Nikon D850

The dim sum I ordered for just me

This weekend I started out in pretty rough shape.   I had rolled into bed saturday morning at 05:30 from doing a fraturday work schedule.  We started at 15:00 on friday and worked through the night.  Side note:  I have to say that this production is great in that it offered us taxi rides home and or a hotel to sleep in.  All this for only working 14 hours.   If this is the norm in Vancouver then they totally have a one up on the film industry in Toronto.  I'd worked 16-20 hour shifts on some shows in Toronto with none of that offered.

I got out of bed feeling pretty groggy.  It was raining and overcast outside which didn't help me feel awake in anyway.   I had posted an invite mid week for some friends to meet up for dim sum at 13:00.   I never changed the time because I'd have to reset my sleep habits for the following monday and while I made it out of bed at 11:00 the cobwebs in my head continued to give me a foggy brain until at least 15:00.    The Fortune Garden restaurant was a bit pricey (maybe not by Vancouver standards) but the food was good.   I didn't order that much, some chicken corn soup, some shrimp (prawn) dumplings, radish cake and chicken feet (see photo).

If I was tired before dim sum I felt more tired after dim sum, I could almost feel the blood going from my brain to my stomach to help digest all the food I ate.  The eating took only 40 minutes in total leaving me with another hour and twenty minutes on the parking meter.  So after paying the bill and leaving a nice tip I left and waddled over to the Broadway Camera store. I was visiting to pick up a UV filter to replace the scratched one on my 70-200mm 2.8 lens.

As i walked in Peter, one of the store employees, called me by name.  "Derek, your 850 is here.  I tried to call you but had trouble with your Toronto number.".  Yes. I've only been going there for maybe six weeks and we're on a first name basis.  Sad?   Maybe, but they're quite nice...  and knowledgeable (a rare bonus in this day and age of brick and mortar shopping).

Secretly I was hoping the new camera body was in, but had come to the realization that the probability of getting the D850 in the first shipment was low, I mean I had never gotten any gear right off that bat.  I usually had to wait a few months.  (I'm still waiting on that Nintendo Switch to be released after their inital run back in March; now to the point that I don't really care any more).

I had gone around and checked other camera shops in BC and some wanted a $1000 deposit. Broadway Camera only wanted $50, they were closer to my hotel than any of the other camera stores, also Paula Kulkoskey had kind words about the store, so I put a down payment on the d850 with them. 

What can i say, people not showing up for dim sum was pretty depresssing.   I'd been trying to meet up with people since I got to Vancouver (way back in July).  Shout out to Alex, who met me the first weekend, after that meeting up with friends went quickly downhill.  Also being my birthday week (technically thursday) not having anyone show up just made things feel worse.

So when i found the camera was waiting for me I had a spike of happiness for a short while.   It's been a while since I bought a camera or any pricey gadget for that matter.  It's been about 8 years since I bought my first D700.  It's crazy.

My happiness was quickly greeted by a bunch of hurdles.  My debit card maxed out at $2000.00.  Peter was pretty easy going and said they could keep the camera on hold for a few days while I got the money together.  "No!" was my reply.  I was determined to get the camera on a non-work day and fiddle with it over the weekend.

As luck would have it, a few blocks down the street was bank branch that I bank with and they were open on Saturday.  I hurried over there after telling Peter I would be back and to not give the camera away to someone else, Got the remaining money in large bills, headed back to the camera store, realized I had left my wallet at the bank, went to the bank to find that it wasn't where I left it, while waiting in line for the teller I found it stuffed in my camera bag (where it's not normally stored), walked back to the camera store, paid for the camera, a spare battery and the UV filter, then bee-lined it back to the car and drove swiftly to the hotel where I opened the box to see what I had just bought and to check if everything was there, then crashed into a dim sum coma.



the conveted Nikon D850 plus some other things

I woke up a few hours later, downloaded the D850 manual to my iPad because my eyes are starting to have a hard time reading tiny text in tiny manuals, and started fiddling with the camera.  The first thing I noticed was that the light meter settings were reversed.  Maybe Nikon did this to make Canon users more at home?  Whatever the reason, I found it annoying.  Luckily in the menu you can flip this display so it's like the past Nikon cameras I've had.   Some of the controls moved.  My hands have gotten so used to the D700 controls that I found myself trying to push a button that wasn't there (ie.  the MODE button; where did it go?).

