Alaska & Other Matters

Well, its been way too long between posts. A great deal has happened in between. During the summer, I was fortunate to be able to order a custom computer for work (& home) from Puget Custom Computers, financed by Central Steel. I also got a new monitor, a 21" Samsung LCD, which is very nice. The computer is working great, I got AutoCad 2000i installed and customized on it fairly smoothly. It's a nice rig...plays COD2 quite well, and AutoCad is running fine, along with Photoshop Elements 2.0.

We went on our Alaskan cruisetour in late August. It was great, I took a gazillion photographs. It took me about a month, but I now have all the Alaska images posted in galleries on my photo website www. cfordphotography.com

That's it for the moment....have to get back to work ya know.

D200 Banding...Uh Oh, or Who Cares?...

Well, it seems that some, possibly many, Nikon D200's suffer from a defect that has become known as "banding", a.k.a. "striping". This is a peculiar pattern of noise appearing as thin vertical stripes in images, usually only occurring in certain conditions. I was able to create the effect yesterday by duplicating the basic conditions reported on the internet as most likely to show the banding. Sure enough, in a photo with an overexposed highlight (my big window), the darker area below showed the banding.

I'm not sure how worried to be about this. Reportedly Nikon is able to fix cameras so afflicted. I could still also return it to Best Buy. I am reluctant to do this however because the camera has not exhibited any other problems yet, no dead or hot pixels in sensor or LCD etc. The banding has only appeared when I deliberately set up conditions to look for it. On the other hand, it could well show up in sunset, sunrise photos. My inclination at present is to hold on for awhile, then send it in to Nikon while still under warranty for the fix.

I think I have a one year Nikon warranty. Hmmm. If I return it and order another, it could have other problems. Hmmm.

I was able to take some better photos yesterday in daylight outside, and of Gizmo near the big window with plenty of outside light. The camera is impressive, however it does force you to pay attention to your technique. Shutter speed, aperture, depth of field, ISO... it is unforgiving if you screw up, but capable of superb images as long as you mind your technique. Not a point and shoot camera for sure.

So ends boring camera post #2. Maybe I'll insert a D200 picture of Gizmo...

D200 Arrives

Well, I can see that keeping a blog up to date requires a certain amount of self-discipline that I may be lacking. Anyhow, the big news today is that I received my long sought after Nikon D200 digital SLR camera yesterday. It is quite a machine and will require considerable practice and study to realize it's full potential. There are no post-worthy images from it yet, I'm still working out the kinks so to speak.

In other news, I got accepted into the mighty Tribulation Force Call of Duty gaming clan. These are good people that I have played with often over the last year. I will try not to embarrass them (or myself). Call of Duty 2 is enough different from CoD1 that it is tricky switching back and forth, but I love a challenge.

It looks likely that we will be going on another spring canoeing trip to the Buffalo River this year. We go earlier every year in hopes of higher water levels, this time it looks like mid-April. I am a little concerned by the possibility of cooler weather & water, but would love to experience the river during higher water levels. Cross your fingers. I'm 99.9% sure I will NOT be risking the D200 on the river. (It'll go on the trip though.)

It is beginning to become clear that this blogs value is as a journal type of deal for my own use, rather than as a source of wit and wisdom for the public. I don't think anyone else except my wife and nephew have ever seen it, and that was only for a couple of specific posts. I suspect this is pretty common. :) Anyhow, that's OK.