Further Demise
In July 2005, I was shocked and saddened to find out that Lab One, the film developing and printing lab where I was getting all my b&w and slide film processed had closed. (previous posts: one two).
On Thursday, I went out for a 3 mile walk during lunch. My route happened to take me near the former Lab One building. I noticed some construction materials near the building and a few formerly covered windows were now broken open. Poking my head through one of the holes, I was greeted with quite a site.
(click image for a larger view)
When it was a lab, customers only saw about 1/10th the total space. To see this open, vacant space was a twist on my brain. I was so used to being just in the customer space, that I never thought about the rest of the building. It never even occurred to me that it could, well, go beyond what I could see from my side of the counter.
The digital revolution has brought a lot of change to photography. Less and less is being printed, more and more is being saved to fragile hard drives with no backups. Images are shared around the world in seconds instead of languishing in boxes in a closet for years. Photography labs are closing and skill sets are disappearing. But more cameras are being sold each year than ever were sold during the high-point of 35mm film. Photography has been going through a great change. I hope, in the end, it is all for the better.
Interestingly enough, todays cetan.org photoblog post is a similar view but of a different building taken 2 weeks ago: http://www.cetan.org/index.php?showimage=16
Febtober
Saw this in the February email from the Chicago Cultural Center:
EXHIBITIONS - Situation Comedy: Humor in Recent Art
February 4-April 9, 2006
Exhibit Hall
This traveling exhibition presents more than 60 works, including video and sound installations, paintings, sculptures, drawings, and photographs by 30 contemporary artists. These works employ various strategies involving text and image using parody, satire, slapstick and practical jokes to inject humor into the normally staid art environment
http://chicagoculturalcenter.pmailus.com/pmailweb/ct?d=Bb3A4QAuAAP-----AACOSw
Well isn’t that nice
While the weather is making lunch time walks difficult, I spent 30 minutes on the elliptical machine tonight (and 20 minutes last night). I forgot to check the approximated total number of calories burned by the end of tonights exercise but the last number I remember was 220.
Turns out that 20 oz bottle of Mountain Dew I had with lunch has 183 calories.
So, I worked off a bottle of Dew and that's about it.
*sigh* I can see this is going to go well...
why, Gmail, why?
This sponsored ad was presented to me today inside Gmail. Click on the image for a full view of the entire ad.
edit/update:
This ad campaign has apparently been running for a while:
http://lnk.nu/google.com/7vk
Snow, Stuff, Sore
However fleeting it is going to be, the return of snowfall was most welcome this past Friday. I estimate that between 8 and 10 inches fell in about eight hours. Trees all had a frosted look that was delightful.
The snow did, however, put a bit of a crimp into our plans to pickup a couch, two chairs, and a three-table set from 
hilhas1. It took more than two hours to dig out from the snow and then another hour and a half to drive to Naperville. Extra precautions needed to be taken for transporting the goods, because the trailer we had was open to the elements.
So, by the time we arrived back at the house, night was beginning to fall and we were all tired and hungry. Pizza was ordered, "Master and Commander" was watched, and (at least on my part) Advil (tm) was consumed.
Sunday, we pulled up the carpet and padding from Tabby's room. I spent most of the time pulling up staples with a small flat-head screwdriver and a 7" pry-bar. (Worked great, b.t.w.) The damage to the subfloor doesn't look as bad as it could be, but we still need to get in there with a black light to be sure. helloheather's research indicates that sealing the subfloor with KILZ will do the trick.
Oh, and I talked to my parents and found out they were almost run over by a milk tanker truck sliding backwards down a hill it couldn't get over due to the snow on Friday. Eeek!
Gapers Block
Guess who's photo was selected for todays "Rearview" section of Gapers Block?
http://www.gapersblock.com/rearview/archives/2006/01/20/
entering the world of the photoblog – cetan.org
In direct conflict with my desire to reduce domain name clutter, I've decided to give a photoblog a try again. PixelPost is easy to use and allows some straight forward design changes to the UI. I can pre-load images to show up at a specific date/time, it creates thumbnails, allows comments (spam might be a problem later on), and handles tags as well.
You can click on the photos to scroll back through my previous postings (or click on the previous/next links below each photo). If, for whatever crazy reason, you want to subscribe to a feed of the site, you can do so.
I've decided to do this mainly as a way to motivate myself to start uploading and posting photos again. The bernhard.us photo gallery will still be my main photography gallery, this will just be an extension of that. The entries on cetan.org won't necessarily be "best of" photos, but may turn out to just be photos I like. We'll see. The UI is still a work-in-progress, so things might change a bit.
