Travel and Photography

This blog has moved

2012-01-04T13:03:00.001Z

Hello, first of all, a happy 2012 and the best wishes for the New Year! Note that I have moved my blog to here. I have already a few interesting posts up, how about an entry on how to shoot those great long exposure photos without the filters and calculations? Have a look here.

See you there.

Spammers getting even more stupid?

2011-10-09T11:14:00.001+01:00

I do have a Pixelpost based photoblog and about half of the comments are spam. I set up comment moderation after Defensio stopped working after my ISP upgraded the PHP level the server hosting my site. Here are a few samples of this week’s spam harvest:

“My accomplice and I really loved reading this weblog post, I was just itching to know do you commerce featured posts? I’m always trying to find somebody to make trades with and merely thought I might ask.”
“Thanks for the amazing info. I find these posts have a lot of material. I can’t wait to get a chance to impliment(sic) all these great posts. Thank you very much.”
“This is my first time i visit here. I found so many entertaining stuff in your blog, especially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all the leisure here! Keep up the good work. Welcome to visit my blog: discount watches”

Well, these are the ones that actually contain text, the majority of the spam comments contain 5 or 6 characters of gibberish and a link. So, clearly there are spammers out there who do take the effort and try and come up with an “intelligent” comment to trick the owner and visitors in going to their site, but they are doing it so poorly! Keep in mind that my blog is a photoblog, with just a photo and usually a bit of background on the shot and development method used. This should be easily recognizable from the HTML, so why not use a more clever comment instead of using a load of non-specific words like ”material”, “stuff”, etc.? I could do this so much better with just a little effort. And did they look up the word accomplice? It refers to a person who helps another in committing a crime; I never realized that crooks thought of themselves as crooks! Maybe just the stupid ones!

Updated my gallery

2011-09-07T09:15:00.001+01:00

Just to let you know that I updated my main gallery to show off some of my photos a bit better. I have been looking for a Lightroom plug in for a long time and was initially tempted to use the plug ins from the Turning Gate but decided against it when I came across the plug ins on the Photographers Toolbox, see here, as they are a lot easier to use, cheaper and offered the functionality I was looking for.

Please click-through and visit my galleries.

Tilting at windmills ― Kinderdijk

2011-08-19T10:44:00.002+01:00

As of today, I will be blogging some of the photos I took at Kinderdijk, the Unesco World Heritage site not too far from Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Just click through on the photo to go to the actual blog entry.

I won’t bore you with the historical background as it is all well documented in Wikipedia, but I do wish to tell you about the fun I had on my photo walk at Kinderdijk. Frankly, I had low expectations and was intimidated by the large number of excellent photos I had seen and was assuming that my interpretation was only going to be a boring copy of the work everybody comes home with. As it turned out, this wasn’t true at all, I did enjoy myself a lot, the place wasn’t too busy and I think it was possible to get some shots I hadn’t seen so far. Judge for yourself the next few days.

The medieval city of Zutphen from the River IJssel

2011-08-18T09:24:00.001+01:00

One of the things that I do enjoy shooting with my DSLR, and frankly, it is the only thing I do use my DSLR for lately, is the creation of 360° panoramas. I do publish my panoramas at 360Cites.net, please follow the link to see more of my work.

The above panorama is of the city of Zutphen, historically an important medieval city but currently a small town of little consequence which does actually contribute enormously to the quality of life there. Click-through on the image to actually navigate around in it. In this particular panorama, I used three bracketed images for each of the 24 shots I would need for the 360° view with my camera and lens combination and used Exposure Fusion to get a better dynamic range for this image, i.e. the shadows are well exposed while the highlights are not blown out even with the sun in this image. Enjoy!

De hagel van kogels kwam van rechts

2011-08-07T16:41:00.001+01:00

Toen Pim Fortuyn vermoord werd, werd links Nederland in de rechtse media en politiek jarenlang verweten dat ‘de kogel kwam van links.’ Na de aanval van de Noorse PVVer Breivik op de linkse regeringspartij in Noorwegen, weten diezelfde media en politici nergens meer van en doen ze hun best om de dader af te schilderen als een gek en een waanzinninge eenling die te veel geweldadige computer spelletjes speelde.

