Day 261 - GoogleBigs

5p, 32GB

A comment Jezz made in his blog last night provided some handy inspiration this evening, when I was tired and otherwise all out of ideas...

He mentioned macro photography, which reminded me that we have a little macro lens that I've not tried yet (it fits onto our prime 35mm fixed lens)...so I soon found myself scanning my desk for a subject.

I have these little Micro-SD memory cards knocking around as I'm gradually gathering stuff for our trip to Font...and I'm constantly amazed at how small they are, with such huge capacity.

This particular one is 32GB, and you can get them as large as 128GB...these are a rare breed, almost never spotted in the wild, but the technology is there - you can buy them on Amazon...

A 128GB card could hold 24 hours of 720p video...even the 32GB could hold 175 episodes, nearly 8 seasons of Friends. 

I think the first PC I bought, back in the early 90's, had a 128MB HDD...it was the size of a small, thick book, and weighed about a pound!

Now, one GB, (traditionally referred to as one GigaByte) is equal to 1,000 MB (MegaByte)...so this tiny card has 1,000 times the capacity, at 1/1000th of the physical size...stunning!

Around these parts (and somewhat anecdotally), my good friend Andy (erstwhile lead commentator on this blog), coined the perfect alternative word 10 years or so ago, when discussing a technical support issue with me (and simultaneously revelling in his PC-illiteracy, as he was wont to do)...I asked him something along the lines of, how big is the hard drive in that PC?, to which he replied, it's 128...erm...GoogleBigs...?  

Do you see how much sense that word makes?  If I said this MicroSD card can hold 32 GigaBytes, you'd be all, like, oh ok, awesome or whatever, I suppose...

But if I said it can take 32 GoogleBigs, you'd be all like, woah, dude, that thing is huge!  It's like totally rad', brah!

Thanks Andy, I'm still enjoying that one! :-)

Anyway then I realise that that first PC was nearly 25 years ago, and it just makes me feel old...it's not like I was a kid when I got my first PC...

Yet still I do find it absolutely remarkable how tiny these MicroSD's are (you'll have noticed me remarking upon it, mere moments ago...).

And they provide the perfect opportunity for a bit of macro action.  

For scale, I found the shiniest five pence coin in my small change receptacle, and stood it next to the memory card...I took around 30 shots, varying angles and lighting and f-stop with abandon, as I went...

Now, usually when I take multiple photo's I find myself using the first one, and feeling that I wasted all that time taking all the subsequent useless shots, and I should just go with my first instinct.

But tonight, this was the very last shot I took!  I'm fairly pleased to have worked my way towards a half decent capture.

I also learned that the camera can still focus with this combination of lenses, as close as around 3 inches (but no closer).  

I think this photo demonstrates that it has some capacity for capturing the detail of the very small...

Thanks for the reminder, Jezz!

Now I just need to find an actual, non-contrived subject!

:-)