Weird & Wonderous: Part 2......Da!

For those of us aspiring photographers raised in the 1970's United States, ads like the above filled our dreams of inexpensive "super" telephotos, and all manner of imagined uses for them; ballgames, the moon, possible spies, neighbors........., but I digress. One of the major purveyor of these sorts of lenses and the biggest advertisers was of course the everpresent Spiratone Corp. of New York. By the mid 70's they had both a 400mm/f6.3 and a 500mm/f8 for which you could get a "2x" multiplier and they'd even throw in the matching hood and "hard case".

 

Several decades later, these lenses are still available. They may only come with a bag vs. a case, they don't throw in the hood any more, and are likely to be made in Korea and imported under various brands ranging from Samyang to Bower; in the end though (as you can see), they are still pretty much the same lens.

For the dreaming teenager like myself, there would soon be more! By the mid-70's, there were whispers that the Russians (yeah, those guys) had some super-duper, secret-can't get it here-but-ridiculously-cheap, camera equipment out there....shhhhhh!!! Anyway; some time in those years, Jason Schneider who wrote a column on camera collecting for Modern Photography had a piece where he contacted the official Soviet exporter through their London offices and after great effort was able to order some equipment which eventually came directly to his house! I was astounded, but not surprised, as those of us who had on occasion been able to get the British magazine, Amatuer Photographer can tell you, this equipment had been available "in the West" for a number of years! But the one item that Jason referenced (but did not buy), and the British ads seemed never to include; was the fabled Fotosnaiper (that's Fotosniper to you and I). They might as well have named it the "snipe". Sorry; inside joke for those of us raised in the country.

Here was what I and every other weird equipment loving photographer was looking for! And the fact that it was Russian/Soviet, and furthermore basically unobtainable made it even better. The basis of course, was the Zenit E (or the '57 Chevy of Russian cameras), that was adapted to function with a well-thought-out "pistol-grip" stock mated to a very good, if not excellent 300mm "Tair" lens. I won't go into the complete history of it, since there are any number of very good sites that'll do a better job of explaining the very interesting history, but suffice to say that it's been in production a very long time from the KMZ facilty outside Moscow. 

The fact that it came in a fitted (then) case, and all manner of accessories just made it all the more desirable. They can also be found easily today on eBay and other sales sites (often in Ukraine), but fitted to a vinyl/hardboard (now) cases in later production. As I've said before, I've always wanted one and in all probability when the right opportunity (cheap enough) presents, I'll probably get one. The fact that I saw/held an actual one in a photo-shop in San Jose years ago doesn't help one bit.....still want one.

Of course there's been another option for some time. And that's the mirror lenses, or more accurately described as the Matsutov Catadioptric. Although there are a variety of types adapted from the original Augustin-Jean Fresnel design, the vast majority of the type available for general photography are of this adapted Russian design. My own interest developed after being exposed to a Nikkor version used by our news-photographer teacher/mentor during a summer photography workshop while in high school. I'd heard of them, but never even seen one in real life, much less someone using one hand-held on a regular basis. And like everything else, they range from classic of the type, the Nikkor to the commonly found Samyang. However, there were the occasional unusual design such as the Vivitar Series 1, 600mm/f8 and 800mm/f11, "Solid Cat" contracted by Perkin-Elmer of the Hubble Telescope, and military optics fame!

I'd love to have one of these, but the collector's market has gotten ahold of them and the price is generally north of $500. This like the Fotosniper is another one of those, "some day" type things. I'll most likely target either the Nikkor (which sometimes gets down below $200), or the excellent (and compact) Tokina. There's also the Tamron Adaptall II SP, but those have gotten a collectors rep as well.

So far, I've only really discussed lenses that I can't afford right now. So, let's move on to the real purpose of today's rambling post: the Vivitar 500mm/f6.3 Preset of the mid-to-late 70's. As you can see, it's a beast! It is the rather prosaic preset telephoto design that most Japanese manufacturers mastered by the late-1950's, early-1960's, and certainly not an especially difficult formula to produce. In this case, Ponder & Best (aka Vivitar) looks to have contracted these from Olympus given the serial numbers being with a 6. This is definitely, no bad thing! You might have noted that I bolded the aperture of f6.3. And that's because it's unusual (I like unusual), as most lenses of this type at this focal length are almost always f8. These lenses are generally considered (apart from their heft & length) more photographically flexible than the mirror lenses with their aperture fixed at f8 as well as the other eccentricities of the breed. My interest in them (other than the usual fact that they aren't typical) is that I've always wanted a real "super-telephoto" and that I have a Bushmaster shoulder mount that makes would make it much more useable. On top of that, there is the fact that they will sometimes appear at less than $50.

