Light is very important for every home, but it’s also so much more then that. The unique design lams and Chandelier can change the look of the entire room. In this post we have collected some very creative lamps from different sources which show the talented artwork of artists as well. All are DIY Lamp designs created by talent people and creative artists and we are happy and thankful to them for creating such an awesome lamps or chandeliers like these. Please check and I am sure you will be highly amazed with the talent. Even try making these if you can.
1. This Interactive Cloud Lamp Will Bring A Thunderstorm Into Your Living RoomDesigned By Richard Clarkson
As the saying goes, quality lenses are a lot more important than good bodies when it comes to investing in camera gear. They last longer, retain their value more, and have more utility overall than, say, buying the latest DSLR that will become obsolete in 3 to 5 years. But if you are into photography for the first time, you’ll likely buy an entry level camera that comes bundled with an inferior, even crappy, kit lens. Or is it? Do you really need quality gear to take good pictures? Spend thousands of dollars on red/golden rings lenses? It is no surprise that people often hold camera manufacturer’s kit lens in low regard. They used to be plagued with issues like lack of sharpness, aberrations, chromatic fringing not to mention a gimmicky build quality with slow, noisy autofocus. However, these times have long gone and the kit lens has long evolved ever since then. Nowadays, modern kit lenses have mostly addressed these numerous issues and have made them strong choices for the begin http://bit.ly/1u9vZiF
As the saying goes, quality lenses are a lot more important than good bodies when it comes to investing in camera gear. They last longer, retain their value more, and have more utility overall than, say, buying the latest DSLR that will become obsolete in 3 to 5 years. But if you are into photography for the first time, you’ll likely buy an entry level camera that comes bundled with an inferior, even crappy, kit lens. Or is it?
Do you really need quality gear to take good pictures? Spend thousands of dollars on red/golden rings lenses?
It is no surprise that people often hold camera manufacturer’s kit lens in low regard. They used to be plagued with issues like lack of sharpness, aberrations, chromatic fringing not to mention a gimmicky build quality with slow, noisy autofocus. However, these times have long gone and the kit lens has long evolved ever since then.
Nowadays, modern kit lenses have mostly addressed these numerous issues and have made them strong choices for the beginner (but also advanced) photographer.
Where the kit lens excels
First of all, the sharpness and resolution of all modern kit lenses are nothing short of excellent. Even on large 24MP APS-C sensors, these small lenses will outresolve the image sensors despite what some critics may say.
No, it can’t compare with a L lens, but for a piece of glass that costs merely $150-200, it performs admirably well.
Most of the kit lenses today also include aspherical elements to reduce aberrations, and nearly all of them come integrated with vibration reduction, allowing anyone to shoot at 1/20, even 1/10th of a second with steady hands in dark light.
What might surprise a lot of you is that kit lenses might be actually sharper than dedicated ultra-wide lenses, since they don’t have a retrofocus design. Here’s a comparison if you don’t believe me.
Also, the wide-angle focal range included with kit lenses is hugely useful. A 18-55mm lens should really be only used at its widest angle, 18mm. This focal length is more than wide enough for most uses, including landscape photography. Unless you are always shooting landscapes, there really isn’t any reason to consider something else for the job.
In fact, since excellent sharpness is one of the key factors of the modern kit lens, just about any kind of work that isn’t reliant on bokeh and depth of field can be done handsomely with it — things like architecture or even street photography. And yes, it can be used as a short telephoto in a pinch, but with a slow minimum aperture and (the lack of) bokeh it really isn’t a viable solution. More on that later.
Boats at Blue Hour. Taken with a 18-55mm kit lens.
Another thing worth considering is that the minimal focusing distance of these lenses are amazing. They can’t do 1:1 macro, but 25 centimeters minimal focusing distance (i.e. your lens can focus from infinity to 25 centimeters in front of your sensor) is better than 75% of the lenses out there in the market and will allow any beginner to at least experiment with macro photography.
