New Toys

Did you ever really want a toy when you were a kid? Something that you swore would be the last thing you'd ever ask for?

I said that when I purchased my Nikon D70s. It would be the last DSLR that i would buy, with the condition that if it broke, got stolen, or became obsolete then I could get a new one (you never know...). I realize that I can't afford it right now but I really want a D200... Do I need it? Well the 70% increase in pixel count wouldn't hurt. The robustness of the body is a plus as well since it's made of magnesium. The metering is much more versatile as well as the white balance controls. The photos are a bit warmer than the D70s' without needing a warming filter.

Will I get one? Well I want one... Should I get one?

Probably not.

The benefits aren't that big a leap over the D70s and while it may turn out to be more resilient to shocks and drops than the D70s, I do believe in something I read somewhere... "metal dents, plastic just bounces". If it doesn't shatter into a million pieces first... Maybe I'll wait for the D73.6s or something or other...

New bodies in the future will probably have better software, hardware, sensors, specs and due to Moore's law might be cheaper for the package. I'm sure we'll hit the 20MP mark in a year or so with the pace of development these days. If so, that'll be twice the resolution of the D200. Prices have continued to drop as well.

Nikon D1, Circa 2000

The D1 launched at around $5500 with 2.7MP and now the D40 with more MPs (6.2), better overall specs and more versatile settings is just $600 with the 18-55 kit lens. That's around 10% of the price of the D1 after around six years. Nikon's baby DSLR does more things better than the D1 so hopefully the trend will continue in the coming years.

Nikon D40, Circa 2006

Enough about camera bodies then. How about lenses? Granted, the Nikon 18-70 "kit" lens from Nikon is pretty much all you'll need for casual photography. It's 18mm is pretty wide but with Nikon's crop factor, that'll end up being the equivalent of 26mm or so on 35mm film, which isn't that wide at all.

I admit, I do have Lens Envy, Lens Lust, LAS (Lens Acquisition Syndrome), OCD (Optics Collection Disorder) and any other euphemism and acronym you can call it. While I only have three lenses now (kit, 70-210 4-5.6 and the 50mm 1.8) it doesn't stop me from wanting to acquire the latest and greatest of the Nikon lens stables.

So which ones do I want? Damn... too many to mention I suppose. In a nutshell, all the VRs and all the 2.8s... That should do. For now...

Realistically speaking though, I can name several that I'd like to shoot for in the coming years.

In no particular order;
18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor
17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S Zoom-Nikkor
28-70mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S Zoom-Nikkor
10.5mm f/2.8G ED AF DX Fisheye-Nikkor
12-24mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor
70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor
200-400mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor
105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor

All that would cost more than a million and a half PhP! Considering that, then I'd probably just reach for the 18-200VR (P45,000-50,000) and the 12-24mm (P40,000-47,000). I don't really need a lens longer than 200mm right now since I have no plans to go into wildlife photography so the 18-200 should suit me just fine for everyday stuff. You can't go wrong with an ultra-wide though so the 12-24 is a must-have. If i'm in dire enough straits, then I'll opt for the sigma 10-20mm which is around half the price of the Nikkor. reviews aren't bad and I've tried one on several occasions... it's not bad.

Nikkor 18-200VR

Some things I haven't tried, but I do want to get, are teleconverters and fisheye lenses.

While TCs (teleconverters) only work on lenses with the largest of apertures (uo to f4 or so), it'll be nice to extend a 400mm F4 to an 800mm F8 for serious in-your-face shooting. that'll make great shots of the moon, sports events where you're on the bleachers, car races and etc... An F4 400mm lens though would cost around P200k, and the TC-20E II (an autofocus 2x Nikon teleconverter) itself is no lightweight at around P25-40k.

Nikkor 10.5mm Fisheye

Nikon's new 10.5mm Fisheye is a digital specific lens meaning it'll only work with the APS-C sized sensors. It's a fun lens. the fisheye effect is similar to what you get from looking through a door's peephole. It gives you a very large degree of vision in a 205-deg arc in front of you. That's huge! Also, since it's reallllly wide, focusing on a single point up close will give you strange distortion effects. sort of like barrel distortion magnified a thousand-fold. Taking a portrait gives you an abnormally large nose ith the ears absurdly placed on the side of the subject's head. .It's cute ^_^ In general use though, it's a nice toy and interesting for architecture work since it'll really give you weird perspectives. the total damage - P42k.

