Tech Tips and Stuff

Man I feel exhausted. I just finished the Tech Tips for May which are now posted at The Digital Journalist. That’s a very long list of questions and answers, and this is ofcourse the result of skipping a month. But things are getting a little hectic around here with the upcoming field tests and introduction of the 1D Mark 4.

As you can no doubt imagine, my D3 and D3x are now collecting dust in my office, and I’m playing with a sample 1D4 almost all day. This camera frickin’ rocks. We’re going to be back in the game by the end of this year from what I see. But like I said before, it’s only going to happen if Japan doesn’t screw up again. Quality control is very important, apparently, and it’s something that they seem to hate at Canon Inc. In fact, a colleague of mine was telling me the other day how he mentioned “quality control” during a meeting with Japanese executives in Japan recently, and they all jumped up, kicked the table to the side and went into Karate ready stance while yelling and screaming and threatening to attack. He’s lucky to be alive.

But that’s the reason why I’ve got wise guys emailing me and telling me they heard that the 1D4 will be ready this year, but that the AF system won’t be finished until the second half of 2010, and asking if this is true. I forwarded the question to Maeda and have yet to receive a response. It’s been 3 weeks so far.

I came across an interesting noise test on Flickr comparing images from the 5D Mark II. Basically confirms what we already know. It seems Japan is still in denial on this issue. And speaking of the 5D Mark II, I am also getting a lot of emails asking why there’s still a huge shortage of LP-E6 batteries. I’m not exactly sure, but I’ve heard something about the battery for the 5D Mark II being a last minute design change. Engineers at Canon Inc. were actually finished with the 5D Mark II design, when someone sitting way in the back asked with a soft voice if it was supposed to actually turn on and what would power it. A bigger AF system got swapped with a much smaller/older one to make room for a battery compartment. Production on batteries started very late as a result, hence the shortage. But things should get normal soon. We’ll need plenty of them when the 60D gets released.

Some hotshot Danish stock photographer, Yuri Arcurs, posted his comparison of the D3x and 1Ds3, and perhaps you might find it an interesting read. I know I did.

Aaaand it’s back to work for me.