Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Dec. 24th, 2012 05:08 amAnd whatever your faith (or absence thereof), have a safe and happy holiday season.
Dear Internet news/opinion sites...
Dec. 3rd, 2012 09:40 amYour name is Legion, for you are many.
I can get that for very long articles, it's easier to split a centre-column-formatted article across two or more pages so you're not scrolling down forever. But for fuck's sake, what's the point in putting almost EVERY FUCKING PARAGRAPH on a new page, so I have to click, click, click every three or four seconds and wait for the next page to load before I can go on reading?
For fuck's sake, if you're going to do that for whatever reason (probably for people browsing on phones or tablets, who might find it easier to click than to scroll) the least you can do is offer a "View as one page" option for us fucking Neanderthals who are still carrying around laptops or sitting at desks.
I know you want to keep the links to your related articles and sponsors nicely on-view either side of the article, but if you go on giving me this sort of headache, I won't be coming back to your site and all those article and sponsor links won't be worth a glob of rancid walrus cum.
I can get that for very long articles, it's easier to split a centre-column-formatted article across two or more pages so you're not scrolling down forever. But for fuck's sake, what's the point in putting almost EVERY FUCKING PARAGRAPH on a new page, so I have to click, click, click every three or four seconds and wait for the next page to load before I can go on reading?
For fuck's sake, if you're going to do that for whatever reason (probably for people browsing on phones or tablets, who might find it easier to click than to scroll) the least you can do is offer a "View as one page" option for us fucking Neanderthals who are still carrying around laptops or sitting at desks.
I know you want to keep the links to your related articles and sponsors nicely on-view either side of the article, but if you go on giving me this sort of headache, I won't be coming back to your site and all those article and sponsor links won't be worth a glob of rancid walrus cum.
I wrote a post on this film some time ago, and I thought it was time to come back and make notes on where I'd guessed right or guessed wrong. ( "Spoiler )
The Vampire Diaries TV series.
Sep. 28th, 2012 12:11 pmSo my lovely wife got me addicted to this show, which we're working through on DVD (currently on disc 1 of Season 2). I thought I could just keep an ear on the action while reading whatever technical book du jour I'm working my way through, but that's proved impossible. Everything stands still for this (including the children, who - given their ages - we make sure are sound asleep in their cribs before we even put the disc in).
Forget the vampires, forget ( probable spoilers ), forget everything else that has been recycled, re-imagined and given a shiny new coat of cool for this show. Regardless of what TV Tropes might tell you, IMO it features only two essential tropes - "Nice Job Breaking It, Hero" and "Poor Communication Kills", applied over and over again. Often in conjunction.
One might argue that the first of these involves frequent possession of the Idiot Ball (thus, three major tropes). I would not take objection to that interpretation. Suffice it to say that the number of times I have either said or felt like saying "No, you fool(s)!" is legion.
Forget the vampires, forget ( probable spoilers ), forget everything else that has been recycled, re-imagined and given a shiny new coat of cool for this show. Regardless of what TV Tropes might tell you, IMO it features only two essential tropes - "Nice Job Breaking It, Hero" and "Poor Communication Kills", applied over and over again. Often in conjunction.
One might argue that the first of these involves frequent possession of the Idiot Ball (thus, three major tropes). I would not take objection to that interpretation. Suffice it to say that the number of times I have either said or felt like saying "No, you fool(s)!" is legion.
Free Speech and Its Enemies.
Sep. 24th, 2012 12:43 pmThis is the title of a position paper written in part by my LJ friend ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wemyss. I encourage everyone to read it.
The paper may be found here, and is presented free of charge due to the importance of the subject matter, as stated at the Bapton Books LJ. Also stated there is the following opinion, with which I concur:
‘Free speech, and freedom of the press and of publication as its corollary, to the very outermost limits necessary to an orderly society under law, is an absolute human right possessed of everyone on this spinning globe, and ought to be the basic presumption and fiercely-defended birthright of each of us.’ … ‘There is no “right” not to be offended.’
wemyss. I encourage everyone to read it.The paper may be found here, and is presented free of charge due to the importance of the subject matter, as stated at the Bapton Books LJ. Also stated there is the following opinion, with which I concur:
‘Free speech, and freedom of the press and of publication as its corollary, to the very outermost limits necessary to an orderly society under law, is an absolute human right possessed of everyone on this spinning globe, and ought to be the basic presumption and fiercely-defended birthright of each of us.’ … ‘There is no “right” not to be offended.’
Battle of Britain Day, 72 years on...
Sep. 15th, 2012 05:06 pm...and around the Western world, the forces of reason are in retreat, the impulse to kowtow to our enemies in the hope they will leave us alone is in full flower, and the most disgusting sort of moral relativism and blinkered media adulation in favour of incompetent and discredited leaders appears to be hurling us towards a precipice.
I only hope we can put the brakes on in time. Where are our Churchills and Roosevelts now? And how long before we once more have to throw it all on the shoulders of a brave Few?
I only hope we can put the brakes on in time. Where are our Churchills and Roosevelts now? And how long before we once more have to throw it all on the shoulders of a brave Few?
Musings on stationery.
Jul. 24th, 2012 10:32 amFor many years I have been a huge fan of these pens, first tried out when I started having to deal with a lot of carbon forms which my previous favourites (which I've used since I first became aware of them in the late 1980s) didn't handle very well, for obvious reasons. Part of the charm comes from the fact that both items write damn well and keep on writing, even when one has taken pliers to them, pulled the nibs out and refilled them with this several times.
