Today is National Pancake Day at IHOP. Believe of not I didn’t even know until someone told me. This has been going since 2006 so I should had remembered, but it somehow I didn’t. Basically what it is is IHOP is kind enough to donate a free short stack of Buttermilk pancakes to guests from around the country, so they figure you may then donate to the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals© and other designated local charities. Plus it is good PR for them and maybe a bit of a tax write off, and they probably hope they may hook a few new customers. A good deal all around. So go enjoy some pancakes and give a little to help charity!
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Nikon D4
The D4, Nikon’s new flagship DSLR camera, was just announced last month. This camera is an update to the Nikon D3s. It has the same resolution as the D7000 16.2 megapixels, but has more speed and durability than the D7000. Also it is has full frame FX sensor as opposed to the 2/3 frame DX sensor of the D7000. While full frame is usually considered better, it is actually highly debatable. While many new cameras do seem to be moving in that direction, and it is of course no surprise that this $6,000 top of the line camera would of course have it, it is interesting that the resolution is exactly the same as the D7000 has in the DX sensor. For some this modest resolution boost (especially in light of the D800′s leap to 36.2 megapixels) may come as a slight disappointment, but for most print needs the resolution is enough.
Full frame only means that the digital sensor is the same size as a 35mm film frame. With technology advances which control noise much better some of the 2/3 sensors are actually better than previous generation full frame sensors in many respects. The 2/3 sensor also allows greater resolution in many instances when using the telephotos lens, which means that if you need the extra reach the 2/3 frame sensor can help. The full frame does add benefits, but it is a little silly to think that full is in someway the same as whole, because there are larger sensor sizes still in medium format systems, and many people are simply not interested in them because the larger size doesn’t offer that much more for the price. Often times the reasons for the higher price of these sensors is that it takes more to make chips that size.
Accordingly, they often pair the full frame sensor with greater camera features such as the D4′s carbon fiber and Kevlar composite shutter rated to 400,000 actuations (100,000 more than the D3s). With the full frame and modest megapixel increase they have also boosted the maximum ISO to 204,800, but with only 12,800 usable ISO. Still it is an improve over the 6400 of the D3 but not really over the D3s which had usable ISO up to 12,800. The D4 also caps usable ISO at 12,800 but it is somewhat of an improvement in the extreme expandable range, which was only at 102,400 on the D3s. Logic suggests that since they increased the range a bit in the extreme, then there should at least be a slight improvement within the usable range, with more acceptable noise levels at higher ISOs.
I actually haven’t been able to get my hands on one of these cameras to test it yet. So while there is no official improvement in usable ISO range the expandable ISO is certainly good news if you do surveillance work with your camera, but otherwise it is not really a large improvement.
However, the speed increase to 10 frames per second is useful for sports and media, but is hardly an improvement over the 9 fps of the D3s.
So basically they increased the speed, resolution, and durability a little, all of which are helpful if you want to move up into these pro cameras, but if you already have a D3s there is not a lot of really new and thrilling improvements, except in the video area which they finally moved up to 1080P and added more features to for better broadcast quality.
Sony XQD
However, the new memory card slot comes as a larger disappointment, as things look at this point in time. While there is a possibility it may catch on like Sony’s blu ray, right now it looks like another mistake along the same lines of Sony’s memory stick format, or the Olympus and Fujifilm xD format, but only time will tell. This new memory format only takes one of the two cards slots, so the other one still takes standard compact flash, so it is not a complete deal breaker. The new format is called XQD and is supposed to support transfer speed up to 125 MB/s, but is really not that much faster than top of the line compact flash cards which are now at about 100 MB/s, and could potentially be pushed to faster speeds in the future. Both of the leading memory card manufacturers, Lexar and Scandisk, are still feeling out the waters on this format, and have not decided whether they will make the cards.
All in all the Nikon D4 is good camera, but a lot remains to be seen about where this memory card format will go, and it will be a big investment to add the XQD cards, in order to take advantage of the extra memory slot. It is a good choice coming from the a smaller to mid-range model, but coming from a flagship model it seems like a pass. Even looking at it from the perspective of a mid-range model the D800 looks much more attractive, with the only potential deal breaker being the slow 4 fps frame rate.
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Nikon D800
Nikon finally revealed their new lineup of cameras just the other week and the D800 does not disappoint. The camera is the highest resolution digital SLR camera currently on the market, short of a medium format system, which can easily run in the tens of thousands of dollars. By comparison the D800 is only a mere 3 grand (actually $2,999.95), of course for us average folks that is still a lot of money, but it is nonetheless a great value when you consider what was available for that price a couple of years ago. However, the two biggest obstacles with the 36.3 Megapixels resolution are going to be storage and speed.
