Review: Touch Diamond

The Touch Diamond is a mobile phone that’s more than just a phone. I’ve had one since Sept 08, and here are my views on it.

The phone is made by HTC – you’ve never heard of them, but they do make some pretty special devices, and often their products are rebranded. For example, my phone is sold by O2, and is called the O2 Xda Ignito.

If Ignito is a compression of ‘incognito’, then it’s probably not a bad name for the phone as at a glance it does not look particularly glamour-boy. It’s a small phone, with similar dimensions to my old S-E K810i. Maybe a bit wider, but thinner. It’s not the monster size of an iPhone. It finished in black – rubbery, non-slip matt on the rear, glossy on the screen side. The dimensions are good for me. It discretely fits in any pocket, even with its protective leather sleeve. (I do use the sleeve whenever there is a chance I’ll put the phone in a pocket with anything sharp that might scratch it. It is hardy – it won’t scratch easy – but I want to look after my toys.

The big plus to this device is Windows Mobile: apps galore. Full internet over 3G or wireless. It comes with Opera as it’s "main" browser, but IE is installed too. I’m not going to list and discuss all the installed apps; just the ones that get me by.

My phone, going back a couple of generations, has also been my alarm clock. One thing the Touch Diamond does incredibly poorly is alarms. Ok, blame Windows Mobile I guess. The out-the-box alarm app will only play .wav files (who still uses wavs?) and doesn’t have a snooze. Fortunately there are many developers out there willing to tinker up all sorts of applications. I found one, pTravelAlarm, which does the job perfectly. It wasn’t free, but for the $10 I wasn’t going to quibble. (Strange how there is so much free software Windows proper, but very little for mobile devices.)

Another app I use frequently is the Weather. This is a pretty built in gizmo that fetches the 5-day forecast for 10 configurable cities using 3G or wireless. It’s cute, and accurate enough. For more granular met-reps, I’ve downloaded and installed the WinMo version of Weather Watcher, which I’ve used on my other computers for a long while.

An honourable mention for apps is the Google Maps application. The cool thing about it is that it automatically locates you based on your range to the cellular mast.

Let me now go on moaning about all the things I don’t like about the Touch Diamond.

I’m not sure the cellular signal is the best you get amongst phones. It seems to drop out a lot, but then maybe that is just the usual (dodgy) locations I tend to use my phone.

The software is slow. A lot of the time you can’t be sure a button has been pressed. Have I actually hung up a call? It might sound like it, but the screen hasn’t updated yet. Likewise, if too many apps are running in the background it seems to grind to a halt quite quickly. The phone functions in particular should take priority over other software running. One would think…

Use it a bit – phone or apps – and it starts to get rather warm. Not sizzling, but toastier than a normal sort of mobile phone.

The address book / contacts list is a bit fiddly to use. You can’t look up a contact in a hurry. In fact, this is not a phone that can be used while walking / driving / pretending to listen to someone else. You need to concentrate and be very accurate with pressing often tiny buttons on the screen.

The ringtone and vibrate seem to be mutually exclusive. Bit of a nuisance for me as I tend to keep the phone in a trouser pocket ,and if out and about, I don’t hear it ring. But I don’t want to have to remember to take it off vibe when I take it out of my pocket, and back on when …. You get the picture.

The camera is rubbish. The auto-whitebalance doesn’t seem to work. The shutter lag very slow, and unpredictable. My S-E had a flash which helped. No such luxury here.

There is no direct headphone jack – you need to use the supplied mic/headset attachment, but at least you can plug in any headphones.

The battery will last two days, and I’ve proved it. However, I was in the middle of a call when it died without any warning whatsoever. A little beep at 10% would have been nice.

When you’re on a call, with the phone to your ear, you run the risk of touching the on screen buttons. A little proximity sensor would prevent me from putting people on hold accidentally.

Now for some good features.

The round button at the bottom is a 5-way rocker, and it also seems to operate like an iPod’s wheel in some instances. I’ve only found this feature to work in the browser to increase/decrease font size. Would be cool to twirl instead of clicking to scroll. But then to scroll on most screens, you just have to swipe a finger across the screen. It doesn’t work too well for me sometimes though – the finger pressure needs to be 100% right, and see my rant about software speed. If the phone is running slowly, and you’ve got a long way to scroll, use the rocker or you will end up selecting something instead of scrolling over it.

