Nikon has announced their second full-frame camera body, the D700, and it looks like they have a killer product on their hands. I’m not going to write about all of the details here, you can get more information from these links: Nikon D700 Brochure, Nikon D700 Page, Preview on DPReview, More Information. In addition, Nikon has also announced a new flash (SB900) and some new lenses.

With these announcements, Nikon is giving Canon a serious blow. If you look at the technology that is in the D700, Nikon seems to be far ahead of Canon, and it doesn’t seem likely that Canon will be able to have an answer to the D700 in the near future. Not too long ago I wrote:

And now they are rumored to be working on the 5D mark II body. If that body doesn’t have as much focus points as the Nikon D3/300 (or very close), if it doesn’t have micro adjust for lenses and if it doesn’t have weather sealing comparable to the 1D bodies, they don’t have to release it at all in my opinion. Because Nikon is going to be a much better alternative, as it already is right now. Weather sealing on the Canon EOS 40D is laughable. It’s incredible that Canon even claims that the 40D body is weather sealed. That is simply a big lie.

Canon needs to get their act together ASAP in order not to further damage their reputation, or what remains of it at this point.

Nikon already was a better choice since they launched the D300 and D3. And now with the D700, there simply is no arguing.

The features of the D700 which I like the most are:

• The 51-point auto focus system. You only get this many auto focus points in Canon’s 1D series bodies. The 40D has only 9 points, which quite frankly is hilarious in this day and age. Even the Nikon D300 has 51 points. Less points is seriously limiting your composition options.
• Nikon’s Live View implementation with Contrast-detect autofocus is MUCH more useful than Canon’s. Contrast-detect lets you focus ANYWHERE in the frame in live view. Having used this feature on the Sony DSC-R1, it is amazingly useful. Canon not having this is a serious handycap.
• Nikon’s D700 body is fully weathersealed and built like a tank. Canon’s 5D is a cheap plastic toy in comparison. Canon’s 40D is not weathersealed.
• Exceptional image quality at high ISO ranges, compared to Canon.
• High resolution LCD screen, compared to Canon’s crappy LCD screen on all their bodies.
• Microadjust feature (AF Fine Tune) for lenses with slight autofocus calibration errors. This is a VERY important feature as you can fine tune the autofocus system to get the sharpest images possible. Canon’s 40D and 5D bodies don’t have this. Only their expensive 1D series bodies have this feature, which is fucking stupid. Especially when they can’t seem to calibrate most of their lenses well and their quality control is non existent. If their next 5D body and 50D body don’t have this feature they can close down their camera division for good. I wonder what kind of morons work at Canon that decide to leave microadjust out of camera bodies like the 40D. If they did that to make people want the 1D series bodies more, they are getting what they deserve from Nikon right now.
• Nikon seems to understand Flash more than Canon, since they are including a color filter set with the new SB900 flash. Everyone knows that Nikon’s flash system is better than Canon’s, and the SB900 takes it a step further.
• Nikon’s D700, D300 and D3 bodies feel better, more comfortable, in your hands because of their design.

The only thing Canon has going for them right now is that they have a better lens lineup, though most of their lenses are very old and in serious need for updates. But this won’t get them very far, because Nikon is starting to catch up with their lenses. And better yet, all of Nikon’s new lenses include their latest innovations such as Nano coatings. I think the only thing Nikon needs right now are some light sensitive lenses that can compete with Canon’s f1.2 primes lineup.

And to think that Nikon might be releasing the D3x later this year, probably with all the features of the D700 but with a 24 megapixel sensor inside. That will put even Canon’s 1Ds Mark III to shame. Canon is going to have serious issues from now on. Even Sony is launching their 24 megapixel A900 later this year. That is sure to cause the highly inflated price of the 1Ds Mark III ($8000) to significantly drop. I wondered why the 1Ds Mark III ($8000) had to be so expensive compared to the 1D Mark III ($4000). The bodies are almost identical except for the 21 megapixel full frame sensor in the 1Ds Mark III. Does that justify a price double that of the 1D Mark III? Later this year, we’ll find out when the Sony A900 and Nikon D3x get released.

The price of about $3000 for Nikon’s D700 will further bring down the inflated prices for Canon camera bodies. Canon won’t be selling the 1D Mark III anymore if they don’t drop the price to below $3000. Not that it matters, because since the release of the D3 and D300, Nikon has been the better choice for camera bodies. If you have to buy a new camera now, you should just invest in a Nikon body. It won’t surprise me at all to see pros switching to Nikon, as already seems to be the case everywhere. And with all the quality control issues at Canon (part 2), they make it very easy for you to decide.

It’s going to be interesting to see what Canon can come up with now.

Update: Here are some sample images from the D700: Page 1, Page 2. Exceptional high ISO performance. With this performance in low light, you get even better results when using fast lenses as well.

Also, it seems Canon continues to struggle with their lack of quality control and Canon users everywhere continue to suffer. Just check out some user comments here from this thread on DPReview:

I’m right now in the process of boxing up my brand new 35 1.4L lens and sending it back for replacement. The stupid thing couldn’t focus within 12 FEET of an out-door target (and I’m not kidding!!). Not even CLOSE.

