Digital camera

[Tea]

In another thread, Pradeep asked about our new digital camera.

We got a Mavica FD-1000. Sony. Yeah - i.e., beautifully built, under-specced and over-priced to buggery. But we wanted the convenience of floppy disc storage. It is bulky and a bit heavy, but that's the price you pay for fitting a floppy drive into a camera.

It has the capacity to take a memory stick too, with the usual USB hookup. Is there any reason we shouldn't get a generic 256MB stick for it? I can buy a Transcend one for (I think) $156 plus tax.

 

[Pradeep]

There are generic memory sticks? Sure you aren't thinking of CompactFlash or similar?

 

[Mercutio]

Using IE on Storageforum for the first time. Just saw all the avatars for the first time. Jeez you people like wasting bandwidth.

Tannin, you should've consulted before choosing that dreadful Sony. Floppies are a neat trick, but most cameras on the market now take pictures that're larger than 1.44MB, and memory stick... shudder.

I have a Kodak DC290 at the moment. 2.1Mpixel, nice, short focal length, good optical zoom, great range of f-stops for a digital camera, plus I can play Doom on it (nope, not kidding. Doom. Imps and troopers and Cyberdemons. Oh my.). Perfectly acceptable for typical candid photogaphy, but like most digitals, frustrating to use outdoors or in bright sunlight.

My brother just bought a reasonably high-end Fuji FinePix 4900. 4.something MPixel, 6x optical zoom, and about the same range of f-stops as my DC290. Much better for outdoor use, that one, and quality that's positively stellar. The only reason I wouldn't want one myself is that I've already made an investment in Compactflash cards (and IBM Microdrives) for my DC290, but it's pretty easily the nicest digital I've gotten to use.

The camera I *am* drooling over is the Nikon CoolPix 995. 3.4Mp, similar specs to my Kodak and compactflash support... Yay! At around $500US, it's probably the best buy on the market right now (my Kodak still sells for about $600 new).

I can't believe cameras are even sold with upper-end f-stops of 5 or 6, but there are a number of them out there (look at the specs on HP or Panasonic cameras sometime). Do people not know what they're buying?

The Sony cameras I'm familiar with are painfully heavy and have a narrower range of f-stops than the cameras I've mentioned. I literally can't find anything about a floppy version of the FD-1000 (are you sure you aren't talking about the CD-R equipped one?), but I do see that with the mini-CD-R one you get a 10x zoom, which is pretty damn nice.
Still, support for floppy or CD-R is a total sham. The 156MB CD-Rs cost $10 apiece and aren't rewriteable (and probably suck batteries like there's no tomorrow, too), while the floppy is a dead. bulky medium for something as theoretically portable as a two and a half pound still camera.

I've said it before, but I think CF is the media of the future. I've seen 512MB flashcards, and of course the Microdrive scales to 1GB+. Desktop readers are cheap - did I see that the latest soltek board has onboard support for a CF reader? Anyway, the cards are cheap and have massive scalability in capacity. What's not to love?

OK. I'm done ranting. For now.

 

[Stereodude]

Silence Infidels

Canon EOS D60

enough said

Oh wait you didn't ask what camera you should get. I've got my eye on the D60. The body is supposed to street at $2k which is the current selling price of the D30.

Currently I have a Canon Powershot A20.

Stereodude

 

[Tea]

Excuse brain-fade. That's the FD-100, not 1000. It's a new model, may not be on their web site yet.

1.2 Mpixel, 3x optical zoom, f6.4 Saves as JPEG, 640 x 480, 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 1024. (There is digital zoom too, but digital zoom is crap - better to simply take the wide-angle photo and use your PC software to crop it.

As I said, over-priced to buggery, but that's Sony for you. But in reality there are only two cameras on the market that can do what I want. Both are Sonys. The next model down is $100 or so cheaper and a lot lower spec. This one was $875 plus tax. I ordered a Transend 256MB flash memory stick for it today for $230 plus tax. If, for some reason, it doesn't work, I can exchange it.

