Nikon D40 vs Casio Exilim V8

Photos taken from South-West corner of Dolores Park at three different magnifications:

Casio Exilim V8 "landscape"- best scene mode 1x magnification:


Casio Exilim V8 "landscape"- best scene mode 3x magnification:


Casio Exilim V8 "landscape"- best scene mode 7x magnification:


Nikon D40 with 18-55mm lens, at 18mm:


Nikon D40 with 18-55mm lens, at 55mm:


Nikon D40 with 55-200mm lens, at 200mm:

Casio Exilim series

That is something truly impressive - the newest Casio Exilim F1 can take 60 (SIXTY) photos per second!!! My old Casio Exilim Z750 could take one photo per second (as any other compact digital camera that you own), my beloved Nikon D40 can take 2.5 photos per second and this new Casio Exilim F1 can take 60!!! Unbelievable.

I would say that if you often find yourself taking pictures of people doing sports that's the camera you want. It costs only around 1000$ and that sounds as excellent QPR to me.

I've been very pleased with the photo quality of Casio Exilim Z750 (e.g. all my Africa photos that are posted here where taken with that camera), so I have strong reasons to believe that Casio can make excellent "amateur"-type of cameras. In fact, I was so happy with my old Exilim that when it broke, I decided to replace it with the newer model of Exilim. This time I decided to buy Casio Exilim V8. I thought that it is a perfect choice for me as two major reasons why I would need a compact camera at all are: (1) taking movies; (2) taking photos underwater. (My Nikon D40 does not take movies and price of underwater housing for it is simply ridiculous - $1350!).

Casio Exilim V8 has 7x optical zoom, no protruding lens and vibration reduction. Moreover, it offers good quality video with stereo sound and possibility of zooming in and out (by 7x) during taking of the movie. Not less important to me was also reasonable price of its underwater housing. I have not tested yet this set up during scuba diving, but as soon as I will, I will report back here how well it performs.

my new room in wide-angle

My wide-angle (10-20mm) lens arrived today, so I immediately tested its possibilities on my new room (around month ago Kristina moved out from our house and I moved to her former room as it gets more sunlight, has a working fireplace and is slightly bigger than my old room).

So here is how my room looks right now:






For comparison here are pictures of my room taken two weeks ago with my "old" 18-55mmm lens:






Isn't it impressive how much more you can see on the photos taken with a wide-angle lens? I just can not wait to take my first landscape pictures with this lens! And I am also very happy that it arrived well in advance of my Europe trip, so I will have a chance to take it there with me and hopefully take a few nice pictures with it.

Oh, and I am very happy that the old mosaic that I made for the window of my former room also fits in my new one:

Polish Easter

The weekend before last I was invited by my newly acquired friend Michal for the Polish Easter Picnic in Skyline Park nearby Saratoga. I extended Michal's invitation to Ania, Jakub and their adorable daughter Maja.

I met Michal during a scuba diving course that I took recently, where he was one of my instructors. Michal is also the head of Polish Yacht Club in SF and probably because of that most of his friends that attended the Easter Picnic were people that knew each other through the sailing connection.

Even though Ania, Jakub and I were much younger than the majority of people who were there and we did not know anybody else than Michal, still everybody was very open towards us and treated us as a part of their big family. Thanks to that this Easter did have a lot of homely feeling about itself.


As Polish tradition requires, there was plenty of delicious food:


Sweats section was particularly interesting:


Maja spent half of the picnic trying different home-made sweats:


There was even a basket with traditional "blessed" food:


And of course painted eggs:


As American Easter tradition requires, there were also plastic eggs with sweats inside that were later on hidden throughout the park for kids to search for:


Here kids are investigating the eggs that they found:


Maja showed no interest in this American tradition and instead she preferred to play with soap bubbles:


However, Maja was very interested in Mexican Easter tradition, which involved singing a special song and hitting the pink object filled with candies as strongly as possible, so that it breaks open letting it's contents drop on the ground for kids to collect:


Maja's cute smile won hearts of Mexican family...


... so that they invited her to join in their game:


But whose heart would not melt for this little angel?

intelligence vs social skills

More and more often I come to the same conclusion:

Taken from here.

WOW - April Fool's almost got me...

It took me around one minute to understand that the new feature "Custom Time" introduced by gmail.com that would allow you backdate your emails is only April Fool's joke. What a relief. It is scary to think that nowadays' technology would allow things like this to happen and that it is only up to our morality to accept/reject them...

Black&white wearing hat

procrastination

scuba (dooba)

Cats and dogs can do it, so hopefully I should also somehow manage to do it :)

Scuba Cat And you thought cats hated water.

thou shalt not carry out morally dubious scientific experiments

I guess this is not the last attempt of Catholic Church to discourage even further number of people to itself (read more on BBC News page):

The Vatican has brought up to date the traditional seven deadly sins by adding seven modern mortal sins it claims are becoming prevalent in what it calls an era of "unstoppable globalisation".

