5 Aug, 2014
by KIKI
Author:
KIKI
Tech Tips 14/14

 

After 13 months and 86 recharge cycles the battery of my mobile laptop is still healthy like new, astounding! What's also great with the current Haswell processors is their power efficiency. At around half display brightness the notebook only consumes around 2.5 Watts when idling, that's amazing! These new chips give you at least 12 hours of battery life, I often get more out of one charge as long as I don't do photo editing but only browsing and writing. The minor successor of Broadwell chips has been delayed to beginning/mid next year instead of the scheduled summer 2014 release. That means the next "tock" (big step forward in Intel roadmap language) of Skylake chips, that are supposed to bring significant speed boosts, are very likely to not be released before 2016. So, if you need to buy a laptop now, there's no hesitation to take a current Haswell machine. Broadwell won't be much different and Skylake is still far away.

 

Happy computing!

 

KIKI

 

 

23 Jun, 2014
by KIKI
Author:
KIKI
Tech Tips 13/14 - Think different

 

 

I have the brand-new Huawei Mediapad X1 7.0 here and I have to say I love it. It's a so called phablet, bigger than even the largest smartphones but smaller than an iPad mini for example. Great, when you only want one device that does it all, especially if you prefer looking at a big screen rather than fiddling around on a 4-incher. I recommended it to a friend for good reason and it doesn't disappoint in real life. Craftsmanship is great, mostly made of aluminium with two plastic parts at top and bottom, no play or sqeaking.

 

It has a beautiful 7" Full HD display with a special 16:10 ratio, giving you a little extra width compared to other cellphones or tablets. It's driven by a powerful, yet efficient processor and a large battery, good enough for a heavy working day and fast enough to make everything operate smoothly.

 

It's runs on Android 4.2.2, which is a bit odd as it's quite old, but it doesn't bother me, there may be a future upgrade available. With its own Huawei themes it looks fresh enough for me and does everything that I need.

 

It has a pretty good camera and a flash, too. You can put extra SD cards in to extend storage and Android gives you all the customizability you might miss on an iOS device.

 

Because it's really quite big it makes sense to use the provided headphones or quality third party ones for phonecalls. It's probably better anyway radiation-wise.

 

 

And the best, with a street price below 400 € from the start it's quite affordable, too.

 

It's a really cool phone/tablet combination, I like it, it's different and very pretty, highly recommended!

 

 

Happy surphoning!

 

KIKI

 

 

7 May, 2014
by KIKI
Author:
KIKI
Tech Tips 12/14 - What camera to buy (May 2014)?

 

Actually what I said in this article at the end of last year still applies.

 

The first thing, a good photo never comes from the camera but from the photographer. Great photographers can make amazing photos with whatever camera they have at hand, even with their cellphone.

 

Then, before buying a new camera you have to ask yourself what do you expect the new camera to do better than your old one. There are a lot of cameras for different purposes and you first need to define what you are looking for. I experience this a lot with people who ask me what camera to buy. Well, for me it’s hard to tell, because I don’t know what you want.

 

In most cases it will be a step up from the point & shoot digital camera or cellphone that everybody has. The main reason I am shooting bigger cameras is the bigger sensor that give you a shallower depth of field, allowing you to separate your main subject from the back- or foreground. With a big sensor camera you can have a sharp person for example and a blurry background. That helps making your photos stronger by emphasizing the main subject you pay want to get attention to.

 

The bigger the recording medium (sensor or film) the stronger the effect. Well, with a full-frame 35mm camera, which is really big by point &shoot standards but way smaller than medium format or even large format film, you can get very wide aperture lenses that help making the effect even stronger and let images look quite close to medium format in terms of depth of field. You will get much sharper results with medium format, though, because lenses have narrower apertures and still even less depth of field.

 

There are a lot of terms that some of you may not understand so I try to make it simpler. The bigger the sensor (DSLR, mirror-less cameras) the bigger the background-blurring capabilities of the camera that give your images an artistic look. If all you want is photos where everything is perfectly in focus even point & shoot cameras are good enough today. They still do have some limitations.

 

Point & shoot cameras, the ones you probably want to step up from, have tiny sensors with one advantage and many disadvantages. A small sensor gives a huge depth of field, means pretty much everything is always in focus. You can make great photos with those cameras you just have to be aware that you won't be able to emphasize by blurring parts of the image. In my opinion that can make you learn to take better pictures because you have to make them strong without the artistic cheating of making them just beautiful by blurring special parts in it.

 

That lets me come back to my second sentence, the camera doesn’t matter, the eye and imagination of the photographer do. Learn to make great images with your point & shoot and only reward yourself with a better camera when you reach the limit of the small camera. If your images suck with the point & shoot they won’t be any better with the bigger camera.

