BitDepth 746 - August 31
31/08/10 10:24 Filed in: BitDepth - August
2010
An
ode to good glass
Going wide. A surprising amount of my personal work as a photographer is shot up close and wide. Though normally not this close or this wide. Photo by Mark Lyndersay
If you’ve been thinking about buying a new camera and have become hopelessly confused by all the conflicting and often quite passionate advice about them, well, I have to tell you, that’s nothing compared to the world of lenses.
Buyers will spend months reading reviews and comparing features on cameras which have largely become commodity items, leapfrogging each other with minor (and sometimes, admittedly, major) new additions to what is still, essentially, just a light-tight box...and then stick the kit lens on the front of it.
That’s the equivalent of buying a Porsche and deciding that instead of getting a windshield, a sheet of translucent plastic would do.
And the metaphor is more direct than you might think. The kit lenses that ship with most of the affordable digital SLRs (DSLRs) being sold today are horrid little barrels of plastic crap, barely worth the names of the camera makers moulded into their detestable little lens seals.
They’re even worse than the lenses that you get with most of the better point and shoot cameras.
Ahem. *Calms his seething rage and searches for the point.*
Your lens choices are between cheap...um, affordable and expensive, fixed focal length and zooms, and fast and slow lenses.
You’ll hear all these words, often mixed in unintelligible sentences many of which include terms like “rawks” and “sux,” in online rants and sermons that will may do little to give you any real direction in your search for something useful to attach to your camera’s body.
Lenses that are described as “fast” have a fixed, wide maximum aperture. That means that you’ll get more light in challenging circumstances, which helps with autofocus, but that wide aperture also gives you crisper demarcations in your photos between subjects you want in focus and the bits of the photo you aren’t interested in.
A long, fast lens is what you use to get those creamy out-of-focus backgrounds you see in all the best sports photos and girlie pix. If you want real photo cred, don’t call them “creamy out-of-focus backgrounds,” say “they have good bokeh.”
If you have a good idea of how far away from your subjects you’ll be working and want good glass at the best price, fixed focal length lenses can give you many of the advantages of the most expensive zoom lenses without any actual zoom. On the plus side, you get smaller, more compact lenses that cost a whole lot less, on the negative side, if you want to get closer or move further back, you’ll have to use your zoom feet.
The most active and popular lenses are zoom lenses though, or more properly, variable focal length lenses. Zooms have come a long way in the last decade or so. The best models create images that are indistinguishable from any fixed focal length lens at any point in their range, but the best models cost a king’s ransom. So let’s hope that young Harry doesn’t start taking any snaps. That would severely ding the coffers at Buckingham Palace.
So what’s an enterprising photographer on a budget to do? Start with a fast 50mm lens. Most of these sell for about the same price as the kit lens, offer a fast 1.8 maximum aperture and work like a good mid-length portrait lens (80mm) on anything that isn’t a DSLR with a full frame sensor.
That puts the new photographer at a decent distance from his subject until his nerves calm down. That’ll buy you some time to decide whether the equipment you need should take you closer with a good wide angle lens or even further away, with a mini-telescope.
Going wide. A surprising amount of my personal work as a photographer is shot up close and wide. Though normally not this close or this wide. Photo by Mark Lyndersay
If you’ve been thinking about buying a new camera and have become hopelessly confused by all the conflicting and often quite passionate advice about them, well, I have to tell you, that’s nothing compared to the world of lenses.
Buyers will spend months reading reviews and comparing features on cameras which have largely become commodity items, leapfrogging each other with minor (and sometimes, admittedly, major) new additions to what is still, essentially, just a light-tight box...and then stick the kit lens on the front of it.
That’s the equivalent of buying a Porsche and deciding that instead of getting a windshield, a sheet of translucent plastic would do.
And the metaphor is more direct than you might think. The kit lenses that ship with most of the affordable digital SLRs (DSLRs) being sold today are horrid little barrels of plastic crap, barely worth the names of the camera makers moulded into their detestable little lens seals.
They’re even worse than the lenses that you get with most of the better point and shoot cameras.
Ahem. *Calms his seething rage and searches for the point.*
Your lens choices are between cheap...um, affordable and expensive, fixed focal length and zooms, and fast and slow lenses.
You’ll hear all these words, often mixed in unintelligible sentences many of which include terms like “rawks” and “sux,” in online rants and sermons that will may do little to give you any real direction in your search for something useful to attach to your camera’s body.