 And as if that wasn't enough, while researching this lens, I came across some other Vivitar "Super-telephotos" of similar vintage contracted from Tokina that were even more interesting! These were a series based on a two part system that had different heads: a 600mm and an 800mm! There was also a 400mm that didn't take apart, but that certainly isn't as interesting! So, I may have just gotten myself in more trouble in finding another sub-hobby/obsession within a hobby!

State of Support

My children are/were happy! Their Christmas present this year are the Dell Streak 7s, and due to circumstances, they actually received them a month ago when we took a Thanksgiving trip to to see their granddad in Midland. A 6 hour car trip is absolutely what the Android tablets are designed for! It was a good purchase at a very good price: $125 from Newegg....refurbished. I'm not going to go into the reason I bought those here since I did that in a previous post, but I'll say that I've been impress so far.

That was until a couple of weeks ago. One day my son brought me his tablet saying that it wouldn't charge. So, I tried using the cord and adapter from my daughter's Streak 7 and still no go. I was pretty hot figuring that it was something that he did and now he'd killed his Christmas present.....before Christmas week even! However, after I cooled off, I took some time to look up the issue and it's apparent, that the charge connector going bad is pretty common with this tablet. So I called Newegg, who said that although it was beyond their return period (which of knew already) of 30 days, it was an official "refurbished" product, therefore covered by Dell for 90 days and I could just contact Dell myself. And since it was December 21st at that point and I bought it on September 22nd, I called Dell immediately. The person I talked to said that I would need to send them my proof of purchase and they would be able to put me into their "Mobility Support" system. I did that immediately. Two days later (last night), I received a call back saying that they had received my proof of purchase and they were processing my request. I would need to call back the next day (today). So I returned their call this morning to be told that the tablet was "out of warranty" and since it was an "end of life" product, they couldn't extend it. My reply was that it was not out of warranty where I initiated the call, so therefore they were still bound by it. After having that customer service rep tell me the exact same thing 3 times, I asked him to "escalate" the call, at which point I got the "Floor Manager", who told me the same thing 3 more times. My response at that stage was to explain to him, that since the product was in fact within the original 90 days when I initiated the case, that in fact what he was telling me was that Dell is refusing to honor the warranty for a product because it was "out of production". The response was another round of telling me that they couldn't extend the warranty. After the second time I explained to him what he was saying, the response was silence. Then he said that he would have to pass this on to his superiors who would call me back within two days. That's where it stands at the moment.

On the other-hand, my experience with Lenovo/ThinkPad brand went like this..... As you guys know, I bought a broken tablet that was still under warranty by Lenovo. I received it, and called them the same day. The following day, a pre-paid box arrived and the tablet was sent off to EZ Serv, in Memphis. A week later I was told that they didn't have the part necessary to repair the tablet "within an acceptable period of time", and that they would discuss this with the associated division within Lenovo as ask that a replacement be sent to me. The following day, I was called to say that Lenovo had agreed and would send out a new tablet to me directly from China. 10 days later, a brand new, never-been-opened tablet of identical spec to my original arrived. End of story. 

I would find out later that this model of tablet, is in fact an end of life product for them as well, having decided to move to Windows 8 on their Tablet 2. So, what's the difference? Is Lenovo that much better than Dell? Is it because I had to deal with one of the dreaded, India support centers? I believe that answer to both questions is an unequivical...."NO"! The difference? .....is that the ThinkPad was supported on the "corporate support" side of the business, and the Dell is being supported on the "consumer" side of their business. That's why the Dell center I was directed to was in India in the first place! Businesses routinely don't put up with "off-shore" support. I don't have any issues with Indian support centers per se. I have found them to be excellent in providing polite, and patient service. On occasion, I struggle with their accents, but I'm certain that they struggle with mine as well. 

