Why...

Why does the internet cost five dollars?

... I mean, it's free at the airports in Charlotte and Tallahassee.

Finally!

I uhh... on my flight from Washington to Atlanta, I finally made the same journey as a screaming child! Ha ha! I bet you're all laughing at my earphones now!

I continue to wonder how so many people fail to understand that whole "You don't get on the plane until they call you to do so" thing, but whatever - without that, I wouldn't be able to sit here in a different state complaining at you so you have something to read.

Also there's a frequently inverted child to my left. Thought you should know.

Aside: sorry I haven't had anything for you to look at the last few posts. That should change this week, at least.

query

I posed this question:

(11:59:37) nurrwick: in the movie Being John Malkovich, does John Malkovich ever get to be John Malkovich by walking through the John Malkovich portal into John Malkovich's mind, thus falling out to the Jersey turnpike 15 minutes later? If so, when he fell out of himself (i.e., when John Malkovich Malkoviched the John out of John Malkovich), did the universe end?

Two part question

At what point in the morning is it okay to start thinking?

--and--

Is it okay that I woke up at 4:30 (a full hour before I usually wake up) even though I only went to sleep half an hour earlier than normal?

Oh yeah

I've discovered that The Content Vortex actually renders quite nicely on the version of Internet Explorer included with Windows Mobile 2003 second edition.

Uh... just in case anyone cares, anyway.

Two days in a row...

... that I have to sit here at work waiting for people to come do stuff. Yesterday, we gave them a 10-4 range and they arrived at 3:45. Today, State Use is supposed to have showed up first at 8:55 (no!) and then at 12:00 (no no!). Waiting is so awesome.

I'm very bored and I wish I could go outside. I thought you needed to know that!

Earphones

Aside: on the 7th of December, my Shure E2C cabling failed. About 3/4" away from the right side earpiece, the cable cracked open. I dropped them off at the Union Mail Boxes Etc. on Monday the 11th. UPS received the billing information later that night, meaning they had the package on their radar or something. As of this past Thursday, it still hadn't gone anywhere. I resolved to go down there, and was told that "this happens sometimes" and it would eventually either start moving or result in the insurance process going into action. I am, as you might be aware, flying to Tallahassee on Sunday. I "need" earphones for that that don't suck, so I decided to go ahead and purchase a set of Etymotic Research's ER-6isolator earphones. These are the 16ohm phones, not the more professional ER-6 phones.

Given that, I'd like to compare them (just in case someone ever cares enough to search for it).

The most striking difference between the ER-6i and E2C phones is their construction. Both sets are isolating in-ear monitors, so the nature of the fit in my ears is the same for both. I prefer the three-flange rubber tips (you see them above) to Shure's single rubber covering because it's smaller around and deeper, so I feel more secure wearing them. The end of the phone itself, though, is open to the atmosphere. The E2C phones are (apparently) completely sealed to the outside world - the stress relief is embedded into the housing, which is, itself, glued together quite securely. The ER-6i phones have a small flap covering the end of the opening. The overall feel is closer to earplugs than phones. The bigger problem, though, is that the ER-6i cabling is HORRID. It's about the same quality you'd expect to find on a pair of $7.99 Koss headphones you bought at a Giant. Yes, they include a shirt clip, but the cable has to be about half the diameter of the Shure cable, and it's of the type that, if it weren't for the little metal thing around them where they spread off to your ears, you could pull the two earphone cables separate all the way back to the plug. I bought the kind that came with a right-angle plug, though, which is helpful for the way I use my iPod.

When I plugged these in and sealed them (initially painful because the triple flanges seal better than the rubber sleeves on the Shures), I noticed almost immediately a much boomier bass stage. After getting them home and trying a couple of the other included sleeve options, I decided that these are much more consumer than the E2C phones are. The high and low range are both very prominent in the sound stage, and (while I'm willing to chalk this up to having not broken these in yet, I still feel obligated to mention it) the overall midrange sound is much, much harsher or colder than the Shures. I will have to keep an ear on it over the next two weeks to see if they improve as I use them, but I would definitely need to re-encode my music to at least 160kbps or 192kbps (AAC) to be pleased with these for everyday use. I think a part of that, though, is that these reveal the high-end failings of the AAC codec - I think it's not as warm as MP3 as it throws away information.

Anyway, as it turns out, UPS found my warranty repair envelope. Eventually, I'll be getting a new set of E2C phones, which will go back to being my primary headset (thanks to the better weather sealing and the fact that it's easier to replace the tips, now that I know B&H sells them). I will keep the ER-6i's around, but I just don't think they're as good as the E2C. For the 15 dollars difference, I'd be hard pressed to say the upgrade isn't worth it - and the Shures come with a 2-year warranty. Etymotic gives you 90 days, I think, but even then - these are not built to last in the outside world.

Thanks

I was thinking about this yesterday - I know I have 5 or 6 or 28 regular readers or whatever, and I also know I believe I don't update for you often enough.

Hence thanks - Josh and Anonymous, you've helped turn this into what I believe has to be the best source on the internet for Photography and Car Repair Discussion.

I polled a sample of one (me) and to certify the decision, I am hereby borrowing the approval logo from Futurama.



Wink!

Just to pass the time...

I took my car to the car magic place. No, I don't have a garage to work in, but also, I don't trust myself with brakes. I didn't trust myself with brakes on my VWs, I'm not about to start now (disc brakes being even more terrifying to me).

Sadly, the guy told me that it likely wouldn't be till Thursday that they got it up on a lift to tell me what the damage would be. They did tell me, however, that brakes were generally same-day, so I guess I can hope for that.

Whee!

I'm pretty sure I need both the rotors in the front and the pads on all four wheels replaced. Bets on cost?

A Tale of Film

Sunday, as you may remember, I finished my first roll of film since the last color film I put in my ZX-L in May. It's black and white. I tried to take it to techlab for processing. Tried, because techlab has since closed. I can't say I'm sad to see it go; when I was still using their services regularly, they were mangling my pictures more than Ritz. They were, however, the only place I could physically go to and request on-site black and white processing that I know of up here.

So, since I promised you pictures, I'm going to put up one from Thanksgiving of last year that I took and used to be proud of because the only place I ever saw it was printed, where it seemed to be... well, a lot more contrasty than it really is.


It can be clicked!

Whatever, throw your monitor out of adjustment and enjoy the same view I used to.

Beta weirdness

I switched to blogger beta. I may have ended up introducing additional idiocy into the process of posting things, but hey - you have to spend money to make money.

apologies

I've had trouble being productive lately. I don't "like it" when my cameras end up full of water, which is what would happen if I were to have taken one outside in the last week and a half.

And, since this is apparently a photo blog now, it means you get to see why I chose to call my hovel "the content vortex."

wheee

A pair of somethings.

The second is up here so I can have Jon assess the bird. I took that out of a horridly underexposed jpeg - let it not be said that useful information can't be rescued if you're not... blah blah blah, just remember the female cardinal picture rescues. There's some other boring garbage here.