Adding extesnion tubes/close-up filters will allow you magnify even more, while using a reversing ring can allow you to do 1:1 macro at nearly no cost!
And finally, people often ignore weight when buying lenses. While the features of a pro lens are certainly better than those of a kit lens, you’ll pay for that not only in price, but also in weight. Heavy lenses are not only bulky, but they also make all but the heaviest pro DSLRs unbalanced and heavily front-weighted, which makes the camera awkward to operate.
Packing less and less heavier means walking and seeing, and enjoying photography more, and a lens that weights a mere 200g is basically nothing.
Where the kit lens falls short
The kit lens today has long evolved from the cheap placeholders from the past, but even though its improvements are impressive, the kit lens still has some flaws.
To start off, build quality obviously isn’t the best. The whole lens is made out of plastic (no, metal mirrorless lenses are not really considered “kit” lenses in my opinion) except for the glass and the electronics.
Even the mount is made out of plastic, and although it is (almost) never going to fall apart, you probably have already thought about it before. The whole plastic feels wobbly and looks cheap, but heck, for $150 it’s pretty decent. And it isn’t totally bad either, since plastic and cheaper parts means a lighter lens.
Also, the aperture of these lenses are only half-decent. A maximal aperture of f/3.5-5.6 is not that bad, but it is still below standard for most good zooms and a whole level below fast primes. If you are shooting landscapes or architecture, this shouldn’t matter at all.
But as I’ve mentioned earlier, don’t expect to shoot portraits or get silky smooth bokeh with a 18-55mm lens, it simply won’t happen. Investing in an inexpensive 50mm f/1.8 lens is probably one of the best photography investments you can make for portraits (and photography in general).
Note : Some people may criticize the limited focal length of the kit lens, but I really think that it is one of its core strengths. 18-200mm walkarounds might be convenient, but not only are their image quality often worse than kit lenses, but they are bulky and encourage bad photo habits (precisely because they are just so convenient!).
Another example of how well a kit lens can perform with the right technique and skills. Lake Morraine, Alberta, Canada
The bottom line
Kit lenses are, despite their shortcomings, excellent lenses with amazing capabilities if used well. If you think that you’ve outgrown this lens (I haven’t yet myself and still use it on occasions!), don’t buy another zoom yet. Instead, consider investing in prime lenses. 50mm, 85mm, 35mm, or pretty much any focal length.
Seriously, with a prime and a standard zoom, you’re all set for 95% of the potential photographic tasks out there. The rest is up to you.
Remember: it’s the photographer who makes the picture, not the camera!
About the author: Wei Xi Luo is a photographer based in Montreal, Quebec. He is the blogger behind Photograph IO. This article originally appeared here and a Follow-up on here
MIOPS is a new smartphone-controlled camera trigger created by the minds behind the Nero Trigger. Looking to get financed through Kickstarter, the team behind it hopes to combine all of the features users want in a high-speed camera trigger into one convenient device.
MIOPS delivers all of the features required for high-speed photography in a single unit and provides advanced features via a total integration with the smart-phone platform. It will make taking creative photos so easy that you will have the opportunity to reveal your skills with great shots. MIOPS will be your favorite photography equipment.
MIOPS is not the first trigger in the market, but it is going to be the best one. You can control MIOPS with your smart-phone over Bluetooth. You can adjust the settings using dedicated smart phone application and send them to MIOPS with a simple click on your phone.You can either use MIOPS for basic functions like high-speed and lightning photography, but you can also let him perform complex scenarios like combining different modes in the same setup. If you don’t want to use a smart-phone, you can always configure MIOPS using the on-board buttons and colorful LCD screen. MIOPS will have an upgradable firmware. It will be open to new features and upgrades will be free for life-time. You will be able to charge MIOPS with any USB charger. It will be light weight, compact sized and compatible with most of DSLR cameras.
