sade027

Having been using the Nexus 5 for over a month now, I can declare that this is simply one of the best Android smartphones you can get for your money. It isn't perfect. For example the lack of expansion slot is a bit of a downer. But the most galling example has to be the camera. Now, the quality of the camera's output isn't that bad if the conditions are right. But it's auto focus mechanism is iffy, especially on low light, and slow. Despite the inclusion of optical stablisation, you get all sorts of jerks. The white balance can also be a bit off, and the exposure compensation doesn't always work. I have had better pictures taken with the 8-megapixel powered no-OIS HTC 8X than with this device. Thankfully the latest system update Android 4.4.2, aimed at improving the Nexus 5's camera, was released yesterday. Being the brave person I was, I downloaded and installed the update during my train ride home last night. The update was installed without a hitch, and ten...

More later.

Microsoft Photosynth is an app created by Microsoft and University of Washington, designed to create panorama 3D-dimensional models based on multiple images. Using the free software available from their website, users can stitch and synth their images and then share them on the Photosynth website. 20GB of storage is available for users. Two type of images can be created - a panorama, which is created using an Image Composite Editor and the Photosynth app, or synth - a collection of high resolution images, which is more detailed, but lacks the seam-less transition of a panorama image. Here is an example of a synth I made using stills I took last December at Sushisamba in Heron Tower , captured on a Canon S90 and synth'ed and uploaded using the Photosynth desktop client: And here is the panorama version of the same images when ran through the ICE application first before uploading to Photosynth: The recently released Windows Phone 8 app  also means that Windows Phone 8 owners can f...

It was a glorious day in London today. The SEGA blue skies and sun were out in force. Perhaps it is a sign that we may finally get the summer we deserve this year. Or maybe not.  Still, never one to let an opportunity like this pass, I had my  HTC One with me. Like a tourist, I was shooting anything of interest to me (you can always find something interesting in London). I've also taken a few more night shots. You can view these unedited samples below. These image samples are a mixture of HDR, auto mode, night mode and sweep panorama (which is ridiculously good). The full res version resides  on Dropbox , thanks to a quirk on Blogger not allowing anything wider than 1280 pixels. I have also been using the HTC Zoe feature more. You can find a sample of South Bank's finest skateboarders in action on the Zoe Share site . 

The new HTC One , has a lot going for it - a fantastic design, an ultra crisp 1080p display and crazy fast specs. But when HTC announced their new flagship in London two weeks ago, they also surprised the tech world by announcing that the One would feature a 4 megapixel camera sensor. Now, 4 megapixel might not sound a lot, but I have always been an advocate of scaling back megapixel for raw quality for smartphones and digital compacts where it is just physically impossible to cram a large sensor. (Many thanks to the good people at  Three UK for loaning the HTC One ) In an age where the megapixel myth is more popular than ever, it took a lot of guts for HTC's designers and management to have actually decided on this, and I admire them for it. From a marketing perspective, this new strategy could easily backfire. But in a post PC smartphone world, where the majority of images are shared and viewed on smartphones via social sharing networks like Instagram, Flickr and Facebo...