Also new thread.

Update - that bird is a golden crowned kinglet. A very neat picture of what I was hoping I myself could get a picture of can be found here. Very distinctive, ah?

Super mega angry

So my notification of flashy flashy came. My vehicle was allegedly travelling 56 mph in a 45 zone.

The problem I have with this is that 45 was the speed limit on an interstate highway. I was trying to find the part of the DC laws that explains where an interstate freeway can have a speed limit of 45 miles per hour.

DC's code website is, however, not searchable, apparently.

Security through obscurity - challenge not the state, comrade! Its will is divinely blest.

Yeah, done spending money in DC.

Now that's fast!

This is what happens when you invest too much time in one creative hobby.

And yes, it WAS challenging to take a picture of my right hand with an SLR.

Why I'm not taking as many pictures:

This is the sort of thing I have to deal with now when I'm at work - not the employee, but the Professor she talks about:

So apparently I jinxed myself with [name removed] When I went to retrieve, she was busy with a student but I noticed she pretty much took off the back of the wireless keyboard and dumped all the batteries out. I didn't question it and just put everything back but as she's leaving, she goes, "By the way, the wireless keyboard didn't work. Next time, you are not to leave until everything is up and running." and she pretty much walked out the door without giving me a chance to respond.

The part I'm leaving out of the quote is the part where [name removed] decided to go ahead and dismiss our tech (after already wasting ten minutes of her life with inane tasks like "tie the network cable around this table leg so I don't trip on it")without first evaluating everything the tech had set up for her.

Yeah. So um, now that we've got instructors abusing our employees, I have to deal with it. And if my coworker doesn't talk to her, and I have to, it won't be pretty and I'll probably lose my job.

Woo!

Pentax released a new road map yesterday:
Roadmap!

I like the idea of a D FA 300mm. I like that cause it would work on film. And it'll have the onboard aperture ring. If, in fact, it's a 35mm format lens, anyway - not 645.

Also, the new zooms are encouraging; depending on price, that DA* 60-250 f4 would be enticing, but not if the planned 300 would be an f4.5 rehash of the old FA* lens. I'd gladly save the weight and space by going straight for the prime. Then my kit could be complete.

Here's the news about the DA* zooms. Even the 16-50 f2.8 is tempting, but I wouldn't get that as an addition to my current gear; it would have to replace my 16-45, and I'm not sure I want to do that.

explanation

Sorry I didn't have anything to show for myself this weekend.

A) it was hot saturday.
B) I spent saturday night watching Ran's copies of movies.
C) I was put into a VERY bad mood late Saturday night.
D) I woke up in said bad mood today.
E) I chose to go to Ritz, an action I sort of knew would aggravate the mood condition. Ritz in Beltsville no longer has a Rotating Tower o' Filters. Also, they still want 100 bucks for the teleconverter I bought Used for 46, could have bought new for I think 60.
F) I went to taco bell to make up for that. Taco bell, however, reaffirmed my theory that the only good taco bell in existence is in the Union on campus and is closed during the summer.
G) I came home in a fit of rage and decided to watch a bunch of Finnish people talk about being in japan/playing a concert in said country.
H) Then I played my own music sans shirt, very angrily.
I) then I had a Paper Mario break.
J) Now I'm eating Frosted mini wheats and watching star trek.

You make make me into the terrible person I am for that, if need be.

I don't know which is better...

... as far as search strings are concerned:

vortex[three crazy symbols]hepatitis

or

WAM DRUNK SEX PARTY (apparently typed in all caps like that).

Good job, internet.

Making Amends

So yeah... as was evidenced by the fact that I was replying to comments, I didn't go anywhere this weekend. It was too hot here to hike today, and too poorly lit on Saturday. So, while I was busy rolling about in sweat and Paper Mario, I kept the camera handy for the activity at the feeder.







I'm fond of the fact that I got that third one to contain a floating bird and one stabbing itself in the face with its feet.


Click that for 100% crop, or something.

Gallery here.

Anyway, the shots are, for the most part, GlamorShots soft because I was shooting through the screen. It's "good enough" for entertainment's sake, though.

Snakes

20 some odd dollars in rubber snakes.
a 25 dollar non-official snakes t-shirt.
63 dollars for movie tickets.
28 dollars for pizza.
8 friends at the theater, wearing the same shirt as some other dude and...





Samuel L. Jackson himself (in the music video at the end).

It took both of us a second to realize, but we knew where we were.

SHIRT! SHIRT!

Monstrosity

So yeah, I put up bird feeders... and real birds started showing up. Jeff's seen Mourning Doves, and today a female cardinal. Then he told me a new bird showed up. I saw it and said "That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Time to go get the camera!"

I didn't know what it was until 6 megapixels showed me the following:



Yeah, turns out it was a female cardinal with nary a feather on its head.

Lovely.

I apologize for the quality; I was shooting through a screen, then two panes of filthy glass. That said, here's what you could have been stuck with:



Let it not be said that shooting JPEG leaves you with broken images.

Because I was bored

Here's a picture of Testudo ruined by lens flare, a helicopter, and some dude in the middle of the mall.

Out West

When I left today at 11:45 am, I had one plan: "Drive West."

I made it to MD rt. 68 when I realized I was sick of driving, so I changed the game to "Drive to the next state park." Well, turns out that was the Western Maryland Rail Trail - not exactly interesting, based on what I saw, so I went the extra half mile down the road to Fort Frederick.



You can see some stuff in the album, but it's largely meh - I went out to interest myself, and the camera wasn't a motivating factor.

Battery life check

I replaced the batteries in my camera for the first time. Olympus Camedia CRV3 batteries made it through 1151 shots, a good many of the last 100 including flash.

FYI.

But it took me nearly two months to kill batteries. I don't think rechargables will make sense for the camera body.

BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I've figured out what my problem is, and why I'm so sold that I could make do with a 200mm lens as long as it was fast.

Pentax doesn't sell anything compelling in digital-appropriate focal lengths at the moment.

I'd love the 12-24 wide angle lens, save for the "i'd never use it" part. That's the only remaining DA lens I care about. The 50-200 is a decent enough zoom, but yeah. The most compelling lens I can find for sale on that there internet at the moment is the 28-105 f3.2-4.5 zoom, compelling not because I need it but because it has the ghostless lens coatings as found on the Limited lenses.

Speaking of limited... I'd LOVE to get my hands on a DA 40 f2.8. BUT... what is 40mm aftter the 1.5andabit crop?

40 x 1.5 = useless.

(aside:Unfortunately, the DA 21mm f3.2 pancake, which I believe I would actually find a use for, seems to have had the 1.5x FOV conversion applied to its price, as well.)

