Ad Terras Per Aspera

I’ve heard a few good things about Adorama’s ProJet Elite Inkjet Paper, a few people I know have started using it because it’s supposably very high quality archival type inkjet paper that reproduces colors great, and is cheaper than other similar brands.

In turn, they attempted to convert me to the cult of ProJet Elite, and I’ve gotten nothing but horrible results with my Canon i9900, which I reviewed not too long ago.

So far, I have tested only ProJet Elite Picture Rag Warm Tone 190gsm¹. It does reproduce colors semi-accurately, but it looks very faded, and blacks are a dark grey. Also, dark areas appear splotchy, and sometimes very light areas end up appearing bright white.

Tested vs Canon Photo Paper Pro² (glossy, but reproduces colors amazingly), ProJet Elite Picture Rag fails horribly. If you’re looking for a decent brand of thick matte paper, look elsewhere.

Please note, however, that this does not reflect on Adorama as a fine purveyor of photography goods in any way. I’ve never had problems with any of my orders with Adorama, and they often carry products cheaper than Amazon, and even carry products that Amazon doesn’t. I still recommend Adorama as a good place to shop… I just don’t recommend their paper.

_{[1]: In Photoshop CS2, with the printer set to Matte Photo Paper³, Quality 1, Auto halftoning, Print Type none, borderless printing on at the 2nd notch, and any options in the effects tab off; with Photoshop set to “Let Photoshop Decide” color handling, the “Canon i9900 elite warm tone” printer profile, and Perceptual rendering intent with black point compensation on.}

_{[2]: In Photoshop CS2, with the printer set to Photo Paper Pro, Quality 1, Auto halftoning, Print type none, borderless printing on at the 2nd notch, and any options in the effects tab off; with Photoshop set to “Let Photoshop Decide” color handling, the “Canon i9900 PR1″ printer profile, and Perceptual rendering intent with black point compensation on.}

_{[3]: The Matte Photo Paper setting produces better results than Other Photo Paper and Plain Paper with ProJet Elite Picture Rag.}

Update, February 7th 2006: I’ve now tried every combination of setting the printer driver to every media type, color adjustments with ICM and print type; and I’ve also tried changing settings various settings in Photoshop (color handling, rendering intent, and black point compensation).

There is simply no way to print good results on this paper using the Canon i9990 inkjet printer. If I rated products on a 5 star scale, Adorama ProJet Elite inkjet paper would get 0 stars.

Spoilers abound.

Amazing, full of action, well written, and a great ending to, effectively, what was a two hour episode. Actually, I’m amazed at how part one flows into part two. It just fits perfectly.

I didn’t see it coming either. I thought the XO of the Pegasus, Colonel Fisk, would be told to execute the order, and would refuse; while simutainously Starbuck would be asked to execute the order and would also refuse. And honestly, I fell for the bait. I totally fell for the bait they set up.

“But you can’t rape a machine.” But are Cylons machines? In any other situation, I could very well accept them as fellow humans. I mean, what makes us human? Our shape? Our makeup? Or our humanity? Cylons are a perfect emulation of our humanity… in essence, they are human. But they are our enemy as well… no, that’s incorrect. The Cylons aren’t truly our enemy, I believe that ultimately they are a test for humanity, for us to prove that we do in fact deserve to exist… or to prove we can co-exist with greater beings.

And Cylons are almost perfect beings. They aren’t stronger, or faster, or smarter, or invulnerable… they lack a fear of death, because they will always return to a new body. They also are never alone. We humans are always alone, we never truly can connect with others because of the barriers we build to separate ourselves from others.

Humans hate other humans not because of the reasons we usually tell others and ourselves… we hate other people because we can’t connect with them. Because we can’t understand them, and they probably can’t understand us either. We fear the invisible bonds that people make. We make war because we are alone… in turn, we make love because we don’t want to be alone.

Baltar fell in love with a Cylon, as did Helo and Chief Tyrol. They did it because us humans are alone, and we seek to complete ourselves using others. The Cylons are similar, however, in such that a human/Cylon hybrid is of much importance to them. Maybe Helo and Sharon’s child will be the perfect being that the Cylons strive to create?

Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. To hate someone, and want to totally destroy them requires the same amount of what makes us human as to love someone and always want to be with them. To have either denied to us is painful.

