by cg on December 30, 2006
Optio, actually my old Pentax Optio X camera, has been dispatched to Pentax repair for the 3rd time. Readers may recall that I liked it’s small size and swivel viewfinder that made it easy to quietly capture scenes for the N Judah Portfolio.
Last couple times, we received prompt response and quote for repairs, but it’s been a bit slower this time. Might just be the holidays, or, the news that Hoya has proposed acquiring Pentax in the rapidly consolidating digital camera industry makes me wonder if Pentax will be exiting consumer cameras to focus on scientific applications, as one press report suggested.
In any case, I have been searching for a camera with the same finder technology that lets the photog work heads down, as if using an old Rolleicord or Hasselblad. It’s amazing how that posture takes the photog out of the scene: subjects are at ease, not looking at the photog.
Roger suggested the Lumix DMC LZ50 as a possible, because of its swivelling rear LCD viewfinder. The Lumix is larger, more conspicuous, really a mini-SLR in size vs. the slender Optio X. It was also $600 (vs $400 for the Pentax) before Christmas at best prices (ignoring the $900 Leica-branded version), so we looked over the camera, saw that it had Leica optics on a 10.1 MP sensor and was generally well thought of, with the exception of a sensor noise issue. Of course, old analog me likes noise, the right kind anyway: think ‘grain.’ But we decided to hold off.
That is, until we noted the sudden post-holiday price plunge from $599 to $469, I ordered one, which arrived yesterday. Cassie and I tried it out on our walk this AM, and its imaging appears impressive at the price point. The 35mm minimum focal length (35mm camera equivalent) is a bit tight, but quite usable. Not too sure how often I’ll use the 420mm zoom, but I did like using focal lengths in the 70-200mm range this AM. The auto-stabilization, at first glance, is pretty good (I was juggling dog and camera, shooting one handed). Anyway, pic above with detail gives some idea of the camera’s capability – it’s a very small piece of the 10.1 MP pic, and it’ s pretty good… I’m also curious if the FZ50’s very nice Elmarit optics and dynamic range might work well copying old 11×14 B&W prints faster than a scanner…
by cg on December 29, 2006
Honest, I have been thinking for a long time about upgrading the LAN, making the gulker.com World HQ experience richer and easier to use and generally cleaning up the whole thing. I’m used to working against technology, defaulting to bad work flows because of a system glitch and otherwise working around things that should be working for me.
So, my resolution for 2007 is to make World HQ work for me (and Linda) a lot better than in the past. It should be easy to find things, it should be easy to do things, and everything a computer does well should be off my hands and delegated to its CPUs, registers and memory.
The starting point for me is the physical state of World HQ’s LAN and other systems accomodations. Years of adding and pulling computers, servers, experimental clusters, cam, scanners, HDTV demultiplexers et al. have left a pretty sorry mess that makes it really hard to change things. For one thing, every socket and power strip here is full, though many of the bricks’ wires lead to peripherals long gone.
We needed a fix: so one of the things I’ve done during radiation therapy, MRIs and othe time when thought-exercises were about all else I could do, was to think about how to fix things, and not just by tearing everything out and starting over again (which has been done a couple times now). Then, once I had a plan, I begun to try to deconstruct it to the fewest pieces that would be easy to manage, so that changing things going forward would also be easy.
Today we did the first protoype, code-named ‘cheesy crate’ after the $8 office-supply plastic file crate that is now the substrate, kind of like the telco racks in a server room, for the left side of gulker.com’s compute environment, presented here in before and after pix. A write-up, pictures-in-progress et al. are in the works…
by cg on December 28, 2006
One of the nice things about the spread of broadband, is that one can blog from almost anywhere. We’ve been blogging on our (wondeful) Santa Fe and Taos Christmas ‘road trip’: words and pictures as we make our way through cold and beautiful New Mexico. I snapped this photo of Linda in our cozy room in Taos as she updated First Blush after a jog this morning…
by cg on December 28, 2006
On our way back from Taos Pueblo yesterday, Linda and John did a little expert navigating to get us back via a suspension bridge that spans the Rio Grande. We parked and joined a few other onlookers who trekked out onto the two-lane bridge to see the river valley below. It was chilly and overcast and very atmospheric.
