Tim’s Ramblings

I can’t watch the Bills vs. Browns game. It hurts me… For godsakes… 4 turn overs by the Bills. Browns THANKFULLY can’t do anything wtih it. Oh look…Buffalo just got an interception! Let’s see if our offence can do anything with it. Doubt it. Our (btw, I live in Cleveland but the Bills will always be my team) defence is good but…man…our offence HURTS. Oh wait…no. It’s not an interception. Goddammit…

So in between time outs and half time and such I’ve been reading up and learning about Adobe Lightroom 2.

It’s a program specifically designed for photographers and it is impressive. It basically gives me the toosl that Photoshop gives me but without all the extra. Basically I can do in Lightroom, as long as I know what I’m doing, what would take me an hour in Photoshop in about 15 minutes. Knowing what I’m doing is the key though.

Also, it is a very poweful photo cataloging tool. Creates a great library of all the photos that I really want to work with and has great keyword support as well as all the metadata info and so on. Quite impressive. Need to make sure I don’t catalog all of the tiny little photos I take though since the catalog can get to be a few gigs in size. However, once in the catalog, I can, in theory, create flash presentations, web photo albums, and so on.

But the most powerful part of Lightroom is the Develop Module for photo editing. And the most powerful part of the Develop Module is the Adjustment Brush. It’s basically a virtual paint brush but rather than color you can “paint in” everything from exposure to contrast, saturation, clarity, brightness, etc… This combined with a full range of adjustments from gradient filters to fine tuning each individual color channels and you get an amazing set of tools…and a ridiculous amount of new tools to learn how to use…

Anyway, here’s like my 5th or 6th attempt at playing with photos in Lightroom. The great part is, everything I do is non-destructive. In another words, it remembers everything I do and I can go back and forth in history to not just go back and undo stuff but then adjust my settings. In another words, I can set the brightness for one location, keep working, then go back to that brightness setting and reset it and then go back to the top and keep working from where I was before. Great stuff.

(HOLY CRAP we’re in the LEAD by a point with 2:25 to go!!!)

Right. So here is my before and after of a photo of the Lone Cypress in Pebble Beach, California. I still really didn’t know how to use my DSLR then so it came out pretty crappy with a smaller filie size and not that good of a resolution. But I did what I could do. Worked on the colors a bit and then used the Adjustment Brush to bring out some highlights and color in select places and TRIED to make it look far less utterly gloomy than it really was. As usual you can click to get a bigger version (1024×768).

It really is a cool program. That’s probably why it costs so damn much… Oh well…

Don’t know why it took me this long to actually get around to playing with Photoshop for real as opposed to just sorta using it now and again for nothing more than the occasional tweak. Probably because only this summer did I finally get a good enough PC that can handle usnig Photoshop on my 10 megapixel photos while if I tried it with my old one it would probably scream in agony and die…

So until now I was always using Paint Shop Pro 8. And don’t get me wrong. It is a GREAT program and has some very nice easy to use features. But in the end, to manipulate RAW images and such, Photoshop and (once I get aroudn to learning it) LightRoom 2 seems to be the best for standard use.

I only have Photoshop CS2 but it does the job and while I’ve been messing around with it along with GIMP, I finally got out and picked up a few books and have been playing around with it more and more. Especially since I have a ridiculous amount of photos (something like 45 Gigs on my portable HD…I really need to get another one to back up the back up…) that I can use to experiment. And yes…this is yet another reason why I’m not playing World of Warcraft…

So, I decided to post a recent before and after. Why? Because I have that big of an ego… Ha! No. Just because. And also to show that while many of my shots do come out pretty good…I also DO do a bit of touch up…some more than others.

This time I was experimenting and trying out Adjustment Layers! Ooooh. And for all of you who are photoshop gods…shut up dammit…this is new to me. For this test I picked a nice shot I took in the Rockies by Bear Lake. Here is the original unaltered pic straight from my camera (and as usual, these are linked to bigger pics).

Not too bad. Got some nice greens there along with a nice reflection and the sky has good detail without it being totally washed out. Buuuut it just didn’t look as good as I remembered it.

With most of my time spent working on masking, here is the new shot.

Brightened it up a bit. Brought out the sky and also the trees and other greenery a bit. And unlike my HDR shots, this is a bit closer to “reality” I think.

Fun times. Anyway, that’s it.

Got 12 days of vacation left and the year is flying by fast… Need to do something… Starting to think maybe a trip to Okinawa, Japan… It’s warm there. Tropical. And since it looks like I won’t be going to Japan in November (the new office in Tokyo is really making my traveling easier…though I guess this means I’ll have to buy even more stuff when I go out there now…) maybe I can instead go in December and stay an extra week. Heard there’s some good photo ops and such out there too :) Since I bought a new expensive lens and a new camera, I gotta get SOME use out of them!!

So, this is not really a post about Japan or anything really informative or important. Just…something stupid…

I posted about the fact that I got this cool new Sony Walkman a while back. You can get it in the US too but in Japan, this thing can record TV via their “1-Seg” network, an HDTV signal taking up one out of the 13 segments that they specifically set aside for use by mobile devices. Really cool. So while I’m in Japan I can set this thing up like a VCR, plug it in, pop up the antenna, and record away.

