Mad Mike Review: Coleman All Outdoors 3 - in - 1 Blanket

A Must Have for the Traveler

 

This is a product I have tried and tested for a few months and am nuts about.

The folks over at Coleman should hire me as a test dummy.

There are lots more than 3 ways to use it.

Here's the box mine came in.  I still have it from way back before last Christmas.

They say the 3 - in - 1 stuff is, Blanket/Poncho/Stadium Seat.

Yup.  I've done all that stuff and, even more with mine.

 There it is covering one of those Naughahyde chairs someone gave me.

That stuff makes me sweat.

So, I take my nap on top of my blanket everyday.

That means, you could call it an anti-naugahyde device, I guess.

One night, I got stuck sleeping on a concrete park bench and used my Coleman.

That would make it a park bench cushion.

When the ocean breeze got too chilly, I squinched myself-up in it.

It suddenly turned into a sleeping bag.  The cops didn't even notice me.

It was like, I blended in with my surroundings. A camouflaged sleeping bag !

Occasionally,  my backpack gets too many items in it and something rubs my back wrong.

Suddenly, the backpack cushion was invented.

We don't do a lot of stadium-going in this part of the world but, have lots of festivals.

The standard festival furniture is overturned beer crates, that hurt your fanny.

Now, I have an Orion Beer festival cushion.

Outdoors, many times, the sun in Okinawa is scorching hot and, some shade is required.

With a little bit of cord and some imagination, the Coleman provides it.

Portable roofing ?

Traveling light, sometimes, I stuff things like, small camera, paperwork, etc. inside the cushion.

Then, it becomes a shoulder bag.  Once, it was, even a dirty laundry bag !

Windscreen, pillow, privacy screen, pup tent a few other uses come to mind but that's enough, for now.

Soon, we'll be packing-up for a trip to another island.

There will be some photos taken, using this piece of gear as a background.

That way I can show all the gear that goes along with me, as a checklist.

The 3 - in - 1 Coleman Blanket gets a five star rating from me.







More Mad Mike Reviews





 

Flowers and New Shoes (Photos) Good News and Bad News

What a day this turned out to be, no wildlife shots but, one heck of a busy day and I got a lot accomplished with the help of my shooting buddy, Doc.  We're doing a Wednesday weekly shooting day from now on, as long as the wives don't put the clamps on our activities.  That's good news.

Today's story will unfold in the sequence I shot these pictures but, plenty of things happened while the cameras were safely locked-up in the car.

Just so you know we weren't drinking, the first flower is a pink hibiscus.  I shot it while Doc was hauling his bag of concrete out of the DIY Store and breaking his back loading up the car.  I asked a salesgirl if I could shoot photos of the flowers and she told me to go ahead.  That's good news.

Some stores are afraid of industrial espionage, especially when the see a DSLR in your hands.

Remind me, someday, it'd be a good idea for me to buy a little Point and Shoot for those type operations.



Next, I shot this Multi-colored Hibiscus.  It looked unreal, to me.  Like I figured somebody painted it or put foodcoloring in the planter to make it that way but, Doc said they grow that color naturally.



When he saw me shooting these furry caterpillar-looking things, he said he'd never seen a plant like that before.  I see them all the time when I'm walking my dogs.  I call them caterpillar-looking flowers. 

Today I shot the sign that says, Benihimo 1980 Yen and Googled it.  My Wikipedia connections tell me it is a Chenille Plant (Acalypha hispida).



On the way out of the DIY Store's Flower and Garden Center I shot this wide angle scene just because it was there. We'll have to get a translator to read all that fancy kanji that was imported from China, years ago. I only read the simple stuff. I'll find out the names of all the flowers I shot today, eventually and hope I can escape with the information for you, without having to buy any of them.  Er, that'd be bad news.

Before we hit the DIY Store, all kinds of things got accomplished.  Doc and I were on a mission.  I had to do some shopping for frames to mail photos to my contest winners.  And, to avoid firing my printer up to make photos for the frames, I went to a print shop.

With a whole hour to kill, waiting for the prints, we wandered off and started looking at cameras, computers and all kinds of other stuff we really didn't need.

The good news: I found a pair of shoes.  I need new shoes, the kind you can go over rough terrain in. 