The thing with cameras is that there are only three interfaces that I know of. RS-232 (the less said the better), USB, and floppy disc. Oh, and those CD things, which I don't bother to count. USB is all very well, but it means messing about with cables under the desk, and it means that I have to use a USB capable computer to see the pictures, not to mention needing to load file transfer software on it. I could live with that for my own systems - I have a W2k box at home and plenty of USB-equipped ones at the office, but it's no good for visiting. I have friends with old computers, lots of them. With a floppy drive in the camera, I can use any computer on the planet. With USB, if I take it on holiday to Queensland I am limited to the memory on the flash card, unless my friend up there I stay with spends another $1000 on a new computer.

But it's not reallly something I bought to use as a general-purpose camera. That's just a bonus. I bought it to take pictures of PC components for my web page. For that task, floppy discs are perfect. Mostly I just want to take three or four shots of a hard disc or a motherboard and plug them right into the page. 1280 resolution is heaps for web work, in fact I mostly shoot at 1024 and crop them back to 500 by 400 or so.

Anyway, I now have a $500 camera that cost me $1000. Typical Sony.

Sigh.

My dad, by the way, just bought a real one, a Nikon.

 

[Mercutio]

re: Powershot A20.

f2.4 to f4.8. Ouch. Hope you don't live near any windows.
They don't even list f-numbers for the EOS digitals. That's a little suspicious for $1000+ digital cameras.


I feel your pain, Tannin.

 

[Mercutio]

Tannin, flash-memory readers usually cost less than $40 in the US. You plug 'em into a USB port on your desktop or carry them around with your camera (most are 4"x6" or smaller and weigh less than a half-pound). PCMCIA to flash adaptors can be as cheap as $20, but only support one media type.

Floppy is just... bad.

 

[Stereodude]

re: Powershot A20.

f2.4 to f4.8. Ouch. Hope you don't live near any windows.
They don't even list f-numbers for the EOS digitals. That's a little suspicious for $1000+ digital cameras.


I feel your pain, Tannin.

Apparently you don't know much about cameras. The F2.4 is largest aperature at the 8mm setting on the zoom and the F4.8 is the largest at the 24mm setting of the zoom. It can get smaller than those numbers.

As for the EOS digitals they are SLRs. They do no come with a lens. Hence they do not have an "F numbers" listed. Depending on what mm lens you want and how much you're willing to pay will determine what aperature lens you get. You can get a 200mm F 2.8 if you're willing to pay for it.

Stereodude

 

[Pradeep]

Hehe, I have a Coolpix 995 with 1GB Microdrive Mercutio Nothing like being able to take 650 photos whilst shooting in Auckland and still having a couple of hundred in reserve

Tony, most cameras these days are USB mass storage devices, and appear as another removable drive when plugged into a windows box.

A couple of sample pics (around 1mb each):

http://www.vdpc.org/DSCN0025.JPG - A baggage cart took this shot on 10sec timer.

http://www.vdpc.org/DSCN0045.JPG - From the SkyTower in Auckland using the fisheye lens.

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently you don't know much about cameras. The F2.4 is largest aperature at the 8mm setting on the zoom and the F4.8 is the largest at the 24mm setting of the zoom. It can get smaller than those numbers.
Stereodude

F-number = a ratio of the size of the light apeture to the size of the lens. Low F-numbers indicate that you're pretty much always going to have a lot of light in the picture, which is fine when you're indoors and using a flash, but really dreadful if you're outside trying to minimize the brightness of the sun (when F-10 - 16 comes in handy).

You can't tell me that being stuck @ f-2.8 all the time is a good thing. It's not.

 

[Stereodude]

F-number = a ratio of the size of the light apeture to the size of the lens. Low F-numbers indicate that you're pretty much always going to have a lot of light in the picture, which is fine when you're indoors and using a flash, but really dreadful if you're outside trying to minimize the brightness of the sun (when F-10 - 16 comes in handy).

You can't tell me that being stuck @ f-2.8 all the time is a good thing. It's not.

Thanks for the lesson in basic photography. :roll:

I know all about F stops and the aperture of a lens. What you missed in my original post and still don't seem to be getting is that F-2.4 is the largest possible aperture at the widest zoom setting. It is not the only aperture the camera can use at that focal length. The camera writes the F-stop and the shutter speed in the metadata along with piles of other information. I can assure you it uses smaller apertures than 2.4 or 4.8.

