Category: photography

About taking pictures

Twitter stalk

My first twitterstalk.

When I woke up, just as I was heading out from McDonald’s, I noticed Scott Beale’s tweet about being at the only In ‘N Out in the city. That was just three blocks away from me.

I first met Scott when he showed up to the Hitachi Lunch 2.0 Web Expo last year. Ever since then, I run into him shooting his Canon 5D with a 24-105mm f/4L at events that I happen to stumble upon that are halfway interesting:

DSC_6753.JPG

Scott Beale, the Tony Soprano of the San Francisco scene
Varnish, South of Market, San Francisco, California

Nikon D3, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D, SB-800
1/80sec @ f/1.8, iso800, 50mm

(He’s gotten so used to his setup that you no longer notice it’s there anymore—and that’s a pretty big camera too.)

He was surprised that anyone he knew actually lived in the area. Scott was just heading from an event and I was late to one. (Apparently, according to someone at the Meetro party, I had a disco nap that went way over.)

Since I was late anyway, I bugged Scott about his recent appearance in a Wall Street Journal article on LOLcats. We also discussed Lunch 2.0, social networking, photography, and the insanity that is Fisherman’s Wharf.

There were a lot of funny miscommunications because we hang around in different circles and assumed we each knew the other’s peeps—his are the entire San Francisco art, culture and tech scene; mine are my imaginary friends.

Scott is a good person to know.

[tags]Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, photography, Twitter, TwitterStalk, Laughing Squid, Scott Beale, nap, disco nap, LOLcats, Lunch 2.0, Wall Street Journal[/tags]

Posted on by tychay 6

Zivity nears launch

Zivity is social networking meets photo sharing meets erotica (or maybe just fine art and fashion). And they’re nearing launch.

The reason I like them (besides the fact that they sometimes invite this wallflower to their parties) is that they share royalties based on popularity with both their models and the photographers to take the pictures. That’s how it should be.

Interested in being a sweetheart or photographer?

Today I received an e-mail confirmation to their mailing list.

Zivity confirm page: Thanks for signing up, yo.

You’re welcome.

Rawr! 😀

Posted on by tychay 5

Making it rain (a story with three "Mark"ed bills)

Tagged has a Cherry Coke promotion which pretty much works with any website out there. In honor of this, I pimped out my profile with some raining cherries—I mean once you get over all the pr0n on my profile, that I’m too lazy(?) to delete. 🙂

Mark #1

Apparently there was a reward for getting Mark hired and I was the lucky recipient of it. In a move back to our gangsta roots, Greg gave me most of it in the form of a brick of 125 $20 bills. Time to really make it rain!

Making it rain

Making it rain
Tagged, Financial District, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina AT-X PRO 16-50mm f/2.8 DX
1/200sec @ f/2.8, iso320, 16mm (24mm)

(Best viewed large on black)

[More raining and Tagged is hiring after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 9

Aperture supports Panasonic/Leica

I noticed in the release notes of the Mac OS X 10.4.10 update today:

  • Adds RAW image decoding support for the following cameras: Panasonic DMC-LX1, Panasonic DMC-LX2, Leica M8, Leica D-LUX 2, Leica D-LUX 3, Fuji S5 Pro, Nikon D40x, and Canon EOS 1D Mk III.

Since Apple Aperture uses the same RAW decoding. That means that I no longer have to do that crazy hack to get my LX-1 RAW files into Aperture. I blogged about this earlier, so I’d like to say, “Thanks, Apple!”

Coincidentally, I almost purchased a Fuji S5 Pro. I bought lenses instead. You really have to have more lenses before you can justify a purchase of a second body, right? 🙂

I think the Leica M8 is a sweet camera for the photo buff who has gobs of money to spend. I mean besides the body, the lenses are astronomical. Or is it just me? I don’t know. I’m just thinking the days when I shied away from Nikon because I thought, “their stuff is too expensive.”

Aperture Users @ Flickr discussion

Posted on by tychay 1

2007-06-14 My ten seconds at WWDC

A friend of a friend hooked me up with a WWDC pass. Shhh… The real reason I went there was to meet a friend, but he had to miss out that day because of bugs and a release. (I won’t name names, but you suck!)

