*cylan

First, da.v6. Apparently it's running on a "far more stable and lighter framework", which I can certainly appreciate from a development perspective. Though I prefer less javascript than more, Opera 9.5's improved JS engine seems to make powerbrowsing da go more smoothly. The new message center is certainly a welcome improvement. All in all I can't find fault with the upgrade. The "sliding" menus appear to work now, but I can't tell if this was a da fix or an Opera fix; they started working again at some point, but a few days later a bugfix release of Opera was made available which included in the changelog: "Menus on deviantart.com now work properly." I dunno.

Moving on.

On Saturday I will be taking a weeklong trip into the wilderness of Colorado. I'll be packing two dozen rolls of film, not that I'll need that many but when you're moving at a walking pace it's easier to find the time to fire off a shot or two.

I'll also be testing out some new gear, a proper tripod for my MF equipment. Specifically an Induro C313 carbon fiber tripod with an Induro SA23 ballhead. Why Induro? 10% off at the camera store I was at, and it seems as solid as competing Gitzos. Note that I only found that review after I had bought the gear, and that it seems solidly built was personally my first impression of it was well.

The only limiting factor is that I would have liked to have gotten the multi-action ballhead for the ability to limit movement to panning only, but it was about 4x the price, heavier and larger. For a week long hiking trip, I think I'll be able to make do with the single action.

Beyond that, my only remaining problems are that after getting my photo gear in, my backpack doesn't have much room left for certain items, like clothes. And that I've never been in a place without a bathroom... for a week.

Minor technicalities, both. Especially when I'm anticipating to be greeted with scenes like this:


(photo by *Zzyzx7)