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What's in my camera bag, anno 2015

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A follow up of a post I did four years ago... I'm back in Tokyo again, and I thought it would be fun to share my current bag setup and see how it differs from back then...

Let's see what I've got now:

  • an ultra light backpack (Osprey Daylight or optionally the larger Osprey Escapist 18): in general, I've basically switched completely from shoulder bags to backpacks... much more ergonomic. These ones are also water resistant;
  • two main cameras (Fujifilm X100T and Fujifilm X-T10): I used to have 1 main camera and a smaller backup one, but over the last year or so, it seems better for me to have two equally capable (slightly smaller) cameras instead. I will always prefer rangefinder type shooting though;
  • a 27mm lens (Fujifilm);
  • a 24mm pinhole lens: I use this by far most of the time;
  • a 35mm 1.4 lens (Leica - I'll never part with this wonderful lens) with a Fuji adapter. Just for this lens I wish I had a full frame sensor again;
  • iPhone (not shown here, usually in my pocket): my iPhone has de facto become one of my standard cameras. Yes it's that good;
  • my trusty notebook, by far the heaviest individual item in my bag :)
  • pens and pencils, and a sharpener;
  • audio recorder & little tripod;
  • external flash (FujifIlm EF-X20): fits both cameras, even though they both have built-in flashes already, this little baby is extremely capable;
  • small zipped bag with cables, medecine (eye drops, paracetamol, band-aid, ear plugs, ... the usual stuff), iphone accessories, and a battery pack;
  • tissues (i love them with Aloe Vera);
  • passport and credit cards;
  • extra memory cards (I've recently switched from 16 to 64GB, but I'm not convinced yet... 64 takes a long time to fill and to copy over, and I think I would feel safer to have 2 x 32GB instead of 1 x 64GB, just for redundancy's sake. But we'll see. I've never ever had a card fail on me in the past (fingers crossed);
  • a little pink microfiber "wonder cloth" to clean lenses or other sensitive stuff;
  • spare batteries
  • battery chargers: these chargers are the only optional thing in the bag: if I'll just be out for the day, I know my 3+2 spare batteries will be able to last;
  • my worry dolls;
  • (not pictured) a standard Crumpler insert (L size).

There you go.

Looking back at my previous setup, it seems I'm still basically doing the same... just a few things have changed:

The way I carry everything now: in a backpack as opposed to a shoulder bag, mainly for superior ergonomics. Plus I've been able to reduce weight even more still, as the backpack weighs next to nothing.

Also, it seems I am more happy/at ease with two smaller main cameras + an iphone, instead of one large main camera + a small spare camera. However, learning a new camera's ergonomics is a huge deal, as I used to be able to do everything by feel on my Leica. For now, I definitely lose more time with the general "looking at the menu fiddling with controls" type of thing (also because the controls on both cameras differ slightly), but it might just be me that needs to adapt: the cameras are both really extremely well thought out regarding handling and ergonomics... they are super fast, and the raw files are very very good. what more does one want?

Anything I've missed?

cheers,

anton

 



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koffie
3320 days ago
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Wired Gives Apple News Four-Day Exclusive on Feature Story

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Wired:

This story is being previewed exclusively on Apple News until Tuesday, September 22nd. Please check this page again at that time.

To view this story in the Apple News app on your iOS 9 device, follow this link: https://news.apple.com/A-oPQmJNfTyi9oHKs1xCY3w.

Interesting. I wonder what they’re getting from Apple for this? Cash? Is anyone else doing this?

You can’t even read this on a Mac until Tuesday, because Apple News is (for now) iOS-only.

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koffie
3348 days ago
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Even more screwed up: not everybody with iOS 9 has Apple News
Belgium
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2 public comments
jhamill
3348 days ago
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Look, another story I won't be able to read because exclusives do not benefit consumers. Good job, Wired and Apple.
California
donmcarthur
3348 days ago
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The goal of ad-blocking is to drive content producers into the silos of social network giants, like Facebook (and Apple). The ad purchasers get user profile data to target the ad to, the users get minimally intrusive ads, and FB and Apple take 30% of the ad spending.