Unfortunately, I was too tired from driving back from Lunch 2.0 and errands to make it there for much of it. Actually, I caught exactly 5 seconds of the last talk’s Q&A on Dojo Toolkit. It’s probably for the best since Alex doesn’t need to hear me rant about Dojo for the hundredth time. My host scored me a free pass to the Apple Bash after the event just before they went off to dinner and I had to head the other direction to sflickr.

As I was passing Yerba Buena Gardens, an Apple Person In Black saw my bash band and said, “Right this to the Bash, sir.”

“Thank you. But no thank you, I’m skipping the party.”

My ten seconds at WWDC (2007-0048 12)

My ten seconds at WWDC
SOMA, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina AT-X PRO 16-50mm f/2.8 DX
1/160sec @ f/4.5, iso100, 17mm (25mm)

[OSCON, Microsoft, and Apple after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 2

I just like hearing my name

As I told Ed Finker,

“Newbie, did I forget to tell you he just likes it when people say his name?”
—Dr. Cox, Scrubs Season 5

Unfortunately, Ed didn’t oblige me like he did last time. But luckily for me, Sean and Paul did. 🙂

With Cal’s PHP Abstract now on the air, the busy developer may be wondering which they should listen to. It’s simple, if you have to choose, I’ve been mentioned three times on Pro::PHP Podcast and not once on PHP Abstract.

Verdict: I recommend Pro::PHP Podcast 😀

terry chay

“terry chay” by kbconference

This is me at ZendCon. You”ll notice that I have the lens on my D200 that the two are talking about. (Fire engine red… gotta love Canon.)

[Paul and Sean are the Kevin and Bean of the PHP world after the jump.]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 18

The Wedding Lens Song

Haven’t blogged on photography in a while. Sorry

On [2006/12/31 6:48PM], I sat on an article that I started months before. Good thing! because it would have been embarassing to blog on something I wouldn’t get until six months later!

Back then, Boris speculated on what my next lens was going to be.

Here is the answer:

Ahh, new lens

Ahh, New Lens
Tagged, Financial District, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina AT-X 165 PRO DX (16-50mm f/2.8)
1/15sec @ f/2.8, iso 1250, 50mm (75mm)

Can you believe I haven’t bought any photo equipment in half a year?

[Wedding lenses and the Tokina AT-X 165 after the jump.]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 22

Ethan’s Baptism and Party

Mother and son

Mother and son
St. Joseph Parish, Mountain View, California

Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-.56G VR
1/60sec @ f/5.3, iso 3200, 120mm (180mm)
.

Dave invited me to his son’s baptism. I put on a shirt and tie and drove down to South Bay.

I showed up early, had to drop off some stuff at Goodwill, and ended up loitering outside the church messing with Google WiFi. By the time I figured out that all the other people there were doing this weird makeshift flea market thing and everyone else was already inside, mass had already started!

Afterward, it turned out Mark was moving to San Francisco, so I went to the party for a short while and booked it back to SOMA to help him move.

That meant a couple more people got to see me working the shirt and tie…Ahh, East Coast strikes again.

(Mark and Rose bought me dinner at Koh Samui and The Monkey in SOMA.)

Posted on by tychay 2

Live preview

There was an interesting question of the D200 user group:

I know its just been 2 days since I bought my D200 but am I missing something or is there no way to shoot while screen is on?

I dont want to look in the viewfinder in every picture I take, there must be a way that I couldnt see in the users manual… 🙁

Okay, I can see all you SLR users there smirking. The person just bought a $1400 camera and doesn’t know that SLRs don’t do that sort of thing because the reflex mirror (the R in SLR). But things have changed a lot. Are we sure we’re not being snobs for smirking?

Golden flight

Golden flight
San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G VR
1/90sec @ f/22, iso 125, 18mm (27mm)

Maybe if I had live preview on a swivel mount, I could have gotten the horizon right?

I know of at least three ways newer SLR cameras get around this problem:

[Understanding live preview after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 2

The key to beauty

According to Popular Photography’s blog, apparently the key to feminine beauty is either Photoshop or over-exposure mixed with either high key or low key lighting.

I’m kidding, but it’s a nice tip. I have to remember to try “dialing to 11” my meter next time just to see what comes out. Before this, I was depending on happy accidents:

unknown tree flower

unknown tree flower
Mountain View, California

Nikon D70, Lensbaby 2.0, Tokina .45 macro
f/2 at 1/2500 second, iso 200, 50mm (75mm)

(Yes, I know the photo isn’t of a woman. I’ll have to work on that.)

Posted on by tychay 0