Kishor Krishnamoorthi’s WebsiteKishor a.k.a Mjuboy’s Blog

The Line Up

My relationship with Canon can be likened to that of a lion and his cubs. Hatred one moment and pure love the next second.

Some may recall few of my earlier posts directed at Canon, asking them to get their game into order and appreciating their efforts. If you havent guessed already, this one falls into the latter category.

Earlier this month, I received an email from 1000Heads, a company who I’ve worked with before on BBC Blast, asking me if I’d like to attend a round table discussion with Canon. Being the massive Canon fanboy that I am, it would taken a pack of hunting wolves to make me say no. After confirming my attendance, I got more details about the event and it was finally D-Day yesterday.

After getting to the 1000Heads office in London, I was introduced to the other photographers who had been invited to this session and the Canon Rep, Mark Burnhill. There were 7 photographers in all and as I’ve got used to now, I was the youngest one there. We kicked off on time with the Canon Rep explaining why we were here and we’re going to do during the next couple of hours.

After some brief ‘rambling’ about Canon, he started off by introducing the Canon dSLR line up from the beginner 1000D, working his way up to the flagship 1Ds Mk-III. He had a few lines to say about each camera and patiently answered all of our questions. I’ll mention some of the highlights below.

The Canon 1000D was designed as a beginner/starter camera for students who cannot afford a fully fledged dSLR but would still a reasonable number of features. It does the job perfectly, and is very compact and even used by some professionals as a casual backup camera.

The Canon 450D was initially planned to be phased out with the introduction of the Canon 500D but due to high demand and popularity, they decided to keep it in their line up. It is still very popular and considered as a benchmark camera for the low end of dSLRs.

The Canon 500D received a bit of negative feedback on launch due to its high price but it has gained some support with its high-res screen and video mode.

The Canon 50D is supposed to have much better weather resistance than originally advertised due to different standards of weather testing between Japan and Europe. In my hand, it felt very similar to my own 40D, albeit with a better screen.

The Canon 7D is an absolute beaut of a camera to use. Mark told us that it was one of the few Canon dSLRs to be redesigned from ground up with constant feedback throughout the design process. As the slogan says ‘Designed by you, made by Canon’, and after having used it, I must say it is very true. The handling is very different from the 50D and it fits my hand perfectly. Button placement is great, the screen is gorgeous, the viewfinder is much bigger, full weather sealing and the autofocus system has been completely reworked much to my pleasure. I can sing praises about the 7D all day long but we have to move along. (PS – Christmas present for me, anyone?)

The Canon 5D Mk II, much to noone’s surprise is a magnificent gadget. I think I still like the 7D more than it simply due to the fact that it fits better into my hands but the 5D Mk II does win when compared technically with its full frame sensor vs. the 7D’s 1.6x crop sensor. Every shot I took with the 5D Mk II looked perfect straight out of camera, without any post processing. We were also informed that a new firmware would be out soon to enable 24/25 & 30fps recording at 1080p & a few other surprises. However, 720p would still be missing.

The next camera was the pièce de résistance, the Canon 1D Mk IV. Built like a tank, it weighed like one as well and was a beast to use. The 102,400 ISO is ridiculously high and I cant say it has great quality but it definitely makes 6400 ISO virtually noiseless. Probably a bit too big for my hands, it was still a splendid camera to try out and the shutter click was very satisfying. We were told that sales would start this weekend.

The Canon 1Ds Mk III had quite possibly the most spectacular viewfinder I have ever used. Full frame was really something else and it also weighed a ton! The screen seemed relatively bland after having used all the other high-res screens but I suppose it still does its job. Mark remained tight lipped about its successor but I think we can expect one for mid next year.

Other information we discussed included the famed “Eye Control Focus” which was ditched after using it in very few cameras, and not because of the technology but rather because it violated some patents in America. I thought that was a shame because I really do like that feature in my EOS 5 and would have loved to see it move on dSLRs and be perfected. We talked in detail about the reason for pricing difference in the US and UK/Europe which we were told was due to translation costs for manuals and EU licensing and certification but I still doubt they make the same profit in both markets.

