Canon 5D Mark II vs. Nikon D90
Posted by: Savannara on: November 12, 2008
- In: Camera| Canon| DSLR| Nikon| Technology| Video
- Leave a Comment
Canon 5D Mark II
Nikon D90
It’s been a long time since I’ve used an SLR camera. The first and last one I had was a Minolta 5000 film camera. I liked it back then until I switched to point-and-shoot digital cameras. Okay, the comparison between the two DSLR isn’t really fair as the two cameras are in different classes. The reason why I’m comparing these two is because I’m planning to buy one or the other.
The Comparison
The Nikon D90 was the first DSLR to be launched with video capabilities and then The Canon 5D Mark II followed suit. While the midrange D90 has a crop factor of 1.5 times and 12.3 Megapixels, the full frame sensor 5D boosts 21.1 Megapixels. So, not really a competition between the two different classes, but I’m evaluating these two since the video has been integrated. I have been wondering for the longest time, why DSLRs lack video.
The video difference is in the resolution: 5D Mark II supports full HD at 1080p while the D90 only supports 720p. To me, the 1080p will require a more powerful computer with a high-end video card if you plan to do lots of video editing. That’s what I intend to do and my current desktop doesn’t even play 1080p videos smoothly. Of course, this could be due to my sucky video card. Another thing is that 1080p videos will obviously come with a higher file size compared to the 720p resolution. The funny thing is that I currently have a point-and-shooter, Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 with the capabilities of capturing 720p videos. I’m quite satisfied with it, except for the crappy microphone. I get a lot of hissing noise.
The price
The D90 is selling at 1200€ or close to that with a kit lens. The 5D Mark II isn’t even in stores yet, but the price will be more than double that of the D90 since it’s a full frame camera.
Decision
I would love to get the 5D Mark II if I can afford it. I might have to settle for the D90. Then again, I’m back and forth between the two brands because I’m also investing in lens. I wouldn’t want to switch later on. Another thing is that I’m wondering if newer DSLRs will be launced in the near future with video capabilities as well. In that case, I think waiting would be wise. Let’s see if a midrange DSLR will integrate a full HD video.
Sarah’s first week
Posted by: Savannara on: November 12, 2008
- In: Baby| Flickr| Personal| Photos
- Leave a Comment
The thinking baby
Over a week has come and gone. The life of Sarah in Kuru, Finland has seen growth each day. Well, it’s difficult to tell if she is growing, but she has increased her diet on a daily basis. From the point of coming home from the hospital, we only gave her about 10-15 ml of formula each time she needed it. Today, she requires about 60 ml each time. Of course, she doesn’t consume all at once, but we can assume that she needs more food everyday in order to sustain her growth.
In addition to food intake, Sarah has been cranky and it’s difficult to determine what she needs. Katriina and I just go with the flow and hopes that everything will turn out all right. I think this is a typical method of raising a baby from the beginning. Diaper changing is normally the most difficult time as Sarah likes to use her lungs to the max. At times, she’s easier than others. Her umbilical cord hasn’t fallen off yet, so we are anticipating it to happen around next week.
There has been some sleepless nights as one would imagine. Sarah’s sleeping pattern is unpredictable, but we predict that she wakes up anywhere between 2-4 hours. And then she would need to be fed, have diaper changed and bottom washed. The cycle continues.
My firstborn
Posted by: Savannara on: November 9, 2008
- In: Baby| Flickr| Personal| Photos
- Leave a Comment
I haven’t had the time recently to post any blogs. I’ve been rather busy either with work and the latest excuse is a baby. Yep, I said it, a baby. I’ve never thought that this day would come or when it would come, but it is here and I’m living it as we speak. I knew I would be a father some day, but when was the more eluded quesiton. Katriina and I had set out a long term plan years ago when I moved to Finland. We assessed our goals and would achieve them before committing to have a family. We both would have a stable job and career, earn enough to support a family and own a house. Of course, we had to ignore the yapping from our parents and friends on when we would have a baby.
After getting a promotion earlier this year at the present company and Katriina was ready to have her maternity leave, we decided to evaluate our status once more. Our aggregated decision resulted in our readiness to become parents and everything was in place for a family.
