The Manic Mechanic

Okay, I'm a big geek, and for better or worse, a bigger kid at heart. As such, I like toys. Toys in the traditional sense, yes, but for me, the more grown-up sort of toys are what keep me happy. Cool tools are toys, yes, but they allow me to create, build and fix. Different things that are part of my myriad hobbies are toys. Cameras, for example. There are at least a half dozen digital cameras around La Casa, not including smart phones and computers equipped with them, or the surveillance cameras and whatnot. Even my vehicles are playthings sometimes, as roads near and far that have had rubber from my tires can attest. Then again, there are things around here that can only qualify as playthings. The small fleet of various sized cheap RC helicopters I would terrorize the dogs with, for example. Snickles would bark and jump at the tiny Estes Proto-X quadrotor I would fly around the living room. That is, until he got a little too close and it bit him on the ass, eliciting a loud yipe before he hid under the living room table. Last Christmas, Jeff bought me a GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition camera, something I had been wanting for a while, after seeing what people have done with them. It's an amazing little bit of kit, I still have a time wrapping my head around a camera not much bigger than an Altoids tin able to shoot high resolutions stills, HD video, and, in the case of this model, video in 4K. Many evenings were spent browsing the internets for really creative and amusing videos shot with these things. I became especially fascinated with video shot from RC aircraft.

I think you might know where I'm going with this.

Earlier in the week, I ordered up a DJI Phantom2 quadrotor "drone." I purchased a gimbal mount to fit my GoPro as well. So far, I have just been flying the Phantom by itself, sans camera equipment, until I get the hand of it. Big kid fun was had. The thing is a delight to fly, and even a noob like me was able to maneuver the thing as if I had mad skillz. With summer deciding to get all hot and humid after a season of unusually cool and pleasant weather. I had fun flying the thing directly overhead as I walked around the field, across the street and around my yard and driveway with the most awesome fan in the world keeping me cool. No crashes either, except for a bad landing once as the battery petered out. I can attest to the thing being quite usable as a lawnmower in the field of overgrown grass.

So, while I get some flight time under my belt and become pretty sure I won't crash my precious into the ground, hang it in a tree or have it suddenly fly off to parts unknown, I will rig up the camera mount and take some aerial shots of Mayhem Acres and the surrounding area. I might take it with me to PA when we visit Jeff's parents and family, and take some bird's-eye shots of the new house. If it turns out well, I will make a nice big print and frame it as a gift. I will do the same for her too, in order to compliment the aerial photo that was taken one day over twenty years ago by a commercial outfit. It will be fun to see the contrast. Alas, any photos I would have would not show Mom and Patches, as that commercial shot had as a sort of happy accident. Mom is working in the garden, and Patches was standing guard as she always did. It is now one of my most treasured photos.

A nice little turn of topical events happened a day or two after my first article regarding hardware obsolescence and how the physical hardware has taken a back seat to the services they are increasingly tied to (and the monthly fee that inevitably follows. The New York times has a page declaring that the hardware itself is now what you are subscribing to. When you buy into a particular bit of technology, you have entered into a sort of contract whereupon you will be upgrading that particular bit of technology repeatedly over time. The article states the obvious when it comes to computers, after all, how many upgrade cycles has the typical reader of my LJ gone through over the years. But the article goes on and attaches the same upgrade cycle to standalone items such as DVD players, televisions and the like.

Heh, just as what I was getting at.

Think of cameras for a moment. Years ago, in the (seemingly now Jurassic) age of film, anyone who purchased a camera often did so with the thought of that camera being used for many years into the future. If one spent any substantial amount of cash for a 35mm camera, the thought was there that this camera will be around till it wore out, broke or gets handed down if one wanted to get deeper into the hobby or needed better for professional reasons. The model lineups for such 'serious' cameras would see update cycles that would take years sometimes. The little pocket snapshot cameras offered by the likes of Kodak might show lots of turnover, but that was the nature of inexpensive cameras. They usually did their duties well, until they either got lost, broken or the user wanted to do more with a camera and upgraded.