Fisheye samples:

Ouch.

Anyway... Photoworld Manila is on right now. I think i'll pop over later today and see what they have there. Last year, they had Manfrotto tripods at 50% off, EOL Canon and Nikon lenses going for 20-30% discounts, off-brands like Sigma and Tamron showing their wares and anything photo related scatterred all over the place.

So see you in Glorietta! I'll be there later today. Maybe I can pick up n 18-200VR for 10k...

Asa... (and I don't mean ISO...=P )

iPod, iPhone, i-caramba...

Damn.

In my last post, I ranted about the iPod and how it made me spend more than I thought I would. I was kinda thinking that I wouldn't get another thing like that for a long time.

Apparently, "long time" isn't as long as it used to be.


This is the new Apple iPhone.

Yup, they finally showed it off at MacWorld yesterday. After more than a year of speculation and multiple accusations of this product being vaporware, Apple has shoved the naysayers' collective foot in their mouths and proven a lot of 'respected' journalists (cough...Leo LaPorte...cough) wrong!

Look at this thing! It's gorgeous! It's shiny, black, has a huge touch screen LCD, 4 or 8GB flash drive, 802.11g WiFi, bluetooth, 2MP digital camera, Mac OSX and most of all, it has Apple's widgets!

Hmmm... widgets....

What is thing anyway? First and foremost, it's a fashion accessory. Don't get me wrong, it has other uses but the most it'll be used for is making the user look good. Since I don't need artificial enhancements (ahem) I'll just go on to it's 'other' features.

The iPhone is a phone obviously. It does everything a normal smart phone should. SMS, email, calculator, calendar date book, miscellaneous applications, contact lists and etc. It's defining feature over other phones is the interface. There is no traditional keypad. No keys that will eventually get stubborn and/or sticky. That’s good right? Well... no. It uses the LCD as a touch screen keypad. Phone numbers are mostly through your contact list and the interface for dialing random numbers seems to be buried under menus. This might also cause undue wear&tear on the lcd since you'll be touching it a lot of times. For SMS use, it's mostly the same. An on-screen keyboard let's you input texts and the contact recipients so basically same gripes with the phone function. The camera let's you take typical 2mp pictures from a point and shoot that's as simple as humanly possible. The only difference is that it can shoot at 16x9 format.

The iPhone is also a media player. Its an addition to the iPod line and uses much of the iPod Video's technology with the Nano's flash memory. Video quality is reportedly as good as or better than the 5th Gen iPod, possibly due to the newer, brighter LCD. I was disappointed to see a traditional button interface for the media player. I would've loved to see a virtual click-wheel on this thing but maybe Apple wanted the screen real-estate to be used for something else.

Not satisfied with being just a phone, the iPhone is a smart-phone! (would that make it a smart-iPhone or an i-smart-phone?) It does web browsing very well with Apple's own Safari interface. It incorporates their widgets with options to use custom versions. Google-maps works flawlessly! the best part? When holding the iPhone vertically and viewing a web-page, if you tilt it sideways, landscape style, the page will move with you! How cool is that?!?!



I seriously hope that this piece of technological wizardry isn't as prone to the iPod problem of a fragile finish. Let's face it, the 4/5th Gen video and the 1st gen iPod Nano was a nightmare to maintain. Breathing on it would cause scratches... If this is as bad as those products were then it'll be a huge dissapointment.

So obviously I'm intrigued. At the least, I'm impressed with how this thing looks on my screen. I might have another opinion when I see it in my hand but with Apple's track record of realllly realllly aesthetically pleasing products (2g shuffle, iPod Video, Nano, MacBook Pro, G5, etc..) I really think that it'll be love at first sight...

Again...

Suggested Retail Price? Around $600.

Damn.

The Money Pit

What is the definition of a 'money-pit'?

In my view, its basically something that you purchase and for some godforsaken reason keep throwing cash at to improve or upgrade it.

Clear?

Well, I have one. It's called an iPod...