MIOPS is a standalone, small factor device which can trigger your camera or flash unit. It has three different sensors; light, sound and laser. MIOPS uses these sensors to detect external events such as lightning, fireworks, popping balloon or a laser beam cut by an obstacle, just to name a few. When such an event is detected, it triggers your camera or flash unit. MIOPS has an input port where you can hook up external sensors as well. You can for example hook up a pressure sensor and use the pressure as a triggering event. It is possible to program MIOPS so that it will take a picture whenever someone steps on your door mat. You just need to place a pressure sensor under the mat and connect it to MIOPS. There are so many different sensors out there and this means you have unlimited options as well to demonstrate your creativity with MIOPS.
MIOPS is not bigger than a credit card and only less than an inch in thickness. It is also light weight and consumes very little space in your camera bag. This is especially important if you carry your other heavy equipment in your bag. MIOPS has a colourful LCD screen and easy to use interface. You can configure your device using the on-board buttons and the screen. It gets even easier if you do this over your smart-phone. MIOPS has Bluetooth capability and with its dedicated smart-phone application you can configure MIOPS without even touching it. All of the device settings are also available on the application. On top of the basic modes and settings, the smart-phone application offers other features like cable release modes and scenario processing mode where you can define event scenarios using the combination of the different sensors. You can for example create a custom scenario like this: I want the sound mode to be activated after the sunset. You configure this using the application and the scenario is sent to MIOPS over Bluetooth connection. Afterwards, you can take your phone and go away, MIOPS will take care of the rest. It does not need the smart-phone to be close by to operate. You can store the scenarios in the application and reuse them whenever you want. You can store up to three scenarios and each of them can check against up two five different conditions measured by all of the sensors. MIOPS is Bluetooth 4.0 compatible, so it is energy efficient, has great coverage and is compatible with iOS and Android smart-phones with Bluetooth 4.0.
A mini-USB port has been added to MIOPS and it serves two important purposes. First of all, you can charge your MIOPS over this USB connection. You can also use a compatible USB charger or you can even charge it in your car just as you charge your cell phone. The rechargeable battery of MIOPS will last for days, it has energy saving features so you don’t have to charge your battery very often. The second purpose it serves is the firmware upgrade. MIOPS will have an upgradeable firmware, so you can have new features with the release of new firmware. You will be able to download the new firmware and upgrade your MIOPS within a few minutes.
Photo: Alexander Heinrichs
High speed photography can be tricky sometimes. In some cases, you will need to trigger your flash unit, not your camera. In order to cover this, MIOPS has two dedicated outputs, one is for the camera and the other one is for the flash unit. You can use them separately or at the same time. They are electrically isolated from each other, so there is no risk of a short circuit. Also, each output isolates MIOPS from your camera or flash unit optically. This means in fact there is no electrical connection between your camera and MIOPS at all. One end of the connection cable goes to the remote shutter release port of your camera and the other ends goes to MIOPS. The cables are exchangeable, you can use your MIOPS with different cameras. You don’t need to buy an extra unit for your second camera. MIOPS is compatible with most of the major makes and models. You just need to get the proper cable for your other camera. The interface of the cable connection is a standard 2,5 mm jack. Extension cables are commonly available in the market if you have a different setup in your mind where the camera has to stay far away from MIOPS. The same is also valid for the flash unit connection. It uses the standard 3,5 mm connection. Some DSLR cameras do not have a remote shutter release port, instead of this they can be triggered with an IR remote controller. If you own such a camera, you are also covered. MIOPS can trigger your camera with IR connection as well.
Which Operation Modes Does MIOPS Have?
MIOPS is a high-speed camera trigger with multiple modes combined in a single box with all built-in sensors. In order to use the available modes of MIOPS, you don’t need to add anything else. Everything is already in the unit and ready to use. Switching between different modes is just a matter of a few clicks and it happens in seconds. It has basically six different modes, let’s see them all.
LIGHTNING
Even this mode is called lightning, there is actually so much more about it. Lightning is only one of the events that MIOPS can detect with its light sensor. When the lightning strikes, MIOPS detects in a few nanoseconds and triggers your camera.