Stereodude

 

[Mercutio]

Then why isn't that information listed in the specifications of the camera?

 

[Pradeep]

The reason they don't post that spec is because all that it required is the lowest f-stop number possible. There is no "advantage" in posting a higher number.

 

[time]

.. most cameras these days are USB mass storage devices, and appear as another removable drive when plugged into a windows box.

Yes, but if you have Win98 or ME, you need to install a driver (albeit small), and Win95 is a non-starter.

Having said that, I think you're insane, Tea. That's a ludicrous amount of money to spend on such a low-spec camera. And then to compound it by giving Sony more money for memory sticks :roll:

If you leave a USB cable plugged into the computer, all you need to do is connect the camera and sit back (at least with some software). All finished in the time it would take you to merely insert the floppy.

I'll second the plug for the A20. It works great with both indoor and outdoor shots. Not bad for a fully automatic camera.

Having said that, I lust after a Nikon 995. Or an 885. Of course, they're 3MP vs 2MP, but the Canon cannot be fine tuned, which limits its application. And I don't like its control layout. The Nikon has a preview button with the ability to delete the latest shot rather than saving it. I'd pay for that alone.

But they're damned expensive here. The Olympus 3020 is cheaper, but I haven't worked out what the compromises are.

 

[Corvair]

...but really dreadful if you're outside trying to minimize the brightness of the sun (when F-10 - 16 comes in handy). You can't tell me that being stuck @ f-2.8 all the time is a good thing. It's not.

High shutter speed is a much better controller for exposure than a lens' F-stop setting. If you need a shallow field of focus, you will need to open the aperture up with a corresponding increase in shutter speed to maintain a given exposure index.

 

[Tea]

I think you're insane, Tea. That's a ludicrous amount of money to spend on such a low-spec camera.

When it comes to money, Tannin and I are insane. We just wanted to be able to use any computer with the camera without fuss or bother. For example, after work yesterday, I went to my girlfriend's place, took some shots and was able to show them to her right away - despite the fact that her computer (a) doesn't have a USB port, and (b) runs NT 4.0. With any other camera, I couldn't have shown her this:

(To save messing the thread-width up, that's a cropped detail from the original 1280 by 1024 image. It's her wonderful vegetable garden. As you can see, a very nice corn crop this year. Unfortunately, the corn hides all the other things from this angle.)

 

[Tannin]

Excuse me - that's my girlfriend you are talking about there, Tea. Sometimes I think that you forget you are only imaginary.

 

[Bartender]

Maybe she is more real then you think Tannin.

 

[Buck]

Maybe she is more real then you think Tannin.

Look who's talking.

Tannin, that picture is nice, but it should be more clear.

BR

 

[Corvair]

At home, I have an electronic camera and 3 "conventional" film cameras.

For electronic still camera, I currently use an Olympus Camedia 2500. It was and still is one of the best low-light performing consumer-class digital cameras. It uses both SmartMedia and/or CompactFlash storage (no USB -- whoopdie doo).

As for the conventional film cameras: An old Zeiss Ikon reflex (uses 120 film), Nikon F (very rugged fully-mechanical workhorse) with high-point and waist-level finders, and a "modern" Nikon F-3 with motor drive, auto-back, as well as high-point, sports, and waist-level finders.

I also have a wide assortment of Nikkor AI lenses that I use between the 2 Nikons: 16mm / f2.8 full-field fisheye, 18 mm / f3.5 ultra-wide angle, 20mm / f2.8 fast - very wide angle, 24mm / f2.0 fast wide angle, 28mm / f2.8 fast wide angle, 35mm / f1.4 fast wide angle, 50 mm / f1.4 normal, 55mm / f2.8 Micro-Nikkor, 85mm / f1.4 fast short telephoto, 105mm / f1.8 fast telephoto, 200mm / f4.0 Micro-Nikkor, 300mm / f4.0 fast telephoto, and a Vivitar 300mm ~ 600mm / f3.5 ~ f4.8 sports telephoto zoom. A large heavy duty Bogen tripod (3036?), a small light Bogen tripod, a Nikon microscope adaptor, a Nikon bellows extension for doing and a lens reversing ring for *serious* close-up work, a copy stand, Metz CT-4545 flash, Nikon Macro Ring Flash, and... eh... probably other things that I can't recall at this moment.