And that’s AFTER a +20 micro-adjust on the $4500 body they claim is “fixed”!!

I’ve just about HAD IT with Canon’s BS.

———

Their quality control is absolutely in the toilette…and anyone who denies that is sleeping. How many people are on their third or fourth copy of a 100-400? How many people had the same with a 24-70?

How many times have you had to listen to one more post asking the LEGITIMATE question, “Did you get a GOOD COPY of ___ L lens?” Or, “I hope you get a good copy.”

Ridiculous.

———

However, for the last 18 months, Canon has displayed an arrogant, careless disregard for honesty and straight-forward practices. They have refused to replace cameras that are clearly defective (as demonstrated for them beyond doubt in my case, and in MANY other cases), and are churning out “L” lenses that ROUTINELY are WAY out of whack due to an apparent COMPLETE lack of testing.

Pros from every corner of the globe have to routinely send their BRAND NEW LENSES in …just so they will work up to specifications.

This is totally unacceptable, and is FAR WORSE than in the past.

I own 11 L lenses. The most recent 3 have ALL needed major adjustment, and the trend is more and more and more problems.

How many times have you read a post saying, “I hope you get a good copy” or “I’m on my third/fourth copy and FINALLY got one that is sharp!”

This is common now, and the word that fits this pattern is indeed…RIDICULOUS.

And from another thread:

So here is the deal. I have a 1D Mark IIN, a 500/4L, a 400/5.6L and a 135L. Both the 1D Mark IIN and the 500/4L were calibrated for severe back focus independently. The 400/5.6L front focused severly and was calibrated for that. I got the 135L after all of this calibration and it was spot on out of the box. These are all spot on now. So I trust all of these are calibrated and focus correctly.

I just got a 40D tonight. Put it through my usual first AF test with the nice feature I can now test this against the liveview. And guess what - it back focuses. $&#$@@!~~**#

Here is the standard battery test. Furthest battery on the left, closest on the right, middle battery the focus point - all at a 45 degree angle longitudial to the lens axis. 100% crops.

I’ll tell ya, I am about ready to chuck it in, return the 40D, and sell all of my Canon gear. What a royal PITA. That is 2 lens I have had out of calibration, two bodies, and I have had IS fail on another L lens after 7 months. I would just like to be able to for once buy some equipment, receive it, and start using it

———

I dont like to whine but i feel your frustrations as i have had a similair experience with all the Canon gear i bought, a 40D severely frontfocussing, a 70-200 backfocussing, a 400mm frontfocussing (which was all dealt with by a Canon servicecentre…but it took many weeks for the gear to return from Canon which i consider unacceptable by itself…) and now i have a similair problem (again..) because the 400mm began to show a serious defect (after 3 months of usage) and while i got a (new) replacementlens from canon (which is positive by itself) that is up to the same level as the first lens IQ-wise…its also backfocussing just like the first copy wasnt properly in calibration…

With so many calibration ‘faulties’ one would have expected Canon to give us atleast a feature to instantly calibrate it on the fly, be it via the body or what do i care how as long as i wont have to sent my gear in all the time and will be able to shoot-on as i need to.

And before somebody comes rushing in saying these things can happen but dont occur that much…yes they do as a lot of my fellow shooters have had to deal with the very same, from their MKIII’s to their 40D’s to their L-lenses.

The Canongear-quality overall is outstanding but its a very bad thing they dont seem to take the time to properly calibrate the stuff before it leaves the factory…

———

Well duh, no kidding. Why should I have to send every bleeding piece of equipment into calibration for Canon. The stuff is not cheap.

And I didn’t even mention my 1d Mark IIn being in twice and out of my hands for a month to fix severe banding at high ISO. This was also out of the box. They had to replace the whole sensor assembly.

———

Canon needs to *&(#()* up and get their act together. I’ve sent in equipment twice and got it back with no apparent improvement although the Canon Service center stated that xyz was replaced and cleaned (8-[)…

Doesn’t look so good, does it?

I mentioned this before on my blog here, but it looks like it just got worse.

In case you didn’t know, Al Gore, the man who would like you to use less energy, think of the environment and is scaring everyone with global warming bullshit, owns a house that uses 20 times more energy per month than an average home! Yes, that’s 20 times MORE energy than an average home.

Even after changing his home to become more energy-efficient and environment friendly, his power usage has actually GONE UP. Imagine that. How the hell is that possible? Just check this out:

NASHVILLE - In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

“A man’s commitment to his beliefs is best measured by what he does behind the closed doors of his own home,” said Drew Johnson, President of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. “Al Gore is a hypocrite and a fraud when it comes to his commitment to the environment, judging by his home energy consumption.”

In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

In February 2007, An Inconvenient Truth, a film based on a climate change speech developed by Gore, won an Academy Award for best documentary feature. The next day, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research uncovered that Gore’s Nashville home guzzled 20 times more electricity than the average American household.

