Friday, September 17, 2004
More on Mongolia
OK, I didn't get much of a chance to type stuff this morning, but I'm in the hotel room at the moment, so have a little more time. I'm going to queue up some random thoughts in wbloggar and upload the blog entries next time I get onto the web.
I got to shoot off a couple of emails this morning when I was in the office, and tried to organize to get some samples back to Australia. Quite easy when you are actually on site. I also sent off a quick email to Jodie to let her know that I was alright. Unfortunately my mobile doesn't work here in Mongolia. I'm not sure why. Perhaps Optus hasn't made a co-operation agreement with either of the two mobile phone providers here, I'm not sure, but I'll have to follow it up for next time.
One of my colleagues at work asked me for a quick run down of the food and accomodations here in Turkey. I'm not sure what sort of accomodations she's used to, but she's been on minesites before, so should find the accomodation here OK. The rooms are pretty spartan, but they are warm and accomodating. The food is a little bland, but so far the variety has been OK. I'm not so keen on the fish, but oily fish in general tend to turn me off. Way too fishy for my taste, but no different really to small fish I've had at different places in the world.
There's definately a chinese influence here with the food, particulalry the vegetables, but so to is there a strong western influence. The meat dishes are reminiscent of Turkey of all places, though I guess that's not too unusual given the strong ancestral links between the Turks and the Mongols. I had kiwi-fruit at lunch today, and it was probably the nicest kiwi-fruit I've ever had. Very, very juicy. Apparently all of the fruits come from China, but the fruits here seem so much better than those that I had in China.
The new digital camera is going well. Here's my quick review of a Sony DSC V1 by a new user.
Great picture quality in all light conditions. The infra-red mode is great, as is the laser used for focussing in dark light. The built in flash works well, though the position of the flash is a little inconvenient, being right where I want to put my finger, on the left. What's more, if it clicks (the release mechanism when the camera decides it needs the flash) and you remove your finger, it stays down, requiring another shot. Not too much of a drama, but slightly annoying. The controls on the back are a little cramped, but are generally well positioned. I guess the crampedness is the result of having sooooo many functions in such a small camera.
Minor annoyances, the digital zoom only works post-photo, so you can't zoom in optically to 4X and then keep zooming with the digital zoom before you take the picture. Not a major drama, but it would make operation a little smoother if the camera would do this automatically. Also, it's a pity that you can't stream video/pictures directly over USB. The provided software supports this, but the camera retracts the lens as soon as you plug in the USB. This would be a great feature to enable real-time video chat using the camera while on the road. The inbuilt microphone/speaker combo would also work perfectly for this application.
You will definately need to read the manual on this great little camera to work out all the stuff that you can do with it. Even moving files, deleting, rotating and photo effects certainly aren't the easiest things to find. They are OK once you get used to what mode you need to be in, and which button to push. It would be simpler if ALL functions were available by pressing the menu button, with the dedicated buttons offering shortcuts to their applicable functions, but this isn't the case.
The camera allows you to rotate the images in the camera, but unfortunately the image only gets rotated for the display, not in the file system, so something like Photoshop is required to do the rotation for you. Again, not a major drama, but a little annoying.
Something else that I find annoying is that the battery won't charge while the power is on. Usually it's good to have the camera attached and let the battery charge while you are working on things, but not with this camera. It takes 2 1/2 hours to charge the batteries from being flat, so I just leave it going overnight. The camera stops charging the batteries when they are full, which is great, but I'd still like to have the thing turned on and talking to the computer while charging, rather than just running from DC. It's also annoying that you can't take photo's without first stopping the device and unplugging the USB.
Overall, it's a great little camera, with some powers that I'm not ready to unleash (such as all the manual apeture and shutter settings), but it's also a great point and click camera. The photo quality is fantastic in all light conditions and there are plenty of add ons available for it. The supplied 32 MB memory stick is a tad on the small side, but it makes a great backup to keep in your camera bag should you go photo crazy and fill one of the larger sticks. I've got a 128 MB stick which is ample (76 photo's at the highest resolution) if you have a laptop or stick reader handy.
My recommendations if buying this camera is to grab a bigger memory stick, and a spare battery. The battery life is about 90 mins from fully charged, and in power save mode, it will start turning off the LCD when the power gets low. This happened to me after around 50 shots (and a bit of playing around). A spare batter and the spare 32MB cartridge should get you through those emergency situations when that once in a lifetime scene comes about. Also grab yourself a camera bag. The guy at the photo shop recommended a Tamrac digital series case. The camera fits perfectly and there's enough room for a spare stick or 3, a spare battery and the USB cable in the bag, as well as a mini tripod. You could probably fit the power supply transformer in there as well, but probably not the power cable itself. It's a great portable bag for me and well worth the purchase. There's probably other bags that will do the job, but a bag is absolutely essential.
My scores
Quality of Results 5/5
Ease of Use 4/5 (5/5 for point and click, 3/5 for messing with the menuing system)
User Interface 3/5
Portability 4/5
Features per cubic centimeter 5/5
Bang for the Buck 5/5
User Manual 4/5
Supplied Software 3/5 (I prefer just to copy stuff using explorer and then photoshop it)
Accessories supplied 2/5 (no protective camera bag (even a soft cloth one) is pretty unforgivable, and the 32 MB stick is a little stingy). You do however get a hand strap, charger, USB cable, AV cable and the manual.
Would I buy it again knowing what I now know? Yep, absolutely, though there is a new model out in November, so if you can hold out till then, it might be worth checking out the new one.
