In LA

I’m finding it fun to watch the Breaking News Map scroll around and display bits of world news over the appropriate spot on a world map. It gives a god-like top-down sense of place to each story.

I received my Panasonic DMC-LZ8, and shot a few test photos today. In summary, I’d give the camera an A- for optics, an A for features, a B for user-interface (I have to click how many times to manually set the ISO equivalent?), and a solid D for image processing.

Why that low grade? Because after the camera has responded to the user’s commands, the lens has focused and zoomed, the image has been focused on the sensor, and the sensor has captured an image, Panasonic’s Venus Engine IV software goes to work. It takes the raw image off the sensor, processes it, and writes a file to the memory card. The problem is in the processing — digital images contain some amount of noise, and this noise can be reduced by applying noise reduction algorithms. But there is a downside to noise reduction, as these algorithms reduce the level of detail in the image. Every manufacturer approaches this tradeoff in their own way, but Panasonic’s decision is very unfortunate.

The Panasonic DMC-LZ8 (and apparently most other Panasonic digital cameras) suffers from an overly aggressive style of noise reduction. The user can set the noise reduction to be reduced in one of the camera’s menus, but it can’t be reduced nearly enough, and can’t be disabled. It doesn’t appear to be possible to shoot a photo that is not visibly mangled by Panasonic’s digital noise reduction.

Panasonic’s noise reduction may be useful for photos shot in low-light conditions, as such photos can have enough noise to warrant some smearing of detail in order to make the noise less distracting. Photos shot in bright sunlight should have very little noise and thus require little to no noise reduction, yet the DMC-LZ8 attacks such images with its noise reduction algorithms and leaves them noiseless but also a bit impressionistic, as if they’d been painted with a tiny brush. Definition and fine details are lost in the process. I dialed the digital noise reduction down to its lowest setting and shot a few more sample photos, but the noise reduction was still very apparent.

The problem is not limited to the Panasonic DMC-LZ8, as is attested by this internet petition which asks Panasonic to release a firmware update for several other Panasonic cameras to allow users to choose to disable noise reduction. I would also prefer to disable the camera’s noise reduction feature, because it is easy to apply noise reduction in computer to shots that really need it, and 9 times out of 10 I prefer the organic look of the noise itself to the painterly look of noise reduction.

Gripes aside, the camera seems nice in all other aspects, and for $111 I’m happy with it. It’s small, fast, cheap, and the images are reasonably good (they’d be great if not for the problem noted above). If I’d paid the suggested retail price of $179 I’d probably already be in the process of returning the camera and replacing it with the Canon SD870IS, but at $111 I’m content. I don’t intend to use this as my primary camera. Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.

You knew that fortune cookies are an American invention, right? They’re related to a Japanese pastry, and were either invented in San Francisco or LA early last century. They do not exist in China. Armed with this knowledge, please to enjoy youtube clip:

Thanks to boingboing.net for bringing this video to my attention, and Jennifer 8 Lee for creating it (I think). I love it. I don’t know where the video was shot exactly, but it makes me miss the people of Beijing. There’s a nice cross-section of people and places in the video. Their good-natured reactions to the strange cookies are awesome.

People often ask me for advice on what camera to buy for taking snapshots and other general-purpose purposes. My criteria for a point-and-shoot camera would prioritize small size (convenience is key), a well-designed user-interface, a wide-angle lens¹, reasonably good image quality², and durability.

If price wasn’t a consideration, and I needed to buy a tiny point-and-shoot camera this instant, I’d probably buy a “Canon PowerShot SD870IS ($249 at Amazon.com). I like the features, image quality, and size of this camera, and its zoom lens covers a useful range, equivalent to 28-105mm on a 35mm camera. Optical image stabilization is also a plus.

But price is a consideration, and there’s a decent Panasonic digital camera, the LZ-8, available right now for $111 including shipping. That seems like an outstanding deal for a pretty nice, well reviewed little point-and-shoot camera. Its lens covers the 32-160mm range (35mm equivalent numbers). 32mm is not as nice and wide as 28mm, but it’s actually pretty good for a digital point-and-shoot, most of which start out at 37mm equivalent or worse. For less than half the price of the Canon I’d suffer having to take one additional step backward to fit my entire family in the frame at the next birthday party.

