crazybobbles » gear

My new Canon 5d Mk II

crazybobbles — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:53:29 +0000

Well, this was what I bought, a Canon 5d Mkii. It is, in my opinion, the best digitial DSLR camera out there right now, packing all the best features for a DSLR camera including a meaty 21megalopixel count, amazing noise reduction, hd movie recording, full frame goodness, a decent 3.9 fps burst shot, live view, 3inch lcd screen with 900k pixel LCD and loads more packed in a tiny "compact" form factor. This camera will last me quite a long time and will provide an ungodly amount of flexibility to what I can do (including shoot those damn HD movies).

Anyway, I’m still pumped as ever from it, got loads to learn and hopefully I’ll make good use of it with gigs and whatnot where light is ridiculously low.

I’ve called her “Regina” after the late great (she’s not dead but I like using the phrase) Regina Spektor. I never really gave my other DSLR camera a name but ever since I’ve been naming cameras and laptops, it’d only be fair to give Regina a name.

Full frame is definitely nice, and shooting with crazy iso ratings is fun, the noise is hardly noticeable and even if you can see it, it definitely looks nicer than entry level noise. The one issue I have right now is that since the introduction of full frame into my gear, I’m in dire need of a x1.6 50mm focal length. I’ll need an 85mm f1.8 usm to ensure I regain that focal length back because I need to be super close to the band in order to shoot them .

So yeah, say hello to Regina, my new prized DSLR camera Here are some shots taken tonight at a really low light condition, the band were Official Secrets Act

Might want to see them in super big to appreciate the lack of noise

oh and here’s a video of Anika doing a little dance, in hd

Click here to see the video

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Most munny spent

crazybobbles — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:08:34 +0000

Well, I made sure the purchase was going to be nice and impromptu, my mum even warned my that I will be spending quite heavily this year which I can totally see why, I really have no self control when it comes to buying something I really want. Luckily I have saved quite a lot of money from the past so it’s not like I’m in super debt buying this.

Anyway, I’ve informed most of the people close to me about what I’ve bought and pretty much gave it away on my twitter feed if you’re following me on that so yeah. I finally bit the bullet of truth and purchased it, felt ever so anti climatic when I did it but I know it’s going to be the toughest two days ever waiting for the product to arrive in my warm welcoming hands.

I changed the tooltip using firebug by adding a nice “title” attribute to the link in case you were wondering if the checkout page actually had that when you hovered on the checkout button.

I’m expecting delivery either on Tuesday, if not I’ll just cry (because I’m getting it delivered to work and I will be on holiday on Thursday and Friday).

But yeah, I wanted to savour this one moment where I spent an ungodly amount of munny! It somehow didn’t pick up the £50 voucher I used so I’m a bit worried there

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Apple Mac Pro vs Canon 5d mk ii

crazybobbles — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:49:03 +0000

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

It’s like sophie’s choice but for geeks. After purchasing emmeee, I’ve had my mind set on buying some extravagant instead of focusing on the ickle things, so I’m stuck with 2 objects of desire, an Apple Mac Pro 2.26ghz 8 core desktop computer or a Canon 5d mk ii Full Frame DSLR camera. If you know neither of these products you might as well stop reading now.

Both have their advantages; the Mac Pro will get me into the world of Apple and play around with resource hungry apps like Photoshop and Lightroom with lickerty lightning speed whilst the Canon 5d Mkii will help me substancially for low light gig photography with it’s awesome lack of noise at high iso’s and its full frame architecture, my second reason also being it being able to record in HD.

The funny thing is that Mac Pro will help me out most when I actually have the Canon 5d since I would be shooting in crazy 21 megapixel resolutions in RAW meaning it would sure help to have a beef PC handling those images. I would also be able to start doing some proper music with pro tools and whatnot since I have all the gear I need, just not much time to play around with it.