After the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s massive home energy use, the former Vice President scurried to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In the wake of becoming the most well-known global warming alarmist, Gore won an Oscar, a Grammy and the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, Gore saw his personal wealth increase by an estimated $100 million thanks largely to speaking fees and investments related to global warming hysteria.

“Actions speak louder than words, and Gore’s actions prove that he views climate change not as a serious problem, but as a money-making opportunity,” Johnson said. “Gore is exploiting the public’s concern about the environment to line his pockets and enhance his profile.”

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a Nashville-based free market think tank and watchdog organization, obtained information about Gore’s home energy use through a public records request to the Nashville Electric Service.

Looks like spreading all the global warming bullshit is making Gore a richer man. Good business as usual, it seems.

Don’t forget to watch a documentery titled “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” which you can download here with Bittorrent. You might learn something from it.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a long time now. And today, after reading this article on Jim Gray, I thought of finally writing about him on my blog. If you don’t know who Jim Gray is, and want a little background on him, check this link. He was one of the brightest scientists of our time and a very nice human being, from what I’ve read, and seen from video interviews with him. Check out this interview Robert Scoble did with him back in 2005.

On January 2007, Jim Gray went missing during a solo sailing trip to the Fallon Islands near San Francisco. When you read enough about what happened, you’ll discover that he just suddenly, somehow, vanished from the face of the earth without a trace. There are a lot of things about this that just don’t seem to add up. At least in my opinion. And here’s why:

1. Jim Gray is a very intelligent guy. Him getting into any kind of trouble and not being able to do something about it is not very likely. Him getting into trouble in the first place, especially as a result of his own mistakes, is not very likely.
2. Jim Gray used to make solo boat trips all the time, and so I would assume he has experience with it. This was not his first time ever, alone on his boat. And again, he’s the kind of guy that should be able to take care of himself.
3. The weather on the day he went out sailing was very very good!
4. Gray’s boat was equipped with an automatically deployable EPIRB (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon), which should have deployed and begun transmitting the instant his vessel sank.
5. So, Jim Gray is smart, he certainly had experience sailing alone where he went, the weather was good, the boat had a EPIRB - what the fuck happened? How could he vanish from the face of the planet without a trace?
6. Even if something happened, one of the most massive search and rescue efforts took place after that in order to find any trace of him, just check this out:

The Coast Guard searched for four days using a C-130 plane, helicopters, and patrol boats but found no sign of the vessel.
However, Gray’s boat was equipped with an automatically deployable EPIRB (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon), which should have deployed and begun transmitting the instant his vessel sank. The area around the Farallon Islands where Gray was sailing is also well north of the East-West ship channel used by freighters entering and leaving San Francisco Bay. The weather was clear that day and no ships reported striking his boat, nor were any distress radio transmissions reported.
On February 1, 2007, the DigitalGlobe satellite did a scan of the area, generating thousands of images. The images were posted to Amazon Mechanical Turk in order to distribute the work of searching through them, in hopes of spotting his boat.
On February 16, 2007, the Friends of Jim Gray Group suspended their search, but continue to follow any important leads. The family ended its search May 31, 2007. The massive high-tech effort did not reveal any new clues.

So, what do we have here? One of the smartest guys on earth goes out sailing in a familiar location, being an experienced solo sailor, during clear weather, and vanishes without a trace. His boat has a EPIRB, which should have started transmitting a distress signal as soon as it sank, but that also didn’t happen. Perhaps it didn’t sink? Thousands of highly detailed satellite images (560,000 images from 3 satellites, covering nearly 3,500 square miles of ocean) revealed absolutely nothing! A 4 day search by plane, helicopters and boats by the coast guard as well as many others (friends, family etc.) revealed nothing. A massive undertaking by Friends of Jim Gray, revealed absolutely nothing.

How the fuck is this possible? It is astonishing to me that apparently nobody has asked this question before. How the fuck is this possible? I mean, what are the odds here?

If you ask me, there are two options here. Either Jim Gray went hiding all by himself, tired of the world and just wanting to be left alone, or, he was abducted. Nothing else makes sense. Apparently someone, somewhere, was in need of a seriously smart database expert to help solve their problems.

If you think I’m kidding, think again.

All relationships are based on expectations. It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship it is, or between whom or what the relationship is. It could be a romantic relationship between two people, a partnership, friendship, between businesses and clients, or for a few technical examples, relationships between two tables in a database, or between two computers trying to establish a TCP/IP connection. Either side, and there could be more than two sides or parties involved, expect one or more things from the other side in order for the relationship to be established and to keep existing. The relationship cannot keep existing if either side does not meet the other’s expectations, and in such a case has no use.

In this post I’ll concentrate more on romantic relationships, or relationships based on love. So when I use the word relationship, that’s what I mean from now on.

In my opinion, the only expectation that should exist in a romantic relationship between two people, is giving and receiving love. Any romantic relationship which is based on other needs is doomed to fail. This has always been my main requirement for entering into a romantic relationship with someone else. The only thing I would expect from her, is to love me and give me enough attention and anything that naturally comes with that. I wouldn’t expect anything else. And I would want her to expect the same from me.

