Kodak EasyShare DX7590 Zoom

Here is a review of my new Kodak EasyShare DX7590 Zoom camera, which is an early birthday present from Jack. It has lots more features than my DX3900, but the most important one to me is the 10x optical zoom. I was sad when I couldn’t find it on the list of gphoto (used as a driver by gthumb Linux photo software) supported cameras. However, it finally occurred to me to check dmesg, which usually reports whether Linux is “seeing” a USB device that has just been plugged in. When I didn’t see any messages for my camera, I checked and found that I hadn’t seated the USB cable properly to the docking station. The next time I attempted to access my new camera via gthumb, it was recognized as a USB PTB Class Camera and I was able to download my test photos.

So far, the only downside of my new camera versus my old camera is that most of the surface of the camera is filled with the controls, back LCD and lens. I am used to holding my old camera with my left hand and adjusting the controls with my right hand, and the new camera has to be held with the right hand. I imagine I will adjust.

Pikes Peak

Pikes Peak
I took this photo of Pikes Peak on Tuesday from Black Forest Regional Park. My first year here I was somewhat disconcerted to find that Pikes Peak usually has snow visible eleven months out of twelve. Now I find it comforting, a reflection of the fact that this year the snow pack (a main source of water here in Colorado) is nine per cent over the thirty year average. Last year, the snow pack was half the thirty year average.