In this issue:

Gaffe of the month
Was it "reptilian kitten eater" that cost the election?

Don't get cute with headlines
This one suggests some unfortunate imagery, which we're sure the writers didn't want.

Communication hardware review
A look at Olympus's CAMEDIA 5050 digital camera.

Gaffe of the month:

Just what is
A reptilian kitten eater?

Elections nowadays inevitably bring about some pretty foul play, particularly name-calling of political leaders. But the current Ontario election campaign has hit a pretty pathetic low when a Conservative press release on September 12 described Dalton McGuinty, leader of the provincial Liberal party, as "an evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet."

What does "reptilian kitten-eater" mean? What is the metaphor? How does this character description predict how the man will govern the province, how he will manage health care or education or the safety of our drinking water? How can I, a voter, use this to help me decide whom to vote for? McGuinty shrugged off the insult, and the Conservatives quickly retracted it. Premier Ernie Eves said "it was an ill-advised attempt at humour. I'm not apologizing, but I am acknowledging that it certainly went over the top." Over the top, yes. In fact, it's bizarre. But how bad is it? A kitten-eater? Is that the worst the party can say about this man? For muckraking and character assassination, it's pathetic. This is not meant as a plea for more vindictive or hurtful political rhetoric. Negative campaigning degrades the political process. It adds nothing to the debate, gives voters no useful information on which to base their votes. In fact, it's distracting - we can't base our voting decision on who makes the best insults, or on who's been portrayed the worst by his or her opponents.

Felines beware: kitten eaters on the loose

Don't get cute with headlines

I'm sure that the writer of the front-page headline for the National Post on September 9 thought he or she was being particularly clever. Or maybe no one on staff noticed the "over and under" interplay in this. Either way, it's something that should never have appeared in print, particularly not on the front page of a national newspaper.

What's wrong with it, you ask? First, there are two prepositions in a single, grammatically incomplete sentence: "Ottawa under fire over Sampson." It sets up an image in the reader's mind: the city of Ottawa under a fire, which is also over someone named Sampson. Following that train of thought leads to confusion: is the fire over both Sampson and Ottawa? Or is someone shooting at Ottawa, over Sampson's head? And if so, whose side is Sampson on - Ottawa's or the shooter's?

Of course, the writers didn't intend a literal interpretation of this headline -- but on the other hand, most headlines are literal. Just take for example the other headlines in the same edition of the same paper:

• Canadians in secret unit hunt al-Qaeda terrorists

• PM considers a fall vote on same-sex unions

• Kelowna residents go home after night of rain

Pretty straightforward, wouldn't you agree?

The trouble with the "Sampson" headline is that it requires some familiarity with the subject to understand it in the first place. Thus, one of the main jobs of a headline, to generate interest in a new story, is obviated.

Yes, it's cute, and that brings up a very important rule of communication: don't get cute.

What do you think? Send us an e-mail if you actually thought the "Ottawa under fire over Sampson" headline was effective and appropriate.

The headline writer had fun with this one

Imagery can be confusing

The Olympus 5050

Digital camera review The Olympus C-5050

The first thing you notice about the C-5050 digital camera from Olympus is that it actually looks like a camera, or that is, what you've come to expect a professional camera to look like: an oblong black box with a round lens protruding from the from, a bulge to one side that probably holds batteries but also makes the unit easy to grip and a profusion of buttons and knobs. It's completely unlike the tiny, toylike silver cubes that most consumer-level digital cameras look like now.

Obviously, Olympus has made an effort to make sure this camera will appeal to serious camera users, both amateur and professional, and will encourage them to make the switch from film (Although I wonder if there are many left who haven't.) With an image resolution of 5 megapixels - that's 5 million picture elements per image - it delivers image quality that's roughly equivalent to a 35 mm film camera. And it has enough features to satisfy those who insist on controlling every choice involved in capturing an image.

The C-5050 has an impressive range of features that a film user will be familiar with: automatic, built-in flash; a hot shoe to mount a separate flash; auto-focus; auto exposure control; a shutter timer; macro image control; and zoom lens, among others. It even shoots short videos or motion pictures - but then, so do most digital cameras now.

