Nikon Z6 Mini Review

Good - Image quality

Jpegs out of the Z6 are generally incredible IMHO. I know it's a cliche but there's something quite filmic about them. Everyone raves about Fuji jpegs, but I prefer the jpegs out of the Z6 even more than the X100s. I used to shoot jpeg + raw, but I've switched to just jpeg now, although that's at least as much a comment on the lack of time/skill I have to process raw files.

Bad - No compact primes

I don't like zooms and I don't like big lenses. Where are the compact primes Nikon? I've resorted to a TechArt Sony adapter and feel stupid for not considering an a7 before buying the Z6. I am pretty happy with the Sony 35mm f/2.8 and 28mm f/2 (and 21mm converter), although of course you don't get any auto lens correction. Focusing isn't perfect, especially for video, and forgot about pin area and eye detection, but my main concern is the total lack of sealing, water gets between the camera, adapter and lens quite easily, and who knows whether the adapter has any water resistance itself.

Small things

Good

• USB charging.
• Very good wireless smartphone integration.
• MF aids.
• EVF is so good that I don't even think about it. 
• Silent focusing. I'd already forgotten how loud even the AF-S lenses are when I bought an 85mm AF-S. Although Nikon did bring out the quiet AF-P lenses recently.
  

Bad

• XQD card (single slot doesn't really bother me). SD cards are cheap and SD card readers exist on every laptop.
• Wearing glasses I cannot view the whole of the screen all at once through the EVF.
• The EVF auto-switch sensor gets fooled quite a lot. My solution to this, which I am happy with, is to configure the display switch to only switch between auto and monitor and I use that when auto is annoying me.
• Lag in zoom for MF is a bit annoying.
• Can't zoom for MF in video.
• I do notice the startup/wake up time compared to a DSLR.
• Buggy
• Forced DX crop with DX lenses.
  

Google and Amazon Photos Uploaders

This is kind of a mini review of my frustrations with the Amazon and Google photo uploaders for PC. I have a large (~3TB) library of photos. Ideally I'd like a CLI Linux uploader to periodically upload files at will, there are many flexible uploaders for Flickr that do this well, and many of them have useful features such as tagging the hash of the file so as to avoid uploading duplicate files. However both Google and Amazon have chosen to hobble their third party API keys. Amazon appear to have disabled third party Photos API keys altogether, while Google do not allow uploading to their free High Quality tier and I don't want to pay Google's fees, which for 3TB+ are quite pricey.

The TL;DR is that it quickly becomes clear that these two companies are not desktop development houses and both apps are fairly bad in a UI sense and fairly bad for uploading large numbers of photos. The Amazon app is quite a bit less bad than the Google app.

As an aside I also prefer the Amazon Photos web UI and its facial recognition seems better too.

Neither app lets you filter by file extension. This is a problem if you don't want to upload raw files that are stored with your jpegs. This is not true, both apps allow you to filter out raw files. The Google app allows you to filter by file extension if you go Preferences -> Change -> Advanced, as far as I can see this is the only way to stop movie files uploading. The Amazon does not allow you to filter by file extension directly as far as I can see, but there are options to not upload movie and/or raw files.

Neither app presents progress by file size, both do it by file count.

Amazon

• The Amazon app offers to not upload duplicates, however it does this by file name(!) rather than a hash of the file or image likeness. So this feature is useless unless you have filenames as date/times.
• When you ask the Amazon app to refresh a directory listing there is absolutely no feedback that this is being done, on massive directories this can take some time.
• I have had to force close and reopen the app, however...

Google 

• I have had to re-install the Google app to get it to start up. I've just noticed that reinstalling is the *second* item in their troubleshooting guide.
  
• Google does not seem to like Windows UI norms and the app never appears on the taskbar or in the alt-tab windows list. What a great UX!
• The Google app takes a *long* time to scan a directory.
• I think the Google app takes at least double the time to upload images as the Amazon app. This could be it converting jpegs to WebP, but you'd hope it would do this in parallel to the actual uploading.
  
• The Google app will not backup a directory unless it has write access! 
• It looks like the Google app does check for duplicates, I assume by file hash.

Hot Chocolate Reviews

Cafe, Brighton

This place seems to be called "Cafe" is now called Nest. It's on Kensington Gardens, and if it has a proper name then I can't find it. Apart from the name I like it, it's got a relaxed atmosphere that I like and the staff seem to be happy to please, it's one place that I know will do me a real coffee milkshake.

The hot chocolate looked promising, stirring it I found it to be thick and the colour was very dark. Unfortunately that promise lead me to be doubly disappointed as it tasted of nothing bar sugar. I didn't finish it and they might as well have used Cadbury's, it would have tasted better.

