Entries from Stephan Paukner

Yesterday, I had a 1.5 hours talk with HGFei about further proceedings. I told him about my status and what I did the months before. He said that he could partly integrate me into the NuHAG from September on, where I’ll be attendant one afternoon and Friday morning every week. As working title for my master’s thesis we fixed “Gabor Analysis for Image Processing”: Some results have already been delivered in that area, and it should be my task to collect these together and give a survey. He will look for corresponding literature. During my stay at NuHAG, I could also be involved in the arising Computational Science project.

I’ll have to look if I should buy the Matlab student version. Also, the TF-toolbox of Peter Søndergaard seems to have been updated - it’s partly compatible to Octave.

I don’t have anything better to do than thinking about which camera I should take: The Nikon D200 or the Canon EOS 30D?

The Nikon has a higher resolution of 10MP, whereas the Canon only has 8MP. At first, clearly Nikon was the leader for me in this case, but now I know that the resolution is heavily dependent on the lens. They both are at the very same level here!

The Canon simply looks better. It has a bended appearance, whereas the Nikon looks like a box. If you look from above, the Nikon looks a bit like it had been hit flat, compared to the Canon.

Only Canon has lenses with their Image Stabilizer in the lower focal length range (about 18-70mm), whereas Nikon doesn’t have their Vibration Reduction in these lenses. On the other hand, Nikon provides additions like a GPS module or a WLAN networking connection. Canon has no optional modules here. But, if I really tend to use such extensions, then not within the next one or two years, I assume. So, there might already be a better DSLR on the market at that time.

Shooting JPEG sequences, they both are almost at the same speed of 5 images/second: The Canon manages a 41 frame burst, whereas the Nikon has a burst of 39 frames. Using their RAW file format, the rates change clearly: Still providing a speed of 5 images/second, the Canon drops down to a 11 frame burst, whereas Nikon manages a burst of 23 frames. On the other hand, I’m no paparazzo, so this can’t be that argument.

Nikon provides a little better support for bracketing with up to 9 images per bracketing shot, whereas the Canon only provides a three-shot sequence. On the other hand, HDR image creators find Nikon’s so many shots a little superfluous.

But, a major drawback of the Canon is its viewfinder: Nikon provides grid lines, and more information is shown in the viewfinder. Also, the Nikon has two more autofocus-spots.

On the other hand, Canon is the leader in camera manufacturing. Only Canon has professional models with a full frame sensor, whereas Nikon still has some difficulties, maybe rooting in the smaller diameter of their lens mounting system. I have the impression that Canon lenses have a larger diameter and therefore larger (and therefore better) lenses, but I’m not sure with this. Paparazzi use Canon.

Nevertheless, in the end I’ll stay with the Nikon, I assume, at least for the current time. But Canon becomes more and more attractive to me. I’m looking forward to the next semi-pro Canon model.

After my holidays in Ireland I was a bit disappointed that I often couldn’t catch the fascinating landscapes in the pictures I took with my Canon Digital IXUS 750. I wondered if I should buy a good video camcorder or a good DSLR photo camera. More and more it became clear to me that it may only be a DSLR, and I’m even absolutely not positive about camcorders: False colors, low resolution, shaky pictures, people waving their hands or hiding their face, unnatural behavior of children, more time spent at filming, need for a TV screen. High quality and good art can only be obtained by DSLRs, in my opinion. Sure, there’s nothing better than having motion pictures of one’s own children, but that time has not yet come for me.

I didn’t proceed much since the end of my holidays, because of managing photos and writing a travelogue, and my mum was celebrating an anniversary. I also had to hold a Linux course surprisingly, because one of the heads of my employer was saying goodbye.

The time plans will prolong for about one month, but now I get into it again.

Es ist ein denkbar schlechter Zeitpunkt, in der U-Bahn-Station am Bahnsteig durch die offene U-Bahn-Tür in den Waggon hinein nach dem richtigen Zug zu fragen, wenn der Fahrer bereits “Zug fährt ab!” bekundet hat. Ich wurde desöfteren schon aus der Hypnose des U-Bahn-Fahrens gerissen, weil mich irgendjemand gefragt hat, ob dieser Zug nach <irgendeine Haltestelle> fahre. Ich bin dann völlig überrumpelt und muss nachdenken, in welcher U-Bahn-Linie ich mich überhaupt gerade befinde, geschweige denn, wie der Name der Endstation heißt und damit in welche Himmelsrichtung sie fährt. Es denkt beim Gehen ja auch niemand mehr “Linkes Bein heben, nach vor, senken, Gewicht verlagern”, usw., sondern es wird einfach der Weg zurückgelegt. Beim U-Bahn-Fahren weiß ich eben nicht zu jedem Zeitpunkt, wo ich mich gerade befinde.

Write lots of dialogs and boring stories about conflicts, intrigues and affairs. Take some actors, many costumes and simple stage designs. Make a TV show out of it. The episodes should only consist of dialogs, closeups to faces, conflicts, costumes, closeups to faces and dialogs. The viewer should be bored and surprised that actually “nothing” happens during the whole episode, i.e., no explosions, no blood, no action, no tension. At least this was my impression whenever I zapped over the TV show “The Bold and the Beautiful”.

But there’s another TV show which at first sight is located in a complete opposite corner but finally consists of the very same ingredients: The characteristics I mentioned above could just be a description of another episode of... Star Trek! A sci-fi freak actually is living from explosions in space, laser guns, fantastic alien worlds, alien technology and aliens themselves. But a sci-fi freak will soon notice that Star Trek is definitely not Star Wars.

Es geht mir jetzt schon auf den Hammer. Schei0 Fußball! In jeder noch so depperten Fernsehwerbung die nicht im entferntesten damit zu tun hat kommen depperte Fußballer vor. Schei0 Fußball! Dabei hat die WM noch garnicht angefangen. Wie wird sich das noch steigern!

Nichtsdestotrotz weiß ich jetzt schon dass ich mich an irgendeinem Abend einfach vor die Glotze knotze und mir mit Chips und Bier ein willkürlich ausgewähltes Spiel reinziehe und brav mitfiebere: Schias!!! Wappla!!! Ja, ich wurde in der Schule immer als letzter gewählt, wenn es um die Aufstellung einer Fußballmannschaft ging. Und auch beim Basketball. Und auch beim Volleyball. Und auch beim Handball. Und auch beim Woswasiwosdonuoisgibtball. Ich war ja schließlich auch der Mathe-Wissenschafts-Strebertyp, der nie eine Freundin hatte und. He, ich verfehle das Thema. Schei´Fußball!

On Thursday, I got another reply from HGFei to my “quality demand” mail. He told me that if I were interested to apply for the Initiativkolleg—a promoted doctoral program in association of NuHAG and DIANA—, one of the criteria I’d have to fulfill is to have the master thesis finished by January 2007. I replied that this still is my target date, but I don’t feel so sure about whether I’m qualified for pure mathematical research. He suggested to file the master thesis in May/June and asked me to pre-register as an applicant for the Initiativkolleg, as this doesn’t force me to anything, and all ways are kept open.

At the beginning of June, some colleagues of him will come to Vienna, and he will give some introductorial talks about the research at NuHAG, which I should listen to. As I’m on holiday until June 12th, I hope I won’t be missing much.