Category Archives: gear

the bicycle obsession

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IMG_5087.jpgDo all photographers have a pet obsession? Your cat maybe? Or interesting windows? Or – i think this is a phase in every female photog life – pictures of the feet.

After a few tens of thousands of photos I can safely say that I have a few obsessions of mine. I can no longer call them ‘pet’ as they are pretty adult, as obsessions go.

One of them – as you probably found from the picture on the right – is taking pictures of bicycles.

Preferably old, or decorated / painted in interesting colors, and places in interesting surroundings. I do not know why – I have not ridden a bicycle in about 2 years, so it has no relationship to other hobbies. Of course I can rationalize about hidden meanings – movement, age of things, clean and responsible traffic – but I know that when I see a bike I just take the camera.

Shoot first, think later.

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digital nomad – a talk at radio Lynx

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This is an older talk I had at radio Lynx – Romanian online radio – which I didn’t find the time to post here.

The information is pretty basic, but some of the ideas might prove interesting even to seasoned travelers. More and more people chose to carry a laptop or at least a digital camera when on holidays. The subject of storage space, useful software, web sites and other aspects of the digital life becomes very interesting. (video after the break – in Romanian only)

continue reading digital nomad – a talk at radio Lynx »→

Canon 600D – I’m hesitantly enthusiastic

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Today the new Canon 600D was announced. While the rumor sites had most of the specifications right for some time, I was awaiting the official announcement and the DPReview hands-on preview. I hungrily read the specifications, and the comparison to Canon 550D (which I shoot with). And I have to say that fortunately for my budget, I will wait for the next-gen Canon Rebel (probably in 2012).

When I found out about the 60D – and later on read the rumors about 600D – I made a mental list of the improvements, and of the things I would like in one of the newer bodies. The one and only big change is the articulating LCD. No improvement to live AF, no improvement to the kit lens (which is amazingly good, mind you, but one can always dream, no?) and no improvement (at least at first impressions) to the high ISO noise levels. While I would like an articulating LCD, this is no reason for me to change.

Now don’t get me wrong – the Canon 600D (or Canon T3i, same thing) – has a lot of interesting additions and improvements. As Canon said in their press release – the 600D will comfortably sit (spec-wise) between 550d and 60D. Articulating screen is a big change. Also wireless transmitter – yes, canon has put wireless master flash into the “lowly” Rebel. To clarify what this means – Canon has put the equivalent of a 300 USD accessory into an entry level camera. This is an amazing addition for someone shooting with multiple Speedlites. A lot of changes to Basic+, Creative filters, auto modes are also included. For someone who shoots mostly RAW, these changes are not very interesting. However, I can definitely see the benefits. The more I think about what the 600D brings new compared to the old Rebel, the more of a sweet package it seems. While it may not be the moment for me to upgrade, for someone coming from a 400D – 500D I can see a lot of benefits.

Canon also brought a new Rebel Lite (this is what I call the 1xxx series) – the Canon Rebel 1100D. It’s a nice improvement from the older 1000D. I do not see the point to it, so I will not comment.

So – for someone looking into the entry DSLR market, Canon has brought a very nice package. For someone looking for an upgrade – maybe wait a generation.

What are your thoughts? I’m interested especially to hear from people who have already a DRebel – do you see any big feature that warrants an upgrade?

house cleaning operation

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No, I did not clean my house nor prepare it for CouchSurfing (which I intend to do). Instead I did a pretty thorough cleanup on the blog.

Most important thing is that I removed most of the broken links – some were caused by me changing the permalinks structure, some images from Picasa went missing and some broken links were caused I think by cosmic radiation. No other explanation. For this I used a pretty nice WordPress plugin called “Broken Links”. I does its job pretty well.

A second change is that I moved the RSS feed to feedburner – which I discovered incidentally was acquired by Google. I for one welcome our Google overlords. As web designer I think i use more tools from Google than from anyone else. Maybe with the exception of Adobe.

Other modifications include changing the permalink structure to drop the useless year/month/day format, changing the location from /blog/ to the root of andreinicoara.com, and other small “under the hood” changes.

Busy bee.

changing the paradigm

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My current camera is a Canon 550D – it’s a very nice body, low-priced, great color and resolution, a great tool. Compared with my old 400D, it’s a significant improvement. Compared to my old 300D (first DSLR) it’s in a different league. So, even if I toyed with the idea of a Panasonic GF1 for some time, I am extremely happy with the 550D.