Mark briefly talked about how full frame edge-to-edge autofocusing is something that would a significant leap in innovation simply due to the technological constraints of today. He also mentioned that due to cultural differences between Japan and Europe, it takes a lot of time and effort to convey the requirements of the European customer to them. About new lenses, he said that there were plans to rehaul the full range of lenses over the course of the next few years since a majority of current line up was never designed to work with resolutions beyond 21Megapixels. However, due to technical limitations, they can only redesign a maximum of 8 lenses a year, given that no new lenses were being made.

He said that Canon had no immediate plans to venture into the Medium Format industry and would continue to innovate and excel in dSLRs.

The 2 hours had flown by faster than we thought and it was soon time to wrap up. We were taken to dinner afterwards to a fancy French restaurant, Chez Gerard where we got to know each other better. The food was delicious (I had the Salmon) but the portions were a bit small for my liking. Nevertheless, it was nice to meet other similar minded people, and we exchanged contact details before we departed at around 11pm after a great evening.

My sincere thanks to Nicola & Aaron at 1000Heads for organizing the evening, Mark Burnhill for personally interacting with his customers, Canon for being the best camera manufacturers in my books, and everyone who came along and made the evening pleasant and eventful!

See the full set of photos from the evening over here!

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you subscribe to my site via RSS or Email!

Been just over a week since I’ve got home. The daily routine has mostly consisted of eat, read, watch TV, check teh interwebz with a considerable amount of sleep between these activities. Other stuff included were catching up with lots of friends which was quite nice, definitely good to see some old faces again, have some good meals at our old favourites, and the likes.

On a sadder note, the world has lost two things this week, both of which/whom I have respected. The first one is the legendary Kodak film, Kodachrome, a transparency film which has been manufactured for nearly 75 years before Kodak took the decision to stop production earlier this week. From the point of view of Kodak, it seems reasonable since it accounted for less than 1% of its sales and there is only one lab left in the world which has the capability to process this film since it is quite complex, and Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas has said that they will continue to process the film until late 2010. However, it will definitely be missed by many film enthusiasts including me, who revered the film like a god. It was the same film used to capture the world famous Afghan girl photo by Steve McCurry in 1984. And this momentous calls for Paul Simon’s classic song ‘Mama, dont take my Kodachrome away’.

The other loss was  a man, although some say otherwise, nevertheless, known as the ‘King of Pop’. I must admit his death came as quite a shock to me, I somehow took his existence for granted and regardless of all the controversies he has been in, I’m sure everyone agrees that he made some pretty damn awesome music. My playlist for today has simply been all of the King’s albums on shuffle. May his soul rest if peace.

On a more positive note, I got my exam results earlier this week and I somehow managed to scrape a 70.7% overall, which is a  1st Class and all I wanted. Next year will be tougher, with a 10,000 word dissertation and all, but it’ll be the test of my mettle to score a 1st Class next year too.

Watched Terminator: Salvation today, barely worth the visit. Just 2 hours of mindless violence and action wrapped around a weak excuse for a story. Christian Bale is a normally a good actor but he doesnt come close to Arnie as the classic Terminator, and Terminator 2 still remains my favourite of the series.

Also played Max Payne 2 today, such a beautiful game to play, I do hope Max Payne 3 doesnt turn out as a bad as it looks.

And thats all for now folks, more updates on life and the world soon!

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you subscribe to my site via RSS or Email!

