Wize Blog

Medium Format Flashback

If you're aching to go back in time to when people frequently shot with medium format film, the Seagull 4A-109 is for you.

Here's the scoop from dealtime.com: "The Seagull 4A-109 is the top of the Seagull medium format roster. This non-metered classically-styled twin-lens reflex camera is patterned in the time-honored design of older Yashicamats.

Its lightweight simple design consists of a waist-level finder with pop-up magnifier, manual film crank advance and separate shutter speed and aperture levers.

The 4A-109 has all the features of the GC-107 and includes a 4 element "picture taking lens" plus a shutter lock lever.

The viewing lens is a 75mm f/2.8 lens made of 3 elements in 3 groups. The mechanical lens shutter design provides flash synchronization at all speeds up to 1/500 second and there is also Bulb exposure.

This camera also features a cold flash shoe and PC terminal for external electronic flash connection."

Blogcritics Reviews "Digital Nature Photography"

I can remember back two years ago when blogcritics.org reviewed my book, "Digital Art Photography for Dummies."

The review was favorable, thank goodness.

Blogcritics.org gives some of the best book reviews on the Web.

Today it came out with a review for "Digital Nature Photography - The Art and the Science" by John and Barbara Gerlach.

The husband-and-wife team who wrote the book had the thousands of people who attend their workshops in mind. "Digital Nature Photography: The Art And The Science is the book that their workshop attendees have been asking for," writes blogcritics.org.

The book, an introductory text, contains chapters such as: Choosing your Digital Camera, Using Lenses Effectively and The Magic of Light.

The review offers a few general comments about the specific chapters, and ranked the book favorably overall.

Extensive Review of High End Canon Lens at BobAtkins.com

While you could get a Canon EF 70-200mm 1:4L USM Lens for a little over a thousand dollars, you'd do better to get a similar lens (Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM) with image stabilization for a few hundred dollars more. The Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM is an excellent lens that has had some very favorable reviews.

BobAtikins.com has called the lens "popular because it covers a very useful focal length range and is optically fast without the lens being too large or heavy."

This lens is the most expensive of Canon's L series.

A rebate sale on the lens ended on Feb. 17. You'll have to wait for another sale to save some bucks.

Dell Vostro 400 Mini Tower--a Small Business Desktop

The Dell Vostro 400 mini tower computer rated a 4.7 (out of 5) according to the Dell Web site.

The machine runs on Windows Vista Business or Windows XP Professional. It has 10 USB 2.0 ports.

Dell offers a choice of processors, operating systems, memory (up to 4GB), hard drives, optical external bay devices and audio options.

The machine is built for small business. Dell has a program to help small businesses with their Dell computer. One component of the program is DellConnect^TM  – an online tool that allows a Dell small business support specialist to access a PC remotely, diagnose your problem and help repair it – all under the users supervision.

Top 5 dSLR Camera Lenses at Wize.com

Thinking about trying a new lens on your dSLR camera? Here's the top 5 along with what they were rated at wize.com.

Note: Generally speaking Nikon lenses won't work on Canon cameras and vice versa.

1. Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM Lens rated 99
2. Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens rated 99
3. Nikon Telephoto AF Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D Macro Autofocus Lens rated 99
4. Canon Telephoto EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM Autofocus Lens rated 99
5. Nikon Nikkor 80-200mm f/4 Lens rated 99

Toshiba G450 Video Demo

The Toshiba 4-in-1 offers a USB flash drive, an MP3 player and laptop modem and cell phone in one device.

The flash drive can hold 160 GB of data, that's the same amount of data a MacBook Pro holds.

The device can link any laptop to the Internet via a mobile network. The G450 plugs into any USB socket to provide broadband PC access to the web. It will also will allow you to make a call and be connected to the Internet at the same time when on a 3G/HSDPA network.

The cell phone includes voice calling, SMS texting and an alarm clock.

A press release from Toshiba says the phone will be available in Europe soon (comes to the UK in March), but did not say when the device will come to the United States.

Below is a video demo of the device--

Go Green: Download Instead of Purchasing CD, DVD

Celia Hirschman discussed going green by downloading music and movies instead of buying CDs or DVDs today on her broadcast on KCRW in Los Angeles.

In her piece, "The Greening of the Record Industry," Hirschman describes all of the materials that are used to make CDs and DVDs.

"CD's are made from aluminum, gold, silver and nickel, two types of plastic created from crude oil, water, glass and dyes from petroleum products," she says.

It's not only the product itself that uses energy and resources, it's also using trucks to get the CDs and DVDs to the store.

Last, there's the toxic waste that's produced as the CDs and DVDs decompose in the landfills.

In the piece there are many links, including one where you can mail your unwanted CDs and DVDs free to be properly disposed of. The link gives the address where you can send your CDs. It is 13505 Yorba Av., Unit R, Chino, CA 91710.

Use iPhone as a Touchpad

After downloading the program touchpad, you can operate your iphone as a touchpad for your computer.

The video below shows you how--

CNET Reviews Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III

Most everything about the CNET review of the Canon EOS-1D Mark III (rated 99 at wize.com) is good, except the price. At $8440, it's very expensive.

Here's what the camera offers:

*3-inch LCD screen

*Viewfinder offers 100% coverage

*21MP resolution

*14-bit per channel analog to digital conversion, allowing for 16,384 levels of brightness when shooting in Raw

*Full-frame center (same size as a frame on a 35mm film camera)

*Dust reduction system

*45 autofocus points

*Full-frame evaluative metering, center-weighted average, and partial and spot metering

*Picture Style menu where you can adjust sharpness, contrast, saturation, and color tone to change the  look of the images

MacBook Pro Now Has Multi-Touch Trackpad

When I first got my MacBook Pro, the first thing I did after unboxing the machine was to try to pinch  and expand with my fingers on the  trackpad. I thought maybe, just maybe, they had made the trackpad similar to that of the MacBook Air which had just been released a month earlier.  With the sleek MacBook Air, users can pinch, swipe or rotate to enlarge text, advance through photos or adjust an image.

My attempts at pinching the MacBook Pro's trackpad failed to provide any effects on the open browser window (I was hoping the contents within would enlarge).

I'm disappointed that I hadn't waited a bit to purchase a MacBook Pro because starting today it ships with a multi-touch trackpad.

You can see the multi-touch trackpad feature at apple.com.