WorldCAD Access

Scanning Old Film Slides

Slide'n scan After I bought my own 35mm SLR camera in 1976 (a Minolta XE-7), I made the fortuitous discovery that our local major pharmacy chain sold 24-exposure slide film for just $3, processing included. That was so cheap that I went on a photography binge with my new camera, and to this day I have a filing cabinet box filled with plastic boxes holding 24 and 36 slides. How to digitize them? While my kids were still young, I paid them 10 cents a slide to run them through an Epson flatbed scanner. It could hold six at a... Read more →

About that ASUS Flip Camera

ASUS Zenfone 6 (2019) Here are some specs you’d expect from a desktop computer: 2.8GHz eight-core CPU 8GB RAM 512GB solid-state storage Except these describe my latest smartphone, the ASUS Zenfone 6 (2019). The ‘2019’ is important, as the Taiwanese company is reusing the name from another model a half-decade or so ago. I got the silver-blue model with 256GB storage RAM, and then added a 256GB microSD card. ASUS Zenfone 6 (2019) showing fingerprint sensor and flip camera Other features important to me: 5000MHhr battery that lasts up to 3 days, and acts as a charger for other devices... Read more →

The First Exciting New Phone in Years, from ASUS

Zenfone 6 recycles its name I have the three-year-old Zenfone 3 Zoom with its 2.3x optical zoom and amazing 5000mAHr battery that lasts 2-3 days, but I am thinking of a 10x zoom phone next. I already have the old Samsung K Zoom, with its 10x optical zoom, but its primary flaw is that the power button is so sensititve that I often find the battery dead. (I use it to snap photos at conferences and transfer them quickly to my laptop through Dropbox.) Nevertheless, I was interested to see what ASUS plans for this year's phone, the Zenfone 6.... Read more →

Tips: What to do when your color prints turn out horrible

Ink and paper I was on the most crucial of deadlines: getting pictures printed for an upcoming wedding reception. They have to be perfect. The bride-to-be stipulated 4x6" prints, white border, while the groom-to-be noted that Staples does a better job than London Drugs. As the number of pictures was not that large, I started printing them on my HP photoprinter. I have counted on HP inkjet photo printers for more than a decade to output prints reliably. I buy whatever model has the second tray for 4x6 paper. But this time, the output was awful. Shady areas in prints... Read more →

This One Flaw Dooms the Aurga (Updated)

Part 2 (For update, see end of this posting.) When I last wrote about the Aurga remote camera controller (see http://www.worldcadaccess.com/blog/2018/06/aurga-remote-camera-controller.html) , it wasn't working. It would not connect to the camera. Aurga tech support promised me that a software update coming soon would fix the problem. (Aurga is a remote controller that sits in the DLSR's hotshoe, connected to the camera with a USB cable. See figure 1. Their app runs on an Android or iOS device, with which you control the camera remotely via a local WiFi connection.) Figure 1: Aurga controller (red) mounted in battery supply (yellow)... Read more →

Aurga remote camera controller

For Canon, Nikon, and Sony DSLRs I tend to ignore pleas from Kickstarter, but over the years two pleas did catch my fancy. One was the latest release from the makers of Myst, even though the new game took something like two years to deliver. The other was more recent, a remote camera controller for DSLR [digital single lens reflex] cameras. It promised a host of functions, which you set from your smartphone, which then passes the commands to the camera through an attached controller. It was only $99 for an early supporter, so why not! Unlike some other hardware... Read more →

It took me three tries to get the zoom lens I wanted

Try once, again, and then again The only SLR I ever bought new was a film one, the handsomely chunky Minolta XE-7, which I owned from roughly 1976 to 1985. Then I got old enough that convenience was more important than heft and interchangeable lenses, which back then I couldn't afford, anyhow. I was stuck with its stock 50mm lens, albeit at a bright f1.4, until I sold it to afford a zoom lens for my wife's SLR. From 1976, the Minolta XE-7 with stock f1.4 lens (image source Flickr) Last year, my professional photographer daughter wanted to sell her... Read more →

