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David Hingtgen

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Everything posted by David Hingtgen

  1. David Hingtgen
    I'm not "new", but I honestly have never even risen to the rank of "amatuer photographer"---that would require knowledge/skills I don't have. If I have a lot of time, and a still subject, I can fiddle with the basic camera settings with a faint idea of what I'm doing, but more often than not it's just "guess and check" vs "actually knowing what f-stop and exposure time to use" If you want actual DSRL advice, I can't really help. If you want "better than a phone, but doesn't cost a grand"----that's my area. Most of these fall under the "bridge" or "super-zoom" category---and those categories often overlap. IMHO, I think battery capacity/type is under-rated in importance. So many cameras will die SO fast at an airshow. Optical image stabilization? Uses the battery. Focusing while zoomed? Uses battery. Hot sun? Drains battery faster. With many "proprietary" batteries only rated for a couple hundred shots under ideal conditions, you can measure their life in MINUTES at an airshow, when you're using constant zoom/focus/stabilizing under a blazing sun. Thus, I always look for a camera that uses basic AA batteries, vs having to buy a whole bunch of $$$$ proprietary spares to be able to actually have a "full day of shooting". Load the best rechargeables in the camera, keep the second-best rechargeables in the bag, and can buy a set of Duracells or raid the TV remote(s) in an emergency. I did once find a camera that actually did have an airshow mode---but had enough things I didn't like about it, I passed. Pretty sure it was at Best Buy a couple years ago, so can't be very 'exotic' or long out of production. Very few cameras have airshow (or equivalent) modes---which is basically telling the camera "yes, I do in fact want to take a shot of that small, dark, blurry thing, not the big obvious bright thing". Let's see----optical zoom is everything, digital zoom is worthless and even to be avoided (many cameras allow you to completely disable it). *Optical* image stabilization is way better than any other method. (but drains battery fast, but utterly needed for planes, or anything else that is far, or fast-moving---and jets to be both) The further you zoom, the harder it is to track/keep steady, even with stabilization. So "buy more zoom than you need, all you can afford"---because a camera that maxes at 25x zoom, will be struggling to still have a "decent" image at it's max capability of 25x. But a camera that maxes at 50x, designed to maintain a decent image up to 50x---will thus "have it easy" at 25x, and give a good result at 25x. Megapixels ARE over-rated. Very. "Sensor size" is really what matters. Think of it this way (and this is pretty close to how it works)----20 megapixels on a 2-inch sensor, or 20 megapixels crammed onto a 1-inch sensor. Which will be clearer, with no compression artifacts, banding, chromatic abberation, or just plain bad pixels? You really want "the fewest megapixels per inch". The REALLY high-end cameras, are not some "50-megapixel pixel-beast" of a camera. They often have LOWER megapixel counts than "lesser cameras". What they do have, is larger sensors. So that their pixels "aren't crowded", and thus they give amazing quality and clarity for the megapixels they DO have. High megapixel counts-----It's kind of like taking old footage, and uploading it to Youtube as 4K. Well, it's not really 4k footage/quality, no matter what Youtube says the resolution of the video is. The raw quality as recorded simply isn't there, now matter how high a resolution you're making it. "720p, recorded at 720p" is going to be way better than "old 8mm, uploaded at 4k". So, an 8-megapixel picture, taken by a camera with a full 1-inch-plus sensor, is going to look WAY better than a "20-megapixel camera" that has like a 1/2inch sensor. Sensor-size, is of course, rarely listed in a way that is easy to compare. "Everyday" cameras, will say something like "1/2.3" That has zero to do with the physical size of the sensor. But they do "go in order". 1, 1/1.2, 2/3, 1/2.3, etc. (no, can't have logical stuff like 5/8in or 3/4in or even 4/7in, it's 1/1.2in and 1/2.3in, so you've gotta do some mental math when comparing) And just to mess with people, they have both 4/3 and 1.5 when going past 1. Anyways, bigger sensor=way better. But you'll literally need a chart to compare most sizes---best to use one of the many "camera comparison sites" to just have it tell you which sensor is bigger.
