Jay Lagare

Pentax K100D vs Nikon D40

By Jay Lagare on Saturday, March 24, 2007

I’ve been planning to dabble in a bit more serious photography for some time now. Nothing so serious as to go for monster DSLRs with gazillions of pixels. Just enough to get to know the technical aspects. So the answer is one of those entry-level DSLRs that have been popping around all over lately. The choice has boiled down to the Pentax K100D and the Nikon D40. Both good entry-level DSLRs.

I’ve been comparing them for some time now and the way I see it, the K100D has higher-end DSLR features that the D40 does not: Shake Reduction (SR), dust removal, 11-point AF (D40 has 3-point AF), built-in AF motor, depth-of-field (DOF) preview, auto exposure bracketing, and top LCD status display. As a bonus, it uses widely available AA batteries. With 2500mAh and even 2700mAh rechargeable batteries becoming available, longevity should not be an issue.

On the other hand, the D40 has two things the K100D does not have: dedicated AF-assist lamp and large continuous shooting buffer. The D40 also is generally better in terms auto white balance (AWB), metering, noise reduction, and image processor.

However, in terms of picture quality, it’s a toss-up. From the sample shots I’ve seen, usually the K100D’s has better colors and the D40’s are sharper. But there are quite a lot of exceptions to this.

Tough choice.

General

Undetectable USB Devices in Linux

By Jay Lagare on Friday, March 23, 2007

Finally was able to find a solution to the problem that had been bugging the Linux laptops at the office for quite some time already. The problem was that USB devices were not being detected. The error messages go like:

USB: device not accepting address 2. Error -110
USB: device not accepting address 3. Error -110
USB: device not accepting address 4. Error -110
USB: device not accepting address 5. Error -110
Unlink after no-IRQ? Controller is probably using the wrong IRQ

After quite a bit of searching. I finally found this thread. It turns out that the solution is quite simple. You’ll need to go open your boot loader configuration file (in my case it’s /boot/grub/grub.conf) and put irqpoll as one of the kernel parameters. Reboot and voila! USB devices are now detected.

Uncategorized

Free Speech?

By Jay Lagare on Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Just found out that a schoolmate and batchmate, Gemma Bagayaua-Mendoza, was arrested and jailed for libel. I didn’t know libel is an arrestable charge here. And it doesn’t even have to be proven that you’re guilty in court. Someone can just file libel charges at you and the police will come knocking on– or worse, kicking down– your door and arrest you. This in a country supposedly where free speech is allowed. To add insult to injury, she wasn’t able to post bail and leave the jail right away because the office in charge of the precinct was not around. More here.

Uncategorized

2007 F1 Season Has Begun!

By Jay Lagare on Sunday, March 18, 2007

Caught the live broadcast of the Melbourne race on cable TV. It was the first race of the 2007 F1 season. As expected, Raikkonen made a good showing and got first place. Alonso was a close second place. But the big surprise is newcomer Hamilton who got a place on the podium on his F1 debut. The chase between Massa and Fisichella was also quite exciting especially as the laps went down. Just a glimpse of what’s to come in the next few months.

General

Tanabe Super Medalion Racing (SMR)

By Jay Lagare on Saturday, March 17, 2007

Today, I finally installed the Tanabe Super Medalion Racing (SMR) that I had bought second-hand six months back.

The SMR is a canister-type free-flowing perforated-core muffler developed specifically for racing. It features Tanabe’s Advantex muffler packing material. Advantex is a chemically treated composite material that resists acid, heat, rust, and many other forms of deterioration. So it supposedly lasts far longer than fiberglass wool which is the most common muffler packing material. In addition, the SMR is riveted so that if need be, you can open it up, refill the packing material, then rivet it close. Nifty.

The SMR looks great but it was bigger than I had anticipated and I had reservations about installing it. But after a long time, I eventually realized it’s just gathering dust and I finally relented.

Early in the morning, I went off to MufflerLand where they ripped off the stock muffler and welded the SMR in place. It was reasonably quick and I was driving off in no time at all.

The first thing I noticed about the SMR is the sound: a full-bodied bass across the RPM range. The sound does not break up at some RPMs like lesser mufflers. As for power, many people claim mufflers lessens restriction and thus increase power. I’m not sure about that but one thing is: It sounds powerful :P

BTW This is a huge muffler and if you are on lowering or– heaven forbid– cut springs, you might scrape the tip on the pavement once in while especially on steep ramps.

Rating: 4/5