David Pollitt

Reverie – One of the most incredible short films I’ve ever seen

// September 22nd, 2008 // View Comments // Photography, Technology

It’s hard for me to even explain this video.  I want to explain it in a way that will convince every reader(all 5 of you) of this blog to click on the link to view this video.  It is a short film, only a few minutes long, that is shot with Canon’s newly announced 5D Mark II SLR.  It was shot by a very popular photographer – Vincent Laforet.  It is not only amazing because of the remarkable filmmaking, use of light, or high quality of video.  It is amazing because it was shot with a digital camera.  This is one of the first examples of the convergence of still photography cameras and video cameras.  This isn’t simply an added feature we see on point and shoot cameras to get quick clips of video.  It actually can enhance the video by using lenses such as Canons 50mm f/1.2L to get very interesting bokeh and focus transitions.  You do need Quicktime to play this video, and for now you can view it at Canon.com as well as Vincent Laforet’s Website.

Update: Vincent just posted a ‘making of’ video here.

-DPollitt

Canon EOS 5D Mark II Announced – ZOMG

// September 17th, 2008 // View Comments // Photography

From Photokina 2008 Canon just announced the EOS 5D Mark II.  This has been one of the most anticipated announcements of the entire year, and in my opinion will clearly steal this show.  I do want to say that right off the bat I am eagerly awaiting results on how the high ISO performance looks.  The specs do impress with 21MP, ISO range of 50-25,600, and 1080p HD movie recording.  Nikon recently took a stab at the SLR movie recording, but the 5D Mark II blows that attempt right out of the water.

This camera comes after three years with the 5D, and really brings the entire segment to an entirely new level.  With a price tag of $2,600(Body Only), it can compete in price to the Nikon D700, but it is possible that these cameras only share that trait.  With nine more megapixels, massively higher quality video, and an even lower price, the 5D is situated to be the best in this field.

Nikon just recently added a popup flash to this line of cameras, while with the 5D Mark II we see Canon for the first time remove the onboard flash.

Nikons D3 and D700 have been hailed as the best high ISO cameras to ever be produced.  Giving silky smooth images at extremely high ISOs that were once though to be unusable.  Will the Digic 4 processor give similar results on the 5D Mark II?  It has not been determined yet, but I will be watching closely.

-DPollitt

Elly Kurtz

// September 15th, 2008 // View Comments // Photography

Elly Kurtz, originally uploaded by dpollitt.

A bit different then some of my regular photos. But that’s kind of the point isn’t it? The cemetery was a lot bigger then I imagined.  Taken at Fort Snelling National Cemetery Minneapolis MN.

-DPollitt

Grenwood Wedding

// September 11th, 2008 // View Comments // Photography

Grenwood Wedding, originally uploaded by dpollitt.

Congratulations to my friends Paul & Maria Grenwood. We did a pretty good number on the car I think

-DPollitt

Gmail Adds ‘Always use https’ option

// September 9th, 2008 // View Comments // Software, Technology

If you regularly use Gmail over public networks, or just like to know that you are being as secure as possible, you might want to enable this option.  Before you could simply type the Gmail url with https instead of the regular http, and it would force Gmail into a secure session over SSL.  Now, Google has added a feature in the settings to force the secure connection everytime, no matter which URL you type in.  This is a great feature that should always be an option with any email service.

To enable this feature in Gmail:

1. Sign in to Gmail.
2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
3. Set ‘Browser Connection’ to ‘Always use https.’
4. Click Save Changes.
5. Reload Gmail.

-DPollitt

Introducing Google Chrome

// September 4th, 2008 // View Comments // Humor, Software

Google has surprised many by coming out with a new open-source browser named Chrome.  The browser is still in the beta stage, as many of Google’s products are, so expect a few hiccups if you want to give this a try.

Once you’ve downloaded the software and got situated, I’ve located a few tricks you can explore once you are inside.  Just type these phrases into the ‘omnibox’ or url box and see what you can play with:

• about:stats
• about:memory
• about:network
• about:histograms
• about:dns
• about:plugins
• about:version
• about:crash

There is one more about: that you can try, but it might give you a surprise if you aren’t ready for it.  Just type about:% or even just the “:%” part of it into the url box, and watch as the browser crashes.(edit:Google has released an update to fix this bug, so it might not work for you.)

Finally, if you are using Windows XP with Chrome, you’ll notice the standard Google blue window color.  It’s quite ugly if you ask me, so I searched and found a way to update it.

Just head over to Deviant Art and pick up the zip file containing the default.dll theme.  Copy this and paste it into the following folder(backup your original default.dll first).

Vista : C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\0.2.149.27\Themes\

XP : C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\0.2.149.27\Themes\

-DPollitt