It all started nine months ago, when the conception started. Month after month, we became more anxious about how we would raise our child around the current environment we live in. Obviously, this anxiety is a normal tendency with all couples and their first born. We didn’t want to be just any parents, we wanted to be the best parents who can provide all the love and care associated with childcare. The love and care that might have been lacking with our own experiences – the closeness, the bonding, the support, the caring, the emotional attachment. I’m not saying that we lacked any or all of these traits from both sides of our parents, but it’s a matter of providing the best care a child needs in order to grow up with our own expectations.
During the second and third trimester, the baby was already moving actively in the womb – kicking Katriina’s stomach every-now-and-then. It’s amazing how life was being formed right in front of your very own eyes. During the third trimester, we received a weekly pregnancy counseling by a midwife in our little town of Kuru. We had to visit once a week for a repetitive assessment and evaluation of the baby’s and Katriina’s status: taking blood pressure, obtaining weight, detecting baby’s heartbeat, etc.
Then, the delivery date arrived, and nothing happened. We were anxious for the moment because it could happen and we would need to rush to the hospital to start the labor. But nothing happened and we had to visit the counselor again that week. My prediction for the labor was the next day, Monday, but again, it didn’t happen. Everyday during that week, we anticipated the labor to occur, but nothing happened. Until, the seventh day after the actual due date. Katriina started feeling contractions, which started on Saturday 11:30pm. We waited it out for the contractions to occur more frequently before we would head out to Tampere University Hospital. I don’t think Katriina got any sleep that night as she was noting the frequency of the contractions. I don’t think I got much either because when Katriina is awake or the bed is moving, there is no way I can sleep. At 6:30am on Sunday morning, we decided that it was time to go. We didn’t have to rush because it wasn’t that emergent. Then our day began as we headed out the door, with a bag of necessities for Katriina during the hospital stay.
When we arrived to Tampere University Hospital at 7:30am, Katriina was admitted right away. I had to wait out in the hall, along with a host of other fathers-to-be. This wasn’t the actual delivery room, but a childbirth prepping room – predelivery room. The midwives assess the condition of the mom-to-be and decide if the labor would occur anytime during the same day. Fortunately for us, at 12:30pm, we were sent up to the delivery room. We were having the baby today. Even if they would send us back home, I would deny it because we live so far from the city and we wouldn’t want to take the risk of driving back and forth.
At the beginning of the labor, a midwife had set up all the equipment for Katriina. As pain started to get worse, Katriina got some air (N2O) to alleviate the pain. Through the next few hours, the pain reliever proved to be ineffective. The only thing affected was Katriina’s wellbeing. She got a bit stoned from getting too much air. It was self-treated so the midwife didn’t care if and when Katriina inhaled the air from a breathing tube.
An epidural was the next pain reliever. It worked…for about an hour or so. In addition to some other pain killers the midwife gave to Katriina, it still didn’t work as the contractions got more intense. The next pain reliever was a spinal treatment. After a few attempts to insert the needle to Katriina’s spine, the anesthesiologist finally got it in place – causing a bloody spot on the back. After few minutes, Katriina stopped whining as the treatment started to kick in. The spinal treament numbed the local area and Katriina felt much better, without any pain.
It was getting to be a long day as the baby persisted in coming out. Katriina and I decided to ask for a water breakage. Although the dilation was at 3 cm, she wasn’t dilating fast enough. Therefore, we got the doctor to perform a water breakage to induce a quicker dilation. Even after the water breakage, the dilation increased slightly per hour.
Our primary midwife had already started her double shift, but we weren’t even close to delivery yet. Then, when the night midwife came in, the action started. I had to assist Katriina by supporting her back at a 90 degree position. When it got close, the midwife was showing me the tip of the baby’s head, already with hair. Feeling no pain, Katriina started to push much harder, with the assistance of two midwives. Then, the final push, a baby was born, on Sunday, 11:30pm.
The primary midwife placed the lifeless baby on a cloth. All of a sudden, it started to cry. I thought that they had to suck the goopy stuff out of the baby’s nose or mouth before the crying starts. I suppose, the baby didn’t need it. What a feeling it was to witness such an adventure for the baby. Katriina and I are now parents of a baby girl.
After an hour or so, the baby was placed on Katriina’s chest for warmth and bonding. We were wondering when they would clean up the baby, but it was a busy night apparently with many other labors. To my surprise, the baby wasn’t very dirty after coming out. Then the assistant midwife took the baby for a physical assessment:
Weight: 3.5 kg
Height: 52 cm
In addition to the head measurement, all signs were normal. We were relieved and happy about that. All we hoped for was a healthy baby.