The size means that raw files could easily reach 80 megabytes or more. Also accurate focus becomes even more critical with the higher resolution, as any errors will be all the more prominent. However, it is worth it since you will actually be able to see much greater details in your images especially when you start making tight crops.
The only other major downside is the frame rate is no better than their entry level DSLRs; it is only 4 frames per second, at full resolution, but can be improved by dropping the resolution.
If you shoot a lot of fast action situations and you really need the speed you can get it up by using the DX crop mode, which brings it up to 5 fps, and a battery pack will get you up to 6 fps. In this mode the resolution still remains a decent 15.4MP; better than almost all of the last generation of Nikon DSLR cameras, except the D3x and the D7000. Yet the D3X weighted in at $8,000, and while the D7000 is more affordable, around $1,200, it was the last camera developed of the previous generation. So it is not surprising that it remains the most relevant alternative, but it does not have the full frame sensor.
The ISO range is from 100 to 6400, and is expandable to 25600. For some this comes as a disappointment, because it is not an improvement over the last generation of Nikon cameras, but it is still as good as the D3. However, it seems they purposely held back on the ISO for two reason; one it could add a lot of noise with the higher resolution and two they probably did not want to threaten the sales of their flagship D4 and remaining D3s cameras, which are likely to remain popular among sports and media shooters, who need to get usable shots under adverse conditions fast.
Although, they pretty much killed their D3x (A 24 megapixel 5 frames per second full frame sensor camera) market, which they probably realized was a poor attempt at a medium format alternative. With the D800 they should be able to attract a larger consumer base of those weekend wedding shoots and landscape shooters instead of trying to target the fashion market, which the D3x seemed more geared towards with its high price tag.
They even created a versions for each market segment with the regular D800 for the wedding shooters and the D800E for the landscape shooters. In order to do this they made twin cameras one with a low pass filter and one without the low pass filter, but a little extra optical filter. You will pay a slight premium to get one without the low pass filter, about $300 more, and you will have to be careful to avoid patterns and textures that could cause moiré, and could see a little great noise getting in low light shooting.
A couple of other highlights are the dual card slots which allows for both SD and Compact flash cards. This is a real treat as those stepping up from lower end cameras can continue to use the SD cards (which are easier and cheaper to get, but a bit slower) and those who have the extreme high speed compact flash cards, from larger pro cameras bodies, can also take advantage of the extra speed offered by the higher end compact flash cards.
The other area of great improvement is the metering system, which Nikon increased from about a 1,000 points in their last generation to 91,000 points, which enabled greater facial tracking and helps with those mixed scenes like a person back lite by a sunset.
Lastly, they have have also made improvements to the algorithms in their propitiatory EXPEED image processing with the EXPEED 3. Many of the changes made here will remain unclear, but it is clear that they have made it faster and more accurate by introducing an automated dual processing function, and better phase detection for the auto focus modes. All this is a great camera if you got 3 grand to spare and need the best possible resolution.
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Tags: camera, d800, Nikon, Photography
With the Retirement of the Space Shuttle program and the last mission for Space Shuttle Atlantis it is quite inspiring to look at how far NASA has come and how much the International Space Station (ISS) has grown, but at the same time it is quite disappointing to realize that the ideal portrayed in many science fiction movies is still such a long way off. It is such a costly process to get things into Space, that we are eons away from anything near the scale and capabilities of a Star Ship Enterprise.
The current idea being promoted by some of the commercialization in space brings some scary thoughts to mind, since corporations here on earth are rather notorious for allowing minus safety violations to go unchecked in order to save the bottom dollar line. It seems very questionable that a company can make a profit in terms dollar, considering the rigid and costly safety requirements necessary and the general high costs of space travel. Sure there have been many achievements in recent times such as a vaccine for Salmonella, but most achievements like that are of a relatively innumerable and unquantifiable dollar value.
Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see the peaceful atmosphere of comradery that is inspired by space travel. The astronauts embraced and appeared very excited and energized when they arrived at the Space Station, despite our culture’s familiarity and understanding that while low earth orbit is nice it is far short of a return to the moon, or travel to a distance planet. Although, they promote the size as bigger than Apollo it still seems small to me, and especially when compared to the science fiction ideal, but yet it is a start and a means to venture beyond low earth orbit.
