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Orcmid's Live HideOutI don't really need a place like this, but it is apparently inescapable as Windows Live struggles to innoculate us with Live virus. I think of this as a science project. |
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September 27 Suono: Playing with HDR PhotographyTechnorati Tags: orcmid, Nikon D80, HDR, High Dynamic Range, photography, Stuck in Customs, suono, Trey Ratcliff, Dougerino [cross-posted from Orcmid’s Lair: I have found superior ways to use Windows Live Writer, now in version 14 beta, together with my own web sites and Flickr, for posting images of all kinds. Because that also allows me to have backups on my own computer and backups for any need to recover or move a site, I will be winding down my use of Orcmid’s Live Hideout. This cross-post is my offering and invitation to explore my other blogs.] I envy Dougerino’s proficiency with High Dynamic Range (HDR) photographs. On a photo-walk with him at the Seattle Aquarium on Saturday, 2008-09-20, I figured this was my best chance to get some tips and try the technique myself. I also figured that the garish lighting and colors in aquarium displays would grant me license to mess up color saturation and other aspects of HDR that would be unreal for many other subjects. I’m using the subject to cover up my inexperience with the technique.
My first non-trial effort is the photograph of sea anemones in captivity, above. The HDR image is produced from three separate digital exposures using my Nikon D80. It took a while to learn how to set the D80 to automatically take three successive pictures at –2ev (2 full stops under), +0ev (normal metered exposure), and +2ev (two stops over), but I finally got it working. The downside of this arrangement is that it takes a while for the camera to grab the three separate shots, I can’t see what is happening (the SLR mirror being raised) while the images are being taken, and the +2ev exposure is noticeably slow under low light conditions. Keeping the camera stable is important. I was hand-holding my camera, with my back against a wall. That, combined with using a Vibration Reduction (VR) lens had the images be more stable than I deserved. While I and the camera were still enough, the anemones were not motionless as sea water circulated in the tank. Look closely at the full-size Flickr version and you will see what looks like multiple-exposure effects in the tubes of the center anemone. The tops of the tall anemones are also fuzzed because of movement there. Now that HDR images, not to mention saturated color and extreme Photoshop effects, are becoming popular on Flickr and photography web sites, it is easy to suspect HDR where it is not present. Sometimes, the clues are pretty subtle. Beside the hands-on tips from Dougerino, I found Trey Ratcliff’s Stuck in Customs web site with great examples and tutorial information. Because Ratcliff offers many HDR images, I thought that was before me in his “Some of my favorite shots of children.” Ratcliff’s HDR tutorial illustrates the use of PhotoShop layering techniques to eliminate blurred images in the combined separate exposures. I thought I was seeing that in the image of the girl in this detail:
No. That is not an HDR image. My suspicions were groundless. Some photographs are richly hued and at the right moment without requiring doctoring, at least not of the HDR kind. The following image from the same set is an HDR image.
If you look at the largest image on Flickr, you can see that there are indications of skater motion in comparison with the clarity of the ice surface. I also suspect there was not a 4-stop range. The D2X might have been working in a faster range of shutter speeds, too. That’s all guesswork. It is valuable to be able to discern how a photographic subject was lighted, an unaccustomed test that I seldom pass. Now I must also train my photographer eye to discern how HDR was used, if at all, along with other digital-processing effects. Meanwhile, I am able to enjoy and learn from the wonderful images that appear in daily Stuck in Customs posts. You can too. Suonare is the Italian verb for “to play” in the sense that a pianist plays a keyboard. With the advent of computer-based music and photographic-image processing, I extent the notion to similar play via my computer keyboard, not just my MIDI controller. Suono is “I play.” July 08 Another Lively Place for OrcmidThanks to some mentions in Twitter, I have found myself a lively place, a new Google property. I need to figure out how to get the image and entrance to the room to be more impressive. We'll see. The name of the place is Orcmid's Lively Interoperability Zone. Sort of like "islands of interoperability" in the Asteroid Belt. I have no idea what I am doing here, but I can't always be a late adopter, you know?
May 23 Friday's Uncensored Jukebox
Ed Bott has published a pre-holiday Random 10 and a new Uncensored Jukebox Challenge. Ed reports that it is Judy's birthday so this seems like a great way to wish Judy happy birthday. In celebration of all things romantic, tomorrow, the Saturday of U.S. Memorial Day weekend 2008 is the 13th anniversary of my meeting Vicki in a parking lot and asking her to coffee. We will go out to coffee again. Our 13th wedding anniversary will be this New Years Eve.
