The joy of writing

I've kept a technical journal ever since graduating and getting  real job some 27 yeas ago. I started with cheap mead comp books and eventually moved to moleskine leather bound journals as I advanced in my career and I needed something a bit more 'professional'.
One thing that was pretty consistent through this time was my use of rollerball pens as my writing instrument. While I liked nice pens, I usually used whatever my company had in the supply cabinet. Well, I just burned through the entire inkwell of a Pilot Varsity, which was my first experience with a fountain pen and boy, am I hooked! Thick, super inky black lines and a writing experience that is sooo smooth. Ink flows with little to no pressure as if the pen is actually gliding over the paper. Like so many things in this modern era, we've exchanged classic designs for convenience and low cost. The fountain pen is one of those things that has been lost in that shuffle, I for one am glad I rediscovered it. I'm just disappointed that I didn't do so years ago.

Nexus 5 GPS fix confirmed:UPDATE

UPDATE : while the Antenna fix helps, I ended up RMA'ing the phone back to LG - the new phone is now out performing my old Nexus4. So I now conclude that the only REAL fix for a poor GPS is a new phone.... 

Since upgrading to the Nexus 5 I've been happy in every respect EXCEPT for the GPS performance which was so bad it made me second guess leaving the Nexus 4. It often took minutes for the phone find its present location and position accuracy was horrendous.  Playing Ingress was pretty much impossible and doing any sort of navigation was a true test of my patience and had me wishing I still kept a Thomas guide in my truck.
Both my wife and I have Nexus 5s and both have the same terrible GPS performance so I was convinced it was inherent to the phone but the rest of the internet was silent on the issue. It wasn't until digging through the XDA Developer forums did I stumble upon a post that gave me some hope. Apparently there is a fit up issue between the back cover that contains the GPS antenna and its spring loaded connector on the main board.  That was all the excuse needed to break out the case cracking tools give this potential fix a try - and I'm glad I did - while I haven't performed any extensive field test my initial post fix comparison in the video above do indicate a positive affect.

SIG SAUER 516 Patrol Rifile - POF drop in trigger to the rescue

 

Last year I picked up a Sig Sauer 516 patrol rifle off the prize table at the Superstition Mystery Mountanin 3 gun match. With it's 16" barrel I figured I'd turn it into a lightweight carbine which my son Ryan could use to shoot Tac Iron class. 

First impressions were very good, while the big news on the upper is its gas piston operation, the lower had some nice touches like large ambi mag releases, an oversized bolt release/lock buttons, and a setscrew under the grip which applies tension against the upper to give the rifle a nice solid, one piece feel. One thing that immediately stood out on this rifle was how absolutely horrible the trigger was. It wasn't excessively heavy but it was terribly notchy and felt as if they used a hacksaw to cut the sear - any long range stages would not be fun with this trigger.

Instead of breaking out the polishing stones, I elected to take the easy way out and install a POF drop in trigger system - 10 minutes after I started I had a 4.5lb trigger with a sweet, crisp, single stage break. The POF trigger also came with KNS anti walk pins which are a real premium touch. This is exactly the kind of setup I'd expect for the $2000 Sig charges for these rifles.

My new 'Cannon' is a Sigma

My Current Sideline Rig

I've been rocking the Canon 300mmF2.8L on the sidelines for several years now and it has served me well but I was always disappointed when the action came at me or when an spectacular catch happened just feet away from me, I'd end up missing an awesome shot because it was just too tight. I've tried using a second body with a shorter lens but it still wasn't quick or as spontaneous as I'd like. (and since I don't shoot for SI, I felt like a bit of a douche carrying two cameras around).
So this season I picked up the newly released Sigma 120-300mm F2.8 DG OS HSM. Yes, that's a fixed 2.8 aperture, image stabilized, tele to super-tele zoom! I admit, I had my doubts, I've been burned by the inferior image quality of 3rd party lenses before and vowed 'never-again'. I've also read enough reports of just how poor previous versions of this lens (I think this is the 3rd) was that I never really considered it. But in 2013, Sigma has stepped up thier game and started putting out some really fine lenses. Their new 35mm F1.4 prime is truly a 'best in class' lens and has got owners of Canon and Nikon 35s asking themselves why they spent more and got less. So when I read that this lens would be built to the same standards, my curiosity was piqued.
So how did it perform? At first, poorly. I shot two games with it and had a really low 'keeper' rate due to out of focus shots.  But after doing a little research, I found that Sigma programs the AF system to prioritize focus accuracy over focus speed. So I used the Sigma USB dock to setup a custom profile for the lens - (there are two custom profile slots that can store different AF speed profiles and AF Microadjustments which is Sigma's work around for the Camera manufacturers not including 3rd party lenses in their in-camera micro focus adjustments). I set mine up for the High Speed setting and went off and shot another game. Keeper rate was MUCH better, pretty close to on par with the ol' Canon 300. This really is a different lens in this mode. Why Sigma doesn't ship their 'Sports' lens with High Speed AF as default is a mystery, but they do.
Now with the focus issue out of the way I could do some comparisons.