These days people enter into relationships with all kinds of wrong motives and expectations. This is one of the reasons why many relationships don’t work on the long term. For example, you have women, usually in their late 20s when they feel like they have partied enough and want a more stable life now, looking for men “to take care of them.” You have young boys and girls wanting to be with someone to be popular, or to be able to feel like they are part of something. Relationships based on such motives don’t have a lot of potential to last long, simply because they are based on the wrong things. If a girl is with you because of your money, what do you think will happen when one day you don’t have enough of it anymore? If she’s with you because of your status, what do you think will happen when one day you lose it?

A relationship based on love, true love, has the most potential to last long. It doesn’t mean that it will always last long, but just that it has the best chances to last long. And here, I’m talking about a relationship between two people as we know it in the traditional sense, where they remain faithful to eachother and essentially agree to belong to eachother (with or without marriage). Even this relationship, even though it has the best chances to last longer, often doesn’t last very long these days. The reason why is because people and situations can change over time. Apart from the fact that people can naturally change over time, it’s often also the case that they were just pretending to be someone else at the start of the relationship, just to meet the other’s expectations in order to establish the relationship. You can’t pretend to be someone else your whole life, and sooner or later, the other person will start to see the real you. Apart from the fact that it’s not easy to pretend to be someone else your whole life, you can also never be happy being someone else and doing the things that you don’t like.

Another reason why such a relationship doesn’t last very long, is that it is often limiting to both people involved, and its duration will depend on the level at which both people are able to live with the limitations they impose on eachother. I wrote before about love and limitations, and I wrote back then that such a relationship is not natural. People naturally want to be and feel free. And so limitations in relationships, or with regards to love, will only cause trouble.

Essentially, what I’m saying is that relationships in the traditional sense (boyfriend-girlfriend, husband-wife) and love, don’t belong together. Why? Because it’s not natural, and anything that is not natural, will require a lot of (wasted) energy to keep going.

It was about time I did another photography update on my blog. About a week ago I had the opportunity to do another shoot with a model. Nothing too fancy, just a simple shoot for her portfolio. It was her first time modeling, and I think she has great potential. The shoot lasted for about 5 hours, including the time for me to set up my stuff on location and pack everything up again at the end. Below you can see a picture showing the setup that I used for all the images: 

Two large softboxes, a hairlight, large sheets of white paper held together with duct tape, and a piece of black cloth. The shoot was done at Leaders Group Conference room, which became my studio for those 5 hours. An excellent location for a wide variety of reasons, very pleasant to work at. It’s also where I did a previous photoshoot. You can clearly see wineglasses in the image above, which is an indication that people were enjoying themselves.

Make-up and styling was done by Euvie Karijoredjo. I had previously worked with her on another photoshoot. She did a very nice job again, and in particular created some really juicy looking red lips for some of the images below. As a direct result, it wasn’t very easy for me to look at the model while operating my camera at the same time. But things worked out in the end. Below are a few pictures of Euvie working on the model. All these pictures were taken using the Canon EF 50mm f1.2L lens, which is one of my favourite lenses to use, shot using available light.

It looks like Ron Paul might be a Freemason. I can’t say I’m surprised. This explains why he could seem so intelligent and take good positions on many subjects, and yet, when it came to one of the most important subjects, sound completely stupid. This is what I wrote recently:

While you may think that Ron Paul is a highly intelligent man, with some really brilliant views, somehow he isn’t capable of viewing the available evidence on 9/11, and seeing that there’s something wrong there. Any person that is able to think clearly, and objectively looks at all the information about the attacks on 9/11 can only come to one conclusion: That 9/11 was an inside job. At the very least, they should realize that the official story about 9/11 is completely ridiculous.

And yet, Ron Paul somehow can’t get himself to look at all the available evidence and see that there is something seriously wrong. In fact, he even says he wants nothing to do with people who believe 9/11 was an inside job, even though he’s quite happy to receive the millions in donations from those same people. Just look at this video and also this one starting at 2:30. Is Ron Paul simply blind to the facts, or does he just really want to get elected and remain politically correct? There’s something seriously wrong and fishy about this. It appears he’s just another corrupt politician.

And now it’s clear what was going on. Ron Paul is just another gatekeeper. His purpose is to appeal to a certain group of people and control their efforts to try and change things and ultimately defuse them, while at the same time robbing them from their money (via donations), which will ultimately be used by the organization of which he is a part of (and now we know what organization that is).

Again, the fact that Alex Jones is still supporting him, even while Ron Paul made his views on 9/11 Truth public, should make you wonder if Alex Jones himself isn’t another gatekeeper operating at another level.

And finally, I’m including the article I linked above here just to make sure it doesn’t vanish from the Internet:

I know this is a taboo subject among Ron Paul supporters, of which I was one myself in the very beginning of his presidential campaign. And even if it is proven beyond any doubt that he is a freemason, many will just put it aside and pretend it doesn’t matter “because he is such a decent and honest man” etc. But many others are very curious to know what RP’s status is regarding Freemasonry because it does matter, and I fully intend to find out myself. Therefore, it is high time we started talking openly about it and try to ascertain the truth, one way or another.