AND it sticks the knife into the back of Google. Devious as hell, innit?
donmcarthur
3348 days ago
Bingo - Wired: "This story is being previewed exclusively on Apple News until Tuesday, September 22nd. Please check this page again at that time. _To view this story in the Apple News app on your iOS 9 device,"
donmcarthur
3348 days ago
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/bjarke-ingels-2-world-trade-center-wtc/
sherif
3348 days ago
Did you just say that Apple is a "social network giant"? Can I somehow stop seeing this drivel in my feed? It's getting to be a bit much.
dori
3348 days ago
While part of me does sometimes wonder if his goal is to make Google look like whiny crybabies (even more than they already do), overall, if NewsBlur sold a troll filter, I'd pay for it immediately.
the7roy
3348 days ago
+1 dori!

Everything is a Remix Remastered

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For the first time, the whole series as a single video in HD.

In the five years since the series launched, Everything is a Remix has been viewed over two million times and produced a popular TED Talk. Amazingly, Remix continues to change the way people think about creativity, originality, and copyright.

To celebrate the five year anniversary, I've polished up the original four parts and merged them into a single video. For the first time now, the whole series is available as a single video with proper transitions all the way through, unified styling, and remixed and remastered audio. Part One has been entirely rebuilt in HD.

Join my email list to get occasional notifications about new work

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koffie
3353 days ago
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For people who haven't seen this: it's a must.
Belgium
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Google Reader announced its shutdown exactly a year ago

32 Comments and 59 Shares

In this industry, you gotta be tough.

I’m just kidding. We’re a bunch of literates who enjoy reading so much that we built our own news readers. But when a behemoth like Google makes a call that places you at the business end of 100,000 frantic power users, reminding yourself how tough you are is one way of dealing with the madness.

Google announced Reader’s sunset at 4pm on March 13th, 2013. At that point I had spent three and a half years building my vision of a better news reader. I clearly wasn’t doing it for the money, since my paltry salary didn’t even cover my market rate rent in San Francisco. RSS was a decidedly stupid technology to piggyback off of to try and cover that financial disconnect.

Take a look at this graph. It shows NewsBlur’s income versus its expenses for the past 16 months. Just look at those few months before the Google Reader shutdown announcement in March 2013.

It was never hard to justify to others why I worked on a news reader for three-some years, partially because I’d been justifying it to myself for so long. I had the delusion that it would all work itself out in the end, so long as I kept pushing my hardest and shipping features users wanted. And, at the time, with 1,000 paying subscribers, it certainly felt like I was getting somewhere.

If you’re curious about why expenses are so high, think about what it takes to run a modern and popular news reader. This graph breaks down expenses for an average month from the past year.

Why spend all that money on subcontractors and new tools? Because I’m investing in building an even better news reader.

Fast forward a year and let hindsight tell you what’s what. I was irrational to think that I could make it on my own in a decaying market, what with all the air sucked out by Google. But that three year hallucination kept me persevering to build a better product, which positioned NewsBlur well as a strong candidate for a Reader replacement. When the sunset announcement dropped, it didn’t take long to fortify the servers and handle all the traffic. NewsBlur permanently ballooned up to 20X the number of paid users. People flocked to NewsBlur because it was among the furthest along in creating real competition. As we say on NewsBlur, the people have spoken.

The post-Google Reader landscape

I run a very opinionated news reader. If you think somewhat like I do, you couldn’t be more pleased with the direction NewsBlur goes. But this is still a power tool, and in a world of casual readers who don’t care where their news is coming from so long as it’s in their interests and matches their biases, NewsBlur is the coffee equivalent of the AeroPress. Most people want drip coffee and they don’t bother wasting mental energy on caring about the difference in taste or quality. It’s a binary to them: coffee or no coffee. There’s nothing wrong with that, they just choose to focus on other things more important to them than the sourcing or control they have of their coffee.

