Yesterday, I walked onto a Bollywood set.
Literally.
, my apartment building was lit by three lighting/grip trucks. The lights were .
Lighting my building
4th and Brannan, South of Market, San Francisco, California
Olympus E-P2, Panasonic Lumix G 1:1.7/20 ASPH.
1/4000sec @ ƒ1.7, ISO200, 20mm (40mm)
Carrying McDonalds and shooting from the hip at the same time. Take that, Leica!
Continue reading →
Posted in about me, movies
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Tagged Bollywood, Chad Scott, conversation, elevator, fast food, flackette, internal dialogue, lighting, McDonald's, movie
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Stopped by Nama Sushi for a quick bite. Nama is located right across from the ballpark so, of course, they’d have sushi with baseball references in them. Marie has found a new favorite roll for this place.
The Baseball Roll
Nama Sushi, South of Market, San Francisco, California
Olympus E-P2, M.ZUIKO Digital ED 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6M
1/6sec @ ƒ4, ISO800, 19mm (38mm)
I’m trying to figure out a good kit for food photography. I know it somehow involves the Olympus E-P2—the only camera that can be handheld, shot in low light, and is small enough. It turns out, you really need the RAW file, not for the dynamic range, but to recover what the in-camera overdoes.
The key to postprocessing food seems to be aggressive white balance and color correction before even thinking of messing with the vibrancy. Saturation is a definite no-no. I like the post processing effect I used. Makes it look tastier somehow.
These rolls are yummy: salmon on deep tempura-fried salmon, crab, cream cheese, spicy mayo, masago, and green onions. Ten pieces for $9.50. They have a tendency to fall apart when you dip them, though. Good thing the roll doesn’t need wasabi and soy sauce.
(Article continued from part 5)
Nikon dSLR essentials
South of Market, San Francisco, California
Olympus E-P2, M.ZUIKO Digital ED 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6
1/60sec @ ƒ3.6, iso 1600, 16mm (30mm)
Some typical things you might buy with your new dSLR: a memory card and reader, a bag, a spare battery, lens cleaning stuff, and instructional material.
Before I talk about the things you need to buy along with your camera to start using it, I want to talk about the lens(es) that may or may not come with the camera. Some of these models have the option of allowing you to purchase it without the kit zoom (for about a $100 cost savings). I want to caution against that unless you already own a kit zoom—which is unlikely since this is your first dSLR.
Why keep the kit?
about supplementary purchases with your first dSLR after the jump
Posted in photography
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Tagged 50mm f/1.8, AA batteries, articulating LCD, batteries, buyers guide, camera bags, camera straps, Canon EF 50mm F1.8 II, Canon EOS, cheap prime, cleaning solution, Costco, design, ED 18-180mm f3.5-6.3, ED glass, EF-S 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 IS, essentials, Eye-Fi, filters, flash drive, GUIDE mode, infrared, internal focusing, kit lens, kit zoom, lens cleaning, lens cloth, lens hood, lens mount, lens pen, lenses, live view, memory card reader, memory cards, Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR, Nikkor 18-70mm, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX, Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G, Nikkor AF-S DX VR 18-200 f/3.5.5.6G IF-ED VR II, Nikon D5000, Nikon D70, packaging, Panasonic 14-150mm f3.5-5.6 OIS, Pentax DA 18-250mm f3.5-6.3, Pentax K, photography, plastic fantastic, polarizing filter, prime lens, purchasing, rechargeable batteries, SAL 18-200 F3.5-6.3 DT, SAL 18-250 F3.5-6.3 DT, scene modes, SD card, SDHC, SDXC, sensor cleaning, Sigma 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 DC, Sigma 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM, Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX, Sony 50mm f/1.8 SAM DT, superzoom lens, Tamron AF 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di II LD Aspherical IF, tripods, UV filter, white balance, wraping cloth, Zuiko Digital 25mm 1:2.8
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Glenn Reynolds suggests that the U.S. treasury defaults on its debt, trashes it, and Glenn’s defense?
Well, I was hoping for a thoughtful email from an expert, but instead I got a typically intemperate blog post from Bruce Bartlett. Bruce, I’m not trying to turn the United States into Zimbabwe. That would be the guy in the White House, whom you seem surprisingly anxious to defend.
It amuses me that Zimbabwe had a $100,000,000,0000 (that’s ) bill before they finally gave up on the currency. In storage somewhere, I have
a 1 million mark bank note.
I’m surprised nobody noticed the racist undertone in this response. Bruce Bartlett brought up Zimbabwe because defaulting on the debt was the direct cause Zimbabwe’s economic collapse. The analogy Glenn sets up is: Barack Obama is America’s Robert Mugabe and he’s going to take all the land away from you White people!
