Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Tag: photography

What you do when it rains

August 24, 2014 / / 46 Comments

alien

I had a great week in Bruges, Belgium. Visited the brewery “De Halve Maan” and had a tour of the new brewing hall as well as the museum with all the ages old brewing equipment. It ended with a free “Brugse Zot” blonde beer, unfiltered (you can get the unfiltered version only in the brewery’s own restaurant on-site). It really tasted great, more flavors than the bottled version.

I will try to post some of the pictures I took while roaming the city of Bruges (I nearly took 200) because it is a very pretty – Bruges is one of Unesco’s World Heritage sites. But anyway, we did not have rain during our stay (a few small showers perhaps). The rain started when we went back home. With that rain, I was less inclined to go out and walk for a bit, or work in the garden. Bread making is one of the things I am doing today (using my sourdough starter which survived a week in the fridge exceptionally well). But after a week of no computing, I wanted to do something again when I got home.

So I uploaded the KDE 4.14 packages and posted the blog article, all of which I had already prepared before traveling to Bruges. And then I looked at what else had been happening during my absence. Not much really 🙂 Some new systemd related threads on LinuxQuestions.org, which I am trying to stay out of (it’s a pretty hairy discussion in there), and some more talk about Skype 4.3 which needs PulseAudio now.

Perhaps I will pick up zerouno’s successful effort to package all the required 32-bit libraries along with the Skype binaries (he did not have to bother with PulseAudio then, so I think it will be more complex to make it work now)… if I find the time.

On Google+ I had attempted to find some answers to creating an OpenVZ container template for Slackware. I had hoped there would be updates during my holidays, but unfortunately the one guy (who also reads this blog of mine I believe) who has worked professionally with openvz and Slackware and whom I asked for advice did not answer. Probably too busy with his girl friend. Anyone who can help me out, please leave me a note. The G+ post contans a link to the script I wrote for the creation of that Slackware template.

kde44 I did have time this weekend to package KDE 4.13.3 for Slackware 14.1 – as promised when I wrote about KDE 414 for Slackware-current.

The KDE 4.13.3 packages for Slackware 14.1 are available at the usual location,  http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/14.1/latest/. Those of you who like (or need) to use a stable Slackware version will now have the opportunity to enjoy a much-improved KDE. It includes the latest Calligra office suite and also the kdeconnect package (to interface with your Android phone from within KDE)  has been upgraded and has a lot more functionality now.

calibreico I also looked at the weekly update of Kovid Goyal’s Calibre package.

To my surprise he has promoted his beta version of Calibre 2 to production sooner than I expected which creates a dilemma for me. The new version 2.0.0 is no longer based on Qt4 but instead Kovid uses Qt5 for Calibre now, which allowed him to eliminate several longstanding Qt4 related bugs. My dilemma is, how should I treat the transition to Qt5 ? Should I embed the Qt5 libraries into the Calibre 2 package like I used to do long ago for Qt4 (which will greatly increase the package size) or should I request of you (users of my Calibre package) to install my Qt5 package along with the new Calibre? I would like your feedback before I decide to start building a Calibre 2 package. In the meantime, the “old” calibre-1.48.0 package will remain available in my repository.

ARM_powered_300px There were two questions in my old blog pages about the status of my hardfloat ARM port. I must say, the economical crisis and the condition of our remaining parents have resulted in me having a lot less free time, and the ARM port was a victim of that. I am at a point with that port that I need to re-sync to the latest stable Slackware and then transfer the packages to a real machine… I am a bit scared of that last part. Stuart’s Slackwarearm is very successful at installing onto ARM devices, because he uses a (modified version of the) real Slackware installer for that. WIth my ARM port I am noy yet sure if I want a “Slackware-like” installation using the setup script, or create an image file which you just have to copy to your ARM device. Note that the hardware which I had in mind for my port, is the Chromebook, or tablets even, Unlike the older embedded Linux devices, those are typically equipped with a ready-made OS image instead of running an installer. But the ARM port is not dead! I just need to get my act together.

