Ben is...: August 2009

Monday, August 31, 2009

Ben is wanting!

Canon EOS 7D

Canon just announced their new semi-pro 1.6x (APS-C) Digital SLR.

It is designed for sports, wildlife and other fast shooting needs with a 8FPS burst!

18MP sensor and 2 DIGIC IV processors

19 Cross-type AutoFocus points (compared to 9 NON-cross point for my 5D or 5D Mark II)

100% viewfinder

Speedlite wireless transmitter, BUILT IN!

1080p (24p, 25p, 30p) true HD video

All this for $1699!

I will buy one on release day just because.

Also, Canon announced the replacement for their popular and very good EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens.

The new EF 100mm f/2.8L IS has 4-stop hyrbid Image Stabilization. The lens allows for life size magnification for macro shooting and will be a crazy portrait lens. Can you say ISO6400 + Hybrid IS?

Five stars out of five.

As most of you have, I watched Inglourious Basterds during it's opening weekend.

I am a Tarantino whore, so I was enthralled with the film. The violent surprises and dark humor made me want to watch the movie again 100 times.

I believe that Hans Landa (played by Christoph Waltz) will go down in time as one of the greatest and most intelligent on screen villains. He is a linguistic genius who enjoys his job as a "detective" in charge of finding hidden Jewish refugees.

The long, drawn out Tarantino penned conversations that I absolutely enjoy are pivotal in the movie.

The opening scene could be the a short film in it's own right. The scene built so much suspense from such trival on-screen action. Tarantino was able to create such suspense through the use of Hitchcock's Bomb Theory:

Bomb Theory is a phrase coined by Alfred Hitchcock to explain his method of creating suspenseful cinema. The following quote by The Master of Suspense himself is taken from the interview book Hitchcock, ©1983 François Truffaut, Simon and Schuster.

Hitchcock: There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspenseknows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense.the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story. situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public The conclusion is that whenever possible

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Ben is in the Snow

I upgraded the MacBook Pro today to Snow Leopard (or Mac OS X 10.6).

I also went ahead and upgraded the stock 250GB 5400RPM drive to a 500GB 7200RPM drive to get better performance.

I used an external HD enclosure I bought from Fry's and the Carbon Copy Cloner drive cloning software to clone my 250GB image to my 500GB.

I had to do it twice because I didn't use the Intel-Mac GUID standard for the partition map on my initial try. Snow Leopard cannot be installed on the classic partition map.

I have used the MBP/Snow Leopard combo now for a couple hours and every thing works great! Photoshop CS4 is running much faster and the new expose of Snow Leopard is really, really useful.

BTW I bought Snow Leopard at CryWolf Technologies in Kearny Mesa and they gave me a free Snow Leopard toy at purchase.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Ben is #1

Today I took the day off to take my Mom to LAX. My Uncle Boy, her younger brother, suffered from a stroke last week. She is traveling there with my Aunties and my Grandma to be by his side as he recovers.

After I drove the two and a half hours in traffic to LAX I decided I didn't want to waste my drive up so I decided to head towards West LA/Beverly Hills.

Recently I had read about Samy's Camera off of Fairfax in West LA so I decided to drop by and visit. Let me tell you this: I officially call it B&H WEST! It is a four story building with a huge selection of stuff AND the prices are negotiable! I ended up with my 4th 50mm f/1.4 lens, a cheap 2GB CF card (I left mine at home, that's why no pics of my Mom and Auntie Ludy at LAX) and a mini lens pen. I hope this copy of the 50 1.4 is here to stay.

I texted Tammy if she was free for lunch, which she was, but before that I visited the homie Fred at Undefeated. I was able to purchase a couple classic five strikes tees.

I met Tams at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles on West Pico. I had the #1 (1/4 Chix, 2 waffles). Delicious and fattening as always. Tammy then went back to work (sucks to be you!) and I went on my way down from LA.

Afterwards I decided I didn't appease my camera yearnings enough so I stopped by Samy's Camera in Santa Ana. A nice shop, I almost walked out with Kenko extension tubes. I think their price was a bit high, so I'll probably cop online.

I drove the 10 miles to Canon Service Center in Irvine to pick up my 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens. After I used it at Del Mar the autofocus started acting funny and eventually failed. The nice people at Canon Irvine were able to repair the Ultrasonic autofocus motor and part of the Image Stabilization mechanism. They then re-calibrated the lens and made sure the glass is at it's sharpest.

To test the recalibrated lens I stopped at the viewpoint off the 5 South near Camp Pendleton on the way home. This lens is the best thing that has ever happened to cameras.

Used: Canon EOS 5D + EF 35mm f/1.4L and EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS