Here are some old water droplets shots I’ve taken…. I have better ones I have to find them.

The Strobist has just posted a helpfull post on getting started on these shots:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-photograph-water-drops-with-one.html

I did mine with some aquarium lights, an aquarium water pump I later used an off camera flash.

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So my G9 stopped working this weekend… It was working fine all day when I went back to turn it on it just wouldnt (I recharged the battery hoping it would be the cause of the problem….but it wasnt). So after searching the web and finding lots of other people with the same problem I stumbled upon:

http://www.myfixtips.com/blog/digital-camera/who-killed-my-g9-133.htm

Canon G9 defect

Canon G9 defect

This great guide basically shows that the G9s were assembled without using screw lock gel to keep the screws from loosening. So if you have a G9 for over a year chances are that there are two screws inside the camera that are hanging loose and will soon fall and shortcircuit your camera’s DC or main board.

I dis-assembled mine using that guide and found the same exact thing pictured on the guide. One of the screws was still attached (barely) the other was inbetween the circuit boards and had already short circuit my board. I emailed Canon tech support and havent heard back from them yet. It seems that people that sent the cameras back for repair get charged ~$250 for this. It seems crazy that a manufactor design flaw that is in effect a timebomb is not covered by a recall. I’m a long time Canon user and the handling of this will affect my opinion of further purchases/recomendations of this brand.

The Canon G10 is basically the same design…. will it be affected?

**UPDATE** 6/18/2009

I sent it in, and explained the problem (out of warranty) they wanted to charge $180. After speaking with an manager they said they would fix it free of charge without a warranty on the repair.

Canon handled my concerns and was able to help me. I really appreciate the service and will continue to support them by purchasing/recomending their products.

**UPDATE** 11/02/2009

My G9 died again last weekend same symptoms, same problem… I called then again and they want $150 for the repair which sounds crazy for a flaw that was never addressed. I’m really disapointed with Canon and the next upgrade I will switch to Nikon over this. I cant support a company that does not stand behind their products/customers.

I’m scanning my sisters wedding negatives with a Nikon Coolscan 4000 ED she bought off of eBay. Its has been a slow and tedious job. It was taking me 5 mins per frame, and the quality was really un-impresive I started to think it was the scanning software; “Nikon Scan 4″ for  it wasn’t built for OSX and its not very robust…. after searching for tips online I found a thread on Photo.net that pointed me to:

http://www.vad1.com/photo/dirty-scanner/
http://www.pearsonimaging.com/articles/howto/ls5000cleaning.html

So I took the scanner appart and found the mirror was completly obscured by a thich layer of dust, I couldnt even see a reflection!!!. After cleaning it and putting the scanner back together the scanning time dropped to about half (2.5m per frame) and the resulting images were crisp and much clearer.

***TIP*** when placing the mirror back make sure that the reflective side it up. What I mean is that the mirror is reflective on both sides, one side has glass protecting the reflective “mirror” the other side is just a mirror with not glass covering. Put the reflective side up or else you’ll find double-image effects on your scans.

This is a one minute and a half HD video right out of my 5D MKII its 430MB. Right-Click to save. No editing and the music was my iPhone playing close-by

Download

There are countless versions of the DIY Light Box, I created mine with a very large box and some banner paper from Walmart.

You can see the two flashes I’m using resting on the desks on each side of the box.

Here are some test shots:

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