wandering in the light

PhotoProject :: when just a 50mm lens won’t do

2012-02-16T16:22:00.001+11:00

I was out walking, enjoying the late summer evening. Just to keep my self challenge I just had my Cannon Rebel with only it prime lens, a 50mm. Just using the one prime lens (not a zoom) means you have to do a bit more searching and moving around to get a well composed or interesting shot. In theory it sharpens up some sloppy habits and makes you think about the image more. Well This scene looking up the Yarra valley in the distance begged for a wide angle panorama to take in Mt Dandenong. So, easy just take a series of three and stitch them with autostitch.

I guess this kind of defeats the purpose of only carrying the one lens, but then again I did get the panoramic view I wanted.

Sherbrooke forest space man

2012-02-14T19:13:00.000+11:00

Patterns in Nature

The proverbial shag on a rock

2012-02-14T17:41:00.000+11:00

Late Summer :: Welcome Swallows

2012-02-11T22:52:00.000+11:00

"Must be about time we headed north?"

PhotoFriday :: Tall

2012-02-08T23:18:00.000+11:00

PhotoFriday‘s Topic Tall

waiting for a bite

2012-02-05T09:34:00.001+11:00

waiting for a bite, originally uploaded by imageo.

This was captured in one those fleeting moments as the suns sets, using a high ISO setting so luckily I avoided the digital noise that often is associated with extending the tonal range on such a contrasty RAW file. OR was it improved techniques in Lightroom 4,1 Beta?

Happy Family

2012-02-01T19:47:00.001+11:00

The My Family cartoon stickers are very popular on the rear windows of cars at the moment. This is the biggest single collection I have spotted so far, BUT the saddest collection was reported recently on twitter, it just had mum, two kids and a dog with a faint outline where the dad had once been.

Taken with my Android Cameraphone. Having a camera on your phone and with you all the time, means there is no excuse not to record those little things that enrich life.

Swanning around

2012-01-18T11:28:00.001+11:00

Here is a comparison of some basic enhancement of a RAW format photo using the PENTAX PHOTO Laboratory software versus Lightroom 4. The differences may be minor but I do feel the bottom photo captures the delicacy of the winter afternoon light the way I wanted too. I have often wondered why my JPEG image that my Pentax writes at the same time as the RAW file (a .PEF format) comes out “punchier” and “brighter” than the RAW image, even with a fair bit of tweaking. Maybe I’m not tweaking enough or doing the wrong tweaking! Raw Therapee (a great open source program) seemed to do a better job, but a fair bit of fiddling was often required. The new lightroom BASIC development panel is shown on the right (and it is the only panel I used). The main contribution to the difference is in the White balance, which I changed to Auto (and I’m not even sure what that does, but it has lifted a green grey hazy colour cast from the background). Next i used the clarity slider Opps I probably gave away a big secret here. The clarity slider, which enhances the contrast in midtones, first appeared in in Lightroom 1.1 but was modified in Lightroom 3, and again now in 4 beta is a definitely a “secret tweak” among Lightroom fans I know. It seems to be a magic way to lift any photo, with the result a lot of folk always seem cranked it over to +100, +50ish is enough for me. Then a tiny bit of adjustment to the tonal strength of the highlights and shadows and there it was the photo I wanted to take, all on a single panel in a few seconds.

PhotoProject :: Skyscapes

2012-01-15T12:57:00.000+11:00

The interesting clouds filling this summer’s skies have continued. I think they make wonderful series of photos. I must also admit that I like using the simple collage maker (and Picture Pile format) within picasa to “overlay” the images. I could Autostitch them for a clean finish but the stilted not quiet connected effect brings in a sense of time, or rather timelessness of the clouds billowing by.

PhotoFriday‘s Topic Cloudy

Lightroom 4 Beta

2012-01-13T00:28:00.001+11:00

A lot of people have been speculating about Lightroom 4, mainly because adobe has dropped the price on Lightroom 3. The speculation was justified because Lightroom 4 is now in beta testing release and available through Adobe labs for download (version valid until March 2012). This beta version is not the full feature beast that Lightroom 4 will become but is designed to give those wishing to test it or evaluate it a comprehensive feel of the new features. Most importantly it will run along side any previous version of Lightroom and not trash (or even touch) your existing catalogues!

As with any time you are testing out or trailing software it is a good idea not to use your original photo files. Make a copy and work on those … paraphrased from sound advice by Juleanne Kost

Julieanne does give a series of nice introductory videos, which will get you up to speed on several new features quickly.

Most other bloggers have focussed on the Book Module, which is is linked to producing photo books via the Blurb service, which is actually available in Australia but I have not tried yet.Something to look forward too.

I must admit I am trying out Lightroom 4 beta on a 64bit windows 7 machine, compared with a 32 bit vista machine running Lightroom 3 but it is much snappier. Perhaps also it is related to not having a big catalogue, My theory is adobe has finally taken out the go slow cards of the program (ok I’m being cynical)

The really big thing for me is the BASIC tonal controls are now simplified and more like the way I go about sketching a scene. There are separate sliders for blacks, shadows, midtones (called exposure), highlights and white. For colour & detail the three Presence sliders clarity, vibrance and staturation are a joy and the seem to stop before that weird “uncanny valley” style lurid effect a lot of (over) photoshoped images acquire. If you are having a look at the beta start with these few controls, These few controls really lift RAW images and I think this could be the key factors in more people shooting RAW.

The other (almost) gem in Lightroom 4 is the MAP which is a location based way to organize photos, it read gps details embedded with the photo (did you realize most smart mobile phones do this) or matches a gps coordinated waypoint file with your photos by time, or even drag and drop photos onto a maps. That location data is however only stored in the Lightroom catalogue and is not embedded in the images metadata. That’s like using keywords, tags and labels and not including them in the photos metadata either. Oh hang on Lightroom doesn’t do that either. (You can include this metadata in a copy of the photo by exporting it or pressing Ctrl-S to storing it in the original, but I’ve gotten used to Picasa which updated the original with metadata straight away)

These are a couple of my personal observation after a day an a half or part time play. Don’t be put off by my cynical comments, Lightroom 4 is a great program. I’m sure there is more goodies to find so go check it out for yourself..

One year in one image

2012-01-11T10:40:00.001+11:00

One year in one image, originally uploaded by eirikso.

This is am amazing montage of a whole year into a single image. Based on 3888 images (around 40 per day) shot from the same spot. The fun began when all the photos where sampled for one horizontal column of pixel from each photo. Column 1 from the first, column 2 from the second and so on till all the slices where reassembled and voilá one whole year in one images. You can get more details from eirikso.com

South Bank Panorama on a grey day

2012-01-10T15:35:00.000+11:00

The view from the end of the walkway under flinder's Street station. 20 photos in two rows autostitched into a single image.

In retrospect perhaps I should have taken a third upper row of photos just to get in the top of eureka tower.

PhotoProject :: SkyScape (video)

2012-01-09T15:36:00.000+11:00

If you got a new camera for Christmas and have already amassed a lot of photos, plenty of them great! Why not make them into a slide show movie. Often the software that came with you camera includes a “make movie” option, if not Picasa has a neat movie option, albeit without to much individual slide control. If you want a little more creative control The free t download Windows Live Essentials movie maker is worth a look, but I still think Microsoft’s Photo Story 3 for XP is the best slideshow maker around for free.

I made this very simple movie out of 10 hand held images of a stormy sky last night, I just wanted to see if there was anything new in Picasa 3.9 in terms of movie making (there isn’t that I could see). On the plus side picasa movie is very easy to use and takes very little time to create something interesting. It also takes care of the upload to you tube

PhotoProject :: Skyscapes & Reflections

2012-01-08T16:03:00.000+11:00

An autostitched set of 18 photos in two layers gives a big sky wide open feel. (Notice the two ducks on the lower right, they are but a single duck and an artefact of the stitching process. I like to leave such happenstances in my panoramas to give incentives for the keen observer)

Just what have you agreed to?

2012-01-08T14:13:00.001+11:00

If you use any of these social network services you may be very surprised just what you have agreed that others may have access to or can use from your posts. Now is a good time to review just what you are allowing.
http://mypermissions.org/
originally posted by +mike elgan on google+

DON’T PANIC [yet!]

2012-01-05T12:27:00.001+11:00

If you took my earlier advice and upgraded to Picasa 3.9 you may have noticed that it links to Google+ Photos not Picasa Web Albums. The actual photos are in the same place this is just a different view. However that view does have a few differences and omission. You can always (well at the moment) get back to the traditional Picasa Web view easily using this link.

https://picasaweb.google.com/home

Google do have a summary sheet noting the changes to Picasa Web Albums once you join Google+.

One special condition worth noting is that much of your web album may suddenly be FREE not counted in your 1024MB storage limit. Once you sign up for Google+ any photo less than 2048 pixels and any video less than 15 minutes does not count against your limit. I dropped from 24% used to 2.68% used!

Three of changes worth noting, that are not mentioned in the google list above, but which may be very important to many existing users are -

You can not share with your friends or family just using an email invite alone. You can still send an invitation email to view your photo BUT unless the recipient has a google account they will not be able to view the photo. This effectively means Picasa Web Albums is no longer suitable for private family albums unless the whole family join google+ or get a google account. I EXPECT THIS WILL BE A DEAL BREAKER FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE. If you have family members worried about privacy, don’t upgrade to Picasa 3.9 and perhaps stop posting family to picasa web.
The Picasa Web Album view still lets you set your creative commons licencing (albeit under allow reuse item). Whereas there is no mention of licencing in google+ photo. Does this mean google is abandoning creative commons? I EXPECT THIS WILL BE ANOTHER DEAL BREAKER FOR CREATIVE PEOPLE.
The picasa web view shows how many times a photo is viewed. The google+ photo view just show the number of +1s and comments.

Waiting for the cool change

2012-01-03T19:44:00.000+11:00

The rteally hot summer weather has been here for the last couple of days and last night was particularly hot and unpleasant. It clouding over and looks like a stormy cool change will be here soon, BUT its just getting closer, hotter and nothing on the radar to even hint at rain.