Lenses that are described as “fast” have a fixed, wide maximum aperture. That means that you’ll get more light in challenging circumstances, which helps with autofocus, but that wide aperture also gives you crisper demarcations in your photos between subjects you want in focus and the bits of the photo you aren’t interested in.
A long, fast lens is what you use to get those creamy out-of-focus backgrounds you see in all the best sports photos and girlie pix. If you want real photo cred, don’t call them “creamy out-of-focus backgrounds,” say “they have good bokeh.”
If you have a good idea of how far away from your subjects you’ll be working and want good glass at the best price, fixed focal length lenses can give you many of the advantages of the most expensive zoom lenses without any actual zoom. On the plus side, you get smaller, more compact lenses that cost a whole lot less, on the negative side, if you want to get closer or move further back, you’ll have to use your zoom feet.
The most active and popular lenses are zoom lenses though, or more properly, variable focal length lenses. Zooms have come a long way in the last decade or so. The best models create images that are indistinguishable from any fixed focal length lens at any point in their range, but the best models cost a king’s ransom. So let’s hope that young Harry doesn’t start taking any snaps. That would severely ding the coffers at Buckingham Palace.
So what’s an enterprising photographer on a budget to do? Start with a fast 50mm lens. Most of these sell for about the same price as the kit lens, offer a fast 1.8 maximum aperture and work like a good mid-length portrait lens (80mm) on anything that isn’t a DSLR with a full frame sensor.
That puts the new photographer at a decent distance from his subject until his nerves calm down. That’ll buy you some time to decide whether the equipment you need should take you closer with a good wide angle lens or even further away, with a mini-telescope.
0
Comments
BitDepth 745 - August 24
26/08/10 20:27 Filed in: BitDepth - August
2010
Your
new digital camera...
The actual camera matters far less than the intent of the photographer. Photo by Mark Lyndersay.
Over the last 33 years, there’s been one question that everybody who’s interested in photography always asks. In the last five years, since automation and software programming magic have improved the technology of photography by leaps and bounds, it gets asked much more frequently.
That question, of course, is which camera should I buy?
You should, of course, buy the camera you can afford that has all the features you need to accomplish the kind of photography you want to pursue. That means that you shouldn’t buy a point and shoot camera if you want to do sports action photography, but the choices are usually much more subtle than that.
It’s hard to impress on eager amateurs the simple truth that a camera is just a light-tight box that’s only as good as the mind that brings the images it takes into focus. It’s doubly difficult to do this after impressionable minds have been viewing slick ads and reading reviews that promote the newest features.
For the camera buyer, there’s a dirty little secret of modern digital photography that you really should be aware of. When you buy a camera, you’re buying two things, a system of photographic accessories and a sensor.
My own choice of camera system wasn’t based on megapixels or hardware specifications. I asked my peers in the business about their experiences with after purchase service with the two biggest names in the business and chose accordingly. My experiences since then have proved the advice I got to be absolutely accurate.
Most of the recognisable names in modern digital cameras, Nikon, Canon and Sony (who bought Minolta’s business) have reasonably complete lines of lenses and a number of eager third party manufacturers willing to sell you cheaper versions of them. Still, be sure that the camera system you buy into has the kind of lenses and other accessories that will support your style and genre of photography. I’m a Canon guy, but I have to confess to naked envy of Nikon’s off-camera speedlight triggering system.
Sensors are a trickier matter. There’s no getting around the fact that bigger is better. That’s why top of the line digital cameras from Phase One and Hasselblad sell for the same price as a ‘cheap’ BMW. But it’s also the reason why pictures from a good point and shoot camera are better than those taken by a camera built into a phone and why digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) remain the choice for quality among camera enthusiasts.
While the sensor in the average DSLR camera is roughly 30 percent smaller than the film it replaced (called the crop factor), it packs a lot of light sensitive photosites into that space and the results will far outstrip all but the most sophisticated of prosumer point and shoot cameras.
In a nutshell? Buy the cheapest DSLR body that offers the sensor you need (normally the newest revision of a consumer grade DSLR uses the same sensor that was found in previous version of pro-level camera body) and buy the most expensive lens you can afford. That’s a formula that delivers remarkable image quality on a budget. There’s an extended explanation here.
