California, CA

The State of California is the most populous state of the United States. Located on the Pacific coast of North America, it is bordered by Oregon, Nevada and Arizona in the United States, and Baja California in Mexico. Its capital is Sacramento.

The state's four largest cities are Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco. California is known for its diverse climate and geography, and ethnically diverse population.

The state has 58 counties. Alta California was first colonized by the Spanish Empire in 1769, and after Mexican independence in 1821, continued as part of Mexico. Following one brief week as the independent California Republic in 1846, and the conclusion of the Mexican-American war in 1848, California was annexed by the United States and was admitted to the Union as the thirty-first state on September 9, 1850.

California is the third largest state by area in the U.S., and if it were a country, it would be the 59th largest in the world - larger than Germany, Italy, and Japan.

The state's size gives it a diverse geography, which ranges from sandy and rocky beaches of the Pacific coast, to the rugged snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, to desert areas in the southeast and the forests of the northwest.

The central portion of the state is dominated by the Central Valley, one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world.

The Sierra Nevada contains Yosemite Valley, famous for its glacially-carved domes, and Sequoia National Park, home to the largest living organisms on Earth, the giant sequoia trees, and the highest point in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney.

The tallest living things on Earth, the ancient redwood trees, dot the coastline, mainly north of San Francisco. California is also home to the second lowest and hottest place in the Western Hemisphere, Death Valley. Bristlecone pines located in the White Mountains are the oldest known trees in the world; one has an age of 4,700 years.

The California Gold Rush, beginning in 1848, dramatically changed California with an influx of population and an economic boom, and San Francisco became a financial and cultural center. The early 20th century was marked by Los Angeles becoming the center of the entertainment industry, in addition to the growth of a large tourism sector in the state.

The Central Valley is home to California's agricultural industry, the largest of any state. Other major industries include aerospace and petroleum, computer and information technology. California's ranks among the ten largest economies in the world, and were it a separate country, it would be 35th amongst the most populous countries behind Kenya.

Geography

California borders the Pacific Ocean, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and the Mexican state of Baja California. With an area of 160,000 mi˛ (411,000 km˛) it is the third largest state in the United States and is a little larger than Germany in size.

California's geography is rich, complex, and varied. In the middle of the state lies the California Central Valley, bounded by the coastal mountain ranges in the west, the Sierra Nevada to the east, the Cascade Range in the north and the Tehachapi Mountains in the south.

 

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "California".

Panasonic HDC-SD60 - Review & Discount
by Lindsay Gordon

Panasonic HDC-SD60K SD Based Hi-Def Camcorder with 35X Intelligent Zoom

The Panasonic HDC-SD60 Camcorder features a 25x optical zoom and an Intelligent Zoom function that goes all the way up to 35x.

When using intelligent zoom, Intelligent Resolution technology lets you shoot at high zoom rates while preserving the image resolution. You get sharp images of highly detailed objects - without the blurry edges. Plus, Power O.I.S. suppresses even slight hand-shake, which is a must for extreme zooming, because of its high susceptibility to hand-shake.

The 35.7mm wide-angle lens on the Panasonic HDC-SD60 fits more people and more of the background into the frame than a conventional 44.1mm lens. This is especially handy when you want to take a group photo in a small room.

It fits your subjects in even when you shoot from up close, and makes it possible to pick up even small sounds with the microphone. It also gives you more ways to enjoy your camcorder, like taking self portraits or capturing sweeping landscapes without losing the sense of scale.

Panasonic HDC-SD60 - Key Features

The following are some of the key features you'll discover in this Panasonic HDC-SD60 Camcorder:

- 2-11/16″ widescreen LCD

- 25X optical zoom lens (digital zoom to 1500X)

- High-definition video resolution: 1920 x 1080

- Optical image stabilization

- Face recognition tracks your subject within the frame (up to 6 registered subjects)

Customer Reviews On Amazon

Progress for the Dedicated Amateur By George B. Sears (Cedar City, UT USA)

I avoided AVCHD a couple of years ago because the compression requires a lot of computer power to edit. The Big Three of video seem to like AVCHD, and it is used all over the place, but in video cameras it is hard to balance what you need to edit it with what consumers are using.

I mostly use a fairly new Toshiba laptop. Windows Media Player will play the clips from this camera, but it will not do it smoothly. You can see what you have, and follow what you have recorded, but it is not a good way to watch. I used a copy of Vegas Movie Studio Platinum, the latest, and I can edit the clips fairly easily, and then render them to something like WMV video, at the highest setting. This is acceptable to me, for now.

It's not a great sign when the first two paragraphs of a review are about technical aspects of simply using the clips that are recorded by the camera. But the reality of AVCHD is that it is not simple, and no one should jump in thinking there is some easy solution. Even finding the clips on the card is somewhat awkward. But, the bottom line is you can shoot video clips, pop the SD card in a reader, and then use them with a fairly reasonably priced editor like Vegas, and from there render to a useable format for a lower powered computer, at least one of recent vintage.

The camera itself is very small. Some people do not like the ergonomics but I think they are fine. I did not want to buy a camera without a viewfinder, the eyelevel kind, but the screen is good enough outside, though the sun fades it. I like to set the exposure and lock it. I was surprised that there is no exposure lock, but you can get a fix on the exposure with the Ia mode, then shift to manual and the auto settings are retained. You can then work from there. This works for what I want.

The zoom starts at about 35mm. This is why I bought the camera. I need a certain amount of wide angle. Most cameras start around 45mm. I used to carry an adapter, but the adapters are a pain and they often distort. If you want wide angle for scenics or inside shots to show a wider view, this is a good place to start. Sony has a 28mm camera. It seems to be the trend. Even Flip seems to be going this way.

The autofocus and auto exposure seem to work quite well. The slow zoom is what I want, though you can speed it up. The menus are just fine for my purposes, at least if you spend an hour with the manual. The size of the camera is great. Indoor shots with decent light (like through normal windows) seem to be good. There's a lot of gain as you move to a dark room, but in a room with good light there is no gain up. In the manual mode, the camera tells you what the gain level is, so after you open up past F/2.0, you see gain from 3db and up. This seems technically refined.

About the Author

Go to http://www.snipurl.net/?4Y4PQM to get a special discount off your purchase of the Panasonic HDC-SD60 Camcorder now...

Visit http://www.bestcamcordersreviews.com for unbiased reviews on the best camcorders, along with special discounts to buy them online