I have not been very successful using the blog this button in picasa 3.9. Whilst i can upload the picture I can not add any text into that post. I always get the script error message displayed below.

Blue with an Australian Summer Intensity

2011-12-29T15:46:00.000+11:00

Summer is arriving at last, the hot weather part, and the sky has cleared to its intense blueness. This blue is not that easy to capture with a camera, especially a cameraphone. The problem being, for most of the day in Australia the clear sky will bleach out to white (being the highest intensity light (according to your light meter, when it compares the light to the foreground objects). There are some well established ways to get around this.

Use a polarizing filter, works well but these filters can be expensive
Expose for the sky, Point the camera high in the sky and half press the shutter release (this performs the exposure and auto-focus on most new digital cameras, set to green or Auto mode). Then pan down to your preferred picture view and press the shutter button all the way down. This keeps the exposure setting of the sky but on your new phone. Most probably you will have a nice sky but the foreground will be blocked out very dark, with little detail. Such dark silhouette can be dramatic but you probably wont be able to tell Arthur from Martha.
Use the HDR process to extend the dynamic range of your photo. If you look back through my post you will find this requires taking several exposure of the same image and then post processing these (using special software)

This photo series was taken at 3pm (2pm without daylight saving and about 7 hours before sunset) using the updated HDRCamera app on my android phone. The beauty of this application is that it automatically undertakes the post processing in your smart phone. Ok it does take a while, but the results are usually great, this image for example does captured that warmth and intense of our summer sky nicely without making a silhouette of the gun tree.

Thomas Hawk @ Googleplex

2011-12-22T14:00:00.001+11:00

This is quiet a long video, but it is a talk by Thomas Hawk, who you probably already know of if you are on Flickr or Google+. If you don’t know of him he is worthwhile following. He has two massively ambitious projects, one to publish 1 million photos in his life time and the second to photograph Americas top 100 cities. This is a refreshing simple presentation of how one photographers works, how he makes time and uses it as efficiently as possible and still has a real life, There is also a fair bit about sharing photos on-line.

PhotoProject :: Focussing on 50mm

2011-12-21T10:41:00.000+11:00

One exercise often recommended to students of photography is to just use one lens, no zoom, and use the camera viewfinder to crop and compose your final image, Just using a single prime lens (a fixed focal length, which is most likely to be a 50mm lens for a DSLR cameras) is a good discipline because without the access to a zoom you are forced to think of your position relative to the subject and the light. The red scooter in a grey city street made for a prefect interesting image, but I had to move in closer and lower. I also wanted to upload my photo to Google+ and have become a bit square crop oriented, with is very much the fashion there now (I assume because the square thumbnails look neat). So I just worried about the vertical position as I took the photo and I did trim it in Picasa before upload.

By the way I tried uploading this directly from the new Picasa (3.9) and ran into a lot of hassles.

Photographers Stocking Fillers

2011-12-20T20:45:00.001+11:00

I had hoped to get this finished last week, but here is a list of smaller items that a photographer might appreciate in his or her Christmas stocking (I have tried to keep below $20/item)

Memory cards

One of the beauties of digital photography is you can take lots of picture without spending a fortune getting them processed. The limit really to how many pictures is the capacity and number of memory cards. If your photographer use SD cards, get him or her a few more and perhaps a card wallet to hold them. Right at the moment 2GB & 4GB cards are the best value and hold decent number of photos (even RAW) However check that the camera can take SDHC cards (HC is for High Capacity)

USB Memory Card Reader

You don’t need to buy the expensive ones, a simple all in one card reader with a USB plug can be stored in you camera bag. Then when you are on holiday or you are out and forgot your cameras upload cable you will have a backup.

Baby Tripods

There is a multiplicity of these from tiny desktop legs, that only support small compact cameras (not larger DSLRs), to the unusually named gorillapod, that has flexible legs, that can even be wrapped around a stable object but only a 325g lifting capacity.
One nifty small tripod-ish support that is a fraction dearer than my under $20 limit is the manfrotto pocket support. Its strong enough to support most grownup DSLR but small enough to leave on your camera.

Dust Cleaners

Notice I haven’t used the term lens cleansers, that is because most lenses these days are coated with specially formulates but thin anti glare and flare coatings. these layers are very easily rubbed off with even the softest cloth. Also it is a good idea not to use and liquid lens cleaners on your lens or even the LCD screen on the back of the camera. A soft micro-fibre cloth, not a paper tissue which will leave troublesome fibres everywhere, is generally all that is required to keep your camera body clean. An old fashion brush and blower are also useful.
Dust on the cameras sensor is a different matter and the camera owner should consult his/her camera manual.

Gift Vouchers

Most good camera stores have gift vouchers covering a wide range of items, from actual photography demonstrations and lessons, book to discount prints and photobooks. It seems such voucher begin at around $15 and can run into the $100s (it could buy a camera) So don’t get carried away keep the vouchers simple when giving them as the stocking filler.

Hot Shoe Triple Axis Spirit Level.

This is a pretty specific bit of gear but very useful for anyone who is keen on multi-image stitched panorama. Haven’t found an Australian supplier yet, but included it in the list in case you spot it a a camera shop.

PhotoProject :: Urban Abstract

2011-12-20T14:30:00.000+11:00

Urban Abstract, originally uploaded by imageo.

Taken om my Android cameraphone using the HDRCamera app. This was directly uploaded to flickr from my phone and then blogged from flickr.

There are pictures waiting to be taken everywhere. Having a camera in your phone is a great way to start capturing more of them

New lights in the lightbox

2011-12-20T09:55:00.001+11:00

The Google+ lightbox was already nice, but it has been imp-roved. The lightbox is the area you go into when you click on and are viewing a photos. Google’s lightbox is black, and there are a lot of folk who prefer that (eg Lightroom users) and others that hate it. In theory the black borders will give photos a “lift ( according to the block border enthusiasts it apparently boos the intensity of colours and the luminosity of the light, I think these is an optical illusions in the viewer). The problem them in things written in the black boarder can be very hard to read, so google+ has white boxes into which comments etc are placed. It is a nice slick update and very simple to pick up and use.
Have fun tagging your christmas snaps or adding santa hats and antlers (watch the video carefull and you will see how to do that)

There is always someone

2011-12-16T13:09:00.000+11:00

Have you noticed that just as you set up a shot and press the button someone is likely to wander across your photo and cast an awkward shadow of even block out part of your subject? For conventional HDRi this can be a disaster, or a lot of cropping. These where taken with my android phone using HDR Camera, which has a “feature” that it uses the first photo as a reference and other items in a single frame only will be removed, rather than included as a ghost. Not sure how its done but it does take some stress away.
I took this photo series of a decorated CFA van to test a theory I have that HDRi is a good technique for the harsh Australian summer midday sun. With a single exposure they best I would have expected was a bleached out sky and the silhouette of the white van (blown out with no detail) against the background trees dark in shadow.
PS: If you want to get the “official” CFA/DSE Bush Fire warnings and alerts on your smartphone for this sumer visit this link.

A Bundle of Goodies from Google

2011-12-13T11:21:00.001+11:00

Google has its update to Picasa (version 3.9) ready for download, but they are not pushing it out to existing Picasa users just yet. Like a lot of their other recent releases it is very Google+centric. Offering easier ways to upload to Google+ (with an oversized green share button on the photo tray) including name tags of your Google+ Circles. The actual details of this name tag sharing is a bit more complex than I need to discuss here, but the essence is you tag your photo in face recognition with someone in your Google+ Circle or even just has an email address associated with them, then they automatically show up in the share box for that photo in Picasa web Album (even though that may be otherwise private). In other words if they are in your photo they will be able to see it (but they are not notified). This is a sensible default in an otherwise very public social network centric places that the web seems to becoming. Read more detail here.

The BIG difference with Picasa 3.8 is the link to Web Albums is now called Google+Photos, and that is exactly what it is, if you are already signed up to Google+. If not you with see an offer to join Google+ but don’t panic you don’t have to join. The conventional Picasa web album view lives on (it and Google+photo are just different ways to view the same on-line photos) and you still have the 2GB of free space. Actually if you join Google+ you may find your free space climbs again because they then don’t count small images and short videos.

If you have become interested in Picasa on your PC (or MAC) because you have started looking under the bonnet of Google+Photo. You will appreciate this share to Google+ button because it works a lot like the share feature in the Google+ app on your smart phone. Only in this case the photos can be shared “directly” from your computer, with a few option that you may choose to define but most of the information is taken from the image itself. This type of effortless transfer is what “cloud” computing promised long ago, but is only just getting around to deliver.

If your an existing Picasa user don’t worry to much about the changes, they are really just a bit or a “clean up” to the screen real estate and the user experience with be pretty much as you are used to be. One change that worried me at first was the size of the share button on the photo tray left not enough room for the button I had grow to love.

Before 3.8

Now 3.9

Not to worry the configure button tab lets you bring back the “one click” buttons you like. Ok they are not exactly single click button but they do give single click access to wizards that take you through the more common processes If you haven’t used them take the opportunity to try them out when investigating Picasa 3.9.

Possible you have already seen or heard rumors of the plethora of new editing effects. Don’t get too excited they are mainly “fun” filters (like the fun effects in Picnik or Befunky). When you click on a single photo you still get the same editor dialogue on the left hand side. The difference you will notice is the tabs at the top of this dialogue area, there are now 5 tabs and they have icons rather than text. The first three are as before, the last two are are sub-titled more fun effects and even more fun effect, which is what they are, the fun end of town! Ideal for fun on Facebook, Twitter and other distractions

There is one new edit features that I think will appear to the more purist end of the photography spectrum, ok the ones that have been exposed to Photoshop or more particularly Lightroom. Its side by side editing (finally!) It not only lets you have the before and after images side by side, you can also compare different photos and side by side can be swapped to above and below. You access this feature from the little A A or A B boxes above the image, in a single photo display.

Download Picasa 3.9 now (remember its free), don’t wait for the roll out, you won’t regret it.

