Today, the feedburner service is down, and when I looked through some of the feeds I read regularly, I noticed that the ones that most often drops out comes from feedburner.
Now it’s back to local feed (http://www.lentic.net/blog/2/feed)
I’ll find another solution for the statistics.
Some of you may have noticed some comments about my upcoming marriage the last couple of weeks. This Saturday it actually happened, so now I am a happily married man.
Both the ceremony and the party was an unconditional success. Good food and wine, entertaining speeches, and all the guests were sparkling. We really had the best day ever.
The official photographer, our brother in law, brought along a horseman 4*5 inch camera for the official pictures. Hope to get a picture up here as soon as we get back from our trip to Mauritius.
From a trip we had last fall. Photograph by Manfrotto, our trusted family photographer.
Just put started to subscribe to the feedburner service. I don’t think there will be any consequences to those who subscribe to my feeds, but if it does, please let me know.
The good part is that I will get statistics on the feed. Drupal, my web system tells me that there are remarkably many accesses to the feed link, but the system has a lot to be desired when it comes to details and statistics. Hopefully feedburner does a better job.
Needed some execise today, so I went for one of my usual walks in the forest. Here are some of the resulting images.
This post over at Colin Jago about sensor dust and sensor cleaning was a bit interesting. Personally I clean my 5D using Eclipse fluid and home made sensor swabs made from my old student ID card wrapped in PecPads. Works perfectly fine for me.
From different sources on the net, it appears that the newest sensors are coated with a new type of coating may be damaged by the old cleaning fluid. The confusing part is whether the coating is on the actual sensor, or on the cover glass / anti aliasing filter. If it is on the sensor itself, it is totally irrelevant since you never touch it anyway. I followed the link that Colin supplied to this forum. After reading the first post, I got a clear impression that the new coating was on the sensor. The reason for not using the Methanol (Eclipse) was primarily for secondary reasons. It is toxic, and less potent as a cleaner. It was also said that it leaves more residue when it dries, which I doubt. It was said that the methanol was denaturated, which would leave a recidue, but I can’t imagine why they would denaturate methanol. After all, it is highly toxic, leading to blindness in small quantities, and possibly death. Ethanol for technical use on the other hand, which is ordinary alcohol, is quite often denaturated to prevent people from drinking it.
After looking at the web page of Photographic Solutions, who makes the Eclipse solution. Obviously, they have made a new solution called the E2 which is suitable for the new sensors. This would give the impression that the coating is on the cover glass. Hmm, difficult to draw any conclusions.
Anyway, the forum thread doesn’t really answer the important question: Will any of the solutions permanently damage the surface of the cover glass. Whether a fluid leaves some residue is not really that important. If it does, change to a different brand and clean it up.
For me, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. My sensor cleaning technique has so far been very successful, and as long as Photographic Solutions has enough faith in their product to offer free sensor replacement in case of damage, I feel quite safe. Well, they won’t replace my sensor of course since I don’t use the recommended tool, but the cleaning fluid is the same. If I change to a newer camera some time, I may just buy the E2 fluid to be on the safe side.
I also just did my first purchase on B&H. As it turned out, after experimented with many different types of paper, I ended up with PhotoRag and Fine Art Pearl as my favorite. The only catch is the wild price tag. At least here in Norway.
To give an example:
The most affordable shop in Norway is, as far as I know, FotoVideo. A box of 50 sheets of A3+ (13*19″) cost about 3250 NOK, or approx. USD 540. The same box is sold at B&H for USD 206. Then there is shipping and Norwegian VAT. But still, I tried to calculate the cost of importing 10 boxes, and everything included it would end up on 1750 NOK ( USD 290 ) each. That’s almost half the price. Even a single box is so much cheaper that I will never event think about buying it locally. And the delivery? UPS showed up 3 days after I ordered.
PhotoRag suddenly became affordable, but it shouldn’t necessary to ship stuff two times around the world. Practically all western countries share a common marked these days, so the price difference seems just artificial. The only thing that happens is an added impact on the environment due to unnecessary transportation.
This year my girlfriend (or wife after next Saturday) gave me a subscription of LensWork. First issue just arrived.
First of all I was impressed by the sturdy envelope. It had survived the long trip across the Atlantic without any damage. Second I was a bit surprised by the format. Unusual for a magazine to be so small.
I haven’t read all the interviews yet, but the images were all beautiful. The paper and print quality was better than what I’ve seen in many books. It was also a pleasant surprise to see not only typical fine art photography, but also some street and documentary. Not that I think these subject are less “fine”, it just not what I expected to find in this magazine.
Already looking forward to the next issue, and to anyone who hasn’t read it I would say highly recommended.
