Arrived in HEL

I will not write a full fledged blog post now because (a) I have to conserve battery power on my laptop. The power outlets here are different from ours in the US and (b) I am tired and jet-lagged because instead of sleeping, I was looking outside the plane all night hoping to see the Aurora Borealis. I didn't see the aurora, but I did see the sun rise below ahead of me while there were stars in the blue-black sky above and behind me.

And in case I did not mention before, HEL is the airport code for Helsinki Vantaa international airport where I was supposed to spend 11 hours en route India. Torrential downpours in New York City delayed my flight enough to reduce my waiting time here to 9 hours, but it is still a long time. Tomorrow I reach New Delhi (Or is it later today? I am terribly confused regarding dates already) from where I have to catch another flight to Kolkata.

The outside temperature is -11 degrees Celsius and everything is covered in snow. The inside is nice and warm. I will now try to sleep. My watch tells me it is sleeping time in Newark.

My position on the graph

See the peak on the left side of the graph below? That's where I am right now.

I will start sliding down the slope on Sunday.

Shopping

There comes in the life of every person a time when, casting aside all lethargy, he or she must make a dash towards achieving greatness. For Americans this time comes on the last Friday of November every year, a day commonly known as Black Friday.

And to say that they make use of this opportunity would be an understatement like saying Spartans disapproved of Paris abducting Helen. On this day Americans display a zeal that can only be described as reminiscent of the Neanderthals’ enthusiasm in bringing down a well-rounded woolly mammoth in times when food was hard to come by. Only, since woolly mammoths are not so readily available these days, the current specimens of Homo sapiens Americana (who are often well-rounded themselves) display that energy and vigour in shopping.

Now to be fair, even on ordinary days, Americans never shirk shopping. The greatest critics of the American people and the “resident aliens” will have to concede that the Americans are second to none on earth in this field, and shopping is quickly developing into the national pastime. Give a thing a name and a price tag and you will find a half-mile queue of people with shopping carts waiting to buy it. But even the greatest of men need their quiet hour in front of the television and it is only natural that these shopping duties would be performed as mere duties; a thirty minute stop at Wal-Mart on the way back from work will suffice for the whole week. On Black Friday, however, the situation is completely different. All stores worth going to announce discounts on that day and people rush in and grab whatever they can lay their hands on (as opposed to whatever they need). And since the stores open in the wee hours of dawn, many people drive there the previous night and camp out on the parking lot in near freezing temperatures, thus displaying a spirit hitherto only seen among pilgrims going for a holy dip at the Kumbh Mela, so that they can be among the first people entering the store the next morning. In some ways, they are even more no-nonsense about attaining their goal than the average Kumbh Mela pilgrim as demonstrated by the fact that last year a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death in New York when he was unfortunate enough to come in front of the stampeding herd of shoppers entering the store – something that hasn’t happened at the Kumbh Mela in the last half a century. And they have every reason to be so, for while the early bathers don’t take the river Ganga away with them, the early shoppers do take things as they forage through the shelves and a few minutes may mean all the difference between showing off an amazing buy to one’s neighbor and staring blankly at a “Sold out” sign.

After reading this far, if the reader gets the impression that I am criticizing the Americans’ enthusiastic Black Friday shopping spree, then the joke is entirely on me as I could be observed entering the nearest shopping mall before sunrise this Black Friday.

When a friend told me in school on Tuesday that she was going to the Jersey Gardens mall, I said without thinking that I would accompany her. For the last couple of months, any mention of shopping perks me up like the word “bone” perks up a dog. There is a reason for this: I am going to India for the first time since coming here and I have been buying American (read “Made in China”) gifts for friends and relatives back home. Prior experience tells me that women have a knack for sniffing out deals where a man would feel lost and so I could not let go of this opportunity of accompanying my friend to the mall on Black Friday. However, no sooner had the words left my lips when I realized my mistake. My friend told me she was delighted to have me as a companion and I should meet her bus at the Newark Penn Station at 6:30 a.m. on Friday. This meant I would have to leave my bed at 4:00 a.m. on a holiday – a blasphemous deed if ever there was one, and then reach the bus stop three miles from my home after walking fifteen minutes and taking a subway ride on a morning when the wind-chill was four and the sun was expected to rise at 7:00. But Banerjis are chivalrous people and they would readily embrace death rather than backing out of a promise made to a lady and so there I was trudging across a soggy field at 5:40 a.m. on Friday in the dark, wishing all muggers of Newark a sweet undisturbed sleep through chattering teeth.