The real issue is that corporate support philosophically wants to keep the customer happy at all costs. The caller could very well be a high level IT professional with the ability to influence if not make the decision on 100s of thousands of dollars worth of purchases based on their experience. I know; I was that guy once. On the other hand, consumer support quite typically is dealing with a "single purchase" consumer who quite often cause the problem themselves and the philosophy for these big firms is to minimize the damage to the company in terms of $$$. We all know what that means. Which is why I almost always recommend a professional (corporate) level product is there is a choice! 

We have some friends who are looking to buy a tablet for their teenage daughter......any guesses what I recommended?

Another Day Off....Woe Is Me......

Well; as it turned out, the daughter came down with Strep AND the flu, so after Mom took Monday off, Tuesday came my turn (since her fever didn't go down). So, what's a Frugal Propellerhead to do, trapped at home with his toys!?!

Go ahead and dismantle that bridge used to "cross the technological Rubicon", of course! The last two everyday computers left in our house that didn't run on an SSD boot drive are my daughter's IBM ThinkPad X30 of 2003, running Windows XP, and my son's IBM ThinkPad Z60t also running Windows XP. That almost 10 year old X30 had a lot of my hard work in it. I wanted it to be very friendly first computer for her. It was disassembled and I spent the better part of a week, cleaning, sanding, and painting all the upper case parts a nice little girl oriented lavender. I called it the "Princess Edition" ThinkPad. My original intention was to eventually replace the bottom of it with an almost physically identical X31....which still resides in a cabinet by the way. She'd then, still have her lavender computer and be upgraded from a PIII-M/1.2 to a P-M/1.6 machine. It doesn't sound like much, but that completely bypasses the whole P4-M generation! 

 

However, after bringing a "parts" X61 back from the dead and being in possession of a spare 64Gb SSD left over from my X300 upgrade the last time she was sick.....well, it was an easy decision! Plus, after checking the chipset information and the parts list of the X61, I realized that in all probability, I wouldn't even have to reload the OS! ......And sure enough, it was almost a perfect swap. It did require a 1.8" Micro-SATA to 2.5" SATA drive adapter. Of course Microsoft made me reactivate Windows 7 because of the change in hardware, and I had to uninstall a few things, but it couldn't have gone smoother. Although still sick and coughing, the daughter was very happy with the "new", MUCH faster computer!

Then, there I sat, all puffed up with success and the other "spare" SSD sitting on my desk, taunting me. What's a dad supposed to do? I went down the hall and got my son's laptop of course! So, out came the old 120Gb mechanical drive and in went the $30 Dell 50Gb SSD (Samsung OEM) drive that I had used as a temporary when the Mushkin went down. A couple of hours later, his Z60t was fully loaded and configured, ready for use. Of course, there's going to be hours of, and hundreds of, that mana from heaven otherwise known as Critical Updates. There was the somewhat major snag of the lack of Windows 7 drivers for Intels Express 900 integrated GPU. Yeah, as it turns out, Intel never got around to releasing drivers for that chipset, so I had to use Vista versions in compatibility mode. It'll work though. But hey; it's a small price to pay to have both kids happy with dad's work for today!

Here's the real pay-off though. Just like I've been incessantly harping on all these posts on how great of an upgrade the SSDs are at today's prices. This was the perfect example. These weren't new machines. My son has been using the Z60t for over a year and I've had that X61 working for a number of months as well. While neither was a terrible slug, they are both way snappier than they were before the upgrades. I didn't change anything else either, there was no RAM upgrade or CPU change. The 50Gb cost $30. The 128Gb that I put into the X300 costs $90 after shipping. So all-in-all, I spent $120, got one machine upgraded and two others switched to a "game-changing" device. Plus, we are all on the same, newer 20v ThinkPad A/C adapters, and ALL the computers run the same Windows 7 OS! That's a pretty good day (off), in my world.

Now.....about that noisy file server with a mechanical boot drive......