I usually then watch these shows on the plane on the way back and what I can’t watch, I’ll watch on the way back to Japan. It can record up to 100 hours of TV! Though it depends on how much music you have in it too. With video, it lasts juuust about 6 hours as long as you keep the display brightness down but I also picked up an Eneloop power pack that I can then use to recharge this thing for about 3 more hours of viewing. I also couldn’t watch it at home (or didn’t want to) because there was no speaker just like most MP3 players so you needed headsets or portable speakers.

Recently though, as seen below, I picked up a cute little Sony speaker that attaches to the data/power port so now I can watch it anywhere :)

It’s only about 3.5″ across so it’s pretty small but the screen is nice (despite how the screen looks in this photo…for some reason digital cameras do a crappy job with these types of LCD screens…) and crisp and you really have no problems at all watching recorded or live TV.

Of course this means that now I can watch this in bed! Wooo. So that’s what I’ve been doing off and on when I wasn’t reading all the comic books I picked up the last time I was in Japan. BUT, this is a cautionary tale…

I was lying in bed watching this little thing and at one point, I rolled over onto my back and was holding up this thing over my head watching the show. But it was pretty late at night and I was getting a bit sleepy… You can probably guess what happened…

Yeah. Whlie watching the walkman held over my face, I fell asleep for just an instant. But that was just the instant my body needed to relax my grip… And the damn walkman fell a good 15. to 2′ onto my face. More accuratly my forhead, bridge of my nose, and a tip of my eye.

OW

Hard plastic falling on you is NOT nice. Especially when it’s immediately followed by the sound of the audience laughing in whatever show I was watching at the time.

So…yeah… If you are ever watching your iPod or any other media player in bed…don’t hold it over your head whlie lying on your back. It is only asking for pain and humiliation. Yes. I felt embarrassed even though I was the only person in the house at the time…

But now I’m telling the whole world so…I guess it makes it ok? Or something?

:)

Not the best shot in the world but it was a test shot with my new camera to give its bracketing capabilities a try.

Worked pretty good. Only +/-1 but still managed to get some good detail.

As always the image is a link to a bigger one. And yes, I will post more stuff from Japan and such…maybe on the weekend…

Yes yes. There is a very very very pronounced halo on the sky/land border and the trees look weird because I didn’t spend hours filling in all the holes between the branches…but I kinda like the effect. Besides, I’ve seen worse ones being sold for hundreds of dollars to tourists…*hrmph*!

Heh heh heh.

J gave me an awesome birthday gift!

Scarlet Johansen’s autograph!!! She got it when she got to meet her while canvassing for Obama on Saturday! It’s on the back of a Obama/Biden bumper sticker!

…she’s so hot…and she touched this paper!! TOUCHED IT!!!

…my…my…my precious…

Heh heh heh.

Ok ok. She’s hot but I’m not that crazy (yet). But it’s a cool little gift!

Thanks J!! Oh, and thanks for going to see Eddie Izzard interview Dennis Kucinich!! Eddie Izzard is awesome…I love that man…

Another post! It’s like I’m making up for all the days and weeks that I was too lazy to post anything…

Anyhoo, here is another little something that I picked up on my last trip to Japan.

Behold! The Gorone Makura!

What is this you ask? Let me explain. Makura is Japanese for “pillow” and Gorone means something along the lines of “lazily lying down” from the onomatopoeia in Japanese for being lazy and laying around, “goro goro” (it’s also the way we describe the sound of something rolling around…sooo basically you’re lazy lying on your side rolling around…). Combined, you get the “Lazy Pillow”.

I can imagine you are still confused. See…the holes in the pillow is just perfect for your ear. The pillow is juuust about 6.5″ cubed so if you’re lying down on your side and using this as a pillow, it’s firm enough to support your head, just the right height so make it comfy for your neck, and your ear fits in the hole so you can hear the TV or the radio perfectly. Yes. It’s designed so you can hear the TV through both ears even while lying on your side Awesome. I suppose you can also sleep on it face down and your nose can fit in the hole so you can breathe….but it might crush your eyes…

Is it really comfy? Eh… But it’s a funny novelty and I do find myself on occasion using it to prop my head up with the pillow on the couch’s arm rest.

I think it’s cool dammit! Here’s a few other shots from different angles :)

Of course not. I’m not going to be THAT lucky!

Was at F’s new house helping pass out Halloween candy when I managed to catch a photo of 2 planes flying overhead. Turned out pretty neat with the plane’s contrails reflecting the sunset.

Some digital work was done and some cropping. Bringing out the colors also managed to bring out some noise in the sky that wasn’t so bad before post processing…may work on it a bit more later to make it cleaner.