Both of the big names in digital cameras, Canon and Nikon have aggressive entries in the beginner’s category at remarkably affordable prices for the features offered. As of this writing, Nikon’s D5000 and Canon’s XSi ride near the top of the sales charts at Amazon, a good indicator of their popularity with consumers looking for an affordable entry point into a rich camera ecosystem.
The actual camera matters far less than the intent of the photographer. Photo by Mark Lyndersay.
Over the last 33 years, there’s been one question that everybody who’s interested in photography always asks. In the last five years, since automation and software programming magic have improved the technology of photography by leaps and bounds, it gets asked much more frequently.
That question, of course, is which camera should I buy?
You should, of course, buy the camera you can afford that has all the features you need to accomplish the kind of photography you want to pursue. That means that you shouldn’t buy a point and shoot camera if you want to do sports action photography, but the choices are usually much more subtle than that.
It’s hard to impress on eager amateurs the simple truth that a camera is just a light-tight box that’s only as good as the mind that brings the images it takes into focus. It’s doubly difficult to do this after impressionable minds have been viewing slick ads and reading reviews that promote the newest features.
For the camera buyer, there’s a dirty little secret of modern digital photography that you really should be aware of. When you buy a camera, you’re buying two things, a system of photographic accessories and a sensor.
My own choice of camera system wasn’t based on megapixels or hardware specifications. I asked my peers in the business about their experiences with after purchase service with the two biggest names in the business and chose accordingly. My experiences since then have proved the advice I got to be absolutely accurate.
Most of the recognisable names in modern digital cameras, Nikon, Canon and Sony (who bought Minolta’s business) have reasonably complete lines of lenses and a number of eager third party manufacturers willing to sell you cheaper versions of them. Still, be sure that the camera system you buy into has the kind of lenses and other accessories that will support your style and genre of photography. I’m a Canon guy, but I have to confess to naked envy of Nikon’s off-camera speedlight triggering system.
Sensors are a trickier matter. There’s no getting around the fact that bigger is better. That’s why top of the line digital cameras from Phase One and Hasselblad sell for the same price as a ‘cheap’ BMW. But it’s also the reason why pictures from a good point and shoot camera are better than those taken by a camera built into a phone and why digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) remain the choice for quality among camera enthusiasts.
While the sensor in the average DSLR camera is roughly 30 percent smaller than the film it replaced (called the crop factor), it packs a lot of light sensitive photosites into that space and the results will far outstrip all but the most sophisticated of prosumer point and shoot cameras.
In a nutshell? Buy the cheapest DSLR body that offers the sensor you need (normally the newest revision of a consumer grade DSLR uses the same sensor that was found in previous version of pro-level camera body) and buy the most expensive lens you can afford. That’s a formula that delivers remarkable image quality on a budget. There’s an extended explanation here.
Both of the big names in digital cameras, Canon and Nikon have aggressive entries in the beginner’s category at remarkably affordable prices for the features offered. As of this writing, Nikon’s D5000 and Canon’s XSi ride near the top of the sales charts at Amazon, a good indicator of their popularity with consumers looking for an affordable entry point into a rich camera ecosystem.
BitDepth 744 - August 17
16/08/10 20:40 Filed in: BitDepth - August
2010
Singapore
to set the T&T tech pace
Young Chye Loh, IDA International programme director (centre) with stakeholders at a consultation on the National ICT plan on August 07 at NALIS. Photograph by Mark Lyndersay.
At a recent stakeholder consultation, it was clear that the new national Information and Communications Technology (ICT) plan for Trinidad and Tobago is likely to be guided, or at the very least, influenced by specialist consultants from Singapore.
That shouldn’t necessarily be construed as a bad thing, this country’s recent experiences with Asian involvement in the construction sector notwithstanding.
The port driven island republic made a commitment long ago to leveraging its market potential by investing in technology infrastructure. IDA International, the consulting agency (an execution arm, apparently, of the public service) conducting the exercise to develop the ICT plan that will underpin Trinidad and Tobago’s next phase of technology development is likely to have some valuable experience in lubricating bureaucratic process.
At a recent stakeholder consultation, IDA representatives shared the way that the fourth “pillar” of the People’s Partnership’s sustainable development plan will be implemented. The relevant sector the Government’s sustainable development plan, “ICT: Connecting Trinidad and Tobago and building the new economy,” was subdivided into two parts, fostering a creative e-ready generation and bridging the digital divide.
Each of those sectors of development was further subdivided again for the consideration of the group.