Cain was denied everyone she knew, everyone she cared about, and she exacted her revenge and made the Cylons fear us. She was in pain until the day she won against the Cylons, and then she was finally free. She was human. Boomer was beaten and almost raped, and she was denied her love towards Helo. She felt pain as well. Even though she is a Cylon, she is also human.

To be human is to be simutainously, and paradoxically: destructive, self-destructive, and creative. To emulate these three tenants of the human being is to be human.

So, in a previous post, I wrote that I was buying three ink tanks for my Canon i9900 through Amazon, because it was cheaper than driving over to Walmart and buying them.

Well, I ordered them using the “FREE Super Saver Shipping”, and Amazon decided to ship two of the tanks through USPS, and the remaining one through UPS (due to it being out of stock, but ended up getting into stock a day after they shipped the USPS box).

So, we all know USPS takes forever, right? Here’s some empirical proof: the UPS package, even though shipped one day after the USPS package, got here one day before the USPS package.

UPS wins, fatality.

The problem with owning a $900 camera is the fact you always want to buy just one more thing for it. Just one more thing. Just one last thing. The newest one last thing at the moment is a Sigma EX Multi-coated UV Filter, 58mm.

Ultimately, unless you actually need a UV filter (ie, for outdoor shots with a lot of haze, wide open blue sky, or reflective water), you usually just buy one as a way to protect your lens by not having it open to the elements; it’s easier (and cheaper) to buy a new $20 UV filter after you ruin it, than a new $150+ lens.

That said, this filter is optically clear, and doesn’t affect the brightness, color hue, or color saturation of shots, and is made of a single piece of glass with a solid metal frame that screws right into the front of my lens, and my existing lens cap fits over that. So, now I don’t have to worry about cleaning dust and other destructive substances off my lens, since the lens filter seals the front of the lens off from the outside; so I just have to clean the outside of the filter.

It weighs an ounce or two, so it does make the camera feel heavier; not that its a bad thing, I always thought my Rebel XT was a tad on the light side. Even though it weighs more, it doesn’t effect the autofocus function in any way (including the rate at which it focuses), and isn’t heavy enough to cause lens creep¹.

I paid around $30 for mine from Adorama, and I’m quite happy with the performance. Since I’ve never owned a lens filter before, I was worried that it would alter the quality of the shots, but it hasn’t in any way. If you own a professional-level camera, I highly recommending buying a Sigma EX Multi-coated UV Filter for your lens(es), too.

_{[1]: A problem with some lenses where the moving part of the zoom lens slowly moves outwards/inwards when tilting the camera forwards/backwards.}

Yup, you heard me, Walmart sucks. The Big W, Wally World, Wallzinski’s Deparment Store, whatever you want to call it, it sucks. Actually, I’ve known this for awhile. They never have anything on the shelves, they’re far overpriced, and their staff is 99.9% American Douchebag.

So what made me bother blogging about it today? Normally, for small items like, say, ink carts, it’s usually cheaper to hit some local joint. Around here, no company sells the ink carts for my i9900 except Walmart… and they sell them for $11.99 a peice. Eleven dollars and 99 fucking cents. Compared to Amazon, which is known for their decent-but-other-places-have-them-cheaper prices, they sell the better sellers for $8.52 (example: BCI-6PM Photo Magenta) and the rest for for $9.19 (example: BCI-6PC Photo Cyan, BCI-6Y Yellow).

Lets add up the math. I currently want to buy a Photo Magenta, a Photo Cyan, and a Yellow. By going to the local Walmart…

Walmart
11.99 Photo Magenta Cart
11.99 Photo Cyan Cart
11.99 Yellow Cart
1.80 Maine State Sales Tax (5%)
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37.77 Total

… I’d end up paying $37.77. With Amazon, qualifying for “FREE Super Saver Shipping”, and the A9 discount, I pay…

Amazon with Super Saver Shipping and A9 discount
8.52 Photo Magenta Cart
9.19 Photo Cyan Cart
9.19 Yellow Cart
0.00 Shipping
-0.42 A9 discount (π/2%)
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26.48 Total

… a total of $26.48. That is a $9.48 difference. In fact lets up the ante. Lets say I wanted to get things sooner, and I didn’t qualify for the A9 discount…

Amazon with Standard Shipping and no A9 discount
8.52 Photo Magenta Cart
9.19 Photo Cyan Cart
9.19 Yellow Cart
6.76 Shipping
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33.66 Total

Still a $4.11 difference! “Always low prices” is a load of bullshit. That said, I’m going to go buy three ink carts at an even lower price from Amazon.