Tom’s Graphic Design Journal

The holiday weekend was great. It's been over now for a while but I'm still clinging on to it and trying not to think about work. Work really is 80% of my life if not more. It feels like 90% but trying to do the math, I think it's less. I always have it on the brain too that's the bad thing about having a mind that doesn't turn off. I even think while I'm sleeping half the time! Yes. I dream about work. Bad isn't it? Although funny enough since work is sometimes a silly place (thankfully), I had a dream about Connect Four last night...which sure enough is sitting on the desk next to me at work.

So on the note of silliness I'm sharing this photo I took at the Hamilton train station in NJ when I was coming home from the holiday weekend. It's a dress up Michael Jackson color form! The little cafe at the station has a ton of figurines and board games, and pop relics from the past 30 years (maybe some older) sitting on shelves open for all the commuters to see whether the cafe is open or not. For the common visitor this may seem odd. However, I'm more experienced in the weird ways of Jersey. No, this was much more than a wrinkle in our social fabric and a disturbing reminder of the past. This was purely amazing! Sitting next to Jackson was a Playboy race car with Anna Nicole Smith...and a few shelves over was a Pope John Paul II doll and what appeared to be an African American Cher doll.

If you're ever in NJ and aren't feeling awkward or weirded out or like you have some weird sense of de ja vu... check out the NJ Transit Hamilton train station.

So I'm going to try and post to my blog more often. I research non-stop and really need to write down a lot of it for my own reference now moreso than ever. However, don't forget that I also put interesting sites into my custom Google search engine for design.

So what did I find this time? Fisix and APE. Two physics engines for ActionScript3 / Flash 9. Wonderful libraries that make the tasks of gravity, bounce, velocity, collision, springs, and more very easy! Essentially you can just stick in a nice easy line of code and voila you have a ball/wheel that can bounce around and interact with things in your "world." Same goes for creating lines/planes/vectors/etc. that can have different properties applied to them to modify such objects.

All in all my taste of physics engines in AS3 ranged from easy to advanced...there is quite a bit of math involved when you get down to it and it really started bringing back memories of my high school physics class and all the spring formulas, etc.

So what can you do with a physics engine? Well, you probably will want to be making animations, simulations, or games with it. I suppose you could have an informative web site that has windows that bounce around with info in them, or perhaps a slick navigation, but that's probably a seldom thing.

The Fisix Engine is available for use in Flex projects and APE (Actionscript Physics Engine) is available for use in Flex and Flash CS3 projects.

Ok. So after a small debate with this point and shoot camera, I decided to keep it. From the sample photos on the internet I believe that the Canon SD800 has a better photo quality. However, not by much.

The reason I decided to keep it was because of it's compactness (I believe it's one of if not THE smallest cameras in it's class) and because of a few other reasons namely the video and ease/speed of use.

While the Canon SD800 also has video, it's not as high quality. The FX07 records in 16:9 which is cool. The only thing I wish you could do is zoom in/out while recording. You can only set the zoom first, then record. Maybe a firmware update?? Highly doubtful after how long the camera has been out...but they really should've thought about that if they took the trouble to do 16:9. The Canon SD800 apparently does zoom while recording...but again the video quality isn't supposed to be anywhere near as good...and I'll believe it.

I had some good success with the FX07 in low light situations. Not just with photos but also video. While I wish the prints were a little better (4x6's are fine and even 5x7 depending on the lighting in the photo...I just wanted 8x10's), the other features are making up for it. Plus...you really have to spend more than $250 on a camera to get better and I didn't want to.

I've posted a sample video here that I took on my way home from work the other night (24mb). The video recording is about 1mb/sec. Fortunately the FX07 can use the new high capacity SD cards so I guess if you want to make mini movies (great for YouTube) you can get an 8GB SD card off NewEgg for about $75 and go record for a little over 2 hours with this camera! The resolution? 848x480 pixels 30fps. Not bad!

