A couple of weeks ago on the Fediverse, somebody posted a picture of a bee taken with an old Canon Rebel XS DSLR and a telephoto lens. It piqued my interest, because I happen to have this exact same camera model at home.

The EOS Rebel XS/1000D was an entry-level digital single-lens reflex camera that Canon released back in 2008. I bought the basic kit with EF-S 18-55mm lens (29-88mm equivalent of full-frame 35mm cameras), with the plan to purchase an affordable telephoto lens at some point.

During the next 4 years I took thousands of photos. Mostly family shots, family pets shots, and product pictures for the work place (I was the designated “photographer” even though I had no experience). I tried to use the manual settings, but mostly I used it as a point-and-shoot.

Then I progressively used it less and less. I stopped using it between 5 and 6 years ago. I never did get that telephoto lens.

Why did I stop?

I tend to lose interest in things. But the main reasons were:

• Over thousands of family pictures, I would wager that I was on less than a hundred of them. With the advent of small digital cameras with LCDs, people quickly lost the habit/ability of actually using a viewfinder to take pictures. I would throw my DSLR into their hands, they would be intimidated by it, even though I had put it in full automatic mode. So at some point I simply stopped asking people to take pictures of me with my camera. (Note : the Rebel XS could actually be used with the LCD screen rather than the viewfinder. I don't remember if I knew this back then. In any case, taking pictures in that mode is not as straightforward as on a small digicam – or, of course, a smartphone).
• With its carry bag, it was very big to lug around.
• I didn't think I was getting good results with it. I purchased an Olympus PEN E-PL2 mirrorless camera for the workplace, and even with its smaller sensor, I thought it took better pictures.
• When I finally got my first smartphone, I exclusively took pictures with it. It was so much smaller and convenient to carry around.

Why get back to DSLR photography?

• I've been dissatisfied with the quality of pictures taken with my current 6-year old smartphone. I expect that the one I'm getting next (Pinephone UBports Community Edition) will be worse (it has a more basic camera sensor, not to mention the current rudimentary camera software support in Ubuntu Touch).
• I want to play with settings that aren't available on smartphones. Mostly, depth of field, shutter speed, exposure level.
• Speed!!! It's crazy how a DSLR is fast at autofocus and snapshots compared to a smartphone. I had forgotten!

What now?

I took my Rebel XS out of the closet and started shooting again, exploring its features. And I ordered a telephoto lens! :-D I can't wait to get it.

I took the camera to a bike ride last week (the pictures in my previous post were made with it), but I'll either have to figure out a way to fasten the camera bag on the handlebar (to free my rear pannier rack), or purchase a dedicated handlebar bag.

Compared to what's being sold now (including mirrorless cameras), the Rebel XS is hopelessly outdated. But I think I can still get nice pictures with it. I won't pretend that I know what I'm doing, or that the pictures I'm getting are any good. But I'm having fun! :-D

P.S. I'd like to thank @youcantoo@photog.social (https://photog.social/@youcantoo) for giving me the push to get my DSLR out!

This post is day 8 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. I'm making an English and a French version of each post, and I decided to count each as a day. If you want to join in this challenge, visit the 100 Days website.

tags : #EN, #100DaysToOffload, #photography, #DSLR, #RebelXS

I'm currently well into my first vacation week of the summer. With the deconfinement that was still in process when I had to decide and advise my employer of my vacation dates, I decided to only take one week, and keep the rest of my vacation days in reserve for later this summer. Since Canada Day (our national holiday on July 1st) happened during my vacation week, I get to report it to next Monday, so this stretches my vacation a bit. :-D

The forecast yesterday was for rain and highly probable thunderstorms in the afternoon, so my dad and I had planned a short bike ride in the morning when it was sunny. There was a lot more people than I would have expected for a week day on the bike trail, when I actually remembered it was Canada Day. As in many other countries, with the pandemic, public celebrations for the Fête de la Saint-Jean (the provincial holiday on June 24th) and Canada Day were understandably cancelled.

