Advanced, high-performance Speedlight for Nikon digital SLR cameras

 

TOKYO – Nikon Corporation is pleased to announce the introduction of the Nikon Speedlight SB-900, a new external i-TTL flash unit with advanced features. The SB-900 offers a powerful guide number of 48/157.5 (ISO 200, meters/feet) and an incredible array of creative flash functions. The SB-900 is an ideal way to solve lighting challenges and extend Nikon D-SLR creativity.
 

The SB-900 is a high-performance Speedlight developed as the successor to the hugely successful Nikon SB-800. Practical functionality was emphasized in designing the SB-900, especially evident when used with Nikon digital SLR cameras compatible with the Nikon Creative Lighting System. It provides a wide 17-200 mm auto zoom range (expanded from the SB-800’s 24-105mm), three illumination patterns, newly designed, streamlined operation with a full-information LCD panel, and AF-Assist illumination compatible with new-generation AF sensors. The SB-900 has an improved booster circuit for high-speed recycle time. In addition, firmware can be uploaded via a Nikon digital SLR camera—a world’s first* for flash units, assuring that the SB-900 can accept technological advancements. The SB-900 serves as the new core for the Nikon Creative Lighting System when used in combination with current Nikon digital SLRs, and it supports Advanced Wireless Lighting as a master or a remote Speedlight, inviting photographers to explore the many creative possibilities.

Additional new functions include 180 degrees of left or right head swivel, a special built-in overheat protection system and automatic filter detection for unprecedented white balance correction, even in fluorescent lighting conditions.

With the SB-900, users can enjoy all the benefits of the Nikon Creative Lighting System for both automation and comprehensive control, enabling endless lighting possibilities.

*The world’s first flash unit with a user-applied firmware update function via a digital SLR camera as of July 1, 2008 (according to research conducted by NIKON CORPORATION).

Taken from the Nikon website.

For more details check the Nikon website.

Note: I like the sound of Nikonites than Nikonians. It sound's like a celebrity fan club to me (ie Vilmanians). Sorry Nikonians.org. No offense meant.

Nikon FX-format digital SLR – exceptional performance combined with superior mobility and functional versatility to provide serious photographers with outstanding value

TOKYO – Nikon Corporation is pleased to announce the introduction of its newest FX-format digital SLR, the Nikon D700.

The D700 features an FX-format first introduced with the Nikon D3. Highly praised for its outstanding features, the D3 established a new level of professional performance in terms of overall image quality, extraordinarily low noise, ISO sensitivity range, continuous high-speed shooting, color gradation, image crispness, durability, weather-resistant operation, system versatility and more.


The new D700 incorporates an extensive array of features that boast a level of performance that is in many ways comparable to the D3. At the same time, it derives a wide range of benefits – including functionality, flexibility and operability – from the more agile D300, Nikon's flagship DX-format D-SLR.

The D700 has everything it takes to satisfy a broad spectrum of photographic needs. The 12.1-megapixel FX-format CMOS sensor with a sensing area of 36.0 x 23.9 mm; a sensitivity range of ISO 200 to 6400; continuous shooting at up to 5 frames per second (and up to 8 fps with the optional Multi-Power Battery Pack MB-D10; Nikon's exclusive 51-point AF system; Scene Recognition System for optimum autofocus, auto exposure and auto white balance detection – these are but a few of the advanced capabilities of the extraordinary new D700.

Taken from the Nikon website.

For more details check the Nikon website.
Check Ken Rockwell's site for a review.

Note: I like the sound of Nikonites than Nikonians. It sound's like a celebrity fan club to me (ie Vilmanians). Sorry Nikonians.org. No offense meant.

See the moments as Mt. Musuan Chapter, Order of DeMolay goes to the 12th DeMolay Alumni National Congress at Butuan City. Click here.

Our office sent a team to the Gawad Kalinga Build here in Bukidnon.
All in all, five teams of the Corporation participated in different sites.

The build started on April 21 and lasted till April 25.

I took photos during the event. I will post them soon.

Mr. Dustein Sibug has been creating a craze in Photography. He inspired a lot of new and old hobbyists.

I've been thinking of a phrase that I can describe Master Dust's work...

At last I have found two phrases.

1. The "DUST Effect" ; and

2. "Beauty...after the DUST settles."