I hear people proclaiming the glory of that little lens all the time, but what is someone like me going to do with a equivalent 60mm focal length? Absolutely nothing. I don't want to pay for limited quality in a long lens, because that would be stupidly expensive. All I want is a 300mm f4.5 that doesn't cost 800 bucks. I know it's possible - just have a machine make it instead of a real live person. [edit from 2019: haha remember when you could get a Pentax FA* 300/4.5 for $800 because they had been discontinued but nobody at the camera stores knew that or understood why they were priced that way?] We don't need DA* lenses, nor did anyone really need FA*, F*, A*, or M* lenses. Pentax sold those to people who were too quick to go ROFLMG I WANT TEH GOAD LANSE???, as is evidenced by the number of people on the dpreview forums who have collected several of the FA* lenses and won't go near anything else. I'm sure they're nice, but imagine if you put their features in a regular lens - the price would have been quite a bit less, and chances are Pentax would have been able to afford to make more of them so people like me wouldn't be sitting on the outside of your elitist little clique, jealous of the fact that you got into photography earlier than I did. At least with the limited lens, you're getting metal construction, a real manual focus feel, and the ghostless coating... of course, when the 77mm limited costs like 700 bucks, that's also not likely to work out. Not that 77mm would be good for me, either.

sigh.

Well, the good news is I found out today my rebate papers processed, so I get my money back.

Happy Birthday, Camera!

I was screwing around with the flash again and took image 1000. Happy birthday, camera!

Sensor dust

I learned two lessons today.

1) Sensor cleaning kits are expensive, and the people at Ritz are too monumentally stupid to even carry them.

2) It's a very good thing I never shoot stopped down because cleaning the sensor only made it worse, if not damaging the protectant.



Isn't that pretty? That's what my squeeze blower did. Now, after expending four of my 12 swabs (that cost me, along with their methanol, over 60 dollars), that stuff is mostly gone. It appears there's a scratch on the upper right corner of the sensor as-you-face-it, which means there are weird markings at the lower right corner of the image. sigh... I think it's scratched now, but I guess I'm sending it off to whoever to have it professionally inspected at some point. Maybe it can still be cleaned by someone more able than I. Maybe not. I guess, if nothing else, I can use this as an excuse to buy a K100D in a month or so.

And uh... even if not, it's a good thing I shoot wide-open, right?

sigh.

I get to make new posts

An anonymous asked: "question for both of you, if that's ok - why the specific equipment selections?"

I can respond clearly instead of burying it at the bottom of crappy blogger comment pages.

When I got my first camera, it was a 110 format point and shoot that I loved to death. I think literally; I don't remember what happened to that camera.

After that, I graduated to my first self-chosen camera - I loved the APS cameras that let you choose the print size. I got a kodak P&S camera that I still have, and actually used a couple times a few years back. I don't remember how much it cost, but it went around the country a couple times with me. Then my grandparents got me a Nikon 35mm point and shoot that I rarely used because I stopped taking pictures for many years. I still have that, as well.

About 2002, my mom switched systems because someone got her a Canon Rebel film camera. She liked the features and such, and so gave me her old Pentax MX and two lenses for it: the smc-P 24mm f2.8 and the smc-P M 135mm f3.5. I started buying Kodak Max 800 film because of the aforementioned shake problems, though I would run a black and white roll here and there. I never much got into B&W, so I tend to miss the things people who shoot color tend to miss, most notably Aperture Priority metering.

My dad elected to get me a pair of Tamron zooms for Christmas one year, a 28-80 f3.5-5.6 AL and the now-discontinued 80-210 f4.5-5.6. He also found/bought a smc-P M 50mm f1.7. I used the zoom so extensively that I started to get itchy for a body that supported Av mode. That led me to the near quixotic quest of finding a pentax film SLR that didn't have the crippled K mount (like the ZX-30/60 and *ist). Surprisingly, the Ritz had something like that in stock, which led me to the Pentax ZX-L. Probably the most versatile film camera they'll ever sell short of the MZ-S, it supported almost all of the functionality of the previous pro models (excepting power zoom, the useless panorama mode of the PZ-1P, and something else I'm forgetting) while adding the wireless flash control and high-speed flash sync of the MZ-S. I don't believe in flashes, so that didn't matter to me, basically.

Anyway, over the years my film taste shifted to the Fuji Superia 400 film that came oh-so-dirt-cheap from Target and the like to Kodak Ultra Color 400 film. Eventually, I discovered Agfa Optima 400 and didn't turn back. I shoot 400 because I tend to have some severe ADD when I shoot - I will go from macro to wildlife to ... well, that's really all I do... in the course of a single roll, so I need to plan for the highest quality at the worst conditions. For me, that's birds in trees. I got some what-I-would-call fantastic results with the last two types of film, so I wasn't complaining.

What precipitated the shift to digital was a combination of things. First, I can't get consistent quality film processing here. Most of the places that are well known (ESPECIALLY Ritz) are very good at throwing your film around in the cutting process, and more often than not, dragging the blade across the first frame to pass through after a cut. Techlab, a place that ONLY does film processing and printing, was guilty of the same, sometimes even worse than I got from Ritz. I found a good place to go, but the expense of taking upwards of 8 rolls of 36exp film a month had become prohibitive. Enter graduation; I told my family I wanted a camera and they obliged. I got the *ist DL because it was cheap enough (body only) to enable me to get the DA 16-45 f4.0 and DA 50-200 f4-5.6 lenses. Had I known what was up earlier, I would have forgone the longer lens and ordered one off of Willoughby's, but that's a bit of live and learn.

So, in summation: I was gifted into Pentax, I've stuck with it because the lenses are of high enough quality to justify not having fast extreme telephoto capability, and I justified my shooting media by way of "wildlife."

blah blah blah!

Call it a pet peeve

I'm sick of people on the internet putting the *ist DL in a different class than the *ist D or *ist DS. The *ist D, okay, maybe you can make a case for that, but the differences between the DL and DS are mirrors/prism and the number of AF points. That's practically it. All three cameras use the same sensor! My images should, with any given item of glass, be every bit as shiny as someone with an *ist D.

Shut up, internet.

Call Me Odin

No larger version because the picture sucks, but I just wanted to prove it was juvenile or something.

Anyway, I was on my way out of the office at about 8:25... I got to the little four-way junction between Key and Woods when I saw something flapping around the handrail leading down toward Main Admin. I figured "Great, a broken Grackle or Starling I'm going to have to kill... just how I wanted to end my day."

Lo and behold, it's a Juvenile Crow. I can see and hear its parents up above, too... presumably, they were rolling around the trees going "uh... where's our kid?" Anyway, the kid is frantically trying to fly, but it's just too young yet. It's hopping between bars on the handrail and the brick thing you see up above.

Eventually, it hops down onto the side, and I get up really close to it and start talking to it. "Hey bud, you look like you're in a bit of trouble. You gotta go over that way" as I point to the mulched area.

It wasn't listening, so I started pointing while I nudged its tailfeathers.

It looked up at me, then hopped off where I was pointing, retreating back into the corner.

I was going to take a better picture, but as I was getting set up, a blue jay crapped on my hand.

A good end to a terrible day, I say.

A Brief Musing

We all know about the term "going digital."

I was reading over http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=18815907 at dpreview when something odd struck me: someone said something to the effect of "it took me a long time to get used to digital."