While it does work by itself, only needing a basic PC (read: P4/AthlonXP/512mbram/80gbHDD) with USB to utilize it's functions, only an idiot would think that buying an iPod is the end of it... And contrary to popular belief, I'm not an idiot... At least I don't think so...

But that's just me...

So far, I've gotten two different cases, new cables, new earphones (I've hated the iPod earphones since the Shuffle 1G), carabiners, polishing solutions, buffing pads and a chamois. Patti has four cases, earphones, a dock, a remote control, a usb charger, speakers, cleaners, cleaning cloths, MP3s from pay-sites, and some other stuff that's not standard fare...




With all these, I'm still planning on buying a speaker-dock, new earphones, a spare cable, a usb charger, a pc-dock, an iTrip, a car dock and whatever else I find 'useful' in the next few months.

I buy less stuff for my camera and my car put together! When will it all end?!?

Probably when and if I get a Zune... where it'll start all over again.

Or a PSP. Or a Wii. Or a PS3. Or a DS-Lite. Or the 100gb iPod.




Damn.

The Interweb... or something...

A new poll by Zogby International and 463 other Communications groups examined how people view the internet as it is today. While we may think that the internet is indispensible we can probably do without it.

For a short time at least...

I for one am 'jacked' into the net almost every hour of every day. At home I play an MMORPG that uses the net to communicate to servers and other players all over the country. This goes on for about 2 to 6 hours per day, depending on my mood or the in-game events at the time. On my other PC, I download bittorrent files of anime, movies, music and etc.

These are 'trials' mind you. If I like it, I'll go out and buy the DVD/CD...

In Quiapo... Heh...

I also have my iPaq with WiFi so I can surf from any point in my house using a wireless router. My iPod also downloads podcasts from sources like Jalopnik, WRC and etc.

And this is just when I'm awake...

When I'm asleep I leave my RPG character online so he can get points for the race quests (RFO CP if you're familiar with it), sell stuff, or increase his skills. Torrents are set to max priority since I'm not doing anything else on the pc anyway. Windows is probably updating itself and the anti-virus is doing the same. My podcasts are downloading and music titles are updating info from the album sources on the net.

The report also states that people predict that before 2010 there won't be any place on earth that cannot access the internet. It's a bold prediction. Probably from people who've been in net-stable areas for the past few years. Here in Manila, it's quite an 'iffy' situation when it comes to net connectivity.

They've obviously never been to Pasig... I have serious doubts if I can access the 'net' once I get home. Internet perfection? Hardly likely now, let alone in 3 more short years.

Some people believe that it is a more significant invention than the printing press. I suppose Gutenberg and his bible will be thrilled...

We were recently given a hard look at what the internet means for us. Late last Dec 26th, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck the two main cables that handled most of the internet traffic in the region. the main quake was located somewhere between Taiwan, North Korea and Singapore but the effect was felt all throughout South-East Asia.

Internet services ground to a halt in several countries that didn't have a direct line to the US. Most web applications like YM, MSN, Google, Meebo and even Amazon were almost unreachable since all traffic from affected regions were squeezing through a much smaller pipe than usual. Google, which is normally one of the fastest sites on the net, was limited to pure html mode in order to cope with the lag caused by the interruption.

While international services were rendered immobile, local internet traffic was not affected as much. Attendance in RFOnline, a Level-up-games MMORPG, was more or less normal and it was less laggy to boot, possibly due to less people on the 'net due to the incessant issues brought by the quake. Local websites were less affected as well. Locally hosted forums of different communities were flooded by inquiries on why the net was so bad and people generally connected to each other again, virtually.

On a more cheerful note, Happy New Year! Welcome to 2007! My last year on the calendar, the year that Transformers finally releases on cinemas, when I can maybe finally get a new job, where my RF Character will hit Lvl 60, when I can shed a few pounds and when I can finally buy a new car... The start of the new year should be full of hope so I hope that all this happens....

Don't wait up for it though...

Hey, this one has a hole in it...

What the hell is up with Krispy Kreme? I'd love to argue about the benefits vs. the downside of it all... But it's a donut. who argues about donuts besides cops and gluttons?