Sharpness:
Very good - I only shoot this lens wide open and it does a good job. It's not quite as sharp as the Canon 300F2.8L but not much else is. I did find it sharper than the 300F4ISL that I used to own. One peculiar characteristic of this lens is that it doesn't seem as sharp on distant objects - don't know if this has to do with the resolving capability of the lens but I noticed that within 50 yards or so, subjects are tack sharp but as distance increases they tend to go soft - I never experienced this with the Canon.

Bokeh:
While I don't intend to use this as a portrait lens, good bokeh is important to get subject / background separation and here a think the Sigma is a bit better than the canon. Specular highlights with my canon were often harsh and had an almost crystallized look to them which could be distracting at times, not a problem with the Sigma, nice round soft orbs of light is all you get here.
Color and Contrast
Since I shoot mainly night games under crappy lights I really can't comment on this one other than under the same conditions I'm finding I'm doing a little more 'tweaking' in Lightroom with the Sigma so I'd take it that to mean the Canon is better (at least in this situation)
Flexibility
Obviously, the Sigma is the hands down winner here since the Canon can't zoom. It is just so great to be able to track a subject coming at you and adjust framing at the same time. The 120mm is by no means wide but on a football field, it's enough to capture the entire coaches huddle or snap sideline portraits without having to back way the hell up. It should be noted that the lens is not a parfocal design so focus changes slightly as you zoom, but I don't think that matters much with AF.

Stretching for the Goal line
Sigma 120-300 @150mm

Here's a shot of a QB keeper play that went to my side, I was able to zoom out and put a little context to his outstretched ball by capturing some of the goal line. With the Canon this would have been 3/4 shot and while it might have been a nice tight shot of his facial expression, I like having the choice to frame the way I want.




In the end, do I think the Sigma is a keeper? Well, all I have to say is there's a big white lens is on craigslist right now...

My new ultra light, long exposure rig

It sure seems my DSLR equipment is gathering a lot of dust lately. For example, I wanted to try out some long exposure photography and when I looked at how much a 83mm, 10 stop ND the filter cost for my 24 TSE lens and then compared it to the price of the same thing for a 49 millimeter filter that would fit my X100s - it was a no brainer -  I was going to experiment with the 100 S.
the Fuji make sense in other areas too because if its leaf shutter design, there's practically no vibration, so a small, cheap tripod will be more than enough to keep this little guy stable for the duration of the exposure.
The whole rig weighs just a hair over 3 pounds and fits inside my Maxpedition Versipack with plenty of room to spare.

Odin TTL functionality on the Canon 1dx!!

Odin Firmware v1.23 for Canon 1Dx available

I've been a Phottix Odin fan since dumping the problematic pocket wizard flex units. The only problem was that TTL functionality with the 1Dx was nonexistent which left me reaching for my 5D mkIII when I wanted the convenience of TTL. Well, the 5D went on Craigslist to make room for some new glass and I was putting my faith in Phottix was doing more than lip service when they told me that they were working a solution for the 1Dx.
Well, they didn't let me down, I literally saw their post announcing the firmware update the morning after sending the 5D home with its new owner! (Can you tell I'm excited?)
I'll be downloading and testing the setup over the next several weeks-thanks Phottix.

Wither pocket wizard....

Sony RX-1 vs. Fuji XE-1 - My take.

I've been playing with both these cameras for the past few weeks with the intent of choosing one as an alternate to my DSLR rigs and main travel camera. I've never been happy with the compromise in image quality you would have to make with compact cameras, so up to this point I've been 'that guy' toting around my 5DmkIII on family outings. I even bought the (amazingly sharp) 40mm pancake lens to make my rig more compact but it's still far from being as small as either of these two cameras.