HINT: One final recommendation if you have bought anyone a camera for Christmas, buy them an extra memory card. You can even put the download of the Picasa 3.9 installer on the card (as an added bonus). I’m sure they will find it will be nicer software than is bundle with the camera anyway.

Birds of Kalista (revisted)

2011-12-07T22:08:00.001+11:00

There have been some elaborate changes to the bird feeding at grants picnic ground at Kalista, Whilst it is undoubtedly been carried out in the interest of keeping the wild birds healthy it does seem a little heavy handed.

Visitors must purchase a token from ‘Grants on Sherbrooke’ kiosk to enable them to enter the fenced Bird Feeding area and obtain a measured amount of seed to be offered to the wild birds. Visitors are not permitted to bring in their own seed nor offer seed or other food items to birds outside of the Bird Feeding Area.
There are no other areas within the Dandenong Ranges National Park where seed can be offered to native birds.

If you have just come to photograph the birds their are plenty still hanging around, looking for a feed..

Patterns

2011-12-05T18:11:00.001+11:00

Have you seen this man?

2011-12-03T12:42:00.001+11:00

I have just had a bit of fun with a chrome app called OU PhotoFit Me, its put out by the Open University in the UK, as a promotion for enrolment in their Psychology & Social Science courses This is clever marketing.

You wouldn't recognize me from my PhotoFit but it was fun trying to get some resemblance. I guess I don’t look in the mirror enough and the body parts are definitely from the young and beautiful people. So perhaps this is the “I wish” Photo Fit.

They also have a few suggested celebrities you should try out for a Famous Face Fit, I’m sure you will be able to do better than the ones posted so far. Have a play in the app below.

I’m so vane

2011-11-29T11:04:00.000+11:00

Aren't I just ruggedly handsome.
PhotoFriday‘s Topic Rugged

A Passing Tram

2011-11-28T16:40:00.000+11:00

How Autostitch handled
the moving collage

I have my Pentax Camera Back (with card reader repaired) but it was a very humid overcast day in the city and the only thing around was a passing tram and traffic. So I just clicked off a number of photos as I walk north and the tram headed south. May not look much but I'm happy everything works, with the camera not the collage Now to get Back to taking some serious photography.

Icy Christmas Decorations in Summer

2011-11-27T11:48:00.000+11:00

The Glen Shopping Center at Glen Waverley has a wonderful glass dome and vaulted glass roof, letting in beautiful natural light to the otherwise artificial temple to the gods of everything commercial. The Juxtaposition of stylized snow flakes against a rich blue summer sky is an irony I appreciate. Its a pity more Christmas shoppers don’t look up.

Self Reference Sketches

2011-11-25T00:36:00.001+11:00

A little bit of self indulgent self reference. Using my own sketching gear and paints to sketch my own sketching gear and paints.

Still elegant

2011-11-24T13:08:00.001+11:00

This is the back door of the Royal Exhibition Building. This grand old lady, was only meant to be a temporary structure for the “great” Melbourne international Exhibition in 1880, Victoria was still an English colony back then, with newly acquired wealth thanks to the Gold Rush. The building has survived a few partial demolitions and fires, and has now passed into the hands of the Victorian museum and is also now a listed World Heritage site. She still hold exhibitions and has had many other uses including the opening of the first Australian Parliament (just the opening!) , a sports venue during the 1956 Olympics and as the main Matriculation examination hall (which I remember all to well) during the 56s 60s & 70s and still used by Melbourne Uni and RMIT for exams (also remember these). Today her biggest event is the Melbourne International flower and garden show.

The stark/strong lighting of the Australian summer gives me another good test for HDR camera on my android phone.

Getting in very close

2011-11-23T10:31:00.000+11:00

Whilst this fish has featured prominently in my rock art, this is the first time I had seen a real version (aka a fossil in a mueseun collection). The lighting was very low and the specimen small but I thought HDR Camera on my android phone might be ok,

And it was. You would think he was over 70 million years old?

Wide but weird?

2011-11-22T21:56:00.001+11:00

I’m still without my DSLR, and missing it. Yet I have been experimenting with my android camera phone, and more specifically the update to Camera Advance Lite which is now called ProCapture, and I’m just trying out the free version. Today I saw I nice set of clouds and their refelections and a group of ducks leaving v trails across the reflections. Just begging for a nice wide panoramic image. I knew that ProCapture claims to offer both a wide shot mode, that utomatically links together 3 photos to produce a high resolution wide image. A little more about the High resolution claim later

When you set ProCapture in Wide shot mode (on the upper mode tool) it lets you take three photos (at your own pace). These p[hotos like others taken with ProCapture seemed well exposed (see collage above) then the phone’s screen blanks and you see the processing and the normal spiraling indicator. this ran so long my phone shutdown the screen and every after refresshing this it took what seemed like a few minutes. The resulting image (see below) it was only a thin strip across the phone but looks out at that sized.
I’d made the classic mistake when hand holding the phone (what else was I to do?) at a title between shots to the panorama assumes an titled horizon. I’ve added the black edge so I could show how much I had to straighten the image by.
Once loaded onto my computer and reviewed at higher resolution I discovered there where some amazing difference between the camera stitched image and the original photos. Where are the duck’s V traces in the water for example. Has the vertical scale been compressed? why is so much of the foreground missing? This so called high resolution composite image is actually smaller that the individual photos! This lower resolution of the in phone processed panoramics is a disappointment in most places I have found it (eg see my storm panorama post)
To make sure these are not just stitching artifacts I also stitche the original images with Autostitch (lower image below). It looks fine just Like I expected.

Clearly it is worth waiting to do an autostitch back on the computer. from the point of view of image quality. I discovered there are other reasons to be careful when using the wide shoot and panorama setting, over and above the length of time required to process the stitching in camera
WARNING: Don’t forget to reset the camera mode back to Normal, otherwise to might find your next three shoots seem to work, only to find the phones disappears in the processing mode and after a long delay announce no match could be found. Fair enough. The bit that isn’t fair is your three photos will be gone!

The internet of things

2011-11-19T22:25:00.000+11:00

I heard about an interesting project on a recent science show podcast. Its a project between several UK universities and based on open source software and existing technologies that enables things (objects) to become know and have their own presence on the internet. At the simplest level each object gets an entry in the the internet of things, a website specifically created for this project, and gets issues its own QR code. A human (eg you) has to do this. There are also phones app for the iphone and android that make your phone into one of these QR tags readers. So when you happen upon one of these tagged objects you can scan it and read about out it, leave comments or even like it. Then depending on how its entry is configure it might tweet that you a have visited, share your comment or update its facebook status. Suddenly things can have their own form of memory and history in our cyberworld. Sound far fetched? No its very real and very simple.

Fencing Off Private Geo “Hot Spots” on Flickr

2011-11-16T12:02:00.001+11:00

Flickr now allows you to create hotspots, which it calls geofences with specific privacy settings. These are useful for locations such as "home" or "school" or anywhere else you would like to make more private than your global default. You can have up to 10 geofences, that can automatically block the accidental public display of your location. Many smart phone users do not realize that the location of the photo is frequently also captured and embedded in the photos EXIF metadata data . Posting that photo on the net then will allow others, who know how to read the EXIF data to determine a lot more about your private life than you intended. The real problem is there are now a lot of common social tools that can look for and share this location detail with wind more importantly often without your knowledge, the geofences, accesses and content filter are a good reason to consider doing most of your social network sharing of photos via Flickr.

Alternative you could

Use Picasa Web Album, and remove the location data from specific photos.
Turn off the geotagging (it might be called location) on your phone (this may not always be in the phonaes cameras settings and might require reference to the phones manual)

Check out your geo privacy page in Your Account Settings on Flickr for more details. You can also hide your camera’s EXIF data in Your Account Settings.

While the DSLR is away the Androids come out to play

2011-11-11T21:32:00.001+11:00

My Pentax DSLR started to chew up my SD memory cards. (actually it was just forcing the small plastic strips between the metal contacts out of shape, rendering the cards unreadable on other devices) I assume either something has fallen in to the card reader or the card insert mechanism was slightly out of alignment, Anyway the camera has gone of holiday to the camera repair shop. Life without it is not the same but I do have my android camera phone to play with and satisfy the urge to experiment with camera techniques.This is another HDR camera shoot, Captured as three separate images. Damn that pedestrian walking across my image. I didn’t see hime when I tap the screen release button. Click… Click … bugger where did he come from …Click ….right in the middle of frame now. The three images are processed in camera in a HDRI style tacking the exposure range across the three photos and producing an extended (High Dynamic Range) image.The beauty of the HDR camera software is it doesn’t lead to ghosting when the camera is moved or people in the photo move. The moving man appears to been totally ignored, actually not totally his final position is hinted by a shadow shape on the footpath).

A wish for PhotoContests to use Creative Commons

2011-11-09T14:02:00.001+11:00

I noticed Catherine Hall‘s invite on Google+ for a TWIT Photo contest and investigated because TWIT is a web savvy group but I was discouraged by the same old same old detail in the conditions of entry.

Once upon a time I entered a lot of on-line photo contest, they are fun and a good way to get recognition but I no longer do so because I now always read the terms and conditions of entry. They normally have been written by lawyers (or cut and pasted from rules written by lawyers) and have terms like “irrevocable, royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide perpetual” when all they really want is the right to publish the winning and running up photos. Unfortunately that click that you accept the competition conditions is assumed to mean you have in theory have given away your normal common law copyright rights to those mentioned in the conditions I’m not a lawyer but such “agreements” may not be all that enforceable “worldwide” (specifically outside the USA) and are really only there for the USA-centric litigious fantasyland of sue or be sued. It is my observation that having lawyers and agents involved with the threat of litigation just suck the creative side dry rather than feeding and encouraging it. I don’t want to play in that space.

I for one want photo competitions to just use the creative commons guidelines. They are really ideal for what I understand the competition organizer’s want, which to be able to reproduce the photos without expressed permission of the photographer (this is the basic Attribution 3.0 license. CC BY, and the author is granting the right to share and adapt the work. The 3.0 is just the current version of the creative commons licenses. This does allows for commercial use of the work (because it is not excluded, in the same way it is usually not mention in the legalistic competition rules) Commercial use might including the photo in a book which is for sale. It is this right to potential commercial use that creative types should worry about. Fortunately there is a nice creative common solution, the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 license CC BY-NC. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms. In other words you are sharing your work buy not for other to make money from. Any completion organizer should still be happy with this.

