Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Color

I ordered Designer's Color Manual by Tom Fraser book back in February. It is a great read. I was interested in learning more about color and color manipulation with software, but it covers everything about color. I was totally fascinated by all the different color wheels that have been invented over time and why it so difficult to understand color. It is a real eye opener to understand how different print technologies print color too.

The most usefully thing that I learned was how hard it is to think in color as RGB, the way most computers do. If 0, 255, 0 is green, isn't 0, 128, 0 half way between light green and dark green? Hue, saturation and lightness (HSL) is much easier to understand and work with for me. It makes sense and I can pick colors that go together much more easily, then convert to RGB.

I'm sure I'll be going back to this book time and time again to learn more.

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The Human Balance

I can't concentrate. Can you?: "What ever happened to being able to chew on a problem, anyway? You know, concentrate, think, wonder, and sketch a bit...

As much of the internet feeds our need for quick and concise information and interactions, human nature seems to desire some kind of balance. Oddly enough many people feel they have to get away from the internet to achieve this balance. But do they get away from internet to get away from the computer? (This isn't necessarily a bad thing.) Maybe there aren't many slower and verbose diversions on the web. Slower and verbose isn't the exact opposite of quick and concise information. It just seems that finding the balance is hard to do.

I know that I can kill a lot of time on the internet while concentrating and chewing on some new ideas for learning. What makes the difference than a quick Google search to find the answer to an Oracle problem or scanning the library industry blogs for trends? I have to focus and ignore the distractions. Don't look at the things outside of my browser window and ignore links to other enticing sites and ads.

Those things are easier said than done on the internet, while reading a book in a quiet place doesn't give much choice. I think this is why flickr can be relaxing for me--find a tag search or artist that interests me at the moment and then sit back and watch the slide show. This interface really lets my brain shift gears. If I wouldn't multi-task during a podcast they seem to have the same passive flavor. Long link-free and formatting free text gives me the same feeling. I may be actively reading, but the path is layed out before me.

So the human balance may be between active internet scanning and a more passive experience of letting the world come to you. Life itself seems to have opportunity for active and passive experiences. Does the web offer a balance? Maybe it needs more things are more passive experiences.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

RAW, JPEG and TIFF

Here's a great over view of the raw photo format --

RAW, JPEG and TIFF: "The digital sensor in the majority of digital cameras is what is known as a BAYER PATTERN sensor. This relates to the arrangement of red, green and blue sensitive areas. A typical sensor looks like this:"

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Bibble Labs - Professional Photo-Manipulation Software

Bibble Labs - Professional Photo-Manipulation Software - This application is great for raw images. The interface and docking of tools is not so good, but the effect of the tools is very good. It is very easy to to get the exact picture that I wanted when I shot the picture. It quickly applies the changes so you can see them. Then it saves the changes as a file that links to the picture, so I can come back and do more editing later. You can adjust one picture and then copy the adjustments to the rest of them in a series. This makes the processing go very quickly. Then you can output them to tif, jpg or png in the size that you want.

I've also found it to be useful with jpg images. I can correct images from the camera with photographic style controls. It is very quick and easy to increase exposure by 1/2 a stop on a couple of underexposed photos or add some fill light. I can do this Paint Shop Pro, but it doesn't use the photo idiom of exposure stops. I know that I can go more than a stop before I have other problems with the picture, so I found it much more intuitive than the arbitrary seeming numbers of some other tools.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Family Photographic History

The concept of taking regular pictures of something or someone intrigues me. I like the this family's once-a-year presentation.
Time: "On June 17th, every year, the family goes through a private ritual: we photograph ourselves to stop a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing by. "

It's nice because it doesn't create too many pictures. The five of them and once a year gives you a great impression of the passage of time.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Black and White Trees

_MG_0717
_MG_0717
Originally uploaded by ejwettstein.

I'm really enjoying using my new camera. I shot this in raw and processed it to black and white.

Icy Trees at Dawn

_MG_0722
_MG_0722
Originally uploaded by ejwettstein.

I love looking at ice on the trees after a snow storm. It really is a challenge to get an interesting picture of it.

Since this was right outside my house, the real trick was trying to keep the houses out of the shots.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Minimum Shutter Speed for Hand Held Exposures

This is a useful tip.
Reply to Minimum Shutter Speed for Hand Held Exposures: "VincenzoF posted a reply:

This should help:



The rule for stable image quality is: use a shutter speed faster than the focal length of the lens. On zoom lenses, set the speed for the maximum focal length (200mm for an 80~200mm zoom, 35mm for a 17~35mm zoom). For simplicity, I’ll give whole-stop examples. Third stops could be an obvious choice for those using professional cameras with digital fractional settings. Use the rule above to find the correct third stop for the lens focal length.

35mm = 1/60
100mm = 1/125
200mm = 1/250
300mm = 1/500
600mm = 1/1000

Source"

Homemade digital cameras

This guy is doing some real cool things with scanner parts and large format cameras. The effect of the scanner and motion in the pictures is very interesting. It also just a very interesting idea pushing the art of photography forward.

