cheap, easy to use UI, fast startup, wide choice of Nikkor lenses, accurate and fast AF, compact and lightweight but not flimsy

Cons:

only supports AF on AF-S & AF-I lenses, slow screen refresh

I’ve never had a digital camera before. I’ve been using my friend’s point and shoot(PnS) camera and I believed that I’ve outgrown all the features that a PnS camera can offer, so I bought my D40 two weeks ago. Because of my limited experience with SLR cameras, I was stuck with Auto and preset modes for the first couple of days.

D40

After I familiarized myself with the camera, I moved on to manual settings and it  gave me full control of exposure, aperture, shutter speed, just to name a few. Learning all these things wasn’t as intimidating as other people would say. In fact, it never was! thanks to its user friendly UI. The D40, unlike the higher end DSLRs, ditched the monochrome status display in favor of using the main color display, which is an advantage for first time SLR users since it incorporates a graphical display by default which shows a wheel representing the aperture size and shutter speed dial. The aperture display “stops down” to approximate what is actually happening to the lens blades, but it only moves after several turns of the Command dial. The same goes for the shutter speed graphic. It seems like a good idea to educate those who are unfamiliar with how cameras work, though they’ll have to be the types who pay close attention.

D40 status Display

When it comes to body design, I find it very comfortable to hold compared to other SLRs with their “boxy” build and hard-to-reach shutter buttons. the rubber lined grip on the the right side fits my hand snuggly and on the other side, is a notch where your thumb is supposed to rest. The camera has a plastic outer shell with a metal frame, but Nikon gave it a matte finish which sets it apart from other plastic cameras. It’s size may be bulky for everyday snapshots(this is where phone cameras come in handy), it is very compact and lightweight for use on special occasions and casual photography.

One fault I found on the camera however, is that the LCD is slow to refresh as you change settings. This includes aperture, shutter speed, and EV (exposure value) settings. I would tend to overshoot my goal, thinking the camera had missed my input resulting in either an over/underexposed image.

The 6.1 megapixels resolution may be a turnoff for other people today where basic point and shoot cameras have reached 12 megapixels. It just shows that they have drank the marketing kool-aid that more pixels define a better picture. In reality, megapixels just dictate the largest size prints you can have or how far you can crop your picture without degrading quality. 6 megapixels will get you a very good 13×19 inch print; and since most people will only print 8.5×11 inch images max, that means you can heavily crop your images and still get beautiful images on a Letter size page.

The Nikon D40 is perfect for the type of person who wants to make the move from a simple PnS camera, but is intimidated by the complexity of a full DSLR camera, and for its price that’s comparable to mid range PnS, it is well worth every penny.

If you want to see some samples of what I took with the camera, feel free to drop by my flickr profile. I will be updating it with fresh photos regularly.

If you want to get the best shot (without spending a fortune on expensive equipment), here are some tips that are worth considering:

1. Rule of Thirds: Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid over the shot you are about to take. The points where these lines intersect are the best spot you can place your subject. That is because our eyes scan around the image, and it will look much more interesting when you apply the rule.

This rule can also be applied to represent motion. Take for instance shooting a moving car. Placing the car on the left side of the frame when it is moving from left to right or at the right otherwise, creates the illusion of motion.

1. Angles: Rather than shooting the subject from an eye level, try kneeling down or climb onto a ledge (if any) to change the angle. It is not necessary to shoot the full image of the subject unless you are taking a formal group picture.

1. Make your subject stand out: What we are trying to do here is to get the viewer’s attention directly to the subject. The best thing to do this is to blur the background creating emphasis on the subject. How can we do it you ask? By switching to macro mode. Macro mode enables the camera to focus on an object as close as 3cm enabling it to take sharper images while blurring everything behind it. Most Digital cameras and some camera phones have this function.

1. Lighting: This has got to be the most important factor in taking good pictures. The lighting must be just right. Too little light can create noise; too much light however produces an overexposed photo. Rule of thumb: never have the light behind the subject as the camera adjusts to the brightness in favor to the light source darkening the subject in front of it. This should be avoided unless intended for dramatic effect.

1. Watch the background: Be careful that the background of the photo does not have poles, telephone wires, etc. This is especially true when taking outdoor portraits. Nobody would want to see a pole sticking out of his or her head. These things create distraction and draws away attention from the subject. Be sure the background is clean with no distracting or unwanted objects in it.

