You know, I’d wanted for years to have a life in and around Washington. Now, I’m going to be glad to spend a week away from it next month.
2 minute read
July 17, 2008, 11:25 PM
Yeah, it’s time for a change of scenery. After all, I’ve been living in Silver Spring and working in Washington for a year and two months now. Amazing how time flies. But yeah, in a little more than a month, I’m taking my vacation! I’m going to Virginia Beach, and I’m excited. You do realize I’ve not been on a get-out-of-town vacation in three years, don’t you. The last time I went was in 2005.
This one ought to be a lot of fun, though. Usually when I go to Virginia Beach, I go by myself, and tend to concentrate on my photography, with a bit of a change in scenery. And this year… new equipment! While we certainly miss Big Mavica, its optical zoom sucked. And that was a real bummer in 2004 and 2005 when I hit the beach with it, and I couldn’t get close-in ocean shots from the hotel balcony. Now mind you, I think Atlantic Sunrise in 2004 was a great photo set. But I didn’t get a lot of the close-in detail that I really enjoyed in Sunrise at Virginia Beach from 2000. The close-ups really made the earlier set special, and technical limitations prevented me from doing that again in 2004. Now I’ve got a 12x optical zoom, and different nighttime settings, so we’ll see what happens this time around.
But what really excites me is the idea of using my waterproof “duckie” camera. I’d love to take that one out into the surf and see what I can get. After all, the thing is waterproof, so we might as well make good use of it. Big Mavica, to quote Fenton Crackshell from Ducktales, was “more gizmo than duck” when it came to water. So taking “duckie” in the ocean really ought to be fun. Might even cause me to spend a little more time in the ocean than I did last time. I think last time, out of four days, I spent a grand total of three hours in the water. But yeah, with “duckie”, it ought to be fun.
Yeah, I can’t wait until August 24…
And we are once again fully operational. Now I just need something to photograph…
2 minute read
May 4, 2008, 9:16 PM
I finally got a chance to test the new Kodak Z1012 IS camera tonight, and let me say that this is a big leap from Big Mavica. So here’s a quick round of test shots:
Continue reading…Categories: Cameras
I have about 7 GB of SD card volume now – think that’s enough?
2 minute read
May 3, 2008, 2:23 PM
After a trip down to Stuarts Draft on Friday night, Mom and I went to Costco in Harrisonburg to get various odds and ends. Among other things, I got two 2 GB SD cards to use on the new cameras. Thus I have the two 1 GB Polaroid SD cards I bought at Target, the free 1 GB card I got from Kodak along with a fanny pack of some kind (I wouldn’t call that thing a camera bag), and now these two 2 GB ones from Costco. And I hope I’m all set. I get like 200 photos on a single 1 GB card on the Vivitar, and that’s 6.0 megapixels. Then I’ve been too busy to give the 10.1 megapixel Kodak a test run yet (it arrived on Wednesday), so I don’t know about how that will go, but hopefully I’ve got enough capacity now.
That’s the thing about this – I have no track record at all with the Kodak, and then I’ve only done about three photo sets with the Vivitar. That was a test set, then Operation Reconnect with Anonymous, and then counter-protesting the Nazis with my regular activist buddies. Going by Big Mavica’s standard’s doesn’t work, since everything’s bigger now. The Vivitar is 1.5 times “bigger” than Big Mavica, and the Kodak is roughly 2.5 times “bigger” than Big Mavica (remember that the “big” in Big Mavica referred to the resolution). Plus the movies are different, too. The Vivitar shoots in AVI format at 320×240 (Big Mavica shot MPEG), and then the Kodak shoots really high-resolution videos.
Categories: Cameras
Done for another year, and good riddance to it.
2 minute read
April 6, 2008, 3:26 PM
You know what they say. There are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. The former only comes once, and most of us try to put it off as long as possible. The latter comes annually, and it comes due on April 15. And so I can now put it behind me again.
