Break Free CLP

Concept: 4 out of 5
Execution: 4 out of 5
Yeah, but: But nothing--it even smells good

The Long Version: The CLP stands for Cleaner, Lubricant, Preservative, and when you're dealing with steel this is the stuff you want for all those jobs.
I graduated from 3-In-1 oil and WD40 when I first saw an ad for Break Free in some gun magazine or store, and have never looked back.

It's more than just an oil, so 3-In-1 was replaced.
WD40's main claim to fame is Water Displacement, hence the name.
Break Free penetrates and frees rusty bolts (the Break Free part of the name) so that meant I no longer needed WD40, either.
(And WD40 does NOT protect metals against rust, so people who spray their guns with it are often in for a nasty surprise).

Break Free is what the US Navy used to clean the main guns on battleships.

I use it for everything from gun care to preventing rust on my pipe snake, fixing sticky door locks, protecting & lubricating power tools and drill bits, and bicycle maintenance.
It's safe on skin and even in your eyes, according to the can's label.

Comes in all sizes, from little 1oz bottles for your tackle box to 55 gallon drums for your battleship.

Good stuff!

Pepsi's New Logo

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 2 out of 5
Yeah, but: If Nike bought Korean Air, this is what the logo would look like.

The Long Version: Like certain former spokespersons, Pepsi uses its massive resources to attract young people. As a result, they seem to spend as much time refreshing their company image as their customers; they've changed their logo substantially several times over the last twenty years, while Coke's has remained essentially the same since `85 - eighteen eighty-five.

As a consumer, when I'm looking at a product I consider how many different designs exist to solve the same basic problem. When I see a lot of variety, it tells me that there's either a diverse range of needs that are being accommodated, and/or that none of them have really gotten them right. Think cellular telephones. When a market niche (note to Americans: that word does not rhyme with "itch") is dominated by a single design, I take that as a sign that it works. Think toilet plunger.

Constantly changing one's corporate identity usually suggests that the company hasn't found one with lasting appeal, or that there is some other fundamental flaw in their market positioning. AT&T and ValuJet both come to mind. But Pepsi is unusual because constantly re-branding itself and re-introducing itself to the market is their actual strategy, as they strive to be up-to-the-moment and 'hip' in a way that only a multi-billion-dollar multinational company can be. They can always afford the coolest shoes. The problem is that approach - what my former boss would inadvertent call a "stragedy" - makes the right design a moving target. Even when they get a design that's perfectly in sync with the times, the times change. The old logo, with its ice-crystal background and oblique block typography was cutting edge once.

The new typography has moved away from the nineties-techno look in favour of a less formal rounded lowercase. They haven't completely lost their love of geometric letterforms, but now they're aping Futura instead of Eurostile. The 3D beach-ball look is gone; now they want you to see the logo as a smile, which is best seen by tilting your head sideways. Clearly, they're now trying to be the choice of the txt generation :)

The blue background is also much darker than the ice crystals design, with bottle caps to match. It's a darker and more saturated colour than Coke, and does make for a striking change. I do wonder if they're intentionally trying to differentiate themselves from that other brand, which is admirable if a little redundant. But unlike Hyundai making their logo look a lot like Honda, I do respect Pepsi for trying to carve out their own market identity and product niche. (Rhymes with quiche.)

Changing a brand identity always involves a lot of work, a lot of controversy, and a lot of 'free' publicity. I already like the new logo better than the old one, and I said that last time, too. I'm sure I'll say it again in another five to fifteen years. But the most observant readers may have noticed a red can's reflection in the lead photo. If you can identify the product, then you already have a powerfully succinct critique of the new Pepsi logo.

Nikon D700 First Impressions

Concept: 4 out of 5
Execution: 3 out of 5
Yeah, but: Don't rely on the numbers.

The Long Version: My experience with the D700, and my reasons for buying it, aren't exactly typical. My conclusions, after two weeks of using it, may also not suit everyone - but I also reserve the right to write a follow-up review after I've had more time with this camera.

First of all, the D700 is a monster. The instruction manual is over 400 pages long - all in English - and the number of menu options and possible configurations is hard to wrap my head around. So it's entirely possible that the gripes that I have are solvable, and the camera and I will grow together and have a wonderful relationship. We're already getting along really well, but there's always an adjustment period. My previous camera - my other camera - is an Olympus E-3, and I've never shot with another brand. However, I work part-time in a camera store, and so I have passing and hands-on experience with nearly every DSLR on the market.

Holding It

I usually use the E-3 and E-1 with battery grips, so the size of the D700 is no big deal. I'd actually prefer the body of the D3, since it's smaller than a 'non-pro' body with a grip added to it. The build quality of the D700 is excellent, at least as good as the E-3, but I have to admit that neither fits my hand as well as the Canon 5DmkII does. After a great deal of thought, I tracked my preference down to the much more pronounced thumb ridge on the 5D body. While the hand grip on the D700 is superior, both in shape and general grippyness, the camera's just not as easy to hold. This makes the most difference when I'm moving the camera up to shooting position; because I don't use neck straps I always have the camera in my hand, and have to move it through a longer range than most people.