  2. David Hingtgen
    Really, I don't think I need to watch the video. I can see all I need to from the box art---what a ridiculous-looking truck mode. It's the opposite of what MP's used to be. I want a friggin' Freightliner FL86 that turns into Prime, period. Cartoon-accuracy be damned, the toon truck has no air cleaners and no horns---that makes it not even really a semi IMHO. (and the ever-flattening fuel tanks have bugged me since MP-1----I don't think I've seen proper fuel tanks SINCE the original G1) Yet they continue to keep putting wipers on, as if THAT was an uber-important detail for the overall look, when so many far larger issues need to be addressed...
  3. David Hingtgen
    Well, I think mine is an '06----guess no matter how well you take care of them, digicams just won't go past a dozen years. (and it's kinda pointless IMHO paying $$$$ for most brand-new ones---nearly every one for sale now in the bridge/superzoom category, are 2014/2015 models still being produced---thus why I bought "slightly used" for 1/2 the price on ebay)
  4. David Hingtgen
    Not liking the coloring/weathering of the latest pics. Some areas are flat-out purple, and I see pale aqua in spots (main gear doors etc). That kind of weathering pretty much gets a "WTF?" from me. Sun and salt exposure never turned a plane grape-and-mint, AFAIK. Way too much to spend on "it may look decent in the end". The actual mass-production product may look very different--could look awesome, could look even worse. Ironically, all those Mandarake listings above, use the original pre-release pics of the first release, which looked great---only we all know how they switched to a Max-esque royal blue in the end. Really, if I could just get a 0D painted like they originally showed (non-premium, non-weathered, simply "slate grey-blue and pale grey"), I'd be happy. Instead, Arcadia keeps trying their darndest to do "odd coloring that is sorta but not quite how it looked". Yeesh, Hasegawa got it spot-on the first try. Sigh, guess I'll wait another decade and hope some day someone makes a good-looking 0D that transforms... ::edit:: Looking at the pics again, I think the basic thing is "they weathered the s*** out of it, but the base colors are still cobalt blue and white". And no amount of weathering is going to change those to slate blue and ghost grey.... ::edit 2:: Where's this one? That one looked spot-on to the CGI: It's far more grey than what they're showing now.
  5. David Hingtgen
    My camera started dying this summer (don't know why, I mean, a digital camera shouldn't really "age" much), and I literally bought a new (well, new-ER) one off ebay yesterday to replace it, as it will NOT make it much longer---this is the best pic I got this season I think: This is totally raw from the camera, asides from re-sizing. (would have a lot more pics from the last 2 shows, but--camera kept dying early on)
  6. David Hingtgen
    Plus a few million trained people to crew them? (of course, there's the perfect answer for that--clones!) SW: Episode IX: Clone Wars 2 Clone ISD's with clone crews, with clone Luukerey...
  7. David Hingtgen
    I figure the fleet of Star Destroyers is a force-vision etc. (Otherwise, that's an awful lot of the EXACT same variant, to assemble this late in the timeline---plus I think it's a pretty poor battle formation to use, given the shape of an ISD and its gun locations)
  8. David Hingtgen
    I know I read a novel with a mirror Ent-D. Honestly don't remember if there was ever a 'replicator beverage scene'. Also--I think coffee is too different. Mirror universe is "a darker, twisted reflection"---not like the complete opposite. Just "very similar, but evil".
  9. David Hingtgen
    Nope. "Tea, earl grey, iced".
  10. David Hingtgen
    I always thought "smart Hulk" in Endgame was basically a test for doing a She-Hulk movie (as in, CGI an actress into a green, much larger version of herself that still looks like her, rather than finding a bodybuilder-actress). But that was a few scenes in a movie with a HUGE budget. Not sure they could afford the same for an on-going show.