The Other Side of the Great (Technological) Divide

This is the consequence of crossing the technological Rubicon that I posted on a while ago. The other day, I found myself discussing and defending the ThinkPads that we're issued at work. I was part of the first group of teachers when the school district made the decision to move from desktops to laptops and was issued a ThinkPad R60. We were told at the time, the "cycle" would be 4 years which is going to be typical and understandable for a money-strapped public entity like a school district vs. a corporation (typically 3 years). Unfortunately the cycle went to 5 years which isn't good, but workable for a machine running XPP. After all, the mission of these machines was to do "office" type applications, email and browser oriented functions. These were dual core machines and could handle those tasks well, however, the powers that be in charge of sourcing and spec'ding these machine are.....shall we say.....lacking in expertise with hardware? Which is where I'm going with this post. It's not a rant regarding them (although their lack of understanding in this area given their jobs is inexcusable), but more so a general issue that's out there among most if not all buyers. I'll just point out that they ordered them with 512Mb of RAM and 40Gb HDD.

We are an "Ebook" school, meaning that the district made the decision some years ago to purchase computers for issue to students and attendant electronic versions of the text, vs. physical books. Given the price, weight and rapidity of change in texts in today's world, it looked to be the right decision. Although ultimately this project is doomed to be abandoned (partially due to circumstances beyond anyone's control), lets just say that the implementation was lacking from the get-go. As most anyone who's worked in a corporate environment knows, the implementation of security software is enough to significantly slow down any computer, so certainly they don't need to be further hampered by being purposely crippled in the ordered specifications! 

Three year ago when I moved to the High School, I was duly impressed by the fact that the issued computer to the students were the ThinkPad X200. And for those who aren't familiar with this model, it's basically a shrunken X300 without an optical drive at half the cost! One day, after listening to the students complaining about the slowness, I decided to look at one. I was horrified to find that it was equipped with 1Gb of RAM! Thinking that this was a mistake or that someone had taken out one of the modules, I checked another.....same thing.....then another......same result. To say that I was a little stunned would be putting it mildly. In fact, I got onto the ThinkPad Forum and had a prolong discussion with other members about why Lenovo would even sell a crippled machine like this, customers' wishes not-withstanding! My contention is that just in our district alone, there are over a thousand people who will have the belief that ThinkPads are horrible computers and would never buy another Lenovo product!

OK; I know that so far, it sounds like a "rant", but it's not really. Although, the "professionals" who's jobs it is to purchase those machines are clearly idiots (yes, I know that a little strong, but they are being paid for their expertise), this is a common issue among most computer users today. Most folks simply don't understand what makes a computer "feel" fast or slow. Yes, corporate (or school district) security is an issue, but you can talk memory with people all day long and the vast majority wouldn't know the difference between RAM and storage to save their life. The fact of the matter is that most any computer made within the last 3-5 years will happily run a modern OS (eg. Windows 7) and it's basic apps if given the correct amount of RAM. My "rule of thumb" is to double whatever Microsoft lists as recommended.....then double that every time they come out with a major service pack. 

 

A good example was what happened with Windows XP. It was originally designed to run on 256Mb of RAM. By the time that Service Pack 3 came out, it needed to have 2Gb to run well. So it basically went like this: 

1. Windows XP- 256Mb of RAM
2. Windows XP SP1- 512Mb of RAM
3. Windows XP SP2- 1Gb of RAM
4. Windows XP SP3- 2Gb of RAM

 

With Windows 7, I've set a 2Gb floor and have really only run 4Gb or better on our own machines. However, within the last year, another dynamic has come on the scene. The all-conquering solid state drive (SSD for short). This along with a adequate amount of RAM has become the main ingredient in making a machine feel fast. Boots happen within 15-20 seconds, programs launch instantly and files are accessed almost immediately.

  

The correct combination of these devices can make the sweet-spot of the 3 year-old notebook computer a perfect storm of functionality. Take any corporate level computer of this vintage, ranging from the Dell Latitude E6400 that I've been buying up for clients to the X61 that's destined to be my daughter's replacement for the aging X30 (yes, that's right.....a PIII-M machine). Combine these computers with 2 to 4Gb of RAM, an SSD (stirred, not shaken), add Windows 7 and anyone can have themselves a very nicely functioning notebook for around $250, or less.

Which gets me down to my last point. Our school district finally got it's wits about itself and started buying machines with adequate RAM. The L420 that was issued at the end of last year has 4Gb of  RAM on board. However, this machine is far outperformed based on "feel" day-to-day by my 3 year old X300 and the 4 year old X61 equipped with the same amount of RAM and a SSD!

