About various photos I’ve taken. Unlike other entries, these are dated with the date I took the photo (or thereabouts).
In followup to this post
And yes, I had kimchi at Thanksgiving. 🙂
### Update ###
Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G
1/320sec @ ƒ2.8, ISO400, 28mm
It’s been four years [since I last wrote about my cousin Juno][thanksgiving chicken]. I haven’t changed much but a baby grows up a lot in that time.
While technically he’s my nephew, he calls me “사촌”—사촌 (sa-chon) means cousin in Korean, so I refer to him as my cousin Juno. And apparently I’m a big hit with him—Juno constantly pesters his parents before family get togethers, “Is Sa-chon Terry going to be there?”
The reason why is I have a secret weapon…
Leica M8, Voigtländer Nokton 35mm F1.2
1/60sec, ISO160, 35mm (47mm)
…an iPhone loaded with [tons of free and $1 games][nintendo vs iphone].
Unfortunately because I never actually *play* the games, I hadn’t unlocked enough levels in [Krazy Kart][krazykart]. Marie had to help out:
Leica M8, Voigtländer Nokton 35mm F1.2
1/60sec, ISO160, 35mm (47mm)
What an amazing device, and an amazing cousin. Oh, to be a kid right now! Wait a minute…
We still are!
[thanksgiving chicken]: http://terrychay.com/article/thanksgiving-chicken-story.shtml “It isn’t Thanksgiving without the kimchee”
[krazykart]: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/krazy-kart-racing-us/id329373629?mt=8 “Krazy Kart Racing (US)—iTunes Store”
[nintendo vs iphone]: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/8/1/ “The Fire—Penny Arcade”
The eyes are the most expressive part of a person.
One thing people forget about smaller-sensor cameras is that it is easier to do close-up photography. Even if the subject is a person, it’s okay to crop everything out, just remember to focus on the eyes. The closer the subject the smaller the depth-of-field gets so even with a small sensor, you have to get the focus just right.
Olympus E-PL3, Lumix G 20/F1.7
1/60sec @ ƒ1.8, ISO500, 20mm (40mm)
What attracted me to photographing Marie was the way the light from the bay windows caught her eyes. Unfortunately, my camera blocked a lot of that.
This camera has face and eye detection. I can even select which eye to prefer (I always select closest eye of the closest subject), but it is not always accurate. This photo suffers a little because the camera mistakenly focused on the distal eye—probably because I am near the close-focusing limit of this lens (the sensor isn’t small enough and the lens is a pancake).
It is interesting my appreciation of this image is interrupted because as the photographer, I see my mistakes: the off-focus and camera [gobo][gobo], but my friends don’t.
### Other tips
Even though the image is highly cropped it’s okay. A closely cropped photo rarely suffers and you can crop a person anywhere as long as it isn’t near a joint. As with “focus on the eyes”, these sort of photographing decisions are derived from our evolution.
Just remember, you will have to retouch the portrait a bit. Soften the skin (a little, not too much) and add definition and saturation to the eyes and lips. You should probably remove some of the color from the whites of the eyes, but I didn’t need to in this photo. Note that retouching tools have gotten very good as computers have gotten very powerful. I didn’t even need to leave Aperture (or use the RAW image) to retouch.
[gobo]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobo_(lighting) “Gobo (lighting)—Wikibedia”
My new camera takes video, but unlike my previous ones, the highest resolution video (1080p) only writes in the should-never-have-been-invented [AVCHD specification][avchd].
AVCHD has weird support on Mac OS X. If you insert a card with it, iMovie will recognize it. However, Apple Aperture and iPhoto will not. Since the video and metadata for the clips are [split over many files][file structure], you can’t do a straight import into any of the above.
While there is [an excellent free tool for viewing AVCHD video streams][vlc], this means that in order to work with this video *as a photographer*, I need to transcode the video. This was not obviously done until I ran into [this post on AVCHD on the Mac][AVCHD video workflow].
There exists many other cheaper ([and free][handbrake]) solutions for transcoding, but I opted for the more expensive [ClipWrap][clipwrap] mentioned in the article for a couple reasons:
1. Most other transcoders, re-encode the video. On the other hand QuickTime is a container format, not a codec. What ClipWrap can do is re-wrap the AVCHD in a quicktime container without changing the codec. This is much faster, but, more importantly, *it preserves the original encoding with no loss*.
