I continue to be blown away by Apple’s customer support. In a recent post I briefly mention how, on several occasions, I get brand new replacements for a funky iPhone or Airport Extreme. Or on another occasion was refunded nearly $300 on a purchase of 6 books (from Aperture) when I sent an email stating the cover had a slight red tint. I explicitly stated in the email that I was not looking for any compensation but wanted to know why the cover was not as color accurate as the rest of the book.
Anyway, today Apple has yet again demonstrated how superior customer service works. Today, Aperture 2 was released and I since I have been waiting for this day for months now I wanted to order it immediately. I also had a $100 store credit to use (iPhone rebate), but realized I didn’t have all the store credit info I needed to use it. A quick search on Google pointed me to Apple’s iPhone store credit page where I found an email address. Immediately after sending the email I received an automated response saying that they received my message and I would hear back from them in 48-72 hours. Lovely…the canned delay. However, I was pleasantly surprised when not even 30 minutes later I received a phone call (on my iPhone) from Apple who promptly gave me all the info I needed to use my store credit. Wow…awesome!
I just read, Is Bigger Always Better, where the author brings up an excellent question: Do you need a camera with the most possible megapixels? As the author finds out, no.
If you are someone that merely post your photos online or print small sizes (8x10), then a 3.1 megapixel camera is likely to be just fine…from a pixel perspective. However, just because I never print billboard size photos doesn’t mean I don’t want the best digital camera on the market. And no, not because I can then take small portions of the photo and still print large (as the author points out), but because something even more important to me: the keeper ratio.
What in the world is the keeper ratio? I currently have a Canon 5D and I love it. However, some of my best photos were taken by older cameras like the D30 or 10D. BUT since getting the 5D the percentage of photos that are worthy of keeping have greatly increased (keeper ratio)...not due to megapixels, but due to camera capabilities. Noticed I said capabilities, not features. While going from a consumer to prosumer camera gives you more megapixels, the best thing for me was its ability to awesome photos even if I wasn’t a perfect photographer. I’d notice the same type of jump moving to a pro camera body as well (I’ve used the Canon 1Ds Mark II on a few occasions and was amazed by the photos I got).
So while it’s true that a pro photographer can capture stunning images with nearly any camera…for amateurs like me I’ll take all the help I can from the tools…after all on the rare occasions that I actually get to shoot I want to come back with as many keepers as possible.
I am on my third and hopefully last (for the foreseeable future) espresso machine and grinder. After many, many weeks of research and many emails and discussion threads later I decided on the La Spaziale Mini Vivaldi II and the MACAP M4 Stepless grinder (with doser). I purchased both from Chris Coffee after chatting many times with Chris and Mary…I am extremely happy with my decision.
Typically when someone gets obsessed about something, they learn everything they can, explore, and set higher and higher goals/standards. This happens to me a lot on many different topics, the last being espresso. Without going into painful details, I was ready to arm myself with superior espresso gear on the quest for the God shot.
Below is just a quick list of key features I love about my new setup.
