Not that I was about to upgrade to Vista, or anything (the 2710, a film/slide scanner doesn't work on Vista) but the installation process, even on XP, was hard work. The ASPI layer had to be there, which meant a genuine "Adaptec" SCSI card, and it always reported itself as an unrecognised device.
I've just moved over to Ubuntu Gutsy for my main workstation setup. I spent a happy hour installing an Acer flatbed, which worked perfectly in xsane - indeed, even better than before on XP.
I put the SCSI card in. I plugged the FS2710 in. I downloaded vuescan from www.hamrick.com - and, lo and behold, it just worked. And the software is far better than Canon's own. I get real, archive quality scans
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Cunning photo-filch
Nice email on my flickr account arrived this morning, from a firm setting up an online guide, like, I guess the Rough Planet ones. They were after photographs.
It sounded as if I was about to win a competition. The small print, however, proffered what looked like a contract - I signed away my rights to my image, world-wide, indeed, whether or not I "won".
But they weren't paying.
I withdrew the image from the "competition" which I hadn't entered in the first place.
Harrumph!
It sounded as if I was about to win a competition. The small print, however, proffered what looked like a contract - I signed away my rights to my image, world-wide, indeed, whether or not I "won".
But they weren't paying.
I withdrew the image from the "competition" which I hadn't entered in the first place.
Harrumph!
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Friday, August 24, 2007
D40
My daughter has just bought a D40. I bought a D50 as a first foray into digital SLR sometime ago, and was pleasantly surprised at what was tucked away, underneath a veneer of beginner-friendly green modes - bracketing, and it even AFd with my mechanically coupled older lenses, like my 55mm Macro-Nikkor.
The D40 has none of that. There's nothing to help the user grow. No bracketing, the Macro-Nikkor won't AF, so the only lenses which will are the electronic focussing ones. Read expensive.
Shame. Nice camera, but a bit limited.
The D40 has none of that. There's nothing to help the user grow. No bracketing, the Macro-Nikkor won't AF, so the only lenses which will are the electronic focussing ones. Read expensive.
Shame. Nice camera, but a bit limited.
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
HDR
This has been manufactured out of 5 separate shots - the technique is often referred to as "HDR".
I use 5 shots, separated by 1EV each - 2,-1,0,1,2 EV. I take these ona rigid tripod. These are blended in photomatix (www.hdrsoft.com) into one photograph having "high dynamic range". Only it's too high to display, so the next stop is to tone-map these into a standard image. This is the end result. I often manipulate it a bit further in photoshop too - maybe a little saturation, or a contrast increase.
The end result can be quite dramatic, or quite subtle. This one is somewhere inbetween the two extremes.
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