So, as I said earlier, I'm the only person on Earth who has no luck with Apple's built in calibration utility. I got the new monitor to where I didn't hate it but it wasn't where I wanted it to be. So I decided to bite the bullet and buy a color calibrator. These are little doohickeys with color sensors that go up against your monitor, read target color blocks, and reprofile your system until red is red and blue is blue and so forth.
So I went to Calumet and asked the girl behind the counter about "basic color calibration tools." She clicked around on her computer and told me that they didn't really have anything in stock, then described some of my choices.
On my way out, I noticed a Spyder2Express - the very model I'd been thinking about getting - in the display case. I pointed this out to her, and she got it out. I examined it and decided to buy it. Why she didn't think of this, I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps her inventory was off (although she didn't even bother to walk down and look.) My theory is that she recognized me from the Chicago store (that part's not theory: I know she did) and thought that the S2E was simply beneath a photographer of my high ability.
(pause for laughter)
It sounds good, anyway. The thing is a snap to use, I'll tell you that. My homebrew calibration wasn't too far off, but this is still a lot better. Now if I could just get my printer to work, I'd be a happy camper.
M
More after the jump - click here!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Yet Another Post
Just feeling talkative.
Anyway, here is the latest inspiration: a fellow who uses the camera he owns as a reason models should come shoot with him. I've heard of people claiming that their cameras made them professionals (or that other people's cameras meant they weren't.) But this is a new one on me.
Now, maybe if he had that life-size Polaroid camera, I could see that. That thing is freaking cool. But this?
http://www.modelmayhem.com/118
Let me get this straight. He's having an old Leica rebuilt to have modern automatic stuff in it, and therefore models should pay him oodles of money to be shot with it.
This. Makes. No. Sense.
He's basically taking the two things that make modern and vintage Leicas unique and building something that has neither component. Old cameras are cool because they are more demanding of the photographer (call any Leica demanding and the ghost of Matthew Brady will appear and break an 18x24 sheet of glass over your head, but still) and require them to be utterly in command of their technical art. Modern Leicas are cool because they have all the Leica elan while having modern exposure control technology. Put it in an old Leica and you have... an old new camera.
I won't claim to know enough about Leicas to know that this isn't the Holy Grail of Leicadom, but still, in the end, it's a 35mm rangefinder camera, shooting what is likely excellent glass but 35mm format glass all the same. Would it kick ass for photojournalism/docmentary work? Almost certainly: We might very well have to import ass from underdeveloped third-world countries just to have sufficient ass for it to kick.
But for stuff that a model wants and can use and would pay for?
Dude, give me a Hassy every time. Or, even better, unless the model plans to take out her own billboards, spare the umpty thousand dollars on Franken-Leica OR Uber-Large-Formatotron and buy some good lighting and hire a makeup artist and a hair stylist and a wardrobe stylist. Then the model might get something for her money. But a 35mm rangefinder is a 35mm rangefinder and it don't make no difference what you've wrapped around it, you have a relatively small lens and a 36x24mm frame of film and you get what you get.
M More after the jump - click here!
Anyway, here is the latest inspiration: a fellow who uses the camera he owns as a reason models should come shoot with him. I've heard of people claiming that their cameras made them professionals (or that other people's cameras meant they weren't.) But this is a new one on me.
Now, maybe if he had that life-size Polaroid camera, I could see that. That thing is freaking cool. But this?
http://www.modelmayhem.com/118
Let me get this straight. He's having an old Leica rebuilt to have modern automatic stuff in it, and therefore models should pay him oodles of money to be shot with it.
This. Makes. No. Sense.
He's basically taking the two things that make modern and vintage Leicas unique and building something that has neither component. Old cameras are cool because they are more demanding of the photographer (call any Leica demanding and the ghost of Matthew Brady will appear and break an 18x24 sheet of glass over your head, but still) and require them to be utterly in command of their technical art. Modern Leicas are cool because they have all the Leica elan while having modern exposure control technology. Put it in an old Leica and you have... an old new camera.
I won't claim to know enough about Leicas to know that this isn't the Holy Grail of Leicadom, but still, in the end, it's a 35mm rangefinder camera, shooting what is likely excellent glass but 35mm format glass all the same. Would it kick ass for photojournalism/docmentary work? Almost certainly: We might very well have to import ass from underdeveloped third-world countries just to have sufficient ass for it to kick.
But for stuff that a model wants and can use and would pay for?
