Blog.JonECat.com

Just thought I would vent a little about something that I have been thinking about for quite sometime. Why do pro flashes not have battery packs? This truly perplexes me, they still use AA batteries. In this day and age of trying to be green, why do they continue to make us buy hundreds of batteries. Are they in league with the battery companies?

I currently use a Nikon SB-800, it is a great flash, and for the last several years it has been has been Nikon’s flagship flash. It uses 4 batteries standard and 5 batteries for the fast recycle time. With those 5 batteries I get about 150 flashes on average.

So I have shot several thousand pictures with this flash, but I have always wanted a rechargeable battery pack. Even if they cost $50 each I would be more than willing to buy at least 2 of them. Instead, on long trips I am stuck with packing dozens of AA batteries (they are not getting any cheaper).

I would buy rechargeable AA batteries, but they don’t have the same amount of juice as standard alkaline batteries. This means slower recycle times and less shots per set of batteries. Not that I am a pro photographer, but I am a snob that wants to get the highest performance out of his gear.

I understand that I can’t change the SB-800 it has been out for several years. But recently, Nikon announced the replacement for the SB-800, the SB-900. I was excited when I first saw this headline. I thought truly they will make this flash with a rechargeable battery pack. But to no avail, it still uses stinking AA batteries.

Now you can buy a Quantum battery pack for the SB-800 and it claims it will last for 400 flashes, but it has 2 major drawbacks. First, It is external, it will not go inside the actual flash, you have to tether it with a power cord to the flash. Second, it is so expensive. It costs more than the actual flash. B&H have it listed for $470 currently, that is a little spendy for me.

So what do you other photogs do out there? Do you eat the cost of buying hundreds of batteries or do you have other solutions I am not aware of?

Just messin around this morning.

It has been quite a few years since I last mountain biked but I loved it so much, don’t know why I stopped. Anyways, a while back my buddy Sam bought a bike and has been telling how fun it was, I could not resist anymore.

So I went out and bought a bike. This thing rides so much better than any bike I have ever owned.

Now that it is finally starting to cool down I can’t wait to hit all the sweet trails that we have here in Arizona. If any of you guys are riders out there, let me know so we can go ride together.

Yearbookyourself.com is incredible! I used the picture from the thumbnail of my Chroma Key post. Check it out!

I quite often get the question “What do you do for a living?”. My usual response is “I am a Video Editor and Compositor”. Well for some that does not quite cut it, they usually don’t know what that really means. So I took it upon myself to show you one of the types of videos I do on a regular basis for the Cisco Learning Institute and what the studio looks like.

Well I have finally realized that my beloved HD-DVD format is truly dead and will not be coming back (tear). So I decided that I need to stop sulking in its defeat and buy a BluRay player. I decided I would go with a Playstation 3 as my weapon of choice. For me it seamed to be best value right now for a player. All the standalone players are almost the same price or more and have significantly less features and most will not be able to be upgraded to the 2.0 BluRay spec.

To go with my shiny new PS3 I decided to pick up Soul Calibur 4. Soul Calibur has been the definitive melee weapon based fighter in my honest opinion, by which all others are judged. I have played Soul Calibur 1,2 & 4, 3 was a PS2 exclusive and I never owned one. I had SC1 for Dreamcast, SC2 for Gamecube, and now SC4 for the PS3. With the release of a new Soul Calibur, Namco impresses me everytime with their incredible attention to detail.

Graphics
So lets start the review. First and foremost, the graphics are incredible. This is a definite upgrade over previous versions with its ability to be rendered in 720p HD. I am playing this on a 60″ SXRD set and it looks awesome. It is my understanding that the 360 version looks identical to the PS3 version so whichever system you get it for, it will look good. It seems to be running at a solid 60 frames per second with no noticeable drops.

The only thing that I would say that could be improved is the Anti-Aliasing. When I am not actually fighting in the game I do notice a slight lack of smootness on the edges, but not anything to get into a huff about.