What’s weird, though, is doing it now, vs. in January when I usually do taxes. But this year was more complicated. I changed jobs and states, after all. I left Wal-Mart (yaaaay!), and found work with Food & Water Watch. And I moved from Virginia to Maryland. So for that, I bought TurboTax, and did the whole thing on the computer. Usually, I just sit down with a 1040, a calculator, and a pen, and do it. For the forty bucks or whatever TurboTax cost, it’s normally worth it to just do it manually. But for more complicated years – I was more worried about the state stuff than the federal stuff – TurboTax is handy.
Categories: Cameras, National politics, Walmart
What a great visit!
3 minute read
April 5, 2008, 11:42 PM
Mom came up for a teachers’ convention during the latter part of this week, and she stayed at my house. And we had a great time. She arrived on Wednesday, and we met up at Wheaton Plaza and then went to my house. Then while I went to work on Thursday and Friday, Mom was at her convention for the Virginia Writing Project. On Thursday, Mom actually lobbied a few Virginia representatives and senators, and then on Friday they had some workshops.
And Mom got to be a DC commuter for two days. She took the 51 and the Red Line just like I do. She left the house ahead of me in the mornings, but we rode back together in the evenings. Thursday, Mom got to see her first big Metro delay, as there was a train having a problem at Van Ness-UDC in the direction of Glenmont (of course). An out-of-service train whizzed by Dupont Circle station, and then I took the next (very crowded) train, to meet Mom at Union Station. Then from there, we rode to Glenmont and took the Y5 back home.
Then on Friday, Mom and I got Breda 3062, which had advertisements on the ceiling. Take a look…
Big Mavica is gone…
3 minute read
March 31, 2008, 9:05 PM
Well, Big Mavica is officially on its way to that big photo set in the sky, as I shipped it to Recycling For Charities on my lunch hour today. And I got photos of this solemn event, too, which a friend of mine has described as the end of an era.
Big Mavica is in the box, the last anyone will see of it.
Big Mavica’s fate is now sealed.
< 1 minute read
March 29, 2008, 12:18 PM
It looks like Big Mavica will have a happy ending after all. I’m recycling Big Mavica with an organization called Recycling For Charities, with the proceeds from the camera’s recycling going to support Stage Left Theatre, a Chicago-based theater that produces plays intended to raise debate on social and political issues.
So after more than five years of documenting various political mobilizations, among other things, Big Mavica’s recycling will likewise help raise awareness of various political and social issues. Yay!
Categories: Cameras
And we’re back in business!
2 minute read
March 25, 2008, 10:43 PM
Yes, we’re back in business! The Vivitar 6200W waterproof camera has arrived, and I’ve fired off a few test shots. I hope you like looking at my kitchen:
Categories: Cameras, Project Chanology
Well, the Big Mavica era is over.
2 minute read
March 21, 2008, 12:22 AM
The era of Big Mavica has officially come to a close, as the screen is busted, wrecked due to water at the March 19 anti-war protest in DC. Due to the age of the equipment, I determined that a repair is not worthwhile. And the new camera is on order. The new camera is a Vivitar ViviCam 6200W, a 6.0 megapixel waterproof camera.
Well, that’s actually only half the story. This Vivitar will be my all-weather “hazard conditions” camera. This would be the one I’d take on the beach, to protests where showers are expected, and any other situations where I would expect the camera to take some abuse. In theory, this camera should be able to withstand a pepper spray to the face and keep on firing. Just don’t forget to wipe the lens. Isis, a photographer friend of mine, actually recommended this camera to me for bad-weather imagery. And I got a really good deal for it on Amazon.
After almost five and a half years, Big Mavica may very well be done for…
< 1 minute read
March 19, 2008, 5:38 PM
First of all, the “Funk the War” protest in downtown Washington, for which I took the day off at work, went very well. I got a lot of great photos, but it was really rainy. It rained. Hard.
Which brings me to point number two. Big Mavica took on water, as it’s done in the past, but this time, I think it might be a goner. It quit shooting photos, and the screen is all white. Something tells me that something might have shorted out in the camera. Hopefully once Big Mavica gets time to dry, it will be up and kicking again. And if not, well, it might be time to finally upgrade. After all, five years is a long time for electronic equipment. So if it’s to the point where I’m faced with sending it out for repair or just replacing it, I’m going to replace it, and retire Big Mavica.