Maybe it's because I just don't care about the features digital has to offer, or maybe it's that I was getting pretty good results with film, but I don't understand what there is to get used to when it comes to digital (except the really obvious like "no processing" and "remember to take memory cards").

Am I missing something?

Also - Josh, wow, does your camera ever hate color film or what! What stock were you using for the lillies?

and because I don't like looking at text...

Full size

We had a bunch of golf pencils with a rubberband around them. I added a regular pencil to make it a hexagon, then pushed all of them in the center out so that the edge tension held them together. Isn't that neat? :-!

Lenses and the *ist DL

Note: this post is something of a response to a comment. Forgive me if the part about the 50-200 doesn't make any sense out of context, because I'm not rewriting it.

Here's my thoughts on the lenses I own as coupled with the *ist DL.

smc Pentax-M 1:1.7 50mm
I'm actually not sure I've used this lens forward. I really liked it with film, so I can't see how eliminating vignetting and corner softness could hurt my opinion of it.

Reversed, this lens is about the same in my eyes that it was for film as well. The CCD seems to make softness away from center even more apparent, so there's no benefit in terms of that. The apparent increase in magnification is nice. Color rendition is at least comparable to the DA 16-45, as is seen in these two photos: Berries, reversed 50mm at something resembling f5.6 or half a stop between 5.6 and 8, and then Berries, DA 16-45 f8.

smc Pentax 1:2.8 24mm
Is this lens even an M series? I know I haven't used this lens forward yet. I'll try that this week and let the internet know.

Reversed, this lens is fantastic. You can find sample images here and here. Both of those images were taken at ISO 800, I believe. Basically the magnification is relatively extreme, so if you want to caputre something that's not moving but is very small, good on you. The alien crab demon was probably only marginally larger than the visible portion of the ball in a ballpoint pen. Wink! Downsides include: five blade aperture, which means petal surfaces tend to render as a beautiful solid color field filled with little tiny pentagons of various colors. this is only a problem at incident angles that result in these highlights occuring though, and when I took pictures of the cherry blossoms this way with film, I had no such problem. Additionally, the magnification is SO high that it is very difficult to focus on anything when the lens is stopped down (i.e. when the viewfinder becomes very dim to give a usable depth of field). The working distance is also VERY small, such that at an angle of less than about 40 degrees, the lens housing tends to contact whatever surface is holding your subject. Not very useful sometimes.

smc Pentax-M 1:3.5 135mm
With FOV crop, this lens is roughly equivalent to my old 80-210 on film. The obvious advantage to this is that it's a familiar view through the finder while at the same time also being more than a stop faster (3.5 v. 5.6). This shot was taken with said lens wide open. Here is a 100 percent crop of the frogs. The sharpness is dependent on incident light without the hood extended, as I forgot in that sample up there. You can tell that, if stopped down and used responsibly, it should be a near-perfect lens - I doubt it's easy to resolve spider webs from 25 feet away. It's nice and compact, roughly half the size as my tamron zoom. Since it's metal, it probably weighs twice as much as my DA 50-200 zoom. To say the least, it enabled me to take a shot I wasn't able to take with either of my other telephoto lenses, and that's worth more to me than anything else.

Tamron AF 80-210 f4.5-5.6
I only used this lens at full extension. For examples, roll out to my SQH state park gallery and check out the photos of the heron fishing. Color is pretty good, and though I swear that some of the images ended up looking like I had added a coat of vaseline to the lens, sharpness is good. The corner softness you might see in the lens is outside the image circle area, so all in all, it's quite useful for birding. Quite nicely, the lens has a 7-blade aperture, reducing distraction. Problems with this lens are problems regardless of what camera you mount it on: it's a bit large, has a limited zoom range, and has a noisy AF gearing. If I know I'm going to be doing primarily bird photography, this lens will be a must in my bag.

smc Pentax DA 16-45mm f4.0 ED AL
What can I say... Pentax would have had me pay $549.95 for this lens. I got it for $410 from B&H, and I'm sure it would be worth it at either price. I got used to 24mm as a wide angle on my film cameras, so I decided that the equivalent focal length would be worth more to me than the .33x magnification of the Pentax DA 18-55 f3.5-5.6 AL. Sharpness and color are good, as can be seen in images like this one and this one. Add a polarizer, and you get this. Ding. Problems are limited to the physical nature of the lens. At 16mm, the lens is almost 10 inches away from your eye. This is, coincidentally, such a length that your filter is basically making contact with whatever subject you might be minimum-focus-distancing upon. This also means the camera's flash is unusable at wider angles, as the lens barrel itself is in the way. If you're considering a Pentax digital, forgo the kit lens and spend the 300 dollar difference to get this one (as long as you actually want wider-than-28mm field of view). I have noticed some chromatic aberration (purple fringing, specifically) on some shots where there's a great deal of backlighting. This was basically a dark room shoothing through a wire chair between me and the window on an overcast day - it was, effectively, the dumbest picture I could have possibly taken. In practice, this is purely academic, though, as I haven't noticed any problems with it since. SPOILER ALERT!!! It is worth noting that this lens has an 8 blade aperture. None of pentax's literature says this. Needless to say, I was obscenely happy when I discovered that.

smc Pentax DA 50-200mm f4-5.6 ED
I'm not sure my DA 50-200 does the camera justice. The lens seems to be a bit squirrely on AF, though the manual focus is very fast compared to my tamron 80-210. I bought the new zoom for a couple of reasons. First, I decided that I needed ED glass in the telephoto range; I had already noticed some chromatic aberration and occasional softness in images I took closer to into-the-sun angles, so since I have a bad habit of getting myself into that situation, and since the after-rebate price was appealing, I said "what the hell" and went for it. Second, the physical size of the DA is amazing. You can see the difference between it and my old zoom here and here. The whole assembly becomes a lot lighter, which itself has two advantages: first, the balance stays closer to the same place at 50mm when you zoom to 200mm, and second, when I carry the camera around, I don't find the lens auto-extending to full zoom because the front element/lens hood combination weighs too much for the internal mechanisms to resist the pull of gravity.

Downsides? Six blade aperture; this is less a problem for me than most people because, as someone who takes a lot of pictures of birds, I leave the camera on aperture priority mode and have it permanently stuck to the widest aperture. This means I probably get a lot of edge softness. What I avoid are hexagons in the background -- if you don't do what I do, then you may have more of an issue with this than I do. Additionally, there's a little bit of a grinding sensation when you twist the focus ring manually. I think this is just the byproduct of a telezoom with a fixed front element, but it is a little unsettling. Finally, since the front element fits inside a 52mm filter ring with room to spare, I'm not sure how much light this lens actually lets through. It probably has some effect on flare, but I don't know what that is yet.

That's about it. Do with this information what you will.

Oh yeah, one more thing

In 16 days, I've taken 464 pictures. 