There were a bunch of things that have been changed or added.   The D700 never had video.  One of the things that kind of angered me when buying the D850. I don't want to do video, I just want to shoot nice photos.   But adding everything including the kitchen sink seems to be the trend, I really didn't have a choice.   Maybe one day that video feature with be useful to me.  For now that menu items and buttons are just getting in the way of me shooting stills.  I need to go over the controls in more depth,  I still don't know how to bring up the histogram.

The biggest disappointment for me with the D850 is that the bracketing only does 5 brackets at 3 stops apart.   While it's better than the 9 brackets at one stop apart (for me), it would have been nice if I could do more brackets and change the spread in 1/3 intervals.  Ideally 7 brackets at 2 1/3 stops apart.   This is the magic number for doing HDRIs with our 8mm lens when doing visual effects, going from 1/4000 of a second to 4 seconds. 

If Nikon had a suggestion box on their web site, I would have requested this feature years ago but like most business web sites, the ability to actually contact anyone is either hidden or non-existent.  I tried, i gave up. Maybe Nikon will read this blog entry and fix it in a firmware upgrade?  I'd be hopeful but I doubt it.  As a result I'll probably have to also buy a Canon mark III or mark IV to conform to the rest of the visual effects industry. *insert sad trombone.

I'm still happy overall with the Nikon.  As a camera for personal use I would have still bought the Nikon just because the Nikon world is so ingrained in me.  It'll take me a few days to really get comfortable with this model.   I'll try to update the blog as I find things out.        

Fun with Pipes

Outside in the backyard working on a small project.

I woke up pretty late today.  I stayed up late last night to finish watching Community season two.  (Note: for people wanting to watch this show - It wasn't until the second half of the season that it picked up.  I thought the first season was written better overall.)

Anyhooo...  I ended up going outside today.  It turns out there's a backyard at my place that has a picnic table.  I figured while I was outside getting some sun, fresh air and some pipe cutting done that I'd take the hamster (Captain Hill) outside as well.  She's been in her cage, indoors, pretty much all week.


Cutting pipe with a pipe cutter.

We had about four hours before the sun started going down and the backyard was in the shade.  It's starting to get wintery here at night.  Captain Hill crawled around the table for about an hour before attempting to "fall" off the table to the ground.  I caught her twice in mid air then decided to place her in "the ball" so she could crawl around on the ground without getting lost or eaten by the neighbourhood falcon or cat.


Captain Hill explores the back yard in "the Ball".

I realize it's been a while since doing a blog entry and this entry is not that exciting.  I've still got a whole bunch of entries from the past that have to be "posted".  Maybe I'll get around to doing that over the next few days.

Lost my iPad today

Friday. It's the end of the week. I got off work 1:30 am saturday morning to be able to walk over to the bus stop 15 minutes away from work to take it over to Dufferin and Eglinton where there's a 24 hour subway sandwich place. I figured I'd grab a sandwich and then take a taxi home. Buses were running slow and there was a slight drizzle of rain.

With my camera bag, the subway sandwich bag, the drink and my iPad I entered the cab. Leaving the cab I left my iPad on the seat while making change for the driver. I realized this after I got home and wanted to watch the free episode of the Big Bang Theory. Crap. Also I thought I might have plopped it somewhere, it took me a while to figure out where I dropped my keys, but the email I wrote to some of the R.I.P.D. guys didn't get sent which it would have done once the iPad entered the Wi-Fi zone of the house.

I'm too tired to really be stressed out about this. I've changed my email passwords and other than that there's really nothing on my iPad that hasn't been backed up some where. Maybe my contacts?

Yes, it sucks. But it's not the first time I've lost something. I'm glad it's not my camera. Sure it was not cheap, all those US dollars, plus all the books and apps I bought for the thing. I'll wait to see if anyone attempts to return it over the weekend. My name is on the log in screen. With any luck the person finding it will be able to track me down.

Here's hoping.

As easy as One, Two, Weeeee!

Back when you were a kid there was a good chance that you had it good, "Had it good" compared to to your parents that is. To this day I remember my father telling me how easy it was for me to go to school thanks to modern miracle of public transit. In his day, so I was told... and repeatedly I might add, was that he had to walk five miles to get to school and if that wasn't bad enough it was also through hip deep mounds of snow.

