US National Archives Joins Flickr Commons

Posted on February 2, 2010
Filed Under Rants | 2 Comments

In case you have not heard, the US National Archives has dumped the mother load of photographic treasures on Flickr. Check out the photo stream if you have a few hours to get lost while exploring. You’ll find candids of presidents, work by Ansel Adams and more.

This is great, because these free treasures will rapidly become more available and accessible to anyone who wants to use them.

I have a feeling someone will Photoshop a pizza delivery guy in this one really soon, or perhaps some aliens if Elvis wasn’t convincing enough.

Yes, people were actually taking great pictures long before info buttons and histograms were invented. Go pick up a Minolta SR series, some 100 speed film and a 35MM lens,then have some real fun :) Total you’ll spend: About $150.

But I Just HAD A Vacation!

Posted on January 21, 2010
Filed Under Humor, Travels | Leave a Comment

For the second time in a week, I forgot where I put something and then forgot what I was looking for, while looking for whatever it was that I lost. I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.

Somehow, I suspect that this infinitely recursive need to recover from one’s own vacation plagues most 30 something year old parents. If someone writes a manual for life, make sure to put that in there.

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An Interesting Copyright Question

Posted on January 21, 2010
Filed Under For Photographers, Humor | Leave a Comment

I found these shots from someone who buys unexposed rolls and plates and then attempts to process them. I found those after following up on another awesome find. An interesting question entered my mind while I was viewing the photos:

Some of the best stuff (I think) I have ever done lives on unprocessed rolls of TMAX from 20 years ago.  If someone found and processed them, who owns the copyright therein of anything worth arguing or laughing over? Read more

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Raw Therapee Becomes Free Software

Posted on January 20, 2010
Filed Under Free Software, Rants | Leave a Comment

In case you have not heard (this was covered on Slashdot and I’m sure the rest), Raw Therapee is now available under the terms of the GNU General Public License (Version 3 or later). Other than wishing it was GPL V2 or later, I’m really excited about this.

Even though I have the option, I usually don’t shoot in RAW for two reasons:

  1. Ubuntu is my primary OS (after all, I love taking pictures, but programming pays the bills), RAW conversion is a pain there.
  2. The only Windows PC I have is my netbook, hardly suitable for selecting, much less correcting or converting.
  3. I know I said two reasons, oh well. I don’t edit most of my stuff, if its THAT bad, I learn what I can from it and try to shoot it again. Having RAW output accessible might discourage what has proven to be a really good habit. I treat DSLRs like film cameras, mostly, beyond the few minor corrections (or perhaps de-saturation) that I use.

Some really good things are going to come out of this. The original author will be able to spend his time doing what he really likes doing, working on the algorithms that make converting and correcting easier, while people who enjoy UI design can work on making the program friendlier and more intuitive. Since a large number of programmers are also amateur (or better) photographers, I have a feeling forks of this are going to start flying around like lightning.  Maybe we’ll see a reduction in the HDR toilet bowl shots since these folks will have something more interesting to do :) Read more

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Ligesh.com archive available

Posted on January 17, 2010
Filed Under Archives | Leave a Comment

Shortly after hearing that K.T. Ligesh hanged himself, I pulled a mirror copy of his blog anticipating his domain expiring with no one around to renew it and it has. You can find the archive here, from 2007 up until his last post. For those of you who don’t know him, he was the author of many programs used in the web hosting industry. Some of them have become open source since his passing.

Some of you may ask why I preserved this. Mostly, I found his writing to be intelligent, provocative and interesting. He was a man with a grudge against god and a love / hate attitude toward women while in possession of something that passed as a seemingly rational mind. Why should I not archive his writing? I don’t endorse his protracted sojourns into what usually resembles resentment, I simply find them interesting. What causes such a brilliant person to do what he did? Maybe the answer is in there, maybe not. All I did was preserve it.

Note that the search form is not going to work,  I’ll replace it soon with something that will. Obviously any comment form will enjoy the same handicap. I have not altered any page or any text, its just as it was the day after he died. Here is an excerpt of one post, coming from someone obviously a little socially inept, but seemingly quite sane (what programmer does that NOT describe?): Read more

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Bracketing Does NOT Mean HDR!

Posted on January 16, 2010
Filed Under Rants | 1 Comment

If I see one more photograph of a dirty toilet basin processed via Photomatix with a caption like “Toilet, Bracketed”, I’m going to pop a blood vessel.

Bracketing is a safe guard when using something like the zone system (or your own adaptation of the zone system) with film and some digital cameras to ensure that you need not revisit the spot where your picture was taken. Its used when you take your best guess, from experience, to guess the camera settings needed to bring out not just all detail, but an emphasis on the best detail of a photograph. Film photographers are willing to waste up to nine exposures to make sure they got what they want, good digital photographers don’t trust their LCD and keep going until the histogram says they got the shot that they want – then they take some more.

First, you take the picture the way you think it should be taken.. then 1/3 stop (or 2/3, or a full stop) lower, then back to the original exposure, then the opposite on the higher end. This ensures that one of the three to nine exposures you take home is going to be the shot that you had in your mind when you took the trouble to set up your camera and actually tickle the shutter.

People that do landscapes for a living will also wash, rinse and repeat this technique while doing the same thing with their aperture setting.

Read more

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The Anthrolight

Posted on January 7, 2010
Filed Under For Photographers | 1 Comment

Meet the Anthrolight, which is just a SB-600 mounted on its plastic shoe and attached to a flexible tripod. If you have been putting off getting one of these tripods, I would suggest breaking down a buying one now. They are great. You can wrap them around tree branches, fences, sign posts, body parts or just about anything else you can think of.

This one is an off brand, but identical to the Gorilla’s I’ve seen other people using. It holds a lot more weight than I imagined, it has no problems with a D-90 (or D-40 with attached battery pack grip), 200 MM lens and on camera strobe as long as you spread the legs out evenly.

I’ve seen them come with cheapy/plastic ball head mounts, avoid that one. It usually results in all of the weight going on one leg, which in turn causes it to collapse the minute you walk away. Read more

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Nikon D40 – Still The Best Value For The Money

Posted on December 31, 2009
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I’ve shot a lot of cameras. From 70’s era Minolta SR series, Kodak “Instamatics”, Brownies, cheap and expensive point and shoot digitals and both ends of the spectrum that Nikon offers. Until I can afford a D-300S or Nikon makes something that I actually want in a mid range price, I’m sticking with the D-40.

Rather than bore you with what I like about the D-40, here’s what I don’t like about it: Read more

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