I was there too
Eddie Hobbs, Conor Kenny and Hugh MacLeod speaking at the 2006 it@cork National Technology & Business Conference.
Tom Raftery covers Eddie Hobbs’ talk on property, energy and investment.
| Aperture | ƒ/4.5 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 75mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/60s |
Yellow boxes on the junction of Bridge Street and Patrick’s Bridge in Cork. It’s illegal to enter a yellow box if you can’t exit as has happened with a few cars here.
This image was entered in the Patterns Around Us competition along with my Autumn Leaf but this was my favourite one because of the strong colours and unusual contrasting effect.
How I did this: take an ordinary photo and clean it up, fixing levels and all the usual things. Duplicate layer, then play around with the top layer and the curves tool, creating a curve with two waves. You’ll see unusual rainbow hues and the colours will be distorted in other ways too. Now, change the mode of the layer. Each mode will make the image look different, but I settled on “Grain Merge” for the final effect here.
PS. the Blogger’s Dinner last night was most excellent. Luigi’s staff did an outstanding job at creating a tasty meal!
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/400s |
I love the colours of nature at this time of year. The browns and yellows of falling vegetation make for a soft rich carpet of leaves that is pleasing to the eye. Unless of course it’s your job to clean them up, or after it rains!
This photo came third in the Mallow Camera Club Patterns Around Us competition, novice digital section. I took notes about the other winners but I don’t know how accurate they are. Congrats to David Lavery for all his winning images!
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/80s |
A tall crane looms over the building site of The Elysian, a new high-rise building that will house offices, apartments, a shopping center and underground parking. The main tower of the new building will be 17 storeys high, taller than anything else in the city.
Over a year ago I took a photo of the building site as it was then for the US Book. As you can see, they’ve dug the foundations and started on the main tower.
This picture was taken from the top of a 4 storey car park which gives you some idea of how tall that crane is!
| Aperture | ƒ/10 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/250s |
O’Flynn’s Butchers on Marlboro St. Cork is a very popular butchers serving high quality meat with a friendly smile. We rang in our order early because we knew the place would be bare by the time we go in!
Here are the staff posing for my camera, there’s a huge collection of photos on the wall so I’m not the first, or probably the last to wander in with a camera. In fact Brian O Reilly created a 360 degree wrap around image using Apple’s Quicktime engine.
Thanks for the extra comments yesterday! The encouragement is always appreciated!
I like this: 25 years of the Brown Sisters.
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 800 |
| Shutter speed | 1/40s |
Looking down a closed off corridor or street in Alcatraz Prison, San Francisco. I watched a few minutes of “Escape From Alcatraz” last night and recognised a few locations – the canteen of course, and the ventilation shafts behind the cells are visible to anyone who looks.
I wonder how many feet plodded down this street and who was incarcerated there.
Thanks for the comments on my posts too, it’s encouragement to keep posting so if you feel like adding your two cents don’t be shy!
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/13s |
Prisoners of Alcatraz mill about in a daze.
The special headsets they wear are mind controlling devices that cause people to stare listlessly into space. They control the actions of people, causing them to walk around the prison, peering into cells and to gaze at features of the streets.
I’ve felt the power of these devices myself and they’re seductive. A gravelly voice telling me to go to a particular cell, or along a corridor. Thankfully an official collected the device off each person at a certain point and we woke up and walked out into the sunshine with happy smiles on our faces.
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/30s |
San Francisco is rightly famous for it’s hills and steep slopes. The city streets go up and down and, and no matter what the gradient, cars will always be parked at the side of the street. Local bylaws state that a parked car on a slope must have the front wheels pointed towards the sidewalk so the car won’t roll if the handbrake fails. As you can see, not everyone obeys that particular piece of legislation!
I can’t remember what building this was, but I was struck by the sheer lines of it, and the grey gloomy and despondent colour. There are no entrances visible and the building seems to grow out of the hillside as if mocking the gradient of the land by standing tall and straight.