Another quibble that I have is that the D700, presumably like all Nikons, is backwards. The exposure compensation display has the positive EV on the left, and negative EV on the right. This is the opposite of Canon, Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, and Pentax. Nikon apparently knows this, and includes a menu option to reverse the indicators. But reversing the display leaves it at odds with the direction of the control wheel, creating a zigs-but-zags situation. Nikon fixes this with a menu option to reverse the direction of the control wheels, but it only reverses both of them. So to have the exposure compensation working correctly then the other control, typically aperture, ends up backwards. This is not a positive step, and makes a Nikon-Plus-Other system more difficult than it needs to be.

Looking Through It

The viewfinder on the D700 doesn't give 100% coverage. I'm used to fairly precise framing, but this doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. The truth is that I often framed too tightly, so this gives me a little margin of error that I don't have to think about. The viewfinder itself is excellent, and while it's big, it's actually not as much bigger than the E-3 as its four-times-larger sensor would suggest. It has the option of displaying electronic gridlines, unlike the D3 and E-3 which need to be fitted with different focusing screens, but the grids in the D700's finder are rather sparse. Since they can be turned off when they're not needed, I wish Nikon had put in more of them. As it is it can be hard to have a line close enough, or long enough, to see if the camera's properly aligned.

The Live View implementation on the D700 is more complicated than I had anticipated. If I set the drive mode to LV, then I need to press the shutter button to turn on the LCD. Press once more to take the photo, and then Live View helpfully turns itself off again. This is actually a decent way of working, since it lets me review the shot but doesn't overheat the sensor. I just need to remember to press twice on the shutter release, just like I would in the Mirror Lockup mode.

But the D700 can be coaxed into behaving in different ways. The customizable buttons on the D700 can be configured to enable the Live View mode regardless of what the drive mode is set to. In this case, the camera behaves differently: the monitor stays active all the time, requiring only one press to take the photo. This is how the inventors of the technology made it work, and is a pretty sensible way of doing things. Nikon even takes it one step further, allowing this method of live view to be used with the Mirror Lock-Up mode, which goes back to the double-shutter-press but doesn't turn off the screen after the shot is taken. But with the LCD showing the pre-capture image, hitting the 'play' button brings up a brightness control on the monitor - there's no way to review my previous shot without pressing the customized button to turn Live View off. Adjusting the brightness of the monitor is insignificant compared to seeing the histogram, so it's an odd design choice and makes the camera clunky to work with in the studio.

Using It

My final gripe is about the iso control, which seems like an odd thing to complain about on a dark-eater like the D700. After all, the lead photo for this review was shot at iso 12,800 just because I could. Here's the obligatory crop at 100% magnification with only the default Lightroom settings:

On the E-3, the Auto-ISO setting is part of the range of iso choices that can be selected: Auto, 100, 200, 400, and so on. To go from Auto to a specific value, all it takes is the same button press and dial turn that is used to change between any two specific settings. On the D700, Auto ISO needs to be set from within the menu, and while changing the numerical value settings with the ISO button is still possible, they don't seem to make any difference as long as auto-iso is enabled. I get around going menu-diving by setting up auto-iso to be the top item in the customizable My Menu, and then customize one of the function buttons to bring that option up. So with a mere three buttons I can enable and disable a basic picture-taking option.

It shouldn't be this hard. Maybe it's me, and I just don't have the right settings, or there's something that I'm missing. It's entirely possible. Did I mention that the manual is over 400 pages long?

And Finally,

I said in the very beginning that my reason for buying the D700 isn't typical - I don't really care about, nor am I really impressed by, the D700's high-sensitivity image quality. It's astonishing, but it's not particularly important to how I work, and I certainly don't think that it's better enough to justify its price. Essentially I think that its low-light advantage is largely negated by the E-3' built-in image stabilization and greater depth of field. I'll get into more detail on that once I have more experience with it, and can run some comparisons with my E-3, and as always reserve the right to change my mind.

I bought the D700 for its highlight latitude and the 85mm pc-e lens, whose macro and tilt-shift capabilities gives me something that Olympus - and Sony, and Pentax, and Canon - can't provide. This set is an excellent combination for product photography, and coupled with the D700's ability to control two groups of speedlights from its built-in flash, there's nothing better for 1.7 times the money.

Overall I have been very happy with the camera and the images it creates, despite my rather one-sided list of observations. The button arrangement is well done, controls are (usually) where I want them, and I'm learning my way around without too many problems. Some of the complexity is my own fault, since I'm also learning the Perspective Control lens and two other primes at the same time. And while the high-iso capabilities aren't that important to me, the flexibility of the low-iso files is vital and has been simply astonishing. Coming from my Olympus background, the ability to recover a shot that I expect to be cripplingly overexposed is a revelation. I have no doubt that this camera, and a small set prime lenses, will be doing most of my 'serious' work in the future.