Build Quality
While both these cameras have a very high end build quality rarely seen these days, the Sony is clearly a step above the with Fuji with its metal lens cap and overall solid construction that makes it feel as if it was machined from a single piece of metal.

RX-1:holds amazing detail in shadows

Design

Here's where I give the Fuji the edge as it most closely captures the feel of my beloved Contax G2. I prefer Fuji's choice of  separate aperture and shutter speed selection dials with the 'A' setting verses Sony's PASM. Call me old school but I really like looking down and seeing the shutter speed with a glance of a dial instead looking at the LCD screen. But one of the biggest nods in the Fuji's favor is the inclusion of a viewfinder - while I'm still not thrilled with the performance of the EVF, it's worlds better than no EVF at all. I really think Sony should have put a viewfinder on the RX-1, I understand they were pushing the envelope on just how small you can make a full frame camera - but I think the slight increase in size to put a viewfinder on the camera would have still resulted in compact design but  it would have made such a big improvement in the way you interact with the camera. I also think it would have resulted in a body size that would be much more proportionally balanced with the lens. I personally don't like the

Performanace
Much has been said on the web on how slow these cameras are in AF in low light, I found neither one unacceptable and much better than I could have done manually. I found AF tracking of moving subjects poor on both cameras that may be disappointing to those who enjoy shooting active subjects.
With well lit subjects, I found both cameras equally snappy in their ability lock focus. General menu navigation and image review and zooming did appear to be slightly better with the Sony but overall, I'd call this one a tie.

RX-1 Beautiful color and Bokeh

 Image Quality
It all comes down to this right? What good is all the handling, ergonomics and compact size advantages if you don't end up with images that make you happy. Neither camera disappoints in this area, both produce beautiful and have low light capabilities that until now was unseen in the compact segment. But the adv pantage goes to Sony with it's extra Megapixels and that beautiful Zeiss lens that can really resolve some amazing detail and can go along way in making up for its fixed 35mm lens with some post processing cropping.
My comparisons may be a bit unfair since the Fuji had a zoom lens vs. a prime but the Sony was giving my 5DmkIII a run for its money so I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb to say that swapping out the zoom would have reversed my opinion.

FUJI XE-1 ISO 6400 Holds detail and color well,  Noise has a very film like grain quality

Conclusion
While +Steve Huff did the same comparison and chose the RX-1 as his personal choice. I came to the opposite conclusion, for me, the Fuji's controls, design of operation and VIEWFINDER won me over. It may be totally superficial but I felt as though I was more 'in touch' with the photographic process with the Fuji. It felt more like a tool in my hand for me to craft my art instead of the latest wiz-bang gadget - and that was significant enough for me to overlook the IQ advantage of the Sony. Some may find the price difference alone enough reason to choose the Fuji but I find that the hurt in the wallet is only temporary, but the sting of dealing with a camera you don't enjoy is much longer lasting. In fact, if Sony would have released the RX-1 with a viewfinder and better controls, I would have no hesitation in paying the asking price. But for now, the Fuji XE-1 will be at my side...

FUJI XE-1: 18-55mm kit lens is no slouch and capable of some sharp images.

Is it time to ditch the SLR?

Canon 5DmkIII w/40mm F2.8 Pancake vs. Fujifilm XE-1 w/18-55mm F2.8-4.0

Every so often I find myself blabbing on how, when I shot film, I sold off all my SLR gear and bought my best loved camera of all time, a Contax G2. It's autofocus was slow, the Carl Zeiss T* prime lenses I had weren't terribly fast but the camera oozed Swiss watch build quality in a small, light-weight, discrete package and boy, shoot a roll of slide film and prepare to drool when you pull it from the developer. To this day with all the cameras I've gone through, I have not had one that I have loved more. While my current 5DmkIII and bag full of 'L' glass can produce some stunning images. They're Critically sharp, high contrast images that the engineer in me really appreciates but the artist in me finds them sterile. I think I understand what Leica owners talk about when they say one camera can render a scene more beautifully than another.

So here we are at the end of 2012 and I'm looking for a compact camera worthy of dumping all my SLR gear over - and we're pretty close. Right now I'm test driving a Fujifilm XE-1, which, while not a pocket camera, with its largest lens attached, it is much smaller than my 5D is with its smallest lens attached- and the whole package weighs less than just one of my 'L' lenses. It's 16 megapixel, APS-C sensor promises to have the resolving power of a full frame. While I haven't taken many shots yet, just playing with it around the house, it appears the IQ is quite good. Good enough to put my 5D on Craigslist? We'll see...

