• Native Wifi tethering – Much more reliable than the Wifi tethering app – my saviour when out and about with my iPad.
• Faster – OH BLIMEY it’s faster!  The reports of 200-500% increase in speed are true!  Whole thing feels much more responsive in all ways.
• Apps to SD card – you’re now able to install apps (that support it) to the SD, saving internal phone storage.

All in all, a nice upgrade!

UPDATE : I’ve also updated the Radio firmware now, and all seems to be okay.  720p now working!

I’ve just received my iPad Camera Connection Kit through the post today.  This unassuming set of dongles attaches to the dock connector of the iPad and allows you to import photos and videos directly into the iPad’s Photo gallery app.

The premise is simple – just plug either the USB or SD card adapter into the dock, then insert the card, or plug in the camera, and the iPad immediately takes you to the import screen.  From here, you can select the photos or videos you want to import and press to start the process.  On testing, my Canon 5D worked fine with the USB connector (with the camera set to PTP connection mode).  A multi card reader also worked fine (direct from CompactFlash).   As for the SD reader, it picked up the videos on the SD directly from my Samsung camcorder, and imported them no problem.

Once imported, you can choose to delete the images on the camera/card, or leave them there.  Also, once the files are on the iPad, you can transfer them to the your Mac/PC by docking the iPad and importing into iPhoto or Lightroom.  I’m assuming many other apps will work too, but these are the two I’ve tested.

On a side note, it works with the RAW files from my 5D with no issues whatsoever (.CR2 format), and I know it also does the same with Nikon cameras (.NEF).

Disadvantages?  Well, you can only use a limited range of devices.  You can’t, for example, plug in a hard disk and play videos off it.  This would be a welcome addition, but it’s doubtful apple will open it up this much.  Strictly speaking, with a jailbreak and a little inginuity, it IS possible, but not to the non-JB, standard user.

Also, when you import the photos and videos, it places them in an ‘Imported Photos’ album, and does not let you choose, or move them around at all.  The only separation you get is the fact that the last import shows up in a separate folder, but that’s as far as it goes.  Hopefully in iOS4 for the iPad, this will be addressed – we’ll have to wait and see…

So overall, a good little set of interfaces.  It does what it says on the tin, and will be an invaluable tool for backing up/previewing shots when out in the field.

A small tip :Once imported, you have to delete the photos manually off the iPad once you’re finished with them.  Unfortunately, there is no ‘Select All’ button currently on the photo app.  Rather than selecting them all individually, which would take ages for a big collection from a long shoot, you can select them a little more quickly by doing the following :-

1) Press the curvy arrow in the top right, as normal to delete imported photos.

2) Instead of selecting each photo individually, touch and hold the first one for a second or two, then swipe your finger around the shot to select them without lifting your finger off.  You can then press delete as usual.  Much quicker, i’m sure you’ll agree!

Cheers!

iPad, Desire and Navicore

Falling short…

Since I got my iPad, the only thing I’ve really lamented is it’s lack of GPS and 3G.  Being the Wifi (read: cheaper) model, I had to make do with WiFi only.  As usual, my tendency to over-analyse and get the most out of anything I have got the better of me, and I started to look into how to plug the gaps in capability.  The spur was the lack of an official Geocaching app on the android OS as of yet.  Supposedly, there’s an Android version coming ‘Soon’ (and has been for about six months!).  At the moment, it’s definitely in ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ territory.

Navicores and Desires

As you may or may not know, I recently took the leap from my trusty iPhone to the ‘other side’ – i.e. Android.  Specifically, I went for an HTC desire, and haven’t regretted the switch.  Seems as though the switch was a good call at the moment.  Android, you see, is much less locked-down than Apples iOS, which although it is excellent in itself, is rather crippled, mostly to keep the control of the OS firmly in Apple’s grasp.  Android, on the other hand, whilst not being completely open, is getting much more in that direction.  Out of the box, Android is less locked-down, with just a little techie work required, in a process called ‘rooting’, to make it more-or-less completely open (in an OS-sense).

With a cool little app called ‘Wireless Tether’ installed on the rooted phone, it created an ad-hoc wireless network for your device (laptop, iPad etc) to join.  Once joined, your device can use the internet connection of your Android phone, avoiding the need to take out a separate plan for your iPad. Bear in mind this may be against the terms and conditions of your mobile contract, but take it easy, and avoid using for VoIP and other network-angering activities too often, and you may escape notice – depends on how vigilant your provider is…

So that’t the 3G side of things sorted.