The way technology works is the older you were the tougher things were because technological marvels just weren't available to make life easier. To kids now you could say how easy they have it being able to watch TV and switch channels with a remote. When I grew up I had to switch channels by walking up to the TV and turn a knob. In some cases the knob wasn't there so I'd have to use pliers or a wrench on the metal stub where the knob was. Heck, there were times that I didn't even have more than one channel to switch from.

Of course if you talked to your Dad, "TV? We had no TV, we had radio, the theatre for the mind.". It was always a worse off time for older generations. I suppose if you go back far enough there was some dad that said "Plastic bowls? We didn't have plastic, we didn't have bowls!! We had to slice a melon in half!" or "Pants Pockets? We had to wear freshly killed caribou and you were lucky to get the head where you could stash your favourite rock collection".

Every generation has it's newer technology that makes life easier for the bratty, take everything for granted, self absorbed, entitled kids. From TV remotes to the easily accessible porn on the interent to microwave ovens to VHS, laserdiscs, DVDs and Blue Ray. Remember when you missed a TV show on that Friday night how uncool you were at school the next Monday? If you missed a broadcast that was it you were done, you were the social outcast or that poor kid that didn't have a television. Your only hope, if you weren't that poor kid, was to be lucky enough to catch a rerun a few months later. "Big foot on the Six Million Dollar Man? that old episode? Yeah, I saw that."

Remember back when, unless you're too old and you had wooden toys or none at all because you led such a harsh life, you had LEGO and ran into this...


"The nail chipper"

This or some other kind of Lego configuration that in order to disassemble it you had to break fingernails to separate the bricks. If you were lucky had a cousin that you could get to unattach the brick saving your finger nails while breaking theirs by saying how much more dexterous they were than you (and they fell for it).

We can now say that "Kids have it so easy today" because Lego now sells this tool...


Enter the LEGO tool (I'm not sure if there's an official name; I'll call it the finger nail saver)

This is the second generation tool that allows to take apart bricks easily.


Just attach it to a brick


and tilt


What you have a flat brick with no knobs?


no problem! (this is a feature of the second generation tool)

Yeah, kids today have it sooo easy. In my day Lego brick building was blood, sweat and tears. Literally. If your fingers started to sweat you couldn't get a grip on the bricks. There would be a time that you did rip off or crack your fingernail that would bring you to tears. We were made of tougher stuff back then unlike the fat fingered, unimaginative kids of today.

We were tough and we were cool.

3D on the W3

The Fuji W3

Mix a few weeks of work with a small surplus of cash and a long weekend with nothing to do. Add to that a random sale on a specific camera and you've got one impulse buy for the month of May. I was showing the Fuji W1 to some people in the Art Department at my current work and a few days later (while supposedly drunk) one of the guys went online and bought the Fuji W3 at Henry's for $400.00. $100 off the regular price!


The Fuji W3 back

Today while stumbling around downtown looking for a few replacement trays for the food dehydrator (as I melted two of them while burning my finger and I still don't quite know how this happened) I went into Henry's to see if the camera was on sale in the store (and not just the internet).

I realize that going into a camera store would not find me food dehydrator trays. I've gone into camera stores while looking for trousers, not camera trousers just normal work clothing. So going into a camera store while looking for food dehydrator parts isn't a big leap out of character.

One thing led to another and "Viola", an upgrade from the W1 was made.


The built in HDMI 1.4 port will allow you to attach the camera right into a 3D TV!

The Fuji W3

The first thing one notices, other than the lower price, is that the power cable that came with the W1 is replaced by the battery charger for the W3. The W3 does not have a visible power outlet. Instead the power adapter is sold separately and fits into the battery chamber instead of the battery. This means you cannot charge the battery in the camera like the W1. Instead of a power output on the side of the camera there is an HDMI output (version 1.4 compatible with HDTVs with 3D capability).

The USB plug on the W3 is in roughly the same spot as the W1. Controls for the camera have been moved over to the right side. I suppose this makes for easier handling. One thing that they removed is the buttons that light up. Which in the end, while it might have looked cool, really didn't help the camera shoot (or focus) in a dark setting. Sure you could find the controls but the camera was pretty much useless without some external light to light up the subject so the camera could see it.