However, I have always been frustrated by the fact that the only comparable alternative has remained resistant to easy disassembly and refilling. Imagine my horror, therefore, when local (Australian) supplies of the good old VBall 0.5 dried up and its successor proved just as impossible as the Eye to disassemble and reassemble. With this in mind, I snaffled a whole bunch of VBalls that were lying forgotten on the shelf of a small business-supply store in my previous home town; and CultPens.com, the British stationery supply store which is where almost all the above links lead (and which I have found nothing but a pleasure to deal with BTW) continues to stock them; but for how long?
So it was with pleased surprise that I found an allegedly refillable version. And because they were "discontinued", I bought two just in case they should be a resounding success and to keep one in reserve. Whoa, did I ever make a mistake!
They are refillable because you throw away the empty ink tube and you put in a refill. It's just like an ordinary ballpoint pen, as far as I can tell. A pity. I had hoped for something like a fountain pen, but with a ballpoint nib. IOW, a VBall 0.5 that doesn't need pliers to get the fucking thing open. What I got was certainly not what I expected, and it's little wonder that this model is now "discontinued". I suspect a lot of people thought what I did, bought it, found this out to their cost and did not go back. And it doesn't write as well as the VBall at all.
So give it a miss. A cheap pair of pliers, a bottle of ink and a syringe (preferably a narrow one, though not a diabetic syringe as there is no need for a needle), plus a handful of VBalls (or the supposedly "disposable" fountain pens, if you prefer them) will serve you very well indeed, and for quite some time. I've lost or mislaid more of these than I've thrown away. Eventually the nib does wear down and become scratchy - they don't last forever, by any means - but every refill is easily accomplished, and at a trifling cost compared to replacement. The only other disadvantage I have found is that the fountain pen's pocket-clasp, being plastic, eventually gives way and snaps, at which point it becomes a desk or pencil-case proposition, but otherwise they are a beautiful instrument to write with, and I hope Pilot never stop making them.
Declaration of Conflict of Interest: I have not in any way been paid commission or received freebies from Pilot or any other stationery sales, production or wholesaling company, as reward or inducement in advance for this post.
However, I have always been frustrated by the fact that the only comparable alternative has remained resistant to easy disassembly and refilling. Imagine my horror, therefore, when local (Australian) supplies of the good old VBall 0.5 dried up and its successor proved just as impossible as the Eye to disassemble and reassemble. With this in mind, I snaffled a whole bunch of VBalls that were lying forgotten on the shelf of a small business-supply store in my previous home town; and CultPens.com, the British stationery supply store which is where almost all the above links lead (and which I have found nothing but a pleasure to deal with BTW) continues to stock them; but for how long?
So it was with pleased surprise that I found an allegedly refillable version. And because they were "discontinued", I bought two just in case they should be a resounding success and to keep one in reserve. Whoa, did I ever make a mistake!
They are refillable because you throw away the empty ink tube and you put in a refill. It's just like an ordinary ballpoint pen, as far as I can tell. A pity. I had hoped for something like a fountain pen, but with a ballpoint nib. IOW, a VBall 0.5 that doesn't need pliers to get the fucking thing open. What I got was certainly not what I expected, and it's little wonder that this model is now "discontinued". I suspect a lot of people thought what I did, bought it, found this out to their cost and did not go back. And it doesn't write as well as the VBall at all.
So give it a miss. A cheap pair of pliers, a bottle of ink and a syringe (preferably a narrow one, though not a diabetic syringe as there is no need for a needle), plus a handful of VBalls (or the supposedly "disposable" fountain pens, if you prefer them) will serve you very well indeed, and for quite some time. I've lost or mislaid more of these than I've thrown away. Eventually the nib does wear down and become scratchy - they don't last forever, by any means - but every refill is easily accomplished, and at a trifling cost compared to replacement. The only other disadvantage I have found is that the fountain pen's pocket-clasp, being plastic, eventually gives way and snaps, at which point it becomes a desk or pencil-case proposition, but otherwise they are a beautiful instrument to write with, and I hope Pilot never stop making them.
Declaration of Conflict of Interest: I have not in any way been paid commission or received freebies from Pilot or any other stationery sales, production or wholesaling company, as reward or inducement in advance for this post.
I've done a little field experimentation with this thing in rough-and-tumble land, and have made the following discoveries.
1) The grip of the retaining magnet to the adhesive mounting ring is not quite what it could be. They really need a pair of magnets, so the two will lock together centre-to-centre at once and stay that way - the distortion when off centre is remarkable, and it shows a tendency to shift if you repeatedly pick the phone up and put it down. OTOH it seems to slip only minimally under gravity, if at all. In this sense, something optimised to mounting on a single model of camera (like the Olloclip is for the iPhone) is far superior.
2) I took pictures of things at various distances. Depth of field is short at anything less than arm's length; reliable, blur-free hyperfocal distance is at least the length of a tall man's arm. This lens is probably a better match for phonecams that have some sort of autofocus capability than for fixed-focus types.
3) Lens flare LIEK WHOA.
4) The lens cap stays on fine (good), but is occasionally a little slow to peel off if you have very short fingernails that tend to break.
In short, it is still a compact, cheap and convenient way to slightly extend the range of your phonecam if you're not contemplating trading up in the mobile phone world. But you should be aware of its limitations, and also those of your cellphone's camera - because the two tend to add at least, and occasionally to multiply.
