Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-07-30. (read more »)

I’m not sure why I upgraded today to Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. I have the most complicated Mac Pro setup around, and every time I upgrade to a new OS version when it comes out, I suffer. But I am an early adopter, so it’s in my nature to do these sorts of things. It’s how I learn, I suppose.

So far, I haven’t noticed any striking new features in the new OS. I know there are many new features, but none of them have been really obvious, yet—at least, when using my computer in the normal way I use my computer. I am really looking forward to being able to share my screen via AirPlay, but I don’t think my Mac Pro is supported, so I will likely continue using AirParrot to do the same thing. I’m not sure what else will be interesting. I’m not a Safari user, so all web-reading improvements are sort of lost of me. I signed in to Twitter, Vimeo and Flickr, but haven’t seen any signs of integration, yet.

The Mail, Contacts & Calendars preference pane is a disaster. I opened it up and it doesn’t match any of my Mail account settings—it pulls email addresses instead of actual usernames from mail accounts, and then complains that the passwords are wrong. It isn’t obvious what it’s doing.

Mail.app is now super slow. It is laggy—I have to wait seconds to do things—and I can’t bring it to the foreground with a single click unless I click in the header area when it’s in the background. I do have a 28GB mail archive, but Mail.app under Lion was fast, so the new one is definitely worse.

Most apps I’ve tried continue to work. I’ve had (only) the following problems, so far:

• Mail.app (performance)
• YouSendIt Express (doesn’t work)
• Sonnet Presto Gigabit Server PCIe (doesn’t work—apparently, I have the “old” version, which is 15 months old)
• Calendar sync with Google (lots of conflicts, repeatedly)
• Notification center (gave me the same notification every few minutes—I disabled it altogether)

The Sonnet Presto Gigabit Server PCIe card not working was a pain, especially because Sonnet tech support told me directly that it would work. This card is my direct iSCSI conduit to my ReadyNAS image archive (via LACP), and it took me awhile to figure out how to re-establish contact with the iSCSI target (which is configured for LACP, as well). I tried link bonding the Mac Pro’s 2 ethernet ports, but it wouldn’t connect to the ReadyNAS. I eventually solved this (temporarily) by configuring a bond in my switch and connecting the ReadyNAS directly to it (instead of directly to the Mac Pro). This worked, luckily, but going through the switch is definitely slower.

Again, I am not a normal computer user, so I don’t know why I still try to do early upgrades. It never just works.

One last note: iCloud document integration will probably be great for folks who exclusively use 1 application to work with 1 document type (e.g., Pages for all word processing), but it will break down very quickly when used with file formats that are commonly used by multiple applications (e.g., save a picture with Photoshop, and then try to view it in Preview). It doesn’t seem well thought out, but will probably be fine for the people out there who have no idea where they are saving their files…

If you want a great overview / review of 10.8, I highly recommend reading the ArsTechnica review, which is excellent.

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-07-23. (read more »)

I’ve been shooting the Sony NEX series APS-C mirrorless cameras for about a year now, and the NEX 7 has practically replaced my Canon 5D Mark III as my default camera. Although I still use SLRs when I need to be practical and productive as a photographer (and, underwater), the NEX 7 is small enough to fit in just about every bag I carry around, which means that I’m more likely to have a NEX on me than I am a SLR¹.

I have been enthusiastically recommending mirrorless cameras to my friends for the last year because of their performance to size ratio. A Panasonic GF3 with kit lens can be had for around $300 when there are sales, and an upgrade to a larger sensor can easily be had (for more money) by going Sony NEX (~$600). It takes $400 to buy a Canon S100—the current king of small-sensor point & shoots, and a GF3 will shoot circles around it (but won’t fit in a pocket).

pic: dpreview rx100 preview

All of this has changed with the release of the Sony DSC-RX100 point & shoot camera. The Sony DSC-RX100 is the single (non-light field) camera I’ve been most excited about in years. A lot of my friends want cameras that produce fantastic pictures, but other than flipping to aperture priority every once in awhile, they don’t really want to think about the camera when taking pictures. The 1″ sensor combined with a wide-open aperture of f/1.8 (at lowest focal length) means clean pictures and the ability to produce a shallow depth of field comparable with what mirrorless cameras can do with their standard kit lenses (the lenses most people buy when they go mirrorless). The RX100′s sensor is smaller than the sensor in a M4/3 or NEX camera, but the lens’ aperture is larger in relation, which makes up for the difference.

What’s huge to me is that the RX100 will fit into my pocket without making my look like a pervert—and, it does this without sacrificing much image quality. The best camera is the camera you have with you, and the RX100 is the first digital camera that performs more-or-less at large-camera image quality while still fitting in your jeans pocket.

The single downside is the price. The RX100 retails at $650, which is more than many M4/3 kits cost, and about the same price as a Sony NEX F3 kit. Most people won’t be used to paying that much for a point & shoot camera, but I think it’s absolutely worth it. I will likely have this camera with me at all times, even when I’m not carrying a bag, and that is worth a premium.

For more opinions about the Sony DSC-RX100, check out these reviews:

• David Pogue calls the RX100 “the best pocket camera ever made.” When I talked to him about the camera in person, he said that he basically couldn’t take a bad picture with it.
• Luminous Landscape says, “the new Sony RX100 is hands-down the most appealing pocket-sized digital camera yet.”
• EOSHD says, “the RX100 is definitely a viable replacement for a DSLR with kit zoom.” Read their review for notes about the camera’s video performance.

My Sony RX100 arrives on Friday; once the box is open, I suspect that my Sony NEX 7 will start to collect dust.

Referral link: check out the Sony DSC-RX100 on Amazon

A quick note for underwater photographers:

I still believe that underwater photography requires the use of a SLR for productive, “normal” underwater photography. A second underwater mirrorless rig (w/tiny dome port) could be very useful for free-diving and strobe-less, wide-angle shooting. If you’re swimming with a pod of dolphins, you will likely be more producive with a tiny housing than will with a large SLR housing. This 2-camera setup is what I would shoot with if I were still traveling 6 months a year for underwater photography. Lytro has forced me into a 6-week a year shooting schedule, so I’m (at the moment) content with a single SLR setup.

Regarding point & shoots underwater: I’m not convinced that any point & shoot on the market right now can work as well as an SLR, underwater (including the Sony RX100). Most of the productivity in underwater photography is afforded by good ergonomics. We shoot primarly manual exposure—and often, manual focus— which can be difficult to accomplish with point & shoot ergonomics, especially when you have 100 sharks around you or are swimming against a strong current. Note also that all of this might change quickly. Mirrorless cameras and point & shoots are getting better very quickly, while SLRs are on a flatter improvement curve. In a few years, we may find that electronic viewfinders are better than optical viewfinders, and that pro-level ergonomics are also available. When this happens, my opinion will likely change.

Richard LeParmentier, the actor who played Admiral Motti in Star Wars (who was almost choked to death by Vader’s use of the force), posts with a toy bust of himself at Comic Con 2012.

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-07-16. (read more »)

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-07-09. (read more »)

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-07-02. (read more »)