Camera comparison site

Imaging-Resource.com has made a new site (link leads to a tour, read the grey boxes) which seems tremendously promising, a site which pulls out the most pertinent comparison points between any two of the cameras they have reviewed (and they review many).

I'll say serious photographers need more knowledge that can be gained from this site, but it may save a lot of time reading reviews. For example, these days I would probably not buy a camera without any in-body stabilization (the new Leica T comes to mind, or the otherwise excellent Fuji X cameras), but it may not be mentioned upfront in a review. But this site should bring basic facts like that out in silhouet, so you know whether to invest more time on researching a given camera.

Plus of course it should speedily give you the main differences between two models, whether from the same brand or not. This can often take a lot of time to dig up, so if they've done this site really right, that's gold.

Camera-phone with zoom

To be honest, I didn't really think anybody could fit a decent zoom lens into something anywhere near as thin as a phone. But the Galaxy K Zoom seems impressive, at least from this picture:

Damn, talk about folding!
So, another downside of camera phones is buckling.

inexpensive, high-quality lens? Just bake it!

...inexpensive, high-quality lens? Just bake it!, article. 

Simply put, a droplet of liquid silicone is applied to a curved substrate, then cured in an oven at around 158°F (70°C) for 15 minutes. After it's cured, further droplets are added and cured to adjust the curvature of the lens, and thus its focal length.

The result, says a white paper on the research, is a lens that costs as little as one cent, yet has comparable quality to a commercial microscope lens.

Kewl. 

Time-stack photo technique paints the sky like Monet

Time-stack photo technique paints the sky like Monet, article.

Interesting idea, I think it could be used for many things.

Very animated

Thanks to Bert for finding this wonderful stop-motion animation, made by the lovely makeup artist Elvis Schmoulianoff.

Psychologists now know what makes people happy

Psychologists now know what makes people happy, article. 

The happiest people surround themselves with family and friends, don't care about keeping up with the Joneses next door, lose themselves in daily activities and, most important, forgive easily.

A virtuous sister's stone

A very old lady came to the stone cutter's studio, soliciting a grave stone for her sister. She talked very slowly, and was very grief-struck.
She told him: My sister and myself lived the same way all our lives, always kept each other's company and no man's, keeping ourselves and each other pure. I want the grave stone to say:

HERE RESTS IDA MILLER
SHE WAS BORN PURE
SHE LIVED VIRTUOUSLY
SHE DIED UNTOUCHED

But the lady did not like to spend money, and there was not much in it for the stone cutter, so in the end he engraved:

HERE RESTS IDA MILLER
RETURNED UNOPENED

'Moral issues' lead banks to refuse porn stars bank accounts

'Moral issues' lead banks to refuse porn stars bank accounts, article.
Adult film actress Chanel Preston has starred in close to 150 porn flicks and is well compensated for her time, but now it appears she is having trouble keeping a bank account.
Preston recently opened a business account with City National Bank in Los Angeles, the so-called 'bank to the stars', but when she went to deposit checks into the account days later, she was told it had been shut down, due to 'compliance issues'.


Here again we see the same pattern: no warning, no recourse.

Fiona Apple - Across the Universe

Still one of the best Beatles/Lennon covers ever, and one of the best music video.

So many great ideas here. I like her serenely, almost apathetically, relaxed vocals. Serenity in the middle of chaos.
And I think it was made all in the camera, that can't have been easy to make without injury. And for Fiona to sing it without flinching.



===

I posted a similar post in 2011, but I don't expect anybody, least of all me, to remember everything. That post also had a kewl version with Dakota F.)

"Heavy Metal" on blu-ray

So, Heavy Metal is on blu-ray. Of course I had to have it.

If you know it and didn't like it, ah well, it was not for you.
If you know it and liked it:
It looks great on blu-ray, and there's a good documentary of the Making Of.
And the music track and the film holds up amazingly well, despite the age. It really does. Go get it.

If you don't know it:
It's a 1980 animated film for adults. Adult guys, to be specific. But not modern "sensitive guys", if you feel guilty about liking graphic violence and lots and lots of boobies, albeit all animated, this is not the movie for you.
If you like animated eye candy, like SF and fantasy, like hot babes and tough heroes, like alien villains being cut to pieces with green blood flying everywhere... and if you like the most beautiful and sexy Dressing scene ever animated, don't wait, get it.
(The vid below gives a taste of it, but doesn't have the graceful, realistic movements. They drew their dream girl as Taarna the warrior, then asked around at model agencies and found a girl who looked like her, and filmed her doing the scenes as basis for the animation.)



Sure, it's simple stories, and it's male fantasy fulfilment... but aren't books and movies full of that? (Or, of course, female fantasy fulfilment.) Isn't every action movie at essense, battle and babes?
Well, there's nothing wrong with a tasty snack sometimes, so long as we don't confuse it with a balanced diet.

Why are big companies always so draconian?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Cibo Matto is finally back!

Thanks the lawd, I thought they were gone, but they just took a 15-year sabbatical, of course.