A second monitor for your laptop

Sibolan S1 portable monitor I was envious of editor Roopinder Tara having a second monitor for his laptop. I believe that it was an add-on from Lenovo, who also made the laptop. When we editors are into serious writing and editing, two monitors are a must! Some guys use the LCD tv screen in their hotel rooms, but they aren't particularly portable. And so year or two ago, I looked into getting one, but they were priced like $1,500 -- shocking, given that it is basically a laptop-less screen! On a whim, I last week checked again on eBay to... Read more →

foto of the sunday: dresden cathedral

Dresden, Germany Read more →

foto of the sunday: Austin

South by southwest 2014 Read more →

foto of the sunday: Ralph goes to a rap concert

T.I. My son had a spare ticket so I agreed to go with him to the rap concert. He told me to think of it as a "cultural experience." Talk about a narrow demographic; my son figures I was the oldest one there -- by far -- except for the stadium ushers. Silicon ear plugs assisted in the experience. (Photo takes with a 135mm equivalent zoom at 1/8-second and ASA800.) Read more →

foto of the sunday: Merry Christmas from WorldCAD Access

Over the hill from my home Read more →

foto of the sunday: Scene from an art studio

Schooled in art I took this photo while we were being given a tour of an art school in downtown Vancouver, courtesy of AMD. This is the room in which nudes are sketched in charcoal . Read more →

foto of the sunday: splashing in the pacific

Boots On My daughters splashing about in the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Galiano Island. Read more →

foto of the sunday: meeting break

Graebert Annual Meeting 2015 A product manager takes a break during the Berlin conference. Read more →

foto of the sunday: my blood moon photo

Hand-made So last Sunday night I had a meeting that kept me from seeing the eclipse of the blood moon until it was fully eclipsed. I had taken along my camera to the meeting, cause I knew the meeting location would have a better sight line than my house does. Here is how I took this photo: I used my trusty Canon SX280HS camera, which is the best camera I have ever owned. To magnify the image, I zoomed all the way in to 20x optical zoom. I put the camera into Night mode, in which it takes three snaps... Read more →

foto of the sunday: friends

Friends sitting on the rocks near Pebble Beach on the east cost of Galiano Island Read more →

foto of the sunday: kayaking off Galiano Island

Atop the cliffs of Retreat Cove looking through Abutus trees on a pair of kayakers Read more →

foto of the sunday: two wooden sailing boats

Trincomali Channel, ho! A friend runs a weekend boat course in which he teaches city slickers how to handle wooden boats that use multiple oars and optional sails. Here the two boats head off with a fresh crew arrived from the big city southward along Trincomali Channel off the west coast of Canada. Read more →

My new 10x camera is also a smartphone

Samsung Galaxy K Zoom Ever since in 2006 when my dad handed over his latest camera he didn't like, I've wondered why smartphones don't have room for optical zoom lenses. The camera he didn't like was the Samsung NV3, and he didn't like it because its LCD screen was not bright enough for outdoor use. I used it for several years, then passed it on to my daughter. Samsung's NV3 digital camera with its 3x zoom lens fully extended The NV3 is smaller than the size of a smartphone, yet has a 3x zoom lens that does not protrude from... Read more →

foto of the sunday: Moscow subway riders

September 9, 2009 Hard to believe that it's been five years since I visited Russia. Here's a photo I snapped of riders on the Moscow subway. Read more →

foto of the sunday: Springtime in Germany

Photo taken by my daughter of her husband in the woods above the Bavarian village in which they live. Read more →

Three reasons I can't stand my new Canon camera; three reasons why I love it

I gave my older Canon digital camera to my son, and so last fall I looked around for a suitable replacement. I picked Samsung's EX2F because it has one very special feature: the brightest lens of any point-and-shoot, an amazing f1.4. That's two f-stops brighter than just about any other digital camera, and nearly three f-stops brighter than Apple's new iPhone 5s. Another time I might write more about what I liked and disliked about the EX2F. (Increasing by one f-stop is like doubling the shutter speed; three f-stops allows 9x faster shutter speed und the same lighting conditions. I... Read more →