Bugtography

Blah blah blah. I went to Centennial Park again today, digital and film cameras in hand. Unfortunately, the number of visible birds wasn't conducive to finishing off my roll of film from three weeks ago (oops), but I did still manage to take a whole lot of pictures while I was there. 71 to be exact, 31 of which were awful. I just lamented that I never would have taken 31 terrible pictures if not for the digital "it doesn't count" reality... but then again, I also wouldn't have taken 40 decent pictures.

Live and learn? Not so much on the learn, just appreciate.

*ist DL - 4th Day Impressions

So I've had and have been using my *ist DL for four days now. Here's what I've determined so far:

Image Quality
The difference between in-camera JPEG and RAW processing to TIFF/PNG -> JPEG for internet is not appreciable enough for me to continue spending an hour and a half for 47 images. Most of that time was, in fact, copying and processing, so I did almost NO correction or cropping to the images in the gallery below. I suppose that, in the event I have enough money to purchase a faster computer, the process may again become attractive. The Adobe-processed raw files have a more natural feel to them than the images that came out of Pentax's Photo Lab software, but Photo Lab's interface isn't a bear and a half, so it's a trade off either way. I think that, for now, I'll be happy with JPEG.

Camera Feel
The camera handles beautifully. It feels more solid than my ZX-L. It also weighs a lot more, which makes handling my 80-210 lens that much more difficult -- not only do I now have to cope with an effective 315mm max extension, but I also have to build up more strength in my fingers and wrists to hold the weight of the batteries and electronics. The good news is that the 16-45 lens is lighter than most of my M lenses it "replaces" in terms of focal lengths.

Operational Concerns
The camera is surprisingly nimble in terms of operation, even for someone like myself who wants all of the manual features available at a moment's notice. Everyone on the internet was ripping into Pentax for putting things like White Balance and ISO under a menu interface -- I find, however, that the function button coupled with a few clicks of the four-way controller is natural enough that I'm finding myself able to switch to higher ISO settings when necessary. I have the camera ordinarily set to go ahead and correct up to ISO 800, a setting at which there is virtually no noticable noise in "suitable" sized images for online publication. Today, since I knew I was going to be out in broad daylight, I went back to the camera-default 200-400 range. There were a couple shots, however, that were too dark. Changing took me less than two seconds and I didn't lose the shot as a result.

A sticking point for me - Compatibility for the M lenses I have. While I would be remiss in not calling the company out for leaving off the aperture simulator on the body, I must say that the use of the old M/K lenses is surprisingly straightforward and quick. Since the process hasn't been firmly documented anywhere else, here's how you use an old K/M (non-A/F/FA/FA-J/DA) lens on at least the *ist DL body:

1- attach lens
2- set camera mode to Manual
3- push the AE-L button on the back right shoulder of the camera body.
4- OPTIONAL - based on the shutter speed now displayed in the viewfinder, make whatever adjustments to aperture you think you need/can get away with
5- OPTIONAL, needed if step 4 taken - push AE-L again
6- take the picture

The results were pretty good, I must say. My 135 f3.5 took this picture for me. It's a shot that I got at wide-open aperture that I was too parkinson's to get with my 80-210 at f5.6. The quality is great, the operation was easy, and I think anyone questioning the use of old lenses (especially for open-aperture applications like wildlife shooting) can rest easy in the choice of a modern Pentax DSLR instead of a change in lens system.

The DA 16-45 f4.0 lens
The lens itself seems great to me. I wish it were a little faster, but all things said and done, the lens is a fine wide-angle replacement for me. One thing I like is the close-up focusing. I thought I would miss the difference between .33x and .25x (the difference between the kit 18-55 f3.5-5.6 and the 16-45), but with the FOV crop, the effective magnification is good enough for my tastes. I haven't tried any reverse work yet, but I may be able to stop engaging in that silly behavior for the most part. The 24 reversed may well be useless on this sensor, anyway, as its magnification was so great that I as much as required either very bright direct light or a flash (which I can't afford). This lens is good enough to see the segments of a butterfly's compound eyes, which is good enough for me. None of my other lenses can do this forward. I will say that a bit longer zoom range would be nice, but the wide angle more than makes up for it. The only problem with the lens is that at 16mm, the camera from front to back comes to be about 9-10 inches long, longer if you leave the hood on. A bit odd, as far as what I'm used to.

Conclusion
I couldn't have asked for anything better. The lack of the prism viewfinder is unimportant, as the internal view is great anyway. The missing "pro" features from the *ist D like Hyper-this and that don't matter to me, so I don't miss them. I "do" miss the vertical grip, but it's a feature I haven't had on any other camera, so I'm not sure how much use it would see. There's also the continuing issue of added weight, which isn't cool with my tiny hands. I'm glad I sprung for the expensive lens. I'm glad I sprung for the Extreme III SD card, as its read and write performance are better than the camera's. That's really the only downside - the lack of ridonkulous continuous shooting capability a la the D70s. I say oh well - given that I'm not using instant review at all and have limited my in-the-field review of shots to those that I don't have any reason at all to believe were worth keeping, I don't need a burst of 15 shots at once to review over the next minute and a half. I'd rather sit and watch the action unfold, and that's how I roll.

I recommend the camera! :-! now i'm an internet reviewer.

A few thoughts

First: I ordered a camera yesterday at 3:30. It still hasn't finished processing. I had to verify a shipping address today. Bets on me receiving it before the K100D ships? (Shake reduction in-body will only cost me 700 with the kit lens, Josh -- too bad I want a camera now more than I want a better camera later.)

Second:

Isn't that special. It's the best out of the latest round of photos. Oh well.

Breaking down and joining the present

So I've decided that I need to get a digital SLR. I'm going the *ist DL + DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 + (maybe) DA 50-200mm f/4.0-5.6.

Why the *ist DL? Well, I investigated the reviews on the *ist D, and it writes too slowly to the CF card to be of much use for birds and macro of things that move. The *ist DS is no longer available except by eBay, and the *ist DS2 was discontinued because of product failure (or so the guy at ritz told me...).

The new pro model will probably be available next year, and it will probably be somewhat compelling. For the time being, the DL can be my go-to, and my MX and ZX-L can stay in the bag as a film backup for the things the DL can't do.

I looked at Nikon's D70s too, but the change in lens system isn't worth it - Nikkor lenses are entirely too expensive and not very compelling for the price.

Canon's digital offerings aren't a good fit for me at all thanks to the way the aperture functions. That whole "you can't reverse the lenses" means I'd have to either stop doing macro or spend real actual money on a macro lens.

But then again, the DA 18-55 focuses at 10 inches. Ding!

On Seals, Sea Lions, and Animal Planet not knowing anything

Back to Ultimate Scavengers: they just showed Jackals feeding on baby sea lions. How do I know this? Sea lions are adept at "WALKING" on land, unlike seals, which must "AWKWARDLY FLOP ABOUT" due to their "LACK OF LOW-SET LONG FEET IN FRONT" and "POSESSION OF A SINGLE TAIL-TYPE UNIT USELESS FOR FORWARD PROPULSION ON LAND IN BACK."