So I would be happy to click acceptance on a competition that just requires those entering must license their entry Attribution-NonCommercial, CC BY-NC. End of conditions.

Other photographers might be happy to enter competition with a requirement for Create Commons Attribution, CC BY. Which I think is all the TWIT team really intended after all.

Flickr and Picasa Web Album are examples of two web services that understand this need to include the creative common licensing in their web based display of any photo or art work and including the ability to have default settings. If you look at any single photo in either of these services you will see the little CC logo, or failing that a convention copyright (all rights reserved logo). The intention in Google+ is not as clear in that creative commons isn’t found in the help forum and sharing images bring you to discussion of public versus sharing with your circles. In theory because Google+ images are also in picasa web album they get a default license (which is for me at least is a full copy right). I can change that in picasa web album for specific photos or albums but anyone looking at the image(s) on Google+ will not see these CC license logos. I think this is an important small step for Google+ to fix right now

The big advantage of creative commons for content creators is they are don’t affect the author’s moral rights to the intellectual property and that the author could also grant waivers or stricter conditions to others wanting to use the same image.

Meet the Frogmouths

2011-11-06T11:59:00.000+11:00

Mr. & Mrs (order unknown) and the two kids. The Tawny Frogmouth Podargus strigoides, these owls are very equal opportunity parents sharing egg incubation and brooding duties. These two chicks are delightful little bundles of fluffy feathers

Tripod Easel ver 2.1

2011-11-05T18:03:00.000+11:00

I have used my tripod easel a few times now and decided sitting down to sketch/paint in the field is not my thing. I’m very used to perching myself wherever and holding a light drawing board, and turning it around as I want (often to play with the wash flow direction). The tripods I have both extend up to bring the camera virtually to eye level so getting a higher board height is really easy (you just crank the handle on the extension tube). Further the heads on both my tripods have a lockable swivel arm so that the camera is easily reposition with one hand (or the drawing board tilted and rotated). After a bit of experimentation I opted to have the swivel arm pointing up, which meant I have to reach under or around the board but it does seem to give me better control (however it makes the arm harder to see in the photo below). So all I needed to do was make up a wider drawing board (still 3mm particle board sheet) and find a palette with deeper wells, so the washes don’t spill out as I tilt the board). Using common bulldog clips (anything similar will do just fine) I then clamped my mixing palette on the right and sketch book on the left. A couple of big blobs of blu tac help my keep brushes and pencils handy.

I had tried to find the spot Charles Conder had painted his larger Holiday at Mentone work. The old mentone seas baths, and beach boxes are long gone and the current “jetty” is enclosing a storm water drain and more western along the beach. In my memory conder’s painting faced the other way. So I am probably in much the same location of condor’s easel but looking in the opposite direction. for my sketch. For a wider view see my photosynth below. The standup painting position works better for me, and I could work faster with the washes and tilting the board was very easy. Finally I like this simpler design (less parts to carry)

Mentone Beach Photosynth :: Full 360°

2011-11-04T14:47:00.000+11:00

Further Investigation of AutoFocus up close

2011-11-04T09:22:00.001+11:00

My previous investigation only wetted my appetite to find out more about the close up focusing on my android phone. So I reinstalled PRO Paint, something of a mistake (see the footnote) and also grabbed my Pentax DSLR and my wife’s FujiPix (a nifty little point and shoot) and I went out to take some things in the garden up really close. I was primarily interested in the difference in depth of field, as the lens got smaller. I was expecting the depth of field to get wider on the smaller cameras and largely it did. This narrower depth of field on my big DSLR does give a pleasant effect where the subject is in focus but the background blurred. Also these photos are clearer and possibly closer to the true colour saturation. I did use the special macro mode on The FujiPix and my touch and hold method for my HTC camera. What I did notice and I have seen before is that some subjects (eg purple & white flowers) give autofocus a hard time. I suspect these subjects don’t have sharp enough contrast in themselves for the autofocus to play with. See the single lavender bloom (second row) I was trying to focus on the petals of that bloom and only the DSLR let me do that (after a lot of ranking back and forth of the lens) the other cameras just focused on the foliage behind.

CONCLUSION: You’ll still do better with marco subjects if you go for a DSLR and exploit the depth of field to highlight your subject, All cameras did a good enough job to get the detail. Some white & lighter purple subjects are harder to get auto-focus to work.


Pentax D20	FujiPix Z30	Android HTC	Android PRO Paint


			Not Taken *
			Not Taken *
			Not Taken *

* The PRO Paint app kept crashing my phone, whenever it used the flash which it did unnecessarily, so I gave up and uninstalled it again.

Echos of the Buzz

2011-11-03T13:02:00.001+11:00

Whilst Buzz was initially included within google+, albeit as a side show. Google has taken the sensible step of sidelining it altogether. However the Buzz like overwhelming noise does still echo within in google+

The Animated Gifs are at epidemic proportions on Google+ at the moment. However I felt this one by Drunken K Bliths was so good on several levels I needed to share it.

The other aspect of google+ I am finding very distracting are the excessive posters, those that keep popping up every few posts with a few lines and then a link to someone else’s posts/blog/website. I’m not trying to shame Robert Scoble, his posts are usually informative even on topics like android camera phones and geotagging, but if you are following him you’ll know what I mean. Most of this this stuff would be better as comments on the original post or blog. I think the only solution is to keep unflowing such individuals until your stream returns to a flow that suits your tempo. I’m looking for a babbling brook in the forest of what interests me, not a mosquitoe infested swamp buzzing with “everything” remotely social webish.

Macro Focus on a Cameraphone

2011-11-02T15:02:00.001+11:00

In a discussion thread on Google+ about android phone apps, Remi Valade asked about android cameras apps with a macro feature. Since close ups are a feature I often use/need I figured this was something worthwhile investigating. I am a geologist and I often need to take close up pictures of rocks, not works of art so much as photos that show the specific detail. I recently found this exotic rock (ie it did not match the local geology) in the spoil of shells and charcoal below an aboriginal midden, in a large dune blow out. It is highly weathered, but looks hard and probably volcanic, when I turned it over I could see what appears to be a skilled chipping of the edge to produce a cutting or scarping shard, maybe even a spear tip. By the way when taking “scientific” close ups, it is good practice to include a scaling reference, such as a coin or pencil, or make up you own scale reference, laminate it and keep it in your camera bag

Searching google and just doing an android macros focus query then looking in various forum, It show that the common complain was that whilst the screen could be focused on something close, it would usually drift out of focus when the button was pressed (and the delay before the shutter fired) and the photo was taken. I wondered if this was a camera movement thing, up close even a small movement would mean a close object could go out of focus and refocussing takes time. I also noted the large number of Phone magnifiers app that seemed to display similar focus sensitivity and short comings. This got me thinking perhaps I might do better moving back and using the zoom.
I had already discovered that if I pressed and held my finger on a specific part of the image the HTC camera would focus and set the exposure to suit that point (and it could be anywhere on the screen), Then after a short delay (maybe 3 seconds) still hold my fingure on that spot on the screen the shutter would fire, with flash if necessary. The press and hold is a much easy way to stay steady, and I use it all the time. Adding a bit of zoom gave me a quiet acceptable photo of the chip. You can see the texture of the split and several phenocrysts in the unweathered part of the rock.

My next stop was the android market place, and using the key words Macro Focus. I saw there where only a few camera apps claiming macro capabilities amongst a larger number of magnifiers. The most obvious free photo app (I wanted free so I could test it out) was PRO Paint (they have a paid app version called Pro Zoom Camera 5X). First results where awful, every time I focussed and tapped the screen to take the picture it would go out of focus (just like the user comments in the various forums) plus the frequent nagging screens suggesting I upgrade where driving me crazy. Eventually I pressed the AF button (I now realized it stood for AutoFocus) down on the far left and it worked beautifully (see below). Ok about as well as the HTC camera held steady (see above). Anyway I don’t like nagware so I have delete this app already.

Unexpected

2011-10-31T10:24:00.001+11:00

I was down Ricketts Point, Beaumaris on the bay south of Melbourne. and spotted a group of black swans. I hadn’t many along the coast for the past few years and this is the second group I have seen this month. I went to get my DSLR camera and the battery was flat (sad face) but I did have my android phone and as is my preference at the moment I took at HDR camera shot (actually its three shots)

As is typical taking such a series with a moving subject (the sea gulls, the waves and even the swans themselves) I was expecting ghosting. However looking at the final result the waves and seagulls and swan on the right are all nice and sharp and just as they where in the first photo. Even though Almalence, the creators of the HDR camera app, claim the correct handling of moving objects and de-ghosting I do find this pretty amazing.

Going Wide Angle on a Cameraphone

2011-10-29T18:17:00.001+11:00

For PhotoFriday‘s Topic Wide Angle

I’m sure something like this must have has already been tried. Here I have used 4 photos taken on my android cameraphone, stitched them with Microsoft Research's ICE software and uploaded the resulting image to Microsoft Research's Photosythn. Zoom in with your mouse and look around, not bad resolution for a cameraphone. The big drawback in this image however is the horizon is a very wobbly line.

Is Seeing Believing?

2011-10-25T09:16:00.001+11:00

This video is from a paper being given at SIGgraph Asia 2011 by Kevin Karsch, Varsha Hedau, David Forsyth, Derek Hoiem called Rendering Synthetic Objects into Legacy Photographs.

Unlike the photoshopping and fiddling with blemish stuff that is giving photo manipulation such a dubiously bad reputation, some of the work with augmented reality and object rendering is really based on sound understanding of the theory. In Kevin’s case above clearly the process is following the source of light and shadows in a truly natural way. I am all for this type of technical improvement but we may have to tolerate more public scepticism of good “photographic” methods as this and similar techniques become tools of the less ethical fakers.

