with heidi connal @ cocos island, costa rica

Heidi Connal is cool: adventurous and able to handle herself both topside and underwater — but still girly feminine [adjective-suggesting-girly-but-not-implying-weak] enough to read the occasional romance novel.

Wanna see some photos of her playing with a leather bass? (read more »)

The most common question I get when I meet new photographers is, “which [compact] camera should I buy?”

My answer these days is the Fujifilm FinePix F30 or F31d. It’s the only compact camera that shoots decent images at high ISOs, which means that you can capture an image primarily lit by ambient light even in low(er) light conditions. The F30 and F31d produce great images at ISO 400 and usable images (debatable) at ISO 800 and 1600.

In comparison, nearly every other compact camera out there produces usable images only at ISO 100. At ISO 400 on those cameras, the images are nearly unusable. It’s too bad, because I like the form factor, interface, and (non-image-quality) performance of some other compacts better.

Here’s a situation that also comes up frequently:

Eric pulls out Fuji F30. Random dude looks at camera and says, “Oh! You have an old camera.” (as we know, thicker = older) I don’t reply. Random dude pulls out a Casio EXILIM/other thin camera and says, “Here’s mine. Look how small it is.” I feel like smacking him.

DPReview has posted an excellent article called Compact Camera High ISO Modes. It’s worth reading if you’re like the dude above, or if you’re someone who thinks a 10 megapixel compact camera is better than a 4 megapixel digital SLR. Also, check out the DPReview F30 review.

Tonight, Livia performed the world premiere of Jonathan Berger’s new piece, “Jiyeh“, at Stanford University with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. Livia was awesome, and piece is really great, but the SSO sounded the worst I’ve ever heard it. Livia was a finely cut diamond shining over a pool of mud (or maybe oil, in the vocabulary of Jiyeh). Maybe like a “TAH-KA-TAH-KA-TAH-KA” playing over a “WHAH-WHAH-WHAH-WHAH”. And the “WHAH” is lost, and is only using the upper third of the bow. Or something like that.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh, but there are definitely good players at Stanford. It’s just that none of them are in the orchestra. There is definitely a reason for their lack of participation, and it’s obvious what it is. I wish Stanford would just fix the problem.

Despite the SSO’s poor performance, I enjoyed the show. The piece is great, and Livia kicked ass. We all went out to Peninsula Creamery after the show and had yuppie diner food and milkshakes. Yummm.

I was called “Mr. Sohn” yesterday at Safeway while carrying Jack and walking around. We don’t even try to correct people anymore.

Apologies for the slow server response around here. I’m told that someone is crawling my site aggressively, pushing CPU load past 50. We are taking measure to auto-ban such attempts in the future.

I’ve also enabled WP-Cache2 and switched to a modified version of Alex’s Popularity Contest plugin.

The DeepSee submarine at Cocos Island

While I was in Cocos, I had the opportunity to photograph the DeepSee submarine, which is owned by Steve Drogin, a friend of mine. Underwater photographer Daniel Selmeczi and I followed the sub down to just past 20 meters before it disappeared into the deep blue below us (to the site called Everest). We waited on the control boat for about an hour, and then jumped in again as it surfaced in Manuelita Coral Garden.

The DeepSee is a three-man submersible rated to 1500 feet. I sat inside of it on the surface once when it was on display in San Diego, but I haven’t been down for a dive yet. Maybe next time! :)

I’m back! Malpelo and Cocos Islands were incredible, and I definitely want to return there sometime in the future (perhaps on rebreather, next time). The trip set a personal record for longest boat ride: it took 42 hours to get to Malpelo (Colombia) from Puntarenas (Costa Rica), another 42 hours or so to get to Cocos from Malpelo, and 36 hours to get back to Puntarenas. Luckily, we had calm seas and excellent conditions at both Malpelo and Cocos. I expect Heidi to put her trip journal online before I do, so check there if you want to see stories and photos (and thanks, Heidi, for being a perfect dive-trip roommate!).

School of scalloped hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini) at Dirty Rock, Cocos Island

When I returned home last night, I discovered that I was only going to overlap geographically with Vienna Teng for 12 hours, and with Geoff Nuttall for 10 hours. So after a full 10 minutes at home, I hopped into my car and drove down to Stanford for a late dinner and to hang out for a few hours. VT met us there just before 1am, even though she had to leave for the airport at 7am. Her schedule is as bad as mine is.

It’s sad that I am becoming used to these transient overlaps as a form of socializing, but a couple hours spent with good friends is better than none at all. I have six days before I leave for Indonesia, and the number of items on my to-do list is daunting. I am not looking forward to them.

Speaking of transient overlaps, I will have approximately 16 hours during a layover in Hong Kong next month, and it turns out that both of my parents will be there at the same time. So at least I’ll get to see them for a few hours. :)