The Gamer With Kids

You may have noticed over the past few weeks the addition of digital camera related posts, mainly the review of the Sony NEX-5N and a few accessory posts. That’s because I’ve returned to a hobby I once enjoyed in my younger days and that is photography. In my younger years, especially when I was still in school, I used to use an old Nikon N-body with Sigma lenses. Back then I used to develop my own film and shot mainly with black and white film. This however ended once my schooling was over as I no longer had access to a dark room nor did I want to spend money constructing one at my parent’s house.

Over the years, I still shot photos but I was back to using color film that I would have someone develop for me. Obviously this wasn’t the same as I no longer had much control over the developing process. At that time, digital cameras were becoming quite popular, but mainly in the point and shoot variety. My SLR went into storage and I’ve had several point and shoots since then. I never really picked up a new DSLR due to the price of them at the time and the current crop of point and shoot digital cameras were more than adequate for my needs.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2012. I have 2 kids right now and I love taking pictures of them, however my youngest, who is only 9 months old, is now mobile and almost impossible to shoot with a regular point and shoot camera. I’m not sure if others have this problem but she is like the Flash and almost ever image of her was a blur. I said to myself, “now is the time to pick up a real camera.” In one of my earlier posts from this year, I had posted how I was on the search for a DSLR or one of those new mirrorless interchangeable lens system cameras. I was fortunate enough to borrow a friends Nikon D5000 and that really sparked my interest in real photography again. I knew I wanted something that allowed full control over my shots and I eventually went with a Sony NEX-5N as my own personal camera.

Instead of creating a new blog for my photography interests, I’ve decided to integrate it into my current blog, which is thegamerwithkids.com. Sure it has nothing to do with gaming, but it’s something that defines a part of me and this blog was created really to share my interests. Plus I’m sure a lot of parents out there face the same kind of problems I do when it comes to photographing their children. I’ll be mainly posting about mirrorless system cameras such as the Sony NEX series or the Olympus PEN since this is a natural step up from compact point and shoot cameras. This doesn’t mean that they are less capable than DSLRs though as that is not the case at all. In fact, with these new breed of cameras, you are able to take images that are just as good as traditional DSLRs and in a much smaller package.

I’d like to say thanks to all those who have been reading my blog and hope you’ll enjoy these new posts as well.

-Samuel, The Gamer With Kids

Photographing kids is one of the most pleasurable things to do as a parent as we love showing off pictures of them to all our friends and family. On the other hand, those with kids know that photographing them is probably one of the hardest things to do, especially babies and toddlers. The problem is that they never want to hold still long enough for you to photograph them properly. I’ve run into the problem where normal point-and-shoot cameras can no longer do the job as most of the images I capture consist of clear backgrounds and what appears to be a child that is blurred beyond recognition. Don’t even get me started on low-light photography either as that’s even more of a mess.

Since my wife and I just had our 2nd  child not to long ago, we’ve come to discover that she will just not hold still for photos so a majority of all her photos are blurry unless we were lucky enough to catch her sleeping. Because of this, I’ve been on the hunt for either a new DSLR or the newer mirrorless style cameras. It’s a tough decision finding a camera of this nature because there are so many good choices out there. You have cameras like the Nikon D3100 and Canon T3 for entry level DSLRs or the slightly mid level Nikon 5100 and Canon T3i. It’s even tougher when you get into the mirrorless category as there are so many more cameras in that category like the Olympus PEN series, the Panasonic Lumix, Nikon 1 series, and the Sony NEX series.

It’s been a rough 2 week search for the perfect camera and I’ve even gone as far as borrow an older Nikon D5000 to get a feel for using a DSLR. I’ve used old school film SLR’s in the past in my younger days and using a DSLR was like second nature. I found that shooting with these was super fast and I was able to get the type of shots I’ve been looking for but couldn’t get with a point-and-shoot. After using it for about a week, I came this close to buying a Nikon D3100, except for one thing that kept me from pulling the trigger – the bulk. Don’t get me wrong, the camera feels great in your hands but DSLRs are just so hard to transport on a daily basis.

