I also took some shots with film in a point and shoot camera that has a 24mm wide angle lens. Just to see how it compares with today’s DC. As “wait” is one of the major inconveniences with film, we’d have to wait for the finishing of the entire roll of film, wait for the development, and wait for the scanning… We’d just have to wait.
Where was Alec, you asked? He was inside the house playing GameBoy most of the evening. I’ve already told him that the whole idea of having dinner together is to be together, and even if he wanted to play GameBoy, he should have played it where most one else were at least half the time or at least with the other kids. But then again, he doesn’t have any personal game machine so he was caught up with it.
Many thanks to Aunt Nancy and Uncle Vic for having has over. We all had a great time!
To adhere to the “abstract” wallpaper theme that came with the Powerbook, here is my latest PB17 Wallpaper, by yours truly…
click on the image for full size
for Powerbooks should have some sort of locking mechanism on them. Not that I’ve found out the hard way but…, touch wood.
The Fujitsu ones are very tightly fitted with a clear click and are therefore much safer from accidental unplugs than those in Powerbooks.
Found this shop in Sai Kung Sunday evening with doggy clothes about the size of a kid’s head hanging on the window for HKD$395-$495 each!
Many times, I have been asked if any of the “cheap” digital cameras, some that looks like toys and some have more of a proper point and shoot digital camera look in a plastic body, are any good.
While major manufactures also have a few low end camera with plastic body, the trick is in the lens and the most important factor - the software which renders digitally captured raw images into photographic quality images. A digitally captured raw image is far from anything like a regular photograph. In fact, a raw image looks much much worse than any poorly exposed and poorly processed image from rotten film. The only difference is perhaps digital raw images have more of a consistent offset so the processing software within the camera can render the raw images back to photographic images.
This rendering process involves in various parameters such as exposure, sharpness, color, video noise control, file compression , as well as many other parameters in which only major manufactures have the resources to either program their own algorithms or contract them out. I suppose, like all other software, these image processing software can be pirated. However, a capable processor and a good lens would also be required, which is not something that’s readily available at low costs. The processor alone not only affects the quality of the images but also the speed and readiness for processing the next image.
Personally, I would even stay away from DCs made by watch companies, consumer electronic companies, even lens makers who actually have little or no previous experiences on making such small lenses required by DCs let alone making the process and programming the image processing software. That leaves only cameras from a handful of camera companies that’s truly capable of producing good photographs. To be honest, up until most recently, I have yet to find a point and shoot digital camera that matches the image quality of some film based point and shoot cameras at half the price. A few latest high-end point and shoot DCs are starting to produce some good results. Hopefully I’ll have something to report back soon.
Supports NTFS formatted harddisk. Confirmed.
Saves me some formatting trouble on the future external harddisk and XP compatibility.
Meanwhile, the Pleiades 800+ Firewire 800 external HD case seems nice. But at HKD$880 sans HD, will need next month’s pay check. Had thought about getting a Firewire 400 ext HD case with a 250GB HD for now, and wait for the price of a Firewire 800 ext HD case to fall. Any smaller HD would be a waste of a good ext HD case. However, even if the price of Firewire 800 ext HD case did fall soon, the price for the two ext HD cases combined would be about the same as a fw800 one now….
Since I still have a brand new 80GB HD around originally intended for the home desktop PC before I bought the PB17 but never got around to Ghosting it, maybe I should just get the Firewire 800 one for it for now and just exchange it with a 250GB HD when the 80GB HD becomes full.
WhaUSay?!