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Archive for August, 2009

Nikon D5000 recalled so got a Canon EOS 500D (T1i), a quick comparison

Aug 3

Posted by Tejas in Comparison, Consumer Electronics, Photography | 2 Comments

About 3 weeks ago I bought a Nikon D5000 as my first DSLR and I was thrilled with the pictures it took. Not only was it extremely easy to use for a total photography newb but it also made me look like a much better photographer than I was. Can’t complain about that.

All was well until a little while ago when Nikon published that they had found a fatal flaw in the circuitry of the D5000 and would need to recall them to fix them. While they made this extremely easy via website and paying for shipping, something just didn’t sit right with me. Paying over $700+ for a camera that was essentially going to be torn apart and fixed felt to me like I was paying $700 for a refurb. Also it concerned me that this may be the first of many other problems they could discover over time.

So I went back to BestBuy and managed to return the camera for a full refund. It wasn’t an ejoyable experience but that’s a story for another day and time. I then decided to switch sides and went with the Canon EOS 500D (T1i) which some say is Canon’s competitor to the Nikon D5000 while others say it’s the competitor to the Nikon D90. Either way, it’s a really nice camera.

  • The Canon feels about the same as the D5000 in that they both feel solid and of good quality but the Canon is slightly smaller and lighter.
  • The screen on the Canon blows away the Nikon since the Canon has a 640×480 resolution while the Nikon has a 320×240. This really helps when you review pictures you just took as well as on the random occasion you decide to use Live View.
  • The Canon also boots up faster from a cold start to the point where it’s ready to take pics which is always handy.
  • The Canon has a higher ISO range than the D5000 which is useful for taking pictures without the flash. I’m not even qualified to call myself a novice photographer but man I hate using the flash. It totally washes out the colors and tones of a picture that are so beautiful when captured in natural light. The Canon’s higher ISO gives you the ability to push the limit of what you can do without a flash.
  • The Canon is much noisier when focusing since the kit lens it comes with doesn’t have any type of noise reduction. The Nikon is extremely quiet and I miss that.
  • The Canon’s menu’s and options are more designed for the more mature photographer or enthusiast while the Nikon is definitely setup for people like me who are generally clueless. An example is that the Nikon D5000 allows LiveView shooting in any mode including all full auto modes. The Canon? You can only use LiveView in semi-auto modes which is a pain especially when you may want to have random friends/family to take pictures of you with it.
  • The pictures seem to be similar in quality but the Canon seems to do a better job of having colors that really pop in the pictures. The Nikon’s pictures on the other hand are beautiful but the colors seem softer to me personally.
  • The Canon in LiveView uses a separate button to lock focus and then you press the shutter button to capture the picture. The D5000 uses a slower autofocus method in LiveView but you use the shutter to focus just like you would expect. I miss this on the Canon.
  • The D5000 has many more scene modes and other presets than the Canon. The Canon has the standard Auto, Creative Auto (not particularly useful) and basic settings like Night, Macro, Sports, etc. The Nikon has a ton more including a setting for Pet Shots among others
  • The Canon has 9-point focus while the Nikon has 11-point. In most cases this doesn’t seem to hamper me too much but I do get the sense that the Nikon did a better job with autofocus than the Canon.
  • The Canon has support for 1080p/20fps video while the Nikon doesn’t. I doubt I would ever use it at this level and most likely will stick with 720p/30fps which is supported on the Nikon as well.

All in all the cameras are fairly evenly matched from my perspective and you can’t go wrong with either one – although I’m sure hardcore photographers may have good reason to pick one over the other.

Here are some pictures taken with each camera that I feel are some of the better shots I was able to get with them to serve as samples. Click on the images for the originals on Flickr.

Nikon D5000:
DSC_0005
DSC_0001
DSC_0001

Canon EOS 500D (T1i):
IMG_0021
IMG_0168
IMG_0210

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Leaving AT&T for Sprint….something I never thought I’d do

Aug 3

Posted by Tejas in Cell Phones, Networks, Personal | No Comments

So I recently moved away from the iPhone 3G to a Palm Pre, and as a result from AT&T to Sprint. This is something that I never thought would happen but the more time goes by the better I feel about it. To start with, AT&T’s 3G service is a complete joke unless you’re in the middle of nowhere and that place happens to have 3G service which are usually mutually exclusive. Why you ask? Because AT&T’s network is oversaturated with all the new iPhone users hungry for data.

There were many times when I would have a full 5 bars of 3G but the internet would be ridiculously slow to the point where it was useless. Then there were times where the much touted Visual Voicemail was a complete failure and I would get voicemail notifications hours after people left them.

It seems since I left AT&T, things are getting worse, no doubt because of all the new iPhone 3GS customers jumping on top of the already strained network. As TechCrunch stated in a recent blog post, AT&T sucks big time.

While Sprint has its share of problems, the one thing they do have going for them is that their data network, well, it actually works! The best way to quantify this is the fact that while I had the iPhone 3G on AT&T, the most data I ever used in a month was about 50MB. On Sprint, this month alone (and I still have a week left before the the next cycle), I’m already at 1,650MB. Sure, I could have used that much data on the iPhone but in order to do it, I’d have to have put up with AT&T’s crappy data network and by the time stuff loaded I would have probably poked my eyes out with sharp pencils.

So what’s the solution? From what I’ve heard any other carrier except AT&T including Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile haven’t completely dropped the ball with their data network and there’s actually a possibility you can make use of your fancy 3G smartphone whenever and however you want. While I’m still shocked to some degree I went from the #1 US wireless carrier to #3, the benefits are really starting to pay off.

Some other differences include less dropped calls on Sprint (even in bad coverage) than AT&T. Many times with AT&T I’d be sitting pretty with 5 bars of 3G and have a dropped call for no apparent reason. My wife still has an iPhone 3G and sees this occasionally, as do members of my family. I think it’s blatantly obvious that AT&T’s network needs an upgrade on the backend and not just the towers. They just recently upgraded the towers in my area so there’s always 5 bars of 3G (“most bars in most places”) but what good is that when the damn service is unreliable and doesn’t work half the time?!

Notice I didn’t mention anything about devices per se, and compare the iPhone 3G to the Palm Pre since I think that’s just personal preference. Both are excellent devices depending on what you want. At the end of the day, devices are extremely important in deciding what carrier I use but the reality is…devices can only be as good as the network they are on