I just happened to stumble across this comment over at the Daily Paul yesterday, and thought that I should share it with whoever is interested in knowing whether or not Ron Paul is a Freemason.

This does not prove anything in that regard, however it makes the probability that he is a Freemason very much higher since Eastern Star members are generally married to Freemason husbands, Rainbow girls are generally children of masons and because Ron Paul’s father was also a mason. And in addition, according to the comment, he “respects the organization”, which is wholly uncharacteristic of anyone who is supposedly fighting against the masonically-inspired New World Order. Ron Paul is also an unofficial member of the John Birch Society, which was founded by masons, funded by Nelson Rockefeller and run by Jesuit-trained Knights of Malta. In other words, the JBS is a gatekeeper organization, designed to control the opposition and make sure nothing substantial is ever done to impede the New World Order system which just keeps on rolling over humanity. How about the Jahbulon Bullshit Society for a more appropriate name?

Here is the comment in full rebutting an anti-masonic posting:

Ron Paul and Freemasonry

On April 20th, 2008 the oak says:

Liberty Oak Ranch

Quit using Ron Paul as a forum for your bigotted beliefs. You don’t know anything about him or his ideals obviously. You also know nothing about the Freemason or Eastern Star organizations.

1. Ron Paul’s father was a Freemason and Dr. Paul has said himself many times that he respects the organization and has been to many of the open meetings in his district. I should know, I was his scheduler for ten years.

2. His wife, Carol is a member of the Velasco Order of the Eastern Star and maintains her membership in the Freeport area lodge.

3. Their daughters, Lori and Joy, were both Rainbow girls, another organization associated with Freemasonry.

Your hatefilled retoric regarding a benevolent, Biblically based organization is likened to those who have a fear of the unknown. It spawns lies and hate toward those who are innocent and have done good for others. Just try taking your child to the Shriner’s burn or crippled childrens hospital. They will take care of your child regardless of your ignorance and will do it free of charge. How many people has your paranoia helped?

Source: http://www.dailypaul.com/node/46310
Unfortunately, the link now says “access denied” for whatever reason. Maybe you can explain to me why the link no longer works. I even tried to find the page again through a Google search (how I found it originally) and nothing. Poof! Gone. No trace. Not even a Google cache available. I wonder why? Hmmm….

If anyone knows the actual identity of this “scheduler” with the handle of “Liberty Oak Ranch”, please share it here with us to help confirm the validity of the comment.

I looked up the Eastern Star chapter being referred to if anyone wants to try and research this further:

Velasco Chapter No. 220 (District 4)

Worthy Matron: Mrs. Leota Romine
Worthy Patron: Paul Romine
Secretary: Mrs. Yvonne Huffhines
1210 N. Avenue O
Freeport Texas 77541
2nd & 4th Mon 7:30pm
Ph. (979) 233-1567

 

Then, one might assume that Ron Paul frequently goes (as the scheduler claims) to meetings at a masonic lodge in the same area, so I found this lodge listed with the Grand Lodge of Texas website which it would seem is a very likely candidate for being one of those lodges he attends:

Velasco Masonic Lodge #757

Douglas Raborn W.M.
email Edward Garcia edgarcia005@sbcglobal.net
Masonic District 31-C
Located in Brazoria County
115 year old Lodge ( Charter granted December 8, 1893)
Members: 176
Lodge Address: 1210 N. Ave. O, Freeport 77541
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 757
Meetings: First and Third Tuesday of each month, 7:30 p.m.
Lodge Phone: 979-233-3623

As I gather more information on what I am 90% sure is a fact, that Ron Paul is a high Freemason of the 33rd degree or above, who knows the masonic agenda and yet keeps it all a secret from his supporters (as Dick Cheney kept his CFR membership a secret from his constituents in Wyoming), I will immediately pass it on to you the public who have a right to know the truth.

PW

PS: Keep an eye on this post as I believe I will be updating it with new information over the next few weeks and months. If you have something definitive regarding Ron Paul’s membership in any secret society, please post a comment with specifics.

After receiving a lot of feedback from my previous post on Canon Quality Control sucking bigtime, I thought it would be good to write an update. Before you read on, please read my previous post including the comments to make sure you know where I’m coming from.

A day after my previous post, I noticed that I got banned from the forums at DPReview. And my thread on that forum where I discussed my blog post got deleted as well. Apparently the moderator(s) there, whoever they are (Phil Askey?), don’t like the fact that I seemed to have enough courage to question the many issues Canon seems to have with their DSLR products. Even though I mentioned that the basis of my post was not only because I had experienced issues first hand, but also that I had noticed a trend on the forums where you had posts discussing focus issues every day. And to this day, this trend continues, as I have shown in the comments section of my previous post. Click here to check for yourself. As you will also notice from the feedback I got in the comments section of my previous post, there are many who have issues and agree with me, and you will find many more posts with similar issues by just searching on Google. Today I even noticed a thread on DPReview, where the poster said:

Seems every other thread you read here is about a camera and/or lens not focussing properly or some other issue that results in lousy photos. I’ve had lots of good examples of bad photos

I’m glad I am not the only one who noticed.