I found a pair of rugged-looking shoes that are supposed to cost around a hundred US Dollars, on sale for only about 25 bucks.  So, I bought them, even if they're a half size too large for my feet.

Like I told Doc, just wear more socks, until they fit.  I can buy plenty of socks with the 75 dollars I saved.  Right ?



There they are. That's my new shoes, never been worn and a DVD even came with them.  Hah !
How many times have you ever bought a pair of shoes and got a DVD included in the box with them ?

So, when I got back here, to my office, I had to wait for these PCs to wake up and get scanned before I could download my camera.  That's when I got the bright idea to shoot my shoes.  I could do something like a product review on them.  You know, like a one month, blow by blow account of me and my new shoes going over rough terrain and stuff like that.  I'll put them through some rugged tests.

I don't have time to watch a DVD and I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing when it comes to shoes. 

I'll start testing these suckers in a few minutes.  I'm leaving my flip-flops at the bar and I'll be heading to the beach with the dogs, shortly.

Just to make sure these shoes didn't get put on sale because some company went extinct, I googled them.  They're good to go.

Then, I started reading some of the literature that came in the box.  This is more bad news.

There's a WARNING:
"The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.  Criminal copyright infringement, including without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000."  YIKES !

So, it's probably best that I don't tell you any of what I see on the DVD or read in the book until I get authorization from the proper authorities.  I could email the company, I guess.  Or should I just shred the book, DVD, the box and everything that came with it ?  I'm pretty sure I can wear the things and walk alright without anyone's advice.  What would you do, worry about goin to jail ?

Registry Mechanic for Your PC: A Not a Nerd's Product Review

Here's a screenshot taken off my Window 7 laptop, just a few minutes ago.  If I wasn't typing on this old Vista machine, I'd shoot this screen, too.  But, you'd only see the same thing as in the picture above.

This Morning the needle on both Health Meters ( what I call them ) wasn't so good.  Look up in the righthand corner.  If my PCs get any healthier, it'll break the meter.

Remember, this is not a computer nerd, geek, guru, or whatever else you call people who know what they're doing around computers.  I'll give you some links to folks who speak that language, later.

To me, RegistryMechanic is the best thing that came along since bottled beer.

Now, being a cameraman, I upload, download and delete massive files on my PCs, every day.  I know all about Ccleaner, defragging and all the other good stuff you're supposed to do and I do them just about every day, too.

Fooling around with StumbleUpon, Facebook and a whole slew of social networking sites and having idiots loading unwanted music and videos into my PCs, sometimes causes problems.

It seems, to me, that besides leftover traces of photos I work on, a lot of garbage I pick up while surfing the internet piles up in my registry, whatever the hell that is.

Before long, the PCs start slowing down.  Sometimes, right in the middle of some important work,  the PC locks-up.  The screen may whiteout, or it may go totally black.  It's the registry.  I figured it out.

Well, I did a little research and read some good reviews about this Registry Mechanic and liked what I saw so, I downloaded the FREE TRIAL version.

It's OK. It'll tell you how many hundred or thousand problems your PC has in the registry.  It will fix six, or so, of them for free.  Then, if you want everything fixed, you better buy the real deal.

First, I bought one, one year subscription, for one computer.  The poor puppy was on it's last leg.

When I installed the download and turned it loose, it gobbled up over 3,000 pieces of garbage in my register, ( whatever that is ) and the PC came back to life.

It probably would have been a good idea to read the instructions but, I didn't. 

The PC was running fine so, I was happy.  Every day I'd push some of the buttons on the righthand side of the screen above.  Clean, Defragment, Tuneup and wharever else they have to offer.

After a month or so, the health meter started sliding back towards the middle.  On my other PC ( which I also installed the Mechanic ) it got way down to Low System Health.  That's my newer computer. Damn !

So, this morning, I discovered something.  I pushed the GREEN BUTTON right below the meter "START SCAN".  It gobbled up 3,000 more pieces of junk that had piled themselves in my register, whatever that means.

And there you have it.  The picture above is from my PC that was sick this morning.  Healthy.

Now, that I think I know what I'm doing, I like Registry Mechanic.  It kicks some butt.

Would I recommend it to my friends?  YUP !

My only complaint would be this:  Why don't they make it so a redlight flashes when your PC gets sick?  Like, for people who are not nerd's.  It could say "Hit the GREEN START BUTTON".

