Mie Ahmt Photography

Stupid Stupid Battery

 

This is how the battery in a MacBook Pro is supposed to look....

(PS dont ask me why I felt like taking these pictures at ISO 2500)

And this is how the battery in my MacBook Pro looks...

 

Apparently (and according to the Mac Guy I talked to on the phone) this is perfectly normal for my generation of MacBook Pro Batteries (Mine is from April 2006)...it is a chemical reaction that happens when the battery is about to die completely...

I haven't noticed any battery problems other than a few days ago when the trackpad stopped working. Turns out that the trackpad stopped working because the battery was pushing on it from underneath... Doh!

I don't know how much longer to rely on this computer... The keyboard is not working, the cd-drive isn't woking and now it doesn't even have a battery... I wonder how many times I will forget about the battery - cut the power off on accident - before I get so mad that I throw it out the window...

I love my Mac and I really don't want to buy a new one.But I really think it would be cool if a +$4000 laptop would last me more than 2 years...

Dirty Dirty Sensor...

Last week I handed over my camera to Idaho Camera to get it cleaned. Normally I clean it myself - I have no problem - or rather - no fear of cleaning my own sensor. But it had come to a point were the amount of time I spent looking into my sensor with my sensor scope - just didn't make sense any more. There were some spots I just couldn't see - or couldn't clean. I am not the type of person who treats my camera as a baby... I put it in my purse - I carry it with me everywhere - more or less.. I change lenses and put it on the ground (Not at the same time though) - so I am not one of these overly careful or sensitive people... Anyways... I took my camera over to Idaho camera and they cleaned it in a day for $105 and I was a happy camper.. I went out over the weekend and took a ton of pictures - because now I finally had a clean sensor. Or - so I thought...
At first sight my pictures look just fine - also at f22 - which was my problem earlier.
  But when you take a closer look it doesn't look so fine after all. The picture below is a picture of a white board - nothing but white! I adjusted the levels in Photoshop to bring out all this nastiness... Woah!!! $105 for THAT? I don't think so!

All the black spots in this picture are dust or dirt from my sensor... Obviously nobody but me would never notice this in my pictures - but it bothers me and I spend way too much time looking for flaws rather than being creative and evolving... So now I am without my camera again - no biggie - I just hope they will get it spotless as soon as possible.

I have discussed this issue with some of my friends (and now colleagues) from RMSP - and I have come to the conclusion that I will try a methanol-based solution - rather than the waterbased one I have been using until now. I have a feeling that the waterbased solution takes too long to dry and that just might be the root of my whole problem here... We will see what happens - and I shall keep you posted. Taking pictures is much more fun than stupid sensor cleaning!

Tiltshifting

So... I did not get that tilshift lens I wanted for Christmas... No problem!!!
This awesome website called tilshiftmaker creates awesome tilshift-look-alike images for you. It is so easy and the pictures come out great! Now - don't get me wrong... The tilshift lens is still on the list of things I wish I owned!
   I feel a little bit like it is cheating... But who cares??? It looks so cute!

Nerd Talk

At the moment I am in Denmark - the Motherland... Whenever I come to Denmark everything I own gets an upgrade! It seems like the easiest place to do it (super super super fast internet) and then there is the fact that my nerd brother Jonas is the most updated and informed person when it comes to upgrades of nerdy things.. So whenever I get to Copenhagen my computer, my Iphone, and my brain gets the latest upgrade.

This time I have been very impressed with the new Adium upgrade.

Adium is an open-source instant messaging application (works only on Mac as far as I know). It puts all your Messenger accounts in the same application (Yahoo, google, msn etc) and now it integrates Facebook chat and lots more. Adium is free and I LOVE it!