Photo: Bryan Snider
LASER
MIOPS can detect laser beams as well and they make the detection of so many events possible. The idea is very simple. If the laser beam is broken, then there must be something happened. And most of the time something happens in milliseconds, but it is not a big deal for MIOPS. The laser beam is so thin, even a water drop can break it.
SOUND
When it is all about high-speed photography, sound mode is the mode where things get serious. This is the essential mode to take high-speed pictures in a controlled studio environment. Even MIOPS is fast enough to take pictures of bullets or arrows, your camera is not that fast. Average DSLR camera has a lag time of about 50 milliseconds. This is too long if your objects fly by in a few milliseconds. The sound mode of MIOPS does the trick.
TIMELAPSE
When it comes to MIOPS, it is not just sensors. In timelapse mode, MIOPS does not use any sensors but it benefits from the electronics and software to take sequential pictures within a time period with equal time difference between each of them. You can also specify the exposure of the pictures just per your wish. After you have adjusted your parameters, MIOPS will take care of the rest. You can do the adjustment on MIOPS itself or you can also use the smartphone application to configure MIOPS.
HDR
HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos look to good to be true because they are actually not. Digital processing of the same picture with different exposures is the main idea behind it. It is again done with picture processing software but it is the quality of the single pictures which makes a great HDR picture.
External Port
MIOPS offers unlimited creativity not just with the built-in sensors and software but also with the capability of connecting external sensors as well. If you have a high-speed photography project in your mind which uses another type of sensor, this is not a blocker for MIOPS. MIOPS can accept signals from external sensors with the dedicated port, so you are not limited to light and sound events only. There are many different sensors in the market. Temperature, pressure and humidity sensors are only a few of them. If they are electrically compatible (which means the output signal must be between 0 and 3V) you can connect them to MIOPS.
Smartphone Compatible & Bluetooth
The Smartphone app offers many advantages and features. First of all, you can take the total control of your MIOPS with the app. Any mode and any parameter can be adjusted with the app and then you can send the settings and commands to MIOPS with a single touch over Bluetooth connection. If MIOPS is mounted on your camera or tripod, you can leave your setup as it is and control MIOPS without even touching it. You will not need to adjust your setup again, nothing will move at all.
If the concept behind MIOPS sounds familiar, it’s because it’s not too far off from the original Trigger Trap. The key difference between the two is that MIOPS offers wireless Bluetooth control, while TriggerTrap connects your phone to your camera using a cable.
To pre-oder a unit for yourself, head on over to the Kickstarter campaign, where a pledge of $199+ will secure a device and push it toward manufacturing.
A quick montage at the beginning of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes fills us in on what has happened since Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Three years have gone by for us in the audience, and about a decade for the assorted primates on the screen. James Franco and millions of other people are dead, victims of a lethal virus and the usual apocalypse-causing disease of hubris. After a period of violence and chaos, the survivors have cobbled together a reasonably stable society in the ruins of San Francisco, with Gary Oldman in charge.
But this is not ‘Dusk of the Planet of the Humans’. The spectacle of yet another desperate population, huddled together in the wake of catastrophe to await the next zombie, alien, robot or monster attack, would be unlikely to inspire much excitement. The real interest lies across the battered Golden Gate Bridge, in Marin County, where our evolutionary cousins, under the benevolent guidance of an upright-walking chimpanzee named Caesar, have built their own civilization. In contrast to the bedraggled human colony, the ape encampment is a thriving city-state with distinctive wooden architecture, domesticated horses, a sophisticated (mostly signed) language and an educational system overseen by Maurice, the gentle, copper-furred orangutan who gave the first movie an extra fillip of soul.