I also got feedback from a few professional photographers operating some of the popular digital imaging sites online today, and they also wrote to me in agreement. I noticed however that very few of them talk about these issues openly. And indeed it seems many are afraid to speak up, perhaps afraid to hurt their relationship with Canon or others. Who knows? I was surprised to find photographer Lloyd Chambers courageous enough to post a comment on my previous post where he just honestly admitted to the many issues with Canon lenses, even mentioning:

I would estimate based on my own experience that somewhere between 30-50% of brand new pro-grade lenses have at least mild optical issues, and some, like the 70-200/4 have moderate to severe ones-.

The 30-50% estimate is roughly what I thought myself based on what I have seen online. And I don’t know about you, but that’s A LOT. If this is true, it proves Canon’s quality control is bad. When I browsed around Lloyd’s website, one thing made me understand how he could speak his mind so freely:

Diglloyd.com accepts no manufacturer advertising.  Much content is free [free articles, blog] , but paid reviews help finance the site. Equipment used for paid reviews is purchased through normal retail channels; manufacturer discounts are not accepted.

It’s easy to be honest when you don’t accept ads or other gifts from manufacturers. You don’t have to worry about losing income, losing deals or hurting your relationship with them. I wish more people could be like this. It’s easier to trust Lloyd’s reviews on his website because of this.

But on DPReview? I mentioned issues and got banned. Perhaps there are things we can conclude from this. But I’ll leave that to your own imagination.

But again, what is very clear is that Canon has a major quality control issue on their hands, and every day users write to complain about it, as I have shown here. And again I have to remind you, this is just on one site, searching on Google reveals lots more.

Microsoft is at it again. Back in 2006, I had already written about them stopping support for Playsforsure on new devices, which meant that people who bought music using Microsoft’s Playsforsure DRM infection, would not be able to play their music on new devices, including Microsoft’s own Zune player. This was called one of the more massive screwings of customers by Microsoft.

Well it looks like Microsoft has outdone themselves this time, because they are going to stop supporting their MSN music service:

Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft’s now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it’s done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer.

MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”

This doesn’t just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize, it also applies to operating systems on the same machine (users need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, for example). Once September rolls around, users are committed to whatever five machines they may have authorized—along with whatever OS they are running. 

This means that people who invested their money in music from MSN store will soon find that their entire music collection is unusable. To me, this is simply unbelievable. This is another clear example of what happens when you buy DRM infected products. And it further shows why piracy seems to be a better choice these days. Also check out this article:

Today, MS is saying that come August 31, a week or four shy of the two-year anniversary of the night of long knives, you will not be able to re-authorise your music. That means that the music is yours to keep. On one PC. As long as it doesn’t crash. Or you don’t update your OS. Or something doesn’t just decide to stop the music playing. If you do any of these things, you just lost your music permanently.

Basically, MS is stealing from you. It has your money, but you can’t have access the services you bought any more. So they are stopping, and legally, you are screwed. Microsoft has got your money though.

We have been saying for years that ANY sort of DRM is unacceptable, and this goes to show you exactly what we mean. Anyone who bought music from MS just got screwed, period, without recourse. It also proves what we have said for almost the same amount of time, Piracy is the Better Choice (R)(TM)(C).

MS has once again proven that if you steal the music, legality aside, you get a better product. Legally purchased music is demonstrably worse than pirated music. There has never been a case that I am aware of of a pirated copy deciding not to play any more because someone in Redmond decided it was inconvenient. You just get a better product, cheaper too, but also illegal.

Read my previous post on this subject to find out how you can recognize DRM infected products in the future so you don’t waste your money on the long term.

Another thing that has me amazed, is that I cannot understand how consumers seem to be so tolerant these days. It seems companies can do to consumers what they want and even rip them off, like Microsoft is now doing, without them even saying anything about it. Such a move from Microsoft should at least have sparked some major PR issues for them if not lawsuits. But consumers these days appear to have a very high level of tolerance. I recently also wrote about the bad quality control at Canon, with regards to their DSLR products. And there you see a similar problem, consumers are having issues with the products not working well, even out of the box, and many are complaining, but it looks like they just accept it for some reason as being normal. When has it become normal for a company to massively screw so many customers on such a large scale, as Microsoft is doing? When has it become normal to buy a DSLR and finding out that it does not work (well) as soon as you power it on? When has it become normal to buy a lens for your DSLR and finding out it only takes soft pictures and doesn’t focus well?

One thing seems to be clear, and that is that if companies are able to do this with customers, it’s because the customers are stupid enough to let it happen.

It looks like everywhere you look on the Internet, you come across messages from various users complaining about their Canon photography gear. The forums at DPreview for example are filled with posts about camera bodies giving the ERR 99 error message, dying very soon after purchase, can’t focus correctly out of the box and have to be sent in for calibration etc. Similarly for their lenses, there are so many instances of lenses front or back focusing, producing soft images, misalignment, too much chromatic aberration and flare. And these are the more expensive bodies and professional L lenses! They cost a fortune. At prices between $4000 and $8000 for a professional 1D body, and prices between $1400 and $2500 for a professional L lens, you would expect the hardware to perform really well. But apparently not if it’s made by Canon.

