I’m sure by now you would have already read or watched some form of recap and/or making your own list of the good/bad things that happened to you and/or in the world in this… eventful year.
Let me first just clarify that 2020 was in fact a terrible
year. There is no way to gloss over 1.8 million human lives lost to a pandemic
alone. We still don’t have a widespread vaccination program for that part, and
the impending economic crisis is already starting to affect a lot of
individuals and will continue to do so for a long time even after mass
vaccinations are complete. Climate change has not really stopped or slowed
down, and I would argue that the online marketplace might have increased the
pollution while simultaneously affecting the small local shops already dealing
with the burden of lockdowns and restrictions. The disparity between the rich
and poor has never been higher and both the calls for change and the calls to dismantle
those calls for change have never been higher. (Case in point – US Elections)
But from an introvert’s point of view, and I am sure from
many other perspectives, this year was not that bad at all. Simply because you
are reading this random post on the internet from somewhere comfortable (I hope)
instantly makes you better off than the people who perished because of COVID-19
and the direct/indirect incompetence of other humans. Complaining about the
year is fine and perhaps also justified in this case. But now that a locked-down society and its norms have become the new normal, What I am more interested
in doing is asking you, dear reader, is what you are going to do about it.
This year forced us to challenge some of the most basic
concepts about how society works and how most of us were just following the
herd like mindless sheep. Exempli Gratia – The whole of the city of Bangalore
in India was pitched as the Silicon Valley of India, attracting young talented computer
science engineers from across the country to come and work there. COVID-19 has
basically made that city empty with all the young people going back home and
working remotely. For most of them, they might also have realized the immense
cost savings that they have from not paying the rent and indulging in other
treats. And nearly everyone has realized that you do not need to be in an
office building to work in front of a screen while commuting for an average of 3
hours daily. Students waking up at 4am to catch a train at 5 so that they can attend the lecture at 8am... I mean seriously? So, I sincerely thank 2020 for this realization. The other
realization I personally have had is the continuous rush of doing things and
meeting deadlines, especially the ones we set ourselves and those no one has set,
is just not worth it.
One of my (many) phrases that I used especially during the Q4
of 2020 is “What’s the rush?”. And that makes it even more important this time
of year, where we reflect on the past and have an opportunity to set the goals
and thoughts for the future that is in front of us. What are you doing? Why are
you doing it? Does it make you happy? Does it make others happy? What can you
do better than last year? What changes you need to make yourself better
than last year? All these questions are essential, and a lot of you might
already know the answers to these questions and have a plan in place for
execution. But keep asking “What’s the rush?” question to yourself as well,
especially when you feel you are exhausted or doing too much and heading
nowhere.
And that is where I would circle back to the title for this post. The lesson. 2020 itself. It’s not that all other years before that were good or bad. It’s what we as individuals and as a society learned from them. Every year, every month every passing moment is a lesson, and It is up to us to learn from that lesson. Learning from past experiences is one of the fastest ways to grow. In my humble view, 2020 provided us with a lot of lessons for us, both to individuals in their own way and to society in an overarching way. Just like schools and colleges are hard because we are attending lessons and trying to learn new things, 2020 was hard because we all learned many valuable lessons over the course of the year. Assuming the lesson is over (Please), it is now on us what and how much we want to learn from this lesson and implement the required changes. I am not going to state all the lessons 2020 taught me, but the most basic one which was, or rather should be common to everyone is just, be nice to people. Be helpful, listen to what they have to say, and try to help others if you can. You don’t have to go out of your way to do it, every little thing helps, and who knows, maybe the smallest thing you did for someone was all that they needed to keep going, and not quit.
Apart from the lesson, I decided for my own sake that 2020 should have a positive ending for me, so I finally pulled the trigger on a new camera and a new lens. I must say that coming directly from an entry-level DSLR from 2008 to a semi-professional one from 2019 has been quite a drastic jump. I mean, it better be but it still blows my mind how much technology has marched onwards in a supposedly innovation-less space.
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| I'm pleased with this image |
And yes, I did not go with a Mirrorless setup because a) I already had DSLR lenses which I do not want to replace, and b) DSLR feels to be much more ergonomic with longer battery life, and finally c) Mirrorless cameras are just too expensive. For the not optically inclined, Mirrorless cameras are basically like your smartphone where the sensor is used continuously to display the image that will be captured. There is no mirror to reflect the light off to the viewfinder (the place where you place your eyes in a typical DSLR) This means you can reduce the flange distance – Distance b/w the lens end and the sensor place, which allegedly gives more flexibility and better clarity because there is no mirror flipping mechanism b/w the lens and the sensor.
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| Taken from Canon's Australian website. No prism, mirror, or AF sensor means smaller and more compact bodies. |
For the most part, just compare the EF EF-S lens systems with the newer RF lens systems for the mirrorless cameras. Also, You can mount EF lenses, designed for mirror cameras onto mirrorless cameras because you have to add distance. You cannot do that for mirrorless lenses on mirrored cameras because you cannot subtract the flange distance. (Distance b/w the sensor and the end of the lens)
For the short science part of this particular post, I would like to discuss the lens sharpness and why you may have seen the newer RF glass from Canon, especially the “L” series is priced beyond the reach of normal nincompoops like yours truly. For the sensor size I decided (APS-C, which is 1.6x smaller than the full-frame 35mm film size), The new camera offers 3 times more resolution as compared to my old camera. That means, for the same area, I have roughly 3x more pixels or photosites. That means the size of each photosite must be reduced. Checking on the internet, I go down to 3.23μm versus 5.71μm for the pixel pitch. That means more but smaller active sites for the photos to land on and generate a signal.
