XLCR's tech blog

Ok, so I’ve been learning – slowly – about proper photography. I’ve already gone and bought a Canon EOS 450D, and have started to get the hang of all this aperture and f-stop business. Something I noticed fairly early on was that although you’ve got more control over things like shutter speed and aperture, it’s still very hard to get good photos in low light conditions without resorting to a tripod and long exposure times. How do other photographers take photos indoors without a tripod?

It turns out that you need a lens which lets more light in; this means that the shutter speed can be faster and you get less chance of blur. The lens that comes with the EOS 450D has an aperture size – or f-stop – of 3.5 to 5.6. Now, until recently that meant nothing to me, and to be honest, I’m still not completely clear on how the numbers are relevant. What I do know, though, is that smaller numbers – e.g f1.8 rather than f3.5 – means that more light can enter the lens, because this means that the aperture is larger (the aperture is formed by the iris mechanism inside the lens). It also has an effect on depth of field – if the iris is wide open, then light is coming in across the full width of the lens. Due to the curved construction of the glass inside a lens, the light that enters through the outer edge of a lens tends to get scattered, and that results in the blurry background typical of SLR photography. A smaller aperture, say f5.6, means less light entering at the edges of the lens, so what light there is isn’t scattered and more of the background is in focus.

Anyway, eventually I realised that I needed a lens which had a larger aperture than my 3.5 lens. As luck would have it, there is actually a lens available which fits the bill, and even better, it’s dead cheap! For around £70-£80 you can pick up the Canon EF 50mm f1.8 MK2 lens, otherwise known as the “nifty fifty”. First thing to point out – this lens has no zoom capability; it’s a fixed length. It’s also not much in the wide-angle stakes, at 55mm (haven’t worked out quite how focal lengths work yet!), and it feels a bit cheaper than the lenses that came with the camera – which it is! But that doesn’t matter when you see its party piece – brilliant low-light shots, and stunning depth-of-field effects! I can now take shots indoors without worrying about camera shake – brilliant!

I found a thread over on the “Photography on the net” forums where lots of people are posting photos taken with the Canon EF 50mm f1.8 MK2 lens.

For a while now, I’ve been thinking of learning how to take better photographs. I’ve got a decent compact digital camera – the Fuji FinePix F810 – but I wanted something with more flexibility. A few friends of mine have gone down the DSLR route recently so I started to think about it again. Then I noticed my wife looking at DSLRs and we figured we might as well get one since we were both interested!

As usual, I started off with some internet research. What sort of prices were we looking at, what was available, what would give us the ability to start simple but get more advanced – that sort of thing. Very soon, however, it became apparent that there were three main contenders that deserved more investigation – the Canon EOS 450D, the Nikon D60 and the Sony Alpha A350.

Here’s what I discovered and how I decided which camera to buy:

Nikon D80: Nikon’s a big name in cameras, been around for a while, but I figure that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the best any more. The D80, whilst the same level as the other two, is older, and ‘only’ 10 megapixels. Now, I know that for 4×6 prints that’s more than enough, but I’d rather have the ability to crop my images and still have a decent resolution. The D80 has 11-point autofocus, which beats the Canon which has ‘only’ 9 points. You’ll notice me using ‘quotes’ a few times – that’s because I think of some points as relative; for example, ‘only’ 9 AF points still beats the one I am used to using! Anyway, the Nikon also doesn’t seem to have any form of image stabilisation. All the reviews I can find rate it very highly – often the best – in terms of actual results, though. This seems to be the best camera judged on images alone. However, it does have some flaws in my eyes, namely no sensor cleaning facility and no image stabilising. Nikon also has a heeee-uge range of lenses to choose from when the time comes to expand.

Sony A350: Sony? What do Sony know about decent cameras? Well, it turns out they know quite a bit! The A350 looks very tempting – the first things that jumped out at me were the sensor-cleaning, 14 megapixel count and image stabilising which works with any lens. It also has a colour LCD screen which flips out from the body, so you can take photos (via the sceren) with the camera held away from your eyes. That could be useful. So far, the Sony is looking good from a gadget point of view. However, some further research shows that the lens selection isn’t as good.

Canon EOS 450D: Canon? Again, what do they know about stuff other than printers? Well, apparently, quite a bit. For starters, everyone else I know who has boufght a DSLR has bought this one. But they could all be wrong, so I’ll make my own decision. The Canon is 12 megapixels – which was my mental benchmark – and has sensor cleaning. Image stabilisation is available, but only in certain lenses – one of which comes with the camera. It also has sensor lockup – apparently this would be useful for trying to get super-sharp images as it reduces vibration. There are also more lenses available for it. It has a massive LCD panel, and can do 3.5fps if required. It’s also much smaller than the other two, and that surprised me. Finally, it seems to have more control flexibility, meaning that as I learn more, it will still keep up with me – I won’t be wanting to upgrade too soon.

