September 2003 Archives

So I haven't really had much time to play with the camera, but so far I am very happy with it. Compared to my old Rebel XS, the Digital Rebel is huge! It's close to 50% heavier and the 58mm diameter of the kit lense is quite a bit more impressive than the 52mm on the film camera and has a wider angle to boot--down to (effective) 28mm. The body size actually fits my hands better and it's still significantly smaller and lighter than the other digital SLRs that I have seen.

I've only taken a few pictures and having all that control is a blast. I really dig the fact that I can instantly see a histogram of my picture which allows me to adjust metering right on the spot (this evening sky needed a -1f shift). Plus the info view of the picture blinks any pixels that were clipped (100% color) which alerts you to severe overexposure. Still, in most situation the default metering works like a charm.

Jennifer likes it because "the camera makes her look cute". And I'm very happy that my old Speedlight 380EX that I bought for the Rebel XS works just as well (actually, even better) with the digital camera.

Here's a close up of my lemonade (during my photography class). That's something I couldn't do with my Powershot S10 and one of the reasons why I wanted an SLR. The other (beside the interchangeable lenses and huge image sensor) is the lack of shutter lag.

I got a couple of filters at Austin Camera today (they have a store-closing sale and filters are 40% off) and I'll have to get a bigger flash card and a firewire reader (those 6 megapixel images take a while over USB).

Overall, I'm a happy camper and I know I am about to start coveting lenses...

Here is some free advice. If you buy a display model of something, make sure that everything that's supposed to be in the box actually is in the box.

When I arrived with my new camera at work, I promptly wanted to charge up the battery--only to discover that the charger was missing! Everything else seemed to be there, so I made a quick trip to the store to retrieve my charger. No problem, they quickly found it under the counter.

Later at home, as I went through the manifest, I noticed that the lens cap was missing as well! So next day I trodded back to CompUSA to retrieve it as well.

I'm a bit miffed that the salesguy was not more conscientious about all the parts, but all's well that ends well.

After having read tons and tons of reviews, and putting my grubby hands on floor models at several local Best Buy and Fry's, I decided to look for a deal, ASAP. Disappointingly--but not surprisingly--all the online prices were pretty much the same and Best Buy just refused to be running any of their long-term financing specials.

Ever since Ray brought his ping-pong table to work, our goof-off activity was transformed from playing Delta Force to playing table-tennis. We even have a tournament ladder in which I languish on a lower rung. It's actually a lot of fun, especially since everyone is improving at a more or less equal pace.

When I was in Houston a couple of weeks ago, I managed to tear my last pair of contacts and since I had not ordered replacements (it's a common theme with me) I was stuck wearing glasses for the following week. It brought back memories of when I first got glasses as a child and how it messed up my playing back then, too. It takes a couple of days to get use to the periferal vision shift that is caused by the refraction in the glasses.

Today my new contacts arrived and I promptly put them in, ready to be back in my game. Sadly, I had quite a few missed balls since I now have to get used to the lack of the distortion that was caused by the glasses. Plus we're trying to follow "rules" which completely ruins my server. That's my excuse, anyway.

It doesn't help that I went out and bought some "real" ping-pong balls. Apparently today's balls are bigger and heavier at 40mm while the older ones we played with (and which are probably half a decade old) were the 38mm kind. I hope that as soon as I get used to my big balls, I'll suck a little less.

Elections came and went and every single one of the 22 propositions on the ballot were passed. It's a bit eerie, really.

I'm a bit bummed about Proposition 12. It's the one that allows the legislature to set limits on non-economic damages that can be awarded in a negligence lawsuit. Economic damages are the "loss of income" type--if I get disabled through to someone's negligence, I could receive quite a bit of money in economic damages (a grandma or a kid in the same situation would get bubcus since their earning power is nil). The non-economic damages are the "pain and suffering" kind, and are independent of one's earning power.

The whole thing was being sold as an emergency measure to keep our doctors in business. Supposedly all those frivolous lawsuits are driving up their liability insurance. Uh huh, right. It would not be the fairly small percentage of doctors that accounts for the vast majority of lawsuits, yet still are allowed to continue practicing and manage to get their insurance.

So now the non-economic damages which had already been capped by legislators are officially capped by a state amendment, and the legislature will be free to institute similar caps in other industries--I bet there is a lobbying feeding frenzy going right now.

The lobbying for and against prop-12 has been quite impressive. We've gotten all sorts of fliers in the mail, both pro and con. On one single day we received three big glossy ones. During the last few weeks, I'd been to my regular as well as eye doctors and both offices had pro-12 signs and cards that you could take home with you. Nothing like doing some politicking at the doctor's office.

I'd like to see a year from now how many doctors' insurance rated had gone down. I'd wager not many. And I'm not looking forward to the watering down of the consumer protection laws that is bound to happen. I am glad that voters in Travis County didn't fall for it--not that it did much good...

Woke up to the radio telling me that Johnny Cash died. The news, while sad, was not unexpected. He's had plenty of health problems over the years, and when I saw the pictures of him at his wive's funeral, I wondered how long it would take him to join her.

So another legendary great voice is gone. You've gotta love his gravely bass and the lyrics in his songs. His eventful life is reflected in his songs so well, distilled to the essentials without the schmaltz you heare in so much country and pop. Better tune in to Eklektikos today to get your dose of Man In Black music.

I'd like to record some of the KUT programs on my Mac for later listening or burning to CDs. I have found RadioLover a slick Internet radio recording application that works well with iTunes. Unfortunately the streamed audio from KUT is lacking in quality. This is definitely noticeable in muddy male voices and hissing "s" sounds. And it seems that other NPR affiliates have the same level of quality.

But maybe is hope yet. Griffin Technology is coming out with RadioSHARK this fall. It's essentially a Macintosh TiVo for AM/FM radio. I imagine that should give me a good quality recording that's worth listening to.

I went to the first session of my "Beginning Photography" class today and it was pretty informative. Our instructor, Joseph Pettyjohn is on the goofy side, but seems to know his stuff. In any case, I now have a better idea of what all those options on my old Rebel are for. I'll need to shoot a roll of film by this weekend to play with different aperture and speed settings--I'll try color slides, since I've never used those before. Now I need to find a good book about photography that covers all this stuff.

The class is an interesting collection of mostly-non-students. The cameras range from 1960s SLRs to the newest Nikons and Canon EOSs. One geek mentioned that he had the Rebel 300D on order, but then he decided to take the Advanced Photography class instead. I'll need to track him down and quiz him about his experience.

The class is in the ETC building at UT. I had the hardest time finding the stupid place, even though I probably took some classes there before. There are so many new buildings on campus from after my time, and there is a serious scarcity of maps. And then there don't seem to be any signs on the buildings themselves that actually mention the acronym that the buildings go by. I made it on time, but there were quite a few late stragglers in the class.

We spent a lovely weekend in Houston for the annual Cinco Ranch Triathlon. It seems like all of Jfer's family was doing it this year. I'm glad that Cynthia has not yet caved in, so I'm not the only one on the sidelines.

Due to the maze-like layout of the transition area and my unexpected baby sitting duties, I missed most of Jfer's transitions. Still, here are are my pictures that I managed to take.