Where am I?

Next comes the GPS.  The iPad Wifi is equipped with Bluetooth, which should make it a doddle to pair a standard Bluetooth GPS unit with it, right?

Wrong!

Apple, in their infinite wisdom, have decreed that you can only use your Bluetooth for very limited activities, specifically, headsets, headphones keyboards and, ummmm, well, not much else really.  My lovely little Navicore SiRF III Bluetooth GPS unit has been languishing in a drawer for about the last two years or so.  Luckily, some clever developer has come up with an alternative Bluetooth stack for the iPad (and iPhone), which enables these devices to support accessories that they previously couldn’t.  This wonderful bit of code is known as ‘BTStack’.  The caveat?  Well, Apple wouldn’t like you doing this, so your iPad needs to be Jailbroken.  This is ridiculously easy to do (just google for it), and enables you to install homebrew apps.  The particular app in question is called ‘BTStack GPS’, and is available via Cydia (the homebrew app installer that gets installed when you Jailbreak the iPad).  It is one of the few ‘paid’ homebrew apps, and after furnishing the developer with all of $5.00 via paypal, you get your full-capable version of BTStack GPS.  A free version is also available, though all this does is display the position within the BTStack GPS app itself, and doesn’t pass it on to other apps.

Once installed, all you have to do is run the app, and pair it with your Standard SPP GPS receiver.  Once paired (and your reciever has a GPS signal), it causes the iPad to act as if you have built-in GPS.  All apps I’ve tried so far work flawlessly with it, including the official Groundspeak Geocaching app.  This is, currently, just the iPhone version running on the iPad, but it is sufficient until Groundspeak sort out an iPad version.

So there we go.  A WiFi iPad with 3G and GPS Connectivity.  Simple!

So what’s it like? Well, first the bad. Ummmmmmm.

Hmmmmmm.

Either it’s post-purchase bliss, or there really isn’t much wrong with this thing as far as I tell at the moment. I know that there have been a lot of detractors when it comes to Cupertino’s latest output (ignoring conveniently the iPhone 4 for the time being), but after 24 hours of use, I’m starting to think that maybe people are going at this from the wrong angle. In a similar way to how they did with the iPhone, people rare seemingly enjoying pointing out what they perceive as flaws, and make them out to be a deal-breaker where the device is concerned. Things like the lack of multitasking (now to be sorted via the update to iOS 4.0), and the “walled garden” approach to application development, are often touted as reasons to dismiss apple mobile devices outright, without, seemingly, giving them a chance in other ways.

Yes, in a way I think that the restrictions placed on developers by Apple are a little harsh. For example, the turning down of all apps submitted that, in any way, duplicate functionality of the base device, means that no one can produce a fully featured alternative browser. The denial of a release of Adobe’s Flash plugin for iPhone and iPad has been hotly debated in recent months. However, I’ve owned an iPhone for the last two and a half years,and to be honest, I’ve never really found it to be much of an issue. The quality of the appraisal program that Apple employ is dubious to say the least. Just type the word ‘fart’ into the app store to see how many apps there are related to that particular bodily function, and you’ll get an idea of what i mean.  In other words, an approval process doesn’t mean all the apps are any good.  However, there are a lot of great ones out there, and the main issue about having an Android phone now rather than an iPhone is that the app store (or ‘Marketplace’ on Android), hasn’t yet got the spread of apps that are on the Apple app store.  Also, just due to the Apple devices’ visibility, most good apps are released on the iPhone / iPad platform first.  In a nutshell, I’ve lived with this exact situation on the iPhone for the last few years and never really had the issue with it that other seem to.  If you are happy with an iPhone, you’ll be happy with an iPad.

So, how is it then?  The answer is best expressed in one, very British, adjective.  Lovely.

The screen is fantastic quality, and the interface is a joy to behold.  It is by far the single most responsive piece of technology I have ever used, with more or less no lag when performing any task.  At no time do you feel you’re waiting unnecessarily.  The whole unit feels solidly built, and the weight, though not feather-light, is certainly not an issue.  The on-screen keyboard is the first I’ve used that I can genuinely type on at full speed.  This makes real-world use of the iPad for blogging, word-processing etc a reality.

