A mural on a wall in Dublin a few weeks ago.
We passed this while walking back to our hotel. I get the feeling there’s a story behind this picture. Does anyone know it?
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/160s |
Still stuck in P Mode?
Kathy writes that many users are stuck using P mode, or the automatic mode of their favourite tools simply because they don’t know how, or don’t know why they’d like to use those extra features.
I link to this usability article here because she used camera terminology to describe how a user approaches a complex application. Even if you’re not interested in the usability of stuff, and web apps in particular, then reading this article may inspire you to learn about why you haven’t used the A, S, or M modes on your fancy, expensive camera.
If you’re still interested, then read Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera by Bryan Peterson. It’s my favourite book on photography and it will change the way you use your camera!
Google Picasa for Linux
Google finally released their photo organisation software, Picasa for Linux. It’s a free download, and uses Wine so it’s not a truely native port. I’m going to try it out now and will update this post later with my thoughts and impressions!
Cross in the sky
I noticed this cross in the sky while walking around Dublin a few weeks ago. When I saw a church I had to make this shot and I’m quite happy with the way it came out!
| Aperture | ƒ/14 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/250s |
Shooting panoramas el cheapo
If you’ve ever tried stitching photos together to create a panoramic photograph you’ll be more than aware of the awful distortion between one frame and the next. That’s one reason why it’s recommended that frames overlap by at least a third.
There is so much distortion because the camera is rotated around using a normal tripod or worse still, handheld. The axis around which the camera is rotated is centered on the camera body usually, but a panoramic tripod is different. The center of rotation should be the lens of the camera, specifically the “nodal point” of the lens where light paths cross before hitting the camera’s film or sensor.
Make Blog links to a tutorial on building a panoramic tripod head for $10! That’s a lot more reasonable than what you’d pay for a head from Manfrotto or manufacturer. It probably isn’t quite as portable or nice looking though and you might have to invest in some tools to cut the wood and build it but it would be an interesting project.
If that’s too complicated, you can build a battery using a bit of wire, a screw and a magnet!
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | DiMAGE 7 |
| Focal length | 9.6640625mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/45s |
Six Apart Mark
Niall Kennedy drove myself and Mark Jaquith around on a small sight seeing tour of the local attractions in San Francisco after WordCamp last Saturday.
A visit to the offices of Six Apart proved to be too good a thing to pass up so we posed for a few photos on their door step!
WordCamp was great, I met really nice people, I uploaded a set of photos to Flickr, linked to a few reports on it, and was very glad I got home on Tuesday. Imagine having to put your camera equipment into the hold of an airliner?
| Aperture | ƒ/4.5 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/40s |
Honest Smoothies
We bought smoothies in Honest, a small shop in Dublin. They were having problems with their machines and gave us one of the smoothies free but they didn’t taste all that great unfortunately.
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/6s |
Hungry Caterpillar
A caterpillar munches on flowers by the bird sanctuary in Blarney, Co. Cork a few weeks ago.
No SF photos today, need to recharge my batteries!
Update on 2015-08-11 – I re-edited this photo in Lightroom and uploaded a larger version! You can find the original photo here!
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | DMC-FZ5 |
| Focal length | 6.4mm |
| ISO | 80 |
| Shutter speed | 1/160s |
Automattic at the Bridge
From left to right: Podz, Donncha, Andy Skelton.
In the background is the famous Golden Gate Bridge leading to San Francisco. Thank you Diane for the directions to this amazing viewing point and thank you Toni for the lend of the car!
| Aperture | ƒ/14 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/400s |
White Reflection
Pure white light reflects off the waters of San Francisco Bay in this shot taken on Friday night. Thanks again Niall for that mini tour!
| Aperture | ƒ/5.6 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1.3s |
Ferry Building San Francisco
The Ferry Building, San Francisco on Friday night.
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 10mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/2s |
Ferry Building’s Clock Tower
The clock tower of the Ferry Buildings, San Francisco. We had a pre Wordcamp dinner with lots of people in Taylor’s Automatic Refresher.
I was glad to meet many people for the first time, among them Niall Kennedy, Scott Beale, Michelle Clay and Safire.
I guess giving me business cards is a good way of getting a link out of me! Thanks Niall for showing myself and Bryan around the building. Some of the shots came out great, they’ll appear over the next few days!
| Aperture | ƒ/10 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 48mm |
| ISO | 200 |
| Shutter speed | 1/160s |