Nikon D5100 adds a 1 to the name, new features too!

Nikon announced a new DSLR today, the not-very-excitingly-named D5100.  It's a replacement for the D5000.  I still contend that this naming scheme reminds me of a car, or perhaps the Atari 5200, but let's not dwell on that.  The important point is that it looks like a great camera, especially if you're in the market for a small, mid range DSLR.  It's basically a slightly modified D5000 with an image sensor borrowed from the more expensive D7000.  This is standard practice with camera companies these days: you upgrade a few things, trickle down some parts from another camera, throw in a gimmick or two to get people's attention, and vavoom: you have a new product cycle.

Here's what's upgraded from the D5000:

• A vastly improved LCD.  The D5000 had an ill conceived LCD that swiveled down instead of to the side.  Swiveling to the side is much more useful as it allows you to swivel the LCD when the camera is on a tripod or sitting on the ground.  It's also a higher resolution screen, at 921k pixels vs 230k.
• It's about 10% smaller than the D5000, and a bit lighter.  Smaller is almost always better, in my opinion.

And this is what it borrows from the D7000:

• The 16.2 MP Sensor, and all the features that come with that, including an ISO range of 100 to 25,600.  This sensor is really good, in my experience, but be warned-- the file sizes will eat a hole in your hard drive.
• All the video modes that come with the D7000.  1080p at 30/25/24fps.  I personally never use them.

BUYING ADVICE: If you already own a D5000 and are perfectly happy with that camera, keep shooting with it and be perfectly happy.  I assure you, your photos will not turn into a pumpkin at midnight.  If, however, you were thinking about buying a D5000, you may as well get the D5100.  I personally think the LCD screen is enough of a reason to chose the D5100, but obviously the newer sensor is a benefit as well.

Potential D7000 buyers will have to play a game of "what do I need?" vs "what can I afford?"  Yes, these cameras share the same sensor, but the D7000 has a whole host of professional features that are lacking in the D5100.  Notably, a weather sealed body, drive motor, 100% viewfinder, and 39 point autofocus system.  Of course, the D5100 is $400 cheaper.

Further info: Nikon USA, DP Review, Engadget.
Preorder at Amazon: Not available yet, but will be priced at $799 (body only) or $899 (w/ kit lens).

Canon Announces 120 MP Sensor, will be sold with free Hummer

Canon announced today the creation of the world's first 120 MP sensor.  Yes, you read that correctly-- 120 megapixels!  It's an APS-H (1.3x crop) sensor, the same size used in Canon's flagship EOS-1D Mark IV DSLR (which currently only has 16 megapixels).  No word from Canon about when or if this will ever be sold in a camera.  Obviously, I'm joking with my title, because if this is ever released it would cost a small fortune.

I'm also not sure what the point would be?  Here's the dirty truth about megapixels-- having more of them doesn't mean a thing if the lenses on your camera can't actually resolve that much detail.  I doubt that Canon (or Nikon for that matter) has any lenses that can.

Not to mention that you would need a supercomputer to process the RAW files.

You can find more info about this monstrosity at DPReview or Canon USA.

Sorry Wired, the Web isn’t dead, just your integrity

I have a friend who's fond of saying that things are "dead to him".  It's become a sort of catch phrase between the two of us-- a bit of over-dramatic silliness-- to represent something that we've grown tired with.  For example, the Chicago White Sox, after losing 2 games to Kansas City this weekend, are most definitely "dead to me".  At least until tomorrow.

So I've come to be pretty skeptical whenever I hear that something is dead, and that's the attitude I took into Wired's cover story this month: The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.

I sighed when I saw that headline.  The basic premise of the article is okay: that more and more people are accessing the internet through smart phone and iPad apps, watching video through Netflix on their Xbox's, or sucking up bandwidth with peer to peer applications.  In other words, using a closed application instead of a web browser to get information over the internet.  Fair enough.  But to say that the web is dead, or even in decline, is just not accurate.  Check out this chart that Wired provides:


(Since the web is dead, I assume Wired won't mind me posting this on my web site)

See that, web use is going down!  Well, not really.  Here's the problem with that chart: The left and right sides aren't actually equal.  Or even remotely equal.  We're talking about the dial up internet circa 1990 vs the broadband internet of 2010.  The graph should actually look something like this:



Also, note how video is grabbing a larger percentage in both versions.  What's not mentioned by Wired is the fact that video is inherently a bandwidth heavy operation.  Streaming an HD video is simply a lot more data than loading someone's Blogger or Flickr page, or even a decent sized e-commerce site.  So it's neither surprising nor very interesting that video is taking up a growing percentage of internet traffic.  Internet traffic doesn't mean "more personal time spent", it just means more data consumed.

In the end, all of this seems like much ado about nothing.  Just as anyone who overheard me claiming the White Sox were "dead" might question my sanity, Wired looks silly here.  @Wired: you were supposed to use your inside voice with that headline, not put it on the front page!  Sure, smart phones are exploding in popularity, and with them people will access the internet in a wider variety of ways.  But we're still going to have computers at home and in our offices, and barring some mass apocalypse where giant robots take over the planet, that's not going to change any time soon.  The web isn't dead, it's just settling in for the long haul.