Wilders, je hebt zoals Spong zei bloed op je lippen: Je kunt geen haat en angst zaaien met je retoriek en halve waarheden en dan geen verantwoordelijkheid nemen als een van je bewonderaars, die blijkbaar niet je leugens kon herkennen, de conclusie trekt die in je woorden besloten ligt!

Nederlanders, laat bij de volgende verkiezingen zien dat we deze charlatan zat zijn!

Tonemapping, bleh!

2011-01-01T11:03:00.001Z

Am I the only one to find this recent craze with tonemapped photos a disaster? Why would you think that changing the colours of your photo into a low contrast, muddled dark grey makes it a better photo? And don’t get me started on the random halos around the subjects! Can’t you see that these halos are awful!? Am I the little kid who sees the emperor walk by naked who yells: “Your tonemapped photos look like shit!!”?

The worst thing is that tonemapping usually gets passed off as HDRI; it is not the same thing! True, a high-dynamic-range image might need to get some help to display correctly on dynamic range limited devices, but that is not the same as deliberately turning the colours into poo. To me, HDR is very useful to get well exposed shadow areas without blowing out the highlights as even the current and expensive DSLRs still have a limited dynamic range compared to film, so something needed to be done to improve this and HDRI was the answer. But if you really are interested in augmenting the dynamic range of your photo, why not look into a free tool like Enfuse. It’ll blow your mind!

Lensbaby 2.0 on a manual focus camera

2010-10-22T22:24:00.001+01:00

After having struggled with getting satisfying results with my lensbaby 2.0 on my Pentax MZ-S and Pentax K20D, both autofocus cameras, I had an epiphany and decided to use the lensbaby on my old, manual Pentax ME and all of a sudden it came together. As you probably know, the lensbaby is focussed by adjusting the tube length and tilting the lens to adjust the sweetspot with one hand while the other hand operates the shutter. After having used autofocus lenses for so long, I had completely forgotten the effective tools that a manual camera offers to help focus. The Pentax ME comes with with split image and a microprism ring in the centre in the viewfinder which offers a lot more help focussing a lensbaby than focussing just on the matte of my more modern cameras as the autofocus points would light up but cannot be relied upon. See also my most excellent blog http://monochrome.me.uk/blog/

Kindle

2010-10-07T19:49:00.001+01:00

Got my 3G Kindle finally a few weeks ago and I love it; as a bonus it has free 3G access in 100 countries allowing me to read email and visit webpages when stuck under another volcano ash cloud. If you’re into the classics like I am, there are a load of free ebooks available from Gutenberg.org, etc. If you read Dutch, make sure to check out DBnl.org. Even though they don’t have the books available in Kindle format (Mobi or Kindle), but only in PDF. On the plus side, the Kindle PDF reader has correctly displayed all PDF files I have sent to it, but I prefer to convert my PDF files to Mobi format with the Mobipocket Creator to allow me to set font side, etc. Nothing is simpler.

Google and ye shall find.

JOBO PhotoGPS review

2010-04-10T11:53:00.001+01:00

The JOBO PhotoGPS has some cracking reviews, but I’m a bit less enthusiastic, especially now that I am using Windows 7 32-bit and the application, which is supposed to be Windows 7 compatible, stopped working properly leaving me with nothing and hoping that JOBO will release a version of the software that actually works on Windows 7.

The PhotoGPS unit works well enough from the flash shoe of my Pentax and records the location every time I release the shutter. So far so good. I found that it is not recommended to leave the PhotoGPS on the camera while walking around as it keeps falling off the camera. It would have made sense to add some kind of locking to the unit.
The PhotoGPS unit can store over a 1000 locations of photos, and that would be okay for one or two days’ worth of shooting for the serious amateur or professional (and this appears to be the target market), but very little if you are on a vacation trip and don’t want to carry a laptop around. Each location is, after download on the computer, a 129kb file which appears to be a lot for a longitude/latitude, height, a timestamp and possibly a checksum. If the data in the unit takes up as much space, then there is a possibility to optimize this so the number of points kept in the unit can be extended tenfold with a firmware update. Even though the file extension of the data on the computer is SDF, the file format is propriety and has nothing to do with the SUUNTO Data files format which also uses this extension and, at the moment of me writing this, GPSBabel cannot make sense of it.

