Cold. Wet. Yes, please. Could we have some precipitation?
A friend up the hill reported snow falling. His nibs said hail was causing havoc — and slips — on the Steps as he came home from his stint at the Academy of Sciences.
I was (relatively) snug and warm inside today. Thick sweater. Warm wrap. Fuzzy slippers. (Thermostat set at 65dF as is our wont. …)
And then the storm cleared and I took pictures …
Here’s one:
Nearing the end of October, an annoying spot appeared on photos taken with my Canon SX110 IS. The spot was too big to edit out of most photos. I tried cleaning the lens. That wasn’t the problem.
At first the spot was up near the top of the photo and I could work around it with judicious planning and cropping. The spot drifted down over the days toward the lower middle of the frame. Cropping and editing EACH AND EVERY photo was not a plan.
I’d had a similar problem with my previous Canon, ending up with multiple spots to deal with, and eventually bought this one not that long ago. Trading in a 4x for a 10x made the upgrade easier to justify. But now this camera had a spot as well … so I went looking for a solution.
The online help at Canon did not deal with dark spots on photos. No solutions given. White spots, yes. Dark spots and blurs, no. So I searched online and found some who claimed the problem was with dust specks inside the camera. The one solution I found for do-it-yourself dust removal seemed hair-raisingly difficult.
I sent a note to Canon support:
Every photo I’ve taken for the last several weeks has a spot in the lower middle of the frame. The spot is large enough that retouching is difficult although I can crop the spot out of some photos. The problem appears to be a dust speck (or specks) within the camera body. What can I do to clean the dust out of the camera?
First back from them within three minutes was an auto-response: we got your msg
The following day:
Thank you for contacting Canon product support. We are sincerely sorry
to hear you are experiencing an issue with dust in your PowerShot SX110
IS. Please accept our apologies regarding this matter. We value you as
a Canon customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist you.
Please mail your digital camera to the Factory Service Center shown
below. When shipping your camera, please be sure to remove the memory
card and batteries. You are not required to send any accessories or
manuals when shipping the camera. Be sure to include your name, street
address (no P.O. boxes, please), telephone number, and a letter
describing the issue with the product. Since it has been less than one
year since the camera was purchased, we ask that you also include proof
of warranty in the form of a copy of your sales receipt.
[...]
OK. Fine. So I packaged up the camera, made a copy of the receipt, mailed it off (as suggested) via USPS priority mail. They had suggested that or some other method that tracks packages.
I sat back to wait.
In the mean time, I received two requests from Canon to fill out a survey to see how they were doing. I decided to wait until I saw whether they fixed the camera. …
30 November: a note from Canon that my camera had arrived there and yes, indeed, it looked like a problem they could fix. However, ” Please note that in the unlikely event that any additional internal damage is found due to liquid/water, sand, corrosion, battery leakage or impact (such as dropping the unit), a revised estimate will be sent for your authorization, since these conditions are specifically excluded from warranty coverage.”
02 December: a note from Canon saying they’d shipped my camera back to me.
03 December: I signed for it at the door and took a couple of test shots.
FIXED!
I went back to take the Canon survey that they’d sent earlier and the survey window had expired. [sad face here]
So, instead, I am writing this paean to Canon service. Thank you for fixing my camera so promptly. I felt naked without it with me as I walked around. I appreciate your efforts.
p.s. I wish you’d make some note on your site that black specks in photos could be caused by dust inside the camera that you will fix under warranty. If I’d known that, I would’ve sent my previous camera back to you for service, but now it’s too late and the camera, which I bought a little over two years ago, is out of warranty. Alas. [sad face here] Cost to have a camera repairman take the dust out is probably more than the value of the camera. Instead his nibs will use his fine motorskills to see what he can do — the worst he can do is make the camera unusable, which it already is.
Sliding into the end of the year.
Halloween’s been and gone. The clocks rolled back an hour. Day of the Dead. Guy Fawkes. Siblings’ November shared-birthday, although the older sibling of the two skipped the family gathering and Thanksgiving to go off gallivanting in France and Italy. In another week December comes and with it Dad’s (RIP) and Dan’s shared bday, my sister-in-law’s bday, my oldest brother’s (RIP) bday, his nibs’ bday that he shares with my uncle. Christmas. And then, around the corner, is the New Year, awaiting discovery.
And the sound of hoofbeats creeping up behind. …
Instead of Black Friday, yesterday, his nibs and I met up at the California Academy of Sciences, where he had two shifts of docent duty, and went to the Moss Room for dinner. The Moss Room isn’t, anymore. The living wall of mosses never gained traction and has been replaced by a living wall of ferns and other such flora.
Will they rename the restaurant the Fern Room? I doubt it.
We shared a delicious turnip soup with cream, a splash of this and a bit of pork belly. We shared a Lon and Bailey Farms Pork Belly with spiced pumpkin puree, sweet onions, pheasant egg, balsamic — eggs and bacon by any other name. He had opah. I had guinea fowl on a pool of green curry, greens, fingerling potatoes. We shared a side of gratin cauliflower.
So what’s on the table tonight? Leftover Thanksgiving fixings, courtesy of my talented brother (brined turkey, mashed, two kinds of dressing, corn casserole) and courtesy of my talented son-in-law with able assist from our son (salad, rolls), and my contributions (sweet potato casserole, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie).
And then the November holidays will be gone and we’ll be skidding into December and what?
Where has this year gone? Anything accomplished? Happier now than last year this time? Who is gone? Who has arrived? Books read? Words written?
Flowers planted and picked and enjoyed, then tossed into the compost bin.
The days grow short when you reach the end of November.
Time to make plans.
Time to re-commit to and internalize the final panel of Calvin and Hobbes.
We were walking down to dinner and spotted the moon. Of the four shots I took, this was the least fuzzy.
The wind is kicking in from the south. White caps on the Bay. Planes landing from the north at SFO.
Rain soon! (x’d fingers)
Update: Rain was fast and furious for a bit, but now the wind and the rain are barely there. x’d fingers for more wet.
We’ve been having amazing weather, but, please, may it rain, really rain, soon?
[Cherry-headed conures, actually, but hey!]
via @NYRblog
Chris Jordan’s latest photography set.
These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on idway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.
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