By the way, incorrect shadows and lighting on a subject are the easiest way to detect shoddy photoshoped heads on the wrong bodies etc. Now it is our job, as honest photographers to be open with the methods we apply (and I’m certain the above methods have some very great legitimate application), whilst at the same time helping to detect and expose the low-lives who are out to deceive us?

Night & Day

2011-10-24T13:15:00.000+11:00

These are taken at roughly the same place in the waterloo district of Amsterdam. They are examples of photos I have geotagged well after I took them. I added the geotags in Picasa using Geo-tag in Google Earth button (blue globe down on the far bottom right). I then loaded these into Flickr to check if Yahoo Maps is improving, and for Amsterdam, at least there seems to be good comparison now.

The one sour note was I could not figure out how to share multiple images with the blogger share button now in flickr. Seems you have to do one photo at a time.b So it was over to the share button in flickr and grab the html code, then do a little tweaking of the image size in microsoft’s live writer

Little but with a Big Bite

2011-10-22T14:51:00.001+11:00

For PhotoFriday‘s Topic little

The Australian Bull Ant may look little but it packs a mighty bite and is also very strong (here it is uprooting a dead grass looking for the succulent root). It is widely discussed, (it may be an urban myth) that australian aboriginals still use the bull ant’s powerful nippers as a form of bush suture. The hold the ants so they bite on both side of a deep flesh wound and then break off the body leaving the head firmly attached. A dozen or so ants and you have very satisfactory stitches. (ouch! think I’d rather wait for the flying doctor)

Someone asked me earlier in the week which was my favourite lens and they where surprise when I pointed to my Sigma DL Macro 70-300mm zoom. This was used to take the above photo, I just slide the switch on the barrel to macro and it let me get “close” but at the same time “safely” about 2m away. I have seen a lot of disdain and tut-tuts in some of the camera, press, clubs and podcasts for sigma lens, but I reckon they are good value for money and seem to survive my “field” treatment, ok except the ones with plastic mounts)

HDRI :: Sunset

2011-10-21T23:00:00.001+11:00

Sunset taken on my android phone using HDR camera

1+ Google PlusOne Button and should you use it?

2011-10-19T10:35:00.001+11:00

You are sure to have noticed the plus one buttons popping up all over the place on the web (and this blog). This is a google initiative to take back a little of the hype from the like button on facebook. It is really a crowd sourcing exercise that will give a little extra ways in which google can refine search results. At the simplest level when you click on the 1+ button you are publically recommended that item across the web.

The real benefit of these 1+ recommendation will be for those in google+, because google then makes your recommendation highly visible to your family and friends and you see theirs recommendations. In other words it is a simple way to share with your circle of friend and things you see that look cool. From a privacy prespective that sharing doesn’t extend out side those your circles.Unlike the facebook like button, which supposedly just puts your likes on your profile, via your news feed, but also less well known is it then acts as if it owns your likes and on-sells them to others such as Bing searches.
Who actually owns and has the right to use what you put on the social web is a really grey area. I would be interested in hearing comments from others on privacy risks and social network tools?

Contrast

2011-10-17T16:18:00.000+11:00

These two photos are in fact taken with a few meters of each other, However they do illustrate two very different outcomes facing modern agriculture. On the right is the image of drought and slt being drawn to the surface, The left shows able water but the waterway is being choked with algal and opportunist growth, related to excessive nutrients in the run off.

It never rains but it pours.

Often opposites make an interesting photo pair.

Every camera has FREE Digital Zoom

2011-10-16T15:58:00.000+11:00

The simple feature found in almost all image processing software normally called cropping, givens every camera owner access to a digital zoom. Like the much maligned in camera digital zoom feature there are limits. If you zoom in too far your image becomes blocky, noisy and fuzzy, The digital camera will probably have an interpolation built into it6s functions that tries to smooth out and sharpen the image as you zoom in. It will also possibly resize the interpolated output. Another common image processing tool sharpen might help extend the zoom range just a little on your cropped image. However don’t go overboard with sharpening (it can introduce unfortunate edge effects at contrast boundaries in the image)
So here is a recent example, I was taking a wide multi-image panoramic view, with my normal lens 50mm (75mm equivalent to a 35mm) Then I notice some swan flying past in formation and with no time to change lenses I just snapped an image (of them way in the distance, see image above). I then cropped this in picasa and added just a slight tweak of sharpening. The result is not satisfactory to blow up but looks fine at 15 by 10cm (6” by 4”) the standard photo processing snap shot size

PhotoProject :: Skyscapes

2011-10-14T23:00:00.001+11:00

The clouds this afternoon where dramatic, but on a much larger scale than a normal photo captures. An obvious application for multi-image stitched panorama, This time I have used the panorama stitched within Windows Live Photo Gallery, rather than my favourite autostich.

Some Interesting android apps for smartphones with cameras

2011-10-12T19:59:00.001+11:00

One interesting, and seeming not often discussed, feature of smartphones with cameras is that you are not really just limited to the capabilities of the camera application it was shipped with. You can easily download and run other apps (applications) that will either replace the camera application altogether, give you different controls or allow you to tweak the photos in phone, Here is a selection of free apps that I have found to be worthwhile downloads.

Alternate Cameras


HDR Camera	Camera Advance Lite	Little Photo	Camera Fun Free
You’ll be amazed at the quality of images you can get out of this. It takes 3 exposures and uses HDRi techniques to extend dynamic range. The free version has ad banners	This adds some extra features to your camera and has some nice OS (On Screen Aids) to help you take better photos.	Simple camera with a timer, and a lots of special effect and edit features	It does photo effects as you take the photo, a lot of fun. There is a paid version that give you more effects

In-Phone Photo Editors


Adobe Photoshop Express	Photo Effects	PhotoFunia	Pixlr-o-matic
Simple easy to use basic editing options, a few special effects from Adobe (Photoshop & Lightroom folk)	Claims to turn your photos into art with amazing photo effects, similar to Instagram	Put your face on billboards, in art galleries, magazines. Lots of Fun. Needs web access	The retro finishes and filters are well done and fun. from Autodesk (autocad folk)

I assume a lot of these apps will also be available from the Iphone app store, I have only tested them on an android (2.2.1) phone.

Towards a light portable (watercolour) easel

2011-10-11T12:54:00.001+11:00

Whilst this is not exactly a photographic topic, I am using my camera tripod(s). I have made an easel attachment for a tripod before, alas it is a heavy thing The simple tilted table design of David Hurrell inspired me to revisit the idea of have my drawing board being able to attach to my camera tripod. I actually have two, one is lighter weight and fits in my case when travelling, and is small enough to carry all day. The second is heavier and sturdier and tends to live closer to home or my car, but is a really great tripod, with movie style damped panning.

Easel Mark I

This is simply a copy of David’s idea. All you need is a suitable sized nut, that fits your tripod adaptors screw. The nut I used cost just 6 cents. I glued this onto the back of a piece of 3mm thick craft wood that I use as a portable drawing board. Voila! Instant easel.

I soon discovered I need a couple of craft wood pads (also 3mm and slightly thicker that the bolt) also glued on beside the nut to let me firmly attach the adaptor to the board. Without these on the board tended to slew a round a little not matter how tight I screwed it down. Also most such adaptors have a small spring loaded pin below the screw thread. So I drilled a small hole to match this location on my lower pad. (Both my tripods have small detachable adaptors that screw onto your camera then there is a quick release mechanism that attaches this to the tripod head)

The result is great I now have a light weight easel that is easy to carry and quick to set up

Easel Mark II

The next step was dreaming of a way to attached my palette and dipping water jar on the side. I even got as far as sketching up a a “super” drawing board with and old paint palette pivoted underneath, so it could swing out as you painted. Unfortunately I spotted one serious design flaw before I tried to make it. I had made up a wider drawing board I sometimes used on windy days which held both my sketch book and portable paint palette with normal bulldog clips. The problem I had with this was gravity, as I tilted the board I ran the risk of any liquid in the paint palette running out (and potentially across my painting). This was relatively easily fixed on my handheld board by using the hinged nature of the portable palette and putting a bit blob of blu-tack under the lower palette tray to keep it roughly horizontal and just doing my wash mixes in this lower tray.

The solution really requires the palette (and anything else) to be independent of the drawing/painting surface. realising that meant I look for an independent way to attach these to the tripod, Most tripods that can have their heads raise and lowered have a crank mechanism that runs inside a tube at the top of the tripod. A small U-bolt (normally sold as a way to attach things like TV antenna to a pipe, or as a method to secure off a loop in wire rope) can easily be used here to attach a simple arm on which the palette can be mounted. My prototype used a spare bit of wood that in retrospect is a little heavy. However the new multi-function easel works like a charm. By the way the U-bolt at approx $4.00 is a little more expensive than the nut.

So where to now.? I think the next obvious improvement is to make the arm out of extruded aluminium, making sure that it also fits with my tripod carry bag. Also I will change the conventional nuts to wing nuts (which are much easier to tighter by hand).

On my prototype i have already found a conventional picture hook is a great way to attached a small jar of water (not shown) and a Velcro hooks strip on the arm and corresponding Velcro loop dots on small containers, is a neat flexible way to hold other small jars or containers within easy reach.

I also have a small folding stool that is easy to attach to my camera/art backpack. So Everything is nicely portable and a delight to use.

Google+, some extra thoughts

2011-10-08T16:00:00.001+11:00

I may have been a little hasty recommending you go exploring Google+ circles looking for photographers. What will probably happen is you will be overwhelmed with glary self promotion and hype (while the look at me celebrities fight it out for most views or +1 likes. I found it just way too much information and distracting. So I’m now going to suggest you approach circles one follow at a time, but start with someone that might have something to say that interests you. My pick in from my first cacophony, of too many too follow, was Trey Ratcliff, who is both an excellent travel photographer and knows how to discuss his craft in an engaging way (see also his website stuck in customs) as well as posting his current photo projects, his Google+ post range from personal yarns to almost philosophic ponderings and more importantly he runs regular photo hangouts on Google+. I suggest he is a good guide to things photographic on Google+. As you find your way around first follow others that interest you, make comments and perhaps later friend them.

