| Wednesday, 12 September 2007, 1:22 pm Tags: Blogging |
Ten of my favorite pieces of gear taken at random from our labs – press refresh to see more…
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Title: Etymotic ER-4P Portable In-Ear Earphones Manufacturer: Etymotic Research Forget the Bose Quiet Comforts, these IEM (in-ear monitors) give near perfect reproduction and total noise isolation. They do take some getting used to – you may gag when you first jam them in, honest – but the sound more than makes up for the minor discomfort. Trash your iPod earbuds and hear what you’ve been missing. |
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Title: Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras Manufacturer: Canon This is the most expensive lens I’ve ever bought, but it’s a gem. A 50mm fixed focus lens is a great place to learn photography, especially on a full frame camera like the Canon 5D. And the f1.2 aperture means you almost never need a flash. But it’s devilishly hard to focus accurately. You can save a lot buy buying a Canon 50mm with a narrower aperture – even f1.4 would be fine. Shoot with this camera in single point focus mode (focusing is critical at f1.2) and aperture priority so you can stop the lens down if there’s sufficient light. |
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Title: BlueAnt Supertooth Light Manufacturer: BlueAnt This little handsfree works great in the car and has one useful attribute (for me anyway) it can pair with up to five different cell phones at once. Great battery life, too. |
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Title: iPhone DLO Silicon Jam Jacket Super Tough Case Manufacturer: It’s cheap, and not pretty, but this is the most functional iPhone case I’ve tried. It keeps the phone from slipping from your grip and the built-in cord management system is handy for keeping my earbuds close. |
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Title: Canon EOS 5D Manufacturer: Canon I asked every pro photographer I know and they all agreed the Canon 5D was the best digital SLR under $10,000. It’s expensive, but it takes spectacular pictures. |
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Title: Panasonic HDC-SD5 Camcorder Manufacturer: Panasonic This 3-CCD camcorder records to SD cards in the AVCHD format at 1920×1080. It’s 1080i, and there’s some very minor compression artifacting, but given the size of the camera and convenience of directly copying the file to the computer it’s worth it. You’ll need an up-to-date computer and lots of storage to edit the files, and you may need to update your video editing software to support this new flavor of H.264 (iMovie and Final Cut Pro do work). I am blown away by the quality of the video – and copying from SD card sure beats digitizing tape. Highly recommended (well at least until the Sanyo Xacti HD-1000 1080p camera comes out)! |
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Title: AKG K240 Semi Open Studio Headphones Manufacturer: AKG People ask me all the time what headphones I use when I’m on the air. The AKG-K240 has long been the choice of musicians and DJs. Acceptable sound and wear-all-day comfort. For the best sound I prefer my Etymotics, but I wear my AKGs 40 hours a week. |
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Title: Asus Eee 4G-Galaxy 7 Manufacturer: Asus If you need a lightweight computer for a low price this is a gem. Includes a camera, built-in mic, and speakers, wi-fi, USB, etc. You can run it with XP (get more memory) but the Xandros Linux it comes with is eminently hackable. The only negatives are the 800×480 screen (that’s too small for many web pages, including this one) and the small keyboard. I can live with both. Now if Asus would only sell a replacement power supply. Ozzy chewed mine up! |
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Title: BlackBerry 8320 Curve Titanium myFaves Phone (T-Mobile) Manufacturer: T-Mobile OK I love the elegance of the iPhone. It’s the best iPod I’ve ever owned and it’s forcing the entire mobile phone industry to change. But I can’t use it day to day for two reasons: the on-screen keyboard doesn’t cut it and there are no third-party apps. Enter the Curve – the best Blackberry yet. Small and elegant, but with a very usable keyboard and great third party support. My calendar syncs over-the-air with Google calendar (thanks Google), I can post photos, status updates to Facebook, keep track of my workouts with Ascendo, connect to my keychain GPS with Google Maps, and it’s got RIM’s best-in-class email support. The iPhone is a wonderful innovation but this is a great phone! |
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Title: PR40 Manufacturer: Heil My mic. I use this for all my studio work on the radio and netcasts, and I love it. It’s a relatively inexpensive mic that sounds great. NB: This is a large coil dynamic mic with an XLR connector – so it requires an interface to use with a computer. Thank you Bob Heil!! |
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