1) The grip of the retaining magnet to the adhesive mounting ring is not quite what it could be. They really need a pair of magnets, so the two will lock together centre-to-centre at once and stay that way - the distortion when off centre is remarkable, and it shows a tendency to shift if you repeatedly pick the phone up and put it down. OTOH it seems to slip only minimally under gravity, if at all. In this sense, something optimised to mounting on a single model of camera (like the Olloclip is for the iPhone) is far superior.
2) I took pictures of things at various distances. Depth of field is short at anything less than arm's length; reliable, blur-free hyperfocal distance is at least the length of a tall man's arm. This lens is probably a better match for phonecams that have some sort of autofocus capability than for fixed-focus types.
3) Lens flare LIEK WHOA.
4) The lens cap stays on fine (good), but is occasionally a little slow to peel off if you have very short fingernails that tend to break.
In short, it is still a compact, cheap and convenient way to slightly extend the range of your phonecam if you're not contemplating trading up in the mobile phone world. But you should be aware of its limitations, and also those of your cellphone's camera - because the two tend to add at least, and occasionally to multiply.
68 years after the D-Day landings...
Jun. 6th, 2012 12:19 pm...who in God's name thought that ANYBODY in an English-speaking parliamentary democracy would need to make a video like this?
How soon we forget, and in forgetting, betray the memory and waste the sacrifice of those who died.
How soon we forget, and in forgetting, betray the memory and waste the sacrifice of those who died.
Photogeekery - cellphone camera gadget.
May. 30th, 2012 07:43 pmCourtesy of YouTube, I learned of the existence of simple clip-on lenses for iPhones and such, at a place called photojojo.com. I saw one that seemed to be a generic, not-necessarily-limited-to-iPhone deal, so I thought I'd give it a whirl and see what it was like.
How it works is this - they sell you one of three lenses (or the full set of three) - a fisheye, a wide-angle or a 2x telephoto, along with an adhesive-backed iron ring. The ring gets stuck to your PDA or camera around the camera lens; the lens simply gets pulled out of your pocket and clipped to the ring. Hey presto! Sounds easy!
Here is how it works out in practice. This is a photo, with the electronic zoom pushed up to max:
This is a photo, settings unchanged, with the 2x lens (the only one I bought) clipped on and pointed in as close to the same place as possible:
It certainly brings you closer. The file size is 423KB for the first, 321KB for the second, which seems to imply a bit of data loss somewhere, possibly due to cropping effects and a lens/phonecam mismatch. My phonecam is a 2MP affair which always seems to have a bit of "shake" built in unless I try really hard to hold the thing steady.
In short - if you really want telephoto capability, get a small pocket digital camera or trade up to a better phone with a higher-res camera. But if you don't want to do that or can't, these little things - which are really small and easy to carry - will improve your "reach" if you really need it, at the cost of about $25 a lens plus P&H. Those lucky enough to own an iPhone will find a somewhat broader range of accessories more closely matched to the camera, including a little gadget from Belkin that gives you a better grip for proper "Iphone photography", in addition to superior zoom, wide angle, fisheye and even macro lenses (google "Olloclip" and see where that gets you). This goes right up to and including the ludicrous extreme of an adaptor for linking iPhones to Canon DSLR lenses - at which point, I think it's fair to say, you should probably just buy the bloody camera body and be done with it.
(Edited 31 May to update a link and remove a thereby-outdated footnote.)
How it works is this - they sell you one of three lenses (or the full set of three) - a fisheye, a wide-angle or a 2x telephoto, along with an adhesive-backed iron ring. The ring gets stuck to your PDA or camera around the camera lens; the lens simply gets pulled out of your pocket and clipped to the ring. Hey presto! Sounds easy!
Here is how it works out in practice. This is a photo, with the electronic zoom pushed up to max:
This is a photo, settings unchanged, with the 2x lens (the only one I bought) clipped on and pointed in as close to the same place as possible:
It certainly brings you closer. The file size is 423KB for the first, 321KB for the second, which seems to imply a bit of data loss somewhere, possibly due to cropping effects and a lens/phonecam mismatch. My phonecam is a 2MP affair which always seems to have a bit of "shake" built in unless I try really hard to hold the thing steady.
In short - if you really want telephoto capability, get a small pocket digital camera or trade up to a better phone with a higher-res camera. But if you don't want to do that or can't, these little things - which are really small and easy to carry - will improve your "reach" if you really need it, at the cost of about $25 a lens plus P&H. Those lucky enough to own an iPhone will find a somewhat broader range of accessories more closely matched to the camera, including a little gadget from Belkin that gives you a better grip for proper "Iphone photography", in addition to superior zoom, wide angle, fisheye and even macro lenses (google "Olloclip" and see where that gets you). This goes right up to and including the ludicrous extreme of an adaptor for linking iPhones to Canon DSLR lenses - at which point, I think it's fair to say, you should probably just buy the bloody camera body and be done with it.
(Edited 31 May to update a link and remove a thereby-outdated footnote.)
Photogeekery: rechargeable batteries.
May. 15th, 2012 05:09 am(Discovered fortuitously this afternoon.)
When carrying two or more sets of rechargeable AA or similar, it may be an advantage to ensure that they are of different brands or in some way differentially marked. I have two sets of Energizers - one bought here in Canada, the others holdovers from Australia. I accidentally spilled them into a pile and had to work out which were the flat and which the charged. Fortunately the latter had just come off the charger and were palpably warm (and now both sets are good to go), but when scrabbling around in your camera bag without a table to dump things on, it's vital to know, if they get mixed up, which set you just took out and which you want to put in.
