Wasted Continuum

A little disclaimer before I start talking about the EOS Rebel XSi DSLR, I have to tell you that this is not any sort of a review. Nor is it even a thorough hands on article. It’s really more of a “ooh my co-worker just bought one over the weekend and let me play with it for a while today” type of an article. Let me start by stating what I used today. It was the newest model in the Rebel line from Canon, the XSi. It is the successor to the XTi, which is the successor to the XT, the camera that I own. That means that it is two generations newer than mine and I have to say, it blatantly obvious.

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So one of the worst things that could happen to a photographer happened to me today. I had my camera in a tripod which I though was locked in. When let go of my camera, it came off of the tripod and fell to the hardwood floor. My camera landed on my 50mm 1.8 lens that was attached at the moment. It all happened so quickly. My lens was in two pieces.

I immediately checked to see the extent of the damage, but I already knew that my lens was done for. Luckily my camera body was still working fine. At first I thought my camera broke too because it wouldn’t turn on. After I switched the battery, I saw that my camera was okay. I’m just really sad that my 50mm is gone now. That was my favorite lens. Now the question is should I replace it with another 1.8 or should I save up a little and get the 1.4. The 1.8 is $86.28 and the 1.4 is $325. I don’t know I did get to use the 1.4 for a day and it was fun.

I have made it to 100 photos in my Flickr 365 project. I’m so amazed at that fact, you don’t even know it. The 365 project has been one of the best learning experiences so far for me in the photography world. I think I have really improved because of it. Besides improving my composition and lighting, I’ve also learned a lot about my camera. I’m glad I decided to do it.

I know. Everyone has talked about Flip Video Cameras. I’m about a year late. I never really gave the Flip Video a chance. It’s a barebone, feature-less, relatively cheap handheld camera that shoots 640×480 AVI’s. It’s not exactly a geek’s dream camcorder. It’s almost the opposite. I’ve been researching digital video cameras for about a year now. I’m mostly waiting for a 1080p camera to be priced for a consumer to buy. That hasn’t really happened yet. There are options for that out there. Then I heard a couple people I trust in the geek world talk about the Flip Video so I decided to check it out for myself.

I think the most attractive points to the Flip Video is that it is cheap ($100.86 for the 30-minute and $149.99 for the 60-minute) and simple to use. You basically press the red button on the back to start recording. You press a button to stop. To get the video off the camera, you flip out the little USB connector from the side of it and plug it into your Mac or PC. You can use the supplied software to edit it or even upload to AOL or YouTube, or you can just copy off the MPEG4 AVI files and edit them in your own software. You can even connect the camera directly to your TV and watch the video that way. The Flip Video also runs on AA batteries so when you on the go and forgot to charge your batteries, you can easily go to a gas station or convenient store and pick up some.

I got my camera back today from my aunt. Perfect timing, because I got my MacBook Pro today too. I was feeling very low tech for a good week. It’s all good now. I can sleep soundly tonight. I took a lot of photos of my new laptop, but I haven’t processed them yet. I’ll have them up tomorrow.

I actually wrote a lengthy post last night about what I’ve been up to the last few days. Apparently, sometime during the beginning of my writing of the post, my database server went down and WordPress was not saving my progress. I was not aware of this. When I finished my post and hit publish, I hit an error page and realized that the database server was not functioning properly. When I hit back, I lost everything, but two sentences that saved before the server went down. Being that this is not a term paper for school that I need to turn in, I’m not going to try to rewrite it. Instead, I’ll give you the short summary. Continue Reading »