Wireless Hunt: Probably Over – Sony WI-1000X

Well that sure didn’t take very long. As discussed previously in my HD1 Free post, the Pixel 3 is USB-C only. The headphone jack is dead, long live the headphone jack! I was battered and beaten by the Senn’s being absolute hot garbage, but I soldiered on. My hallmarks of (mostly) affordable audio quality – Etymotic – set a very high bar, and for me are an absolutely perfect sound signature. The only closest ‘phones I’ve found is in the full size AKG K701s and oddly enough the Apple dual driver IEMs (Long live you, you affordable, glorious bastards), but then again I haven’t looked extremely hard. I love clarity, I love a prominent midrange, I love what most would call “anemic” bass. For me, detail is king. I want to be wowed by accuracy, speed, and finesse, not by bass so hard it loosens my molars and obliterates the mids and highs. But, then there’s the Sony WI-1000X, and maybe, just maybe, I can find a middle ground.

WI-1000X

The WI-1000X are a neckband style Bluetooth IEM with a very premium build of metal and rubber covered plastic with a padded leather neckband weighing in at a featherlight 70-ish grams. They feature a 10-hour battery life and active noise cancellation on the pair of hybrid drivers. High tech!

Initial impressions were good! I got mine used (Only about a week, practically new!) at less than half retail cost, and they arrived without any retail packaging, but did sport the charging cable, headphone cable, carrying case, and full arsenal of both silicone and triple comfort tips. Out of the bag, I got a pretty much perfect fit with just the included large tips. Isolation was mediocre as expected with a shallow fit canal phone, but I knew this going in. I immediately threw on noise cancellation, and outside of a faint buzzing noise, outside noise was cut to the point of about my Etymotics.

Accessories! Travel bag, MicroUSB to headphone, airplane adapter, microUSB cable, and a full arsenal of tips.

Sound quality wise, I will say they’re not Etymotic, but they’re good. Streaming Sony’s LDAC codec off my Pixel 3 gave me what I could call a pretty full, enthusiastic, yet smooth sound. I do still find the low end just a bit sloppy, but then again, I’m not used to having a dynamic driver in my ear. The hybrid design leads to a pretty wicked experience though, with all the boom of a dynamic driver and the articulation and speed of a balanced armature. A-Ha’s “Take on me” has the synth perfectly placed and articulated over the bass line, with the vocals not getting lost in the mix. Kygo’s “Here for you” sees Ella’s vocals smooth as ever, and nothing ever really gets lost or jumbled in the mids of “Mr Brightside” by The Killers. They trade the Etymotic’s intimacy for an improved soundstage, as seen in Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, which I find plays well on soundstage in general. They’re warmer, smoother, and less precise than Etymotic, but they’re enjoyable!

There’re a few things I’m a bit annoyed by, but they’re minor at most and not at all make or break for these things.   

• The stock tips fit great, but don’t isolate well. I was able to work around this a bit by placing some comply foam between the tube and hood on the large hybrid tips, which both improved comfort and fit, and increased isolation. 
• The IEMs also take well to EQ, however the Sony app on Android limits you to the SBC codec when using the EQ in the app – Too bad. 
• When powering the IEMs on, they default to noise cancelling as well. I notice a bit of a change in sound with noise cancelling, and it’s only two taps on the right neck button to change it, but it would be nice if it remembered your last setting. 
• The charge port on them is MicroUSB and you can’t charge and listen at the same time. 
• They’re on Bluetooth 4.1 with no multipoint connection. It’d be nice to be able to switch quickly between say, my Surface Pro and my Pixel 3, but you need to manually disconnect from the last device before connecting to another.

Overall these are a tech nerd’s dream Bluetooth IEMs and I’m pretty darn happy with them. They’re packed with sweet features like ambient passthrough, they noise cancel, they sound great, have better battery life than true wireless, and they’re built well. I’m happy with these, and if I had a wish list for Sony’s next version, it’d include a couple cool things like Bluetooth 5.0 with multipoint connection, USB-C with fast charge, improved battery life, and  settings memory when powering off!

Wireless Hunt: Sennheiser HD1 Free

(Update: This is being posted post-humorously; I've already returned the HD1 Free IEMs as they were god awful. How do these things sell at 270 dollars!? I didn't even bother to take photos of these as they went back to quickly!)

The Pixel 3 is USB-C only. Goodbye headphone jack! Not exactly cool, my dudes, but it’s a sign of the times, I guess. I don’t really feel much like prematurely wearing out the USB-C port, and a good USB-C DAC on a dongle is something like 45 CAD normally, so I’m going to try retiring my Etymotics in favor of a Bluetooth option. I honestly don’t feel I’ll be able to tell the difference between LDAC or AptX and a wired connection at this point, so I may as well jump on a few. Can we find something as perfect as Etymotic’s offerings? Let’s find out.

First up! The Momentum HD1 Free. Fairly light weight Bluetooth neckbuds, mostly plastic construction. The cable is long and awkward, and the 6 hour battery life is mostly uninspiring for a 170 dollar (on sale!) pair of Bluetooth IEMs.

Initial impressions: I couldn’t get a fit with the stock tips. Even the large size didn’t fit my right canal properly. This is kind of expected as I’ve got big and weirdly shaped canals, so I normally gravitate toward a deeper fitting IEM. I threw on a pair of “medium” gel filled silicone Monster Super Tips and the fit was extremely good. The Super Tips in medium were a fair bit larger than the large from Sennheiser… Weird. Once fitted they were barely noticeable thanks to the weight of about 40 grams.

Sound quality wise… These are most likely getting returned. I’m streaming AptX from my Pixel 3 with high quality Google Play music source, and they’re muddy, sloppy, and veiled. They lack the clarity, speed, articulation, and intimacy of the Etymotics I’m used to, favoring a more inflated low end and recessed mids and highs. There’s also some weird sibilance on certain consonants, depending on the artist that’s likely to get fatiguing. Sound improves slightly with EQ, but it still kind of sounds like you’re smothering the music with a pillow. There are tracks they do well with, for instance Kygo’s “Here for You” comes across fantastically, and Ella’s voice is well articulated and smooth, but something like Fall Out Boy’s “The Phoenix” is an absolute mess with the midrange details a complete jumble – You can’t pick anything out.

There were very few cutouts with the Bluetooth connection, being 4.2. I expect a few as I believe the antenna is on the opposite side of where I keep my phone, and I got some barely noticeable drops, but overall solid connectivity.

In conclusion, these are great for some genres like electronic and hip hop, but not great for others like rock. I’ll likely give them a few more days but will be sending them back. I have a few more goodies on the way, so the hunt continues… Up next is the Sony WI-1000X which seem really promising with a dual driver setup (Single dynamic and single balanced armature, which I’m hoping will offer a more neutral, detailed sound), and a bunch of cool tech like ANC and a better battery life. I also snap-bought the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless, which look like the first good pair of true wireless buds to me. Initial reviews seem to be positive, slightly v-shaped but not lacking in clarity. We’ll see what they’re like when they get here.