What do you think?

Click here to visit MD's page.

Note: THE PHOTO ABOVE IS NOT MY WORK. IT IS DUSTEIN'S.

I saw this article and decided to share this to you. I was amazed
on the following. Enjoy.

Sigma APO 200-500 F/2.8











Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 1700 mm F4













Polaroid 20x24'' Camera






















Seitz 6x17'' digital panoramic camera





















Hasselblad H3DII ($40 000, a Hasselblad H3DII with a 39 megapixel, 48x36mm sensor.)

















Canon EF 1200mm f/5.6L USM

I arrived last Sunday from a holiday weekend at General Santos City with my girlfriend just in time for the musical presentation "Once on this island".

Graduating kindergarten, elementary and secondary pupils and students did a musical last Sunday as their "Tribute to Parents" presentation. This was also the brainchild of Miles, a solo-artist, a theater graduate at UP and brother of the school director.
 


"Once on This Island is a one-act musical with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. Based on the novel My Love, My Love by Rosa Guy, the musical is a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid set in the French Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. The show also includes elements of the Romeo and Juliet story.

Originally staged at off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons, the Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Graciela Daniele and starring LaChanze as Ti Moune, opened on October 18, 1990 at the Booth Theatre, where it ran for 469 performances. In 2002, the original cast was reunited with special guest Lillias White to perform the show for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund." - Source: Wikipedia

I took photos to document the event and had to constantly deal with the very rapidly changing lighting conditions and low-light photography.

My brother took photos too. Below is his photo. I just did some minor PP.

I arrived last Sunday from a holiday weekend at General Santos City with my girlfriend just in time for the musical presentation "Once on this island".

Graduating kindergarten, elementary and secondary pupils and students did a musical last Sunday as their "Tribute to Parents" presentation. This was also the brainchild of Miles, a solo-artist, a theater graduate at UP and brother of the school director.

"Once on This Island is a one-act musical with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. Based on the novel My Love, My Love by Rosa Guy, the musical is a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid set in the French Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. The show also includes elements of the Romeo and Juliet story.

Originally staged at off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons, the Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Graciela Daniele and starring LaChanze as Ti Moune, opened on October 18, 1990 at the Booth Theatre, where it ran for 469 performances. In 2002, the original cast was reunited with special guest Lillias White to perform the show for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund." - Source: Wikipedia

I took photos to document the event and had to constantly deal with the very rapidly changing lighting conditions and low-light photography.

My brother took photos too. Below is his photo. I just did some minor PP.

Finally! My first DSLR posts...

I left about 5:00 am for Malaybalay on March 8, 2008. I have communicated with Dustein and Jiva and they confirmed they were going with a couple of others.

This was my first festival event shoot.

I had a pretty good exercise taking photos. At the end of the day I almost used up the three 2GB SD cards I brought with me. I got 1,030 10MP JPEG photos. Wow! The most photos I took on a day.

I have managed to pick around more than 60 photos I think worth posting.

I divided them into seven albums. I hope you like it.

Since I am a novice...comments- vehement or in any nature, are welcome.

Thank you!

 

Phewwww!

After about three weeks of travel and tasks I am finally getting some rest. I came from Davao for a convention. We had choral rehearsals everyday for the last one and a half week for our mini-concert, not counting the rehearsals for the past few weeks. But, it was time worth spent. The concert went great. We are invited to sing in another church this Tuesday night.

Weeks past recieving my first dSLR and I still haven't posted any of them. Well, I will do when I finally get some time to choose over the couple of thousands I already shot with it.

Soon...

A very wonderful sunset like this (photo of me and the sunset taken yesterday courtesy of my brother, Conrad)...

 
...can end up miserably if we focus to much on our shoot and our subjects.

Yesterday, my brother and I went to shoot at a rice field near a couple of
kilometers from our home. The fields were along the highway so we were just on the shoulder.

We started about 5:30PM and shot a lot...

Just when it was getting dark, I noticed two men walking towards us carrying cyclist helmets...I immediately stood up and called on to my brother to slowly move out...he two
became aware of such suspicious behavior.

Then they stopped and the other had to pee. Then a motorcycle pulled near us and
they started talking about how many holes pierced their tire.

Probably thinking that we have foiled their attempt...they rode the motorcycle and sped off.

