With a touch less fanfare, I was awarded another stripe this evening. Now I might last a little more than a minute with a senior student. There's still so much learn...
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
2nd Stripe
With a touch less fanfare, I was awarded another stripe this evening. Now I might last a little more than a minute with a senior student. There's still so much learn...
Fill it up
At $3.25 today, gas is getting a little ridiculous. Maybe I should've bought a Prius instead of a BMW. I guess I'll just make the most of my growling combustion engine while I can still afford to fill the tank!
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Thank Your English Teacher
Hopefully your understanding of the language isn't nearly as poor as these blogs like to highlight:
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Lunar Eclipse
I wasn't the only one to throw a few pictures up on Flickr of the eclipse tonight. I took a quick glance at what I shot (since it's past my bed time) and picked two images. Not bad, certainly not the worst two on Flickr. Maybe I'll have a chance to play with them in Photoshop this weekend. Goodnight!
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Racing Around Florida
I'm just winding down after a very busy weekend. We attended a big wedding on Saturday for Bonnie's coworker. Bonnie sang during the ceremony so, we made an appearance at the rehearsal too (with dinner at the Casa Marina on Friday). The reception was held on the 35th floor of the Modis building right downtown. Dinner was wonderful and the view was great!
Today began at 5 this morning for me. I attended a Strobist lighting seminar in Orlando. Learning the tricks to enhance an otherwise dull photo with off camera lighting is great fun. The seminar was simply a hands on consolidation and review of the fundamentals. Seeing the setups in action is probably the best way to learn. Now I've just got to keep practicing to hone my skill.
Today began at 5 this morning for me. I attended a Strobist lighting seminar in Orlando. Learning the tricks to enhance an otherwise dull photo with off camera lighting is great fun. The seminar was simply a hands on consolidation and review of the fundamentals. Seeing the setups in action is probably the best way to learn. Now I've just got to keep practicing to hone my skill.
Luckily I didn't get held up by a little race held in Daytona today. I was quite worried about the drive since the traffic was backing up at 7 this morning. But it seems that race fans don't leave early so I was fine on the way home.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Lens Rental - Nikon 80-400mm
While spending over $1400 on a Nikon 80-400 VR lens would be fun, it just isn't very practical. So I decided to rent one for a week. If nothing else, I learned that it makes a lot more sense to spring for the Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR instead (which I rented last summer for the Tips From The Top Floor Workshop). Both lenses are beefy by any standard. But the 70-200 is a bit more versatile and slightly easier to handle. I found the zoom ring on the 80-400 in a lousy position up against the tripod collar - zooming was tricky on or off the tripod. While just as bulky, the 70-200 is significantly faster and accepts extension rings, which will get awfully close to 400 mm.
That being said, I got some great shots at the zoo and beach over the weekend. Shooting in aperture priority typically meant shooting wide open at the zoo. I've just realized that I don't have any images in a mid range f stop, which should technically be sharper. Wide open, the focus plane is razor thin. Despite that challenge, I was able to nail the focus on several images. On an animal (or model), that's typically one or both eyes.
Hopefully I'll have a few of the beach shots posted tomorrow night.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Google Apps at Work?
Yes! With this new version of Google Apps (watch the video), Google is clearly aware of people like me who loathe the productivity options available at our workplaces. Anyone working in even a small corporate environment knows software is updated less often than Microsoft releases a new version of Windows. But virus and security patches are made daily, which are installed without any thought to the productivity needs of the employees.
Work with me for a week and you'll hear me complain about Outlook at least twice. At my work place, we're blessed with a whopping 70 megabytes of email storage, yes - 70 MEGABYTES. As of today, Gmail is granting me 6404 megabytes - FOR FREE! The worst part about Outlook is that when it comes to finding a particular message, well just don't bother because you won't find what you're looking for. Searching in Outlook is pathetically poor.
Perhaps Microsoft is finally getting the hint as evidence by its offer for Yahoo. In the meantime, I'll be giving Google Apps a serious shot.
Work with me for a week and you'll hear me complain about Outlook at least twice. At my work place, we're blessed with a whopping 70 megabytes of email storage, yes - 70 MEGABYTES. As of today, Gmail is granting me 6404 megabytes - FOR FREE! The worst part about Outlook is that when it comes to finding a particular message, well just don't bother because you won't find what you're looking for. Searching in Outlook is pathetically poor.
Perhaps Microsoft is finally getting the hint as evidence by its offer for Yahoo. In the meantime, I'll be giving Google Apps a serious shot.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
First Stripe
Tonight I was awarded my first stripe in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu! It's the first mark of progress in a long road of training. Practically speaking, it means I might survive for a minute before being submitted by a more senior student.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Wedding Shoot
This past weekend I photographed a coworker's wedding. Another coworker and I tag teamed the photography. Going in with two photographers certainly takes the pressure off. While I've never had a memory card or camera fail, it can and does happen. So the extra support is always good insurance. It's been awhile since I served as the official photographer in a wedding. I certainly didn't forget how, if anything I found myself more aware of the technical opportunities (or shortfalls) throughout the evening.