Since the W1, controls have been moved to one side of the camera for easier operation.


The Fuji W3 top


Convergence controls


The zoom and shutter button


The Fuji W3 bottom showing the camera mount and the battery and SD card slots.


Close up of the battery and SD card slots


The new NP-50 battery


The old NP-95 battery next to the newer smaller NP-50 battery


you can see the that the NP-50 is thinner too

Overall I like that the camera can shoot HD video. I find that the photos taken at higher ISOs are really grainy compared to my Nikon SLRs but it does fit into my pocket. Also shooting action photos really isn't this camera's strong suit. It takes a long time to focus on objects (even if they are well lit). So unless you're focusing in advance, I wouldn't recommend this camera for fast moving things.

For 3D though. Well there really isn't anything comparable out there is there? You could buy a lens in a cap for your Nikon or canon but it'll split your existing 4:3 image into two. The Fuji W3 allows you to shoot in 3 aspect ratios. 4:3 (3648x2736), 3:2 (3648x2432), and 16:9 (3584x2016). There are smaller resolutions but who really cares about them?

Food Dehydrator

Salton Food Dehydrator

Monday night at work, one of the snacks that made it's way to the craft services table was a bunch of banana chips. I ate some and took a few home to see if Captain Hill liked them. She did. This was the seed that started today's mission... "Buy a Food Dehydrator"

I reasoned that the food dehydrator would allow me to make banana chips from scratch thus eliminating any odd preservatives that might be used in the banana chips available at the grocery store. I did a bit of research and as the world of food dehydrators opened up to me I realized that banana chips weren't the only things you could make with one of these things. Beef Jerky, bagel chips, various dried fruits and herbs, I imagine you could even dry a pair of socks in one of these things. There's a web site that refers to the drying to lingerie. I don't own any lingerie (sorry to disappoint any of you out there) but I do own socks.

Not that I would put socks into this thing as there's that whole stink thing they one would have to contend with, but if I had to MacGyver a solution for wet socks, well there you go.

As with any purchase being done with limited research I found it difficult to find a dehydrator for sale. The Bay, Kitchen Stuff Plus, Future Shop, Best Buy, Sears, none of them sold food dehydrators. I ended up getting the last one on the shelf of a Canadian Tire. It was $50.00.

Made by Salton there's not a lot to the thing. There's a base, 5 drying racks, and a cover with an opening that can be open to closed. I'm not really sure what the opening does as there's no mention of the vent in the manual.

Wind Shield

After my internet provider expired I decided to get a new subscription with WIND. They have a portable internet stick, a USB key, that plugs into your laptop and gives you internet. No need for a ethernet port or a phone jack connection. One of the zones is Hamilton. An added plus for a person who travels to Hamilton on a semi-regular basis.

After using the stick for about a week I've come to realize that A) the reception isn't that great in my apartment; works great outside; even just outside my window in the back yard, B) the stick gives me a head ache.

Not a headache in terms of installing. It's quite easy as the installation software is built right into the stick. A head in terms of "the cell phone is frying your brain" headache. I used to get the same headache from using the old motorola flip phones back in the day. The nice thing is that the stick isn't right next to your head but the bad thing is that even though it's about 75cm away on the laptop it still affects me.

Solution #1 - tin can


While I'm not sure if soup cans are made of tin any more I tried this method. Taped the can to my window and placed the stick inside it. I don't know if it helped my brain or not over the long term as I abandoned the idea once I found my reception dropped two or three bars (out of five).

Solution #2 - Proximity


I bought a 3 meter USB extension cord and placed the key outside my window, weather proofing it with a ziplock bag. So far this seems to be the best solution. The reception is pretty good and so far I don't think I feel any adverse effects. I'm shielded in part by a brick wall.

Increase the crickets!

4

With one of the original two crickets gone and because I can't get enough of the chirping from the single cricket (sarcasm) I went to the pet store to buy another seven. Making the total known cricket population in my apartment an even eight. Four would stay in the pod available for Captain Hill to munch on (I'm still wondering if the hamster even likes them as food). The other four are being kept in a small rectangular box with some food and a part of an egg container.




