Replaced the GPS

My friend Philip commented in the post I made about losing my GPS that I should just get another Garmin Legend HCx, since they have gotten more affordable.  I looked at the newer Oregon/Dakota models but I ended up taking Philip's advice and just getting another one of the exact same thing I had before. I went to a store and played with the newer Colorado and Dakota models and came to the conclusion that they weren't really improvements over the eTrex line.

The eTrex line is proven as a good tool.  Sure, they're not perfect but they're pretty good.   The only real complaints I have are the screen is dark without the backlight on and the joystick sticks up too far and keeps moving around when I put it in a pocket.   Other than that, it's pretty much fine.

The newer models show quite a bit of "improvement" from the "slickness" department.  The main change is the touch screen and the new "friendly" UI.   You know how there' Lego blocks, and then there's Duplo for the younger kids?  The eTrex User Interface is Lego and the Dakota is Duplo.   The touchscreen is very "eh...".   I have an iphone so I know what touchscreens are supposed to be like.   This is not responsive or accurate like that.  I have no idea what would happen if you were wearing gloves.

Then there's the new and improved larger, bulkier size.   And the crappier battery life.

Wait - It costs more too?

You see where I'm going with this...   I hope they never discontinue the eTrex.   You should buy one.  (as long as it accepts a micrSD card for recording tracks to.)

Lost Garmin GPS

I seem to have lost my beloved Garmin eTrex HCx, which I use for geotagging, as well as driving directions and other useful things.   I love geotagging so much that I'm going to have to replace it.   I've got a Garmin fitness watch with a GPS (the Forerunner 305) and I can extract .gpx files from it in a pinch, so I'm not totally out of luck.   But I see a new Dakota 20 in my future soon.

Keep in mind that if you're going to do geotagging with photos after the fact, you need a GPX (or similar) file.   The easiest way to get a GPX file that I know of is to use a Garmin GPS with a microSD card.   There's a mostly-hidden feature you can enable that just writes .gpx files to the microSD card whenever the unit is on.   These files are invisible to the unit's UI and aren't related to the "path" memory, and can't be erased via the UI.   The unit just silently creates a track of everywhere it goes, and then you can copy this file to your computer later.

The only downsides seem to be cost and size/weight.   The cost is steep: about $300 for the unit.   I've seen GPS units way cheaper than this but it all boils down to convenience here.   The constant-logging to the GPX file is a really esoteric piece of functionality that not many people are probably interested in.   It's hard to shop around for that feature since most people don't even know that feature exists.   Garmin doesn't even advertize that feature of their own product!

As for size/weight, I'm ambivalent about this point.  Part of me thinks the units is just small enough and part of me is still annoyed that I have to add 6 more ounces and fill one more pocket.   Part of the weight and size comes from the fact that it uses 2 AA batteries and I think that's a Really Good Thing.  As I've said before, I love standards like AA batteries.  Sure, portable electronic devices can be made smaller by using integrated, proprietary battery systems.  (Look at Apple's laptops, which are getting smaller and smaller, partially due to the decision to drop replaceable batteries.)

But I really like AA batteries because in a pinch you can find them anywhere.   You can buy AA batteries in the middle of the jungle in Vietnam.  (I know, I've been there.)  I've stepped out of a wedding reception for 2 minutes to walk across the street and buy a pack of AA batteries at a liquor store before.  For these reasons, I'm willing to accept the slightly larger weight and form factor of the Garmin GPS, since I know I can grab spare power anywhere.

In conclusion, I'll probably be picking up a new GPS soon.  If so, I'll let you know how it works out.

Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl Wrap-up

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was going to shoot the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl on January 9th, and indeed I did.   I'll spare you the blow-by-blow details but I want to give a quick summary about how it went and remind myself of a few things for next year.

I had a great time.   The traffic was light, the bowl was a sellout, the crowds were good, and it was a good game.  I got some nice shots and I didn't get hurt.  One fun thing about a football game at AT&T Park is the photo work area is the Ginats' dug-out. Let me rephrase that: the World Champion Giants' dugout.

What more could I ask for?

Well, I guess I could ask for the PAC-10 being able to field enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all of their bowl slots.  It would have been nice to have a PAC-10 team there, but I guess you can't have everything you want.

The Gear

I took a little bit more gear than I have in the past, including a 500mm f/4.0 lens that I was renting from local nature photographer Joe Decker.  Here's a  shot of the camera gear I took:

As you can see, there's a lot of stuff there.  I took 3 bodies and 6 lenses this time.  The larger pack on the right is the ThinkTank Airport International which I absolutely love.  The 500/4.0 just barely fits in there.   Next to it is the 70-200/2.8.   There's a 1-Ds mk III (Yes, that's the slower, larger sensor model instead of  the faster 1-D made for sports.)  There's a 5-D mkII and a 24-70 in there too.