Yeah, it's a donut. It's sweet. It doesn't taste bad. But goddamn... Php 30 each?!? That much for a fried piece of rolled dough with melted sugar on top. For carb-counters out there, that's about 12g of different sugars in each donut. That's just the sugars... The dough itself? Well legend (the urban kind and office mate HornyTiu) says that it'll take 14 days for you to chew, ingest, digest, break down and crap all that stuff out. 2 freaking weeks inside you before it vacates your system in the usual way.

Although if you're like me and hate the oiliness of donuts in general, then you might just puke out the whole mess anyway.

Is it worth it though? You can get the same quality (low?) of food at Gonuts or the much maligned HotLoops franchise. (Yes, hotLoops is still in business even though no one knows what it is). Hell Dunkin Donuts Bavarian Munchkins are good enough for me any day.

Spending PhP 30.00 on a single donut is ludicrous to me though...

PhP 30.00 will get you a cheeseburger at Jollibee. That'll last you a day.

PhP 30.00 will get you 3/4 liter of shell Unleaded. That's halfway from home to work.

PhP 30.00 will get you a Ps2 Game/DVD Movie/TvSeries. Hours of fun and enjoyment.

PhP 30.00 can get you a longganisa with 1 rice plus soup and a fried egg in your usual JollyJeep in Makati. Yum! (you gotta try this)

PhP 30.00 will... well... it'll get you a lot more than a piece of fried dough with a hole in the middle.

Is it worth it? Hell no! So why the hell did I just agree to go there on Saturday?

Because Patti wants to.

Can't argue with that...

What's with Rfonline.ph?

I was browsing through the weblog of [GM]Dave the other day.

He was ranting on and on about the trials and tribulations of being a GM in FFXI and extolling the virtues of Jormy, his pet (read: assasin) dragon. He basically hates 'tards' (who doesn't), street punks ('sup yo? reprezent!), role-playing (Ho, brave adveturer!) and mostly anything game related (except crafting and his ban stick and Jormy of course). Oh, and I think he's a minor (read: AA worthy) alcoholic.

Reading [GM]Dave's blog sparked a few questions in my head.

How many stupid people are in phRFO?

1) We have the run-of-the-mill n0Ob$ "kuya, san po lunkerz"? (bro, where are the lunkers?) and while they can't be generally called stupid since they're new to all this, there's always the method of checking your journal (press "J") since the quest giver gives the location of the quest requirements anyway...

2) We have the morons who lament and complain that they sold an item for 1,000,000 instead of 10,000,000 dalant/disena/cp 'cause they were in a hurry and missed putting the last 0 in the pricing page. Face it folks, if you put an item in the UTS, the price you set is your fault. Lag? Bullshit. You were in a hurry? Tough luck. Needed to take a piss? Get a diaper.

3) "Si -name- load scammer!!!" ("-name- is a scammer!!!"). Guys, if you get scammed by a load seller then that's your own damned fault. It's stated in the RF Magna Carta that load selling/buying is illegal in the game and is a bannable offense. If you're too stupid to not do that then it sucks to be you. You just lost real cash for the 'promise' of a virtual item.

4) KSers. For non-players, KS means Kill Stealers. As an example I'm htting a BrutalAce and when it's hp bar is almost empty, some moron dives in a times it so that his last hit kills the beast. So it's an apt name since you'll basically scream "he stole my kill"... Yes, the KSer will get XP and possibly a quest but what about your PTs? Skills? That feeling of accomplishment? They also trash talk as well... No idea why since they sound dumber than they probably should legally be.

5) Council-mockers, henceforth known as CMs. Yes, that sounds really stupid but hey, it happens. CMs think that they know everything. When we attend ChipWars they say "we should do this" or "the race should do that" or... well you get the picture. Know-it-alls, all of them... these people think that they can command the race just because they use the mapchat command... idiots... In CW the only voices you should listen to are the councils or the rare exceptions. A handful only to be sure but they're there... Ryunaito, the BA gives strategically soudn commands, papaSPY of course is respected, DwarvenWL is crazy but he knows how to kill 'em tin cans, RhonZ can fight with the best of them, microspecs the super buffer, Enki another super buffer, Axelle the strategist and a few more can be trusted to lead properly... But the rest of those /m spammers? If we had Jormy in Novus then I'd feed them to him... Maybe Belphegor would do just as nice...

