State of the Camera 2012: Part 2
January 4, 2013
In Part 1 of this two-part series we looked at some of the dominant technology trends over the last couple of years and the impact they are having on cameras and photography. In this part of the series, I write about my impressions of a few recent cameras that I have had the opportunity to use.
Sony CyberShot DSC-RX100 Voted by Time Magazine as one of the best inventions of 2012 and declared to be the best pocket camera ever made by New York Times reviewer David Pogue, this camera has changed the way people respond to small sensor sizes.
Continue reading →
State of the Camera 2012: Part 1
December 25, 2012
It’s been exactly two years since I last wrote about a camera on this blog. A lot has changed in the camera scene over the last two years and I fell in and out of love with the NEX-5 during this time as well. In this post I shall begin with talking about the recent trends in the camera market followed by short reviews of a few new generation cameras that I have tried or bought.
Continue reading →
High on Lo-Fi
February 15, 2012
The camera industry is going through some pretty big movements these days. Since the advent of digital cameras and social networking websites, more and more people have been finding interest in taking photos and exhibiting them online to friends and public at large. Somewhere in this explosive growth of photography, veterans and early enthusiasts sometimes find themselves in a tight spot.
Big Camera, Small Camera Since their inception, digital camera sensors have been pushing the boundaries of the quality of images they produce.
Continue reading →
Find and Edit File
November 24, 2011
While working on a huge code-base with several thousand source files, it becomes difficult to remember where each file is. If you use conventions like one file per class, you can at least figure out the file name. E.g. the definition of class Foo would be found in Foo.class.xx or something like that.
Thankfully, ack makes it easy to find the location files in a project. Just say, ack -g Foo.
Continue reading →
Need a new Start-up Idea? Mash up Social and Cloud
September 19, 2011
Are you based out of India and need an idea for a technology start-up? Try thinking of two of the biggest technology buzzwords of the day and mash ’em up together. Social + Cloud!
Back in the ol’ days when system programming and desktop applications were hot, people were trying to create applications that could run on more than one OS. There was a sprouting of libraries, proprietary and open source, that promised abstraction from the operating system internals.
Continue reading →
NEX-5 Early Impressions
December 26, 2010
It’s been a week since I’ve had my baby camera, i.e. the Sony α NEX-5 and I’ve been enjoying it so far. Here’s a quick low down of the ups and downs I’ve encountered with the camera.
The Good Outstanding IQ in any shooting conditions that can only be trumped by careful, deliberate shooting with a DSLR equipped with high quality optics Small enough to fit in my laptop bag, if not the jeans pocket Excellent iAuto mode for quick snapshots Fairly easy to use controls, esp.
Continue reading →
My Imaging Tools and Workflow
November 1, 2010
As my photos get backed up and burnt on to a DVD, I thought I might just do a quick cataloguing of the software I’ve found useful for developing my photographs and what each does. I’d also outline my workflow as I present each software in the order in which it appears in the workflow. Just to set the context, I use Microsoft Windows 7 for my imaging tasks, and my camera is a Nikon D90, so I do use a lot of Nikon software.
Continue reading →
Which Compact Interchangeable-Lens Camera?
September 22, 2010
These are exciting times for DSLR enthusiasts. We’ve all marvelled at the creative and operational flexibility afforded by the large dial, switch and button infested DSLR bodies and interchangeable purpose-built lenses. We’ve been spoiled for the impeccable image quality afforded by the 8.5-15x larger APS-C sensors (upto 34x larger if you’re a 35mm shooter). It’s impossible to look back at compacts. Or is it?
Most DSLR shooters sooner or later realise that their beloved hunk can’t be their only camera.
Continue reading →
Creating Hand-held HDRs
September 21, 2010
On my recent vacation, I took a bunch of bracketed exposures to turn into HDRs. Before this trip I only used a tripod for bracketing. This time around, however, I had to deal with hand-held bracketed shots. To make things a bit worse, these shots included foliage, which isn’t always stationary between shots. Picturenaut utterly failed to align these images. I tried Luminance HDR (qtpfsgui) for Windows 7 (64-bit), and it simply kept crashing.
Continue reading →
Beating the TripAdvisor Badge’s SEO Tactic
August 24, 2010
The Problem Recently, I got a reference to this article from my Product Manager, regarding TripAdvisor badges and how they boost SEO. Their secret is a simple link that links deep into TripAdvisor website and makes your site a donor of link love to TripAdvisor. This is somewhat bad for hotel owners who might find that TripAdvisor trumps the search ranking for their brand name.
The easy solution to prevent that from happening would be to slightly edit TA widget and use a rel="nofollow" attribute in the anchor that links to TripAdvisor.
Continue reading →