Zorin OS + Photography 📸

 I was using Linux virtual machine (Parrot OS) for some time and it was running very smoothly despite being a VM. Since my laptop is more than 4 years old, it was giving some problems. Slowness mainly and a couple of other issues. Since Parrot OS was running so smoothly on VM I was sure that it will run even more smoothly on actual hardware.

While searching for Linux distros I came to know about Zorin OS. I am not saying that Parrot OS is bad but Zorin OS is much more polished. Zorin OS 16 has come out recently and I decided to go with that and indeed it is truly great. The transition from Windows to Linux was very smooth. I was worried about the onboard hardware and would it be compatible with the new OS or not? If not, would I find drivers easily but everything (keyboard, trackpad, webcam, speakers, SDHC card slot, even the touchscreen) was working right out of the box.

I did lose some of my data but that was my mistake. I was too eager to remove my backed-up data. It had nothing to do with Zorin. My 16GB flash drive which I used to install Zorin is now reduced to only 4.3MB somehow 😟. I have read some articles where other people have had similar issues with Balena Etcher. I am looking for a fix for that. I am yet to set up some things like flutter and VPN but mostly everything else is done. It has been almost 10 days using Zorin and no problems yet. I really like the "jelly mode" which makes windows wobbly. Here is a small video of Zorin that I made:

I am currently working from home and the room where I sit has a window that allows me to see my terrace. Daily I see insects like butterflies, dragonflies flying here and there. One particular day, I was watering my plants before starting work and noticed a small green iridescent fly sitting on a leaf. I immediately captured a picture with my phone.

A quick image search on google lens showed that it is called "Condylostylus". It looks pretty cool. After an hour of work, I came back to the terrace again and it was still sitting there. That's when I decided to bring my father's camera (Nikon D5200 with 18-140mm NIKKOR lens) to take a proper picture. Along with the fly, I could see things also and wanted to capture everything I could.

Here is what I captured:

Some people might say that image of the fly taken with the phone looks better than the camera one. I disagree though. I did try to get more close to the fly with the camera but that's when it flew away.

The dragonfly sat on that iron rod literally for the whole day with occasional flights. I was noticing these types of dragonflies flying for some days. The yellow coloration on the wings makes their body look wider in the sky. When I zoomed on the picture, I came to know that it's not the body, it's the wings. I wish I had a better zoom lens to better capture the color and pattern on its tails. It's faintly visible if you zoom in on the image though. I am thinking of buying my own camera and lens but it's not happening this year.

Some Failed Shots:

There was a nice yellow-orange wasp/hornet flying around but the problem was it did not stay still for even a second. All I managed to take were blurry photos of it this is the only one where it is barely visible.

This one is not a complete fail because it is visible that it is a cat but according to me both the foreground and background are not up to the mark. I wanted to zoom in and focus more on the cat itself but my lens was maxed out. It ran away when I tried to move closer.

That was all about the photography. It's time to end the post. Currently, the time is 12:34 PM. I am traveling to Udaipur for the long weekend with my cousins today. My train is at 5:40PM. The next post will probably be based on that.