You'd think Animal Planet would get the difference between the two correct...

[Edit] Okay, fine. There are eared beings and earless beings within the pinniped group. Earless seals, which is what I think of as seals and are also known as "true seals," and eared seals, some of which are (rightly) called sea lions and others of which (the fur seals) are blessed with the seal misnomer. They should be called sea lions. Why would you create a separate familial classification, then retain an improper name?

Stupid biologists.

On Birds and People who Don't Know Anything

There's a show on Animal Planet right now about scavengers... they just finished up a segment about the vultures of South Africa (Cape Griffon, Lappet-Faced Vulture and the like). One of the things they felt it necessary to point out was that the old-world vultures and new-world vultures are externally similar, but vastly different. Old-world vultures rely entirely on eyesight to locate and evaluate food: they either don't have or have an extremely limited sense of smell.

I don't know why the distinction is all that hard to accept. The wikipedia entries on new- and old-world vultures explains that they evolved from separate families to perform the same function. This isn't surprising: both have powerful feet, broad wings, and a lack of feathers on the head to aid in cleaning.

The difference comes in lineage: old-world vultures are members of the accipitridae family which, as you might guess if you know of hawk classifications, are the birds of prey. This is so plain upon inspection that I don't know how you could make the mistake of believing that new-world vultures are at all similar. Old-world vultures, best exemplified by good shots of the Cape Griffon, have their eyes set forward in their heads and a very pronounced hawk-like beak, hooked at the end.

The vultures you find in America (Turkey and American Black vultures) have their eyes set on the sides of their head and have long, slender faces and appropriately sized and shaped beaks. They're much more slender in that regard, though their heads are much thicker on their necks (at least, upon cursory inspection they are).

Rants like this are probably the key to understanding my way of thinking.

[edit from 2019: unsurprisingly, I ended up volunteering at the national zoo for five years, during which time I got to explain the concept of convergent evolution to literally tens of guests]

Centennial Park

At the recommendation of a friend, I went to Centennial park today to birdwatch. I did so lazily, but still saw and laughed at the following species of birds.

Less obvious:
Yellow-Rumped Warbler
White-Throated Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Grackle
Red-Winged Blackbird (including a juvenile)
Red-Shouldered Hawk
Eastern Towhee
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
Brown Thrasher

Better known birds:
Canada Geese
Turkey Vulture
Cardinal
Blue Jay
Goldfinch
House finch
Mockingbird
Robins (a LOT of them)
Mourning Doves

The ones I'm not so sure about:
Swallows of some sort
A martin? Maybe some kind of giant swift?
some VERY loud little bird i have yet to see from a good angle

And, not a bird, but I saw a GIANT frog that let me get within three feet of it, so I have a pretty good-sized picture of it sitting there.

I'll post pictures when they come.

Cherry Blossom Festival

At long last, I've managed to scan and share two pages of cherry blossoms and such. Okay, some of the shots on the second page are not of blossoms. But! I took some 50 or so pictures of those, so forgive me for not actually scanning all of them.

[edit from 2019: I'm leaving this post up as a sort of historical record of dealing with shooting flowers without a dedicated macro lens]

That said, a few notes:

I apologize for the scratches in the shots. As I always have to do.

A lack of sharpness in some/most pictures can be attributed to me having to run Photoshop CS2's Dust and Scratches filter on them. It works somewhat well, but it also does a good job of murdering some fine detail.

Most of the up-close shots are from my 50mm f/1.7 reverse mounted to the camera. The full-frame shots of the single blossoms are the 24mm f/2.8 reverse mounted. Close focus with deep field of focus are probably the 24mm, though a couple here and there might be the 50mm.

Blossoms 1-21 are Kodak 400UC, as is the leaf sprout picture. The rest are Agfa Optima 400.

The pictures are gigantic in physical size because I plan on using a couple different ones as wallpaper at work. The total gallery size is like 24 megabytes, so you may want to be selective in viewing images if you are not on broadband.

Order up

Good news!

Today I ordered 49mm and 52mm reversing rings. I decided to do that because it's a LOT cheaper than extension tubes (although the pentax helicoid or "adjustable" extension tube, at about $140 is VERY tempting) and my 24mm lens is muy excellante when reversed if I get the exposure right. See small blue flower for reference.

At the same time, I ordered two rolls of Agfa pro 400 film, so next couple of weeks should produce dozens of fantastically awful pictures of flowers. It's what I love about spring (that and groundhogs).

Oh, silly Communication

Update:

I have, in better judgement a couple weeks later, pulled the text of the email.

Let the following thus be known:
I do not respect people who do not respect me. If you make an enemy of me, I will do everything in my power to hurt your feelings.

I find it intriguing that a graduate-level representative of the Communication department would have the outright audacity to cite our policy when she herself is so fond of leaving eight or more thousand dollars of equipment laying around unattended.

Later, I called her out on it. Since then, she has waited with the equipment, but only with the biggest chip on her shoulder one could possibly imagine.

Even better than her not wanting policy to work against her, I'm pretty sure she reported my office's "misconduct" to the chair of the department. I haven't had a problem with the faculty, nor do I think I will: most of them seem nice enough. Both the graduate student and myself will be finished here in a lot less time than it would take to have everyone at this office fired. Just FYI.

Oh, and next time you take the time out of your oh-so-busy schedule to yell at me about how absurdly terrible our service is, please reconsider signing any follow-up messages with "Best" or "Kind" regards. Oh, and for the sake of communication, please respond to the messages that ask whether you will need stuff in the future because you didn't tell us you cancelled classes.

Got all that?

Colorless musings

I want to do black and white with a normalish lens for one reason: I seem to take decent pictures that way. With bw film and longer lenses, you generally don't get enough homogenous color to have a meaningful exposure. I took a lot of good pictures of geese last year that I didn't want on a black and white frame, but they taught me an important lesson: sometimes, not "having to worry about the color interactions" means not "having to worry about having taken anything but an awful picture."

With a normal lens, one that focuses reasonably close as my 50/1.7 does, I get the presto chango of being able to say "wow I bet parking meters look really good in black and white." Thinking "I want to take pictures of a dark sidewalk" or "This stairwell is particularly inspiring" works out well also. 

And I might finally have an excuse to process myself. who would know?

Blidget

well would you look at that, blogger released a blog widget for the mac. Now I can update again! ZLAMO

Tales of Interim Supervision

I took over at the office on Monday. God, was that ever miserable. Today wasn't as bad; I still feel, however, like I didn't get anything done because people were asking me to do things they could do. Whatever; it'll be worth my while. What's going to take some time to get used to is the waking up before the sun and getting home after 6:00. Again: whatever. I plan on birding as much as possible on weekends (within reason), so I at least have a blowoff planned. It'd be nice to come up with music thing this spring, but I dont' have much in the way of hope for that because nothing has ever come of anything I've ever shown initiative in (except for an ongoing email conversation that I hope I didn't kill last night).

