Ricoh Italia

www.ricoh.it

自從開始寫iloveblog6系列之後, 差不多就像是為自己做一個為期三十天的campaign一樣的感覺。真的是失心瘋的極致, 但好處是稍微有認真的想一下在自己住的地方有沒有時常錯過的事物。

紐約這東西, 跟synergy一樣是個magic word。有多少人來這裡追尋夢想, 多少人拋開一切搬來紐約只是因為它是紐約（像我想去Bluenote只是因為它是Bluenote是一樣的道理）。毎天都要講紐約, 老實說你不煩我都有點膩了（光提到紐約這兩個字都有點心虛）。

沒想到一轉眼就過了三週, 再過一個禮拜就可以脫離幾乎毎天更新的geeky部落客生活（咦？！）。一開始V還説這不是文青的活動嗎？我去湊什麼熱鬧阿。這樣説也是沒錯啦, 一整個不小心誤闖了文青的小圈圈（連話都說不好了還文青勒）。我想我唯一符合文青的標準大概只有使用的工具（阿怎麼這麼膚淺）–>文青都愛GRD, 文青dslr都選Nikon這樣而已。

倒數最後一週, 喔耶。

A fenti címben szereplő 3 versenyző csapott össze egy kis zajteszt keretében, a mintaképeket ISO 100-től ISO 1600-ig itt találhatjátok.

I´ve made this video as a selection of some of my favorite photos taken during my first year living in Japan . Most of the photos were taken with canon eos 5d and ricoh grd3.
A very similar edition of this video will be shown at ” Sestao Photo 2010 ” as a part of the activities programmed on these photographic journeys.

I hope you like it !

18.
在紐約看日文音樂劇還是第一次。

Talk Like Singing是第一次日本的原創音樂劇（像是百老匯式的歌舞劇）在美國上演。整個音樂劇是由才華洋溢的導演三谷幸喜先生自編自導。卡司有SMAP的香取愼吾, Jay Kabira (川平慈英), 堀内敬子（演過Change）和新納慎也。

整齣劇大概60%講日文, 40%是英文, 雖然大部份是日文, 但幾乎都有貼心的上字幕或者想辦法讓觀眾弄清楚到底發生什麼事（底下觀眾至少一半是日本人就是了）。至於跟一般的百老匯劇有什麼不一樣？其實沒有很大的不同, 應該說是多了一些可愛的橋段加上日本人的幽默。我覺得是部可愛的音樂劇, 但可能有些人會覺得太像SMAP歌迷的聚會（哈）, 因為很明顯有一大部分的人是衝著香取而來的。

據說現在SMAP整團人都在紐約, 所以這幾天在紐約街頭說不定可以不期而遇的看到木村（真的就有人看到了阿！）。

Talk Like Singing會在NYC的戲院一直演出到22號。

[FYI]
Talk Like Singing
三谷幸喜
堀内敬子
香取愼吾
Jay Kabira
新納慎也

17.
dieci在East Village。

東村裡的小街暗巷, 有家很不起眼的店叫dieci。用分類來說的話, dieci大概應該是在”每次都經過每次都想去每次都沒機會”的那一類, 於是今天好不容易終於找到機會（其實是因為課被cancel, 得到難得悠閒的週四夜晚）。

dieci的風格, 像是義大利的tapas小酒館混了日本風。裡面的侍者和廚師清一色是日本人, 在百分之九十充滿葡萄酒的酒單裡也默默出現sake和日本啤酒（日本風的堅持？！）。硬要比喻的話, 差不多就像是‘inoteca被日本人接手的感覺, 感覺很neat。

這天晚上其實我們都沒很餓, 於是只點了兩道tapas share。圖為Yellowtail Tataki。

週四晚上人其實不多（也可能是因為我們很早去的關係）, 店裡有個從廚房延伸出來的長吧台, 有種又chic又cozy的感覺。就今晚的感想, dieci還蠻適合四人左右的朋友聚會聊天。有機會下次再去！

[FYI]
dieci
228 E 10th St # A (btw 1 & 2 Ave.)
New York, NY 10003-7743
- (212) 387-9545

NYmag

Hi everyone, welcome to my blog and thanks for looking. Here you will learn the truth about dpreview.com, well some of it anyway. I don’t have the time to point out everything that’s wrong with that site and some of the idiots in the forums there. If you think I’m making up anything here please feel free to go to dpreview and see the truth for yourself.