Running in an election changes your life in so many ways. You learn so many new different things and it is a very interesting experience, atleast it has been so far. I’m going to briefly list a few things that I’ve learnt so far over the past week about life in general, they may be true or not but these are just my personal opinions -

1. There are 3 types of lies in the world – lies, big lies and statistics. (Yes, I know am a statistics student and that is why I can confidently state this)
2. Democracy is a flawed system. (Yes, I come from the Worlds Biggest Democracy but its the truth)
3. The average man doesnt care about who leads him as long as he can live his routine life. (Maslow’s Hierarcy of Needs)
4. Getting people involved is easier said than done. (Having run around half of the campus, trust me on this one)
5. Posters dont win elections, getting out there and talking to people does. (As Big T said)
6. Taking sides on an election really separates the real friends from the moochers.
7. Elections bring out the best from the candidates. (You would never believe the number of hidden talents that come out)
8. Winning takes real hard work and pretending to work just doesnt work any more. (The Hyderabadi Chalta Hai attitude fails in this aspect)
9. Women are crazy. (Dont ever try to understand them)
10. Dont ever trust them^. (They can make you feel like the happiest person on earth one moment and wish you were dead the next moment)

I believe I cannot campaign for the elections here so I can only redirect you towards our Students Union website where you can learn much more about it.

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you subscribe to my site via RSS or Email!

Got back to University last Monday after a fairly uneventful trip. I was the last person to get on the plane since I was happily sitting at Hard Rock Cafe and sipping my drink when I noticed that everyone had left the waiting area. I slept for a majority of the trip which made it seem short.However, the London Underground did stop randomly a couple of times which made the trip from Heathrow to Colchester seems longer than the plane from Hyderabad to London.

Nevertheless, all is good now, I’ve settled into the new house with my friends and finished customizing my room to my preferences. A few small things remains to be done but they should be easily finished soon. We still have to get Internet at our house and the Virgin people seem to be taking forever to get it done. Hence I have to walk to University to use the labs whenever I need to check my email or just check my calender. This does have some good points though, it has made me adapt to a non internet life and use Post-Its extensively along with some other old-school methods to keep myself organized now that I cannot visit iGoogle every few minutes. But it also obviously has its bad points, such as not being able to use Skype, no random YouTube videos, and I cant just Wikipedia something when I want to. But it should be here in a week, hopefully.

I’ve been mostly meeting up with friends and doing things for the societies since classes only start next week. All the freshers arrive today and I’m somewhat looking forward to meeting them. I’m sure there will be atleast one like minded person when there are 2500 new students arriving.

I’ve been catching up with important news only, the state of the United States Financial Market has been very interesting to say the least, and also the first movie shot with the Canon 5D MkII made by Vincent LaForet are very very impressive. I suggest that you take a look at it here.

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you subscribe to my site via RSS or Email!

I’m going to kick off this post with some very sad news, one of the best violin players in India, Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, passed away yesterday night due to a cardiac arrest. He was 75 years old and had been awarded a Padma Shri title. His classic style of music will be sorely missed. You can watch his work here.

I also have some good news, my last photo of the 365 Day Project, ‘Day 366‘ had appeared on the frontpage of Flickr Explore. It feels really nice to have the final photo of the project become popular, it give me the satisfaction that I’ve achieved a lot with the project. I’ve taken a screenshot of this memorable event which you can see below. My thanks to everyone who viewed, commented and favorited the photo.

Day 366 on Flickr Explore

And as I mentioned earlier, Sony has announced their newest dSLR, the A900 with a full frame sensor and a whopping resolution of 24 Megapixels and thus winning the megapixel race among dSLRs. It also features a 2.5-4 stop internal image stabilization feature, a 100% viewfinder and dual BIONZ processors. It has a bust rate of 5fps which might seem a bit low but then again, you’ll probably used such a highres camera only in studio situations which wont require high burst rates. The ISO range is decent, ranging from 100-6400. And the fact that it only costs $3,000 makes it a clear winner.

Sony has also announced two new lenses to accompany the A900. The first is a 16-35mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss priced at $1,800 and the second is a 70-400mm f/4-5.6 costing $1,500. Both of them will ship in Jan 2009 and seem very impressive indeed.

This is obviously a problem for Canon who seems to be slightly going down in the market due to lack of innovation. It has everyone eagerly awaiting for the new 5D for which they have released a teaser saying “Destined Evolution’ which has only increased expectations. But the real problem here is not the A900 but since Sony manufactures the sensors for Nikon, there is a good chance that a D3x will be announced sporting a 24MP sensor and 25600 ISO which would make any loyal Canonian cry. But only time will tell so lets wait and see.

