Category Archives: Technology

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When chimping goes from oo oo to aieee

June 21, 2008 – 9:45 pm

I’ve been dealing with some tendonitis in my elbow the past few weeks and it was pretty sore after paddling down the Concord stretch of the Assabet before the River Solstice event yesterday evening.  So, I reluctantly passed on heading over to Westborough to check up on the Osprey nest there.

My “consolation prize” was to sit in the backyard blind and photograph some birds in our little waterfall.  Not a bad way to end the day.

Checking some of the initial items I thought I saw something odd when I went to check the exposures, and after a few more frames I started freaking out.   As you can see it got pretty wierd.  My camera (a Canon 1D MkII) has been a real workhorse for me and so I was really surprised to see it behaving this way.  It was a complete mystery to me because it didn’t look like sensor damage or electronics problems.

After Googling around I found someone with the same problem and the diagnosis was shutter blade failure — which, after thinking about it for a few seconds, made perfect sense.  The over-exposed “white” lines and the black diagonal stripes, somewhat blurry, appearing in some frames and not others is a good signature for a mechanical failure and short of the mirror getting in the way the shutter is the other mechanical part of the imager.

So, now I get to pay Canon for a shutter that has failed LONG before its expected lifetime.   I figure I’m well below the 100K frames shot and the shutter is rated for 200K actuations.  At least I don’t have any major shoots scheduled for the next few weeks.

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By Dave | Also posted in Photography | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

New blog theme

June 20, 2008 – 1:13 pm

I was getting a bit depressed with my ability to keep this blog up-to-date when I realized that what I really wanted to do with it was get a few images out, perhaps with a story - particularly when they didn’t have enough weight to support a whole gallery.  The old theme was nice enough, but there wasn’t really any room for the pictures.

Google to the rescue.  I found a nice theme called “ProPhoto”.  It cost a more than a few bucks, but I know how much time it would take me to reshape a Wordpress theme to do what I want and the cost/time tradeoff was pretty simple.   Now if I could just find a nice multi-file upload plugin…

I hope everyone enjoys the new look (which I will be tweaking here and there).

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By Dave | Comments (0)

AASLH Digitization Workshop in Albany

April 18, 2008 – 6:22 pm

Betsy and I spent a few days at the Albany Institute of Art and History, in beautiful downtown Albany, taking part in a workshop sponsored by the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH).

The workshop was an introduction to the process of digitizing historical collections. Day one covered the workflow, day two concentrated on the scanning process, and the final day was devoted to metadata. Ah, sweet metadata.

We had a great time and met a number of people in the New England area who are working on varied historical preservation projects.For our little business here, the workshop helped me understand the total scope of digitization projects and what resources are needed to make them happen. It also opened up some ideas for doing joint projects and possibly creating a “hybrid outsourcing” capability here in DMG Photography (we provide the technology and expertise, but we’ll do the work on-site). We’ll see how that flies.

I’m not a “city mouse”, but Albany’s Empire State Plaza was an interesting place to visit if only in that it was an example of what someone thought was a modern space — maybe it is nicer than what was on the surface. The architecture is contemporary 60’s, complete with sculptures by famous people. But it bright, cold, and almost antiseptic. Washington Square, which is nearby, was comparatively packed with people eating lunch on the lawns.

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I really wanted to visit inside the state capitol building, but I was unwilling to give up my tiny pocket knife for the sake of some false sense of security people get by knowing that I won’t be carrying a knife with a terrifying 1.5 inch blade. Sigh!

I’ve added AASLH to my blogroll. They are good people.

By Dave | Comments (0)

Apple TV Take 2

February 18, 2008 – 1:50 am

We’ve had Apple TV “Take Two” installed for about a week now.

Generally speaking it is a great upgrade. It took a few minutes for me to figure out that they have dynamically merged locally synched content with the shared iTunes library (so if you have iTunes running the movies or whatever are dynamically merged into the menus). This is really quite slick.

The ability to directly access movies, tv shows, and especially podcasts is also pretty good. I haven’t rented a movie yet, but we’ll definitely give that a try one of these days.

The ability to access .Mac galleries is wicked cool. I haven’t tried Flickr yet, but I can see how that would be a great feature.

However, I’ve noticed a few changes that aren’t positive, and lately I’ve run into some downright issues.

Apparently some of those nice dynamic features come at a cost (which is almost certainly a software bug rather than a real cost). The UI is extremely “jittery”: freezing up at various points. I checked the Apple user forums and I am not alone. One hypothesis is that dynamic iTunes merging may be the source of the problem and they seem to be correct.

So, for now, we don’t have access to our movie library on the home server — annoying but we use Apple TV mostly for watching podcasts and our music (both sets are synched).

By Dave | Comments (0)

Water Wise Workshops Video

February 18, 2008 – 1:08 am

During the summer of 2007 I covered the Water Wise Workshops sponsored by the Organization for the Assabet River with both photography and video recording. [Here’s an earlier article on the workshops.]

Over the past several weeks I’ve taken this material and produced a video that OAR will use to promote the workshops to potential sponsors. You can take a look at the Water Wise Workshops video on OAR’s website.

The video was produced using a variety of tools. I used Apple’s Keynote to create the graphical base (the text, still images, and transitions) and had it generate the Quicktime video. I then layered the video tracks on top of the Keynote base. There was definitely some weird interaction between different frame rates and Final Cut Express (not sure if it’s a bug in FCE).

