A new Lens: Sigma 105mm f2.8 EX DG Macro

Today I could not resist anymore! I bought a new macro lens for my Canon EOS 400D. It was the winner of three candidates I had for a macro lens (the other two were the Tamron 90mm Macro and a Canon 100mm Lens with an ultrasonic motor). Whereas the image quality of all thre lenses is nearly the same they differ in price and overall quality of the body – of course the Canon has an ultrasonic motor which is faster and more silent. So I stroke the balance between price and quality and took the Sigma.

I made some quick test shots with my new lens and could say that I’m very much impressed of the colors, depth of field and of course the sharpness of the lens. Although the first five photos where no artworks, I’m sure I will have much fun with this lens.

How to get a MacBook Pro

Leah Culver wanted to have a MacBook. Her solution of this problem is quite freaky: take a look at her website.

Get a Mac TV Spots

Apple released some new TV ads of the “Get a Mac” series. They’re very funny and available in high quality resolution. The spots are also available in german, but I think in original english they sound quite better. It’s hard for me to write this post because I’m rolling on the floor laughing…

Zune Desktop Theme for Windows XP

Since I have installed Windows Vista on my home box and enjoy the amazing style of the new Aero user interface, my notebook running on Windows XP becomes more and more boring. So I looked around the internet for a nice desktop theme for XP that doesn’t cost too much performance (my colleagues know: I need my RAM ).

Now I found the Zune Desktop Theme which comes originally from Microsoft. It looks quite nice and integrates with the Windows XP design mechanism. Have a look at the screenshot! If you enjoy you can download it from many sites in the net (example: techchannel.de).

I shot my mobile – the video

Last weekend I had some time to make a cut of the film we made during the “shooting” of my old mobile phone. The result takes about 3 minutes of your precious time and 12 megabytes download traffic (Windows Media Format).

My Apple Wishlist

Since a few months I’m thinking about buying an Apple. Not the fruit of course – I eat one apple every day. I’m talking about an iMac. Because at home I work most of the time with photos or videos, creating DVDs or making artworks, I wonder why the idea of a Mac wasn’t there earlier. Well, enough words – here’s my wishlist:

• Apple iMac 24″
• 2,33 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
• 2 GB RAM
• 500 GB Harddisk
• 128 MB NVidia Graphics Adapter
• Iomega 1TB Ultramax external Hard-drive
• Aiport Extreme Station

The iMac

My current PC configuration for making all the stuff mentioned above is a 3,2 Ghz Intel P4 HT with 1 GB RAM and a 250 GB Serial ATA Hard-disk. Graphics are brought to my 17″-TFT-Display by a 128 MB ATI Card. So I think the Mac will perform great for me (and my new Canon EOS 400D which produces about 15MB per photo in RAW-mode )

The Ultramax drive

You think one terabyte and RAID 0 or RAID 1 is an exorbitant solution for a private user? Hmm… no I want to have my whole photo library (consists of about 10.000 photos) and the last five to ten tapes of my camcorder on harddisk to have immediate access to the content. New photos and videos are also stored there. Since I’ve lost about 500 photos and some other data by a headcrash a few years ago, I think RAID 1 is a good solution for such important data. Photos and Videos are snapshots of life an cannot be reproduced…

The Airport

I think it’s a very practical solution to plug an USB drive and a printer to the Airport Extreme Station and share it across the whole wired and wireless network. When the Mac comes, it would be the third client in the network and I don’t want to use any of those as a file or print server. So the Airport is a good solution for having a central file space and a printer connection that is always available.