  11. David Hingtgen
    Well, we know all the crews' quarters have them, but that's very inconvenient and a big time-waste if you work on deck 42 stbd of the Ent-D, and your quarters are like deck 4 port. So there must be "public" ones scattered throughout. Or maybe replicated food "breaks down almost perfectly with little waste".
  12. David Hingtgen
    Exactly--replicators can likely do it 98-99% as well, but people willingly pay out the nose for the "real stuff" to get that almost-imperceptible slight increase in quality. Vs most people who'd be happy to have "98% as good as a top chef's work, in 2 secs and cheap". Though, with Voyager and their "replicator ration credits" perhaps replicator tech is energy-intensive (expensive) and it's actually far more efficient (though slower) to cook things traditionally? I mean, we do tend to only ever see "flag/bridge officers" in the shows, who may be granted extra rations/energy credits to splurge on replicator food all the time. Perhaps "the masses" on planets, and lower-ranking crew members, can't have "their fave foods, perfectly replicated all the time"? And so seek out good cooks or have to settle for mess-halls? (Ten-Forward doesn't seem like it could handle feeding a Galaxy-class crew).
  13. David Hingtgen
    Looks more like YF-23 or YF-21? They do "the Max and Milia thing" fairly early on.
  14. David Hingtgen
    I wonder if part of it is that it is so First Order/Resistance heavy (with a bit of Clone Wars/Rebels thrown in). If it was more prequel/original based, it might be more attractive to 'the core crowd'. It's kind of like they ignored most of the movies, and made a whole land based on Ep 7... (it's been in planning long enough that Ep 8 can't have had TOO much of an effect on it)
  15. David Hingtgen
    "The VF-4 Ichijo Hikari specification, which was previously released by us"----did I miss a release?
  16. David Hingtgen
    I believe it's actually rating pretty well, critics-wise. Goofy kids movie? Of course. But far from trash/drivel.
  17. David Hingtgen
    While many of his creations are huge and would cost $$$$$ to recreate, instructions for his F4U Corsair would sell a zillion copies. Though, for mass-market appeal---a fully-transformable Movie Prime?!!? But, my personal fave, that I would pay $$$$ for---is his remake of one of my all-time most beloved sets, the 5580 Model Team Highway Rig: (he intentionally made this one a bit more "how LEGO would do it nowdays as a set for sale" vs "true scale model" like he normally does)
  18. David Hingtgen
    Normally first sample pic of a high-end combiner gets a lot of attention, but TFC's Sinnertwin is kinda being ignored (maybe because of MMC's Vortex release?)
  19. David Hingtgen
    Thus, the Stuntikons.
  20. David Hingtgen
    "Lady M" is like the Dread Pirate Roberts. Mylene is just the latest, and the initial is a coincidence. (or maybe it's a requirement) Hmmn. Minmei, Myung, Mylene...
  21. David Hingtgen
    I see it--interesting, at least it has a purpose/reason, and isn't just "looked at a Tu-144 accidently while doing the tailfin" or something.
  22. David Hingtgen
    All will be forgiven if Lady M is Mylene, and she joins Walkure, having left Fire Bomber far behind...
  23. David Hingtgen
    I've bought several instructions from Build Better Bricks. That new Toothless is very tempting, and it's by Tyler.
  24. David Hingtgen
    Yup. And considering how few moving parts/hinges are in the area, and how 30-year-old $3 Corgi diecast Concordes get it right, there's really no excuse not to do it properly. (not expecting a moving visor, but simply hinging in the proper location would make it 10x better) Question of the day---why does the FT one that weird kink in the tailfin, near the front edge? Has bugged me since early grey proto pics.
  25. David Hingtgen
    Is the front smaller windscreen easily removable? IIRC, Bandai paints the outside of the canopy, which makes it harder to strip, as the black framing is also painted on the outside, and you're dealing with a 3D surface. (vs the smooth interior)
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