Stuff I Like: Sony UHS-II Card Reader and Seksonic L358

Couple simple things and they make all the difference! First, a Sony USB 3.0 card reader.

 Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it’s just a card reader. But it’s well built, and maxes out current UHS-ii class cards, including Sony’s 300MB/s monsters. I have paltry Lexar 1000x UHS-ii cards with a max read of about 150MB/s, but even then, offloading images to Lightroom is considerably quicker than connecting directly to camera. It’s well worth the few dollars spent for a good reader!


 Secondly, the Seksonic L358 light meter.

This is amazing for nailing your flash exposure without messing around with settings. Set your flash output, put your ISO and shutter speed into the reader, and pop a test flash with it under your subject’s chin, or close to the main focal point on whatever static object you’re shooting. Instant aperture reading, instant perfect exposure. It does a whole host of other things too like ambient exposure reading in both aperture and shutter priority and integration with pocket wizard wireless to wirelessly trigger flashes to test. I grabbed mine from a friend at a pretty steep discount, and it’s been immediately useful in these blog photos. Check out that exposure, perfect, and that was first shot! I’m excited to try to get the averaging function to work – The meter will store up to 9 exposures in memory, and can average them to give you a good exposure when working with multiple flashes!

Good Things Come In Threes

I’m generally very good about babying my electronic devices, especially phones. I don’t ever use cases, and I very rarely if ever drop my devices. The broken phone record came to an end in Iceland this past month when my OnePlus met an Icelandic road near Hofn. Compared to most damage you see when people drop phones mine was mild – The top right corner cracked, and it was missing a bit of glass from impact. Nothing affected the functionality of the screen, and none of the glass covering the display was damaged.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

 …But it bothered me. So, I bought a Pixel 3.

As usual I had a few criteria for my purchase. I wanted a fast Android experience close to stock, good battery life, timely updates, and a good camera. The shortlist ended up being… Well, OnePlus again, or the Pixel 3. With the OnePlus phones just getting bigger and bigger and a great deal through Telus with my employee preferred pricing, I determined it was about time to jump back to the Google camp.

Hello darling.

Spec rundown:

·         Snapdragon 845 CPU w/ Adreno 630 GPU

·         4GB RAM

·         64 GB Storage

·         5.5” P-OLED display (2160x1080)

·         12.2MP f/1.8 OIS rear camera, 8MP f/1.8 (28mm) and 8MP f/2.2 (19mm) front cameras

·         2915mAh battery

·         148g weight

Design, performance, battery life:

The Pixel 3 comes in about a half centimeter shorter on both height and width compared to the OnePlus 3T, and about the same thickness. The front contains the very full sounding front firing stereo speakers, the dual cameras, and the gorgeous 18:9 P-OLED display which has fairly accurate colors in natural mode. Along the squeeze-sensitive aluminum sides, the only spot you’ll find buttons is the right side which holds a pretty tactile power button and volume rocker. There is nothing to really note on the top and left sides, and the bottom contains only the USB-C port and SIM tray, but no headphone jack. The back is all glass, partially textured for grip, and contains the Pixel imprint fingerprint reader and the single 12MP camera. Next to the camera is the LED flash and the flicker sensor. The phone feels premium with a good weight for it’s size, and the 5.5” model leads to great one-handed operation. The fingerprint sensor is well placed in the back and is quick to unlock the phone in my experience.

My two physical issues are the lack of headphone jack and the glass back. The included dongle does not sound as good as the DAC in my OnePlus 3T, but there are other options to explore such as a Bluetooth DAC like the Fiio BTR3 or higher quality USB-C dongles such as the Sonata II from Hidizs. The lack of headphone jack does afford the phone IP68 water resistance however, which is a jump over the 3T. The other issue I have is the glass back – Although it allows for wireless charging and Google’s implementation seems nicely textured, I’m on the fence on durability. I feel if this drops it’s pretty much game over.

#DongleLife

Performance is as expected pretty darn snappy – This is Google’s software on Google’s hardware after all, and they have tuned it to the extreme. Although the Snapdragon 845 is slightly underclocked compared to other models, and the 4GB of RAM seems to be miniscule in a field of 6GB and 8GB monsters, I don’t feel I’ve had any performance issues so far. Whether it be the awfully optimized Snapchat, or RAW editing in Lightroom, I’ve no issues with the phone. Android 9 further refines on the Android 8 experience, and the gesture-based navigation feels smooth and natural. Everything feels like Android.

#Basic

Battery feels good, and although it’s still settling down, I feel like I’ll be looking at about double the screen on time compared to the OnePlus 3T. Yesterday was about 5 hours of mixed screen usage before I plugged it in at around 15%. I could have coaxed a bit more out of it, but at that point it was bedtime. Google’s preferred quick charging option here is Power Delivery 2.0, capable of providing 18w to the phone through the USB-C port. My previous OnePlus dash charger lived in my backpack, so the Power Delivery charger will take its place. I generally find regular charge speeds off my Aukey multi-port or the 2A charger at my desk at work provide a fast enough regular charge otherwise, but it’s good to have a fast charger in case of emergency. Google is also allowing wireless charging now, but you only get the full 10w experience out of their Pixel stand – a $110 purchase which I’m still on the fence about.

Camera, software features, and other stuff:

The Pixel 3 likely offers the best camera performance in a smartphone on the market, and it does it with a single 12.2MP snapper. This is all due to Google’s software prowess, and the Pixel Visual Core co-processor. They’ve been tuning the HDR+ technology since Nexus phones, and it shows. The process is interesting – As soon as you open the camera app, it starts buffering photos into a “circular buffer”, discarding data after a few moments. As soon as you tap the shutter button, the software pulls the last nine to fifteen frames, and the phone gets to work quickly breaking the images into a grid of thousands of tiny images, and stacks and processes each section to reduce noise, increase dynamic range, and improve sharpness. This allows for zero shutter lag, and images that are consistently well exposed and sharp, even with weird lighting or movement in frame. For a single 12.2MP sensor, it does good work!

Front facing disheveled bathroom portrait selfie. Not bad separation!

