Woke to no internet yesterday morning. Disaster.
It has been some three months since I had my condo unit rewired to the telephone junction box on the edge of our condo, and since that time the wide wide world of web has been presenting itself on our various screens with a pleasing reliability. Until yesterday.
Tried calling my internet provider but the line was busy; so sent them a “please help me” e-mail via my phone and before long they were calling me and being sympathetic. But they couldn’t do anything because it was a line problem, which meant placing it in the not at all reliable hands of TT&T who operate the phone lines. I was assured that TT&T would phone me back; but of course they didn’t and the day was spent firing off “what the fuck is going on with my problem” e-mails and receiving solicitous but useless responses.
Still, in the absence of internet, I decided to embark upon my latest and greatest project, The Spike guide to how cameras work (tm). Attend any photogenic event and it is noticeable how many more people are carrying around DSLR cameras. Such cameras offer the opportunity to creatively control how the camera is operated; rather than just pointing and shooting. But check how most of these cameras are being used and you find they are set on auto mode; because the owner does not know enough about basic camera settings; and the 74 page, badly written manual is no help. These people have wasted their money and need guidance.
Enter The Spike guide to how cameras work (tm). An as yet to be decided number of page manual which will tell you how to use the features of your shiny new toy to ensure you capture the images you want; rather than a blurry blobby mess (unless you were aiming for the blurry blobby mess look).
In the tradition of all great designers. I started with a blank piece of paper. Not in the tradition of all great designers, a cat came and lay on my blank piece of paper, so I fired up Keynote and used that instead. Fiddled around for a while and then decided I needed a side-on shot of a camera. In the absence of the opportunity to steal one from the internet, it was out to the balcony to take a photo of one camera with another camera, whilst fighting off the cat which had temporarily abandoned the piece of paper to jostle for inclusion in the camera shot. Then I needed a photo of a control wheel, so more photography took place; and eventually I had a few pages which looked something like this:
The more pages I added, the more topics I decided I could cover, and The Spike guide to how cameras work (tm) is now further from completion than it was when I started it; and I will probably just get bored and ditch the whole idea; but it was a fun way of spending an afternoon.
Come evening and still no internet, how could things get worse? One way was for my man flu, which appeared to be easing, to kick into overdrive and become bronchitis. Thus ensued a nearly sleepless night of coughing, and around dawn it dawned on me that my lack of internet might actually be internal to the condo, rather than in the TT&T lines. It also dawned on me that it was time I saw a doctor.
Bleary-eyed and coughing, it was out with the test gear this morning to discover that the line leaving my condo was in perfect working order, but that the 100 metre, three month old piece of cable which made an exciting journey round the swimming pool, through the underground car park and into a junction box outside my condo, wasn’t. Bugger.
She who must be obeyed took my weary broken body into town where I acquired a box of antibiotics from a doctor who cleverly confirmed I had bronchitis, after I had staggered into his office and coughingly said “I have bronchitis.” On the way home we acquired a 100 metre length of cable and, with the help of the gardener and Nik, my internet was duly restored. Whizz.
Now feeling pretty shit about having felt pretty shit for nearly two weeks. I can spend the rest of the evening developing more of the exciting Spike guide to how cameras work (tm), or maybe I will just slump and watch Lady Gaga videos. Bad Romance here we come.
Comments 🔗
2010-06-26| Lloyd saysAnd what about the ISO?
Posted using my new but not so great iPhone 4, who’s camera actually takes shocking, grainy photos when viewed from high resolution true colour monitor. But its way better than the 3Gs!
2010-06-27| Spike saysISO will indeed be covered by The Spike guide to how cameras work (tm). As will sensor size. Stuffing 5 megapixels onto a sensor the size of a very small pea will produce noise in anything other than perfect light.
2010-06-27| Billy saysPut me down for one copy. Lots of simple to use diagrams and sentences I can understand please - all in a dozen pages or less. Strongly suggest you use the LX3 in your examples.