The Beginnings of Danbo

I’ve been wanting my very own Danboard ever since I saw a picture taken by a local photographer (who had bought hers – an original one – from ComicCon… I wish I could remember her name right now!) It’s the cutest little thing ever and apparently there’s a Danboard (aka Danbo) fever on Flickr! The only problem with getting one was, they’re generally only sold in Japan! I ended up buying my Danbo (original-sized Amazon edition) on eBay a few weeks ago through a seller in Hong Kong and was just hoping that Danbo would arrive unharmed. I had wanted the original one, non-Amazon edition, but it’s twice as expensive. Anyways, Danbo arrived and I embraced the addition of a new family member. I tend to want to call Danbo a “he”, but in reality, “he” is actually a “she” (if you follow the anime that Danboard’s in). I don’t yet have a name for my Danbo.. we’ll have to search through baby name books later.

Well, anyways, Danbo’s first day was spent trying out different sports in front of our house. First she tried skateboarding:

She only fell a couple of times, but posed balanced for this picture! Maybe later on she’ll pick up on some tricks to dazzle you all. She also wanted to try soccer, but since she didn’t have soccer cleats yet, she kept on slipping in the grass! We moved dribbling practice to asphalt for the time being just for her to get a feel of the sport…

I’m looking forward to my adventures with Danbo! It should be a great one

Windows XP and SP2 Workaround

After I had given up hope of installing any Windows OS on my Mac since buying the full version costs way too much money (and I have no clue about OEMs and their legality), I somehow stumbled upon the answer to my problem today! I forgot what I was looking for, but I had stumbled upon a forum post that mentioned slip streaming. Now of course I had no idea what this meant, so with the help of google, I managed to find that you can incorporate service pack 2 (among other things) into the Windows XP OS itself.

My first question was: does it work with Bootcamp? Several other forum posts said yes, so onto my second question: how easy is it? Apparently, easy enough for me to do all by myself I did some searching and found a very helpful tutorial on using a program called AutoStreamer to basically do everything for me. Here’s the link to the tutorial: How to use AutoStreamer to Slipstream Windows XP Service Pack 2

This is what you need:

• Windows XP disc
• Service Pack 2 (either CD or downloaded from the internet)
• AutoStreamer (found HERE)
• CD writing software that allows you to burn images

The instructions are in the guide. I hope this comes in handy for someone!

Mac Stuff

So I recently did something completely stupid: forgot to back up everything on my MacBook Pro before installing Windows XP through BootCamp. Long story short, I was using too old of a version of XP (the one without Service Pack 2… I had that separately) and so it wouldn’t let me choose what I had specified to be partitioned. I ended up installing it OVER my Mac OS (VERY BAD!). I had to reinstall Snow Leopard (then find the CD that originally came with my laptop for some of the software like iMovie, iPhoto and GarageBand). Anyways, well I was trying to get everything back on my laptop when I stumbled across 2 programs that I wanted to share with everyone.

Schoolhouse

This is a neat program that lets you add homework and test grades to keep track of what’s due and also to keep track of your grade (it even calculates it for you if you have weighted grades.. provided that you know how it’s broken up). The free version only lets you have 20 items at a time, which should be more than enough if you remove old assignments (you won’t be able to correctly calculate your grade though). I bought a license and love it so far. I have it set up for all of my classes. It even lets you attach files to corresponding assignments. How neat is that?

Expod

I was searching the web for some program Mac-compatible to transfer my music back onto my computer. I ran across Senuti (backwards of iTunes) and it was pretty cool except the free trial (30 days) limits you to 1000 songs. That’s when I stumbled upon Expod. It’s completely free and lets you rename your song files to however you want.

If you’re wondering how to get applications (if you have an iPod Touch) onto your computer, it’s simple and you don’t need to download any programs whatsoever. First, make sure you’ve authorized your computer. Then, right click on your iPod (while in iTunes) and select “Transfer Purchases” and voila!

And don’t forget to back up everything! Don’t make the same mistake I did!

Needing a New P&S

It’s been about a month and a half since I’ve last touched my old point-and-shoot camera, an Olympus Stylus 820, since it died on me over winter break. I haven’t missed it too much, but I’ve realized I do need to get another one, hopefully before my birthday (how else would I be able to document it.. obviously I can’t lug my XSi around haha) but definitely before the summer (Caribbean cruise!). While I was still working at Best Buy, I was hoping to find one that I really wanted in order to take advantage of the employee discount while I still had it, but unfortunately none of them stuck out to me. It wasn’t until recently that I realized it was because I was looking at the wrong ones. Before, I was just looking at the 3 popular brands: Canon, Nikon, and Sony. But since I have SDHC cards for my XSi (and a basically obsolete xD card for my old Olympus P&S), I narrowed it down to Canon and Nikon. That’s when I posted a topic in the Photo.net forums and got a few suggestions, but none I really liked until someone had mentioned looking into Panasonic and Fuji cameras. Honestly, I had totally forgotten about them since Best Buy didn’t really sell those brands (with a few Fuji exceptions) and I was just so used to selling the other 3 brands. Some of the cameras that I liked:

Fuji FinePix F70EXR

The F70 has a 10x optical zoom, which is a little more than I was originally looking for. My minimum requirement for optical zoom is 5x, as that is what my old P&S had and I don’t want to go less than that (limiting my options down). According to the reviews I’ve read, the F70 has several manual controls, which is nice for when I don’t like the auto settings, and is a pretty good camera image quality (IQ) wise. The lens aperture is f/3.5-5.6 with a focal length of 27-270mm. It also has a 2.7″ LCD (I won’t go less than 2.7, and no touch screen please!) Apparently, it’s pretty fast, but has a 2.2 second load-up speed. And burst-mode wise, it can shoot up to 3 pictures at 1.7 frames per second (fps) when at full resolution.

Fuji FinePix F200EXR

I was also looking at the F200, which only has 5x optical zoom, but is supposed to be even better than F70. It has a 3″ LCD screen, even larger than the F70, which is nice. But the thing I liked most about this camera is how it performs in low light. The focal length of the lens is 28-140mm, with an aperture of f/3.3-5.1. The start-up time is roughly 2.1 seconds, comparable to the F70, but slower than most others in its category. One extra thing: this camera supports SD/SDHC AND xD… I would actually have a use for that 2GB xD card now!

Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3

A third camera I was looking at is the DMC-ZS3 (aka T27). It has a 3″ LCD screen, a 12x optical zoom Leica lens (25-300mm focal length). A big difference between this and the other 2 cameras is that this one is basically fully automatic, with only one thing controllable: white balance. That’s a major drawback unfortunately. However, it does have HD movie mode (which has access to optical zoom AND image stabilization!) The only thing about movie mode is that it uses the AVCHD format, which makes it unplayable on Windows Media Player. Luckily, I own a Mac so I don’t even have that program, but I don’t know how it fares with the Mac programs. The start-up time is 1.5 seconds, much faster than the above 2. Oh and an added bonus: it has a very good battery lifespan!

So now I have no idea what to get. I like that the F70 and ZS3 both have more than 5x optical zoom packed in a still compact-sized camera. I like the low light feature of the Fuji’s. I like the HD movie mode of the ZS3. I guess I should make a trip to a local camera store soon to actually try these out for myself. I’m leaning towards the F200 as of right now though.

Interested in Taking an Online Course?

I was uncluttering my inbox and noticed an email from Adorama sent just yesterday. It’s actually from Bryan Peterson, yes, the author of the highly recommended Understanding Exposure (which I received in the mail today) and also the founder of The Perfect Picture School of Photography. The email mentions one of the many classes the school offers as well as a white balance suggestion.

I figured I might as well share the link to the PPSOP website in case anyone is interested in taking some photography courses. There are courses from Lightroom and Photoshop to wedding photography and documentary photography. Anyways, here’s the link: http://www.ppsop.com/courses.aspx BTW, prices are 10% off all classes until June 6th.

Hope this helps someone!

(Note: I have never taken a course from PPSOP nor do I work for them. Just simply passing on a message!)

The Beginnings

I actually just recently got into photography. About three weeks ago, I decided to upgrade from my trusty point-and-shoot (P&S) camera to my very first digital SLR (DSLR) camera: the Canon EOS Rebel XSi with the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. I absolutely love it. Despite not understanding anything about exposure at first, I actually enjoyed the learning process (which I’m still on).

Here’s one of the very first pictures I took with my new XSi:

At the suggestion of many photographers on the web, I’ve ordered several books. The first book I bought was the Canon EOS Rebel XSi/450D guide from Magic Lantern Guides. So far I’ve only flipped through the pages, but it seems like something that will help the new photographer to get a hang of things, and it’s specifically for my camera body. Another book I’ve ordered that has yet to arrive is Bryan Peterson’s Understanding Exposure, which is highly recommended by almost everyone. I can’t wait to get it in the mail. I also ordered the PhotoSecrets San Diego, just to get an idea of where I can go to take pictures.

And last week, I bought my second lens… the 50mm f/1.8, aka the “nifty fifty.” I really love it for its large aperture (compared to the kit lens) to really get that narrow depth-of-field. Here is a picture I took with the nifty fifty:

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading different articles as well as participating in photography forums. Here are a few of the forums:

• Photography-on-the-Net.com The forums here are great. It’s for Canon users, though others can join as well. A very helpful forum for reviews, techniques, questions, and/or selling and buying equipment.
• Digital Photography Review There are forums for all different brands. I actually like the “Challenges” section of the site, where you can enter into different challenges as well as vote on previous challenges.
• San Diego DSLR Photography Group They have monthly group shoots and seem to be like a talented and friendly bunch.
• San Diego Photography Forum Similar to the previous link, everyone here is talented and friendly as well. I don’t think this group limits itself to just DSLR, but most of the users (or at least the regulars) I’ve noticed are DSLR owners. There is a section on the forum for workshops, which is something I hope to take advantage of someday.

So this is just a little about what I’ve been up to and how I took the plunge.