Sunday, January 11, 2009

The little lovable details


Dots, originally uploaded by jiihaa.


Marsh vegetation, originally uploaded by jiihaa.


Snow on lichen, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Today on our walk in the forest, the landscape was in a few places like a painting in pointillism, dotted everywhere. The were little patches of snow, which were dotted with water drops falling from the trees and frozen afterward. Also, there was lichen on stone, different varieties of moss, and so on. It was disturbing, or at least remarkable, to the eye.

The first photo is an attempt to capture this. The two other photos are little details of the marsh and forest, also remarkable in their small-scale beauty. Although I'm not sure I managed to capture it.

I was today a bit clumsy with the camera, droping it a few times. This was partly at least due to switching from the neck strap to using a wrist strap, which I borrowed from my Ixus 400. The neck strap has felt increasingly hard to use, getting stuck in all kinds of places, and I felt that the wrist strap would be a better solution. But you need to use it, and I haven't adjusted yet to it.

It is interesting that apparently I'm ready to invest in the more expensive equipment but when it comes to the accessories, I usually buy the cheapest possible. For example, I ordered a mini-tripod from Dealextreme, costing under 3 euro including delivery, and I have been very happy with it. However, I haven't always been as lucky. I bought a cheap gorillapod alternative, but never learned to use it properly. But then I noticed that even the real thing seems to be awkward to use, so the cheap one wasn't a bad choice after all. Another thing which has worked really well is a multi-function card reader, in size the same as a usb memory stick. The cost was about 5 euro, also from Dealextreme. It has worked flawlessly and fast with all my SD and SDHC cards. In fact, I ordered another to be carried with the camera.

Which reminds me of one thing: remember to format the memory card in camera. Since moving to shooting RAW+jpeg, I have started to format the card in the camera before using it, as iPhoto does not delete the RAW files from the card. And I have read somewhere that formatting the card before each use is actually a good thing to do in any case.

4 comments:

Rich Gift Of Lins said...

I like to use a wrist strap on smaller cameras as well. Mine has got a little sliding toggle on it. When you put it over your wrist, you can pull the toggle up to shorten the loop around your wrist and prevent it being able to slip off your hand. You could easily get a toggle and/or some cord from a walking/climbing shop and soon make something similar

Juha Haataja said...

The Ixus 400 wrist strap has a sliding toggle as well (I remembered it a bit too late though). Also, I'm not quite sure how to deal with the wrist strap with gloves on. With thin gloves there is no problem, but with thick gloves (also covering the wrists) it is a bit inconvenient.

Rich Gift Of Lins said...

I like insulated fingerless mittens that have built in cover for your fingers that can be folded back when you want to use your camera. When it's really cold, I wear a very thin liner glove under the mitten.

Juha Haataja said...

That kind of gloves are popular in ice fishing here in Finland, but I have never used them. Seems like a good idea to try out.