I figured I'd jot down my observations and hopefully send a recorded message to Chris for his thoughts. My photos can be found here. I'm making an effort to show fewer images these days (show only your best work), but in this case I've uploaded just about everything I shot. These galleries are essentially servings as proofs. The selection also yields more potential sales since Smugmug offers a great E-commerce solution.
Photographing in and outside the church presented a few challenges. The first problem was the time of day. While the weather was fine, the sun set just about the time the ceremony began. This left me no time to shoot the bride and groom after the ceremony outside. My other wedding shoots left plenty of daylight for some fun with the bridal party - one of my favorites parts of shooting a wedding. So in this case I was left with about 45 minutes before the ceremony to cover posed images in the church of the groom and family. The time I did have outside with the groom was limited and under very harsh light. But Aperture does a pretty good job of shadow recovery - even with jpegs.
The larger problem was in the church. The lighting was a frustrating combination of two color temperatures. Warm spotlights lit the alter and cool fluorescents provided the ambient light. Strobes were necessary for just about all the shots. In fact, I should've experimented with the flash at longer ranges. With the subjects properly lit from the flash (at the flash white balance) the background white balance was very off (note the yellow color cast). What I should've done was bring my strobe gels and set the camera white balance appropriately. This would ensure a uniform color temperature from the majority of the lighting. Hindsight aside, Aperture was able to nail the white balance on the foreground subjects. Even with the background a little off, it's not overly distracting, I managed to get some good shots. And the clients are happy.
The support of another photographer allowed me to experiment a bit with off camera lighting during the post ceremony formals. I set up a light stand on either side of the camera. Nikon's wireless lighting system worked perfectly. Unfortunately, I placed the lights a bit too far from the camera. The result was harsh shadows on any image with more than a few people. I'll have to read up on the light placement for group shots. Otherwise, it was fun to experiment with a 'real' group and off camera lighting.
Lighting the reception was actually much easier than the church. With a flat white ceiling, I aimed the flash straight up. The result turned the ceiling into a great soft box. And I made great use of the trusty 50 mm 1.8 lens. The image quality of this lens has got me thinking about investing in a 2.8 zoom.
Post processing is still in progress. Even though Aperture is supposed to be one of the bet products for cranking through hundreds of images, the process is still painfully slow. My goal is to have all the images up by the weekend. Then I'll go through and select a portfolio of the best images.
I figured I'd jot down my observations and hopefully send a recorded message to Chris for his thoughts. My photos can be found here. I'm making an effort to show fewer images these days (show only your best work), but in this case I've uploaded just about everything I shot. These galleries are essentially servings as proofs. The selection also yields more potential sales since Smugmug offers a great E-commerce solution.
Photographing in and outside the church presented a few challenges. The first problem was the time of day. While the weather was fine, the sun set just about the time the ceremony began. This left me no time to shoot the bride and groom after the ceremony outside. My other wedding shoots left plenty of daylight for some fun with the bridal party - one of my favorites parts of shooting a wedding. So in this case I was left with about 45 minutes before the ceremony to cover posed images in the church of the groom and family. The time I did have outside with the groom was limited and under very harsh light. But Aperture does a pretty good job of shadow recovery - even with jpegs.
The larger problem was in the church. The lighting was a frustrating combination of two color temperatures. Warm spotlights lit the alter and cool fluorescents provided the ambient light. Strobes were necessary for just about all the shots. In fact, I should've experimented with the flash at longer ranges. With the subjects properly lit from the flash (at the flash white balance) the background white balance was very off (note the yellow color cast). What I should've done was bring my strobe gels and set the camera white balance appropriately. This would ensure a uniform color temperature from the majority of the lighting. Hindsight aside, Aperture was able to nail the white balance on the foreground subjects. Even with the background a little off, it's not overly distracting, I managed to get some good shots. And the clients are happy.
The support of another photographer allowed me to experiment a bit with off camera lighting during the post ceremony formals. I set up a light stand on either side of the camera. Nikon's wireless lighting system worked perfectly. Unfortunately, I placed the lights a bit too far from the camera. The result was harsh shadows on any image with more than a few people. I'll have to read up on the light placement for group shots. Otherwise, it was fun to experiment with a 'real' group and off camera lighting.
Lighting the reception was actually much easier than the church. With a flat white ceiling, I aimed the flash straight up. The result turned the ceiling into a great soft box. And I made great use of the trusty 50 mm 1.8 lens. The image quality of this lens has got me thinking about investing in a 2.8 zoom.
Post processing is still in progress. Even though Aperture is supposed to be one of the bet products for cranking through hundreds of images, the process is still painfully slow. My goal is to have all the images up by the weekend. Then I'll go through and select a portfolio of the best images.
HD Signal
Question - If the coaxial cable is the sole input feed to a HD cable box, how does the signal get better coming out using an HDMI cable? Even my favorite engineer couldn't tell me.
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