Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Apr 22 2008

Construction

coincidenceI was watching Futurama on the subway last night when I felt someone tug at my shirt. I looked up to see a couple of woman staring at me; one of them held up a magazine, which turned out to be this month’s Taipei Pictorial, turned to the article about me. “Is this you?” they asked.

We chatted a bit, but it was clear that they had just picked up the magazine for light reading material and were just amazed by the coincidence of seeing someone from inside standing next to them. I’m still waiting for my copy in the mail, but I will look for some extra copies later today. The .pdf file can be downloaded here, if you can read Chinese. It’s kind of a puff piece, but nice.

Construction in my building has begun again; it’s forcing me to go to bed early, because there will be no sleep to be had after 8am. I’ve been working from home recently due to even more construction at the office. Between construction at work, construction at home, construction around the MRT, construction on the Bitan riverside, it feels like the whole world is being rebuilt. ‘Tis the season, I suppose.

I went down to Camera Street last night after work to check out the new Sigma DP1 I’ve been hearing so much about. The images I’ve seen online from the camera have been quite impressive, but many users were pointing out usability problems. After handling it and snapping a few shots, I have to say it does feel like an older camera, mostly in a good way, but not so much in step with the modern digital era. Some of the things people want in point-and-shoot cameras these days I would rather do without, things like face detection and color schemes. The DP1 is more like an old manual camera than a modern point-and-shoot. The worst thing about it, I thought, was the low-quality screen on the back. Focusing must be a bitch on that thing. Sigma has been updating the firmware, but I wonder how much they can do that way.

crane jobI’ve also been hoping for an announcement from Canon on the next generation of the 5D, but nothing so far but rumors. The 5D itself has dropped below NT$60,000 here now, dirt-cheap for such an amazing piece of equipment. Lenses, however, tend to keep their value. No doubt they are working on new ones to accompany newer models these days. Both should be announced no later than Photokina in the Fall. It just reinforces the feeling that everything is under construction, including cameras and even phones, with the 3G iPhone supposedly coming out soon as well as a new Panny HD video camera. Although I bet they don’t use jackhammers.

I finished posting the Matsu photos, 165 out of 609 that I took during the three-day trip. I’ve inserted some of them into the blog posts on the subject if you want to scroll down a bit to take a look. A friend of mine who works at a magazine said they might be interested in using some of them for a related travel article.

posted by Poagao at 10:23 pm  

5 Comments »

  1. good article ;), great work, & shot’s

    Comment by Bucio — April 23, 2008 @ 3:44 pm

  2. Hi, I absolutely enjoyed your Matsu tour diary and of course the photos. I wish I was more adventurous to go on a trip like that on a weekend.

    Comment by Ashish — April 23, 2008 @ 11:38 pm

  3. Wah wah, how long have you and a bazillion other people been contemplating buying the 5D replacement? Years. And if you do buy it, you’re going to have drop a lot of cash on replacing lenses as well. I’m assuming you’d go from the 10-22 to the 17-40. Don’t you also have that Sigma 17-70? You’d have to replace that with something else as well.

    I’m also interested in the Sigma DP1 as well, so I can bring it cycling with me. Focussing with DSLR-levels of DOF using a crappy LCD screen could be annoying though.

    Comment by wayne — April 24, 2008 @ 11:05 pm

  4. Yeah, Wayne, I’ve given up on a 5D replacement. I’m not going to even think about it until Canon makes an official announcement. There are always better cameras “just around the corner” and more will come out after you’ve made your purchase. I’m on the fence about the DP1, though, for basically the same reason.

    Comment by Poagao — April 24, 2008 @ 11:10 pm

  5. Asian Geographic are having a big photo competition with 5D being one of the prizes. The comp is not being judged until October or November, so they’re probably not expecting a replacement any time soon.

    Comment by cfimages — April 29, 2008 @ 10:26 pm

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