So I just got a Panasonic FX07 the other day...and I still have mixed feelings about it. I researched it quite a bit online and read all the specs. On paper this camera looks amazing! For the price, it's perfect. The leica lens? Wow.

BUT... Unfortunately I was disappointed with the image quality. Of course I'm still debating and I started looking online for sample photos from various cameras in the same price range. I also keep comparing everything to my 20D. I have to realize that I can't expect to find a point and shoot camera that's as good. However, I remember my 2 and 5 megapixel point and shoot cameras being better before. The Panasonic (and many others in the same range) I find to have some weird splotchy "water color" type effect to the images. I suppose this is some sort of noise reduction software inside the cameras or how the sensors work. I do remember my photos from old point and shoot cameras being more "grainy." However, I think the grainy dots seem to work better for inkjet printers as you can't tell which is the camera and which is the printer. Maybe my printer is old too then.

Not that this photo of my horse here is the best in the world...it was a quick snap with absolutely no adjustments. Hence point and shoot. It should be brainless...and I will defend this camera and say it does a pretty good job of balancing out the exposure and the skies were very pretty. Maybe it's just a good day out, but colors are rich and exposures are for the most part nice. You can probably tell from this photo that it wasn't the best conditions with the strong sun...but there is detail across this entire photo (if I bothered to process it better).

I just think they don't make these small point and shoot cameras like they used to. They are smaller. The FX07 is smaller than my phone and my wallet, which I love...and it has a 28mm equiv. lens which is perfect for what I got it for. Plus the image stabilization. That's why I got the camera.

I guess the Canon SD800 and the Nikon Coolpix S50 are better cameras now looking at sample photos, but they are only a little better. I'm disappointed that less of these cameras shoot in RAW formats. So for the price, I guess I'm going to stick with this one.

If anyone out there was trying to decide on this camera. I would say go for it if you fall into the following category.

1. You want a cheaper image stabilization camera
2. You want the smallest possible digital camera you can get
3. You want a wide angle (28mm) lens to get better group shots in small places
4. You won't be printing out many of the photos (mainly online use)
5. You don't want to spend a ton of money

To the right here is an example of the water color like pattern you'll find in actually many point and shoot cameras. Perhaps more prominent in the Panasonics (so I've heard) but I've seen it more subtle in the Canon and Nikon sample photos as well. You can actually get a nice 4x6" print (about 7x10" at 300dpi should be the max print) from the DX07. I've tested it. Indoor/darker shots aren't so hot but they work. Without image stabilzation they would be blurry. So you gotta decide on this water color like pattern or blur.

However, if you want to get better prints and have the money to spare, you may be better off with another camera. I think I just might keep this camera because I know that I'm only going to be printing 25% of the shots I take with it. It's mainly for going out to parties and posting images on the internet. I just wish this camera was cheaper for just web images. All of these cameras are overpriced in my mind for the quality you get. So instead of spending another $70 for the Canon or Nikon I might just stick with this one because I've seen sample photos and they are not THAT much better. However, I'm disappointed with all these cameras and truly believe that they should've just not invested so much in a 7megapixel sensor and put more R&D into a sharper image. Hell, I know of cameras that are 4 years old that take sharper pictures than ALL of these cameras in this class. Example - the Nikon Coolpix 5500. Of course that cost me $500 or more new and it's much larger. However it's 5 megapixels and takes MUCH better photos than all these cameras and has manual controls for setting aperature, exposure, etc.

Why don't these camera companies just take that 4 year old technology and put it into smaller newer cameras? I don't know. I guess then they might not sell as many dSLR cameras. Bottom line...if you want to be a photographer and get great prints get a dSLR...if you want to post images to the internet get one of these cameras, honestly it doesn't matter which one because in my mind they're all junk. I just need something I can run around half drunk with and keep in my pocket...too bad it costs so much for something so simple that doesn't deliver in the end. Oh yea that's how it always is.