forgotten_aria

Just some notes about the weekend.

Found an awesome image for my button with Chun Li and Okami on it.

At archery they had one left handed bow but we were all righties in the group, so I tried the left handed bow and gave myself a huge bruise where the string hi my elbow. ( OW! )

It was fairly cool, so I didn't think I'd get a chance to swim. It was a little warmer on Sunday, so took my suit to the beach, but it seemed too cold. So I went kayaking and my pocket (which one would think was enough in the kayak not to do this) spat my camera out into the lake. So I decided if I could try to get it, put on my suit, swam out (the water is less cold when you have a mission) but the water was too cloudy (from pollen and other things) so I couldn't see the bottom well enough to hunt for it. I worry now that the camera battery will leak something bad, so I feel more bad about that than losing the camera itself.

There were pollen clouds so think you could see.

I saw a woodpecker going to town on a rotten log that was on the ground. It let me get pretty close. I took photos, but they were on that camera that's now at the bottom of the lake.

I had a good time, despite all that.

We had a gig in a lovely church. It had this giant cross hanging from the ceiling over the stage.

( It was a really nice space. )
We spent some time deciding if I would hit the cross while playing one of the pieces and eventually decided the best place for the drum would put the cross hanging directly over my head. People joked about the vibration of the drums making the cross fall, to which I commented that my gig nightmare from last night palled with what people were worried about actually happening.

Then when playing the piece, I realized that my hands very sweaty. There's a part in the song where we swing our hands up very quickly and I was worried with the sweatiness the stick would fly out of my hand and hit the cross, so I worked my hands up the sticks to a dry spot and played with very short sticks for that section.

I was also experimenting with the time-interval camera I had purchased. I had decided to get a inexpensive, used compact camera instead of getting an inverolometer for my DLSR so that I could leave the camera set up and taking pictures without worrying about it. Well good thing I decided that because during AP someone tripped over the tripod and the camera went boom to the floor. Someone set it back up, and it happily took pictures of the ceiling, but sadly when I went to view the images it started to report an lens error. The lens was visibly misaligned. I think a well placed twack make make it all better, but I didn't quite have the courage to do that. I might try it later if all other avenues don't pan out.

Before the gig, I got sliced by a metal brace retrofitted into one of our stands. Interestingly enough it was razor sharp, such that it really didn't hurt at all. It bled, a lot, but I played the whole gig without noticing that I'd done anything to my finger. It will also likely heal very quickly.

All in all it was a very good gig. We were very together, very comfortable and dealt with grace what few errors we did have. The audience was amazing. I think I will remember the cheer from Kashmir for a while. With my back to the audience, I couldn't see them, just hear it go from that moment of silence to the exuberant applause.

When my canon elph's switch started to break, I got a DSLR, thinking it might be the only camera I needed. Now, with us bloging about taiko a bunch, I'd like something small and inexpensive that I can have sitting around the wings of a stage that I can take pictures with when I'm not drumming. This means I need something that is good in low light. I poked around the net and found out that fujifilm's CCDs are different in a way that makes them very good in low light AND they have software blur and motion stablization. So I decided to get one and try it out. The problem is the general quality isn't that good. I'm targeting something that can make good blog pictures in low light on a stage where I can't use a flash, which I think this camera does perform that with as little motion blur as possible, but will the bad quality make me regret getting it. Is perhaps nothing better than a unitasker?

( here are some comparison photos. )

I really can't decide if it's worth it. Am I completely spoiled by the quality of the canon (which, when new was a different price bracket entirely)? Or am I right to think that even though the lack of blur is great, the general quality lacking even under the best conditions?