Then there are features that a particular to the digital world: a colour monitor to view the images you've captured, a microphone to record notes and a speaker to play them back; AV out and USB connection ports to allow you to view your pictures on a TV or a computer screen; and a power in port so you don't have to rely on the rechargeable batteries all the time.

The C-5050 stores images on tiny removable electronic media. It holds both a Compact Flash or Microwave disk, and one of the newer xD Picture Card or "Smart Media" cards. In short, if you have both, you can hold a lot of images before uploading them to a computer.

The camera also comes with Olympus' CAMedia software for transferring images to the computer, cataloguing them and manipulating them, to a certain extent. Preset modes The C-5050 can be used in completely automatic mode, or you can change almost any setting except the focus. You can select full automation, or set the aperture or the shutter speed and let the camera handle the rest. Manual shooting allows you to select aperture and shutter speed yourself.

The camera comes with a number of preset modes for optimal capture of night scenes, landscapes, landscape and portrait, which keeps the subject and the background in focus at the same time for those all-important tourist shots. There is also a "Sports" setting which captures moving subjects without a blur; however, there is still that annoying delay in capturing the image common to digital cameras.

Finally, a Playback mode allows you to view the images you've captured on the camera's built-in colour LCD monitor.

Pros:

While it has a number of features, this camera is not that difficult to learn to use. It's light and fits nicely into your hand. The monitor on the back is larger than on most "consumer" level digital cameras and displays images nicely. It also swivels out from the camera body so you can tilt it up and down for easier viewing; unfortunately, it doesn't swivel side-to-side, too.

The images it captures are very high-quality, and the videos, while short (due to memory constraints - those little cards will only hold so much!) are quite clear, too. They even capture sound and the camera replays sound when you view the image on the monitor!

Cons:

Nothing's perfect, not even the Olympus C-5050. The major drawback, especially for an amateur, is the profusion of controls. There are buttons all over the body of this camera, and their arrangement seems scattered.

There are no fewer than three dials or wheels to select choices from menus; there are two screens that display setting information; autofocus on and off is a separate button on the left-top of the body, while the dial to select Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority or Manual modes is on the right-rear top. The button to turn off the flash is located just under the Autofocus button.

The labels on the controls aren't obvious. Many consumer digital cameras have an over-simplified user interface with a single set of controls that can be just as confusing. It's sometimes easier to figure out how to control something if each button has a unique function.

However, in the case of the C-5050, the arrangement of the controls is not intuitive. What this means is that you actually have to read the manual to understand how to use the camera, and let's be honest, who really wants to read a manual? The camera seems to have a habit of turning itself off automatically, an action which is accompanied by a lot of enigmatic beeps, but you have to figure out why it's unhappy: low batteries or a full image storage disk are the usual reasons.

It also seems to burn through batteries quickly. The unit I received came with four Olympus-branded, AA-sizes rechargeable batteries and a battery charger, as well as an AC adapter. Maybe Olympus should re-think its choice of battery in favour of a battery that stays in the camera and has an adapter to plug into the wall to recharge.

The biggest drawback, given this unit's market, is that it's not an SLR camera. Instead, it has a separate viewfinder. This isn't really that much of a problem, since most of the time I used the monitor to display the image I would capture. The viewfinder even displays the same zoom factor as the lens, as you're adjusting the zoom factor using the lever on the front. But it doesn't seem to mesh with the "professional" image that Olympus wants for this unit.

The verdict:

It's a very good camera that captures excellent images. It has a full set of features. However, the arrangement of the many controls is confusing.

Above and below: Ducks in the Ottawa River, captured with the Olympus CAMEDIA
C-5050 digital camera.

The camera adjusts for relfection and glare automatically.

This picture is back-lit, accounting for the difference in contrast between top and bottom.

Even though this camera has a "sports/action" capture mode, but there is still an annoying delay between pressing the shutter button and the time the camera actually takes the picture. which makes getting the perfect action shot extremely difficult.

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