Connectivity. Having wireless and 3G is pretty useful. I was in a bar the other week, and the landlord was kind enough to dish out his wireless password. Needless to say I was able to Google every topic of conversation.

Overall, the Touch Diamond is a fair all-rounder device that fits neatly in any pocket. It’s far more than a phone and does a lot of nifty stuff, but in my opinion, it doesn’t do anything particularly well. There’s nothing exceptional about the Touch Diamond. It is definitely a *cool* device, but nothing about it really stands out.

I will continue to use it through the rest of my contract – that’ll probably be early 2010 – but I do long for the ability to press a tactile button and *know* that I have definitely just answered an incoming call.

Various photos from the web

For your viewing pleasure, here are some sets of photos from around the web.

Accidents, in progress and happened:

http://slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/amazingimages/unbelieveableaccidents.htm

I suppose if these mated we'd get an EWELEPHANT:

http://geniusbeauty.com/cute/baby-elephant-adopted-sheep/

Some macro pics:

http://www.myinterestingfiles.com/2008/11/macro-pictures.html

The spiral daisy is obviously contrived, but the rest are good.

Bridges:

http://photopostsblog.com/2008/11/17/photos-of-amazing-bridges-2/

Police cars from around the world:

http://funster.us/2008/11/50-cops-cars-from-all-over-the-world/

Aliens:

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/10-most-alien-like-insects-on-earth/3885

Photo Month: Week Four

So this is it - the last week of the challenge.  Never fear, there will be another one of these soon.

Don't forget you can leave comments on anyones photos.  It is always encouraging to see what other people think of ones photos, so say something!

The last theme of our photo month will be

Balance

...because it's still September.  I know I implied the themes would all be Sept related, but some just haven't been practical.

What does balance mean to you?  Standing on one foot?  A scale?  Hmmm - this is going to be a challenge!  Thinking caps on!

Remember to tag your entries with dbpm_balance in Flickr.  It will help us find themes in the group.

Photo Month: Week Three

It seems this last week has been a very slow week for creativity and shutter clicks.  Please do get your entries in so we can see them, even if it takes all weekend!  To help you along, think about engines, instruments, electronics, nature, toys, or even the biggest noisemakers on the planet: people.

So that brings up to the next theme:

Body Part

That should be easy.  Just try keep this a family show please!

You can go macro, or you can go arty.  Will it be your own?  Or your partners?  Or your pets?  Up to you.  Ruffled hair, dirty fingernails, toned muscles, secret tattoo, naughty smile...

You've got until next weekend - 20th. 

Photo Month: Week Two

Well done to those that have submitted their "Seven" photos already.  The rest of you better get your entries in on the weekend! *

It's not as easy as I thought it would be to choose themes.  I've been deliberating over a shortlist for a few days now.  So the  theme for this week is ...  

Sound

That gives us lots of options.  The jackhammer outside your bedroom window.  Your musical instrument.  A screaming baby.  Windchimes.  The night sky.  Or whatever else "sound" means to you.

Get thinking.  Get creative.  Get snapping.  And get your pictures uploaded for the 13th Sept.

Please remember this isn't a competition.  This is a challenge - for you to try different things with your camera.

* if you're still struggling to think of something "seven", what about a Boeing, a Lotus, a BMW, a door or postbox, a row of trees, the strange kid in your son's class with too many toes, the guy next door with 3 fingers missing, a number plate, a parking bay, or a racehorse.     

New software from Google: Picasa and Chrome

Google released some new software yesterday evening.

The most significant is Chrome, their browser to challenge IE and FireFox.  The other is an updated version of Picasa, the photo management program.

You can get Chrome and find out more about it here:  http://tools.google.com/chrome/?hl=en-GB

I used it for a few hours last night, and it seems pretty smooth.  It imported all my settings from IE, and just works.  The neat things I noticed are:

• you search from the URL line, so you don’t need two separate boxes.  Chrome handles this simply and transparently.  If what you’re typing looks like a URL it will call up the webpage, otherwise it will search.
  