When I pay 25 bucks for something, I don't expect to have to sit in front of a computer monitor and stare at the thing reading a bunch of instructions.  Registry Mechanic gets four stars, for now.


Here are a few links to other reviews of this product:

TOP TEN REVIEWS

WHAT'S A BYTE


These people sound like they might be Gurus, or something.  You could also, search Amazon or CNET and get more users reviews.  I'd give you links but, I'm in Japan so, Japanese sites are all that popup on my browser.

Adobe Elements Product Review (Photos) and How To

HERE'S A QUICK REVIEW AND HOW-TO FOR FRIENDS WHO SHOOT UNDEREXPOSED PHOTOS AND FOR THOSE WHO AREN'T MY FRIENDS, YET.

        A BEFORE ADOBE ELEMENTS 8                                                     AND AN AFTER ELEMENTS 8

This is a product I use every single day.  Now, nobody can get away with calling me a PhotoShopper because that's not what I use the stuff for.  The idea I got into my head when I first started takin pictures with a digital camera was learn to shoot photos that don't need anything done to them but framing after they came outa my camera.

Once I started posting photos online I discovered there's a buncha thieves around the world who think it's alright to just take your stuff for FREE !

So, I ended up buying programs to help me discourage them. Let's just say I alter the photography enough to make it worthless for printing and easy for me to find when some knucklehead decides to swipe my picture and re-post it on line as his or hers.

Today, all I want to show you is a few steps you can take in Adobe Elements.  I'm using Elements 8 but, there is a newer version available, Adobe Elements 9.  Either one you can get for under $100. 

I have used other programs.  For the computer challenged nothing beats Adobe Elements.

HERE IS ALL I DID TO THE PHOTO ABOVE WITH ELEMENTS 8 IN 30 SECONDS OR LESS


Clicked on FILE and opened my Pictures File for 17 April 2011 and clicked on this image.
Boom.  There she is and she's underexposed.  So, I want to enhance her.  I CLICK "ENHANCE". Hah !


Being the lazy person I am, all I did next was hit AUTO SMART FIX and let somebody else do all the work.


         Little guys running around inside my computer fixed her up in no time.  Bless their hearts.


Next, I CLICK on IMAGE to size it for my blog and HIT "ROTATE" to get the gal standin on her feet. 

All that took me less than 30 seconds.  You can probably do it even faster.  I only type with one finger.

Adobe Elements gets a five star rating from me. 

Would I reccomend this product to my friends ?

Yup. They'd be crazy not to have it.

RELATED POST: HDR PHOTOGRAPHY BASICS USING ELEMENTS 8

Sigma 50-500mm APO DG Telephoto Lens Review and Photo

The Sigma 50-500mm lens is my weapon of choice when I'm going to spend all day shooting wildlife.

A Pentax K10D is the camera body I use but, you can get this lens for a Canon, Nikon, Sigma, Sony or Olympus cameras as well.

Ideal for wildlife photographers who don't want to carry a bag full of lenses, it is also a favorite of those who shoot sporting events and air shows.

Nicknamed the Bigma, this baby is heavy. Without a camera attached, it's just a tad over 4 pounds (1.86Kgs). It's not something you want hanging around your neck unless you're someone like Arnold, that Terminator guy.

A sturdy tripod or monopod is recommended, not only to steady the camera but, to keep from breaking your back, as well. New, these lenses are selling for $1300-$1500 depending on camera model.

Used, I've seen them go for under $800 probably because people broke their backs not knowing how to handle them.

The Sigma 50-500mm works best in bright light because you won't get the wide aperture settings required for low light shooting, especially at the long end of its zoom. But, a prime lens for any of the major cameras (f/2.8) that reaches out to 500mm will cost a few thousand dollars more.

Auto focus is fast, smooth and quiet. Occassionally, white and grey skies will confuse the Auto focus but, that happens with almost any lens when you're tracking a bird in flight.

Some wildlife photographers claim the Sigma 50-500mm requires a tripod at focal lengths over 300mm. I agree, use a tripod when you can but, when you can't, use your Burst Mode and take the shot.

The photo below was taken, handheld, at 500mm with the Sigma 50-500mm APO DG.

My rating for the Sigma 50-500mm APO DG Telephoto Lens: Five Stars.

