In less than two weeks, I'll be headed to Tokyo for a short trip with a couple of my colleagues — my fourth time in six years. I've never been in February, and especially not in the midst of what is currently a pretty chilly winter, where temperatures a breath below 0ºC each night are the norm; it's been so long since I've been cold that I can't accurately gauge how much clothing 5ºC really calls for.
But it's not what I pack for the weather that bothers me, it's what I should pack to take pictures with. After some deliberation, I decided to make this an all-Ricoh vacation, save for the iPhone 4S's camera, which I'll have with me anyway. The rules for how I shoot with the iPhone are a whole other story. And then last night I had to go wrinkle what was a fairly simple two-camera set up of the semi-pro GRD3 and the consumer pocket cam CX6 with the idea that I should shoot the former in black & white mode only. Which soon became BOTH of them in black & white, followed by a brief contemplation of "just an iPhone" like what Lisa Bettany is currently attempting (on a round the world trip, natch), and ended with the relatively adventurous and mildly stupid "whole vacation with only the CX6" idea.
If you've never gone through this mental exercise before a vacation, I envy you.
The CX6 has personal preset spaces on its function dial, which allows shooting mainly in black & white but switching quickly to color when necessary. Why not just shoot everything in color and then convert them when I get back? I don't know. I think I'm getting a little tired of the post-vacation fiddle (the last batch of a thousand photos took a whole year to get all the way through), and intentionally losing information and atmosphere the moment the shutter is pressed is an attractively frightening proposition.
I took the camera out on my way to work today to try it out:
1:24:36 PM Ci'en Xu: Was up last night posting Berlin photos.
1:24:51 PM Ci'en Xu: Sometimes it feels like in this day and age, editing is more redundant.
1:25:03 PM Brandon Lee: How do you mean?
1:25:56 PM Ci'en Xu: I remember the days when Flickr was kinda like a big social network, and people were more obsessed about the rules of photography and how you edited them, etc.
1:26:17 PMCi'en Xu: I guess now with mobile, instant takes precedence over "perfect".
1:27:06 PM Brandon Lee: Yeah you're right.
1:27:31 PM Brandon Lee: Which is why I like Mattebox… it kinda makes you feel like getting it right in-camera is important again, and maybe even enough.
1:28:02 PMBrandon Lee: When you leave everything to the phone to do automatically, there's always the sense that you must insert yourself into the process, and that can only happen in post.
1:28:19 PM Ci'en Xu: But I still like editing, even if just to let you linger on your photos for a little while longer.
Have just returned from a short getaway to Bintan where I ate the local nasi goreng (fried rice) for most meals, and avoided getting horrendously sunburnt until the very last morning. It is agony.
The last time I traveled without a dedicated camera was in 2008 when I also visited Bintan and happened to stay in the same hotel; I used a Nokia N82 phone then (5mp, Carl Zeiss optics), as a sort of experiment. It seemed fitting that I try again with this year's model: an iPhone 4S (8mp, backlit CMOS sensor).
The day before leaving, I discovered Ben Syverson's excellent camera replacement app, Mattebox, and decided to use it exclusively. In short, Mattebox allows photographers to hold and use an iPhone in a familiar way by replicating the half-press to focus mechanism of most traditional point & shoot cameras in autofocus mode. This allows users to choose a focal point and exposure setting by pointing at one thing, and then recomposing before the final shot. Mattebox achieves what normally requires a physical camera button by means of a headslappingly-simple, and thereby brilliant, touch and slide gesture that no other app has used before.
One feature that got me very excited in the app's demo video turned out to have been removed at the last minute, although Ben has promised me over Twitter that he intends to restore it in the next update. When it returns, users will be able to see the ISO, shutter speed, and focal distance that the iPhone intends to use for a photo, before it's taken. This, too, has never been done before, and offers the advanced photographer a level of control and an opportunity for finessing shots that probably runs counter to everything the iPhone camera designers intended. And I love it.
Mattebox also includes the ability to tune a photo in post with an elegant gesture-driven interface, although you probably already have a few preferred ways of doing this, such as Snapseed. The high quality of its editing engine, however, is worth noting. For a number of photos where I wanted stronger contrast and/or more unrealistic color grading, I fell back to Camera+ for its speed and simplicity.
One can get lost in the editing loop for hours if not careful, and Mattebox and Camera+ both come with built-in creative limitations that can be quite liberating. I used to suggest that travelers should take no more than two cameras on a trip — as choice and paralysis go hand in hand — and that advice seems to carry over to photography apps as well. Pick two, and make the most of them.
If this Starbucks had an insufferable sub-brand like Starbucks Deluxe, Gourmet, or perhaps something more in character, like Primo, I'd be inclined to forgive it. Occupying an old two-storeyed colonial style house with a generous verandah and really nice interior touches, it's not your usual pick up and go joint in the city. Being in a pretty secluded spot off Holland Village/North Buona Vista Road means it's actually possible to get a little peace and quiet here on the weekend. Patronizing any other Starbucks on Orchard Road is an exercise in hating the entire goddamned human race.