When carrying two or more sets of rechargeable AA or similar, it may be an advantage to ensure that they are of different brands or in some way differentially marked. I have two sets of Energizers - one bought here in Canada, the others holdovers from Australia. I accidentally spilled them into a pile and had to work out which were the flat and which the charged. Fortunately the latter had just come off the charger and were palpably warm (and now both sets are good to go), but when scrabbling around in your camera bag without a table to dump things on, it's vital to know, if they get mixed up, which set you just took out and which you want to put in.
Photogeekery - field trip.
May. 13th, 2012 06:46 pmToday was the first day in quite a while that I could take a walk around more than a short block without the certainty that the skies would open and drench me. (I almost took the chance yesterday and was lucky I didn't.)
I took my *ist-DL and just about all my lenses with me (where is my 55mm f1.7 standard Pentax lens?). Thank God for Tilley's Vest of Many Pockets (or VOMP). Aside from one short interval where I switched to the Sigma kit lens that came with the camera, I mostly used my 70-210 manual-focus lens. It goes without saying that because this thing was designed for a film camera, the effective focal length is more like a 105-315mm zoom.
Now I've played around with it a bit on a stationary target, so to speak, but how would it go on an extended field test shooting multiple different things at various focal lengths? More importantly, how would I go after years away from manual focus lenses?
The result was not actually bad, and some of what happened was enlightening. Even with the ISO dialled right down to 200 (as low as the camera will go), the first few shots were clearly overexposed when I zoomed in on the preview screen. So I dialled the exposure compensation down a stop and a half, which took me down to ISO 80 or so. That seemed about right, as far as I could tell, so I left it at that.
"As far as I could tell" brought me onto an other interesting problem, about which camera reviewers on YouTube complain, which is the difficulty of seeing the preview screen in bright ambient light. This really is a problem, and for some compact digitals it allegedly seriously impairs the ability of the user to frame the shot properly or judge the adequacy of the one they've just taken (and after today, I believe it).
This left me in a very interesting position; namely, exactly where I used to be when I was shooting my film SLRs back in the day and didn't know what I was going to get until after the shoot was complete and I had gone home. Of course this time I had two advantages - I had almost limitless shots available (over a thousand, on two SD cards) and the time between finishing the picture-taking and being able to review the results was very much foreshortened (I stopped at the local Tim Horton's for an iced lemonade and, being indoors, was able to examine the outbound shots free of the glare problem). And although I couldn't examine the shots in detail in the field, I could at least zoom in on the previews and know that I was close to a decent exposure.
On the way home, the sunny day came to something of an end. Things are now very different to how they were this afternoon, when I was shooting Canso waterbombers against a generally blue sky, and now we have this:
I finished with the EV meter almost back at 0.0 again. Before I dialled it down, some of the brighter colours (reds and yellows) were very vibrant, practically fluorescent. When the walk was done, I'd have had to dial overexposure to get that result.
The lens performed well, for the most part. I had the camera set to aperture priority, primarily for depth of field control, and the other reason I had to cripple things down to an effective ISO of 80 was that it was so bright I had problems opening things up for narrow DOF. When I say 'for the most part', what I mean is that most of the best shots were taken at the shorter focal lengths. By the time I was out at 210, they were somewhat fuzzier. I'm not sure whether this was the deliberate compromise of the designers or a general function of how non-proprietary long focus zooms behave, and I didn't have my tripod with me to go for a slow, stopped-down shot.
The performace at the 70mm end, however, is nothing short of outstanding. At 70mm it's close to being my best lens. It's also half a stop faster at the long end than my 18-250 do-everything AF lens (5.6 vs. 6.3), which might or might not be worth the extra 40mm.
If I ever find that Prime lens, I'll take that out for a play. That will definitely not be a lens for a bright day, unless at very fast shutter speeds and small apertures. Or with the EV turned all the way down, which ought to put me around an ISO or ASA of 25.
I took my *ist-DL and just about all my lenses with me (where is my 55mm f1.7 standard Pentax lens?). Thank God for Tilley's Vest of Many Pockets (or VOMP). Aside from one short interval where I switched to the Sigma kit lens that came with the camera, I mostly used my 70-210 manual-focus lens. It goes without saying that because this thing was designed for a film camera, the effective focal length is more like a 105-315mm zoom.
Now I've played around with it a bit on a stationary target, so to speak, but how would it go on an extended field test shooting multiple different things at various focal lengths? More importantly, how would I go after years away from manual focus lenses?
The result was not actually bad, and some of what happened was enlightening. Even with the ISO dialled right down to 200 (as low as the camera will go), the first few shots were clearly overexposed when I zoomed in on the preview screen. So I dialled the exposure compensation down a stop and a half, which took me down to ISO 80 or so. That seemed about right, as far as I could tell, so I left it at that.
"As far as I could tell" brought me onto an other interesting problem, about which camera reviewers on YouTube complain, which is the difficulty of seeing the preview screen in bright ambient light. This really is a problem, and for some compact digitals it allegedly seriously impairs the ability of the user to frame the shot properly or judge the adequacy of the one they've just taken (and after today, I believe it).
This left me in a very interesting position; namely, exactly where I used to be when I was shooting my film SLRs back in the day and didn't know what I was going to get until after the shoot was complete and I had gone home. Of course this time I had two advantages - I had almost limitless shots available (over a thousand, on two SD cards) and the time between finishing the picture-taking and being able to review the results was very much foreshortened (I stopped at the local Tim Horton's for an iced lemonade and, being indoors, was able to examine the outbound shots free of the glare problem). And although I couldn't examine the shots in detail in the field, I could at least zoom in on the previews and know that I was close to a decent exposure.