The creative e-ready generation would be arrived at through “ICT enriched learning,” and “creating and promoting local digital content.”
The digital divide would be bridged by the provision of “accessible and affordable ICT services for digital inclusion” and the promotion of “media literacy and online protection.”
Needless to say, these rather fuzzy directives, on which the stakeholders present were expected to offer guidance, ideas and plans, were dissected with some venom and scepticism.
At least part of it, if I read the mood of the room correctly, was because of the perception that the first phase of the Government’s ICT development plan had been an expensive and thorough disaster at meeting anything that looked vaguely like a goal or benchmark.
This column has railed in the past at the Ministry of Public Administration’s enthusiasm for claiming the results of vigorous competition among local ISPs, specifically bMobile and Flow, as part of the master strategy of the alleged Fast Forward initiative.
Explanations for the spending, on record, of more than $85 million in taxpayer funds have not been forthcoming beyond the public trumpeting of a basic website for government services and wireless touchscreen kiosks for accessing them.
At the recent stakeholder consultation IDA’s representatives seemed focused on their mission, leading unproductive discussions out of the mire of old arguments and irritations toward project solutions and recommendations.
It’s going to be interesting to see what the Singapore consultants present to the Government at the end of September. Their project planning began in April, and they have already completed an evaluation of the first Fast Forward development initiative that’s still to be presented to Cabinet. It is to be hoped that public scrutiny of the document will follow soon afterward.
Intriguingly, IDA kept referring to the launch of the “next five year ICT plan” in February 2011. Given that former Minister of Public Administration launched Fast Forward II almost a year ago, it raises the question of what happened in the interim, during what may come to be known as Fast Forward 1.5, and more compellingly, why a second five-year plan wasn’t ready for implementation directly after the conclusion of the first one.
Such concerns speak to matters of common sense rather than the common good, and we are where we are.
What’s interesting is that the IDA group leaders at that stakeholder meeting seemed, despite their respectful and delicate navigation of English, to be particularly adept at keeping ICT issues at a dignified remove from politics and sticking to the kind of principles that get things done. That’s certainly something that government level planning for ICT could do with more of.
Young Chye Loh, IDA International programme director (centre) with stakeholders at a consultation on the National ICT plan on August 07 at NALIS. Photograph by Mark Lyndersay.
At a recent stakeholder consultation, it was clear that the new national Information and Communications Technology (ICT) plan for Trinidad and Tobago is likely to be guided, or at the very least, influenced by specialist consultants from Singapore.
That shouldn’t necessarily be construed as a bad thing, this country’s recent experiences with Asian involvement in the construction sector notwithstanding.
The port driven island republic made a commitment long ago to leveraging its market potential by investing in technology infrastructure. IDA International, the consulting agency (an execution arm, apparently, of the public service) conducting the exercise to develop the ICT plan that will underpin Trinidad and Tobago’s next phase of technology development is likely to have some valuable experience in lubricating bureaucratic process.
At a recent stakeholder consultation, IDA representatives shared the way that the fourth “pillar” of the People’s Partnership’s sustainable development plan will be implemented. The relevant sector the Government’s sustainable development plan, “ICT: Connecting Trinidad and Tobago and building the new economy,” was subdivided into two parts, fostering a creative e-ready generation and bridging the digital divide.
Each of those sectors of development was further subdivided again for the consideration of the group.
The creative e-ready generation would be arrived at through “ICT enriched learning,” and “creating and promoting local digital content.”
The digital divide would be bridged by the provision of “accessible and affordable ICT services for digital inclusion” and the promotion of “media literacy and online protection.”
Needless to say, these rather fuzzy directives, on which the stakeholders present were expected to offer guidance, ideas and plans, were dissected with some venom and scepticism.
At least part of it, if I read the mood of the room correctly, was because of the perception that the first phase of the Government’s ICT development plan had been an expensive and thorough disaster at meeting anything that looked vaguely like a goal or benchmark.
This column has railed in the past at the Ministry of Public Administration’s enthusiasm for claiming the results of vigorous competition among local ISPs, specifically bMobile and Flow, as part of the master strategy of the alleged Fast Forward initiative.
Explanations for the spending, on record, of more than $85 million in taxpayer funds have not been forthcoming beyond the public trumpeting of a basic website for government services and wireless touchscreen kiosks for accessing them.
At the recent stakeholder consultation IDA’s representatives seemed focused on their mission, leading unproductive discussions out of the mire of old arguments and irritations toward project solutions and recommendations.