But in the meantime, here is my 15 minute version. Click on the image for a bigger one :)

From my last trip out there, I finally remembered to take a picture of this…

This is one of those products that can really only fly in Japan and most definitely not work in the US. Over there people aren’t as sensitive to weight as over here. Probably because there is not as big of a weight issue as there is in the US. In Tokyo most women look…well…compared to US women, sickly and thin… Or maybe it’s just me. In anycase, talking about one’s weight is not really taboo. Even in a business setting, I’ve seen and heard them make off handed comments like “hey, looks like you’ve gotten bigger since the last time…too much stress?” and the like…to WOMEN.

A bit offputting to visitors from the US. But not as much to natives…

So, getting back on track, here are bathsalts called “Metaboo” from Japan.

The name comes from a combination of two words, “metabolism” and “boo”. “Metabolism” because it comes from “Metabolic Syndrome”, a generic term given to a combination of ailments stemming from being overweight including high blood pressure, high cholestrol, and so on. Metabolic syndrome is a buzz word in Japan right now with the the country alarmed at the “high” rate of overweight people. Which is laughable compared to the US but bad enough apparently that, due to nationalized healthcare, companies are being fined for every worker who is overweight…which means for guys a waist of no larger than 34″. Ha!

Anyway, and “boo” from the Japanese way of describing how pigs oink. Over there they say pigs go “boo boo”.

So basically they are calling people with metabolic syndrome pigs and selling bath salts to them. These are supposed to make you sweat in the bath so you can shed those calories and pounds by sweating it out in the bath.

I love how the pig has a outie that is accentuated by the lines. The big one says “Calorie burn in the bath” while the little one says “Sweating time in the bath”.

Can you imagine this in the US? Can you imagine a company attempting to sell a weight loss suppliment with a cute pig as a mascot? I thought the “McPork” from McDonalds in Japan was funny. But this I think really shows cultural differences in what they consider sensitive versus what we do.

…it IS a cute pig though…

For anyone reading this from the US, you can ignore this particular post. Mom wanted me to post pics of the outside of my house for my relatives and rather than do it by e-mail apparently my blog is the easiest place for them to all go see…

と言うことで、今年の12月末には1年になりますが、僕の新しいタウンハウスです。

ワイドアングルレンズのテストで3月に撮った写真です。オリジナルのブログポストはここです：

クリック！

そのページに行けば回りのタウンハウスも見れますよ～～～。

今度遊びに来てくださいね＾＾

…yeah…I got another one…

BUT, in my defence, my last one was bought in May and I took just over 800 photos with it! It was a really nice Canon. I loved it. Durable. Good lens. Great shots. Easily slipped into a pocket. But…but…I…I found a better one…

My Canon will be sold to a coworker and she will give it all the tender loving care it deserves.

However, I have to admit that, ever since I got my first Canon Powershot S1 IS some 5 years ago, this is the first time I’m cheating on Canon. Yes. I’m breaking my brand loyalty. And to what? A sexy little Panasonic. Otherwise known as the Lumix DMC-LX3.

It’s…so…pretty…

(Since this is basically camera pr0n, you can click on the above shot to get an even bigger one to oggle…really…and no, I’m a pretty stable and I would like to think, a normal, person. Why do you ask??)

Tons of features makes this more than just a tiny little compact. Right off the bat, it comes with a really really nice Leica wide angle 24mm lens. Then, on top of that, the aperture goes all the way down to f/2.0! They sacraficed zoom for a far more sensitive sensor so you only get 2.5x but, at 10MP and an incredible image stabilization low light shots are a breeze even at 1/10 second shutter speed. I’d take that over zoom any day.

Macro shots are possible at up to 1cm away from the lens (which is impressive as hell), and you have option of going completely manual if you want along with going with aperture priority or shutter speed priority. And something pretty much unheard of in a camera this small, you can shoot in RAW and even do bracketing as well. There is also an awesome cropping feature that lets you shoot in either 4:3 (standard monitor), 3:2 (classic 35mm), or 16:9 (wide screen). Not only that but with a flick of menu button, you can take one shot and it will crop it into all 3 sizes for you. Very very nice.

The color is incredible and the sharpness is amazing as well. And for those pure “point and shoot” moments, there is a great “Intelligent Auto Mode” that, if any of the test shots online I have seen is any indication, does a fantastic job without any fiddling with the ridiculous array of features.

It even looks hot with the lens cap on!!

Oh, and for anyone curious, the grey thing in the background is my 18% grey reflector that I used earlier to set my custom white balance on my DSLR.

As for performance, I took a few shots around the office today but none I’m willing to show. However, there’s an example of a handheld shot with no modifications other than cropping straight from the new camera.

This was shot at ISO400 and it’s a bit noisy…which is unfortunate. BUT, at f/3.5 this was shot at a ridiculously slow shutter speed of 1/10s. Handheld. No joke. And it’s THIS clear!! The image stabilization alone is worth drooling over.

So yeah…I lose the incredible portability of a true point and shoot. But on the other hand I gain a great pseudo point and shoot that I can do some pretty serious photography on as well as quick shots with without carrying around my back breaking DSLR. I still will when I need to but I have a feeling this little guy is going to get lots of action too.

Oh, and as a final note. I love this retro look. I really really do. And with the custom leather case on it, it looks so awesome.

So yeah. My new toy!! More and more pics to come!!