Lately, a lot of these camera sites have been raving about the new mirrorless style cameras that employ DSLR sized sensors. Basically they have all the advantages of traditional DSLRs but in a much smaller package with more compact interchangeable lenses. The main cameras in this category I was looking at were the Olympus E-PM1, the Nikon J1, and the Sony NEX-5N. Each are very different in nature, yet similar in what they are trying to accomplish. These are small bodied cameras with DSLR styled interchangeable lenses. Each of these has their own strengths and weaknesses, but after looking at what each had to offer, I finally settled on the Sony NEX-5N.

Based on reviews, the Sony NEX-5N produced some of the best photos in the bunch with little to no noise and has an ISO range of 100-25600 which is almost unheard of. One of the main factors in my choice is that it seemed to take really great low-light level images and is able to capture 10 FPS which is really fast. Another factor was the build quality and feature set on this camera. Unlike the DSLRs I was looking at, the Sony NEX-5N is build mainly out of magnesium alloy and feels quite solid in your hands. There’s an industrial retroness to the camera too that modern DSLRs don’t have.

I could go on and on about this camera but instead, I’ll be breaking down my review of this camera into sections as I use it. This is going to be one of those long term things and I don’t want to just throw up a quicky review. In the meantime, check out the images below of what the Sony NEX-5N looks like.

Guess who’s featured in the Pulse blogs this week? Me. Not sure why they’d want to interview me but they did. Basically they ask me questions about what I did, about this website, as well as how I use Pulse on a daily basis and why. They go into other questions but I won’t spoil it for you guys who might actually want to read it. I don’t really find myself that interesting but other people do I guess. haha.

You can check out the entire interview on their blog here. Also if you aren’t using it, you should be. Pulse is one of my favorite news readers on the iPad/iPhone and is the only one I really use daily to check up on blogs and news quickly.

No posts today. That is all.

Happy Holidays everyone from all of us here at The Gamer With Kids. There will be very little updates today and tomorrow as we will be on vacation with our families and will have very little time to post any updates. Just a heads up and hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season. We’d love to hear what some of you got this year as gifts.

Best Wishes,

The Gamer With Kids

There was a time when I really disliked Apple. It really had nothing to do with their products or the company itself but more with how I disliked how fans seemed to blindly follow and buy everything Apple made. I was anti-popular tech and always tried to shy away from what everyone else was using. That applied most definitely to the iPhone. For the first 3 generations of the iPhone, I was very against getting one and instead stuck with the BlackBerry just to be different from all my friends. That changed when the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 came out and I could no longer ignore Apple’s darling phone any longer. By then, the iPhone was able to do most of what my BlackBerry could do and more so there was really no reason for me not to buy one, even though it meant me becoming one of the Apple “zombies.”

From that day, I had become an Apple fan. Several months later, I also purchased an iPad 2. In the time I’ve owned my Apple devices, I’ve become a fan of the man leading Apple to greatness, Steve Jobs. This was a man who commanded respect and when he spoke, people listened. You didn’t have to own an Apple product or even like Apple to hear what he had to say and more often than not, he really did know what he was talking about. Even if at the time, it seemed like complete crap, it was his vision and ability to see something most of us couldn’t that made him respected in his field.

Steve Jobs was a perfectionist and it really showed in all his endeavors. Apple, NeXT, Pixar, then back to Apple. He lived a full life and influenced many with his ideals and work ethics. I can say that even though I didn’t know personally, he has influenced my life and the way I conduct business on a daily basis.

Steve Jobs will be missed by all his fans as well as those who respected what he did for the world and for the tech industry. There will never be anyone else quite like him in thus world. I’m glad that he is no longer suffering from his battle with cancer and know that he has moved on the a better place. Even though he is gone, his memory and ideas will live with us for a very long time.

Goodbye Steve Jobs. You will never be forgotten.

This is indeed a sad day. One of the great visionaries of our time has died today. RIP Steve Jobs. You will be missed.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock today, you’ve probably heard that Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix has announced that Netflix’s DVD delivery service will be spun off and renamed as Qwikster. While this may baffle some current subscribers, it actually does make sense. It will allow Netflix to evolve further as a streaming service without having to worry about the DVD side of the business.

I’m all for Netflix getting better as it is one of the streaming services I use the most. Hopefully with the split, it will allow for Netflix to concentrate on adding newer movies to the service which it has been seriously lacking lately. I’d also like to see them fill in the gaps of the older movies which didn’t show up on Netflix either and only had the option to rent them on DVD.