I went hawking sunday. I found a lot of birds while I was out. This was only a problem because there was no way for me to get pictures of most, and the two I was able to stop for flew off as I was focusing. I really need a faster lens so I can get AF-assist on my ZX-L. In the meantime, I'll be using the MX. Not that this is a problem; I love that camera. It's just a bit harder to use for things that move.

I'll post more stuff when I get it. I'm so dead right now.

My comment didn't post

so it gets to be a post to garner comment.

ironic.





okay I'm going to try to do this... bear with me, for I am somewhat intoxicated.

Why Liberty Reservoir? Because I went driving and that's where I ended up. I had never seen either the sparrow nor what I believe to be the warbler before, so it paid off.

Considering other locations: once I have the time and money to take good film and the car up to SQH state park, I'm going there... don't worry. I wanted to go there yesterday but I decided against it when I realized I didn't have the disposable for it. I'll keep the others in mind, though. WINK!

The square cropping I would say is entirely incidental to the amount of crap in my frames, but really it's partially chance and partially preference. I take a lot of pictures largely for "hey look at that" and if it happens to fall in a square, I'd rather keep it to that. I think part of the problem is that I want to crop to "desktop picture" aspect, so I can use them later. The film grain is inherent to the budget fuji I use; I've been shooting ISO 400 superia for ... well, just about 8 months now. It's been "good to me" but not quite as much so as the Max 800 from Kodak used to be. Shutter/F-stop is up for grabs. The only thing I remember is taht I mid-roll changed the one with the goose head going all the way up to the sparrow. They're not sequential in this gallery, but it's possible if A) you remember when you took the roll out and B) advance to the "same" place + a frame or two (I blanked two) for the retake. The goose, duck, and birds in flight were all taken with my smc-Pentax 135 f/3.5; it was very late afternoon (i.e. 4:30 or so), so there was not much available light, and as you say yourself, it was cloudy. All things considered, I think they turned out well, though with the houses in the background, I would never "publish" them. Shutter speed is beyond my recollection, though I will guess for the earlier it was between 1/90 and 1/500. When I was at liberty, I was all over the place; I went from 1/90 on a couple shots on that roll (the BARE minimum for my f/5.6 210 + 2x teleconverter) all the way up to 1/2000 (that I remember). Not all of them made it intot he gallery, obviously; I chose the ones I did primarily for "look at that bird" or composition. The ladybugs are a prime example of lessons learned. the two 24mm macro shots are much too dark, in my opinion, as well as being subject to flare. I know now that I need to pay special attention to keeping sun off the convex element on the back of the lenses when I reverse macro like that.

A second problem with "the way I do things" is that my 80-210 goes over whatever my camera's internal limit for autofocus or even AF/assist is I'm entirely on my own for those; if I were to start using my MX exclusively with the teleconverter, I'd be much better off; first, its finder is a pentaprism, .95 magnification .95 FOV, and it's a LOT brigher than the ZX-L. the problem with it, of course, is that my hands are too weak to turn the shutter knob quickly. I'm forced to choose between ease of exposure or ease of focus. I need to keep my zooms on the MX and the primes on the ZX-L. I think that'll give me the best results. Unfortunately, it took you pointing that out to convince me to change my ways. Heh.

A corrolary to most of this: if I had been using ISO 800 I probably would have gotten better focus at the lake. Considering that I was going one stop slow and most of those were "most of the way" there, the extra f of aperture might have been the difference (if used with the MX, obviously). I don't have time to DOF preview the birds, for obvious reasons, but I get away with a lot more of that because of the nature of my tastes: I shoot a lot of still stuff now that I do macro stuff.

Now, a final consideration on film speed: I don't have the time and expenditure to go with 100 or HQ 400 on the free days I have, most of which correspond to the worst days weatherwise to take pictures. With the ISO 1600, I was able to get close enough to the pictures that mattered that the grain was ancilliary; with the prints, they look old but the detail still shows up; with the negatives, whatever- they'll be digitized and shared as 1600 ISO. For me, it's less the appearance of the picture itself than it is what I've taken a picture of. As long as the limitations of the film aren't greater than what I want to try to convey, then it doesn't matter. You're right that I need to get a larger format camera and play around with it, but I have a lot invested in 135 at the moment, so I'm inclined to be cheap and lazy and continue to pay for my mistakes and adjust strategy because of it (i.e. find an additional body cap, cut ou the middle, and fashion a crude hood out of it to reduce flare for reverse macro pictures).

On Holiday Representatives

Caleb: is it wrong to tell a child that santa isn't real
Caleb: and if he was..... he'd be dead

Nat: santa's a spiritual creation
Nat: santa's as real as people want him to be
Nat: I see it as a completely different creation than the easter bunny



later, different computer:



Nat: what was I talking about
Nat: oh yea
Nat: no santa has a meaning completely separate from the function of the holiday he's associated with, but unlike the easter bunny, manages to maintain the basic ideals of the primary figure in spite of that fact
Nat: basically, jesus and santa share goals
Nat: so the meta existence of santa is acceptable
Nat: whereas the easter bunny is useless

Caleb: so we eat him

Nat: well he is made out of chocolate
Nat: you'd think he'd learn ot take a different form

Caleb: I know right

Nat: if the angels that appeared to talk to mary about jesus's coming had been made of chocolate, do you think she would have listened?
Nat: maybe to their screams of pain
Nat: so that's like 2 against the easter bunny
Nat: irrelevance AND delectability

Caleb: HAHA
Caleb: but they make santa out of chocolate too

Nat: well see
Nat: the point of santa is not consumption of chocolate
Nat: sure in your stocking you'll get choclate coins and uhh
Nat: icecicles
Nat: and some other stuff
Nat: and sometimes even chocolate santa false idols
Nat: but santa exists to say "hey, look, you people watch this: I'm going to be senselessly nice to everyone, you should try the same"
Nat: you'll notice nowhere in that mission statement is "consume chocolate representations of myself such that thou might be glad"
Nat: **
Nat: senselessly nice to everyone who was ince
Nat: I guess santa really doesn't like bad people
Nat: that makes him more like old testament God than Jesus

Caleb: well

Nat: maybe that's why germans came up with him

Caleb: he gives you a chance to do good

Nat: put a friendlier face on old school God

Caleb: Old testament God just kills you

Nikon's Decision

I don't feel like linkwhoring, so google news for yourself: Nikon UK announced a discontinuation of all their film SLRs (and possibly point and shoots) with the exception of the FM10 and F6 (?), the manual and pro-grade cameras, respectively.

This makes me sad, but not for any obvious reasons.

The present and future states of camera
Canon and Pentax are likely to follow suit. Their departure from the film SLR realm means that everyone else is likely to agree that catering to the 135 crowd is a waste of effort. Pentax has already shown signs of an unhealthy disrespect for its existing customers; two of their three current film cameras don't support the simulator coupling, so old manual lenses either flat out can't be used (ZX-60) or won't expose properly unless you know what you're doing (*ist). With the film *ist, that's especially amusing, because the digital *ists will meter when you use depth of field; evidently the feature isn't that hard to implement. I also know that Pentax isn't keen on selling the MZ-S, their pro camera, here in the United States. Given that I already have both a ZX-L and the classic MX, I can't say that the discontinuation of the lines means that much to me immediately. There are two implications, however: when the ZX-L dies, I'll need a replacement for it, and if everyone drops their cameras, I won't be able to buy film as easily as I can now.

