The Nikon D700 – Its Official

Posted on July 1, 2008 by Mark

Updated: 17:06

Thanks Eugene for the heads up on this bit of news. I was out at lunch earlier only to find this very interesting bit of news sitting in my comments column in my last post.

Good to know that Nikon has finally launched the Nikon D700 and its as good as the rumours claimed it to be. Awesome stuff this new FX camera which sports the Nikon D3′s CMOS full frame sensor. To top it off, Dpreview mentioned that it sports a sensor cleaner, something which Nikon’s flagship D3 did not have.

Image source: DPreview.com

As I previously posted, the Nikon D700 is indeed a camera to behold, fits nicely within the price ranges of the previous D300 and the high-end D3. At USD$2999, I would expect the camera to be priced at RM9k and any lower than that would be a good bonus.

I think it might just be the right time to retire my D200 and head towards greener pastures or perhaps, larger pastures. With this already available, I would say that all of my remaining lens purchases should revolve around FX type lenses and no longer should I look at DX lenses unless to be used with the D300.

Available at the end of July, we should expect the camera to hit our Malaysian shores in September and hopefully by then we can see samples of the D700 in action at ISO6400. Very curious to see if this baby can keep images clean at ISO6400.

2547 nikon d300 d700 preview The Nikon D700 Its Official
D700 next to a D300 - Image Source: Rob Galbraith

Update:

Pre-orders for both the Nikon D700 and SB-900 is already available at Shashinki. Check them out here.

100x100 NK D700 The Nikon D700 Its Official

Nikon D700 Digital SLR Camera Body Only (FX Full Frame 12MP CMOS, Live View, Image Sensor Cleaning) (Japan Import)
Date Added: Tuesday 01 July, 2008
Manufacturer: Nikon
Price: RM10,300.00

100x100 NK SB900 The Nikon D700 Its Official

Nikon SB-900 Speedlight i-TTL Shoe Mount Flash (Guide No. 34/111.5 (ISO 100, m/ft))
Date Added: Tuesday 01 July, 2008
Manufacturer: Nikon
Price: RM1,995.00

Sources:

More Nikon D700 leaks with pictures!

Posted on July 1, 2008 by Mark

Late last night after my meeting, I managed to catch Eugene’s site on this bit of news. Today I found the site that reportedly published the Nikon D700 and the new SB-900 (new flash unit) will be out at the end of July.

Nikon D700 profifoto More Nikon D700 leaks with pictures!

Mind you, its in a different language (German if you can understand it) but its Google translation to the rescue!

Translated bits:
After Nikon with the full-format camera D3 in August 2007 is the first Nikon model with full small image sensor-Formar 24×36 mm that was now follows is not entirely unexpected, the D700. Derselbe 12-Megapixel-Sensor, augenscheinlich dasselbe 51-Punkt-Autofokussystem, etwas geringere Serienbildgeschwindigkeit (5Â B/s statt 9Â B/s – allerdings kann das mit Batterieteil auf 8Â B/s gesteigert werden), Sucherbildfeld 95 statt 100 Prozent, dafÃ¼r aber ein eingebauter Blitz (auch zur Drahtlos-Blitzsteuerung), ein Sensor-Reinigungssystem (dazu morgen mehr) und ein interessantes Preisschild: knapp 2600Â Euro soll die Neue kosten und ab Ende Juli 2008 erhÃ¤ltlich sein. The same 12-megapixel sensor, apparently the same 51-point autofocus system, slightly lower image speed serial (5 B / s instead of 9 B / – however, the battery part to 8 B / s increase), the viewfinder field of 95 instead of 100 percent, but but a built-in flash (also for wireless flash control), a sensor-cleaning system (more about this tomorrow) and an interesting price tag: just under 2,600 euro, the new costs and from the end of July 2008 will be available.
Next is a flash Nikon SB-900 as a successor model of the SB-800, whose zoom reflector should be directed to focal lengths from 17-200 mm and in DX and FX sensors recruits, and in which the user firmware updates for the first time in a Nikon Lightning can even aufspielen.

Now, the first thing in people’s mind would be, “Is this another rumour?”. Well rumours tend to be true most of the time but upon closer inspect of the image on the magazine, you can see that one of the newer characteristics of the D700 is the viewfinder. Seems different from all of the other DX range of cameras.

So this is the best piece of news since they even mentioned that it will be out late July, perhaps a pre-empt strike against the upcoming Canon 5D MkII? Who knows but for one thing, everyone is waiting for the release of this baby.

D700 rumour was a fake???

Posted on June 30, 2008 by Mark

Last week a hopeful image of the so called “Nikon D700” was “leaked” and the news spread like wildfire amongst photography sites, forums and personal blogs, mine included of course. This was a picture that was posted up on Engadget on the 25th of June. It looked really real and this is something that we might have predicted or imagine that a smaller full frame sensor Nikon camera would look like (to rival Canon’s 5D of course).

