crazybobbles » hardware

Only 4 points for ROAR

crazybobbles — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:43:44 +0000

Thats right, instead of socialising like normal people do us apple crazed geek muser fanzoids enjoyed a casual game of scrabble with the ipad. We managed to get 3 iphones going. I won both games Who would have thought “Zex” was a word, and to land on a triple word tile

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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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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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Emmeee the great (my new netbook)

crazybobbles — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 02:06:04 +0000

Ladeees and gentlefolk, let me introduce you to my new travelling companion, Emmeee! Since my old laptop is with someone else I thought I’d get myself a laptop for times where I’m travelling, visiting folks, or wanting to kill infected zombies and go on instant messenger at the same time to talk about said killings.
I decided that laptops arent really the way to go for me, mainly because I tend to carry all my camera gear and whatnot along, so something light and portable was the key. In comes netbooks. These inexpensive yet portable laptops match all my outdoor needs and will hopefully ensure that I’ll stay both productive and multitaskable throughout the day…. oh and it’s white haha.

She’s called Emmeee after the late great Emmy the Great (she’s not dead but I love using that phrase to describe people). So yeah, if you catch me mentioning the name Emmeee, you’ll know its her

Caution: Geeky stuff
I also called her Emmeee because she’s an Asus EEE PC 901 netbook. I got the Linux edition which comes with 20gb SSD, 1.3mega pixel webcam, Intel Atom 1.6ghz CPU, 802.11b/g/n wifi and loads moar! I upgraded her a few days later with 2gb ram and have installed Windows XP (nLited for that extra lightweight goodness) on her as well as reenable boot booster (which shaves 5 seconds off boot time making it load up in 25 seconds). She’s loaded up with all the opensource/freeware apps I’ve grown to love including Pidgin for IM, Firefox and Chrome for browsing, dropbox for file synching, notepad++ for blogging, VLC for videos and music, picasa 3 for photo browsing and google desktop for widgets and whatnot. It’s all nice and light and perfect for blogging or browsing on the go (mainly blogging since it’s rare getting free wifi). There’s also other apps including Skype and Microsoft Office for the proprietary goodness.

The battery life on it is amazing (can take it out and use it for a proper day without worrying that the battery will die on you). I’m still coming to terms with the teeeny tiny keyboard, I get loads of typos but most of the time I’m pretty good and all. Multitouch is also a good addition to the netbook since I can do all those flashy things I love in the macbooks like going forwards and backwards pages using a 3 finger swipe, rotating and other bits and bobs.

I’ll write more about it when I’ve got to know it a bit more, but for now, that’s about it

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One point five bytes of TERROR

crazybobbles — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:35:38 +0000

That’s not the hard drive I’m getting btw, but yes! On Friday I ordered myself a lovely 1.5 terrobyte (mmm terror) for my PC. It seems that going to so many gigs can really put a strain on my hard disk, especially when I come home with 4gb of RAW photos. They take up quite a lot of memory so yeah, rather than trying to find something to delete everytime I upload something, I best get myself a meaty new hard disk to solve this problem once and for all. Will be doing some late night blogging to make sure I’m up to date. I’ve realised that it really looks like I haven’t done much due to lack of blogging activity but nope, been gigging like crazy and had no time to write about it. Except loads of updates in a bit!

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6 Million Dollar Home Crumpler Bag

crazybobbles — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:45:16 +0000

A few weeks ago my coworker went to New York, and I was in a gear buying mood (having asked to purchase a 28mm f1.8 USM lens from another coworker earlier on) so I did some camera bag researching since my current Canon one was a bit dated and crumply (funny how I should use the word crumply). Anyway, after much research I found out these “Crumpler” bags which were not only built for cameras (so filled with compartments and waterproof etc), but look very stylish and avoids screaming out the typical “I’m a LOWEPRO CAMERA BACK, I PROBABLY HAVE SOME HARDCORE GEAR INSIDE SO COME ON IN! STEAL ME WHILST I’M OFF PHOTOLISING MYSELF ON TOP OF A HEYSTACK!” (apologies for the painful use of caps and apologies Inn to her lovely shot of her on a heystack (but it defintiely made me think about random farmers coming to steal your gear whilst you’re on top of that thing). The selection was unfortunately limited in the UK so I thought I’d venture into the US for my dream camera bag, and out came the 6 million dollar home.