It is the Google+ app (I’ve only tried out the Android version) and specifically the instant photo upload that I think will give Google+ its greatest traction with new users. It works really seamlessly and most importantly doesn’t share your photo with the world (unless you specifically choose to do so). I have my phone set so it only connects to the internet when I am connected to WiFi (so I avoid the high costs of uploading photos incurs on GSM). One missing feature that does surprise me is in editing, There is no option to run Picnik (since Google now own Picnik) or even swap across to Picasa web and run Picnik there?

Perhaps even better might be to have picnic as an add in to Google+ on the phone or as an android app of its own. I’m not the first to notice this by the way.

PhotoFriday :: Slick on legs

2011-10-07T17:27:00.000+11:00

For PhotoFriday‘s Topic Slick

This soldier crab is "collecting" a diatom bloom in salt foam, and wraping it around his body. He then carries this some distance and buries in the mudflat (presumably as a future food store). Watching thousands of these bubble encrusted crabs meandering across the mudflats is an amazing sight, but it only occurs under unusual conditions, there needs to be an algal bloom of the diatoms with enough wind to whip some salt foam and blow this salty algal dinner onto the shore.

A DSLR .vs. Cameraphone Quiz

2011-10-03T16:14:00.001+11:00

You don’t need to believe my advice that camera phones are now quiet adequate for taking most photos. Test out how good you are at picking whether a photo has been taken on a Smart Phone or a SLR in this CNN quiz

Inquisitive

2011-10-02T16:31:00.000+11:00

For PhotoFriday‘s Topic Animal

What might Google+ mean for your Photos?

2011-09-29T23:41:00.001+10:00

I know I wrote earlier, back in July, about rumours that picasa web might be rebranded as google photo as it is bought into Google+.Then I kind of ignored the Google+ phenomena, but a few day ago I noticed my name, with a plus in front of it, at the top of the black menu bar in Gmail. If you have a gmail account I am sure you will see an secret invite like this has appeared in your account now that Google+ has good live. Clicking on that took be inside the new worlds of Google+. Actually at first look it is a relatively plain looking hybrid of twitter like posts (only longer) and something like flickr or tumblr. I have never seen the appeal in facebook so I will not make any comparisons to it. The three obvious enhancement are Photos (which is actually picasa web, viewed differently) Circles (a way to identify different grouping with your friend, family & colleagues and a very logical way to control your sharing with them) and Hangouts (a kind of private video/chat).

If you already have picasa, your will have a picasa web albums (and a lot of free photo space in the clouds) if you don’t it will be set up one for you. The only thing is it looks a bit different, lighter and some how cleaner in Google+ and now it has a special sub album for your phone photos.

The good news is when you upload from your phone, the photos are not shared with anyone, You have to explicitly choose to share anything. Be warned though sharing is easy.

You can make and share your own Circles so it also acts a bit like groups in flickr. Photographers have found this feature and already created a very bright and active community. To join in the vibe just offer to follow (a special type of circle where you read the public post of others without sending your post to them) a couple of photographers and just watch there posts.

The fact that sharing photos is so easy and their presence does liven up a very plain layout is probably why photographers have take so quickly to Google+ and why they quickly attract so many followers

There are also Hangouts these are small group video/chat conferences (usually about a specific theme, again watch out for some of the photographic hangouts. I haven’t really played with these much yet so no comment.

The main interaction with others in Google+ is view your Stream which is at the simplest level like a long twitter message and can be up to something like a full blog post. Pictures and links are super easy to add in. The whole thing is packaged around your Google Profile.

All of this you have probably already read somewhere, so here is a little extra I think was always design to be there but has been overtaken in the Hype. Google+ was designed with mobile devices in mind (not as an add on). The real sticking power for google+ may very well lie in the Google+ apps. Suddenly all those photos on your phone can be esily & instantly uploaded to your private photo album in the clouds and only shared with whom ever you want if you want. No more cables or card swapping. So forget the social network who-ha, at the very least Google+ is a very slick private smart cameraphone photo album that is free. (ok you must pay for network access but if you use WiFi that can be dirt cheap) and gives you good controls over whom and how your share those photos with others.

This short video probably will not help you find your way in Google+ but it will give a bit of insight into all the jargon above and why it was designed the way it is.

So where are the ads in Google+? I haven’t seen any yet.

Life Reflecting Art

2011-09-27T14:47:00.001+10:00

I saw these great reflections in a puddle beside the Weaver’s Way in Norfolk and it reminded me a lot of an M C Escher print, only in full colour. It is largely an abstract composition all about linear and curved shapes, positive and negative forms

For those that like photographic screen wallpapers I have posted a landscape version, to suit a laptop screen, of my photo above into my Flickr Free Screen Wallpaper set, all of which you can easily downloaded (see the instruction down towards the bottom of the right hand column).

Inside Looking Out

2011-09-25T17:14:00.001+10:00

For PhotoFriday‘s Topic Inside

What Green is That?

2011-09-24T22:54:00.001+10:00

Whilst in England I puzzled by the difference in the English greens and how to mix them. I’d guessed it has a lot to do with the light, which is much harsher in Australia, but the types of vegetation probably has more influence. The northern hemisphere is dominated by deciduous (new world) plants whereas Australia is almost exclusively evergreen (old world) plant species. The manner in which these two plant groups mobilize their chlorophyll is probably very different and might explain some of the difference. The Australian leaf above, an evergreen, certainly contains a range of greens, pity is obviously sick.

So now here is my quiz for you. Can you tell which photos are from Spring in South Gippsland (Australia) and which are from Autumn in Norfolk (England)?

The last post

2011-09-23T16:34:00.001+10:00

Once the site of an impressive pier to a once thriving lime kiln, only a single post now remains as a reminder that time and tide wait for no man.

It is also a reminder of how soon our heritage can be lost.

A single straight thick line at right-angles to a series of horizontal line might well be termed a "brave" composition if it where in an art piece, but I think it works well enough as a photo. Sometimes it pays to break the rules

Hello from DaisyWorld

2011-09-23T16:30:00.001+10:00

The warmer spring weather has bought out a fresh flush of blooms in my own little DaisyWorld (the more famous daisy world is a nice mathematical model created by James Lovelock to describe his Gaia Hypothesis . If you want a quick overview of the model try this flash animation.

QED: As in the mathematical model in the colder periods, the darker (coloured daisy) predominate this first flowering (only the daisy bushes that are flowering are shown)

Not Drowning Waving

2011-09-22T23:16:00.001+10:00

Strong offshore winds and late afternoon light adds a lot of drama into the progress of a wave to the shore.

Spring Cleaning

2011-09-22T21:18:00.001+10:00

Its the first day with a really clear sky I seen in a while and a perfect time to check on the cleanliness of the sensor on my sensor. I wrote some time ago about DSLR’s dirty little secret and how to use a photo of the clear sky to detect the presence od dust on the sensor. My current Pentax D20 is a well engineered unit and includes a dust reduction, a dust detection and a dust cleaning system (it shakes the sensor, with the mirror lifted). However small dust particles always seem to be get into most cameras. So I regularly check using my blue method. Now I additionally slide the highlight and shadow bars across while zoomed in to help detect dust. Ok often its barely visible (And not seen by the Built-in dust check) but I now know it there. Generally just one or two runs of the dust removal procedure followed by another blue sky photo is enough to convince me my camera is clean.
On my Pentax dust removal involves taking the lens off holding the camera facing down and selecting the dust removal from the setup menu, the whole camera appears to shake for a couple of seconds, that's all it takes. Older SLRs, which don’t shake themselves, can be cleaned by selecting the mirror up and using clean air blasts (you can buy specialty air-pressure pack from a camera store or use an old fashion bulb blaster, just take off the brush) across the sensor area. It is important not to touch the sensor or mirror directly with anything.
WARNING some camera manufacturer/models, notably many Nikons, claim such air blast cleaning voids the warranty and you need to get a certified dealer to clean the sensor (check your camera manual)

In the shadows

2011-09-22T17:19:00.000+10:00

Any painter will be familiar with the contribution of (large) negative shapes to composition, and particularly as a good device to focus the veiwers attention on the center of interest. Note to photographers, strong shadows do this perfectly.

Some Dangers in GeoTagging (& How to remove them)

2011-09-20T14:52:00.001+10:00

Whilst on my recent travels I was consciously trying to geotag every photo I took, which involved a bit of work for those taken on my DSLR (Pentax D20), but it was automatic for my new smartphone (HTC Wildfire). Almost everything I took with the phone had the location embedded in the EXIF metadata. Then I got thinking most cameraphone (eg IPhone) users would not even realize this and there are a lot of situations where they probably don’t want their location published, but this is exactly what happens if you then post one of these photos on the internet. There are two simples solutions too this

1) Turn automatic geotagging off in your camera phone (look under camera settings, it might refer to location rather than geotagging).

2) Use Picasa to manage (and remove) geotags

To remove a geotag in Picasa, Select the geotagged photos.

Click the Places button in the lower right corner of Picasa.
Click the red geotag icon on the map.
Click 'Erase location info.'

This both removes any longitude and latitude information from the photo's EXIF GPS metadata and also removes your photo from the Picasa map. REMEMBER TO DO THIS BEFORE YOU UPLOAD YOUR PHOTO TO THE WEB!

If you look towards the end of the Wikipedia Geotagging Article you will find a more detailed discussion on the dangers of geotagging. Whilst I am still a big fan of geotagging photos, where appropriate, I feel it is important that everyone understands the privacy issues exposed by this technology.

Everything in just one (camera) bag

2011-09-19T16:44:00.000+10:00

In the past I have ended up carrying around a lot of stuff that I seldom used. I had a camera bag (well used and loved), a backpack with my notebook computer and a lot or wires and little devices, a folio of art paper and sketch books and finally one (or occasionally two) carry bags of art gear (pencils, paints, brushes, etc,,etc). There was no way I could routinely carry all this around.

So I firstly went on a search for a decent camera bag (not too expensive mind) that could also handle a laptop computer (15” screen) and have some room left over for art stuff (enough stuff for sketching and simple watercolours). There is a lot of choice in camera bags and the prices vary a lot. I ended up choosing a Lowpro Fastpack 250, although there were bigger and more spacious backpacks available I was conscious that I would need to carry it around all day.

