The Woodwork

In an old article, I mentioned that a Canon 18-55mm at high end isn’t that different than the Nikon 17-70mm kit lens in focal length (reach).
My statement was:
After all, you can just shoot the Canon at 55mm @ 1.6x and then crop it down to a 6 megapixel photo and it will look close enough [...]

I was at Costco today and noticed that they now have the kit cameras in boxes out. Normally, you have to write down a number of pick up a flag, take it to a register to pay for it, and then pick it up behind the counter. Now you just pick up the box on [...]

John Cole finds an apology in the latest admissions.
In this case, it is apologizing on the presentation of the war instead of the actual actions of war. Such a strange admission is understandable—they must be giving a sideways glance at Nuremberg every time they open their mouth. I still find the whole thing ironic since [...]

There has been a lot of comments about the glossy finish in the new MacBooks, many of them link John Siracusa’s article approvingly.
This is a reminder why a Mac fanboy like myself hates Mac zealotry: “Reflections! Glare! These are not good things!”

During the boom, if you asked any startup in the Valley when they planned on going public they’d tell you “about 18 months.”
Come back in 18 months and you’d hear the same talk. This continued until IPO’s become radioactive. Post boom you hear these same people espouse having a “path to profitability,” which is a [...]

Last Saturday I took some photos at the Human Race, this was my first attempt at sport photography, something my camera (and background) is not suited for at all. I learned a lot of things that day, mostly about how stupid a photographer I am.
Caitlin was the official videographer of the event and I tagged [...]

A recent thread on Flickr about the unavailability of the D70s devolved into a question about whether the Nikon D70 is a “professional” camera or not.
It started with an comment by davehodg: “The camera is the hammer, the photographer is the craftsman.”
A point I agree with.
sam_ fired back: “Nikon currently produces five digital SLR models, [...]

Caitlin talks about a particular dream of hers: high-definition APS-C sensor videocameras in two articles: here and here, including the much-awaited mention of Sony’s new CMOS sensor.
I’ll go even a step further. I think that such a manufacturer should standardized on a modified Nikon F, Canon EF-S, or Olympus 4/3 (if 4/3″ instead of APS-C) [...]

If you remember from an earlier post, I pointed out that Creative’s strategy just doesn’t understand the iPod market. With over $1 billion in iPod-related accessories sold last year alone, the iPod is not just a device, it is a platform.
It seems Creative has given up trying to compete with Apple, and is suing Apple [...]

I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating:
The Optical Cost Principle:
The cost and weight of optics goes as the cube of the linear dimension of the sensor (or film format).
There is probably already technical term for it. If there isn’t, you can call it ”Terry’s optical cost principle.”
[Discussion after the jump]