pretty interesting:

A little low resolution but interesting art nonetheless.

Hands on with the Olympus PEN system

John / March 27, 2011 / Photography, Reviews / 10 Comments

I’ve been shooting with Olympus’ new Micro four thirds camera system, called the PEN, for a few months now. I started with the E-PL1 camera and then in early February, got my hands on the E-PL2 camera. I was even able to get E-PL2′s for my entire team to use while on our SXSW roadtrip.

What is Micro Four Thirds?
Micro four thirds (or u4/3) is a new format of digital photography that is basically a full size DSLR camera in the form factor of a point and shoot camera using a different kind of shutter system that does away with the mirror found in DSLRs. Some say it’s the future of photography and the best of both worlds. Using an interchangeable lens system with the size, weight and the ease of use that comes with a point and shoot, it’s hard to deny that this isn’t the future.

The body feels solid and like an old school 35mm body that is very comfortable in your hand. Complete with a mode dial and a quick, 1 button video record, it’s easy to navigate the options the camera has.

I found the kit lens (14-42mm) included with the E-PL1 to be a great lens in bright light but quite underwelming in low light…it’s slow (f3.5-5.6) and had a lot of trouble focusing in low light. The same lens included with the E-PL2 is much faster and quieter at focusing than it’s predecessor and seemed to focus better in low light. As you can see from the photo, this lens isn’t small…it protrudes quite a bit when closed and is almost comical when you unlock the lens and extend it fully which is required when the camera is powered on.

I was able to get the much faster 17mm f2.8 ‘pancake’ lens to play with and it quickly became my default setup for the E-PL2:

It was much thinner and didn’t require an unlock to use so I was able to pick up the camera and shoot almost instantly.

This really is the true benefit of this kind of system, the interchangeable lenses make it so much more versatile, at a much lower cost of entry than a full size DSLR. Unlike most DSLR lenses, Micro four thirds lenses from any manufacturer all work with each other so you have a lot of options at a fraction of the cost of DSLR equivalent lenses.

The built in flash pops up to resemble something that might pop up out of R2D2 but works great to avoid red eyes:

Another cool feature the PEN has built in, is in camera Art modes. This is getting more common on DSLRs and is generally regarded as a gimmick but I found the quality of a number of the modes to be stunning and huge time savers instead of having to do a lot of work in Photoshop afterwards.

My favourites were the ‘diorama’ aka fake tilt shift mode:

the ‘pop art’ mode:

and the ‘dramatic tone’ mode:

I’ve been lucky enough to have done a ton of travelling lately and have taken the PEN system with me everywhere from freezing cold of the Yukon, the coast of Vancouver Island to the warm desert of Arizona and it’s performed perfectly everywhere.

I found many instances when I had both the PEN and my DSLR with me, I’d grab the PEN to shoot with more often than I expected. I won’t be selling my DSLR anytime soon but certainly for most people, a camera like the E-PL2 will be more than adequate for almost any kind of shot…even high speed shots like one of Amber’s many jumping shots we took during our roadtrip:

Unlike other higher end non-DSLR cameras, the PEN system is very easy to use and great for beginners or advanced users alike. A number of the people on the SXSW roadtrip had only ever used point and shoot cameras before and quickly picked up the PEN and have since fallen in love with photography, partly because the camera was able to capture what they saw in real life incredibly well.

There is no optical viewfinder but an electronic one is available separately (I didn’t get to try it personally and was fine to use the large 3″ LCD screen to frame my shots). There are a number of other interesting accessories available including a bluetooth transmitter (the PenPal PP-1) that allows you to send photos to your smartphone or laptop, an underwater housing and a funky looking marco lighting kit with two LED arms that can be bent to illuminate objects close up.

I have to say, after spending so much time using the PEN system, I can easily see this camera being a backup to my DSLR and my primary walk about camera for almost any instance. Battery life has been fantastic, continuous shot mode very fast, HD video shooting (720p) and the portability of the camera can’t be beat. They even have a really affordable fisheye addon lens that I just might have to buy.

My thanks to Olympus Canada for providing the gear for review.