GET YOUR SIGMA 50-500MM LENS FOR CANON, NIKON, SIGMA, SONY OR PENTAX CAMERAS WHERE I BUY MY CAMERA SUPPLIES, ANY REPUTABLE DEALER !

Panasonic DMC-FZ50 Review of a Good Old Camera

What's the point in doing a review on an old camera?  I'll tell you. Nobody is paying me or even giving me some kinda freebies. This is my old camera, first digital camera outside of a cell phone, I ever bought.

It's been used, abused, misused, dropped, rained on, tripped over, loaned out, lost and forgotten and even, once or twice, had a thorough cleaning. The poor son of a gun has over 250,000 shutter snaps on it and just keeps on ticking.

This is not a point and Shoot Camera. It's not a DSLR, either. It's what you'd call a Bridge Camera; something to fill the gap between the two.

I bring this up because many people ask me what cameras I recommend. When I bought the DMC-FZ50, I had no idea what I wanted to accomplish with my photography. This was the perfect camera for me.

It has excellent glass (Lecia lens) 7mm-85mm zoom. Aperture from 2.8 to 11 and all the Mode settings for lazy people, plus, you can shoot fully manual once you decide that's what you want to do.

In the photo above, you'll see, I added a 1.7X Teleconverter. That was only after I decided I wanted to reach out further and grab some wildlife shots.

This good old camera won't fit in your pocket but, it is light enough to wear around your neck. When I wear a jacket, I tuck it inside to keep it from swinging around and sometimes, get into places where cameras are not allowed. Hah !

Most times, I don't wear jackets and usually don't take my cameras places where they are forbidden. The ideal way to carry a camera like the DMC-FZ50 is in a holster. A strap over your shoulder and a belt through slot provided on the back of the holster will keep everything secure even if you go mountain climbing.

If you want to read full reviews on this old baby, type DMC-FZ50 in any search engine and you'll find plenty.

The feature that I found most useful on this camera is the LCD screen. You can rotate that puppy and make shots with it around corners, over the heads of crowds or get close to the ground and shoot scenes above that would be impossible, peeking through the viewfinder with my DSLR.

The DMC-FZ50 gets a five star rating from me. Panasonic will have to wait before I'll buy, whatever the latest, greatest model happens to be, because I believe my good old camera is going to be around for a long, long time.

Mr. Coffee, Now You Dunnit (Photo and Rant)

Most days, I don't go around shooting coffeepots but, today Mr. Coffee has me ranting and I'm going to let the whole world know about it. I've been using Mr. Coffee machines for years without complaining.

Mr. Coffee, I'm talking to you here. "If you're trying to get rid of a product-loyal customer, now you dunnit".

DISCLOSURE: I ain't gettin' paid for this but, I probably should be.

In the photo above you see my brand new Mr. Coffee TF Series 12-Cup Coffeemaker on the left.
On the right is the old one I drug back in the house out of the pile of junk I plan on hauling to the dump, someday. I decided I'm going to keep it. I like my old Mr. Coffee better. I'll just have to fix it.

There's always a pile of junk in my front yard.  I like to keep enough stuff stacked up in plain view from the front gate just in case somebody's coming around to take pictures for the Redneck Yard of the Month. 

I've been trying to win that prestigious award for several years without much luck.

Well, I've repaired my coffee machines in the past, even though I'm not an authorized Mr. Coffee Service Center Technician. I figure, I paid for the darn thing and can do whatever I want with it.

Here's what I have to say about that new machine. Number one is: What kind of idiot Researchers and Developers came up with the idea of making a coffee machine black ?

Maybe, I've been out of the country too long. Is everybody buying black kitchen appliances these days ? 

I'm not exactly an interior decorater so the only black appliances in my kitchen would be my laptop and cameras, the trouble light I use (hanging from a cup screw over the table) in case there's ever any trouble and, maybe, the one black dog I have.

He's the kitchen vacuum. I don't know if a dog qualifies as an appliance, though.

The good old Mr. Coffee had a glass pot. You could see what's inside the thing.  Like, tell if there was any coffee left and how much there was left. Imagine that ! 

You could tell if the wife washed the thing or not.  Maybe, even see if she put any rat poison or metal shavings in there.

The new Mr. Coffee has this stupid thing they call a Thermal Carafe. You can't see through it.