It’s going to be interesting to see what the Singapore consultants present to the Government at the end of September. Their project planning began in April, and they have already completed an evaluation of the first Fast Forward development initiative that’s still to be presented to Cabinet. It is to be hoped that public scrutiny of the document will follow soon afterward.
Intriguingly, IDA kept referring to the launch of the “next five year ICT plan” in February 2011. Given that former Minister of Public Administration launched Fast Forward II almost a year ago, it raises the question of what happened in the interim, during what may come to be known as Fast Forward 1.5, and more compellingly, why a second five-year plan wasn’t ready for implementation directly after the conclusion of the first one.
Such concerns speak to matters of common sense rather than the common good, and we are where we are.
What’s interesting is that the IDA group leaders at that stakeholder meeting seemed, despite their respectful and delicate navigation of English, to be particularly adept at keeping ICT issues at a dignified remove from politics and sticking to the kind of principles that get things done. That’s certainly something that government level planning for ICT could do with more of.
BitDepth 743 - August 10
09/08/10 19:39 Filed in: BitDepth - August
2010
More
favorites
The hardware edition
NZXT’s laptop cooler is, quite possibly, the ugliest piece of technology you might ever put on your desk, but it’s unparalleled for cooling off hot portable computers. Photo courtesy NZXT.
This isn’t going to be a column about which brand of laptop I think you should be using or what kind of external hard drive you should be buying; those aren’t the questions that hard core tech heads ask each other.
I really like Logitech’s MX mice, but I don’t think anybody’s likely to care. Here’s some stuff that I’ve found that some of you might find interesting and better yet, useful.
My laptop runs hard and two hard drive failures later, I finally began to figure out why. Most portables have cooling systems designed to keep them cool in average use, the processor is tasked with instructions fairly lightly with occasional spikes in demand.
My work was keeping both cores running at 100 percent for hours on end and case temperatures were soaring. This is a common enough issue that there are dozens of solutions to the problem. I’ve tried quite a few of these and most of them don’t work at all.
The three 120mm fans of the NZXT ACC-NT-Cryo LX have been churning away on my desk for more than a year now, and the Cooler Master Notepal D1 gets stuffed in my bag when I work on location. The Cryo’s USB ports are useless and the D1 is just a bit underpowered for demanding work on location, but both are leagues better than any of the other cooling pads I’ve tried.
If you take photographs, you use batteries. Most cameras use proprietary battery modules, but your flash will normally accept ordinary AA batteries. You can save money, get faster recycling and keep more waste out of the landfill by using nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, particularly those with higher capacities, but managing rechargeables can be troublesome.
Enter the La Crosse Technology BC-9009 AlphaPower Battery Charger. You can get a cheaper, faster and much simpler battery charger, but you won’t find many that have the diagnostic tools and restoration capabilities of the BC-9009. Deep restoration of fading NiMH batteries can take days, but the charger can also read the individual capacity of each battery and tell you when the cells are approaching their final days.
Even if you don’t crack open the considerably detailed manual, the default performance of the charger is significantly better than most rechargeable devices, particularly cheap “fast” chargers, which can actually ruin batteries over a few cycles.
And then there’s the flashlight. Equipment gets heavy quickly, and every additional ounce of gear must pack a punch. The Fenix E01 compact LED flashlight is quite possibly the most efficient bit of gear I own. It’s smaller than your little finger but punches out enough light to activate recalcitrant camera autofocus in the dead of night. It runs for hours on a single AAA alkaline battery.
Even casual users will find it small enough to hang on a key ring and powerful enough to actually be of use when it’s needed.
Attentive readers of this column will have divined a certain enthusiasm on my part for gear bags, particularly that curious nexus where portable computing and professional photographic gear collide.
I’ve long since abandoned any hope of finding a single bag that will allow me to carry enough of both, but the Tenba Messenger is the one I’m picking up most often these days. This is a bag that’s slim enough to fit into a Liat overhead baggage locker and capacious enough to hold a fairly hefty laptop and an average assignment’s worth of gear.
Links...
NZXT ACC-NT-Cryo LX
Cooler Master Notepal D1
BC-9009 AlphaPower Battery Charge
Fenix E01
Tenba Messenger bag
The hardware edition
NZXT’s laptop cooler is, quite possibly, the ugliest piece of technology you might ever put on your desk, but it’s unparalleled for cooling off hot portable computers. Photo courtesy NZXT.
