#took me an hour because of lagging wifi and a huge file

[londonspirit]

*

[kelsmister]

CONVENTION REVIEWS:: SacAnime Winter 2019 Pros: Table affordable 2 Badges Big table, I believe 6 feet? Plenty of space behind (though I had a pillar row) Huge hall Easy to find/navigate Load IN/OUT a breeze Wifi, if needed, is cheap Cons: Hotel sold out, so had to go further Very small hallway outside vendor hall Attendees did walk behind me several times Weather Had to fly in (so more money) Had to use Uber So SacAnime was my first time ever doing a non-pony related California convention. I somehow magically got off the waitlist and got in. The downside to this was by the time I did get in the neighboring hotels were already sold out. So I let my mom pick a hotel much further away, with the hopes the hotel there may offer a free shuttle. (No luck) Plus side it did offer free service to the airport, and free breakfast each morning. Load in didn’t start until around 3pm on Thursday, so when we arrived around 1:30 we were able to snag a bite to eat before heading downtown. Finding the convention center was a breeze, and with a quick hop out of our Uber behind the building we rolled in my two suitcases. I set up and with that we headed back to get up bright and early Friday morning for day 1. Friday I did amazing sales wise. I did what I normally do in an entire weekend back home in Arizona, which is saying something. I was impressed, and had a fun day chatting it up with customers. My friend showed up offering me a chance to get some better food than what was offered inside the con. A food truck outside had grilled cheese, it was decent, but hey I was hungry, anything was better than stinky nachos or reheated chicken. Saturday the rains came. Weather got colder, and I had to buy a sweater of all things. Sales were still pretty good. Despite the horrid weather unfolding outside people were showing up to the con in the droves. Then, it happened. Around 3:30 or so the fire alarms went off. A blaring familiar tone I know too well from past cons. I groaned hoping it would subside, or an announcement would tell us what to do. After a few minutes, and attendees still shopping, I assumed whatever, they’d inform us. Right away as I was talking with someone a staff member shouted right in my face “GUYS ALARM, EVACUATE!!” Rude, but yeah I figured. You guys weren’t saying anything. So I shoved my money box and wallet into my backpack and made my way out the loading docks doors which were opened for us all. We stood outside for a few more minutes before the alarms shut off, and people just started to waltz right back in. I shouted at the crowd to HOLD IT, as we didn’t know if we could go back in. Then a voice in the very back yelled “ONLY EXHIBITORS AND VENDORS CAN RE-ENTER.” Ok, thank you anonymous voice from the great beyond. After that it took a bit for people to file back in, as again we only had about an hour left anyhow. Sunday, god, the weather, if Saturday was a rain storm this was typhoon levels of storming. Miserably cold, wet, and windy. Sales were moderate, and I decided to do a special “Follow me on social get a free item” thing for a while. My only complaint was with lack of sleep that night I was dead on my feet this last day of the con. When 6pm rolled around I was in robot mode packing up and rolling away. When we summoned uber and got outside the eye of the storm was on like a ton of bricks. The doors blew open, water sprayed up from the streets soaking me from head to toe and blinding my vision as my glasses were now swimming in rain. My shoes were sloppy soaking rags, it was horrid. We ordered pizza and I tried to sleep, to no avail again. Plus side Monday was fly back so I slept a bit on the plane and bus. My only real complaint was the WIFI issue. Somehow I lucked out and in my spot my phone worked, moderately ok. Sure it lagged a bit on pokemon go, or when posting to twitter or facebook, but it worked. I took credit cards just fine. I had however, planned on paying for the Wifi, if the lady had shown up early enough for me to make it worthwhile. I asked at 10:30 am on Friday, they informed me someone had to show up to do it. I overheard on the PA system around 3:30pm that said lady had arrived. A bit late if you ask me. My phone worked, so I didn’t need it. I also lucked out with my table placement. I assumed being next to a giant cement pillar would put me at a disadvantage. Such as being hard to spot, or just the pillar being an eyesore. Instead it gave me so much room behind my table I never was bothered by my neighbors. Heck, I’d almost say if you can request a pillar! It also helped when people would ask “Where are you?” I’d say “FIND THE GIANT PILLAR!” Because rows without the pillars had around 4-5 feet max behind them. Me? I had close to 10. The downside to this was people thought the backside of artists was a proper aisle to walk down. I did inform staff via FB this, and by Saturday mid-day they had put up a temporary barrier. One girl almost took me out with her cape as she walked past. I do wish the aisles had banners or labels or something to identify them. It’s silly for us to post “I’m at table A-14!” when you have no clue where A anything is there. I was in G row, but you couldn’t tell. There wasn’t a floor sign, or hanging sign, or anything. I know most cons don’t do this, but for a show THIS large they need to invest in them. Even something like a printed up banner taped to the ground would help. Over all this show was wonderful. I got to enjoy a new city in California, made good bucks, and had a lousy sleeping night (but that’s hotels fault XD). Minus the weather it was fun. I hope to do this one again!