Why I chose Windows 8

I recently built a new monster photo-editing rig - I wanted a fast box to speed up my workflow so I overclocked the latest Ivy Bridge core I7, stuffed it with as much ram as the motherboard could take and filled the drive bays with the latest SSDs. But when it came time to choose and operating system, I discovered my initial choice (my current copy of windows 7) didn't support more than 16GB of ram. I'd have to shell out $90 to upgrade it to the a Win7 Pro version. That was all the excuse I needed to experiment a bit.
I had already been running the RTM version of Windows 8 on my Slate so I was already familiar with it and found it to be very stable. When I went to the Microsoft site to get a release copy to evaluate, I discovered the my first reason for helping my seal the deal for W8...

Cost: Microsoft wants to get everybody over to W8 so if they're running a promotion til the end of the year that if you bought (or built) a computer after July 2012, you can get a full released version of W8 PROFESSIONAL edition for $14.95. Yep, that's right a full install OS for less than $15 - and not just the basic bottom tier version but the PRO edition that I needed to support my 32GB of ram. It was so cheap I bought and extra copy to put on my Slate.

 Speed: WIN8 really optimizes the Boot process compared to WIN7, I can go from power off to sign on in about 10 seconds and that includes BIOS post process. Because of it's fresh release it was built with the latest driver protocols that make use of USB 3.0 - these were still a bit wonky on my old WIN7 box. Actually all my devices had appropriate drivers included in the initial install which has be a first for me in the years I've been building computers.

Storage Spaces: I don't know why Microsoft doesn't market this more but they took a bit of their server technology and built it into the OS. If you don't know, Storage Spaces is kind of like a 'Drobo' approach to storage - you can take a bunch of hard drives of various sizes and interfaces (even external USB drives) and create a pool of storage from which you can provision virtual drives that show up in explorer. You can also select whether you want your data mirrored or striped across multiple drives to allow for data recovery should one or more of the pool drive fail. The OS takes care of everything, if you start running low on space in the pool, the OS warns you and all you need to do is plug in a new drive (or swap a drive out with one of more capacity), add it to the pool and the OS does the rest. Pretty cool. In the past, when my image collection was filling up a drive, I'd buy a larger one, copy all the images over then toss the old drive in the closet. Now I can just freely add capacity and forget about any copying.

Been using this setup for a few months now and through several large shoots with no problems. I've found the OS to be stable on the desktop with a lot of little improvements over WIN7 and nothing I miss - NOT EVEN THE START MENU - I honestly don't understand why the tech media says the new interface is great for touch but sucks on the desktop. While I didn't use the start menu all that much in WIN7, it nothing more than a application launcher, WIN8 has a launcher, it just looks different. While the main tile interface may not contain every installed application one keypress will pull up a display that does...Better yet just start typing the name of the app and it's icon will typically show up ready to launch by time you type the third letter... I really don't think it's worse, or better --- just different.

Hoodman 'Raw Steel' CF Cardreader - USB 3.0 rocks

USB 3.0 is blazing fast but it's not without some faults. Mainly, the with the infancy of the interface, there are quite a few peripherals out there that are labeled USB 3.0 but do not conform to the standard.  I ran it to that recently with my Kingston CF card reader - worked great with Windows 7 but was reduced to a USB 2.0 device with my new box which is running Windows 8. Yes, I know, windows 8 is still a preview and not a final product. But according to the Building Windows 8 blog the USB 3.0 stack in the windows 8 kernel was built from the ground up to the latest standard so I'm taking the position that if something ain't working - it's the device's fault. And to that end, I am happy to find that my latest CF card reader, the Hoodman USB 3.0 Raw Steel UDMA card reader works like a charm with my windows 8 install. Using Sandisk Extreme Pro 32Gb cards I'm getting a rock solid 80Mb/sec transfer rate. Which equates to roughly a little over 3 minutes to download 1000+ (26Gb) of 18Mpixel Raw files (which is a typical football shoot) to the hard disk. While I use to be able to go have a cup of coffee while my images download, now my download is complete before I'm finished grinding the beans.
Another thing I like about the Hoodman is that it is firmware upgradeable, for example Hoodman recently released a firmware update to make the CF reader UDMA 7 compliant. ---I couldn't find any support downloads for the Kingston. So if you looking for a Windows 8 compatible USB 3.0 CF reader - The Hoodman is a good choice

