Check before you pack

Rushing out to an event when you're half-awake is never a good idea. I thought I grabbed my 35mm f/2, and was I surprised to find the 50mm f/1.8 in my bag when I got to Lincoln Park for the Lion's Cars-in-the-Park event.

I made do with what I brought. I had to step back more for some shots, and the bokeh isn't ideal (check out the heptagonal OOF highlights). But when you're around so much beautiful metal, it doesn't matter what your hardware is like.

Hit rate: 45/114

Time does more than fly

It simply disappears.

Several updates:

1. The Nikon S3100 is gone, replaced by a Canon A3300IS. The delay between shutter press and release when the flash was used was a major inconvenience, so the camera's gone to a different home. The Canon is about the same size, with about the same image quality, but a much better flash implementation.

2. My Dell P1100 has been replaced by an ASUS PA246. The Dell (well over 15 years old) sometimes would not turn on, requiring several on-off-on cycles before it fired up.

3. The ASUS is a lovely screen, but I am having problems with calibration. The first one had a green tint, so back it went. The replacement cost $50 less (thanks Amazon for not allowing me to get a replacement and requiring me to order a new on instead), and has less of a green tint, but it's still there.

4. Related to #3, Datacolor is sending a replacement for my Spyder3 Elite after concluding that it's the unit that's at fault. I'll find out if that's true when the new one arrives next week.

5. The Nvidia GeForce 8800GT in my Dell XPS 420 finally died. An EVGA GTX 560 has replaced it. Slightly faster according to Windows, but now there's an occasional stutter in my audio. I'm still trying to figure out what happened. The 420 has been given a new breath of life with an additional 3GB and Windows 7 64-bit.

6. My Dell Inspirion 1420 bit the dust. The video problem finally killed it, and wouldn't you know it, the extended warranty is also over. Yet another Nvidia problem.

7. My Dell 2209WA also suffered an untimely death. A yellow vertical line shows up when the monitor is cold, and goes away once it's warmed up. Dell tech support naturally blamed user damage, and I had to argue with them that there's no way this could be my fault. They replaced it with a refurbished Dell U2212. Slightly smaller screen size at a higher resolution, so not exactly the ideal situation for an aging photographer. I calibrated it with the Spyder3 and it has a smaller color space than the 2209, so it's not the best replacement. I wish they could fix my 2209, but that's not the way things are done in this day and age. I wonder what will happen to it; I was tempted to ask Dell if I could buy it for $50; it would still work for web browsing.

That's what happens when you don't update your blog .

Monitor calibration and hardware failure

I helped a friend edit some wedding photos over the weekend. In the middle of the job, I noticed that the colors were off on both my monitors. It's been some time since I calibrated them, so out came the i1 v2. It took several tries before the software recognized the device, and the results had an orange tint on my LCD and a green tint on my CRT (and yes I could see it even if I'm partially red-green color blind). So out came the i1 v1, and now the calibration was acceptable.

Both i1's are technology that's several years old. I looked around and decided that a Spyder3 Elite would be a good upgrade. I found one for a decent price on Amazon, and I was surprised to find it at my door within a day!

Out of the box, the Spyder seems flimsy.  The cable is thin, not a good sign compared to the i1. There are also chrome surfaces, which never work on anything you have to touch. It also feels light, which makes it prone to moving when it's on a monitor. There's a detachable suction cup for attaching it to a CRT screen, but the cup looks cheap and doesn't work well; the Spyder fell off my CRT three time during use.

The software is not very user-friendly. I had to dig into it to figure out how to let it allow me to use the RGB controls on my monitors. I'm used to the i1's software, where you either pick the easy option (software compensates for everything) or the advanced (user adjusts everything). The software doesn't measure in real time; you have to tell it to measure after making adjustments. The i1 software shows the new measurements as you change settings, which makes calibration much faster. You don't have a choice on where to locate the sensor; it's smack in the middle of the screen, and moving the window just snaps it back to the center.

However, the results are much better with the Spyder. This is the first time I've had both monitors give me the same color and brightness (verified by having the same photo on both monitors).

To conclude, the Spyder is the better of the two devices in terms of results, but the i1 is the more user-friendly device.

Christmas toys

Merry Christmas!

I had two surprises under the Christmas tree, a Nikon Coolpix S5100 and an Apple iPod Touch Gen4. I wasn't expecting either of them, and one is a more welcome gift than the other, but a gift is still a gift.

I played with the Nikon during the family party, and the one thing that bothers me is the flash. In normal mode, it fires twice, with a noticeable delay between bursts. It's distracting to the subject(s) and to myself as it throws my timing off. I've read the manual, combed the web, and haven't found any mention of this behavior. It's not red-eye reduction; turning that on gives me four slow flashes. Talk about not being able to capture the moment.

The iPod Touch's camera is a good upgrade from my old 2nd gen. It's lighter, thinner, and those smooth, rounded edges are gone, which makes it easier to hold. The screen is sharper and compares well to my ancient HTC Touch Diamond phone. I haven't noticed any speed increases, and I've already ran an app that gave me a low memory warning, so that hasn't changed either.

More in the days to come as I use the two new toys.

Neglect

I just realized that I hadn't done a blog post in some time, my apologies to anyone who's reading this page. So here's a quick one of the recent lunar eclipse. The clouds started coming in a few minutes before it started, but luckily there were a few clear spots during totality.

This was a difficult shot to take. The moon was almost directly overhead, which caused problems for my tripod setup. I was able to rest the camera against one of the legs, and I used the DR-4 right angle viewfinder to allow me to see the viewfinder. You'd be surprised at how much the moon moves; images taken at 1sec were blurred. I had to boost ISO to 1600 to get a useable 1/2s exposure. The little white spots are either stars or distant planets.

D3, Sigma 500mm f/4.5, Nikon TC-14E