Dude, give me a Hassy every time. Or, even better, unless the model plans to take out her own billboards, spare the umpty thousand dollars on Franken-Leica OR Uber-Large-Formatotron and buy some good lighting and hire a makeup artist and a hair stylist and a wardrobe stylist. Then the model might get something for her money. But a 35mm rangefinder is a 35mm rangefinder and it don't make no difference what you've wrapped around it, you have a relatively small lens and a 36x24mm frame of film and you get what you get.
M More after the jump - click here!
Breaking Technology News
I got a new monitor.
I had been thinking that I should get an LCD monitor for a long time since I use my computer a lot (duh) and the CRT I had used a lot of electricity and got really hot and I couldn't even clean it without taking it down because it fit so snugly in the monitor hutch on my desk.
I don't mean to complain, and I got a very good deal, but I hate getting new monitors. The colors look off, it doesn't seem as sharp somehow, etc, etc. Of COURSE it looks different. It's a totally different technology. And I need to tweak the calibration some more. (I must be the only person in the world for whom Apple's Calibrate Display control panel does not work very well.)
What's worse is I promised myself if I got a new monitor I would work on my portfolio submission, for which less than a month of submission time remains. I hate me.
M More after the jump - click here!
I had been thinking that I should get an LCD monitor for a long time since I use my computer a lot (duh) and the CRT I had used a lot of electricity and got really hot and I couldn't even clean it without taking it down because it fit so snugly in the monitor hutch on my desk.
I don't mean to complain, and I got a very good deal, but I hate getting new monitors. The colors look off, it doesn't seem as sharp somehow, etc, etc. Of COURSE it looks different. It's a totally different technology. And I need to tweak the calibration some more. (I must be the only person in the world for whom Apple's Calibrate Display control panel does not work very well.)
What's worse is I promised myself if I got a new monitor I would work on my portfolio submission, for which less than a month of submission time remains. I hate me.
M More after the jump - click here!
There's Only One Thing Better Than Two Hours of Sleep.
And that's being awakened from two hours of sleep by an explosion.
Damn, if I'd known how much fun that was, I might have joined the Army.
Too late now. I'm a shell of a man and before they could make me Army Strong I suspect I'd just be Army Dead.
Incidentally, it was an electrical transformer. Fixed now. Ironic that I stayed up reading Atlas Shrugged, which has as its main theme a continuous degradation of society and infrastructure.
M More after the jump - click here!
Damn, if I'd known how much fun that was, I might have joined the Army.
Too late now. I'm a shell of a man and before they could make me Army Strong I suspect I'd just be Army Dead.
Incidentally, it was an electrical transformer. Fixed now. Ironic that I stayed up reading Atlas Shrugged, which has as its main theme a continuous degradation of society and infrastructure.
M More after the jump - click here!
Friday, November 7, 2008
Today's Trite And Hackneyed But Nonetheless True Adage.
Inspired by the collapse of the market. (Which market? All of them.)
Life is an author who only knows two words: "What if?"
Evolution is an editor who also only knows two words: "Not now."
M More after the jump - click here!
Life is an author who only knows two words: "What if?"
Evolution is an editor who also only knows two words: "Not now."
M More after the jump - click here!
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The Kind Of Thing That Goes On.
As an IP attorney, I've seen cases of outright IP theft that were just as blatant as some punk shoving an old lady and running off with her purse. You'd think people would know better, you wonder, "How do they possibly expect to get away with that?" But they do and a lot of the time they do. For instance, here's a story of blatant theft from a photographer by another photographer who tricked him into giving up his RAW images. The only reason the thief got caught at all was that the original photographer tried to submit some of the images to a contest that the thief had already sent them in to!
http://kevingerman.blogspot.com/2008/11/stolen.html
Hopefully, the thief isn't sophisticated enough to have altered the EXIF data on the original images. If this is so, between the date/time stamps and the serial number (Digital SLR's record the camera's serial number into the EXIF data at exposure time) the original photographer should be able to prove that the images are his. He did strip the data from the images he posted, but that's much easier than editing a RAW file.
I hate to say it, but this is yet one more example of why you should never, EVER give up your RAW files to anybody for any reason. They're the negatives of the digital world, and once they're out, they're out.
M More after the jump - click here!
http://kevingerman.blogspot.com/2008/11/stolen.html
Hopefully, the thief isn't sophisticated enough to have altered the EXIF data on the original images. If this is so, between the date/time stamps and the serial number (Digital SLR's record the camera's serial number into the EXIF data at exposure time) the original photographer should be able to prove that the images are his. He did strip the data from the images he posted, but that's much easier than editing a RAW file.