Other fun features are an unrivaled portrait mode which utilizes AI learning and the dual pixel autofocus on the camera to intelligently depth-map and blur objects – Definitely not as good as a fast prime on my A7iii, but usable in a lot of situations. Super-res zoom uses the natural movement of your hand to take a larger image to crop into, increasing sharpness and detail compared to standard digital zooming. The object tracking is crazy – I don’t think I’ve seen better on a phone so far. Tap an object in frame to follow it and expose for it. It won’t let go unless the object goes out of frame or you tap the focus point again to release it. Google has also updated the camera software to allow computational RAW images to be saved, letting me post-process through Lightroom or another RAW editor. Finally, I’d like to touch on NightSight, which emulates long exposures and leans on AI to color correct images in conditions down to .3 lux. It’s intelligent enough to detect if it’s in hand or on a tripod, if there’s motion in scene, etc, and adjust the number of exposures and the exposure lengths depending.

Left: Standard HDR+ processing. Right: NightSight, handheld.

There are two front facing cameras on the Pixel 3, which is a first and feels a bit like a concession on Google’s part, but I’m happy with the performance. Like the rear camera, the front cameras are practically unrivaled in selfie performance, generally providing sharp and well exposed images regardless of lighting conditions. The inclusion of the ultrawide selfie lens is welcome and leads to much better group photos and environmental selfies.

Left: Standard front facing disheveled bathroom selfie. Right: Wide angle front facing disheveled bathroom selfie.

I won’t say the camera is the very best in every situation, but the experience is consistently good which is exactly what I’m looking for in a phone. I don’t need crazy high resolutions or zoom lenses, I just need something that nails exposure and gives me sharp images regardless of my lighting conditions. All the extra features are just icing on the cake!

Now Playing in action. Horrible music taste history included.

The Pixel has a few fun software features I like including ambient display with tap/lift to wake, and “now playing” with a history. It actively listens for music and flawlessly identifies tracks, displayed on your lock screen and in your notification bar. You can go back and check on what you’ve recently heard was well, which is great. Squeeze for assistant is cool, but I wish you could remap it to another function on the phone. Digital Wellbeing isn’t something I think I’ll use but seems like a neat concept. Really gives you an idea as to how much you use your smartphone in a day, and it’s scary how many unlocks I do in a day. I’ve yet to see how adaptive battery runs, but apparently it acts a bit like battery saver but only for less-used apps, delaying their access to data and other resources considerably.

Couple other things to note:

Unlimited full resolution video and picture storage on Google Photos until 2022. There is NO notification LED, which I’m not overly fond of. One of my favorite features on my old phones was the notification LED. The Pixel imprint fingerprint reader is quick, but the drag down to pull down the notifications feature seems a bit touch and go right now – Maybe I’m just not used to it. The included USB-C PixelBuds are not horrible, all considered. There’s no isolation, but the sound is reasonable. This phone will also get security updates out to 2021 as per Google’s policy – That means it’s relevant for quite some time to come! I also seem to miss the notification slider on the OnePlus 3T more than I thought I would. Who would have known?

Accessories included in box: USB-C Power Delivery 2.0 adapter, USB-C cable, USB-A to USB-C adapter, USB-C to 3.5mm dongle, USB-C Pixel Buds.

Overall I’m happy so far with this upgrade. Much like with the OnePlus 3T and the A7iii, good things do come in threes.

Lens Game Strong - Full Frame Edition

Of course, with a full frame camera comes full frame lenses... I chose the above three based on my usage on my A6500.

Sony SEL28F20

One of my favorite lenses on the A6500 was the SEL20F28 - The 20mm pancake. Although this isn't a pancake lense by any means, it's the smallest and lightest of the 3 full frame lenses I've chosen, and with crop factor closely matches the pancake with a 1 stop faster advantage. I loved the pancake for it's minuscule size and it's perfect seat between 24mm and 35mm. The 28mm seems to fill those shoes great, while offering even better low light performance. Initial tests seem promising, but time will tell.

Sony SEL55F18Z

The spiritual replacement to my Sigma 30mm. This lens manufactured in partnership with Zeiss is one of the best options for the Sony family, and isn't too much longer than my 45mm equivalent Sigma. Despite being 10mm longer than my previously most used lens, I've instantly gravitated to this as my default choice. It focuses fast and accurately, and in combination with the A7iii, it's perfectly balanced. I've been very impressed with both the sharpness it's produced and the auto focus performance, and will no doubt continue to enjoy this lens.

Sony SEL85F18

The portrait option. This was my first full frame lens and I owned it before moving to the A7iii. I was very impressed with it on the A6500 (the 127.5mm equivalent gave it a bit more reach) even though it was a bit limiting. I shot soccer with it on the A6500 which went great, offering fantastic auto-focus performance and killer sharpness. Not exactly it's intended use, but it did a killer job over 1100 frames on a single battery. Don't be fooled by the lack of G or G Master designation - This thing is a heavyweight and easily throws punches with the best of the Sony 85s for a bargain price. 

The future likely holds G Master lenses (24-70GM and 70-200GM I'm looking at you!), but as of right now I'm pretty happy with my prime lineup. The 28 should make for a great landscape and street lens (I was shooting most of my landscapes on my pancake anyway), the 55 will make for a killer daily shooter, and the 85 should blow away any portrait needs for the time being. 

My next travel destination is likely Iceland, which will probably necessitate lens rentals. I'm thinking of packing the 16-35 G Master along with my current kit, and my friend I'll be travelling with will be packing some full frame goodies as well. I'm fairly confident between us we'll be packing enough gear to cover everything!

More to come!

A7iii

A7iii. 1/160, F16, 100ISO

And my second camera purchase of 2018 is an A7iii... I won't go into a lot of detail, but this bad boy was spotted open box at Best Buy with about 3000 clicks on it at a pretty steep discount. Considering these things are looking like a scarce commodity, I took the opportunity to snatch it up. Above was taken with my A6500 with the SEL50F18 (Oh yeah that was the first camera purchase of 2018... We sure do move along at quite the clip) and an off camera speedlight equipped with Rogue Photographic Design large Flashbender soft box kit.

I'm currently up in the air as to if I want to sell off the A6500 or keep it as a backup body. I've put over 6k shots on it in 4 months or so, and I've been really happy with how it performs compared to my A6000. Features like IBIS, faster/more extensive auto-focus features, larger buffer, improved metering modes, silent shutter, and a slightly improved sensor really helped me out, and in a sense it's like a mini A7iii. I would definitely miss it's size if anything. I'll be selling my APS-C glass for sure, but might hang onto the A6500 a bit longer.

I'm still in the early days of the A7iii, but expect at least some basic insight into the camera in the near future. I'm pretty happy with it so far!

Sony Wireless RAW Transfer

Yes! It actually works! Sort of. This was done on a OnePlus 3T with Android 8.0, PlayMemories version 6.2.2, and an A6500.

• Ensure your Smart Remote Control app is up to date on the CAMERA. You need to use this instead of the default "send to smartphone" functionality within the camera/PlayMemories app.

• Start Smart Remote Control (Application tab, Application List, Smart Remote Control) and connect to the camera using NFC or PlayMemories. You should be presented with the remote control view.

