SD internals, part 3

Guess what -- I just found the darn little devil! It fell out into a zipper compartment of my camera bag where I stored the SDHC card two Sundays ago. Oh well, so I have a permanent write-protect tab.

For anyone interested in seeing what the plastic tab looks like, here is a couple of macro photos of it below. I used my 50mm with an extension tube for the shots. Lens was set at f/8. Speedlight was on manual at 1/128 the maximum power. The shutter speed was at 1/25 secs.

As you can see, the L shape is a hook that fits into a groove along the write-protect slot of the SDHC card. Tiny bugger.

SD internals, part 2

The cracked SDHC card has been fixed. I happened to have some super glue around so the SDHC has been put back together. The cracks are glued tight shut.

Now, I did lose the write-protect sliding tab. After opening the card, it is clear that the tab has no electrical properties, i.e. it has no electrical contacts nor does it toggle an electrical or electronic switch inside the card. The write-protect mechanism seems to work like the 3.5" floppy disk write-protection mode. With the floppy, you slide the tab over the hole and the floppy disk drive knows not to write to the floppy disk.

My first band-aid was to tape over the empty slot. That worked but not very well as the tape increased the width and thickness of the card and changed the cross sectional shape of the card a bit. It was a little hard removing the card from the camera.

I removed the tape and substituted it with a piece of paper. However, you do not want to just stick a piece of a paper in the empty slot, as the paper can easily get dislodged from the card and be left behind as you pull the card out of the camera or a card reader. Since I had super glue, I filled the hole with the glue and moistened the paper in it then leave everything to dry.

I now have a really permanent write-protect tab. :)

The 4GB SDHC is back in operation.

Framing Toronto

What is wrong with this picture? I could not quite put my finger on it, but it is not well balanced and it looks very boring to me. Anyways, I took many shots of Toronto last night but I remember as I was taking them, I could not find frame it properly. I was not sure what kind of impression I wanted to create. How would you frame the photo on the left?

On the right is another taken just as the sun was setting. I think here, the sun adds a bit more to the story, although again, I was not impressed with the framing itself. Maybe it's the angle. Maybe I should take the ferry to Centre Island and shoot Toronto from there.

Will I ever learn?

Even though this battery I kept on complaining about is half faulty, I still keep it around. I do not know why. Perhaps it is because there is a possibility it might work when you realllly need it. Of course, it rarely if ever does. Tonight, as I was downtown Toronto, I decided to visit the Docks and shoot Toronto's skyline from the east side and maybe observe an hour of darkness. Well, it was somewhat disappointing. First, my battery ran out of juice and the 'backup' battery naturally failed to work. Second the city was not that dark. Well, perhaps it was but it was not when I left at 8:30pm'ish.

The photo on the right is fairly dark but I was expecting something darker. There were still a lot of lights from the buildings.

SD internals

There was not much I could do with the malfunctioning SDHC card and my curiosity took over the better of me. I pried open the card along the crack line and pulled out its gut. Here it is on the right.

Underneath the Patriot SDHC card shell is a couple of Toshiba chips made in Taiwan.

Ok now, I gotta find something to repair that lock/unlock tab that seemed to have disappeared -- the reason the card is currently write protected.

"CHA" on D80

After a year, it would seem that my 4GB SDHC card is busted. I inserted it in my D80 yesterday and the message "CHA" appeared on the LCD display. You cannot shoot, you cannot do anything but turn the D80 off and replace the SD card.

This is a strange behaviour I thought so I looked up "CHA". This message appears if the SD card is write-protected or I guess if the camera cannot access the card for writing for some reason. How strange. This card does not even have a slider to write protect it.

I tried the SDHC in Windows. While I could access the files stored on it, I could not write to the card. Strange.

Strange I'd say.

On inspection of the card, I found a crack at one end of the card. You could actually pry it open a little so I guess something is broken inside. I have no idea how that happened. This sucks.

Finally, hiking boots

Well, I finally found my hiking boots. I was driving home from a business meeting this afternoon when I passed by National Sports. They carry mostly shoes but they have a small section on hiking boots. Excellent. I picked up a pair. Columbia brand, made in Vietnam. Odd, many things I see these days are made in Vietnam. Anyways, I will be taking it for a hike this weekend.

<Mr. Burns> Excellent!!! </Mr. Burns>

When is winter part 2

This is a continuation of winter scenes, And definitely when the sun is out winter pictures look different. Here are some shots of Port credit during sunrise and some of Webster’s falls.

For this shot I am using linear curve adjustment. The sun shining on the rocks looks like gold to me (:

Here is a panoramic of 7 shots stitch together

Search for perfection continues

Not quite the picture that I was imagining but it comes close. This was a shot of a swan this morning. The picture was taken with colour; I changed it to grayscale. The grayscale was too dull; I switched it to sepia. The picture was a little fuzzy because of the motion of the swan; I sharpened it a bit.

I would have preferred to work with an orange beak swan as it would stand out against the dark water background, but this one is special because of the black beak.

I would also have liked to shoot it from a more horizontal position. This shot was taken at about a 45 degree angle from a 6ft peer platform.

And so, my attempt for a great shot of a swan continues.

When it's winter

Winter scenes are usually devoid of texture because of the white in the snow and the sky. On those days when the sun is out and the sky reveals its blue blanket, take some time to find some structures to shoot against the white and blue. In this case, I like the snow covered branches of this tree against a blue background. Throw in some brown and gray of natural rocks and soil and your picture will look even more amazing.

For this shot, I enhanced the contrast of the colours to create a bluer blue and to enhance some details in the snow.

The shot was also taken early in the morning when there is a fair bit of shadow, revealing more of the details in the snow. At 12 noon, the snow covered ground would purely be white.