Photographer Becca Bland is promoting the idea of July 17th as a No Photography Day – a day to set aside the camera and enjoy the moment, rather than spending all of your time taking pictures of the moment to look at later. She told the BBC…

When you simply take photos of something, without fully engaging with it, you’re assuming that all you can have and take is the actual appearance of a place – rather than other creative factors that exist in the place

Some good discussion followed on Gizmodo. Bender said…

I had a similar experience with a large building demolition. I watched the whole event through a video camera viewfinder. When it was over, I felt cheated. How was watching a live video image on a camcorder any different than watching it live on TV?

…but BWGunner countered with…

Cameras not only sharpen my own focus, they also provide a real memory jog that I can’t seem to get on my own, lending more reality to the experience later on than I can provide myself.

Me? Well, if I see anyone holding banners telling people to put their cameras down, I’ll be snapping pictures of them to put on Flickr.

What do you all think? Losing the moment, or capturing it for later? Taking away from the experience, or helping you to see the detail you’d have missed otherwise?

Will there be a Picture of the Day that day?

If you’re in the mood for trying something new, the best way to get started is by trying a craft kit. There are all sorts available that can start you off with papercraft, glass painting, even soap making (insert obligatory Fight Club joke here). The kits vary in price, but are generally good value as a taste of crafty goodness.

Here’s we’ll list some of the kits we’ve tried, and let you know how we’re getting on with them. But first, a word or two of advice about buying kits.

Kit Tips

Kid’s Stuff

Look at the kits for kids – some of them, especially the ones aimed at teens, are just as challenging and interesting as the ‘grown up’ kits and are often cheaper.

Keep it Simple

Common sense really – if you’re trying tapestry for the first time, don’t go for the huge one because it looks pretty. At this stage, less is more. If you go for something grand you run the risk of losing interest halfway through and getting frustrated.

Is it all there?

Make sure you’ve got everything you need. Some kits require extra tools that aren’t included in the box.

Take your time!

Half the fun is mastering the instructions and getting started. But if you get going and find it’s really not your thing, give it up and try something else – there’s plenty more fish in the creative sea.

Kits We’ve Tried

Smiley Face Latch Hook Kit

I’m not gifted when it comes to anything requiring needles of any kind – be it sewing, knitting, tattooing… but for some reason I felt I want to give latch hook rug making a go, so I bought this bright little kit from Hobbycraft.

In the box you get your printed canvas, your yarn (in bundles of 6.8cm strips), and your instructions. You have to buy the latch hook tool separately. Once you’ve mastered the latch hook tool, you’re pretty much good to go. Just match the colours of the yarn to the colour on the canvas and hook away!

It’s a lovely relaxing thing to do, the ideal thing to do while watching TV (although I find it easier to do at a table) or while listening to music.

VERDICT – Good fun. Make rugs, not war.

Another quick batch of linkage…

• A Tail By Any Other Name – Scott Adams is funny with just about anything, so given the story of a man with a 10-year long erection…
• 13-Inch Tail – Scott’s follow up. He has a special rule for dealing with monkey-gods.
• Exhaust Insertions – a very silly set of pictures. Why? No idea. But the look on his face and the comments make them very funny. Inserting vegetables into an oversized exhaust (tail pipe, I think, for the Americans). (Via B3ta.)
• Pizza Ad in Your Peepers – jeepers creepers.
• A Collection of Cool Statues from JWZ.

…but you’d better be wearing the right shoes.

This article on Reuters Oddly Enough explains how wearing flip flops to work can have damaging effects on your career as well as your feet:

Style gurus warn that flip-flops, which are worn mainly by younger women, could be harmful to a career.

“Shoes convey the mood of a woman. Wearing flip-flops conveys the mood that you are relaxed and on vacation. That’s not a good message in the office,” said Meghan Cleary, a style commentator who wrote the book “The Perfect Fit: What Your Shoes Say About You.”

WTF? What mood do my shoes convey? Well, if I’m wearing my sandals the mood I’m conveying is most likely “It’s too hot to be wearing my other shoes”. If I’m wearing my usual black lace-ups then the mood is very much a sense of “I’m here to do a job. Quit staring at my feet, jackass.”.

Does it matter what a woman wears on her feet during the working day? Am I going to miss out on all the high-powered, top-notch temp jobs out of a stubborn refusal to wear heels? Never mind my supersonic typing speeds, never mind my organisational skills. I have the wrong shoes.

Bah.

Latest Update: Changed the SD700 / Ixus 800 into a full page.

Canon

As far as professional photographers go, there’s only one manufacturer of cameras out there. It’s just that they can’t agree on who it is – Canon or Nikon. Canon have a fairly strong lead now in sports photography, and are usually more popular with amateurs, but if you’re serious about photography you probably already know which side you’re on.