This deal takes advantage of the fact that Microsoft is attempting to lure users away from Google’s search engine with a 12% cash back promotion on products found using Microsoft’s Live Search. So in order to get that discount, you’ll need to first search for the “DMC-LZ8″ using Microsoft’s Live Search “cashback” page. This link might skip a few hoops and jump you to the desired result. If not, just try to click your way through to the listing for that camera at JR.com. It’ll come out to $119.99 - $14.40 cashback, + $6.95 for UPS ground shipping.

1. Only a few point-and-shoots go as wide as I’d like. The zoom ratio of such cameras is usually promoted in ad copy, which is an impressive-sounding but useless metric. To me, a 3x zoom that starts at a wide angle is of much greater utility than a 6x zoom that can zoom in so close that a nice dark shot of a squirrel on a tree down the street can be taken (less light makes it through these lenses the further they are zoomed) but doesn’t go wide enough to easily shoot a snapshot of a group of people in a small room. i.e. 28-105mm equivalent is a more useful lens than a 45-260mm equivalent in a tiny point-and-shoot. [↩]
2. images aquired on all digital point-and-shoot cameras that are not the Sigma DP1 will be completely outclassed by any recent digital SLR -lens and sensor size do matter [↩]

Mount Muztagh Ata, Lake Karakul, and an animal bone (probably sheep, possibly yak). Shot in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region on 10/6/2006.

It has been a long time since I really set myself down in front of some inspiring subject matter and carefully composed some photos. Now that my new lenses have arrived, I have no excuse but to set out and attempt to make some art. As soon as my current slate of projects is complete, I’ve got a date with my Rebel XT.

Eric Lafforgue returned from a trip to North Korea with a set of 205 amazing photos. Wow. Click the photo to go see the entire set.

The US Census bureau¹ has come out with a report which states that ethnic and racial minorities will outnumber the majority by the year 2042². I don’t know if the Census bureau uses the word “whites” because I can’t find their report online, but the Associated Press promptly wrote a headline declaring,”White Americans no longer a majority by 2042“, and the Detroit Free Press declared,”Whites will be US minority group by 2042, Census predicts“.

But “White” and “minority” are surprisingly mutable social constructs in the USA. History tells me that in the U.S., whoever is considered to be on top of the socioeconomic ladder at a given period of time automatically becomes part of the “White” blob. At one point, all those Italian immigrants to the US were not considered to be White, and the Whiteness of Irish and European Jewish immigrants was also in doubt.

I bet there were similar if more clearly alarmist headlines back in the early 1900s, shouting to anyone who would listen that in a few decades Whites would be outnumbered by these non-Anglo immigrant masses. In 2042, when the ethnic and racial groups included under the White banner include Latinos, Hispanics, and East Asians³ , I fully expect to see identical headlines to those of today about how “Whites will lose their majority status by 2076″.

America has always bubbled with immigration, cultural exchange and conflict, opportunity and oppression, and demographic shifts. My rational mind suspects there’s little new about this latest batch of news, though I am planning to hurry up and learn some Español, Italian, and Yiddish just in case.

Technorati Tags: race, whitey

1. Motto: “Page Last Modified: May 20, 2004″ [↩]
2. Perhaps not coincidentally, 2042 is also the year in which a computer-generated Charles Grodin will replace Chris Tucker as Jackie Chan’s co-star in the ever-popular Rush Hour franchise. [↩]
3. If that assumption sounds improbable to your 2008 racial spidey-sense, please reevaluate my argument in 2038. [↩]

I love my Canon RebelXT, and I actually really like the fact that the slow 18-55mm plastic kit lens that came with the thing goes reasonably wide and is very lightweight, but I’ve never been impressed with the lens’s image quality. It’s possible to take good photos with that lens, just as it is possible to take good photos with a Lomo or Diana (especially if you fetishize their lens defects and/or are a hipster), but I’d be happier if I could look at the corners of the nicer photos I’ve shot with my current 18-55mm lens without cringing at the vignetting, lack of sharpness, and chromatic aberration.