 

[Mercutio]

Spent some money today. On StereoDude's advice I picked up a Canon Powershot G2. $600. And a new (well, lease-return) 21" Sony display. The display is mine and mine alone. I'm splitting the cost of the camera with my girlfriend's parents; they wanted to buy a crappy little HP digicam and I offered to pick up the different between that and "something decent". I suggested the Nikon 995 and the Powershot G2. They didn't like the 995's formfactor, so we got the G2.

Probably more camera than they need. That's OK. As the family's dedicated A/V geek I'm the one who takes the pictures anyway.

I haven't had much of a chance to try it out, but I also haven't worn down the batteries yet, which is a good first sign. I can fit six images on the 32MB CF card at the highest detail setting. That's just insane.

 

[Mercutio]

And of course I misremember which Camera SD actually recommended. Oh well. It's still really nice.

... and off I go to use up a lot of color ink. Weeeeee!

 

[James]

Well, since the digital camera afficienados seem to be circling in this thread... could I ask for some advice?

I'd like to spend the least possible money to get an acceptable quality digital camera. Ideally it should have USB connectivity but I won't take enough photos for it to be a really big deal.

The pictures it will take will always be inside and are destined for a web page. I'll be taking photos of CD-R/ROM and DVD-R/ROM drives - that's all. I don't think I need zoom and probably 1-1.3MP is all I need. I have a 64MB CompactFLASH card kicking around somewhere I could use if needed.

I'm not particularly interested in cameras as such - I have a little Olympus mju-II camera which is terrific for what I use it for (holiday snaps, basically) and now I need a digital one to replace my Kodak DC-20 which I won many years ago - the 640x480 quality isn't quite good enough for my purposes.

I was looking at the Kodak DC3200 since it's cheap (A$295, about USD150), but if anyone has any other ideas I'd love to hear 'em. Bear in mind we tend to get things late and expensive compared to elsewhere in the world - the G2 mentioned above has just arrived on our shores and costs A$1800 (USD950 or so) discounted. So if you pitch me things that were a good deal about 12 months ago in the US, that'd be about right.

 

[Pradeep]

I guess you will want something with decent macro capability to take detail shots (of the back of the drive?). And perhaps some decent flash capabilities so they aren't dim and dark like most of the pics on the web I would recommend a 995, but it would be complete overkill for just screen rez pics. It goes for about US$520 now, still over $1600 in Aus tho

 

[James]

I think I'd want to pay less than a third of that amount.

 

[Mercutio]

Kodak's consumer cameras are really nice., actually. The best part about them is the little $50 add-on USB cradle, since it also recharges your batteries and makes a decent place to keep the camera when you aren't using it, which is much better than the "where did I use it last" nonsense I'm constantly dealing with myself.

 

[Pradeep]

Merc: There's a firmware update for the G2 available now.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0204/02041901canonpowershotfirmware.asp

 

[Mercutio]

Didn't need it. My camera was just made two weeks ago.

Thanks though. I wouldn't have known.

 

[Tea]

James, a little bit of my experience with the Sony, for what it's worth - which isn't much, as it's not something I'd particularly recommend unless you have special reason to want floppy disc storage.

For me, it was Hobson's choice, as my main priority was being able to use the camera with absolutely any PC. I don't need to take lots of shots but I do need to be able to take them anywhere there is a computer, and for this a floppy disc is the only answer.

(Sure, USB might be universal in another few years, and there might even be universal USB camera interface drivers by then, though I doubt it, but this ain't a few years time, it's now and much as some of you guys hate floppy drives they are the only universal medium. (Unless you count those iMac things as PCs, which I don't - they are designer furniture with a keyboard.) In two years time I won't have this camera anyway.)

Mercutio thinks I'm bananas to have bought one of these, he says I paid A$1000 for a $400 camera, and he's right. But there was no way I was going to buggerise about plugging in USB cables all the time. In, out, in, out, in, out till I break the socket or the cable. No thankyou.

