Author Archives: dara

Congratulations, class of ‘012

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P6172087

 

My cousin received his Master’s degree today at Stanford (Department of Electrical Engineering)!

It was a typical June day in Palo Alto (read: warm – the black gowns did not look comfortable), and the event had the usual combination of seriousness and hijinks.  Plenty of crazy costumes on the field for the Wacky Walk, including a row of dominos, who obligingly collapsed on the field partway into the proceedings.

The department ceremony proved as hard to photograph as last year.  Harder actually, as I was using a manual focus lens on my Olympus E-PM1 (a 30-year old Nikon 135/2.8).  I did get a few photos though.  Probably will stick to autofocus lenses in the future, if I can.

I also made a visit to Sunnyvale, to the annual De Anza Tutor’s picnic.  Some familiar faces.  Looks like everybody is doing well (many have now transferred to Cal, SJSU, UCLA and UCSD).

16 Miles

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I flew back yesterday to the bay area to see my cousin’s graduation.  Of course, the ceremony is on Sunday, which left Saturday free for a day hike.  So I was up at 6:00AM and off to the carpool at Page Mill Rd.  The forecast was rather dire – high of 105 degrees in Portola Valley – but we decided to give it a shot anyway.  There was a good crowd at the carpool spot.

Route was mainly in Corte Madera open space.  Nominally we were following directions left by Charlie, but in spite of Francoise’s best efforts, we managed to deviate fairly significantly.  We did keep to the trees though, which was the important part, so even when the temperature reached into the high 80s in the afternoon, it wasn’t unbearable.  The last ascent to the parking was fairly brutal though.  After four weeks of no hikes, even sixteen miles feels like a lot.

It was particularly good to see some of the folks I missed on my May visit.  Looking forward to resuming the Saturday hike routine again.  In California.

Of course, when we got home, I discovered the rear window wouldn’t roll back up (it was down to cool off the car).  Can’t even pull it up manually (it’s all the way down).  Bugger.

High culture

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Cities tend to offering interesting contrasts, what with crowding huge numbers of people from quite disparate backgrounds into a small area.  New York City certainly offers the extremes more than most.

I went with my grandmother and several of her friends to the ballet last night.  It was an interesting show (Firebird, Apollo, Thirteen Diversions) at Lincoln Center’s Metropolitan Opera House.  The venue itself was quite a sight, glittering chandeliers and a huge set of front windows showcasing a couple of Marc Chagall’s paintings.

As the restaurant we went to the previous time was closed, we ended up eating at a place on the second floor of the opera house itself.  A high-class sort of dining experience, as well it should have been, considering the prices.  It got me thinking as to the sorts of people who normally go to such places.  I suppose ballet (and opera) have always been primarily amusements of the well-heeled.  Certainly, it was amusing to look around at intermission and see all the folks milling about in their (to me) fancy clothes chit-chatting of this and that.  I suppose that’s what high-culture gets you.

The program itself was fun too.  I’d not seen Firebird performed as a ballet before, but this was apparently not the usual Ballanchine arrangement but one by another choreographer, and the costumes and set pieces were very elaborate and eye-catching.  I also enjoyed the music.

Thankful for Small Things

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After several uncomfortable days, my left eye no longer feels like there are several large pieces of dust stuck in it.  In the grand scheme of things, eye irritation isn’t all that severe an ailment I guess (certainly better than the conjunctivitis that the doctor suggested it might be), but it was quite distracting, and frequently unpleasant.  Happily, the eye is mostly back to normal now.  Still, it’s a timely reminder to be thankful for the small things, as when they go wrong, they can take the big things with them too.

On a lighter note, I finally cracked the mystery of why I have been receiving invitations to the Society of Women Engineers meetings every few weeks (I had not signed up).  According to Columbia’s records, I am female.  I may just leave it as is, since the only person to notice so far was the nurse at Student Health Services.

Micro 4/3 lens comments

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Camera lens

At this point, I’ve either owned or tried most of the micro 4/3 lenses, and I’ve seen samples from virtually all of them.  As a result, I’ve got plenty of opinions as to which of them are worth buying.  Which are those?

No-brainers:

  • Panasonic 7-14mm f/4.0 – one of the best ultra wide lenses, on any system
  • Samyang 7.5mm f/3.5 – great fisheye
  • Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 – perfect carry-everywhere prime
  • Olympus 45mm f/1.8 – excellent in every respect
  • Olympus 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 – light, sharp, fast-focusing and inexpensive

Well worth looking at:

  • Panasonic 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 – better than a kit lens has any right to be
  • Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 – the best low-light normal lens, for a price
  • Panasonic 45mm f/2.8 macro – great at macros, but good at lots more besides
  • Olympus 75mm f/1.8 – incredible optics, if you need the focal length

Since writing this post, I have created a full table of micro 4/3 lenses and my comments.

The Incredible Shrinking Digital Camera

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Rx100

Small cameras: Panasonic GF3X, Nikon J1, Sony RX100 and Canon S100.

The digital camera industry finally seems to be slowing down a bit.  The number of manufacturers has shrunk a bit and there’s no longer 2 or 3 new models announced each week.  I suspect the explosive growth of the cellphone cameras has a little something to do with that.

On the surface, the DSC RX100 that Sony announced today is just another highly-specified compact digital camera, with a price-tag to match.  The zoom range is nothing special (28-100mm equivalent).  The lens is fairly fast, but no faster than many others (f/1.8-4.9).  At $650, it’s certainly no bargain breakthrough.