[arpitram]

4 Best reasons to start using VPN :

A VPN or virtual private network is service that allows you to create a secure and private connection from a device to the network. Just think of it as an online service you use to hide your digital footprints by masking your real IP address and encrypting your Internet traffic. Thanks to the regulation of internet by governments around the world and cyber-attacks by nefarious online elements, VPN has become the need of the hour. Just as you protect your personal information like your phone number and address, you now need to protect your online information. If you are still not convinced about the importance of VPN services, this article is just for you. Here we will talk about 4 important reasons as to why you should start using a VPN right now.

Reasons Why You Should be Using a VPN

While there are myriad of benefits of using a VPN, there are four important points that everyone should consider before giving up on VPN services.

A VPN Protects Your Traffic, Data, and Privacy

A VPN Lets You Unblock Any Content You Want

With a VPN, You Can Bypass Bandwidth Throttling

VPNs Offer a Better Gaming Experience

We will be talking about all these points in detail in the upcoming section. Feel free to jump to the section that you want to read.

1. A VPN Protects Your Traffic, Data, and Privacy

Have you ever experienced an online ad following you across websites? It might be for a product that you search for or already bought. Doesn't it feel creepy to be served ads for things you have searched in the past? Well, it happens because tracking pixels on websites track your searches and then tailor the ads for you.

The above situation that I described is just a fraction of problems that you as an internet user have to deal with while going online. I have not even mentioned the privacy problems that come with using internet. Just to give you a taste of what I am talking about, consider the fact that your internet service provider or ISP is probably selling your internet usage data to make money off you while you are already paying them for the service. In short, if you are going online without a VPN, you’re exposing yourself to the following risks:

- Giving hackers a free pass to eavesdrop on your online communications when you use public WiFi.

- Making it easy for cyber-criminals, government surveillance agencies, and ISPs to see what you type on unencrypted websites, what web page you search for, and what files you download (just to name a few examples).

- Letting your ISP sell your browsing data to advertisers.

- Ending up in legal trouble for torrenting files, and leaking your IP address to every member of the Swarm (total number of people downloading and uploading a torrent).

Using a VPN prevents all these horrible scenarios. VPN encrypts your connection using encryption technologies, such as IP security (IPSec), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Transport Layer Security (TLS) and more. When you use a VPN anyone snooping in on your connection, whether it's your ISP, online tracking pixels, or hackers, see gibberish data.

2. A VPN Lets You Unblock Any Content You Want

Few things are as annoying in life as hearing about a cool new TV series only to later find out you can’t watch it because it’s only available on streaming platforms that don’t work in your country. Sky Go, Hulu, HBO GO, BBC iPlayer – you name it. There are tons of websites that won’t let you enjoy their content simply because you’re from “the wrong” part of the world.

Yes, they have their reasons for doing that (copyright regulations and licensing fees), but that hardly makes it fair. Worst of all, you’re gonna deal with geo-restrictions even if you live in a country where you have access to all the content you want. After all, it’s no longer going to be available the moment you go abroad on vacation, or temporarily move outside the country for work.

geoblocking

And don’t forget about Internet censorship! If geo-blocks aren’t a concern, the government telling you what you can and can’t watch online should be. Many oppressive regimes force national ISPs to block various websites nation-wide. Take China for example. Due to its strict internet policies, its residents and visitors cannot access popular websites like Facebook (although, I am not crying for that), YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and more. Oh, and then there are firewalls. You know - the kinds of restrictions you’ll deal with at work or school if the network admin has to block websites like Facebook or Instagram to comply with the workplace or school policies.

How does a VPN help you with all that, you ask? Simple – it masks your real IP address, which contains data that leaks your geo-location (info that geo-blocks need to be efficient), and which firewalls also use to enforce restrictions. You can even select which country you want your connection to seem to originate from. For example, you can select USA as your VPN connection country and then your connection will seem to originate from the US allowing you to access all the geo-restricted content.