 

But point & shoots have some more disadvantages that might rule them out earlier. They are slow by comparison. You won't be able to focus fast moving subjects like kids or even track them. Something you can do with DSLRs or modern mirror-less alternatives. I’d still say DSLRs are my top pick when it comes to fast accurate focussing, because they use a separate autofocus sensor for that, but mirror-less cameras catch up. My Olympus OM-D is even faster than my Canon 5D Mark III which is as fast (AF-wise) as Canon’s top of the line 1D X.

 

Point & shoots also have a limited dynamic range, especially in the highlights, a reason why you often get washed out, white skies in contrasty situation, something you can recognize by that the photo comes from a point & shoot. A bigger sensor camera retains both highlights and shadows much better, with less blown highlights and less noisy shadows. To be honest, know these limitations and try to avoid difficult situations. I never had problems with dynamic range in a point & shoot. It’s the overall sharpness in the images that I don’t like. Advertising photos on the other hand are sharp all over most of the time, too. So, it’s just a matter of taste.

 

Last but not least the smaller the sensor the less light can hit it. You need good light to get noise-less photos with a point & shoot. In bad light or at night they are much worse than a big sensor camera. To be honest, I never had to dismiss a photo because it was too noisy. Film back in the days was grainy, too, so no big deal.

 

Ok, if you want to upgrade from your cellphone and just want a great little point & shoot I always recommend Canon ones. In my opinion they are the most advanced and well though-through little cameras you can get. Of course it’s always a matter of taste, too, and if you don’t like Canon for whatever reason I’m sure Nikon or Panasonic or the other ones are as good. If you don’t wanna spend much just grab one of last year models in one of the big boxes in your electronic market where they are on sale. If you want the best at the moment take Canon’s Powershot S120, it’s wonderful and although I own a couple of cameras and a very good Panasonic LX7 I’m always tempted to buy a Canon point & shoot. I had the S95 and it was gorgeous. With the great 24mm wide-angle lens now these Powershots of today are even better. Don’t bother buying a G16, it has the same small sensor, costs more and is much more bulky. You sacrifice on sensor size for having a truly pocketable camera, why buy a bulky one then?

 

You want bigger? Ok, now it gets a bit more complicated. If you just want a great camera that is versatile, fast and gives great images I would buy a DSLR. If you don’t have the money for a full-frame one with a sensor the same size as old 35mm film, which will give you the exact look depth-of-field-wise, you should buy one of the half-sized sensor (APS-C) DSLRs like a Nikon D3300 or Canon 100D. But which one? Well, to be honest they are all the same pretty much. Something to consider might be that with a DSLR you also buy the ability to choose lenses out of the particular line-up. So you might want to think about potential lenses that you can use on an upgrade model later on. But on the other hand APS-C cameras are a good bit smaller than full-frame equivalents and have their own particular lenses. I would stick to those as long as you don’t upgrade to full-frame, something you probably won’t do anyway. So why buy big, heavy full-frame lenses when you will never shoot full-frame?

 

Which brand should you buy? I’d say take Nikon or Canon because they have the widest selection of lenses and they are probably the best camera brands in the DSLR market. But if you don’t plan to upgrade to full-frame in the future and probably will shoot only with 1-3 lenses I also like Pentax cameras. I don’t like Sony but that’s personal taste. My advice, when you want to invest some money in a DSLR, go into a shop and have a look at the different brands. They all feel and look a little different and in the end you should pick the camera that you like to take in your hands and shoot with it. They are all the same in the end. They all have different models for different budgets. I would probably take a Nikon, either a D3300 or D5300. But I like the Pentax K-3, too. It has some really cool and unique features that separates them from the big brands. I also like a Canon 100D because it is just so small.

 

Now, today you also have the chance to buy a mirror-less or system camera like an Olympus OM-D that I have. The great thing about those cameras is they are much smaller than even the smallest DSLRs because they don’t have a complicated mirror box that adds bulk to the body. Instead they have an electronic viewfinder or just the rear LCD to frame and compose. They have tinier, simpler lenses that often have better image quality because they are not designed for a camera with a mirror box in the way. But those mirror-less cameras which attract especially women because of their small size are often a bit more expensive still. This might change soon but for the same money you’ll get a DSLR with much better autofocus and a viewfinder for mirror live-framing.

 

If money was no object I would probably buy an Olympus OM-D EM-5 or a similar model. The new Fuji X-T1 seems to be great, too. They are smaller than an equivalent DSLR, especially the Olympus, because it has a slightly smaller sensor and smaller lenses for the special Micro-4/3 system. I love the Olympus. It’s small, fast, gives great images and looks totally cool. Only downside, full-frame images just look even better. But as I explained above this is down to depth of field reasons and just my taste.