This is why this new crew exploration vehicle is very much needed, to inspire hope for the future of mankind. Albeit, ultimate hope is in the next life, but space travel is still a noble endeavor that seems to turn people towards God, through the sheer sense of awe and wonder, that gets them thinking about the vastness and greatness of space. Especially, now that we have a small realization of the incredible size and ungraspable nature of the universe, and can thus now have the proper perspective: that we can never quite reach the domain of God through this, but only hope to get an ever increasing glimpse of His Majesty and power.
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Tags: nasa, space shuttle, space station
Blue Angel #5 Sneaks Past the Crowd in Quonset Last Sunday
Both the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds do a maneuver where they sneak past the crowd. However, what I do not like about the Blue Angels sneak pass is that the announcer always tells everyone look right, while they are coming from the left. So while it does demonstrate how a jet can sneak into a target area undetected, it is not a true demonstration of it because they get a little help from the narrator. Aside from that it is easy to see the speed of these aircraft, even at only high subsonic levels makes them a very hard target for any enemy anti aircraft fire such as AAAs and SAMs. In fact a high subsonic level may be the best speed, because then they avoid the sonic boom which could more easily tip off nearby enemy, who could then radio the anti aircraft sites.
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Tags: Air Show, aircraft, blue angel, jet, sneak pass
A Black Hawk Flies Over the Poplar Point Lighthouse in Wickford
The air show got off to a slow start again on Sunday, because of the low cloud cover. So they had to wait for some of the cloud cover to burn off, before they could send the stunt planes up. Also I noticed the air show has actually been changed quite a bit more this year, then many of other years. There was not as many of technologically advanced planes showcased, but rather the more of a vintage feel with groups such as the Geico Skytypers.
Original planes included the the Horsemen flying the P-51 Mustangs and an original Grumman F8F Bearcat, which is one of the Naval planes the Blue Angels flew in the late 1940′s. The Horsemen are named in reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In fact the narrator even quoted from Bible when the horsemen went on. I believe he said something from the book of Job where it speaks of how mighty the horse is in battle, although the references to the specific Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are found in the book of Revelation.
There was still the F-16 Viper team and the Red Bull Helicopter which is an amazing advancement in aviation. However, in terms of jet aircraft, advancements seem less forth coming. We have picked a lot of the low hanging fruit and while the F-22 is a amazing aircraft it is still in limited use due to its high cost. Also it has not been battle tested in actual combat. While it has been put through its paces, it has not seen combat in Libya or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Currently the entire F-22 Raptor fleet is grounded because pilots were having problems with the oxygen system. While it is highly likely these problems will be corrected, the development of the plane has been a long and costly road, which has made a lot of people sadly question the usefulness of an air superiority fighter in this post cold war world.
The air show was a great success over all, in fact so much so that they were announcing the traffic on 95 was backed up for miles, although it is possible there may had been other contributing factors to that. However, the air show lost a little of its momentum towards the end when Blue Angel #1 had to come down, and since #1 leads the formations the show had to be paused for about 10 minutes while #1 landed and quickly switched to Blue Angel #7 and rejoined the formation to finish the show strong.
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Tags: Air Show, black hawk, blue angel
The Air Show at Quonset Point yesterday got off to a bit of a slow start. In fact most of the morning Bob Reider, the annoucer, and Dan Mclaren, the sound producer from Mach 1 Productions, were playing Jimmy Buffett music. Thus the Parrothead start. The ceiling heights began pretty low, but after about an hour or two they had the 1000 foot minumin they needed and were able to send up the Red Bull Helicopter. The Red bull Helicopter is quite an amazing machine. It is a helicopter that thinks it is an airplane, but ironiclly doesn’t have wings. It is especially designed with more rigid rotor blades and extra strong rotor connections.
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Tags: Air Show, bob reider, helicopter, parrothead, red bull
Air National Guard Jet Truck
So tomorrow is the Rhode Island National Guard Air Show and Open House. While much of it is the same as years past, they have changed things up a little bit. One quite noticeable thing that is different is a new Air National Guard jet truck. Today many of the performers ran through a practice, but not all of them. Actually many of the aircraft hadn’t even come in yet, because some are vrf (visual flight rules) only, and can only fly when there is at least three miles visibility. The flight ceiling was at around 1000 feet for much of the day, so the F-16 Viper, which needed at least 1500 feet, and many of the others performers didn’t get to run through their demos. While it did threaten to rain briefly conditions began to improve towards the end of the day, and eventually a few planes were able to go up. Then Blue Angels were able to finish it.
