ObviousGuy's Journal: Just had to laugh a little

I was reading Lingqi's journal regarding the NHK daily mini-drama and got a little laugh out of it. The title of the show is Manten ('man' means 'packed' or 'full' and 'ten' is 'heaven' or 'sky') it's translated meaning is something close to 'starfilled skies'. It is a really bad miniseries, IMO.

It's the story of a girl who didn't go to college and ended up being a meteorologist with a grand desire to go into space. I guess it was meant to inspire kids to reach for their dreams or something. However, during her training a real-life problem occurred. The Columbia blew up. Well that threw a huge monkey wrench into the show because here's this girl trying her damndest to get onto the next Shuttle launch and we're all supposed to pretend like reality didn't happen.

The mini-drama that played before Manten was Sakura and it was much better, if not a little corny with all the Japanese people pretending to be Hawaiians.

On the camera front, I've finally splurged and bought the Nikon FM3a. So far I'm really happy with it, having shot about 5 rolls of film at a bontanical garden I visited last weekend. The pics turned out great and I'm tempted to go buy some Extachrome or Velvia film, but I think I can hold off on that until I get a little surer with the camera.

Congrats on the camera

[PD]

Post your best shots somewhere on the web. Or submit them to http://www.photographica.org/. That's a great site to get feedback on your photos. It's got a nice photo view interface too. Click on a photo, it pops up. When you move your mouse off, the photo popup window closes automatically.

Film vs. Digital

[gmhowell]

How can film people pay the money for all that developing and film? Perhaps you have time to actually compose your shots? I take a few snapshots (a roll or two a month) and even that gets painful after a bit. Why? I've got a two year old. I find myself taking five snaps to get one or two (maybe) worth keeping. Hell, to get one worth enlarging, it's maybe one per roll. This is for all problems: composition, lighting, focus, etc. as well as the (un)willingness of the model to behave. That's why I like using m