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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

After I reviewed the pictures I sent a small number of them to the client explaining what I had in mind so he could make his own selection. I also offered a selection of my own as an example. He chose to go ahead with my selection of 3 pictures, one for each building:

Torarica

Royal Torarica

Eco Resort Inn

I chose to photograph a small part of each building that was unique and characteristic of that building, so that anyone who knew the buildings would recognize them as soon as they saw the pictures. I also tried to photograph them in the same angle and perspective, so that it would give an interesting effect when hanging them on the wall next to eachother:

This was not an easy assignment for me because it was not easy to come up with ideas that could work for all 3 buildings. Because the pictures would be hanging next to eachother, I also didn’t want them to look too different from eachother, and wanted them to share certain features so that it would be clear that they belong together, even though they’re very different from eachother when you look at the architecture. And in my opinion, they do look quite nice at 50cmx70cm. It’ll be interesting to see what others think in the next few days.

Here are some of the first pictures I took during the photowalk:

Birds flying very low on the shore of the Suriname river. Both Jimmy and I had never seen this type of bird before so we went in for close-ups.

The above picture is a close-up of one of the birds. It was taken with the 70-200mm lens with the 40D body in AI Servo mode. With only 9 autofocus points on the 40D it wasn’t very easy to keep tracking the birds. The Nikon D300 has 51 focus points which is A LOT more than the 40D. Canon has a lot of work to do in this area.

Here’s a wide angle shot of a few boats on the river. The weather that day was really nice as you can see from the blue sky. And below is a close-up taken with the 70-200mm lens.

We went to a different spot later on and there we came across Joey. He’s the guy in black in the picture below looking very sad, almost like he’s about to cry. As Jimmy and I walked up to him, he immediately started to complain about the lack of strong winds and not being able to surf the way he wants to.

In the picture below Jimmy was trying to get a macro shot of Joey’s legs. Just kidding. Jimmy was focusing on something else, but it almost looks like he’s taking a picture of Joey’s legs. Not saying that he didn’t photograph Joey’s legs though.

After a while Joey decided to try surfing again, hoping for some strong winds. He still looked quite disappointed though. He stood up and dragged his surfing board and sail into the water. I captured a rather dramatic shot of the moment below.

Not long after that Joey was surfing away.

As he went further away from us, I captured the shot below.

Nearby, a couple was sitting in the shade of a palm tree, enjoying the view.

Below is a shot of Joey as he was approaching us again after a while.

From the shot below you can tell that it’s not very easy to lift up the sail after it falls on the water.

Meanwhile Jimmy and I had the privilege of meeting “Arturo” (real name Ertugrul Kilic), a photographer from Turkey. You can see him standing below with his Nikon D2Xs.

Arturo busy taking some shots of a surfer.

Jimmy and Arturo sitting together in the shade watching the surfers.

Later on Jimmy and I went to another spot where I took the pictures below.

Then we arrived at some location with a couple of hills as you can see on the picture below. I immediately thought of climbing on top of one and have Jimmy take a picture of me.

I took the picture below from the top of one of those hills while Jimmy was also taking a picture of me standing on top.

You can see me standing on the hill in the next picture which was taken by Jimmy.

As I was trying to come down from the hill, I was leaning on the side of the hill with my left hand, when all of a sudden I felt being bitten in my hand. When I looked, I saw a number of big red ants on my hand in full attack mode. In the next picture, you can see me blowing on my hand trying to get the ants off of it, with little result. As I was being attacked and furiously trying to get the ants off of my hand while not dropping my camera, Jimmy ran closer and yelled “If you just come tumbling down right now I might be able to get some really spectacular shots!” Later that night my hand was swollen and I could count at least 8 very small wounds the ants left behind. 

The next few shots were taken not too far from the hills.

I really liked the dirty industrial look of the scene above.

In the picture above you can see one of the entrances to the presidential palace in Paramaribo. It was already late in the afternoon when this picture was taken as you can see from the long shadows.

The white dot in the picture above between the palm trees is the moon. Below are a couple of shots of palm trees. It was very late in the afternoon and I loved the gold/orange highlights in the trees from the sunset.