 

If you want full-frame by the way, the Canon 6D is quite affordable, a bit smaller than the rest and with absolutely fantastic image quality, especially noise-wise.

 

My main sites to read reviews and get tips and inspiration tech-wise are Ken Rockwell, he is the last big site that is totally independent, Ken just writes what he thinks. Imaging-resource is a really good site for in-depth reviews, and dpreview, latter being an Amazon site now and they have lost most of their quality, they are good but not amazing anymore.

 

Happy shooting!

 

If you want to support NIKOLAIKIKI and contribute to keeping all this information and content costless and without ads at all I'd recommend you having a look at my shop and especially the NIKOLAIKIKI ethical clothing collection.

 

Thanks!

 

KIKI

 

 

2 Apr, 2014
by KIKI
Author:
KIKI
Tech Tips 11/14 - Birnen schmecken auch

 

 

Bei mir bahnt sich was Bahnbrechendes an. Erwäge, beim nächsten Computerkauf wieder auf Windows zurückzuwechseln oder auf Linux umzusteigen, halte letzteres allerdings für äußerst unwahrscheinlich, weil es für professionelle Anwendungen wohl unpraktikabel ist.

 

ABER, Mac nervt mich mittlerweile so sehr, dass ich keine wirklichen Vorteil mehr sehe. Sämtliche Arbeitserleichterungen, die Mac früher ausgezeichnet haben, sind inzwischen für iPad 1, 2, 3 A bis Z und iPhones, die bestimmt bald auch 3D-drucken können, vernachlässigt worden. Blingbling und Kohle abziehen, wo geht, haben es ersetzt, sich vernünftig um seine Profi-Nutzer zu kümmern. Die kleine schwarze Mülltonne, für die man ab 3.000 € aufwärts bezahlt und die nicht mal ein zweites Laufwerk beherbergen kann, habe ich z.B. auch nicht mehr wirklich verstanden. Keine Frage, interessant sieht das Dingelchen aus, aber mal ganz ehrlich, welcher Profi hat darauf jemals Wert gelegt.

 

So, was mich aber wirklich richtig tüchtig nervt an den Maschinchen aus Cupertino, ist das völlige Oktroyieren der Bedienung, ohne auch nur eine einzige Sache wirklich genau so einstellen zu können, wie es einem selbst am besten gefällt. Habe mich mit meinen Windows Computern immer super verstanden, hatte nie einen Virus und irgendwie habe ich begriffen, wie er funktioniert, auch wenn das zugegeben oft extrem mühselig war. Bei Apple habe ich mich bisher immer damit abgefunden, die starre, aber geniale Bedienbarkeit zu schlucken nach dem Motto "Warum etwas verstehen wollen, was andere Spezialisten für dich übernehmen und dir dafür die bestmögliche und einfachste Bedienung liefern?". Das war auch alles schön und gut.

 

Die Rechnung beginnt nur irgendwann nicht mehr aufzugehen, wenn das eben nicht mehr das Wichtigste für diese Spezialisten ist, sondern die Frage, mit welcher mit Diamant gefrästen Kante man am besten auch noch die dämlichsten Käufer anlocken kann, die dem Irrtum erliegen, das wäre ein Beweis dafür, dass auch alles andere, viel wichtigere natürlich genauso präzise durchdacht wurde. Pustekuchen, genau diese Ressourcen wurden von Jony Ive umrekrutiert, um nur noch an dieser verdammten Diamantkante rumzudoktern.

 

So komm wa aber nicht mehr ins Geschäft. Also, Produktdesign hin oder her, Apple Sachen sehen immer noch am schönsten aus, meistens jedenfalls, ihre Bedienung lässt aber mittlerweile auch auf durchschnittlicherem User-Niveau zu wünschen übrig, vom Profi-Bereich ganz zu schweigen, die schütteln schon seit Jahren mit den Köpfen und können das alles gar nicht glauben.

 

Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn, Apple einfach mal beim Wort nehmen: "Think different". Denke, mein nächster Rechner wird mal wieder ein anderes System werden, Photoshop muss ich dann eh neu in der Cloud abonnieren. Ich war außerdem immer ein Freund von Abwechslung und am Ende isses dann auch nur ein dämlicher Computer ...