Apple has also announced the new generation of iPod Nanos. They dont have any spectacular improvements function wise but look better with a curved slim body and lot of fancy colors. Take a look at it here.

If you are Bulgarian, you should probably hang your head in shame since Slovakia beat Bulgaria in women’s ice hockey with a final score of 82-0. Read all about it here.

And thats all for now folks, but keep your eyes peeled for some wallpapers soon!

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you subscribe to my site via RSS or Email!

Quite surprisingly, the world’s richest person today, Warren Buffet with an estimated worth of $62 Billion,  drives a relatively simple car, the 2006 Cadillac DTS which is sold for something in the region of $50,000. Admittedly, it is expensive for the common man but for a person with enough money to buy more than million Cadillacs, it does seem a bit thrifty. Interestingly, his previous car, a 2001 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series, once again costing around $50,000 had a number plate which read ‘THRIFTY’.

Buffet's Lincoln with the signature number plate.

Infact, a number of billionaires drive quite simple cars. I guess when you’ve become that rich, you cant really be bothered to drive the fanciest and most expensive cars but would be happy with something that is simple and comfortable.

There are several examples of such billionaires including, Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, worth 31$ Billion, who drives a 15 year old 1993 Volvo 240GL. The vehicle apprently reflects his style rather than this wealth. Jim Walton, son of the Sam Walton, founder of the Fortune 500 topping company Wal-Mart, drives a 2002 Dodge Dakota. And the list goes on with Sergey Brin who drives Toyota Prius, Steve Ballmer who drives a 1998 Lincoln Continental, so on and so forth.

Bill Gates who remained the richest man on earth for 13 consecutive years  and is currently worth $58 BIllion, drives a 1988 Porsche 959 Coupe of which only 230 were ever manufactured. However, the emissions of 959 were doubtful and it a federal law passed by President Bill Clinton to allow to the car to be street legal.  But enough of these, lets move on to the cars with the power, pride and costing a hell a lot of money.

The most expensive car money can buy today is the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 with a list price of approximately 1.5 Million Dollars. The car is handcrafted in France and about 130 have been produced since its introduction in 2005. With a top speed of 407kmph (253mph), the car can accelerate from 0-100kmph (62mph) in 2.5 seconds making it the fastest acceleration speed of any production car in history. The mechanics of the Veyron are very interesting and those who wish to give it a read can do so here.

The Bugatti Veyron

And for those people who are wondering if it is even possible to handle such amount of power, it probably isnt always possible as shown by Ajay Soni who smashed the car after losing control of it near his $6 Million home in Surrey, England. And to add to the pain, the car was not owned by the driver but by his brother, Businessman Kumar Soni who must have lost his mind at the sight of the wreck. You can see pictures and more details of the crash here.

But if you want the fastest car in the world, the car for you is the SSC Ultimate Aero TT which has a top speed of 413 kmph (257 mph) and is recognised by the Guinness World Records as the fastest production car in the world. Very few have been sold to date even though it is less than half the price of the Veyron.

However, some Billionaires prefer comfort to speed like Mukesh Ambani who spent a million dollars (including 120% Indian import duty) on his Maybach 62. Mukesh Ambani is the 5th richest man in the world with a net worth of $43 Billion. The Maybach may not have the raw power of the Veyron but it is more luxurious than the average person’s house, with fully reclining rear seats, automatic closing doors, Bose Surround Sound Speaker System, Dual Control Air Suspension, an air conditioner capable of cooling it to 15 degrees below the outside temperature and a lot more. You can also include the option of a panoramic translucent electroluminescent sunroof for another $12,000. A more detailed description of the features can be found here.

The luxurious Maybach 62

And just in case, you like luxury and speed, you can opt for the Brabus tuned version of the Maybach which increases its top speed to 300kmph and can accelerate 0-100kmph in 4.9 seconds making it the the fastest super-luxury motorcar in the world.

