Scotch Tape and Duct Whisky

Manual Flash Exposure Chart Generator

2013-05-31T20:32:00.001-04:00

When photographic flashes were commonly operated in manual mode, they usually had a chart or dial on the flash to calculate the correct exposure based on the distance to the subject. Now that many flashes are designed primarily for automatic use, they may omit this aid, making it harder to use the flash in manual mode.

I thought it would be helpful, therefore, to make a spreadsheet that would generate a table of aperture settings and subject distances for any manual flash. You can download it here:

Manual Flash Exposure Chart Generator [XLS]

Fat Peppy (1997-2013)

2013-05-23T19:44:00.001-04:00

Pepper “Fat Peppy” Allen passed away today at the age of 16 from a blood clot in his femoral artery. He was my wife’s loyal companion and obstructer-of-laptop-use; she had him longer than she’s had me. He will be deeply missed.

Team Soft G

2013-05-21T19:30:00.001-04:00

Apparently, at least on Twitter, today is the day for all parties to declare their allegiance on the matter of the pronunciation of “GIF,” the Graphics Interchange Format.

I stand with the soft G. (The “JIF” pronunciation, if you must.)

My reasons, like my wallet, are bifold:

The creator of the format, Steve Wilhite, said that it is pronounced with a soft G, and this pronunciation was endorsed by his employer, CompuServe. The peanut-butter-like pronunciation was intentional. In my opinion, it is reasonable to grant inventors the privilege of naming their inventions, including their pronunciation*. This privilege makes at least as much sense as patent protection.
The usual hard-G argument is that “Graphics” is pronounced with a hard G, so GIF should be as well. This is a stupid argument, based on a non-existent, made-up rule that is not invoked for any other acronym. Anyone who advances this argument deserves to lose**.

* Within reason, at least.
** Anyone who pronounces “SCUBA” with a short U, “UNICEF” with a CH , “LASER” with a short A and soft S (not Z), and “NASCAR” with a schwa for the first A is exempt from argument #2.

This would be a good time to get “fiancée/fiancé” right.

2013-04-30T17:34:00.001-04:00

Jumbo Paper Towel Holder

2013-04-21T18:02:00.001-04:00

I’m not sure how to set it up yet, but the “easy tear arm” is wicked sharp.

Postcard Project: Week 7

2013-03-31T11:26:00.001-04:00

For background on the Postcard Project, please see the introductory post.

The conclusion of this year’s project consists of two historically important scenes that I photographed along the Path of the Flood Trail [PDF], which follows the path of the Great Flood of 1889 from the failed South Fork Dam to downtown Johnstown.

Postcard Project: Week 6

2013-03-24T11:10:00.001-04:00

For background on the Postcard Project, please see the introductory post.

Home of the St. Michael campus of The Good Shepherd Dog Training.

Finally some “postcard skies” earlier this week. I had a couple of additional shots planned for Saturday, when the weather was decent, but I came down with a cold, and wasn’t up for walking a few miles with my gear. Maybe next week. In the meantime, we are once again under a Winter Storm Warning, with 4–8” of snow expected tonight and tomorrow.

I’ve been using Timehop to see my social media history from past years, and it mostly consists of last year’s Lenten project. The contrast in weather is shocking and depressing.

Postcard Project: Week 5

2013-03-17T17:54:00.001-04:00

For background on the Postcard Project, please see the introductory post.

Well, this was a tough week for postcards. The solid white skies continue almost every day, and we’re even under a Winter Storm Warning tonight. Overcast and muddy is pretty much the theme. It’s a big change from last year, and it makes it hard to get the “picture postcard” look for the area’s attractions. I had more luck shooting the details than the sweeping vistas.

Postcard Project: Week 4

2013-03-10T15:22:00.001-04:00

For background on the Postcard Project, please see the introductory post.

The photograph of the Inclined Plane (top) was made during an effort to photograph Comet PanSTARRS Saturday night. The comet has just become visible in the northern hemisphere, and is very close to the sun. On Saturday, it was to be just 5° above the horizon 30 minutes after sunset.

I planned a shot from somewhere I’d never been: Cover Hill, between the Little Conemaugh and Stonycreek rivers. There’s a radio tower there, and paths to power line rights-of-way. From that vantage point, the comet would have set directly over the top of the Inclined Plane. The sightlines from that area were moderately good; trees kept me from going much wider than you see above.