On the way home, the sunny day came to something of an end. Things are now very different to how they were this afternoon, when I was shooting Canso waterbombers against a generally blue sky, and now we have this:
I finished with the EV meter almost back at 0.0 again. Before I dialled it down, some of the brighter colours (reds and yellows) were very vibrant, practically fluorescent. When the walk was done, I'd have had to dial overexposure to get that result.
The lens performed well, for the most part. I had the camera set to aperture priority, primarily for depth of field control, and the other reason I had to cripple things down to an effective ISO of 80 was that it was so bright I had problems opening things up for narrow DOF. When I say 'for the most part', what I mean is that most of the best shots were taken at the shorter focal lengths. By the time I was out at 210, they were somewhat fuzzier. I'm not sure whether this was the deliberate compromise of the designers or a general function of how non-proprietary long focus zooms behave, and I didn't have my tripod with me to go for a slow, stopped-down shot.
The performace at the 70mm end, however, is nothing short of outstanding. At 70mm it's close to being my best lens. It's also half a stop faster at the long end than my 18-250 do-everything AF lens (5.6 vs. 6.3), which might or might not be worth the extra 40mm.
If I ever find that Prime lens, I'll take that out for a play. That will definitely not be a lens for a bright day, unless at very fast shutter speeds and small apertures. Or with the EV turned all the way down, which ought to put me around an ISO or ASA of 25.
From the Boys' Own Paper, discussing masturbation (or 'evil habits' in those days) as frankly as it then dared:
"If you are to read Shakespeare solely for the harm you can get from it, pray leave it alone. There is no book in this world you cannot turn to evil purposes if you are so minded."
Given the circumstances and under the limitations prevailing, just how much closer can you get to "If it exists, there is porn of it"? I think they're all there bar the shouting.
"If you are to read Shakespeare solely for the harm you can get from it, pray leave it alone. There is no book in this world you cannot turn to evil purposes if you are so minded."
Given the circumstances and under the limitations prevailing, just how much closer can you get to "If it exists, there is porn of it"? I think they're all there bar the shouting.
SDHC Card worries - and not-worries
May. 8th, 2012 01:47 pmBecause I thought (a) I might like to try shooting RAW format and (b) I wanted plenty of shots available in that format (or any other), I went off a short while ago and bought myself a 4GB SDHC card for my faithful Pentax *ist-DL.
PROBLEM: The camera chokes on the card and refuses to recognise or even re-format it.
MISTAKE: Go back to the store and, swearing under my breath, buy a 2GB SD card (without the HC). Still gives me a little over 666 shots in full JPEG mode, so shouldn't be a problem.
SOLUTION (found accidentally when browsing the Pentax site looking for new lenses and accessories to buy): find that there is a firmware update for the *ist-DL which specifically solves my problem. Follow instructions - all seems well. Go home, dig the SDHC card out of its new home in the camcorder. Fit it. Turn camera on.
Shots remaining: 999.
Beautiful.
PROBLEM: The camera chokes on the card and refuses to recognise or even re-format it.
MISTAKE: Go back to the store and, swearing under my breath, buy a 2GB SD card (without the HC). Still gives me a little over 666 shots in full JPEG mode, so shouldn't be a problem.
SOLUTION (found accidentally when browsing the Pentax site looking for new lenses and accessories to buy): find that there is a firmware update for the *ist-DL which specifically solves my problem. Follow instructions - all seems well. Go home, dig the SDHC card out of its new home in the camcorder. Fit it. Turn camera on.
Shots remaining: 999.
Beautiful.
This is one of my two fixed (prime) lenses, the other being my macro, and because of the relatively wide aperture it is my low-light lens if I anticipate not being able to use flash much. It's also a very small and flat lens to have on the camera (the smallest in my personal experience, although Pentax have since gone one better), which makes for ease of handling. I keep a sacrificial 49mm UV filter screwed onto the front at all times, to catch anything which might be thrown up by the wheels of passing cars or careless small children smearing grubby fingers everywhere, and have since replaced the unusual screw-on lens-cap with a more easily replaced standard-type after-market spring cap.
Okay, let's see what it can do. I set to aperture priority at ISO 200, and shot with the aperture all the way open and all the way closed. I centred the reticle in the viewfinder on the large building at the top of the hill for both shots, but I suspect the spot focus was reading the sky somewhere and it shows.
( Cut for photos/length; all worksafe. )
...and thus as a side benefit, we have a lesson in why you use tight f-stops for landscape photography. You might be able to see that despite my focus point being in the distance, the wheels of the cars in the car park are now much more in focus. Go back and look at the first shot, and you'll see what I mean. (It goes without saying that if I were doing this as a formal project, I'd use a tripod and cable release.) Conversely, if I want to isolate a subject, I'll be sure to crank the thing wide open for minimum depth of field (one of the benefits of this lens) and get close.
In this particular case, I might have done well to overexpose by a stop or so, given the general greyness of the weather.
If I were buying this lens again, I might go for the slimline pancake-flat version. The only reason I didn't was that I didn't then know it existed (and it may not have existed when I bought this one; I'm not exactly sure).
Okay, let's see what it can do. I set to aperture priority at ISO 200, and shot with the aperture all the way open and all the way closed. I centred the reticle in the viewfinder on the large building at the top of the hill for both shots, but I suspect the spot focus was reading the sky somewhere and it shows.