Took this at work, notice the robot aka Dr Strong Tron

Here are the lovely specs for the bag, because I’m very sure you want to know about this (haha)

A protective environment for your basic photo and or video equipment that doesn’t scream “photo bag!”
Water resistant 1000D Nylon shell & 420D Ripstop Nylon lining
External pocket with internal mesh pocket
2x hidden internal side pockets
Mesh zip pocket under clip & Velcro release flap
Padded & Brushed Nylon-lined main compartment
Configurable dividers
Plastic stiffening layer in base
Carry Handle
Adjustable and removeable shoulder strap with removable shoulder pad
Fully padded

The bag can carry:
A digital SLR, vertical grip & “twin lens kit”, external flash unit and basic accessories. There is no tripod holder.

Dimensions
12.6″ W, 9.45″ H, 7.1″ D

Six million dollars worth of goodness, priced at £66.60

Now a quick story about the bag, originally I wanted the 5 million dollar bag so I asked my coworker to buy it on amazon.com and have it shipped to the US office for her to pick up, eventually I did some more research to find out that the bag was pretty small and so I quickly bumped it up to the 6 million dollar. I then went out to a gig an FINALLY met someone carrying a SEVEN million dollar bag and sort of fell in love with it too haha. Though having said that I didn’t want to ask my coworker to change the order AGAIN because that’s just taking the piss. I eventually settled with 6 million dollar home and did some further research into it to find out it’s actually a nicer size to the seven million dollar home. The price worked out to £66.60. Well I rounded it off to that for shits and giggles and paid my coworker exactly that (since it was a six million dollar bag).

Now the “bag can carry” bit is quite a touchy one, when the bag finally arrived at my office (all pretty and new) you instantly realise how small it was, the names are so damn confusing (for example the Pretty Boy XXXL can only carry a dslr and a few lenses here and there, it’s still very ickle!) which I already knew in advance after some review digging (sadly I couldn’t find many photos of people actually wearing the damn bag). Though having overestimated the size of the bag, I’ve grown to like the size of the 6 million dollar dream, it’s just right for a camera/outing bag. I can easily fit all my gear in there but I sort of stick to the bare essentials.

Sans DSLR camera, where's that? behind the shot ;P

So yeah, here’s what I typically stuff inside my bag (ie the essential stuff):

Canon EOS 400d avec 28mm F1.8 USM Lens attached
Memory cards (though that’s pretty much permanently attached to my dslr camera strap so I don’t need to run about looking for it during hectic moments (it’s pretty neat)
That ickle manual for the 400d (though I never read it anymore, again mostly for show)
Canon 50mm f1.8 mkii lens
Canon Powershot G9 (aka Eve)
Either a PSP or a DS depending on my mood
Notebook (though I hardly write in it, mostly for show, damn efficient mobile phone)
Paperback book (right now I’m reading Birthday Stories)
A 1up plush toy, in case I get killed outdoors (insert 1up sound effect)

It’s not heavy to carry (especially with the lovely shoulder strap) and I have room for loads more (including a signed copy of lomokev’s hot shots). I’ve customised the compartments so lenses go in one place, camera goes in one and the middle is for the compact, psp, notebook. One thing I’ve noticed is that the velco is pretty tough so it takes a bit of an effort to open the bag, but you’ll soon get used to it. The material and feel of it is pretty high quality, you can tell that these guys did a lot of thinking when making the bag. But yes, it’s very hard to find any other faults in the bag, it’s probably best you have a look at the camera bag in person and get a feel of it before making the purchase, you don’t want a bag that’s too small or too big. For me right now, I think the bag is a bit too big for me, but this won’t be a problem when I begin buying more lenses (always thinking ahead ).

How high the camera bag is

Gear Remorse

Man this is such a photography nerdy section, it must be boring reading this crap haha. So yeah, that’s about it, I’ve already began customising the bag with bits and bobs and have taken it to a gig. Would definitely recommend a crumpler bag if you’re into photography or just want stuff to carry (I can convert the bag into a bag filled with books if I wanted to). Due to the limited variety of bags in the UK I would recommend trying to get it from abroad, otherwise I’d pick the rather pricey Crumpler Daily.