3. With a VPN, You Can Bypass Bandwidth Throttling

Did you ever notice a sudden decrease in online speeds whenever you were downloading something, watching an online video, or Skyping with your friends? That’s basically bandwidth throttling in action. It’s when your ISP reduces some of your Internet speed because you’re using up “too much data.” ISPs are pretty clever and they hide the bandwidth throttling in fine prints so most users are not even aware of it. You might have a fast 50 Mbps internet connection. However, it won't be the same everywhere as ISPs generally throttle speed if you are torrenting or streaming 4K content.

Bandwidth Throttling

ISPs might claim they’re doing that to prevent network congestion, which is understandable. However, usually, ISPs use bandwidth throttling to pressure users into buying pricier subscriptions and data plans. They also get to save money that way by making sure they don’t need to buy more expensive equipment to process user data faster.

Using a VPN can alleviate this problem. A VPN encrypts your Internet traffic, making sure your ISP can’t see your Internet activity. Without that info, your ISP can no longer throttle your bandwidth since they won’t see what you’re doing online.

4. VPNs Offer a Better Gaming Experience

Playing online with your friends is extremely fun – at least until you have to deal with an annoying IP ban or geo-blocks preventing you from playing in the same region as your friends. That’s where a VPN comes into play.

It hides your IP address and encrypts your traffic, making sure you can evade IP bans from sore loser admins, prevent bandwidth throttling from ruining your fun, and join matches in any region you want no matter where you are in the world. If you play online multiplayer games, a VPN can help reduce ping time and lag if it has a solid server in that country. This is a huge gain if you compete in online gaming competitions as every millisecond matters at pro-level gaming tournaments.

Gaming

Besides that, you also get other additional perks:

You no longer have to worry about DoS/DDoS attacks from jealous players targeting you and ruining your killstreaks.

You get instant access to banned or uncensored video games (extremely useful if you live in or travel through Australia).

No longer having to wait a week or two until a new game gets released in your region since you can just “pretend” you’re from another region where the game is already available.

How to Choose the Right VPN Service

With nearly 1,000 (or more) VPN providers on the market, picking the right one can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Also, since we are using multiple devices, it's not fun to choose a VPN service and find that it's not available on multiple platforms. After all, you don't want to use different VPN services for Windows, Android, iOS and other platforms. That's why, before you choose a VPN service, make sure that you focus on some key features to have a slightly easier time finding the ideal VPN for you:

- A no-log policy

- Powerful encryption

- Cross-platform compatible apps

- Kill Switch features

- P2P support

- Lots of speedy servers

Of course, that doesn’t narrow things down too much as many VPN services claim to offer all these features. Looking up dozens of VPN providers, and closely analyzing all their features is a huge time-sink – not to mention how it takes a lot of effort. That's why we took it on ourselves to test out all the major VPN service providers. If you want a shortcut, we recommend that you check out Private Internet Access (PIA). Their VPN service offers military-grade security, is user-friendly, and you can run it on up to 10 simultaneous devices. Overall, Private Internet Access is a great VPN. If you’d like to read an in-depth review of the service, just follow the link.

Source :

For more understanding and learning, you can connect me on www.arpitram.com or www.arpitram.in. See you all with more interesting thoughts on the world of IT world.

[photomaniacs]

Nikon D750 vs Fujifilm X-T2: Shooting Motorsport http://ift.tt/2v8qWBB

My name is Chris Harrison, and I’m a photographer based in Hilperton, Wiltshire, England. In this post, I’ll share a head to head comparison of the Nikon D750 DSLR and Fujifilm X-T2 mirrorless camera in shooting motorsport.

Due to being a creature of habit more than any master plan to compare these two cameras, I ended up shooting the hill climb at the 2017 Festival of Speed with the Fuji kit from near enough the exact same spot as the 2016 event with the Nikon. I also realized that (again being a creature of habit) the gear used for each system was pretty similar. I thought it would be interesting to throw together a comparison of the two systems.

I know how these things can often go, so I’ll list the caveats in an easy to digest list before I get started:

This was never planned.

Had I planned it, I would’ve thrown in the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 to give a true equivalent focal length comparison (with the Nikon 85mm 1.4).

Had I planned it, I would’ve aimed to grab a few more comparable shots in the paddock.

Had I planned it, I would’ve used similar settings on the hill instead of whatever felt right at the time.

They are a year apart, so clearly weather/light and angles are different, the light was beautiful in 2016 (Nikon), but pretty terrible in 2017 (Fuji).

I’ve been using various Fuji and Nikon gear concurrently for the past 4 years, so know both systems inside out. The X-T2 was however new to me and literally unboxed just before I arrived at the event.