The secondary midwife washed the baby in a large sink and took her back to the counter to clean and dress up the baby. After getting dressed in her first set of clothes, the midwife also wrapped up the baby in a large white cloth. When she was done, the baby looked like she had been mummified. She handed me the baby and I carefully carried to Katriina, who was still laying on the delivery bed.
After many more hours of waiting, we were moved to the recovery room. Things settled down and the baby was taken to the nurse’s station for overnight observation. I left the hospital at about 3:00am since the hospital policy didn’t allow husbands to stay overnight as there was no accommodation space.
For the next few days, I visited Katriina and the baby as much as possible. The baby was already a crier, proving that she had good lungs. Katriina’s health improved day-by-day and was on schedule for recovery. On the third day, the mother and baby was discharged. I brought the baby’s bag and carseat.
A long journey awaits us with the development of our first born. A lot of love and care is expected, but it isn’t enough through the first few years. It’s a matter of consistency for many years to come.
Additional pics and videos:
Baby weighing-in
Baby close-up
More pics and videos
MySites – a review from a UI perspective
Posted by: Savannara on: August 11, 2008
I promised a buddy of mine that I would provide him a review of his company. Ramine Darabiha, who is the founder and CEO of MySites, a social OS where you can create and use apps that work anywhere. We’re talking about all types of media imaginable, no limits, except you get ONLY 10 GB of space to store your stuff. I meant that in a funny way. That is a ridiculous amount of space for an individual user to store content. What’s great about the service is that it is compatible with a mobile device.
I will leave the service and architecture reviews to the expert, so I will focus primarily on the user interface (UI) aspect of the site with a hint of user experience as well – as we know, both go hand-in-hand.
Homepage (register) layout
This is what you get when you first go to the site. There is a company logo on the top-left corner and login/register credentials on the top-right side of the page. And there is totally nothing in the middle of the top pane or header. Nada. It’s left totally empty. I see the point of balancing the pane with an item on the left and right, but the emptiness in the center doesn’t provide an added value to me. It needs to be used somehow.
The user thumbnail and login input fields appear to be placed too close to the top and right borders. They are overlapping the horizontal line. And the blue dialogue box, which is the status update, is overlapping the main pane area. This is okay, but the whole area is not nice at all. It definitely needs work.
On the left hand side, there are boxes that has a collapse/expand icon on the top-right corner – this ought to be familiar to anyone using a computer. I must say that the outline of the box in gray is okay, but the bottom line of these boxes appear thicker – around 2 pixels while the rest are 1 pixel. I believe the boxes might be placed adjacent to each other and not actually overlapping. Improvements are needed here. One suggestion is to leave a gap between the boxes.
The News box is fine, but I would rather see a link to read more instead of the scrollbar.
Then again, I’m not so sure about the placement of these boxes on the left hand side. I would rather see it in the center content.
Coming to the content, I thought the information on the top part could somehow be combined with “Browsers, Features and Tech Features” boxes. They are related with one another, so why separate them? You can place similar types of information in one section so the users’ eyes do not wonder around the screen.
The next item below that is a slideshow (illustrations) of features. After looking at this for awhile, it became annoying because it was looping. Again, the illustrations are a bit cartoonish and trying to be funny and needs to be more of a professional grade.
Also, there is a Flash demo below the slideshow. It is not playing by default, unlike the slideshow. Sure, the demo might be needed to tell the story of the service, but at the same time, the animation is lacking smooth transitions. Perhaps it was meant this way, but it doesn’t provide me a good storytelling experience because of the intermittent pauses in between sequences. When the demo is ended, it doesn’t really end, there is a loop of flag waving and you can’t stop it. So when you have the slideshow and the demo continuously playing simultaneously, it becomes really annoying. Of course, you can stop the slideshow, but it ought to stop at the end and if a user decides to replay it, provide the option for that.
Moving to the right side of the content section, there are a couple of promotional boxes – for bands and more informational texts. These ought to be more powerful looking. Right now, I’m seeing it as just another box with text. It needs to appear more like a commercial ad. Then there is the “Register Now, for free” invitation, but with the light blue hues, it doesn’t draw my attention. It appears to be part of the background. There is a “…….mysites.com” field, but I had no idea what I’m supposed to do here. I guessed it was a username field and it is automatically filled in when you pressed “Go.”
