13 h

Morning

Puddle

Twirl

Water

Fence

Car

Length of day is now 13 hours, which is rather nice: sunlight in the morning and quite long daylight time during the evening.

Today I forgot to take a spare battery for the camera, and I couldn't take many photographs while commuting. Typically the battery lasts for about 1200 photographs, but I usually remember to check the charge each day.

Anyway, after work I went for a 1 1/2 hour walk with the daughters, and took some photographs. We have had it warm, and snow is now disappearing fast. The official depth of snow figure at the Vantaa airport is 28 cm, but in many places there is almost no snow on the ground left.

PS. By the way, one of the Finnish weather forecast sites says that the length of day is 13 h, and the other 12 h 59 min. I always wondered why it is the weather forecast sites which show this info, and why there are differences.

But then I read that in fact the length of day is also forecast, namely it depends on how the light bends in the atmosphere, and the air pressure plays a factor there. The daylight time is the time between the moment when the upper edge of the sun crosses the horizon to the moment the upper edge disappears below.

Saving time

Morning

Slide

Ditch

Water

Night

We had a sunny morning, but later we got clouds, and some rain.

I'm having some trouble in adjusting to the so-called summertime, a.k.a. daylight saving time. But apparently I'm not alone in this - there are even conspiracy theories about this, or at least controversy.

Rovaniemi day and night

Rovaniemi, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Autumn colors, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Bridge, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Lapland, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

I was in Rovaniemi from Thursday to late Friday, attending a meeting, and there wasn't much time for photography. But here are a couple of views nevertheless.

They say that the autumn leaf color arrives in Lapland on September 10th at 2 pm. This year the season was just starting in Rovaniemi, not yet in full brightness, although there were isolated colorful trees here and there.

Long days (dry or wet)

Oak, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Drops, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Close, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

The weather has been cooler recently, no longer above 25 °C, and we have both dry spells and wet days. But summer is here anyway.

Here are some photographs taken this week. It is nice to be outside whether the sun is shining or it is clouded and raining.

Length of day today: 18 hours 5 minutes. And it will get longer.

A 52-minute walk: 425 kcal

Helsinki view, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Biomedicum, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Box, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Today I had two meetings in Helsinki, the first at Palace and the second at Biomedicum. I happened to have the LX3 with me so I took a couple of photographs when parking the car. It was nice clear weather, -10 °C.

Late evening we went for a walk with the wife. I used the Polar heart-rate monitor watch once again. I so happened that the walk took exactly the same amount of time as yesterday, 52 minutes.

But today we walked much more slowly, so it was a surprise that the watch reported that more energy was consumed during the walk: 425 kcal instead of 385 kcal. But after thinking about this a bit, the explanation may be self-evident: when taking it a bit more slowly the body is better able to burn fat, thus the result of the exercise is better.

A tale of red and white

Fence, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Pier, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

A touch of snow, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

White and red, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Today I happened to take quite a few photographs with red and white colors in them. White is easily explained by the fresh snow, red perhaps because I was looking for colors, and trying to catch any which could make a photo. And indeed, red and white go nicely together.

Even though it was once again clouded, it was nice to be outside in the middle of the day. Length of day was today 5 h 53 min. The dark time is no longer lenghtening rapidly. Soon the days will start to get longer, slowly at first.

Update: The Canon S90 had been tested by DxOMark, here is a comparison with the Panasonic LX3. There is a clear advantage in sensitivity, but the color depth and dynamic range are about same. Pity about the usability problems with the S90, it does have an advange over the LX3 in the sensor.

It feels like Thursday

Brown flowers, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Lights, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Today I forgot what day it was several times, feeling that it is late in the week although it is only Tuesday. Probably due to extremely busy two days at work.

Here are two photographs, one taken in daytime and another at night.

By the way, several reviews of Canon S90 have appeared, here is a quote: "There's a temptation to be disappointed with the Canon S90, mainly because our expectations are too high. [...] the Canon S90's lens and sensor combination do some amazing stuff in low light [...] Unfortunately it's not a complete coup thanks to the wayward rear Control dial and the slow zoom control. These two foibles make setting exposure and zoom level almost unbearable most of the time, such that I missed 60 percent of the shots I'd have been able to get with other cameras."

So all doesn't seem to be rosy with this camera. Pity, it would have been good to have so good usability with the S90 that Panasonic would be forced to keep on improving the LX3 as well.

Equinox

Dark clouds, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Clouds above, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Day and night are now equally long, but days are getting shorter fast. We had today both sunshine and dark clouds, nicely illustrated in these two photographs. A day of contrasts.