2016:

Nikon D750

Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art

Nikon AFS 85mm f/1.4

Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6

Nikon D300 (Spare/Backup)

Total Weight (with batteries): 5165g (~11.4lbs)

2017:

Fuji X-T2

Booster Grip + batteries

Fuji 23mm f/1.4

Fuji 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6

Fuji X-T10 (Spare/Backup)

Total Weight (with batteries): 3150g (~6.9lbs)

Clearly the Fuji is missing a an 85mm equivalent which would have made a small difference to the overall difference in weight (although only 400g). Due to the additional security checks required I heeded the advice not to take a bag and slung the Fuji’s over my shoulder, not something that would have been comfortable with the Nikon kit.

So, all of that out the way, here are a bunch of photos:

The above shots are a mixture of Fuji and Nikon (4 each, in no particular order), so you can probably see why I thought a comparison would be interesting.

Weight & Handling

Despite the low angle of many of these photos, I shoot everything from public positions. That means getting into unnaturally low and awkward positions and handholding the camera for long periods crouched or bending down (panning whilst unbalanced is seriously hard work). The D750 and 200-500mm was brutal in that respect at around 3kg and I felt it in my arms for a few days after. The X-T2/100-400mm combo is hardly lightweight, but at around 2kg it was significantly lighter and easier to handle than the Nikon.

In the paddock the difference was less noticeable (aside from having much lighter gear on my back), but the Fuji really came into its own with the full AF system available via the clever LCD screen. The D750 live view implementation is ok, but it doesn’t come close to the full AF with joystick goodness of the X-T2.

AF Speed/Accuracy

The D750 AF system is awesome and practically infallible once you’ve hit your stride. With the lenses micro-adjusted to death it all just works, I took around 2000 photos at the 2016 event and looking back I’m struggling to find a single one trashed due to being out of focus; as I said, it just works. Considering the 200-500mm isn’t the fastest lens in the world it performed brilliantly and (in good light, as that’s all I had to go on) didn’t feel far off usual workhorses such as the 70-200 f/2.8.

The X-T2 puts up a surprisingly good fight though. For static stuff in the paddock it inspires far more confidence with the EVF and instant review in the viewfinder, and as mentioned earlier full AF through the LCD is miles ahead of the Live View effort from the Nikon. Out on the hill climb I was really interested to see how the Fuji would perform as this would be the first time I was close enough with a long enough lens to get some true head-on shots (much, much tougher for the AF system than panning).

The overall hit rate wasn’t as consistent as the D750 but it also wasn’t far off; aside from the very occasional momentary lapse into AF hunting (only a few times during the day) it inspired plenty of confidence, locking on quickly and accurately and then tracking with ease.

I briefly tested the tracking systems for both cameras, but as usual quickly returned to AF-C and bog standard single point for both. They both worked absolutely fine, but fancy tracking simply isn’t needed for large contrasty objects like vehicles and I like to choose exactly where to put the AF point, not have it decided for me.

EVF v OVF

The EVF in the X-T2 is exceptionally big and bright and particularly with the booster grip it’s super-smooth and virtually lag free. It’s pretty amazing how far things have come since the X-Pro1.

For relatively static stuff it’s a slam dunk for the Fuji, I had 100% confidence in the AF as I could see exactly what I was getting instantly. Features like magnified focus and focus peaking were just the icing on the cake.

Out on the hill I was really surprised at the noticeable improvement of the X-T2 EVF. The lag, blackout and smoothness really is a significant step up from even the X-T1. It’s probably not particularly noticeable when shooting day-to-day stuff, but a Ferrari passing at 100mph? Big difference. Clearly there is still some lag compared to an OVF, but I honestly didn’t notice it and it certainly never held me back at all.

This really is personal preference, but the EVF has come far enough now that I wouldn’t want to go back. Sure the OVF is fundamentally easier to use when shooting action, and for peeps who like to machine gun the EVF would probably be an exercise in frustration if you’re used to a DSLR, but the X-T2 EVF is comfortably good enough not to have got in my way at all.

System Speed

As expected for a DSLR (and one loved by wedding photographers), the D750 does pretty much everything as quick as you’d ever need it to. It does fall down slightly on buffer size and clearance speed, but in terms of operation it’s hard to complain about any aspect of it.

The X-T2 is again a big step up from previous Fuji bodies. Start up to shooting is probably the biggest and most obvious improvement but it’s also much quicker to jump from image review to shooting. I found the buffer quite slow with a UHS-I card (much slower than the quoted numbers) but understand it’s a much quicker beast with UHS-II cards installed.

Clearly they are both fundamentally different systems with different philosophies. With the X-T2 pretty much everything is to hand (and if it’s not there is a spare function button for it) including the excellent AF joystick. The D750 is slightly more menu driven but has the benefit of U1 and U2 custom settings on the dial, meaning you can switch vast swathes of settings instantly.