( Cut for photos/length; all worksafe. )
...and thus as a side benefit, we have a lesson in why you use tight f-stops for landscape photography. You might be able to see that despite my focus point being in the distance, the wheels of the cars in the car park are now much more in focus. Go back and look at the first shot, and you'll see what I mean. (It goes without saying that if I were doing this as a formal project, I'd use a tripod and cable release.) Conversely, if I want to isolate a subject, I'll be sure to crank the thing wide open for minimum depth of field (one of the benefits of this lens) and get close.
In this particular case, I might have done well to overexpose by a stop or so, given the general greyness of the weather.
If I were buying this lens again, I might go for the slimline pancake-flat version. The only reason I didn't was that I didn't then know it existed (and it may not have existed when I bought this one; I'm not exactly sure).
I have quite a few leisure interests, and one of them is photography. Because I have small children whose growth I want to record and because I do quite a lot of photography in my day to day work (especially when I have a lot of coronial autopsies), the camera has recently been getting quite a workout.
Back in the days of film, I started out with the usual addiction to Kodacolor Gold 100. It was cheap, available, and you usually got a "free" roll built into the cost of your photo processing. That was until I pushed my mother's little instamatic way, way beyond the level of what it was really meant to handle and got quite a few underexposed shots.
And so I discovered high ASA. 200, then 400 (which I stayed with), and rare forays into 1600 whenever I could get my hands on some. As time went by, I got myself a good SLR camera (a Minolta Dynax 3xi), and then (oddly enough) I went back to a semi-manual Pentax (P30T, I think), with which I had a hell of a lot of fun. And because I had a way wide open (f1.7) lens for it, my hunger for higher and higher ASA film ratings went away quite a bit.
Cut forward quite a few years and (after many twists and turns) I became the proud owner of a Pentax *ist-DL digital SLR. Cool beast, only 6MP, but it accepts the older lenses (and even gives me in-focus indications, though I have to do the actual focusing myself) and does everything I need it to do. The only thing, of course, is that it has a 3200 ASA equivalent setting for the sensor, and so the old disease took over - mostly because the lens it came with was no faster than f4 or thereabouts, and because a later lens (a do-everything 18-250mm) is a horrid f6.3 at full zoom and those high shutter-speeds are really important to prevent blurring.
Just the other day, I pointed it (fitted with a 40mm f2.8) out the window and took several shots at the various ASA settings, then expanded them to see what the "grain" was like. First, here is the 200 ASA shot (taken through flyscreen, unfortunately, which is why you will almost certainly see a "gridded" effect in the sky).
( Cut for long post and plenty of pics. )
I suppose if you want that grainy early 70's look on blowing up your prints, this is the way to go. But if you were trying to focus on one detail in a larger field or to use expansion as a substitute for a zoom lens you weren't carrying, you would soon run into terrible trouble. The Pentax K-5 is said, after updates, to be able to handle a blistering 51,000 ASA. Sounds fascinating, but even with eight years of advances in digital image sensor and in-camera processing technology, I shudder to think of what the grain on that would be like. On the other hand, it would also be able to do things on the slower side - and having a 100 or even 50 ASA setting would provide some really crisp shots on those days that I have enough light to use it.
On the Gripping Hand, I almost never print anything bigger than a 6 x 4 glossy (sometimes I go up to 5 x 7), and the biggest laptop I or anyone in my family has is about a 15" screen. So even at 200 ASA, my resolution and grain are probably never going to be enough of a problem to go up to that juicy K-5 and its 16 megapixel sensor...
Back in the days of film, I started out with the usual addiction to Kodacolor Gold 100. It was cheap, available, and you usually got a "free" roll built into the cost of your photo processing. That was until I pushed my mother's little instamatic way, way beyond the level of what it was really meant to handle and got quite a few underexposed shots.
And so I discovered high ASA. 200, then 400 (which I stayed with), and rare forays into 1600 whenever I could get my hands on some. As time went by, I got myself a good SLR camera (a Minolta Dynax 3xi), and then (oddly enough) I went back to a semi-manual Pentax (P30T, I think), with which I had a hell of a lot of fun. And because I had a way wide open (f1.7) lens for it, my hunger for higher and higher ASA film ratings went away quite a bit.
Cut forward quite a few years and (after many twists and turns) I became the proud owner of a Pentax *ist-DL digital SLR. Cool beast, only 6MP, but it accepts the older lenses (and even gives me in-focus indications, though I have to do the actual focusing myself) and does everything I need it to do. The only thing, of course, is that it has a 3200 ASA equivalent setting for the sensor, and so the old disease took over - mostly because the lens it came with was no faster than f4 or thereabouts, and because a later lens (a do-everything 18-250mm) is a horrid f6.3 at full zoom and those high shutter-speeds are really important to prevent blurring.
Just the other day, I pointed it (fitted with a 40mm f2.8) out the window and took several shots at the various ASA settings, then expanded them to see what the "grain" was like. First, here is the 200 ASA shot (taken through flyscreen, unfortunately, which is why you will almost certainly see a "gridded" effect in the sky).
( Cut for long post and plenty of pics. )
I suppose if you want that grainy early 70's look on blowing up your prints, this is the way to go. But if you were trying to focus on one detail in a larger field or to use expansion as a substitute for a zoom lens you weren't carrying, you would soon run into terrible trouble. The Pentax K-5 is said, after updates, to be able to handle a blistering 51,000 ASA. Sounds fascinating, but even with eight years of advances in digital image sensor and in-camera processing technology, I shudder to think of what the grain on that would be like. On the other hand, it would also be able to do things on the slower side - and having a 100 or even 50 ASA setting would provide some really crisp shots on those days that I have enough light to use it.
