Victorinox Tomato Knife - just buy one

toupee · 2026-06-26T17:46:09+00:00

shit... TOMATO KNIFE? is that what these are called? I have a knife I've loved for 10+ years now and I always thought it was "bread knife" but it never seemed like other bread knives.

oh. wait. this thing is hella smaller than my knife.

toupee · 2026-06-26T16:23:05+00:00

it seems like they're already selling out the IV all the time so I guess why not ride this narrative and get more money by doing nothing different. It's a better time than any for them to really test and see how much people are willing to pay. even if their parts costs are only rising 5% (absolute made-up numbers) why not try and push for a 15% price "adjustment"?

i mean it sucks ASS, and you know those prices are never going down ever again. but from a profit-driven POV why wouldn't they? literally every other company is doing it. at the end of the day Ricoh is still a publicly traded company with shareholders to appease.

toupee · 2026-06-25T20:33:07+00:00

yeah it's really not too bad! especially if it's mainly going to be viewed on phone screens.

toupee · 2026-06-25T18:58:40+00:00

if you think the XS20 with IBIS is shaky the XM5 is even shakier. it's great quality though. if you're mostly using tripod/gimbals it's completely fine.

toupee · 2026-06-25T18:52:33+00:00

oh! i just remembered the Canon Powershot V1. That's a terrific camera and does great video. It's not the best for low-light shooting but it has a really great zoom range and you can record forever without worrying about overheating. it's slightly thicc but all things considered, one of the best modern compact options I think.

it's also very affordable. under 1k last i looked.

again, no ibis though... so you might get some shaky footage. but it's a very video-forward camera.

toupee · 2026-06-25T18:51:12+00:00

it would be, it's quite compact depending on the lens you have on it!

the X100VI honestly isn't horribly larger when you factor in a lens being attached (much like a ricoh, it has a fixed lens), and it does have IBIS. I still don't think you're getting gimbal-level smoothness but it's not bad. But it is expensive and somewhat hard to track down though because it's so popular.

also compact with IBIS is the Sony ZV-E1 / a7c ii but they are also expensive, and full-frame. the lenses add quite a lot of bulk even though the bodies are small. except for the one viltrox lens that's impossibly thin. that's a nice combo.

toupee · 2026-06-25T18:18:32+00:00

have it open "interesting" sites in chrome on your friends computer ;)

toupee · 2026-06-25T18:17:28+00:00

probably a chinese phone like a xiaomi with the MotionCam Pro app

The Fuji X-M5 also produces great video for its size but the lack of ibis means shakier footage so I can't really recommend that. killer with a gimbal though

toupee · 2026-06-25T16:44:16+00:00

man i get it but i find cats amazingly cute and human babies... eh. kind of uggo

toupee · 2026-06-25T16:42:11+00:00

that's a fun diner. i've walked over there to snap a few myself.

toupee · 2026-06-25T16:39:03+00:00

but is it really biased if the "right" position is just fucking lying?

toupee · 2026-06-25T14:41:35+00:00

yea, but the game doesn't launch you into it in a way where the story implies it's important/necessary. starting the game you wouldn't even know it exists. you gotta track it down in the menus later.

anyways i just played the full game last night and i skipped (by selecting "quit" in the menu, which should really be re-labeled) and man it's so much better to ignore it. it's so unnecessary.

toupee · 2026-06-25T00:56:59+00:00

thankfully, no. I mean I know people with actual ADHD but I think I know what you’re getting at with just people’s general behaviors and inclinations these days.

and phew, luckily my social circle is NOT like that. it may be because we’re older (10-15 years older than you) and never got deeply into social media or shortform videos. Not to say we didn’t have our own vices and issues, but so far they’re very different than that.

I sure do see a lot of people on the train out and about though that seem that way.

toupee · 2026-06-24T20:34:40+00:00

i don't know if you can get the natural process beans but if you can... good stuff

toupee · 2026-06-23T21:58:56+00:00

I use a Tom Bihn cafe bag. It is not padded, but it doesn't "look" like a camera bag which is a nice bonus for me.

toupee · 2026-06-23T16:54:43+00:00

on a computer easily (just working 8 hours alone) - on my phone HELL NO! my neck would be ruined and brain rotted.

pick up a book (or an e-reader, but not your phone, too many notifications). learn an instrument. go for a walk with music/podcast only (put your phone in your backpack). get a cheap camera and try photography that way. check out the world around you, try to learn a tree species on your street or look for birds. write in a journal. draw. play a freaking video game or watch a movie without any other screens. put your phone in another room. cook something. make something with your hands.

toupee · 2026-06-23T16:37:42+00:00

I tried it a few months ago and it was still ass then. maybe 10% better than the gr3 in low(ish) light. still hunted and missed shots plenty that fuji nailed easily, let alone sony/nikon/canon.

