I haven’t purchased a digital SLR since my 20D in early 2006. This past Saturday I made the 30 minute trip to Harlingen to pick up the only Canon EOS 550D (Rebel T2i) in the area. I’m going to shoot my next short film with it. It’s awesome. Check out this video clip I shot with it this morning:

Introducing my next camera. The 7D is pretty much what I’ve been looking for: an upgrade from my 20D with a 100% viewfinder, larger Polaroid, 1080/24P capability with full manual control and be less expensive than the 5D Mark II. The 7D has an APS-C sensor, but I’ve been used to them since the 300D. Check out the previews at photo.net, dpreview.com and the 7D’s official Canon page here. My 20D is pretty old now (but working great) and I’ll finally be able to let it slip into quasi-retirement as the secondary camera body. The Canon EOS 7D is released at the end of this month.

So I’ve gotten really tired of stumbling through the different websites to look at my favorite web comics on my iPhone when some of those sites don’t translate well to the little device (cough, Cyanide and Happiness, cough). So I look through the App Store and try to find something simple, cheap and effective and I found it with a little program called Kapow! by Ross Cooper.

Kapow! is sweet, it’s cheap and it works really well.

And because Mar over at Monkey Punchers and me are buddies (read: we have lunch together) it was great that Ross will add a comic into Kapow! real quick if you just email him the address and RSS feed. So, as a photographer, I submitted What The Duck, too. Ross wrote me back the next day, told me they were in the program, I bought it…smooth sailing. Thanks for the great program, Ross. It’s simple and only does one thing, but it does it well.

At the iTunes App Store: Buy it or, try it for free.

Amstelveen, The Netherlands, 17 September 2008: Canon announces the full frame, 21.1 Megapixel EOS 5D Mark II: the first EOS with full High Definition video capability.

I’ve been holding out on an upgrade to my four year old Canon EOS 20D this year in calculated anticipation of the 5D Mark II. I knew that if a new iteration of the 5D wasn’t released I would upgrade to the Mark I because full frame for me is where it’s at. That’s why I bought an old film camera recently: for the joy of shooting full frame which is how I shot for the first six years of my SLR journey. And when I put that $60 worth of old eBayed Canon AT-1 film camera to my eye with a 50mm lens I remembered why that glass was often called “normal”.

I want that feeling again. I want my 50mm at 50mm, not 80-something. I want full frame but I’m patient enough to wait. And now that Canon has announced the 5D Mark II with a list price of $2600 and a release date of late November, I think my patience has paid off somewhat. Good things come to those who wait, you know.

And here’s the best birthday present of all: Apple today releases the iPhone 2.0 software update, the iTunes App Store and, of course, iPhone 3G. I won’t be getting the 3G anytime soon as I am more than happy with my first generation iPhone, however the 2.0 update will serve me well. I already have my sights on the piano and photography apps and it blows me away [still] that free apps like AIM and Facebook will be available. There’s also a free remote application that will enable me to use my iPhone as a remote control to my Mac’s iTunes library. Cool stuff. Thanks, Apple!

I shoot digital, so having a light meter isn’t really all that necessary since I can just pop a few test shots and eyeball the exposure off the polaroid back. Of course the results are absolutely hit-and-miss. So I’ve decided to become properly scientific and get a damn light meter.

The Sekonic L-358 Flash Master is perfect for what I want since it is relatively inexpensive, durable, fires my PocketWizard-ed lights wirelessly (with the optional trigger), is easy to use, has tons of functionality and even meters for video, which I also use. Now I’m nailing every exposure. And I can really see the difference when the workflow moves into Photoshop.

Behind my new tool is a blue/gray sheet of 10×24 foot muslin from Adorama Belle Drape held up by a Photoflex ProDuty backdrop support system. All of these tools I purchased with my government-issued economic stimulus check. Thanks, IRS!

Robert Rozak of Juiced Link just sent me some information on his low-noise preamplifier for field audio acquisition for video production. Rozak claims his product records less hiss than the industry standard Sound Devices MixPre or even the popular BeachTek DXA models. He also claims that his Juiced Link product works well with the Canon HV20, a popular alternative to independent filmmakers needing to make the High Definition switch inexpensively, a claim which is apparently supported by users.

I do not personally use any indie filmmaking gear yet as I am still extremely focused on my photography. But when I do take the plunge, I will seriously consider Juiced Link for connecting XLR audio equipment to my HV20 or 30; the product looks solid and it’s also inexpensive. It also doesn’t weigh a lot so it should help ballast the tiny camera atop a Steadicam Merlin.

Check it out and tell Robert I sent ya.

Well, I finally did it. I finally submitted my application to Apple for consideration of inclusion as a content provider in the iTunes Store today. They say it’ll take a few weeks before they get to it. I also registered my name as a domain name which points directly to my music page on this site. I don’t really know what I’m getting into right now, but if all goes well, I’ll not only be submitting my music, but my independent films, as well. It’s nice completely owning my own material.

Grand Theft Auto IV is coming out next month. I had forgotten about it, placed the game in the back of my head when it was announced two years ago. I’m glad I did: two years flew by and now it’s almost here. I want to play this game. I also want to play Halo 3 and Half-Life 2: Episode Two. I finally need to buy an XBOX 360. I have all these other games from my XBOX days and it’s time to upgrade. I’ll probably do that this month, giving me the rest of March and all of April to play other games like Gears of War and Dead Rising before GTA IV arrives. I am giddy with anticipation. Tee-hee.

Update: I went ahead and bought the XBOX 360 Arcade version. It comes with everything I, a casual gamer, needs. I also picked up Gears of War and The Orange Box. Later in the month I’ll get Dead Rising and Halo 3 and that will pretty much hold me until GTA IV is released at the end of April. After that, I’ll look into buying the 120GB hard drive and join Live (which together will let me play my old XBOX games) and then I’ll start making some machinima like back in the day. Then my next order of business will be getting a giant plasma HDTV before “The Switch” in 2009.

I now have a section on that site devoted to my XBOX gaming here.

The day before the 2007 Apple Keynote presentation and frustrated with my cell phone, I lamented at how there was not a way to quickly go through voice mail without having to listen to every one of them. The next day, Steve Jobs presented iPhone.

The day before the 2008 Apple Keynote presentation and I have activated my brand new iPhone. Pleased as I was, I couldn’t help but think that it would be cool if I could make Google my home page and see the lyrics I had attached to karaoke music.

This evening I watched Steve Jobs present the new update for iPhone (on my iPhone) which does all of that, as well as present a GPS-like function that would have greatly served me last week when I was lost looking for a potential wedding client in Harlingen and had neither an iPhone or the update. The customizable home page and web clips functions will also serve me greatly and make using my iPhone even more efficient. Steve Jobs said thank you for helping make Apple rich. And I said thank you for making good product. It’s like I say to people who ask me why I prefer Apple: “It just works.”