Due to budgetary constraints, I chose the 16Gb WiFi model, as, to be honest, storing lots of music and movies on it is fairly far from my mind.  I’ve never really been one for movies on the move, and I have an iPod or my HTC Desire for my MP3s.  I’m much more interested in its use as an imaging/photography tool, and for web browsing, twitter, reading ebooks/magazines etc.  I’m going to get the camera connection kit when it becomes available here in the UK.  This allows the connection of any (in theory) mass storage device to the dock connector, to transfer files (including RAWs) from cameras and media cards to the internal memory for reviewing and backup.  This will be a great way to give myself a little more storage when I’m out on shoots, and will mean I don’t have to cart the netbook or laptop around too.  My recent migration from the iPhone to the HTC Desire will pay dividends soon, as come the Android 2.2 update, it’ll make my Desire into a mobile Wifi Hotspot, meaning I can use that as my access point when I’m out and about.

Apps-wise, the growing choice of iPad specific software is really impressive.  A lot of the older apps have been updated, some for free (i.e. they now have a version that works both on iPad and iPhone), whereas other seem to have come out with what is commonly now being called an ‘HD’ version.  usually this means buying it again if you want the iPad version.  Depending on the app involved, and the price, this can be a bit of a bind.  However, the most expensive app I’ve ever bought, Logmein Ignition, happily did the former.

Some of the highlights app-wise so far…

• The aformentioned Logmein Fusion.  This app, great on the iPhone, has been updated to use the iPad’s higher resolution, which has made an already great PC/Mac app all the better
• Google Earth – Good old google earth, is, not surprisingly,  much more usable on the iPad.
• The first electronic issue of Wired Magazine is an explosion of multimedia delight.  It’s hard to explain without experiencing it, but the dynamic layout,  embedded media and hotlinking make the whole thing a joy to behold (and to use)!
• Brushes – The already-well-regarded iPhone paint package gets a resolution and usability upgrade for the iPad.
• FlickrStackr and Photo Pad are both fantastic Flickr-based apps.  The former has a better interface for online browsing of your flickr photos, and enables you to comment etc.  The latter is a syncing tool which downloads all or part of your Photostream for offline viewing.  Great for showing people your online portfolio when you don’t have an internet connection.
• Ebay - A great app, making browsing and buying via eBay a joy on the iPad.
• The Elements – A real showcase app for the iPad.  This is a reference book with a graphical periodic table.  Each element has its own set of pages with animated and interactive diagrams, and loads of info.  Written in quite an entertaining way which borders on the silly sometimes, but is nevertheless a great read.
• Last but certainly not least, the official WordPress app has received and iPad boost.  Turns it from a basic editing tool to a much more comfortable blog composition tool.  Still no WYSIWYG editor, but fingers crossed for the future…!

Blimey – I could go on and on.  One thing to note is that you can run most of the iPhone apps on the iPad too.  These appear in the centre of the screen, at the same resolution as on the iPhone.  Mostly though, I wouldn’t recommend using them this way, as they don’t look particularly nice.  Exceptions where function over form is important, like, for example, Skype, of which the iPhone version runs perfectly on the iPad.

Battery life for this thing is phenomenal.  I had an afternoon (a good six hours) of (non-charging) syncing, browsing, YouTubing, and general messing around, and my battery life was still around 50%.  Now to me, that’s one of the most impressive things about this device.  Full stop.

In the end, the iPad is a device that does what it does extremely well, and in a way that is so polished, that it is yet to even be approached for quality in the tablet world.  It’s a media consumption device that branches out into other arenas with a generally high level of success.  As I get a bit more into real-world usage, I’ll report back and give my opinions.  Until then, its going to be interesting finding out…

I switched my Nikon D50, with it’s wonderful memories, and many hours of cracking phototaking, for a Canon 5D.

Now… there a a fair few things to think about when making the move between one manufacturer and another.  These can be boiled down to a few main points…

