Lighter Than Air

I think I made it clear how much the iPad was a big letdown for me.

I really like my Mac laptop, but carting it around is actually quite straining on my shoulders. Last week I saw a small netbook selling for a quite reasonable 25,700 yen. I wanted more time to think about it, and knowing that the iPad was coming, I held off.

Last Saturday I went to the Shibuya Apple store and had a play with the Macbook Air. When it came out, I didn't see the point of it. Actually it was just really hard to see the value behind the extraordinary price tag. BUT.. just picking it up got me thinking about it again.

Today the stars must have been aligned because I saw a Macbook Air, albeit an old 2008 model, in good condition for a GREAT price. In fact it was a comparable price to the competition. I checked out the going rate and confirmed this was a good deal. I put it on hold and later I went to get it.

I'm really happy with it. Sure, it has it's limitations, but much less I think than the iPads and netbooks. I got a good 5 hours testing out the battery today too. Better than my one and half on my other laptop.

A relative recently bought a nice Sigma 50mm 1.4 lens which got me curious about a possible addition to my camera. I'm primarily interested in the low light benefits and sharp pics, but some narrow depth of field definitely wouldn't go astray.

So, armed with my SD card I went to Yodobashi to take a few samples. I tried a Nikon 50mm 1.4G and 1.4D, and a Sigma 50mm 1.4.

I only took a few shots at 1.4. The G and D were nice lenses. Auto focus on this lens makes a huge difference. With such a narrow depth of field, manual focus was quite difficult.

I preferred the Sigma out of the three. The Nikons were quite similar to me, and much darker than the Sigma which came out noticeably brighter on the same settings. I'm no photography expert though. That's just my opinion from my brief play.

If I find one of these at the right price, it might be a good impulse buy. Oh no.