My goal is to try and update the site every two to three days.
Konica Minolta to end its camera business
2006 is shaping up to be a year of tremendous change in the world of photography. First, Nikon announces they are going to abandon all film cameras except two and now this:
http://konicaminolta.com/releases/2006/0119_03_01.html
Konica Minolta is going to completely withdraw from all aspects of photography, both film /and/ digital. A large portion of their camera and photography related assets will be transfered to Sony.
This is quite shocking, given the length of time Minolta has been involved in the photography business. It's also a good sign of how tight the photography market really is today.
Sony, on the other hand, is going to be entering into the Digital SLR market. Since July 2005, KM and Sony were jointly developing a DSLR based around the Minolta lens mount found on their Maxxum line and now Sony is going to go it alone. I must wonder though, how likely it will be that Sony sticks with the KM mount. I can certainly see them abandoning it in favor of an in-house development, which would leave KM DSLR users hanging. But that's just speculation on my part. Sony will likely be a strong force in the DSLR market which will hopefully motivate Canon and Nikon to further innovation.
Strange times ahead for sure.
edit/update:
In other news, Canon has sold its 30 millionth EF lens.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0601/06011902canonef.asp
To travel in time
My mom, since getting laid off, has had some time to devote to attacking the piles of stuff my sister and I have left in the basement over the years. I am especially guilty of this thanks to the many moves to and from college.
helloheather and I were invited down for lunch and to go through a few of the boxes.
While there were a few items from childhood, most of what my mom had organized was from college. It was a rather interesting, and in some ways melancholy, trip down memory lane. I went through notes from at least three years of school: chemistry, graphic design, french, english, theology, computer science, and a lot of geography and physics classes. It was something of a shock to realize some of the notes I was reading were ten years old. Ten years...it's sort of mind-boggling. Where has the time gone? There's a lot of conflicting feelings rolling around there, but then helloheather found this, which made me smile:
It's a cropped version of the original, and the part I cropped out leads me to believe it was taken outside of Alumni Hall. This would make it our sophomore year (1994-1995). I'm not sure who took the photo, but it was probably a parent. So, to those that are in the photo and on either Blogger or LiveJournal, enjoy the trip back in time.
A little bit further…
The near 50 deg temps lead me west down Madison St. today. 1.3 miles out and 1.3 miles back. Fewer photos, which is how I was able to get further out this time, and I think I could go further still within the hour.
This is where I'd like to head next:
http://lnk.nu/maps.google.com/7lc
Sadly, our wonderful temps won't be back for a bit. But when they are, I'll be ready
A sign of things to come
http://www.nikon.co.uk/press_room/releases/show.aspx?rid=201
Nikon has announced today that they are ending production of all film cameras except for the F6 and the FM10.
This is a big move, a really big move. I don't think any other manufacturer has gone this far before.
If you're a Nikon film shooter, look for support to dwindle as digital consumes the market place. I expect Canon to follow suit rather quickly with a similar announcement.
Film will always have a place in photography, just a much less prominent one. There are still applications where film is the right tool for the job, but digital has come quite a long way and continues to make tremendous advances.
Interesting times ahead.
edit: oh, I see this got on /. as well. I feel like this blog is turning into the /. relay hour...
Stretch the legs
Despite the fact that it's only 34 deg F downtown today (a tad below the predicted high of 39, I might add) I decided I couldn't miss any of the sunshine, however fleeting it was going to be (and it was).
So I grabbed my @work camera and started walking west down Washington Ave. Turns out that, with traffic lights and snapping photos along the way, I can get just about 1.1 miles in 30 minutes. Which is what, in fact, I did.* After a quick block over and back to Randolph St., I headed back and was at my desk by the end of lunch.
Things I learned during my walk today:
- There is now a Le Peep almost right next to Harpo Studios. Like MacArthur, I will return. Unlike MacArthur it won't take me two years and cost hundreds of lives. At least I hope it won't.
- I need to be more brave when photographing within the city and less worried about people freaking out.
- My shoes really need to be more comfortable if I'm going to continue these long walks during lunch.
*When I used to drop off film at Lab One (before they closed), I would routinely walk 3 miles in that hour, but that was without stopping for new photographs.
to do, or not to do.
Well, I didn't get to the photos like I thought I would this weekend. I burned a CD to bring to work for sorting, but I forgot the CD in the burner at home.
