Sleeping beauty 2

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: 24-105mm f/4L
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/200 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 40mm
Flash Used: Yes

Sleeping beauty

This makes me want to curl up and spoon the puppy!


Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: Canon 24-105mm f/4L
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/4 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 85mm
Flash Used: No

Finster's nose

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: 24-105mm f/4L
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/200 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 105mm
Flash Used: Yes

Old man hands

This is my rendition of the picture with great light of a closeup of an old man's hands where you can see each crack and crevice.


Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: 24-105mm f/4L
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/40 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 105mm
Flash Used: No

Finster's eyeball

I love how sharp his eye is in this shot. My new lens is so sharp! You can actually see outside through the reflection in his eye.


Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: Canon 24-105mm f/4L
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/200 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 67mm
Flash Used: Yes

Bunnell Park Le Roy, NY

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

Lens: Canon 70-200mm f/4L
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/500 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 109mm
Flash Used: No

Bunnell Park Le Roy, NY

MMM Bokeh!

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

Lens: Canon 24-105mm f/4L
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/400 sec
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 105mm

Picasa 3 Viewer vs. Windows Picture Viewer

Here is a comparison of the same photo viewed in Picasa Photo viewer and Windows Picture viewer. I'm not sure why the picture is so red on the Windows viewer.

Bunnell Park Le Roy, NY

I really love the bokeh on this one!

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: Canon 70-200mm f/4L
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/1250 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 188mm
Flash Used: No

Railroad tracks LeRoy, NY

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

Lens: Canon 24-105mm f/4L
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/500 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 67mm
Flash Used: No

Finster on railroad tracks in LeRoy, NY

I'm not sure why I like this shot, Finster's blurry and goes off the frame, and the sky is blown out, but for some reason it stood out when I was going though my shots.

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

Lens: Canon 24-105mm f/4L

ISO: 100

Exposure: 1/250 sec

Aperture: f/4.0

Focal Length: 24mm

Railroad tracks LeRoy, NY

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

Lens: 24-105mm f/4L

ISO: 100

Exposure: 1/250 sec

Aperture: f/4.0

Focal Length: 24mm

Flash Used: No

Railroad tracks LeRoy, NY

I've been walking these tracks at night for the past few months. This is the first chance I had to do it during the day. 


Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: 24-105mm f/4L

ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/40 sec
Aperture: f/9.0
Focal Length: 75mm
Flash Used: No

Finster on railroad tracks in LeRoy, NY

You can see the fear in his eyes as he crosses a bridge on the railroad tracks and notices the drop whopping 10 foot drop through the cracks; I almost went back and carried him over :)

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: 70-200mm f/4L
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/640 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 200mm
Flash Used: No

Handmade pole horse toy at Present Tense Batavia, NY

I like the textures and shallow depth of field. When shooting animals the eye is the most important subject :)

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: 70-200mm f/4L
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/200 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 200mm
Flash Used: Yes

Finster again

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: 70-200mm f/4L
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/200 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 145mm
Flash Used: Yes

Railroad tracks LeRoy, NY

I shot this from the railroad tracks so-as not to trespass. 


Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
ISO: 100
Lens: 10-22mm

Exposure: 1/30 sec
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 22mm
Flash Used: No

Finster with Flash

I'm pretty excited about my new flash as I can now take some indoor pictures (mainly of Finster) without a tripod :) I was iffy about this one as his left eye goes off the frame but I liked the close framing, and the expression of his eye better than the next one.

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

ISO: 100

Lens: 70-200mm f/4L

Exposure: 1/125 sec

Aperture: f/4.0

Focal Length: 126mm

Flash Used: Yes

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: 70-200mm f/4L
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/200 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 94mm
Flash Used: Yes

Peeling bark at Bunnell Park Trail LeRoy, NY

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: Canon 70-200mm f/4L
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/320 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 70mm
Flash Used: No

Railroad tracks LeRoy, NY

I like the way the Posted sign is hidden in the brush. I shot this during my Saturday "epic" walk with Finster.

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens: Canon 70-200mm f/4L
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/250 sec
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 70mm
Flash Used: No

Gravel Pit LeRoy, NY

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/50 sec
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 22mm
Flash Used: No

Gravel Pit LeRoy, NY

I shot this from the railroad tracks so-as not to trespass.

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/1000 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 126mm
Flash Used: No

Gravel Pit LeRoy, NY

I shot this from the railroad tracks so-as not to trespass.
Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/800 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 200mm
Flash Used: No

Gravel Pit LeRoy, NY

I shot this from the railroad tracks so-as not to trespass.
RebelXT | 70-200mm f/4L @ 70mm | f/4 | 1/320s | ISO100

Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS lens tests

Woot, my 24-105mm f/4L IS lens came in the mail today (I got it used on ebay). Therefore I went straight home and ran some fun tests. In summary, I love it, and can definitely see the IS results!