• when you open a new tab it displays thumbnails of your commonly used webpages.
  

There are probably plenty other cool things, but it’s a browser and as such it should be unobtrusive and just work in the most intuitive way – more so than any other software.

The only problem I encountered with Chrome was that it didn’t seem to want to download Picasa.  It showed that it was trying to, but the download never seemed to progress.

So I used IE to get the latest version of Picasa – now version 3.  It, like most other Google software is classified as Beta.  The download file is a fair size larger than that of v2.7, which implies some good new stuff.

To see what that new stuff is, check here:
http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=93773

Probably the most notable is the ability to retouch photos.  I only played with Picasa v3.0 for a few minutes, and I didn’t figure out how to use the Retouch tool.  Sounds promising though.  I assume it works like the Clone tool in Photoshop.

Picasa also now has an external viewer for your photos – something like the one that comes with Windows – Image Viewer – but millions of times better looking, and maybe operating.  Best of all it copes well with camera RAW files.

Overall, the general look of Picasa v3.0 is slicker, and there are a few more buttons on the screen to do stuff.

You should get Picasa v3 here:
http://dl.google.com/picasa/picasa3-setup.exe   

Photo Month: Week One

This is it! The challenge starts now!

The theme for Week One of the Photo Month Photo Challenge is......

Seven

Why? Because according to Wikipedia septem in Latin means seven, and September was the seventh month in the Roman calendar.

So what are you going to shoot? Your 7 year old nephew? Your size 7 shoes? The 7 wonders of the world? It is entirely up to you! Be creative!

Photo Month: Themes

This is your last chance to let me know your ideas for themes to be part of this challenge.

Remember there are 4 weeks, so we'll need 4 themes.

Every week, probably on Friday, I will announce next week's theme. No cheating and shooting prematurely! You'll need to check here every week - while you're uploading the previous weeks entry - to see what to shoot next.

Each weekly theme is going to be deliberately vague. It is up to you to interpret the theme as you see fit. (If we all think your picture doesn't seem to match the theme, we may ask you to explain your interpretation. But that's part of the fun!)

Since it's September, I'm expecting the themes to somehow be related to the month. Here are some ideas for themes:

- School
- Virgin
- Balance
- Twin Towers
- Sound
- Shaka Zulu
- Seven
- Equinox
- Sapphire
- Body Part
- Salad
- Motor
- Water
- Shakespere
- Sharp
- Scallywag
- Shrug

Are your batteries charged? Are your memory cards emptied and formatted? Cleaned your lens? Filled up your creative juices? Good! Then watch this space in the next day or two for the first theme!

Photo Month : WHEN

The Photo Month photo-per-week challenge is coming up soon so if you haven't done so yet, get your camera out, dust it off, charge the batteries, empty the memory cards, and watch this space in the next few days for info about the themes!

The weeks will run:

• 1st - 7th Sept
• 8th - 14th
• 15th - 21st
• 22nd - 28th

Four weeks and four themes. (And maybe even a bonus theme!)

The themes will be announced here on the weekend before the next week - so you can't cheat and take all your photos at once. This is meant to be a challenge after all.

We expect you to take photos at your leisure during the week, and make sure they are uploaded and tagged in the Flickr group before the weekend. That way we can see all the theme's photos and comment on them.

If you haven't sent me suggestions for themes yet, now is the time to do so. (Add a comment to this post so everyone can share.)

Photo Month : HOW

How it works:

• New theme(s) every week for a month.


• Submit photos within the week.


• Any number of photos can be submitted, but they must be significantly different. Don’t upload two pics of the same flower.


• Look at other peoples photos and comment / vote for your favourite.

Technical:

• Sign up for a Flickr account if you don’t already have one : http://www.flickr.com/
  (Flickr is part of Yahoo! so you can use your yahoo mail account to sign in.)


• Go to the group DerekBez Photo Month and join the group.


• Upload your photo
  
  • Give it a title
  
  
  • Tag your photo with dbpm_[theme], where [theme] is obviously the current theme name. eg: dbpm_red
    (You can add other tags too if you want)
  
  
  • Click “Send to Group” to add it to the DerekBez Photo Month group.

To see photo submissions for the week:

• Go to the group DerekBez Photo Month.


