Does YouTube freeze on you every 10 seconds or so when you’re watching video. If you’re using Firefox 2.0+ then it’s most likely because of the session restore save process kicking in. This happens because the session restore is by default set to save all open tabs every 10 seconds. This is especially noticeable/annoying if you happen to have a lot of tabs open at once. Here is a quickfix…..

By opening about:config in your Firefox address bar, then typing browser.sessionstore.interval in the filter box, you’ll see a value of 10000, which is in milliseconds (Meaning your session is saved every 10 seconds.) Try changing this to 300000 (three hundred thousand millisecond = 5 minutes). That’s it, problem fixed…..If you’re paranoid and want more frequent saves try something like 120000 which is 2 minutes.

Hehehe……Nicely done…..

I just received this lens this morning. Purchased it from ebay seller in Greece (I’ve bought lenses from him before), and I have to admit, these old CCCP lenses are definitely different. They have a magical look to them. This specific lens has 20 Aperture blades and it’s bokeh (as you can see) is fantastically smooth and beautiful. I’ve taken lenses apart a couple of times before (they usually had 5-7 aperture blades) and can not believe that someone actually managed to stick 20 blades inside this lens’ aperture mechanism. Anyways, enough talk…..here are some images…..enjoy.

You can check out the complete set here….

Well, I guess I need to catch up with the picture postings since I haven’t updated anything here for a while….I’ve got a couple of new flickr sets posted. The first one is from a shoot I did at the Filmport studios in Toronto….

This place is absolutely huge….

You can see the rest of the set here…..
Next was the Toronto Strobist Groups shoot in a warehouse complete with Classic cars, Motorcycles and Models….Lots of fun all day event…

The rest of the set is here. And last but not least is the TPMG Ad-Hoc Prime Lens walk through King Street to Spadina, upto Dundas and back to Yonge. I went a bit crazy with my new Jupiter-9 Lens and did some crazy bokeh shots.

Again the rest of the set is here…That’s all for now.

Yep, those crazy open source hackers over at dvinfo.net have done it again. You thought the RED camera brought about a revolution in dcinema, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Apertus is using the Elphel 353, free software and open hardware camera. The Elphel Camera which this entire project is based on is basically an excellent security camera that can do some real magic. The camera uses an Aptina CMOS bayer-pattern sensor with an optical format of 1/2.5″ (5.70mm x 4.28mm) and a native resolution of 2592×1944 (5 Megapixels). It features a 12 bit ADC and supports: region of interest, on-chip binning and decimation. Aptina claims that the chip has 70db of dynamic range at full resolution and 76db when using 2×2 binning. The camera has a standard C-mount but ships with an adapter ring that allows to mount CS-lenses as well.

The recording resolution can be freely adjusted to anything starting from 16×16 to 2592×1944 in 16 pixel steps. This includes Apertus AMAX (2224×1251), Apertus CIMAX (2592×1120), 2K (2048 × 1536), Full HD (1920×1080), HD (1280×720) and of course all lower resolution SD formats like DV PAL, DV NTSC, etc.

The lower the resolution the higher the maximal possible framerate. At the full sensor size (5 million pixels or 5 Megapixels) the maximal frame rate is 10 fps in normal color mode and 15 fps in JP4 RAW mode. JP4 achieves higher framerates in general as some camera internal calculations are skipped and need to be applied later in postproduction (like debayering/demosaicing).

The RAW recording mode in Apertus is called JP4 RAW. Because certain in-camera compression steps can be skipped JP4 RAW allows higher recording speed resulting in more fps. JP4 RAW requires postprocessing (DNG Converter) but in return offers the highest possible image quality.

The following connectors are available on the camera body:

• SATA: Can be used to connect any external SATA device that is supported under Linux (external harddrives, raids, etc.)
• Ethernet: 100MBit Network with POE (48V)
• USB: USB 1.1 with 5V power supply
• IDE: Used to connect internal HDD
• RS232: Access to Console and debug output

The camera also supports the following recording media:

• Optional internal IDE 1.8″ HDD
• 2 internal CF Card Slots
• external SATA connector to connect any SATA device (Linux support required)

And if that’s not enough for you there is a extra bonus that comes from the ability of the camera to shoot Full HD in portrait (upright) mode. Upright screens are basically 1080p screens mounted sideways (portrait mode). This type of mounting is becoming increasingly more popular for events, exhibitions and advertising. If you want to spare yourself the hassle of building a right to mount the camera 90 degrees rotated you can whip out your Apertus rig and just start recording. This will give you a 1088×1020 image that’s ready for portrait playback.

Cambrionix’s 49-port USB 2.0 behemoth can take care of all your nerdly USB needs, be it a 49 stick Tera Raid Drive or a insane 49 bulb USB lamp . Unless you find the cost — £399 / $657 (plus tax) — or the fact that it requires an ATX-2 power supply to push 500mA across all 49-ports (24500 mA) a significant deterrents.