Before I migrated to Windows 7 and could not longer use the unit, I was quite happy with it for the photos I took on my DSLR; the mapping worked well. I quickly discovered that I could also use the unit on my SLR but the software refused to map the photos taken thus because of the lack of EXIF timestamp in the scanned negatives. I am aware that not everybody is using SLRs anymore, but why limit yourself? Many of the geotagging tools allow you to drag a point onto a photo if it cannot match it automatically, the JOBO PhotoGPS software lacks this IMO elementary feature. It wouldn’t be this bad if the software would have allowed to export the points as a GPX file so I could use a tool like GeoSetter to geotag my photos, but once again, this functionality is missing.

Summary

The JOBO PhotoGPS is a cool looking gadget that is hopelessly letdown by the software.

Pixelpost Google Sitemap Creator

2010-01-01T14:28:00.001Z

While on the subject of great Pixelpost addons, I forgot to mention the Google Sitemap Creator that can be downloaded from this location To download follow the link under the Google Sitemap for Pixelpost section.

So what does it do? It creates XML output describing all the pages in your pixelpost blog which can be added to the Google webmaster tools which is a free service from Google.

Why would I want to do that? Even if you have added your blog to Google to be indexed, it appears that Google only has a few pages of your blog indexed. By adding your sitemap, Google all of a sudden understands the structure of your blog and will index all the pages in the course of a few days after submitting your sitemap.
If you add the following server to your RPC ping servers under the Pixelpost addons configuration, Google will be notified each time you upload a new image: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ping?sitemap=http://<your blog>/index.php?z=sitemap where “<your blog>” needs to be replaced with the URL to your blog.

Best Pixelpost addons

2009-12-29T09:15:00.001Z

If you want to create your own ‘one photo a day’ photoblog, there are of course several existing free services available like Aminus3, etc., but if you are more serious about photography and want your own domain name, gallery and blog, Pixelpost is open source and is a free, popular and reliable option to build your own photoblog. But since you are here, you already knew that and you have probably taken the decision to build your own blog yourself already.

Since Pixelpost is open source, people are invited to write templates and addons to extend the basic functionality. I’m using Pixelpost as base for my Monochrome.Me.Uk blog and installation turned out to be very easy. Below I summarize my experiences with the addons and other services I like best and ended up using for my blog:

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Export Plugin: Pixelpost addon and Lightroom plug in that allows you to export directly from Lightroom into your blog. Only if you are using Lightroom, of course, but similar addons exist for Apple Aperture.
Ajax Categories Manager: This AJAX based admin addon allow you to easily set categories for your pictures without any refresh.
Custom Pixelpost Admin: A complete restyle of the Pixelpost administration area with more modern touches.
Defensio for Pixelpost: Included by default now in Pixelpost, it is worth stressing that this addon is a must have. Before activating your blog, I would recommend signing up for a free Defensio account and applying for a free API key for your blog. No matter how small your blog, those spammers will come!
Feedburner: A free Google service to handle your RSS feed in a simple way.
Google Map: The GoogleMap addon is a Pixelpost addon that allows to show locations for the images without having to geotag them.
Ping service: Included by default but activate it to add a list of RPC services to make sure your blog gets revisited by the search engines each time you submit a new entry. I am currently using the following servers:

RGB Histogram: This addon will create an RGB Histogram for colour images and a Luminosity Histogram for grayscale photos.
Tag Cloud Generator: This plugin extends pixelpost to display attractive, web2.0-style tag clouds.

The only thing left to do is to pick the template that fits you and your photos best. Have fun!

Should you expose for shadows or highlights?

2009-08-22T10:24:00.001+01:00

The short answer is that it is usually recommended that for digital photography you expose for the highlights as they get easily blown out and for film photography it is easier to lose detail in the shadows and easier to bring back detail in the highlights and therefore you need to expose for the shadows.
The more complicated answer is that it depends on what you want to do, what you are visualizing.

We all know that a strongly overexposed part of the photo turns to white and a very underexposed part of the photo turns to black, cutting off any texture that might have been hidden in those areas. Film and sensors do have a limited ability to record light. It can only capture light between specific intensities and these intensities are defined by the film or sensor you are using, this is the so called dynamic range.

