National Geographic photo editor David Griffin’s inspiring talk at TED about how photography connects us to our world.
Hi-res versions available on the TED website.
If you missed the video of James Nachtwey’s 2007 TED Prize acceptance, check it out here. Simply amazing.
As someone who just discovered Pandora, I find all of this deeply disappointing. Pandora is a fantastic service, especially for people like me who live in smaller markets with little or no radio station variety. I don’t understand why webcasters like Pandora have to pay more than their satellite or terrestrial radio brethren. No one is arguing that they shouldn’t be paying anything, but to put them in a higher royalty bracket just because the Internet is their broadcast medium is absurd.
Hopefully a compromise can be reached so that Internet radio doesn’t have to fall silent.
When I first saw photos taken with the Sigma 4.5mm fisheye over at Whateverland, one of my favorite photoblogs, I was instantly intrigued. I enjoy using wide-angle lenses and this one looked like a lot of fun. So a few weeks ago I rented the Sigma 4.5mm and headed out to Discovery Green in Houston and the local TAMU campus to see what it could do.
The Sigma 4.5mm f2.8 EX DC Circular Fisheye HSM lens offers a full 180 degree field of view (and an insanely long name) on digital cameras with APS-C (crop-factor) sensors. Having never used a fisheye lens before, I didn’t really know what to expect. It is a little disorienting to look though the viewfinder and see most of it black, with just a circle providing a view of what lays before you.
With everything in front of you in the frame, exposure and composition are tricky. The 180 degree view can confuse the camera’s meter if the frame has dramatic shift in light to dark. I had to constantly underexpose by almost a full stop to avoid blowing out the highlights when shooting outside. And with a lens this wide, you really have to get close to your subject to make it stand out. The lens does have a very close focusing distance (5.3 inches), allowing you to exaggerate the fisheye effect for items closest to the lens.
Exposure isn’t all that the lens’s ultra-wide POV affects. Sometimes focusing is a little difficult as well. When taking a photo with nothing prominent in the foreground, my camera had a tough time locking focus. This isn’t anything wrong with the lens’s focusing capability, just that the lens is so wide the camera has a tough time finding enough detail and contrast to lock focus. I’ve had the issue when using other ultra-wide lenses, like Canon’s 10-22mm. On my 20D, selecting the center focus point tends to increase my chances in these situations.
When there was enough contrast for the camera to auto focus, the HSM focus system performed admirably. This was the first time I’ve used a Sigma lens with HSM and it is a dramatic improvement over the non-HSM equipped Sigma lenses I’ve used in the past. My Sigma 70-300 APO sounds like it could wake the neighbors when it focuses (or tries to at least). Focusing with the 4.5mm fisheye is a much quieter affair. With HSM, I only had to worry about the 20D’s embarrassingly loud mirror slap drawing attention to my camera.
As you would expect, build quality is better than Sigma’s less expensive line of lenses. The 4.5mm is heavier than I expected it to be, and it feels solid with everything fitting together well. The focusing ring doesn’t wobble like some lenses (Canon EFS line, I’m talking to you). The matte finish is attractive and adds a little comfort to holding the lens.
On the negative side, fringing is common around the frame when in bright conditions and flare is something to be careful of. Illuminating the inside of the lens is all too easy. Most lenses take care of these issues with a lens hood, but since anything in front of the lens shows up in the frame, a hood isn’t a possibility.
I’m not someone who shoots focus charts or views my photos at 400%, but the images appear sharp with good color. I’ve linked to full-sized images converted to jpeg with no post processing so you can judge for yourself. Overall, I was impressed with the level of detail this lens could capture given how wide it is and how little of the frame it uses.
The Sigma 4.5mm fisheye is a lot of fun, but I can’t see myself wanting to have one all the time. I consider a lens this wide a novelty, even more so than a typical fisheye. Its interestingness comes from its unique perspective and isn’t something I would want to use on a regular basis. But if you’re looking to get the ‘peephole effect’ from a lens it is definitely worth checking out.
View the full-sized images taken with the Sigma 4.5mm lens over at Flickr, or download all of them at once in a zip file here (6.62MB).
Here are a few first impressions after a couple of weeks with the Xbox 360:
Bruno Bowden folds one of Robert Lang’s origami figures while blindfolded. Higher quality version at the TED site
Impressive. I have enough trouble folding my t-shirts.
The Adobe AIR platform is giving life to some wonderfully useful applications. One of my recent favorites is the to-do list application Doomi. It’s dead simple, just enter a task and check it off when your done.
The only thing I would add is the option to tie in with online to-do services like Remember the Milk so lists can sync across multiple computers.
Recently I’ve felt like playing the occasional video game, but I’ve run into a small problem: my computer can’t handle the newest PC titles. So now I’m faced with choosing between building a new computer or purchasing a console system like the Xbox 360. While I think that PC gaming is best suited for the types of games I enjoy (mainly first person shooters), even casual gaming on a PC is an expensive hobby. On the other hand, I haven’t owned a console since the Super Nintendo. Seriously.
I took the short drive to Houston to check out Discovery Green and play around with the Sigma 4.5mm circular fisheye lens. I should have a review of the lens sometime next week.