Category Archives: Photography

Memory stick weirdness

This is strange, but I’ve mentioned problems with Memory Sticks and Linux before. When I plug my camera into my PC /var/log/messages sometimes reports errors reading the camera memory:

Sep 16 11:22:52 donncha kernel: hub.c: new USB device 00:07.2-2, assigned address 13
Sep 16 11:22:55 donncha /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usb-storage for USB product 54c/10/440
Sep 16 11:22:56 donncha kernel: Device not ready. Make sure there is a disc in the drive.
Sep 16 11:22:56 donncha kernel: sda : READ CAPACITY failed.
Sep 16 11:22:56 donncha kernel: sda : status = 1, message = 00, host = 0, driver = 08
Sep 16 11:22:56 donncha kernel: Info fld=0xa00 (nonstd), Current sd00:00: sense key Not Ready
Sep 16 11:22:56 donncha kernel: sda : block size assumed to be 512 bytes, disk size 1GB.
Sep 16 11:22:56 donncha kernel: sda: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
Sep 16 11:22:56 donncha kernel: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
Sep 16 11:22:56 donncha kernel: unable to read partition table
Sep 16 11:22:57 donncha devlabel: devlabel service started/restarted

and similar problems have been reported elsewhere!
As you can see, it looks like the camera has been detected on /dev/sda.
For no better reason than “what if?” I tried /dev/sdb instead, and surprise, it worked!
Really strange..

Photo archiving

Bah! This summer I’ve had 2 drives die on me at home. The first was a drive I used for many years so it was no surprise it died. Unfortunately it died just after I came home from the USA in July. Thankfully I had backups from last November done, and was able to recover the photos from 2003 up to the end of June before the drive died permanently. The second drive was the one I brought back from the States so I’m not surprised it died after a plane journey.
I’ve backed up all my photographs twice now. There’s 2 CDR copies of each backup, just in case.
Now this article from The Register throws some doubt on this strategy. No premium brands were tested but cheaper CDRs become unusable after a few months. I can confirm that this does happen as quite a few CDs I burned in the past are now unusable.
I’d like to look at DVD burners now. It’ll be a lot easier to reburn 2-4 DVDs rather than 12-16 CDs every year. Liam on suggested the Pioneer 106 and I’ll look around, so if you’ve used a DVD burner with Linux I’d like to hear about it in the comments below.

That baseball game

After seeing some of the photos from last weekends games in the newspapers I’ve come to the conclusion it’s bloody difficult to get good shots at a game without a press-pass, and a big lense on a decent camera. That said, here’s my contribution to the sporting history of the Chicago White Sox:

Almost hit it!
almost hit it

When the ball is pitched, it travels of speeds between 80mph and 93mph! Even if they don’t have to run around as much as in other team sports, their reflexes have to be very sharp! They have stamina too. Sitting down, drinking beer, or munching on a sandwich for 2-3 hours is easy. Concentrating and running around is another matter!

Watching the game

White Sox fans will recognise these players. I haven’t a clue who they are, except for Lee, for obvious reasons! Lee went on later, and made a great catch on a high ball.

Did he make it?

See that ball in the air over his head? A low ball, delivered right into the hands of a White Sox player ensured this guy was out!

The End

September issue of Megapixel out

The latest issue of megapixel.net has some great articles. I’ve printed out the ‘Night Photography’ one for later study. I want to take some snaps of the Buckingham Fountain here in Chicago this weekend. At 9pm every night coloured lights shine through the water, and the fountain gushes up high in the air. With the backdrop of the Chicago skyline it’s a beautiful sight.

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