Me? I’m a Canon user. Having said that, though, we have a little Nikon compact that we’ve had for quite a while now, and we’ve loved it too. For the most part, I’m a bit of a Canon fan.

Current Models

Digital Compacts

• Canon’s own listing – with links to all the individual cameras.

PowerShot S Range

• PowerShot S70 – nice solid-feeling camera. Not quite pocketable, but fairly small. Being replaced by the S80, so could be a good time for bargains

• PowerShot S80 – 8 megapixel camera, due to replace the S70.

• PowerShot S2 IS – soon to be replaced with the S3 IS, most likely. Some good deals available at the moment, as they’re getting sold off cheaper to clear way for the S3. A very nice superzoom, with 12x optical zoom.

• PowerShot S3 IS – should be an excellent camera – the S2 was already very good.

Ixus Range (PowerShot SD Range in the US, also known as the Elph Range elsewhere)

Pocketable, and good quality. You pay more for the small size of the Ixus cameras, but if you want to be able to take a decent quality camera everywhere with you, they do the job well. Most don’t have much (if anything) in the way of manual control, so they’re not ideal photographers’ cameras, but I’m happy to take that loss for the convenience.

• Digital IXUS i zoom – the “glamorous” IXUS. I think that would be enough to put me off, but if you want a camera in a range of fashionable colours, go for it.
• Digital IXUS 50
• Digital IXUS 55
• Digital IXUS 60 (PowerShot SD600) – 3x optical zoom, 6 megapixels. Reviews: Imaging Resource
• Digital IXUS 65
• Digital IXUS 750 – the camera I currently have. I suspect the IXUS 800 will replace it soon, but the 750 is still a very nice camera.
• Digital IXUS 800 IS (PowerShot SD700 in the US) – looks likely to be the replacement for the 750, with 4x zoom instead of 3x, and image stablizing. This should make a really good camera – lots of flexibility in a pocketable casing.
• Digital IXUS WIRELESS – a good pocket camera, with the addition of WiFi – depends if you think WiFi is a useful feature for a camera to have. Personally, I don’t.

PowerShot A Range

These are Canon’s budget cameras, but the quality is generally still good.

• PowerShot A410
• PowerShot A430
• PowerShot A520
• PowerShot A530
• PowerShot A540
• PowerShot A510
• PowerShot A610
• PowerShot A620
• PowerShot A700 – a mid-range 6-megapixel camera, with 6x optical zoom.

Digital SLRs

• Canon’s own listing

Amateur

• EOS 350D – base model DSLR, with plenty of quality and features for amateurs, but probably a bit lacking for professionals, or those who want a bit more from their camera.

Semi-Pro

Good for amateurs who just want a bit more quality, but also ideal for many pros. If you don’t really need the extra performance of the Pro cameras, these will do the job for a lot less money.

• EOS 30D – a fair few extra features compared to the 350D – enough to be fine for most pros, and still fairly reasonably priced.
• EOS 5D – the first full-frame DSLR at a relatively affordable price. Not affordable to me, but it’s certainly less than the really high-end models.

Pro

I could sell my car, and still not be able to afford any of these. If you really need the best, though, and you need a camera that will survive being dropped down a mountain side, these are the ones…

• EOS-1D Mark II N
• EOS-1Ds Mark II

General Resources

• Canon Camera Museum – an online museum of all of canon’s old models – absolutely fascinating, if you have any history with these models. I used an AV-1 for years, so I loved this site.

Old Models

Digital Compacts

Digital SLRs

• EOS 20D, EOS 10D – replaced by the EOS 30D.
• EOS D30, D60 – the early 3- and 6-megapixel digital SLRs. Not quite good enough to replace the film equivilents for many people, but good upgrades from digital compacts. Don’t confuse the D30 with the 30D, which is a current model.
• EOS 300D – replaced by the EOS 350D. Arguably the first really popular and affordable DSLR. See instructions for making a cable release and serial cable – the cable release at least looks fairly easy, if you’ve done a little soldering before. (Via Make:.)

• Microburgers for Hamsters – the cutest little burgers, made with an apple corer.
• Bookcases tumble like dominos – no people injured, but some books were badly hurt.
• One Miiiiillion Starlings – in Denmark, flocks of a million starlings gather together – making for some fantastic pictures. (Via Boing Boing.)
• Light Pick – a guitar pick with eight LEDs that flash to act as a light-metronome. A bit on the expensive side at $60, but it’s an interesting idea at least.
• Lumen Lamp – a candle-powered shadow puppet tree. Looks good, but as Tony said in the comments, “$48 bucks? No. Good idea for a little decorating project? Yes!”.

