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?? I thought this was normal for any true camera store -- the kind of camera store that only really sells anything to do with photography and video, not a big box store that sells general electronics, appliances, etc. It's not like I took the camera home for the day. I spent 10-15 min with the...

I have returned the accursed Canon S3 and am seriously considering buying (or should I say virtually on my way to the store) the 70-300/VR to replace the S3's wonderful 432 mm telephoto reach. I was also seriously thinking of buying a 10 MP body to go with such a nice lens ;) Basically settled...

Sorry, having problems with the website.

Deleted. Duplicate post.

I forgot to mention another "Con" regarding the Canon S3: both the LCD display and electronic viewfinder (no, that's not an optical viewfinder at the top of the camera, deceptively enough!) are too small, too dim, and too low resolution. It's honestly difficult to see what you're taking a...

Good choice on the D40, Will. Not the most compact solution if you need to travel light, but excellent quality over the others. I would be concerned about the Canon S5, if only because I just purchased a canon S3 to try out (and assuming the S5 has some traits in common with the S3 since it is...

Yes, of course, that is preferable... however, design constraints for much larger dSLR sensors are not nearly as limiting as they are for P&S and camera phone sensors. Even with this new filter taking two steps forward and one step back, we're still left with one big step forward that...

;) I almost didn't post as well, as I had a fleeting worry that Canon would find this post unexpectedly "dugg" all over the net and cause problems for me and Handy. But then I thought it was a free focus group session that answered the question that they were probably wondering at some point...

When you get here, let me know. We'll have a beer and chat about our Jettas ;)

While I usually associate LCA with cyan-red and blue-yellow 2-colour fringing exclusively with LCA, I can accept high contrast Bayer transitions as a possible cause of purple-fringing. It could well be that you need certain situaions of cyan-red and blue-yellow LCA to result in a purple...

Very cool. Thanks, fb. It is about time we had something better than the Bayer filter. Some have accused the Bayer filter for causing some of the purple fringing problems you see in high contrast areas. For a common example, see Jeff Keller's excellent "Purple Fringing Tunnel of Doom tests" on...

I vote for 50% higher gas taxes phased in over the next 5 years to go along with tighter CAFE standards. I currently drive a VR6 Jetta that uses more gas than most cars its size (19/28 mpg). I don't feel too bad about my fuel consumption right now, but I would like to lower it if I found a great...

But can you imagine the problems this could cause? I can see the headlines now:

Sorry, I misspoke. Most cameras in this price range don't do AEB with 2 EV between shots. So you're going to get 2 more stops of dynamic range with a 3 shot bracket, not 4, but 2 stops is still quite an improvement.

Linky for CHDK RAW hack for DIGIC II cameras: http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK/FAQ Links for HDR / HDRI: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/hdr.shtml http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/pool/ http://www.hdrsoft.com/

Just wanted to write back with an update. I purchased a Canon A710IS recently as a vacation camera, as my Fuji F10 was a little lacking in that it didn't offer me enough manual control over shutter speed, aperture, and flash exposure compensation -- three things I find myself using all the time...

If you want to manually disable your LAN card before you go into standby, you can always set the Local Area Connection that connects to the Internet and always have it show in the Taskbar. Then you can right-click and disable / enable before / after you standby.

I hate having to wait for my PC to boot up as well, which is why I leave it on 24x7 and have it folding away. If I don't have it folding, I just leave it on standby, where everything shuts down with just enough electricity being used to keep the contents in memory. I also have the video and hard...

Should point out that the above TCO calculations do not include service & support costs, as I do not have that data available to me. I do know that the Lexmark is bit more of a heavier duty printer than the others, the Samsung laser and HP inkjet may be a bit lower duty, but other than that...

Thanks for the multiple recommendations on the HP DJ 900 series... don't feel that comfortable getting a used one off eBay. I would have no problem buying a New In Box DJ 932, for example, but I'm thinking that a used DJ 932 might not be any more reliable than one of the less crappy inkjets that...

Looks hot. Should be decent for sound quality. h/k is a cut above the mass market consumer stuff like Sony, Pioneer, JVC, Kenwood, Sherwood, et al.

Dell has a nice 24" 1920x1200 with DVI, the UltraSharp 2407FPW for a decent price. Might be able to give the LG a run for its money.

Hi everyone, Looking for an inexpensive inkjet that doesn't suck. I know that's a tall order, but hopefully someone may know a guy who knows a guy whose sister's boyfriend's former roommate has an inkjet that he absolutely loves. It's for my parents, and that means it's gotta be reliable and...

Actually that's a good point Coug. If you're in the retail PC business, why wouldn't you love Vista, seeing as it drives new sales and upgrades like nothing else.

I personally use and like the WRT54G. While the unit itself doesn't fail in that it doesn't die, it does need to be hard reset a couple times a year when wireless clients cannot connect to it at all. That's a PITA when you have to re-enter all the settings, especially the whitelist for the MAC...

NCIX.com carries Samsung, although they are not in stock at the moment. I've never had any issues with their drives.

