A Cloud Story for you
I walked into the barn the other day and Rob, Roger’s youngest son, was standing in the center aisle waiting for a cow to finish being milked. Rob is here full time now and he often takes over the morning milking allowing Roger to do other, long put off jobs. “Rob, I have a question for you.” “Yes sir?” Rob is ex-military so just to annoy me he acts all official every so often. “I looked at the weather app on my phone this morning to see what was coming our way… “It’s going to rain this afternoon.” …and I noticed that on the map feature I could not only see what the weather was going to be… “It’s supposed to start around 4.” …in the immediate future but it would also show me what the weather was in the immediate past.” “Yes, sir. That is correct, sir.” “Now why would I need to have my phone tell me what the weather just was? Why, when I was your age we used to call that memory- we used to be able to remember what just had happened to us.” “Not these days! You don’t remember anything anymore. Everything is in the cloud.” “The cloud? The computer cloud? Everything in the cloud? No more remembering?” “Nope, no need, everything is in the cloud.” “Well, I’ll be darned.” Roger walks over and being the general snoop that he is but only hearing half the conversation he asks, “What’s this about the clouds?” “That’s where everything is these days, Roger”, I say only half helpfully. “Where?” “In the cloud.” “Which cloud?” “The cloud.” “There is only one cloud?” “Yep, only the cloud.” “The cloud. That’s it? Not a cloud or the clouds? Just the cloud?” He pauses, his brain madly conjugating. “Well, how do you know which one it is?” Roger asks thoroughly puzzled as he takes off his cap and scratches his scrawny head . “You don’t have to, it’s everywhere” Rob interjects even less helpfully. “There’s clouds everywhere and that’s where everything is. Is that what you are telling me?” “Yep” Rob and I chorus together. “Do you think there are cows in the clouds?” Roger asks, getting back to his familiar mischievous self. “Oh, I am sure people have put cows in the cloud. In fact, I have. I have put cows in the cloud.” I say, rather proudly. “You have put cows in the clouds? Huh, do you think any of them need milking?” “Ah… “Because these next four sure do and they are standing right here!” Roger turns and starts to walk away laughing and muttering to himself. Shaking his head he stops and turns back to us saying, “The old man must be turning over in his grave right now. Hugh would never believe there were cows in the clouds.” “He doesn’t have to believe now, Roger,” I say as reverentially as I can. “He can probably see them from where he is sitting.” “Now wouldn’t that be something, seeing cows in the clouds. Do you think he is seeing two guys working as well?” Parting company, Rob quickly steps forward to tend to the milker and I head for the shovel to start the stall clean-up. “It’s a good thing one of us remembered something this morning,” Roger says. “The only things in the cloud around here are your heads!”
Wish you were here!
More on my little friend
Here is the update on my thoughts on my new little Nikon J3 camera. I used it last week while I was in Tofino, carrying it around in my pocket or in a small fanny pack (how do you carry these little cameras and three lenses around easily? I have have three polarizing filters, extra battery, etc. How can a camera that is so small take up so much room?) mostly hand-holding it while I happy snapped and my workshop participants took great photos. Here are my thoughts: Any little camera is not a substitute for a real full sized camera. This is an obvious statement but it hides a seductive notion we all tell ourselves. We all know that a little camera can never be as good as a full sized camera but we then go out and look for and eventually buy a little camera because it is ‘just as good as my normal camera.’ That is our expectation and we get frustrated when the little camera doesn’t perform as well as our real big camera. Don’t believe me? Just read the reviews on any camera website and you will see that every one of them compares the handling, picture quality, and features to their big camera and then acts disappointed when the results are less than what they wanted. IT’S A LITTLE CAMERA! It is not a big camera! It has a little sensor, tiny buttons, teenie dials, little batteries…It is LITTLE! All of these cameras are the same, it doesn’t matter the make. Don’t bother looking for a little pocket camera with the same features and same quality of a full-sized camera. You will never find it. Know why? BECAUSE IT IS A LITTLE CAMERA! That being said you can still get wonderful pictures if you remember the limitations. Shoot at low ISOs. I shot at 400 and liked the results and dabbled at 800 but was taken aback by the increasing noise. I didn’t bother with any higher ISOs. The noisy ISOs are not a Nikon issue but a little camera\little sensor issue. If you didn’t need to publish your images you could probably get away with ISO 800 but I wouldn’t recommend anything higher. Anyone who says their little camera can shoot at ISO 1600 or more doesn’t know what noise is. There is no viewfinder so composition is a challenge for those of us who are used to looking through a viewfinder and framing carefully. My solution was to shoot big and then crop precisely to the image I wanted later in my computer. This is not easy to do for those of us who are used to framing up exactly what we want but it is a worthwhile effort. Little camera with little dials and buttons makes anyone without little fingers at a bit of a struggle. So keep it simple- shoot in aperture priority, auto focus on stationary or slow moving subjects, don’t try to spot meter and just have fun. I guess the secret is to keep your real camera close, don’t get lazy and settle for the little guy and when you do set your bar low. For serious photography use your big, adult camera. For silly or unexpected photography or I-don’t-want-to-carry-my-big-camera photography use your little camera. Just don’t compare them. Little is little and it’s okay to be little. At least that is what I’ve been told.