PS. Happy Thanksgiving! It’s a normal working day around the rest of the world but the Internet is much quieter now that US visitors are off work, relaxing and enjoying the day!
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/80s |
A Cork County Council warning sign looms overhead at Garretstown Beach, Co. Cork. Luckily I had left the caravan at home and the rubbish was in the bin!
This photo shows one of the disadvantages of shooting in Jpeg – it can’t cope with the subtle shades of blue in the sky, although the ugly bands of colour are made worse by my vignetting of the image afterwards. Oops.
In other news, I ordered Bibble Labs Pro RAW conversion version using a discount code on The Digital Photography Show. The nice thing is, I can use the Pro edition on Linux and the Mac, which will be useful. It’s also a great piece of software and will encourage me to shoot more RAW images.
I also ordered the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens from warehouseexpress.com (via) who were reasonably priced. Hopefully I’ll get that in the next few days and in time to shoot the IT@Cork conference in a week’s time. Eddie Hobbs and various people from the online world will be speaking there and I hope to get some goot shots.
| Aperture | ƒ/11 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/320s |
Bubbles in the incoming tide break on the sandy beach at Garretstown about a month ago.
I turned this black and white because I love the abstract feel to the bubbles and it makes the grain of the sand beneath more visible. I had to jump up to avoid getting splashed moments later but such are the risks one takes for one’s art!
| Aperture | ƒ/11 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 200mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/800s |
The recently announced Nikon D40 could be the camera that wins over the hearts and minds of a whole new generation of DSLR owners and it’s being released right before the Christmas buying season.
Why? For two reasons, price and brand. There are a number of digital SLR cameras in the sub $500 range; the Pentax K100D and Olympus E300 among them but the Nikon brand of digital cameras is better known. Canon don’t have any current camera to compete at this price range, yet.
What camera will parents buy their offspring this Christmas? The more expensive Canon 400D or the Nikon D40? I think it’s a no-brainer which camera they’ll buy. The Nikon is the perfect “starter camera” for junior. It’s relatively cheap, looks professionally black, makes the click sound when you take a photo like “real cameras” do and you can use other Nikon lenses. What is there not to like?
Well, the Nikon D40 is great but for the price there have been compromises made. The DP Review preview of the camera compares it favourably to the Nikon D50, emphasising the extra features the cheaper camera has. The biggest drawback is an issue with lenses. It can’t auto-focus with traditional Nikon lenses because it doesn’t have an internal focus drive motor. This is arguably worse than the Canon limitation on EF-S lenses. At least Canon EF-S cameras can take advantage of proper Canon lenses.
Perhaps the biggest negative on the D40 is that it doesn’t have an internal focus drive motor and hence no mechanical focus drive pin, instead it only has CPU contacts which means it can only Auto Focus with AF-S and AF-I lenses (those with built-in focus motors). Indeed our ‘standard’ lens the Nikkor 50 mm F1.8D (and the F1.4D) are manual focus only on the D40. The images below show the difference between the mount on the D40 and D80, the D80 has a mechanical focus drive pin at about the 7 o’clock position.
Canon need a sub-$500 DSLR to compete. Once you’re hooked on a brand of camera it’s much easier to stick with that brand. The controls will be familiar, you can use the same lenses, you visit the same online discussion boards.
Personally, I think it’s great that DSLR technology is so cheap. It’s not that long ago that the only digital SLR was priced beyond the budgets of anyone but the professionals. Isn’t Moore’s Law great?
Ken Rockwell has a great review of the Nikon D40. I think he likes it:
First impressions are:
Super-duper light weight = too much fun!
Is it possible that the noise levels in the Canon 30D are worse than that of the ageing Canon 20D? According to this story it’s true! I find it hard to believe because the cameras are so similar – same sensor, same digital processor and more. I wonder how the 20D compares to the new Canon 400D?
Even if you don’t have any Canon equipment, the article takes a look at the RAW vs Jpeg debate too which might be less sensational but makes for a good read. (via)
