Electronic Patience Test - Success!

Hello again!
I would have you try to download something. It is at Epson's online page, support section, drivers subdirectory, link to ftp server ect ect. Sounds pretty normal for any European owner of an Epson thingie. But not for me! Yes, I am complaining for little reason, an over-nuked FTP server is not that uncommon, even in large corporations, and I finally got the drivers and scanning software for my CX3650 scaner/printer/photocopier/coffemaking (with a method that includes crawling down to the dungeon in 3 o clock in the morning, shuffling through countless ruined by moisture CDs, fighting my way through waves of spidery-thingies that have taken over the place since I left, and other creepy stuff), obviusly from my long lost installation CD.

Why would you care? Well for starters, a fellow human managed to break through difficult situations and achieve his ends ect. Also, I got the scanner working.

I preformed like 20 or so test scans to get the best quality/filesise/viewability match, and I got down to use 24 bit colors, 300dpi scan resolution, 2039*1396 pixel save resolution (and larger if I deemed fit), saved all at .jpeg format, with 9/100 quality (1/100 being the best possible), with progressive encoding and extra Emendal Cheese and pickled eggs, and occasionally some red wine. The resulting filesize was about half a MB, really low for my tastes so I picked up resolutions/compression ect at the last pic just to test the limit.. Well, actually the limit was the pure-unencoded-RAW .bmp I got at the beggining with 900dpi and 4 minutes scan time (~120MB). That was an experience.
Without (much) further delay, Photographs!

(err might me a good idea to open them with windows Preview thingie so as to see them whole and zoom in for the details. just a suggestion.) (did I mention these were scanned from 20cm*30cm prints?? no i guess.)




click to view fullsise please :)

Well, this is my grandmother. Sitting at the balcony not expecting to be photographed, at around 6.00 in the afternoon. Sun sets behind her head, balcony is raised ~15 meters from ground level. This picture turned out better than expected, because it was taken hastly in order for my grandmother not to realise I just got out and was aiming at her. It is one of my first photographs, when I was still learning how to use it (full auto settings, more on the cam later). Expression captured was not posed for, but just came from the momentary thoughts that she had at the moment, which in my oppinion is the major factor in this picture.

Here is another one.


same applies :)


Yup. Its a spider web. On the rocks. This picture was taken with one hand, the other being used to hold onto the rock, and after 6 hours of trekking/climbing with a friend, some months ago if I am not mistaken. It is usual for us to go on hiking trips. Me, I do it for the photos,the exercise and the occasional feeling of fullfilment(spelling????), he does it to explore the land where it is not wise to tread alone. There were many spider webs at that cape we trekked, and i got some on them in film, despite my fatigue and sweating at the moment... I liked this one because there are more than one webs in it, the sun shined on the main web nicely, and the rocks have a nice texture to capture. Nature is generally one of my main themes, because of the abundant details, the beauty of them, and the complexity of the themes you can get. I am not really into portraits, as they are a bit difficult for me. The pic also has some macro elements, not being entirely a close-up but revealling a lot of minute details, on a variety of spatial levels.

This is the pic I scanned at a higher resolution, so zoooooom out!


you guessed it :P

Obviusly from the same place, taken at the same trip, with the same theme. More macro-ish this time, with one main plain, making the external blurred info a nice envelope for the main thing. One could argue (and I hope someone does) that secondary segments with their out of focus-in focus alternation take attention away from the theme, but I would say that as the theme, the web, is not enough to hold attention, they contribute to the total time spent studying this picture, balancing the attention to every part of the frame. The blurred branch that is highlighted behind the web is a minus for me, because it confuses and interferes with what you want to see, but options are limited when that branch is part of the tree you are holding on to for dear life. You get the picture (oooh pun!).

That was it for today, summing up what I had available at 20*30 format at the time. I will get round to scanning 10*15 pics eventually. I hope you liked the photos this far, and I ask for your oppinions and comments about them.