• Tap the menu option, then tap "See In-Camera Images".

• Tap the menu in the top right corner, and tap "Copy Img Quality". Here you can select JPEG Priority, RAW Priority, or JPEG & RAW Priority. Select RAW priority and tap Close.

• Copy your images. Look at that, you have RAW transfer via wireless.

This definitely opens up a bit more usability even if it takes a bit longer to move files. I find the RAW files have a lot more latitude for editing and I tend to be able to coax a bit more out of tricky exposures with a RAW file, even on mobile.

A note, I believe this is only available on Sony cameras that have the PlayMemories app functionality. I tested this with a friend's A7Riii and was unable to view the camera images with the smart remote app.

The Best Android Tablet I've Ever Used?

The iPad Mini 4. This is my 2018 tablet purchase. And so far, it's the best Android tablet I've ever used.

The Shield is long in the tooth. Although beefy, it suffers what most other Nvidia chipset based tablets do - It's slowed down a LOT. It's too bad too, because otherwise it was almost a perfect Android tablet! 1920x1200 screen, plenty of horsepower for any apps, stylus support, and front facing speakers! Multitasking started suffering though. As did battery life. It shouldn't take 30 seconds to wake the tablet up. Or open an app. Just occasionally though! Just enough to be annoying. And 4 hours of screen on time? Yeah, not overly impressive. Plus the idle battery drain. I love the Android platform, but I think it's really suited for phones more so than tablets.

Of course, I did my due diligence looking into available devices. I wanted something fairly quick, running mostly stock, good screen, small and light form factor, good battery life. It's gonna be used a lot for Lightroom, browsing, reading, and media after all. It's primary purpose should be to get out of the way and let me do those things.

A couple of Android tablets piqued my interest, but ultimately had some issues. Samsung's Tab S3 was plagued with Touchwiz and threatened with lack of updates. The Asus Zenpad S3 ran a Mediatek chipset and was skinned pretty heavily. The Huawei mediapad M3 looked almost perfect, but ultimately lacked some key connectivity features, and once again with the skins. Bah, the last GOOD Android tablet was the Nexus 7 2013.

My final decision was to try out an iPad. The Mini 4 128GB came in at under 500 dollars, features an 8" 2048x1536 laminated display, a good feel in hand, and a very good battery life. Heck, the thing doesn't really drain when not in use, what else could you ask for? Most importantly, it fully supports all of my Google apps. For all intents and purposes, this is an Android tablet to me.

A couple of issues I have with it, and they're only small, and not really the iPad's fault. One - Some apps don't have tablet versions released as of yet, and likely never will. Namely, Instagram. Not a huge deal, but more of an annoyance. It's either use it through the browser, or used a scaled phone version of the app which looks awful. Android handles app scaling a lot better. And two - Lastpass autofill isn't good to go for all apps like it is for Android. I understand app developers need to build autofill in, but it's still annoying that it's not built into the platform.

A small nagging feeling behind me says that software updates might not be so long lived for the product as well. Considering it's initial release in 2015, iOS11 might be the last thing I see for updates on this. Regardless, I'm not tied into Apple's platform, so if I see a good Android tablet released in the next year or two, I may move back over. As for right now, the iPad does everything it needs to do right - It gets out of the way and lets me consume media.

Lens Game Strong! - Part 2

And we're back with round two of my preferred lenses! These two are a bit longer, so without further ado...

Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN

This is hands down my favorite lens to shoot on. I'd say about 80% of my shooting is done with this bad boy strapped to my camera, and I don't know if I could be happier. The Sigma is fast, sharp, well built, and at an equivalent full frame focal length of 45mm, is pretty darn close to the nifty fifty, just a bit wider. It's fast aperture, good auto focus performance, and roughly human eye depth of field make it an excellent jack of all trades. I chose this over the SEL35F18 that it's so commonly compared to for it's slightly faster aperture and better sharpness. OSS isn't a huge issue for me as I don't shoot video, and the slightly wider angle makes it more versatile in my eyes. Only thing you need to watch on it is some severe chromatic aberrations when wide open.

Sigma 30mm f1.4 DC DN, F/1.4, 1/60, 2000ISO

Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN, f/1.4, 1/200, 100ISO - TT685S off camera, gelled orange

Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN, f/1.4, 1/1000, 100ISO

Sigma 30mm F1/4 DC DN, f/8, 1/500, 100ISO

Sony SEL50F18

This is my newest lens, as I was missing a medium/short telephoto other than the slow-ish kit lenses which I generally don't use. The 50mm focal length is equal to approximately 75mm on APS-C, so it makes it pretty ideally suited to portraiture - Faces don't have any sort of bubble distortion to them. I take a lot of shots on my Sigma, but I'm slowly transitioning to this for use with people. I can't really say much more than it's pretty darn fast, optically very good in the distortion department, and focuses very quickly. The ability to crank the aperture all the way to f/1.8 really adds a lot of depth, and gives a pretty attractive bokeh to the background.

SEL50F18, f/1.8, 1/80, 3200ISO

SEL50F18, f/2.8, 1/125, 100ISO - TT685 w/ Rogue Flashbender Large softbox in front, TT685 w/ Follies Pink gel behind

SEL50F18, f/4, 1/80, 1000ISO

There you have it. The lenses I currently own, use, and cherish. I plan on probably adding one or two more lenses, maybe something a bit longer like the SEL85F18, and likely the new Sigma 16mm F1.4 DC DN. Rumor has it we might be seeing a 16-55 F2.8 for APS-C sensors, which would likely be an instant buy due to it's versatility. 

For the time being I'm still stuck on APS-C, but I don't think it's limiting me creatively. If anything, I may end up upgrading to the A6500 if Sony doesn't announce anything newer at CES this year. The larger buffer, better auto focus, IBIS, more buttons, spot metering on focus point, highlight metering, and better EVF are really pulling me that way! 

Lens Game Strong!

I'm on APS-C for a bit. At least until next year. So I may as well have some fun glass to shoot on for the time being. I've taken quite the liking to prime lenses, which tend to offer faster apertures and higher visual quality at the expense of versatility. So, here's two of my favorites with a few sample images from each. Expect another post on my other two primes soon!

Sony SEL20F28

I was very much on the fence about this lens for the few months after buying it, but after visiting Japan, it proved it was absolutely worth it's weight in gold. This is quite possibly the best day to day lens for me. It has an equivalent focal length of about 30mm on the APS-C sensors I shoot on, and a maximum aperture of f/2.8. It's also a pancake lens, which coupled with A5xxx/A6xxx series cameras, makes them practically pocket-able, and very non-threatening compared to a full blown DSLR. I shot 90% of my Japan trip with this lens on my A6000, and it's my go-to to throw on my A5100 for walking around. It's wide but not too wide, pretty sharp when stopped down a bit, and auto-focuses pretty quickly. It's an absolutely perfect lens for capturing street and daily life kind of shots. My only wish is that they made it at least a stop faster! This lens would be an absolute must buy at f/2. 