6 25 08 d700 D700 rumour was a fake???

That was posted on the 25th of June. It took only 2 whole days before the real news was unearthed. Yup, suspicions were true, it was just a photoshopped D300. I guess this is one of the banes of Photoshop! Grrrr.

d700 debunk shot with orig 2 D700 rumour was a fake???

The real image was actually up on Flickr over here. Here is the image of the original shot which was actually a Nikon D300 all the while. And no, it wasn’t my D300 that I shot!

2613106469 8376111ba8 D700 rumour was a fake???

Like the title says in the Flickr image, “Awwww….no D700 after all“.

I had my hopes up really high, only a couple of hours more before I can call this so called rumour that Nikon will make an announcement on the 30th of June a true blown rumour. Anyway I am sure a lot of people are still expecting an announcement from Nikon soon, whether it may be the D700 or the D90 or the D3x, who knows what Nikon has in store but for sure we would find out something by September.

My fingers are still crossed though.

“The Best Firefox Yet”

Posted on June 25, 2008 by Mark

“The Best Firefox Yet” screams the title on the page of Mozilla’s latest offering to their web browser, Firefox 3. With features such as 15,000 improvements and also faster surfing, everyone is of course interested in finding out just how fast the improvements are and what are the newer features.

Being available for download a week ago, I decided to put hold on this blog post about Firefox 3 until I have tried it for a while before writing this post.

To me, its just another browser which I do hope that it is more reliable and more secure as I do plenty of online activities such as buying cinema tickets online as well as my personal banking activities. Although I haven’t really had the time to test them out, there are a lot of new tips and tricks with this new version of the browser.

At the mean time, I haven’t really noticed much improvement in terms of sites loading because of my erratic internet connection back home where sometimes its blazing fast and sometimes its just crawling. Also I can’t really test it out at work as the connection speeds here are very fast and its not easy to just perform some tests (thought I would like but I can’t install anything on my work laptop).

The one thing which I thought was an improvement is that the fact the “Back” button is bigger, hence I can easily press back faster. Other than that, the one thing I like about the new browser is that when I sort my bookmarks by name, it actually groups RSS links and normal links separately. Previously I would have a folder in my bookmark with all the RSS links and some random links here and there. Whenever I did a sort by name on that folder, it just sorts everything by name. Now it separates them which is better!

Anyway, if you are already a Firefox user, this upgrade will be worthwhile. Else if you are still using Safari on a Mac, there are reports that Java still loads faster on Safari as compared to Firefox 3. The article goes on to say that if you are already comfortable with Safari, maybe it might not be a push to migrate over to Firefox.

p.s. I just installed Firefox 3 on all my PC’s at home lest for one more.

"The Best Firefox Yet"

Posted on June 25, 2008 by Mark

Being available for download a week ago, I decided to put hold on this blog post about Firefox 3 until I have tried it for a while before writing this post.

p.s. I just installed Firefox 3 on all my PC’s at home lest for one more.

I need to sell my Ferrari

Posted on June 5, 2008 by Mark

Ok, so I don’t have a Ferrari to sell. Not even those small little ones which were being sold like hotcakes at Shell petrol stations. What I am about to sell could be a piece of my mind about the recent petrol hike announced yesterday.

I am sure there are plenty of blogs, newspapers and other media sources screaming the headlines of RM2.70 (which is the new 40% increased price of petrol), and in tandem, I shall be screaming that as well. Frankly, an increase like this is expected to happen. If you ever thought that petrol prices will not rise then you really do live in a dream world.

Part of the increase in petrol prices, our local Government hope to save billions of dollars. The previous petrol hike was to save the government billions of dollars. The same reason was given again that this increase in prices will help the Government save money.

Abdullah said that although the restructuring would result in consumers having to pay more, prices were still lower compared with Singapore and Thailand.

He said the Government would save RM13.7bil through the restructuring.
Quote: The Star – Petrol price up by 78 sen – and will be reviewed monthly

Since the last increase, I don’t seem to see any improvement in our local transport system. The LRT is still jammed and crammed as ever. I don’t see new routes or even construction on new routes. More and more complaints have risen from delayed busses and the traffic gets worse everyday.

So what happened to the money saved from the previous petrol price hike? I don’t see anyone cheering about more efficient bus routes or less errant cabbies.

Conspiracy theorists have predicted that by September, the government would face a challenging trial. I wonder if this whole saga of a petrol price hike could be part of a larger overall plan. Who knows? Only time will tell.

Anyway, I pumped petrol this morning. Price paid for 34 litres, RM90+. Man this sucks.