Anyway, that meant I had three choices: Sony, Sony, or Sony. I got the MVC-FD100. Max res is 1280 but I nearly always use it at 1024 x 768, which is plenty fine enough for web work. But, unlike a real camera, you have to take it right the first time. With a real 35mm film camera, or even with the $2000 Nikon my dad just bought, you have resolution to burn. You can zoom and crop to your heart's content and still get an acceptable image quality. With only a modest number of megapixels to play with though, you pretty much have to have the final format of your picture in mind before you shoot.

Now you are going to be doing CD-ROM drives and their various optical relatives. That should be fairly easy, even though you are going to be working with a camera that is no better than mine. (Mine because it's a stupid Sony and a bit challenged, yours because it's going to be a cheap one - the $400 camera that Mercutio says I should have bought.

 

[Tea]

I'm doing hard drives, CPUs, and motherboards. Each one is quite different.

The hard drives are middling-difficult. The first thing I discovered was that you can't just point and click. To start with, you need to decide if you are going to go for a formal view or an informal view. If you want a formal view - i.e., the drive centered in the frame like in a parts catelogue, then it has to be pretty close to exactly right. You only need to be ~5 to 10 degrees off dead centre to make the drive look very misshapen.

(Hmmm... I was going to put an example here, but I seem to have purged my site of every last example of this particular infelicity. Lots of others to go though yet though. Better drag one out and FTP it up.

That's a particularly bad example, and I've cropped it very close to make it look worse yet (with the dark coloured drive against the light Storage Forum background), but no one could miss those errors.

In a long shot, with plenty of background to surround the drive, you can get away with this sort of thing, at least a little of it, especially if you make sure that there are no semi-parallel lines close to it. The trick here is to shoot the drive against a background that is roughly the same color as the background of the web page where it will eventually appear.

More important though, you have to be exactly over the top of the drive. Even a tiny bit to one side or the other will cause distortion.

So: for formal shots of hard drives, and I'm sure that opticals will be the same, the rules are (1) shoot against a web-page coloured background, (2) shoot from exactly overtop.

But there is more. You have to shoot from a reasonable distance too, or else you get fish-eye distortion. Look at this example:

It probably looks OK at first, especially if you're not familiar with the particular drive, but the real drive does not bulge like that one. I've almost got away with it in this shot (a) because the drive will be unfamiliar to most people and unlike, say, a WD400BB, it doesn't have straight edges anyway, and (b) because it's not a formal straight up and down shot. By having the drive on that 30-odd degree angle, and by also by having it set against a dark background (to suit my page - it doesn't suit Storage Forum), the effect is hidden.

One last thing: you have to shoot by daylight. Direct sunlight is OK if you think about where the shadows are (and you can have a lot of fun with shadows if you go all informal and creative), cloudy days are OK too, until about the last half hour or so before dusk when it gets too dark for good results. With a cheap camera, probably anything under $3000 or so, you can't take formal shots by artificial light. Here is what happens if you try:

Notice two things about it: first, the obvious - the artificial lighting makes it look terrible. This one was taken without flash. With flash it is much worse if you are anywhere near directly over the drive. Second, that not-quite-over-the-centre effect I mentioned above. Again it is masked, to some extent, by the black background I shot against.

The only way to shoot formal shots by artificial light (and you get lots of time off during the day, right?) is to invest in some really serious lighting gear. I don't know how much you'd have to spend, but probably $500 or so. We just don't realise how much brighter the sun is, even on a dull day, than our puny 150 Watt globes. I tried 7 100 Watt incandesent globes in my small front room and it wasn't even close. Not to mention the nightmare of trying to position things so that they didn't reflect off any of them.

You could use a seperate flash gun, one that you hold off to one side and is triggered by the camera but without triggering the camera's own built-in flash. Any camera over $3000 should let you do that.

Mind you, the effects of artifical light can be rather beautiful. Look at the colours thrown off by this angle:

That would be worth going back to and re-shooting next time I am stuck for a way to make yet another look-alike Samsung drive appear fresh and attractive.