• Personal Preference.  This plays an extremely large part in the decision.  Some people have an unassailable loyalty to one particular manufacturer, and are completely convinced that anything else is second fiddle.  Luckily, I’ve never really been obsessively tied to one manufacturer or another.  I started, back in the day, on a Praktica BX20 (here), then moved onto a Canon EOS 100 (also known as the Elan – here).  This was followed by a move to Fujifilm, with my first Digital camera being a Fujifilm Finepix 2300 (here), which was used in tandem with the EOS 100.  I then moved gradually up the Digicam ladder, via the Olympus Camedia C3000 (here), then the fantastic Olympus E-10 (here), followed finally by the Nikon D50 (here).  Recently, I’d added a trusty Fujifilm S2 Pro (here) to my entourage, which, despite its age, is a fantastic (if bulky) Nikon-lens-compatible workhorse.  As you can see, I’ve kind of jumped around the manufacturers in my time, and to be honest, just try to make the most of what I have.  Overall, it’s a tie between the D50 and the S2 Pro for my favourite camera, but an honourable mention must be given to the Olympus E-10 (which I still have!), for having one of the best pieces of glass I’ve ever seen on  a non-interchangable lensed camera.
• Investment in Kit. Financially, this is often going to be people’s biggest consideration when making a manufacturer change. As is well known, a good camera is rendered much less so by having poor glass fixed to the front.  The cost of lenses is not inconsiderable, and over the past few years, I had built up a small collection of lenses that I used with the Nikon.  Top of the list was my wonderful Sigma 10-20mm (here). This lens has become my favourite over the last few years, and it was definitely one I’d miss.  It was given as part of the trade-in, so I’m now ultra-wide-angleless for the first time in three years.  I also had a Nikon Speedlite SB-600 (here), which, again, went with the trade.  This adds up to a fair bit of kit.  The thing to remember is that, barring adapters (which generally only allow you to use the lenses in manual modes anyway), one manufacturer’s lenses are incompatible with the mounts on other manufacturer’s cameras.  Therefore, it means that you have to basically start again.  That can be expensive…
• Availability of Kit and Acessories. Some kit just simply isn’t available for other brands, so the little handy bits that you have for your current camera may just not be available for the other brand.  This is becoming less of an issue these days, but it’s still something to think about.

Luckily, I still have the S2 pro, so the limited selection of Nikon lenses I still have will still find some use.

So… what does the new kit bag look like?  The answer – quality, not quantity!  Click for links to product pages / reviews…

• Canon EOS 5D
• Canon EF 24-105mm f4L IS USM
• Canon Speedlite 430EX II
• Canon BG-E4 Battery Grip

Along with the accessories that came with the camera (a wired remote release and the obligatory charger), along with my dome diffuser and off-camera flash cord, that’s pretty much it.

The Camera

I’m going to talk about the camera here, and, for the uninitiated, explain a bit about what some of the features mean in a practical sense.

The camera itself is a 12.8 Megapixel, full frame DSLR.  Full frame, in this case, refers to the size of the CMOS sensor, which is the size of a full 35mm frame in film terms.  What is the upshot of this?  Basically, it means two main things :-

Cropping (or lack of it) – Most DSLRs have a crop factor of 1.6.  This is due to the size of the sensor being smaller (15 x 22.5mm) than full-frame (24x36mm).  The smaller sensor results in only the central portion of the lens’s projected image being recorded.  The result of this is that a 20mm lens is the equivalent of a 30mm lens in “35mm terms”.  This makes wide-angle lenses ‘true’ wideangle – i.e. a 24mm lens is actually a 24mm lens, and not a 36mm lens.  The other side of this is that a telephoto lens on a full frame DSLR does not give you the same magnification that it does on a cropped sensor.  Swings and roundabouts eh?

Depending on whether you want tightly cropped closeups, or prefer your wideangle wider, then the full-frame could be good or bad.  However, there is one thing that full frame does need, and that’s good lenses.  Lenses tend to be best towards the centre of the image, and lower quality lenses show this effect more than more expensive lenses.  With the smaller size of a cropped sensor, the lower-quality edges of a lens’s image are cropped out, and this has the effect of keeping the image sharper from edge to edge.  With full-frame, the whole of the glass is used, which, if you have lower-quality lenses, exposes the flaws around the edges.  These usually show up in the way of blurring and chromatic aberration.  Lens manufacturers have actually taken advantage of cropped sensors to produce cheaper lenses that only work on cropped sensors due to having smaller lens elements.   Obviously this means that if you try to use them on a full-frame sensor, you will get, at best, bad vingetting, and at worst, and actual circular image.

