The past few days have been a bit different with regards to work for me. I’ve been installing an over-ip CCTV system as part of a new data centre install. It’s an interesting cross over between the areas I usually work in — computers and photography. It’s also been lots of hard work.
The building the install is going into is an old grade 2 listed coach house which was converted into an office in 1984. It already has structured cables installed for general office work and it has false floors, although it’s effectiveness is a little patchy. There are 23 cameras being installed covering pretty much the whole building inside and out. Everywhere I can I’ve tried to use the existing cable to carry the data but for some of the cameras installed in hallways and stairwells this hasn’t been possible. That’s where the hard work has come in. Friday was spent pulling new Cat6 cables from the ground floor to the 1st floor through a pretty full riser, so full, in fact, the cables don’t run through holes in the rider itself, but through holes in the ceiling next to the riser. It still all looks very neat. It then went under the floor on the 1st floor and through ducting out to the stairs. Yesterday I spent 8 hours finishing the job by running the cables under the floor in the main office on the ground floor and patching into the rack in the the comms room. It’s certainly been a learning experience and I’ve enjoyed it, although I’ve found that I’ve been much more sleepy in the evenings for the last few days than I normally would after a day working at the computer. I think this week will be much more back to normal.
I watched an episode of the new version of Beverly Hills 90210 on Friday. It’s a pretty standard American teen series thing, but one thing struck me. The episode I saw involved a lot of photography — there was a fashion show and there was a load of photographers taking pictures. Only the actors playing photographers didn’t seem to know anything about photography. They were shooting portrate, and one woman caught my eye — she had a full-frame camera (something like a Canon EOS1D) with side grip but was holding it all wrong. For a start she was still using the main grip up over her head rather than the grip and shutter release on the bottom of the camera. On top of that her other hand was just kind of holding the body on the side. Not only did that look silly but it also meant she couldn’t possibly be focusing the lens. I suppose you could argue she was using auto focus, but in that case she still couldn’t be changing the zoom range and I think it’s unlikely that she’d be using a prime lens in that situation. I find it amazing that no one putting the programme together noticed and did anything about this. There must have been at least one person on the crew who knew how to use a camera properly (after all I presume the programme was filmed using a camera…), and it wouldn’t have taken much to explain to these actors how to at least look like they were taking real photographs. Sometimes I despair. Dana thought it was an odd thing to get upset about.
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