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| Obviously not to scale. From Apotelyt.com |
This is more than easily compensated by the advances in image processing and the newer ADC converters with much better Signal-Noise ratio or SnR. That's why I can pump the sensitivity of the new sensor to ISO 512000 compared to ISO 1600 for the old sensor. That’s also why new mobile camera sensors are advertised as 64MP or 108MP but generate images at 16MP or so by default. They effectively use software trickery called pixel binning to combine 4 physical pixels on the sensor to one single virtual pixel. This increases the color accuracy and a bit of sharpness but much more importantly reduces the noise due to small photosites.
But that is not the only problem with smaller pixels. You need high-quality glass and optics that can resolve the fine details and in doing so, needs to focus light precisely enough that the light rays are positioned precisely where needed on the sensor, in our case, within 3.2 microns. The more things you add, like more glass elements or systems like optical image stabilization, the more errors you are introducing in the system and the more likelihood of a missed focus. There are other effects as well, like diffraction issues, antialiasing filters and focus motor technologies, and the focusing technologies themselves that affect how the final images turn out. This is where the cost of high-end optics comes to focus, pun totally intended.
| This is for a fixed focal length camera lens. Without Image stabilization. What! Canon's 35mm f/1.4 L |
Optics and
chip designing are perhaps one of the most precise manufacturing sectors on the
planet, and ensuring high quality, tolerances, and precision in not only the individual
glass elements but also the movements and the control systems of the motors
and stabilization systems take a lot of time and effort. In the newer R series
cameras from Canon, the sensors are mounted on a movable platform that has 5-axis of freedom and uses magnets and coils to move the sensor to exactly the
place needed. These positions are calculated based on the shake and other
orientation sensors inside the camera and the whole system is called IBIS or In
Body Image Stabilization. Canon is one of the last manufacturers to include
this tech in their cameras. Make sure to check out this excellent video on IS from Olympus.
The reason I wanted to talk about this is that I wanted to capture the moon at a higher resolution using my new camera, but apparently, the lens I have is not good enough for the 3 micron pixel pitch. I get sharper images of the moon and its craters on my old camera as compared to my new camera. Because the photosite is larger for a lower megapixel camera, small inaccuracies from the lens don't change the active site on the lens. A standard way to compare the optical performance of a lens is something called an MTF chart, which basically plots how good the lens is from the center towards the edges, or how good the resolving power of the lens is. Nikon has a great and easy to understand source Here.
There might also be a problem with me capturing the moon by opening the window of my room rather than going outside physically. You see, the rooms are heated and it's freezing outside, so the hot air rushes out, meaning there might be a difference in densities of air inside and outside the room and the airflow distorts the light entering the camera when I open the window and try to take an image. It’s just food for thought. I would try to pinpoint the exact reason, but I would likely need a better telephoto lens for the new camera. The fact that the one tele lens I have is the 55-250 iS II non STM, which is the cheapest tele lens from Canon, does not really help my 30+ MP camera.
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| The cheapest lens is 110$ The most expensive lenses can go north of 4000$ |
(I gave examples of Canon optical system because that is what I am familiar with. No sponsorships, Obviously)
Finally for the epilogue, continuing with the tradition of
music recommendations, It is the title, again. The Lesson, by Victor Wooten. There
are many versions of the song but I particularly enjoy the one on the album Palmystery.
There is also a TED Talk of Victor Wooten where he talks about a better way to
teach music to new people, and what he says in the talk, I believe, also
applies to every other aspect of life as well, and not just music.
Tl;dr – Theory is a tool. The tool comes in handy only when you
have a problem, and you don’t want to use the tools for as long as possible.
They are essential, but you do not want to start off teaching with a tool. For
a language, grammar is the tool. Try teaching 2 students a language, one
focused on grammar and one on just simple interactions with others who are
fluent with the language. Guess who will become fluent first? Same with music,
you can bog down a person with scales chords, and notes or you can just give
them an instrument to play and let them experiment to find out what sounds
nice. The theory guy might end up playing and learning faster but the instrument
guy will create better tunes in the long run. Give an engineer all the books on
any topic he wants but the person with more hands on experience in real-life with the real problems would conquer the bookish knowledge guy without any
practical and hands on experience.
Tl;dr of Tl;dr, don’t just read about stuff, do it
physically (if possible) with your own hands.
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| Rhine valley area, I think near Mainz |
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| Burg Schloss or mountain castle, something Germany is famous for |
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| I found the roof interesting |
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| The matching color of the house with the clouds seems funky |
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| Main streets of Bayreuth |
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| Hi |
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| Hi back! |
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| German ICE-4 train, which I think top out at 300 kmph |
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| Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof with the skyline, probably the only city in Germany with a vertical skyline |
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| Aix-La-Chappelle |
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| The city center of Aachen |
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| My kind of House |
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| yes, that is Neowise - First successful attempt at astrophotography. |
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| Preliminary testing of the Ultrawide angle lens |
Obviously, these photos are from the summer of 2020, and even during that time, I followed all the precautions for COVID protection and restrictions. Don't be a dum-dum, place your trust in science, avoid unnecessary travel, and wear a mask.
Thank you for reading, (shoutout to the 100+ bots from Portugal), feel free to use and share the photos, and I wish you all a healthy, sagacious, and productive 2021.
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