In this first picture you can see the difference by hovering over the image (the picture showing without hovering is with IS turned on).

EXIF Data:

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/25 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 105mm
Flash Used: No




In the rest of these tests I used the poor man's IS also. So I shot 2 shots with burst, one with IS turned on, and one with IS turned off.

Here is the EXIF data for the next two shots:

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/6 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 45mm
Flash Used: No

First set of burst, the one showing without hovering has IS turned on


Second set of burst, one with IS on, one with IS off.



Then this is a bit further zoomed. This one is the 2nd set in burst mode one with IS and one without. Here are is the EXIF data:

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/4 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 105mm
Flash Used: No




With a focal length of 105mm, which with the RebelXT is effectively 168mm I should be able to handhold only to around 1/160s. Here I was handholding with decent results at 1/4s! Needless to say, I'm very happy with that! In this last set you can see how effective the poor man's IS really is. That shot is relatively sharp without IS turned on at 1/4s!

Gravel Pit LeRoy, NY

I shot this from the railroad tracks so-as not to trespass.
RebelXT | 70-200mm f/4L @ 70mm | f/4 | 1/160s

Finster at LeRoy High School trail

RebelXT | 70-200mm f/4L @ 113mm | ISO400 | 1/250S | f/4

Tree leaves at LeRoy High School Trail

RebelXT | 70-200mm f/4L @ 200mm | ISO400 | f/4 | 1/500s

Finster at LeRoy High School trail

Taken at the LeRoy High School trail (not sure what it's called). This is my favorite place to walk Finster during hunting season. There are no hunters, it has water, and very few people.

RebelXT | 70-200mm f/4L @ 154mm | 1/250 | ISO200 | Slight post-processing in Picasa

Genesee County Park in Bethany, NY

I rather enjoy this style of shot, especially with my 10-22mm

RebelXT | 10-22mm @ 10mm | f/8 | 1/13s | ISO100 | Little post processing

Shot from a portrait session

Here is one of my favorite shots from a portrait/candid photo session I did for a new client. The flash bounced perfectly to the opposite side of his face, and the eyes are nice and sharp!

RebelXT | 24-70mm f/2.8L | 24mm | f/2.8 | 1/125s | Speedlight 430EXII flash fired

GCC Photography Show

Here are the shots that I hung for the GCC art show. These shots are now hanging at Present Tense in Batavia, NY

Trail 1 (Middle Falls) Letchworth State Park, NY

This is actually a manual merge of two shots. A darker shot was used for the sky. Also, a bit of burning was done on the stairs. Also, the usual sharpening and warming. Hover over the photo to see the original base shot.

RebelXT with 10-22mm @ 16mm|.6s|f/22|ISO100|Tripod

Fungus on White Birch on Trail 7 at Letchworth State Park, NY

RebelXT with 10-22mm @ 10mm|1/30s|f/4|ISO200

Another morning frost

Chilling morning in front of my house after taking Finster for a walk.

RebelXT with 10-22mm @ 10mm|1/25s|f/4.5|ISO100|Desaturated in Picasa

Morning frost

In front of my house on a rather chilly morning after walking Finster.

RebelXT with 10-22mm @ 10mm|1/20s|f/5|ISO100

Deep thoughts on war

I'm currently reading an advanced readers copy of The Weight of a Mustard Seed an Iraqi General's Moral Journey During the Time of Saddam. I am nearing the end of the book and I just finished one chapter that has very effectively summed up some thoughts that I've had lately. The chapter describes a scientific study done at Yale University where people were told that they were testing shock therapy and that when the other participant got a question wrong they were to shock them. With every question wrong they were to increase the intensity of the shock from 15V, "slight shock", to 375V "danger: severe shock", and then finally 450V labeled "X X X". In the study the participant getting "shocked" was the control (he was in on it and actually just acting, he wasn't getting shocked). So the study was really testing the "shockers" to see how far they would go. This study was administered all over the world to many different types of people living in varying cultures.

Across the board over 60% of the participants "continued to administer increasing amounts of clearly painful electric shocks, even as the subject appeared to lapse into unconsciousness, until the end of the switches and 450V had been delivered [many times]". They concluded that "obedience to authority was a learned cognitive behavior that ran through almost every society." And that "most people do what they are told for no other reason than they were told to do it". One of the characters in the book goes on to say "I am beginning to see that perhaps Iraqis are not crazy Arabs after all... they might be just ordinary human beings!" And then, "... human nature is the same, people are not good because they are taught in school to be good, there is a cultural impart over generations to make people comply, certain things are not acceptable, these norms are sanctioned under authority... Iraqis are repressed and exposed to violence..."

I think that the majority of who we label "terrorists" that are fighting against us in Iraq are probably not evil, but are just following their authority figures, just like over 60% of the participants did in the study. How we label everyone who fights against us as "evil" is just too easy; too black and white. They are scared, don't know who to trust, and are likely just trying to protect their families, religion, and way of life. All they have to go on is the propaganda that their authority figures are feeding them. I'm not proposing that we are evil for fighting them, I think we are the same; our troops are the same 60% who fight because authority tells them to.