But sometimes the most expensive isnt expensive enough. New Yorker James Glickenhaus had Ferrari custom build a car for him and tailor made to his body dimensions so that it would be a perfect fit for him. And the cost of this customisation? A mere $4 Million. The car was customized over the chassis of an Enzo Ferrari by Pininfarina.

The classic Rolls Royce is always a favourite as shown by Donald Trump who is only worth $3 Billion and owns a 2007 Model of the Rolls Royce Phantom. Gambling Billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, worth $28 Billion owns a 1991 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur which probably isnt the most flashy car but as we’ve seen above, they richest of the crowd prefer to keep a low profile.

Rolls Royce Phantom

Okay, so you’ve bought your fancy car but dont know where to push it to its limits? Fear not, for there is a 4 mile track at the Monticello Motor Club only 90 minutes away from Manhattan which is there to serve the purpose for you to drive as you please. The entry fee? $125,000 with a yearly membership fee of $7,500.  The exclusive private club includes members such as Jerry Seinfeld, and James Glickenhaus along with his $4 Million Ferrari.

And there you have it, the most expensive and fastest cars in the world all waiting to be bought by you and me. Personally, I’d be quite happy with a Pagani Zonda C12F.

What cars would you buy if you were a billionaire? Would you splurge your money on the best or save it up and buy a simple car? Please leave your valued comments.

Sources – Forbes Autos, The Super Cars and Wikipedia.

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you subscribe to my site via RSS or Email!

The folks over at Smashing Magazine were kind enough to feature 3 of my wallpapers for their September Calender. Check them out here, and there are about 25 more really awesome wallpapers there. Thanks to Vitaly and Sven!

The Winning Shot.

And this photo of mine won the 2nd place in the August Hyderabad Photography Club (HPC) Contest. The theme was ‘Hyderabad at Night’ and I got 13 stars narrowly beating the 3rd place one which got 12 stars. Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

And Google has announced their new Open Source browser ‘Chrome’ which is supposed to improve stability and security and make it easier for the simple user. Lets how things unravel tomorrow.

I watched ‘Daniel Defoe’ Robinson Crusoe‘ today which is admittedly, overall a pretty average movie. What I really liked about the movie though is the way the complex relationship between Robin and Friday is portrayed. Some scenes are very heart rendering, especially the final scene when Robin holds Friday’s dying body in his arms and screams at the top of his voice. Good performance by Pierce Brosnan.

Today is also the first day of fasting of the holy month of Ramzan for Muslims. And with Ramzan comes the Hyderabadi Delicacy, Haleem which I happily gorged on.

And come nightfall, I spotted some beautiful stars in the clear sky tonight and hI eaded to the terrace with my trusty tripod. I got some decent shots of the stars and then I attempted to take some Star Trails. Note the word attempted because I hardly got anything worthwhile. I knew it was possible since I got a few potential shots but my China made remote had to mess around at that time thus making me annoyed and also lost the opportunity to capture more the shots. Maybe next time…

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you subscribe to my site via RSS or Email!

I’ve been ardently following the semi-finals of Britain’s got talent over the past week along with my friends. One hour, every night for 5 days lead to a lot of swearing at the TV, swearing at each other and making fun of innumerable auditions. Its been good fun and the finals of the show were held on Saturday.

As always, all of us had our favourites, the people who we wanted to win. My personal favourites were ‘Signature’ a dance group of two Indians, who had a combined style of Michael Jackson and Bhangra which proved very effective and popular. I quite liked their style and the fact that they were Indians was a huge plus point. The other group who I liked was ‘Escala’, a troupe of 4 beautiful girls who played the violin in a pretty spectacular way.

I watched intently to see who the winner would be, and when they had cut down the participants from 10 to 3, only one of my favourites remained, Signature. I cant say I really liked the other 2 of the final 3 so I hoped that Signature would win. Then, when only 2 remained, the final winner was to be announced. However, as fate would have it, Signature did not win, and the winner was this 14 year old kid named George Sampson who was quite good at his rain dance act. I was shocked that Signature did not win, probably along with thousands of others who would’ve been heartbroken.

