Thursday, May 28, 2009

Low-end DSLRs: Canon XT Rebel versus Nikon D40

If you are considering moving up to a low-end digital SLR, but are not really sure, the choice often boils down to the big two, namely Canon and Nikon.

I use my dSLR as a glorified point-and-shoot. I don't fiddle too much with aperature or shutter priority. I just want to get good photos of things happening around me quickly and not miss out. The one area I push my camera is low-light since I prefer not to use a flash if possible. So I'm often adjusting the ISO.

Another of my quirks is I don't baby my dSLR. After all it is only a $400 item these days, and so long as you don't abuse it, it will last. Over the last 4+ years ....
  • I always leave it on (which seems to not use any power, though people who borrow my camera are always turning it off, which annoys me when I then try to take a picture).
  • I never use my lens cap. I have put on a UV filter protector, but that has never been broken or even scratched.
  • I just throw it in my backpack or luggage. I don't have a camera bag since I just have that one lens.
  • I've never had any problems with
If you are a higher-end photographer who needs to take very-high resolution shots for blowing up bigger than 2' x 3', spend lots of time tweaking photos afterwards, are a professional photos, or simply want to have a better camera than a low-end dSLR, then skip this post.

Back in 2006, I had had a Canon Rebel XT for a few years, but wanted to try the Nikon D40. So I gave away my Canon as a holiday gift and got the D40 with the kit lens and an SB400 flash ($120). Both cameras came with a 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens, non-IS. How do they compare?

Nikon advantages (most important to least)
  1. External flash for $120. The cheapest from Canon is around $220. Being able to bounce the flash is a huge win, as you can get pretty decent looking photos whereas before you have a semi-ghastly look. Also an external flash has its own AA batteries so it recharges faster and doesn't drain the camera batteries. This is a huge gain, and I would take a D40 + SB400 over any other $1000 dSRL w/o a flash. The first $120 I'd pay is for this Nikon flash, over any lens.
  2. Better folder naming/numbering. The D40 lets me name the suffix of the current folder on the flash card using any 6 letters I want so I can name things like "July4" or "Home" or "SFTrip". I don't offload my photos very often, say once every 2-4 months, and its super annoying to have a numeric ordering.
  3. Much better LCD screen, mostly because the Rebel XT screen sucks. But this is not very important anymore because the newer Canons all have much better screens, though apparently not as bright as the Nikons.
  4. Able to focus quickly more often. Every so often, both cameras would not focus, perhaps due to not enough light or not enough contrast. The Nikon seemed to do this a bit less than the Canon.
  5. Lens feel. Of the 3 Canon Rebel XT kit lenses I've played with (I was giving these away as gifts), only 1 had silky zoom feel. Pverall, I'd give the three Canon kit lenses an A, B+ and a B-. The Nikon kit lens has a A- feel.
Canon advantages.
  1. Faster, sharper focusing. The Canon snaps into focus so fast most of the time it seems like should jerk the camera. The Nikon in contrast is downright slow, though still much faster than point-and-shoot. Note both have trouble if there not enough contrast, e.g. if in a moving car, and the camera is partially aimed at the sky.
  2. Better access to the controls I care about, namely ISO, and resolution. The Canon has one-button access to both of these important fns. The Nikon only let me have a single programmable "Fn" control, for which I chose ISO.
  3. Ever so slightly better image quality, it being 8MP versus 6MP... but really this was very minor.
Other than that they were comparable. Battery life. Weight. Feel. Ruggedness. Lens optic quality.

In short, the fact that Nikon had a good cheap flash was the tie breaker. You can't go wrong with either camera. As of mid 2009, the Nikon D40 is available for under $450, making it hard to pass up. For another concurring opinion about the beauty of a D40, see Ken Rockwell's site.

Were I buying today, I'd probably get the D40 again or wait until a model that took video was under $650. Note too that so far video taken by dSLR cameras is not that great; a good camcorder does better job. I'd really like a full-frame camera with an FX sensor, instead of the DX sensor on lower end dSLRs, but full-frame costs much more at $2500+ and are much heavier. And people would probably laugh at me if I used some crappy kit lens with a full-framer.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Automatic login and file vault in Mac OS X

If you cannot enable "automatic login" for a user in Mac OS X Leopard or Tiger, make sure that user is not using FileVault. Although no documentation seems to indicate this will cause problems, it makes sense that auto-login and FileVault conflict.

The purpose of FileVault is to leave a user's files encrypted so if the laptop is stolen, the contents remain unreadable. To read a FileVault directory, you need the login password. However if auto-login is enable for that user, then the laptop will automatically apply that user's password, offering decrypted access to all the files, hence defeating the purpose of FileVault.

My wife found out the hard way, know as trial and error and lots of internet searching, to figure out why she was not getting the option to enable auto-login on her account on her Leopard laptop. Her login was simply missing from the menu of choices for auto-login. It was only after stumbling upon a web page alluding to this issue for Tiger that she thought to try disabling FileVault. Apparently FileVault and auto login were much closer together in the UI for Tiger than they are in Leopard, where now they are in separate System Preferences.

In any case, mystery solved.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Fixing iTunes to get CD track names info once again

On a MacBookPro, iTunes suddenly stopped being to download the track information on a CD I wanted to rip, giving the error "Unable to connect tothe CDDB server". I have iTunes setup so that when I insert a CD, it automatically rips it and then ejects it. Only now it could not get the CD or track info. I had ripped hundreds of CDs (my own of course). ITunes was reasonably upto date at version 8.0.2.

It wasn't the network connection.

Doing a google search, leads one to possibly try an update to the gracenote software, as gracenote is the company that runs the CDDB information service. But the update was for windows, not Mac OS.

And it turned out to be my firewall settings. You have to let iTunes "share" its information. Turn this on via: System Preferenes | Sharing | Firewall | iTunes Music Sharing.