10,500 feet is way the heck up there!

On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, Jay Honeck wrote:

A friend asks: "and in the Amelia Earhart Suite, does the hot tub have a
little
island in it...with skeletons?"

Hmm. We'll have to work on that...

(It's darned near big enough. The hot tub in this suite is 50% bigger than
in our other suites...)

Use a piece of styrofoam insulation, carve it to look like an island,
paint it sand-coloured, stick a couple of plastic palm trees to it, and a
pair of plastic figures painted to look like Amelia & whats-his-name...

Then let it float around in the hot tub. Look surprised when guests say,
"There's something floating in our hot tub!" and explain, "Wow, you found
Amelia Earhart; folks have been looking for her for over 60 years!"



(One of my non-flying interests is miniature wargaming; pink styrofoam is
great for hills and other tabletop scenery!)

Brian.

"Jay Honeck" writes:

Well, I shouldn't say "never" -- but it was so big and unwieldy that I never
caught that candid shot at the birthday party, or that image of the fall
colors on my way to work. It was just too danged big to be considered
"portable", and it was a major production to get it set up.

That's why we went with the Canon Elph a couple of years ago, even though
photographically there were superior choices. The danged little thing
actually, REALLY fits in your shirt pocket, has a useful little zoom lens,
easy to use controls, and takes pretty darned good pictures. (All the
pictures on our website were taken with it.)

Exactly so. I got a Canon Powershot S10 3 years ago for that very
reason: the camera that you don't carry around won't take any pictures
at all. I've taken over 1000 pictures with the S10, so have easily
paid for it with savings on film. OK, maybe not, 'cause I wouldn't
have taken so many pix with film.

Some observations:

- I rarely print photos, viewing them on the computer instead. So
more pixels simply means you get to crop more of the original
picture. I'm still happy with 2.1 MP.

- More important to me now are faster startup time, faster time
between shots, more powerful optical zoom, better battery life.

- I usually don't use the LCD display 'cause it runs down the
battery. Get one with a good optical viewfinder too. I only
occasionally use the manual adjust for light quality or exposure. But
control over the flash is critical (force on/force off).

- I really like the panorama feature...this is where you take multiple
overlapping shots, aided by the camera, and software later stitches
them all together. Good fun.

Use a piece of styrofoam insulation, carve it to look like an island,
paint it sand-coloured, stick a couple of plastic palm trees to it, and a
pair of plastic figures painted to look like Amelia & whats-his-name...

Then let it float around in the hot tub. Look surprised when guests say,
"There's something floating in our hot tub!" and explain, "Wow, you found
Amelia Earhart; folks have been looking for her for over 60 years!"

Mary and I are in a constant state of tension over what constitutes
"kitschy" at the hotel. It's a good balance that keeps us from going too
far one way or the other.

For example, I DID manage to mount a giant scale (ten foot wingspan) F4U
Corsair on the lobby wall, as if it's crashing through -- but only just
barely! We went back and forth on that one for months. (It's a guy
versus girl thing. Even now, guys that check in look at the Corsair in
wonder and awe. Women who check in usually just roll their eyes or ignore
it...)

If it were up to me, the place would be all World War II fighters and
bombers. Mary's concept is much more laid back and romantic... (Thus, the
"Pan Am Clipper" and "Amelia Earhart" suites...)

However, in this particular case, I think we would both concur that building
a styrofoam island in the hot tub "crosses the line".

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Bob Fry wrote:

- I rarely print photos, viewing them on the computer instead. So
more pixels simply means you get to crop more of the original
picture. I'm still happy with 2.1 MP.

More pixels means more detail captured so that *when you crop* you still
retain a good quality picture.

I used to have a 2.1mp but I found that cropping more than half the
picture would result in a remaining picture that was too grainy. Having
more megapixels means having more cropping options for those times the
subject was too far away.

--
Peter

Michael,
I've been researching digital cameras for the past year or so waiting for
the right combination of features, performance and price to replace my Canon
A2. The price of all the DSLRs ruled them out immediately. The
performance, mainly focus times and focus accuracy ruled out most of the
others. However, there have been a few new ones mentioned on
http://www.dpreview.com that have greatly improved the focus times, focus
accuracy, and startup times. I think I remember one of the newest ones
mentioned having a 10x zoom. For sports you really need one with fast focus
times and accurate focusing and maybe even continuous focusing. I thought
the Minolta DImage A1 would be the leading candidate for me but the focusing
was too slow and occasionally indicates focus on the subject but it would
actually focus somewhere else. It also eats batteries at an amazing rate!
Checkout the dpreview website, it has a ton of reviews and links to a large
amount of information on digital photography.

Rick Poole


"Michael 182" wrote in message
. net...
I know, I know - it's way OT, but I'm about to spend significant money on
a
digital camera, and it seems like the people in here may know more than
any
advice I'm getting from friends. I posted over on alt.photography, but it
is
a pretty quiet newsgroup.

So, here are some parameters:

$1,000, including enough memory to make the camera useful

10x or greater zoom for youth sports - soccer and basketball

ability to increase zoom for wildlife, nature photos - maybe attach to my
Kowa TSN 822 scope

use for pictures in my 182

What else should I be asking? Is this enough info to make a decision? I am
leaning toward the Fuji S-5000. Any opinions?

Thanks,

Michael

Great site. Thanks. I have a lot of reading to do...