Next I analyzed carefully those items that I seldom used, and make sure those things that I wanted would fit. It was actually simple. I needed my camera, and separate telephoto lens, extra SD cards two phones, USB memory cards reader, IPod, battery chargers for phones, IPod and camera batteries, a couple of USB memory keys (one containing Portable apps), a western digital backup USB drive (for Backups). Also very important where a couple of power adaptors for foreign power grids. I also reduced my art gear to tubes of watercolour paints, a couple of portable plastic palettes, a small box of water-soluble crayons, pencils and brushes. Whilst I would carry one or two sketchbooks daily the rest of the paper and others sketch books. lived in my one suitcase. Also in my suitcase was a portable tripod.

The good news is I happily carried my backpack everywhere with me and I used every item I had bought (accept I only used one of the extra SD cards, and I didn’t use the card reader). More importantly I didn’t really feel there was anything extra I should have packed.

NOT SHOWN in the photo (above) are my computer (I ended up taking a smaller netbook) and the backpack Disk Drive, which I did carry on planes (and through airport security) boats and trains. However I did not carry routinely then as I wandered around. Also not shown in the photo is a water bottle and small folding umbrella which I did tended to carry on most days.

Home Sweet Home

2011-09-18T21:41:00.000+10:00

As well as trying to keep down the amount of Photo and Art stuff I carried while travelling I also put myself on a software diet. I was travelling with a new but very small Toshiba notebook and I wanted to avoid the over installation of unused software glut, that inevitably slows down any computer (well any of my computers) eventually suffers from. So I deliberately only installed Picasa and some Pentax drivers (notably Remote III so I could tether my camera, which I never did) and a few utilities on a Portable App memory stick (I used Autostitch a lot , Picturenaut and Noiseworks less so). The one thing I didn’t have which I might have used (and tried unsuccessfully to achieve) was creating massive panoramas and photosynths. Admittedly you can do the photosynth thing by any browser but uploading all the images could take forever on a lower bandwidth connection. You also have to download some software. So I was glad to get home, get my photos onto my stora (there archive location) and do a bit of reorganizing with Windows Live Photo Gallery (again I could have downloaded any of the windows live stuff while I was travelling, if I got desperate). Finally I was glad to get back to a dedicated flickr uploader facility, rather than wait on the web browser based upload tab with flickr. What I enjoy most of all was the wider bandwidth

Notice I haven’t loaded either Photoshop elements of Lightroom onto my desktop yet.

PhotoFriday :: Near

2011-09-13T07:43:00.001+10:00

For PhotoFriday‘s Topic Near

Felbrigg Hall Collages

2011-09-12T18:36:00.001+10:00

Time in Holt

2011-09-07T09:04:00.001+10:00

Everywhere I looked in Holt I saw a cloak, Many more than even its trendy food stores and art galleries. Holt is close to the coast in Northern Norfolk and a well preserved Georgian rural town, with narrow roads, winding lanes and interesting architecture everywhere. Ok I’m exaggerating there are way more gourmet food shops, art galleries. not to mention plenty of craft, antique, interiors decorating and fashion shops. Unless of course there are many more public cloaks still to discover.There are several pubs, cafes and restaurants just in case you were worried.

Country Seats

2011-09-06T07:18:00.001+10:00

Trying out the various garden seats at either Felbrigg Hall or Blicking Estate, Norfolk , UK

The Daring Teddies of Honing

2011-09-05T07:06:00.001+10:00

The whistle blows, and another valiant aeronaut leaps (or was that pushed or just drops) from the very top of the church tower. The first few float down. Now danger, as a chute only half opens. Plop, bounce and silence. Such a hard landing, the nice lady in the fluoro-yellow vest runs out and teddy is lifted onto a stretcher and whisked away.The whistle is blowing again and another teddy descends, full open chute this time and the cheeky wind pushes him off coarse and over the hedgerow. More and more teddies are drifting in their descent with the strengthening breeze. Some get caught in the cross wind and are bumped rudely down the fling wall. More stretcher bearers appear and the crowd sighs relief amongst the laughter and cheering. More and more teddies appear two at a time now. The wind is still playing tricks and one particularly little teddy is taken high and lands atop a nearby tree (one Teddy may not be getting home tonight). The winning parachutists lay patiently, silent beside the target. The wind blows harder and three whistles signal the end of the Teddy air show today.

Making it look easy

2011-09-04T13:30:00.000+10:00

I really enjoyed the drawing and writing course run this weekend by the Broadland Art Centre, called “An Illustrated Norfolk Journal”. Here David Hurrell is demonstrating how just three colours, cobalt blue, light red and yellow ochre can be used to develop a typical Norfolk scene, with just a touch of help from some extra viridian (to help the foreground vegetation) and a thin lemon yellow wash to add sunshine (David’s word). Damn he makes it look so easy.
You can see the scene in the middle of the panaroma from How Hill (above) click on this photosynth image and use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out (or use the plus minus boxes. Your mouse movement will pan you across the image. Find the wind pump down beside the river. Find how many boats are visible on the broads. What are the couple on the right doing in the bushes? Click on the little rectangular icon, with a solid square inside it, to make the image full screen then scroll around you'll be amazed. This photosynth is made out of 14 overlapping photos and constructed with microsoft's ICE software

So maybe my sketched book is light on actual sketches but it is bursting with writing, painting ideas and experiments. Did I mention I took lots of photos! Most importantly I found inspiration and new techniques and especially new greens, ways to look at gates. To look up for inspiring skys and forest canopies and down to avoid stinging nettles and the cow pats.

Thanks Angela, David and Nina for a great course. Highly Recommended

Two Grey Days

2011-09-02T02:16:00.000+10:00

Time for another Bonfire

2011-09-01T12:27:00.000+10:00

Great Yarmouth Today.

As Cotman saw it (from Wikipedia & Google images)

I’m not sure what possessed me to visit Great Yarmouth (British sea-side towns and their “holiday fun palaces” are not my cup of tea). I must have been distracted by the fact that John Sell Cotman lived here for a few years and was expecting something like his painting a fading elegant Georgian port come fishing village. Well Its nothing like that faded yes, crumbling and flaking definitely, just tacky in the extreme and BUSY, lots of people, not making sand castles on the beach, but in the fun parlours and sitting or walking along the esplanade texting, eating or looking bored. The piers don’t even make it out to the water anymore. Cotman did an etching of the great bonfire of Yarmouth (I think it celebrated the end of the wars with France) maybe the best thing would be another great bonfire!

Rembrandt’s Huis

2011-08-30T08:28:00.001+10:00

There are museums a plenty in Amsterdam, and a lot have very long queues or complaining tourists, yet Het Rembrandthuis seems to be slightly off the main tourist trail.It doesn’t deserve to be and if you are interested in the life and works of the great master it is worth a visit. It will include demonstration o his etching methods and how paint was mixed, in his studio and printmaking work rooms.

The image on the right is the camerphone photo of Rembrandt’s house, in the middle, that has been enhanced with the Adobe Photoshop Express app. Just a little contrast and colour enhancements, don’t expect to be able to do much more.

What happened next may well make the great artist turn in his grave. I tried out the Android App called Oil Paint on the enhanced wildfire image above. Oil Paint is one of those “nag-ware” products, it wanted me to connect to the app store and rate the product before I even could run the application (I had downloaded the free trial version).This nagging behaviour alone was enough reason to delete it but the result was just simply so bad I had to show it. This is not artistic its a mess. Sorry remy mate! I have deleted the app I promise.

Very distraught about my former support of the fun side of “artistic” camera filters for phones. I went back at night and took some more cameraphone filtered images. These I can excused as fun, and recommended both the HDR Camera and Camera Fun Apps and worth a bit of playing with.

The Butterflies of Hortus Botanicus

2011-08-29T03:04:00.001+10:00

Changing light in Amsterdam

2011-08-28T05:42:00.001+10:00

Things I wasn’t expecting to find in Groningen

2011-08-26T22:57:00.000+10:00

I have already mentioned that I was surprised to see the spiegel tent here in Groningen, a university town in the northern Netherlands. Well yesterday I found the statue of liberty on the south side of the Grote Markt. It wasn’t lost it was part of the side shows being set up for this weekends carnival. Harder to explain is all the evidence that other Ausies have made it here already!

How to survive as a pedestrian in Groningen

2011-08-25T22:21:00.000+10:00

Groningen is supposedly one of the top five bike cities in the world. It is flat, has narrow street and one in five of the population goes to the university, so I’m not surprised that almost 60% of transportation is by bike, yet it is hard, and very risky to be a pedestrian. So here are a few rules I have learned, often the hard way.

1. Always take the first open bridge (because the other bridges all likely to be up and waiting for a slow progress of boats, barges and yachts). The highest right of way goes to boats, and no ones seems to stress out, no matter how slow the boats are.

2. Biker riders usually look calm and nonchalant, but don’t be decided the lake of helmet doesn’t slow them of seem to make then alert to other bike riders or pedestrians. Some how the lake of eye contact seems to work most of the time. In fact the tinkling of bike bells isn't that common in Groningen. If you do hear a tinkle of a bike bell from behind it means that you have already been hit from behind or will be in the next split second!

Bike seem to have the highest priority on the road, not officially. Their riders happily cross at read lights, and worse the official bike lights (only installed at a few major intersection go green in all directions at once and every pedals like mad crossing at right angles. There is some help with the pavements, grey is supposedly safe for pedestrians, whereas the red pavements are for bikes. But that apparently just means that bike riders can target slow pedestrians. there must be a secret point scoring system for cyclists and pedestrians on red bricks must score highly.The challenge sometimes is figuring out just which colour pavement you are on!

3. Next priority goes to cars, which are largely excluded from the inner city streets and further slowed by a complex one way street system that possibly takes several years to learn and the added complication of virtually no free parking spaces. (There are a well established out of town parking areas). cars will mostly slow and stop if you are using a designated pedestrian crossing. Still I don’t take the chance with the slowing car and it frequently zooms through, no eye contact of course.