 

KIK

 

 

18 Mar, 2014
by KIKI
Author:
KIKI
Tech Tips 9/14 - How many Megapixels do you need?

 

Phone camera image, heavily cropped, less than 1 native Megapixel

 

How many Megapixels do you need? Depends how big you wanna enlarge, 10 MP is probably fine for everything. I print 120x80cm with 12,8 MP from time to time and the prints look stunning. It's much more important to put a sharp lens in front of your camera than blowing up an image that is not the sharpest in the first place. Megapixels are a sales pitch for years to make innocent people buy new cameras. After Megapixels came ISOs. Every modern camera can shoot in every light and give great looking images. The smaller the camera the noisier your night shots but the smallest pocket cameras are still pretty good. It's much more important to improve your techniques and really think before taking a picture to make it interesting. Framing, light, colour, expression, moment are all much more important than Megapixels. That's why women take better images most of the time. They don't care about tech, they care about the image. Think about it before dreaming of the next camera that might improve your photos, it won't and will save you a lot of money ...

 

KIKI

 

 

11 Mar, 2014
by KIKI
Author:
KIKI
Tech Tips 8/14 - The Leica M

 

 

photo credit Ken Rockwell 

 

If you have endless money to spend on digital cameras buy a new Leica M. You will get one of the most excellently crafted cameras with one of the best image qualities available, better than Canon or Nikon. Its images are superior because it is a range finder system with no mirror construction in the optical path, only the top-notch Leica lenses right in front of the images sensor. The images you get from a range finder are much sharper than from DSLRs because lenses for latter are optical compromises to fit the larger gap between lens and recording medium. If you can live with the Leica's shortcomings, especially what you see through the range finder is always a little different to what you get in your final image (you can use an electronic viewfinder now, however it looks silly), and you don't have autofocus. Before 1987 people had no autofocus either and have produced millions of masterpieces with their manual focus cameras (Henri Cartier-Bresson used a Leica, too). Anyway, have a look at the Leica M, it also looks spectacular, worlds better than the clunky black DSLRs. It's made in Germany by the way, that's why it doesn't cost 2.000 but 7.000 € ...

 

KIKI

 

 

9 Mar, 2014
by KIKI
Author:
KIKI
Tech Tips 7/14 - What lenses to buy?

 

35mm equivalent

 

What lenses do you need for a camera? It totally depends. Speaking for myself, if I only had one lens to choose for a camera, in which case you can take any compact or other fixed lens camera, it would be a 24-100mm equivalent lens.

 

24mm equivalent

 

Anything wider or longer is nice but not necessary for me. 24mm on the other hand is the minimum I want in a camera, 28mm doesn't cut it for me, as is the standard with most kit zooms. 100mm on the other hand is more than fine for me, I prefer to step closer instead of taking pictures from a distance. In my eyes you take the most dramatic images with a wide lens as close as you can to your subject. A fixed focal lens camera like Fujis X100s are fine, too, and probably all you need, see, most people use their fixed focal lens phone camera as their only camera, but I couldn't live with only 35mm at the wide end. One zoom lens is fine today because all real cameras are good enough to take good images in any light. You don't need a fast prime lens to take better images, they only get you less noise when light gets darker. PLUS, almost all "slow" normal zooms have image stabilization today, which let's you take shake free images especially at night. I much rather have a one stop slower zoom with IS instead of one that is not stabilized as normal walk-around lens. And they are smaller, lighter and cheaper, too.

 

If I had two lenses to pick I would throw in a 50 1.4 equivalent.

 

50mm equivalent

 

Henri Cartier-Bresson only used a fixed 50mm lens on his Leica for all his life and his images are among the very best. If 50mm is fine for you, skip the slow 24-100mm zoom and only take the 50 or a 35, they are lighter, cheaper, faster, give you nicer background blur at those focal lengths and probably make you take better pictures because you have to zoom with your feet.

 

35mm equivalent

 

50mm is the classic focal length, it's a very cool perspective getting you quite close if you want and letting you keep a distance otherwise. Most motion picture scenes are shot at 50mm, which often leads to photos that remind you of classic movies. Pretty cool.

 

If I had three lenses to pick I would put the normal zoom away and take an ultra-wide instead, a 16-35mm for example, it's the zoom most press photographers use. It let's you get everything into the frame in tight places, putting the spectator right in the middle of the action.

 

16mm equivalent

 

I would keep the 50mm and add a long zoom like a 70-200. I used this set up almost entirely on my last trip in autumn. Probably next time I would take a second body to avoid the several hundred lens changes during a trip, but if you have some time you're really covered with this three lens combination for everything. I use the long zoom for landscape shots or posed portraits but not for documentary, for that the 16-35 plus the 50 are all I need.

 

 

144mm equivalent

 

Happy shooting and a sunny Sunday!

 

KIKI