I recently bought a new digital SLR camera, a Canon EOS-20D.

For those who have never used this type of camera, SLR is an acronym for Single Lens Reflex. The acronym itself is a legacy of some of the older camera designs, of which some may have dim memories. There were two lenses, one to project the image onto a ground-glass screen for focusing, and a second lens, below the focusing lens, that was optimized to send the image to the film in the camera.

The SLR used a single lens, and the “reflex” part of the acronym described how the image was projected onto a ground glass screen in a viewfinder an image that was through the same lens that the photo was taken.

This makes a huge difference, even to those who have used a digital camera trying to compose the image on a tiny LCD screen on a camera back.

Perhaps it is because long ago (20 years) I had become accustomed to an SLR camera, but I have never been able to use any other type of camera to my satisfaction regarding the quality of the final image composition of my photos.

I received my new SLR camera (kindly re-shipped to me by my father so I didn’t have to pay the almost punitive value-added tax in Europe) on Friday, and I have had only a limited time to explore all the features and options.

Despite that, I cannot describe the feeling I had when I took the first photograph with this camera, the sound of the mirror moving out of the way and the shutter opening to take the photo, mechanical sounds that are so vibrant compared to the artificial sounds of a digital snapshot camera, despite the attempts of the manufacturers to imitate the reality.

Holy cow!

Even though my first photo was of my current computer setup (two computers, my PC desktop and my Mac laptop, each with two screens), the satisfaction of seeing the same image in the digital photo that I had composed in the viewfinder was huge, despite the banality of the subject.

Somehow, I cannot achieve this satisfactory result of “composition on the fly” when using either the LCD screen or the viewfinder of my snapshot digital camera.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed photography.

Now the fun begins!

Indifference is a weapon of mass destruction.
   -Dennis Kucinich

From the Esoterica blog at Cnet News.com:

For all of us who were told that if we worked long enough, we could dig a hole all the way to China, it seems we were woefully misinformed.

A neat app built around Google Earth allows users to click on their current location and then shows where you’d come out if you dug straight through the Earth’s core to the other side of the planet. Looks like the Blogma writers in CNET’s San Francisco offices will have to bring our life vests along for the trip because we’ll end up in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

If that ain’t “geek cool”, I don’t know what would be.

…never, ever, ever plan something that starts early in the morning when the night before you have been invited by a German to share beer and sausages he brought back from his visit home.

I didn’t know they made trucks as big as the one that must have hit me…

I had dinner tonight with some of my colleagues from work and their spouses/girlfriends.

It was an interesting evening, and I learned some things I hope to write about soon.

Now, though, I need to go to bed (it’s almost 3:00AM here) because I leave for a day-trip to Lyon tomorrow in about 5 hours.