Cast:Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Karin Konoval, Nick Thurston , Judy Greer, Toby Kebbell and Kodi Smit-McPhee Music: Michael Giacchino Director: Matt Reeves Writer: Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver
The sylvan, simian Athens in the Muir Woods is a remarkable achievement and an important part of what makes Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Matt Reeves from a script by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver and Mark Bomback, the best of this summer’s large-scale, big-studio franchise movies. Granted, this isn’t a very high bar to clear: “better than Transformers 4” barely counts as praise, even with an exclamation mark. But unlike that toy-smashing extravaganza – and unlike 2014’s visitations from the Spider-Man, X-Men and Godzilla money trains - Dawn is more than a bunch of occasionally thrilling action sequences, emotional gut punches and throwaway jokes arranged in predictable sequence. It is technically impressive and viscerally exciting, for sure, but it also gives you a lot to think, and even to care, about.
Starting with the apes themselves. In the final credits, Andy Serkis receives top billing for his performance as Caesar, a role that continues to redefine screen acting in the digital age. His facial expressions and body language are so evocatively and precisely rendered that it is impossible to say where his art ends and the exquisite artifice of Weta Digital, the special-effects company, begins. The same is true of the other main ape performers: Karin Konoval (Maurice); Nick Thurston (Caesar’s son Blue Eyes); Judy Greer (Caesar’s wife, Cornelia); and especially Toby Kebbell as Koba, Caesar’s lieutenant and eventual nemesis.
Koba, a survivor of scientific experiments, bears the physical and moral scars of human cruelty. When the apes encounter a scouting party from the city (led by Jason Clarke and Keri Russell), Koba is quick to sound the alarm. The humans, about to run out of fuel, want to restore an abandoned hydroelectric station in ape territory, and they ask Caesar for help. Koba warns that people are a violent, duplicitous, predatory species that should be fought if it can’t be avoided.
Caesar, who saw the generous, tender side of humanity when he was hanging out with Franco and Freida Pinto, is willing to give our kind the benefit of the doubt. There is plenty of evidence – both in the movie and beyond it – to support Koba’s view, but the film comes down squarely, and maybe a little too squishily, on the side of tolerance and cooperation. The ape and human societies are parallel primitive patriarchies (women nurture and worry, while men lead and fight, a disappointing but hardly surprising failure of imagination on the filmmakers’ part), and they are threatened by symmetrical schisms. As Koba opposes Caesar, so does Malcolm (Clarke’s character) find himself increasingly at odds with Dreyfus (Oldman), who sees the apes as a mortal threat to be confronted with maximum brutality.
The arguments – in essence, about whether the boundaries of solidarity should stay within the tribe or extend beyond it – give Dawn of the Planet of the Apes a nice allegorical heft. The old movies, which blew the minds and troubled the sleep of many children in the ’60s and ’70s (including young Bobby Draper in Season 6 of Mad Men), arrived at a time of racial conflict, ecological anxiety and a general sense of social breakdown. Since then, cinematic technology has evolved from rubber masks to digital sculpture, and our fears and aspirations have mutated, too, making Planet of the Apes a less abstract, more hauntingly immediate story.
And while Rise found room for exuberance in the shadow of catastrophe – partly because it seemed so justifiably excited by its own ingenuity - Dawn, its title notwithstanding, paints a darker, scarier picture of the future. It also has a grave, brooding beauty, intensified by Michael Giacchino’s wild and subtle score and by the deep, verdant shadows of Michael Seresin’s cinematography. Reeves has a fine sense of visual detail and also of the eloquence of nonverbal exchanges between characters, digitally enhanced and otherwise. (Russell and Kodi Smit-McPhee, as her adolescent son, do especially graceful work in limited roles.) The film is full of small, memorable moments and crowded with distinctive personalities on both sides of the ape-human divide.
In other words, it’s a satisfying movie and an example – a dispiritingly rare one these days – of what mainstream Hollywood filmmaking can still achieve. That we have progressed from Rise only as far asDawn suggests many future sequels, which may, in this case, be a source of hope as well as dread, provided that civilization doesn’t collapse in the meantime.
Movie Review by A. O. Scott, The New York Times [read more]
Cast:Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Kate Mara
Director: Wally Pfister
Writer: Jack Paglen
SPOILER ALERTS
HAL has come a long way.
