Dell's Going Private: PC Era's Come to An End?!

(Source: Neowin.net)

A big surprise to many people, Dell has decided to go for privatisation after being listed as a publicly traded company for more than 25 years. The reason could be many, but the most dominant one is still the declining sales of personal computers (PC). The company wants to make a turnaround and transform itself to a corporate solution provider, following the example of IBM in the early 90s. And don't forget not so long ago, HP reported the same decline in its PC sales and expressed pessimism about the future prospect of its PC division. So question is posted to everyone, is PC industry really dying? 

Well, it depends, but not so negative. 

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Chinese New Year! Chinatown Walkabout Photos Taken by Sony RX1

I just got back to China for Chinese New Year. It is freezing cold and already snowed when I woke up this morning. And Chinese New Year is only one day away!

It has been almost more than a month since the day I got my RX1 and I am still enjoying every bit of it. It is such a delight to use and the photo quality is really, really amazing. In fact, I hardly do much process in my Lightroom now since the out-of-camera jpeg is good enough. I've shared quite a bit of my experience with RX1 in my previous post about the Thailand trip.

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Why Other People's Posts Are on the Top of Facebook News Feed While Yours Are Not

(Source: Spreadeffect.com)

After last time I posted on the Facebook’s graph search, I have been wondering how Facebook is ranking one’s News Feed in the homepage. So I did some small research on how this works.

Apparently the News Feed is not populating in chronological order, since some news can be on the top of the new feed for several hours and even a few days. In fact, Facebook is applying an algorithm called ‘EdgeRank’ in determining the order in one’s News Feed. So why Facebook is doing this instead of in chronological order which appears more reasonable?

The reasons could be two:

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Sony NEX E-Mount SEL1018: Hands-On and Photos

After the first brief review of Sony SEL1018, I took the lens with my NEX 5N for some test shots. Compared to my SEL16F28 with the VCL-ECU1 mounted, the new SEL1018 has a few obvious advantages. 

1. The image quality is much better. For SEL16F28, the picture is soft at all corners, especially if it was shot using aperture F2.8. It may be noticed if you look at the resized photo, but definitely obvious when you take a 100% zoom view. Compared to that, SEL1018 is much better and sharper even wide open at F4. 

2. It is clearly more versatile, as a zoom lens. It helps framing the picture properly without too much hassle in cropping. 10mm is really wide and it's suitable for large landscapes and occasions when the space is constrained and you can't step back further. At 18mm it would be good for normal use as the distortion is not that dramatic. 

3. The OSS is a huge bonus. Some may think it is not so important as a wide angle lens would not have much problem of handshake since the shutter speed can go as slow as 1/15s (the reverse of the 35mm equivalent focal length). However, it could still be challenging if shooting a night scenery or indoor. Therefore, although the widest aperture is only at F4, with OSS built in, the chances of capturing a good clear photo in low light is actually much higher.

Below are some shots taken by SEL1018 with my NEX 5N around Chinatown and City areas. 

 

Crowds and lights in the Chinatown streets and CBD in the distance. Taken handheld.  14mm, F4, ISO2500, 1/60s

The yellow 'snake' lantern goes in front of the Sri Mariamman Temple. Taken handheld. 10mm, F4, ISO1250, 1/60s

The well-known Merlion and skyline behind. Taken on a tripod, using the built in HDR. 10mm, F11, ISO100, 8s

Marina Bay Sands with laser light on. Taken on a tripod, using the built in HDR. 18mm, F11,ISO100, 25s

The light trace and star burst. Taken on a tripod. 10mm, F16, ISO100, 20s

Another light trace with Fullerton Hotel behind. Taken on a tripod. 10mm, F16, ISO100, 6s

Outdoor theatre next to Marina Bay. Taken on a tripod. 11mm, F13, ISO100, 10s

Performance at outdoor theatre. Taken handheld. 12mm, F4, ISO3200, 1/25s

Something I noticed in the photos is that there will be some degree of flare if the lens is facing a strong light source. It could be annoying for some of the photographers. In addition, it is great that the distortion is well controlled even wide at 10mm.

One last thing, the recommended retail price for this lens is 1299 SGD. So..something to reflect on yourselves! If you are serious into landscape/cityscape or architecture photography and whether you often use wide angle lens, or just on demand. If yes, definitely this is the perfect companion for your NEX cameras and it is worth the investment. If you only occasionally use it, or just want to complete your 'focal range', I would still recommend the combination of SEL16F28 and VCL-ECU1. They are only about half of the price of SEL1018.

Hope you have enjoyed the review and photos. Please let me know if you have any question and I'd love to answer them! 