These are very interesting times for the art of photography. Giants are falling (Konica Minolta withdraw from camera business: Digital Photography Review) and new digital ideas keep happening.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Digital Rebel - Digital Field Guide

I received my copy of the Digital Rebel Field Guide earlier this week. It is a good complement to my new camera. The first few chapters cover the same ground as the manual from Canon, but the author does a better job of relating to actual photographic use. (There are a few places in the manual where it seems the tech-writer didn't get the functionality.)

Later sections in the book cover photographic basics such as lighting and shooting very specific types of scenes. The author mixes in sources of additional online information which is great for digging deeper into some of the topics.

If you're new to digital SLR photography, this book will help you to get the most out of your Digital Rebel. It's been years since I've spent much time with an SLR so I have found it to be a useful refresher that focuses on the great features in my camera.

The Digital Rebel XT is covered in side bars and other notes. This can make following some steps difficult. It is okay with me, because the XT usually has more options that are easier to access. The step-by-step instructions aren't my main interest.



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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Making idea connections through blogs

I read a variety of blogs and other news sources everyday. There are a lot of ideas that come up everyday, but it is the connections that come up between things that start to shape my thinking.

Reading Leadership in Libraries? and Sum Yung Librarian made me think hard about the business of libraries. I believe libraries should be run like business. To me that means evaluating the effectiveness of reaching the organizations goals. Profit focused business have balance sheets and income statements as a common way to measure their effectiveness. Library measurement is harder.

What should a library measure? I like where technology can take the library of the future, but it isn't right for every library. Sum Yung is right that having a cool library system doesn't mean much to someone looking for GED study guides.

The services that are provided need to support the individual library's mission and meet the need of its customers. While libraries are strong cooperators with other libraries, they have their own goals and customers to serve. Each library will know best.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Taking pictures in public



It can be hard to take pictures in public places. I tend to be self-concsious about it. There are a number of reasons, but one of them is possibility of getting into trouble. There's a lot of myth around photographing the "Bean" scuplture in Chicago. There are other stories about tough talking security guards. Here's an article that tells you your rights.

USATODAY.com - New digital camera? Know how, where you can use it

Everytime I walk into my local grocery store, I wonder about the little sticker they have on the door that forbids photos or any kind of recording in the store without permission. What is the store worried about? News exposés? Lawsuits of some kind? What?

Mabye I should check out some of the books from Amazon.

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Sunday, January 08, 2006

Winter Sky Black and White

Winter Sky (IMG_0587bw)
Winter Sky (IMG_0587bw)
Originally uploaded by ejwettstein.

There was some blue sky in the Chicago winter today. I went out and took a number of pictures from my front yard. I was trying to establish a contrast between the blue sky, gray clouds and leafless trees. This one is processed to black and white, which is the one that I like best. You can see others at flickr.



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Bookmark at del.icio.us for photoblog-posts

Friday, January 06, 2006

Make Sure You're Not Building A Carboat

As a software developer, I cringe when the requirements suggest that an application or a new feature has to be all things to everyone. It generally makes the software so hard to develop, that by the time all the bugs are fixed no one cares. Even when it does work, the user is so confused by all of the options that they don't use it. I think it is best to do a few things well, instead of everything mediocre.


Make Sure You're Not Building A Carboat: " While discussing a product at work today, Caterina said something that really stuck with me. For whatever reason, I like her analogies. They work for me.

This reminds me of a TV commercial from a few years back. Some teenagers designed a car. The commercial starts with an interior slumber party scene, before cutting to the outside to show the monstrosity of the car. I never remember what the commercial is about, because I always think about how a lot of software has been designed.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

The Fireplace Mantle

The fireplace mantle at Christmas. It is not a great picture, but I like looking at the composition. What do you think?

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It's all about the middle: M & M & M

The following is from Signal vs. Noise. It is so true that it is all about the human spirit, not just in software development though!

It's all about the middle: M & M & M: "In most things it’s how you start and how you finish that seem to matter most. What I’ve come to realize is that in software development it’s all about the middle.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

MAKE: Blog: HOW TO - Make a Digital Pinhole Lens

Many years ago I tried making a pinhole lens for my 35mm camera. It didn't work so well. I'm going to try this MAKE: Blog: HOW TO - Make a Digital Pinhole Lens.

Dawn 0395

Dawn 0395
Dawn 0395
Originally uploaded by ejwettstein.

I'm a big fan of the flickr community. It is a great place to share photos and get feedback from fellow photo enthusiast.

This is a sunrise photo from the beach in Nags Head, North Carolina. It was great fun to walk a couple hundred yards to the beach in pitch dark before dawn. The mosquitos were biting my ankles. The result is a photo like this.

Which is better, the quit time I had on the beach taking photos or the end result which takes me back to the beach every time that I look at it?



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