A Report of What Went on at the Last Meeting
By Moe Comeau, MLMUG Recording Secretary
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Mark Bazrod opened the meeting shortly after 9 AM. There were about 65 attendees. Mark announced the room assignments for the SIGs: Advanced and Intermediate: Converting Word files to/from Word 08; Multimedia SIG with Dale Fletcher, and Newer Users - Bob Barton. Three visitors were there for the first time:
Steve Smith, has a Mac G5 Dual Processor, wants to delve into Operating Systems;
Cristina Grannandre, a switcher; and Pete Torello, has a new iMac and a laptop, but has had Macs ever since the 128K. The following new members joined: Linda Kaye, Pete Torello, and Cristina Conti. We then broke up for the SIGs. Leopard Features The translucent menu bar can be set to be non-transparent if your desktop pictures make it hard to see. Use System Preferences -> Desktop -> Translucent Menu Bar. The new items in the sidebar include devices and shared items. You can add anything else you wish. A new feature there is "search for." You can use the canned one from Apple, or make up your own searches and save them. That's very useful in Mail. Mark emphasized the time saving features of Keyboard shortcuts. Command-Tab takes you through he various open apps. But Command-` (Unshifted-Tilde) will cycle through all the windows in the current app. Command-M will minimize the current window. Command-1 will go to icon view, Command-2 will go to list view, Command-3 will go to column view, Command-4 will go to cover flow view, a new view added in Leopard, and which is very useful for viewing photos. When setting view options (Command -J), you can click on "use as default," which works on all views but column view. Ed Stevens pointed out that if you go to your user folder, then Library, then Mail Download, file; add to the sidebar. Then you can quickly access downloaded mail without opening Mail. Mark then inadvertently opened his tax files, much to the delight of the audience. He closed by announcing he would post a list of the future Leopard topics to be presented so members could volunteer to present them at future sessions Main Presentation: John Krause on Digital Cameras John started off with an anecdote about buying a digital point-and-shoot camera for his grand nephew, which peaked his interest in the digital world. his first camera was a Nikkormat, with complex lenses etc. In 1983 he co-wrote a book defining standards for photographing plastic surgery. in 2000, he decided to convert to digital, starting with a Nikon 990, then a D-100. There are three varieties: point and shoot, prosumer, and true digital single lens reflex (D-SLR). Most are pretty good products: Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, etc. Point and shoot: Most have LCD displays, some have viewfinders as well, which can be important when bright sunlight makes the LCD useless. Power sources run from standard AA or AAA Batteries to proprietary ones. The flash unit — self-contained or external. Storage — Compact Flash, or SD, XD, etc. Some are ultra light/ultra compact. His Leica Deluxe has a nice big LCD and a viewfinder, so it's easy to use in bright sunlight. The Olympus 720SW is now the 1030. Some are highly shock resistant, a few perform well at cold temperatures. Some are good in water to a depth of five feet. A camera's ISO rating indicates the minimum amount of available light required to shoot a clear picture. Most built in flashes do not perform well. But do use it to flash fill shadows. The F10 takes very good pictures at ISO 1200 indoors. The controls are terrible; it's menu structure is like a PC. The newer F40 has a much simpler interface. Fuji cameras have a proprietary battery, but don't rely on it. Buy an extra battery, at $30-40. AAs of AAAs are much easier to find.
Gary Fong
makes all kinds of products including a diffuser for Fuji Fine Pix cameras,
for about $12.95. The lens must protrude to use it. Even with redeye reduction, many flashes still produce redeye. The Casio camera line is interesting, coming in several colors. The Prosumer line is bigger, more controls, and wider zoom ranges; take better but are more expensive. He showed a Canon S5Is. He had an S3, 6 Mega Pixels (MP), easy controls, but the zoom tends to past the point you want, and overshoots in both directions. It uses AA batteries. He often uses rechargeables. Sanyo markets pre-charged rechargeables. The DSC R1 is almost a DSLR. Sony is annoying in that they change models too often. They bought out Minolta, and killed the line. The sensor is almost full sized, so it captures a lot of information; and it shoots RAW. Files are huge. True DSLRs come from Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Sony, Fuji, Sigma, and Leica. Nikon's latest is the D3. It's a very good camera, with no noise, up to ISO 3200. It's $5000 for the body only. It's big and heavy. The Canon 1D is a monster. With lens and all it's about 6 pounds. The D3 is $1800, but shoots 8 frames/sec at 12 MP, and is low noise. The D300 is its big brother. An entry level D-SLR is the Nikon D40 Kit; $450 for camera, zoom lens and all. The monster of the camera world is the Canon EOS 1D: 21 MP, 5 frames/sec, $2100. Canon dominates sports recording camera and lenses. Canon's 40D in the Rebel series, sells for $550. John owns the Olympus E3: 10 MP, 5 frames/sec, has image stabilization (IS) built into the camera body. Nikon and Canon build it into the lenses. It's well sealed against the weather and has "supersonic wave filter" which jolts the sensor to clean off dust when you change a lens. $1800. The Olympus 510 is $500. Camera companies make most of their money on flash units, which have obscene prices. You don't have to succumb to that game. A German company called Metz allows you to get supplemental light in the scene, by slave firing a second flash. It's expensive; $140. He showed a Memory Stick, a Fuji card, Secure Digital, a Compact Flash Card, and a Smart Media card that Olympus used, now defunct. Stay away from Hitachi memory cards; they break. John prefers using a card reader vice direct feed from the cameras. He mentioned 8-in-1s and 12-in-1s. The "card of the future" is a 2GB card that plugs into the USB port that wirelessly transmits to your computer, but is very slow. The Internet shines compared to Photo magazines.
Ken Rockwell
likes Nikons.
Digital Outback Photo and The Luminous Landscape are into high end stuff.
Rob Galbraith has some nice commentary.
Frank Van Ripper writes for the Washington Post. There is also
Imaging Resource.
Phase One makes digital backs; has a site good for browsing.
Steve's Digicams
is like
DP Review.
Cambridge in Colour is way out there, as is
Wrotniak, who is enamored with Olympus. He then talked about several high end cameras, like a Hasselblad, in the $39,000 range. Sinar has a digital back made by Leaf, which is resettable on the spot, for an immediate reshoot. Next he showed some shots he had taken with his various cameras. You can't get flash units for much less than $100. He wanted a Canon G5, but bought an S3. Shortly afterwards they came out with the G7 then the G9 which takes RAW at 12 MP. Frank Van Ripper likes Leicas. Q: What is the difference between Optical and Digital Zoom, and how should it affect my next camera purchase? David Pogue exposed the
MegaPixel Myth
with "three versions of the same photograph. One was a 5-megapixel shot, one was 8 megapixels and one was 13." Only one person out of several dozen correctly identified each. The Olympus E420 is the smallest, lightest D-SLR. The Sony A350 cost millions to develop. They put two sensors into it so you could continuously focus it. Some day they will come out with a 26 MP model. Sigma has an excellent color sensor called the Foveon. Casio has one that shoots 60 frames per second. Good for sports/action photography.
Q: Where are we on going on speed of cards for cameras? Q: What about polarizing filters? Q: Photoshop has a plugin for polarizing. Q: What about cell phone cameras, which are now up to 5 MP?
A: Eric mentioned that there is software that will nicely blowup low res photos. Ed thanked John for his presentation. The raffle had two wireless FM transmitters and two 512 MB MP3 players, all donated by Bob Barton. We adjourned at 12:05 PM — Moe Comeau |
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©2008 by
Moe Comeau and MLMUG
Posted 03/21/08
Updated 03/27/08