This isn’t going to be a column about which brand of laptop I think you should be using or what kind of external hard drive you should be buying; those aren’t the questions that hard core tech heads ask each other.
I really like Logitech’s MX mice, but I don’t think anybody’s likely to care. Here’s some stuff that I’ve found that some of you might find interesting and better yet, useful.
My laptop runs hard and two hard drive failures later, I finally began to figure out why. Most portables have cooling systems designed to keep them cool in average use, the processor is tasked with instructions fairly lightly with occasional spikes in demand.
My work was keeping both cores running at 100 percent for hours on end and case temperatures were soaring. This is a common enough issue that there are dozens of solutions to the problem. I’ve tried quite a few of these and most of them don’t work at all.
The three 120mm fans of the NZXT ACC-NT-Cryo LX have been churning away on my desk for more than a year now, and the Cooler Master Notepal D1 gets stuffed in my bag when I work on location. The Cryo’s USB ports are useless and the D1 is just a bit underpowered for demanding work on location, but both are leagues better than any of the other cooling pads I’ve tried.
If you take photographs, you use batteries. Most cameras use proprietary battery modules, but your flash will normally accept ordinary AA batteries. You can save money, get faster recycling and keep more waste out of the landfill by using nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, particularly those with higher capacities, but managing rechargeables can be troublesome.
Enter the La Crosse Technology BC-9009 AlphaPower Battery Charger. You can get a cheaper, faster and much simpler battery charger, but you won’t find many that have the diagnostic tools and restoration capabilities of the BC-9009. Deep restoration of fading NiMH batteries can take days, but the charger can also read the individual capacity of each battery and tell you when the cells are approaching their final days.
Even if you don’t crack open the considerably detailed manual, the default performance of the charger is significantly better than most rechargeable devices, particularly cheap “fast” chargers, which can actually ruin batteries over a few cycles.
And then there’s the flashlight. Equipment gets heavy quickly, and every additional ounce of gear must pack a punch. The Fenix E01 compact LED flashlight is quite possibly the most efficient bit of gear I own. It’s smaller than your little finger but punches out enough light to activate recalcitrant camera autofocus in the dead of night. It runs for hours on a single AAA alkaline battery.
Even casual users will find it small enough to hang on a key ring and powerful enough to actually be of use when it’s needed.
Attentive readers of this column will have divined a certain enthusiasm on my part for gear bags, particularly that curious nexus where portable computing and professional photographic gear collide.
I’ve long since abandoned any hope of finding a single bag that will allow me to carry enough of both, but the Tenba Messenger is the one I’m picking up most often these days. This is a bag that’s slim enough to fit into a Liat overhead baggage locker and capacious enough to hold a fairly hefty laptop and an average assignment’s worth of gear.
Links...
NZXT ACC-NT-Cryo LX
Cooler Master Notepal D1
BC-9009 AlphaPower Battery Charge
Fenix E01
Tenba Messenger bag
BitDepth 742 - August 03
03/08/10 16:34 Filed in: BitDepth - August
2010
A look at some software tools I find
invaluable in my day to day work.Read
More...
BitDepth 741 - July 27
26/07/10 21:25 Filed in: BitDepth - July
2010
Speaking to young journalists about
technology reporting, I explore what this column has been about
over the last fifteen years.Read More...
BitDepth 740 - July 20
19/07/10 22:09 Filed in: BitDepth - July
2010
A consideration of issues related to
the Government's promise to give laptop computers to all successful
students in this year's SEA examination.Read
More...
BitDepth 739 - July 13
12/07/10 19:31 Filed in: BitDepth - July
2010
A symposium session on context sticks
to silos and never breaks out to address the larger need for artist
involvement.Read More...
BitDepth 738 - July 06
06/07/10 19:40 Filed in: BitDepth - July
2010
After a long symposium on Carnival, it
remains unclear what's to be done and who should be trying to do
it.Read More...
BitDepth 737 - June 29
28/06/10 20:32 Filed in: BitDepth - June
2010
Microsoft introduces Office 2010 and
positions it in the cloud.Read More...
BitDepth 736 - June 22
21/06/10 19:42 Filed in: BitDepth - June
2010
Microsoft introduces web versions of
its productivity software.Read More...
BitDepth 735 - June 15
14/06/10 20:34 Filed in: BitDepth - June
2010
Microsoft upgrades its online document
and storage services, I sample the new wares.Read
More...
