Canon S90 review

LumLan reviews an interesting compact camera, the Canon S90.
"The just released Canon S90 ... is currently the world's smallest and lightest shirt-pocket-sized (SPS) camera that shoots raw*. It has an almost 4X zoom (28–105mm equivalent) and has a remarkable f/2 as its widest aperture at the wide end of its range."

* Update:

Bruce said:
Re: "The just released Canon S90 ... is currently the world's smallest and lightest shirt-pocket-sized (SPS) camera that shoots raw."
Simply not true. Panasonic FX-150 is smaller, shoots RAW. Several days ago I wrote a note to Luminous Landscape pointing out their error. I included a link to the side by side comparison at dpreview in my note to LL. No question that FX-150 is smaller. And it does have RAW.

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Here's one of the pictures Mike took with the camera, I really like it:

XO-2 (updated)

XO-2.

Looks like a very ambitious machine, especially since durability, economy and simplicity were the starting ideals.
I must say though, my first thought is: good luck touch-typing on a virtual keyboard.

Update: it seems it's canceled. [Thanks to Bert.]

Balls-out jeans

This is from MAD TV. I got a bit queasy, I have to admit.

But it's interesting that you can't show a split-second of a nipple on US TV, but apparently you can show men's testicles quite clearly. It's a weird world.

Stephen Schaub's camera accessories

Stephen Schaub's camera accessories, Wrist Wonder, Y-Strap, Bare Bones Bag.

... The "Interweb" has made it much easier for intrepid entrepreneurs like Stephen to have a good business. Gotta love that.

I have not tried the Bare Bones Bag, but it's probably very good. I like his approach to his products, he goes for good, simple ideas and high quality materials.

His service is also good, I found out that two of my cameras could not be fitted with the wrist strap because the slots were too narrow for the big ring. I wrote to him, and he sent me a couple of smaller connecting rings for free. Not only that, when they got lost in the mail, he sent them one more time, and in a couple of varieties to see what I liked best.

Does Technology Reduce Social Isolation?

Does Technology Reduce Social Isolation?, article.
"... people who regularly use digital technologies are more social than the average American and more likely to visit parks and cafes, or volunteer for local organizations, according to the study..."
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Leopard and mouse

Despite the title, this post is not about Apple's OS and their new pointing device, it's about their flesh/blood namesakes.

Giving "the talk"

A friend of mine has a pubescent son who is showing signs of interest in sex and the pleasures of his own body.

I think many kids are embarrassed by having the world of sex and the world of their parents mix, or even touch. So instead of "an earnest talk", I suggested getting the kid a couple of books, and not even handing them to him, but placing them on his shelf for himself to find.

I know I would have preferred that when I was young (And it was pretty much what happened). Don't you think many kids are like that too?

Or maybe another way is to have a friend of the family do The Talk. But personally I think it's too big a subject to be covered in a talk, I think some study is the ticket. Of course I was very much a Reader from an early age. What do you think?

Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai

Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai photography. (Thanks to tOP.)

She's really an outstanding portraitist. Perfect light and technique, despite using available light, and catching people at their most lively and beautiful.

Deer hunting

[Thanks to Tommy] [The rest of youse, send something good to balance all the kool sheet Tom's been sending lately.]

This is an old joke, one of the most popular ones ever, nicely done as a skit.

GF1 vs E-P1 (updated)

Mike Johnston weighs in on the Panasonic GF1 vs Olympus E-P1, the new "big compact" cameras.
[Update: part II is up.]

One thing he says is something I've been trying to suppress in my mind: they are not quite as good in low light as DSLRs with the same size sensor. I love my GF1, but the pictures at 1600 ISO are just barely usable, you really have to fiddle with RAW and such. I'd have expected them to be easily usable at that setting.
It's a little bit disappointing, and I have not heard much talk about it, much less any explanation.
After all, the whole point of the larger sensor, compared to "traditional" compact digicams, is better low-light performance. Which they do have, but not as much as hoped and expected.

Early, small SLRs

On the "Death of the DSLR Camera?" post, Neeraj commented:

Something historical: At the end of the seventies I had a Minolta 110 Zoom SLR camera. That was an amazing piece of camera for me: Pocket film format (!), BUT a SLR with zoom ... so, it was very flexible to use and additionally small and convenient enough for me to take it with me during strolling around or traveling. I loved it. I never wanted a bigger camera. The only limitation was to make bigger prints, but that was not very important for me. When I was picking up my pics from the shop after processing, I was often asked, how I had been able to make these fucking pics with POCKET film ... nearly nobody knew about this camera. For example, sometimes I experimented by mounting some own additional lens system in front of it in order to make pics like through a microscope - it worked quite good, because with SLR I could always see what I would get on the film. So, I was able to make some kind of "super-macro". Or I loved to make kaleidoscopic collages by using e.g. 20 prints of the same pic, and invented a technique to produce pentagonal or octagonal or whatevergonal collages with appropriate pentagonal or octagonal or whatevergonal frames, because you can't buy something like this ... I had a lot of creative fun with this camera. Unfortunately it was stolen during traveling in South France, about mid eighties. After that, I had no camera for about twenty years until I started again with a Canon PowerShot A70 and now, after some years, with a PowerShot A630 ... and still I don't want a bigger camera.

Oh yes, that Minolta 110 zoom!! I had totally forgotten about that.

For the younger readers, "110" was a very compact cassette film which Kodak had success with in the seventies, but the negative was very small, so when compact 35mm cameras arrived with better picture quality, the cassette 110 (and 126) formats died out.

And how about that Pentax 110 SLR with exchangeable lenses? That's a little beaut. I think by far the tiniest SLR camera ever made.

Still, too small format for me, I want at least sharp 8x10 inches (20x25 cm).

But the modern Canon Ixus (Elph) will do that, and more!

ZZZZZZ, early Phone Phreaking

ZZZZZZ, early Phone Phreaking, article.
"About 1000 years ago (well, it feels that way, but it was actually back in the early '70s or so), I was sitting one day in a conference room at the L.A. offices of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). I must have been somewhere around 20 years old at the time.
With me were two friends (both just a little bit older). AT&T was attempting to shut down our free telephone entertainment service -- the last listing in the Los Angeles telephone directories -- ZZZZZZ"
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