6) People yapping about item scammers. This is not DiabloII people. There are no dupes in RFo. If you got item scammed then that's your own stupidity at work. How does an item scam go? Some immoral bastard shows you a 10atk15avoid ring (the blue one) and asks for 100M in currency. Great bargain right? So you plunk over the cash, hit confirm and trade it. When you put it on, you see that it's now a +1 skill ring. Well why the hell didn't you check the item before you confirmed? coz you were in a hurry? Maybe you wanted to take a piss? Or maybe you were just plain stupid...

So what do we do? Can we educate them in how they should play? Impress upon them the importance of the MagnaCarta? Show them how to use the Journal command? Make them read "Art of War" for strategic enlightenment?

Oh hell no. That's too much effort. When you see one of these in the game, hit "B" on your keyboard, select the third tab (block) and click "add". Type in his name and presto! No more idiots.

Well... maybe just until the next "koya san po Lunker" retard comes along. then you'll know what to do.

On second thought, it might be easier to just count the smart people...

What's small, black, shiny and sorta new with a few scratches?

An Apple iPod 30GB video! ^_^

Yup, I got one. I ranted last week about having missed the sale but found out that Patti had an officemate who 'reserved' a unit but figured that he won't claim it anymore. So, I scooped it up. Good deal too. Only 9k Php for a 30GB unit. That's pretty cheap since a new unit would cost about 14k at retail.

Now all I have to do is set up the media pc, figure out how to use the Apple camera connector (for transferring files from the camera to the ipod directly) and convert my videos to ipod format... That's a lot of work...

Videos I need to convert:
CSI Las Vegas - Season 4-6
Top Gear - Last 2 seasons
Fifth Gear - Last 2 seasons
The Simpsons - 'borrow' from Marion
Futurama - 'borrow' from Marion
South Park - 'borrow' from Marion
Shaolin Soccer
TAXI - 1 to 3 (original french by Luc Besson, not the crappy Queen Latifah ripoff)
Samurai7 - the anime
Voices of a Distant Star - anime too
Adam Sandler movies - madami...
Kung-Fu Hustle

and etc...

Too many to mention honestly... and that's just the stuff that I have on hand that I want to convert! If you count the stuff that I want to find then it'll be a looooon list.

Anyway, I'll go mess with it a bit more =)

Later...

The Effects of Coke

Saw it on another blog and couldn't help but post it here... Considering I'm drinking a bottle of Coke right now, I felt it was semi-appropriate...

In Verbatim:

Have you ever wondered why Coke comes with a smile? It’s because it gets you high. They took the cocaine out almost a hundred years ago. You know why? It was redundant.

In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.

20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)

40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dialate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.

45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.

>60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.

>60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.

>60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

This will all be followed by a caffeine crash in the next few hours. (As little as two if you’re a smoker.) But, hey, have another Coke, it’ll make you feel better.

Original article can be found here.

Wishlist Redux

I'm adding an item on my wishlists... It's at the top of the list, regardless of category. I just want one and I want it now... I want a Nintendo Wii... I was at megamall last Sat night and saw a store clerk at InfoMax playing Wii sports on this thing. Bowling to be specific... I asked the price and what games were available. It turns out that the unit she was using was a Japanese model and couldn't play US games. Gray market of course. It was being sold for Php 22,000. While the US models were going for Php 28,000 in Toy Kingdom. Hell of a markup from the SRP of $250... Almost double...

I tried the thing and it looks ike a lot of fun! The bowling was amazing! tilting your hand a few degrees results in a slice/hook and how fast you move your arm translates to the speed of the ball on release. I can get hooked on this easily... Boxing is the same thing. Moving fast means a faster punch, too slow and you'll miss a block. Golf was cool as well since you'll need the proper golfing stance to get a good shot and same with the bowling, a few degrees off axis and you'll slice your ball into the woods.


The controller is called the Nunchuck. It's motion sensitive with a gyroscope inside and senses how fast, what angle and pitch the controller is at. This translates to motion or input depending on the game being played. Zelda for instance uses the Nunchuck as a sword/shield combo for fights and the left hand controller for lateral movement. It's connected by a cable for data transfer but you can disconnect it for games that don't need the other controller. Be careful though, there have been some instances where people got too enthusiastic about thier games and the strap on the Wii-mote broke sending the thing into their TVs.