Unfortunately, cirrus clouds accumulated in the west as sunset approached, and the comet was never visible. The weather forecast for the next few days is worse, so I may not get to see this one. But I was able to get an interesting shot of the Inclined Plane against the sunset light, from an unusual vantage point (eye-level to the top).

This may be the last week for the Pentax K10D… something new (to me) is coming. More on that later.

Postcard Project: Week 3

2013-03-02T19:11:00.001-05:00

For background on the Postcard Project, please see the introductory post.

Postcard Project: Week 2

2013-02-23T23:38:00.001-05:00

For background on the Postcard Project, please see the introductory post.

Postcard Project: Week 1

2013-02-15T19:13:00.001-05:00

It’s going to be a busy weekend, so I wanted to get the first week of the Postcard Project in the can. It was a gray day, not great for shooting, but I managed to find some targets after work.

Lent 2013: Introducing the Postcard Project

2013-02-13T18:00:00.000-05:00

Oh, wow, I have a blog! I almost forgot.

Last year I did a photography project for Lent, shooting with a single lens. Once again, I’ve found the winter to be slow for shooting, so I wanted to do another project. This year, I’m taking my lead from Blake Andrews:

Eugene Greyhound Terminal, Blake Andrews

That’s right, I’m doing a postcard project. Each week during Lent, I will produce two postcard designs. One will (I hope) be a “good” postcard that visitors might actually want to buy. The second will be more like Blake’s example above, or those found in Boring Postcards USA (Phaidon, 2000). The cards are due on the blog by Sunday night. At the end of the project, I’ll get a set printed at Moo.

Last winter was remarkably mild, making outdoor shooting quite pleasant most of the time. This winter has been more typical, with cold snaps and a good bit of snow. Not “picture postcard” weather by any means, but we’ll hope for some agreeable days as spring marches on.

To whet your appetite, here are some Johnstown postcards currently for sale on eBay:

Happy World Architecture Day!

2012-10-01T06:00:00.000-04:00

Now we’re chargin’ with gas: ASUS Ai Charger

2012-09-26T20:12:00.001-04:00

After finishing yesterday’s post on iPhone charging from a USB 3.0 port, I came across some references to ASUS Ai Charger. It’s a Windows software tool produced by motherboard manufacturer ASUS. It claims to increase the charging speed of iThings connected to the computer, and it works with non-ASUS motherboards, and apparently even laptops.

Few details are provided, and it sounds kind of sketchy, but I gave it a try on my EVGA X58 SLI LE motherboard. After installing and rebooting, there’s a new icon in the notification area:

Clicking, double-clicking, or right-clicking on it has no effect. When I plug my iPhone into a motherboard USB 2.0 port, it changes:

Plugging it into a port on my USB 3.0 add-on card has no effect.

So, what’s the verdict?

(Click to embiggen.)

It works! The purple charging curve, with Ai Charger, is almost identical to the green 1 A wall charger curve. (It’s offset slightly, because Ai Charger’s magic doesn’t kick in until the iPhone turns on and identifies itself to the computer. If I weren’t starting from a dead battery, there would be no delay.)

I don’t really know how Ai Charger works—it seems to look for a device that it recognizes as an iThing, and then tells the motherboard chipset to do something. There are some reports of blue screens on the Internet, and it’s not clear what motherboards or chipsets it supports. But if you’d like to charge your iThing faster, it seems to be worth a try.

iPhone 5 does not charge faster over USB 3.0

2012-09-25T19:29:00.001-04:00

For a followup, with a solution for faster charging on many Windows PCs, please see: Now we’re chargin’ with gas: ASUS Ai Charger.

USB 2.0 ports are, according to the specification, limited to providing 500 mA of current to connected devices. The Apple iPhone charge provides 1000 mA, so it can charge an iPhone about twice as fast as a standard USB 2.0 port.

USB 3.0 increases the current limit to 900 mA. Even though the new Lightning-to-USB cable is a USB 2.0 cable, I was hoping that it would take advantage of the higher current limit when connected to a USB 3.0 port. After all, there are USB 2.0 ports on Apple computers and some PC motherboards that are capable of providing higher currents to iPhones and iPads.

