10:11:59 PM    

"Dave, before you get the Dimage 5400, Nikon has a new competing model, the Coolscan 5000, that you might want to Google up some reviews on first. "

Too late.  The deed she is done.

4:39:47 PM    

This is a little scary -- the Dimage scans, without any corrections look perfect.  I am used to doing scans with the old Sprintscan LE and then adding a touch of sharpening, some minor adjustments; and the first few scans with the Dimage 5400 don't seem to need any correction, and it must know something because it is setting the dpi to 300 and the size to 8 x 12 for the medium sized scans.  How did it know that that was how I wanted it?

Lot's of high-pitched whining motor noise as it starts and finishes the scan -- and the larger scan at 5400 took about 2 1/2 minutes.  Man, not bad. 

Setup was also a little too easy.

4:25:37 PM    

The logistics were tricky.  I got my sister's car at 8:30 a.m.  Had to get it back in a parking spot uptown at 10:10 a.m.  Any later than that and I'd be stuck going in circles looking for a legal spot.  B&H Photo opens at 9 a.m.

So I made it downtown at 8:49 a.m.

Got into B&H Photo at 9:00 a.m. There was no one around at first to sell me the DiMage 5400.  I had to search for about ten minutes for a sales person in the digital department.  That threw my timing off.  Finally tracked a guy down.  Told him what I wanted.  As he was punching it up, someone he knew came by and started gabbing with him about some photography show.

It was going slower than I had planned.

Got out at 9:27.  Now, I had 33 minutes to make it cross town and then uptown to 80th street.  Which crosstown street to pick?  I picked the wrong one and was stuck going through the flower district.  Eventually, got to Park Avenue and started up.  Heavy rush-hour traffic.  But I was doing okay.  But then that little underground passage that speeds you through a few blocks was blocked off.

I went up Park Avenue -- cutting people off -- including a police car -- like a bootlegger in a Smokey and the Bandit movie.  Made it just in time to get the last legal spot on the block.  To complicate matters, I was expecting a delivery from UPS of the notecard paper and I saw their truck on a corner.  I couldn't leave the car for another half hour.  Meter people were swarming around the block.

I got out of the car -- and tried to walk over to a spot where I could look up 2nd avenue to keep an eye on what the UPS truck was doing and still keep an eye on the car. 

But it was too dangerous.  Too many meter morons around -- so I ran back to the car.  You get a pretty stiff ticket from these guys (why they aren't out looking for terrorists I don't know).

But I didn't get any tickets, and I did come back with the DiMage which I'm going to set up soon (it was much smaller than I expected) -- and the UPS truck has moved somewhere else but I'm going to go out and look for them now.

Life in New York.

1:51:52 PM