I was one of the Netflix customers who recently canceled my DVD subscription and switched to the streaming only service. This was done because I honestly did not want to pay an extra $7.99/month on what amounted to me renting at most, only 4 DVDs/month. However, Qwikster has piqued my interest because of one addition that the old Netflix service did not have – game rentals. This one one thing that I always wished Netflix had. Currently, I have a Blockbuster by mail subscription which is $8.99/month. Why have this if Netflix is $1 cheaper? Simple. Blockbuster allows me to rent games which is what I use it for because it is way cheaper then renting games through Gamefly and unlike Gamefly, I have the option to rent movies still if I wanted.

This is why I’m excited about the new Qwikster. Qwikster with games would be what I’m getting with Blockbuster, except with much better delivery times. That’s the one thing with the Blockbuster that annoys me the most and that is the amount of time it takes for them to deliver me games. Sometimes it takes days from when they ship out a disc to me before I actually see it where as Netflix, when they shipped out a disc, I’d ALWAYS see it the next day. It was very consistent and honestly, I had zero complaints ever about the service. If they can price the addition of game rentals on par with what I’m paying for Blockbuster, I’d easily sign right back up with them and drop my Blockbuster account.

Anyways, it will be interesting to see what Qwikster does as I’m all for evolving a company if it means I’ll get better service and more features.

Sorry for the lack of updates this weekend but since it’s Memorial Day weekend, we’ve been spending most of the weekend with friends and family. The weather has been near perfect here in Miami so I’ve been spending most of it outdoors and away from the computer. I hope most of you are doing the same and enjoying the outdoors wherever you may be.

Regular updates will resume tomorrow. Again, Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. I definitely know what a hard job it is being a mom and I’d like to just say that I appreciated everything my own mother has ever done for me. Without her love and guidance, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Take the time today to step away from your games and go hang out with your mom.

Golf is one of those sports where you either love it or hate it. It’s definitely not for everyone and the fact that the game itself requires such precision and technical know how doesn’t exactly make it the easiest sport to pick up. Video game golf however is a bit easier to play, but the time it takes to play a round of golf might be too long for your average casual gamer. With that said, I’ve put together a little list of my personal favorite golf games. I chose these because they are very different from other golf games I’ve played in the past that concentrated too much on realism and less on fun. The three I’ve listed are the ones that I’ve found most fun and different with their own approach of making the game of golf fun for all.

Par Out Golf – $1.99 – Universal App – We reviewed this game yesterday here and really enjoyed the overall golf experience that the game provided. This is the first and only golf game that I’ve played which uses drawing mechanics to play the game. What also makes this game different is that you must first study the course before making the shot due to the fact that the course will be covered up when it’s time to draw your balls path. You have to visualize the course and hope you don’t hit any obstacles.

Flick Golf – $0.99 – iPhone – I’ve been playing this game for a couple days now and can tell you that this isn’t your average golf game. You don’t play a regular round of 18 hole golf here. Instead, Flick Golf is about the drive and how accurate you can be getting the ball to the hole in 1 shot. You use your finger to flick the ball and then swipe the ball in the air to get it to spin in the direction you want it to go. The goal is to either get it into the hole or as close to the hole as you can. Pretty much any player of any skill level can play this game and it’s hard to put down once you start.

Super Stickman Golf – $0.99 – Universal App – When you think of golf games, you usually picture something in 3D. Super Stickman Golf goes against the norm and provides a completely 2D golf experience that is surprisingly fun and challenging. You play by adjusting the angle and power of how you want to hit the ball. What makes the game fun are the out of this world courses that the developers have come up with and the simplicity of it all. Super Stickman Golf a unique take on the classic game of golf.

Over the weekend, I decided that I was going to install a good comic book reader app on my iPad. With the iPad’s 9.7 inch color screen, it’s perfect for such media. I know there are apps in the app store that allow you to purchase and subscribe to comics through the app but I was looking for more of a standalone comic book reader that didn’t rely on any one store and was able to read the popular cbr/cbz format as well as pdf. Below are the ones that I found that seemed to be pretty well rounded and offered quite a few bells and whistles. They are not in any specific order but I can tell you that the one I finally chose to use was Bookman by Bookman Labs. All the other readers are quite capable however and you may like them more. It all depends on your individual wants and needs. Note: I did try all these apps out except for Comic Zeal due to the fact that it costs $7.99 while all the other ones were free.