I can’t imagine spending $8000 on a 1Ds Mark III body and notice that it doesn’t work well within a few days of getting it. And yet, this is a situation many people have found themselves in. Just search on the Internet. It’s simply incredible. And Canon seems to get away with it too.

Take the autofocus fiasco with the 1D Mark III camera for example. That is just an excellent example of the bad quality control, or the complete lack of something resembling quality control at Canon. It took them months to fix it and a complete recall of all 1D Mark III bodies sold. And then, you find out that it is still not fixed. What a mess.

With such bad quality control, it doesn’t matter what products you deliver and specs that make you look better than the competition don’t matter either. What’s the use of being the only one with a 21 megapixel camera, when it looks like more than half of them don’t function correctly out of the box? When you buy a body or lens from Canon, these days you have to pray that you get a good (enough) copy.

The 40D body doesn’t even have the micro adjust feature so you can adjust the autofocus of lenses that front or back focus slightly. So the only option you have is send the body and lenses back to Canon for calibration. In my opinion, even the consumer level DSLR has to have micro adjust capability for lenses, especially if you can’t seem to make your lenses autofocus correctly out of the box, like is the case with Canon.

And now they are rumored to be working on the 5D mark II body. If that body doesn’t have as much focus points as the Nikon D3/300 (or very close), if it doesn’t have micro adjust for lenses and if it doesn’t have weather sealing comparable to the 1D bodies, they don’t have to release it at all in my opinion. Because Nikon is going to be a much better alternative, as it already is right now. Weather sealing on the Canon EOS 40D is laughable. It’s incredible that Canon even claims that the 40D body is weather sealed. That is simply a big lie.

Canon needs to get their act together ASAP in order not to further damage their reputation, or what remains of it at this point.

Update: Also, do NOT buy the Canon UV Haze Filters. Save your money. They claim that it prevents haziness, but forget to tell you that it also causes some really beautiful internal reflections  in high contrast situations and bright light. In certain situations it also causes loss of contrast in images. Totally unacceptable. And this even when used with L lenses. Most people claim to buy them to protect their lenses, but protecting your lenses can’t happen at the expense of image quality. To this day I wonder why Canon even sells them.

Update 2: Just in case you think I have something against Canon, you should know that I currently own close to $20,000 worth of Canon photography gear. I do however think that they should deliver more quality than they currently do.

Update 3: I also forgot to mention the many instances of camera bodies arriving with dirt, dust and even oil on the sensor or in the mirror box. I actually had one 40D myself that arrived with a big black piece of dirt on the sensor. Way to go Canon!

Update 4 (April, 21 2008): Photographer Lloyd Chambers posted a comment below that is certainly worth reading. The link he provides is further evidence that you cannot seem to trust lenses from Canon and even Nikon these days (Also check this related thread on DPReview.) I like his conclusion:

Don’t assume that your brand-new lens (or one you’ve banged around) is optically good. Test it and see for yourself. Today’s modern lens designs are outstanding, but real lenses must be manufactured and transported, offering many possibilities for theoretical performance to drop considerably.

If you find that your new lens is optically out of whack, you might be able to exchange it for another copy—one good reason to work with a reputable vendor. Or you can send it in for service, which nearly always resolves the problem (in the author’s experience). Both approaches require retesting the lens; there is no guarantee with either approach. The risk in sending it in for service is exceeding the return period of the vendor. Be sure to be as specific as possible about the problem, including photographs that show it clearly. This will help ensure that the problem is fixed.

Lloyd also sent along some more interesting links:

• Optical misalignment with the Canon EOS 24-70/f2.8L
• Focus Accuracy
• Lens Mount Misalignment

And here’s his take on the Canon 16-35mm f2.8L II:

In my view, images from the 16-35 II which have not been corrected for color fringing are unacceptable at 16mm, at least with some subjects, such as the white birches in the test image. I am sorely disappointed at Canon’s assertion that chromatic aberration has been “virtually eliminated”. The claim is so much at odds with the rendered images that one can only marvel at Canon’s brazenness. While we can’t expect too much from an ultra-wide zoom lens, we can expect realistic assessments of imaging performance from the manufacturer.

Owning a copy of that lens myself, I can only confirm this, and I was equally surprised when I saw the first results when using the lens. Finally, I want to add that this part of Lloyd’s comment below:

I would estimate based on my own experience that somewhere between 30-50% of brand new pro-grade lenses have at least mild optical issues, and some, like the 70-200/4 have moderate to severe ones-. Fortunately, in most cases these are correctable with a trip to the service center.

roughly matches with what I’ve seen so far online. Lloyd gives some good tips in this article for when you purchase a new lens.

