Disqus - Latest Comments for ZeDestructor

Re: X Users Have the Power to Edit Any Image Without Permission

ZeDestructor — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 09:42:59 -0000

One the one hand, I can see why people would be outraged.... on the other hand, we've been able to just literally right-click -> save image and then edit as we wish for well over 25 years at this point so all it\ s doing is removing a very small hurdle in the process.

Re: Nikon Is Actively Developing Dedicated Nikkor Cinema Lenses

ZeDestructor — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 05:55:11 -0000

It's switchable in newer lenses.

Re: Fujifilm GF 32-90mm T3.5 Power Zoom Is the Most Expensive GFX Lens

ZeDestructor — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 16:07:06 -0000

Yes, and just like Aperture scales linearly with sensor/film area, so should T-stops, hence me asking.

24mm f2.8 on m4/3 is almost equivalent to 48mm f5.6 on FF (actual precise equivalence would be 47.08mm at f5.492). Everyone knows and understands that.

As I understand it, T-stops being an F-stop with the light losses accounted for should behave the exact same way, unless for some reason the light losses are very non-uniform across the lens' element(s) from center to outside.

Yes, it's still T3.5 worth of light passing through, but I'm not asking how much light gets through should I put it on a FF body, I'm asking what FF lens and FF sensor/film combination would get me the same result.

Thus, the 32-90mm T3.5 should be equivalent to a 24.78-69.69mm T2.710 (not quite sure where Mr. Gray got 25-71 from).

Re: Fujifilm GF 32-90mm T3.5 Power Zoom Is the Most Expensive GFX Lens

ZeDestructor — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 11:08:41 -0000

The coatings are uniform over the element(s), right? in that case, wouldn't it be a simple mathematical conversion to get the equivalent T-stop on FF? I'm just as happy with having the equivalent T-stop instead of the equivalent f-stop.

Ideally I would love to have both the aperture and the transmissivity for all lenses, but I can definitely understand that that's a difficult thing to ask for, and for my needs as very much an amateur photographer and hardcore tech/engineering enthusiast either does fine.

Re: 3 Legged Thing Launches Quick Release Camera Strap System

ZeDestructor — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 03:54:54 -0000

it looks like 4 ball bearings in stainless-steel housings with a spring-loaded interference-fit locking mechanism. Those are incredibly strong attachment systems, and are more likely to pull the threads out of the camera body/lens mount than pull the QD out of it's receptacle in the plate.

Re: Fujifilm GF 32-90mm T3.5 Power Zoom Is the Most Expensive GFX Lens

ZeDestructor — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 03:45:54 -0000

Small request: since you're putting the FF-equivalent focal length in the article, can you also have the FF-equivalent aperture alongside?

Re: No, The DSLR is Not Dead Yet, So Stop Asking and Just Take the Picture

ZeDestructor — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 06:38:28 -0000

It's more of a WYSIMWYG (M for Mostly), and the benefit is really just speed for us more amateur photogs who don't have as much familiarity with our metering systems as we would like to.

Re: No, The DSLR is Not Dead Yet, So Stop Asking and Just Take the Picture

ZeDestructor — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 16:26:42 -0000

Indeed, but even though I can manage just fine with a seperate meter, I can't deny just how much more intuitive exposure preview is.

Plus, if I really feel like retro-ing it up, I can just disable the exposure preview and see the "raw" TTL view.

Re: Novachips’ New CFexpress For Sony Cameras is Cheaper Than an SD Card

ZeDestructor — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 07:17:40 -0000

Works for CFe-B (with caveats around sustained performance), but not for CFe-A which is what these cards are.

Re: Nikon’s Groundbreaking 3.0 Firmware Update for the Z8 Is Here

ZeDestructor — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 07:22:15 -0000

Now I'm wondering a little if it was added in a firmware update and the manual was just never updated. I really should check the changelogs, but eh...

Re: Nikon’s Groundbreaking 3.0 Firmware Update for the Z8 Is Here

ZeDestructor — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 16:14:46 -0000

Sooo... it's coming to the Z9, right?

Re: PNY Unveils microSD Express Cards for Switch 2

ZeDestructor — Tue, 27 May 2025 03:33:00 -0000

Similar to how Sony successfully forced DVD and BR by bundling the format in their consoles (X360's HD-DVD drive was a 150USD addon), SD EX is very much going to be a forced success just by sheer volume of sales (games are getting ever larger, and Nintendo is embracing online distribution very strongly this gen, including having keycarts rather than full gamecarts).

