The long rumored Nikon D90 is now official and is the first DSLR with HD video recording capabilities. The $999 (body only) 12.3MP camera sports a new image sensor with similar high ISO performance to it’s bigger brothers the D700 and the D3, but at a considerably lower price point. Sounds like a winning package; I currently use a D80 and a lot of the features described would be welcome upgrades to my current rig. But at this point, it wouldn’t be worth it to move over to a camera with such marginal performance increases, I am thinking the recently announced D700 will be my next upgrade (or whichever is their latest at that level when I do take the plunge).
This new Nikon release comes in the wake of Canon’s recent 50D announcement. The 50D is the first pro-sumer level camera with the lauded Digic 4 processor. With the 15.2MP sensor on board, it’s a nice entry point for people not willing to fork over the dough for the 5D. At $1400 (body only) the 50D is considerably cheaper than it’s more robust sibling, but will at least get you in the same performance ballpark as the 5D.
I think these two cameras are a great sign of things to come for us graphic designers. Having a high performance camera in your kit is essential for any serious designer, but it’s hard to justify spending so much on one when photography isn’t your primary occupation. I think the D90 and 50D fill a nice little gap in the DSLR price range, and although the 50D carries a larger price tag (a $400 bump over the D90) it sounds like the extra features make a compelling case for the extra expense. I just don’t know if I can make the move to Canon just yet, I’ll have to see how this plays out.
Paul Mawhinney is the owner of the world’s largest vinyl record collection, if you’re a music fan of some sort i can’t see how this short documentary won’t touching you in some way.
Logitech’s new MX1100 mouse has been getting some glowing reviews and I’m pretty excited to get my hands on one. I have been using an MX Revolution for a couple years now and the battery is failing, so this new model with replaceable batteries will be a welcome addition. The ergonomics on the Logitech mice are great, but the hyperscroll wheel is reason enough to switch (so handy when you’re way zoomed in on a PSD and want to move around quickly). I have tried to make the switch to Wacom pads before without much success. How about everyone else? Do you use a mouse or a tablet, or both? Do you find either is more conducive to design or is it just a simple issue of ergonomics? Let us know in the comments
My brother Kirk is a sophomore at San Francisco State University. He’s planning to study design but has been experimenting with photography a lot over the past couple years. He showed me some of his recent stuff recently and it was really impressive so I thought I’d share. All of these shots were all taken with a Lomo LCA and cross-processed, bringing out all those nice colors. My favorite is the top one, it’s like a book about growing up in Sacramento boiled down into a single image. You can see more of his work at his Flickr page.
Last night i went to see Norwegian DJ Todd Terje, the man is a machine, a 6 hr set and most of the time he just plays edits that he did himself of songs, mostly that deep slow motion disco but with a lot of tribal elements which is always is a win-win situation for me.
Brought out a old favorite, Nightmares on Wax, i think if you do graphic design and you’ve listened to lounge music at some point in your career, this is probably played as much as Thievery Corporation or Air.
Grovesnor is a Hot Chip favorite, he toured with them in the UK, its kinda cheesy but has a great keys being played at the beginning and has a good feel to it.
The artwork above is from Fleet Foxes, i woke up with the song playing in my head and i’ve only heard the song a couple times. The overall color when you step back look at their cover is really appealing to me, it reminds me of Monty Python’s Holy Grail but really crowded.
Dolle Jolle – Balearic Incarnation – Todd Terje’s Extra Doll Mix
My first interest into Krautrock beyond Kraftwerk. I found NEU! ’75(1975, duh) when I was 17 and have yet to stop listening to it eight years later.
NEU! was the brainchild of Kraftwerk’s Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother. Anything Rother touches, I like; which you will see in future posts.
This track is off of NEU! 2 (1973) and is a fine example of Rother’s melting guitar melodies, and (along with almost every other NEU! song) displays Dinger’s self-invented Motorik beat.
Above is the back side of the Terrabyte 3 poster from last week. Since this is only going to be on the small format hand flyer it was sort of a tight squeeze given all the info they wanted to include. I wanted to carry over the 60’s programming punch-card concept from the front, and considering the amount of text, I decided to use it as the central design element. Most of the type is set in Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk (at various weights) and is all grid aligned with a piece of graph paper I scanned in and set on Color Burn overlay mode.
Incidentally, a couple people had mentioned an alignment issue with the left arrow on the front side. Thanks for the heads up, it’s been fixed and the finalized version is now up on the original post. There’s also more info on Terrabyte 3 now available at the Arboretum site.