I know a few people my age avoid Starbucks or take issue with some aspect of their homogenized product, globalized retail model, exploitation of coffee growers, etc. — and I don't normally care to indulge those viewpoints — but this barely registers, cognitively and experientially, as a Starbucks.
Wood is used liberally, as panelling and in furniture. Straws, stirrers, sugar, napkins, and other accessories are presented in a large armoire of sorts. Pastries and sandwiches are sold from flat, refrigerated glass cases. The kind that Fauchon uses for its macarons. IN PARIS. There's pour-over brewed coffee as an option, which was introduced earlier this year in the United States.
The coffee is probably the worst thing about this place, and I don't even mean that cruelly. If you're cool with Starbucks and can't find an awkward, vintage wooden stool to ironically and uncomfortably perch on at Kith, Forty Hands, or the like, this cafe will bear a Sunday afternoon visit.
Visited the National Museum today for this joint showing with the Musée d'Orsay. I'm not the most art-obsessed gallery goer; my girlfriend fondly remembers the d'Orsay as her favorite in Paris, I remember its gift shop. Still, some very nice work is on display till February, so drop by if you can.
Metro is undeniably gorgeous but I still can’t form an objective opinion about whether the phone as a whole is good enough to replace my iPhone.
The facts say it’s good enough. My heart says no.
I just can’t rationalise living outside of the Apple safety net. 80% of the population probably can, and will love a phone that smokes Android.
This is how sort of how I feel every time I see Windows Phone. The smartest people I know say it's good enough, worth trying, better than Android. I'm sure they're right but it feels wrong in my gut. Is it down to being too different to what I know, and it just needs time? It's easy to point out a few of Microsoft's bold design decisions and where their intended use cases don't apply to my own needs, but in the end it's about how everything feels.
But it's hard to ignore that with Nokia behind it, "Windows Phone 7.5 Mango" now has a bit of a chance, and it's one of the most interesting platforms to study for mobile design projects. The dilemma reminds me of the days when I shuttled between Nokia and Sony-Ericsson phones, where every phone switch demanded learning a lot of paradigms from scratch. With the iPhone being good enough that I haven't switched away in four years, I've felt free of that ritual. It's been comfortable. But the curse of curiosity is that I know I'm going to do it again anyway, and work just becomes the latest excuse.
I started a new site a few weeks back because I had a few vacation days and not much more to do than sit at home playing Batman Arkham City. The concept had been settling for awhile, without too much direct thought. Armed with the knowledge that I often take pleasure in evaluating things, and recommending said things to friends sans qualifying statements, I decided a blog about five-star, must-have products was going to have legs.
It's made with Posterous and a theme by Cory Watilo, with an Amazon affiliate store attached so I can keep as many of the featured items together in one place ready for purchase (and also because the thought of playing storekeeper sounded fun). I initially ran into some trouble with an unusual Posterous bug, but a complaint on Twitter later, and I had a direct email line to support thanks to one of their VPs, Rich Pearson. That was a great customer moment; just thought I'd mention it.
So, Object is dead simple. Just three main post types.
Features: Product reviews with big, full-width photography that I try and do myself. Usually with my Ricoh GR Digital III.
Perceptions: Stuff I don't have yet and haven't tested, but which look promising. Using photography found online and in press kits. I put these photos together in one carousel-based gallery instead of spreading them out.
Radar: Upcoming products. Photography as above.
It's a side project, and work has been keeping me pretty busy. Nevertheless, I'll try and have new content up on a weekly basis.
I realized that I buy into the philosophy of a product, and the company that made it, more than any measurable aspect of the product itself. Those that reach high, have the right intentions, get a free pass now and then for falling short in some areas. I know many of you are with me on this. This is why we got excited over webOS and the Palm Pre. This is why some are falling again — unfazed by webOS's tragic journey into obscurity — for Windows Phone 7, a well-reviewed OS that has gotten close to no traction with real consumers.
It's a form of compensation bias, driven by emotion. It's why Instagram succeeded at launch despite low resolution 600x600 photos, why the LC-A sells and sells despite shoddy construction, why Prince and Tom Cruise's wacky religious leanings don't impact their bank accounts.
I'm more susceptible to advertising than most. The best ones put tears in my eyes because I want to believe that companies give a damn about doing the right thing, about making great stuff they're proud of. What is an ad if not a plea to be loved?
Have you seen the way some Japanese companies talk about their premium cameras? Look at the "Developer's Interview" Panasonic assembled when the LX3 launched. It overflows with passion (okay, it's modest and restrained) for the camera, and respect for its user. Whatever compromises they had to make along the way, whatever you believe or can't believe about the hyperbolic words of a marketing document, it's hard to deny that a product that has proven as excellent and reliable as my LX3 has to me was conceived by a team with the highest intentions. Ricoh's "Inside Story" for the GR Digital is no different.