Cameras will come along too.. the question is "when?", not "if?"

Re: SD Express Finally Has a Use, But It Dumped Its Biggest ‘Advantage’

ZeDestructor — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 09:00:24 -0000

As much as I don't like the price hike (and a sailor of the high seas to this day), going back to UHS-I would not have saved anyone any meaningful amount of money - the difference in cost would be under a dollar I reckon.

In terms of cost, we're looking at (from aliexpress prices):
- RTS5261 SD EX card reader chip: 3.00 USD
- RTS5250S SD UHS-I card reader chip: 2.20 USD

- microSD UHS-I slot: 0.30 USD
- microSD UHS-I + EX slot: couldn't find a price, but I'll be generous and double the cost of the UHS-I slot and say 0.6USD

- Total difference: 0.80+0.30 = 1.10 USD

Even assuming a 75% margin (ie. cost of parts is 1/4 of retail price; typical margin would be in the 0-30% range for a console these days), we're looking at under 5 dollars difference on the MSRP for an incredibly large reduction in performance and convenience, not to mention that you can still use UHS-I cards in a switch2, just you won't be allowed to install games on the slow card (ie game storage soft-capped to 256GB of internal storage).

(As a side note, there's a decent chance that the SD controller is integrated in the main CPU of the console, making the difference in cost just the choice of card slot)

Re: SD Express Finally Has a Use, But It Dumped Its Biggest ‘Advantage’

ZeDestructor — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 05:58:21 -0000

Steamdeck has 256GB-1TB of fast built-in storage, and explicitly warns you that running games directly from the microSD may have performance issues.

Add to that that Steam has actual proper library management that would let you mostly freely move games to/from the microSD and the generally more computer-savvy nature of it's user and it's not nearly the same level of friction as doing library management on a switch(2).

Re: SD Express Finally Has a Use, But It Dumped Its Biggest ‘Advantage’

ZeDestructor — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 05:55:49 -0000

Besides the obvious point of a data connection not being available everywhere, streaming is significantly more power-hungry than a microSD card installed in my phone.

Not to mention the transcoding requirement on the server side if your connection is slower than the media you're streaming, or limitations of your chosen system (Plex/Emby/JellyFin used to have a limitation where subtitles would require transcoding regardless of whether you could just stream the media directly unprocessed with the subtitles)

Re: SD Express Finally Has a Use, But It Dumped Its Biggest ‘Advantage’

ZeDestructor — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 05:51:37 -0000

You're still missing my point. Put yourself at Nintendo R&D in 2014-2015. There is no switch aside from ideas and maybe some concept art and patent drawings. You are in the business meeting, and one of your underlings pipes up "we can't fit more than 8-32GB of storage in there while also meeting our 350USD launch price. We need a card slot"

At that point, the switch development team has a choice of "common" cards available to them:
- SD and microSD, in UHS-I and UHS-II variations
- XQD (with CFe being worked on in the background, and something that Nintendo engineers would almost certainly know about, given how leaky the industry is)
- CFast
- M.2 SSD in SATA or NVMe variations, in a range of sizes from 2230 to 22110

The motherboard doesn't exist at all. The processor hasn't been chosen, the screen hasn't been chosen, joycons haven't been designed, the list goes on and on. At this point, this early in development, Nintendo could have chosen any of those 5 formats and designed around it freely, but ended up choosing microSD anyways, in the slowest UHS-I implementation.

You're right about the pricing... hell, even now used XQD prices are insane, but a lot of that would have been solved by having far more aggressive competition for a 50-100 million unit market compared to the less-than-1million unit market of XQD-only (as opposed to the XQD/SD combos like the D850) cameras of the time.

Re: SD Express Finally Has a Use, But It Dumped Its Biggest ‘Advantage’

ZeDestructor — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 05:38:00 -0000

While you do have a point, the problem with (micro)SD EX has always been a chicken-and-egg problem - as a card manufacturer, you're not gonna invest in a format with nothing going to use it in the immediate future, and as a device manufacturer you're not gonna invest in a format that simply does not exist on the market in any actual volume.

What changes with the Switch2 is the market: Switch2 demands SD EX if you want to store games on it (you can still use UHS-I for screenshots and such), so now suddenly there is a need for 5-20 million suitable cards in the first year, in all markets, across all price brackets, across all brands.