Recycling CFLs

I heard about this a while ago but forgot about Home Depot's initiative to recycle compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). This is really important as CFLs contain small amounts of mercury which is extremely poisonous. It is actually "illegal" to throw these bulbs in the regular trash. During my recent visit to the Batavia Home Depot I saw one of these CFL recycling boxes. They are located right in front of the returns counter as you enter the store. This is very responsible of Home Depot and we should really take advantage of their efforts! Here is more information from the Home Depot site.

http://www6.homedepot.com/ecooptions/index.html?MAINSECTION=cflrecycling

And here is more information about CFLs and why recycling them is important:

http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/wastetypes/universal/lamps/index.htm

10 minutes of my life wasted with cvs

Today I wanted to see what files I committed to cvs in the last week. Thinking this would be an easy/common task I hit the internet/man pages. I found that I needed the -d flag and some date formatting like

<d, d>,
Select all revisions dated d or earlier.
d<, >d,

Select all revisions dated d or later.

Not really understanding what either of those meant I started with trial/error to guess whether it was MM/DD/YYYY or MM-DD-YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD, etc. None of which worked so I hit up the internet. I still couldn't find any examples so I employed 2 other co-workers on the task. After about 10 minutes of the 3 of us trying different things out we came up with:

cvs log -d "2008/10/20<2008/10/28" -S Note: you need the quotes, and the -S. Apparently, the -S suppresses the output so it only prints out the date ranges I want. If anyone wants to explain how I get "2008/10/20<2008/10/28" from either or d<, >d please feel free!

Star Wars Titles

Shot in the morning while taking Finster for a walk.
RebelXT 10-22mm @ 10mm - 1/40s - f/8.0

Signage

RebelXT 10-22mm @ 10mm, f/10.0 1/60

Batavia editors!

I took Finster for another walk down Batavia Main St. and I noticed that the "comming" sign was missing :) The fail has ended!

Batavia Fails

I saw this while walking my dog down Main Street Batavia. I call this an educational fail!

Another cool Photoshop trick

Credit again goes to Maciej for bringing this one to my attention. Here are the three steps that I tried and Maciej recommended:

1. Ctrl+J
2. filter> other> high pass 1.7 pixels
3. Change blend mode to "hard light"

It looks like it gives a nicer high contrast picture without using the contrast tool.

Normal - without these steps:

With High Pass filter:

Further Power Saving Studies (Monitor)

Continuing my previous power study I tested out my two work monitors today to see what differences are between power saving mode, active, black, etc. for both LCD and CRT monitors. Both are 20" monitors so they are a fairly good comparison.

Monitor Type	Action	Wattage
CRT	Regular Background - ON	103W
LCD	Regular Background - ON	43W
CRT	Black Background - ON	79W
LCD	Black Background - ON	41W
CRT	Off	0W
LCD	Off	0W
CRT	Power Saving Mode	0W
LCD	Power Saving Mode	.6W
CRT	Using Blackle - Black Google	82W
LCD	Using Blackle - Black Google	40.9W
CRT	Using Regular Google	104W
LCD	Using Regular Google	43.4W

Clearly LCDs are much more energy efficient, and Blackle actually makes a little difference. I guess I shouldn't leave my CRT (2nd monitor) on all day with just my email client in it.

Another Picasa3 oddity

Pulling up the same jpeg file in three different application should render the same image on screen I would expect. But after testing I realize that this is just not the case unfortunately. And it looks like Picasa3 does something funky to the saturation for some reason.

A case of over saturation

My good friend Maciej pointed out some weird artifacts on a previous post so I took a look into what is going on. The first shot here was (over) saturated in Picasa3 and posted in a previous post. I tried processing the RAW file in PS-CS2 to see if I got the same results. The CS2 version came out much better. This is to be expected as I saturated the RAW file in the CS2 version, but saturated the JPEG in the Picasa3 version.

Power saving modes WinXP

I'm borrowing the Watts Up? PRO from a friend at work so I figured I'd test out all the various options that WinXP gives for saving power. I have a WinXP Pro box with 3 internal hard drives, a DVD-ROM drive and a decent video card. Here are my results:

Computer off: 3.7W
Computer booting: 120-160W
At the login screen idle: 115W
Logged in to an account idle: 115-160W
Turn off Hard Drives (XP Power saving mode): 107W
Standby mode: 66W
Hibernate mode: 3.7W

The turn off hard drives mode really didn't save as much power as I would have expected.

Depressed Sunflower

RebelXT 10-22mm @ 22mm f/4.5 @ 1/50s

Depressed sunflower

RebelXT 10-22mm @ 22mm f5.6 1/30s