• Search within the Group for the current theme (ie: search for “dbpm_[theme]”).


• Everyone’s submissions should appear – if the photos have been tagged correctly.

How close? Macro Lens Test

Ever wondered how to get the best close-up shot? Or more to the point, make something small look big.

I have 4 lenses in my collection*, and I wanted to know which lens would make something small look biggest. So I set up a little comparison test.

To do this I put the smallest, most colourful things I had to hand – namely some little jars of chutney – onto a nice white towel and lay on the floor to take my first shot with the lens I had on the camera at the time.

The test isn’t looking at image quality, nor is there any artistic merit. The aperture was set to the widest each lens would go. ISO was fixed at 400. Shutter speeds ranged from 1/13th to 1/125th.

What we are looking for in this test is (a) how big is the subject in the picture, and (b) how far away from the subject was the front of the lens? (ie: the closest focusing distance)

The contenders:
Canon 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM (link)
Canon 70-300mm f4-5.6 IS USM (link)
Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 EX DC (not the Macro version apparently) (link)
Canon 50mm f1.8 (link)

The results:
Canon 28-135mm
Pretty big.
Front of lens about 19cm away from target.

Canon 70-300mm
Winner big!
Front of the lens about 1500cm away from the target!

Sigma 18-50mm
Not so big.
Front of lens about only 10cm away from target, which is odd because the markings on the lens and the spec sheet suggests that the closest focusing distance should be 28cm or 20cm.

Canon 50mm
Small.
Front of lens about 45cm away from target.

So what have we learnt?
The 70-300mm give the largest image, but from 1.5m away. This is good for flitsy insects.
The 23-135mm is very close second, but quite close to the subject. This is good for static subjects.
The 18-50mm can get you really close to the subject, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to fill the frame. It does give an interesting ‘perspective’ distortion to the image though.
The 50mm, while so good at many other things, is rubbish at this.

No particular surprises – this was sort of expected. It is good to know the actual boundaries of each lens though. Next time I’m out in the field wanting to shoot something ‘macro’, I’ll know which lens to pick.

When I get my extension tubes I’ll have to do this entire test again! Watch this space.

* I’ve got a couple more lenses, but I don’t carry them around.

Photo Month : WHAT

Let us hold our own little photo “contest”. It will take the form of a Photo-a-Day challenge. Ie: every day you get a new theme and are required to submit a photo, taken on the day, on the topic of the theme.

Ok, scratch that.

Photo-a-Day is not practical unless we all suddenly become free agents* with nothing better to do.

So let us hold our own little Photo-a-Week challenge. To participate, you will be given a new theme every week. During that week you take original photos on that theme and submit your best so we can all see and comment. The Photo Month will be for September - 4 weeks & 4 themes.

I’m making the rule that you can submit as many photos as you like, provided that they (a) are all within the theme, and (b) are significantly different from each other.

For example, if the week’s theme is “Red”, you might submit a rose and a Ferrari. That would be fine. But two photos of roses would be disqualified, and you will have to report to the headmasters office.

This is not a contest, as in, the winner will not receive an all expenses trip to a paradise island. This is more of a personal challenge and a bit of fun. The challenge is for us to be creative in our interpretation of the theme, and for us to grow our technical photography skills. Explore your artistic side in creating an interesting composition. Explore your camera’s settings**.

Speaking of cameras, this is not about expensive SLR set-ups. Any camera will do. Use your phone if you have to.

The fun will be as we share our entries and comment on each other’s photos.

Come back here next week, where I will describe HOW we will share our photos.


* free agents, aka jobless.
** Exploring your camera: I’ll write some tips in a future post. Suggest things to me you’d like to know about.

Using the 400D Battery Grip

It’s been several weeks in use now, so I feel it’s time to comment and share my experiences with the battery grip I have plugged onto my Canon 400D.

First a reminder: This isn’t the official Canon BG-E3. This is a made-in-China replica, which has some added functionality.

So why would anyone want a battery grip attached to their camera? To ease taking pictures in portrait (aka vertical) mode, and to increase battery life.