I hate to say it, but this is yet one more example of why you should never, EVER give up your RAW files to anybody for any reason. They're the negatives of the digital world, and once they're out, they're out.
M More after the jump - click here!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Just So You Know.
I did go and vote today, despite the fact that my vote is mathematically meaningless.
In and out in twenty minutes - I live in a precinct that, for whatever reason *coughjobscough* historically has low turnout early in the morning. Since I don't go in to my office on Tuesdays, I just go early and I'm usually in and out pretty fast. There were other precincts voting in the same polling place that had a line which was an hour or more long at 7 AM.
Illinois is an all-or-nothing Electoral College state, and Obama and Jackson couldn't lose here if God Almighty opened up the skies and yelled down, "I will personally throw anybody who votes for a Democrat into the Lake of Fire ten seconds later, you got Me?" Similarly, machine politicians will win all the races I'm allowed to vote in. More than half of the races, the incumbent was running unopposed. I won't vote in a race with only one candidate, and I expected to get an undervote warning when they scanned my ballot, but there wasn't one. Apparently it's okay not to vote when it makes no difference.
I'm not saying I want all Democrats or lose or that I necessarily feel the elections are "rigged." I live in a place that is overwhelmingly Democrat. A vote for a non-Democratic candidate "doesn't count," because Democrats always win. Increasing turnout would just increase Democratic vote counts. That's life. I'm not mad about it, but I do find it irritating when zillions of holier-than-thou types say that voting is your duty, and if you don't vote you can't complain, and similar nonsense. My vote, in every possible sense, makes absolutely no difference. Why I should be castigated for recognizing reality, I'm sure I don't know.
M More after the jump - click here!
In and out in twenty minutes - I live in a precinct that, for whatever reason *coughjobscough* historically has low turnout early in the morning. Since I don't go in to my office on Tuesdays, I just go early and I'm usually in and out pretty fast. There were other precincts voting in the same polling place that had a line which was an hour or more long at 7 AM.
Illinois is an all-or-nothing Electoral College state, and Obama and Jackson couldn't lose here if God Almighty opened up the skies and yelled down, "I will personally throw anybody who votes for a Democrat into the Lake of Fire ten seconds later, you got Me?" Similarly, machine politicians will win all the races I'm allowed to vote in. More than half of the races, the incumbent was running unopposed. I won't vote in a race with only one candidate, and I expected to get an undervote warning when they scanned my ballot, but there wasn't one. Apparently it's okay not to vote when it makes no difference.
I'm not saying I want all Democrats or lose or that I necessarily feel the elections are "rigged." I live in a place that is overwhelmingly Democrat. A vote for a non-Democratic candidate "doesn't count," because Democrats always win. Increasing turnout would just increase Democratic vote counts. That's life. I'm not mad about it, but I do find it irritating when zillions of holier-than-thou types say that voting is your duty, and if you don't vote you can't complain, and similar nonsense. My vote, in every possible sense, makes absolutely no difference. Why I should be castigated for recognizing reality, I'm sure I don't know.
M More after the jump - click here!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Why Not To Get Carried Away
Sometimes too much of a good thing is wonderful. However, often too much of a good thing is... not so good. This applies very frequently in photography. Case in point: shallow depth of field/large aperture.
The first time you get hold of a fast (i.e. can open up to a very large aperture/very small f-stop) lens and a camera that can do good depth-of-field control, it's like "Wheee!"
However...
You can get carried away. Case in point: I took my camera with a 50mm f1.4 lens on it to the lake yesterday. My plan was to take pictures of seed pods and so forth with a shallow DOF and make all artsy pictures.
I switched to Av mode and opened the lens up all the way, despite the fact that the voices were telling me, "Don't get so nuts with the aperture, doofus."
Well, they were right.
Now that's some pretty shallow DOF - that dark blur in the upper right is a relatively large island in a lake which is only about fifty feet behind this feathery seed pod. Got that part right. However, the DOF is so shallow that a significant portion of the front of the pod is also out of focus. That's not so good. My plane of focus slices right through the middle of the pod, which is exactly what I wanted, but it's overdone. I might have been better off focusing on the front of it, if I had really wanted this shallow a DOF. However, what I really should have done is stopped down another two-thirds or so, say to f2.0, so that while the plane of focus would still have been right in the center, the foreground part of the pod would have not been so blurry. IMO, the picture would look a lot better that way.