 

[Tea]

Oh: formal shots can look OK, but you have to get them just so. This one here -

- a Quantum Fireball CR, doesn't look anything special but it does the job. It's still not quite right but that is about as good as I can get without either more practice or else a good quality tripod - I bought a cheap one to try out - $50 - but I can do just as well as that thing does hand-held. Notice that the background (black picture and white SF) and the tight cropping show up ever tiny variation. Just the same it took a great deal more work to shoot that than it did to take many of the much more impressive-looking informal shots.

(Quantums, by the way, are difficut. They all look exactly the bloody same! In fact, that's a CX which is illustrating my entry on the CR. I zoomed it down just enough to make the model number illegible.)

A couple more things you will need to learn: If you are shooting straight on, you must line the drive up exactly. Sure, you have image editing software that can rotate things for you, but no matter how good your software is, you can't rotate images in less than 45 degree increments unless you have pixels to burn. With a $400 camera, forget it. Either you line it up straight the first time, or you go back and re-shoot the bloody thing. For hand-held work, I find it best to shoot a whole floppy disc's worth (10 shots at 1024 resolution) all the same, then pick the best one. For motherboards (more on these later if I don't fall asleep first), you might need 20 or 30 till you get practiced at it. Motherboards are by far the hardest things to photograph though.

Now for the informal shots. These are a lot more fun. Look at what it's quite easy to do with even the ugliest of drives. Here's a Conner 420:

The closer you get, the easier it is to make it look nice. This next one, another unlovely Conner, I am particularly pleased with - though Conners were such ugly things in every way that making one look attractive is probably bad form.

OK, that's not an attractive photo in absolute terms, but given the drive I had to work with it's damn near a masterpiece. You should see how un-photogenic it looks in the 20 or 30 other shots I took. Notice how, in this informal shot, the reflection of the flash is on my side - indeed, it's the only thing that saves it from being utterly boring - instead of working to defeat me, as it is with straight-on formal shots.

But some drives are just impossible. I spent hours and hours trying to get a decent looking shot of my beloved old Mark 1 Cheetah. I shot it indoors, outdoors, close-up, long shot, straight-on, angled, with motherboards and SCSI cards and shrubbery and different drives and even tried my cats. I shot the damn thing against cork and carpet and concrete and brick paving and no matter what I did, it looked like a really, really boring hard drive.

Bloody thing.

On the other hand, some drives just have natural charm. I must have a half-dozen decent shots of this 34GXP. This one is my favourite:

 

[Buck]

Boring indeed. Perhaps a shot of the disk drive's label alone would work for certain models. The Deskstar 34GXP, as you've pointed out, does look beautiful.

 

[Tea]

It would be fun to pass on now to the things that can be done with the inside of hard drives. They are amazing things, and the games that you can play with reflecting things into them are limitless. Here, for example, is the result of no more than five minutes tinkering with a Medalist 10240 late one night. Excuse blurriness, it's zoomed down from 1024, and zooming does horrible things to pictures unless you have huge numbers of pixels to play with.

The thing I love about the hard drives is that it's just so easy to geat those wonderful surrealistic images without the slightest retouching. None of these three images have been anywhere near Photoshop, they are just raw pictures. The next two are still at 1024 by 768, so I'll just link to them.

First, a Quantum Bigfoot: http://www.redhill.net.au/sf/1024-bigfoot.jpg

Second, the Medalist 10240 again: http://www.redhill.net.au/sf/1024-st310240.jpg

I love this stuff!

(Err ... Tea, didn't you say you were not going to talk about taking pictures of hard drives with their lids off? Isn't this rather pointless, seeing as James wants to take pictures of optical drives?)

(Sorry Tannin. Quite right. I'll go right on to motherboard and CPU pictures. They are relevant to James. Same sort of issues crop up, and there is quite a lot I haven't covered yet.)

(Not tonight you won't. We are going to bed.)

(You might be going to bed. I'm staying up late.)

(I've got the body. You ain't getting the choice.)

(I thought it was my turn to be in charge of the body!)

(Tannin!)

(Awww, not fair!)

 

[Cliptin]

More important though, you have to be exactly over the top of the drive. Even a tiny bit to one side or the other will cause distortion.

Sounds like you need a tripod and plumb line.