Dream Camera...(revisited)

Back in 2006, I wrote a post which listed all the cameras I've owned  through the years and made a presumptuous conclusion that my days of upgrading were over since I obtained my "Dream Camera", a Canon 1DmkII.  Silly me..
Since then I've had 3 bodies:
Canon 5DmkII - A great image sensor trapped in a slow focusing, mid-grade build quality body.
Canon 5DmkIII - A super image sensor wrapped in a solid body and endowed with the modern AF system of the top of the line 1Dx. An excellent camera that should do more than any photographer short of the sports shooter could ask for.
Canon 1Dx - The top dawg, IQ, high ISO capability and dynamic range that made me choose it, and its premium $$, over the 5D.
My glass collection has also grown to now include: 15mm 2.8 fisheye,14mmF2.8, 24mm 3.5 TS-E II, 17-40F4L,24-105F4LIS,50F1.8, 70-200F2.8LIS II,85F1.2L, 100mmF2.8L Macro, and my baby the 300F2.8L.

So NOW am I done?...hardly. I know better. I can probably say that I'm done with DSLRs at this point as my dream camera now is a one of the new Compact System Cameras. As sensor technology advances, these smaller sensor formats will keep all the advantages of lighter, more compact bodies and lenses without any compromise in image quality. Manufacturers are pretty close to hitting the sweet spot and I'm about to sell my 5DmkIII to move to one of these gems. Leading the pack is the Fuji ex-1 followed by the Sony Nex-6 and with the awesome lenses available for the micro 4/3s systems, those are high on the list as well...

Workflow test: Canon 1Dx

So one of the things I was really looking forward to with my 1Dx was superfast image transfers with it's built in Ethernet port. The 1Dx can be set to connect to a network and upload files to an FTP server either for shooting tethered or for downloading all images after a shoot (which was my interest). I was salivating over the possibility of hooking this up to my gigabit network and sucking a 32Gig shoot down in a few minutes. But as soon as I configured my FTP server and set up the camera to send my first shoot my bubble went bust... a paltry 17MB/sec throughput (slower than my  USB 2.0 reader) Switching to the USB 3.0 port of the camera wasn't much better, averaging just 24MB/sec. So while these interfaces are probably a big improvement for tethered shooting, for larger transfers it looks like the card reader will still reign supreme. Damn shame...

Building a better box for Lightroom...not really

So I finally got tired of putting up with what I thought was an out of date computer system (pre intel 'core i' ) Decided to build a box specifically aimed at speeding up my Lightroom workflow. The latest Ivy Bridge 3770k with 4 hyperthreaded cores overclocked to 4.3Ghz, 32 Gb of ram, 3 SSDs: 1 for the OS, 1 as 'working area' to store the raw files of any shoot actively being worked and 1 SSD dedicated to the Lightroom catalogue database and associated previous. USB3.0 card readers for quick downloading. All running under the control of the svelte Windows 8 operating system.

 This box is fricken hot, but did it do anything for my workflow? Well not really. Improvement was rather disappointing. Importing, and rendering a big shoot is still a  'start and go watch TV' process. Most disappointing is that the image to image load time is still a couple tenths of a second which doesn't sound like much but after shooting a football game at 12 frames a second I want to quickly scan through my shoot to grab the keepers. With this hardware expect (and should get )  INSTANTANEOUS image to image load times. Lightroom is great, but its just a pig so I'm crossing my fingers that they add some GPU acceleration and other speed trick for Lightroom 5.

So I'm calling this new box build a bust for lightroom but as a consolation, I think I'm gonna throw in a NVIDA 660ti and make one rocking gaming box!

3 feet to the right

Went to shoot a local HS football game last night - I love shooting action from the sidelines. Lately, I've been  playing with dialing in the 1Dx and getting use to its controls and setting it up so I can work quickly.
So there I was on the side lines about 35 yards down field from the line of scrimmage. I watch the snap through my 300mm lens and see a big hole develop and running back coming right up the middle, and the defense bites, but it's play action and I see the QB roll out with the ball, lock on target and launch the ball. I pull away from the camera and spot their star receiver hauling ass down the opposite side line, I whip the camera to the action, find him in the view finder, the camera locks focus in an instant. I can see his eyes tracking the ball as it approaches, they widen as ball comes into view, I thought it was out of his reach, he leaps, completely laying out in mid air - this kid was frickin' flying, it was so awesome. I start firing off the shutter but WTF?  I see a zebra flash across my viewfinder! I've been wanting for a shot like this since I've been shooting football and just my luck, that official ate his wheaties that morning and actually kept up with these kids - good for him, but damn if it screwed my shot.