The outline frames of these content boxes are way too thick – at 3 pixels. This is not pleasing to the eyes. You can see alignment errors easily (the band information box is not aligned to the bottom of the slideshow box). I think 1 pixel outline would suffice and more universal with other sites out there. It’s more of a standards issue.
After I clicked on the “Go” button, I get a pop-up with user credentials to complete. The pop-up idea is great, but it is not nice-looking from a UI point of view. First of all, the appearance of the whole pop-up doesn’t appear like a pop-up. It is just a box of input fields with a gray outline and a glossy sheen on top. The pop-up needs to stand out more. Nowadays, sites use a dimming technology when a pop-up is intentionally used for this kind of purpose. If it isn’t used, I suggest having some kind of shadow or edge glow with semi-transparency. Something like that so you get the feeling of a pop-up. I noticed that if I kept on pressing “Go”, I would always get another pop-up stacked on top of the previous pop-up. You can still perform actions behind the pop-up, except for things directly behind the pop-up.
Homepage (logged-in) layout
Once you have signed up and logged in, you’ll get five tabs in the middle area – aligned to right side of the company logo. The five tabs are: Home, My Services, My Buddies, My Messages and My Preferences.
In each of these tabs and to the right of the text, there is a terrible looking question mark. If you move your cursor over them, you’ll get a yellow hint text box. Perhaps the question mark is not necessary and could be replaced by something more meaningful – like in the new Facebook.
Company logotype
The overall look-and-feel of the logo portrays a bubbly and wavy feel, with blue blots in the background. The circular shape has the characteristics of water. The site is targeted towards gamers, students and everyone else who might want to share files with their cohorts. The blue hues are okay, but a bit muted in my opinion. The logo appears to be a tad amateurish. It needs to be more professional looking. Currently, it lacks power and some basic design principles.
It reminds me a lot of the Pepsi logo.
In the “About” section, MySites is written with a capital “M,” while the logo uses a small “m”. I don’t know if this was intentional, but it could be more consistent.
The question that boggles my mind is why are “About, Legal Information, Help” links superimposed on the bottom part of the logo? These links are barely legible because a portion of the logo is behind the texts. Normally, these links would be located on the bottom of the page, like a footer. If this is intentional, perhaps create a cell below the logo so that the text links do not overlap the logo.
Today’s standard sites usually provide the ability to click on the logo to return to the homepage, and MySites is no exception. For some reason, my arrow cursor doesn’t change to a pointing hand cursor when I move my mouse over the logo. Therefore, it provides uncertainty of the functionality, but after clicking on the logo, I am taken to the homepage.
Thumbnail icon
I actually don’t understand this icon at all. This icon appears to be used for the default thumbnail of the user and buddies. The icon looks like aliens in a capsule. The blue hues appear to be a bit dirty looking. A better icon is needed here.
Although it is definitely cool to scale the icon, the graphic designer forgot to optimize the icon so that when it is scaled to the fullest, it shouldn’t appear pixilated. The icon itself ought to be created at the maximum size for scaling down, not up.
My Services icons
All icons are using blue hues color palette. In general, it could be markedly improved for better visibility.
My Updates
The “My Updates” section, again located on the left hand side with cramped spacing, shows all the content uploaded by your buddies. If there is a folder, a default icon, again with this capsule-looking object. If there are photos, then a thumbnail is shown. Above it, there is textual information about the item. This is where it’s a little messy. The status of the upload is displayed right after an icon, followed by the item storage directory and to the right; you have “Share this Picture”. These items need to be situated in a table – perhaps with cell borders visible.
Final thoughts
The concept idea of MySites is good. Of course there are others with similar service offerings, but in order for MySites to gain a foothold on a large user base, it needs to have an overall UI renewal. It also needs a customization option so that I can move contents around – like drag-and-dropping because I don’t want to look to the left of my screen all the time – focus on the center of attention. As for the color palette, this area needs a total overhaul. Currently, the whole UI has a muted feeling because there are no other colors. Too much gradient usage is not good. The logo, IMHO, needs to be redesigned with a more dynamic personality.
Savannara's Flickr Photos
|
Recent Comments