Boolie’s Blog

Today’s photo is the first to go online from my recent trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons. If you know me, it will seem like a strange choice to lead off with since, squint all you like, you won’t see any animals in the picture.

Snow flurries were flying when I hiked the Beaver Ponds Nature Trail in the northwest section of the park. I hadn’t see any animals on the hike, so when I came across this lovely little red plant dusted with snow, I put on some extension tubes, hooked up the remote cable, and took some pictures until I got cold and needed to get moving again. It’s one picture that summarizes the ups and downs of this trip nicely.

The Ups and Downs of the Animals
Don’t get me wrong, I was fortunate enough to get some nice animals pictures, so stay tuned for elk, pronghorn, several birds, and, if you’re quiet and still, a little pika.

But it was still disappointing not to see more bears or moose or any sheep. And not to see more animals on the trail away from the madding crowds and traffic, when you really feel like you get to know the personality of the animals. I can hike in beautiful mountains and not see wildlife without leaving Oregon. I did get to spend a lot of time with elk during the end of their rut and saw more pronghorn than before, plus a few more nice animal encounters, so the trip had its rewarding moments, just not as many as I had been expecting.

Even my favorite red squirrels rarely chattered at me as I hiked in Yellowstone, though thankfully the boomers in the Tetons were up to the task.

With fewer animals out and about, I made a deliberate attempt to capture some of the sights and shapes and textures of Yellowstone, and this picture is one of those attempts.

The Ups and Downs of the Weather
The weather is always going to be variable this time of year, so I wasn’t too surprised that the sunny and warm weather that had been predicted disappeared by the time I showed up. And I actually like clouds during the day when I’m shooting wildlife. But there was ice this time that shut down roads and limited access to the park on a couple of days, plus a snowstorm that made me leave for home a day earlier than planned. The Tetons were covered in clouds nearly the entire time I was there.

On the plus side, the rain was more a drizzling and occasional rain and not like the downpours I saw last year. And the snow was beautiful when it wasn’t shutting down the roads. The aspens were at their peak fall color and were as beautiful as always. And the last day in the Tetons at least let me see the peaks as I hiked in the canyons until exhaustion and snow turned me back down the mountain.

The Ups and Downs of My Equipment
This was my first dedicated photo trip with my MacBook, and it acquitted itself well in all areas but one. The speed when working with RAW files seemed an order of magnitude faster than my old Powerbook, a very welcome development that let me get to sleep earlier each night. The wireless range was much better, particularly important on this trip as I tracked the weather each night. The larger hard disk also came in handy.

But the color accuracy of the screen doesn’t seem as good as the Powerbook’s was, and at one point when looking at some problem areas in animals with dark fur, I actually thought something was wrong with my cameras. When I got back home, I removed the color calibration I had created with Apple’s software program and things got a lot better in the key problem areas (deep shadows as well as the reds of this plant). This screen doesn’t calibrate well with that program, not sure if a hardware calibrator would be better.

The camera equipment worked about like I expected since little was new to me. The only recent acquisition was a ballhead robust enough to support my telephoto lenses. I ended up going with the Arca Swiss Z1 and it worked nicely in the field, although I’m going to have to reapply the blue Loctite since the 500mm lens made the head twist loose on one occasion.

Given the frequent drizzle, I found myself once again wishing that Canon would add weather-proofing to its consumer cameras. And I’d certainly like the better autofocus of its pro line. What I’ve been waiting for the past 5 years is for a digital equivalent of the old EOS 3 film camera.

Fortunately it got announced right around my birthday this summer.

Unfortunately for me it’s made by Nikon.

Out of all the announcements of new stuff from Apple yesterday, the one that caught me most offguard was the inclusion of a spreadsheet in their new iWork suite. The existence of the spreadsheet had been rumored long ago, but those rumors had died away and I figured so had the program.

We own copies of Microsoft Office both for the Mac and for the PC. I occasionally use it for work stuff but mainly I use Excel for keeping track of places I’ve been, what wildlife I saw and when, and whether I got any good pictures out of it. Nothing too complicated, just multiple sheets per file, comments, etc. My personal use of Word rarely strays from working on my great American novel.

Oh and before I buy something expensive, I make a spreadsheet with detailed comparisons of my options — some would say anal, I prefer detailed.

I downloaded the 30 day trial of iWork and so far so good, both Numbers and Pages imported all the files I tried without breaking a sweat. Unless something major crops up it looks like I’ll switch to Apple’s suite — at only $79, it’s hard to pass up.

It’s been over a month now since I went down to the Mac Store and traded in my beloved 15″ PowerBook for a 13.3″ MacBook. I had gone back and forth on whether to get a MacBook or MacBook Pro, eventually deciding to try out the MacBook and possibly upgrade to a Pro later on.

The Bad Things
For the most part, the things I don’t like and the things I like are what I expected.

The biggest negative (and one which caught me offguard) is that it takes a long time to recharge the battery if you’re actively using the laptop — especially if it’s something intensive like charging your iPod. I picked up the laptop shortly before a trip across the country, and as I sat there in the airport with the battery charging much more slowly than I was used to, at first I thought there was something wrong.

I don’t know if the issue is the lower power rating on the MacBook’s power supply (compared to the Pro charger), but it’s definitely something to watch for on long trips when you’re recharging in the middle of the airport.

Apart from that, though, the negatives have been what I expected. I definitely miss the nice metal feel of the PowerBook, and I miss the larger screen. The MacBook has the same horizontal resolution as the PowerBook with a little less vertical resolution, but I knew I’d prefer the higher res of the 15″ MacBook Pro.

The integrated graphics can’t play a modern game, but I was surprised to see in a quick trial that it seemed to play one of my old games just fine — and it was running in emulation under Rosetta! Granted it’s not much of a graphics challenge compared to a modern game, but it was much better than I was expecting.