Don't give up on that small sensor just yet.

While everyone is going ga-ga over the latest 'big sensor in a small camera' (including me admittedly) There is still some image related advantages of a small sensor pocket cam - Macro shots are just crazy easy with these guys. Their small sensor means super depth of field, and while not so favorable for portraits of people, it's a plus on macro portraits of little creatures such as my six-eyed friend here. 

I found this guy crawling around our campsite on a recent trip and grabbed this shot with my trusty Canon Powershot G9.  I never used the viewfinder, I just stuck the lens about an inch away from this guy half pressed til I heard the 'beep' and fired - the wide DOF kept him nice and sharp. Lighting was provided by the built-in flash and what's neat is that at these close distances, the lens is closer to the subject than the flash is to the lens so it results in an off-axis light just like off camera flash  but without all the triggers and extra gear. (I actually had to hold the camera upside down so the flash was close enough to light the subject, right side up, it was casting the light about 2 feet behind the subject.)

I think the results (make sure you click the picture to see it full size) weren't too shabby for a camera that cost less than 1/3 the price of good Macro lens for the DSLR. 

Field test: Canon 1Dx -initial thoughts.

My 1Dx first field test

I've been a Canon shooter ever since I went digital 10 years ago. My progression through Canon's DSLR line up has been the D30, 10D, 1DmkII, 5DmkII, 5DmkIII and now the 1Dx. I mainly shoot high school football which, if you don't know, is mainly played at night in about the worst lighting you should ask a camera to shoot action sports in. My typical exposure settings of 1/500 sec @ F2.8 meant my ISO would range between 2500 to 6400 depending on the field and location. For the last couple seasons the 5DmkII was filling this role and even with its low frame rate and antiquated 9 point AF system, I was getting a fair amount of `keepers' it just took a bit more planning and anticipating the play to make sure I was focused on the right subject at the right time. I made the plunge this year with the 1Dx in hopes that is superior low light image quality coupled with real sports oriented AF and frame rate would allow me to be a bit more spontaneous on the sideline and really increase my `keeper' rate.

Ergonomics:
It doesn't get any better than this. Ever since the 1DmkII, I've fallen for the 1D body configuration and I've fitted all my cameras with extended battery grips but they never come close to the comfort of a real 1D body. All controls (and Canon crammed a lot of em in there) fall comfortably under your thumb and finger tips. You can quickly make adjustments to most of the major camera settings without ever taking your eye from the viewfinder. I sorta wish they used a dial for mode selection like on the 5D, I use custom settings quite a bit and I think using the dial to switch between them is much faster than the 1Dx's button press plus scroll - but that's such a small nit pic.

AF:
Most of the internet reviews have commented how immediate the AF is on the 1Dx - I guess it's all relative, compared to my 5DmkII this thing is WORLDS faster but my old 1DmkII with the 300F2.8 lens has been my standard for AF speed and tracking performance and regardless of what the numbers say, I don't feel that the 1Dx is significantly faster than that model is - just than now I can finally enjoy this focusing speed at night - I really is nice to be able to see a pass, find the receiver, point and snap into focus.

Spontaneous shots like this weren't possible with my 5DmkII

What the 1Dx does bring to the table is 4 menu pages of AF parameter settings to tweak. I'm a major geek so I appreciate the ability to tweak things the way I like but I'm sure others may have an opinion similar to my Nikon friend that says `you shouldn't need a 32 page white paper to learn how to use the autofocus of your camera...It should just work'. I can't really argue with that logic.
One interesting mode that is exclusive to the 1Dx (for now) is Canon's Intelligent Tracking and Recognition(iTR) mode that uses data from the 100,000 pixel color metering system to `recognize' the subject and track it across the screen automatically switching between the 61 AF sensors to maintain focus. Wow this sounds really awesome, reading the marketing literature. But, iTR can only be selected when the camera is in Automatic Focal point Selection, a mode that I never use because it rarely focuses on what I want to focus on . Unfortunately I found this to be true here as well, at least for my Football shooting, where there are many objects in view, all wearing similar colors. I'd imagine it'd work pretty well on single subjects, like a tennis player or a car on a track, but then again, I never had issue with the accuracy of the normal AiServo modes for tracking things like this.