First, we had Scarlett Johansson as a human-like operating system. Now, Johnny Depp has been uploaded. If the singularity — when artificial intelligence surpasses human smarts — is indeed coming, at least it has decent taste in movie star avatars.
First-time director Wally Pfister’s Transcendence isn’t so much the “Him” to Spike Jonze’s Her as it’s a more dystopian vision of the meeting of human consciousness and computer intelligence. It turns out that when computers get sophisticated, worse things can happen than Joaquin Phoenix getting his feelings hurt.
But whereas Her was playful and personal about familiar futuristic concepts, Transcendence is clunky and lifeless. It’s like the movie version of a paranoid TED talk.
In the early scenes of Transcendence, Dr. Will Caster (a disappointingly sleepy Depp) is a TED-style master of the universe, speaking confidently in front of large video screens to eager listeners about neurology and artificial intelligence. But there are also protesters to his potentially all-powerful invention: the Physically Independent Neural Network (PINN), an early artificial intelligence propelled by a room full of computers that Caster believes could, among other things, cure cancer.
An assassination attempt with a radiation-laced bullet leaves Caster with weeks to live. Desperate to keep his mind alive, his loyal, sycophantic wife and fellow researcher Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) uploads Caster’s brain to a PC with PINN hardware. Helping her is their good friend and colleague Max (Paul Bettany, serving as narrator).
But as anyone with an iPhone knows, software updates can be tragic. The transfer is finished just as Caster dies. Soon enough, the screen flickers to life, first with a few typed words and then seemingly Caster’s full personality, in voice and pixel form.
Alert to their plan, anti-tech activists (led by Kate Mara) are simultaneously descending. In the chaos, Max begins to realize they’ve created a high-speed Frankenstein — an epiphany lost on the mourning Evelyn, who flees after uploading Caster to the Internet. He immediately spreads across the Web (he calls Evelyn on her phone) and begins seeking more computing power.
It takes a long time for Transcendence to build to this moment, when perhaps it should have begun here in the first place. But it feels like a suddenly intriguing crossroads. Where will this terrifyingly digital Depp go?
If you answered: to a desert town to build an underground data center for development of radical tissue regeneration techniques, guarded by a creepy army of network-connected, superhuman zombies — then your algorithms are more advanced than mine.
Yet the urgency and intelligence of Transcendence isn’t artificial. It feels sincerely animated by the frightful questions it poses about computing power and interconnectedness.
Pfister, making his directorial debut after years as a cinematographer often teamed with director Christopher Nolan (a Transcendence producer), doesn’t exhibit a sure hand with dialogue or a feel for the rhythm of his narrative. Neither does the film have the distinctive form of his prior photography work, most notably The Dark Knight. (In imagery, Transcendence pales in comparison to the sumptuous sci-fi of the recent Under the Skin.)
But, as in Nolan’s Inception, Pfister, working from a script by first-time screenwriter Jack Paglen, shows an instinct to drive the genre elements toward a more personal story. Transcendence ultimately hinges on the relationship of Caster and Evelyn. The excellent Hall, looking a bit confused by what she’s gotten herself into, does her best to emotionally ground Pfister’s increasingly unfocused and heavy-handed story.
Just as in science, noble intentions can lead talented artistic minds astray, too.
You probably drive past a dozen of these on your way to work — some hybrid, some not, some new and some old — and never take a second glance. That is, unless you’re lucky enough to find yourself sitting inside of one and enjoying its comfortable ride, reliable performance, and well-thought-out amenities. Even then, the RX seems a bit like a practical decision, not a passionate one. It’s a smart choice, if not a sexy one.
This 2014 Lexus RX 450h sits at the top of the model’s totem pole, promising the most power, the most efficiency, the quietest cabin, and the best tech that the current RX platform has to offer. While it doesn’t draw attention to itself, doesn’t overwhelm or overcompensate, the RX 450h is spacious, refined, and comfortable. And over the course of my testing the SUV gave me a few little “A-ha!” moments and even managed to surprise me at a few turns.