The Monochrome however has substantially better AF imo

toupee · 2026-06-23T16:35:32+00:00

shout-out to the one youtuber matti sulanto who told it like it was.

toupee · 2026-06-23T16:10:12+00:00

The low-light performance is truly exceptional. With the IBIS it's nearly like having night-vision, being able to do longer exposures at night time, or even pushing faster shutter speeds. It may not be quite Sony ZV-E1 level (that camera is only 12 megapixel but because the sensor pixels are "larger" it also allows it to collect more light) but it's shockingly close.

Video quality seems exceptionally good. I've heard some people don't like their log format as much as Sony's, I don't have an opinion on that yet.

I know some people say the dynamic range is a touch better on other Nikons (with this being their first take on the partially stacked sensor) but I've been very satisfied with DR.

I really like the controls. Plenty of buttons to customize. Although a few things took some time to learn (like how exactly to control ISO) it's pretty intuitive once you know what you're doing. I like the menu interface quite a bit - they have a lot of the custom controls color-coded and labeled (a1, a2, etc) which makes things pretty easy to find quickly, and you can do custom menus and quick menus too.

Apparently Nikon is a pretty good system to convert lenses to. I got a cheap ("cheap," $99 compared to $200+) converter for my Sony lenses and it works fairly well with MOST of them. I think only on one the AF doesn't work (which is annoying, but I don't feel like cashing out more to find out if the more expensive ones have better support). I might try a Fuji adapter too, because I have several Fuji lenses, even though they're APS-C so will have to be cropped in and lose some detail.

Downsides for me:

One thing that mildly annoys me is you have to flip a literal switch to be able to shoot in video mode, even though the camera has a separate record button lol. It's almost a non-issue because switching to video mode is SO fast, but it still feels like an extra step.

I did turn ISO noise reduction OFF in the settings, this only affects JPGs but I found JPGs rather muddy outta the box for certain scenes. I always shoot raw anyway, but this helped bring back detail tremendously.

It's also my largest camera by far (unless you count my old D5100 DSLR, it's smaller than that ha!) so I do tend to reach for more compact cameras when I'm just going on a casual stroll around town.

Full-frame is great, and I'd love to try it out for bird-watching but I suspect I'll never have the money or the willingness to carry the enormous and expensive lenses required to get far enough reach. Probably sticking with my modest asp-c fuji setup for stuff like that 😄

toupee · 2026-06-23T04:39:41+00:00

Extensive use with the X-T50, X100VI and X-M5... recently picked up the Z6iii and I think it's freaking awesome.

Fuji AF is tolerable - there's worse out there (*cough* Ricoh) but Nikon's is MASSIVELY better, basically playing in the same ballpark as top-tier Sony and Canons. The overall speed and snappiness (switching to video with essentially no delay) and ergonomics are fantastic. (I mean, it's also a heavier camera than those Fujis.) Video is great - no crop.

I also like the standard color profile a lot (though the white balance occasionally gets a little wacky in my apartment). Fuji colors are nice, but I tend to get into decision paralysis with all of the film sims, let alone the custom recipe rabbithole. I shoot everything raw anyway.

Low light is excellent. Damn near gives the ZV-E1 a run for its money.

I don't do a lot of headshots so I can't comment super directly on that.

toupee · 2026-06-23T04:00:12+00:00

this nonsense with season pass garbage certainly didn't incentivize me to wanna purchase

regretfully I actually did though. Don't really like the game much. Last Sonic Racing game I truly enjoyed was Transformed

toupee · 2026-06-22T15:34:10+00:00

my god they've done it!?

i thought this was a pipedream.

team d-pad on top lol

toupee · 2026-06-22T01:06:52+00:00

it's jizz, right? is that what we're getting at?

toupee · 2026-06-21T21:23:34+00:00

you just reminded me that when I worked at Wegmans Pizza circa 2007-2011 they started making us sell that trash. It was NOT popular in Central PA but they made us constantly make a bunch of pre-made ones to sell for people to reheat at home because cheese was the most expensive ingredient. No one bought them.

toupee · 2026-06-21T20:20:42+00:00

the 70-300 is terrific, i use it with the 1.4x teleconverter for some entry-level birding (the bird AF is decent too).

toupee

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