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Sony Announced Hybrid Digital Camera
Anna Merikin writes to tell us that Sony has begun shipping a new digital camera, the R1. With the R1 Sony has married the big digital SLRs' sensor with the live preview display of the compact cams. But to do so, it is not an SLR although it is about the same size as one. The new architecture also allows wider-angle optics to be used, but it does not have interchangeable lenses.
Who gives a crap how it works, the real question is what kind of rootkit does it come with?
Every living creature on earth dies alone.
They named it after a button on their game controllers, I so must have one!
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Yes, people will still buy from Sony. Why is that? Because, like it or not, they do offer products that some people will want, even if they also offer products that others despise.
I have talked to a number of people here in Britain about the rootkit incident. Basically nobody knows about it. I had my cousins in North America ask people there, and it was the same. The vast majority of people they talked to do not have a clue as to what had happened.
While the geek community may be horrified about what has happened, the general populace in both Britain and North America most likely does not give a damn at all. They are most likely not even aware of what had happened. Thus they will continue to support Sony.
As for Slashdot covering OpenServer, there's no reason for Slashdot not to. If some news item arises involving it, then Slashdot should post it. There are still many companies around who depend on UnixWare and OpenServer. It's still a very important product, even if the company which now owns them has done much to annoy the computing community.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
To Quote dpreview of the R1:
"I'll start as I shall no doubt finish this little piece of editorial, the lens is worth the price of the DSC-R1 alone. That fact is not to be underestimated, it's a great lens which provides you with a very useful 24 - 120 mm zoom range (which will be sufficient for the majority of users). Doing the math it's pretty clear that you have to spend a fairly considerable sum on lenses for a D-SLR to get close to this range and the quality of the DSC-R1's lens. "
The cameeras problem is not its lens, its in its image processing:
"The second issue is image processing, take a RAW out of the DSC-R1 and run it through Adobe Camera RAW and you can see just what that lens / sensor combination is capable of, however you really need to be pretty dedicated to shoot RAW all the time, 20 MB per RAW file and around 9 seconds to write; I did note that some of our forums users are converting the Sony RAW files to Adobe DNG to save space. That's not to say JPEG's aren't good, they are very good, but you get a whole new appreciation for just how much crisper images could look converting in ACR."
And the fact that your still better off buying a dSLR.
Digital SLRs are not "completely stupid." One major benefit is that SLR design almost entirely eliminates the "shutter lag" that is common to most other digital cameras. The top Nikon DSLRs have shutter lag of less than 40 milliseconds; compare that to many non-SLR digital cameras where you sometimes wait half a second (or longer) between when you press the shutter button and when the picture is taken.
Digital viewfinders also use up MUCH more power than SLR designs. Nikon's DSLRs nowadays have a battery life of around 2,000 shots; most cameras that use digital viewfinders can only shoot a tiny fraction of that number without requiring a new battery or a recharge.
Finally, DSLRs allow established photographers to use any of the hundreds (thousands?) of existing lenses for compatible cameras.
Certainly there's a place for cameras with digital viewfinders. But DSLRs offer unique benefits that warrant a place as well.
Speaking as someone who used to sell these things, I second your thoughts. I wouldn't get a Canon or Nikon low-end camera for myself or someone in my family. At the higher end -- where the customers are somewhat more discriminating -- they make great gear, don't get me wrong. But at the low end they rely a lot on their brand name and cut a lot of corners.
Fuji, Olympus, and Minolta are all better in terms of consumer grade cameras than Nikon or Canon's entry level, IMO. Although they all have their good and bad years, and Nikon had some great prosumer equipment in the past (the Coolpix 950 comes to mind, that thing was great), you need to pay some money with Canon or Nikon to get into their non-crippled gear. Fuji -- possibly perhaps because they have a brand name that's associated with cheap drug-store film to most people -- gives a lot of bang for the buck. (Although I think they made a mistake with those xD cards.)
Anyway, just my two cents. I worked at a big camera retailer and we used to push Nikon merch like it was our job -- because basically it was, Nikon had great sales incentives -- but when it came time to get a gift for a friend or family, or pick up an inexpensive digital for myself, I went with the "second tier" brands.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's still the same corporation. Whether it happens to be different division of that corporation makes no difference. Both divisions answer to same peolle, the board of directors of Sony Corporation. The money Sony Music earns goes to Sony Corporation, and vice versa. The money Sony Electronics makes can be used to benefit Sony Music.
Do people differentiate between different divisons of Microsoft? No. When they do something stupid with Office, people say "Microsoft is at it again". When they do something stupid with Windows, they say the same thing. They do not say "Microsoft's Office-division is at it again!" or "Microsoft Windows-division is at it again!". When MS pushes
Saying "But it's not the same company, it's a different division!" is just an excuse. They are part of the same company. And you can clearly see the same bullshit attitude Sony Music has, all through the Sony Corporation. Why does Sony Electronics use some proprietary flash-RAM crap (memorystick) for example? Why can't they use compact flash or any other technology that has wider use, why do they stick to their own crap? What the hell is it with this ATRAC-crap Sony Electronics pushes? Sony as a whole is only interested at their bottom line, at the expense of the consumer.
Like the original poster said: Nice camera, but since it's by Sony, I wont be buying it. I'm drawing the line here. You fuck with me, and you can be damn sure that I'll do my business elsewhere. It's about time the corporations learn that world and people living there are not their private playground where they can do whatever they please. Sony Corporation has the power to replace the entire management of Sony Music. Untill I see them doing that, I wont be doing business with them. If they choose not to do that... Well, there are other companies willing to sell me their goods.
Sony Corporation: Go fuck yourself.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.