So, in the end, I bought the Canon EOS 450D. I’m sure I would have been just as happy with the results from the other two, but on paper the EOS 450D made more sense. It was a decent price – less than £500 with a zoom lens from Jessops (after £50 cashback, which just arrived today). I’ve already bought my first additional lens – a Canon EF 50mm f1.8 MK2 – and I’ll write more about that in another post.

Useful links:

• Camera Labs review of Nikon D80
• Camera Labs review of Sony A350
• Camera Labs review of Canon Eos 450D

My wife and I have recently started to get into DSLR photography, and have bought ourselves a Canon Eos 450D camera. I’ll be posting more about that later, explaining why we chose that model and so on.

Right now, though, I wanted to let you know about a great way to save some money if you’ve got one of these cameras – or indeed, any of the other Canon EOS cameras – and want a remote control.

The Canon EOS 450D remote control will cost you £20-£25 in the shops. However, I’ve just bought one off eBay for £4 including P&P! It’s not an official Canon item, it’s a Jianisi remote control, but it works just fine – here’s a link:

Canon EOS 450D Remote Control

Ignore all the extra buttons on there – only two work on the Canon cameras, and they either take a photo instantly (after focussing, that is), or after a 2-second delay. This is the same as the official Canon remote.

This remote is branded with “Jianisi”, not Canon,  and looks like it would also work with other brands of camera. I’ve checked and pressing the other buttons does emit infra-red commands, so it looks like it’s a multi-remote control that just gets listed on eBay under all the different brands it supports.

I haven’t confirmed the range of the remote, but to be honest I’m really just interested in being able to put my camera on a tripod and take a photo without risking movement being caused by me pressing the shutter release on the camera. For £4 I figure there’s nothing to lose!

Anyway, if you’re looking for a cheap remote control for a Canon EOS camera, this is definitely worth trying!

Update and summary: I’ve noticed a lot of people hitting this page by Googling “Tomtom 930 vs 940″. If you want to know which is better, I’d say the 930 – it’s around £45 cheaper on Amazon, but with the 940 you’d need to buy the remote, and you might also want the TMC receiver (more on that below), so it’s actually £90 cheaper to get the 930. And with the Tomtom “Latest Maps” gaurantee, you won’t be buying an out-of-date unit – you can download the latest map for free, same as on the 940. For more of my thoughts on the two units, read on…

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Earlier this year, I bought the TomTom GO 930T Satellite Navigation System.Since I had a new car, I figured I might as well get a new Satnav to go with it, and I’ve always been a TomTom fan so it was the obvious choice. It’s a lovely bit of kit, as Satnavs go, and has done a great job so far – although it does have a couple of drawbacks.

The first problem, and this is only a minor thing as it can be easily turned off, is the “Lane Assistance” option. This is a great thing in theory, but in reality it is quite possibly the most stupid and potentially dangerous “feature” you could have on a Satnav, and I’ll tell you why. The theory is that as you approach a motorway junction, it will replace your usual map view with a 2D “picture” of the junction, complete with gantry signs and even scenery. It will then flash big-ass green arrows on the screen showing you exactly which lane you should be in.

Here’s the thing, though. Most junctions are fairly straightforward – you get in the exit lane and keep left or right as appropriate. No use for Lane Assistance there. Where you do need Lane Assistance, though, is on complicated junctions – and that’s exactly where it’s completely useless, if not dangerous. The reason is that the TomTom will flash up the junction image around half a mile before the junction, and complicated junctions tend to have multiple exits quite close together. Because the usual map view has been replaced, it is very difficult to work out which exit you should be taking, and a couple of times I’ve followed the Lane Assistance instructions only to realise, at the last moment, that I was too early and was taking the wrong exit. We’ve all seen idiots join the exit lane only to swerve back onto the main carriageway for no apparent reason, and this isn’t going to help!

So, that’s my first moan about the 930, but I’ve turned off Lane Assistance so it doesn’t bother me (unless TomTom Home installs an update, in which case it gets turned back on… Gah!).

My second moan is a bigger issue, and what led to this entry. The 930 comes with the RDS-TMC receiver, usually an optional extra. The RDS-TMC receiver picks up traffic data which the 930 can use to avoid traffic jams. Only problem is, it’s not very useful near north London or the northern half of the M25; for some reason, it just can’t lock on to a frequency and get data with any reliability. As soon as I get 15-20 miles outside the M25 it’s OK, but I can never get a signal on the M25 or thereabouts. It worked fine all the way to Europe and back, but as soon as I got within signage distance of the M25 it gave up. I figure there’s too much radio “noise” around London so the RDS signal isn’t strong enough. I was all set to buy the Traffic HD device TomTom were advertising, as it used a mobile phone data connection (with a built-in SIM), but it never appeared.

