Nest Protect: The Future Arrives for Renters

Last week, a forward-thinking company announced their latest innovation: a smart smoke alarm that talks, and shuts up—without requiring you to run around the house in a frenzy. The Nest Protect is a new kind of smoke and carbon monoxide detector that leverages the power of microprocessors for the goal of being less annoying. Simply put, if you burn a corn dog, the Nest Protect will immediately alert you, however, its calm (yet loud) electronic voice will be much less jarring.

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iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s: Does Steve Jobs Have Their Back?

When the iPhone 4 was announced way back in 2010, the most perplexing thing about it was the choice of glass for its back panel. For a device that you carry around in your pocket all day, it seemed unnecessarily precarious. Some people theorized that it aided signal reception, others thought it would shatter more easily, necessitating a costly replacement. I had my own theory: I thought Apple would eventually add a second screen to the rear, so you could take better selfies, have nicer looking video chats, and see notifications when the phone was face down. The glass back of the iPhone 4 was just there to get users accustomed to the feel.

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Pancake Too Thick? Hands-On with the Olympus BCL-1580 “Crêpe” Lens

As much as I love my Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens, I wish it was even smaller. This is the story of modern photo gear: we’ve got amazing cameras built into our mobile phones, now we just need amazing lenses that are somehow miraculously compact. Recently, the Olympus BCL-1580 came to my attention. It’s compatible with my trusty (and discontinued) Panasonic GH2, and it’s only $50. Plus, it’s drastically smaller than my 20mm f/1.7. Game on! I needed to try this thing. Pancake schmancake. I’ve been wanting a “crêpe” lens, and it seemed like it was finally here.

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How a Smelly Rock Club Becomes Part of Your Soul

When the news first broke that Maxwell’s was closing, it didn’t immediately strike me as upsetting. It was more of a “woah” moment. Shortly afterward, I read the following tweet from The Awl and chuckled:

However, in the days that followed, I realized more and more that Maxwell’s played a pretty significant role in my life, compared to all of the other rock venues in New Jersey, anyhow. Continue reading “How a Smelly Rock Club Becomes Part of Your Soul”

Riding the GIMP: My Photoshop-Free RAW Workflow

I committed to shooting strictly in Manual Mode at the beginning of the year, because I could see an improvement in the image quality of my photos, and I felt more of a bond and sense of ownership over my work (you can read about this process in this post). In order to push the quality of my work further, I knew the natural thing to do was to start shooting in the RAW format, however, my ancient copy of Photoshop CS3 was incapable of processing these files. I didn’t own post-production software that allowed me to shoot in this mode.

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Hands-On Review of the Sony 30mm f/3.5 Macro Lens for NEX

I recently had the opportunity to try out the Sony 30mm f/3.5 Macro Lens on a NEX 5 mirrorless camera. I only had access to this camera and lens for a short period of time, but it was long enough to get a basic feel for it. I figured I’d share my thoughts and a few pictures I snapped.

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Beware of Dusty Lens Caps

Cleaning a lens may seem like a pretty cut-and-dry operation, but when you start researching for the best information on how to do it properly, you can uncover lots of contradictory advice. It quickly becomes a game of deciding which information source you trust more, even when you’re not actually familiar with any of them.

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Apple’s Biggest Misstep in iOS 7

Following the unveiling of iOS 7 at WWDC 2013 earlier this week, there’s been a great deal of criticism hurled at Apple, much of it coming from some of their most loyal devotees. I have to say that I disagree with most of what is being said. By and large, the most unanimous hatred is focused on the design of the new icons. Personally, I’m really pleased with them. Look at the old camera icon next to the new one:

apple_ios7_camera_icons

The old icon looks totally bizarre to me now. It’s much more a disembodied cyborg’s eyeball than a camera icon. Continue reading “Apple’s Biggest Misstep in iOS 7”

How to Unhack the GH2

I first hacked my Panasonic GH2 in the Fall of 2011, and until recently, it’s remained that way. I would sometimes consider putting the original firmware back on it, but I never committed to the idea. Recently, a patch gave me a little trouble, so I decided to hack my camera back to its original state, just for the sake of starting fresh. Before I transplanted my camera’s brain, I needed to make 100% certain I wasn’t going to screw it up.

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Hands-On Review of the Singh-Ray Vari-ND Filter

To kick off this review, I’d first like to provide a quick lesson about ND filters. Basically, an ND filter acts like tinted sunglasses for your lens. They dim the amount of light that comes in, so you can open up your aperture when shooting in bright sunlight. Shooting with a maxed out f-stop in a bright environment lets you achieve creamy, blurred backgrounds by selectively focusing on your subject. You can also shoot longer exposures than you would have otherwise. Without the tinted filter in front of your lens, employing these techniques would leave you with overexposed images. That’s why ND filters are a great creative tool for both video and stills.

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