Unfortunately, this is not the case:

Click to embiggen.

The charging rate when connected to a USB 3.0 port is basically identical to USB 2.0, and much lower than the wall charger.

These tests were conducted on my iPhone 5 within a few days of release day. My procedure was to deplete the battery, using the Drain My Battery app, until the phone shut off. After a couple of minutes to cool off, I connected the phone to a power source, and treated that time as a 0% charge. When iOS was back up and running, I used the Battery Magic app to monitor the charge percentage. I recorded the time and charge percentage manually at irregular intervals of a few minutes, until the app reported 100% charge.

The wall charger is the small, cubical 1 A charger included with the iPhone 5. The USB 2.0 port was a back-panel motherboard port on my EVGA X58 SLI LE motherboard. The USB 3.0 port was a back-panel port on a Syba SD-PEX20122 PCI-Express card in the same system. The USB 3.0 card is properly connected to a molex power cable. Neither of the USB ports claims to have any special, high-current or iThing-specific modes, just the normal 500 mA and 900 mA limits appropriate to their versions of USB.

Sound quality issues with iPhone and Blackberry Remote Stereo Bluetooth Gateway

2012-09-25T17:35:00.001-04:00

The Blackberry Remote Stereo Bluetooth Gateway is a Bluetooth music receiver that I use in my car to play music from my iPhone. It works great, but it’s no longer in production, so units that are still for sale are generally expensive. This is a troubleshooting tip for owners.

Problem: Sound is garbled, distorted, crackly, or muddled.

Solution: The Gateway doesn’t sound good when the iPhone volume setting is at its maximum. While playing through the Gateway, reduce the volume setting by about 2 clicks of the volume-down button.

Stop doing this.

2012-08-26T22:41:00.001-04:00

Can we stop hyperventilating over the Google employee death benefit?

2012-08-10T23:15:00.001-04:00

There’s been a lot of coverage in the past few days about an employee benefit at Google: The spouse of a Google employee who dies receives half the employee’s salary for 10 years.

That’s a nice benefit, but the coverage—both in terms of the benefit to employees, and the “harm” to shareholders—has been hyperbolic. Business Insider concludes:

It kind of makes the free lunch pale by comparison.

Targ manure! It does not make the free lunch pale by comparison. In fact, for many employees, the free lunch is the more valuable benefit!

Photographic excellence at Wikipedia

2012-06-27T18:42:00.001-04:00

Hanford Site scientists feeding radioactive food to sheep

My first book experience with Lightroom 4

2012-06-26T20:08:00.001-04:00

Regular readers of this blog, if they existed, would recall that I undertook a photographic project in the spring, giving up all of my lenses but one for Lent. I found the project to be enjoyable and productive, and—as threatened—I’ve put together a book of the project.

The book is now available for purchase, but that’s not the reason for this post. I’ve had my copy of the book for a few weeks now, and I’m happy with how it turned out, but I generally wouldn’t recommend it for others to buy. My project was a helpful undertaking for my own development. But the result was a bunch of single images that I was very pleased with. It was not a cohesive whole, either visually or thematically. You can find better photography books to spend your money on. (Also, my share of the book’s sale price is truly minimal—probably less than if you bought someone else’s book through that Amazon affiliate link!)

Instead, I’d like to write a few thoughts on the book-making process, as I experienced it.

There was a hole in my mind

2012-06-12T21:48:00.001-04:00

I knew that Crash was a weird movie about people who have a car accident fetish, and I heard that Crash won a ton of awards.

But until tonight, I never realized these were two different movies.

Thanks, Reddit.

Jersey Shore: The Professor and Mary Ann

2012-06-10T15:13:00.001-04:00

Here’s “the rest”: The vacation pictures that didn’t fit any of the past few days’ galleries.

After Hours (best viewed large by clicking the image)

Jersey Shore: Birds

2012-06-09T18:23:00.001-04:00

I previously posted series on Snowy Egrets arguing over a mate and a Great Egret, but here’s the rest of the wingèd crew.

Northern Cardinal, preening

Jersey Shore: Neon & Neoff

2012-06-08T17:53:00.001-04:00