And if this is the end for Big Mavica, at least it went out in a blaze of glory. In Part 3 of the Virginia Beach 2005 photo set, I said, “If I’m going to lose Big Mavica, it might as well be in the process of shooting a great photo set.” And when it comes to shooting a huge protest, I can’t think of a better time or place to lose it.
And the photo set won’t be toast, either. I can still recover everything that I had shot prior to the camera’s going out on me, and my friend Isis is going to help me fill out the remainder of the set.
So we’ll see what happens. Hopefully it won’t be the end of Big Mavica, but we’ll see…
Protesting leaves you SO sore…
3 minute read
January 29, 2007, 2:07 AM
Marching around DC for six hours at a relatively fast pace leaves you sore the next day. Specifically, my legs hurt. Whatever muscle runs along the outer sides of the thigh must have gotten quite a workout, because it’s aching today. Going down the stairs has been hell. Going up is no problem. Go figure.
Otherwise, I thought it was interesting to read this in this ABC News article:
The rally on the Mall unfolded peacefully, although about 300 protesters tried to rush the Capitol, running up the grassy lawn to the front of the building. Police on motorcycles tried to stop them, scuffling with some and barricading entrances.
I was part of that group of 300-some protesters. And it was quite an event, as this picture attests:
A photo of my camera bag’s damaged shoulder strap…
< 1 minute read
October 13, 2006, 9:00 PM
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and so here’s a photo of the broken strap on my camera bag, originally referenced here:
Categories: Cameras
I make do with what I have, what can I say?
2 minute read
April 9, 2006, 5:59 PM
Some people may be surprised by this, but I have been using the same CDs with Big Mavica over and over for the past two years.
Seriously. I use rewritables. Though it’s a little more interesting than you think. I actually have two sets. The set that gets the most use is my “regular” set, that I keep in little jewel cases in the camera bag. These are for regular photo sets. I can carry my regular camera bag with me, and I’m usually moving at my own pace. This is the one I use most often.
Then there’s the other set, which is the “protest” set. These are the ones that I take along when I’m at an event, such as a big demonstraton, when things might get hairy. What’s the difference? Packaging. These CDs live on little tiny spindles rather than in jewel cases. Thus they take up far less space, allowing me to shed the camera bag.
Categories: Cameras
Ever get that feeling like you forgot something?
< 1 minute read
March 15, 2006, 4:29 AM
Somehow, I’m getting that feeling when went to top off the camera batteries for today’s DC trip when the batteries took a lot longer to charge than usual. I get this feeling that I never charged them from the last trip to DC I took on the 28th. This is not a “fatal” error, though. I’ve charged the camera’s batteries en route before using a power inverter, most notably on June 23, 2004, where I ran the batteries dry the day before in Charlottesville, and then fell asleep that evening without charging anything. Then I got up in the morning, realized, oh, crap! and went to work charging them, and ended up taking my charger with me to Washington. That’s also the reason I have the power inverter in the first place. I bought it to charge with on that trip. Thankfully, Washington was far enough away so that by the time I got there, I’d had a chance to charge everything to full power.
And I was going railfanning that day with Oren and Jersey Mike, so I needed a full charge, too.
Of course, that’s similar to this trip, where I’m going railfanning with Matthew Tilley.
“That’s not a telescope!”
3 minute read
December 28, 2003, 1:40 AM
It’s amusing what happens when you try to take photos sometimes. Let me explain what I mean…
For Christmas, I got a new, heavy-duty tripod, that is MUCH better than my old one. It’s taller, has more features, and a lot of other things that I haven’t figured out how to best use yet.
So on Christmas night (the night of December 25), I took the tripod for a spin to try it out. I went over the mountain to Charlottesville, where I headed to McIntire Park (where I’ve previously photographed on a few other occasions). I chose McIntire Park because it was relatively safe, open until 10 PM based on signage, and a public park (meaning public property).
So I have Big Mavica hooked up to the tripod and I’m doing my thing. A Jeep comes into the park, parks in the lot, powers off, sits for a few minutes, then starts up again and leaves.
Categories: Cameras, Charlottesville, Christmas