Instead, they’ve launched the next range of Go devices – the x40 range. They’ve got the Live service built in, meaning there is a mobile SIM card in the Go, and it receives traffic – and other – data over GSM instead of the less reliable RDS-TMC method. I was sorely tempted to upgrade and sell my 930 on eBay, but after careful consideration, I might give it a miss, and here’s why…

The TomTom GO 940 Live,and indeed the TomTom GO 740 Liveare cheeky little teases! They go on about how you get traffic information and petrol prices and whatnot, but it’s only if you dig a little deeper that you find out that these services only work in the country where you bought the device. Now this might sound fairly obvious – it’s using a GSM connection which has a fixed monthly subscription and would therefore be hard to allow for roaming charges – but the main selling point of the Go 740 Live and Go 940 Live are that they include maps of Europe, and even America in the case of the 940. So, you can drive all over Europe, but you can forget about getting traffic info as soon as you leave Blighty! So, on the one hand, you’ve got a great Traffic info service; on the other, it’s only available on a small percentage of the maps the device includes.

You can now buy an TomTom RDS-TMC Traffic Receiverfor the Go x40 which plugs into the USB socket, but it’s an extra £28 (on Amazon) on top of the Go itself. Plus, they don’t include the remote control any more, so you’ll need to buy the TomTom GO Bluetooth Remote, £25 from Amazon.So, in order to match the 930 I have to spend at least another £50 on the 940, and that’s on top of the fact it costs around £50 more than the 930. And then you’ve got the monthly sub for the Traffic service which you won’t always be able to use if you’re not in the country.

So, all in all, I think the 940 is a giant leap backwards for TomTom. Looks like I might be updating my 930 maps instead…

It’s been six days now since I put my 4Gb RAM upgrade back into my 15″ MacBook Pro (Late 2008, Unibody). So far, I have had one Kernel Panic, but no freezes or other issues. It wasn’t really being stressed when it had the Panic, but it had been on permanently since the memory went back in (I usually don’t reboot unless I do an update, the Mac seems waaay more stable than any PC so I never have to). That Panic was two days ago.

I’ve alsdo just done the firmware and SMC updates from Apple, although I don’t think there was anything in them related to the 4Gb issue.

Another issue I, and others, have come across, is that the new “unibody” MacBook Pros don’t wake up external displays after going to sleep.

I’m using a HP w19e LCD monitor attached via the mini displayport > HDMI adapter (I used it just fine on my previous MacBook) and it will usually not turn on when I wake the MBP from sleep (the laptop’s built-in display comes on just fine). Normally it’s as simple as the display staying in “no input signal = sleep” mode, but sometimes it will display brief flickering “static”, for want of a better word. Plenty of others on the Apple Support forums are seeing the same thing.

I’ve discovered a work-around which, whilst not ideal, does get the external display working again:

In “System Preferences”, go to “Desktop & Screen Saver” and set up a Hot Corner – I use the top left – to “Sleep Displays”. Then, if the external display doesn’t come on after the MacBook has been sleeping, I force the displays into Sleep again by using the Hot Corner, then wake them up after a couple of seconds by moving the mouse. This usually brings the external display back.

Other users have suggested setting the MacBook to use the 9600 graphics card (“Higher Performance” in Energy Saving preferences) or turning off the ambient light sensor. Some also suggest turning off the “Dim display before sleep” option, but turning it off hasn’t made any difference to me.

So, along with the 4Gb RAM problems, it looks like Apple have a bit of patching to do with these new laptops!

Having upgraded to a Macbook Pro, the first thing I did with it was upgrade the hard drive and memory, just like I did with my first Macbook. However, after a few days of use, it suddenly started suffering Kernel Panics and random freezes. After running diagnostics and swapping the hard drive back, all with no improvement, I checked out the Apple support site and found a number of people saying exactly the same thing was happening to them – they’d upgraded to 4Gb and now their Macbook Pro was crashing.

Some posts claimed that certain brands of RAM – Hynix & Samsung in particular – seemed to be OK, whereas others, even Crucial, would cause problems. My RAM is Transcend. On the plus side, a few posts suggest that 3Gb – an original 1Gb and an upgraded 2Gb stick – would work OK whilst we await news from Apple of a fix.

Out of curiosity, while I was buying a sleeve for my laptop in Albion, an Apple reseller on the Strand in London, I asked if they’d come across this problem, and was told they had and that it was a fault with the logic board in the late 2008 Macbook Pros. They also suggested that Apple might be recalling them, but didn’t give me any more information such as where they’d got that information from, so I have no idea if it’s true or not.

Anyway, just to check it was the memory causing my problems and nothing else, I put the original 2Gb back in, and the laptop was fine for five days. Today I decided to try the 4Gb again, just in case I hadn’t seated it correctly or something daft like that. So far, after about 12 hours of usage, it has been fine, but then it was fine for a few days after putting the RAM in the first time, so time will tell. If it does play up then I’ll drop down to 3Gb and see how that goes.