I like the Vista GUI system, though. I am getting to the point where I like everything bigger on screen... Vista is better than XP and especially 2000 in that it shows everything nice and crisp even with the larger font and appearance settings.

...For example, now that Apple commercial makes sense -- copy file? allow. create folder? allow. That user account control, Windows Security warnings, etc. Even changing the size of the menu / scrollbar / title bar took me a while to figure out. And the darn keyboard language keeps switching to...

Just started using Vista a few days ago, and I can't believe that I didn't know how to do a lot of things that I took for granted with 2000 and then XP. It was so different to me, almost like using an X graphical shell in Linux for the first time.

I seem to be getting around 220 PPD on each of my instances of FAH. Does that seem low to you for an A64x2 5000+?

I loved Opera at one point in time. I found it to be a godsend when I was doing a ton of Internet based research in grad school. Something happened that caused me to like it less. Can't remember what it was... After using successive versions of Firefox with various extensions, it finally won me...

I like the Hitachi, Panasonic, and LG 42" plasmas myself for good price/performance. For LCD, the Sharp Acquos 1080p is nice, but it is usually more expensive than the aforementioned plasmas in that size. IMO, 1080p for a 42" is not very useful, and its availability as a feature should not be...

Fair enough. I did manage to get the CPU temps using a utility called CoreTemp. It shows the core temps individually on the taskbar. Running FAH causes my CPU temps to peak at about 56 C, which is about the same as my old OC'ed Athlon Thunderbird 2200+. So far, the lack of case temp and fan...

By environmental monitoring, you mean case temp and fan speed?

Just to clarify, myself, I'm not worried about the PSU, as I don't want to add a high-end video card to this machine. It is designed for general office/internet usage, with the most taxing application being RAW photo editing.

Hi everyone, Thanks for your help. Just got the Dell E521 today. It's actually my friend who wanted the Quadro, not me, but we were ordering together, and I said I would ask around for him. He ended up getting the C2D based E520. Another friend of mine wanted to order with us, but the C2D he...

Are you serious? Yikes. Would you know if Dell still uses proprietary PSU sizes these days, or can you replace them with normal ATX compliant PSUs?

I'm looking at a good deal on a Dimension E521, but it doesn't offer the option of a Quadro FX 3500 video card that their Precision workstations offer. The Quadro is needed for CAD/CAM work. Is there any technical limitation of the Dimension E521 that doesn't allow the Quadro to be used? i.e...

Just found that one of the biggest upgrades you can make to your sound is to clean your ears. Seriously. Went to the doctor yesterday because my eustachian tubes felt plugged up. It's not uncommon for that to happen to me around this time of the year due to allergies. But upon inspection, he...

True, most of it depends on how steady you are, but you gotta be dead to get crisp shots at 200 mm at 1/6 sec and 52 mm at 1/2 sec without VR. It's still at least 2 stops better than I could do handheld without VR.

Just wanted to mention that I recently purchased an 18-200 VR for my D40. This is currently the superzoom of superzooms and is still hard to find in stock many months after its introduction. As is to be expected, image quality is not the greatest, but it is decent in every aspect... fairly...

Yes, ideally someone would make a camera that has Fuji's excellent sensor and an optical image stabilization capability like Canon and Panasonic that doesn't use xD. I don't mind the macro switching phenomenon of the Fujis. It also has the benefit of switching the flash to a lower power curve...

Dpreview just reviewed the Fuji F31fd Excerpt from dpreview: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilmf31fd/

What you want is an ATSC HDTV terrestrial tuner like the Samsung SIR-T451 or DTBH260F: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SIR-T451-Definition-Terrestrial-Tuner/dp/B00064L1AI http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JV6TQY/ref=dp_cp_ob_title_0/002-3277080-4270441 ATSC is the technical standard for...

Without knowing how feasible this is in your situation, my first inclination is to address the acoustic problems of your room first, then tackle the speakers. As bad as you think those speakers are, the room typically has a greater impact on sound than your speakers. IMO, no matter how good your...

Ugh. I hate when that happens. I always double-check now because that's happened to me before.

Yeah, it really depends on your priorities and sense of commitment to getting the job done no matter what. I will pull an all-nighter for work if it needs to be done. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it's recognized, sometimes it's not... what matters is that I am comfortable with the decision...

Excellent. Things somehow just work themselves out, don't they? ;) What were your conditions, btw? (if I may ask... that is, and if you're willing to share)

Yeah, I knew about the D40 not having an internal AF motor, but I made sure I knew what lenses I could / could not use as a result, and I don't worry about not being able to use non AF-S / AF-I lenses. I can get an AF-S 50/1.8 for $100 if I need a fast prime, although I definitely prefer going...

Anyone have any thoughts on what I should purchase as a single-lens travel solution? I have a Nikon D40 with the 18-55 kit lens. I find the 18-55 is decent when stopped down, and I love how compact and lightweight it is (205 g) -- a definite plus when carrying it around all day. However, I find...