Choosing a digital camera, likely the Nikon Coolpix 7900

02 May 2005

I should prefix by a statement that I’m not a photographer. I don’t really take random pictures of flowers or the girl next door. However, I’m a technoph
ile and like my toys.

I feel its time to replace my crappy old school digital camera (which at least had 3x optical zoom) with something a little better. I haven’t really set a
n upper bounds on what I’d be willing to spend, but after doing a bit of looking (influenced by my girlfriends father) I’ve decided to go Nikon.

In particular I’m thinking about the Coolpix 7900. It’s not going to break the bank but should provide me with a decent starting point. Plus it’s compati
ble with an underwater case. The later is an accessory that I’d probably pickup if I were to head back to Mexico (I just got back from vacationing down th
ere last week and unfortunately the 7900 + waterproof case wasn’t available).

I don’t want a particularly large camera, it would be nice to go better than 3x optical zoom but at 7MP’s maybe I can do a little photoshop magic.

Summer’s on its way so I’ll be ordering the camera in the next few days. I’ve included the specifications below.

Specifications
*
Type
Digital camera 7900

Effective pixels
7.1million

CCD
1/1.8-inch type

Image modes
7M (3072×2304), 5M (2592×1944), 3M (2048×1536), 2M (1600×1200), PC (1024×768), TV (640×480)

Lens
3x Zoom-Nikkor; 7.8-23.4mm [35mm (135) format equivalent to 38- 114mm]; f/2.8-4.9; 7 elements in 6 groups, Digital zoom: up to 4x

Autofocus
Contrast-detect TTL AF

Focus range
30cm (12 in.) to infinity (∞), 4cm (1.6 in.) to infinity (∞) in Macro Mode

Focus area
Auto (5-area automatic focus selection), Manual (99-area manual focus selection) and Center-focus area selection available

LCD monitor
2.0-inch type, 115,000-dot Amorphous silicon TFT LCD monitor with brightness adjustment; frame coverage: approx. 100%

Storage media
SD memory card (optional), Internal memory equipped

Attending Code Maneuvers 05 Next Week

30 Apr 2005

I think I’ve only been in town for 2 weeks out of the past month. Long story but I’ve been in Washington D.C. and Boston visiting clients and participatin
g in trade shows. Luckily I balanced those trips out with a 2 week trip to the Mayan Riveria.

We have 5 new employees starting next week and have decided a good kick-off event would be to attend Sun’s [Code Maneuvers 05][1] conference in Vancouver.

This full day event highlights state-of-the-art intelligence about Sun’s software technologies, strategies and development methodologies.

I hope that its not too influenced by Sun’s beliefs on technology trends and whats hot vs. whats not. However, I won’t hold my breath.

There are a few interesting topics, in particular persistence and j2ee/j2se performance which I’ll be checking out. The performance session is an actual c
odecamp(??) which means its 1.5hrs long and could be worthwhile. The other sessions will probably end up being quick 45minute overviews unfortuantely.

I’ll report back if the event ends up being any good.

[1]: http://ca.sun.com/en/events/code-maneuv
ers/

First Vancouver Island Java Users Group meeting

28 Apr 2005

Attended the inaugural Vancouver I
sland Java Users Group meeting last night.

A synopsis can be found here.

All in all, a pretty interesting event involving people from all walks of life with different goals and experiences. I think its only the beginning and sh
ould build into a valuable resource for the community.

I’m glad we finally something going in Victoria, it’s long overdue and I’m more than willing to help out. No zealot fighting so far, so thats a good sign

I’ll post more about the group as we continue to build and plan out future events.