Nearly silent, only kind of efficient
Let’s start in the engine bay, which is where the RX 450h differs the most from the rest of the RX lineup. Under a sea of plastic engine covers designed to muffle power-train noise and keep you from mucking around with the oily bits, you’ll find a 3.5-liter V-6 gasoline engine that is inseparably mated to a 116 kW electric motor via a continuously variable transmission. The combo works together to get you a maximum of 295 available horsepower.
Image Courtesy Trendzcar.com
Our all-wheel-drive variant adds a second 50-kW electric motor on the rear axle to drive the rear wheels on demand with power stored in the RX’s NiMH battery pack under the back seats. This drive-by-wire setup eliminates the need for a fore-t0-aft driveshaft, thus saving weight and allowing the SUV to do without a hump in the second-row foot space. Being electric, the torque to the rear axle is instantaneous when needed for accelerating or gripping. As the car’s a hybrid, the rear electric motor doubles as a generator when not in use, grabbing extra energy during regenerative braking to charge the battery pack.
Lexus doesn’t officially state a torque number for the RX hybrid, claiming that the hybrid’s twisting force can’t so simply be derived, which is frustrating for those checking the specs. However, the RX 450h feels like it has plenty of pound-feet at its disposal when the time comes to accelerate.
One of the best benefits of the Lexus hybrid system doesn’t show up on the spec sheet. The SUV is extremely quiet in its operation, which you’d expect when running fully under electric power, but even when the gasoline engine fires up for freeway cruising or when working with the electric motors to accelerate away from a traffic light at a reasonable speed, the RX is quite quiet. That the gasoline engine’s transition from stopped to running is nearly imperceptible helps a lot with that feeling of refinement.
If there is a trade-off to the smooth, silent hybrid system, it’s a lack of pedal feel. While the hybrid likes a light foot, it has a tendency to smooth out pedal input, which is good for fuel economy, but can create a slight lag when you need a quick squirt of power for a pass. I suppose that between the CVT and the hybrid system’s gas-electric handoff, there’s a lot of wiggle room between my foot and the rubber meeting the road.
Give it the beans for a quick stoplight drag race and RX does not disappoint with its acceleration. There’s no drama and no wheelspin, just a brief surge of electric torque before the engine joins the chorus with plentiful power. Because the CVT holds its ratio, there’s no jerking or interruption of power for shifting, but it also means that the engine holds a single Hoover-like induction note. Guilt over being so wasteful with fuel in your Lexus hybrid will have you lifting before the noise gets too annoying.
The CVT features Sport and manual shift modes, so the CVT can shift between fixed ratios with the flick of the shift knob, but you’ll probably never use it — especially without paddle shifters. You may, on the other hand, use the EV mode when the finicky setting will allow it.
Fuel economy for the 2014 RX 450h is stated by the EPA at 30 city, 28 highway, and 29 combined, but I was only able to do 25.4 mpg despite my best efforts at a light right foot. (I promise, I only did one or two zero-to-60 runs during my entire week with the RX.)
Refined, but not revolutionary
The RX’s cabin is filled with little nice touches that elicit a grin here and an exclamation there. I particularly like how the power windows slow down for the last few inches of their travel, closing silently rather than thunking shut. It’s that sort of consistent attention to detail that really makes me appreciate Lexus as a luxury marquee.
The whisper-quiet power train and excellent noise and wind deadening allow the optional Mark Levinson audio system to shine unmolested, creating the best possible conditions for it to deliver one of the great mobile listening experiences. The smooth ride was a bit floaty, but did an excellent job of isolating me from the imperfections of the road. Meanwhile, our optional Premium Leather and matte bamboo trim was praised by all who spent time in the cabin.