The cricket container

I'm not really sure why I did this. Partially it would be to clean the cage easier; I wouldn't have to round all the crickets up, partially so the hamster doesn't feel surrounded by insects, and partially so the hamster doesn't stuff herself with protein and get fat all at once; should she go on a hunting binge. There's also the stereo effect of the crickets chirping with the two groups in different places.

I've haven't really gotten used to the noise they make, it sounds like a hard drive failing, but it's not loud. I can sleep no problem.

Doing some online research I have found out some interesting cricket facts...

Interesting cricket facts

• The males are the ones that you hear rubbing their wings (not legs) together
• You can determine the temperature if you know the cricket species and the number of chirps a minute.
• There are four cricket songs (to attract the females, to mate with the females, to announce egg fertilization post sex, and to announce other male crickets).

As a test I tried using the Bug zapper app on the iPhone. It's supposed to get rid of mosquitoes using a high pitch frequency. While I've never had mosquitoes in a jar to actually test this application I now had four crickets to see if it worked.

I'm not sure what the sound does. Is it equivalent to making the ears bleed? Is it the sound that a predator might make? Does it mess up the insect's nervous system? In the end the app didn't seem to do anything. The first try all the crickets went quiet. The second try nothing. Perhaps they just wanted to hear the iPhone unobstructed the first time.

It's a free download so test it out for yourself if you want to and get back to me. I'd be interested in seeing if it actually works with mosquitoes or anything for that matter.


Plan B: Salad bowl for the hamster

As a plan B, should the hamster feel more vegetarian I made a small bowl, large for a single hamster, of various fruits and vegetables. Broccoli, apple, mint, sprouts, carrot pieces, and a string bean.

Captain Hill ignored the crickets and went for the salad bowl in the end.

Feel the Heat

I picked up some hand warmers today. Working on set the last week has been a pretty cold experience. Even though it's spring, the temperature has dropped down to 5° C. With the ice on the ground and being near a body of water it feels colder.



Dave, the other matchmover on the show, brought in some heating devices that came with his coat. He gave me one to keep in my pocket to warm my right hand (the one I use for taking notes) while we were on set. It helped a lot. So I bought two today and a bunch of fuel sticks (charcoal) for future use.

The nice thing about this particular heating device is that ash is the only product left when it's done. Unlike the chemical versions like hot shots that leave behind unwanted chemical crap. The only drawback is that you have to have a lighter to be able to start the charcoal going.



I need something for my boots the steel in the steel toe is making my feet freeze.

Made to Measure

The Disto D8

I've been wanting to get one of these for a while. The last job where I needed to measure stuff I had to talk 5 meters through knee deep snow, battle the winds trying to use my trusty tape measure. Improvising by packing one end of the tape measure under a block of ice didn't help. The wind was too strong. Eventually I got a distance and it probably wasn't that accurate. I also permanently bent the metal tape thanks to it folding in on itself.

To measure the height of the camera which was about 20 feet up on a crane was another story. I used the shadows around and using similar triangles approximated how high the camera was. The shot was done quickly and the shadow moved. Didn't give me enough time to have accurate markers let alone take an accurate reading.

Enter the Disto. While they're handy, they're also expensive. It's a tough to justify if you're not using it every day. To be honest I'd rather buy another lens. Borrowing the device off someone else is possible if they're not using it, that is provided someone else has one.


What you get with the Disto D8

I bit the bullet so to speak and picked up the current model, the Disto D8. It fires a laser that slices through the air and is accurate over a 30 meter range by plus or minus one millimeter. Supposedly it can measure up to 650m if on a tripod.

It's cool. You just point the laser (watch people's eyes though) at what you want to measure the distance to and viola your measurement is displayed on the screen (in metric or imperial). "What was that you say? It's too sunny out and you can't see the little red dot of the laser?" No problem, there's a built in camera that can show you on the screen what you're pointing at!

If that's not geeky enough, there's some simple trig functions in the unit that allow for other measurements pretty easily. Like the height of that window way up on the fifth floor. Just zap the top of the window and the bottom of the window. Using the built in 360 angle locater and the distance it'll calculate the height for you. You can then transfer the data using the built in blue tooth option.

Crazy nerdy fun... and it works off two non-proprietary AA batteries!!

Growing Crystals (Crystal Method part two)

Fortress of Solitude?

No it's not the Fortress of Solitude, it's a macro photo of the crystals from the grow your own crystals kit. Shot with the 105mm Nikkor lens.