On the Gripping Hand, I almost never print anything bigger than a 6 x 4 glossy (sometimes I go up to 5 x 7), and the biggest laptop I or anyone in my family has is about a 15" screen. So even at 200 ASA, my resolution and grain are probably never going to be enough of a problem to go up to that juicy K-5 and its 16 megapixel sensor...
Anzac Day, 2012.
Apr. 24th, 2012 06:48 pmLest we forget.
Lest we also forget that it is the lessons learned from amphibious-warfare failures like this which made the one that mattered, 29 years later, a success.
More artillery and more ammunition might have made a difference. But industry was not up to it because peacetime industry was not up to it because politicians wouldn't cough up the money to give the Empire the military it deserved.
Si vis pacem para bellum. "If you want peace, be prepared for war."
Nemo me impune lacessit. "Nobody attacks me with impunity."
These two things combined create peace.
We have two choices - a vigorous defence, or enslavement. Peace at any price is for those who do not mind being slaves.
Lest we also forget that it is the lessons learned from amphibious-warfare failures like this which made the one that mattered, 29 years later, a success.
More artillery and more ammunition might have made a difference. But industry was not up to it because peacetime industry was not up to it because politicians wouldn't cough up the money to give the Empire the military it deserved.
Si vis pacem para bellum. "If you want peace, be prepared for war."
Nemo me impune lacessit. "Nobody attacks me with impunity."
These two things combined create peace.
We have two choices - a vigorous defence, or enslavement. Peace at any price is for those who do not mind being slaves.
Prometheus
Mar. 23rd, 2012 12:53 pmI am excited for this film.
For weeks, we've had very little except a few short teasers or trailers, but these have been enough to make it very exciting. Frankly I'm surprised it doesn't have a formal, easy-to-find presence on Livejournal yet, because the last couple of days have seen an explosion in the amount of trailer material available - more than enough to start making reasonable assumptions, or at least craft reasonable hypotheses, about the plot.
What we know (or can reasonably deduce) from the trailer material so far:
* It definitely takes place in the Alien Universe, (30 years) before the events of the original film. To this extent, it can be regarded as a prequel.
* It features the "Space Jockey" aliens and ships originally seen at the beginning of Alien, thus strengthening the above premise.
* There are plot elements regarding humanity's origins having something to do with these creatures, and the trailers directly impute interactions with multiple human cultures. The scuttlebutt is that it relates directly to the origins of humanity. The truth... will become apparent in early June, or perhaps before that if significant details are leaked in the trailers. For now, we have two idealistic archaeologists (at least one of whom has a doctorate) uncovering these facts and interpreting them as a peaceful invitation. The words "We were so wrong" are uttered by one of them. In fact the distorted words "...were so wrong... I'm so sorry..." are used to open the first substantive trailer. So it looks as if, much like the first film, a "come and find me" message turns out later to be something very different.
* There is a strong element of body horror.
Evidence: a human form cocooned in some sort of white casing is seen thrashing about; Noomi Rapace's character spends a significant amount of trailer time wearing not much and looking rather unwell; another character is seen clutching his space helmet while his face appears to be boiling off or on fire; at least one character (possibly Rapace's also) is seen screaming while being held down; the audio in one trailer contains what appear to be the words "Cut it off!" screamed in a panic; another voice (female) screams "Please!" in a panicked, begging tone. We see something crawling out of, or moving at the top of, a long, thin canopic-jar-like structure. At least one brief cut features a tentacle of some kind. Viscous slime is identified. A character is seen examining one of his own eyes in the mirror, in close-up, in a manner suggesting he is checking for some sort of alteration.
The significance of this is unclear. This may be due to the actions of a parasite or some other infectious agent. It would appear to involve the transformation of humans into something else, although a fatal disease may also be a possibility. Unconfirmed rumour suggests that the Alien of the first film is a product of human and "Space Jockey", but we have nothing further to go on that is definite.
* There are parallels with the egg chamber in the original Alien and a large chamber containing an Easter Island-like head of human form and containing numerous examples of the canopic jar-like structures discussed above. We are immediately meant to feel uneasy here - we know what happened in the egg chamber of the Space Jockey ship in Alien, and also the events of Aliens in the Queen's egg chamber, and neither was a safe place to be
* The interests of the humans and the Space Jockeys appear at the present time to be diametrically opposed: we see a brief clip of the Prometheus being rammed into the side of a Space Jockey ship, with an explosion occurring at the point of contact. A separate clip shows an out-of-control Space Jockey ship descending from the sky and a third shows a similar ship piling into the ground or toppling over (with a human trying frantically to outrun the wreckage). A fourth clip shows humans climbing into cells or pods which are not their hibernation chambers (these have already been shown), so presumably the Prometheus undertakes a suicide ramming mission from which some of her crew eject. One of the characters utters the words "If we don't stop it, there won't be a home to go back to", making the stakes clear.
* The interests of all of the humans may not coincide. There is a brief clip which appears to show a human figure leaping at another human engaged in a task, and another which shows several humans firing hand weapons. The muzzles are roughly level, implying they are shooting at objects or persons/creatures of approximately the same height as themselves, whereas a separate clip implies that the Space Jockeys are much taller. This may coincide with what has been said about body horror above, e.g. that altered humans escape their confines and are pursued (successfully or otherwise) by some of the remainder.
