To my surprise and delight the 2010 Honda Insight today reached and maintained 55 MPG on its current tank of fuel, now after several days of regular driving. Normally I'm seeing about 52 MPG and 54 if I'm really good. The average mileage for this tank may shrink by the time we need to refuel –climbing the hills around here is killer– but I consider 54 MPG a milestone, so I'm recording it as much for myself as anything.
I've been uncertain about my Canon 17-40mm f/4 lens for some time. Even before I purchased the fancy glass I'd read several reports that products were shipping in less-than-perfect condition and required factory calibration. I decided that I'd order anyway, hoping Canon had resolved the issue. Since I began use of the lens it just didn't seem right. Looking at Sunday's photos from Brandywine Gorge reinforced my doubts. Test photos today proved the flaw: the lens doesn't form sharp images! Proof came in the form of a series of test images I made with the camera on a tripod: manual focus, automatic focus; 17mm, 40mm; wide-open, stopped-down. In every case the recorded images were only fair at best when examined closely on the computer screen.
Visiting Canon USA's Web site I was hard-pressed to find how to receive warranty service. Finally I found that if I registered with the site, I could then get email support. Making my complaint and request for help online, I received a response within a couple of hours inviting me to return the lens to Canon for calibration. Good handling of my situation so far! The lens ships out tomorrow.
I can hardly wait for return of the lens tuned to its optimal state; it's a beautiful piece of equipment and should create excellent pictures!
I didn't know how to spend the couple of hours between the end of my work day and the beginning of an evening meeting. So I visited a favorite old place of mine — a cliffside overview of Lake Erie. The view was more beautiful than I had imagined it would be. What a fine way to fill a little time, and one's spirit.
I stayed up too late last night hosting a Public Night at the Observatory. Could have used more sleep. Sunday dawned cool and beautiful. It was a good day for a hike so we decided to head down to Brandywine Falls and the Gorge Trail there, a beautiful place inside the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, northeast from Peninsula.
I shot a good number of photos and was disappointed with a great many of them. They look pretty good at smaller size but enlargements show focus problems. It looks like my fancy Canon 17-40mm, f/4, L-series lens may suffer from a deficiency I read about in reviews of that product.
The lens is too expensive to let this flaw go uncorrected so now I'll need to figure out just what to do. Maybe first some more testing.
We had a very pleasant hike, it was just challenging enough (1.1 miles, says the GPS, with one very steep climb near the end), and a nice evening at home — the film Trekkies 2 is recommended! Back to work tomorrow.
We're holding our breath waiting to see what will happen at our fine institution when state funding details become established and known. Painful cuts are expected.
The trees will grow, the waters flow, the stars will shine, and life will go on. Goodnight!
Schrödinger's Cat was featured in today's Get Fuzzy comic strip (see below) reminding us that quantum mechanics and classical psychology can be fun!
Speaking of cats, our own Tasha continues to adjust to life with half as many teeth. {Actually, that's not literally true since the upper and lower jaws of the feline have differing tooth counts. Hopefully you get the point anyway.} She did have a rather messy problem Wednesday, however, as her tummy reacted violently, possibly to a change in her wet food diet. We went from one brand to another of canned foods hoping to find something that she liked better. The day of the switch she began, well let's say, returning the food after eagerly consuming it. If you think cat food looks bad coming from the can, you should see it coming back from the cat! I stopped feeding to give her stomach a rest, gave her an "extra" dose of her stomach med in case she missed one or needed a bit more, and went to bed. Next morning I cautiously offered her a few morsels of her favorite dry kibble. Dr. B. had said Tasha would adjust to her inability to crunch the pellets by swallowing them whole. I watched her closely as she first tried to bite a piece of food, then swallowed it. She quickly learned she could only lick up the bits and gulp 'em down. Once she finished the small meal I watched for, er, returns. None! A full day later we've returned to feeding kibble, Tasha's happily holding on to her food, and (for better or worse) she's likely going to regain some of the weight she lost in the entire dental ordeal. I'm purring.
PowerShot dinner? Sounds like I had my fill of whiskey or something. No, I had a quick meal at Taco Bell then headed to the Bay Village / Westlake border where there are some interesting buildings and railroad tracks. I thought that might be a nice spot to shoot a few more test images to get familiar with the little Canon PowerShot A650 and check out the results.
The settings selected by the camera appear very, very strange to me but here's what the camera displays for each image: For the building (above) we have an ISO of 80, 1/1250 sec., f/4.5. Huh? I'll verify in the EXIF when I get a chance. For the weathered paint in the photo below, it's the same! The images seem well exposed but I'd have selected for a slower shutter speed and a higher f-stop in this case. I'll be making adjustments soon.
Crazy sounding settings or not, the pictures are very sharp at full size and have good color with and without minor adjustments in The GIMP. Exposures are very good as well, showing excellent tonal range and shadow detail.
So, once I get the A650 dialed in to my preferences, I think it will probably travel with me quite often.
She Who Must Be Obeyed recently purchased a dandy new camera in the Panasonic Lumix line — a series of digital wonders that have Leica glass in them and produce excellent photos. That meant she no longer needed her Canon PowerShot A650 IS and she's letting me have it. I must say it will have to do a truly excellent job to make me want to replace my old Fuji FinePix S7000. Then again, the A650 is quite a bit smaller than the FinePix and I can more easily take it with me more places. So I'm giving it a go.