Gameplay
If you are familiar with any of the other versions of SC or even Tekken (also and Namco game using the same engine), you will be right at home with SC4. Instead of the Street Fighter school of controls using complex joystick movement, it uses button pushing in succession and multi-button pushing for most of the moves. This is both good and bad in my opinion. Good because it allows me to play with kids and they feel like they accomplishing something even with button mashing.

But with that comes the bad, it is a bit a a button masher, that is not good for serious gameplay. I am an avid Street Fighter fan, and the game to which holds the golden standard in my mind is “Street Fighter 3 - Third Strike”. It is incredibly technical which is great for serious matches, but it can be daunting for new players, there is no way a new player could jump right in and be competitive with a seasoned veteran of the game. That is why you can’t take Soul Calibur too serious it is a fun game that is relatively balanced but in the end, it is still just a button masher.

Game Modes
The custom character builder is awesome! My kids and I find ourselves spending a great deal of time just building our characters. It allows you to pick one of that standard characters to base yours off of, but then it allows you to change their attire and weaponry to fit the fighting style and attributes you are going after. As you are playing in the various modes you can level up a character style, by doing this you can choose different attributes and skills for your character that can help you during gameplay. I could talk about this all day but I won’t, it just needs to be experienced.

They have all the standard game types that the previous versions have had, but this time they have added some more. They now have the Tower of the Lost Souls mode. This mode is alot of fun, it allows you to climb a tower with floors comprised of various characters. If you beat a floor in a certain manner, it will give you unlockable items, such as armor and weapons that were not previously available. Each floor usually has a theme that goes with the fighters so it is too your advantage to pick your characters accordingly.

The online play is OK, I have seen much better. The lag does not seem to be an issue most of the time. The one irk I have is that in Ranked matches, it only allows you to play one match with a person, then it kicks you back out. You then have to find another person to fight and the process is not fast for matching up people.

I would like to see in a future patch of the game, the ability to have a rematch with that player I just fought. I would like to see a system similar to the Street Fighter Aniv. Collection for Xbox, that is a model that all fighting games should base their online matchup systems.

Characters
They have a ton of characters.
Returning Characters:
Amy
Astaroth
Cassandra Alexandra
Cervantes
Ivy
Kilik
Lizardman
Maxi
Mitsurugi
Nightmare
Raphael Sorel
Rock
Seong Mi-na
Setsuka
Siegfried Schtauffen
Sophitia Alexandra
Taki
Talim
Tira
Voldo
Xianghua Chai
Yoshimitsu
Yun-seong
Zasalamel

New Charachters:
Algol
Angol Fear
Ashlotte
Darth Vader - PS3 Only
Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice
Hilde von Krone
Kamikirimusi
Scheherazade
Shura
Yoda - 360 Only

You may notice in the new characters that they have a few Star Wars characters. Darth Vader, Yoda, and The Apprentice (From the upcoming Force Unleashed game). Darth Vader is exclusive to the PS3 while Yoda is exclusive to the Xbox 360, The Apprentice is available as a unlockable character on both.

While I do think it nice that they added these characters, I don’t think they are very good characters from a balance point of view. Darth Vader is slow and powerful but not powerful enough to warrant how sluggish he feels.

I have only played Yoda on a demo machine at gamestop, but he is straight up broken and cheap. He has moves that are not typical to the game, and you can’t use a grapple throw against him, he is too short. If you are not familiar with fighting games grapples, are an essential element of these types of games to keep them balanced.

The best and most balanced of the 3 is by far The Apprentice, and he is somewhat fun to play as. For me though, I prefer the traditional characters like Kilik and Mitsurugi.

Conclusion
This is a worthy successor to the previous versions of Soul Calibur. We have been playing it almost nonstop since we got it. My 8 year old girls even love to play it, it is rare that they will play anything other than Wii Sports or Rock Band. Of course my two boys and all their friends love it.

The game overall seems to be very well thought out and has a high degree of polish. If you enjoy fighting games and have a PS3 or 360, I highly suggest picking it up. I give this game 2 thumbs up.