Your wife could put a Brillo Pad in there, rat poison and ground up glass and you'd never know until you're writhing in the throes of death on the kitchen floor.

Where do these stupid words like decanter and carafe come from, anyway?

Can't we just say stuff like "coffee pot" and quit trying to act like some kind of multilingual foreigners?

A coffee pot is a coffee pot. It's that simple. Quit trying to act like you're European, Mr. Coffee. Hear me?

Serious coffee drinkers, like me, drink several quarts (liters) a day. We're up before the sun. We stumble around in the dark making our coffee, early in the morning.

We don't want to turn on all the lights in the house just to find the BLACK COFFEE POT.

When we remember where we stashed the three pound can of coffee grounds, we don't want to open the top of the coffee maker and have to fiddle around with some stupid-black-plastic arm that has to be moved out of the way so we can dump our coffee grounds in the machine.

The little LED clock on my old coffee maker was alright. It had bright red numbers on it. You could read it in the dark. And, if you had a power interruption, during the night, it would tell you by flashing 12:00, 12:00, 12:00 in bright red LED numbers.

My new TF Series has black LED numbers on it. Black numbers on a black coffee maker. Duh.
I suppose, I could carry a flashlight when I go to make my morning coffee. That'd help.

Get this: The newfangled, stainless steel, thermal decanter doohickey IS NOT DISHWASHER SAFE !

In Japan, only extremely wealthy, lazy people have dishwashers.  I'm not extremely wealthy but, I am lazy. The wife is the dishwasher. Maybe, that decanter is not safe around her.

Mr. Coffee, you really dunnit, this time. Just as soon as my morning coffee kicks-in and I'm done ranting about that new machine, I'm going to fix the old one. It was a much better coffee maker.

Calibrate Your Computer Monitor: Here's How (SPYDER)

This will be a quick post to show you what I use and how I use it when I calibrate my monitor.

DISCLOSURE: I OWN THIS PIECE OF EQUIPMENT AND I LOVE IT MORE THAN MY DOGS BUT, NOT AS MUCH AS MY CAMERAS. MAYBE, AS MUCH AS MY WIFE !

It's called the Spyder2express. You simply install the software they give you, plug the USB wire in, and the gadget does everything else for you.  Only they don't tell you to clean the caffine and nicotine stains and chunks of beard off the monitor first. I figured that out after a few times, all by myself.  See, I'm becoming somewhat of a perfectionist lately, instead of becoming a saint.

The lights are on in this picture. Once everything is set-up I turn all the lights off and go outside for about 10 minutes.  Calibration of the monitor should be done in dim lighting or no lighting at all. When you're doing photo editing you shouldn't be sitting in a room of bright lights, either.

Now, you've already plugged into the USB port and your monitor will tell you exactly where to place the Spyder (Only they call it a SENSOR).  It has a fairly long wire going to the USB and may want to slide out of position. They have suction cups on the Spyder's legs but I don't use them. I used to take a clothespin and clamp the wire to the top of my screen.  Then one day I discovered I could just tilt the screen back far enough to keep the Spyder from sliding.  Well, the spyder was heavy enough to make my laptop fall off the bar.  I caught it just in time.  Now, I know enough to put something heavy on my keyboard so the computer doesn't fall. I refuse to use suction cups on my monitor. It gets enough abuse.

The program runs your computer monitor through all kinds of tests. If you hang around and watch it you'll see it turn your screen all different shades of white, red, yellow, green, black and grey. What it's really doing is adjusting and setting you computer's color profiles.

You don't realize it, when you're staring at a monitor everyday, the colors you see are slowly drifting out of whack.  The Spyder people recommend calibrating your monitor once a month.  I calibrate my monitor every two weeks and weekly if I'm doing lots of editing or printing of photos.

When monitor calibration is complete you'll see something like this on your screen.  This is a picture of what my monitor looked like before calibration.

Here's what it looks like after calibration. If your monitor isn't calibrated it's probably hard to see the difference!  Trust me, the difference is significant. It helps get you award-winning photos.

RELATED POST: CALIBRATE YOUR MONITOR: HERE'S WHY


PURCHASE THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS CALIBRATION TOOL FOR LESS THAN $100.00 AT ADORAMA CAMERA SEE THE SPYDER 3 EXPRESS, HERE