While it's true that most people never even see the inside of their digital camera, you can rest assured that the LX3 is filled with only the very highest-quality parts from the lens to the CCD, the LSI and all the peripheral circuits. It's just possible that this was the first time that a camera development project went this far to specialize in raising image quality. Still, one of the things that I strongly felt was that this excellent level of image quality in a compact digital still camera was achieved by the synergetic effect of Panasonic's comprehensive expertise. I'm confident that anybody -- professional or amateur -- who uses the LX3 will easily be convinced of its remarkable image quality. — Tomoaki Tsutsumi, Staff Engineer, Panasonic LX3
It may seem wholly natural to some readers that a product should be made by people who care about it, who aim high and want to beat the competition. It's insane to imagine the opposite, but experience has taught me that it happens a whole lot. It happens so often that I get excited and open my wallet whenever something that was clearly born of a different process comes along.
Another example of the GR legend is seen at the operation of the shutter button. “We wanted the user to feel the fun to take pictures using the camera,” says Mr. Yokoyama. For that, the touch of the shutter button is quite important. “Some say they like light touch but the others say they prefer heavier touch”. Therefore, we have studied the various factors to decide the release touch, including the spring force and the shutter stroke, etc. We have collected the advice from the professional photographers and the users, also have checked the shutter release touch of the various cameras available, to define the best,” he says. By the way, the shutter release touch can be fine tuned at the service facility to meet the various users’ feeling of the touch of the shutter release.
“Of course, not only the feeling but durability is required at the same time, and we have tested and designed the operating buttons to work for more than some hundreds of thousand times”. — Ricoh GR Digital Inside Story
Someone agonized over the feeling of the shutter button, sought the advice of professional photographers, surveyed the shutter buttons on competing cameras, and then designed the best shutter button they could. Bowing to individual taste, they equipped every Ricoh service center with the means to accommodate a walk-in customer who wanted his button more or less resistant. That someone took care of this tells me that I should buy Ricoh cameras until I notice a change in management.
But ad men are good at selling crap, at creating the semblance of substance. Wanting to understand how this happens is one of the reasons I got into the business. The problematic nature of basing perceptions of an untested product on what its maker says is not new to me, and a simple B.S. filter usually does the trick, except when it doesn't.
This was acutely clear to me today when I watched Social 0.0, a short film series that forms a new Japan-only campaign for a Motorola phone called the Photon.
These are powerful films on the surface, employing a cast of some very influential Japanese personalities: artists, filmmakers, musicians, scholars. Even Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, a Harajuku fashion icon who defies easy description. Questions about wealth (abundance), creativity in a digital society, freedom of self-expression, capitalism, transhumanism, and government arise followed by the Motorola logo.
All my buttons were pushed. Somewhere inside, I wanted to go out and get a Motorola phone. Thankfully, I knew I didn't really want a Motorola phone. But seeing how effective these ads could be, how inspiring Motorola might be if it tried, made me wonder how many obstacles stand between it continuing down its mediocre path, and having a well-articulated philosophy running throughout the organization that would enable it to create a product line with singular purpose. One created from within, as Apple's Think Different manifesto was, that could differentiate in more productive ways than a patent portfolio. These ads are a plea to be loved, but they don't come from a company that seems to even want it. That's the disconnect that needs correcting.
It also seems dishonest that the voice of Motorola in Japan is so far removed from that of its global brand, which is bland and a little overshadowed by Verizon's work on DROID.
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Anyway, I'm starting a new site dedicated to products worth loving. It's in a sort of beta now, and will be up soon.
I'm not the first or fifth person to come to mind when a friend talks about fitness gadgetry; the only time I came close to being a buyer was with last year's iPod nano. I used the pedometer once. Then with the 3DS and StreetPass, I tracked my walking for maybe a week before forgetting about it.
The beauty of Jawbone's UP bracelet, which I've been waiting for most of this year, is that you can't really forget it. It stays wrapped around your wrist, through showers and workouts, sleep and meals, continually recording your movements and interpreting them as steps, calories, games of tennis, and fitful tosses and turns in the night. Every now and then, you plug it into your iPhone, and an app throws you beautiful infographics and logs your activity, even comparing it to friends' if you so choose. Competition changes everything, but so does have a visual feedback loop that makes you think about your behavior, and optimizing it.
And it's just $99.
I'm sure in 9 months we'll have an UP+ with Bluetooth 4.0 low-power technology that will work with the iPhone 4S, so everything can be wireless, but that doesn't change the fact that I want one of these NOW. And because this is a Jawbone product, I can't. It's only available in the US for now, and they won't ship it overseas.
This reminds me of the circus that getting a Jambox speaker last Christmas was, which ended with my girlfriend arranging a chain of favors through friends that I'm sorry to have inconvenienced. Jawbone distribution in Singapore is the pits. The Jambox, currently USD$180 in the US, hit the local market late and costs SGD$328, or USD$256. The Icon and Era headsets aren't far off. It's criminal bullshit.
They claim it'll roll out internationally by the end of the year, but I'm not holding my breath. If any kind Stateside soul I follow on Twitter wants to help send me one, I'll pay by Paypal!
As @tokyoreporter noted on Twitter, the view from the Tokyo Sky Tree has been unveiled, only to be blocked by mascots. It's supposedly going to be ready by February 2012, but I'm sure a visit will be impossible until the crowds subside. Might be worth delaying my trip for.
