Tuesday, January 22, 2008

AUS-ATL-EZE-AEP-USH

Finally nailed down the flights to Ushuaia, Argentina. I knew there had to be a rational schedule.

My web based efforts kept giving me mid-morning into Buenos Aires, but always a 5:40 am flight to Ushuaia.

Part of the logistics problem is coming in to one airport (EZE) and having to get to another domestic airport. (AEP). That early morning flight would have meant getting a hotel room in Buenos Aires, and checking out at 2:30 or 3 in the morning.

Instead my travel provider, Mountain Travel Sobek, suggested I contact Airtreks. The agent found me a much more liveable schedule. Going by way of Atlanta, but no overnight needed in Buenos Aires. Long day of travel, however, but I might get some sleep on the ATL-EZE leg.

Got some long delays between connections. But, that’s OK. Gives me room for flight delays, customs, etc. When I traveled for business I always opted for the next flight, not the tightest connection.

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Thursday, January 17, 2008

Zooming Along

Loaded up the software that came with the camera. I already have Paint Shop Pro on my machine, but I wanted to see if their application had any interesting features. I’ve only started to explore the options.

The main reason was to try to transfer photos from the camera. I don’t know if the software is required but it doesn’t take up a lot of disk space.

The camera behaves a lot like a jump drive. My operating system, XP Professional, treated the camera like a removeable drive. You "stop" the USB device the same way you would a removeable drive.

After I got the directory structure set up to my likeing, I zoomed in on the photos. You can’t really tell on the preview LCD, even though it is large 2 x 1.5 inches, how well the focus came out. The auto focus works well. Most of the photos are sharp. Some were taken in ambient light and the shutter speed couldn’t compensate for my movement.

My subjects are stuffed animals and bookcase shelves. You can really tell the depth of field differences. I suspect my default settings have something to do with that. So, that may be my next line of inquiry.

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Three Legged Stool

I need to add a tripod to my equipment list, a small one perhaps but sturdy. My current tripod had telescoping legs but the tightening mechanisms cracked and have been replaced by non-telescoping duct tape!

I need to experiment a bit with minimum distance to focus. Taking pictures of my (messy) bookcase doesn’t seem to focus as well. That might be a function of film lens having a narrower field of view on a digital camera. Might also be a function of my eyesight.

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Friday, January 11, 2008

Thermal Underware

Had SCORE on Wednesday, and went shopping on Thursday, not much done with the digital camera. The objective Thursday was the base layer for arctic clothes. We went down to a large sporting supply store and found some pants and tops. Essentially long underwear, but made with synthetic materials not cotton. The alternative was silk.

I decided to find some of the stuff now, during our "Winter." I'm not sure all the items will be in the stores during the Summer.

I’m not expecting severe cold during our trip. But a wet or overcast windy day can seem a lot colder than the outside temperature. Used to have reasonably crummy weather in Minnesota. But after 28 years in Texas, even 40 degrees feels cold.

A lot of searching on the web for temperature tables. Nov/Dec is late Spring. Summer is usually described as Jan/Feb. I would guess we will see temperatures of -10 C to 10C (which is 14 F to 41 F).

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Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Picked It Up

The toy came in today. Picked it up as part of the running errands and lunch circuit. Picked up a 1GB CompactFlash card as well.

Haven’t used it yet. The first step is to charge the battery. The light just went out on the charger, so it has the normal charge. The pamphlet recommends letting it charge for another hour to get a full charge. The difference appears to be about 60 minutes of battery life, 30% more than just the normal charge.

One great piece of new news. The charger works 100-240V, 50/60 Hz. That solves my shipboard problem. I was afraid I would have to get a different charger for the 220V system on the ship. So, I don’t need a transformer. I can check that box now as solved.

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Friday, January 04, 2008

CompactFlash cards

Not sure how large a CompactFlash memory can go into the A-100. I’ll clearly have to take a couple of units with me. There doesn’t seem to be a big difference in price between 4GB and 8GB (about $30).

I’ll probably start with a 1 GB module. That will let me play with the camera. Then I’ll watch the prices between the 4 & 8 modules.

I’m assuming Antarctica will be a lot like the Galapagos in terms of wildlife photo opportunities. We went to Japan-China-Germany on a 6 week trip, shot almost 35 rolls of film. Galapagos was only 11 days, but we shot 28 rolls. We used a mixture of 24/36 exposures. So say it averaged 30 per roll. Galapagos yielded 840 shots.

We will be on this trip for 21 days, not counting travel out and back. So, potentially, 1680 pictures. If I use the Medium quality setting (about 5.6 Megapixels) the file sizes would be 2.3 MB. This would require 3.86 GB of memory (actually there is a 10% overhead which works out to a 4 GB module).

Now, what I don’t know is the ratio of good to crummy pictures. I took a number of photos of iguanas and blue footed boobies. Not all of them were worth scanning or keeping. One advantage of a digital camera is the review and delete functions.

I know I’ll be using a higher quality for some shots, in particular any good sunsets. I’m looking forward to getting an evening shot with icebergs and a setting sun. Some of these I will want as an enlargement, not the standard 4x6 prints

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Thursday, January 03, 2008

The Digital Chase

Stopped by the local camera store on the way back from lunch this afternoon. They had an Alpha 100 (Sony) demonstration model. We had stopped by last week, but they had sold out their models, including the demo model.

I have a Minolta SLR, with two lenses. I wanted to physically see if my lens would work on the Sony. All the reviews indicated they would. But I wanted to see. The lens I brought along worked fine.

The A-100 is an earlier model. The current top of the line is the A-700. I read the reviews for both.

I concluded that the A-700 had too many features. If I was a serious amateur, I’d probably want all the bells and whistles. I want something I can operate in cold weather, so the buttons and fewer choices on the A-100 seems the better choice.

So, I ordered the A-100 Body. Should have it next Monday.

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Tuesday, January 01, 2008

100 Things

This seems to be the season for life lists or Bucket Lists as the current movie title calls it. Simply put, what would you like to do during your life? What experiences would you like to have?

I've had a list since the early 80's. I've added to it from time to time. It now contains 100 destinations, events, or experiences. I'm developing a hypelinked version of the list. It isn't ready for prime time yet.

Item #15 in the list is to Visit All Seven Continents. I only have Africa and Antarctica left. We have gone for multi-week vacations in the other five. So, the trip in Nov 2008 is another step in fulfilling that item.

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New Year, New Plans

Boy, I let my travel planning go off the deep-end. The last post here was in November of 2006. Ireland and Italy came and went. No excuse, I just pursued other projects.

Toward year end Sep-Dec 2007, I got real busy with training for Mind Manager, and was posting on my business blog.

New project or I should say destination. After 20 years of "thinking" about it, Joanne and I have reservations to go to the Antarctica in Nov 2008.

This gives me two new blog topics to record my ideas and thoughts about.

  1. Travel Planning for Antarctica
  2. Obtaining and learning how to use a digital SLR

(1) is a logistics problem but only because I've got some questions about the flights. The first look appears to be 45 hours because of the Buenos Aires overnight connection. There is probably an easier way.

(2) isn't as hard as it sounds. I already have an SLR film camera that I've taken on numerous trips. The results have been satisfactory for my needs. But I need to learn the digital tricks and capabilities. Then play with the camera enough that some become second nature.

2008 is a chance to learn about a lot of things!

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