A pocket camera!

I've had the Nikon D80 for more than two years now; even though I lust the D3s, I haven't really outgrown the D80 yet. The only drawback with the D80 however is that, with my regular 18-200 VR Nikkor attached, it's not that portable. It doesn't fit in my pocket and I'm unable to keep a low profile. I've been asked whether I'm a reporter more than I'd have liked to.

Then there are instances when I really don't want to hang couple of kilograms around my neck. Or, when I don't want to change the Nikkor 70-300mm VR just to take a single wide angle shot.

So for 101 excuses as such to treat myself to a new toy, I bought this Canon PowerShot S90.

I've been toying with it for few minutes so far and am loving it already. The two control rings in the front and the back are really pro features that even the entry level dSLRs of Canon does not have (D80, being Nikon, has them :) ). The F/2 lens coupled with 3200 ISO really give great results in low light. It shoots real RAW too on it's "biggest in class" 10MP CCD sensor. And, as a pleasant surprise, it's Made in Japan!! How many Japanese cameras do we get these days, eh?

Later this week; I will compare it's performance with the D80. And post the comparison results. I fear for the D80 that this small culprit would out perform it in low light conditions. But, otherwise, D80 has nothing to fear. :)

Update: Is there something wrong in google app hosting?

Found out the cause; If you are using SLT ADSL; you cannot reach any of the google hosted contents using a custom domain name. SLT as usual; has screwed it up.

May be they are taking advise from China and are in the process of blocking out Google.. or whatever. In all accounts.. fuck SLT; they seem to even block the Google's DNS server IPs.. I was using 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as my DNS settings and I was experiencing a lot of failures in DNS resolving. Didn't suspect SLT. I just switched to SLT DNS servers and lot of things got corrected. But who knows.. may be they are monitoring my internet usage too.

You could use a custom proxy for now to access all those unreachable blogs with custom domains.

But long term... complain to SLT. Make demands. Or let's just switch ISPs.. Dialog?

Is there something wrong in google app hosting?

I host two blogs with blogger and google apps with custom domain names. From yesterday onwards; the two blogs aren't loading up.

Anyone else experiencing this? Did you manage to contact Google? Or do you know a solution?

Did you format your memory card?

I did; Last night.

I had given the camera to Buddhi for him to use as an extra at a wedding shoot. He didn't had an assistant so he ended up using only his camera. Halfway through he ran out of storage in his card and swap the SD cards with mine.

Yesterday; I collected my camera, and was putting it and the lenses in the desiccator when I got the urge to shoot few shots; I turned the camera on, and it said the memory card needs formatting; So I did format it, shot some random photos and placed it in the desiccator.

Then I go switch on the laptop; in a while, in gtalk, Buddhi goes

buddhi:   

oh fuck

  the photos

  are in the disk

11:00 PM hope you didn't format any :)

 me: the one you gave me?

 buddhi: yup

 me: in my cam??

 buddhi: yup

 me: fuck me sideways

 buddhi: damn

So we start the search for recovery tools... Most tools were commercial products; price ranging from $10 to $400 or so.. We downloaded a few trials and did test runs on spare memory cards. And then Budhhi found this: http://dmitrybrant.com/diskdigger

It's a free life-saver data-recovery tool developed by Dmitry Brant.


So; we finished our adventure later...

me: guess i'll hit the bed now

  :)

  usual time

  :)

 buddhi: :

  :)

  so there seems to be a curse

  not letting us sleep early

2:05 AM me: yeah

 buddhi: :)

Are you still coming here for photos?

So Are you? Really?

I already told you guys that I started a separate photo blog right? http://www.photoweaver.net

But, I'm still publishing my old photos there.. 9 photos per day.. If you've already seen them, and wish to see some new stuff, you can hop over to http://www.fluidr.com/photos/mahasen

BTW; The image to the left was captured using my phone; not the D80 (Ravi borrowed it for few days). Reminds me of the old days when the only camera I had was a mobile phone :)