SEL20F28, f/8, 1/320, 100ISO

SEL20F28, f/2.8, 1/60, 200ISO

SEL20F28, f/8, 1/60, 1250ISO

Samyang 12mm F2

I feel like this is a Sony APS-C must have lens for anyone. This is THE king of budget wide angle. It's well built, very fast at f/2, and optically very clean. Did I mention it's a manual lens? Don't let that scare you, with focus peaking and manual focus assist, it's super easy to hit focus on Sony cameras. Funny with this one, you can actually set focus to infinity (or close to it, the actual infinity marker on the focus ring is off by a hair, so verify!), stop down to f/5.6-f/8, and everything beyond a few feet will be in focus. This makes landscapes, long exposures, and astrophotography very easy. Although this is my least used prime, it's probably the one I value having the most.

Samyang 12mm f2, f/8, 5.0 sec, 100ISO

Samyang 12mm f2, f/8, 3.2 sec, 100ISO

Samyang 12mm f2, f/8, 1/100, 100ISO

Stuff I like - Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro

What a mouthful of a name! Probably not discussed, as I haven't posted in forever, but in early November I took a month long trip away from my slow little town of Sackville to visit Japan and the greater Toronto area. It was an absolute blast! I met some really cool people, stayed at some awesome places, visited some amazing places, ate some great food, and generally just enjoyed how different things were from my day to day life. It was also a pretty decent experience in packing light.

Heading to Japan, we decided quickly we were only doing carry on luggage, as checked baggage made us considerably less mobile and was also a lot more expensive to bring with us. With that in mind, a laptop was out of the question, as much as I thought I'd want to bring my Zenbook with me. Considering this was a trip I didn't want to forget, I wanted to ensure I had a good backup solution for my SD cards. After some research, the My Passport Wireless Pro ticked off all the check boxes. A couple of highlights:

• Built in battery for wireless operation - 6400mAh! Can be used for charging devices too.

• 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz wireless AC for gigabit transfer speeds.

• Automated one touch SD card backup at USB3.0 speeds! 

•  Incremental backups - Can detect duplicate files and will skip copying them.

• Can connect to a wireless network and be accessed as though it's a network drive.

• Functions as a wireless hub for up to 10 devices.

• Easy wireless access to files through the My Cloud app.

Yeah, the thing is nerd levels of awesome, so obviously I had to have it. I went with the 3TB model, as I don't currently have an external anyway, and the price difference between the 1, 2, and 3TB models isn't all that big. I can openly say that this thing was an absolute rockstar the entire trip! I was backing up my SD cards daily, and Victor was backing up his camera/Mavic Pro footage intermittently. Even with daily backups, I only ended up charging the drive once when in Japan.

Overall, from a usability standpoint, and with all the flexibility the drive offers for on the go backups, I can highly recommend it. I was completely comfortable with this drive in place of a laptop in my bag. Any light traveler/photographer that generates a ton of data should consider making space for one of these beauties!

Lightroom Mobile

Lightroom Mobile has been a surprisingly useful app ever since the Android update a few months ago. Not only have they improved the interface, they've also added pretty much all the features of Lightroom for the desktop into it, along with a fully functional RAW shooting camera with full manual control. 

Top all the new functionality off with Creative Cloud sync, and I can pick up any edits I'm doing on my phone directly on my desktop, or vice versa. While I can't pull RAW files directly from my camera with the PlayMemories Mobile app from Sony for editing, I can make tricky shots taken with the OnePlus a bit more flexible. Good job, Adobe.

If you haven't checked it out yet, it's definitely worth looking at now.

Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan

I've been using strictly Photoshop CS3 for a very long while, and while functional, I really wanted to start shooting RAW on my A6000. I quickly discovered that I needed a solution that would work with Sony's RAW files (Fun fact: CS3 does not support them.) and also a solution that would let me quickly categorize, cull, and adjust photos. I've used Lightroom before, but mostly just played with it. When I saw that I could get the latest Lightroom and Photoshop for 10 dollars a month (USD), I decided to jump on it and give it a try. I have to say I'm really happy I did! Although I was initially after the new version of Photoshop, Lightroom has really impressed me and has become very essential to my workflow. I can shoot a lot, import to my file server, cull what I don't like, and quickly edit and compare. Anything heavier that needs to be done can be brought into Photoshop (IE: Exposure blending, blemish removal, etc). All the basics like color correction, exposure/sharpness/noise reduction/lens correction/cropping can all be completed in Lightroom, while saving your original image.

I have a lot of learning to do still, but I pick up new things every time I use the software. My only real complaint is that both pieces of software are pretty big resource hogs. I understand working with RAW files is a bit memory intensive, but CS3 was never this heavy, even with large projects. I never thought I'd need more than 16GB of RAM in my desktop at this point in time, but Creative Cloud is proving me wrong. I look forward to seeing how my notebook handles it, considering it's a lightweight compared to my desktop.

I still have some exploring to do - Lightroom Mobile is seemingly powerful, the 20GB of online backup feels like it could disappear quickly with RAW files, and I'm not sure on Behance yet, but even with just Photoshop and Lightroom, I'm happy with the money spent.

Creative Cloud Photography Plan

I'm Weak

I mulled over this decision for a few weeks now, and I have to say the choice has been incredibly satisfying. Topping it off with some additional lenses (Sony SEL55210 and Sony SEL20F28 on the cheap) has set me up pretty well for upping my photography game over the next little while. I've got a lot of playing to do with the A6000, but overall initial impressions are very good. I'll have a more detailed review once I get some more shooting time under my belt, but for the time being there's some samples from the past few days below.

New Glass

Finally got tired of the kit lens, and after looking into things enough, came across the perfect daily lens for me! Narrowed it down to Sony's SEL35F18, but further research landed me on this Sigma 30mm F1.4 prime. I love shooting at the 30mm focal length (45mm equivalent on APS-C sensors), so something that let in even more light was a no brainer, especially at the same price. This is the first glass I've purchased for my camera since getting it many years ago, and I have to say the Sigma build quality is fantastic. I still have a lot of shooting to do on it, and a soon to be body upgrade to possibly an A6000, but initial impressions are great. Below are shots taken around 11PM on a fairly dark night, all handheld:

Performance is fantastic wide open - I was shooting between 200 and 1200 ISO, with a shutter between 1/60 and 1/250 and receiving the results above. The brick with the plaques is not at all well lit - There are a few lamps surrounding it, but the f/1.4 aperture makes it easy to pull every bit of available light in. I can't wait to get out for some low light and astrophotography. My one real complaint is my lack of EVF on my current NEX-F3, and the auto-focus is abysmal in low light, but this is a problem that can be solved by upgrading to a A6000, eventually. I should have the opportunity to test an A5100 in a little while (Similar auto-focus/speed to the A6000), so we'll see if the auto-focus impresses enough.