We rode about 20 km and turned back. We had lunch at his place then I came back home. The weather was still fine, sunny and hot, therefore I decided to try my luck and went for a second ride on my own.

I decided to go to the Vieux-Port de Québec by taking the bike trail that follows along the St. Charles River. This part of the ride is always nice, it's a city park all along the river, on each side.

Before arriving at the Vieux-Port, we ride past the Quebec marina.

And the obligatory Château Frontenac shot... (not very good I must admit)

And down on the street, I saw a car we don't often see in these parts (and old Rolls-Royce).

Past the Vieux-Port, I decided to continue along the St. Lawrence River on the Corridor du Littoral bike trail, right to its end underneath the Quebec Bridge.

On the way back I met this little guy. Since I don't have a big zoom lens (yet) for my camera, I had to approach it quite a lot to get the shot, but the duck (Mallard?) never moved. I wondered if it was injured but I didn't know how to find out, or what to do if it was.

I ended up riding about 40 km, so overall 60 km for the day. A very nice day indeed!

This post is day 6 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. I'm making an English and a French version of each post, and I decided to count each as a day. If you want to join in this challenge, visit the 100 Days website.

tags : #EN, #100DaysToOffload, #biking

Anyway! I kicked myself in the pants to get out of the house, and am I glad I did, the weather was lovely, even if there was a chill in the air. I took a route that I know quite well. North, to reach the Corridor des Cheminots bike trail (“Railroad workers' road”).

I always make a stop in the small Jean-Roger Durand city park to catch my breath (it's 140m uphill from my home with a steep hill toward the end, so quite a workout for me!) and to have a look at the Saint-Charles River that crosses it. The river was much shallower than the last time I visited back in May.

Then I headed North-West until the trail joins with the Jacques-Cartier/Portneuf bike trail. Up until then, it felt like a highway! Since the Cheminots' trail is paved with asphalt and still in Quebec City's suburbs, there were lots of cyclists, skaters and pedestrians who were out enjoying the sun while doing some exercise. But once you cross the wooden bridge over the Jacques-Cartier river, the trail is made of fine gravel/stone dust, so the traffic drastically diminished.

I usually turn around at the wooden bridge, but this time I made it a little farther, right to the station touristique Duchesnay. Since I had started getting some pain in my right knee, I decided to head back.

I ended up doing 66 km. I faced 20kph winds with 40kph wind gusts on my way back, but hey, I guess I shouldn't expect anything less, this is Quebec City after all (when I lived in Montréal, people who learned I was from QC would inevitably say “What a lovely city, but it sure is windy, eh?”). I'm pretty happy with my ride, but this nagging pain on the right knee has me concerned. I've had this pain since my second ride this year. It goes away pretty soon after a ride, so I wonder if it's caused by some bad adjustment of my clipped-on shoes? Oddly, I haven't changed my setup and I rode 2,500 km last year without getting any pain. Or maybe I should take it slower? Since doing spinning classes this past winter, I haven't been shy in using this newfound strength in my legs. I'll have to look into it if I'm going to make longer rides this summer...

This post is day 4 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. I'm making an English and a French version of each post, and I decided to count each as a day. If you want to join in this challenge, visit the 100 Days website.

tags : #EN, #100DaysToOffload, #biking

The Genesis

Twelve years ago, I was into webcomics. I had a long list of webcomics I read daily, it would take me at least half an hour to go over them all. In my childhood (and through my teens), I used to draw a lot, and my dream was to be a cartoonist. But while I could draw, I never had any genius comic ideas (or so I thought), and I always deemed my friends' ideas not good enough. The reality is, I have a big perfectionist streak, and I have a tendency to be very critical of myself first, and others second (I am more forgiving of others' efforts than mine). This has often prevented me from going and actually doing things.

So then, I had just quit my job in Montréal and moved back to my (smaller) home city. I was on a semi-sabbatical, doing remote freelance work on-and-off, and I had time on m#100DaysToOffloady hands. I had this one idea I thought was good enough to finally act upon: I would make a webcomic based on my cat.