Exposing for shadows

Make sure that the histogram is not cut off on the left side. Use your camera options to overexpose, if needed. You will have a lot of detail in he dark areas of your photo but you might have blown out the highlights.

Exposing for highlights

Make sure that the histogram is not cut off on the right side. Use your camera options to underexpose, if needed. You will have detail in the bright areas, but the darker areas will be clipped to black.

Exposing for the mid-tones

There is, of course, always the alternative to ignore the highlights and the shadows and just expose for the mid-tones. The drawback is also the benefit: clipping will occur on both ends of the histogram, but not as severely as when you expose for highlights or shadows.

Conclusion

This leads nicely to a discussion of HDRI and it is maybe a good idea to revisit the section about bracketing.

Bracketing

2009-08-15T07:02:00.001+01:00

The classical solution to improve your chances of getting the exposure correct has been bracketing: Take multiple shots with different settings to get different exposures of the same scene. Typically you take one shot exposed normally followed by one or more overexposed and one or more underexposed shots. Check your camera manual and it is very likely that your camera offers an auto-bracket option for exposure where you can set the number (usually three or five), order and step interval (1, 1/2 or 1/3 stops). My Pentax K20D has a special exposure bracket button on the outside of the camera to quickly switch between bracketing and non-bracketing, no doubt the other brands have similar functionality to avoid going through long setup menus.

Bracketing has always enjoyed a questionable reputation as it wastes a lot of film when used with film cameras and because of the randomness of the approach. True, without taking steps to correct the lightmeter, you are in fact taking several potshots to see if you can obtain a good result. However, when you take the prize of a correct exposure of a difficult shot, nobody will poke fun of you but applaud you for being careful.
On a Digital SLR, the waste of images is of course less of an issue, especially when you take the quickly dropping prices of memory into account (and you're not on a long trip with just the one memory card.)

Let it be clear that you don't need bracketing unless you are confronted with a difficult subject. Still, no matter how easy bracketing sounds, you still need to make decisions about the number of exposure and the step intervals. You'll need to learn to judge the subject to make those decisions, but usually three exposures with steps of 1/2 a stop is a save bet. We'll be getting back about how to judge subjects.

Why do lightmeters fail?

2009-08-07T17:09:00.001+01:00

To understand why light meters fail, we need to understand what light meters do: No matter if it is a through-the-lens (TTL) meter as found on compacts and (D)SLRs or a handheld meter, they all try to reduce the scene to a neutral tone. This tone is often called "18% gray" but the ANSI standard against which the light meters are calibrated is a luminance value that is closer to the reflectance of 12% gray. 12% gray or 18% gray, we don't really care at this point, but what I would like you to bring back from this is that light meters generate those settings that will render the dominant part of your photo into a neutral colour. It may come as a surprise, but this will do nicely for most photos. It is not until you take a photo of a scene where this doesn't apply that you start to run into problems.

Ever tried to take a portrait on a sunny day where the face came out too dark? If your camera allows it, you could walk up to the subject, take a light reading and lock it, walk back to get the composition you want and the face will be well exposed. By this time it is also be a good idea to see if your camera supports spotmetering.

Exposure and why do we care?

2009-08-01T07:15:00.001+01:00

You bought an expensive (D)SLR with a state of the art through-the-lens (TTL) light meter operating in different modes, so why should you ever want to start thinking about exposure again? Surely those days have gone as it is now so many years after TTL light meters were first introduced? Haven't any bugs been ironed out by now? And I believe you that that advanced weighted multi-segment mode is state of the art.

The truth is that for most shots on all cameras, the built-in light meter does an excellent job that would be difficult to improve upon. However, if you start using your camera more and more, you'll notice that some shots are too dark or too light. The highlights are all blown out, or there is no detail or too much noise in the shadows which may result in a disappointment. This is not a malfunction of the light meter, it does what it is meant to do but recognizing those situations and improving those exposures is one of the subjects of this blog.