OK End of Review.
I'm going to have a nap while listening to Faithless.
I got to shoot off a couple of emails this morning when I was in the office, and tried to organize to get some samples back to Australia. Quite easy when you are actually on site. I also sent off a quick email to Jodie to let her know that I was alright. Unfortunately my mobile doesn't work here in Mongolia. I'm not sure why. Perhaps Optus hasn't made a co-operation agreement with either of the two mobile phone providers here, I'm not sure, but I'll have to follow it up for next time.
One of my colleagues at work asked me for a quick run down of the food and accomodations here in Turkey. I'm not sure what sort of accomodations she's used to, but she's been on minesites before, so should find the accomodation here OK. The rooms are pretty spartan, but they are warm and accomodating. The food is a little bland, but so far the variety has been OK. I'm not so keen on the fish, but oily fish in general tend to turn me off. Way too fishy for my taste, but no different really to small fish I've had at different places in the world.
There's definately a chinese influence here with the food, particulalry the vegetables, but so to is there a strong western influence. The meat dishes are reminiscent of Turkey of all places, though I guess that's not too unusual given the strong ancestral links between the Turks and the Mongols. I had kiwi-fruit at lunch today, and it was probably the nicest kiwi-fruit I've ever had. Very, very juicy. Apparently all of the fruits come from China, but the fruits here seem so much better than those that I had in China.
The new digital camera is going well. Here's my quick review of a Sony DSC V1 by a new user.
Great picture quality in all light conditions. The infra-red mode is great, as is the laser used for focussing in dark light. The built in flash works well, though the position of the flash is a little inconvenient, being right where I want to put my finger, on the left. What's more, if it clicks (the release mechanism when the camera decides it needs the flash) and you remove your finger, it stays down, requiring another shot. Not too much of a drama, but slightly annoying. The controls on the back are a little cramped, but are generally well positioned. I guess the crampedness is the result of having sooooo many functions in such a small camera.
Minor annoyances, the digital zoom only works post-photo, so you can't zoom in optically to 4X and then keep zooming with the digital zoom before you take the picture. Not a major drama, but it would make operation a little smoother if the camera would do this automatically. Also, it's a pity that you can't stream video/pictures directly over USB. The provided software supports this, but the camera retracts the lens as soon as you plug in the USB. This would be a great feature to enable real-time video chat using the camera while on the road. The inbuilt microphone/speaker combo would also work perfectly for this application.
You will definately need to read the manual on this great little camera to work out all the stuff that you can do with it. Even moving files, deleting, rotating and photo effects certainly aren't the easiest things to find. They are OK once you get used to what mode you need to be in, and which button to push. It would be simpler if ALL functions were available by pressing the menu button, with the dedicated buttons offering shortcuts to their applicable functions, but this isn't the case.
The camera allows you to rotate the images in the camera, but unfortunately the image only gets rotated for the display, not in the file system, so something like Photoshop is required to do the rotation for you. Again, not a major drama, but a little annoying.
Something else that I find annoying is that the battery won't charge while the power is on. Usually it's good to have the camera attached and let the battery charge while you are working on things, but not with this camera. It takes 2 1/2 hours to charge the batteries from being flat, so I just leave it going overnight. The camera stops charging the batteries when they are full, which is great, but I'd still like to have the thing turned on and talking to the computer while charging, rather than just running from DC. It's also annoying that you can't take photo's without first stopping the device and unplugging the USB.
Overall, it's a great little camera, with some powers that I'm not ready to unleash (such as all the manual apeture and shutter settings), but it's also a great point and click camera. The photo quality is fantastic in all light conditions and there are plenty of add ons available for it. The supplied 32 MB memory stick is a tad on the small side, but it makes a great backup to keep in your camera bag should you go photo crazy and fill one of the larger sticks. I've got a 128 MB stick which is ample (76 photo's at the highest resolution) if you have a laptop or stick reader handy.
My recommendations if buying this camera is to grab a bigger memory stick, and a spare battery. The battery life is about 90 mins from fully charged, and in power save mode, it will start turning off the LCD when the power gets low. This happened to me after around 50 shots (and a bit of playing around). A spare batter and the spare 32MB cartridge should get you through those emergency situations when that once in a lifetime scene comes about. Also grab yourself a camera bag. The guy at the photo shop recommended a Tamrac digital series case. The camera fits perfectly and there's enough room for a spare stick or 3, a spare battery and the USB cable in the bag, as well as a mini tripod. You could probably fit the power supply transformer in there as well, but probably not the power cable itself. It's a great portable bag for me and well worth the purchase. There's probably other bags that will do the job, but a bag is absolutely essential.
My scores
Quality of Results 5/5
Ease of Use 4/5 (5/5 for point and click, 3/5 for messing with the menuing system)
User Interface 3/5
Portability 4/5
Features per cubic centimeter 5/5
Bang for the Buck 5/5
User Manual 4/5
Supplied Software 3/5 (I prefer just to copy stuff using explorer and then photoshop it)
Accessories supplied 2/5 (no protective camera bag (even a soft cloth one) is pretty unforgivable, and the 32 MB stick is a little stingy). You do however get a hand strap, charger, USB cable, AV cable and the manual.
Would I buy it again knowing what I now know? Yep, absolutely, though there is a new model out in November, so if you can hold out till then, it might be worth checking out the new one.
OK End of Review.
I'm going to have a nap while listening to Faithless.
# posted by The Puppeteer : 11:59 pm