What makes the RX100 unusual?  The sensor.  It has a 1″ (13.2 x 8.8 mm) sensor – the same size as the one Nikon uses in its mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras (the Nikon 1).  It’s more than twice the size of the one in leading compact cameras, and closer to four times the area of the one in more typical compacts.  The image quality has yet to be reviewed (it won’t ship until July), but as sensor size is a defining aspect of image quality (larger sensors capture more light, which makes for better quality images), it would be very surprising if the Sony is not significantly ahead of all the other compacts.

Granted, there have always been digital cameras with larger sensors.  But none anywhere near as small as the RX100.  When I bought the Olympus XZ-1 a little over a year ago, it had the largest sensor in the smallest body with a fast lens.  In short it was the best of the breed, and yet this new camera has a sensor twice as big, and a comparable lens, and a slightly smaller body.  Compared to my earlier digital compact, the RX100 is positively tiny.  The Canon Powershot G5 that I began my digital photography with in 2005 had an even smaller sensor than the XZ-1, in a body more than twice as thick.  The lens was also more restrictive.

In short, today’s small cameras are offering performance that larger cameras only a few years ago could only dream of.  No doubt there will be a limit to how far these advances go – the laws of physics and particularly optics are quite inflexible.  But it’s still pretty amazing the progress that has happened in a few short years.

Meanwhile, there should be plenty of reviews of the RX100 in the next few weeks.  Judging by current developments, digital cameras aren’t done improving just yet.

Micro 4/3 lenses

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Since being introduced in September 2008, the micro 4/3 camera system has grown by leaps and bounds.  At last count, there were more than 30 lenses from 6 different manufacturers available.  I spent a chunk of this last weekend tracking down specifications in order to build a table that would provide the salient information at a glance.

Those details are available on the micro 4/3 lens page.

Lens chart

State of the Pack, 2012

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After the weekend’s Mt. Shasta adventure (summary: made it to Shastina, but not to the main summit), I am once again dreaming of clever ways to lighten my backpack.

Currently, the base weight of my pack is around 8.8kg (just under 20 lbs), which doesn’t sound like much, except that when food, water, camera paraphernalia and necessary snow gear are added, it becomes a much larger number very quickly.

My goal would be to get everything down to 5kg, but that may not be feasible.

In any case, here’s the current packing list:

Continue reading →

Panasonic 14-42X impressions

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14 42x 20

Thanks to UPS and their inability to deliver to a place they’d previously delivered without difficulty (home), I picked up my new lens (and the camera it came with) three days later than I’d hoped.  The Panasonic Lumix X 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 is a fairly typical kit zoom lens for micro 4/3 cameras with one special feature – when not in use, it collapses down to the size of a small ‘pancake’ prime lens.  I got it for the simple simple reason that when attached to my Olympus E-PM1 body, the whole kit is small enough to fit comfortable in a jacket pocket (the Olympus kit zoom is around twice as thick).

In order to achieve this wonder in miniaturization, Panasonic designed the lens as a power zoom.  There is no zoom ring.  Instead, there is a small rocker-style switch on the lens barrel, which you push up or down to zoom in or out.  When camera is on, the lens automatically extends to its full size (still quite small).  It also features an optical stabilization mechanism, but that can’t be used on Olympus cameras.

The build quality of the lens is pretty good – high quality plastics and whatnot.

The optics are more of a mixed bag.  At 14mm the lens is reasonably sharp, and it’s even better at 25mm.  But at 42mm it displays a major oddity, with many (most?) shots displaying what appears to be motion blur (doubled details).  This is odd because it happens almost regardless of shutter speed.  You don’t really see it until you go past 50% magnification, but that means it’s basically turning a 12MP camera into a 3MP one.

I did some research after the lens arrived, and it looks like this issue is fairly common.  A pity, as the lens is otherwise ideal for mountaineering and other occasions where it’s not good to have a camera dangling from your neck.  So despite the difficulties in obtaining it, I’ll be sending the Panasonic 14-42X back for a refund.  I hope they fix the blurring problem soon, as in other respects it’s a very handy lens.

On moving

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Moving from one apartment/house to another is one of those tasks that seems to always take more effort than planned.  Still, in between two final exams, I managed to pack up most of my things, so that when I finished this afternoon, I could drive down from my grandmother’s place and start hauling bags and boxes.  I kept things pretty minimal throughout my stay at ‘the Arbor’ (the university apartment building in the Bronx, where I’ve been since October), but between the kitchenware, computer paraphernalia, books, papers and clothing, I pretty well filled up the car.  The whole process took around two hours.  Thank goodness there was no furniture.

I’ve always thought that it would be nice to live in a way that if you needed to, you could pack all your belongings into two suitcases and be ready to hit the road on an hour’s notice.   Not that I necessarily want to move frequently mind you, but the freedom to do so would be quite welcome.  In practice, that’s proven just about impossible.  I did live that way in Paris for 5 months, but I depended on my hosts for a good deal.  The difficulty in general though is that living minimally requires sacrifices that in the medium and long-term are not so fun.  A small computer screen.  No cooking at home.  Very few photographs or mementos.  Etc.

Now all my things are packed in my grandmother’s attic, save for the few I’ll need this summer.  I’ll probably have to make my next move at the end of the summer.  Hopefully that one will be relatively painless as well.