4. The lowest priority goes to the pedestrian. Take a deep breath look both ways, then check again! Pretty girls never seem to get run over so maybe you just need to follow them.

Some interesting photographic assistance to a cartoonist

2011-08-24T05:24:00.001+10:00

It has been a while since I have posted a cartoon, over on meet the people, primarily because I’m travelling. So I don,t have my scanner or access to the myriad things in my normal software in my corel draw and paint tool kit. It was rainy today so I decided to investigate if I could achieve the typical “alvin look” (hand draw, but computer inked) cartoon with a simpler kit. Turns out I could, and it was easy once I assemble the right tools.

I started as usual with a pencil sketch in my sketch book. Then did some basic inking of the main linework. Now the tricky bit, how to scan it and clean it up. Using a camera gives a grey image with poor line definition and uneven illumination. Not the greatest starting point for cartoon. Then I remember a utility that I had reviewed years ago that lets a cameraphone function like a scanner. That system is still around but a quick look on the android app market revealed CamScanner. It worked like a charm, not only doing the basic scanner stuff, you can adjust for perspective, cropping and stretching the image and it will also write to nice compact PDF files.

Then I just used paint.net, a much under-rated general graphics program, to do the colour fill, and linework tidy up. I then did a bit of magic wand selection to cut and paste my characters onto at photo I had taken. Ok it took a lot longer than the 30 minutes I had set myself in the quick pic days, However developing the new technique was fun on a rainy afternoon.

See the final cartoon over in meet the people.

There are a couple of earlier post about my original technique and then the Big Step Forward.

Groningen Spiers by Night

2011-08-23T06:48:00.001+10:00

Gratis Musiak–Jazz op Zuid

2011-08-22T06:42:00.001+10:00

The better weather has bought a lot of the local folk out to visit the Noorderzon festival and this afternoon the free Jazz was a great New York group called tweed & sneakers, playing mainly 60’s Jazz. The crowd where impressed and danced enthusiastically, well some more enthusiastically than others..

Collecting Photographic Reference as an Artist

2011-08-22T06:00:00.001+10:00

As an artist I must admit I seldom paint from my photos alone, I much prefer beginning with a sketch of two “on location”. Most often I just have time for a couple of pencil sketches and possibly a quick watercolour wash over some composition sketch. Further I seldom sketch from prints but rather I much prefer sketching and painting for a screen (can be computer, TV or projected image). This is for two important reasons

1. The colour intensity and dynamic range of tones is better. Its the old slides versus prints issue.

2. I can zoom in, and pan around or tweak the image a little, such as to alter the tone or play with the colour curves) to explore what I am trying to achieve in paint.

If possible I like to take the same scene at different times of the day, and under a variety of lighting conditions, sometimes a bracket set of exposures or a HDRi image can enhance the painterly feel. Also zooming in (on detail –see below) or out (on the broader picture – see previous panoramas) can help a lot afterwards re-establish what is important as characteristic of the subject and also get an overall feel for the place. All this means maybe 10 or more photos to support the one or two sketches.

So I must admit I am leaning more and more towards a reasonable smart phone with a camera (eg an android or IPhone) as being more than adequate for collecting photo reference for later painting. The cameraphones are certainly less bulky than any DLSR. The number of digital photos you collect is not significant as they are truly “weight less”. More room in your art kit bag for extra sketchbooks, papers and paints.

Street Music

2011-08-21T19:55:00.001+10:00

Its Saturday and the sun is out so everyone is out on the streets, in the parks and markets. So are the musical music machines, The middle photo shows one that was even playing “pop” turns. Sorry no sound. The most interesting is the singing bike rider. He is the guy disappearing into the distance in the right hand photos. He has flashed past on several days previously always singing at the top of his voice. This is the only photo I has manage o get of him, albeit him disappearing in the distance.

The Full 360

2011-08-21T05:29:00.001+10:00

Before proceeding I should warn that getting a full 360 degree panorama without a tripod and a fair bit of exposure calculation right is very difficult. Very, very difficult! The main trouble is that during the day the light is quiet variable according to the direction you are shooting. Hence the very old rule to shoot with the sun over your shoulder. In this direction, everything with well lit and their will be some detail in the shadows. in the opposite direct there tends to be very high contrast, the sky will be washed out and the foreground will be just a silhouetted with little or no detail in the shadows. Having set my excuses here is a bit of fun I had…

Using the 360 Android App

I had just downloaded the free version of the 360 app, and haven’t bothered to sign up to the web-site upload or community. I just wanted to try it out. I did patiently follow the instructions trying to keep te progress meter green at all times, but alas my phone keep jumping into the red, despite the slowest progress. So I was not surprised to get a result like this. Further attempts gave less satisfactory results and frustration. Ok it was fun for a while but I’m not convinced it is easy enough to use (perhaps without a lot of experiment and practice)

DSLR Multi-image Autostitched Panorama

I have made hand held 360 with my normal Pentax DSLR before, and I have found it best to let the camera choose the exposure between each shoot (it takes time, it not difficult) with enough overlap (20-30%) to let autostitch do its magic. This sequence is actually 48 photos in two bands (the upper skyline and the lower cobble stones). That is why there are so many truncated people.

If I really want to get a full 360 of the Grote Markt, I will need to do in the early morning or late afternoon, to get those golden hours of even lighting and with a tripod (with a panorama head). Maybe that’s not going to happen.

Flight of a Seagull

2011-08-20T23:34:00.001+10:00

Grote Markt, Groningen

What is the Spiegel Tent doing at the top of Holland?

2011-08-20T06:28:00.001+10:00

What is the Spiegel Tent doing in a park in Groningen? I am used to seeing it from time to time set up out the front of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia! Well its part of The Noorderzon festival. Here are a few photos taken at dusk on Day 2 of the festival. Day One was a bit of a wash out, with wind & rain keeping the crowds away.

* The top of Holland was a former catch phrase to promote Groningen.

Edible Art

2011-08-20T05:56:00.001+10:00

The cafe at the Groningen Museum has a special cake, museumtarte & koffee €4.00. To my surprise the cake was a work of art promoting the museum’s current exhibition “Material World – Art, Design, Fashion”. The coffee (koffee) that went with the cake was pretty good as well.

Does this mean there must be a new cake each new exhibition?

Comparing Cameraphone & DSLR autostitches

2011-08-17T17:38:00.001+10:00

These were taken at different times of the day, so the lighting may account for much of the differences in exposure and colour saturation. However in terms of clarity it is hard to see a distinct difference between the resulting photos after being autostitched.

Life of Frogs, as street art

2011-08-17T05:30:00.001+10:00

The quay side along Hoge der A, which is the traditional mooring for “bruine vloot” (sailing ships) has some interesting sculpture on the footpath. It show tadpoles developing into frogs and the frog metamorphose into a very long nosed something or other.

The Golden Spires of Groningen

2011-08-16T22:54:00.003+10:00

For PhotoFriday‘s topic gold

Scientific Eye Catcher

2011-08-15T04:59:00.002+10:00

This two storey high construction marks the Qu3 entry in of the noorderzon.nl festival at Groningen. Naturally I needed a closer look at the mosaic tile used, and I’m not sure if there is any theme holding them together, other than they were all black and white. The festival is largely a music festival but it also has some performance art that focus on using new technology, like the augmented reality Noorderzon Layar.app. This both guides you to current events around the park and can also give you a bird's eye view of your current possition. I haven't been able to work out the grid (overlay) yet, but the technology is impressive. Getting back to Qu3 they have been promoting creative aspects of science and technology at the festival for past two years, and this year.s theme is energy and healthy ageing.

Live Video app for Facebook by Ustream

Preparing for the festival

2011-08-14T10:21:00.000+10:00

wandering in the light

PhotoProject :: when just a 50mm lens won’t do

Sherbrooke forest space man

The proverbial shag on a rock

Late Summer :: Welcome Swallows

PhotoFriday :: Tall

waiting for a bite

Happy Family

Swanning around

PhotoProject :: Skyscapes

Lightroom 4 Beta

One year in one image

South Bank Panorama on a grey day

PhotoProject :: SkyScape (video)

PhotoProject :: Skyscapes & Reflections

Just what have you agreed to?

DON’T PANIC [yet!]

Waiting for the cool change

Blue with an Australian Summer Intensity

Thomas Hawk @ Googleplex

PhotoProject :: Focussing on 50mm

Photographers Stocking Fillers

Memory cards

USB Memory Card Reader

Baby Tripods

Dust Cleaners

Gift Vouchers

Hot Shoe Triple Axis Spirit Level.

PhotoProject :: Urban Abstract

New lights in the lightbox

There is always someone

A Bundle of Goodies from Google

Before 3.8

Now 3.9

Birds of Kalista (revisted)

Patterns

Have you seen this man?

I’m so vane

A Passing Tram

Icy Christmas Decorations in Summer

Self Reference Sketches

Still elegant

Getting in very close

Wide but weird?

The internet of things

Fencing Off Private Geo “Hot Spots” on Flickr

While the DSLR is away the Androids come out to play

A wish for PhotoContests to use Creative Commons

Meet the Frogmouths

Tripod Easel ver 2.1

Mentone Beach Photosynth :: Full 360°

Further Investigation of AutoFocus up close

Echos of the Buzz

Macro Focus on a Cameraphone

Unexpected

Going Wide Angle on a Cameraphone

Is Seeing Believing?

Night & Day

Little but with a Big Bite

HDRI :: Sunset

1+ Google PlusOne Button and should you use it?

Contrast

Every camera has FREE Digital Zoom

PhotoProject :: Skyscapes

Some Interesting android apps for smartphones with cameras

Alternate Cameras

Camera Advance Lite

Little Photo

In-Phone Photo Editors

Adobe Photoshop Express

Pixlr-o-matic

Towards a light portable (watercolour) easel

Easel Mark I

Easel Mark II

Google+, some extra thoughts

PhotoFriday :: Slick on legs

A DSLR .vs. Cameraphone Quiz

Inquisitive

What might Google+ mean for your Photos?

Life Reflecting Art