The announcer, Bob Reider, also had a little fun as well today joking about creating weather systems with all the smoke from the jet truck and remarking that the thrust to weight ratio of the jet truck meant if you put it on it nose up it could fly, that is for as long as you can keep it stable, and then it would really need that parachute. He also talked of flying with the Blue Angels and said it is not quite as smooth in the jet as it looks. Although, I don’t think it is particularly shaky or anything he was remaking of the high speed turns which put a lot of pressure on the body. Just think of the Superman’s G-forces that only has just under 4 some G and the ride only lasts for about a minute or so, not the 20 or so minutes the Blue Angels fly for. These pilots even in the prop planes can hit 9 G forces and he said John Klatt’s plane, a Panzl 330 aerobatic aircraft, can take as many as +or- 20 G forces, which is actually more than many of the jets can take, in fact it’s about twice the G limits of an F-16.
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Tags: air national guard, aircraft, airplane, jet, jet truck, plane
The 2011 Rhode Island National Guard Open House and Air Show is rapidly approaching. This year the Blue Angels will be back! Additionally this year is also the Centennial of Naval Aviation, and such an important time for reflecting on how far we have come over the last century. Since its inception the airplane was quickly recognized as a formidable tool and weapon. While this has not been without its pitfalls, such as the literal and figurative disconnect that can develop between the the commanders flying overhead in the air above and the troops down on the ground. As one could imagine looking down upon you troops is not good, but yet looking down on your enemy is. So, despite the potential pitfalls, aviation has enabled deep penetration behind enemy lines and has created a world of globalization where where all people of the world are connected to one another for better or worst.
The airplane has bridged great divides and proven that first flying above the fray is now pivotal to winning and subsequently controlling the ground. Hearts and minds must still be won on the ground, but control of the sky grants us freedom of action and movement. Accordingly, the Air Show each year demonstrates this, and they do so especially well in the combined arms demonstration. Which is one of the most powerful demonstrations, which illustrates of how controlling the air can lead to successful victory on the ground. Since in the demonstration they control not only the air, but put boots on the ground as well.
Naval aviation takes it yet a step further combing a third element: the seas. The ocean has long been known as a symbol of power and strength, and the high seas as place of freedom. Bringing the airplane into it gives us the ability to move in 3 dimensional space. The only place the airplane cannot go is under the sea, but that is whole other domain. Thus, the two most expensive crafts in the Navy’s arsenal are the Aircraft carrier and the submarine. Nonetheless, the aircraft is still the most visible symbol of power in the world.
As in years past the show will open with a jump from the Black Daggers, weather permitting, and will likely be followed by a series of stunt flying and various demonstrations throughout the morning and afternoon. The Blue Angels will headline and finish the show. Usually they can still fly most aircraft even if the weather gets bad, but since they must fly such tight precision maneuvers on a visual flight plan (they need visual cues as well as their instruments to fly such tight formations) most performers would have to cut the higher altitude maneuvers that require a much higher flight ceiling.
Again the air show will be the on the 25th & 26th this weekend. Gates open at 9am and the show starts at 10am. It ends around 4 to 4:30pm
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Tags: Air Show, aircraft, airplane, aviation, blue angels, jet
Velsheda at the Newport Shipyard after the Regatta
This past week and weekend the J-Class Regatta was held in Newport, RI. The J Class yachts are absolutely incredible class of yachts from the pre-World War II era of the 1930′s. They were the largest yachts designed to compete in the America’s cup races. First adopted in 1928 and built between 1930-1937, many of the original 10 yachts were scrapped for the war effort, but a few survived, and some were rebuilt. Of the two J Classes that were in Newport for the regatta Velsheda is built from an original hull and Ranger is a complete replica rebuild. So they are quite modern yachts built on an classic design.
However, the main difference that made the race a little unfair is Ranger has an aluminum hull, while Velsheda has an original steel hull. Not surprisingly Ranger won the regatta, although Velsheda held her own; the handicap of a steel hull to an aluminum would just prove to be too great to overcome, unless Ranger had really messed up somewhere. Nonetheless, it seems most people got a kick out of just seeing the two yachts of a past era sail more than anything.
Ranger at the Newport Shipyard after the Regatta
Although, I didn’t get to see them sail I came by afterwards and could tell the event was clearly designed as more of friendly competition designed to revoke the some of Newport’s past glory when she hosted the America’s Cup, and to hopefully to encourage growth in the Newport tourism industry. Rhode Island of course goes a long way to try and maintain a nautical culture, one of the main benefits for these large yacht owners is that the state has no property tax on boats at all, so that can equate to millions of dollars in savings for some of these boat owners.
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