1. Have fun! There’s no point in taking up photography if it is not fun. Besides, having fun taking pictures increases the odds of getting “The Shot”, and will stir up your curiosity opening up doors for learning opportunities.

Want to get an 8×12 print of a photo shot by a good photograper(i.e. mandy)? Join Perfectography’s 12 days of Printsmas to win! click here for details.

That could easily happen to anyone. It might not be hard for others to replace a whole laptop, but the data in it is almost impossible to recover — unless you have it backed up on a separate hard drive, which is actually quite prone to breaking once you drop it. Another situation is if you carry your laptop and, at the same time, your backup drive in a single bag. You lose that bag. Therefore, your data, together with your backup, is lost. The only way to keep your files secure (and which other big-shot corporations are also doing) is backing it up to some off-site storage facility. An average shmuck might not have the greens to get his/her own storage facility complete with mainframe servers, but he/she can definitely sign up for a Mozy account for only $4.95 for unlimited storage. Sounds too good to be true eh? But it is!!

Last April, i stumbled upon Chris’ blog. i thought that including the chat on the stream, and seeing my msg there was kinda cool. So i tried the embedded webchat. I met new people who are willing to help with tech problems, and made some friends. Little did i know that was IRC already!! The chat was hosted by wyldryde.

Now, the question is, what is wyldryde? Wyldryde is an IRC network made up of 12 servers located in different parts of the world. It may be small compared to the Big 4, but it has the best community despite the occasional trolls lurking around.

There are about 840 channels in wyldryde. I have 20+ channels on autojoin owned by peeps i met in #chris(the gooey sticky one that holds the WR community together). They are: #Alicia, #AppleAlltheway, #chills(trivia channel), #chris(1st chan i’ve ever been on), #cybertech, #Davesplace, #Dax, #easy_way, #em0ticon, #firebucket, #ibook, #iPhone(1st established democracy in WR), #jem(my own channel), #Kevin_28, #killspyware, #mikebuntu, #mr_cheeto,  #NvidiaX, #Ruben, #speer360, #theebayk1d, #Woz(for woz request), #zack, and #upthevolume.

join me in my channel in http://www.wyldryde.org/chat/chat.php?ch…

At first glance, the FF3 interface is quite good compared to ver2. But what i like most about it is that unlike in IE7, you have the option to save the tabs (or “session” as FF may call it) if you intend to quit, which saves time if you open the browser again and see your previous tabs still there. Another feature which i find handy is the spell check, which is very useful because i’m very prone to typos. As far as i know, IE7 doesn’t have that feature.

only CONSTRUCTIVE Comments are approved.

[Update]

Recently, i just found out a good add-on(through Chris Pirillo) for FF3 called feedly which lets you integrate your feeds like twitter, friendfeed, rss, integrate Yahoo mail, Gmail, flickr to your start page. Plus, it gives article suggestions based on your interest. you can get it here.

I wouldn’t go into the details on the movie as that will spoil the fun for those who haven’t watched it yet. Comedywise (is that a word?), I’d give the movie ***** (five stars). On the other hand, I’d give the movie *** storywise.

Even though the story was excellent (trust me, it was), it was kind of “too direct to the point” which kinda gives you the illusion of watching a 45-minute movie, a little less than half the actual running time which is 92 minutes.

Overall, I’d give this movie a four-star rating. Unless you’re a little meticulous about the storyline, this is a must-see movie.

If you use Twitter, you’re probably familiar with the image above on your left. Twitter’s down again. Well not entirely down, but is crippled on some features.

I’m using a twitter client called twhirl, which means i don’t care if the site’s page isn’t working as long as the rss still works. But there are times that it’s completely down that even twhirl won’t work.

Many are tired of Twitter’s constant downtimes and crashes, that they are considering on moving to similar sites like Jaiku, Pownce, or Friendfeed. But there are some who would still like to stay on twitter like me. Recently ijustine has uploaded a video on youtube on what to do when twitter’s down.

I may like mainstream music, but i’m not that much of a fan to listen to it 24/7(i’m exaggerating). I listen to music for it’s lyrics, style, genre etc. not because it’s what radio stations are playing, or because it’s popular atm.

Ever since, i have been afraid to learn touch typing, because, well… i hate constant practice… the same reason why i can never learn to play the piano.. lol but then, it got me nowhere. i’ve been having difficulty typing fast and accurately. So now, i’m challenging myself to learn touch typing with the help of this online tutorial.

i’ll be posting updates on my progress here when i can.. and on twitter..