Two things happened. One, the inexpensive snapshot camera became literally disposable. They were repackaged as one-time use cameras, complete with film, and the entire camera got sent in when the film was developed. Ostensibly, some parts of the cameras were reused, where the rest was recycled or disposed. Not necessarily resource efficient, but this carved out a new market for those who did not want to invest in a camera but still wanted to take occasional pictures, or the better use as either a stand-in when one forgot their camera or did not want to subject their main tool to some hostile environment. No expensive SLR at the beach, for example.

The other big change in the camera market was the advent of the digital camera. This started out as a 'serious' device mainly due to their initial cost, with a one megapixel (give or take) costing over a grand, buying into the first digitals meant spending more than what a mid- to pro-grade SLR and reasonable lens would run. But the fact that these digital cameras now firmly wedded the world of photography with that of computers. This began a conundrum that the camera manufacturers were not prepared for - that of the expected increase of performance and features that people had come to expect in the PC marketplace.

Every year or two, a new benchmark for performance is set by the introduction of the latest CPU, graphics and hard drive space. And, in that space, what once began as the high end at the beginning, becomes mainstream or even entry level in the same period of time. Camera manufacturers, especially those catering to professionals or serious enthusiasts, were used to product cycles lasting three to five years. Pressure from the digital marketplace forced a major rethinking of camera product cycles that took a while to implement. Eventually the camera makers geared up, and players from the lowliest of Kodaks to the likes of Leica began tossing out new models almost constantly. This caused the world of digital photography to explode. The hobby has more enthusiasts and players than ever. In recent years, cameras with astounding capabilities were available at surprisingly low price points. Heck, I myself have five cameras, each in a particular category. But something has to give, doesnt it?

Megapixels. Ask most pros, and they will say that 3-4 MP is good enough to make a 4x6 print from. 5-6 MP can produce an 8x10 that can be indistinguishable from a 35mm shot. But the emphasis continues to be more and more megapixels from each and every camera. I have a tiny Pentax W30 that boasts of 7.1 MP. That's all fine and dandy, but it comes from a tiny image sensor and dime-sized lens. By making megapixels the main selling point, snapshot cameras output so much information that they are beginning to magnify their own shortcomings. And by selling megapixels above all else, it makes people sporting only 3 or 4 feel inadequate. Upgrade time! But unless you are moving from a subcompact camera to a DSLR (which, granted, so many people are doing nowadays), your are mostly wasting money and chewing up storage space.

I know what I touched on above only skims the surface, but it was to demonstrate where a good thing can become too much. People end up moving up-market not simply because they need something better, but because of a glut of mediocrity exists now where it did not before. And this goes for more than just cameras. I have always been of the belief that one should buy a bit higher up in a lineup than one's needs dictate at the time. You end up with a better quality item that holds up better over time, and keeps you out of the 'upgrade churn'. It's part being a smart consumer, and part being a gambler. The former always benefits. The latter sometimes pays the price.

To be continued yet again!

Sometimes I think if it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all. I just took out my pampered, trusty Olympus C-5050 to take a couple shots of the PC project-in-progress and the studio. The camera is fuct. Smeared, distorted, noisy picture that looks the result of a bad CCD sensor. Camera worked fine the last I used it. I am pissed, and torn between trying to get it fixed and just sledgehammering the thing right here, right now. I can almost guarantee that the cost to fix it is the same as buying something equivalent today. It's a shame, since nothing I will find in this class nowadays will take multiple memory formats (especially type-II CF, which I have a couple Microdrives in addition to hoards of CF type-I cards I share with my little Canon S-230) and standard AA batteries. I've been jonesing for a D-SLR, so it looks like I will end up with one sooner than later. Too bad I am not made of money.

*sigh*

As far as the PC goes, it's seems so fast compared to everything I have used lately that it practically knows my next move. And I havent even begun to tune it for speed yet aside for some quick adjustments. One thing's for sure, it's gonna put the water cooling setup to good use once I set that up (everything is using the stock air cooling setups now). Launching one of the 3DMark benchmarking utilities makes everything heat up considerably while it flies through all the eye candy. Ironically, Futuremark released the latest version, 3DMark'06 today in time for me to play with it. The demand for the near-600MB download has brought all the servers and mirrors hosting it to a grinding halt, so it looks like I'll have to wait for killer graphics benchmarking goodness for another day.

In the meantime, here is the video of the song used in the 3DMark'05 closing credits. Crank your PC sound up for Poets Of The Fall's Lift. (Flash video - selectable bandwidths)