Using WiFi with a digital camera, part iv

Over the few months I have owned the EX2F camera, Samsung has issued numerous updates to its software (firmware) that the Cloud function now works. (In the early days, the camera would try to connect repeatedly and unsuccessfully.) There is, however, one more update Samsung needs to issue: to make the Cloud upload service work with Dropbox. Samsung make some sort of deal with Dropbox, and so I am hopeful this may well show up in the Ex2F. Right now, the camera's Cloud upload service works only with Microsoft's SkyDrive. The first time I connected, the camera showed a rudimentary... Read more →

Printing large images on small printers

My daughter wanted this image printed 11"x17", but our largest printer is the typical 8.5x11" one. Fortunately, the printer does do borderless prints, and so here is how I printed the image on two sheets of paper: 1. In the printer driver, I turned on the Borderless option (found under Resizing Options for the HP PhotoSmart series). 2. I opened the image file in Adobe Acrobat, because it does a good job of handling multi-page prints. 3. In the Print dialog box, I set the following options: Print Scaling Tile All Pages Tile Scale 72% (or whatever it takes to... Read more →

How to copy photos to your computer faster than Picasa

Google Picasa is great software for processing photographs, but it is painfully slow copying files from digital cameras that have large memory cards. Mine has a 4GB memory card, which is small for today, but can hold 2,000 photos. When it comes time to get the photos off the camera, Picasa slows to a crawl. The reason is that Picasa checks through all thousand-odd photos to see which ones have already been downloaded. This just takes too long, and I found a faster alternative: 1. Plug the camera into your computer's USB port. (Alternatively, plug the camera's memory card into... Read more →

Price of flash RAM fell 1000x in a decade

Engadget has this headline this morning: SanDisk ships 64GB Ultra SDXC card for $350 I recall paying $330 for a 64MB CompactFlash card back in late 1999. This is why it's known as "living on the bleeding edge," because we bleed money. A couple of years later, I got a 128MB card free through a Canon promotion. Maybe it should be rephrased "the crying edge." Read more →

Our children's fascination with analogue

As our children are raised in this digital culture, they come across the old analog devices as new and so find them fascinating. My son buy LP records from eBay (local stores overcharge at $40) and one of my daughters is now delighted with film photography (though not with its film and developing costs). For this daughter the Art Major, it began last summer when she tried using her Oma's old "compact" Canon rangefinder camera, which still had a roll of film in it. I think she liked the challenge of taking a picture well -- yet not knowing how... Read more →

Canon G11 Goes Back to Roots

Canon's G1 was my second digital camera, and the first to be what is the norm in today's models: zoom lens, video recording, and so on. (Yah, my first from 1999 did neither.) It was $1200. Ouch! After it got dunked in the Pacific Ocean (while I was breaking my leg), I got the S1is, and have stuck to it since. I'm on my third S1is, because it has what newer G models lacked: lower resolution and the swivel LCD screen. That's right: lower resolution makes for better photos, because they are clean -- no interpixel noise. (3 megapixels in... Read more →

My New Camera: Same as the Old Camera

After my Canon S1is suffered from the sensor problem, I bought a Canon SX100 is as a stop gap. It had the 10x zoom, etc I need. But I continued to keep an eye on a more capable one, especially with movable LCD screen. A month ago, I made my decision: I bought a reconditioned S1is for $85 -- my third one. It has more features than the SX100is, yet is compatible with add-ons I've bought since I acquired my first S1is in 2004. I discarded the SX100is (my daughter will take it over) after I found the following flaws... Read more →

When 12x Zoom is Worse Than 10x

In the previous posting, I noted that my SX100's 10x zoom is better than the 12x zoom on the new SX200 model. SX200 -- 12x optical zoom -- 28-336mm equivalent. SX110 -- 10x optical zoom -- 36-360mm equivalent. This is a case where the optical zoom number is misleading. The "normal" zoom level is 50mm (when there is no zoom). Divide the mm numbers into 50 to get the zoom multiplier (shown as "x" in specs). SX200 336/50 = 6.7x zoom SX110 360/50 = 7.2x zoom So the SX100 gets you 0.5x closer to distant objects than does the SX200.... Read more →

