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Panasonic Lumix LX5

I bought the highly acclaimed Panasonic Lumix LX3 early last year. I spent months convincing my SO that the LX3 is a wonderful little camera, showed her plenty of sample shots from the Internet, until she finally agreed to let me buy it. Of course, right afterwards, it became hers.

The LX5 was announced last week to be released later this month. Maybe she can have her LX3 and I can have my LX5.

Even though the specs and all the news sites are gushing about the Leica DC VARIO-SUMMICRON f/2.0 lens, it's in fact a variable aperture lens that goes from 2.0 to 3.3. The actual specs of the lens is 5.1-19.2/2.0-3.3, which is equivalent to 24-90 for 35mm cameras.

Compare that to the LX3's 5.1-12.8/2.0-2.8 (equivalent to 24-60 for 35mm). The LX5 has more zoom, but it seems to have a smaller aperture, but actually, when the LX5's zoom is at 12.8 (60 for 35mm), the aperture is also at f/2.8. Only when the zoom is at maximum then the aperture reduces to 3.3.

My heart would be in it

I wish I could open my window
and send a message on the wind
so that the next time you feel the touch of a breeze
my heart would be in it

(Image credit: Endless Love by Alfred Gockel)

Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Chinese New Year!

Panasonic LX3 2.0

Panasonic just released firmware 2.0 for the LX3 camera. It's almost like getting a new camera for free! Hard to believe that in these days of disposable electronics, a manufacturer would release such a large update for a camera that's been on the market for just over a year.

Changes in firmware 2.0:

1. Improved auto white balance performance.
2. Auto Focus speed-up.
3. Recording function with an aspect ratio of 1:1 has been added.
4. A white balance (WB) bracket function has been added.
5. [HIGH DYNAMIC] has been added to scene mode.
6. [LENS RESUME] has been added to the [SETUP] menu.
7. [MENU RESUME] has been added to the [SETUP] menu.
8. The exposure compensation and the auto bracket compensation can now be set up to ±3EV.
9. Position of the guide line can now be set.
10. It is now possible to display the highlights in playback mode.
11. It is now possible to record the user’s name in the picture.
12. Digital red-eye removal has been modified.
13. Items saved in the custom set have changed.

Leica M9 leaked

Mmm... full frame...

EOS 7D leaked

Fire at CCTV headquarters

The recently completed CCTV Headquarters "new site" at Beijing caught fire earlier tonight.



More pics and updated news are available here in Chinese.

Panasonic G1 firmware

Panasonic is in a firmware upgrading spree too. Yesterday they released firmware for the LX3, and today the G1. Whee!

The new firmware is available here. (Version 1.1, released 2008/12/16.)

Improvements:

1. Makes it possible to check the exposure with Live View during the AE lock.
2. Makes it possible to continuously display the enlarged screen of the MF assist.
3. Added "color adjustment function" for the LCD monitor/View finder.
4. Added "Red-eye reduction forced flash on" to the flash setting for the [PARTY].
5. Improved the performance of AE(Auto Exposure) and AWB(Auto White Balance).
6. Improved the accuracy of flash control.
7. Improved the noise reduction during high sensitivity photo shooting.

In related news. Adobe released Lightroom 2.2 to support Panasonic raw files. Panasonic is turning many heads in the photography world!

Panasonic LX3 firmware

The new firmware is available here. (Version 1.1, released 2008/12/15.)

Improvements:

1. Compatibility update for the DMW-FL220 flash unit.
2. Improved auto white balance performance.
3. Improved auto focus performance.

Update: apparently there were two unreleased firmware between 1.0 and 1.1.

Improvements in Version 1.05:

1. Improved the MF assistance (enlarged) position may be shifted to the center although MF assistance position is shifted with joystick when zoom lever is rotated to Tele side.
2. Improved the noise may be displayed in the AF area selecting screen.
3. Improved the black part may be displayed in the MF assistance (enlarged) area when the dark area compensation is set to ON.
4. Optimization of the enlarged position indicator and MF assistance (enlarged) being displayed.
5. Improved the AWB icon is displayed in film grain scene mode when WB adjustment is chosen.
6. Improved the exposure compensation value may not be stored in the picture as an Exif data with iA shooting mode.

Improvements in Version 1.04.

1. Improved favorite guide indication and clock indication of world time may be lapped over.

More decibels, please

I was so busy working the past few weeks (plus being so depressed over not being able to buy any NSLU2's and having my AdSense account disabled) that I didn't even notice that Metallica, my all-time favorite band, has released a new album: Death Magnetic.

This is one of those few times that I found out something by reading the newspaper instead of reading it online. Even the local newspapers have articles about the new album.

So I went online to read some reviews, only to find fans enraged over the sound being clipped on the CD, but not so in Guitar Hero 3. There's even a petition for the studio to re-release the album.

Today also happens to be International Talk Like A Pirate Day, I know what I'm gonna do while waiting for the album to be released to the stores locally. Arrr!

Evolved camera

The EOS 5D Mark II is released, and immediately, all the popular web forums are flooded with messages of how lame the new camera is and what Canon should have done.

To me though, the single most important thing in a digital camera, SLR or not, is the sensor. In the olden days of film cameras, you had to buy different film to get different ISO levels or to achieve different looks (such as black and white or fluorescent light films), but with a digital camera, you can just turn the ISO dial and adjust the white balance. So to get a different "look" or to get higher ISO levels means buying a whole new camera body instead of just changing the film.