If only there were a Platinum Age?

It's the holiday season here in the states, and of course, other than sugar-plumbs dancing in our heads, it's also the time of Christmas lists. Things that we wish to have bestowed upon us by some version of the benevolent St. Nicholas. Of course around here, it's the one that Coca Cola ad people invented in the first part of the Twentieth Century, as opposed to the European oriented depiction.

Regardless of version, I tend to day-dream about what could be vs. of what I'd want. So, let's move on to a Frugal Properllerhead's Christmas List of things that would/could be if we ran the world.

• The ThinkPad X302- A combination of the X301 form-factor, and X1 technology/carbon-fiber case. High-Res 13.3" LED back-lit, IPS paneled at 1440 x 900 resolution. Optical Blu-Ray burner, with 256Gb or 512Gb SSD. 8Gb RAM standard, max 16Gb. No chiclet keys, USB 3.0 and a dock connector. That would be my next laptop replacing the beloved X300.....after the $3000 price comes down.
• A BYOD (bring your own drive) plug and play home server, that will take 5, 2.5" mechanical drives in a mini-chassis. The server OS would be pre-loaded on to either a small SSD, or some other form of flash memory. It would have 2, Gigabit Ethernet ports, and USB 3.0 connectivity for expansion. Tethered, reader/writer to interact with flash memory, 2.5/3.5" SATA/IDE HDDs. 
• Router/AP with on board 8-Port Ethernet switch, USB connectivity AND 2 slots to accept 2.5" SATA HDDs for NAS expansion capability.
• Android APP to allow standard networking access AND storage drive mapping.
• Modular software allow integration of a la carte feature purchases such as Adobe Lightroom with the ability to purchase a Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements modules that are fully integrated with the base application.
• Wireless full and compact TrackPoint equipped keyboards.
• Single box turntable to USB converter with switchable RIAA, packaged with capture and edit software. 
• High capacity archival 90mm Magneto Optical storage.
• Nikon 28mm/f2.0 true "pancake" lens. I'll take f2.8 if I have to!
• APS-C sensored mirrorless Nikon. NO MORE 1 SERIES! Modernized "S" series would be awesome!
• Updated Nikon D300S......D301? Full HD video, articulated LCD and Wireless connectivity.
• Updated Nikon D50.....D51? CF card instead of SD, legacy lens metering, back-lit info panel, 3" LCD.
• Revival of a/d/s/ speakers and electronics in a modern idiom.
• Android tablet APP from Logitech that does what the Harmony remotes do.
• Media APP that gives graphical (album oriented) playback control. It would automatically pull IMDB and music info from the internet.
• Port Palm Pilot simplicity into Android APPs.

I guess I can't be too greedy. If somebody would get onto these items right away and get them into our stockings, it'd be a great Christmas.
 

What Does One Do With Surplus Storage?

Last night, as I was sitting contemplating the imminent return of my Mushkin 120Gb Chronos, I realized that I have a bit of a problem. Storage problem that is, in the form of more drives than I know what to do with kind of a problem. No, I don't mean that I've got a bunch of 20/40 or even 60 and 80Gb drives sitting around with nowhere to go like everybody else has, but an actual useful-sized drive problem! This occurred to me after I spent about 30 minutes taking apart one of those accursed consumer Dell laptops that a client brought me to extract data. She told me that I could just keep the parts after I copied the data to an external drive for her.

So now, in addition to that one which contained a 500Gb Western Digital Blue drive, I already had a similar situation earlier in the month which yielded a Seagate Momentus XT 500Gb Hybrid drive.

Just those two together adds up to 1Tb of 2.5" drives. On top of that, there are a couple of 160Gb Western Digital Caviar 7200rpm PATA desktop type drives (one of which is a server-class) as well.

I've used a couple of "extra" drives in my HTPC machines as scratch/temp storage, but I don't have any other machines planned or needed. On top of which there are the 3 extra SSDs, two of which are going into the children's laptops as upgrades, thus yielding a spare one of those as well. At this point, I'm truly mystified!?!