The only way to shoot formal shots by artificial light (and you get lots of time off during the day, right?) is to invest in some really serious lighting gear. I don't know how much you'd have to spend, but probably $500 or so. We just don't realise how much brighter the sun is, even on a dull day, than our puny 150 Watt globes. I tried 7 100 Watt incandesent globes in my small front room and it wasn't even close. Not to mention the nightmare of trying to position things so that they didn't reflect off any of them.

It sounds like you are trying to shoot with too much ambiant light. Professional portrait studios decrease the room lighting even when using big bucks lighting. Some of it is for light control but still.

Or you are talking about color temperature. They may make camera filters to help with this. I'm beginning to see florecent lights that produce an incandecent color temp. Maybe they were there before and I never noticed.

As far as reducing reflections you might try lighting the subject through a white sheet. You could also try using a reflective car sun-shade. Those things you put in the front window of the car to keep the dash from warping. The ones in my car appear to have an aluminum oxide coating for reflection.

Just random physics thoughts off the top of my head. I am not a professional. YMMV. Void where prohibited. Cash payment in advance.

 

[Cliptin]

Perhaps you should shoot the seagate under a car tire or brick or something to express the durability. If you think your camera is good enough, you could try and capture a shot of someone chucking it into the air. "This drive once flew."

 

[James]

Thanks for all that info Tony, and I look forward to the continuation.

I'm thinking I'll do my optical drive piccies outside on the weekend, since realistically with it taking 8-10 hours to test a drive, I'll be doing most of my reviewing on Saturdays and Sundays anyway. Thanks for the inside vs. outside information, as I said I don't do much photography except holiday snaps so even quite basic information is extremely helpful.

The centering effect does make me wonder if I had better invest in a tripod.

Funny seeing the picture of the CX - I have one of those sitting next to my keyboard at home. It's the original drive for my TiVo, which I have since replaced with the much quieter and much larger 40GB U6. The CX isn't particularly loud, but you could hear it outside the sealed case of the TiVo (which is pretty substantial - thick metal and foam too). The U6 is so quiet I have a hard time even telling it is on.

 

[Tea]

Yup, more info on the way, James. It will indeed be basic level stuff, for despite my family influence, that's the level I am at.

I'm taking the day off today but it's too nice outside to spend long on the computer. (I'm sorting through my MFM controllers and taking pictures of the Miniscribe 8425/8438 twins. Also, carefully not bothering to mow the lawn.)

For CD drives, fish-eye distortion will be the major problem you face. They are easier than motherboards but not much. Some tips on this after dark. (Or if the sun goes out.)

God, Ballarat is beautiful in autumn.

 

[Buck]

Nice picture. Why is everyone parked on the wrong side of the street, is it one-way? :lol:

 

[Pradeep]

For CD drives, fish-eye distortion will be the major problem you face. They are easier than motherboards but not much. Some tips on this after dark. (Or if the sun goes out.)

Tony, the distortion is due to the lens. Some are better in this regard than others. Generally distortion is at it's worst at either end of the zoom range. If you set the zoom to the medium setting this effect should be reduced if not eliminated altogether. Switching to macro mode should also help.

 

[Tea]

Isn't it funny that you can get quite a bit done when you only have a little while, but when you take a whole day off to do things, you achieve almost nothing. Didn't manage my promised other half last night. In fact I'm not sure that I achieved anything yesterday, except having a relaxing day in the soft autumn sunshine. Which is its own excuse, of course.

You're looking at the service lane, Buck. That's Victoria Street, which used to be the main entrance to Ballarat before the freeway bypassed the town. It's two lanes each way in the middle, plus a service lane on either side. My shop is not quite visible about 50 or 100 yards down past the green roof, just this side of the silver roof. In fact, parked outside the green roof place, once a milk bar or a tailor or some such, now just a house, is Kristi's white Valiant. My little toy blue car is in front of it. We always park a distance from the shop so that customers can park right out front.

Fish-eye distortion, Pradeep, may be contributed to by a lens, but it is essentially a matter of perspective. From that close up, things really are that shape. You can try closing one eye to see it for yourself, though it's difficult. You know how the Parthenon in Athens was built a funny shape so that it would look straight? This is why.

It also has to do with the focal length of the lens. There is a formula. I'll ask my dad what it is - he knows all that stuff.