Morons...

Nintendo hit a home run with this one though (there's baseball in the Wii spots package as well) regardless of the idiots who break stuff with their controllers... The PS3 is a technology showcase for Sony, showing the potential of today's hardware but without the support of innovative games then it'll be a dud. Microsoft's Xbox360 is a good contender with some nice games but it isn't as immersive as the Wii since it uses old technology and just plays like a souped up PS2. The Wii gets you into the game unlike any console on the market today, and the flawless backwards compatibility with older Nintendo game systems (you can use the older Gamecube controllers to play games on the Wii) will help with established gamers who already have a Gamecube collection as well as budget gamers since GC games go for P300-500 on the second-hand market today.


On a side note, Wiis are region coded using the DVD region coding system. Japan is R4, US is R1. We're in R3 so games will be specifically coded to work on machines in the proper region. Unless of course you wait 6 months 'til the newest mod-chip comes out that will let you play your Wii anywhere with burned copies of games... This is illegal of course and I don't condone piracy. Piracy is bad. Php50.00 games are good though so I don't really do my part in curtailing this injustice... I'll probably just wait for the local unit to ship. Expect it around May/June. But I still want one now... This is probably the most fun you'll have with a console since Dance-Revolution and the dance pad came out 5 years ago! =)

Weekend Jobs

I was supposed to be on vacation last weekend. Applied for leave Fri/Mon to get a 4-day weekend so I'd have time to go out of town, enjoy myself and come back with enough leeway to still be rested when I went back to work Tuesday. Instead I had to work.

It was a photo shoot at Lee Gardens Condos at Shaw blvd in Mandaluyong City. I worked from 7:30am 'til 8pm on Sat and 11am to 7pm Sun. Hours weren't bad and the pay was good. It was just sooo damn boring though... It was your typical event coverage with shots of people, opening ceremonies, awardings, stalls (there was a bazaar) and unit owners getting the first look at their new place. Ho-hum...

There were highlights though. Free Starbucks was one. All you can drink brewed, a free Latte on the first day and a free Mocha frap on the second. Whoopee... Oh, I also got to buy some Christmas gifts as well. 4 bottles of Spanish red wine, a shoe bag, a pepper mill, Cheetos, a shirt and some other weird things. Pacs also dropped by with Kharen and took a few shots. I don't think they found anything to buy sicne everything was geared towards people moving into a new place.

So it wasn't a total loss... I got paid too. Well, haven't been paid yet but I will be... soon. I hope.

This whole event made me realize something though. It's been on the back burner for the past few months but after this job, it suddenly came to the fore.

I need a new tripod.

Earth shattering revelation huh? Nah, just practicality. I lugged my Velbon VG-4 tripod around the whole weekend. You might think Velbon Carbon Fiber tripod or Velbon Traveller Lightweight Aluminum tripod... Nope. It was the old-skool Velbon thick as my arm solid billet aluminum tripods that you can use for large format and video cameras from the 90's... This thing is about 8lbs. By itself! This with the D70s (which is no lightweight) and the Nikon Sb-600, well it could be around 15lbs I guess... The result of all this weightlifing is a sore left bicep. Cheaper than going to the gym I suppose but it won't be even with my right arm since I just use that for the camera. =P

So looking around the net, I saw a few models that might fit my requirements. First on the list is the velbon 600RA. It's about Php 6,000 in JT and there's also the 200R for around Php 4,000. The main advantage of the 600RA is that it's abit lighter and has a lower min height (29cm vs 59cm for the 200R). Lower height means better for macro shots or tabletop applications. There's also the Manfrotto 715B going for about Php 5,000 and the Gitzo's, Hakuba's and SLIK's for the same price range. Mind you, these are the "cheap" ones that fit into my price range. The more expensive ones from Gitzo and Bogen hit Php 20k at least... Factor in the heads aas well since my preferred tripods come with them as a package already... A good ball-head or pan/tilt-head wil go for about 5k at least in your local stores... That's too much for my blood so I'll just stick with the packages I mentioned before.

It's time for another shopping spree! =)