2. ClipWrap can also transcode the video like other converters.
2. In both cases, ClipWrap can preserves the video creation date.
There are some caveats though:
1. A rewrapped file may not be viewable on the computer without the free tool, [Perian][perian].
2. A rewrapped file cannot be directly worked with in iMovie, instead you need to transcode into [AIC][aic]. I think you are fine if you are a Final Cut Pro user, but I stopped using that product a long time ago since I’m not a videographer.
3. Be aware of the funky file structure. Look for the videos in /PRIVATE/AVCHD/STREAM/*.MTS, not your camera’s media folder. You lose any of the other metadata also (pretty much worthless)
4. Be aware that AIC files are uncompressed more than H.264 in a ClipWrap Quicktime/AVCHD . This means you want to store it in this format, only work with it this way.
5. I don’t (yet) have a workflow for converting from rewrapped Quicktime to AIC. 🙁
This means that I store:
1. In my archive originals folder, I keep the original *.MTS files.
2. In Apple Aperture, I import re-wrapped quicktime MOVs.
3. If I need to work on videos, I transcode the AVCHD MTS’s into AIC and then import into iMovie. I lose the Aperture integration this way. 🙁
I did get it to work this way. Here’s an example I edited from the [Plantronics][plantronics] Launch Party last week:
If you don’t have video working, here are two photos I took with my other camera:
Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G
1/100sec @ ƒ2.8, ISO3200, 28mm
Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G
1/30sec @ ƒ3.2, ISO5000, 48mm
Now if only I can come up with a work flow for the RAW images that doesn’t involve [a lot of work][unsupported RAW] or [exiftool][exiftool] [hacking][exifhack].
…
[More photos and videos from the Plantronics Launch Party][plantronics photos].
[plantronics photos]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tychay/sets/72157627846839069/ “2011-0138 SF Potrero Hill—Plantronics Launch Party @ Obscura Digital—tychay @ Flickr”
[exiftool]: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/ “Exiftool by Phil Harvey”
[exifhack]: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1041&message=39314992&changemode=1
[unsupported raw]: http://terrychay.com/article/unsupported-raw-apple-aperture.shtml “Unsupported RAW workflow in Apple Aperture”
[plantronics]: http://www.plantronics.com/us/ “Plantronics WIreless Heasets, Bluetooth Headset, Office and Contact Center, Enterprise Solutions”
[AVCHD video workflow]: http://echeng.com/journal/2010/07/08/avchd-hd-video-workflow-on-mac-os-x/ “AVCHD HD video workflow on Mac OS X—ECHeng”
[avchd]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD “AVCHD—Wikipedia”
[file structure]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AVCHD_actual_file_structure.svg “File:AVCHD actual file structure—Wikipedia”
[handbrake]: http://handbrake.fr/ “HandBrake”
[perian]: http://perian.org/ “Perian: The swiss-army knife of QuickTime components”
[clipwrap]: http://www.divergentmedia.com/clipwrap “ClipWrap”
[aic]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Intermediate_Codec “Apple Intermediate Codec—Wikipedia”
[vlc]: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ “VideoLAN: Official page for the VLC media player: the open source video framework”
CNN informed me that[a photo of mine][amsterdam photo] was selected for [a slideshow about the World Bike Festival][cnn article]:
It occurred to me that this combines a ton of my passions—photography, internet, writing, cycling, and activism—with my ethnicity.
Save the world, one bike ride at a time. 🙂
[amsterdam photo]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tychay/5700378467/ “Amsterdam bicycle parking—tychay @ Flickr”
[cnn article]: http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/living/world-bike-festival/index.html “World Bike Festival highlights benefits of cycling around the globe”
“I want to tell you the most important tip I learned about photography.”
“What is it?”
“You have a camera.”
…
Olympus E-P1, M.ZUIKO Digital 17mm 1:2.8 Pancake
1/60sec @ ƒ2.8, ISO1000, 17mm (35mm)
Coley teases my habit of photographing my friends.
…
Recently some colleagues had a contest: “Guess how many cameras Terry has on him right now?”
Even though I have one, too often, I forget I carry a camera.
Olympus E-PL3, Lumix G 20/F1.7
1/60sec @ ƒ1.8, ISO500, 20mm (40mm)
Sean is embarassed to have my camera in his face… or happy that he guessed how many cameras I was carrying.
