In LA

From a recent trip to Kona. I’ll post a link to the rest of the photos on Flickr as soon as I finish editing them.

Rachel and I were driving along Coldwater Canyon Blvd in Studio City this morning when we spotted something that’s a not-infrequent sight around here: Jay Leno driving one of his very cool vintage cars down the road.

I grabbed her cell phone¹ and snapped a couple of pictures. He did the same. I don’t think he has a blog in which he posts photos of people in the act of taking his picture², but if he does you’ll now be able to find a photo of me on it.

1. It’s an iPhone 4G. I’m pretty impressed by its camera’s image quality. I don’t think I gave the phone enough time to properly set its exposure for that 2nd shot, there’s likely have been better highlight detail had I waited a couple of seconds. [↩]
2. which is something I’d definitely do if I were any sort of celebrity [↩]

I thought this screenshot might amuse. Click the photo to see it at full-size. At the top of the image are photos that include Chow Yun Fat, cropped to just the automatically recognized face. Below a line are photos that Aperture 3 thinks may be the same person. To refine the computer’s idea of what his face looks like and tag more photos with the appropriate name I had to select all Chow Yun Fat photos from the bottom part of the screen and drag them to the top, above the line.

For more info on the facial recognition feature in Aperture 3, check here on Apple’s website.

I have about 16,000 photos in my archive, and though the process isn’t completely automatic, the facial recognition feature made it much more feasible to tag all the people in these photos. Even just the fact that the application can display an entire set of photos cropped and resized to only show faces alone would be a huge help, the fact that Aperture 3 makes decent guesses is a bonus.

The other day I ran from my cousin Andy’s place in Minneapolis over to my cousin Steve’s over in Golden Valley. I snapped a set of photos when I left the Theodore Wirth Parkway and began running next to the 55W. At the time I enjoyed the sunset visible at the end of the road, though it’s awfully small and faint in the resulting panorama. Click to see the image full-size. The separate photos were automatically stitched together and cropped with the iPhone app AutoStitch.

Coming soon, the results of my test shoot of several of the most popular “flat” color styles people have been using in their attempts to preserve the maximum amount of picture information in the H264 files recorded by Canon DSLRs.

I shot the same setup with 5 different color style settings, and will be looking at all of them in Apple Color in order to determine which setting I prefer.

I’m well aware that tradition holds that no camera test is complete without a photo of a beautiful lady holding a redundant umbrella and smiling at the photographer, but I decided plastic grapes would just as ably serve that function¹.

1. And the grapes had to stand-in, as no people were around when I shot these tests [↩]

For those who’d like to buy a Canon Rebel T2i without the kit lens, it looks as though Amazon’s now taking preorders for the T2i body:

Canon EOS Rebel T2i (Body Only) – $799.99

I’d expect the fact that they’re taking preorders means they have a shipment coming to their distribution centers from Canon. Just a guess.

When I bought my T2i, it seemed only the kits with lens were available for purchase. I decided I didn’t mind having the extra lens, as then I could loan my Rebel XT to people with a decent lens that I didn’t care too much about. But maybe that was just rationalization and if the body-only version of the T2i were available I’d have gone for it.

My previous post, on how to get a discounted price on a Canon T2i, might still apply (if you want to buy the camera on eBay).

For those wondering why I’m so excited about this camera; It’s because the T2i is a way to shoot decent HD video with a relatively large sensor and great lenses for under $1000. Such tools for good-looking budget filmmaking are hitting the streets and will change the nature of online video, if not also segments of television and theatrical film.

If, like me, you’re excited about the new Canon Rebel T2i DSLR¹ and plan to buy one when the price falls a bit, and you’re in the USA, you’re in luck. Though I expect all stores will sell the camera at exactly its MSRP² for months, I’ve found a way to chop that price down by about 10%.

Remember Microsoft Bing? The search engine that Microsoft will pay you to use? That’s step 1.

1. Go to www.bing.com, sign in or create a “windows live”³ account, then search using bing for popular product lines like “ram” or “xbox”.
2. Look at the top of the search results for a “Bing cashback” link to eBay like the one I’ve annotated above. Click the words “Bing cashback”.
3. You’ll be taken to eBay. There’ll be a banner at the top of the page telling you that you’ll get an 8% “Bing cashback” if you purchase the item using eBay’s “Buy it now” link and if you pay via paypal. The key thing to note here is that the cashback happens regardless what item you buy at eBay, it doesn’t have to be RAM or XBox. In your case, search eBay for a Canon T2i.
4. In your search results, click the “Buy it now” tab to filter your search to only show items that can be purchased using that method.

Unless you want a gray market product, I’d advise you to be wary of any vendor with less than 99% positive feedback, or who is located overseas, or who doesn’t explicitly state the list of items included in the unopened box and that it comes with a Canon USA Warranty. But there are plenty of legitimate physical camera and electronics stores who use eBay as their internet storefront, and they’re listing the camera for the same price as Amazon and B&H.

Microsoft’s cashback takes a while. But a month or so after your purchase, they’ll deposit the cashback value directly to your paypal account. eBay has their own sort of cashback program going on, called “eBay Bucks”. For your purchase, you’ll earn 2% of its value in eBay Bucks, which can be used for future transactions. So within a month or two after your purchase, you’ll have received 10% of the total in Bing Cashback and eBay bucks.

I’m sure if you can wait six months a better deal will come along. Maybe the Canon T2i will be available at Dell Small Business store and you’ll be able to get %15 off buy using a coupon. But if, like me, you’re ready now to replace your several-generations-old DSLR, this is probably not a bad way to go.

1. At least in part due to its HD video capabilities [↩]
2. $799 for the body, $899 for the body in a kit with lens [↩]
3. The terms “windows” and “live” are meaningless Microsoftian buzzwords that are completely unrelated to this context. But the marketing folk at Redmond are only satisfied when those words are platered on top of every product. [↩]