This guy appears to be missing something.

As Jimmy and I walked through the city, I took some pictures of the old monumental buildings. You can again see the gold/orange light from the sunset against the buildings.

Below are some pictures of the sunset over the Suriname river with the J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge in the background and a very beautiful sky.

I love the pictures of the buildings below. You can see the sunset in the distance, and the gold/orange light hitting the buildings from the side. The perspective from the 16-35mm lens is interesting as well.

Finally, as it became very dark, Jimmy and I drove around town for a good spot to do some long exposure photography. The last two pictures below are two quick attempts at using long exposures at night. We didn’t spend much time doing this but the next time I’ll try to look for some interesting locations for this.

The whole photowalk lasted about 4 hours, and at the end I had about 600 pictures. Some of those pictures will make it into my online photo gallery in the next few days. I’m already looking forward to the next photowalk, which may take place as soon as the coming weekend.

Make sure to also check out the content I discussed in this post, and about religion in this post.

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.

His stance on 9/11 Truth has cost him dearly, and he will continue to lose support from many people:

The last Ron Paul ‘money bomb’ showed a substantial loss of support momentum…which was/is largely the result of his complete public disassociation and denouncement of the entire 911 Truth Movement during that national ‘debate’ several weeks ago.  See: Ron Paul Disavows 911 Truth - ‘I Don’t Believe That
 
That was either a bald-faced, enormous, lie to try to keep himself politically ‘alive’ … OR that is HIS truth.
 
Either way, it cost him a lot of support.
 
We know several Ron Paul backers who dropped him at that moment… and it was reflected in the failed, subsequent fundraising.
 
His poor showing (absolutely expected) in the primaries was the final truth his devoted supporters had to swallow: the system is totally owned and operated by the controllers. Period.

Yes, and it looks like even Ron Paul is owned by the same controllers. What is also very interesting is that as all of this was happening, Alex Jones never mentioned any of this on his website and continued to interview and support Ron Paul, never asking him about his views on 9/11 Truth. Why did he not confront Ron Paul with this? Why did he not report this on his website and let his readers know about this? Is Alex Jones also owned and operated by the same controllers? It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the case.

Meanwhile Ron Paul has lost my support.

As you can no doubt imagine by now, I don’t think life is beautiful at all. In fact, I even wrote before that there is no happiness in life. I do believe that life can be, or could be, beautiful. But it’s not. There might be some nice moments in everyone’s life, but if you look at the overall picture, it just sucks. Badly. Just look at the way it always ends. Is there anything beautiful about that?

Isn’t it interesting that the first thing that babies do when they get born is that they start crying? If life was so beautiful, wouldn’t you expect babies to start laughing and smiling as soon as they enter the world? Shouldn’t they be happy about it? Why cry instead? Where does that come from? Most babies won’t smile until after they are at least a few weeks old. Why is that? They can’t smile for a few weeks, but are perfectly capable of crying from the moment they are born, and even do so quite frequently!

The reason why this is so, I believe, is because life is full of pain and sadness. The moment a baby gets born, he starts to cry most likely because he feels the hostility around him immediately and can perhaps even feel the sadness and pain that is to come. Maybe he even regrets being born and shows that by starting to cry as soon as he’s born.

The fact that babies are perfectly capable of crying from the moment they are born, and that most of them won’t show their first smile for a few weeks, also shows the nature of life. You get born being perfectly capable to feel pain and sorrow and to react to it, but it isn’t until weeks later when you start to learn how to smile. It’s almost as if the baby needs a few months to get used to the situation, and tries to make the best out of it in the end. It’s like after a few weeks of crying about the tragedy of being born in this world of pain, he starts to get an attitude of “hey, since I can’t do anything about this, I might as well get used to it and try to make the best out of it.”

And I can completely understand.

Afterall, it is what most people would do in any bad situation. Try to make the best out of it. So even though life sucks, why not smile when the moment is there to smile once in a while?

That, however, doesn’t change the nature of life. It doesn’t change the fact that everything in this world seems to be based on the principle of pain and suffering. And it never will.