We ought to link to this – they’re generating more content for our CaseMods page. ExtremeTech have just started their third annual case modding competition, with weekly prizes beginning this Friday. Each weekly winner gets entered for the grand prize. It’s a slightly odd choice of prizes, though. The winners each win – a case. Wouldn’t the winners of this contest be the people least likely to want a PC case? Surely it would make more sense to give cases to the losers? (Yes it would, and don’t call me Shirley). OK, so there’s a few more bits to the grand prize, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

• ExtremeTech Case Mod Contest 2006

It’s only open to US residents, unfortunately, but I don’t think we’d have won anyway – sticking a sparkly fan from Maplin in the back and sellotaping a picture of Zippy to the front of a computer doesn’t really count as ‘modding’, does it?

Latest Update: Added a couple more reviews that Fred has linked to since the release of book 4. Also added Amazon links for book 4.

“That whole MT inspired thing is kinda freaky… but honestly, I LIKE the idea that what we do inspires people to do their own. Here in the states, we tend to be passive consumers – the media has convinced us that the only good entertainment is what we pay for. The nice thing about the net is this – there’s plenty of room for webcomics – plenty. People read what they are interested in. If you can make something good, people will come.”

-Fred Gallagher, creator of Megatokyo.

Introduction

Megatokyo is one of my favourite web comics. It was one of those things that I kept seeing more and more about, but when I looked at it, I didn’t quite ‘get it’. One day, I finally put the time in to start from the beginning and read through a few strips. It was well worth it – I’ve been hooked ever since.

What makes it suitable to be in our spotlight? Easy – it all started as a little creative project, that started to snowball. A friend convinced Fred to start drawing a regular comic strip, and to put it on the web. He already had a few anime pics up there, but didn’t really want to get drawn into anything too big. Now, both Fred and his wife Sarah work full time on Megatokyo – the comics, the books, and the merchandising – and they’re both flat out trying to keep up with demand.

How did it start?

“Didn’t have a story or anything, didn’t even have a site. You see, I never intended to do MT. Largo bugged the hell out of me for months that I should do an online comic. I never read online comics before, but he was a big fan of PA (Penny-Arcade.com), PVP (PvPOnline.com), Real Life (RealLifeComics.com), etc. He showed me what people were doing, but as you can see, it’s different than what I wanted to do, and I wasn’t really interested. I wanted more of a cross between stuff like Nashiyume and PVP. So, basically, to get Largo off my back, I drew up two strips.”

-From an interview at Animefringe in April 2002.

So, it started from pretty much nothing – just a couple of drawings that Fred was pushed into doing. Because he has real talent, though, and what bits of story there were captured people’s imaginations, it took off. He keeps pointing out that he can’t even draw hands properly, but what Fred can do is much more impressive – he draws the emotions behind his characters.

Fred still has his own art site – FredArt – for sharing stuff that doesn’t fit directly in with Megatokyo. He always intended his successful project to be a story called ‘Warmth‘, but it could be a while now until he has time to work on that. Until then – ph34r t3h cute ones.

Interviews and Reviews

“I tend to look at a comic page as a sequence of views, much like scenes in a movie. Putting the final comic together is sort of like editing a film. I have raw footage (drawings) that have to be cropped and assembled into the finished piece. Often, the dialogue changes drastically once the characters are looking up at me, so I tend to tweak things quite a bit as I’m pulling the final comic together… usually just a few minutes before I post.”

-Comic Book Resources: a look at Megatokyo at the point of book 4 being released.

The book has a solid emotional core. The lead characters are appealing, even if they aren’t entirely sympathetic. Piro’s self-doubt keeps him from expressing his feelings to Nanasawa, who’s understandably frustrated. (She’s also ambivalent of her imminent immersion into the often frightening world of celebrity and fandom.) Despite Largo’s often irritating and unwavering obsessions, there are moments of real punch as the reality of Hayasaka (guarded and brittle from her own emotional disappointments) threatens to intrude on his orderly insanity. (Largo’s nuts, but his worldview runs reliably on gamer’s rules that make perfect sense to him.)

-Comic World News

Books

As well as being available online for free, Megatokyo is published in books each time there’s enough strips – three books so far. If you buy them from Amazon using the links here, we’ll make a little cut…

Amazon US: Book 1 – Book 2 – Book 3 – Book 4

Amazon UK: Book 1 – Book 2 – Book 3 – Book 4

Related

• Comics Step-by-Step – see how some comics (mainly web comics) are actually drawn, including AppleGeeks.
• How to Draw People includes some manga tutorials.