So far, that’s it, not much to complain about.

The Things Almost Too Good To Be True
One of the reasons I went with the MacBook was to try out the glossy screen. I’ve heard photographers go on and on about the matte versus the glossy screens, but so far I think the glossy screen is fantastic. I was afraid reflections would be a problem, but I haven’t found that to be the case. It doesn’t calibrate as well as I’d like with software calibration, there’s some shades of orange or red that come out too intense, but my PowerBook wasn’t perfect in that department either.

What I really love about this screen is that you can use it outdoors, even on a bright sunny day. During the warmer months, I use my laptop outdoors more than I use it indoors, either riding the train to work or sitting out on the back porch. This was a real struggle with the PowerBook, but it’s a breeze with the screen on the MacBook — even with the screen not at full brightness.

If the sun is shining on the screen (unavoidable sometimes on the train), you can still read the screen just fine, which I was certainly not expecting. At one point the entire screen was covered in sunlight, and I could actually turn the backlight all the way off and still use the screen.

I can’t speak to how the modern matte screens of the MacBook Pros would do in a similar situation, but I’ve been amazed at how nice it is to use the little MacBook outdoors.

Another pleasant surprise is the wireless reception. My PowerBook really struggled to get a signal on our porch, you had to sit in just the right spot with the laptop at the right height and angle to even get a slow connection. The MacBook gets a nice strong signal out here, and it’s almost comical riding the train to work and seeing how many hotspots I can see now.

I’ve had problems in hotels before where the Powerbook could barely get a signal — at one hotel only the bathroom got even a weak signal, at another I had to sit in the corner by the bed. Sometimes you have to go into the hall or to the lobby, so the good reception of the MacBook is a welcome change.

Finally, there’s the speed.

Oh my goodness, the speed.

The PowerBook ran OS X just fine, but it really struggled to convert RAW images. I haven’t done exact timings but the MacBook is probably an order of magnitude faster. I haven’t seen this much of a speed jump in a couple of decades, it reminds me of my first PC when I upgraded from an Intel 8086 to a 386 and sat there with my jaw wide open at the difference in speed.

I use Adobe’s Camera Raw converter for most of my images, and the funny thing is it converts images so quickly that it has completely thrown off my timing. With the PowerBook, I’d batch up a few images and then switch to reading email or browsing the web. With the MacBook, it’s done right away so I don’t have an excuse for goofing off on the internet.

More Good Things
Based on the first versions of the MacBooks and MacBook Pros, I was worried about heat. My PowerBook already got hotter than I liked, especially during the summer months (we don’t have air conditioning), since I often use my laptop on my lap. So far, the MacBook seems to run a lot cooler than my PowerBook, at least in terms of the external temperature. We’ve had some really hot days this July so Apple, my thighs and I thank you.

I like the latchless lid, it’s not significant enough to impact the buying decision but it is a nice touch. More important is how easy it is to swap out the hard drive, the 120GB drive is fine for now, but the same 120GB wasn’t going to be enough on the MacBook Pro since I’d want to install a Windows partition and some games — and swapping the hard drive there is complicated enough that I’d pay someone to do it.

Another nice touch is the trackpad, I love the two fingered scrolling and right click — a couple of features that have been standard for a while on Apple’s laptops but which weren’t available on my PowerBook. Scrolling in particular is something I instantly fell in love with (once I realized it worked better with my middle finger and ring finger), and now I’m wondering how I ever got along without it.

I was a little worried about the keyboard on the Macbook but it hasn’t been an issue, I probably don’t like it quite as much as the old PowerBook keyboard but I like it just fine. What I do miss is the backlighting on the PowerBook, that was a nice touch.

Battery life is also a welcome improvement over the PowerBook (although the current 15″ Pros have the same battery life thanks to their LED backlights and Santa Rosa chipset — these will make the MacBook even better when Apple updates the MacBook down the road).

Finally, there’s the price. I don’t think Apple has ever had a laptop that is as good a value as the little MacBook. It might not sound like it from this post, but the PowerBook was by far my favorite computer I’ve ever had in over twenty years of using computers. It was my daily companion for over three years, and I would have kept it another three if it hadn’t been for the lack of speed.

The MacBook has big shoes to fill, but so far the honeymoon period hasn’t worn off like I would have expected. Back when I had my 12″ PowerBook, what I really wanted was a widescreen version, and the MacBook comes pretty close to that.

Now if it only came in an aluminum shell and with a dedicated graphics card …

I’ve been spending money like a drunken sailor the past few days. The biggest purchases were a wide angle zoom for my camera (to replace the one that got smashed) and a laptop to replace my beloved but aging Powerbook.

The worst part has been deciding what to buy as my decisions changed on an almost daily (if not hourly) basis. I finally settled on Canon’s 17-55mm EF-S lens to replace the smashed 24-85mm lens and Apple’s 15″ MacBook Pro to replace my 15″ Powerbook. I went down last weekend to get the MacBook Pro but the store was out and didn’t get their shipment from Apple during the week.

In the meantime I changed my mind and decided to get the regular MacBook instead of the Pro. If you’re reading this post faster than normal, it’s because it’s being written on my zoomy new white laptop instead of the old slower silver one.

And the lens? I changed my mind at the last minute on that one too and ordered Canon’s 24-105 L lens. That should be here on Tuesday (along with a circular polarizer, an 8 GB CF card, a remote release, an extension tube set, a card reader, a 2GB stick of memory for the MacBook, and a partridge in a pear tree).

Blame the drunken sailor.

And in case you’re wondering, the picture has nothing to do with this post, it’s just a picture of Templeton from last year that I finally got around to editing. He’s zonked out beside me at the moment but I’m sure he’d approve.