Many competing news readers are visual and offer a similar experience. When you want to give up control in exchange for the digested output of sophisticated and heartless algorithms, they’re your best bet. When you want to exert control and know what you want and from which sources, NewsBlur is the only option. No other reader gives you training, statistics, and sharing in one multi-platform app. Nobody else cares so much about RSS as to work on a news reader when it was still a financial inevitability of failure.

Future work on NewsBlur

If the past is any indication, NewsBlur is going to continue to see many more improvements. This graph of contributions from the past 365 days shows my level of unwavering dedication.

One way people speak is by committing code to NewsBlur’s GitHub repo. Try developing your own pet feature. I’ll even do some of the hard work for you, so long as you give it a good try and submit a pull request.

Meanwhile, I’m using the windfall to develop a secret project that will complement NewsBlur in a way that hasn’t been tried before with any reader. And if that fails, I’ll find an even better way to make my users happy with their purchase. If you thought I was relentless before March 13th, 2013, just wait until you see what I’m capable of with the finances to build all the big ticket features I’ve been imagining for years.

And while you’re here, do me a favor and tweet about NewsBlur. Tell your followers, who are probably looking for a better way to read news, about how much you rely on NewsBlur. Reading positive tweets about NewsBlur every morning (and afternoon and evening and before bed) make this the best job I’ve ever had.

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koffie
3904 days ago
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Gladly pay for this great RSS reader! Only hope it's healthy financially speaking, the graph does cause some concern...
Belgium
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29 public comments
nb_test
3883 days ago
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Good story
windexx
3888 days ago
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Great newsreader. I haven't even touched all the features yet much less incorporate them into daily use. But it's nice to know they are there.
Bedford, Virginia
jantdm
3896 days ago
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Go NewsBlur!
Munich, Germany
rosskarchner
3900 days ago
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I'm glad to see that Newsblur seems to be on a sustainable path. Go, Samuel!

(I'm also testing out using iffft .com to turn my newsblur shares into blog posts)
kerray
3900 days ago
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This is how you do it :)
Brno, CZ
kyounger
3901 days ago
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Love this product.
tomm74
3901 days ago
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Newsblur is something worth paying for - I'm very much in the camp of "if you're not paying for it, you're the product" - and I for one prefer to pay for my services directly, rather than by having my data sold.

I like NB so much, I've been developing my own Windows 8 Metro UI for it!
Cardiff
romkyns
3901 days ago
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Well, it looks like renewals are about to start rolling in, right? So you're fine? I hope you are :)
redheadedfemme
3901 days ago
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I love NewsBlur. I'm happy to be a paying customer. It's a worthy replacement for Google Reader.
amaiman
3903 days ago
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Have been using @NewsBlur ever since and haven't looked back.
New Jersey
p4ul
3903 days ago
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Keep up the awesome work!
Wellington, New Zealand
zelig2
3904 days ago
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I was oblivious of other readers when I used Google but I'm honestly glad they shut down their service as I really enjoy NewsBlur.
BiG_E_DuB
3904 days ago
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Great post
Charlotte, NC, USA
boltonm
3904 days ago
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Very happy to have paid for the last year of Newsblur - Google Reader first replaced and since superseded. iOS app continues to improve. Looking forward to more great value in the coming year.
London, UK
alliepape
3904 days ago
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I came to NewsBlur for odd reasons, but I now use it every day and it makes my life actively better. It also allows me to share the writing that's important to me. Thanks, Sam.
San Francisco, CA
Eldaria
3904 days ago
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I switched to Newsblur from Google, and I'm certainly renewing my subscription. I will also head over to twitter and tell about you.
kimmo
3904 days ago
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I’m going to renew my subscription to NewsBlur in 11 days.
Espoo, Finland
acdha
3904 days ago
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I hope that there will be a corresponding spike as people renew those annual memberships which are all about to expire
Washington, DC
Brstrk
3904 days ago
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With the google reader apocalypse, I was infuriated, because most solutions, both online and offline, always lacked the general usability I needed, especially when it comes to having many feeds. Them Reddit suggested some replacement alternatives. Newsblur was among them. I'm glad I paid attention back them.
chriskayto
3904 days ago
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Just tweeted my support of NewsBlur! Thanks for creating such a great product.
Toronto
leilers
3904 days ago
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Very happy with my decision to move to NewsBlur, even though it was forced upon me by Google pulling Reader. Definitely worth the investment. #newsblur
Northern Virginia
jcherfas
3904 days ago
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I STILL like Newsblur. And I don't even use it on iOS.
tante
3904 days ago
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"NewsBlur is the coffee equivalent of the AeroPress"
Berlin/Germany
stsquad
3904 days ago
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happy to pay for this service.
Cambridge, UK
chrisrosa
3904 days ago
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For RSS "@NewsBlur is the coffee equivalent of the AeroPress." Great quote. Even better product.
San Francisco, CA
musictubes
3904 days ago
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Gotta say, Newsblur is my most used app on my iPad and iPhone. Happy to pay for it:)
Falls Church, Virginia
taglia
3904 days ago
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Since I found NewsBlur I have never once looked for another newsreader. Can't say this for many other services!

