Kerobian Time

Tag: mountains

  • The Revival Of Old Relic

    I’ve been passively following this trend of people revisiting their old point and shoot cameras.

    Initially, I wasn’t that interested in the topic, but I stumbled upon someone mentioning this great software called CHDK which would give their old Canon point and shoot a whole new set of tricks to play with.

    I happened to have my very own old Canon PowerShot A480 point and shoot that by itself has very limited features. Being a true point and shoot, it doesn’t even offer any control modes like aperture or shutter priority.

    About a year or so ago, I gave it to my kids, so that they can get a glimpse of photography outside of phone cameras, but they quickly lost their interest in it.

    Since it has been lying around, and gathering dust for a few months now, I decided to poke it, and see if anything comes out.

    Luckily, I found a version of CHDK for Canon A480 on their website, loaded it onto the SD Card, and it worked!

    The most important functionality gain for me was the ability to save RAW files, and the live histogram when shooting.
    Other than that, unfortunately there was no way for me to control the aperture, or shutter speed. I believe there should be a plugin that would resolve that issue, but I didn’t have enough time to dig deep into it just yet.

    The software, by default, has a lot more to offer though, like the zebra screen, file manager, even games.

    So far, I took it to a short walk with me to Jrvezh State Park, which is one of my favorite places, and the results are quite satisfying, despite some of the shots coming out soft (which may or may not be because of a smudged lens 🫣).

    Compared to the RAW photos that I get from my phone’s camera when shooting with Open Camera app, these have very little noise when shot in bright daylight, a ton of dynamic range to work with, and much better colors straight out of camera.

    I will certainly start using this camera more from now on, and I am grateful to the people behind CHDK project that prevent old, but still capable cameras from going into junkyard.

    Below are some of the photos I took that day. These are slightly edited in darktable.

  • Pilgrimage to Mount Ara

    There is a small cave shrine called Tsaghkevank (flower monastery) dedicated to Saint Barbara on the southern slopes of Mount Ara. The cave has a small spring in it, which waters according to numerous accounts are revered as healing.

    The road leading to the mountain is decent for the most part. But, It gets gradually worse when you reach the foot of the mountain, and from there on, it’s pretty much non-existent.

    Some entrepreneurial locals from the nearby village offer off-road vehicle services with their Russian UAZ’s right before the road turns into a carnival ride.
    Considering that I nearly bottomed out my car several times during the ascent, I will most likely use their services next time we visit the place.

    We went there on a hot afternoon, on the first day of July. Coming from the city, the fresh mountain air was very refreshing.
    I wish there was a practical way of bringing some of it back with us to the city.

    Fortunately, however, there is a convenient way to bring back views of the place, and I didn’t forget to grab my camera. So, here are some of the shots I managed to take.


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