If you had blind folded me and spooned it into my mouth I would probably have guessed at custard. I can only imagine that the colour was artificial, and by that I do not mean they necessarily used chemicals, but that it was not from cocoa.

Prufrock

I usually get one of their excellent (and award winning) coffees, but today I saw an almond croisant and hope their hot chocolates might be as good as their coffees. It tasted like a standard milk + cocoa. Slightly bitter for my tastes, but maybe I was supposed to add my own sugar.

Caffe Vergnano 1882

Caffe Vergnano 1882, or Luciano Franchi Caffe Vergnano 1882 to give it its full name, does very intense hot chocolate. A very very intense hot chocolate. It's thick like melted chocolate. It was too intense for me, I could barely finish it.

Konditor & Cook

Originally I only knew K&C for very special cakes, but they do savoury too, from salads to very nice scotch eggs, but I usually go back for the hot chocolate. It's my favourite. It's a slightly thick in a custardy way and chocolaty and a touch bitter with just the right amount of sweetness. I can just about finish a whole one without being sick.

FreeState Coffee

Promising, but way way too sweet.

Short Reviews: Casa Malevo, Argentinian Steak, Marble Arch

Go for brunch, it's good value and they have proper morcilla. Dinner is fine, but not outstanding and quite expensive. Sides are mean, especially the chips. I could happily eat two of their little enamel bowl fulls, which at this price is inexcusable, and perplexing when there is so much meat. The set mixed grill we had the other day was very generous, apart from the tiny cubes of very overdone fillet. The rump was nice but inconsistently done (we had four sets), but maybe that was intentional. Service, and the place itself, is very nice.

Short Reviews: Riverfront Restaurant @ BFI, Waterloo

Before I start complaining, let me just say that the food that we had at the BFI Riverfront was really very good. My smoked haddock fish cakes were nice and strong, complimented by a very good tartar sauce, something that I don't say very often, and the "oat crumb" coating was both crispy and tasty. The g/f's mussels came in a very nice tarragon sauce, which was a bit too thick and creamy for me, but not for her.

No, what I take issue with is the price. At first glance £9.50 - £11 for a main seems quite reasonable, especially for such a prime location, but who has just mussels for a main? You at least need some bread and butter (£2.50). Or just fish cakes and a dollop of boiled broccoli? You'd probably want some chips with that (£3.50). (I have to admit, the single serving of chips was pretty generous.)

Purely on presentation alone the fish cakes were missing something. That dollop of slightly overdone boiled broccoli didn't fill up much of the plate. Besides the cakes, broccoli and shot glass of tartar sauce, a lonely slice of lemon was doing its best to fill up the rest of the space.

Then there is the "discretionary" 12.5% service charge which is automatically added to you bill. Previously it's proved quite hard to not pay the full amount, and I was going to test it on this occasion, but our waitress managed to redeem her rude and brisk attitude at the last minute by giving us two cups with our single pot of tea :) But why oh why don't places like this just add service to the prices on the menu and have done with it?!

So we ended up spending £40 on two mains, one glass of wine and a cake and tea. Not so reasonable.

UPDATE: Apparently VAT is charged on the menu price, but not on added service, hence nowhere includes service on the menu price.

UPDATE: We went back during April 2012 and the food was still very good (we had rarebit, lamb burger and mussels in cider, which were all very good) and an accompaniment was included with each main, all priced around the £12 mark.

Short Reviews: The Island Queen, Islington

Really lovely staff, a great selection of beers and large portions of good food at very reasonable prices. It's a shame it's so far off the beaten track, but it's worth the trek, highly recommended!

Short Reveiws: Bam-Bou, Percy / Charlotte Street

A lovely little* Asian fusion place close to perfection, and Goodge Street.

The duck, smeared with plum sauce so think and sweet it was like jam, sprinkled with sesame and drizzled with tamarind was moist and tender and some of the best I've ever had, the sticky coconut rice was extra sticky and coconutty and the prawns and squid were excellent too.

The service was some of the best I've ever encountered, perfectly timed, knowledgeable and polite. What's more, our waitress didn't try to sell us more than we needed, even when prompted.

* Bam-Bou feels small and intimate but is actually quite big, three or four floors.

Short Reviews: The King's Head, Coltishall, Norfolk

A good gastropub in deepest darkest Norfolk, the King's Head in Coltishall has a fairly standard menu* apart from the fact that about half of it is devoted to fresh and local fish. Make sure you book ahead as I assumed that in a small town in the middle of winter, in the middle of a blizzard no less, there would be no need, but the place was packed and we had to wait until 8:30 for a table, by which time they'd unfortunately run out of the partridge and the lamb. Be careful of the starters, they are huge. After eating my main sized home smoked salmon fillet on guinness "smelt" bread and half the g/f's portion of fried bree? I was already pretty full. On top of that every table gets its own warm loaf**, most of which we took home with us. I thought that prices were quite average for a gastropub, but that would be for London, so I guess it's slightly pricey for Norfolk, the huge starters were around £6, mains started at £10 for pasta and went up to £18 for the steak.