Those newly risking eternal punishment include drug pushers, the obscenely wealthy, and scientists who manipulate human genes. So "thou shalt not carry out morally dubious scientific experiments" or "thou shalt not pollute the earth" might one day be added to the Ten Commandments.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell".

camera upgrade

I know that I had said that I would only buy a wide angle lens for my SLR when the quality of my photos justifies further investment in photography, but I changed my mind :) I just couldn't resist anymore those sweet and thoughtful amazon recommendations of things that can make my camera even more happy and last Saturday I went ahead and bought following items:

1) Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras
2) Tiffen 77mm UV Protection Filter
3) Nikon ML-L3 Wireless Remote Control for D50 & D70 Digital SLR Cameras
4) Nikon SB-600 Speedlight Flash for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras
5) Sto-Fen OMNI-BOUNCE OM-600 - Flash diffuser
6) Digital Concepts TR-60N Camera Tripod with Carrying Case

I find it amazing that cost of all these accessories exceeds the cost of the camera itself. Also I also find it amusing that I will have to wait for my new lens 2-3 months as its demand is so high that Sigma can not manufacture it fast enough... Unfortunately, it probably means that it will not arrive before my trip to Italy at the beginning of May which is unlucky as this trip would provide great testing conditions for the new lens :(

30: rock engravings at Twyfelfontain

Twyfelfontein is one of the biggest and most important rock-art concentrations in Africa. The name means ''Doubtful fountain'' and it was given to this site by a local farmer who doubted that a spring which existed in the area could support cattle for a long enough time.

There are approximately 2 500 engravings around Twyfelfontein. They belong to several different rock-art styles, the most popular ones being the iconic style which depicts animals and their spoor; and the geometric style, which is characterized by abstract figures like ovals, circles, and all sorts of curving and wandering lines. It is unknown when and why these paintings/engraving were maid, but there is evidence that area was occupied as early as 6 000 years ago. It is also hypothesized that the engravings were part of the people's spiritual ceremony and were created by shamans while in a state of trance to represent their dreams = prophecies.

Soft red and yellow sandstones of Twyfelfontein provide an easy base for rock engraving, but are also susceptible to erosion:


Giraffes were supposed to symbolize presence of the nearby water source:


Iconic Twyfelfontain engraving - "Dancing lion":


Close up of dancing lion:


Other animal motifs:

frozen fruits with mascarpone cream

This dessert is always a hit among all my guests. At the same time it is extremely easy and fast to make. I got the original recipe from Beate (though probably I changed it a bit). Also with this dessert I won in two out of three categories at the food competition organized during one of the summer parties at my previous work (MPI-CBG in Dresden).

What you need:

• 1.5 box (350-400g) of mascarpone cream
  
• 3 eggs
  
• 2-3 table spoons of sugar
  
• one bag (350-400g) of frozen fruits (e.g. berry mix)
  

What you do:

Beat eggs with sugar, gradually add mascarpone and mix everything together until it is smooth and creamy. Add frozen fruits, mixed gently. Store in the fridge. Preparation time: 5 minutes. Will feed 4-6 people.

vegetarian matoke

Matoke is a typical Ugandan dish based on plantain bananas. As plantains are easy to get in SF, I experimented with the original recipe to change it into a tasty vegetarian dish.

Here is what you need:

• 3 plantains cut into cubes
  
• 1 lemon
  
• 1 onion (chopped)
  
• 3 tomatoes (chopped)
  
• 1 bell pepper (chopped)
  
• 2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
  
• 1/2 chile pepper (chopped)
  
• 1 cup of vegetable broth
  

Here is what you do:

Sprinkle the plantains with lemon juice and set aside. Heat oil in a large frying pan, fry the onion, tomatoes, pepper and garlic. Add vegetable broth and spices (salt, coriander, cayenne pepper). Continue frying and stirring until the broth starts to boil. Reduce heat, add plantains, simmer everything over low heat until plantains are soft and tender. Can be served either alone or with rice. Will feed 3-4 people.

bash on squash

#344030
[amir] It's funny sport, this squash. I noticed that the idea behind this game is to avoid getting hit on the face by your opponent, at the same time trying to hit her/him on the face with your racket. Additionally, there is this little ball which should distract the opponent to allow you to hit her/him more easily.

[amir] Śmieszny sport ten skłosz. Zauważyłem że chodzi w nim o to, żeby nie oberwać po ryju rakietą partnera, i żeby jemu zapakować swoją rakietę w twarz. Jest jeszcze taka mała śmieszna piłeczka, która ma na celu odwrócenie uwagi przeciwnika, co pozwoli na dogodniejsze wyprowadzenie ciosu.