Have fun! Eric

My Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

August 8, 2012 / / 18 Comments

Back in february I bought the camera I had had my eyes on for over a year. It was a bit too expensive to consider it seriously, but then suddenly there was a discount of 75 euros and I grabbed the opportunity. A Panasonic DMC-LX5 was finally mine.

I had been using a relatively cheap Sony CyberShot DSC-P10 camera for years, after my first digital compact, a Canon PowerShot, broke down with the infamous E18 error (which earned its own web site http://e18error.com because so many people suffered by it). The Sony camera was meant to be temporary because I did not have money for a good replacement… but the money never came. I needed a better camera badly. What I really wanted was better light sensitivity and better wide-angle.

The LX-5 offers all of that and much more, with its f/2.0 24mm Leica lens, fast power-on and AF, full metal body and a battery that should last 400 photos on a single charge. Read more about its features, strengths and weaknesses (if any) at the PhotographyBLOG. I realize that this camera is not “new”, and lots of other types have entered the market and are competing with it, but I wanted a camera that is easy to carry, enables me to point-and-shoot while keeping the possibility for manual overrides, is sturdy and offers excellent picture quality in low-light circumstances. I don’t care for replaceable lenses or GPS geo-tagging, or superzoom lenses.

I discussed cameras with collegues and friends who shoot a lot of pictures, and the outcome was that I would best by either the LX5 or a Canon PowerShot S95… the latter because it has quite similar specs to the LX5 but also because there is custom firmware for the Canon line which lets you do a whole lot more with your camera: the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK).

In the end I decided against the Canon, the main reason being resentment about the E18 error which killed my first digital camera 1 day after end of warranty.

Why did it still take a year to buy the camera? I guess it was the price point. But I was following several photography related blogs and my enthousiasm was fueled by viewing the results of shooting with a LX5. That basically pushed me that final step. Special mention to Juha Haataja’s Light Scrape blog! I was fascinated by Juha’s stills, his comments about his daily encounters with the world and his overall philosophy with regard to what makes a good picture.

I took the camera with me (of course) during my holiday in Brittany, France. Back home and behind a computer I could evaluate the results. At first, I stuck mostly to the camera’s defaults (using Intelligent Auto or “iA”) because I still needed to get acquainted to it (for some reason, I never took the time to get to know the LX5 during those first months that I owned it – too busy with Slackware I guess).  But I quickly began to experiment, with the User Manual as a guide… luckily I downloaded that to my E-reader.

I don’t know if it is the result of my fiddling with the manual controls (or even fiddling too little) but I feel that some of the JPEGs, especially those taken in bright sunlight, seem a bit “ovet-processed”. Or perhaps that is just because I have been working with a mediocre camera for so long. I discussed this with Pat (who owns a Canon PowerShot and uses CHDK) and he suggested that I should try shooting JPEG+RAW and look what difference it would make when I do the image post-processing on my computer. So, that is what I am going to do in the next couple of weeks. I compiled an updated package of RAWtherapee, an open source RAW editor with support for the LX5’s RAW image format and I am going to play with that once I have shot a couple of RAW images.. If anyone knows equivalent or better alternatives to RAWtherapee (free software!) I would like to hear from you.

Here’s a couple of sample images from that first holiday batch (all JPEG). Let me state that I am very happy with the camera. The LX5 has a good grip, and the controls are easy to operate. The camera “radiates” quality. I could shoot pictures in awkward positions without fear of letting it slip. Its low light qualities are great, and I am curious to find out about all the possibilities of the manual controls. So far, it has enabled me to take pictures in situations where I would have failed with the old Sony. Despite my earlier comment about possible JPEG over-processing, I am impressed with the quality of the pictures.

Tell me what you thnk of them. Can the camera do better? Can I do better?

Eric

 

 

 

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