Both the 5D Mark II and the previously announced 50D have improved sensors with higher sensitivity and more megapixels (however, more megapixels is not always better). The other improvements in the body such as better looking LCD, somewhat improved interface, automatic sensor cleaning, or even HD video, are just bonuses that are nice to have but have no effect on the image quality.

I'm very happy with my 30D right now, but the 50D had me drooling all over it just because of the new sensor. I'm also drooling all over the new EF 24/1.4L II lens.

EOS Evolution

EOS 5D Mark II?

Learning photography by random chance

Besides computers, my other passion in life is photography. I first got interested in photography by random chance when the college that I went to study computer science at also turned out to be one of the most respected photography schools in the world. Unfortunately most of the photo majors I encountered at the time were equipment snobs and I never learned anything, but I could see that if I ever got the chance, photography was something that I really wanted to learn more about.

When I got to know my girlfriend (now wife), it was also random chance that her dad (now my father-in-law) is a professional photographer. I told him that I went to a photography school but learned zilch. He jumped at the chance to teach me, so I learned about films and apertures and shutter speeds and composition by using his Nikon FM2.

Soon afterwards I managed to buy my own FM2 from some kid who said she was switching majors and was trying to sell her camera to an equipment dealer. The dealer gave her a really bad price when I just happened to walk by, so I immediately offered her a higher price and bought the whole set off her.

The Nikon FM2 went everywhere with me, but soon film processing costs started to eat into my pockets. So in 2005 when digital SLR's started to come down in price, I bought a Nikon D70. Unfortunately, I was never really happy with the D70's picture quality

A few months later, my father-in-law (I got married!) got a Canon EOS 1V to take advantage of faster shooting speeds (10 fps with the motor) and Canon's far more extensive lens selection. Around the same time, someone wanted to buy my Nikon D70 so I jumped at the chance and sold the Nikon kit and bought a Canon EOS 30D with a really nice 17-40L lens.

Within days after I got my 30D, my father-in-law's 1V and 28-70L lens got damaged in an accident so he bought a 5D and 24-70L to replace them. So we both switched from Nikon to Canon and went digital at the same time within a short period of time. Eventually, I ended up teaching him about changing ISO's and compact flash cards and burning photos onto CD's. (We're both JPEG shooters.)

A few weeks later when we got a chance to meet, I found out more about how his 1V was damaged. The 28-70L lens was mounted on the 1V at a shoot, and the equipment handling guy didn't secure the hardware properly and everything fell from the equipment truck, and the 1V got impacted right where the camera body joined the lens. The lens got broken in half near the mount, and the camera's mount was damaged beyond repair according to his Canon service center.

Since he had already bought the 5D and a new 24-70L lens to replace the 1V set, I took the damaged camera and lens to my Canon service center to see if they could do anything about being beyond repair.

My Canon service center fixed the 1V for free, and gave me a brand new 24-70L lens.

I tried to hide the 1V and the new lens from my father-in-law, but he found out about it so I had to give him my new 17-40L lens in exchange for the much more expensive 24-70L lens, plus I had to give the 1V back to him too.

Our current line up is:
His: 5D/grip + 1V/motor + 17-40L + 24-70L + 70-200/2.8L + 580EX
Mine: 30D + 24-70L + 50/1.8 II + EF-S 10-22 + EF-S 17-85IS + 580EX

Of course, we still have our collection of old bodies and lenses, but it's no longer easy to find labs that can handle film properly. We would sometimes take the old FM2 out and shoot a roll, but more megapixels is where the world is headed to.

Slashdot effect

No, I didn't actually make /. but it appears like there was a lot of interest in the EOS 50D before its official release. Those leaked sample pics I posted in the last entry got downloaded more than 2,500 times within a day. Total traffic usage was about 3 GB.

This was nothing compared to September last year when the EOS 40D was released though. After the 40D was released, for some reason the PDF manual wasn't available for download, so someone posted a scanned copy of his manual, and I offered to mirror it. The PDF manual was downloaded more than 10,000 times within a day. The file was a large 25 MB and the traffic usage came to nearly 30 GB. (I wonder how many downloads he got and whether his ISP caught fire?) When the official PDF manual (less than 6 MB) was released a few days later I deleted the file thinking that people could just go download the official one. Unfortunately, I didn't expect hundreds of other sites linking to me, and I got a massive number of 404's. I imagine if I hadn't deleted the file, I would've gotten way more downloads.

Always nice to have unlimited bandwidth.

Canon EOS 50D

(Update 8/26/2008): EOS 50D is officially announced. You can now download the full size samples at the official site here.







Click on the images to see the originals. Bandwidth warning: the photos are 15 megapixels.

Hmm, time to upgrade my camera.

08/08/08 08:08

8 is a very auspicious number for the Chinese people. So 08/08/08 is an incredibly auspicious day. Hotels have been booked months in advance for wedding ceremonies taking place on this day.

So obviously they had to pick today to start the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Don't forget to watch the much hyped opening ceremonies later today.

It's also Father's Day in Taiwan today. Happy Father's Day!

And I'll end this post with the world's shortest horror story: Eight ate eight.

Art appreciation

A very good friend was starting her own business selling paintings and I helped her with some of the technical / Internet side of the operation. Unfortunately, I had no idea what type of paintings she was selling when I recommended her the e-commerce site she's using. In hindsight, I should have designed a web gallery with plenty of animation and large photos.

I don't really know my art or religion theory, but many of the paintings have Buddhist themes. They are made from acrylic paint and look really really nice.

Her website is called Asia Serenity and you're welcomed to check it out.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 released

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 has just been released. Maybe it's really time to buy a good professional LCD monitor instead of doing everything on my notebook all the time.