In case you were wondering, while it was cloudy, there was tons of light (I love the gorgeous backlighting from the reflection of light off the lake - no polarizer on this shot) and this image was exposed at 1/3200s. It was a little windy, but none of that is motion blur, either from subject motion or camera shake. It would take a hurricane to move a plant enough to get motion blur at 1/3200s! The band of light in the upper-center is the lake, and the band of light in the upper area is the sky. The image is canted slightly in relation to the horizon, which is a relatively thin dark band comprised of the far shore of the lake and some trees.
Here's kind of a cool example of an unexpected DOF effect:
This is a tree trunk wrapped in wire mesh (there are beavers in this park as well as a lot of rabbits and they do this to trees they don't want chewed on.) Notice that since the object is cylindrical there's sort of a diagonal line of focused area. Part of the time the bark is in focus, part of the time the mesh is in focus, and part of the time nothing is in focus depending on where you are in the image. What controls the focal sharpness is absolute distance from the camera: since the object is has a pronounced relative dimension (I was really close to the tree) the areas in focus vary horizontally and vertically.
Summary: don't get nuts, unless you need to get nuts. Back it off a notch and see how it looks.
M More after the jump - click here!
The first time you get hold of a fast (i.e. can open up to a very large aperture/very small f-stop) lens and a camera that can do good depth-of-field control, it's like "Wheee!"
However...
You can get carried away. Case in point: I took my camera with a 50mm f1.4 lens on it to the lake yesterday. My plan was to take pictures of seed pods and so forth with a shallow DOF and make all artsy pictures.
I switched to Av mode and opened the lens up all the way, despite the fact that the voices were telling me, "Don't get so nuts with the aperture, doofus."
Well, they were right.
Now that's some pretty shallow DOF - that dark blur in the upper right is a relatively large island in a lake which is only about fifty feet behind this feathery seed pod. Got that part right. However, the DOF is so shallow that a significant portion of the front of the pod is also out of focus. That's not so good. My plane of focus slices right through the middle of the pod, which is exactly what I wanted, but it's overdone. I might have been better off focusing on the front of it, if I had really wanted this shallow a DOF. However, what I really should have done is stopped down another two-thirds or so, say to f2.0, so that while the plane of focus would still have been right in the center, the foreground part of the pod would have not been so blurry. IMO, the picture would look a lot better that way.
In case you were wondering, while it was cloudy, there was tons of light (I love the gorgeous backlighting from the reflection of light off the lake - no polarizer on this shot) and this image was exposed at 1/3200s. It was a little windy, but none of that is motion blur, either from subject motion or camera shake. It would take a hurricane to move a plant enough to get motion blur at 1/3200s! The band of light in the upper-center is the lake, and the band of light in the upper area is the sky. The image is canted slightly in relation to the horizon, which is a relatively thin dark band comprised of the far shore of the lake and some trees.
Here's kind of a cool example of an unexpected DOF effect:
This is a tree trunk wrapped in wire mesh (there are beavers in this park as well as a lot of rabbits and they do this to trees they don't want chewed on.) Notice that since the object is cylindrical there's sort of a diagonal line of focused area. Part of the time the bark is in focus, part of the time the mesh is in focus, and part of the time nothing is in focus depending on where you are in the image. What controls the focal sharpness is absolute distance from the camera: since the object is has a pronounced relative dimension (I was really close to the tree) the areas in focus vary horizontally and vertically.
Summary: don't get nuts, unless you need to get nuts. Back it off a notch and see how it looks.
M More after the jump - click here!
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Why I Hope I'm Wrong.
Wrong about the subconscious racist sentiments of a lot of people, that is. This is why:
I see the following scenario as completely feasible although I assign it a low probability of occurance:
1) Pre-election Obama poll numbers swollen by voters refusing to admit subconscious racist sentiments;
2) Enough voters vote against the way they claim to be planning to vote to throw battleground states to McCain;
3) Obama wins popular vote but McCain wins Electoral College;
4) Claims of "stolen election" cause widespread conspiracy allegations;
5) Mass hysteria causes civil disorder, widespread lack of faith in Federal Government;
6) Subconscious racist feelings of voters in #2 "proven" by civil disorder, etc;
7) Markets collapse under weight of uncertainty, US economy stops working, millions jobless and widespread shortages caused by disorder and disruption of transport systems;
8) Authorities come under pressure from Bush/nascent McCain administration to repress disorder;
9) Civil War II erupts.
