Site News and Commentary


Here's where you will find plans for this site, descriptions and locations of new offerings and maybe a bit of blogging on photography-related subjects.


 

April 6, 2012: Sensor Cleaning

Click here for a new article explaining how to clean the sensor on your DSLR. The article comprises personal experience/tips/recommendations plus a link to an excellent site regarding the same subject prepared by professionals in the camera servicing business. If you haven't had to clean your sensor yet you are probably just lucky :~  Might as well prepare yourself now.

 

October 3/2011: Video with the DSLR

Click here or choose from Home page menu. My interest in video is minimal but recent experiences with the D7000's video feature may prove useful. 

 

Feedback Form

It's now easier to submit comments regarding this site. The new facility will pop up if you click "CONTACT" in the home page menu. The link will be added to other locations. You can also click "Feedback Form" above. 

 


Windows 7 (W7)

Windows 7 (64 bit) is proving a fine OS offering vast improvements in performance over a 32 bit XP environment. It is a pleasure to use. I never did try Vista so have no way of comparing. Like Vista, W7 is color managed. On an I7/920 processor it is now entirely practical to edit medium format film scans at 800 MB.

If you have been put-off W7 by stories that the user interface is very different from XP and/or that familiar functions are difficult to find be advised there is little truth to this. The interface is mostly familiar and although a number of things have moved, they are easy to find and make more sense in their new locations. I Googled 3 or 4 that had disappeared and quickly found them. It took about 30 minutes to become completely comfortable with W7.

There have been no significant software compatibility issues. If you install Photoshop, a 64 bit version miraculously appears along with the 32 bit copy - for free. Unfortunately, 32 bit plug-ins will not run in the 64 bit environment unless you launch the 32 bit version of Photoshop so for how you probably will want to have both 64 and 32 bit Photoshop installed. Most s/w vendors are moving quickly to 64 bit. "Topaz" is a good example. They offer all their plugins in 32/64 bit versions and you get both when you place an order.  Legacy 32 bit apps have not been a problem. They install into their own X86 library and W7 knows how to run them from there. Printer and scanner drivers have not been a problem either (32 bit drivers will not work under any circumstances). EPSON is right up-to-date with 64 bit versions for all my units and they work just as before. There's even 64 bit driver support for the vintage 4870 Photo scanner and the 1270 printer. It's very nice now being able to load 800 MB medium format scans and find you can process them quickly and without running into memory barriers.

Some very old applications may not install or run. The solution is to download and install the Win XP Virtual machine. This is free to licencees of higher-end Win 7 (Pro and Ultimate).

This has been a painless conversion with many benefits.

The main thing to beware of is that W7 probably will not run well on legacy hardware. You will need a machine with one of the multi-core Intel or AMD processors.