Latest Update: Added link to DPReview’s hands-on preview. The comparison table against the Olly doesn’t bode well, but there could be more to it than the numbers…

What Is It?

It’s Panasonic’s first SLR, based on the Four Thirds standard for sensors and lenses.

• Panasonic Cameras

Features

• Megapixels: 7.5
• Optical Zoom: Depends on lens (Leica 14-50mm image stablized lens supplied.)
• Size: Unknown so far, but looks small for an SLR, and Four Thirds cameras are usually quite compact.
• Live LCD screen for framing.

Panasonic keep making some interesting cameras, and this looks to be no exception. There’s very little information around so far, as it’s just been announced, but they seem to be jumping in to the mid-range of SLRs to start with, as the L1 is going to retail for around $2000.

My Opinion

Joining in with the Four Thirds system seems like a smart move for Panasonic. It means that there’s a few lenses already available, without them having to rush to get new ones ready. There’s not many available, though, so you’re still going to have a limited choice compared to Canon or Nikon. The image stablizing is in the lens, not the camera, which is a bit of a shame – a camera body that can turn any lens into a stablized one could be quite a selling point (I think Konica are doing this).

My main impression of this so far, though, is just how damn pretty it is. They’ve managed to make it look like a classic old Leica rangefinder, rather than an SLR, and it looks much classier to me than any of the competition. If it was my money, I think I’d still be spending it on a Canon, but I’d spare a little drool for the L1.

Reviews

None so far, as it’s just been announced, but here’s the preview from Gizmodo (also where we pinched the picture above from – thanks Gizmodo), and a hands-on preview from DPReview…

And you gotta love that retro shape of the camera’s magnesium alloy body, harkening back to the old days of the coveted Leica rangefinder cameras. You pay for that privilege, though; it will retail for $2000.

-Gizmodo Announcement

…and here is Panasonic’s press release announcing the camera.

When it was announced many noted the resembelence to the E-330, this is no coincidence as the DMC-L1 shares its optical subsystem (lens mount, mirror box, viewfinder, auto focus and exposure sensors) with the Olympus E-330.

-DPReview hands-on preview. The comparison table with the Olympus E-330 makes interesting reading. There’s very few areas where the Panasonic leads, and it’s around twice the price. Unless it’s got some nice tricks that don’t show up in the quick lists, it doesn’t look too promising.

Latest Update: Added link to Imaging Resource’s review of the LS2.

Panasonic

I have a general rule with cameras – never buy a camera from a company that only started making cameras when they went digital. Plenty of consumer electronics companies have realised that a digital camera is just a box of electronics with a lens on the front, so if they can buy some lenses from someone, they can make a bit of money. The results are usually pretty poor.

Anyway, although I’ve never actually owned a Panasonic camera, I’m tempted to think that they just might be an exception to the rule. They do seem to be taking their cameras a bit more seriously than most, and the results sound quite interesting.

• They often put image stablizing in their cameras, even quite low down the range.
• Watch out for the low-end models – they don’t all have a viewfinder. Might not bother you for snapshots, but it can be a problem in low light, or if you need to conserve battery life.
• There’s some impressive zooms in Panasonic’s range – they do models with 12x zoom, and the TZ1EB is a pocketable camera that still manges to pack in a 10x zoom range.

Check the reviews carefully, though, before buying – there have been a few models that have sounded almost perfect to me, until the reviews turn up the compromises that have been made for the features.

Current Models

• DMC-L1 – Panasonic’s first DSLR. Combines the looks of a Leica rangefinder with the reality of a Four Thirds standard SLR, including a live LCD screen. Looks pretty nice, but we’ll have to wait to see what the reviewers think once they’ve had chance to play.
• DMC-TZ1EB – 10x optical zoom in a very small body. 5 megapixels, image stablizer. Reviews: DCResource.
• DMC-FX01EB – 6 megapixel.
• DMC-FZ7EB – 12x optical zoom, image stablizer, 6 megapixel
• DMC-LS2EB – 5 megapixel, 3x optical zoom, image stablizer. Reviews: Imaging Resource
• DMC-LZ3EB – 5 megapixel, 6x optical zoom, image stablizer.
• DMC-LZ5EB – 6 megapixel, 6x optical zoom, image stablizer.
• DMC-LX1EB – 8.4 megapixel, Leica lens, full manual.
• DMC-FZ30EB – 8 megapixel, 12x optical zoom, image stablizer.
• DMC-FX9EB – 6 megapixel, 3x optical zoom, small size.
• DMC-FX8EB – 5 megapixel, 3x optical zoom, image stablizer.

General Resources

• Panasonic’s site