Songs of innocence and of experience

Off to the ZZ9 Slouch at Bristol Zoo. See some of you there.

Am now returned from the Bristol Slouch, where we saw not only three aye-ayes, but also an okapi and some blind cave fish.

Photos (mostly very dark) and a writeup later.

Today I took a number of photos in dark conditions without a flash (we were visiting the aye-ayes, who like the dark).

I've noted that in six places on these pictures, there are small clusters of bright pixels -- the placement is identical on all of them.

I've been back to check -- photos from December 31st exhibit the same symptom, but in fewer places, while photos from December 18th are clean.

I think the CCD is beginning to die.

It's an Olympus Brio Camedia D-230. It takes photos 1600x1200 in size. There's a digital zoom (which is crap), but no optical zoom. Pictures taken without flash (it uses a very slow shutter speed) tend to have a reddish tinge. I bought it, half price, on December 26th 2002 in PC World in Barnstaple. It's not done badly. It was my first camera, and I've learnt quite a lot in the interim.

There's a camera in the new PDA, but it's not terribly good, and I want a proper camera. I'm sure there are sales on ...