Without the grip attached, to take a portrait orientated photo, you need to swing the camera around 90 degrees anticlockwise – which means that your right hand is on your forehead - kinda like making the L-Looser sign – and your elbow is waving about exposing your underarm BO.

The additional grip fixes that. Now you can hold the camera normally, with your elbows tucked in at your side. (Which is how you want to pose for greater camera stability.) The grip has its own shutter release button more-or-less in the exact place you’d expect to find it. It’s not exactly positioned as on the actual 400D body, but it is close enough.

Using the camera in portrait mode becomes second nature now. It just feels natural to flip the camera 90 degrees and carry on shooting. That said, the bit you wrap your fingers around on the grip is considerably fatter than on the 400D camera body. It’s not uncomfortable, but it is bigger and my little fingers only just wrap.

(As an aside, I recently got to handle a Canon 40D. It’s a big camera, and the part you wrap your fingers around feels like it would be a problem for me – too big.)

The battery grip also has other control buttons, just like on the main camera body. Using them there on the grip isn’t much different. Except when selecting a different focus point. Then you have to reach over and use the cursor keys and Set button next to the screen. This requires shifting the weight of the camera to your left hand and stretching your right. I don’t do that too often, so no real problem.

The battery grip definitely does add significant weight to the camera. I haven’t put it on a scale yet, but you’ll notice the difference. That means I have changed the way I carry the camera with the neck strap. The battery grip has a place for strap attachment underneath, to the right of the tripod screw. I’ve got my neck strap connected there, and on the normal place on the left of the camera body. The camera now sits diagonally. This may seem awkward, but in practice it is more comfortable to carry. Instead of just putting the strap around the back of my neck, I now put it over my right shoulder and under my left arm. Considerably less pressure on my neck now. Once again, this may seem awkward, but when carrying the camera with a heavy lens on a long walk, this setup is comfortable and flexible.

I’ve been doing a bit of close-up of flowers at some really strange angles lately. The grip adds so much flexibility, and feels so natural to use, I found myself with my hand on the grip rather than on the camera body most of the time.

Being a Battery Grip, you’d expect to hear about batteries. Open the side door on the grip and there is a tray that slides out. The tray takes two normal NB-2LH batteries. This is where I should get all scientific and tell you how many extra shots you get before you need to change the batteries. Sorry. I haven’t counted. In the 6 weeks I’ve had the grip attached to my camera I’ve changed batteries once. That seems reasonable to me, considering I do use the camera just about every day, and it includes bird-watching expeditions and the Motor Show. One moan though. The battery indicator on the camera seems to drop off very rapidly – it went from full to zero, in like 20 shots or so.

The grip I have also has some “professional” features – functions to do time-lapse type photography. I haven’t used these features in anger yet. That might be another post.

Conclusion:
Usability: great – it works exactly as you expect it to.
Weight: there are workarounds to keeping it comfortable. And bear in mind a 40D or other “full-size” camera will weightier.
Quality and general feel: adequate – solid, but buttons do feel a bit plasticy.
Still recommended? Yes, definitely.

Review: LCD Timer Battery Grip for Canon 400D

Since I first starting planning to buy myself a Canon 400D DSLR camera, I figured I’d want the BG-E3 battery grip to go with it. Why? Better battery life, more flexible holding and shooting options, and of course the coolness factor. My budget at the time didn’t extend to some of the lesser priorities like a battery grip – lenses and bags have more urgent functional use.

Since acquiring the camera Q2 2007, I’ve always had my eye out for a grip. I’ve checked out the genuine Canon one, as well as a few clones – most of which are made in China. Some only have a shutter release button, and no other controls, and are around £40 cheap.

Anyway, one day a few months ago I spotted one on eBay entitled “LCD Timer Battery Grip”. Since it had an extra screen and more buttons to press I had to have a closer look. It looked the business so I eventually succumbed and made the purchase.

The package arrived 5 days later.

For a squideon under sixty (including shipping) I got:
1x LCD Timer BG-E3 compatible Battery Grip
2x NB-2LH 720mAh batteries
1x hand strap
1x User manual
2x battery trays – one for 6x AA cells / one for 2x NB-2L type li-ion batteries

First impressions weren’t too bad. It obviously came from China. There’s no box – it was just wrapped in bubble wrap inside a plain envelope. I don’t have a problem with that if it keeps the cost down.