Even after the release of Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows Vista, the operating system has still not improved much. It is practically as slow and resource hungry as it was without SP1. So it’s no surprise that business still aren’t upgrading to Vista. The only reason why Microsoft has managed to sell as much Vista licenses as they have up till now, is because new computers come with it preinstalled. If it weren’t for that, sales of Vista would have been a lot more tragic than they are right now.

From the beginning I and many others have said that the prices were also extremely high for all versions of Windows Vista, with the Ultimate edition being the worst. I wonder what those who bought the ultimate edition got for the extra money they spent, because up till now, Microsoft has failed to deliver anything of extra value to those users. Recently they’ve been trying to cut prices as well, and you have to really appreciate the PR speak here:

Microsoft made the announcement on its website, in the form of a Q &A with Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows consumer product marketing (must have a big business card).

Says Brooks:

“Windows Vista has been on the market for more than a year now, with more than 100 million licences sold in its first year. While this is great progress … we’ve observed market behaviour that suggests an opportunity to expand Windows stand-alone sales to other segments of the consumer market. Over the past year, we conducted promotions in several different markets combining various marketing tactics with lower price points on different stand-alone versions of Windows Vista. While the promotions varied region to region, one constant emerged – an increase in demand among consumers that went beyond tech enthusiasts and build-it-yourself types.”

So as you can see, Microsoft has “observed market behaviour that suggests an opportunity to expand Windows stand-alone sales to other segments of the consumer market.” Do you know what that means? I think the “observed market behaviour” was the behaviour of people not wanting to buy Vista. I think what he was trying to say was: “We noticed Vista isn’t selling well and are now forced to lower prices of stand-alone licenses so we can hope to sell some more of it since people don’t seem to want it, unless they have no choice but to accept it with a new PC.” It’s not selling, and they have no choice but to lower the exorbitant prices they were selling Vista at.

Recently Gartner explained why Vista is broken:

Microsoft’s operating system (OS) development times are too long and they deliver limited innovation; their OSs provide an inconsistent experience between platforms, with significant compatibility issues; and other vendors are out-innovating Microsoft. That gives enterprises unpredictable releases with limited value, management costs that are too high, and new releases that break too many apps and take too long to test and adopt. With end users bringing their own software solutions into the office… well, it’s just a heck of a sad story for Microsoft.

Those arguments probably don’t surprise you. (See Should Microsoft Throw Away Vista? and Vista Never Had Its Moment in 2007.) But the Gartner analysts offered several more points to show how Windows is in a whole new world of hurt. High on the list is Windows’ complexity, its lack of modularity, its hardware footprint (particularly on low-end PCs), and the increasing movement to Web-based and other OS-agnostic applications.

When I tried installing a fresh Windows Vista SP1 copy, I was surprised to find out that a problem I mentioned a year ago during installation still existed.  This is what I wrote back then:

One area where it’s clearly visible how they rushed to get Vista finished by cutting out as much functionality is the Setup routine. If you’re not lucky, you might be presented with a message during Setup that it could find no supported hard drives to install Windows Vista on. It turns out that this happens when no partition on your hard disks is set as active. But here’s the thing: You can actually partition your hard disks during the setup procedure and format them, but somehow, Microsoft forgot to provide a small button somewhere where users can actually set an active partition after they have partitioned their hard disks during setup! How stupid can you get? So you provide the functionality to partition and format disks, but not to activate a partition, even though this same setup routine requires it to continue! Simply fucking amazing. I can’t tell you how much this frustrated me. I had to quit setup, then find out why I was getting this “no drives supported to install” message (THEY COULDN’T EVEN JUST PROVIDE A CLEAR MESSAGE SAYING THERE ARE NO ACTIVE PARTITIONS!!!), download a bootdisk CD to load another partition utility to activate a partition, then load setup again and continue installing. Needless to say, it took quite some time to figure it out.

Imagine how I felt when I was presented with that same message that Vista could not find any supported drives to install itself. And this, while right before that message, it presented me with a list of hard drives and partitions, and allowed me to actually select a partition to install to!! I lost more than an hour troubleshooting and trying to find out why it was doing this. And this time, it appeared that the problem was a USB memory stick that was attached to the PC. Only after I had removed it did the install continue. This is just an incredible example of the bad quality of the product.

I think Gartner is right about everything they said of Windows Vista. It has become slow and bloated. Everyday I hear about more people around me who switch to Mac OS X, because it is so fast and requires a lot less resources. Others are sticking with Windows XP for now. Microsoft has to do something totally radical if it wants to stay in the OS business. I think that the only good option they have is to start from scratch and build a new operating system from the ground up, without any backwards compatibility for current software and older hardware. That new operating system could then be released with a virtual machine containing an image of a licensed copy of Windows XP or Windows Vista so that users will still be able to use their older software inside that virtual machine. But for the new OS, everyone will have to at the very least recompile their applications, or significantly rewrite them to be able to run natively. With this approach, the new OS will be free of bloat, and as a result use a lot less resources and be a lot less complex, while at the same time it can be built according to today’s standards. It will also enable Microsoft to be free to innovate instead of being limited by the existing infrastructure and compatibility issues.

And if there are still smart people working at Microsoft, they are already looking into this.