I went back to the old apartment to continue packing stuff (I'm moving apartments). All my camera gear is still there and I while packing up some DVDs I noticed the blue rock with the crystals. See here and here for the previous write ups on this experiment.


The blue rock with the tiny crystals on it


A closer look...

I let the rock sit in the blue solution for about a week. Not that it had to be in there that long but I forgot about it. Eventually taking it out to dry where I forgot about the rock again. Finally, today, while packing found it once more.

A thin layer of dust had collected on it. It had been sitting there on the shelf next to some DVDs for about ten months... ten months?!?!? Gee, yeah, ten months since the last blog.

Using a can of compressed air I made the attempt to blow the majority of the dust off. It seemed to work for the most part. I didn't shoot air at the rock directly as I didn't want to blow off the crystals. How well stuck on the rock is undetermined. It looked pretty fragile. A few quick squirts of air and it seemed dust free.


... slightly closer

Looking at the photo on the box and then the actual crystals I was a bit disappointed in the actual size. Kind of the same disappointment when you're looking at an ad for a hamburger then seeing the real one after ordering it. Smaller, less filling looking, not as exciting. It was the same with the resulting crystals. The longest crystals in real life being about 1 cm in length while on the box it looks like the size of a steak that you could kill vampires with.


and now with some dramatic lighting

For all the time and effort put into this I would have to say it truly was a lot of work. Mainly finding all the stuff that didn't come in the kit. See previous crystal entry. Then the waiting. Then there's all the potential mess that could have been made with all the blue liquid. In the hands of an adult its one thing but in the hands of a kid? I can see blue stains all over the place.

Maybe that's why there's supposed to be adult supervision. But where's the fun in that (for the kid or the adult)?

Until I find the next funky experiment that looks interesting enough to buy...

The Third Dimension

The Fuji W1 with lenses uncovered (the ON mode)

Picked up the Fuji finepix real 3D w1 today.

The following is a quick run down of features that I thought were neat as a stereoscopic enthusiast...

Features

1. Shoots photos and takes video in both 2D and 3D.
2. In 2D photos are saved as JPEG
3. In 3D photos are saved in MPO format (software comes with the camera that allows you to separate the MPO files into two JPEG files - right eye, left eye photos)
4. Video is saved as an AVI. Again the stereo AVI file can be converted into two 2D files using the Fuji software.
   
5. You can adjust the overlap of the right and left photos (resulting in making the stereo photo narrower)
6. supports SDHC memory cards
7. has a manual shooting mode for shutter speed and aperture (very limited and the controls are layered within the interface)
8. lenticular viewing screen (preview 3D without glasses!! wowee!!)
9. 100 - 1600 ASA settings including AUTO
10. museum mode - a really neat, easily accessible feature that turns off the camera's sound and flash.
11. buttons light up.
12. 3D photos can also be taken using a single lens (read below for more details)
    

Cons

1. Battery can be inserted upside down while this doesn't cause any known problems other than the camera not powering up this isn't great design.
2. FUJI film NP-95 battery made in Japan/China that comes with camera fits fine. Extra FUJI film battery that I bought which was made in Taiwan is a bit fat and needs to be forced into camera battery slot.
   
3. Focus in low lighting takes a while and doesn't work very well (mind you I'm used to shooting with an SLR). Photos are blurry. Photos taken in the daytime are fine.
   
4. memory card not included.

The back monitor is lenticular (3D without needing glasses!)

Overall as a geek toy I'm quite happy with the W1. It has a nice weight to it. As mentioned above the camera can also take photos using a single lens. There are two modes.

1. Interval 3D shooting

This mode is good if say you're on a train and you want to take photos of the mountains you're passing by. Using the standard shooting mode with the two lenses the distance between the two photos isn't enough for you to get really good depth. By placing the camera next to the window hopefully on something sturdy you can program the camera to take two photos X seconds apart.
Duration between photos can be set to one of these settings - minimum, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0, 5.0, 10.0 seconds

What if I'm going in the opposite direction or am sitting on the wrong side of the train?
use the TURN feature (this is a poor word choice) to shoot the two photos in opposite order.


2. Individual shutter 3D shooting

This mode is good if you're shooting a still object and it's too small or too large for the standard two lens approach. You first shoot the left image, you then move the camera to shoot the right image. To help you along, the first image that you take is superimposed onto the live feed so you can line up the camera for the second image.

