random ruminations

The chart below is a basic comparison of common digital camera sensor sizes measured by area. It gives you and idea of how much light hits the sensor, before you factor in the technical things like lens quality, pixel size and type, pixel count etc. Its a thought exercise aimed at comparing the relative area proportions of various sensors and the amount of light they have to work with. I've chosen to express the comparisons as a percentage of full frame size. (%FF) Since the defacto baseline for sensor size comparison seems to be the 35mm full frame sensor, I find it useful to compare sensor areas in terms of "Percentage of Full Frame" (PFF or %FF). This chart lists various sensor area sizes and compares them in proportion to a standard 35mm FF sensor, which I take as having an approximate physical area of 864 mm ² . As noted, physical size/area of a sensor is just one factor in determining image quality, camera cost, and other factors. I've deliberately ignored facto

A friend recently bought a used Canon 1000D / Rebel XS / Kiss F so her kids could try DSLR photography. The XS/1000D is an ancient (2008!) low-end DSLR with very simple features and no video capability, but its a decent starter body and dirt cheap now (<$100). The camera has developed the common Err 99 problem. You can shoot photos normally when its working. Generally, once you power it up, you get the the error 99 message (below) after the first shot. They would just remove the memory card and battery, reload and shoot normally until it happened again. I Googled the error, played around with the camera and replicated the error. Typically, after you switch it on and fire the first shot, you get the Err 99 error. By trial and error I figured out that just sliding open the memory card door and snapping it shut would fix the problem for awhile. I tried blowing some air through the memory card door micro switch at the bottom of the card door but there was no change. The

I got this ancient first-generation Tamron 28-200mm zoom lens many years ago, shortly after I switched to Canon EOS DSLRs from the now defunct Olympus 4/3 system. I didn't know much about lenses, but it was cheap (used), sure looked good with the petal-hood, and I wanted something with lots of zoom range. The labeling says Tamron AF Aspherical LD (IF) 28-200mm 1:3.8-5.6 72mm 571D on a standard Canon EF mount. I have no idea how old it is, but its definitely from the SLR days and probably an early EF adaptation. Build quality is good and it rotates smoothly. ( This site says its a 1999-era lens and offers some technical specs. ) It is a twist zoom about 3.75 inches long extending to 6.75 inches (sorry, no metric on this ruler - must get rid of it). Its hefty and worked reliably enough for a couple of years. The images are quite bland, but it let you get the shots you wanted.  It does not have IS and the focus motor is noisy, but always found focus without much hunting and it

wow, the things we did before facebook, texting and tablets. back in another few years maybe.

Of course I don't update this blog regularly - I'm too lazy doing other things. Luckily, inspite of digi-cultural inflation, a picture is still worth a few dozen words. To this end, I offer this image from a recent trip to the Soo. It remains a sadly desolate and culturally isolated outpost in slow but steady decline, but still offers transient glimpses of puerile humor. Whether you laugh with it or at it is really a personal thing. I hereby caption this piece of photographic art as "When water is worse without P in it..." (contrary to the the date on the image, I actually took this pic was taken on Aug 01 2005 - my Kodak digicam likes to reset itself and the dates periodically) Raj

anyhow, what is your plan today? v says: right now I am researching, at some point I will be going to billings to do some banking and stuff R says: hey - can I put this convo up on my blog? I haven't put anything on it in ages, and why bother 'thinking' and putting up content when you can reuse material? v says: sure R says: yay. v says: my 15 minutes of fame I suppose v says: or two seconds of non-fame and slight exposure R says: don't allow yourself that kind of credit - nobody reads this stuff. I just wanted to try it to see if I could sustain it, and then it dawned on me that I don't have enough to blab about in writing on a daily basis so I just let it drift. some people do well with it. I suppose if you had a job that made you think and make pronouncements on social events etc. you might be more amenable to it tho. v says: true, and coversations are something you express yourself in all the time - so you might as well use them v says: blogs a