Also, I am kind of in awe when I see what a single person can do!
Singapore
lasombra
3904 days ago
Same here. There's no other newsreader that satisfy my needs so neatly.
leiter420
3904 days ago
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I love this news reader. It's so much better than Google Reader ever was, and that's saying something.
jimwise
3904 days ago
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Neat. There's this great rss reader called... Ok, you're using it.

Reverse Engineering Vermeer’s Secret Tool

1 Comment and 3 Shares

Kurt Andersen, Kurt Anderson, writing for Vanity Fair:

David Hockney and others have speculated — controversially — that a camera obscura could have helped the Dutch painter Vermeer achieve his photo-realistic effects in the 1600s. But no one understood exactly how such a device might actually have been used to paint masterpieces. An inventor in Texas — the subject of a new documentary by the magicians Penn & Teller — may have solved the riddle.

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koffie
4005 days ago
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cool!
Belgium
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Automated video looping with progressive dynamism

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Hugues Hoppe's publications >

Automated video looping with progressive dynamism

Zicheng Liao, Neel Joshi, Hugues Hoppe.

ACM Trans. Graphics (SIGGRAPH), 32(4), 2013.

Representation for seamlessly looping video with controllable level of dynamism.

paper video YouTube talk results comparisons progressive example demo tool

Abstract: Given a short video we create a representation that captures a spectrum of looping videos with varying levels of dynamism, ranging from a static image to a highly animated loop. In such a progressively dynamic video, scene liveliness can be adjusted interactively using a slider control. Applications include background images and slideshows, where the desired level of activity may depend on personal taste or mood. The representation also provides a segmentation of the scene into independently looping regions, enabling interactive local adjustment over dynamism. For a landscape scene, this control might correspond to selective animation and deanimation of grass motion, water ripples, and swaying trees. Converting arbitrary video to looping content is a challenging research problem. Unlike prior work, we explore an optimization in which each pixel automatically determines its own looping period. The resulting nested segmentation of static and dynamic scene regions forms an extremely compact representation.


Hindsight: No hindsights yet.

ACM Copyright Notice

Copyright by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Publications Dept, ACM Inc., fax +1 (212) 869-0481, or <a href="mailto:permissions@acm.org">permissions@acm.org</a>. The definitive version of this paper can be found at ACM's Digital Library <a href="http://www.acm.org/dl/">http://www.acm.org/dl/</a>.

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koffie
4011 days ago
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Impressive!

Download here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/d02f3198-7896-45eb-89e8-5a75859b67c8/
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