On the way back to the car, Linda browsed the tables set up by three roadsise vendors. On one she discovered a silver butterfly set with 6 pieces of different-colored turquoise, all from the same mine in Nevada, or so the story went. After the usual negotiations, butterfly has found a new home…
by cg on December 27, 2006
Everywhere I looked at Taos Pueblo, something caught my eye. The crosses on San Geronimo, the current church rebuilt in 1850 to replace the one destroyed by the U.S. Army with 150 people in it in 1847 were a study in white and gray against a dun sky. The church is very pretty inside, reflecting deep faith and a quiet joy: no photos are permitted. It was as calming a church as I have ever visited.
The painted skull adorns a wall by a small craft shop in Hlaukwima (south house). As you walk along the twisting walls and passages, many beautiful artifacts appear. By the gallery, 2 beautiful canvasses adorned a passage, one already sold…
by cg on December 27, 2006
This was as busy a scene as I saw in the Pueblo proper, other than the guided tour. This shop seemed to be a gathering point for people and dogs as the day was getting under way.
Nearby, this painted door on Hlauuma or north house caught my eye, one of many whose bright hue stood out against the tan adobe. The many blue doors seemed to echo the brilliant New Mexico sky, which, this morning, had fast moving high clouds and haze. The light would come and go, full sun to overcast, from the buildings’ many faces in seconds or minutes.
As hard as it was not to move from one beautiful scene to another, patience would often reward the photog: find a spot, compose and just wait until the light changed, and changed again, finally working that little extra magic, creating a shadow or revealing a highlight. Light is the magician, as Eugene Smith used to say…
by cg on December 27, 2006
We visited the famous Taos Pueblo this morning: I wasn’t quite prepared to find how achingly beautiful it was. I bought permits for both of my Nikons, and John and Linda both borrowed them when their eyes, too, were grabbed by the beauty of the place. The light changed continuously as we walked around Hlauuma (north house, seen above) and Hlaukwima (south house) challenging the photog to be in the right place when the right light came. Today’s offering: a mini-layout of images that caught my eye…
by cg on December 26, 2006
New Mexico is so pretty, that you can literally find an interesting image shooting through the window while zooming down the road. The sky is deep blue, the clouds luminous and unusual: the terrain changed every few miles as we made our way from Santa Fe to Taos. Fun ride, Linda at the wheel with CDs expertly DJ’d by Mr. Getze…
by cg on December 26, 2006
We ate Christmas dinner at Geronimo late yesterday afternoon. Like Ristra, Geronimo’s kitchen produces copious, inventive dishes that blend many flavors including, of course, Southwestern tastes. The wine list was good (for my tastes, anyway), and not overwhelming (though I’ll bet a ’special’ list lurks somewhere).
The hardest task, at least for John, was choosing from the many (perhaps 20 in all) dishes on the prix fixe menu. I think it’s fair to say we were all delighted, and the consensus was that we enjoyed our meals more, perhaps than even we had at the very nice Ristra the previous evening.
After dinner, we retired to La Posada, where the family was kind enough to prop me up in a chair by the fire while they played a furious card game called Phase 10 – when the dust had settled, only a few points separated winner from 3rd place, not uncommon in this competitive group. For the occasion, I ordered a local discovery, a bottle of Gruet Blanc de Noirs – a New Mexico-made sparkling wine – which is light and very dry, reminding me a little of Hans Kornell’s ‘Sehr Trochen,’ which Linda and I enjoyed as young marrieds. A loud, crackling fire of piñon wood capped the warm evening scene…