With the release of the new Rebel XSi camera, Canon also released a few new cheap plastic lenses, this time with image stabilization built in. The new 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 USM IS lens is sold separately for less than $200. Some reviewers have been shocked by the sharp images produced by this plastic lens, which is bundled with the new camera. I got the chance to play with the new 18-55mm IS kit lens yesterday, and it really is nice. Sharp, clear, the image stabilization really does work, lightweight, and relatively cheap for such image quality. It will not replace my 80-200 f2.8L or my 20mm 2.8 USM prime, but it is often nice to have a general-purpose and lightweight lens. At 7oz, it plus the Rebel XT body together aren’t that much heavier than a point-and-shoot camera, but produce much better imagery. I resolved to buy this lens and Canon’s other fantastic, cheap lens, which also happens to be fast: the 50mm f1.8.

As an Amazon affiliate, I theoretically am paid a kickback for referring people to buy products from their site. I never do that, and have earned nothing, but in this case I figured I might as well try to refer myself to their site. So I generated a couple of links¹ to the products which included my referral code, and used them to go to Amazon and buy the lenses. Hopefully I’ll be getting a 4% commission on this sale to myself. Total cost (before possible kickback): $252.66. I haven’t bought a single lens in the past 15 years for less than double that price, let alone two lenses. Neato.

1. referral links: “Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS SLR Lens” (Canon), “Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens” (Canon) [↩]

A still of Her Royal Highness Teri Garr¹ from the fantastic film Young Frankenstein

There’s a question that often pops up when people are trying to suss out another person’s interests, ideals, knowledge of history, etc. Something along the lines of “Who are the five world figures, living or dead, with whom you’d most like to sit down and have a conversation over a tray of spam musubi?” I swear every answer to that question I’ve heard from a well-meaning white person includes Nelson Mandela and/or Ghandi. I mean no disrespect to either of those esteemed gentlemen, but with one refreshingly candid interview Teri Garr has knocked them both off of my list.²

An excerpt related to Young Frankenstein:

…it was like when the teacher says to stop laughing, and all you can do is laugh more. Mel would say, “Can we do another take with no laughing?” And we’d say, “We’ll try.” We would laugh at everything. Marty Feldman–God, was he funny. When I went to see the show in New York, I went backstage, and I said, “You’re all doomed.” Because everyone is dead from that movie! Well, not everyone. But Madeline, and Peter Boyle, and Marty. And myself, I have one foot in the grave and one on a banana peel.

She’s recently written an autobiography, entitled Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood³. I plan to check it out.

Technorati Tags: acting, entertainment, film, hollywood, Teri Garr

1. She has multiple sclerosis, and has said she now hates the letters M and S, “and I certainly took the Ms. off the front of my name. I now go as your Royal Highness Teri Garr.” [↩]
2. Honestly, what question have those two figures not already been asked while they shared spam musubi with Abraham Lincoln, the Dalai Lama, Jesus, and Floyd from accounting? [↩]
3. Apparently she wanted to title the book “Does This Wheelchair Make Me Look Fat?” but was dissuaded by the publisher. [↩]

I’m a little behind the times –you’ve all probably seen this already, but I really appreciated this music video. Please note before clicking: as far as music videos go, this one’s on the more violent and disturbing end of the spectrum. And if the imagery doesn’t disturb, you may not find the music easy on the ears, especially if you’re not already keen on the less accessible tracks from France’s Ed Banger Records.

The iconic jackets, the pseudo-documentary feel, the match between the relentless nature of the music and imagery, and the Clockwork-Orange-esque synth notes at the end that may have been the inspiration for the entire video –all resonate for me. It reminds me of the film Man Bites Dog but with no attempt at intelligence, irony, or a point. Just a straightforward and effective cinematic and emotional experience.

There’s a pretty amusing parody of the video available here.