For some daylight shooting, I visited an air show in Debert NS today, and was pretty pleased with the shots below. After that I did a quick walk to the grocery store in town and snapped some shots around town:

Most shots taken at F/2.8 to F/5.6. The lens handled it like a boss. Again, only real downfall is my body which would have really benefited from the EVF with the bright sunlight. Auto-focus struggled a bit in the bright light with the lens wide open, but no issues stopping it down to f/2.8.

Overall happy with the purchase so far. The lens is really versatile for a prime, and is perfect for street/portrait photos that I love to do. Can't wait to throw it on a nicer body.

FreeNAS Corral - Short Lived

I'll just start out with this link...

So, Corral was pretty garbage from a back end/development standpoint, and they decided to axe it. If you're interested in the whole story, I'd take a read through the thread, but TL;DR - They're rolling all the features of Corral into 9.10 with a newer UI.

What does that mean for my install though? Well, Corral isn't production anymore, and honestly, it's shaken any kind of faith I've had in FreeNAS. I'm adopting Proxmox VE as my all in one solution. I know I ragged on it in the previous post, but I decided to roll a VM install to test it out, and after killing and reinstalling it a few times, I found it seemed really stable. The documentation or existing all in ones was few and far between, but I'm pretty comfortable with Debian, and I'm up for a much more pleasing challenge after BSD. So this afternoon, I nuked my FreeNAS install, and installed Proxmox VE.

Here's the fun part about Proxmox. There was no struggle. The install was seamless. The import of my ZFS pool was literally a single command, and everything just worked. Creating shares was an Ubuntu container and a mount point away. It actually took me less than an hour to configure the sharing I wanted, and get a headless Deluge instance running. Fine tuning took a bit longer, but was considerably less painful than FreeNAS. Virtual machines JUST WORK. There's no messing around with config files and setting GRUB boot points. There's no GUI errors regarding "This virtual machine doesn't exist" that disappear after logging out and logging back in. Setting save when you save them, instead of having to do it multiple times over. It's going to be a while to get it all to the point I want it to be at, and to be fully confident in managing it, but it's definitely a treat so far.

A quick rundown on the setup - The Proxmox host has the ZFS pool mounted directly on it, much like FreeNAS would. Instead of installing Samba on Proxmox directly (This likely would have been fine), I've installed it in an Ubuntu 16.04 container, and bind mapped the media directory (The only thing that should be shared from it) directly to the container. From there, Samba is installed on the container, users are setup, and file and samba permissions changed. My headless Deluge instance is also running in a container, with the /Media/Downloads directory bind mapped, and user/group setup to match the authenticated users group on the Samba server. This way I can still openly manage files (delete, edit, etc) from my authenticated account, and guests can still read files. As a trial run I'm pretty happy, though I feel I may implement LDAP on all of my servers for easier permissions management of both files and shares.

This is just a short post to advise of my fun detour, but I intend to have more posts about the migration in the near future. In my opinion, for those looking for an easy to mange hypervisor/file server all in one solution akin to the ESXi/FreeNAS solutions you usually see, Proxmox is promising.

2017 Infrastructure Update - Networking and Servers

No real plans this year to switch out any desktop or notebook hardware, but my WNDR3700N is getting a bit old, and my servers really aren't being used to their fullest. We'll start with the server side of things, as that's probably the easiest to cover, and I'm still unsure if my choice was right. I can always change things in the future, but I've got what I've got now.

For a long while I've wanted to migrate to an all in one virtualization/storage solution for the reduced power consumption, footprint, and noise. I really want to retire the power hungry 95w i7 860 in my ESXi box for a solution that runs on my power sipping i3 2120T. This leaves out the idea of ESXi with FreeNAS as a guest, as the processor doesn't support VT-d. Proxmox VE was my next stop, as it supported the ZFS file system, but I primarily wanted a nice NAS GUI that also incorporated the virtualization management functionality, so that was a no go. Hyper-V has no ZFS support, so that's out the door. UnRAID has the features I want, but isn't ZFS and is also a paid service. Getting frustrated in my search, I finally came across FreeNAS 10. Although in it's infancy, it seemed really promising. Prior to 10, users were running services in BSD jails, but with the release of 10, FreeNAS adopted the BSD based virtualization tech bhyve, along with built in docker support (This is just a boot2docker vm that is manageable from the GUI). On top of that, it's primarily a NAS OS with a fantastic looking brand new GUI. Yes, it's a .0 release, and yes, there's little to no documentation, but I'm a nerd - jumping into this stuff feet first is what I'm all about. FreeNAS was my final choice of NAS OS.

With operating system picked out, it's onto the hardware. My file server is already running the optimal base (i3-2120T, SuperMicro X9SCL+-F, 4x3TB 7200RPM Toshiba drives, 40GB Intel SSD), but the 4GB of RAM wasn't going to cut it. If this was also going to be doing double duty of a host for virtual machines, it was getting a heat sink upgrade too. After a quick trip to the HCL and many internet searches, my wallet was considerably lighter and I had in my posession 32GB of 1600mhz Crucial ECC DDR3 UDIMMs and a trusty Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro.

While waiting on gear to arrive, I took the opportunity to flash the latest BIOS for proper RAM support, and ensure I had all the appropriate ISOs downloaded and on a flash drive. The day everything arrived I got to work, and let me tell you, frustration was abound. I was able to successfully install the new RAM and the heat sink, but when reconnecting the power supply, I got a flash of lights from everything on the board followed by nothing... Alright, I may have destroyed a power supply, not a big deal. Plugging in my spare and powering things on gives me 4 short beeps followed by a long beep - SuperMicro seems to indicate this means no RAM installed. At this point I think I've fried 300 dollars worth of RAM and a power supply, so inside I'm pretty dead inside. Last ditch attempt to resolve, I connect the original power supply, plug it in, and boot successfully. Turns out SuperMicro boards are just picky about everything.

Onto the FreeNAS install - I've discovered that although flash drives are recommended for the install, you'll be 100% happier installing to an SSD. Install initially went fine, then for some reason FreeNAS couldn't correctly import the shares from my ZFS volume. I was able to redo all the permissions, followed by a setup of SMB shares and appropriately mapped to my computer. Confirmed I could read files, great. Attempt to write files, kernel panic of the NAS. At this point, it's 1AM, and I really don't feel like figuring things out and fixing it, so I throw a 2TB drive into my desktop, and start copying over the important stuff. Once copied, I nuke the ZFS pool, recreate a new pool, setup new datasets and shares, and recopy the files. All in, this was done by 4AM and I'm definitely a bit more data-light now, but with a fully functional nightmare of a NAS.