RAW images

2009-07-25T11:01:00.001+01:00

Camera RAW, Lightroom, GIMP, SilkyPix, Apple's Aperture, etc. all allow you to change the exposure settings after having taken the shot. Isn't going through all the trouble getting the correct exposure just for newbies shooting in JPEG? Any problem is easily fixed in post-processing!

As a test, just deliberately bracket a shot with lots of highlights and shadows with ± one or two stops under- and overexposure and open the RAW files in the post-processing program of your choice. Change the exposure settings in post-processing such that they all correspond to the neutral exposure; for example, for the one stop overexposed shot, move the slider back to underexpose it by one stop, etc.
I'm hoping that you get the same results as I encountered: Even though changing the exposure sliders will bring back details in the blown out highlights and shadows, it will also bring out noise and the results do look poorer when compared with the correctly exposed shot. Especially when the difference in exposure was large. My conclusion was that I could only get away ever so little with playing around with the exposure sliders, especially on the highlights that seem to suffer more than the shadows on most DSLRs when exposed incorrectly. More about shooting for highlights or shadows in a later post.

Sparkling water and the Dutch terraces

2009-07-18T07:27:00.001+01:00

Next time you visit Amsterdam, or the rest of Holland for that matter, insist on getting the bottle if you order some water or sparkling water. They’ll serve you tap water with some added bubbles otherwise and charge you €3,75 for it, and then are upset you don’t leave a tip. See here.

Another Code R: A Journey Into Lost Memories

2009-07-08T07:45:00.001+01:00

Some answers to some of the puzzles for this game by Cing for the Nintendo Wii, don’t read if you don’t want to be spoiled. This is not a walkthrough, merely a list of some of the puzzles I found interesting. I believe the game in the US will be sold under the name Trace Memory R: A Journey Into Lost Memories when it is released.

I liked playing this game and I think that the mediocre reviews of this game are mostly due to people not liking this kind of game play. If you liked the first Another Code game on the DS or the Hotel Dusk: Room 215 game, you’ll love this game!

Please visit my gallery http://monochrome.me.uk/ for information

General:

How to press the ‘3’ on the Wiimode /TAS? Press ‘1’ ‘+’ ‘2’.
How to press a ‘0’ on the Wiimode /TAS? Press ‘1’ ‘-‘ ‘1’ .
I never get a red gumball, does this stop me from completing the game? No, I never got any red gumball that I could exchange for the special gift either and I finished the game

How to get the dog to move from the hole in the fence?

See the beef jerky on the ground? Pick up a piece and move it to the right, the dog will follow.
Ashley doesn’t seem to be able to go through the hole in the fence, so I believe it is just a tiny puzzle to teach you how to crack the more important puzzles in the game.

What proof do I need to supply to the guy from the shop that I didn’t raid the storage room?

You should have taken a photo of the kid and the dog in the storage room and show it to him.

The kid keeps running away, where to find Matt this time?

Did you check the well with the pump on the other side of the fence with the hole? (first time)
In the cellar of the photographer’s cottage? (2nd time)
Next to the tree close the boat house? (3rd time)
Chat with the dog and get the dog to follow you. When you cross the covered bridge, have Princess sniff the drawing Matt gave you; Princess will lead you to Matt. (4th time)
Past the JC Valley building entrance (5th time)

How to get the silver bracelet from the boathouse floor?

I didn’t manage to get it either, I guess noticing it is enough for the memories to be triggered.

How to get the bag from the lake?

Find the rope and the lifebelt and combine the two.
Tie the rope to the winch and throw the lifebelt over the bag and winch it back to you.

What is the code to open the bag?

Turn the family photo Matt gave you over and note that the lock contains the same names as are written on the back of the photo. Note that the words on the photo are shifted from each other.
Shift the words the same way as on the photo
The word to unlock the bag is ‘LAKE’

Where to find Matt’s treasure?

The drawing that Matt gives you contains a clue as to the number of steps to walk and in what direction measured from the tree.

What is Michael’s email password?

Find the used origami paper in the drawer in the desk with some marks on it, and fold it so it reveals the code. If the code doesn’t work, turn the number 180 degrees.

Where to find and how to get the guitar pick case?