While that was most likely completely unintentional, the only adequate defense is that Glenn Reynolds, a law professor and premier conservative political pundit, is both socially insensitive and politically ignorant.
The irony amuses me with the obviousness of it all. (NB Title: Glenn Reynolds teaches law at the University of Tennessee.)
Posted in business and economics, quotes, religion and politics
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Tagged Barack Obama, Bruce Bartlett, default, Glenn Reynolds, hyperinflation, racism, Robert Mugabe, U.S. Treasury, Zimbabwe
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A while ago, when I saw Mark Kater, he showed me the vinyl sticker he got for his Macbook Pro. The next time I stopped by, I remembered to photograph it.
Mac am Ironman
Tagged, Financial District, San Francisco, California
Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/30sec, ISO160, 35mm (47mm)
The processing is pretty much the Toy Camera preset in Aperture. Pretty powerful huh?
He got it from some place on etsy. It turns out die-cut vinyl Macbook decals that incorporate the apple logo are hugely popular—there are literally hundreds of them.
Stickers and such after the jump
(Article continued from part 4)
The big C and the Big N
The Nikon D3000 ($450 from Adorama, B&H, Amazon)
The Canon EOS Rebel XS (1000D) ($500 from Adorama, B&H, Amazon)
The Nikon D5000 ($690 from Adorama, B&H Amazon)
The Canon EOS Rebel T1i (500D) ($770 from Adorama, B&H, Amazon)
The Canon EOS Rebel T2i (550D) ($900 from Adorama, Amazon)
The Canon 1000D and Canon 500D
The Nikon D5000 and Nikon D3000
Even though I’ve tried to encourage you to buy a Pentax, Sony, or Olympus, I know most of you are going to be going to buy a CaNikon anyway. *sigh*
First off, debating between Canon and Nikon is like getting into a Mac vs. PC flame war. And like modern day Macs and Windows PCs they share more in common with each other than differences. Let’s disclose our biases up front: I’m a Nikon guy. If you’re going to buy Canon the only redeeming thing about me is that I’ve probably sold as many Canon cameras to friends as Nikons.
About entry level Canons and Nikons and what camera I purchased after the jump
Posted in photography
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Tagged Apical, articulating LCD, astrophotography, autofocus, camera, CaNikon, Canon, Canon 1D mk IV, Canon 1Ds Mk III, Canon 300D, Canon 500D, Canon 50D, Canon 550D, Canon 5D Mk ii, Canon 7D, Canon Rebel, Canon Rebel 1000D, Canon Rebel T2i, Canon Rebel XS, Canon Rebel XTi, DxOMark, Dynamic Range Correction, Dynamic Range Optimization, flackette, gapless microlenses, Gigapan Epic 100, high ISO, image stabilization, in-body image stabilization, ISO, megapixel, microlens, Nikon, Nikon 3Ds, Nikon 3Dx, Nikon Active-D Lighting, Nikon D3000, Nikon D300s, Nikon D40, Nikon D5000, Nikon D700, Nikon D90, Nikon Scene Recognition System, Olympus E-620, Olympus Shadow Adjustment Technology, Pentax D-range, Pentax K-x, photography, resolution, return policy, rolling shutter, Sony A380, Sony DRO+, video
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I went running during the Mavericks this year, but I heard it was awesome. I went running down Ocean Beach that day and was blown away by the size of the waves.
My friend, Jim Goldstein, made it and he was kind of enough to share some 1×1 crops of the expressions of the surfers. (Read about his day here.)
Check it out! 
“Dans les champs de l’observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés.”
—Louis Pasteur ()
Flackette sent me this article today.
The film effects section of my last article on Aperture presets reminded me that I really like the film effects in nik Color Efex Pro and nik Silver Efex Pro.
I thought I’d try to emulate them in Aperture with a set a presets, starting with black and white film.
Download the presets here. Current version at time of this writing is 0.4.
(Note that my friends of Aperture Users @ Flickr are thinking of creating a website to house presets so I don’t know how long I’ll keep updating this. In the meantime, I added Pavel Sigarteu’s SinCity, El TiDY’s presets, and Ian Wood’s Aperture 2 Image Presets Project to the download.)
In order to show the B&W film effects, I hacked in an extension to my IMG Mouseover plugin. Above the image there’s a control panel where you can click to see the effect of the preset (and compare it to Silver Efex Pro):
Mark Kater
Tagged, Financial District, San Francisco, California
Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/30sec, ISO160, 35mm (47mm)
Click on the controls above to test the different film presets. Mouse rollover contain images processed in Nik Silver Efex Pro.
(Note that Aperture has decided to have a brain fart and replace all my photos even if they haven’t been changed at all. This breaks the images in Flickr. I tried my best to fix this. If any are broken or incorrect, please tell me in the comments below and I’ll fix them.)