In a fairly frank interview with Gizmodo, Gates was asked if he thought there any Microsoft product that “could have had more polish.”

…

Instead Gates replid: “Ask me after we have shipped the next version of Windows”.

The implication is fairly obvious. Bill thinks that Vista could have had more polish when it hit the shops. He can’t say so now because that would undermine Vista’s already flagging sales.

And here is the video so you can see for yourself.

I’ve written a number of articles about how badly I think Windows Vista sucks. I had warned about it sucking even before it shipped. Microsoft did such a half-assed job, people all over the world are suffering because of it every day. I’m just glad I didn’t pay for it, because I’d have felt so much worse if I had. Especially when you see Gates laugh about it while you know you paid $400 for junk and him making huge profits from it.

And pay special attention to the fact that he can’t talk about how Vista sucks until “after we have shipped the next version of Windows.” In other words, he can’t talk about it now because otherwise nobody would want it. So he’s pretty OK with knowingly selling crap to everyone, and getting richer from it while joking about it on stage. This is even worse compared to when he said that he was against DRM and that DRM was bad for users, while failing to notice that most Microsoft software and hardware products shipping at the time included DRM. Products he was responsible for.

That’s Bill Gates for you, people!

It was also no surprise that Fox News decided not to include Ron Paul in their debate on January 6th. Another attempt to ignore Ron Paul and to prevent his message from reaching even more people. Fox News is scared of the man. This is why Ron Paul’s campaign urged everyone to boycott Fox News sponsors:

Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign manager Kent Snyder has slammed Fox News’ decision to bar the Congressman from a live televised January 6 forum as “an insult” and has urged supporters to boycott Fox sponsors if they follow through on their promise to exclude Dr. Paul.

Speaking on The Alex Jones Show, Snyder described Fox News’ excuse for not inviting the Congressman, that they don’t have enough room, as “lame”.

“I can’t imagine Fox News not having enough room in a studio for another participant so that’s just lame and it just goes to show exactly what they are doing, they don’t have any any more legitimate or rational excuse than that,” he said.

And the effect this is having on the News Corp stock is just incredible:

From the look of the 3 day chart on yahoo.com it seems that the NWS stock dump and boycott is having an effect already.

I predict that the numbers will continue in their current downward trend in the days and weeks ahead as the Ron Paul campaign with its huge grass roots engine rolling along will in the end steam roll the parent company of Fox news in stock value with their efforts. This will be in addition to the thousands of faxes, emails, phone calls and other such activist efforts on the part of the grass roots for Ron Paul.

This is fair compensation to Fox in my opinion for their slighting of Ron Paul by not inviting him to the Jan 6th forum sponsored in part by the New Hampshire Republican Party and Fox News.

From what I have read of the boycott effort it will include all advertisers that are currently sponsors of Fox news as well as encouraging the sell off of NWS stock for the forseable furture. The stock was kind of a dog from what I have seen so this is not going to help the situation for certain.

Just take a look at the graph and notice the sudden sharp drop in stock value. All the effort of censorship is more understandable when you consider that some people are already predicting Ron Paul becoming president:

Denmark based Saxo Bank predicts Ron Paul presidency in 2008. According to Pravda.Ru, the bank predicts Paul will be the next president and that the U.S. economy will plunge into a depression prior to the election.

Saxo Bank says the U.S. economy will shrink by 25% and the Chinese economy will decrease by 40%. The economic downturn will come about as a result of the housing crash.

…

Paul now leads all Republicans in fundraising and is best positioned to win the GOP nomination. His campaign is already financed through Feb 5th when 22 states hold primaries.

Paul also advocates the elimination of federal income taxes and a non interventionist foreign policy and is an advocate of protecting the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution. Paul has maintained that U.S. foreign policy was bankrupting the country.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul’s support on the Internet is only growing and more and more people are starting to hear about him. It’ll be interesting to see how far he’ll be able to go, and how the establishment is going to react.