Man so much geekiness in this post. Photography or Geekery? The question is obviously which one i need out of the two, the answer being neither because I already have a desktop PC and a DSLR camera, it’s just nice to have some proper high end gear to make things a little bit awesome, so uhm… yeah.. here’s a poll (really need to use this option more)

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Finally a new lens to shoot in wide!

crazybobbles — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:23:43 +0000

Say hello to my lovely Canon 28mm F1.8 USM lens! A wide prime lens I will be using to shoot wider shots at gigs and whatnot. This is a lovely addition to my camera gear and will hopefully be used quite a lot in future gigs (including this one).

Now most of my photos in gigs are usually portrait shots of the singer, reason being is that my main choice of lens is the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens. It’s a cheap and awesome lens that’s amazing in low light situations, if you want decent shots without using flash, this is the lens for you. I’ve been using it for quite a bit and am used to the strengths and weaknesses of this lens. The strengths being the awesome and fast f1.8 aperture (meaning it lets lots of light in which is perfect for indoor events) and the weaknesses being it’s fixed focal length being too close at times (you get pretty up and close to a person). When you’re in a gig you’re pretty much stuck in one focal length if you’re going to use a prime lens. It pretty much limits your variation of the photos. Quite a pickle one might say.

That’s why I decided to do a revolver ocelot and purchase another prime lens for me to switch around during gigs, the term revolver photography is a random phrase I coined up, merely meaning that instead of changing focal lengths with the barrel of most zoom lenses, I quickly change lenses to a different focal length, the adrenaline involved in quickly making sure the lens is fitted makes the shooting more interesting (making sure you don’t miss anything) and fun (just like camera smuggling). If you’ve played Metal Gear Solid you will get the revolver reference, plus it makes sense, revolvers are generally powerful (high in aperture) weapons that however require substantial amount of time to “reload” (or change focal lengths).

My Canon 50mm F1.8 lens, a lot lighter than the new one, I'll still use it!

So yeah, a lot of thought was involved in what lens I should have next, I was pretty much set on getting something prime (fixed focal length, meaning you can’t zoom in or out) because they produce amazingly sharp pictors as well as it being substantially cheaper. The question is whether I should go wide or tele. The easiest way to answer that is to look at what venues I tend to goto, most of them are quite small venues in which I can take pretty damn decent portrait shots. This means a tele lens is probably not the best option to go to for now. They are useful mind, but just for festivals and larger venues where a longer focal length is required (sorry non photography folks, I must be boring you with camera geek talk!).

So the next question is what wide prime lens am I going to buy? The two contenders were the 24mm f2.8 lens and the 28mm f1.8 usm. I would definitely appreciate the 7mm focal length but I definitely prefer shooting in f1.8 (sharp sharp), the USM was also another factor which eventually steered me towards choosing my lovely Canon 28mm f1.8 USM lens. A coworker from work was heading to New York so I told him to buy me that lens whilst he’s camera shopping, the prices were substantially cheaper (I’m saving about £80 odd) which makes purchasing the lens a much more in my budget (I already spent a lot of my dear Eve, she’s got me crippled for the month already! So yeah, no more spending for quite some time). He bought the lens last Sunday but was in NYC for the entire week.

Today was when my coworker came back from NYC so even before he got seated in his desk I was there asking him for my lens, he took it out and I was in instant gleee! I took it out and and tried it immediately, first thing comparing the difference between my current love, the 50mm f1.8. It felt wider! The lens itself was solid and heavy, the thing I instantly fell in love with was the USM (Ultrasonic Motor) which meant a smooth and fast focusing action. It felt nice whenever you focused; gentle and tender unlike the rough and mechanic movements of the 50mm f1.8, that pretty got me thinking of my next lens (ie it had to have usm!).

So yeah, to conclude, the lens is all kinds of epic, it’s quite expensive but very useful for the type of photography I do, it feels more versitile than the 50mm as it’s the same focal length as the human eye meaning I can even take pretty neat portrait shots with it as well as landscape shots. I just need to get used to the weight and the slightly ridgid mount (theres a bit of resistance at first but I’m sure i’ll get used to it). It’s all about mastering the lens changing like it’s a revolver. So yeah, expect more wider shots . I’ll do some more reviewing if there’s any changes or whatnot with my new lens, but right now it feels like a winner.