I'm liking this. I think I'll stop logging and just listen. Let's make it a mellow and cool overcast evening in Seattle. Cripes, George Michael duet with Elton John, ... mellowing out for sure ... February 22 Podblogging: Because I Can? ... Well, Maybe NotI was sitting quietly in the local Starbucks, jacking into T-Mobile Hot Spot from my brand new T-Mobile Dash Windows Mobile instrument. It took me the bus ride from my favorite Barnes & Noble Starbucks to my local one to figure out how I was unable to log on to Windows Live though. I was eager to try logging in again and doing my first blog post from a phone. I was able to get through the Windows Live ID Logon the second time. I specifically wanted to see what this blog looked like when accessed via mobile.windows.live. It takes a lot of navigation, but the post texts show up all right. There are tiny versions of the pictures, too. So it is a nice feature. I haven't tried looking at any of my web pages yet. I'm apprehensive about that. Well, this is not the post I made on the phone. Somewhere around clicking the Publish button the post disappeared, never to be seen again. My thumbs were too tired to figure out how to correct it. So I didn't frustrate myself with a do-over. The Dash has a tiny QWERTY keyboard. It was amazing to learn that even my thumbs know their way around QWERTY, but it is a painful process just the same. I have been watching my fingers, because the keys are easy to miss, so the automatic word-completion suggestions are often wasted on me (and I have to take my thumbs out of QWERTY position to select one). I will practice more and see what improves. I compose my web pages and blog articles for reading from full-up PC displays. It is way over my head to figure out how to target my sites to mobile devices. If I was going to the trouble to make all that work, I think the time would be more valuable invested in accessibility. Now that I think about it, maybe making web pages and blog posts amenable to mobile access is a way to approach having the material be accessible. OK, I'll look at that then. Meanwhile, I'm grateful that mobile.live.com and the MSN counterpart (even better, actually) do present fairly nicely. CNN has some work to do, but MSNBC has it figured out. I just installed Yahoo! Go also, and there is a special MSN install, but I am yet to explore those too. I'll try another post from the phone, some day, but for now I am happy to be home and keyboarding away in Windows Live Writer. I figured I'd attempt to upload pictures and also blog posts from the new phone because now I can. This is the first phone I've owned that could take advantage of those features of my wireless service. Last week at ODC2008 I lost my Nokia Communicator. It was on T-Mobile wireless but unsupported for their Internet access and other goodies (ring tones, MP3s, photos, videos, and all the other silliness). Fortunately, the phone was off and I lock my SIM cards as well as the keyboard. There has been no attempt to use the account and I have kept my number. I also had no unfulfilled subscriber commitment, so I could do a phone upgrade at no penalty. I have set up my new Dash with the same precautions. I also don't keep anything on the phone that I am worried about losing. My contact list is synchronized with my Outlook and there are no secrets there. And yes, I signed up for the insurance too. The deductible is more than I paid for the phone after discounting, but much less than buying a full-price replacement. When I complete my two-year commitment I can cancel the insurance because the upgrade price will be less than the deductible anyhow. I have resisted three whole days without adding the data plan. The T-Mobile Total Internet plan, which is what I apparently need, also bundles T-Mobile Hot Spot. I already have about 18-months of free T-Mobile Hot Spot left to use as a promotion for buying my two Give 1 Get 1 One Laptop Per Child computers. It irks me that I can't buy a data plan that doesn't bundle Hot Spot (and I don't need access to an Exchange server either). I am throwing in the towel though. I do want the GPRS/EDGE capability that some features require. As much as I like hanging out in libraries and coffee shops, it is even nicer to be able to access the Internet wherever I happen to be sitting at the moment, even at home. I can't resist. I think of it like buying a couple of premium channels on cable TV, but cheaper. This may be the beginning of something terrible ... January 31 What Birds Are These? I asked
Every Winter there are swarms of birds outside of my basement-office window. They arrive suddenly, pecking the heck out of my lawn (but leaving the sprouts of my late-season re-seeding alone) and making off with various bugs and worms. Suddenly, the dense flock will take flight and land somewhere else in the yard, repeating the process until they disappear until the next year. The entire episode is just a few minutes. This particular visitation was on December 1, 2007. All I know about the birds is that they are speckled and about the size of robins but sleeker (and my robin sightings happen in the Spring and early Summer). I was reminded of this phenomenon on seeing the similar birds photographed out Doug Mahugh's window on January 26, 2008. I asked about these on Doug's post and I now know they are newcomers to this part of the world, European Starlings. That explains why they are a novelty for me. I also remember seeing smaller versions of these getting tipsy on some berried shrubs outside a local McDonalds. I suspect they were juveniles out on their first toot. Although we are still having unusual occurrences of snow, without accumulation, at the end of January, there are more active birds than I would expect with this unusual incidence of freezing conditions. You can understand that when I saw these fellows hanging out in the neighborhood earlier this week, I couldn't help but think of the Pixar video, "For the birds." (The "sneak peak" is definitely for the birds, but the old postings of the full Pixar short with the correct audio have been ordered taken down. This YouTube mashup may serve better.)
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