When we got home, the scene got us thinking...

Had we not kept our aware of our surroundings, we probably have lost our cameras, our phones, our money and who knows, probably our lives.

I guess this is warning foes to fellow enthusiasts who never had the experience. There are a lot of us who have experienced this, and more even worse.

We should be observant when taking on the streets especially when it is getting dark...

Just be safe...

I was browsing along articles about "Love" since Valentines Day is closing in.

Then I found this article and I wish to share it with you...


THE FORBIDDEN LOVE BETWEEN RELATIVES SEPARATED AT BIRTH

By Patricia Casey
Monday January 21 2008
Taken from http://www.independent.ie

In Britain last week, the sad case of a brother and sister who had inadvertently fallen in love and married was revealed by Lord Alton.

The marriage was annulled since such unions are banned in all European countries. The couple had been separated at birth and adopted by different parents.

Growing up, unknown to each other, they subsequently met and only after their marriage did they realise that they were not just distant blood relations, but siblings.

Other similar cases have been recorded round the world, such as that between a Cambodian man and his sister and a German couple, Patrick and Susan Stubing, who have four children, two of whom have developmental problems and all are in care. Patrick has already served a prison sentence for incest and has challenged Germany's law on incest.

This phenomenon has been called genetic sexual attraction (GSA), not because the attraction is genetically determined, but because the people are genetically connected.

The term is reserved for those who meet as adults. GSA can affect parents reunited with children but most commonly siblings, resembling each other, who meet after years of separation, usually since babyhood.

The emotions are described variously as intense, terrifying, electric and are often accompanied by a primordial sense of having been together all their lives.

The term appears to have been coined by Barbara Gonyo, who was unprepared for the attraction she felt on being reunited with her 26-year-old son, whom she had given for adoption as a baby. The relationship was never consummated and the feelings dissipated after he married. She speculated that it resulted from a disruption to the normal bonding process and wrote movingly about it in her book The Forbidden Love.

But why should this attraction affect only those who have been separated at birth and not children who have lived together all their lives?

Freud's theory was that members of families lusted after one another and that this necessitated the creation of an incest taboo.

However, the Westermarck effects, so called because of the studies of an anthropologist of that name, found that when two people live in close proximity in the early years of life, both are desensitised to later sexual attraction.

He disputed Freud's hypothesis and argued that this was the result of an innate taboo that evolved so as to suppress inbreeding with all the genetic complication that this produces.

Interestingly, studies carried out on children brought up in Israeli kibbutzim found that of 3,000 marriages only 14 were between those brought up in these communes and of these none had lived together for the first six years of life, lending further support to the Westermarck theory and to Gonyo's hunch.

Sexual imprinting refers to identification of the characteristics of a desirable mate and is part of normal sexual development. This is believed to be reversed in those brought up together, occurring especially in the critical period between one and six years of age.

So, children reared apart from their family members do not achieve this reverse imprinting. Meeting later in life, the couple may be attracted to each other because of physical, or personality similarities resulting from a common genetic inheritance.

If they are unaware of their blood relationship, the scene is set for a Greek tragedy, since neither the incest taboo nor any personal moral objections to sibling relationships can be activated.

While GSA is reported by some agencies as occurring in 50pc of adoptee reunions, and can lead to both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, the number resulting in marriage has been rare.

This may change in the future, as IVF by donor becomes more common. In particular, the failure to provide the names of donors to their offspring could result in unchecked GSA with all the complications, legal, moral, emotional and medical, that this entails. Inevitably this will lead to a debate about the t remaining sexual taboo.

- Patricia Casey

Yes! I've recieved my first DSLR yesterday and am currently undergoing testing.

I got it from Jerry Tieng.

Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!

I've always had a film SLR, albeit I rarely use it due to the high cost of film and development. When I was still a college student, owning a Digicam was my dream.

And so I dreamt. The very first thing I bought for myself when I got a job was an Olympus
C-310 Zoom which was a 3.1MP digital camera. I loved it and brought it with me everyday.

Six months later, I lost it without a trace...Don't really remember how...So I settled with my trusty Camera Phone.

After less than a year, I brought another camera, a Canon A400. I took a lot of photos with it. Although it frustrates me sometimes that I am unable to push the camera further...