Technorati Tags: Camera, Lens, Photography, Review, Sony

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The Ultimate Ultra-Wide Lens for NEX cameras: Sony SEL1018 - First Impression

A few months ago, I wrote a review on Sony's ultra-wide lens converter, VCL-ECU1. It is specifically designed for the 16mm F2.8 pancake lens (SEL16F28). Having a 0.75x factor, it turns the lens into 12mm F2.8. It is really wide and helped me capture many great landscape photos along my trips. However, it does have its limitations. First the somewhat compromised image quality is still something I would notice. SEL16F28 is not a sharp lens, especially at the corners, which frustrates me a little bit. Second, it doesn't come with OSS (Optical Steady Shot). Though it could be wide open at F2.8, it's not good enough for many night shots which shutter speed can easily go below 1/10. That sometimes caused my photos blurred due to handshake. Lastly, a fixed focal length could be inconvenient at times because the lens is just too wide for some occasions and I have to adjust my position or crop the image to get exactly the view I want. 

Now Sony has a solution for all the problems I have. It's the new E-mount lens, Wide zoom 10-18mm F4.

I was provided with this lens to feature a review. And it is really something I have been looking for! This post will be about the design of this lens and how it feels in hand.

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BlackBerry: Back in the Game

(Photo from: BGR.com)

Two days ago, RIM (now known as BlackBerry) finally gave its long overdue update: the release of BlackBerry 10, its latest OS that the company bets on to revive itself. Here in this post I don't want to talk much about the features since they are all over the Internet (for example, engadget). I would like to share my thoughts on whether BlackBerry got its very chance to return to its great old days.

BlackBerry used to be the symbol of 'smart and cool', even US president used it for its highly secured protection of private data on the phone. Then it got stuck right there, no more significant improvement in both hardware and software. After five years, people still have to navigate around the tiny icons and read the email with crammed text. Stock market has reflected the same as how consumers feel about BlackBerry. The current share price is about 10% of its peak price 5 years ago. Its global smartphone market share has slipped from 20% to the marginal 7% now. Facing intensive competition from iOS and Android could be one reason, the other, and a more dominant one is apparently its lack in innovation.

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Vine: Twitter's Instagram in Video Space

Twitter launched its new social network app, Vine a few days ago. Probably you don't know what it is judging by its name and that’s what this post is for: give you a general idea on how this new social app works.It’s very much like Instagram, if you have ever used it. Instead of still pictures, users upload videos and they are of fixed duration, 6 seconds. That would be boring if it’s just a 6-second video without any fun part. It actually can be composed of many parts, like a mini film.

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Transfer Your Photos On the Go: My Experience with Eye-Fi Card

Camera now usually comes as a standard feature of smartphones. However, it is more for entertainment rather than serious photography, especially for a photo enthusiast like me. I like taking photos when I go out with friends, even just casual outings. I also like sharing the moments, just as timely as it could be. So it sometimes annoys me because my phone camera fails to do so. For example, when I was in a dim Karaoke room with friends and wanted to take a group shot. Phone camera only gives me some crappy result, either blurry or very high noise. If I bring a camera, the problem is solved, but another issue would be, how can I upload it to the Internet?

I have been looking for a solution to this problem. There are new models of cameras integrated with WiFi. But it could take some investment and it would be just for the sake of a small feature. The other I have tried is to use Apple's camera connection kit, which you can use to import photos from SD card to iPad (not iPhone, unfortunately). I used this for quite a while and it works well. The only complaint is that it's too tedious. I have to take out the memory card from the camera, connect it to the iPad through the camera connection kit, then use my iPhone's hotspot to tether the Internet so that I can upload it to Facebook, or somewhere else.

Then I found Eye-Fi card.

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Guest Blog: The End of the Beginning - Why Apple Should Introduce A Cheaper Version of the iPhone

I have shared my thoughts and opinions in the previous post about why Apple shouldn't release a lower-price iPhone to the market just for the sake of keeping the growth. Clearly, this is a controversial topic and I am glad that one of the readers shared his own opinion through this guest blog. Though it is more of 'economist' or editorial style. It certainly brings some fresh perspective on this matter.  

The End of the Beginning

By HMP

Photo: Apple's flagship store on 5th Avenue, New York City

The week began with a two-term US president taking the oath of inauguration, and ended with US tech giant Apple ceding the title as the most valuable company in the world to ExxonMobil. Nearly US$ 50 billion, almost equivalent to the entire capitalisation of Boeing (another US giant facing unprecedented challenge) was wiped off Apple’s book as Wall Street reacted with alarming nervousness to its zero net income growth last quarter.

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Cheaper iPhone? Not A Great Idea

(Image Source: Cult of Mac)

In my previous post, I've shared my opinions on why Apple's share price has dropped dramatically from its peak. Just on this Thursday, Apple released its second quarterly result in its fiscal year 2013. Within the after-hour, the share price slashed a massive 10% to below 500, though Apple stated that it is a record in revenue and sales of its iPhones. Such a contrast is due to the fear that Apple is slowing in the growth and the numbers didn’t hit the market expectation.

Analysts are commenting that Apple should tap the lower end market by introducing a cheaper iPhone. As high-end smart phone market is saturated, eurozone is still suffering from the financial crisis, and emerging markets’ potential is huge, this argument seems valid if Apple wants to sustain the hyper-growing trend. 

In my opinion, this simply does not work.

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