And then Sony came and ruined my day. Ruined in the sense that I am entertaining the idea not only to buy a second DSLR this year (a big no-no in my book) but actually jumping systems. Sony A55 SLT is a game-changing camera. In-body stabilization + GPS + phase-detect AF + articulated screen equal an amazingly sweet package. An to add even more appeal to the package Sony released a 35mm/f1.8 and an 85mm/f2.8 at some very sweet pricing.

dpreview.com review, Luminous Landscape review – all praise this new camera, and the concepts introduced by Sony in the A55 seem to be a winning formula.

Soon I will start watching B&H for this new camera.

iPhone dying ? I hope it’s just Monday blues…

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IMG_5950.jpgI am now frantically searching my room for the iPhone warranty. It seems that the problems it has cannot be solved by a simple restore. Of course, what I did manage was to wipe my music and podcasts collections. Fortunately I still have my old iPod, so I just need to charge it again.

After some rigorous testing – involving a lot of restarts, some swearing and googling around – it seems that the problems are not going away without a trip to the phone doctor. But what does it do? Actually it no longer does things. Like connecting to a WiFi network (ant network). Or seeing any Bluetooth devices around. So beside cellular data, I am connectionless.

I noticed this lack of connectivity in Paris, when I wanted to browse the free WiFi. And today it was confirmed that it’s a real problem, and not a bad settings combination (as I hoped).

I’m actually sad. I am looking now at a phone with WinMo and find it so ugly and lacking of any style. But it will have to do for the moment…

And now, back to searching for the *&%^*% warranty.

Oh, and the picture? Just eye candy.

Quechua 2seconds tent – my impressions

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Last weekend I first took my new tent to the seaside, in Vama Veche. I bought it one month ago from Decathlon, and with the first occasion I tried it.

Fortunately for me, yet unfortunately for testing the tent, the weather was pretty good. Two hours of rain do not pose a great challenge to a good tent, so I have no idea how it will behave in a storm or heavy rain. Of course, I would prefer not to have to find out!

The 2 seconds time advertised for setting up is a bit misleading. While the tent does take only 2 seconds to fully pitch, it will probably take close to 5 minutes to take it out of the carrying case and to stake it down. However, it is impressive. I can manage to pitch it in complete darkness and after consuming a few beers (which usually is the case in Vama Veche).

Taking it down though on Sunday proved far trickier. Only the first time it is confusing, as now I can do it very quickly. Or so I hope. I was almost ready to search for someone on the beach with the same kind of tent to help me. But my patience paid off, and after I looked at the schematics in all possible ways I finally managed to do a proper job.

continue reading Quechua 2seconds tent – my impressions »→

WiFi blues

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At this moment I have 2 posts ready to publish. They just await some picture – after all this is mostly a photo blog.

Right now I am in Paris, trying to upload the pictures with Picasa, from the WiFi in the hostel lobby. However, it seems that the hostel employees are trying to ration the bandwidth excesivelly. A lot of services are not working, and the ones that do are sluggsh as hell. It is annoying as hell – first Skype breaks, Picasa, I get timeouts on all the webpages.

SO for the moment I have to find alternate ways to upload the pictures. And beside trying that at 3am, I have no better idea. Hopefully I will find something.

the new Canon 500D Digital Rebel

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Canon announced their latest incarnation of the Digital Rebel line, now with more bells and whistles. All the juicy specifications, and also a short preview, can be found at dpreview. I find the Canon naming fascinating: Canon EOS 500D, Rebel T1i, Kiss X3…all for the same camera. Even Zoso wrote about the Canon DSLR.

As I am seriously considering an upgrade (I have the older model 400D), I tried to think clearly about the improvements. And I have to say that some of them are really sweet: 15mpixels, 14bit RAW files, ISO 3200 – 12800, larger lcd, seemingly a better viewfinder, and of course movie mode.

However, not everything is peachy…

continue reading the new Canon 500D Digital Rebel »→

adventures in Apple land – day 4

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And so, the story continues. Some people asked me how I manage with my new shiny toy – the iPhone 3G. Well, after being unconvinced that the iPhone is a good phone for such a long time, I have to finally accept the fact that I’m a convert.

I slowly start to become a fanboy. The fact that I have unlimited data plan sure helps (as I can use any feature and test any application), but the truth is that the ease of use is amazing.

I will try to post a short review with the things I like, focusing on things different from Windows Mobile gadgets I’m used to.

continue reading adventures in Apple land – day 4 »→