UPDATE: I expanded the explanation of micro four thirds and I somehow didn’t include my likes/dislikes points previously so here you are:

I liked:

the form factor – very solid and fits nicely in the hand
the satisfying shutter sound – it makes a very solid ‘thunk’ like you’d expect from a full size camera
great continuous shot mode with no shutter lag – you can get up to 7 frames per second…we made a few stop frame animation movies during our roadtrip simply by using this mode
the art modes – surprisingly good modes for in camera effects that are previewed in realtime as you shoot
one click instant HD video button – great for being able to shoot a bunch of stills then jump right into video without having to fuss with dials or modes and real time auto-focusing while shooting video as well
you can get the body in different metallic colors if that’s your thing

I didn’t like:

the extending/locking zoom lenses – a little bulky and almost negated the size benefits of a small camera like this with the extreme lengths some of the lenses needed to be extended to just operate, let alone zoom
lack of an included viewfinder – would have been nice to use it without having to use the large LCD on the back but an electronic viewfinder is an optional accessory

Jailbreak your Kindle

John / March 27, 2011 / Hacking, Hardware / Comments Off

I finally got around to jailbreaking my Kindle 3. Why? Because you can replace the default ‘screensaver’ images of authors that the Kindle normally displays when you turn it off to anything you like:

It’s very easy to do. Follow the tutorial (with downloads) on this site. You can make your own screensavers or browse tons of them on this site.

SXSW 2011 and the epic roadtrip is a wrap!

John / March 24, 2011 / Photography, Travel / 7 Comments

And like that, the craziest roadtrip I’ve ever been on is over. We got back to Vancouver late Sunday afternoon. It was an emotional farewell to the EhTeam as we all went our separate ways after spending the better part of two weeks together in a Chevy Traverse driving nearly 8500 kilometers as we drove from Vancouver to Austin and back again.

We visited 9 different states, stayed in 9 different hotels, and visited countless gas stations, restaurants and rest stops along the way. We wouldn’t change anything about it.

Nine other teams from around North America were all doing the same thing as we were – driving to Austin from various parts of North America. We had 11 challenges to do during the trip down and we were judged on our creativity and execution of those challenges. We did our best considering the lack of internet connectivity (more on that in a bit) we had as well as the longer distances we had to drive compared to other teams. Early on during the trip down, we were discouraged by the scoring system used for the challenge aspect of our roadtrip (we would get scoring updates the following day after posting our challenge responses the next before).

As a team, we decided to do the best we could on the challenges but also not let them get in the way of us enjoying the trip and the many amazing places we got to visit along the way. Things started on a more positive angle when we came upon Wilson’s Arch in Moab, Utah:

As a team, we spent a good hour climbing around the natural rock formations and stunning scenery. It really seemed to energize us.

Some other favorite destinations along the way included:

A burned out train car and building along the Great Salt Lake in Utah:

Meeting some great grade 1 kids in Twin Falls, Idaho:

Doing little photoshoots at any interesting ‘scenic viewpoints’ we came across:

A very quick stopover in Las Vegas on St. Patrick’s Day:

and probably my favorite part of the trip: visiting Area 51 and the Extraterrestrial Highway:

The only real point of pain during the trip was truly a “Nerd World Problem”: our internet connectivity while driving.

Considering we had 5 different wireless devices, we had so much trouble with internet connectivity. Of course this is because we were literally in the middle of nowhere so was kind of expected a little bit of the time.

We had a Bell MyFi, an AutoTel CarFi, a Droid Incredible with personal hotspot (on Verizon), a Samsung Galaxy S with personal hotspot (roaming on Telus) and my iPhone 4 (on AT&T) with MyWi running. We would all try to connect to the various devices to complete our challenges and upload them to various places with many times, the uploads failing at 95% due to us driving out of signal range. Eventually we’d have to stop somewhere and grab some real wifi to complete the challenges.

Once we got to Austin and SXSW Interactive, it was nice to park the Traverse and spend the next 5 days walking everywhere or taking the occasional pedicab.