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My new E61i phone and contract

crazybobbles — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:01:18 +0000

My phone was getting old and annoying, theres a pin where the power socket is and it’s snapped off meaning I cannot charge the phone. So i decided I should get myself a new phone as well as a contract to go with it. I’ve been tempted to get a contract since I wanted to phone Alice quite a lot without wasting too much money and knew that Orange did magic numbers, meaning you can phone people you’ve assigned as your magic number for free. It’s really handy and definitely promotes communication. Looking at phones I was stuck at what to get, I eventually opted for the phone similar to Maddox’s epic e70 phone he used to compare against the iphone. I’ve been a fan of Nokia phones so it was quite push to stick with Nokia again. I already knew that there were a lot of apps that were unique to Nokia. So yeah, here’s my phone..

And instead of giving you the specs from the nokia site, here’s some things I can do with it:

Phone people; yup! Granted I use a bluetooth adaptor for that most of the time (well when I know it’s a long call) because it’s quite a meaty phone to hold around
Type a lot faster with the QWERTY keyboard; oh yeah, useful when blogging and writing texts to people. I really enjoy using the keyboard to type stuff and I can definitely get more words done compared to a normal numpad.
See all my things at a glance; beauty of Nokia phones (using Symbian S60v3) is that you have a lovely standby screen which is flooded with information that I can check out at a glance, this includes the last two text messages I’ve received (and a quick preview of the texts), calendar entries (more on that), new email and text alerts, missed calls and answer message alerts, wifi scanning (says whether or not it detects wifi spots). The todo list is by far the most useful one out of them all
Todo list; it’s becoming more and more difficult to remember stuff I need to do, having a phone to quickly enter them on a todo list saves me time remembering them as well as motivate me to do them (since it’s written and all)
Wifi and 3g; wifi is one of those beauty features that allow mobile interneting a breeze, since I dont have a all day internet mobile package wifi is useful for me to use my phone to it’s maximum capabilities. I have quite a lot of emails coming through and when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do isnt turn the computer on, wait for it to start up and check my mail, I just check the mail through the phone, no start up needed since it’s already on and I can read it when I head to the tube. It’s also useful when you’re visiting people and they have wifi available, I mean a laptop is cool but doing all the laptop stuff on a mobile is cooler since you don’t need to lug a laptop. But yeah, if wifi isnt available, than it’s 3g time, decent broadband like speeds so it’s all good.
Surf the web; mm this baby can display the entire page with it’s wide screen and all. Makes more sense than portrait since it’s all narrow. I’ve got all sorts of sites to browse on including Google Reader, Twitter, Flickr, Muse board ( thanks to the new mobile skin I made), Facebook (everyone’s doing it ), RTM, and Calendar.
Email; nice to check emails here, it has an email button to make the process easier, I use email to send flickr images, todo items as well as blogging
Fring; it’s an awesome app that I can use for skyping and msn’ing, they’ve recently updated their software so that msn is a lot nicer. (I’ve used the skype app for phoning people abroad, New York was an example)
TomTom; now I know I dont drive but when people drive me it’s nice to know where I am, this isnt a necessity but there are times where I’ve found it ultra useful, including finding Nando’s.
Syncing; not only can I sync my todo list to my outlook at home, I can also sync my google calendar onto my phone and check out events when mobile, pretty useful and makes use of the calendar display thing when I’m on the standby screen
Notes; a nice place for me to write up my blogs, I used this a lot when I’m on the tube and then email them to myself for further updating and posting. Makes my tube journeys a lot more productive (instead of just reading the papers).
Youtube; this app is awesome, view AND download youtube videos onto my phone, it’s fun to show people random clips
Underground tube map app, sometimes I need that damn map
Panorama photos; not just normal photos that all camerasphone do, this baby does pano shots, it automatically detects the edges and yeah, instant pano shots
JoikuSpot; I can create a wifi hotspot for my laptop or someone else’s laptop, dead useful at times when I want to use internet on another pc
Putty; featured in Maddox’s iphone article, you can make Scarlett Johannson moist!
View PDFs; sometimes I get pdf bills I would like to check on the phone, not that important but fancy to have
Nes emulator, tetris and solitaire games; sometimes I don’t carry my ds lite or psp (I’m spoilt :$) so it’s nice to have something to play with

So yeah, very useful phone! It’s nice to have it all packed into one! I’m not keen on having my music there however since I love an awesome chunk of hard disk space to listen to my t00ns haha.