You have a camera, shoot it! You never know what will happen.
Somewhere along the way, I ran into [Gordy’s Camera Straps][gordyscamerastraps].
Gordon Coale is a guy out in Washington state who hand makes leather camera straps. Last year it occurred to me that one of his straps would perfectly match my [Hirano case][hirano japanexposures] (which you [may have seen before][live view]). Hand straps are simply a good idea for nearly any camera, because they’re the most minimal safety leash for photography: you don’t really need a one normally; but if something bad happens, you’ll be glad you have one around your wrist. Plus, when you do it right, they look gorgeous:
Nikon D3, 24mm f/1.4G, SB-900
1/50 sec @ ƒ2, iso 800, 24mm
I bought this Gordy’s strap almost exactly one year ago.
[gordyscamerastraps]: http://www.gordyscamerastraps.com/ “gordy’s camera straps”
[hirano japanexposures]: http://www.japanexposures.com/shop/index.php?manufacturers_id=36 “Camera Hirano—JapanExposures. These English speakers will get import Hirano cases for you.”
[live view]: http://terrychay.com/article/live-view-aperture-on-the-e-p2.shtml “Live view aperture on the E-P2”
Continue reading about camera straps and cases after the jump
A few weeks ago, there was a thread on on of our internal blogs at workconcerning our home office setup for productivity and comfort. One of them mentioned an old blog post of mine, and it occurred to me that it’s been five years since I’ve shared my office.
Here is what it looks like today:
Nikon D3, Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G
36 exposures (0+/-3ev), 1/15sec @ ƒ8, ISO200, 14mm
Continue reading about my office and HDR panoramic photography after the jump
There is some sensor dust that is wedged in there, but I was worried that my Adorama order wouldn’t arrive before I had to leave. Since, I am “a customer support person’s worst nightmare,” Marie decided to call them for me to confirm the order.
While waiting, I put the Heliar on my Leica and snapped some photos.
Olympus E-P2, Lumix G 20mm f/1.7
1/60sec @ ƒ1.7, iso 1250, 20mm (50mm)
The [heliar][heliar] is about as plane-jane lens as you can put on a camera: a normal lens with modest apertures. About the only thing it has going for it is that it is the sharpest lens Popular Photography has ever tested. Well, that and [its nickel plating][50mm heliar] looks gorgeous when collapsed into a Leica digital body.
Olympus E-P2, Lumix G 20mm f/1.7
1/60sec @ ƒ1.7, iso 1250, 20mm (50mm)
In the days of super-wides and full-frame, sometimes it’s fun to shoot normal. Take out your 50mm and shoot a portrait today, you might be surprised at the result.
[heliar]: http://www.antiquecameras.net/heliarlenses.html “A Short History of the Heliar Lens—Angique & Classic Cameras”
[50mm heliar]: http://www.cameraquest.com/voigt_5035N.htm “New Nickel 50/3.5 Voigtlander Heliar—Cameraquest”
In the crossfire between the landlord and the city, Automattic got [evicted][evicted] from their home on Pier 38 on Friday.
At the end of every week, some of the [Automatticians][automatticians] have been having #burittofridays, so they made one last burrito run before closing the doors. As Beau, put it, “We came in with a bang, and out with a burrito.”
Olympus E-P2, Lumix G HD 14-14 f/4-5.8 OIS
1/320s @ ƒ9, iso 200, 19mm (38mm)
One of the advantages of working for a distributed company is that now that we are homeless, we’ll simply be working from home. The Bay Area crew won’t get to see each other each week though. 🙁
And here is one last parting shot from [our fearless leader][matt]:
Olympus E-P2, Lumix G HD 14-14 f/4-5.8 OIS
1/400sec @ ƒ8, iso 200, 103mm (206mm)
He leaves us with a bit of= T.S. Eliot:
> We shall not cease from exploration
> And the end of all our exploring
> Will be to arrive where we started
> And know the place for the first time.
I’ll miss you guys.
[matt]: http://ma.tt “Matthew Mullenweg”
[evicted]: http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-09-09/business/30133602_1_evictions-tenants-carl-ernst “Pier 38 deemed unsafe; tech tenants evicted—SFGate”
[automatticians]: http://automattic.com/about/ “About Us—Automattic”