Day 2, I decide to move the install from a flash drive over to the 40GB Intel SSD. Boot times on the flash drive were taking 15-20 minutes, which is abysmal. I pull the configuration backup, and get to work. Apparently, SuperMicro boards are also very picky about boot options. After reinstalling numerous times and playing around with boot settings in the BIOS, I was able to get things successfully booted (much faster, as well), from the SSD. I import my pool, and upload my configuration... Which fails. Not a big deal, that's fine, the shares are still there, I just need to reconfigure users, groups, and permissions, and re-enable all the services. This was finished in half an hour, partially thanks to the SSD, and partially thanks to the previous night's lessons. There were a few times when I had to chown a directory from ssh, but that's about the extent of the command line work I was doing.

Day 3, I get to work creating some virtual machines and playing with Docker. I have to say, Docker is an absolute pleasure to work with! The FreeNAS implementation is a virtual machine running boot2docker, along with a very nice interface for configuring boot options and paths to throw into the container. As long as you're running a container from the FreeNAS library, things "just work". Dockerfiles from other libraries require a bit more work to get running, as they're not tagged for the FreeNAS interface, but over time more and more things are getting converted to include the FreeNAS tags to make things just work. Currently I'm running Deluge and a Minecraft server in containers, and have also played around with PiHole, Unifi controller, and ddclient as well. The Minecraft server and ddclient took a bit of work to get things functional, but PiHole, the Unifi controller, and Deluge were very simple to create and configure. I will likely start looking into converting existing containers into FreeNAS tagged ones, but I just don't currently have the time.

Virtual machines are a bit of another story. Although the interface is nice, there's no documentation for creating virtual machines that aren't in the FreeNAS library, so after digging a lot, I was able to get things worked out mostly, and it's not so bad now. Initial issue was with disk creation - Everything pointed toward having to create ZVOLs to house your virtual machines, but after looking into other install files, I determined you could just specify a *.img file when creating the virtual disk, and it would store the disk on a .img file, which feels easier to manage. The other issue I ran into was bhyve's GRUB implementation. With Linux installs such as Debian and Ubuntu who use non-standard grub.cfg locations, you need to tell bhyve's GRUB to boot from that location specifically. For that, you need to create a grub.cfg file (via ssh) in /PathToVM/files/grub/, with the contents as (This is for Debian/Ubuntu, will differ for other OS, but you're pointing it at the grub.cfg location on the actual VM):

configfile (hd0,msdos1)/grub/grub.cfg

Followed by running the below command in the FreeNAS CLI:

vm %VMNAME set boot_directory=grub

I understand this is a .0 release, but still, I shouldn't HAVE to do this to get a virtual machine functional within an operating system that advertises virtualization as a feature. I hope they improve this in future releases, but as of right now I'm just glad I was able to figure things out.

On the plus side, at least the graphs are cool.

I'll update more on FreeNAS as I spend more time with it, however for the time being, it's time to look at network infrastructure and the upgrade I'm going through with that. My WNDR3700N was aging. It's a solid gigabit router that supports DDWRT/Tomato, however it doesn't have the best range, or AC wireless support which practically everything in my apartment is capable of now. Being a bit of a networking and infrastructure nerd, I craved something a bit more. My first thought was PFSense box, but after reading into it further, for less money I could get everything I want and a more enterprise-eque experience out of an Ubiquiti setup. I decided to jump in full force on a full Unifi setup, and although I'm still waiting on my switch, I couldn't be happier so far.

The purchases for the networking replacement setup are ended up being:

• Ubiquiti Unifi Security Gateway
• Ubiquiti Unifi AP AC Lite
• Ubiquiti Unifi Switch 8-150W
• TP Link TL-SG108 (Stand in)

Well, that's all fine and dandy, but why Unifi over the regular EdgeRouter and a Unifi AP, or any other AP for that matter? Well, it's ecosystem. These things perform great, but setup and management is a breeze. Unifi does site management via "cloud". Now this can be either a local machine (Cloud key appliance, virtual machine, or physical box), or a remotely hosted instance. Yeah, you can manage your network from a VPS. On top of that, you can mange multiple sites from the same VPS, so if you had multiple networks in multiple sites, they could all be managed by logging into a single web portal. My choice in VPS was an OVH SSD VPS instance at just around 5 dollars a month. A single vcore, 2GB of RAM, and 10GB of SSD based hard drive space is plenty for running a single site, and I can even throw other small services onto it as well. I'm so impressed with what you get for the money from OVH that I'm considering moving my web hosting from HostGator over to another VPS instance. But hey, this is more about the hardware, so let's look at the USG.

I'll apologize for the cables, as I'll be moving things to a more permanent home once the 8 port POE switch arrives, which should be soon. The USG is essentially an EdgeRouter Lite internally, however requires the cloud controller for persistent configuration. It supports a single WAN interface, a LAN interface, a VOIP interface (This can be changed to a second WAN port through the config for failover support), and a console port. Most would think it's odd to see a router with such a low number of ports, but unlike consumer devices, switching is delegated to a separate powerful device which scales based on enterprise requirements. What does the USG bring that a consumer router doesn't? Higher reliability, higher throughput, more features. VLAN support? Check. Deep packet inspection? Why the heck not. Locally authenticated VPN? Well, it's coming to GUI in the next release, but it's there. It's not a perfect product, but it's definitely getting closer and closer each controller release, and the ease of setup and management make up for that in spades.

The access point I chose was the AC AP Lite. I didn't need the 1750mbps offered by the AC AP Pro, as my network speeds generally top out at gigabit anyway, and the range is approximately the same between the two. It's 24v POE powered and comes with it's own POE injector, but once the Unifi 8 port switch is in it'll be moved straight to that. A separate AP provides a much more stable and reliable wireless connection, especially in a 16 unit apartment building with a fairly saturated 2.4ghz band. In conjunction with the Unifi controller, I can offer a guest WiFi portal, some pretty neat band steering (Basically "steering" devices onto the best possible band and channel), dynamic channel selection, band scanning to determine channel saturation, etc.

I'll be honest I'm just scratching the surface of what this stuff is capable of, and I have a lot of plans to document it over the coming weeks and months. For the time being, I'll enjoy my full WiFi coverage anywhere in my apartment, with all of my devices, and then some.

Goodnight, My Old Friend

Another year, another disappointing Google phone release. In 2015 the 5X and 6P came and went, and weren’t enough of an upgrade for me to consider a switch. The OnePlus Two and the Moto X Pure arrived, and I sighed. The OnePlus X was tempting, but not enough. My Nexus 5 was still plenty for what I needed. 2016 came and went, and we saw a departure of what Google used to stand for. The Nexus brand was retired in favor of the premium Pixel devices, and I was unenthusiastic about dropping $900+ on a phone, no matter how attractive the device. I knew, however, that it was getting to the point of taking the Nexus 5 out behind the barn.