The bus was surprisingly full despite the weather and time of the day, and when we arrived at the mall, shopping was already underway for a few hours. Over the next six hours I, along with fellow humans, rummaged through mountains of clothes, shoes, crockery, cutlery, jewelry, accessories, toys and other things that I don’t know which category to put into and managed to find three bagsful of absolutely essential stuff that I didn’t even know that I needed before I went shopping. I was the small fish in the pond, of course. All around the mall the common roosting areas were occupied by groups of people who were sleeping surrounded by shopping bags while their less fortunate companions kept an eye on them. If there was an award for most prolific shopper, I would personally recommend one man whom I saw sitting on the floor with twelve full size bags around him and an expression on his face that could only be described as ecstatic. All stores had serpentine queues at the check-out counters and it was easy to see that he must have started shopping around 3:00 in the morning to have amassed so much of the loot. Of course, I have no idea if he achieved it alone or he was accompanied by early birds of the same feather, but in any case, he presented an impressive sight.

When I came out of the shopping mall eventually, I was an impressive sight too. I was carrying only three bags, but I had become so lost in the excitement of shopping in the hot mall that I had totally forgotten there was a real world outside where the temperature had fallen further and the wind was virtually a storm now. As a consequence, I had taken off my down jacket and ordered iced coffee at Starbucks. Only when my fingers started turning blue did I notice that I was holding a glass that was virtually full of ice, and holding my jacket in my other hand. People were ogling at me probably thinking I was a dark-skinned Eskimo enjoying the summer breeze. It felt good to know that I can make women turn around and look at me even with “50% OFF” signs all over the place.

My shopping wasn’t over with Black Friday, of course. As a matter of fact, it isn’t over even now. Over the last month or two I have become an authority on the prices of everything from cosmetics to cuddly bears in the New York- New Jersey area, not to mention the best online prices for a variety of things which are arriving at my house everyday now in large parcels. But going to the Jersey Gardens Mall on Black Friday gave me the kind of thrill Bengalis typically feel during the “Choitro Sale” in Kolkata, and it is this very thrill which made me realize how American I have become. Probably Bengalis and Americans are not so different after all, especially when it comes to shopping.

Moving On

One year has passed since 26/11. Thanks to spineless indifference from the Indian Government, benevolent support from the USA and careful nonchalance from the world in general, the terrorists are thriving as before in Pakistan. Only life for us Indians can never be quite the same again, though the Taj Palace is up and running once more.

So I thank all of them this Thanksgiving. Thanks to them, our life is less valuable everyday. At least something gets cheaper in this world. We now need to display the "Mumbai Spirit" or something like that, and respectfully show the other cheek to our neighbours.

The K-7

It's over a month since I wrote my last post here, and while I would not go so far as to say I have disappointed my readers since I do not have enough of them, I am sure the few that I have would not have felt exactly appointed either, being forced to look at that dog story again and again. But why didn't I write? Was I busy with my coursework or my research? Although I'm tempted to answer that question in the negative, it would be politically incorrect for a Ph.D. student to say so. Therefore let me put it this way: I wasn't any busier in the last month than I have been in the past year and a half. The reason for not posting here is something different. It is my newly purchased toy that is keeping me occupied for most of my spare time; a toy which goes by the name of Pentax K-7. It is my first digital SLR camera and I have been spending all my leisure hours learning to use it and reading up its 330-page user manual.

When friends see my camera, they react in one of three ways.

"Oh wow! That looks cool! How much zoom does it have?" is the typical reaction of people who are not familiar with SLR cameras. On being informed that it has only 3x zoom, they barely conceal their disappointment and walk away.

The second reaction is from a very small group of people who are aware of SLR camera fundamentals but do not keep track of the current market. They ask me about the camera and listen with interest when I describe its features, and seemingly accept my verdict that this is the best camera for this price. But it is possible that these people have been behaving this way out of politeness, and they actually belong to group three which is by far the largest group among all my friends.

The group three people ask, "Why Pentax? Why not Canon or Nikon?" Sometimes the question is implied even if not spoken aloud. I hope the rest of my post would serve as a satisfactory answer to this question. This is not exactly a review of the K-7 as I have not tested it thoroughly yet, and it is definitely not a comparison of the performance of the K-7 with competing models from Canon and Nikon since I have not used those cameras. However, I think this post could still be useful to a person who wants to know what to look for before purchasing a digital SLR camera.

But before we come to the K-7, we must go back in time. Almost twenty-nine years ago my father wanted to buy an SLR camera. Unlike me, he had the experience of using several borrowed SLR cameras. Yet, when he decided to buy one for himself, he settled on the Pentax MX. Although the camera looks like a giant compared to the tiny point-and-shoots of recent years, it was then the smallest SLR in its class, and one of the smallest manual SLRs ever made. Numerous moments of my childhood (and later my sister's) were captured on film using that camera. For the first eight years, my father had only one lens after which he bought one more. He always maintains that Pentax lenses are as good as Canon and Nikon lenses if not better. I can say they are at least better than Canon as that is the only other brand that I have used. When I came to the US in 2008, my father gave me the camera. I bought another lens after I came here and I have been shooting on film occasionally ever since.