Full Frame vs APS-C

Without delving into the equivalency debate I thought I better give a mention to this as I know it’s a favorite subject of the internet. The Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART gives a lovely sense of subject isolation even at that relatively wide-angle, the Fuji 23mm f/1.4 is a peach of a lens but it simply doesn’t make larger subjects like vehicles ‘pop’ quite like the Sigma can.

One interesting point to mention, f/1.4 with the Nikon is all well and good but on a sunny day and without filters in my bag the 1/4000 maximum shutter speed limited the usefulness of the wide aperture. The Fuji goes to 1/8000 with the mechanical shutter and 1/32000 with the electronic shutter so even with the 56mm f/1.2 you can shoot static subjects wide open.

Out on the hill the differences are pretty much irrelevant as I’m usually aiming for a sense of movement rather than throwing backgrounds out of focus; with shutter speeds anywhere from 1/30 to 1/200 I’m never going to troubling the maximum aperture on any system.

Battery Life

I didn’t give this any thought on the day so I wasn’t going to include it, but ‘the internet’ has a tendency to pick up on mirrorless battery life – mainly due to the CIPA ratings – so I figured it was worth a mention. I remember reading with amusement when people jumped on the Sony a9 and suggested it could fully discharge a battery in about 24 seconds because of the frame rate and CIPA rating. OK then.

The CIPA rating for the Fuji X-T10 is 350 shots; at the last motorsport event I covered with the X-T10 (a 24hr race) I passed 2000 (two thousand) frames on a single standard battery before the ‘imminent death’ symbol (otherwise known as the battery dropping one bar). Bear in mind I’m not a machine gun shooter either, the vast majority are single shot, or two/three frames in quick succession at most.

It should be noted at this point that the D750 (CIPA rating: 1230) used in a similar way will also laugh at its already impressive quoted ‘life’ as well, but not quite to the same degree as a mirrorless camera.

So, the X-T2 (CIPA rating: 340). I was using it with the Vertical Booster Grip and left Boost Mode switched on all day, as expected the 3 batteries installed were comfortably enough to see me through even with lots of EVF chimping and WiFi transfers throughout the day. I finished the day on near enough 2700 shots (around 6 hours of shooting), to show for it I had one fully depleted battery and the remaining two discharged to around 50%.

Processing

D750 RAW files are really nice to work with in terms of exposure, you can really push shadows or claw back highlights without major penalty. However I’m not a huge fan of the colors out of the camera even with white balance nailed, so they take a bit of work in that respect.

The Fuji RAW files are also super flexible but not quite to the degree of the Nikon, however the colors are just spot on and files generally require very little work. It’s also perfectly possible to shoot JPEG all day long with confidence that the files are going to look great, Fuji just knows how to nail color. That’s all quite handy, as for whatever reason I find Fuji files are really quite slow to load in Lightroom (I’ve tried a very powerful MacBook Pro and a Surface Pro 4, both with the same results).

Conclusion

The D750 is an awesome bit of kit, I remember well the derision it was met with from many when it was announced, but it’s gone on to be a much-loved professional workhorse that simply does everything really, really well with the minimum of fuss. Is it fundamentally a ‘better’ camera than the X-T2, considering image quality, AF, battery life, low light abilities etc? Yes, it would be hard to argue otherwise. But, is the X-T2 close enough that it probably won’t matter for most people? I’d argue that would be a yes too.

The X-T2 does the fundamentals well enough that the inherent benefits for me (size, weight, electronic shutter, EVF, full LCD shooting etc.) just make it a more enjoyable camera to work with. The tactility of the controls and overall experience of simply operating the X-T2 are a genuine joy.

What I lose in AF speed I gain by being able to hold the lighter kit for longer in odd positions etc. What I lose in creative DoF control I gain in the angles I can explore with amazing flexibility of the clever LCD screen and so on. As ever there are compromises on both sides, it’s up to individuals to decide which of those things mean more to them. Hopefully the images here show that the end results can be good either way.

By the way, for every pair of photos, all the D750 images are above and the X-T2 photos are below.

Note: All gear used has been personally paid for by myself. I have no affiliation with Fuji or Nikon. I attended the Festival of Speed as a regular member of the public and received no special access or benefits, all photos were taken from publicly accessible areas.

About the author: Chris Harrison is a photographer based in Hilperton, Wiltshire, England. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find his wedding photography here and his non-wedding imagery here. You can also find more of his work and connect with him through Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and Instagram. This article was also published here.

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July 11, 2017 at 06:07PM