Camera Update

I've been geeking out with my photos lately. I'll show some of the more interesting results.

First, I was curious as to how I actually use my zoom lens. A zoom lens is one that can change field of view, meaning that you can zoom in on stuff. Most of my lenses are the opposite, called prime lenses, and they give you one field of view and cannot change.

Back to the zooms. I searched for all images that used my Pentax DA* 50-135mm f2.8 lens, and then from those I computed the number of shots taken at each field of view. I knew that I hit the stops on the wide and narrow ends more than I used the middle, but this tells me more exactly what I actually do. Here's the chart:



62% of my shots were at 50mm or 135mm. That is a whole lot. Depending on your point of view, this either means that I should stick to primes or that 38% percent of the time I like the flexibility of the zoom. Or you could say that even if I used the zoom at one extent or the other, it is like having two primes mounted on my camera, giving me a great deal of flexibility. Or you could say that I'm a fool, because I use the most compromised positions on my lens (things in the middle are better optimized, see Feynman's story on plastic gearing).

Next, we take a peek at which lenses I'm shooting most. The gray/black pies are lenses which I've sold for one reason or another. The colored slices are in my current bag. This graph doesn't account for my preferences over time. I've only had the DA 35mm f2.8 for a year, and it is already catching up to the 50mm.



Last, I compiled some data on which apertures I use the most. This is a neat graph.



This one is neat for a few reasons.
First, you can see my favorite apertures right off the bat! f8.0 makes any lens look good. And most of my lenses are full-open at f2.8, so that one gets a lot of action. f1.4 is the max for the 50mm, and it gets used a lot too.
Second, this graph shows the difficulty in making meaningful graphs. Not all ranges in the graph are equivalent. The ranges could have been made equivalent. I could have made buckets the size of one stop, or made each bucket contain the same number of shots and had the range indicate preference. Maybe a scatter plot would make more sense. Maybe a hybrid scatter plot could indicate the number of occurrences at each point. And so on.
Third, the data shows a number of shots at f27-f38. Which is weird because I don't think anything I own goes beyond f22. So the whole thing could be fake anyway.

Lastly, I got a new camera yesterday. The Pentax K20D is here to replace my K10D. I put my K10D up for sale at my work's version of craigslist and got a buyer within minutes. Yay.

Keep your eye out for future shots at ISO 3200 and occasionally ISO 6400. Or maybe some 21fps sequences. It is gonna be awesome.

Cell Phone

As a rule, as time progresses technology becomes cheaper and easier.

But not with cell phones.

My first cell phone was purchased in Germany for 100DM (about $50). It didn't come with a contract, all the grocery stores sold prepaid cards, it was easy to use and cheap. I love cheap stuff. Text messaging cost about 2¢, you only paid to send text (free to receive), and I could make a prepaid card last for a long time because I didn't talk much. This plan made texting the cheapest and preferred option. Further, ICQ could send messages for free from the internet to a cell phone, and nobody would pay. The transition from landlines to reasonably priced cell phones was liberating and reasonably-priced.

When I came back to the states, I bought a phone with a 1-year contract for $30/mo. Texting cost $0.10 to send and $0.10 to receive. Because my minutes were plentiful, it actually cost more to text than it would to make a phone call. The phone was free with contract. ICQ would not send text to this phone for free.

My next phone cost $200 and came with a 1-year contract. Ouch.

My next phone was $200 with a $100 rebate (which I forgot to send) and came with a 2-year contract. The monthly price for the minimum minutes went up to $40.

My current phone was $70 after rebate. The outside LCD screen broke within two months of regular use. I'm not a brute, I treat my stuff nice. In fact, when I sold a bunch of DVDs to Amoeba Music in Berkeley, the dealer told me that I take really good care of my stuff and they would like to see me come back to sell more stuff. I think the phone must be prone to breakage and was a design flaw flowing from cost-savings and corner-cutting. The message is clear—I should have paid more for a better phone.

What's worse is that I chose my phone by-the-numbers, using a scheme that didn't work. My phone has the biggest battery I could find. I like to charge my phone once per week. But instead of using a big battery to extend standby life, my new phone uses 3G, which apparently uses the bigger battery to power more frequent and intense bursts of energy-draining communication with the cell towers. Despite my large battery, my battery life is less than ever. And if I accidentally hit the GPS button (which I don't pay to enable), the phone will die within hours doing a service that doesn't benefit me.

These days, modern phones are internet enabled. But, true to form, the prices have gone up yet again. Now you have to buy an internet plan in addition to a voice plan. The internet plan runs around $40/mo, which rivals the price of my home internet plan. Ouch. I don't pay for this option either.

If I could, I would turn back the clock to 2001 and use the cell phones and cell phone plans of that era. The service was stellar, the prices cheap, and the phones were a little bulky but useful.

Open Letter to Yogurt Makers

Make containers that don't explode when opened.