Go to the half finished building where your bag was find according to Dan and you’ll see the pick case down the drain.
Get the hose you’ll find close by and connect it to the tap and turn on the tap.
The hose is leaking and you cannot use it as is.
Remember the roll of tape you saw in Richard’s desk when trying to break into his email? Fetch the tape and combine it with the hose
Connect the hose to the tap again and turn on the tap again.
The guitar pick case will float to the top.

Where to find clean water and how to make the medicine?

Get the red leaves from the plant in the glasshouse before leaving Charlotte
Charlotte will give you a pestle and mortar.
Fetch the kettle from Richard’s kitchen to keep the water in
Check the water at different locations and you’ll find that it is not polluted on the little bridge next to the shed where you found Matt hiding in the well.
Combine the leaves with the pestle and mortar
Use the Wiimode as pestle and turn the leaves into a powder
Get a pan from Richard’s kitchen

Do I give everything back to Elisabeth, including the access card that opened many doors?

It appears the answer is yes.

Getting the keys for the clock tower from Charlotte:

In the corner of the shed you find a clock/machine that holds the keys
Find the weights on the right of the clock holding the keys.
Hold on to at least one token from the recycling machine, don’t exchange them all for gumballs in hope to get a red gumball and a present. You’ll need a token as an extra weight to get the machine to release the keys.

The clock tower:

How do I get up the stairs? You’ll notice the stairs are broken and you’ll need to repair them.
Where to use the keys? Click on the central clock mechanism on the upper floors to reveal the location to use the keys.
In what order do I need to insert the keys?
- Moon
- Sword
- Flower
How many times do I need to turn the keys and in what order?
- Downstairs in the clock tower there are two paintings on the wall. Take photos and overlay these photos.
- But hold on, this doesn’t give you the correct numbers, if you go back to the diary, you find a drawing of the clock arm, pointing to 5.
- When overlaying the two photos, turn the image until the arm of the clock is on the 5. This gives you 1 turn for the Moon key, 4 turns for the Sword key and 6 turns for the Flower key, in this order.
Make sure you pick up the box from the clock mechanism
Make sure you pick up JC Valley badge from the floor downstairs.

Visit my blog: http://hoshisato.aminus3.com/ for information

The Crusoe building:

How do you get to the Crusoe office building when the road is blocked? Talk to Charlotte when you return the keys and she’ll show you a shortcut.
How do I get into the Crusoe building? Get Matt to go in via the first manhole to get inside the perimeter. You’ll find the manholes on the right side of the building. You’ll see a rat disappearing and reappearing, have Matt follow the same way.
How does Ashley get inside the perimeter? You hear some noise from the area of the security camera; inspect the camera on the DAS and you’ll see that a toolbox has fallen over. Show the DAS to Matt and he’ll fetch a saw. Saw through the rope and get in. Open the door with the TAS.
What to do inside the Crusoe office? Open the door to the right of the entrance and find a key for the other room.
Go to the other room and find the doll hidden in the locker by turning over the shelf. Give the doll to Matt by talking to him.
How to open the musical box? The journalist has the key, turn the box so it show the colours as shown in the key. Turn the music box by tilting the Wiimode.
Do I give the papers to the journalist to print? I did and at the end of the game the newspaper article is published