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320 gigalobytes of fun!

crazybobbles — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:02:35 +0000

mmmm 320 gigalo bytes

Ickle post, I bought myself a lovely 320gb 2.5inch hard drive to replace my PS3′s harddrive. I wanted to fit a lot of TV shows, photos and videos on my ps3 and felt my PS3 is really struggling with the capacity. It was bugging me, if I wanted to watch a film or whatnot I would have to copy it into a CF or SD card and actually play the thing on the flash card instead of the HDD since it was brimming with videos and whatnot. Games were also starting to pile up so I thought it was best to start investing in a bigger hard drive for my multimedia needs. I bought the badboy from play.com and it arrived pretty promptly at the office. Everything was fine and dandy until I started trying to upgrade the damn HDD. After removing all my music from my ipod to backup my PS3 I was stuck trying to unscrew the damn screws that was securing the HDD to the caddy. I pretty much stripped all 4 screws, leaving the thing stuck. Crapsticks. A lot of searching for alternative screwdrivers was involved and I ended up staying up till 4am finding screwdrivers until I gave up, I resorted in synching my ipod with a fixed playlist of music since my backup stuff were still in the ipod and I didn’t have enough room to store all my music (which was why I was stubborn enough to go searching for screwdrivers in the middle of the night because I wanted to have my music back). I went to sleep, hoping I will be able to solve this damn mess.

The next morning I called up the Sony support centre and asked for a new caddy which they were happy to send for free (go Sony Customer Support!) but got weary of waiting for it. I decided to take matters into my own hands (well to be fair, it was my matter in the first place but I like using that line) and googled for people who were experiencing the same problem (it wasn’t me! The damn screws were reallllly tight for others too). The suggestion was to either phone Sony or use a pair of pliers to carefully take the screws out. unfortunately I didn’t have a pair of pliers so an adventure down to the my nearest Maplins was at hand, I wasn’t able to do it that day either so another day went by with limited music and no HDD.

The next day it was a slightly miserable and rainy day, I took a trip to Royal Mail to collect some stuff and went to Maplins afterwards. At the store I presented them with the HDD and caddy and told them I needed the tools to take it out, the friendly store assistant got his screwdrivers out and tried unscrewing them to no avail. He eventually suggested pliers which I asked him to do, I granted him permission to mangle my HDD and caddy and that I wouldn’t sue him if he broke it (I just wanted the caddy). After several attempts he gave up and handed it over to a collegue who we shall call ISSA (ignorant stubborn sales assistant). He instantly recited some Maplins policy (which he most likely made up) saying he couldn’t do it for us as he wasn’t allowed to mangle up customer stuff (despite the other guy helping out). In frustration I asked him what tools I needed to do it myself and he recommended me the pliers (initially he had no idea, but I hinted at pliers in which he tried rewording so it sounded like it was his idea in the first place). I bought the pliers for £3.50 odd (I had another tough screw at home I wouldn’t mind unscrewing with the pliers so it wasn’t just for the HDD) and began the painful task of unscrewing the thing, now the tediousness of this task was just. too. tanterlising for engineers and nerdy folk, ISSA couldn’t help grabbing the tools and caddy out of my hand, mutter “you can’t do this, only I can do this” and began his ignorant journey of opening the damn thing.

It was pretty hilarious watching him doing it, the expression of frustration and stubbornness was clearly painted on his face. I got bored and went online on my mobile to talk to Kev about the situation whilst the other members of staff were serving other customers. The store supervisor came out and told ISSA that it was his lunch break but he refused to go because he had to get the damn thing out. It was almost a matter of pride now, I would have happily went back home and slowly tried taking it out myself but hey, once an ISSA starts, it’s almost impossible to get him to stop. Eventually one of the screws finally came out and hope began to settle in my doubts of whether ISSA could actually unscrew the thing, I continued to chat with kev and a few other people on msn and the store supervisor began nattering at ISSA to go have his lunch break, he even at one point offered to unscrew it himself only to find himself failing miserably. It wouldn’t have been right anyway, it was now a point where I wanted ISSA to unscrew them, better to have someone else do all the hard work eh? After 15 minutes of ISSA screams of frustration, he finally unscrewed all 4 of the screws HOORAY! The catch however was that at the last screw, he started mangling up my caddy in order to get room for the pliers! Damnit! I took the pliers and began unbending the thing he bent out. The supervisor shoo’d him away to lunch and I pretty much left the place having no other reason to be there. Once back home I was able to screw the new HDD into the caddy and begin transferring my old stuff back onto the PS3 and getting my music collection back into my ipod! (YAY!)

The extra room was all kinds of awesome, I was glad I finally made the upgrade. So yeah, that was quite an adventure :p