Sunday, February 10, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Mirror lens
A catadioptric lens uses mirrors to reflect light a couple of times before the image is focused on the back of the lens. I have a Nikkor 500mm mirror lens. It is powerful but at the same time, it produces interesting bokeh. Have a look -- to some, the bokeh looks nice but to me, it is distracting to say the least! Perhaps in some situations, it could add a nice background element to the photo.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Backup battery or not? Part 2
Just a quick update on third-party batteries. I mentioned in the last post that my EN-EL3e battery for my Nikon D80 started working again after I found it, well, dead. I was able to shoot maybe about 100 photos but yesterday it suddenly died on me, again. Totally non-dependable for any special occasion. I do not recommend buying those cheap, third-party batteries. If you need a backup battery for you Nikon, buy the real stuff from Nikon. If it is Canon, buy the real stuff from Canon.
Where are you photos? Part 5
If you have read my posts on photo storage, you know I have been running Yappa-NG (for years now). Recently, I started tinkering with Gallery2, a php server-based software. The more I tinker with Gallery2 the more I prefer it over Yappa-NG. There appears to be a bigger support from the community to build new skins and modules for Gallery2 than Yappa-NG. Right out of the box, I can see Gallery2 is bundled with more features than Yappa-NG. As I have said earlier though, I do not look for too many features in a photo album. Because it is a photo album, I would like some easy way to upload photos and a really nice skin. Gallery2 does satisfy these two needs.
So, both of my family and friends photo albums have been converted to Gallery2 now. The conversion is (still is) a bit painful.
Because Yappa-NG creates meta-data files in the photo directories, and because I did not want to delete them yet, I imported all the photo directories as a whole into Gallery2. As a result, all the *php, *txt and _data entries got added. I had to go into the MySQL database and clean up the 300+ non-picture entries from Gallery2. In retrospect, I could have changed the file permissions on those files and directories before the import so that the web user cannot import them. Too late for that now.
The second problem I am having is migrating all the album and photo captions from Yappa-NG over. There is no tool for that. Lucky me, there is probably less than 100 entries to copy over. I could write a script and extract and import but it is probably faster to copy and paste, so I am copying-and-pasting the captions over.
Now, I have to learn a bit more about Gallery2. In particular, if I want to rename a photo album directory name on the filesystem, how can I tell Gallery2 what the new name is, because everything in Gallery2 is stored in the MySQL database. I suppose I may have to write a script to do this -- renaming the directory on the filesystem and in the database at the same time. Maybe someone has already written it though.
Well, I am off to breakfast now. Cheers.
So, both of my family and friends photo albums have been converted to Gallery2 now. The conversion is (still is) a bit painful.
Because Yappa-NG creates meta-data files in the photo directories, and because I did not want to delete them yet, I imported all the photo directories as a whole into Gallery2. As a result, all the *php, *txt and _data entries got added. I had to go into the MySQL database and clean up the 300+ non-picture entries from Gallery2. In retrospect, I could have changed the file permissions on those files and directories before the import so that the web user cannot import them. Too late for that now.
The second problem I am having is migrating all the album and photo captions from Yappa-NG over. There is no tool for that. Lucky me, there is probably less than 100 entries to copy over. I could write a script and extract and import but it is probably faster to copy and paste, so I am copying-and-pasting the captions over.
Now, I have to learn a bit more about Gallery2. In particular, if I want to rename a photo album directory name on the filesystem, how can I tell Gallery2 what the new name is, because everything in Gallery2 is stored in the MySQL database. I suppose I may have to write a script to do this -- renaming the directory on the filesystem and in the database at the same time. Maybe someone has already written it though.
Well, I am off to breakfast now. Cheers.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Shoreline, yours to discover
While my mission was a failure this morning, I captured some interesting ice formation and discover interesting things in the cracks of the barrier rocks.
Preserved leaf. It is still orange from the fall, laminated in ice.
Applying vignetting to the above photo yields this:
Turning the original photo into gray scale and applying a cartoon effect gives the following result:
Adding some vignetting:
Preserved leaf. It is still orange from the fall, laminated in ice.
Applying vignetting to the above photo yields this:
Turning the original photo into gray scale and applying a cartoon effect gives the following result:
Adding some vignetting:
Softglow effect
This morning I visited the shores down in Port Credit, hoping to capture some wintery scenery after the big snow storm yesterday. As it were though, I was told that rain came down and wiped most evidence of the snow storm. Darn it.
Since I was already down there, I thought I would check out the rocks and hoping to see the sun rise. Well, the sun was no where to be seen and the rocks were not very impressive either. No snow or banks of ice. Darn it.
Well, there were some swans and ducks. I took some photos of them before heading home. Here was one of them, after a softglow effect added in Gimp.
The following is the original (cropped):
Which looks better to you?
Since I was already down there, I thought I would check out the rocks and hoping to see the sun rise. Well, the sun was no where to be seen and the rocks were not very impressive either. No snow or banks of ice. Darn it.
Well, there were some swans and ducks. I took some photos of them before heading home. Here was one of them, after a softglow effect added in Gimp.
The following is the original (cropped):
Which looks better to you?
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