In the middle is an old Tamrac backpack of some sort.  I almost never use it while shooting anymore but it's good for carrying gear around in. That bag holds the 300/4.0 lens, a 40-D body, a 17-40/4.0 wide-angle zoom, a 15mm fisheye, some lens hoods which I never seem to use, my compact flash wallet, etc.

To the far left is my ThinkTank modular belt system, which is what I actually wear when I'm shooting the game.  On top is the monopod which is permanently attached to to 500mm lens during the game.

I took 3 bodies but really only used the 1-Ds mkIII for about 95% of the shots.  Once you use the great focus system on the body you never want to go back to the old 9 point focus system on the other cameras.  There's enough time between plays in football to switch between lenses based on how far away the action of the next play will be, so I just kept switching lenses and always using the 1-D.

The 500mm lens was the longest I've used for shooting football before.  It's a pretty long lens and it really pulls in the action from far away.  Also, due to the narrow angle of view and shallow depth of field, the long telephoto really isolates the action a lot better.  A well framed photo taken with the 500 looks a lot nicer than a heavy crop from a narrower lens.  There's a trick to using a lens that long but when it works, it really looks nice.

The Results

Lightroom has a nice metadata browser that makes it easy to get some informal stats about collections of images.  I ended up with 136 photos of action during the game.  The screengrab on the left shows the lenses I used to take those images.  Although the 500 is the "sexiest" (and most expensive) lens I had it ended up not being the most used, producing around 15% of my "keeper" images.  The good old 70-200 turned out to be the most useful (producing more than 50% of my keepers), followed by the wonderful 300/4.0.

You can see a much larger collection of about 50 images from the game on my flickr page.

The question of Naming...

Finally, I'd like to ask one last question.   To what year do we attribute bowl games played in January?  Is this the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl 2010?  Or how about the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl 2011?  Sure, it happened in 2011 but it's the bowl game attached to the 2010 season.   Back when it was the Emerald Bowl and it happened in late December there was no problem.  I checked my photo passes from previous years and sure enough - they all have the year in them.  This year's official bowl title is simply "The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl".  No year specified, so maybe they don't even know what to call it.   What's it going to be called next year?

One last thing...

Those of you who follow my blog know I've always had a thing for a good fisheye shot.  Ever since I started shooting at AT&T Park I've had a vision of a wide shot that included the whole stadium with a view of the field, the scoreboard, the bay behind, etc.   Now that I'm rockin' the full-frame camera and the fisheye lens, I could go ahead and get it.   There wasn't that great of a sunset that night, but here it is:

That's probably it for sports until next year!

Mac Pro: not enough ports!

I'm moving my desk and computer around which means disconnecting the entire thing and reconnecting it in another room. So this is a fine time to think about the design of the Mac Pro, as it relates to ports on connectivity. There are some real nice features of the machine but a few disappointments. As usual with Apple products, remedying the downsides would be trivial and cheap so we must assume that Apple just didn't think about these things, or thought about them but decided they knew better than us how a machine should be designed. I should start off by clarifying that I'm talking about the Mac Pro desktop - not a laptop, and not a lower cost machine. This is the big machine that people buy when space, weight, power consumption, and cost are no issue. People buying this machine want the best, most powerful, most flexible machine available and they're will to pay over $3,000 to get it. Also, they're probably Apple fans.

First the good points:

• USB and firewire ports on the front and back. I love the ports on the front, for things that I attach for short periods of time. Way better than having to reach around to the back of the machine for a quick connection.
• Four internal drive bays. This is great for expandability. I'm using one bay for the boot drive and two bays for a striped RAID for performance. I use the fourth bay when I'm building up a new boot drive, which I do whenever a new major version of Mac OS comes out.
• Two optical bays. This would be great for me if I cared enough to have a second optical drive. It costs less than $100 but I've only ever needed two at one time once. I REALLY like that you can install a SSD boot drive up there and regain another regular drive bay if you have lots of cash and need more space. I don't do this, but check out Diglloyd's Mac Performance Website for more info about that.
• Lots of PCI slots. Now that more applications are taking advantage of GPU coprocessing I should get off my duff and buy a modern video card. It'll make some things in Photoshop faster, apparently. I like that I can put a few video cards in there and have a ton of monitors because often screen space is worth more than CPU speed.