So, to get started about dpreview I’ll say that it is one of the biggest fanboy sites on the web. In this case, fanboys (including fangirls) are people who are in love with a certain brand or model of something and will promote and defend it way beyond what any sane person would do.

Some or all of them are probably paid by a manufacturer to be a shill (viral marketer) for their products and to attack and insult anyone who doesn’t say the absolute nicest things about that brand or model. Where dpreview comes in is that they allow and encourage the fanboys and will ban people who speak out against them.

Dpreview makes a lot of money from the manufacturers of the camera gear they review through advertising dollars and they also get free camera gear on loan from the manufacturers. Their so-called reviews are blatant examples of bias and favoritism and I’m sure it’s based on which manufacturer pays them the most or loans them the most gear. I wouldn’t be surprised if they take bribes too.

The dpreview forums are run by gangs of fanboys who viciously attack and try to silence anyone who doesn’t agree with them or blindly praise the brand or model they love and are promoting and defending, and especially Canon products, which are plagued with many inexcusable defects by the way. I think that dpreview may even pay some of the fanboys to help promote and defend certain products or to stir up controversy so that there are more hits on the forums, which generates more clicks for more advertising dollars. Either that or some (or all) of the fanboys could just be regular employees at dpreview.

Dpreview has a big monetary interest in promoting and defending brands and models so that interest in those brands and models is high and more people may go to dpreview and either click on the reviews or go to the forums. Of course people love to see a train wreck, which is just what the dpreview forums are, and the fanboys always seem to outnumber anyone who speaks realistically about brands or models and it makes it appear that the fanboys are always right.

The fanboys work hard to silence anyone who doesn’t agree that their beloved brand or model is the very best and dpreview will ban people who don’t submit and agree. dpreview also selectively deletes posts that reveal the truth about fanboys and camera gear.

If you go to the dpreview forums take a good look at how the fanboys argue endlessly that their beloved brand or model is perfect and way better than all other brands or models and they will use the most inane and nitpicky things to bolster their maniacal, idiotic claims. Fan comes from the word fanatic and it certainly applies to some of the people on dpreview, and especially in the Canon DSLR and lens forums.

If anyone says anything negative about a Canon product, even when it’s true, they are attacked as though they deliberately insulted the fanboy’s mother or kids. I think some of those fanboys value their cameras or lenses more than their mother or kids and that at least some of them sleep with their cameras or lenses and I really don’t mean sleep.

Fanboys must have very low self esteem to depend on owning or lusting after a camera or lens to make themselves feel like they’re important. Some of those people virtually live on forums, promoting and defending their beloved brand or model and rarely if ever take any pictures. They think that just owning or lusting after a certain brand or model will automatically make them a great and world renowned photographer.

If or when they actually do post pictures, the pictures are almost always junk, or mediocre at best. Many of them go on and on about how perfect and awesome a certain brand or model is but the next day they’re often asking which lens they should buy or which settings they should use for their vacation in Disneyland. Anyone who doesn’t know which lens or settings to use for certain things isn’t in a position to promote or defend any brand or model.

The dpreview forums are full of wannabe photographers whose self esteem is based on being in a brand or model cult. They have the cult, mob, gang mentality and dpreview encourages it by letting them stay and banning people who speak out about it.

dpreview is a joke, and I’m apparently not the only one who is figuring that out. Amazon bought dpreview in May, 2007. At that time dpreview had over 7 million unique visitors per month. Last month (OCT. 2009) they only had about 1.3 million even though new, popular cameras (to fanboys) were announced or released, which usually generates more hits on any camera review website. dpreview deliberately lies on their site and they still say that they get 7 million unique visitors every month.