* The tale of whatever happens either never makes it back to Earth or is quietly suppressed. Proof: if what happened was widely known, the crew of the Nostromo would have found reference to it, known the nature of the ship they had found, and known to stay well away. Given that they set down under orders, this would imply that the facts as established in Prometheus do somehow get back to Earth. Charlize Theron's character is allegedly a Weyland Corporation representative and allegedly survives to the end of the film. I suspect we can put two and two together here.
That's about all I can reasonably surmise. Questions exist - is this the film in which "the Company" somehow learns of the xenomorph (eventually), leading them to send the Nostromo (Ripley's original ship) to pick it up in the future? Is David, the android, in the mould of Ash (traitor to his crew), Bishop (neutral trending towards friendly), or somewhere in between? Do we see anything/is anything hinted of the xenomorphs at all? Stay tuned.
For weeks, we've had very little except a few short teasers or trailers, but these have been enough to make it very exciting. Frankly I'm surprised it doesn't have a formal, easy-to-find presence on Livejournal yet, because the last couple of days have seen an explosion in the amount of trailer material available - more than enough to start making reasonable assumptions, or at least craft reasonable hypotheses, about the plot.
What we know (or can reasonably deduce) from the trailer material so far:
* It definitely takes place in the Alien Universe, (30 years) before the events of the original film. To this extent, it can be regarded as a prequel.
* It features the "Space Jockey" aliens and ships originally seen at the beginning of Alien, thus strengthening the above premise.
* There are plot elements regarding humanity's origins having something to do with these creatures, and the trailers directly impute interactions with multiple human cultures. The scuttlebutt is that it relates directly to the origins of humanity. The truth... will become apparent in early June, or perhaps before that if significant details are leaked in the trailers. For now, we have two idealistic archaeologists (at least one of whom has a doctorate) uncovering these facts and interpreting them as a peaceful invitation. The words "We were so wrong" are uttered by one of them. In fact the distorted words "...were so wrong... I'm so sorry..." are used to open the first substantive trailer. So it looks as if, much like the first film, a "come and find me" message turns out later to be something very different.
* There is a strong element of body horror.
Evidence: a human form cocooned in some sort of white casing is seen thrashing about; Noomi Rapace's character spends a significant amount of trailer time wearing not much and looking rather unwell; another character is seen clutching his space helmet while his face appears to be boiling off or on fire; at least one character (possibly Rapace's also) is seen screaming while being held down; the audio in one trailer contains what appear to be the words "Cut it off!" screamed in a panic; another voice (female) screams "Please!" in a panicked, begging tone. We see something crawling out of, or moving at the top of, a long, thin canopic-jar-like structure. At least one brief cut features a tentacle of some kind. Viscous slime is identified. A character is seen examining one of his own eyes in the mirror, in close-up, in a manner suggesting he is checking for some sort of alteration.
The significance of this is unclear. This may be due to the actions of a parasite or some other infectious agent. It would appear to involve the transformation of humans into something else, although a fatal disease may also be a possibility. Unconfirmed rumour suggests that the Alien of the first film is a product of human and "Space Jockey", but we have nothing further to go on that is definite.
* There are parallels with the egg chamber in the original Alien and a large chamber containing an Easter Island-like head of human form and containing numerous examples of the canopic jar-like structures discussed above. We are immediately meant to feel uneasy here - we know what happened in the egg chamber of the Space Jockey ship in Alien, and also the events of Aliens in the Queen's egg chamber, and neither was a safe place to be
* The interests of the humans and the Space Jockeys appear at the present time to be diametrically opposed: we see a brief clip of the Prometheus being rammed into the side of a Space Jockey ship, with an explosion occurring at the point of contact. A separate clip shows an out-of-control Space Jockey ship descending from the sky and a third shows a similar ship piling into the ground or toppling over (with a human trying frantically to outrun the wreckage). A fourth clip shows humans climbing into cells or pods which are not their hibernation chambers (these have already been shown), so presumably the Prometheus undertakes a suicide ramming mission from which some of her crew eject. One of the characters utters the words "If we don't stop it, there won't be a home to go back to", making the stakes clear.
* The interests of all of the humans may not coincide. There is a brief clip which appears to show a human figure leaping at another human engaged in a task, and another which shows several humans firing hand weapons. The muzzles are roughly level, implying they are shooting at objects or persons/creatures of approximately the same height as themselves, whereas a separate clip implies that the Space Jockeys are much taller. This may coincide with what has been said about body horror above, e.g. that altered humans escape their confines and are pursued (successfully or otherwise) by some of the remainder.
* The tale of whatever happens either never makes it back to Earth or is quietly suppressed. Proof: if what happened was widely known, the crew of the Nostromo would have found reference to it, known the nature of the ship they had found, and known to stay well away. Given that they set down under orders, this would imply that the facts as established in Prometheus do somehow get back to Earth. Charlize Theron's character is allegedly a Weyland Corporation representative and allegedly survives to the end of the film. I suspect we can put two and two together here.
That's about all I can reasonably surmise. Questions exist - is this the film in which "the Company" somehow learns of the xenomorph (eventually), leading them to send the Nostromo (Ripley's original ship) to pick it up in the future? Is David, the android, in the mould of Ash (traitor to his crew), Bishop (neutral trending towards friendly), or somewhere in between? Do we see anything/is anything hinted of the xenomorphs at all? Stay tuned.
