Category: nature

Testing HD video

Got finally a camera today that can produce HD (720p) video clips. Testing the low-light characteristics of Canon PowerShot SX200 IX in the shot below: night time, HD and imported directly from .MOV into Youtube — the you can see that auto exposure creates lots of grain. Still some nice sky tones. (Click the “go full screen” symbol below, in the low right corner of the player.)

There will be a couple of more experiments posted into my profile later. My first impressions of this small camera are positive. It is surprising to see how versatile system this kind of pocket camera can today be. Digital photography has gone long way, at least as far as technology is concerned.

IT in the garden

Lying in our garden swing, I can currently see six wifi access points — that’s urban nature for you! 🙂 Comparing LCD screen and paper (Luontokuva magazine), it is clear that traditional paper is still far superior when reading anything outside. The screen in AA1 is very good, but still very pale in sunlight. Wonder if e-ink/ebook reader screen would make a real difference to the benefit of IT? At the moment — closing this webtop and app is the best way to relax, so: enjoy the summer, everyone!

Planet Earth in HD

There are only few Full HD television series or movies I have got so far, and the king of them all currently is the four-disc Blu-Ray box of Planet Earth series by BBC. To a friend of nature documentaries, the selection of ‘spectacular’ animal species and situations (starting with the amazing Emperor Penguins guarding their single egg through the Antarctic winter), but the use of moving, flying cameras and HD video makes the planet really come to you in a way I have not experienced in any other visual media before. It is pity though that the localised version on sale here in Finland does not include the great Finnish language narrations that were prepared when the series was broadcast on the air by YLE, the national broadcast corporation. I really like and respect David Attenborough, but while we watch these with our family, it would be nicer to have Finnish audio, rather than the subtitles over the HD image. Particularly as the subtitles these disks carry have much inferior translations than what YLE used in their broadcast versions. I have wondered even before why BBC/2 entertain does not use the expertise of YLE when putting DVD versions of their series on sale here in Finland, and in this HD version the use of subtitles only is even a worse choice. I also truly miss the making-of documentary and the extra three “Planet Earth: The Future” episodes (those were included in the DVD release but omitted from the Blu-Ray box.) The series itself, nevertheless, is mind-blowing, and will truly fullfil its promise to show us our planet as we have never seen it before.bbc_planet_earth_blu-ray-box

Winter Shoes

The greenhouse effect takes its toll, and winters are no longer what they used to be (in Finland: white). Walking the rainy streets, I have been looking for shoes that could handle the constant “interim” climate that we are now living in. Got mysef a pair of Merrel Outland Mid Waterproof models yesterday — they feel great and the quality of design is convincing, but lets see how they handle out there. More:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Merrell+Outland+Mid+Waterproof&btnG=Search

Autumn vacation

I have been spending this week with my family, after a few months of busy working and traveling schedule. It has been mostly raining (slowing down some of the gardening work), but this has allowed me to spend more time with my son (pictured). Luka is growing very fast, running around and learning new words and tricks every day. Glad we got these few days together to learn to know each other a bit better (last autumn, when he just had born, I was all the time traveling around the world, and promised to change the situation this year).

Visiting Admiral

This and the next two weeks are probably the busiest ones in entire Autumn term (at least that is what I keep telling myself — we’ll see). There are many wonderful things in this fall, too, including spectacular crop yield of mushrooms. Also, Laura’s work on flowering plants is starting to yield results, as this visiting Admiral also proves. Other regulars have included peacock butterflies (neitoperhonen) and Camberwell Beauty/the mourning cloak (suruvaippa).

Unknown butterfly

This came flapping inside our car in last Midsummer day (23.6.2007). I have been looking around to identify the black-and-while beauty, but with small success so far. Any ideas? There were several of these flying fast around small path/road cutting through mixed woods in central Häme (a bit north from Tampere).

Bumblebee house

Bumblebee house
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

My birthday present this year: a bumblebee house. With its small colony of “kontukimalainen” (wonder what that species is in English?) these busy new neighbours of us will hopefully take care of visiting all the flowers in those fruit trees and berry bushes. Search for “pörrinpesä” if you are interested in getting your own.

A new Angel in our aquarium

A new Angel in our aquarium
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Vappu was too cold to be outside, mostly. So we fixed places inside instead. We got some new fish, including four natural-coloured Angelfish in our aquarium and seeing how they took the moving (rather well, and in good spirits) was fun. More photos of fish, butterflies and babies in: http://www.unet.fi/pics/2007-05-01/

power of narrative

march of penguinsthe winged migrationContinuing on the subject of DVD and broadening scope of media available in general, some days ago we watched two nature films after each one: La marche de l’empereur (March of the Penguins, 2005) and Le peuple migrateur (Winged Migration, 2001). Both are semi-documentary, French big-screen nature movies (a rather rare species, even with its own tradition, going back to the days of Jacques Cousteau). I liked both, but the Penguin one I truly enjoyed. There was several unforgettable scenes in the Winged Migration, conveying the sense of flying among birds better than anything before, but the March of Penguins was a coherent, powerful narrative. And in a linear, narrative media that truly appears to be an important part.

PS. Check out this year’s programme in Games and Storytelling (starting in Tuesday with Sandy Stone’s presentation); the theme this year is ‘multiculturalism.’