Embedded System Technical Division
Operating System Section
Chief Engineer

When I saw this for first time, I thought this business card is some kind of joke, but not, they're real.

Anyway I already processed most of email backlog, only about 100 mails remain, I hope to read and reply them during this week.

Tomorrow I'll spend by traveling back to Czechia (NGO - FRA - PRG), then I will just enjoy time being home and not being pushed to deliver tons of papers to somebody.

This is also most likely last blog post this year, so I can not skip the merry Christmas and happy new year phrases ;-).

The hardware player I have here at my room just tells me: Disc Error, Playback feature may not be available on this Disc. I have no idea what this error actually means, but I somehow expected I'll be able to play my region 2 DVDs in region 2 DVD player. Good luck that I still have my laptop with illegal dvdcss library, where I can play whatever DVD I put into it.

I know this is not real DRM at all, but this has also started as a technology to limit copying or whatever....

The camera feels really good in my hands and I was able to figure out most settings without reading manual, but I think now it is time to do so :-). Maybe it will help me to get even more out of it, especially in controlling manual modes.

I have to admit that most of photos were left to automatics and I just tried what I can do with it. Combined with trips to Kyoto, Nagoya Castle and Inuyama, it is no wonder that I took almost 1000 photos during weekend.

Thanks to everybody who helped me with their suggestions, it really helped me in the decision!

I used Google a lot in last weeks to find some experiences with both cameras, but none of them really helped me.

Pentax pros:

• Shake reduction in body (saves money on lens).
• Dust removal from sensor.
• Modes like TAv.
• Manual tuning of white balance looks much easier to use and provides many options.
• Dust-proof weather resistant body (although I won't have matching lenses at beginning).
• Manual flash control - it won't pop up when I don't want.
• Dedicated RAW button (I probably will take most photos in JPEG, but I want to be able to switch without going deep into menu).
• In camera RAW development (I'm not sure I will use this).
• Won lot of awards this year, so it should not be a bad camera, right?

Pentax cons:

• Underexposure in some conditions (maybe I just set something wrong on camera in shop).
• Lower lenses availability in Czechia (but I'm in Japan for next few months, where it is not that big problem).
• No option in kit lenses.

Nikon pros:

• Faster AF.
• More lenses and accessories available (but I'm not sure if I really need them).
• Scene modes (but I might anyway stick with manual settings).
• A bit cheaper here.

Nikon cons:

• Feels slightly less comfortable in my hand.

From the list it is visible that I was able to find more pros and cons on Pentax. Nikon seems to do its job pretty well, but does not provide any extra gimmicks. This is also reason why Pentax is winner for now. I'll buy the camera sometimes during next week, so things can still change.

Well it's hard choice. However for now I prefer something with shake reduction, what limits selection to either Pentax or Sony (or some of the others with lenses which do the same). And from these two, Pentax looks like much better choice. As this will be my first SLR, I don't have to stick with same vendor to be able use my equipment, but I'm much more interested in availability of add-on lenses and other stuff. And in this are seem to win Nikon and Canon. So that are points for the other side of the match.

I played with all these cameras in shop, but I really didn't find any of them much better than others. I just take few shots and nothing surprised me there. And I was able to switch them all from Japanese to English quite quickly ;-). So this step did not decide anything. Reading various reviews also didn't help much, as each camera has advantages and disadvantages...

For now my temporarily winner is Pentax, but I think I should find some more convincing arguments before buying it :-).

PS: I know there exists a bit cheaper variant of Pentax branded as Samsung GX-10, but I haven't seen it anywhere here in shops.

The most important was to find ATM accepting our credit cards. I didn't expect it will be that difficult, but it turned out that most ATMs accept only Japanese Visa and MasterCard cards and not ours. Fortunately post office has ATMs accepting foreign cards, so we finally have enough cache to survive next week ;-).

The next step was to buy something we can start to learn Japanese a bit. It would be great to be able to read at least some signs and menu in restaurant. We bought few books, but later in restaurant it turned out to be almost useless. Fortunately the cook can a bit English, so we managed to order something we wanted. But this is the largest problem here - our poor Japanese knowledge as there was not time to prepare for this back at home...

No matter what we drunk them and ordered another one, this time asking for full beer. Well it didn't arrive and our complain followed. Waiter seemed to be surprised that guest dares to complain and looked very angry. However after some minutes we got full beer. All of us agreed that it was filled with water. This time we found phone number to owner and called there. Owner was at the bar and ensured us, that there was no water in our beers.

We still resisted as we had ordered food. For most of us it arrived, only my colleague didn't get his one. But after several urgencies, it arrived and by accident he had some paper in it.

However we were still strong and resisted and ordered another beer. This time it seemed to be okay. Last surprise came when we payed as waiter calculated somehow two more beers than we have.

Simply avoid this place if you can. Looking at other experiences (in Czech only), we're not alone who has such feeling about this pub.