Why I'm an analog kind of guy
People have said that I'll never 'go digital.' I think they're right, mostly. I take a lot of pictures, but there's a difference between the pictures I take now and the pictures I would take digitally. With a film camera, I'm forced to contemplate prior to pushing that silver button that immortalizes (or at least allows to age) the scene I've selected in my viewfinder. I have to consider first of all whether or not the composition in my viewfinder is even remotely worth the film and processing costs. more on this later... Second, I know that the film and printing are going to leave certain characteristics on my image. This is exactly the sort of thing that doesn't translate to digital. I won't speculate as to the superiority of one format or the other, but there are things happening every time I open that film up to the outside world that I depend on in order to produce the image I think I want to. Do I take a lot of failures? You bet. Are they expensive? Of course. Do they take up space? Each print and the space on negative, yes. Something important happens each time I screw up an exposure, though: I learn a lesson. The lesson may not be very comprehensive, and it may not even be one that would bother most other people, but I learn it. With a digital SLR, I would take more pictures, but instead of being able to evaluate them later, I would glance at it on the spot and throw it away. I can see two reprecussions here: first, even some (most?) of my questionable images are worth keeping around if only as taped up snapshots at the office; and second, I wouldn't be able to really see on the spot what I had done wrong and would stop getting better at photography. I realize that's a bit presumptive for me to say, but I really think that if I were to use only digital cameras, I would fail to realize my potential. Remarks about how easy it is to be a photographer aside.

Why I still want a digital camera
All that said, I do see some advantages to taking pictures with a digital camera. First, I have taken a few rolls recently that would have been much better suited to digital photography than film. With my birds, I will blow through 50 shots in an hour with no second thought. Maybe seven or eight frames end up as "worth it." I don't stop to care because when the subject is in motion, I don't have the time to stop and care. In this situation, taking the shots digitally and having prints made of the results would be more worthwhile.

Then there is the processing.

The expense of developing and printing film doesn't offend me one bit. If it did, I wouldn't blow through film like I do. The problem comes in the value of having people develop and print the film for me. I've narrowed down the problem: the people handling my film either don't care about pictures or are incapable of doing the work right. Almost every roll of film I have had processed since March (when I first started inspecting negatives thanks to the availability of a scanner) has had at least half of the keepsake shots scratched beyond use. This is not my camera, as many of the frames don't have linear scratches on them, and they tend to be in one place varying by roll even if they are linear. Sometimes it is aberration at the cutoff edge, where strips of four are split for fit into the sleeves. What it amounts to is that the people handling my film at the store throw my film about in a manner inconsistent with the notion of caring about pictures, be they yours or someone elses. At least at the Ritz representative in Utah that I had processing done at, real live people looked at my pictures and even admired them. That meant a lot to me. What didn't was having the frame of a chickadee on the picture CD show up with a scratch in the print. Unacceptable. With a digital camera, I wouldn't have that problem. I have another choice: setting up and maintaining color processing chemicals so if there are any scratches in the negatives, they're my fault. That is, however, a lot of money. I can chalk that up to better knowing the process and function of film, but boy is it ever a tall mountain to look at.

Summations
So at the end of the day, am I sad to see the film cameras go? Of course. Is there a time and a place for digital? Of course. Is it for me? Well, I am, to the best of my knowledge, everything that requires film. I like to think about my compositions, I like to see the results, and I like to have them. There are aspects to digital that I would greatly appreciate: instant on when it comes to the internet, guiltless waste of frame with action/wildlife shots, potential for one device for color high and low sensitivity and black and white without needing a million 12 exposure rolls. The real problems are that I don't feel like spending three thousand dollars to replace my primes, and I don't feel like buying macro lenses to duplicate the reverse functionality I have with my current lenses. Will I buy a digital SLR? When there's a good Pentax one available. Will it ever be the format for me?

I'll die before I surrender my boxes of prints and negatives. Long live the past.

Burning desire

So does anyone know how to burn disc-at-once from Mac OS X? I want to copy the CDs in my wallet so I carry around cheap copies instead of originals, but OS X won't burn gapless tracks because iTunes is stupid.

This fresh off the heels of my purchase of Falling into Infinity. Go figure that I'd want to protect things I rarely find and, when I do, they're 19 bucks.

Woo.

Don't have much goin on, not at all. Sorry you wasted time reading this.

FINALLY. Stupid Comcast.

Pictures from Utah here. Most of them, anyway; I still have a roll I haven't scanned yet. I dont' know, I'm going to try to do that Monday. I'll post them when I get them.

Have a good one!

Also, Josh, you've inspired me to find either a sigma 50-500 f/2.8 zoom or a 500mm mirror reflex lens; with either of those I shouldn't need a teleconverter, but hell, I have one anyway so what's wrong with that? Oh, how about pentax's habit of making useless digital SLRs.

Sigh. At least I can take a trip to a state park soon.

It's a celebration

I'm working on sorting pictures from the Utah trip out right now, they'll be up in a new post in a few minutes.

In the meantime, i made it back safely (as you probably already knew). We flew on what has to have been the oldest 757 currently in service; its seats were falling apart and there were no individual A/C nozzles. Then, at BWI, I had to wait for my bags for 35 minutes. Apparently it was too much to ask the clowns behind the scenes to actually drive the luggage carts into the bag claim back-dock. Such is life.

Yesterday I sat around and did almost nothing.

Today, I sat around and did marginally more than nothing; I bought the last of eight Dream Theater studio albums and got gas. Once I got home, I started going through my pictures, trying to get them in some sort of order. I have a lot of pictures. I'm currently backing up my old photos directory from this site. You won't be able to get to the stuff online anymore, but if you have any requests, you're more than welcome to ask. I'm going to start using iPhoto's export command to make my galleries, because I am very lazy and take too many pictures to pretty up HTML for you each time I feel like sharing. You all get it; I know how to do neat things with CSS.

Off to the scotch and yelling at how useless comcast is!

Homeward Bound

I hop my plane tomorrow at 10 to fly back home.

It's been a good vacation, I think, though I didn't get much of a chance to do outdoorsy stuff. I took a boatload of pictures, admired the local bird population, took a couple walks, and saw my first herd of wild sheep. I'll be attempting to share the pictures with you as soon as I get back; the internet between here and school hasn't been too happy with my 12 megabyte archives.

I also recently discovered I won't be going to Florida this month. My mother seems to think it's more equitable if I stay here and she comes up twice in the next couple of months. Such is life, I guess. Just more time for me to sit around pondering life and playing mario kart over the internet (thanks Spenser). Well, that and Electroplankton.

AnywayI hope all is well with everyone and I will update when I'm done negative scanning.