21-megapixel, full-frame, Digic 4, full HD video, 6400 ISO….Game over. The ridiculously anticipated Canon 5D MKII is now official and if this wasn’t worth the wait, I don’t know what is. Canon has hit each and every feature and performance threshold I was looking for in a new DSLR and then some. Expect it on store shelves by end of November with a sticker price of $2700 for the body or $3500 with the 24-105mm kit lens. Yes, that’s steep, but take a look at these features:
•14-bit conversion •3.9FPS unlimited burst rate with JPEG using UDMA CF card, or 14 RAW (standard CF card is 78 JPEG, 13 RAW •Four-channel readout that’s 2.2x faster than the 5D •Lens peripheral illumination correction, like 50D, but better supposedly •15-point auto-focus •Creative auto mode, also like 50D •Auto-lighting optimizer •Three levels of noise reduction that kicks in above ISO800 •RAW, sRAW1 (10MP), sRAW2 (5MP) •Three-inch, 920,000 dot-screen •New and improved battery (incompatible with old one) that delivers 850 shots or 1.5 hours of video •150,000 cycle shutter •Magnesium alloy body •NO built-in flash BTW
Jumping from my $2000 D80 kit to this price threshold will be a bit of a stretch, but if this new 5D lives up to it’s performance claims, it will be well worth it. I know nothing can truly be future-proof, but com’on, 21MP? That’s more than enough to make this my workhorse camera for the foreseeable technological future. I love it when a new piece of kit comes out that is so far superior to it’s rivals that it makes the decision easy for you; the 5D seems like one of those things. After my long deliberation over which DSLR to upgrade to it’s nice to see a logical conclusion. I had toyed with the idea of moving to the D90 for the HD video alone, but it’s other specs were so similar to my D80 that it just didn’t seem worth the upgrade.
In my book, the 5D MKII beats Nikon’s recently announced D700 for two reasons: HD video (which is inexplicably absent from the D700) and price (it’s $300 less than it’s Nikon counterpart). I don’t own any pricey Nikon glass, both my lenses are decidedly sub-par, but even if I did, I’d have to believe I’d still give this thing more than a passing glance. How about all you other Nikon users? Would any of you who are invested in Nikon lenses still consider moving to Canon for a camera like this? Let us know
I have been meaning to do more posts with good examples of contemporary poster art and after seeing Well Medicated’s 50 Amazing Gig Posters Sure To Inspire article I thought now would be a great time to start. Concert posters were always my biggest inspiration for getting into art and design. I like to think of my work as sort of straddling the disciplines of pure graphic design and the more illustrative styles featured in the Well Medicated post so I’m always excited to see new work from these types of artists. It always amazes me how they do so much with so little and how they stay true to the classic modernist typographic ideals. It’s very rarely that we as designers get to be truly idealistic with our design so it’s a breath of fresh air to see work like this, unmolested by the hands of middle-men and marketing departments.
On a side note, seeing a large collection of stylistically similar prints like this always reminds me of the rather strange disconnect I’ve noticed between the world of gig poster artists and graphic designers. A good example would be FlatStock at SXSW; that whole scene always seemed to me to be quite insularly while a lot of the design festivals I end up presenting at seem to fall short in their representation of the poster art world. Perhaps I’m missing something, but you’d think there would be more overlap between the two worlds given how much the output has in common.
I just got home from Terrabyte after a nice drive today; LA > Sacto > SF, needless to say I am exhausted so I’ll keep it short. Terrabyte was amazing as usual; thanks to everyone who came out and made it a success and thanks to the Arboretum and Kyle and Ryan from Subtractive for making it all happen. I also want to apologize for the delay getting started, as some of you noted, we had some technical difficulties starting out, but things smoothed out once things got rolling. I was pretty busy most of the time so didn’t get many good photos this time around, some of the few I got are below. Bijan has also posted some photos from the show here.
Somewhere in the middle of the central California valley.
I found some early videos from the show on YouTube, below is a shot of some of the visuals. I didn’t realize this girl (video below) had been dancing in the visuals until after the show was over, pretty cool to see this now. There is also a video of the new single being played; the audio is really bad and you can’t see much, but it’s a small taste at least: link. There are a couple more from the same person up here as well.
Lately, i’ve been getting back into going into the modern furniture shop again, you know more then just window shopping. I took a break awhile because i just felt like i wouldn’t find any original pieces to gawk at and then slowly make my way to the price tag to find out how much money something is that i’ll never be able to afford. Recently though my newest fascination again are simple mod plastic phones, portable TVs, and alarm clocks. This one by Marco Zanuso really caught my eye.
Since there are 1,000’s of 12″ electronic vinyl still coming out every week to record shops a lot of the labels have taken design more seriously to catch the record buyers attention by keeping a consistent layout and font for their stock sleeve jackets that hold the vinyl. I collect alot of these stock sleeves, i thought this would be a good way to post some vinyl versions of songs too and show you some of the record sleeves that don’t make to the people that only buy CDs and MP3’s. These first 2 are Kompakt’s TOTAL series and REKIDS regular stock jacket that usually changes up alot but they keep the same font and usually keep it centered.
UPDATE: One other thing is that a lot of vinyl doesn’t make it to CD unless the musician does an album with the same label and CD’s are pressed or if it gets licensed to a DJ mix CD or podcast.
DJ Koze – Zou Zou
[audio:zou.mp3]
Radio Slave – Screaming Hands (Cosmo Vitelli’s Radioaktivitat remix)
Got the Prius washed up, gassed and loaded to make the drive down to L.A. tomorrow for Terrabyte 3. Some stretches of I5 are rather scenic so I’ll try to get some shots on the way down, although at this time of the year it might be a bit bland with all the greenery long since turned brown.
I did a test mixdown tonight of the a new single which I’ll be debuting along with some new video work during the set. Hope to see everyone out at the show, there will be an ISO50 booth with shirts, vinyl, CDs, and prints so stop by and say hello.
Photos from last year’s Terrabyte show by Studio JFISH
Design that nature creates. One of my favorite TED speakers. i love his ideas, passion and direction, i’m not the biggest fan of the design, it’s a bit too curvy and futuristic like some bigger budget Karim Rashid piece.