For my contract, I got myself a dolphin £20 plan at first which had 200 txts and 70 minutes, I later on upgraded to the Racoon 25 with 100 txts and 220 minutes, not sure why but it encourages me to phone people a lot now (inn keeps assuming I’m only phoning her because I’m wasting credit). But yeah, now it puts a smile on my face when I have an excuse to phone people hehe.

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Got myself an iPod 80gb silver

crazybobbles — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 01:59:51 +0000

I love listening to music, so a decent mp3 player is needed for my 1 hour commute to work, so I decided to get myself a 80gb ipod classic. Beforehand I was pretty against to iPods since their battery life and fault rate was horrific. However these days the battery life is awesome and for the price you’re getting a pretty awesome deal (come on, 80gb for £160). I however opted to get myself some warranty to ensure that if this thing DOES break, I can get it repaired or replaced. So yeah with an extra £30 on 3 year warranty at Argos I got myself an ipod. It’s pretty cool, cover flow rocks (glad I have album art sorted) and it was nice and slim. Travelling is now a godsend. I will still use my iriver when I need to do some recordings hehe.

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Purchase update: Ps3 and PSP

crazybobbles — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 02:03:46 +0000

OK I’ve been on a pretty crazy spending spree but I’ve managed to get myself a PS3 AND a PSP Lite and Slim. Reason for getting the ps3 was to simply buy it before they stop doing the 60gb PS3s which had backward compatibility as well as 4 usb ports. Psp well, I dont know, I wanted to play Loco Roco and a few MGS games. I’ve managed to get the PSP modded too so I can get into the whole homebrew scene (I still buy the UMDS ) but yeah, guilty pleasure and all, I really enjoy the PS3, it’s nice having a machine that can do HD quality films as well play games, I was going to get one anyway when MGS4 is out. I have guitar hero 3 for it too for some rocking action as well as a few bits and bobs downloaded on the PSN store. Tekken 5 dark resurrection is epic! I’m going to give the xbox 360 a miss for the time being until they fully fix their heating problems as well as make the Elite features feature on the normal white coloured 360. So yeah, loads of games to play with now haha :$.

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Update n70 phone to n70 music edition

crazybobbles — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:31:59 +0000

Deary me, I have a lot of phrases for this one, including “Geeks will always be geeks”, “They’ll never learn” and perhaps “Whats your logical intervention for all of this?”

Anyway, after a lovely lecture at Mobile Business today (as well as a nice talk about my project report with my supervisor). I had the urge to do something immediately when I got back home..

No not that (filthy minds you), and no not finish my report! Rather then following the crowd and continuing to juice out 60 pages worth of project banter, (I’m on 57 now anyway so I can take a break haha), I decide to.. FLASH MY PHONE!……….AGAIN!

Now I dont think I blogged about the time I flashed my phone (actually I just found it haha). But the first time I received my phone, I was instantly appalled by Orange’s stupid Homescreen crap they’ve put on the phone. These days, mobile operators would like meddle with a perfectly functional and cool phone firmware and shove alot of their operator specific crap in it to restrict users when using their phones. Usually its to protect themselves from people using other features etc. Anyway, the first time I flashed it I got it done professionally (though the location I got it flashed from wasn’t too professional looking, in fact it was their house and they just do it with their laptop haha (they have the gear before you ask!)). Anyway, that was fine, my phone was flashed then (I also suffered a nasty fall that day but lets not talk about it haha)… the second time was when Nokia announced that you can flash your own phone. Being someone who enjoys having their stuff up to date I jumped on the software upgrades etc and downloaded the nokia software, it was nice and official so it was alot more chilled and relaxed to do it etc.