When I decided to buy a DSLR, my first concern was, "Will I be able to use my old lenses with my new camera?" As I browsed the online reviews of various models from different manufacturers, only Pentax advertised of one fact.

"Our cameras are compatible with all Pentax lenses ever made."

This in itself was not sufficient reason to be overjoyed. Modern lenses are auto-focus lenses which allow quick clicking, and they also have image stabilization which means the lens elements can shift a little to offset the effect of small vibrations of the photographer's hand. I have used an older Canon lens with a new Canon DSLR body, but the result was less than satisfactory as the older lens did not have image stabilization. The newer lens gave far better images. So if Pentax says their cameras are compatible with older lenses that was all very good, but would the picture quality suffer if I use those lenses? On closer inspection, two more facts were revealed.

1. Pentax DSLRs have shake reduction in the body and not in the lens like Canon and Nikon. That meant any lens that I used, old or new, would give exactly the same quality of pictures. This fact has been confirmed now that I have bought the camera and used it with older lenses.
2. Pentax DSLRs have auto-focus assist for use with manual lenses which means the camera lets me know when the focus is perfect even when I am using a manual focus lens. Not only that, the K-7 can also automatically click the picture as soon as the focus is perfect when I am using a manual focus lens and focusing by rotating the focusing ring.

I emphasize on the above facts so much because the usability and performance of my older lenses was a crucial issue in my choice of camera. And if someone has an arsenal of older Nikon or Canon gear, I would suggest they go for their respective brands, although no other brand makes using older lenses as easy as Pentax does. This moon photo is a handheld shot taken using my Vivitar 100-300mm manual zoom lens fitted with a 2x teleconverter.

My father always tells me, "A camera is only as good as the bit of glass in front of it." While this was completely true for older film cameras, things are a bit more complicated in the digital world. Here cameras have "features", and a sensor which records the images. Although I was already almost certain on buying Pentax because of the lens compatibility, I still checked out the features of this camera and tried to determine whether I was making a compromise on any front. And only then I realized how bad Pentax's marketing strategy was. This camera was offering features that similarly priced Canons and Nikons didn't (weather-sealed body and lens that can operate at -10 degrees Celsius, 5.2 fps shooting, 30 fps HD video, 3" LCD, 100% viewfinder, live view to name a few), and yet not many people knew about them. Not only that, this camera was offering features that were invented by Pentax, features that no other manufacturer provided. That is why when I tell my Canon and Nikon using friends that I have an electronic level-indicator, automatic horizon correction, sensor-shift composition adjustment, in camera HDR capture, a sensitivity priority mode, rear panel remote-control sensor, external microphone jack, a lock on the mode dial and one touch RAW, they usually go "Huh... what was that again?" And despite all this, the K-7 has one of the smallest bodies in its class.

I am not writing this to advertise for Pentax. I am justifying my choice. Does the camera have any shortcomings? It sure has. I am not saying this myself because as I said, I did not compare it directly with Canon and Nikon DSLRs of its own class. I did use a much cheaper Canon Rebel XSi during summer, and although it overexposed my shots, I loved how it sensed my cheek and switched off the LCD when I put the camera to my eye. I would have loved that feature in my Pentax. As far as image quality is concerned, I am very happy with the images so far. However, this website compares images from different brands and they suggest that the Pentax K-7 sensor falls short of the competitors under certain conditions. I do not dispute their claim. I just say I can live with that shortcoming as it is a very specific condition where it fails.

Also, two allegations have been made about Pentax DSLRs all over the Internet. One, their autofocus is slower than Canon and Nikon, especially in low light. Two, the high-ISO images captured in low light are noisier in Pentax. I myself cannot say if they are true, but if the experts say so, they must be. Again, I knew of these problems before I bought the K-7 but they are things that I can live with. The picture on the left was taken at ISO 1600. Click on it to enlarge it. Does it look too bad?

The bottomline is, I am an amateur photographer and intend to remain so (well, except the occasional summer job maybe). I am not among those people who go on expeditions to photograph wildlife or shoot rock concerts and weddings professionally. Low light is usually an indication for me to pack up and go home. So a faster focusing lens or a less noisy sensor does not appeal to me as a weather sealed body or an in-camera shake reduction system does. That is why the Pentax K-7 remains my choice.

And that is why blogging will take a backseat until I get bored of my new toy, something which I don't foresee happening in the near future.