* Not a criticism.
** More of a large bun really. That's not a criticism either.

Short Reviews: Fish Fish, Archway/Highgate

I'm often amazed at how difficult it can be to find a decent chippie; how hard can it be to take a piece of fresh fish, dip it in egg, milk and flour and deep fry it at the right temperature? I was especially disappointed with Toff's on Muswell Hill, which apparently has a good reputation and seems to be shut of a Sunday evening. And so it was an extra special joy to find lovely fresh light golden batter around some tasty fresh fish and good (albeit suspiciously regular) chips about 2/3 of the way to Highgate from Archway on Sunday evening. It's not particularly cheap (£6.95 for take away fish and chips, £11 to eat in) and I was pleased to actuality be able to finish my portion for once, ie, it wasn't a huge portion, small by fish and chip standards.

Short Reviews: Plum Valley, Chinatown

A posh Chinese apparently sanitised for western palettes. The crispy shredded beef was nice and crispy but didn't taste like it had ever seen a chilli, meanwhile I seemed to have ordered the Lancashire hot pot, which I'm not fond of at the best of times. It is possible that we chose badly, our neighbours' set meal looked good, though ours didn't look bad. It was quite pricey too if I remember rightly.

Short Reviews: Kim Noble Will Die, Soho Theatre

Let me preface this with the letters I, A, C, N, A, A and C, that is, I am certainly not an art critic. In fact, not only do I not know anything about art, but I don't even know what I like. I do not know if I enjoyed Kim Noble Will Die, it certainly passed a short hour of my time, and I do not begrudge it for doing so, though maybe I begrudge the cost of that short hour.

Was it funny? In places. It was also totally gross and certainly not for the faint of heart. I think I would have found it easier to laugh if I'd known for certain that it was all made up, as it was, any laughter there was was often followed by an uncertain feeling of guilt at what you already knew or shock and horror at the next revelation, many of which were graphic, in at least two senses of the word.

I couldn't help feeling a little bit gypped at being asked to leave when a handful of women and their red capped come jars* were asked to stay. I felt more sorry though, for the guy who'd paid £15 to have a bucket on his head for an hour, and the girl who'd been booted out, though at least she did get the consolation Microwave. I'm sure I am supposed to feel gypped at being told to leave, and scared that I might be the one to be booted out, and it wouldn't work if these weren't real people, really booted out, or having a bucket put on their head, but I'm not sure I like it.

* Yes, that's what I said, red capped come jars, there was a lot of coming, and spewing of other bodily fluids, though not much going.

If you actually want to know something about Kim Noble Will Die check out the Guardian review.

Short Reviews: Leong's Legends, Taiwanese, Chinatown, London

I don't think I've been to any other Taiwanese restaurant, but Leong's Legends (map) is certainly excellent. If you eat pork and don't mind (quite) a bit of fat I especially recommend the braised pork belly, it's delicious. Service is brisk, prices are very reasonable. Props to Kai RufieC for the find.

Short Reviews: Cinnamon Kitchen, Liverpool Street, London

The Cinnamon Kitchen is excellent, in fact I think on my last visit it over took Konstam as my favourite restaurant in London.

All of the mains that I have tasted have been very good, the roast goose breast and rack of lamb especially stood out, although I can only describe the safron sauce that the lamb came with as "weird", I'm afraid I can't remember what the goose came with. And the pork chop I had the time before with vindaloo spices (just pleasantly warm) and marsala mash was perfect. The menu seems to change quite regularly, so don't sue me if these aren't available when you go.

While I wouldn't recommend one particular main the desserts are not so consistent, they're all interesting, but I would especially recommend the banana tart tatan, and if you don't like banana the chocolate fondant and mousse. The ice creams are good too.

Price wise the Cinnamon Kitchen is fairly varied, starting at a veggie main for about £12 to the red deer at about £30. My one caveat about this restaurant is that, in the tradition of Indian restaurants everywhere, they try to sell you more than you want or need, on our first visit we ended up with six starters between four people.

Short Reviews: Sandi Toksvig's Christmas Cracker, South Bank

Like watching your child's school play: slightly amusing, but only because you know some of the people in it. Five Guys Named Moe and the three opera singers were all very good and professional, something notable by its absence in the rest of the cast. The frequent jokes about needing to rehearse were more true than funny. To cap it all the sound was so bad in our section that we frequently missed parts of the jokes, those that there were. They might get better by the end of the run, but that's not much of a consolation to those of us that paid to see a dress rehearsal for your show.