I am very proud of Signature, for the tremendous efforts that they would have put into their dance, for the unique style that they created, for making all Indians proud, and for not giving up without a fight. I’m sure that they will have a bright future ahead of them.

You can watch the first audition of Signature here, their performance in the semi-finals here and their dazzling finale here.

And for those who’ve already watched the audition and want to listen to the mix they used, you can listen to it here, its called Nachna Onda Nei by Tigerstyle with Kaka Bhania.

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you subscribe to my site via RSS or Email!

After having bought myself a Flickr PRO Account a couple of weeks ago, I decided to upload my 365 Day Project to Flickr so that I can share it with the Flickr community. You can view all the photos in a set here and view a slide-show of the photos here. And you can now keep updated with the photo of the day by subscribing to this exclusive RSS Feed which will notify you when a photo is uploaded onto the set on Flickr.

I came across this highly amusing image of why you shouldnt piss off a engineer, take a look at it yourself here.

Another very witty article I read was about the 8 different types of annoying people you’ll find in Starbucks. I found the list to be quite accurate, read the article here to see if it reminds you of a trip to Starbucks.

People just come up with all sorts of crazy but innovative ideas these days. This list of the most awesome business card designs I have ever seen, reinforces that statement.

Viral marketing is the latest thing for all companies these days, Levis has done quite a good marketing campaign for its jeans with this strange and funny video of guys jumping into jeans.

For all those ardent web designers out there, here is a compilation of useful resources for both experienced and amateur web developers.

If you have vertigo, this photo is probably not for you. Its a photograph of the view from the top of what is currently the world’s tallest structure, the Burj Dubai.

Barack Obama seems to gaining more and more popular support day by day, and his increase in security proves it. Click here to view some amazing photographs of Barack Obama’s Security.

Luigi Colani has designed some of the most extravagant and ridiculous designs which have to be seen to believed. Take a look at them here.

And for the funniest story of the week, officials at Japan’s Narita airport have lost 142gms of cannabis after having placed it in a random passenger’s bag to test their security dogs. As fate may have it, the dogs were not able to sniff out the drugs and the officer has forgotten which bag he put it in.

And thats all for now folks!

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you subscribe to my site via RSS or Email!

3 exams finished, only 1 more left and I’ve got a week till that one so I’ve got some freedom till then. My Politics exam went on well but the real kicker is the Statistics exam which was really good considering the fact that I had only one to study for it, the subject that I dislike the most.

I’ve been getting lots of things done over the past week, things that I’d wanted to get done for a long time so it was good to get all of those off my mind.

I was browsing randomly around a couple of days ago when I came across this article which talked about a man who took a Polaroid everyday for 18 years of his life right upto the day he died. After having tackled about three fourths of my 365 Day Project, I know how demanding it can be on some days to get a photo done. And this is only 257 days in for me, he took photos for 6,697 days from 1979 to 1997. It is quite a remarkable feat and I truly respect for having the determination and courage to go through it for 18 years. Thats more than my age. I have been contemplating undertaking a similar project and I’m still continuing to contemplate it, I havent really made up my mind yet. You can read the article here.

I’ve been reading about some photographers lately, the ones who really inspired me were Michael Muller and Platon. Michael Muller shoots celebrities and promo shots for high profile movies, the latest and most famous one being Iron Man. He has a very impressive portfolio and has done portraits of the some of the most famous celebrities out there.

I felt Platon is a bit more ‘legendary’ than Michael Muller since he is the one who photographed the leader of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin himself, for the cover of TIME Magazine in 2007 and also won the World Press Photo in 2008 for Portraits with that photo.

His interview about the photoshoot is very powerful and he talks about his experience, I feel every photographer should listen to this, to know how it feels to photograph one of the most powerful men on earth. You can watch it here. (Click on 2008 Interviews and then click on Putin’s photo) The interview is about 10 minutes long and definitely worth listening to.

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you subscribe to my site via RSS or Email!