This particular battery grip is a bit different from all the others I’ve seen in that it includes an intervalometer. I don’t know how good / flexible it is as an intervalometer, but for my limited playing around, I’m sure it will be fine.

To attach the grip to the camera, you take out the camera’s battery, and remove the battery enclosure door from the camera. If you didn’t know you could do that, look closely at the hinge. There is a little knob. Pull that knob away from the side that it’s on, and the door pops off. In other words, the battery door’s hinge has a spring loaded pin – something like that of a watch strap pin, just easier to operate.

Slide the grip into the battery compartment and line up the screw with the tripod mount under the camera. Screw it in and there you go.

Next step is to click the batteries into the holder and slide it into the battery bay. Do I need to tell you to charge the batteries first? You can use one or two batteries, and the documentation says that they can be at different charge levels. I don’t know how true this is, or how the grip (electronically) manages the distribution. The battery bay door is on the left hand side, and has an unusual (to me) catch. You have to use a fingernail to unclip and then twist the catch anti-clock 90` to open.

Here’s the important bit: how does it feel? It comes from China, and it’s relatively inexpensive, so you’re expecting a cheap plastic toy. Not completely. It is pretty solid, although the plastic is of lesser quality than the camera’s. I don’t believe that distracts that greatly from the functionality though. The buttons though. Hmmm. They don’t click with the same positiveness. They seem to have more play. The scroll wheel just behind the shutter release “clucks” instead of “clicks”, implying the sound is coming from a cheaper, hollow plastic. It’s not a £120 device. It’s a £60 one, but it does the job, and looks the part. Anyone that sees it on your camera is going to be impressed, because yes, it certainly does give the 400D more presence.

In use, turning the camera to portrait, I still get caught out with the viewfinder being lower than I think it should be. (Maybe I’m just out-of-sync.) The grip you wrap your fingers around is thicker and deeper than that of the standard 400D. For my small hands I’m still debating how comfortable this is. The use is natural though. That said, the alignment of where the shutter button is, compared to on the camera, is a bit different – it’s further up, out, and to the right. At first click, I might be trying to press the selector wheel.

The battery grip has lots of buttons, and an LCD display. Here’s what you get:
- shutter release button
- selector wheel
- AE lock
- AF point selector / review zoom
- The above four are where you would expect them to be located – at the index finger or thumb – and work exactly like on the camera.
- Av+/- Exposure compensation (like on the camera, but positioned just below the AR lock)
- An on-off switch (ie: whether to use the vertical camera controls or not)
- LCD backlight on/off
- Four buttons to set and adjust the intervalometer functions / set the clock / etc
- A three-way slider switch to select “professional functions”, as the manual calls them.

The grip has its own little CR1616 lithium battery to keep its clock and settings running. You can screw in a standard tripod, in the usual place underneath. There is also a single strap mounting point underneath.

Size-wise, looking from the back as normal, the grip is perfectly flush with the camera on the right, but sticks out by 2 or 3mm on the left. The side view - looking from the left side of the camera – the grip is an exaggerated pear shape. Fatter than it is high. It sticks out about a centimetre back and front of the main body of the 400D. I haven’t weighed the grip, but at a guess it does add, with batteries, about 200g to the camera. If you’re using a bigger, heavier lens, this might help to balance things out – although it will certainly give your deltoids and biceps a reasonable workout over a longer period.

One of the “professional functions” is IR. There is an IR receive port on the front, but I’m yet to get it to work with my standard cheap IR shutter release. Maybe it needs a special one from China?

I’ll talk about the other “professional functions” - the intervalometer - in another post.

In conclusion:
Pros: better battery life (sort of), better grip options, especially for shooting portrait, intervalometer, better weight distribution if using a heavy zoom lens.
Cons: extra weight and size, “get-what-you-pay-for” quality plastic and buttons, poor user manual, could offer more features.
Recommended: yes. Value for money: yes. Is it for everybody: no.

First Post

...as opposed to the Last Post.

I'm not sure what all I'll ramble on about here, but I need to a place to vent and share, so this will be it. I used to have another blog some time ago, but I can't remember the login details. And it was very dull.