Canon's SX100 Replacement: SX200

When I bought the Canon SX100 as my next digital camera a month ago, I knew it would be superseded some time this year. I just hoped the new model wouldn't be host to many must-have features. Last week FutureShop began stocking the SX100 (and this week parent BestBuy claims to have it as an "exclusive"). Casting an anxious eye over the specs, I am relieved: 12x optical zoom (28-336 mm equivalent) -- less zoom but more wide angle than the 10x zoom (36-360mm equiv) on the SX100. 12 megapixel -- worse than the 8 megapixels on mine, in my... Read more →

Getting Ready for My New Camera

One of the benefits of the Internet is that I can read the manual for my new camera before it arrives in the mail. Canon camera manuals are poorly done, and hard to read. I think that's because they're trying to squeeze all information into 228 half-size pages. Anyhow, I am perusing the PDF file for the SX110 camera, and while most of it is repetitive from other camera models (especially Canons), there are a few new items that intrigue me: Safety Zoom In safety zoom mode, the camera balances the maximum digital zoom with resolution to ensure images are... Read more →

My New Digital Camera

My beloved Canon S1is went wonky some months ago. I was ready to shoot photos of a contractor-friend's latest project when I noticed the viewfinder was black. Annoyed, I press the Display button several times, but both viewfinder and LCD remained black -- except for a purple smear. The sensor was toast. (Some Canon models are covered by an unlimited warranty, because Sony did a poor job making some of sensors for Canon. The S1 is not covered by this, unfortunately. Nor is it covered by a credit card extended warranty, for I bought it reconditioned off eBay through PayPal.)... Read more →

Memory Prices Higher at FutureShop?

I was just reading about a worldwide glut in computer memory causing prices to drop. I just wrote an entry in my Digital Camera Fan weblog about my mother-in-law wanting a digital camera, and that she would have to pay an extra $25 for a 2GB memory card. I was in FutureShop yesterday overhearing a customer disappointed at the higher-than-last-week's-advertised price for 2GB SD cards. And then it all came together: Was FutureShop upping its prices on memory cards during the frantic gift-giving season as a way to increase profits? I was used to 2GB SD cards going as low... Read more →

Battery Chargers

Over on my "The Digital Camera Fan" weblog, C.C. asked these questions: Q: I bought Energizer charger yesterday which includes 2pcs of 2000mAh battery. It does not say 'trickle charging'. So does it mean its no use to store the battery in the charger after charging while not in use for my camera? A: Here's how to tell: after the batteries are fully charged, leave them in the charger for a day, and then feel them. If they feel warm, they are being trickle-charged; if cold, then not. Q: The manual says 15 hours are needed to charge 2000mAh AA... Read more →

Why Wi-Fi Everywhere?

Stephen Wildstrom of Business Week Online reports on "Wi-Fi Where It Isn't Needed." He describes the difficulties using Kodak and HP products with WiFi -- wireless acess to the Internet. This, it appears, is an example of the promise of liberating technology run its course and dropped off the edge of reasonableness. He found the EasyShare-One (US$600 - steep!) camera was okay for sending photos to Kodak's online photo sharing service, Ofoto, and to printers. (The HP WiFi printer, he found, was terrible setting up for receiving photo files.) But other than that, WiFi was hopeless: - low-grade protection means... Read more →

$9 Digital Camera - Part II

Since the last post, I found that the DigiGR8 brand of cameras are made by Shuoying, which has a line of digital cameras, MP3 players, multimedia player, USB drives, and so on. They seem to be designed for OEM use, where another company adds their name to the product. Minimum order is 1000 pieces. You can view the details here. Read more →

$9 Digital Camera

Our local Great Canadian Superstore (a supermarket chain) is carrying a DigiGR8 ("digi-great"?) digital camera for CDN$9.60. I snapped one up. Its made of transparent plastic, so you can see its innards. Size is just 2.25" wide, 1.5" tall, and 0.5" wide. It comes with a keychain, and is small enough for that purpose. (Click the thumbnail image at left.) For the price, the specs are crude: * Two resolutions: 352x288 and 176x144 pixels. * 16MB RAM, holds 20 photos at the higher rez and 60 at the lower. * 0.1 megapixel sensor. There is no preview LCD for seeing... Read more →