To be able to get the exact tone of red that he wanted, we decided that we wouldn’t be using a red background, but just shoot on white and replace the background in post processing. In addition, the model would be posing without a coin on his finger, and that would also be added later in post processing. So I set up everything for the shoot, and when the model was ready, started taking shots with slight variations until I decided that I had enough shots that looked like what Edward wanted. That took about 5 minutes. Below are some examples:

If you look carefully, you can even see the duct tape on the background. So after those 5 minutes, I couldn’t believe I was done so quickly. It took about 30 minutes to set up the background and lighting, and it would take another 30 minutes after the shoot to pack everything up again. That was an hour of work for just 5 minutes? I decided to try some other poses as well just in case Edward needed more material. I told the model that I wanted to try another expression on his face, a little fun and mischievous, perhaps even a little arrogant, a feeling of “I’m there, I’ve made it, I’m rich, just look at me!” We tried a couple of variations with slight differences, of which you can see some examples below:

A few days after the shoot I delivered all pictures to Edward, and he started looking at all of them to make a decision on which one would make it to the front cover. With many pictures with slight variations, it wasn’t an easy task, and I was just glad I wasn’t the one having to make a decision. Finally it came down to 2 pictures, one with the original serious James Bond pose, and another one with the fun/mischievous expression. I started doing post processing on those two pictures, added the red background and the gold coin. Edward got the gold coin from the Central Bank of Suriname and I took pictures of it, which I then used as textures to render the rotating coin in 3D Studio Max to make it as realistic as possible. And then it finally came down to the two images below:

And a close-up of the coin:

Then I sat back comfortably in Edward’s office, and enjoyed the insightful discussion he had with his assistants about which one of the two pictures would make it to the front cover of the next United magazine. After a while the decision was made, and you can see a picture of the actual cover at the beginning of this post. The other picture would then be used in other parts of the magazine, of which you can see an example below:

I have more of my photography work in this edition, including the picture below, which I wrote about before:

Below is another article featuring my pictures, one of which is an approximately 200 degree panoramic image:

And then ads I did for Lenovo/NADO Computers and Tropical Gem Tours:

And finally, my own ad

Below are some examples of pictures I took in the morning, using a Canon 40D body, the Canon 24-70mm f2.8 L lens and Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash. A problem I discovered when I got home was that the Canon UV Haze filter I was using on the lens caused quite a lot of internal reflection between the front element of the lens and the filter, especially if there were both very bright and dark areas in the frame. I would have expected a UV Haze filter from Canon to perform a lot better with their own lenses. I mainly had the filter on for protection of the lens, but after having seen the loss of quality in pictures due to reflection and loss of contrast, I’m not going to be using it anymore on any of my lenses.

Another challenge was dealing with the other photographers and cameramen who were there, mostly from the press. It seems that it is perfectly normal for another photographer or cameraman to suddenly appear in the frame in front of you as you’re trying to get a shot, almost like they don’t see you standing there and get in front totally blocking your view. At the same time, I had to take care to walk around carefully trying to get the best angle, and not block other photographers and cameramen. Sounds easy, but it’s not.

Here are some shots taken inside the hotel with the same equipment:

The following were taken using a Canon 40D body and the Canon 50mm f1.2 L lens, without use of flash. I really love this lens, captures a lot of light and enables me to shoot without flash while handholding the camera.

And here’s a wide shot taken from above, with the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 L II lens:

And then the pictures I took at night. I wanted to capture as much of the mood and original lighting as possible, so I didn’t use a flash at all. Using a flash produces a totally different look in pictures and the mood gets lost. In addition, the constant bright flashes might bother the guests especially if you stand really close to some of them. So I mainly used the Canon 85mm f1.2 L lens at night, which enabled me to take pictures without a flash, and without getting too close, in a relatively dark setting while still being able to handhold the camera. People were walking up to me and asking me why my flash, which was mounted on the camera just in case, wasn’t firing at all while I was taking pictures. The big heavy 85mm lens also looked quite impressive, and generated a lot of interest from guests. Here are some example pictures:

And finally some wide shots taken from above using the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 L II lens that gives you a sense of how crowded it was:

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