A brief history first. The Nexus 5 was initially purchased by me about a year after release to replace my aging, but reliable Galaxy Nexus. I’ve been madly in love with the Nexus 5 since I’ve owned it. For all intents and purposes, it has been my perfect device, with a few reservations. Like any piece of hardware, it ages overtime. The screen size and resolution are practically perfect. The build and design, although not perfect, are practical and durable. The cameras are serviceable, and even the aging internals are still relatively quick.

Now, as you’ve probably determined from reading this blog, I tend to lean more toward being a geek - A power user and an enthusiast. Though the aging hardware is still relatively quick, I’ve been craving something that stands up to current day multitasking. I would be wrong to say the Nexus 5 can keep up with my day to day heavy demands. To top it off, the battery life has been suffering more and more. I don’t believe it’s a fault of the device or the aging battery by any means, but instead just what I use for applications. Sitting at 25% currently remaining at the end of a slow day, I’ve had just over an hour screen on time. I haven’t been on anything but WiFi, and most of that access has been various social media platforms, snapchat, web browsing, etc. On a work day, I’ve been needing to top up mid day, with less usage.

My frustration with the Nexus 5 lead me on a bit of a search. I really, really liked the Pixel devices, but the price tag left a sour taste in my mouth. For the past many years, Google has offered affordable and impressive hardware in the form of the Nexus lineup, but felt the need to shift into a new brand to better align themselves against the market. Don’t get me wrong, these units are premium, and have just about everything I want for features - Pure Android released really quick, super fast hardware, premium build quality, and even the perfect size with the regular Pixel. But the price tag just feels like too much after spending so little on such a nice device as the Nexus 5.

Other options explored included various other manufacturers such as HTC, Samsung, Oppo, Xiaomi, etc. Unfortunately, they all had some form of problem. No stock android, poor speed to update, middling build quality, poor battery, too large, too expensive, etc… After crossing everything off the list, I returned to my previous runner up when deciding on my Nexus 5 - The upstart OnePlus.

OnePlus formed in 2013 as a subsidiary of Oppo, a large Chinese based smartphone brand. OnePlus wanted to build devices that balanced a high quality, flagship level phone, with a low and affordable price. Their slogan? Never Settle. At the time of purchasing my Nexus 5, the OnePlus One was my runner up. My major concerns were screen size and availability - It was very hard to get a OnePlus off the invite system they had in place, which ultimately led me to buying the Nexus 5. OnePlus has however dismissed their invite system and made device availability much better. The November released OnePlus 3T ended up being the best phone for the price point as of the beginning of March which matched up well with my planned retirement of the Nexus 5.

The OnePlus 3T is above and beyond an upgrade from my 3 year old Nexus 5, and I can happily say I’m pleased with my purchase. Before getting into it’s improvements, a quick spec rundown.

• Snapdragon 821 CPU (2x2.35GHz, 2x1.6GHz) w/ Adreno 530 GPU
• 6GB RAM
• 64GB Storage
• 5.5” Optic AMOLED display (1920x1080)
• 16MP OIS f/2.0 rear camera, 16MP f/2.0 front camera
• 3400mAh battery
• 158g weight

The phone is currently running OxygenOS 4.1.0 at the time of writing (Android 7.1.1) and has so far met all of my wants and needs in a smartphone for 2017. Where the Nexus 5 was starting to struggle with maintaining a silky smooth 60 FPS in day to day operation, the 3T seems to always have more power to spare. The radios, much like with the transition from Galaxy Nexus to Nexus 5, are improved. The cameras are absolutely fantastic, even if they aren’t the absolute best on the market. Low light and selfie performance are in a completely different league than the Nexus 5. If anything though, the biggest improvement is the battery. I have yet to have to charge in the middle of a day, and even on the heaviest use days I’m still making it to the end with juice to spare. For comparison, a heavy use day on the Nexus 5 might have netted me 1.5 hours screen on time before crawling to a charger or my powerbank. The 3T can eek 4 hours or more on the same workload. With lighter tasks, I’m guessing it would be pretty capable of hitting 6 hours of screen time without breaking a sweat. Did I mention that a fingerprint reader is probably one of the biggest game changers too? More apps adopting it means less PINs or passwords on the phone. I’m in love.

If I was to give any negative marks to the 3T, it’d come in the form of screen size. This is more personal than anything, and the 5.5” screen size is now the most common on the market, however 5.5” is bordering on almost too large for my hands. I will in time get used to it, however it won’t ever really rest in my hands like the 5 did. On top of that, the alert slider is usable, but I would like a bit more customization in regards to what each position does, and the ability to completely adjust the rules for each position would be fantastic.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I’m going to miss the Nexus 5. It was the perfect, size, the perfect weight, and the perfect price at the time, and it continues to kick ass, even in 2016. For a regular user, it’s an absolutely killer phone. For power users who yearn for the return of the affordable, powerful, and minimalistic Nexus line, you can find a great home with OnePlus.

AKG K701s - Seven Months Later

Few weeks, seven months, what's the difference, really?

Lots of time to burn these in and get familiar with them, so let's start. These things are outright fantastic. Coming from my HD555s, these are more spacious, more neutral, and have a much wider range. Well produced tracks tend to be surgically picked apart, each instrument being easily identifiable. Poor tracks, on the other hand, are punished. Every single flaw in a poor rip, or a bad recording/master are noticeable. There's been some tracks I can't stand to listen to any longer because they're just poorly produced and full of flaws.

For those looking for a bass heavy headphone, these aren't it. Though I don't find them bass anemic - In fact I find them perfectly balanced - They're not what you'd get from a Sennheiser 5 series, but instead closer in clarity and sound signature to an Etymotic IEM. The big difference between these and the Etymtoics is the sound stage, along with the even more enhanced detail. Some will consider them sterile, but I would just say they're flat and analytical. If that's the sound signature you want, these are perfect.

Negative points? Well, the padding on the headphones isn't great. It's a bit on the hard side, even after seven months of use. It's fine, but you tend to notice it after an extended period of use. The cable is plenty long, but with the K701s, it's non-removable. So when it does get twisted, it's a bit more annoying to untangle. This could have been solved by grabbing the K702s, but the 701s were practically identical and cheaper. Otherwise, my only complaint would be that they ruin a lot of older tracks for me... Oh well, there's no time for bad tracks.

New Headphones Monday!

In a couple of weeks after burning them in, I should have a review! So far impressions are they're very similar to the Ety HF2s with a much wider and deeper sound stage. I'll be spending a lot of time comparing them to my HD555s and my HD25-iis. Had to post a picture though!