I do have a Christmas Holiday project for my wife where I've been tasked to take some old cast-off ThinkPads (T4x & A3x) to make a system for her classroom. Maybe I should build a small file server for that application and create a little internal network. I just get a sense though that this isn't something that the IT folks in her district is going to be very happy with though! Now, if I could find one of those Buffalo Linkstation Mini NASs without drives............ hmmmmm......... That still doesn't create a solution for the 120Gb Chronos SSD though.

The Deadly Consumer Laptop: End of the Year Rant!!!

Most of you are aware that I have a little "side-business" that's responsible for funding all my Propellerheaded purchases, which needs the cash regardless of how frugal I am. The "bread and butter" of my operation is "flipping" laptops. Over the course of the last couple of years, I've moved my product line from being ThinkPad oriented to more Dell oriented. This is due mostly to a "bang-for-the-buck" commitment to my customers. The fact of the matter is that most of them couldn't care less about the differences of the finer points in design and build quality that comprise the differential in the market price between the two. For myself and a very few of my clients, ThinkPads still rules the roost, but for 8 of 10 laptops that I do; I tend to recommend something from the Dell Latitude (business) line. They are inexpensive, easy to fine, cheap to buy and well built. 

However, this rant isn't about the business line. Over the course of the last month or so, I've been brought 3 Dell laptops with problems. One of them was an older (D620) Latitude, but those coming in are a rarity. It's the other two that are the problem. I hate Inspirons, well for that matter, I hate: Gateways (post Acer buyout) in general, all Acers regardless of how good they look....and they look pretty good these days, and HP Pavilions. These are ALL consumer grade computers. Some are cheap originally, and some can push the $1000 envelope, but they have one thing in common.....THEY ARE ALL CONSUMER GRADE!

Here's the issue. Walmart....or more specifically, the Walmart-ization of comptuers. In business speak, it's called commoditization. What that means is that a particular class of product has gotten so ubiquitous that it's no longer considered brand driven, or differentiated. What that implies is that they are all generic and therefore only subject to the market forces of pricing and feature set, which in turn drives prices down into a "death-spiral" till it gets to the lowest possible $$$. What's so bad about that? Well, if it's cereal, that's one thing, but for a complex product like a laptop (and I say that on purpose), it's a very bad thing. When the pricing is in the range of $400 as the floor and $900 as the ceiling, then you take out the transportation costs (none of these products are made locally), profit of the individual entities in the supply chain, what you have is something between $150-250 worth of parts.So, should anyone be the least bit surprised when these things break in less than two to three years? It isn't for no reason that the warranties of these things run one year.

What pushed me over the edge to post this rant is this: $400-600 is still a lot of money. Us old computer cranks can wonder out loud about how little that is compared to the days of $2000 low-end desktops and $4000 laptops.....in $1995 dollars, are few and far between. The fact of the matter is that $500 is still a lot of money. Two days ago, I picked up a Dell Inspiron M5010 from a client. It was giving a "7 beep" error code. It turns out that means the motherboard or CPU didn't past POST. It was a $900 computer two years ago. After reviewing the forums, it's pretty apparent that it's a common issue from some detaching chips which seems to manifest itself at the....you guessed it.....two year mark. The repair or a motherboard replacement would put it in the over-$150 range, and understandably she doesn't want to invest that in this machine. Last year, her daughter brought me her computer. The infamous HP Pavilion DV6000 series with the nVidia graphic chip flaw. That was a $1000 computer. So, in the space of a year, we have about $2000 flushed down the toilet! That's a lot of money for a single parent teacher with a kid in college.

I would say that; it's enough to make you buy an Apple, but not only are they way expensive, but for all the added costs, they aren't immune to across the board issues like the nVidia debacle and the ATI one before that. It's just that they tend to support their buyers better than the majority of PC manufacturers. In fact, my stance is, if you can "pay the freight", AND have a need for what they do best (digital imaging, music, etc., then by all means, go right ahead. 

Really, my solution is the old retired corporate computer answer. Here's how it breaks down in terms of dollars involved. Lets say that when buying a new computer the typical buyer spends in the median of around $750. The typical home user seems to keep their computer for around 4 to 5 years. So if you go the long route, that comes out to be $150 or so per year. I routinely sell 3 year old corporate machine for between $250-300. Even if you estimate that they'll last 3 years since they are older to start with, that puts the outlay at about $100 per year on the high side. That's a 50% differential at it's worse for a better-built machine. In real world use, I'd bet that the average user will get the same amount of use out of each machine, largely due to the less likelihood of the better built machine breaking down. At least that's been my admittedly unscientific experience. 