Now THAT'S a cynical projection. Like I said, I hope I'm wrong.
Incidentally, Scott Adams also predicts some sort of zombie problem.
M More after the jump - click here!
I see the following scenario as completely feasible although I assign it a low probability of occurance:
1) Pre-election Obama poll numbers swollen by voters refusing to admit subconscious racist sentiments;
2) Enough voters vote against the way they claim to be planning to vote to throw battleground states to McCain;
3) Obama wins popular vote but McCain wins Electoral College;
4) Claims of "stolen election" cause widespread conspiracy allegations;
5) Mass hysteria causes civil disorder, widespread lack of faith in Federal Government;
6) Subconscious racist feelings of voters in #2 "proven" by civil disorder, etc;
7) Markets collapse under weight of uncertainty, US economy stops working, millions jobless and widespread shortages caused by disorder and disruption of transport systems;
8) Authorities come under pressure from Bush/nascent McCain administration to repress disorder;
9) Civil War II erupts.
Now THAT'S a cynical projection. Like I said, I hope I'm wrong.
Incidentally, Scott Adams also predicts some sort of zombie problem.
M More after the jump - click here!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Still Here, Just Quiet.
Haven't done a lot of photography lately, just haven't had the spirit. Ironically, PhotoShelter's been gone almost two weeks now and I got an email from somebody wanting to license two of my pictures that not only did she first see on PhotoShelter, but that I took at Shoot the Day. Ah, life. They're for a textbook which is a biography of a poet, can't say who, which is kinda hard to assign a value to. I took my best shot, we'll see if her editor approves the license fee. In other news...
I did sort out the first pass on the images I want to submit to the B&W photo contest, which was a big step. Now I have to bring it down to eight to twelve images, and then fine-tune them.
In other other news, we replaced our living-room couch with a treadmill, which also seems very ironic in the proper context. We pulled the couch out and I took it to Goodwill, then we brought the treadmill (which I brought home in my truck last week) in and set it up. Good. Lord. That sucker was heavy. In the box, it was probably close to 250# and unwieldy as Hell. It's all set up now, though. Fortunately I have a furniture dolly. Well, actually it's a mechanic's rollaway (those things mechanics lie on to roll under cars) but it was purposefully built to be heavy enough to hold machinery and furniture. It's pretty nifty, really.
Who knew treadmills were so fancy now? This one has both an iPod dock (with speakers, it also charges the iPod) and a flash memory slot for something called "iFit workout cards," which you can buy in various configurations with custom progressive workouts on them. These include audio narration by a human trainer! I think I'll mostly just walk. On the other hand, it has a little fan, which is genius. Exercise is much more livable with a little air moving over you.
This is the one we got:
Nordic Track C2155
It was on closeout, it's been replaced by some slightly fancier doodad. It was 40% off, which was nice too. It's not as good for running as for walking, but my wife has iffy knees and I run only when chased, so walking will be fine.
M More after the jump - click here!
I did sort out the first pass on the images I want to submit to the B&W photo contest, which was a big step. Now I have to bring it down to eight to twelve images, and then fine-tune them.
In other other news, we replaced our living-room couch with a treadmill, which also seems very ironic in the proper context. We pulled the couch out and I took it to Goodwill, then we brought the treadmill (which I brought home in my truck last week) in and set it up. Good. Lord. That sucker was heavy. In the box, it was probably close to 250# and unwieldy as Hell. It's all set up now, though. Fortunately I have a furniture dolly. Well, actually it's a mechanic's rollaway (those things mechanics lie on to roll under cars) but it was purposefully built to be heavy enough to hold machinery and furniture. It's pretty nifty, really.
Who knew treadmills were so fancy now? This one has both an iPod dock (with speakers, it also charges the iPod) and a flash memory slot for something called "iFit workout cards," which you can buy in various configurations with custom progressive workouts on them. These include audio narration by a human trainer! I think I'll mostly just walk. On the other hand, it has a little fan, which is genius. Exercise is much more livable with a little air moving over you.
This is the one we got:
Nordic Track C2155
It was on closeout, it's been replaced by some slightly fancier doodad. It was 40% off, which was nice too. It's not as good for running as for walking, but my wife has iffy knees and I run only when chased, so walking will be fine.
M More after the jump - click here!
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