Bookman – FREE – As I stated above, Bookman is the app I finally chose as the comic book reader I wanted to keep on my iPad. What I really liked about Bookman was how it displays and organizes comic books. It uses the familiar “shelf” system similar to what iBooks uses with the ability to create custom libraries. When reading comics, it was also one of the faster ones I tried with almost zero load time for each page. I also really appreciated the fact that you could browse each page with a handy thumbnail system so you could jump to pages. Most of the other readers I tried did not have this function and made you flip through the entire book to get to a certain page. Like with most of the other app, you can transfer your collection using iTunes or through FTP. I do wish it had a slightly cooler, more comic book themed icon though. (5.25.11 Update – Bookman isn’t really free anymore. The developer turned this once great free app into a bloated ad supported Lite app. To get rid of apps, you have to pay for the Pro version. I can’t really recommend the new Lite version anymore.)

CloudReaders – FREE – CloudReaders is a fairly basic comic book reader. Layout wise, it is fairly similar to ComicBookLover but the one thing it lacked was support for thumbnails of the cover. That means that each one of your comic books have the same generic icon which I didn’t like at all. Reading books is also a bit laggy however the app does let you zoom in pretty far. CloudReader also lets you tag your colletion which can be helpful for organizing. The app over all though is a bit simplistic but for a basic reader, it’s not bad. This app allows you to transfer comics over iTunes, WiFi through http, and even Bluetooth.

ComicBookLover – FREE – This one I really liked as it offered a very clean user interface and I liked the fact that it did show thumbnails of each comic you had loaded up. I however did not like the fact that there was really no way to organize your collection from the app itself. To do so, you need to use an external Mac app which I really didn’t want to be bothered with. ComicBookLover however does offer the functionality of being able to transfer your collection by using iTunes or by FTP over WiFi which I found quite useful. Reading books is easy as you just swipe left and right but fast swiping causes a bit of lag. Still though, this one is a good one to check out.

Comic Zeal – $7.99 – From what I’ve read, Comic Zeal seems to be the top of the line comic book reader. Even with a quick glace of the screenshots, I can already tell that it would be an app that I would like. However, because it’s $7.99, I didn’t want to commit to a purchase due to the fact that there were so many other free alternative options out there.

I am however including it in the Top 5 list because again, many people praise the app and it does have some really high marks and reviews on iTunes.

ComicFlow – FREE – Comic Flow is another comic book reader similar to both ComicBookLover and CloudReaders. It has a much better interface than the other two and I really like the large thumbnails it uses for each cover. You transfer titles over using iTunes or with WebDAV. I’m not really too familiar with WebDAV so I couldn’t really try this out.

Again, reading comics is pretty straight forward on this one but since the current FTP client I use doesn’t support WebDAV, other apps that supported strait FTP or HTTP won out.

HONORABLE MENTION

Stanza – Stanza is one of the original eBook readers on the iPad. It has a rich interface with lots of features. It only just recently added support for comic book reading. It however isn’t a dedicated comic book reader so the interface is really designed for eBooks. Still though, it’s free and worth a try seeings as it also makes a great eBook reader if you don’t want to use the iBooks.

One of the reason I bought my iPad is that I really wanted to use it as an all in one device. Not only did I want it to all the things you’d expect a tablet and internet connected device to do but I also wanted it as a means to go paperless. That means that one of the main functions I wanted my iPad to perform was that of a sketchbook and art creation tool. As an art major, sketching used to be an everyday thing, but lately I’ve found that having to carry around a separate sketchbook to doodle or jot down ideas was becoming a hassle. That’s why the prospect of being able to do that on the iPad was a big factor in me also purchasing the iPad. I had seen a lot of these apps before I had one and it really amazed me what people could do with it. Now that I have an iPad, I’ve had a chance to check out some of these apps and here are what I would consider my top 5 drawing/art apps in the App Store. I’m sure there are more out there, but these are the 5 I’ve had my eyes on so far. Some of these drawing apps do overlap each other so out of this list, I’d say that you really only need to pick up like two of them. It all depends on what your needs are.