Visit my blog: http://blog.monochrome.me.uk/ for information

JC Valley

Ashley is in the meeting room where “Gina” left her, the door is locked and the TAS is out of batteries. How does she get out to find Richard? Look at the back of the TAS and click on the battery compartment. Take the battery out of the TAS and click on the wireless phone. Look at the back of the wireless phone and take the battery from it, put it in the TAS. Try the TAS on the lock again, they battery is still flat. Take the battery out again and put it back into the phone, put the phone on the charger. When fully charged, put battery in the TAS and use on the lock.
How to get the lipstick from the keypad? Use the cleaner from the meeting room’s cabinet. Shake before using.
What is the code for the keypad? It is today’s date as displayed on the desk: 08252007.
What to do in the security room? Call Richard on the video conferencing system
How to open the shutter that Sofia closed? Note that a couple of books are stuck under the shutter leaving a gap. You have to click on the gap even in the area that is not clearly marked yellow or else the game won’t proceed to the next step. If you have clicked on the right location in the gap, the game will remind you that there is a lock on the other side. Now you can enter the office of the researchers and pick up a mirror. Get the mirror and shove in through the gap. You still cannot see the lock so you’ll need to fetch the fishing pole. Move the mirror so you see the lock and use the TAS.
How to scan the encoded message? Note the arrow on the paper and the indents in the blocks of code? Cover all blocks with the scanner pen from the first one indicated by the arrow in one stroke such that the indents point to the next block.
Sofia fried the lock; how do I get out? Get in touch with Mike in Richard’s office and let him talk you through how to open the door.
How to open the emergency lock release cover? Use a guitar pick.
How to press the NESW keys on the Wiimode/TAS? Use the D pad for North/Up, South/Down, etc.
How to type in A³ on the Wiimode/TAS? Press the A button three times.
How to type the ‘house’ like symbol on the Wiimode/TAS? Use the home button
How to turn the lions’ heads to open the secret compartment in Rex’s room? Read the book on the desk and take photos of the last two pages and when you superimpose them on top of each other and move to the right, they give you the 3 positions of the heads and the letters to pick
Where the find the box Ryan wants to have? Under the chocolate in Richard’s office
How to open the box? Take the kaleidoscope’s bottom from the drawer and attach it to the kaleidoscope. Turn it around and press all the buttons at the same time that correspond to the 3 figures you saw in the kaleidoscope.
What to do with the white device? Try combining it with your TAS.
How can Ashley combine the white device with the TAS? Plug a nunchuck into your Wiimode and the game will take the hint.
How to use the TAS on the control panel? Keep the Wiimode vertically upright and it’ll slide in after a while.

Are there different endings?

In the Another Code game for the Nintendo DS there were different endings possible depending on the choices you had made, and so did the Hotel Dusk game also made by Cing. Does Another Code R: A Journey Into Lost Memories also have different endings? I don’t know, you tell me. The ending that I had was that Ryan was going to give himself up, Matt’s father was supposedly seen somewhere, Charlotte let me know that I could visit her gardens any time, Elisabeth and her father talked it out and Charlotte’s daughter and husband showed up after 5 years.

How long does this game take and how many chapters are there?

There are 9 chapters in total and it took me almost 18:30 hours but I could have played faster.

Visit my other blog: http://monochrome.me.uk/blog/ for information

Millennium Park Panorama

2009-06-12T17:56:00.001+01:00

Just after 6, before the crowds arrive.

Chicago Skyline

2009-06-11T20:36:00.001+01:00

Just before sunrise. The benefits of being jet-lagged and awake at 4AM.

How to find locations!

2009-04-11T19:23:00.001+01:00

One of the problems I have always had was how to find great photo locations while having little time to spend in a town or country. A Travel Guide will give you the obvious shots, but limiting myself to those I never found satisfying. The solution I found is to scan Google Earth for the area I intend to travel for those little blue markers that indicate uploaded photos. If I find something I like, I note the latitude and longitude and enter those as waypoints (favourites) in my GPS unit.

To keep the system going, I have uploaded some of my photos to Panoramio which is the site Google uses to allow people to upload geotagged photos to Google Earth. Please have a look at the photos I uploaded.

Spring

2009-04-01T19:39:00.001+01:00

Just some daffodils because they are so full of Spring feeling.

Northern Shoveler / Slobeend

2009-03-22T13:56:00.001Z

It has taken me years but yesterday finally I spotted a Northern Shoveler. Reminded me of Daffy Duck and I imagined it having a speech impediment: "You're despicable." :-)

Multi-exposure and automatic EV adjustment

2009-03-19T21:37:00.001Z

Playing around with the advanced features of my Pentax K20D, in this case the multi-exposure and automatic EV adjustment. This bridge in Richmond in the photo above was never without buses, cars, cyclist or pedestrians, at one point even horses passed. The constant stream of traffic was very distracting and wouldn't make for a nice photo. I put the camera on my tripod and selected a multi-exposure of 9 shots and selected the option to automatically adjust the exposure for the number of shots selected. The result is a bridge without traffic. This is of course nothing new, photographers have been using long exposures for ages to make passing distractions disappear, however, it has never been easier to do and doesn't require ND filters and the like. Exactly the same technique can be used to make photos of streaming water obtain that silky flow.