Just last May 2007, I bought a Canon S3 IS camera during my visit in the US and totally loved it.

A few days ago I have decided to finally purchase my first DSLR from <a href url=www.jerrytieng.com/nikon/>Jerry Tieng<a>- a Nikon D40x with a standard 18-55mm kit lens. And so I did...I paid for it last Monday morning. It was shipped through Fedex.

Well, Fedex is known to be one of the big names in courier service - fast and efficient.

Three days after my payment, and I still haven't recieved it yet!

Much to my dismay, the package just arrived this afternoon in their office at Malaybalay City, which is about an hour from where I am right now. They told me they will be delivering tomorrow not later than 5PM!

I'm totally ecstatic with the buy and it pains me to be in this predicament...

But anyway, "to learn to subdue my passions" is one of my goals...

Therefore, wait, I must...

For the third time in a row, I have accidentally deleted two of my photo albums and I am uploading them again.

There should have been a confirmation prior to the deletion of an album to prevent clumsy people, like me, from accidentally removing their photos.

It has been months now since I was assigned as Document Control Officer and it has been quite sometime since I have developed a crude web application for our Technical Document Center.

One of the applications of this development is the ability to search through records. This way, employees can access the master list of records and documents in their own office computer.

I used an Apache server and a PHP-mySQL combination for database development. Unfortunately, I never had any practical experience or any type of schooling for this and found it very hard to develop something totally out of scratch. Well, you can find bits and pieces of codes in the internet, but putting them altogether and making them work is hell.

So I set aside my site and installed Seagull PHP Framework in the hopes of incorporating my design and make things work. Seagull is a great framework, unfortunately, there are certain details that I can't get around no matter how much I've tried.

Well, programmers, developers and even hackers don't give up easily on these situations, therefore I shall keep on moving forward...If I can...

I just wish things can be a lot easier... Hehehe

When you were a child, there have been countless times that you were clumsy and sometimes end up hurting yourself. It's normal...your pains have taught you to become more careful.

But when you become an adult, you still end up things that are stupid, especially when you never got hurt doing those things.

Last night, my brother and I had a visit to a local mall to buy dinner. On the way down the escalator, I hear a friend calling me so I turned and tried to get off the moving platform. Unfortunately, while making a stride, I slipped and fell onto that thing. Luckily, it stopped and I was able to crawl out that thing.

My brother laughed an talk me that "I really took a fall for a friend literally".

Luckily, I had no broken bones or any severe injury, just my dignity...

Well, better be careful next time...

I went to Cebu to celebrate the New Year with my maternal relatives. Of course, such an occasion excites us for we could meet again those who are close to our hearts and share sumptuous meals and wonderful stories of the past.

On the night of January 1st, just before boarding the boat for home, we dropped by Fuente Osmeña Oval to see how the P1.3M Christmas tree lights up the night sky.

Unfortunately, there was much traffic so we decided to walk up the overpass just across the plaza.

And there it was. The enormous Christmas tree lit up the whole scene as passing vehicles and neons added to the awesome sight...

...But behind my back, was this image...



It was a girl, about 12 years old, clutching her little sibling (probably) close to her heart giving the little child the most comfortable place possible to sleep. While in her rest, she raises here hand and hangs on to a cup, just as we would hang on to a buoy if we get cast at sea.

Just something to think about.


I can just hear the song in my head...

"    Oh holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
    It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
    Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
    Till He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
    A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
    For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

        Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angels' voices!
        Oh night divine, Oh night when Christ was born;
        Oh night divine, Oh night, Oh night Divine. "

Isn't it ironic?

Christmas day is fast approaching and Filipinos, as "text-savvy" as we are load our cellular networks with hundreds of messages that we send to friends, relatives and everybody else in our phonebooks. I have complied some Christmas quotes for everyone to send.

"What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace." - Agnes M. Pharo

"Christmas is the one time of year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ." - Bart Simpson

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas." - Calvin Coolidge

"Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion." - Ralph Sockman

"The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas." - W C Jones

"Christmas! 'Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial fire of charity in the heart." - Washington Irving

No amount of money or value can equal the insurmountable gift bestowed on humanity by our God.

May we ever share the love that have been given to us by our Lord - to Christians and non-Christians alike, just as how he has shared it un-selflessly.