That in turn should change the roadmap for other device manufacturers as suddenly there is a faster, much easier to source card format than UHS-II. Yes, the UHS-II things already in existence will get partially left behind, but that's hardly new - we've seen plenty of completely incompatible card formats come and go over the years, and those were certainly not nearly as graceful as the XQD -> CFe-B or this SD -> SD EX transition.

PS: about UHS-I being bad: every SDCard protocol - from the base "Default" protocol to the latest UHS-III is utter garbage at random performance. This doesn't matter in cameras, but using SD cards in computers or as general storage is a really, really crap experience as you have hard-drive levels of performance. EX solves that (within what thermals allow for anyways).

Re: AP Photographers Are Still Barred From the White House, Despite Court Order

ZeDestructor — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 09:34:50 -0000

The Court by definition overrides the President, yes. The President is free to appeal the decision of the court if they feel that the judge/jury has ruled against established constitutional article(s), and/or law(s) and/or precedent(s).

Re: SD Express Finally Has a Use, But It Dumped Its Biggest ‘Advantage’

ZeDestructor — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 10:53:02 -0000

CFExpress-A 4.0 uses a PCIe 4.0×1 link, just like microSD EX. SD EX can go up to a 4.0×2 link, but if you are willing to re-engineer to fit a full-szed SD, you can re-engineer to fit a CFExpress-B instead, and get far better thermal performance and larger capacities.

> No, fitting a larger card is not viable. You are ignoring the size of everything else.

I am not. What you are ignoring is that Nintendo is in full control of the of everything about their consoles (including their size, shape and weight), as long as it hasn't been shown in a public release-grade product (ie: while it's in development). That means should they have wanted to change literally anything about their console, they could have done so. They (Nintendo) decided based on a variety of reasons that making the console smaller was worth the tradeoff of having slower/smaller storage media.

That said, given that the microSD EX slot is just a plain NVMe-over-PCIe interface, expect to see people immediately get "slot extenders" and start taping M.2 2280 desktop/laptop SSDs to the back of the console XD.

Re: SD Express Finally Has a Use, But It Dumped Its Biggest ‘Advantage’

ZeDestructor — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 09:34:05 -0000

CFe-A would be no slower than microSD EX (both are using a single PCIe 4.0 lane.. or maybe 3.0 - we don't know what the switch 2 has).

Obviously the current switch and switch 2 can't fit anything larger than a microSD, but from an engineering PoV Nintendo (goven that Nintendo are the ones engineering it, including laying out the PCB) could have at any point prior to release day decided to put a larger card in there, yet chose to stick to a microSD.

Re: SD Express Finally Has a Use, But It Dumped Its Biggest ‘Advantage’

ZeDestructor — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 07:12:58 -0000

Lexar's 1TB microSD EX is already sold out on amazon.com. I'm personally much more interested in the future 2TB and 4TB cards, so I can carry around my local, entirely-controlled-by-me libraries of media in things like phones.

Re: SD Express Finally Has a Use, But It Dumped Its Biggest ‘Advantage’

ZeDestructor — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 07:11:03 -0000

Brother, you can fit a CFExpress-B just fine into even a switch 1 without any changes to the dimensions. You would however have to pay a small penalty in battery capacity.

UHS-II on the other hand is pointless - sure, it has reasonable sequential speeds, but UHS-II (much like UHS-I and various older forms of SDIO/MMC) sucks at random IO, the overwhelmingly more common form of IO in games and other computer-y use cases.

Re: SD Express Finally Has a Use, But It Dumped Its Biggest ‘Advantage’

ZeDestructor — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 08:16:21 -0000

Jaron, I like your wok, but this is certainly not your finest: the cards themselves are still backwards compatible through UHS-I (and older protocols).

As for the Switch 2 requiring microSD EX, that makes sense given the much higher random IO performance required by newer games (>10000 IOPS) that UHS-I and UHS-II are simply unable to offer (best I've seen on A2 cards (which are also UHS-I only) is about 4000IOPS).

Edit: the bigger takeaway here is really that we now have one really common, numerous use case for (micro)SD EX, and that will trickle down to all other (micro)SD-using equipment in due course.

Re: Energy Facility Could Spoil Observatory’s View of the Night Sky

ZeDestructor — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 17:29:04 -0000

I know right? They should be building it as close as possible to ports and existing fuel depots and power plants/farms, not the middle of nowhere!

Re: Angelbird’s New SSD Has a Recessed Port and Write-Protect Switch

ZeDestructor — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 04:33:57 -0000

This really is the problem, isn't it? That said, why the hell are write-protect switches so rare?