However, I was able to deliver a decent birthday to helloheather by way of flowers, some music, The Producers, and the 4-course at The Melting Pot.
Other highlights include: a much-needed haircut for myself, the last of the family Christmas parties on Saturday, a nice visit with helloheather's dad at his donut shop, and the removal and recycling of our Christmas Tree.
But the most important event of all occurred Saturday morning: Actual, real, honest-to-goodness sunshine. It's been more than 2 weeks since the sun has broken through the cloud-cover. This amazing display of energy reappeared on Sunday as well.
CES – New digital cameras
CES, in Las Vegas, has become an important event for some camera companies. It's here that they release many (but usually not all) of their new cameras for the year.
In an increasingly fragmented market space, the digital camera offerings have been numerous. A few trends from this years show have emerged that should be noted:
- Shutter Lag: One of the biggest complaints about point and shoot digital cameras has been the time it takes to actually take the picture. The camera has to focus, check the exposure, possibly power up the flash, and then clear the CCD from the live-preview, before it can take the shot. Consumers migrating from the point and shoot film world (especially those that only used disposable cameras) have found this delay confusing and frustrating. While some very basic education on camera technique can usually alleviate these problems, the fact remains that the cameras are slow. Now, it seems that only the lowest end models are slow, and even that is relative. Shutter lag is set to be nearly a thing of the past. Cameras focus very quickly, and (after focusing) have shutter lag times on the order of 0.01 seconds.
- Image Stabilization: More and more mid-range consumer point and shoots are being offered with some for of physical (not electronic) stabilized image control. I'm sure that within a year, possibly sooner, we will see even low-end models offering this feature.
- High ISO: One of the biggest problems with digital capture is that increasing the gain on the sensor also increases the noise. This is why most consumer point and shoot digital cameras don't go above an ISO rating of 400. However, Fuji has developed a small sensor that can be pushed up to ISO 1600 with equal to (or in some cases) less noise than traditional sensors at ISO 400! The first consumer camera to have this technology was Fuji F10 (followed by the F11 which only adds manual controls). However, Fuji has added this sensor to a new camera for CES and will likely add it to a couple more models.
- LCD Screen Size: As an example of what has happened over the past year to screen sizes on point and shoots, one needs to look no further than the newly announced Fuji V10. This camera is 3.3" wide by 2.5" tall and has a 3" LCD on the back. It's almost all screen! Staring at the 1.5" screen on my Canon A80 is like looking at a postage stamp compared to this. But big screens are nothing without the last item:
- Battery Life: One of the reasons helloheather and I chose the Canon A80 when we did was because of battery life. With a set of 2200 mAH NiMH's, we could easily get 500 shots per charge with 100% LCD usage. Cameras with proprietary Li-ion batteries couldn't come close to that. But now, as battery technology improves, and companies find ways to reduce the impact the LCD and internal electronics have on battery consumption, Li-ion batteries are catching up. A few cameras actually boast 500 shots per charge with their batteries.
A few cameras have jumped out at me as interesting (but who's quality remains to be investigated):
I already mentioned the 3" screen on the Fuji V10, but this camera also has an ISO range of 64-1600. The Pentax Optio A10, instead of stabilizing the lens, actually moves the entire CCD in response to camera shake. This technology was first developed by Konica Minolta for their DSLR and prosumer line. Panasonic continues its trend to offer lens-based image stabilization in its cameras by making it available in all three of the cameras announced this week. This includes the new budget model, the Panasonic LS2 The Samsung i6 is a camera with the processing power to play MP3s and some video files. Lastly, one of the oddest looking digital cameras to come out in a while is the Kodak EasyShare V570. In a testament to how low CCD sensor prices have fallen, the camera features 2 lenses each with their own 5MP sensor. The top lens is a fixed focus, fixed focal length 23mm wide-angle lens. The bottom lens is a variably focal length 39-117mm zoom lens.
All in all, pretty exciting stuff. Of course, it's all probably less so for people that are not as obsessed as I am
Semagic
Semagic is the name of the Windows client I used to post to LiveJournal. It's very slick, has a ton of features, and I could save drafts and backups to my USB key.
For the longest time, it only had support for LiveJournal. But now Semagic has been updated and supports Blogger, WordPress, MetaWeblog, MSN, and Movable Type.
This is just wonderful. It solves my "drafts" problem and spell check problem with WordPress in one swoop. So thank you, Semagic developers, for extending an already wonderful tool.