Image Quality:
It all comes down to this right? Canon's flagship doesn't disappoint here, I found images to have great color rendition and excellent resolution. Subtle textures are rendered with such great detail that doesn't make me miss the extra megapixels of the 5D. And unlike the files I got from the 5DmkII, which I found to be a bit unexciting and in need a bit of mid tone contrast adjustment and sharpening in post, I am liking these straight out of the camera.
In my initial game day outing I did something I never do, I shot in jpg. I wanted to see how all the camera's bells and whistles worked to produce a finished image. So I set the camera to F2.8@1/500s and let the camera auto adjust ISO for the correct exposure.
I found the camera's auto white balance did an excellent job maintaining sensible colors as lighting changed from daylight to dusk to sodium vapor lighting. The Matrix metering did an admirable job of not blowing out white jerseys against a dark background. The Standard Noise reduction setting however, was a little too heavy handed for my taste, smearing finer textures into an almost cellophane look but otherwise excellent in holding detail in medium and larger textures and eliminating color noise in the shadows. Any noise in the shadows had a film like grain to it which I found pleasing. All in all, I'd judged the jpg quality with NR to be better that what I was able to achieve shooting raw at the same ISO with the 5dmkII and doing NR in post. I think if I bump the NR down a click, I'll be happy shooting jpg and finally just go from shoot to publish without any post processing.

1/500 F2.8 ISO5000

Conclusion:
The 1Dx is an AMAZING camera, I barely touched on a fraction of its feature (nor will I likely use all of them), but $6700? That's $2k more than the 1DmkIV it replaces. I think Canon pushing their prices a bit too far North lately and honestly, if I didn't have a fortune in Canon Lenses, I'd be writing a Nikon review right now.

You may have noticed there was a 5DmkIII in my opening paragraph; I picked that up because I was afraid the 1Dx wouldn't ship before the season started. I seriously thought of cancelling the 1Dx order after shooting the 5DmkIII as all my complaints about the mkII were fixed - better build quality, higher frame rate, a modern AF system. In fact the jury is still out on this one. I'm only keeping one of them so I'll be shooting these side by side this season - I think the 5DmkIII may win out at $3k less.

HTC One S vs. Galaxy Nexus

 I recently 'downgraded' my phone. Yes, you read that right, this early adopting geek dumped HTC's latest hotness for a 6 month old Galaxy Nexus. Why? The butter, baby (I'll explain). 

First off, I've always thought HTC made better phones than Samsung and the One S is more proof of this. It  is a much better phone and clearly beats the Galaxy Nexus in the following areas:

• Camera: More Megapixels, MUCH faster response and the super-slow motion video capture is a fun feature. 
• Faster Processor
• Build Quality - The One S oozes quality. Fit and finish as well as it's sleek design make the Galaxy Nexus look like a hunk of cheap plastic. I personally think the One S of the nicest looking phones out there right now - yes even better that Apple's 4s, but I guess that's not saying much as the Iphone is at the end of it's design cycle. 
• Better Antenna design, Cell, GPS and WiFi performance of the HTC beats the Samsung by a mile in this area - Both WiFi and GPS performance is spotty on this Samsung (and Samsungs I've had in the past) The Samsung routinely drops GPS signal if not placed high up on the dash of my truck whereas the HTC never skipped a beat when placed deep in my center console. 

 So those are some pretty significant pluses for the HTC so why the switch?

• Pure Google: The Nexus Line always has the Vanilla Android OS the way Google intended without any goofy skins place in there by the manufacturers that in the past slowed things down and changed or broke some of the OS's basic functionality. 
• Higher Resolution Screen - While it's not that noticeable to me on the phone, but on the occasion when I hook up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse the extra resolution does a better job of filling a 20" monitor.
• NFC - not that I use this now, but it's something I'm looking forward to seeing what creative new ways devs will incorporate this tech into their apps - and I'll be able to play with it. 
• Interchangeable battery - batteries never last forever - especially in Arizona - so having to send a phone back to the factory to replace a battery in a year is not something I want to deal with. Also, I like having a spare, fully charged battery to swap out in times when a charger isn't near by.  
• Super Hackable - The Nexus line has typically been a developer platform and because of that they are super easy to unlock, root, and load alternate ROMs. And since there is no manufacturer skin to modify or Carrier testing to perform, they are the first inline to get the latest OS releases. In fact, I updated my phone to Jelly Bean using a posted OTA image even before it was put on Google's servers. 
• Super Dev support: Being a development platform, Nexus phones have always had a lot of support from the ROM community which really extends the life of the phone. Heck I think the Nexus One I passed down to by Son had a stable version of ICS on it much faster than any OTA update for much more modern handsets. 

