Green Tee Readings

There are two bits of tech goodness I’m waiting for, well two and a half, I guess. The first is OSX 10.6, or Snow Leopard, which comes out tomorrow. It doesn’t look like a huge upgrade, but getting roughly 6gb back from the install is Very Nice. It’s only thirty bucks, though, and the speed increases in Apple apps, combined with the potential increases in speed from third party apps should make it very very worth it for me. Combined with that in the computing world is the half: Windows 7. If I used my desktop more, I’d probably be a lot more excited about Windows clawing its way back into relevance for me. This could be a winter upgrade, depending on a whole lot of things.

The other whole bit of tech goodness that has me waiting with bated breath is the rumored, now slightly confirmed Canon 7D. I needed to change pants a few times dreaming about what specs it could have, and the recent strongly sourced rumor that it’s not a full frame sensor has me a bit down. My dreams of a roughly 15MP, full frame sensor with 7-8 fps and even better high ISO images than the 5DmkII are dashed, but other than it being a 1.6x crop sensor, the other things seem possible, and maybe even better.

I hope that it’ll be no more than 12MP, the detail on my XSI is fine, thanks, and the high ISO noise control gets at least ISO 1600 pictures pretty usable, and if ISO 12800 looks nice black and white, I’ll be really really happy. With it having two processors a generation more advanced than what’s in my camera now gives me a lot of hope. A leak somewhere along the line notes that the guideline for the camera all through the development process was speed, and with those two Digic IV processors on a 1.6 crop sensor, this could be a blazing fast body. My frustrations at not quite getting the shots I want of dripping icicles could be a thing of the past if this’ll shoot near 10fps.

Another thing hinted at, but not substantiated by the latest CanonRumors.com source, is a more pro-style AF system, which if true, would make this a near perfect budget photojournalist camera, with the main lacking points being pro quality weather sealing and it not being full frame (the latter pretty well gone, the former is possible, I guess, but I’d say unlikely).

Of course, that whole budget part is still a dream, too. I’d have to give some serious consideration to picking one up if it came in at about two grand. If it were priced the same as the 5DmkII, I’d wait for a while.

No Comments yet »