Just to get a feel for it I shot a few pictures of Tasha on her cat tree perch watching birds. There's apparently a robin's nest in the shrubbery beneath the window and the cat is tracking the birds' comings and goings.
I'm not used to cameras making all settings automatically, including ISO, but I haven't turned that feature off just yet. For this picture, recorded in dim early morning light, the camera shot at ISO 640, 1/60 sec., at f/2.8. Focal length is quite short so vertical lines are distorted and close inspection reveals quite a lot of digital noise in the image. Overall the picture isn't as sharp as I'd like, perhaps because the aperture is wide open.
I think I'll carry it around today and see how it goes. I know it's better than my cell phone camera and it's better than none at all for those times when you wish you had a camera.
Today we decided to try out the Salt Run Trail in the Virginia Kendall area of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It's just outside the town of Peninsula and we've visited that area often but never tried that trail. Park materials said it was "moderate to difficult" hiking and they were not fooling. The warm, humid air quickly brought out the sweat in us as we hiked rolling to hilly forest pathway covering a little over three miles. Along the way we stopped to photograph plants and animals we encountered, shooing away far more mosquitoes than I would have liked to have dealt with… including one little biter who actually tried to enter my ear canal! I swear, I didn't mean to kill it… it was an accident! I saw my first scarlet tanager (bird) and, at the end of the walk, we had a close encounter with a beaver that was gathering reeds on the banks of a stream. The hike was a lot of work but the exercise was good, the woods were beautiful, and the wildlife surprises a treat.
We sighted this great spangled fritillary butterfly visiting flowers in a prairie area of the park. It moved between plants at just slow enough pace to allow me some photo opportunities.
I didn't notice the detail in the head-on shot of the butterfly (it actually rotated for me as it sat upon the clover flower) until viewing my photos at home. Digitally zooming in we can see the insect's nectar-gathering tongue or proboscis at work probing the flower, seeking sweet drink.
I don't believe I've ever seen a scarlet tanager before. This one was very shy … I had to hide behind trees and brush to simply look at the beauty. The best images were captured with the bird in shadow where, apparently, it was most comfortable — very difficult conditions for photography, however. Four frames exposed at long distance and that was it… off, deeper into the forest, it went!
As we were emerging from the woods, finishing our hike, we crossed an automotive bridge spanning a stream. There, to my surprise, was a large, deep brown beaver gathering reeds from the bank. It finished its work, slipped into the water, and swam under the bridge with a bunch of green plants trailing from its mouth. I couldn't think of an appropriate pun based on the old TV series, so let's just say we'll Leave It to Beaver.
We had a very nice, quiet Fourth of July. After sleeping in –a rare pleasure for this sleep-deprived fellow– we headed out for a four-mile hike on the Cuyahoga Valley National Park's Boston Run Trail. It's a woodland trail with paths ranging from packed earth to river gravel surface and terrain from rolling to hilly. Though it was a cool morning, the climbs quickly warmed us and we covered, probably, four miles. The photographic highlight came as we crossed a wooden footbridge over a quiet stream. There, flitting amongst the plants, were several damselflies. The lace-winged beauties alighted on green leaves, sat for a while near each other, then zipped off in singles or pairs possibly in a mating dance. This gave us many opportunities to photograph them. The "one that got away" was a beauty bearing a green iridescent abdomen. My photos just were not clear enough to show. I think the floater in my right eye is interfering with my manual focus and I can't trust the camera's auto-focus in situations like these: razor-thin depth of focus with sharp-edged objects surrounding the actual subject. The hike began under mostly clear, intensely-blue skies but when we emerged from the forest the sky was mostly cloudy.
After lunch at Burger King (a pretty fair BK Veggie) and a stop at PetSmart to stock up on canned food for Tasha, we headed home. Camera at hand, I shot a few photos in Her garden: flowers, a ladybug, and this tiny, really, really tiny, bee on the petal of an Asiatic Iris. For this kind of "wildlife" photography one needn't always go far.
She is making a dinner of veggie barbecued ribs (yes, it can be done), corn, and red, white, blue dessert (tapioca with strawberries and blueberries). I'll enjoy a glass or two of wine. Hoping for a fine, relaxing evening.
Our furry little patient is doing just fine. In fact, she appears to be thriving without the nasty, probably sore teeth Dr. B. removed. Tasha is, as of today, still receiving antibiotic (Antirobe Aquadrops) to prevent infection and Buprenex oral doses for prevention of pain. She's showing no sign of being in pain, however, and I think after tonight's bedtime dose, I'll just stop the anesthetic; there are only two doses remaining anyway and the prescription says "as needed." Her behavior is nearly normal though our cat is purring more than we are used to, even when left alone. Tasha's lapping up Science Diet canned food instead of her usual Eukanuba kibble. The only thing she seems to be missing (besides her upper teeth) is her favorite crunchy treats. Those treats, however, are hard and square and have sharp corners; she'll have to wait a few more days before we offer them to her again.
We joke about a poodle cut becoming a permanent style for our cat but this exposed leg is the result of shaving for an IV during her oral surgery. Tasha, apparently a Russian Blue mix, has very thick fur.
Fully recovered from surgical anesthetics, Tasha looks herself again. Playful and alert, she's looking out the patio door scanning for bugs, cats, and deer. She seems to be doing purrfectly well. {Sorry… it's a cat lover thing!}
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