They say: “These days the site is one of, if not the, premium digital photography site with an audience of seven million unique visitors a month..”

Here is where they say it:

http://www.dpreview.com/misc/about.asp

See here for the real facts:

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/dpreview

I wonder if Jeff Bezos regrets the purchase?

It won’t surprise me if dpreview or Amazon do everything they can to get this blog removed. If it disappears, you’ll know why, and if it does I’ll just start it somewhere else on the web.

I have at the moment Canon 5D Mark II and Olympus E-P1 cameras. I am however not so sure if I am going to keep my E-P1. At least I need some fast lens for it and Panasonic 20/1.7 could be a very nice option. I am having the kit zoom (14-42/3.5-5.6) and Panasonic 45-200 mm lenses and they are quite slow ones. And I want to shoot without a flash also indoors, and it is quite dark here in Finland in the winter time so not so much available light around.

There is also another annoying thing with the E-P1 - the slow AF. It is almost impossible to use it effectively in low light conditions. And I mean in normal indoor lighting which is not a problem for many other cameras. Because of these shortcomings I have thought of some options:

- To sell my Sigma 150/2.8 Macro (Canon) because I am not so much into real macro photography, usually I shoot close-ups. Then I could buy Pana 20/1.7 lens for my E-P1. But this will not solve the AF problem.

- To sell my E-P1 together with the both lenses and buy a new camera or buy a new lens for the 5D2. Pana GF1 has a better and faster AF than E-P1 but no in-body IS. What I need is the decent ISO performance, so the ISO should be usable still at 1600.

There are some interesting cameras around. The GF1 as I already mentioned but it is quite close to my E-P1 (except the AF). Canon G11 or S90 (but they are P/S cameras with not so good ISO). Ricoh GRD III (very interesting camera with a nice prime lens but ISO 1600 is not very good).

I am not sure yet which way to go. In P/S cameras I am irritated by the very wide DoF and poor ISO performance, but they are very handy to use. I think we can’t find a camera which has all (or even most of them) the features I am looking after.

Maybe it will be the Ricoh GRD III because I have seen so many stunning photos shot with it. But I am not sure at all if it will solve my indoor shooting problems (frankly I think it will not). Blaah, too much to ponder!

I think I am in LOVE with my Ricoh GX 200 and it’s been about 10-12 days at the most. At first, when I started fumbling with it I was distraught with the noise and it’s speed… but now, I think I did a very good thing (with some compromise offcourse) selling off my Nikon D200 and getting the Ricoh GX200.

.

15.
紐約奇妙之處在於, 很多場景都可以讓你想到曾經在的什麼國度哪些熟悉的背景。

比如説Pret a manger。

毎次看到Pret總讓我想起倫敦（不是香港。香港我只會想到大家樂XD） 。 沒為什麼, 對我來說Pret就應該是英國的東西, 雖然在倫敦一次都沒去過。加上Pret在中城的密度之高, 幾乎不可能看不到它。不過都看了一年多了, 也沒什麼好提。

只是, 這幾天剛好去了Pret幾次, 於是想起。

都講到倫敦了, 偷偷貼一張Chelsea的照片好了（好懷念阿～）。

P.S.
1. 竟然已經half way了噎！！
2. 根本就該寫倫敦教我的三十件事之類的阿！ 至少現在不用毎天找照片
3. Pret真的不是我預料之內的題材的。

Yanagawa – Fukuoka ( Japan )

14.
克萊司勒大樓。

其實沒想過原來Chrysler Building竟然會是我的三十分之一, 只是覺得它一直在那, 有關紐約的影集裡片頭好像都少不了它。

剛來的時候東西南北搞不清楚還常常把它搞成帝國大廈（根本就差很多）。直到最近經過仔細看才發現, 這棟大樓上下半部外觀差很多, 難怪之前毎天經過卻都沒發覺原來這就是克萊司勒大樓。

[FYI]
Chrysler Building

Kikuchi – Kumamoto ( Japan )

Photographed by d!zzy

Macro

– License