InkPad – $4.99 – Inkpad is a professional vector illustration app designed from scratch for the iPad. It supports paths, compound paths, text, images, groups, masks, gradient fills, and an unlimited number of layers. Inkpad was designed with performance in mind – it can easily handle drawings with hundreds to thousands of shapes without bogging down.

I’ve had a chance to try this app already and as far as vector creation apps goes, this one is really easy to use. If you love using Adobe Illustrator, you’re going to enjoy InkPad.

SketchBook Pro – $7.99 – Autodesk SketchBook® Pro for iPad is a professional-grade paint and drawing application. Using the same paint engine as its desktop counterpart, SketchBook Pro delivers a complete set of sketching & painting tools through a streamlined and intuitive user interface designed exclusively for the iPad experience.

SketchBook Pro is a really advanced sketchbook app, in fact, it might be a bit overwhelming for some. You can try out a free version here just to get a taste of what the full version it like.

Inspire Pro – $7.99 – The key feature of Inspire Pro is that it simulates wet oil paint on a canvas, allowing amazing blending effects with five real kinds of brushes. You will be stunned by what you can do with a dry brush!

I have yet to try this out, but user comments in the App Store say that they prefer this app over Sketchbook Pro. Inspire Pro seems to be the one to choose if you want a more natural painting app.

Brushes – $7.99 – Create art anywhere, with Brushes on your iPad! Brushes is a popular painting app, specially designed for the iPad. Simple to learn, yet powerful enough for pros — Brushes has been used to create 4 different New Yorker covers!

Brushes is made by the same developer that makes InkPad. Brushes is like Inspire Pro and deals more with natural brushes and painting.

ArtStudio – $4.99 – ArtStudio is a professional drawing / painting application. It uses advanced mathematics to attain the highest level of quality, at the same time offering incredible performance achieved through numerous code optimizations. It still remains a fantastic tool for beginners – it contains drawing lessons showing step-by-step instruction on drawing various types of images.

ArtStudio is another natural media painting tool. It seems that Inspire Pro, ArtStudio, and Brushes are the 3 apps most people choose when picking a painting app.

HONORABLE MENTION

LiveSketch HD – $1.99 – Express yourself with impressive sketches like a pencil on a real paper.

I had to include this even though it’s not a top 5. LiveSketch is the most limited app of the above and it only does one thing, sketching. However, it does this one thing very well. It has a unique way of bringing your sketches to life and it’s one that you should really try. It’s usually $1.99 but it’s free right now for a limited time. If you just want an app to doodle with, LiveSketch HD might be for you.

Image from Kotaku

Over at Kotaku, they are reporting that many of the industries gaming giants are assisting with relief efforts in Japan by donating large sums of money. Sony, Nintendo, Namco Bandai, SEGA, and Microsoft have all committed to donating millions to relief and many smaller game companies are also joining in by donating what they can.

It certainly is great to hear about all these companies joining together to help in the relief efforts.

[via Kotaku]

To say that Apple’s launch of the iPad2 on March 11th “was a success” is an understatement. Judging by all the posts and twitter comments from yesterday, Apple Stores around the country were jam packed with iPad2 buyers hoping to get their hands on Apple’s 2nd generation tablet. I was one of the many in line and the location I chose was the Apple Store at The Falls here in Miami.

When I first arrived at around 12pm that day, I would say there were maybe only about 40 people waiting in line. Ten or so of these people I know where there since the previous night and had camped out at that location. By around 2pm, there were maybe another 50 people or so waiting behind me and by 3pm, even more showed up. The video above shows the line at around 3pm. By 4pm, the line had doubled in size and by 5pm, I estimated there to be around 350-400 people in line.

One of the other staff members, Doriftu was the Dadeland Apple Store location and estimated around 600+ people in line over there. At that location, they had made 3 or 4 separate lines according to him so I”m not sure how they handled it over there.

In line I met a few really nice people who were just as enthusiastic as I was to get the iPad2. Some had even flown from out of state or from another country just to buy one. The whole launch event went pretty smoothly except for the occasional impatient in line who were complaining about a  few people who were skipping the line or joining friends who were already in line. Purchasing the iPad2 was fast and only took me about 5-10 minutes to acquire mine.

All-in-all, I think Apple accomplished what they set out to accomplish and built up the hype they needed for the iPad2 launch.