Upon Reflection

I spent the morning drive listening to MacBreak Weekly on the podcast, listening to the analysis post-Apple announcement, and it was clear, the sheer number of product launched in the session was mind boggling. It seemed that there was a change of guard happening, with Tim Cook drawing the line on the ground, releasing all of Steve Jobs relics in he open.

The next batch of products would be under his watch, and for the time being, it allowed for a new start. And what an end it was! A fourth generation iPad - more of an internal rather than external evolution - the iPad Mini, the new iMac line as well as the 13 inch MacBook Pro. Add to that an improvement to the Mac Mini and other software updates, those folks at Infinity Loop had certainly been busy!

It seemed only last month that the iPod line-up was launched - on a similar platform to the iPhone 5 - and now, new stocks into the Apple Shop. I would be broke real soon!

I would definitely be eyeing the iMac, and maybe the Mini, just to see how it was like. The iPhone 5 may have to wait, as my next phone would likely be the Galaxy Note II to go along with my 4S. I need a bit of Google magic in my pocket, an a second phone was almost essential in my line of work.

I might actually buy the iPad Mini during my visit to the US, just for the fun of it :) and excuse to go to the Apple Store there I supposed.

The Apple Announcement

It was finally announced. One of the worst kept secret in Apple was unveiled in the keynote last night and the iPad Mini would be arriving later in the year - or later in the month at Low Yat. Supporting the same resolution as the iPhone 4, not quite the retina display, Apple finally yielded at the viability of the 7 inch form factor. This iPad has a cellular chip, but the stock model does not carry voice, meaning no native ability to make phone calls.

Camera would be a 5 MP affair - which should be pretty decent. And taking snaps and videos would not be as awkward as doing so on a full sized iPad. But that was not the announcement which caught my eye.

Reading the rumor mills and reading the logs made it obvious that the announcement was imminent. So was the release of the 13 inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. But what surprised me about the Pro was that it had two Thunderbolts and an HDMI output. It would be very interesting if the Intel Graphic chip - the laptop did not have a separate high-powered GPU unlike the 15 inch sister - would be able to shift all the pixels. It also only carried 4 GB RAM (ed: sorry 8 GB but still underpowered) and a dual core i5 processor. I think it would be a touch underpowered.

But the main headline for me was the upgrade to the iMac line. Yes, I was planning to grab one for the apartment for the last few months but held off as I thought it was de for a revamp. It finally came. New form factor, but nothing revolutionary. Same resolution, and still an i5 chip - a slightly powerful one though. The chassis was now thinner, and the display was upgraded to IPS technology, which translate to a mo vivid colour rendition. And no optical drive ...... I guess everything would be stranded rather than burned in the future ....

I have yet to watch the full keynote - I would leave it for later in the weekend. It would be interesting to read the gadget blogs to see the reactions. I reckoned it would generally be a positive one. And yes, I would be investing on an Android 7 incher .......

Spyder4

The moment I reached home from the KL Photography Festival, my boys wanted to go out. To Marche we went. I have to leave the screen calibrating until later in the evening.

But it was won the wait. I unpacked the unit, read the simple instructions and downloaded the latest software from the Net. Program installed and I was soon calibrating.

I just followed the clear instruction from the software. Since I have a couple of screens, it detected them both and asked which screen I wanted to calibrate first. Each screen took about 10 minutes and when I was done, I was more than impressed with the new setting.

I did not realise how cold my colour temperature on the screen were before the calibration. Now, the photos came to life, and the colour were much more pleasing, not to mention that the skin tones were much more life-like. What was more important was both the screen now looked comparable. The Samsung screen used to have a light blue tinge to it before.

I then calibrated my laptops, and certainly the LCD screen looked much better since. Definitely worth the investment ......

Show Offs

Yes, it was a known fact that we Malaysians like to show off. We like to iild the tallest, make the biggest, but still traffic congestion was still a bind and flash floods a constant thorn. But I digress.

Yesterday afternoon, I strolled around Low Yat , and as usual, I parked at KLCC and walk my way across on the walkway towards Pavilion. A nice relaxing walk actually, and I get plenty of photo ops to go along with it. In front of Lot 10, there was a group of boys with pogo sticks - a proper metallic ones and they really launched themselves in the air. I was not sure if it was an impromptu thing, but doing it at a busy - one of the busiest in town - was never a good idea …..

Further down, there was a huge group of motorcyclist about to converge in front of Pavilion. Most of them were from Kelantan, as there was the small matter of the Malaysia Cup Finals between Kelantan and Armed Forces the same very night, followed by the Malaysia MotoGP the next day. Perfect excuse for a weekend trip down to KL.

And there were at least 100 high-power motorcycles on display ….. and the noise they made …….

The SpyderCube

I have always struggled to get the perfect white balance when shooting using my digital camera. I thought shooting RAW would make things better. But all it did was slow down my workflow, and for the last couple of years, I almost exclusively shoot jpeg, even on my 7D. When it came to the X100 and the X-Pro1, jpeg was definitely the choice for me due to the superior on camera Jpeg engine Fuji had developed. The noise level from the camera coming straight off the camera was definitely better than what I could develop manually in Adobe Bridge, not to mention the almost perfect skin colour rendition.

But when it came to still life and studio lighting, getting the perfect colour maybe possible, usually using a grey card. The SpyderCube made this process much easier though. I shot the 7D in RAW, took the first frame with the cube on sight, and just cut and paste the white balance setting on the subsequent frames in my Aperture. Convenient indeed. And I was impressed with the results. Obviously helped by the new lightbox I had just purchased ......

Another worthy investment to be honest. I actually bought a studio set from Datacolor which contained the SpyderCube, Spyder4Elite and well as printer print colour analyser. I have yet to use the print analyser as yet. Indeed to investor a proper printer first however ......