BitDepth 734 - June 08
07/06/10 20:47 Filed in: BitDepth - June
2010
Dropbox and other online storage
options.Read More...
BitDepth 733 - June 01
31/05/10 20:00 Filed in: BitDepth - June
2010
How I called the 2010 national
election.Read More...
BitDepth 732 - May 25
24/05/10 18:46 Filed in: BitDepth - May
2010
A letter to the new Prime Minister
about the technology issues facing the new
administration.Read More...
BitDepth 731 - May 18
17/05/10 19:36 Filed in: BitDepth - May
2010
The end of the traditional press
release in the Internet era.Read More...
BitDepth 730 - May 11
10/05/10 23:48 Filed in: BitDepth - May
2010
Politicians take their campaigns to
Facebook in force.Read More...
BitDepth 729 - May 04
03/05/10 22:12 Filed in: BitDepth - May
2010
Young boys caught in a sex scandal are
excoriated on Facebook.Read More...
BitDepth 728 - April 27
26/04/10 21:52 Filed in: BitDepth - April
2010
Why does Apple hate Flash
so?Read More...
BitDepth 727 - April 20
19/04/10 20:46 Filed in: BitDepth - April
2010
After fondling the iPad, some thoughts
on the Apple device.Read More...
BitDepth 726 - April 13
12/04/10 19:01 Filed in: BitDepth - April
2010
Photographers face new challenges in
the 21st Century, embracing new technologies must run in parallel
with traditional business and photographic techniques if
professional photographers hope to be successful.Read
More...
BitDepth 725 - April 06
05/04/10 21:53 Filed in: BitDepth - April
2010
A Telecommunications Authority
symposium on the broadcast media veers toward
witchhunting.Read More...
BitDepth 724 - March 30
29/03/10 21:37 Filed in: BitDepth - March
2010
Journalism in 2010 is not only
influenced by the Internet, it can be lubricated using this medium.
Read
More...
BitDepth 723 - March 23
21/03/10 23:35 Filed in: BitDepth - March
2010
The Teleios CodeJam 2010 produced some
interesting notions and bits of code in the service of ICT based
social improvement.Read More...
BitDepth 722 - March 16
15/03/10 23:46 Filed in: BitDepth - March
2010
Photoshop turns 20 long after it
became a noun and a verb that described the extensive
photomanipulation it was capable of.Read
More...
BitDepth 721 - March 09
08/03/10 22:08 Filed in: BitDepth - March
2010
The US Embassy's Feng Hua Wang
explains how the state uses social media to convey its messages
globally.Read More...
BitDepth 720 - March 02
01/03/10 20:58 Filed in: BitDepth - March
2010
TSTT formally introduces its WiMax
service for broadband in Trinidad and Tobago.Read
More...
BitDepth 719 - February 23
22/02/10 22:19 Filed in: BitDepth - February
2010
Because every Carnival should have a
trilogy, here's my third installment on Carnival 2010, as copyright
issues raise the question of whose Carnival it really
is.Read More...
BitDepth 718 - February 16
16/02/10 07:45 Filed in: BitDepth - February
2010
A talk by Pat Bishop stirs some
unwelcome thoughts about Carnival's future.Read
More...
BitDepth 717 - February 09
08/02/10 20:40 Filed in: BitDepth - February
2010
If those charged with running Trinidad
and Tobago's Carnival celebrations wanted to destroy it, what could
they possibly do differently?Read More...
BitDepth 716 - February 02
01/02/10 23:01 Filed in: BitDepth - February
2010
Apple introduces a tablet PC and the
world goes crazy. What's in the high-tech slab of glass and
aluminium?Read More...
BitDepth 715 - January 26
25/01/10 22:52 Filed in: BitDepth - January
2010
Mr Vybe, a young soca singer, works
social media networks to promote and advance his
career.Read More...
BitDepth 714 - January 19
18/01/10 22:40 Filed in: BitDepth - January
2010
After Beyoncé's concert, TSTT needs to
show me some love. Hello?Read More...
BitDepth 713 - January 12
11/01/10 23:21 Filed in: BitDepth - January
2010
Some ruminations on technology trends
and where they are likely to take us...Read
More...
BitDepth 712 - January 05
28/12/09 22:29 Filed in: BitDepth - January
2010
The Lightroom 3 public beta introduces
some new features and some new bugs.Read
More...