What about the butter? Oh yes - project butter - The bottom line reason I switched to the Galaxy Nexus was to get Google's latest Operating system, Jelly Bean which had extensive modifications to the UI framework. In my opinion, Google hit a home run with this one. The phone and it's UI are so much smoother and more responsive - making it feel faster than the HTC despite the Nexus' slower processor. My HTC would still have an occasional frame jitter during some scrolling activities - I haven't encountered any lapse while on the Galaxy Nexus - it pure butter baby!. 

Jelly Bean is supposed to be just incremental improvements on the major update that came with ICS but in my mind, it's more than that.  UI responsiveness was one of the last areas where IOS was still superior to Android. No matter how big of an Android fanboy you are, you have to admit IOS could always be counted on as providing a silky smooth user experience that wasn't matched by any device running Android. But with Jelly Bean, Google has erased this advantage and has finally delivered a polished, Mature OS...all for free.

OMG: flickr is actually still alive

I have to be honest, I haven't been very active on flickr this past year. Infact, l almost didn't renew my PRO account.  Why? l guess I was finding flickr pretty stale.  The interface hasn't changed much since joined in 2006.  There are still a  lot of really good photographers using flickr but it was pretty painful browsing the UI  to find their work.  I'd typically goto my favorite group load a couple pages & give up.  The new refresh of the groups 'more pictures' UI was something that was sorely needed. Its tiles load  fast and scroll smoothly which makes browsing, even on my tablet much more enjoyable.
 It's nice to know there are still some developers left at flickr, maybe next year my decision to renew will be easier.

Self Assignment:Cowboys

Rifleman, originally uploaded by photogeek21.

A couple weeks ago I did something for the first time. It didn't have anything to do with lighting, technique or post processing. In fact, it had more to do with personal phobia than photography - I asked a total stranger if I could take their portrait. To my releif, they said yes. Actually, everyone I asked was more than happy to pose for me. It was good practice too, since I was on their time, I had to set up quick grab the shot, thank them and let them get back to what they were doing - no time to fart around with different lighting angles and such, just know what I wanted, set up and do it - nerve racking and fun at the same time.

I'd been thinking about a self assignment for a while now so when I saw that there was a cowboy shooting match at my local range, I grabed my camera and lighting bag and headed out the door.

It wasn't all about picture taking either, I truly treated this as an assignment and introduced myself to the match director and made sure he was okay with me strolling through his course of fire. I interviewed several of the competitors to get a bit of insight into their sport. And while I'm far from being a writer, I shared a little of what I learned in my flickr post.

I also sent 5x7 prints to those that posed for me as a token of appreciation for helping me out. Got some great feedback too, One wrote to tell me that when he pull out the picture his wife saw it, grabed it, and said "this one's mine" and has got it on display in her office.

So I guess my first self assignment was a sucess, I got the shot (and didn't get shot), learned quite abit about cowboy shooting, and met some really cool people.

Wireless tethering on the cheap.

One of the lesser talked about features of the new Canon 5D mkIII  is its ability to simultaneously write to both an SD and CF card.  CF cards are by far the pro standard for speed, capacity & reliability but the SD card is significant because it allows the use of an Eye-fi wireless card. With Eye-fi's free app, I was able to wirelessly tether my 5D to a Kindle fire. With the camera set to write raw files to the CF card and medium Rez Jpg's to the Eye-fi card, I can get maximun image quality & fast transfer times to the kindle.  I've tested this setup on my last shoot and it worked out well.  As good as the 5D's new high res screen is, it was so much nicer to check critical focus on the larger screen,  but  what was really valuable was the ability to show the images to the subject in order to provide direction without them move off mark or having to take my camera off the tripod.
 Another good thing about this setup is that its relatively cheap -the Eye-fi is about  $50, the app is free and you canpickup refurb kindle fires for less than $140.
I currently have a 1Dx on pre-order but now I'm a bit disappointed that its 2nd card slot is for a CF and not an SD. I may need to reconsider that potential purchase...