Click here for the photo gallery
Actually, photos of the police deployment I took when I went out for lunch at Boudin’s bakery at Market and Montgomery, and then later from my office’s balcony at Kearny and Sutter. The demonstrators themselves were careful to be constantly on the move so as to maximize disruption without being arrested.
I received my Canon EOS 10D digital SLR yesterday, as an upgrade to my D30.
Some observations that I haven’t found on the Internet yet, and that may be useful to other new 10D owners or owners to be:
The camera feels solid, but not appreciably better built than the D30. The much-hyped magnesium shell does not make much difference.
As usual, the Canon software sucks. The USB TWAIN driver for the 10D does not work, breaks TWAIN and you need to restart apps such as Photoshop to be able to use other TWAIN drivers again. I use a Firewire CompactFlash card reader instead.
The camera supports the PIMA (now I3A) Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP), a standardized protocol to transfer images and control a camera over a USB connection. I wish they had also implemented the USB Mass Storage Class the way Nikon did. This would allow the camera to be recognized as a hard drive by all modern operating systems.
Even though the 10D is compatible with the BG-ED3 portrait grip/battery pack, the base plate is slightly different from the D30/D60, and dedicated Arca-Swiss style quick release tripod plates like the PZ-52 or BL-D60 from Kirk fit loosely and twist. In the meantime, my older, non-dedicated B24E plate from RRS will fit, but as it is held only by friction, it is a less than ideal solution.
As usual with the introduction of new cameras, third-party (i.e. usable) RAW workflow software struggles to catch up. IMatch will generate thumbnails correctly, but not display the images. BreezeBrowser displays the images in quick preview mode but will not do RAW conversion yet.
The eyepiece cover is now integral to the strap and is less likely to fall off.
The 10D uses the same batteries as the D30/D60, but unfortunately not the same USB cable.
10x magnification is better than the D30, but I wish they could resolve down to individual pixels to check for critical focus.
The camera feels quieter (muted shutter and mirror sound) and snappier than my D30, except for image review, which is still too slow for any but the most leisurely review.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 is supplied, a nice touch as this version is far more capable than the Photoshop 5.0 LE supplied with the D30.
The viewfinder is similar to the Elan 7E. It does not have eye control focus, unfortunately. The only other major missing feature is spot metering.
I also posted some sample images I took during my lunch break, with the Canon EF 20mm f/2.8 USM. The images were converted with Canon’s File Viewer Utility V.1.2.1
Update (2003-03-27):
Kirk Photo now has an Arca-Swiss style quick-release plate for the 10D, the PZ-80. They are expecting to have a L bracket as well in about three weeks’ time.
Update (2003-08-05):
The current version of BreezeBrowser is fully functional with 10D RAW images, and has been so for a few months now.
Phil Windley quoted me as a skeptic. Since his website is widely read and this is a hot-button issue for many people, I would just like to clarify my position on the issue.
I think open source is quasi-necessary but not sufficient for true security. Closed source solutions basically means blind trust in a vendor. I wouldn’t take relatively serious vendors like Oracle or Sun at face value, let alone one with a chequered past like Microsoft.
That said, the availability of source is not in itself a guarantee that security bugs will be found proactively, for two reasons:
The “with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” fallacy. While this may be true of a known bug, security is like the proverbial weakest link in a chain. Once a security bug is identified, it is relatively easy to fix and distribute, the real problem is becoming aware of its existence in the first place. This can only be done by systematic source audits searching for patterns like buffer overflows. This kind of systematic audit, as practised by the OpenBSD team or some companies like SuSE is neither easy nor cheap. It will certainly not come about because a casual source browser stumbled upon an issue
Secondly, even a full audit of source code is not sufficient to identify all vulnerabilities. Ken Thompson, the inventor of Unix, demonstrated this in his classic paper Reflections on Trusting Trust (PDF) where he put a backdoor into the login program and successfully concealed his tracks in the source by moving the backdoor to bootstrapped compiler binaries.
From CNET News.com:
Flat-panel monitors to take market lead
Flat-panel monitors for desktop computers are expected to surpass traditional cathode ray tube monitors in revenue this year, a sea change for the display industry.
And a good thing too. CRT monitors contain large quantities of toxic materials such as lead, and their disposal comes at a terrible human cost. All my home desktop machines now have LCD monitors. If you are in the market for a monitor, please spend the extra $100 or so. Your eyes and the planet will thank you.
I found this excellent tutorial for new users of IMatch looking to import their photos. It’s far more detailed than mine (Image category management with IMatch) on setting up the asset management workflow.