The Project

#100DaysToOffload Anyone who lives with a cat (believe me, there are no cat owners) will have stories to tell about their companion. I thought I could tell funny ones people could relate to. Feedback from family was enthusiastic. So I started planning my webcomic:

• It would be a typical three-panel or more comic strip, with the punchline in the last panel
• It would be based on the WordPress blogging engine
• It would use a webcomic-specific extension to provide navigation arrows to go back and forward through strips without having to scroll down

It would take me a year of mostly procrastinating to finally launch it. I registered a domain name. I registered with a shared web hosting service. I installed WordPress, searched for WP customization, extensions. Registered on a forum to get help on setting up a webcomic extension (made friends with a professional French cartoonist, which was very cool). I made a list of strip ideas.

And so, my webcomic was finally online. But as I didn't have any content to publish, I posted a placeholder or two, among them an old gaming-related comic strip I had made 12 years before for a computer club's monthly zine. I posted a few sketch studies trying to define my webcomic style. As a joke, I posted a “false start” strip, where I finally introduced my character... But it actually wasn't! (Older readers will instantly recognize this emblematic comic character – copyright holders, please don't sue me!)

(Translated from French:)

“And now, here's the one we were all waiting for... Here's” “... FELIX!” “- Uh, no, he's not the one we were expecting!” “- Really?” “- Not at all!” “- Ah.” (“- Also, the other one isn't being paid...”) (“- Riiight!”) “Sorry! Casting error! Don't call us, we'll call you!”

And... that was it. I let my blog fizzle and die. My blog had been online for eighteen days.

After three years of neglect, I finally pulled the plug.

What Happened?!?

I spent all my energy on building the website and forgot to work on the most important thing: the content. When my website was close enough to what I wanted, I was fed up with it all, and I had no more motivation to actually work on the comic strips.

Conclusion

What I took away from this experience was that I was obsessed with the medium, when I should have cared about the message. (I guess that means I disagree with Marshall McLuhan. :-P )

Rather than starting working right away on the website, I should have started with the webcomic itself! Defining the drawing style, putting ideas to paper, and most importantly, building up a buffer of comic strips ready to go. All crucial things I hadn't bothered doing.

Among other things, this is one of the reasons why I chose WriteFreely for this blog's engine. I don't want to spend time on configuration, customization, a custom banner, custom CSS and what not. I want to focus on the content.

So, I modestly offer this advice to anyone who wants to start a blog or any project, really: don't lose sight of what you were aiming for in the first place. Stay focused, don't get sidetracked! And foremost, content is what matters.

Thanks for reading, kuddos if you made it to the end!

This post is day 2 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to join in, visit the 100 Days website.

tags : #EN, #100DaysToOffload

I'm Normand, and this is my self-hosted personal blog. I'm a Linux user (specifically Ubuntu) since 2008, and I'm also interested in free and open source software, as well as taking back ownership of my personal data.

For over a decade I was very active in open source communities, first with the Ubuntu-fr community, where I was providing help on the forums, contributing to its exhaustive documentation and being one of its wiki admins for some time. Then I was part of the FreeCAD community where I did mostly the same things, as well as managing the FreeCAD PPAs, providing developers insights as an experienced CAD operator, and even doing a little icon work.

I'm now switching my focus to more personal matters, like self-hosting of course, but also cycling, playing acoustic guitar and maybe recording (just for fun though).

I plan on publishing in both English and French, since my native language is la langue de Molière. For a long time my online activity has been predominently in English; hopefully this will give me the opportunity to even things up.

This blog is based on WriteFreely, a minimalist blog platform, and I doubt multilingual support is possible. So I'll simply prefix English language posts with [EN], and French language posts with [FR].

I hope you'll enjoy reading me!

tags : #EN

I certainly don't feel like I can keep writing daily for a hundred days in a row! Not even skipping quite a lot of days. But, I'm willing to try to at least post occasionnaly. -ish.

So, that's about it for now.

tags : #EN, #100DaysToOffload