Earlier I wrote about desires for the next generation of DSLR camera and a number of readers wrote back that they wanted to be able to swap the sensor in their camera, most notably so they could put in a B&W sensor with no colour filter mask on it. This would give you better B&W photos and triple your light gathering ability, though for now only astronomers are keen enough on this to justify filterless cameras.
As expected, there's more news from the Tokyo auto show, which is well known for strange concept cars.
First there is the Toyota Fun Vii
Nissan has announced a new version of their Pivo concept car. The Pivo 3 here's a story with a video offers 4 wheel steering and automatic parking, including a claimed functionality for automated valet parking. In the AVP case, the car requires a special parking lot, though it is not said what changes are needed. A few years ago the Stanford team demonstrated Junior 3 which could valet park in a lot to which it had a map, and which had no civilian pedestrians.
In contrast to the optimism I usually present here, and last week's article about a self-driving Mercedes just a year away it's worth noting this interview with various BMW folks where they provide a much more cautious timeline of at least a decade. Part of their concern comes from the use of computer vision systems.
For the first time, a car company has put a date on shipment of a car with self-driving ability.
According to British site Auto Express, Mercedes has revealed that their 2013 S-class will feature self-driving. Not clear if there is an official company press release, though the company has been talking about such features, as have many other companies. Realize that the 2013 model year is just a year away.
I shoot with the Canon 5d Mark II. While officially not a pro camera, the reality is that a large fraction of professional photographers use this camera rather than the Eos-1D cameras which are faster but much bulkier and in some ways even inferior to the 5D. But it's been out a long time now, and everybody is wondering when its successor will come and what features it will have.
Each increment in the DSLR world has been quite dramatic over the last decade. There's always been a big increase in resolution with the new generation, but now at 22 megapixels there's less call for that. While there are lenses that deliver more than 22 megapixels sharply, they are usually quite expensive, and while nobody would turn down 50mp for free, there just wouldn't be nearly as much benefit from it than the last doubling. Here's a look at features that might come, or at least be wished for.
More pixels may not be important, but everybody wants better pixels.
Due to the high quality video in the 5D2, many professional videographers now use it. Last week Canon announced new high-end video cameras aimed at that market, so they may not focus on improvements in this area. If they do, people might like to see things like 60 frame video, ability to focus while shooting, higher ISO, and 4K video.
Last week, new studies came back on the California High Speed Rail project. They have raised the estimated cost to $99 billion, and dropped the ridership estimate to 36.8 million and $5.5 billion in annual revenue. Note that only around 20 million people currently fly the SF to LA corridor -- they expect to not just capture most of those but large numbers of central valley trips.
Congestion on the roads has a variety of sources. These include accidents of course, reductions in road capacity, irrational human driving behaviours and others, but most of all you get congestion when more cars are trying to use a road than it has capacity for.
That's why the two main success stories in congestion today are metering lights and downtown congestion charging. Metering lights limit how fast cars can enter the highway, so that you don't overload it and traffic flows smoothly. By waiting a bit at the metering light you get a fast ride once on the highway. Sometimes though, especially when the other factors like accidents come into play, things still gum up.
Now that more and more cars are connected (by virtue just of the smartphone the driver carries if nothing else) the potential will open up for something else in congestion -- finding ways to encourage drivers to leave a congested road.
A little self-plug. I have an article on an introduction to panoramic photographic technique the November issue of Photo Technique with a few panos in it. This is old world journalism, folks -- you have to read it on paper at least for now.