Spend less, get a better machine. Sounds like a no-brainer, but people find it difficult to change their perceptions and behaviors until (like my teacher friend) suffer the painful bite of the deadly consumer laptop! Sure they look nice and shiny on the shelf in that store, vs. the plain and boring business look, but "you better watch out", or you're gonna cry.

"Unsung Hero" of a Nikon Fleet

Of our little fleet of digital cameras, this is one of my favorites. It's the CoolPix 995 of 2001; a 3.3 megapixel digital that sold for a list price of $899! This was the fourth of the "9" series that started with the 1.2 megapixel 900 of 1998, then the 950, followed by the 990, and finally culminating with the 4.1 megapixel 4500 of 2002. One camera each year with evolutionary refinements till Nikon finally dropped the "split-body" concept. These pre-DSLR-Boom cameras where considered to be some of the most advanced of their day barring entry into the (at the time) fully professional early digital SLRs. The 995 was the first of them that used a rechargeable lithium-ion in place of the 4, AA batteries of the earlier designs. It also has a 4x lens instead of the 3x and gives a 35mm equivalent of 38-152mm vs. the 38-115 of the CoolPix 990 that it replaced. It was also the first to have a pop-up flash which combined with the bigger lens to cause Nikon to move away from the fully magnesium body to a half version with fiber-reinforced polycarbonate on the lens/flash half. This was the cause of much nashing of teeth till the 4500 changed back to the all-metal body.

The 4500 also address the various weird bulges and other not so sleek features features of the 995, but that's not why we're here today. So why the CoolPix 995? Well.....it was $15... on Craig's List. I saw it one day, a few years ago, decided that it was ridiculous and had to buy it on principle alone! Of course it didn't have a memory card, or a charger, or a battery for that matter, but that didn't matter. IT WAS $15!!! Beside, I had had a CoolPix 880 for some time and it was the same sensor and lens repackaged into a smaller/cheaper body.

What did I get for my whopping $15 investment? I'm glad you asked! After reading a lot of the digital photography oriented websites, it occurred to me that digital photography gained serious traction when the number of photo-sites on the sensors reached about 3 megapixels which can give you a resolution that is difficult to distinguish from film on a standard 8" x 10" print. I remembered that it was that resolution that caused me to go out and buy my first digital camera; a Kodak DC4800. Plus, it was pretty obvious that discernible improvement in output on a digital camera require about a doubling of photo-sites. Which is why the major progression of MPs have been 3, 6, then 12 mp! Not surprisingly, that's exactly what I have in my fleet; the 3 mp CoolPix 880 & 995, 6 mp D50 (previously D70/D70s) and now the 12 mp D300.

What do one do with a 10-12 year old digital camera? As you can see (and will see); pretty much whatever I dang-well want! The whole series was made without interchangeable lenses, but with the exact same accessory ring size of 28mm and the manufacturer being Nikon, of course it was created as part of a system. You can see the 4500 above with the "slide-copier" and a few of the lens attachments. Just the lens attachments alone included 4 optics; two wides (one fisheye), a 2x and a 3x telephoto. Right now, I have the WC-E63 which is one of the wides, but would love to eventually get a telephoto as well.

Were you thinking that you couldn't get close enough to your subject, even with the 3x accessory lens? There are scientific instrument adapters that'll get you mounted onto a telescope or a microscope. There are also filters, and if illumination is an issue....well, there's a flash bracket with adapter cord so you can connect standard Nikon shoe-flashes as well!

OK; a little much, I must admit, but the flexibility is certainly there. Although I have other great options, I'll routinely grab this camera if I need to shoot something for an ad and flier of some sort. The files are already much smaller than the D300 or even the D50, so I normally don't even have to cut them down in software. One of the great benefits of this little guy is the split body design. It makes it extraordinarily easy to use in awkward positions. When swiveled back to the flat carry position, this is a very easy camera to stow away in a large pocket. Maybe one day, I'll add some of the other models in the series to my collection, but for now, I'm pretty pleased with my $15 camera!