Michael

"Rick Poole" wrote in message
news:L3Kjb.573595$Oz4.546350@rwcrnsc54...
Michael,
I've been researching digital cameras for the past year or so waiting
for
the right combination of features, performance and price to replace my
Canon
A2. The price of all the DSLRs ruled them out immediately. The
performance, mainly focus times and focus accuracy ruled out most of the
others. However, there have been a few new ones mentioned on
http://www.dpreview.com that have greatly improved the focus times, focus
accuracy, and startup times. I think I remember one of the newest ones
mentioned having a 10x zoom. For sports you really need one with fast
focus
times and accurate focusing and maybe even continuous focusing. I thought
the Minolta DImage A1 would be the leading candidate for me but the
focusing
was too slow and occasionally indicates focus on the subject but it would
actually focus somewhere else. It also eats batteries at an amazing rate!
Checkout the dpreview website, it has a ton of reviews and links to a
large
amount of information on digital photography.

Rick Poole


"Michael 182" wrote in message
. net...
I know, I know - it's way OT, but I'm about to spend significant money
on
a
digital camera, and it seems like the people in here may know more than
any
advice I'm getting from friends. I posted over on alt.photography, but
it
is
a pretty quiet newsgroup.

So, here are some parameters:

$1,000, including enough memory to make the camera useful

10x or greater zoom for youth sports - soccer and basketball

ability to increase zoom for wildlife, nature photos - maybe attach to
my
Kowa TSN 822 scope

use for pictures in my 182

What else should I be asking? Is this enough info to make a decision? I
am
leaning toward the Fuji S-5000. Any opinions?

Thanks,

Michael

I have the Canon Elph 3.2MP and finding it is really nice. I "collect"
several hundred photos, deleting the ones that are bad, and burning them
to a CD. I have a DVD/CD viewer that plays .jpg files. So I watch my
photos on the television. Be careful, a JVC DVD that was promoted to do
this, didn't and I went to a Phillips. JVC help desk confirmed.

Bob Fry wrote:

"Jay Honeck" writes:

Well, I shouldn't say "never" -- but it was so big and unwieldy that I never
caught that candid shot at the birthday party, or that image of the fall
colors on my way to work. It was just too danged big to be considered
"portable", and it was a major production to get it set up.

That's why we went with the Canon Elph a couple of years ago, even though
photographically there were superior choices. The danged little thing
actually, REALLY fits in your shirt pocket, has a useful little zoom lens,
easy to use controls, and takes pretty darned good pictures. (All the
pictures on our website were taken with it.)

Exactly so. I got a Canon Powershot S10 3 years ago for that very
reason: the camera that you don't carry around won't take any pictures
at all. I've taken over 1000 pictures with the S10, so have easily
paid for it with savings on film. OK, maybe not, 'cause I wouldn't
have taken so many pix with film.

Some observations:

- I rarely print photos, viewing them on the computer instead. So
more pixels simply means you get to crop more of the original
picture. I'm still happy with 2.1 MP.

- More important to me now are faster startup time, faster time
between shots, more powerful optical zoom, better battery life.

- I usually don't use the LCD display 'cause it runs down the
battery. Get one with a good optical viewfinder too. I only
occasionally use the manual adjust for light quality or exposure. But
control over the flash is critical (force on/force off).

- I really like the panorama feature...this is where you take multiple
overlapping shots, aided by the camera, and software later stitches
them all together. Good fun.

In article om, Peter
R. wrote:

I used to have a 2.1mp but I found that cropping more than half the
picture would result in a remaining picture that was too grainy. Having
more megapixels means having more cropping options for those times the
subject was too far away.

"Grainy" describes film. (grains of silver-halide crystals)

"Pixilated" describes digital images. (little square elements, pixels,
that make up the ccd image sensor)

EDR ) wrote:

In article om, Peter
R. wrote:

I used to have a 2.1mp but I found that cropping more than half the
picture would result in a remaining picture that was too grainy. Having
more megapixels means having more cropping options for those times the
subject was too far away.

"Grainy" describes film. (grains of silver-halide crystals)

"Pixilated" describes digital images. (little square elements, pixels,
that make up the ccd image sensor)

Uh... Pixilated looks grainy to this uneducated, amateur photographer when
the picture is printed out.

But, if it makes you happy I will try to remember to use the technically-
correct term in future posts. :-)

--
Peter












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EDR writes:

In article om, Peter
R. wrote:

I used to have a 2.1mp but I found that cropping more than half the
picture would result in a remaining picture that was too grainy. Having
more megapixels means having more cropping options for those times the
subject was too far away.

"Grainy" describes film. (grains of silver-halide crystals)

"Pixilated" describes digital images. (little square elements, pixels,
that make up the ccd image sensor)

What you're most often actually seeing that looks sort-of like film
grain in digital photos is CCD noise. "Pixelated" tends to mean you
can see all the pixel boundaries, which dosn't happen with modern
techniques (bicubic interpolation and such).

(And there does seem to be a word "pixilated", but it means
"whimsical, prankish, behaving as if mentally unbalanced, very
eccentric", deriving from "pixie", and doesn't seem to have anything
to do with picture elements).

I'd venture to guess that "grainy" is going to hang around in the
language to describe that appearance of digital photos.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: noguns-nomoney.com www.dd-b.net/carry/
Photos: dd-b.lighthunters.net Snapshots: www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: dragaera.info/