Now let's talk about what I don't like.

• Not enough USB ports! I generally have the following USB devices connected to my desktop Mac:
  • keyboard
  • mouse
  • Wacom tablet
  • HP printer/scanner/fax
  • Canon photo printer
  • docking station for Garmin bike computer

  That's six items that I would prefer to connect to the back, but there are only 3 ports. Yes, I can buy a powered hub but I'd prefer not to. It's one more thing to plug in and a ton more wires.

• No balanced audio. I'd like to see balanced audio in and out. I'm talking 1/4" TRS or XLR ports, which are industry standard on professional audio equipment. I realize there's optical audio in and out but the things I'd like to connect to (a Mackie mixing board, or my home stereo) don't have optical.Yes, I could buy an external firewire sound module with tons of balanced ins and outs, but a basic stereo in and out is all I'm asking for. I've never heard anyone else bitch about this so perhaps I'm the only one who misses this.

That's about it. I'm very happy with the machine overall. It's a lot faster than my laptop and I love working with the full size mouse and keyboard, as well as multiple monitors. The built-in RAID stripe is big and fast with no external cables which is really nice.

I'm just sayin' that there could be a few more ports on it, that's all.

New Canon Stuff Tomorrow

Canon is introducing a bunch of new mid-range and high-end photography gear today. Well, tomorrow really, since it's still Wednesday where I am. I'll include some links to the DP Review (owned by Amazon) press release pages. The list includes the new 60-D, a low-end L-series 70-300 variable aperture lens, a really neat looking 8 - 15 mm fisheye zoom, revamped 300 and 400 mm f/2.8 lenses, new versions of the 1.4x and 2x teleconverters, and an announcement that new 500 and 600 mm f/4.0 lenses are on the way.

Here are my quick thoughts on each of these, with a bit of a Product Marketing eye:

• 60-D: It had to happen sometime. In fact, the 7-D should have been called the 60-D. After the 7-D, I guess this is now the bridge between the old 20/30/40/50 lineup and the Rebel line. SD cards. This camera might be popular, but it sure had better be a lot cheaper than the 7-D if they want to sell many of them.
• 70-300 variable aperture lens: Is this just an upgraded version of the wildly popular 70-300 series? Is this for people who want an L-lens without really investing in top-quality glass? How much will it cost?
• 8 - 15 mm fisheye zoom: Sweet. This lens is going to be really fun. I love my 15mm fisheye, which this is apparently replacing. It's obviously not as small and pocketable but it sounds like a great lens.
• revamped 300 and 400 mm f/2.8 lenses: Who was asking for this? Why do this?
• new versions of the 1.4x and 2x teleconverters: Seriously? Who asked for this?
• announcement that new 500 and 600 mm f/4.0 lenses are on the way: I sure hope they don't have any backstock of these to clear out now! Again, who's asking for this?

I think all big white glass from Canon can be divided into two categories:

1. The 200-400 mm f/4.0 zoom
2. Everything Else

Is the new 200-400/4.0 zoom out yet? You know, the one that Canon should release to match the Nikon lens that is so popular people will sell their entire Canon setup to get? Not yet? OK, well, wake me up when that comes out.

Embracing the iPhone in small steps

Thanks to a hand-me-down 32 GB iPhone 3GS, I'm giving the iPhone another try. Things are working out a lot better this time around, even though I'm still kicking and screaming while resisting being sucked all the way into the Apple Reality Distortion Field. I've got an iPhone but I haven't activated the phone service with AT&T so for me it's really just a little tiny tablet computer. In my last blog post I ranted against using the iPad as a content _creation_ device, but it's clear that it makes an excellent content _consumption_ device. And for the purposes of this blog, that means viewing photos. It turns out the iPod is a pretty cool little photo viewer. The biggest drawback is obviously the screen size but the quality of the photos (sharpness, color, etc.) seems to be pretty good.

I don't use iPhoto and the machine I sync my iPhone on is not the machine that my photos live on so there are a few little hoops to jump through but it's not bad. The saving grace is that Apple gives you the option of syncing a directory hierarchy of photos to the device instead of syncing from iPhoto: First I tell iTunes to sync photos from the "iPhonePhotos" directory on my laptop's desktop. Then I just mount that directory over the local network and export groups of photos from Lightroom in whatever structure I want and iTunes takes care of the rest. It's not as cumbersome as it may sound. Yes, MobileMe would probably make it easier, but oh well. I'm pretty happy with this solution.

Next time you see me, ask to see some photos on the iPhone!