February 2009 Entries
It’s easy to get a little action in your photos if there’s ever a flock of birds sitting around, my strategy is to walk up quietly with the camera ready, start taking shots and then suddenly stop towards the flock. Chances are if you take enough photos you’ll get something interesting. Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec Lens Aperture: F/9 Focal Length: 50mm
This is a great confidence shot, another reason why you should have your camera handy. It was a sunny but somewhat rainy day. The cherry blossoms and trees perfectly frame the person sitting alone on a bench with an umbrella, looking out on the river.. Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec Lens Aperture: F/7.1 Focal Length: 50mm
This is a photo from an Joy Electric concert that I just added to the Galley, the lighting was good enough to get some nice clear shots without needing a flash. Note to concert photographers: never use the flash! It’s distracting to everyone, and you won’t get a good photo anyway. Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec Lens Aperture: F/2.8 Focal Length: 50mm
Infrared is a interesting twist any photo, and I wanted to show this experiment. It’s a fascinating study on how the different light bands change a portrait. It is tricky to get the manual settings just right, but once you do your good to go. It’s a little on the weird side, but interesting never the less. Shutter Speed: 2 sec Lens Aperture: F/1.8 Focal Length: 50mm
This is another stock photo from my gallery, the simplicity makes it one of my favorites. Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec Lens Aperture: F/8 Focal Length: 50mm
Update Note: While I'm keeping this post for historical value, this post is not kept up to date with my Jansen Walker, look at the Jansen Walker project page for the latest details and plans.
Original Post:
I’ve taken a strong interest in Theo Jansen’s walking mechanism, it’s a very efficient mechanical leg design for converting rotary motion into leg movements, and is very elegant in my opinion. The basis is the relative distance of the 12 joins, he calls them “The 12 Holy Numbers”. I’ve also seen “11 Holy Numbers” in a few references.
Another parallel interest I have with...
Amidst my internet travels today I came across the Roboduino from Curious Inventor, it's a Arduino compatible kit that makes working with servos and sensors directly plugable into the board without having to have a separate prototype board or shield. If I weren't on a strict budget I'd be buying one today with a fist full of servos.
I'm always happy to see robotics related projects converging with the Arduino world, it makes experimenting with robotics easy and fun.
http://www.curiousinventor.com/kits/roboduino
Although this is probably technically a tag, I still like the photo. Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec Lens Aperture: F/9 Focal Length: 50mm
These shots were taken from the Coit Tower in San Francisco even though the shutter speed was pretty low I was able to keep the shake down by bracing the camera against the glass. Shutter Speed: 0.8 sec Lens Aperture: F/5 Focal Length: 37mm
I debated weather or not I should post this photo since it’s kind of out of context for the season, but it’s a good opportunity to tell you all about my new seasonal gallery that I'll be filling as time goes on. Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec Lens Aperture: F/8 Focal Length: 50mm
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec Lens Aperture: F/11 Focal Length: 300mm
It’s time you all see my (mostly) secret lair, but I wont tell you where it is so that it’s still nice a secure. If you ever want to drop by my secure web host farm you’ll have to parachute in by airplane. Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec Lens Aperture: F/8 Focal Length: 18mm
There’s always something to see at the beach, but makes for boring photos. But a stormy day makes it much more interesting to me. Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec Lens Aperture: F/9 Focal Length: 300mm
These were taken with a ring flash and a macro adapter. The colors are vivid and the details are what makes these interesting to me. Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec. Lens Aperture: F/22 Focal Length: 50mm
This spider web with dew droplets on it is one of those things I couldn’t pass up taking a few photos of. Shutter Speed 1/100 sec Lens Aperture F/2.8 Focal Length: 50mm
I’ve posted a new gallery of photos called “Stock Photos” on my Photos Page, if your looking for some generic photos for your next publication, feel free to take one. I’ve also taken the time to title and re-arrange the photos in a more logical order. About this particular photo, I used a high aperture and long zoom to keep all the details of the thread spools in focus. Shutter Speed: 1/3 Sec Lens Aperture: F/29 Focal Length: 190mm
I saw Coraline today in 3D and got these spiffy glasses. I’m impressed with the new 3D technology, but I'm more impressed with the engrish warring message that reads: “Not sung lasses-No UV / Sun Protection”. Clearly it was phonetically spelled by someone that doesn't know what the words sun glasses mean. No sung lasses for you!
I spent quite a bit of time today getting a Adobe Flex application to login into a TurboGears site and I couldn’t find any good articles on how to get it to work correctly, after quite a bit of trial and error I was able to figure it out. Here’s quick post on my findings.
Form Fields
The main trick is to get the POST form parameters correct. The default TurboGears “identity.form” parameters in your app.cfg are:
identity.form.user_name="user_name" identity.form.password="password" identity.form.submit="login"
To mimic those POST fields in Flex here’s what the mx:HTTPService would look like:
<mx:HTTPService id="tg_login" method="POST" url="http://localhost:8080/"...
The amalgamation of wires, pipes and concrete buildings gives this photo a nice high-contrast look with no adjustments. Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec. Lens Aperture: F/4.5 Focal Length: 50mm
The fast 1/1000 exposure freezes the falling pencils in place. This was actually a more difficult shot then I was expecting, throwing the pencils in place where the focus was and taking the shot at the exact right moment took quite a few tries. Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec. Lens Aperture: F/4.5 Focal Length: 50mm
This is from a bunch of common orchids in the lobby of an office building, I used offset flash to darken the background and highlight the bloom. Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec. Lens Aperture: F/2.8 Focal Length: 50mm
I’m not sure what kind of spider this is, but it is waving hello. Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec Lens Aperture: F/8 Focal Length: 50mm
I snapped this photo while passing the Portland Saturday Market Elvis, not expecting it to turn out I took a few at the hip as I was passing. I was delighted to find one shot had this dramatic reaction.
“The Elvis” is a guy that plays for money at the Saturday Market, and despite not looking anything like Elvis in my opinion, he does have it on his cape in handwritten faded white lettering.
Shutter Speed: 1/320 Sec
Lens Aperture: F/11
Focal Length: 18mm
I’ve taken a brief interlude in the image-a-day series to consider my strategy. I have about 60,000 photos in my collection total, and about 1 in 100 is “good”, but even at that rate I have over two years of photos for image-a-day, not counting any I may take in that time. So with all of that in mind I'll only be posting my noteworthy best photos, when I run out of those I have another daily image project I’ll starting up. Now it’s quality over quantity, so expect good things. I couldn’t resist mirroring the...
Here is yet another interesting abandoned target in the same gravel pit. I did try the chair and it was even less comfortable then it looks. Unlike most of the photos I post here, the contrast and saturation was modified on this one. Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec Lens Aperture: F/13 Focal Length: 26mm
I found this bullet-ridden and rusted fridge was in a gravel pit in Minnesota. Evidently it was used for many rounds of target practice. Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec Lens Aperture: F/14 Focal Length: 18mm
The creepy crawly things in the garden are always fun to photograph. This slug was one of the largest i’ve seen in a while, a good 4 inches or so. Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec. Lens Aperture: F/5.6 Focal Length: 50mm
This is an elevator plaque from the building I work in, I guess I’m a sucker for plaques with only the number four on them. Shutter Speed: 1/25 sec. Lens Aperture: F/5.6 Focal Length: 46mm
Every season brings it’s flowers, the same field has given me many different opportunities. Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec. Lens Aperture: F/14 Focal Length: 50mm