Movie Review – The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Posted on May 27, 2008 by Mark

Last Saturday I did something which I haven’t done in a very long time, I watched two movies in a day. Well this post will be dedicated to the first one I saw on Saturday.

Basically the movie is placed in a completely different timeline as the first movie. In the first movie, the kids grew up and became adults in the magical land of Narnia but when they returned back to the real world, a.k.a London, it was as if not a single second had passed.

Now forward that a couple of years in the real world (a.k.a London nearing the WWII era), the kids have grown up a little (but they are still kids) and they are carrying on their lives as usual in wet London whilst back in the magical land of Narnia, thousands of years have passed since the kings of old (the kids) left the magical kingdom and Aslan is no where to be found.

In this era, the Telmarines have conquered Narnia and strived to wipe out every single creature of the Narnian kingdom and they have thought to have successfully done that. The current king, King Caspian fled his kingdom from his ruthless uncle who wants the throne of Narnia to himself.

In doing so, Caspian managed to receive a magical horn from his mentor (who is a descendent of a Narnian) and when Caspian was being chased by the guards, he blew the horn. By blowing this horn, it triggered the kings of old of Narnia to come forth to save Narnia from impending extinction.

This very action of calling the kings of old brought the kids back from London to the magical land of Narnia but they still remained in their current day form or age. As the story unfolds, the movie proved to be rather interesting and at the same time managed to outgrow the previous one.

Yes, this movie was targetted for kids or youth but I can’t help but notice that the plot and the action scenes were slightly improved whilst maintaining the non-bloody violence type scenes/scenarios. You can’t expect it to be such like the movie, 300, and yet also maintain the general viewing status right?

Its obvious that the fight scenes were beefed up a bit and together with a tad bit of digital effects, one can expect a high level of cinematography. The one thing which caught my attention the most was that the kids had no qualms about killing their enemies or their fellow men. They shot arrows like nobody’s business and they sliced anyone that got in their way. Sounds a little bit like Anakin Skywalker in the making.

Personally I liked the movie and I would give it a 7 star rating. If you haven’t catched the movie, I do advise you to have a go at it.

p.s. I never did mention about Aslan that much did I?

Staying Warm

Posted on May 21, 2008 by Mark

Recently at work I have been working on knowledge management which requires me to study a little bit of taxonomy structures and how to implement it within an organization. One of the examples I usually use to explain taxonomy would be to reference it to a scientific classification of animals.

For example, the scientific classification of animals can be split into categories such as Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Infraclass, Order and Suborder.

While searching through Wikipedia, I stumbled across “possums”. Possums are quite common in Australia and then introduced to New Zealand. What comes to mind especially when mentioning animals and Australia are dead animals lying by the road shoulders. This is due to the time when I was travelling in Australia, driving between Melbourne City and Mt. Buller, I kept seeing dead kangaroos and koala bears by the road shoulder, apparently they have been hit down by other drivers. No, I didn’t hit one down and thank God that I didn’t as I do not want a dead animal’s carcass lying about in my room.

Anyway if you haven’t seen what a possum is, this is how a possum looks like.

A little bit of info about possums is that they are:

Possums are one of the Wellington region’s worst pests. Possums pose a serious threat to our native forests and economy.
Threat to our native forests
Possums devastate our native forests by:
eating the berries and flowers that are food for our native birds
stripping bark and breaking young shoots
eating and damaging newly formed buds which prevents new growth
eating the eggs and chicks of our native birds
consuming vast quantities of foliage.
Possums can stop the forest regenerating, cause the canopy to collapse, wipe out rata, fuschia and other species, and systematically strip trees.

Wow I really didn’t know they were this much of a pest!

No wonder I got this from my friend who is currently based in New Zealand.

A genuine willy warmer!

In case you do not know what a willy warmer is, it is just fur to keep your willy warm!

Personally, I think its way too small. I can only fit in two fingers into the hole. Since I can’t really use it and Malaysia’s weather is like 100 degrees celcius here every day of the year, I guess I have to put it to good use.

It will just have to keep my Nikon flash warm especially in those extra cold air-conditioned rooms. Now isn’t that just putting it to good use and not wasting it?

Info and image source: http://www.gw.govt.nz/section910.cfm

Life’s Indulgences

Posted on May 20, 2008 by Mark

Something very simple and something I missed since when I was in the UK.

The simple pleasures of life.

I wonder why they never bring it to Malaysia la!

Darn, I am craving for one right now.

I wonder if the cravings will ever stop.

Now, where can I find another one.

I knew I shouldn’t have stopped into the shop in Singapore.

Ah, what I would do for another cup of my little indulgence.

Probably nothing because I have my cup of white coffee next to me now.

Life's Indulgences