In praise of things compact

click photo to enlarge
One evening a few years ago, as I sat at my computer in the glow from the screen and the nearby anglepoise light, I accidentally nudged a stack of compact discs causing them to slide across the desk. I'd placed them upside down, and as they came to rest the lights created individual rainbows on the clear, silvery underside of each one. Never a person to miss an opportunity for a photograph I took several and posted one on the blog.

I recalled that event the other evening as I was photographing the inside of a cut glass wine goblet. It had caught my eye as a potential photographic subject when I was washing up a little earlier. The faceted edges of the patterns in the bowl of the glass were making rainbow-like prismatic effects. I rested my camera on the top of the glass with the lens inside it and used the timer to take a few shots. I was moderately pleased with the outcome, but a little underwhelmed by the rainbows. So, remembering the episode with the compact disks I found one, placed it, shiny side up, under the stem and foot of the glass, and took a few more photographs. Today's image is the best of the bunch. I moved the camera a little for this one to spoil the symmetry and introduce a little contrast with the out of focus side of the glass.

As I reviewed my shots on the computer I reflected that many photographic enthusiasts disparage compact cameras, their tiny sensors and their allegedly more limited capabilities compared with DSLRs. However, if like me on this occasion, you want to take a quick, experimental shot, with good depth of field and possibly macro capability, then they are hard to beat. So join me in a glass and give a little praise for both compact discs and compact cameras!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Compact discs and Linux

click photo to enlarge
My oldest son offered me an old computer recently, and, because it was of more recent vintage than my existing old computer I accepted it. The other day I transferred the hard drives from my "old" old computer into my "new" old computer and decided I'd wipe them clean and install Ubuntu 9.10, a very recent version of this Linux distribution that is reported to be significantly more user friendly than previous incarnations. In recent years I've tried out a few Linux Live CDs (Slax, Knoppix and Ubuntu) and have been very impressed that you can have a fully functioning operating system with a working internet connection running off a CD in your disk drive. This happens, incidentally without interfering at all with your existing Windows installation, and runs reasonably quickly, though isn't as fast as it would be coming off the hard drive. I've used a Linux Live CD in the past to look at a hard drive when Windows has stopped working, valuing the facility to recover files from such a disk - very useful, and the reason I became interested in them in the first place.

However, though there is much to like about Linux - it's free, open source, constantly being improved, less susceptible to viruses, etc - it is sufficiently different to Windows that new skills need to be learnt to feel compfortable with it. Nonetheless, I like the philosophy behind it, so I thought I'd take the plunge. And there my problems began. It took me a while to figure out how to prepare the hard disk for Linux, but I eventually got there. However, try as I might I could not get Ubuntu 9.10 to install. It hung at the Partitioning stage. I downloaded and burned to CD every variation of the distribution - 32 bit, AMD64, Alternate, etc - but the same problem arose. After a couple of days tinkering and researching I found other people with AMD64 processors and VIA chipsets with the same problems, so I guess that's where my difficulties lay. Fortunately, when I looked out a 64 bit version of Ubuntu that I'd downloaded in June it went on to the hard drive very straightforwardly. So, I now have my Linux installation, though not the precise one I wanted. I'm going to dip it into it regularly and do some photographic processing using Linux open source software to see if I find it a realistic alternative to Windows and its software.

When I was tidying up the stack of Ubuntu and other CDs on my desk the other evening they slipped over. The solitary reading lamp and the glow from my monitor produced rainbow-like patterns on each glossy surface. Seeing the discs shining under the lights reminded me that I'd produced an image that featured CDs a couple of years ago. I reached for the LX3 that was nearby, switched to macro mode and took my second shot of this subject that is shown above. As I did so I reflected that a hand-held photograph of the surprisingly good quality that the little camera produced in these circumstances would have been unthinkable only ten years ago.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 6.8mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.2
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On