Wednesday September 3
 
18:20
 
In Perspective

With the Nikon D90 and the Canon 50D being released and both having a greater ISO range than my Nikon D40x, it’s tempting to think about trading up. Ken Rockwell’s ISO 3200 comparison put everything in perspective though.

I shoot a lot at high ISO - not just in dark situations, but for freezing action and for creative effect. Not until full frame becomes affordable or DX sensors significantly improve am I going to get the quality I want.

Tuesday July 29
 
17:08
 
What Do You Do?

Miyajima, Hiroshima

I took my D40x to Nikon with a CCD problem last week - bright pixels on photos. This is the second time I’ve had the problem since buying my camera in November last year. The first time they just mapped out the bad pixels in software. This time they agreed to replace the CCD.

All well and good (except for the 1000+ photos I took in Hiroshima which are partially ruined with white and blue dots - not visible on the reduced size photo above), .. or so I thought. Today I was supposed to collect the camera and I received a call from Nikon: “The camera will not be available until July 31st because there is a crack on the casing so the top of the casing needs replacing.” They then told me that I need to pay 3000 yen (about 30 USD) to have the casing replaced.

I am 99.9999% sure there was no crack on the case when I gave my camera to Nikon - I would have noticed if there was. Trouble is, it is my word against theirs, and dealing with someone who only speaks broken English, it is difficult to get any point across. I can say that I’m sure that there was no crack and that if there was, they would have noted it down when I gave them the camera. They can say “well we didn’t do it”. It’s also deeply suspicious that they didn’t call about it until the day I’m supposed to pick up - spanks of someone dropping the camera after fixing it and trying to cover their tracks.

What worries me more, though, is the lens: If my camera has been subjected to enough force to crack it under Nikon’s care, what has happened to the attached 900USD lens? The 18-200 VR lens might not show any cracks on the outside and might appear to be functioning correctly on quick inspection, but there are plenty of bits inside which could feel the effect of a knock. Misalignment. Back/front focus issues. VR issues. All difficult to detect and prove. Nikon are probably going to argue about the crack, so I doubt they will take responsibility if the lens has problems. Should have kept the lens myself.

On the positive side though, apparently Nikon has also replaced the external display LCD which had a faulty pixel. When I bought my Nikon I returned it to the store the next day because of the faulty pixel. The store agreed to replace it, but the replacement had focus issues with one of my lenses (hence my worry about lens issues now) so I kept the one with the faulty LCD.

Oh well, no point fretting about things. What will happen on Thursday will happen. Hopefully everything will be hunky-dory and they will wave the charge.

Monday June 9
 
11:00
 
Free Flickr iPhoto plugin

Call me cheap - well, what do you expect from a Scot - but I really didn’t fancy paying 12 quid for the FlickrExport plugin.

Thankfully it seems I don’t need to - Dustin Li has written a free iPhoto to Flickr exporter/importer plugin. Splendid. I’ll be trying it out later.

How cheap am I? I even started looking at the Flickr API, thinking I’d write my own Perl script to keep flickr in sync with my iPhoto library. Rather than spend 12 quid, I’d have spent several hours of my free time writing code.

Typical tight Scot, eh?

Friday June 6
 
12:18
 
Big Cocks

Photos from the Kanamara Penis Festival a few weeks back, in Kanamara just outside Tokyo. More information about the festival is in this post.

I had thought that only the Japanese would be “open” enough to celebrate the penis. I was wrong. I’ve since found out the Korea has an entire Penis Park - a must visit the next time I’m in Korea.

Thursday June 5
 
13:22
 
Would You Trust Your Photos To An Application That Does This?

I thought Aperture was the solution to managing my photos - but on the first day using it, this corruption happened. There’s no way I’m trusting my photos to an application that does this.

Part 2 of my quest to find a photo organiser that works for me on the Mac.