We went for a two hour hike on the local trails yesterday. The day before saw about an inch of rain so we weren't quite sure what to expect for conditions. It was a little muddy, but this is New England and it seems to shake off excess rain like a wet dog.

...and make mushrooms. There are a few thousand varieties of mushroom and they are growing out of just about everything. Sit down to tie your shoes and you risk becoming the next host.

Since this weblog is my long term memory I went back to this date a year ago and sure enough, I had started a Mushroom series. The year before was drier and the 2002 Mushroom series started in October. Turns out that there are more pictures of mushrooms on this site than anything else. Maybe even more than of Zeke?

I also bought the Canon A70 around this time last year. Overall I have been very happy with it.

On the plus side it takes AA batteries and four rechargeable 2100ah NI-MH batteries seem to last for weeks on a charge. The lens adaptor has made astro-photography relatively easy to do. I bought a wide angle lens and polarizer filter, and use them when I remember, but I never take them along. I've held off on buying the telephoto and macro lens as they seem expensive for what little you get.

The camera fits in a jacket pocket and the high capacity batteries make it slightly heavier than my old Nikon 775 with its proprietary lithium pack (which didn't hold as much charge and cost thirty bucks to replace). The small size is good as I end up taking it everywhere, including all of the zany bushwhacking adventures Zeke and I end up on ("Hey, where's this trail go?").

The included Canon software, while a little clumsy, lets you stitch panoramas together. There's remote control and capture software, which really begs for a wireless USB connection, but works sufficiently with a USB hub and lots of long cables. Also, I just discovered that they offer an SDK.

On the downside it doesn't get in as close as the 775. Yesterday I took a few dozen macro photos of mushrooms, newts, and other wonders and the majority of them came out blurry. They seemed to be focusing but something must have gone wrong that wasn't obvious on the view screen. The audio feature is nice, but almost impossible to access in the menu system (you switch to play mode and have to make the recording onto an existing photo).

If I were designing a small camera:

• pocketable - small, light, sturdy enough to take anywhere
• firewire interface:
  • 6 pin so it can be powered by computer, allows getting rid of power plug (power it like iPod)
  • direct connect to iPod for image offload?
  • firewire is fast enough that a remote control program could use live or almost live, full frame feeds so camera could double as high resolution, computer controlled image capture
• remote control API and scriptable camera language: it's a computer for crying out loud!
  (update: or at least PTP PTP which, it turns out, the A70 does)
• Canon like lens adaptor (the more manufacturers that use this means wider variety and lower pricing)
• 1 inch macro distance, or closer! ":^)
• button to toggle zoom lever into a focus lever
• 3x optical zoom, more if possible without making larger, less if it means better macros
• while movie mode and audio recording are nice I'd give them up to have other features, I'd give up movies to have better audio support
• jack for external shutter control

I've been considering an upgrade to a digital SLR, like the Nikon D70, but I worry that it is too large and would end up collecting dust at home most of the time.

• info
  • 4 comments
  • permanent link
  • email this