Image Courtesy Cartype.com
However, the Lexus’ interior design looks a bit dated. The materials are great, but Lexus has come a long way with its interior design for the LS, GS, and IS sedans. The RX’s bamboo steering wheel is a gorgeous tiller, but the cabin surrounding feels a bit underdesigned. And the odd champagne-colored asymmetrical center stack is probably the most dated element; I almost expected to see a tape deck hiding out below the CD slot. Likewise, the rear-seat entertainment system with its analog RCA A/V hookup (rather than digital HDMI) is just so turn-of-the-century and a rather expensive option.
Tech that entertains and Enforms
At the top of the dashboard, sunken deep beneath a brow that shades it from the sun and glare, is the color display for the Lexus Enform with Remote Touch infotainment system.
The display isn’t touch-sensitive and is controlled by Lexus’ joystick-like Remote Touch Controller. This stick fits in the hand like a trackball and moves a cursor around the display to make selections like a mouse. The scheme takes a lot of getting used to and some people will find it easier to adapt to than others.
The Remote Touch Controller’s coolest party trick is its haptic feedback, which makes the control stick vibrate and snap to the various onscreen buttons, making it easy to aim by touch without staring at the display. It’s very cool, but also a bit weird. It’s also positioned in a way that makes it very easy for the driver to reach, but awkward for the front passenger.
At the front of the controller, you’ll find two buttons and a rocker-like a mouse, but these are shortcuts to the navigation system’s map screen and a main menu where you’ll find every other function (apps, audio sources, vehicle information, destination input, settings, and more). This seems a bit imbalanced. Onscreen selections are made by pressing the Remote Touch’s square control stick like a button.
The Enform system features voice command that puts many of its features just the touch of a steering wheel button away. While onscreen cues and hints help get over the “What am I supposed to say here” learning curve, most functions require too many individual prompts. For example, entering an address requires pauses to speak the city, street name, and street number.
The navigation system is simple and gets the job done. Like the rest of the RX, it gets its job done without drawing attention to itself. You’ll find no 3D Google Earth Web-connected maps here. Just flat, 2D maps and simple traffic with spoken turn-by-turn directions..
As I stated earlier, the Mark Levinson premium audio system is worth every penny of its $1,000 asking price and hooks up a decent selection of audio sources. There’s USB and analog auxiliary inputs, the former featuring iPod compatibility. Bluetooth connectivity puts hands-free calling, stereo audio streaming, and text messaging text-to-speech with canned responses into the dashboard. There’s also AM/FM radio with HD decoding and Sirius XM satellite radio, both of which support iTunes tagging when used with a connected iPod.
When connected to a smartphone running the Enform app, the Lexus also gains access to a variety of connected services, including Bing, Pandora, iHeart Radio, OpenTable, Yelp, and Facebook Places.
In sum
I was a bit disappointed by the RX 450h’s fuel economy, but impressed by the power train’s refinement, quiet operation, and available torque. Attention to detail in the cabin and the generally good appointments left me with an overall positive opinion of the luxury hybrid, yet I still had a hard time getting excited about it.
Our all-wheel drive example of the 2014 Lexus RX 450h started at $47,810, but options and destination charges pushed the price up to $62,074.
In that range, the RX 450h does come into interesting cross-competition with the Audi Q5 TDI. The hybrid versus diesel decision will depend on your personal power-train preferences (interestingly, we got slightly better fuel economy during our testing with the diesel), but the Audi features much more available safety and infotainment tech, which can tip the balance in its favor for technophiles.
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Caesar, who saw the generous, tender side of humanity when he was hanging out with Franco and Freida Pinto, is willing to give our kind the benefit of the doubt. There is plenty of evidence – both in the movie and beyond it – to support Koba’s view, but the film comes down squarely, and maybe a little too squishily, on the side of tolerance and cooperation. The ape and human societies are parallel primitive patriarchies (women nurture and worry, while men lead and fight, a disappointing but hardly surprising failure of imagination on the filmmakers’ part), and they are threatened by symmetrical schisms. As Koba opposes Caesar, so does Malcolm (Clarke’s character) find himself increasingly at odds with Dreyfus (Oldman), who sees the apes as a mortal threat to be confronted with maximum brutality.
