Originally I thought they’d done their photo the same way, but I was wrong. They “borrowed” a few thousand merit badges and constructed it by hand. Here’s the video:

The location is both a church and a designated polling place for the next-day election.

A row of parked cars indicated a meeting in progress. When we wandered past later, the meeting had broken up. Cooler and wiser heads must have prevailed, since the sign had disappeared.

When we were fighting Communism, no one imagined that we would win by mixing more religion into our politics. The Communists repressed all religions with ecumenical zeal, and we took pride in our ecumenical tolerance. On the other hand, Communists preached (without practice) that all races were equal as workers of the world. No doubt this helped shame our country into embracing equal rights in the 1960s.

Now that we’re fighting religious extremists, weak-hearted people think Al Qaeda must be right: religious extremism is the path to strength. So political activities worm their way into religious venues.

Pogue starts by complaining about how consumer video has gone through several recent media transitions, making it very hard to view older videos. He’s developed an almost industrial process for copying his Mini DV tapes to a hard drive “in the background” while doing other work. The Mini DV format is disappearing since modern recorders just use built in flash memory.

I remember moving a lot of Hi-8 and VHS video to Mini DV when it first came out. I transferred several Mini-DV tapes to DVD, but the task remains unfinished.

Personally I’m ambivalent about having a huge family video archive. It’s nice at times, but lots of it is arguably nonsense. Pogue addresses this question, coming down in favor of family video.

The Rebel Xsi is a classic single lens reflex – SLR. The viewfinder shows you what the lens sees. It has an eyepiece adjustment so I can use the viewfinder without glasses. In addition, the XSi has an extra large display screen on the back. While I can’t use it to carefully judge an exposure, it does display the camera settings in really large type. Yuppie sized type.

[Update: there's a newer model: the Canon Rebel T1i. This one boasts 15 megapixels and built-in High Def video capture. I haven't seen one of these in the flesh, but the PR suggests it has a comparably large dispay on the back, and the essential eyepiece adjustment]

I like to photograph events and technological things. I generally avoid wearing glasses except when reading, so I don’t generally wear them when taking pictures. Modern compact digital cameras generally require you to use the display screen for most things – the viewfinders aren’t generally reliable. I can’t make sense of a display screen without glasses. That makes it hard for me to use a compact camera.

Also, I’m used to SLRs. I used Nikons for decades, until my photographic urges were overwhelmed by family photo obligations. Then I slipped into using compact 35mm cameras. We moved to digital cameras via a Canon G series, which seemed pretty close in features to a traditional 35mm rangefinder camera. It had a working viewfinder and you really didn’t need the display. But it produced relatively small images and was soon replaced by a 7.2 megapixel compact camera.

The compact was a Casio, and not especially well appointed as cameras go. I’ve been especially annoyed with slow digital cameras – you click the shutter and it takes the photo at some leisurely instant within the next second or two. By then, the decisive moment has often evaporated. Even so, the compacts have generally been good enough, especially when compactness has trumped other concerns.

Leaving Nikon Behind

I did the math when looking at a new SLR. First of all, there was no practical way to use my fine old Nikon lenses with a reasonably priced digital Nikon SLR. My old SLRs had “match needle” exposure systems where I would manually adjust the lens setting (the f stop) to match the camera’s built-in exposure calculation. I was willing to manually adjust f stops if the newer, automatic cameras would adjust shutter speed for me, but that wasn’t an option on the lower end Nikons. I essentially had to spend several thousand dollars for a body that let me use technically obsolete lenses.

In short, I could replace my entire lens collection if I settled for a lower cost SLR. And Canon has always had a reasonably good reputation as a camera manufacturer. Unlike Nikon, however, they’ve been up front about building two separate lines of camera equipment: high end stuff for professionals and low end stuff for consumers.

People seem to rave about Canon’s professional “L” series lenses. Reviews show that they achieve very high image quality and that they’re rugged. They sound like worthy competitors to Nikon’s classic F-series equipment, which I used in years past. I’ve had my eye on the L series 24-105mm zoom.

I didn’t realize, however, that Canon has quality control problems with even their high end stuff. Reviewers report that some lenses fall far short of their expected behavior, so you have to watch out for lemons.

Nikon started producing consumer-oriented products about 25 years ago. It seems possible they’ve also fallen into this trap. Since I went to Canon, I haven’t paid enough attention to Nikon product reviews to know if they have similar quality issues.

In any case, the line between “consumer grade” and “professional” is mostly one of price. You can get excellent results with either. Ellie’s favorite lens for her wedding work appears to be the “consumer grade” 18-55mm zoom that comes with the XSi. I think her main concern is on lighting, and she uses top-level flash setups.

I wish I knew more about flash lighting. That’s something I’ll have to learn some day.

I still have another thousand to sort through of the ceremony itself. This includes dozens of donations from family and friends. It also includes the trove taken by their two professional wedding photographer friends, Erin Chapman and Hillary Harvey, who provided hundreds of top-quality photos. I almost had things sorted before Kelsey and Ellie appeared with a dozen or so CDs chock full of more images.

Their league, Providence Roller Derby, had their season opener over Easter weekend while we were conveniently visiting the Boston area. It was a real clash of the titans: the Rhode Island Riveters versus HARD’s Nuclear Knockouts. The Riveters is the ‘all star’ team for the Providence league. Ellie is a regular on the Riveters and Kelsey is an alternate. I wasn’t sure what to expect, since the only thing I knew about roller derby were stories from the ’70s augmented with a quick review of The Bay City Rollers. The old style derby is on a curved track with fewer rules, while the new style is on a flat track with arguably less violence.

I saw a lot less blood than at one of Kelsey’s rugby games.

And, the Riveters won! 102 to 82. That’s a real plus for the team, since the Knockouts are nationally ranked and the Riveters aren’t. At least, not yet.

Their use is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. Under this license you are permitted to reuse my photos as long as I am attributed as the source.

]]> http://www.smat.us/archives/256/feed 0 http://www.smat.us/archives/253 http://www.smat.us/archives/253#comments Sat, 02 Jun 2007 02:17:06 +0000 csmadm http://www.smat.us/?p=253 The photographs in this album are Copyright 2009, Rick Smith. All rights reserved.

If you or a close family member appear in a photo, please feel free to make use of the photo.

If you or someone for whom you are responsible (a child, for example) appears in a photo and you do not wish the photo be on-line, please contact me via e-mail at smith@smat.us.

If you or a close family member appear in a photo, please feel free to make use of the photo.

If you or someone for whom you are responsible (a child, for example) appears in a photo and you do not wish the photo be on-line, please contact me via e-mail at smith@smat.us.