Good for photographing using the cha cha method.



The top of the W1 showing the zoom control and shutter button

The camera also shoots 2D photos and has a bunch of features like macro mode, face recognition, and being able to shoot in 2D with both lenses at the same time. One might be zoomed in while the other shoots wide. There are other features but being as I bought the camera for 3D won't go into those modes (unless you really want me to - send an email and I'll make add on to this post).


From top to bottom. Place to attach the camera strap, Audio Video out, port for external power.


Bottom. Battery and memory card hatch. Also standard camera screw hole for tripods.


Taiwan battery versus the Japan/China battery


Close up of the back, left side.


Close up of the back, right side.

The camera goes for about $700.00 CAN. The battery (NP-95) is about $45. I highly recommend looking for the battery that is made in Japan/China. Also, I invested in an external charger so I don't have to use the camera to charge the batteries.

I haven't had a lot of time to play around with this to really figure out the optimum distance for shooting and getting good depth results. My film based Realist gives better results based on my preliminary tests. I'll photograph with the camera under more conditions and do a follow up in a later blog post.

Oh, yeah. There's an "underwater" white balance setting but the camera isn't water proof. I suppose it's good if you're at the zoo looking through that glass wall of a water tank photographing polar bears or fish.

No matter where you go...

The TripMate 850

There's that saying from Buckaroo Bonzai, "No matter where you go, there you are". This line from the movie floated in my head as I found myself in the middle of an open field being landscaped by tractors and bulldozers off in the distance. I was in Unionville, a small community north of Toronto (part of Markham) that was apparently growing right before my eyes.

A few blocks away from where I stood were townhouses, relatively new. The large construction vehicles were working on the next phase. Odd.

I was in the area walking from the GO bus station to the UPS store. It was at this remote location that a package was waiting for me, a package containing a GPS logger. Specifically the TripMAte 850.

The ironic part of this trip was that I used a car GPS to program a hand held GPS, or personal navigator, to help me find this store to purchase another GPS device.

The garmin nuvi 250w, while it works great in the car, powered by the cars's battery, seems to have a weaker signal reception when used unplugged and running solely off the internal proprietary battery. I hate proprietary batteries.

I bought the Garmin etrex Legend HCx, a cell phone sized device that uses AAs. It also has a better signal pick up. The disadvantage is that the maps it comes with are pretty simplistic and no where near detailed as the nuvi 250w.

I used the nuvi GPS to punch in the address. Once the address was located, I took the longitude and latitude coordinates and transfered them to the legend HCx. Because it was a clear sky, no clouds, the car GPS worked anyway.

What the heck is a GPS logger and why is it useful anyway?

A GPS logger is a device that records your location (longitude, latitude, and elevation) with a time stamp every few seconds, or over a course of distance. The end result is a list of data that can be imported into your computer.

The usefulness of this list is that it tells where you've been and when you've been there. When synced up to a camera, as digital cameras typically store the time and date with each photo, you can tell almost exactly where that photo was taken.

Other useful applications for a GPS logger...

put on the neighbourhood cat (with the owner's permission) you can find out where the cat has been. This can come in handy if the other neighbour is complaining that the cat has been eating their garden plants. You could then figure out if the cat has been in that area. Maybe a raccoon is the culprit.

figuring out where you were when you were drunk. This is a great idea but you have to attach the GPS logging device somewhere where you won't lose it so you can get the data off of it later. Not only will it tell you that you were at the toilet bowl, but for how long.

Also note...

After a bit of experimenting and playing around with these gadgets I have found that although the eTrex Legend HCx doesn't advertise explicitly on the box, it too can be used as a GPS logger. The Garmin terminology that it uses is Track Data.

Track data is like virtual bread crumbs. Th gps records the latitude, longitude and elevation along with a time stamp. It's totally programmable. You can drop a crumb every X seconds, or Y kilometers (or miles). When you're done travelling you can use the GPS to back track and retrace your steps. It's pretty cool.

I have not yet determined if the formatting of the data is compatible with the TripMate's. I'll figure that out over the next few days. Below are photos of the TripMate 850.


the stuff you get in the TripMate850 package


The TripMate850 on


The USB interface