Noise (or lack of it) – Unlike the fixed rating of film, the sensitivity of a sensor can be varied more easily.  For direct comparison, the same ratings are used on sensors as on films.  This ISO scale describes the sensitivity of the sensor, and can generally be raised on most digital cameras from around 50 or 100, to 3200 or higher.  Every time you double the ISO, you make the sensor twice as sensitive (or one stop). The downside to this is that, as you increase the sensitivity, the individual pixels also become more sensitive to electrical ‘crosstalk’ from adjacent pixels.  This results in ‘noise’ in the image, producing a more grainy image.  This renders the higher ISO modes on most cropped-sensor DSLRs more or less useless for most purposes.  The advantage a full-frame sensor has is that the pixels on it are not as closely packed, lowering this crosstalk and hence lowering the noise.  You can ‘dial up’ the ISO on a full-frame sensor to 1600 or 3200 with very little grain.  In the real world, this means a few stops difference in exposure.  E.g., if you used ISO 200, and had camera shake due to a long exposure of 1/15th sec, then if you raised sensitivity to ISO 3200, this would change the exposure to 1/200th second (4 stops difference), making hand-holding a reality.  You can do this with minimal noise being added to the image.

The Lens

The lens is a Canon EF 24-105mm f4L IS USM.  Breaking this down, the EF stands for ‘Electro Focus’, with the AF system being controlled by a motor built into the lens, and has been Canon’s standard lens type since 1987.  the 24-105mm is, obviously, the focal length range of the zoom.  The f4 refers to the widest aperture, which in the case of this lens, is f4 throughout the zoom range (most zoom lenses have a smaller ‘Wide Open’ aperture, and so are slower, at their telephoto lens).

The ‘L’ is one of the telling parts of the name, as (according to Canon), it stands for ‘Luxury’.  The ‘L’ range of lenses is Canon’s flagship lens range, offering very high optical quality.  They are the lenses you often see at sporting events, with the red band around the front element.  The larger lenses in the range are white-bodied to keep them cooler in the sun.  The build quality on the L lenses is absolutely fantastic, as is the sharpness and contrast.  Even though I’ve now only got a single lens (currently), I’m glad to know it’s a fantastic quality one!

The IS part of the name refers to ‘Image Stabilization’.  This is the system, imilar to Nikon’s VR (Vibration Reduction) system, which uses gyros inside the lens to detect the slight movement of your hands that can cause camera shake, and counteract it by moving the elements in the lens.  This results in you being able to handhold shots for much longer exposure times.  The blurb specifies three stops more, but I’ve handheld at down to 1/4 sec using this system.  Of course, this doensn’t stop motion blur, but it’s a massive help in low light for more static subjects, and allows you to stop down for sharpness in more normal light.

Finally, USM stands for Ultrasonic Motor, a near-silent focussing motor technology used by Canon in its lenses.

Phew!

Impressions

I’ve been just getting used to this Camera for the past few weeks.  So far, it’s all good!  Initially, getting used to using a Canon instead of my trusty Nikon has been strange.  Everything, more or less, is in a slightly different place, or works in a slightly different way.  It’s all there, but overall, the feel is very different…  Everything is nice and smooth, and quiet, as you’d expect with a professional-grade camera of this type.

Virtually everything I’ll be posting from now on photo-wise is likely to be taken with this camera, so the posting of lots of sample shots is a little redundant (out-of-context test shots should be confined to Lab tests in my opinion!).  Also, it’s easy to search on Flickr for photos taken using the same camera.

So – here goes…!

After a Hiatus of over a year (having kids kind of takes your mind off other things in life!), here’s stranger number four or my hundered strangers project on Flickr. Jim is an artist from Newport, and is a regular in the Coffee Shop where I go in Newport. I’d never spoken to him before today. Jim used to be an Anaesthetics technician, but last year he had a triple heart bypass which has given him a new perspective on life. Turns out he’s spent the last nine years writing 15,000 poems, all about different aspects of his life and experiences. Cheers Jim!

This is interesting too as I’d left the ISO at 1600 on the 5D, and ended up using bounce flash. Luckily, the noise on the 5D is low enough as it doesn’t really impinge on the final image at all.

Find out more about this project at www.100Strangers.com/.

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Funnily enough, I thought that this morning was going to be a bit of a washout, and wasn’t really bothered about getting the shots off the camera when I got back.  Luckily I did, and it turned out I really surprised myself.  I was really happy with the selection of shots above…

Hurrah!  Got a mention and some snapshots published on the Collings and Herrin Blog at :-

http://collingsandherrin.blogspot.com/2010/01/made-in-wales.html

If you haven’t tried them yet, Andrew Collins’ and Richard Herring’s brand of Humour is not for the sensitive, or easily offended, but I love it.  It brightens up many a boring car journey via the gift of the ipod.  You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or via the British Comedy Guide at :-

http://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/collingsherrin/.

UPDATE! : Booked to see Richard Herring live at the Glee Club in Cardiff, in March – Can’t wait!