Anyway, the thing I didnt know was the fact that it recognised my product code and that it required an operator specific firmware. So BAM! I’m stuck with the operator specific crap… AGAIN! I wasn’t having none of that, I didnt really want to spend more money to get it debranded again so I opted in looking at ways of doing it myself. Now there are, but they are DODGY and usually carry a risk in bricking your phone. But I did it anyway, and guess what? Bricked phone. Had to go back to that professional place and get it reflashed in order to get my phone working again.

So yeah… after that traumatic experience, here comes part 2. My supervisor / lecturer talked about his new swanky N95 phone and talked about how Orange were sly enough to disable voip calling. He was then googling for solutions to get past this and in the end he was contacted by someone who gave him the solution.. which was.. ladies and gentleman, flashing your phone. The whole phone debranding thing sent shivers down my spine. Though for my lecturers case he managed to get it done successfully, using the same dodgy software that I once used. So what does that leave me? I’m stuck here googling for new firmware updates and whether or not there are new safer methods out to do the job, and strangely..there was! Which was out in 2007 (where have I been). The method is alot safer and requires changing the phone id to a generic code. Reading more into it I found out that you can also turn N70 phones into an N70 music edition phone (firmware wise). So yeah, it got me all excited and this is where the crowd all shakes their heads, tut and go “geeks will always be geeks” haha.

So yeah.. I’m waiting for my phone battery to charge. I have my phone all setup and ready to go. Once again I’m going to panic over it but it does seem like a reasonably easy task this time, not to mention the fact that I’ve tried the official route before and it seemed to have worked . So yeah, another crazy day of phone flashing and all.

So yeah, if you cant reach me on the phone after this.. chances are I’ll be heading back to that damn place to get my phone professionally reflashed because I bricked it again haha. Also, if you play me on Tetris DS around this time and notice that I’m beating you mercilessly, that means I bricked it again, if you find me very agitated or antisocial, that means I bricked it again. Haha. But yeah, if I feel happy after this ordeal, that means I’ve successfully flashed my mobile phone and managed to add in a TINY bit of functionality to my phone which I’ll probably won’t use anyway haha. So yeah, this is where you go “geeks will be geeks” again with their constant need for updating stuff even though it adds no real benefit.

Update: Haha, well, just managed to get my phone RE RE Flashed. It worked the first time and I had the new music edition thingy but I felt it was kinda rubbish so I reflashed it to a standard generic one. So yeah, it worked Just funny how I felt the need to reflash it because something was bothering me haha. So yeah, everything is fine and dandy

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Ordered new hard drive and soundcard

crazybobbles — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:15:21 +0000

Today I managed to order myself a lovely new 500gb hard drive. Was tempted to just stick with the 320gb but for £10 extra, I might as well go for the 500gb (it was on sale at Overclockers). Once that arrives I’m pretty much going to use that as my “My Documents” drive to store all kinds of stuff including videos, photos and music. Should be arriving on monday so it’s going to be fun installing it haha.

I also ordered a creative x-fi (i think thats the name) soundcard. No idea why, probably because it felt stupid ordering £70 worth of things and then having to pay £8 in post and packaging. I usually shop my hardware in batches so yeah.

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New Canon 50mm f1.8 mkII lens

crazybobbles — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:18:38 +0000

Today my new Canon 50mm f1.8 mkII lens arrived. Was lucky I woke up at 9 odd otherwise I would have definitely missed it and had to go through the whole hassle and bassle of waiting for it to be redelivered, not playing loud music so I can hear the door, and just not being able to go out just for the damn package.

Anyway, here it is

The motor is pretty loud as most reviewers stated, but the speed and sharpness of the lens is amazing. You can instantly notice the shutter speeds being extremely fast when you’re using arpeture mode and all.

Here’s the first photo I took with it

There is a possibility that I’ll be going to a wedding in Halifax with inn and alice (jallas from the messageboard) to do photography and all. Have to see if its feasible and that travel isn’t too extortionate, otherwise it sounds like an a ok and all. Would be quite fun to do some paid photography once in a while (even though alice is the only one who’s getting paid, but you know what I mean.. I think)