Some of my favorite things from SXSWi this year include:

Retrollect – I kept seeing people everywhere using what I thought were old school Viewmasters but it turns out a new app is paving the way for a comeback of these fun 3D viewers. Using an iPhone or Android device, you create your own disc of images and tweets that can be shared with others online…the company behind it is hoping to offer the ability to get your own physical disks printed so you can pop them into a viewer. ~~I’m still working on my disc of photos from the roadtrip.~~You can view my disc here using photos I took with my iPhone on the roadtrip.
Nikon + Vimeo’s Light After Dark event which I already wrote about
Group.Me – basically BBM groups for everyone else. All the roadtrip team captains had a Droid Incredible smartphone (which I quite liked) and we used Group.Me to stay in contact, get our next challenges and even find out which hotel we were staying at that night. It worked great (when we had connectivity) and would fall back to SMS based chat if we lost our internet signals
Chevy Photo Boom – although it might sound biased since they sponsored our roadtrip, but Chevy really had the coolest photobooth I’ve ever seen on the SXSW tradeshow floor. Using 30 DSLR cameras and a few Mac Minis, they were able to stitch together Matrix-style animated clips of people jumping and wearing costumes. The Eh Team chose to (try to) all jump in front of the Canadian flag:

We also got to hang out with some celebrities like Jake Gyllenhaal (star of Source Code):

Michelle Monaghan (Source Code co-star):

Grammy winning producers Play-N-Skills (with Wayne):

Eclectic Method (one my favorite photos from the trip):

and Diplo:

See interesting ‘works of art’ done in cheese at the Icanhascheezburger party:

and race each other in pedicabs across town:

The final night in Austin was also pretty special.

The Eh Team got together one last time in Austin and headed to the ServerBeach Geek Party at Venue 222. Special thanks to Ramon at Peer 1 for inviting us.

It was happening at the same time as the Foo Fighters were taking the stage at the official SXSWi closing party but the Geek party seemed more like our thing and we had a fabulous time.

They even handed out nerdy glasses with tape on them to everyone, which surprisingly, almost everyone wore for the whole night. Seeing Neiliyo perform was also a highlight:

It’s hard for me to say if this year at SXSW was better than last year. It was just different…in the best possible way since last year was such an amazing experience for me, especially happening immediately after the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. The roadtrip really added a completely new dimension to the experience and the friendships made with my team and the other teams will be life long. For that, I can’t thank Chevy enough for the opportunity.

I’d like to thank everyone that donated to our Raise-A-Reader fund and all our sponsors: Atlantia, GM, Local Public Eatery, London Drugs, Oakley, Olympus Canada, Red Truck, Sandisk, Sharks + Hammers, and Whistler/Blackcomb who all contributed in some way to make our trip fun and successful.

I especially want to thank a few people that worked tirelessly around the clock to make sure we were all safe, comfortable and had fun during the roadtrip. Chrissie, Lisa, and Adria who handled all our travel, hotel and vehicle logistics, all the folks at the special events group at OnStar for helping us during the trip and everyone at GM & GM Canada that worked behind the scenes to make everything happen.

I also have to thank my wonderful teammates Michelle, Wayne, Amber and Leila who truly made the trip enjoyable and fun.

I already can’t wait for next year.

Check out all my photos from the trip and the Eh Team’s Flickr Group.

UPDATE: Our friends at Jones Soda, who we met in Austin did up an Eh Team label for us and are sending us some…too cool! Thanks Todd & the Jones crew!

Nikon + Vimeo’s Light After Dark party @ SXSW

John / March 21, 2011 / Photography / 1 Comment

I was originally going to do one giant SXSW wrap up post but figured a few things warranted their own posts. The first of these posts is about a party/event that I was invited to and hosted by Nikon and Vimeo called Light After Dark.

In quite possibly one of the coolest venues I’ve ever been in, the Light After Dark event was in the Seaholm Power Plant in downtown Austin. With DIPLO and A/V mixologists Eclectic Method supplying the dance beats & projection mapping artists Seeper and CTRL providing visuals & installations, it was easily the party highlight of SXSW for me.

Nikon had a photo pit setup in front of the stage with a number of D7000′s on tripods that VIPs could use to shoot the performers with.

We were given a memory card to use with the cameras and then could keep the card afterwards. I’ve never seen such a cool setup for photographers, in an amazing venue.

Also in the VIP room upstairs, there was a table with all of Nikon’s gear available to play with, including the next camera I’m going to buy, the Nikon P300 point and shoot pocket camera.

Even Ashton Kutcher showed up to shoot Diplo’s performance:

As an avid photographer (who also shoots with Nikon gear), being given VIP access to this kind of event, with the extra touches Nikon did to facilitate photographers was a dream come true…truly an amazing night of music and photography.

It will be hard for any event at future SXSW’s to top this one in my books.

Here’s a little video clip from the show (skip ahead to the 1:01 mark for Eclectic Method):

I’ll post my own video in the coming days once I have a chance to edit it.