So it is finally time to build a new pc here in the Wolfcat household… after 5 years the old one after having most of its internals replaced over the years is about to be made history….
I thought I might as well crowd source what I want… yes I have a budget in mind…. which you can ball park anyway from the stuff below…. yes it has to be a PC not a Mac… and it does have to last me a while… so keeping in budget but getting the best I can….
what would you change from below…
Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz
Gigabyte GA-EP45T-UD3R Intel Mainboard
GA-EX58-UD4P(decided to go up a model for the extra ram and sata ports)
Western Digital Caviar Green Power 1.5TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 3Gbs
Western Digital Caviar Green Power 1.0TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 3Gbs (didn’t need the extra expense of the 500meg as I already have a 1tb drive as well… 2tb will be enough to start with :-))
Pioneer Blu-ray (BDR203) Writer DVD
Pioneer Blu-Ray BDC-S02 Combo Drive (Opps I really don’t need a blue ray writer… so money saved here goes the on the motherboard upgrade and extra ram)
Kingston DDR3 6GB PC-8500/1066 (2×2GB) CL7 Value Ram x2
Kingston DDR3 6GB PC-10600/1333 (3×2GB) x2 (bugger it … going for the 12gig of ram option… read that ddr3 ram likes to be in lots of 3
Cooler Master RC-690 - Black ATX Tower Case - Top I/O Ports (460W)
Gigabyte GF9800GT, 1G, DDR3
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (to be replaced with 64bit Wind0w 7)
Went up to St Andrews market today… and like my previous trip into bushfire affected areas this was another pleasant surprise and a shock all bundled into one trip.
The market and St Andrews township itself survived with the wind change arriving barely in the nick of time to save the area. Like Marysville the market was busier than I had ever seen it and bustling with life and the markets usual crowd of eccentrics and hippies. I spent way to much at the market on the lovely fresh food, something clothing and a nice bottle of wine as well. Then we did the drive up the Mountain to King Lake. (I will put photos up later on Flickr)
St Andrews to Healesville Via King Lake (48min compressed to 6min)
Exposure: 5s
Aperture: f/13.0
Focal Length: 18 mm
Exposure: +0.35
ISO Speed: 400
So you have a giant bag of stuff and twenty different lens’, 40 different filters and countless other accessories for the camera and you are lugging them around with you…. but why.
Today’s shot for example… was taken with the D90, with the following equipment the 18-55mm VR Kit Lens, the standard battery and a 52mm filter… nothing more. To compensate for the lack of a tripod and the fact it is a 5 second shot I placed the camera on the ground on the kerb, and held it down with one hand and used my other to trigger the shutter.
I was waiting for the crossing signals to go… so I had already seen the shot… but using no fancy expensive equipment (bar the camera that is :-)) I took advantage of the environment to give me an interesting angle and what I felt was a much better shot. A tripod shot is never going to get a low and have the dramatic foreground that I ended up with.
The technical data of the shot is there as well… all that I did was set the camera to Shutter Priority Mode (S) on the dial and thumb wheel (the back dial) to 5″ to set the 5 second exposure length.
Even the geotagging was done in Flickr… I knew where I was when I took the shot, so just added that later as well.
So sometimes it does help not to have all the baggage you might just get a better shot for it. (but I still want the gear on my list…. before my wife says no you don’t need it…. for other projects)
I finally managed to get up to Lake Mountain yesterday 12 months since I’d last got up that way and 5 months after the Black Saturday fires.
As people are most probably aware I did a bit of work on covering the fires at the time due in part to my understanding of the area and interest in weather, yet 5 months later I will still left with a sinking feeling as I drove through the region. The grass has all grown back in the valley and the Black Spur has a lot of regrowth already but that doesn’t prepare you for what you see from Narbethong onwards. The devastation is complete. The forest is nothing more than barren sticks stretching skywards and the smell of ash still lingers in the air.
Stopping at Marysville there is both hope and despair. The town was virtually wiped of the map. Yet with only a few buildings remaining the spirit of the town has survived. Never have I see the town so busy with people coming and going. The long lines at the bakery and the overflowing CFA donation bucket show that people are returning and are helping the community. Yes, and even I was one of them, the vast majority of people I saw had cameras around their necks taking happy snaps of the destruction. I only took a few photos in town, stopping as it felt wrong for me to take photos of the misery and destruction for no real purpose.
Perhaps I am being overly sensitive as well, but letting your 10y/o kid run around a town that has had so much tragedy and suffering with a toy gun that screamed “fire fire” which could be heard a block away is bad form of the utmost as well. Not one resident of Marysville wouldn’t be deeply impacted on by those events and yet his kid with a toy gun were more important to him.
On leaving Marysville I then did the drive to Lake Mountain. A road I have travelled many times, yet this road was different. The enclosed feeling of driving through the forest was gone replaced with landscape that looked not to dissimilar to photos from the Tunguska Event. The devastation was complete. The obvious heat of the fire that consumed everything in its path is awe inspiring and humbling at the same time.
Lake Mountain is still there, and like Marysville I’ve never seen it so busy. And like Marysville it doesn’t look like the same place such as the destruction. The wombat I saw showed that life survived, I am sure however that the wombat must be living on food drops and there was no regrowth on the top of the mountain at all. Most of the walking trails are still closed and the contrast of the white snow and blacken stumps is striking both in its beauty and it is fullness.
It was both a very sad experience and an empowering one seeing this first hand. I do recommend that people return to these places… but don’t just go and take happy snaps. Stop and buy some food at the Bakery, put your change in the donation bin. Take the kids to Lake Mountain to play in the snow, but remind them what happened in these places. It is too important to forget.
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Here is the Drive from Healesville to Lake Mountain… Approx 50 minutes of drive compressed to 6min, 50k distance.
I have entered my Eureka in Winter Photo into the Jetstar Photocomp in the Landmarks Category. If you click on the image you will go to the Jetstar Photo Competition page for this image where you can vote on it
Please vote for this image in the jetstar photo com
This is one of those images that comes from always looking for a photograph and having your camera on you at all times.
Taken at lunch time two days ago I noticed the buildings around me reflected in the puddles from the showers Melbourne had. However this took a few min just to get the composition just right. Firstly there was the issue with the leaves causing ripples and distorting the reflection to much and then there was the issue of getting the angle just right.
So here is the one thing I did in photoshop…. I rotated the image 180degress. I could have stood on the other side of the puddle and tried to keep my reflection out of the shot… but I didn’t I took the easy way out and flipped it. This image on Flickr also has some colour treatment but the rules of the comp I entered said no photoshop work so the fully colourised version is what I entered.
Exif Data:-
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 34 mm
ISO Speed: 200
I have a real job, but the opinions expressed here are my own and do not reflect the views of my past present or future employers (not that I am unhappy with my current position, but then not to say that if a job offer came along in say Hawaii as Magnum P'I's side kick I wouldn't take it.) Oh you get the idea. This is my personal blog.