Delivery was done with VisualHub to compress the final program for the web (also AppleTV and iPods). I generated some DVDs with iDVD.

By Dave | Also posted in Environment | Comments (0)

When an old friend’s memory starts to fade…

January 22, 2008 – 6:47 pm

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There’s an old Vermont farmer’s joke that goes something like “I’ve had the same axe for 20 years… Replaced the head twice and the handle five times.”

I’ve had my share of PalmPilot gizmos the last decade, and the Tungsten C has been a faithful companion for many years (nearly five - which is about 30 in gadget-years). People who work with me know that this unassuming little box is simply filled to the gills with historical trivia and random bits of useful information. It has over 10 years of accumulated journals, notes, reference information, and some pretty handy programs. And only one game. It’s been in my pocket (or nearby) in fair weather and foul, over 100 degrees and at 40 below. Betsy calls it my “other brain”.

It has been showing signs of age for about a year now. The case has cracks at the base that I have to treat gingerly. The keyboard has been doubling up on some of the letters. The back is so worn that the serial number and other printed information is no longer legible. The cover is barely hanging in there. The farmer’s joke is apropos: a few years ago on a photo shoot in South Dakota I pulled it out of my pocket to find that the screen was cracked and “not at all well” - so I had it replaced. I honestly don’t know if they replaced the screen or just gave me another used one. Doesn’t matter.

A month or so ago it started to hang up now and then - something it rarely did before. Finally last week it did a cold reset - losing everything on the device (I have a backup, but it is a couple of months old). So it was time to “put it out to pasture”, but I REALLY have other, more important, things to do besides gadget shop.

I’ve held on to the Palm TC for so long partly because there really hasn’t been anything remotely close to replacing it. Palm doesn’t make anything with a keyboard that isn’t a phone and I’m not going back to scribbling with Palm’s graffiti… been there, done that. Plus Palm devices and Macs just don’t work together very well. So I was content to watch and wait — but I didn’t count on my pal just giving up first.

While poking around the net for ideas I discovered that Apple is going to release the Software Development Kit for the iPhone, and because they are essentially the same, the iPod Touch. I’m not really interested in the iPhone right now, but I did know that it had a great screen and played videos. Word on the street was the iPod Touch shared these features.

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So my hope here is that we have the beginnings of a portable professional photographer’s assistant.

First and foremost it will be a digital portfolio for my business that can be pulled out of my pocket anytime I need to show some photos of a particular topic - I can literally hold thousands of them if needed. Samples of my video work can also be stored there and played without any problems (although I’ll need some sort of mini-speaker). It has contacts and calendars that sync with Macs. With the latest update the iPod Touch supports maps, email, web browsing, and other stuff over WiFi. I’ve also heard that I can store music on it.

I don’t know if this was part of Apple’s plan, but I figure we’re about 30% of the way towards a full Palm-like PDA.

So I’m taking a gamble on the iPod Touch. I purchased the 8GB version for $300 at the Apple Store in Rockingham, NH. It’s slightly smaller and thinner than the iPhone (some of that svelte-ness will be lost as I’ve ordered a leather case for it because the iPod Touch has no built-in protection for the screen). The gamble is that the Apple SDK will be open enough that people will develop the apps that I need — and, if not, I’ll be taking a stab at them myself. I figure the obvious ones will get handled pretty quickly (e.g., voice recorder, better notebook, tip calculator (or just a decent calculator period), password safe, etc.) Some of these are dependent on Apple having a way for the Mac or iTunes to backup data.

I’m definitely going to miss some of the apps people developed for the Palm, many of them were just amazing. I’m betting that with 4 million iPhones out there, the market will be hot for apps on this platform — and I’ll find out if my gamble was worth anything at all in a few weeks.

I’ve had the iPod Touch less than a week now, so I’ll wait a bit longer before I say what’s good and bad about this switch (not that I had too many other choices).

I think this is going to be interesting.

By Dave | Comments (0)

Competing Technologies

January 27, 2007 – 9:06 pm

Cooper’s Hawk - Maynard, Massachusetts

For the past couple of years we’ve been reworking our front and back yards to make them more ecologically sound and, eventually, a haven for birds and other animals. The transformation is going to take some time, and we’re improvising during the transition time (as we remove certain plants/trees and replace them with others).

Our bird feeder out the front window has always been a great visual treasure for us - especially on weekend mornings. We know that birds like to have a bit of a sanctuary to fly to when feeding out in the open. More perceived safety = more birds. We took down some trees in the front yard and so we “replaced” them with a pile of sticks. Works even better than the trees did!

20071-385-1852.jpg A couple of years ago we had the house windows replaced with some nice “high tech” super-insulated units that are just amazing in terms of clarity and insulation — especially compared to their predecessors.

Last Saturday we had a young Cooper’s Hawk land on the pile of sticks and try to nab a bird. It even walked into the pile! Great stuff, but it took off before I could get anything other than a butt shot (plus it was cloudy). But I knew it would be back.

Sunday, the sun is out and lighting up the front yard. I’ve got the camera on a tripod and aimed out the window — practicing technique, etc. — but, really, waiting for the hawk. Three hours later a blur passes from right to left. She’s here! Betsy spots her up on the telephone wire looking at our pile of stick (with birds in it). A minute later she’s on the pile, 12 feet in front of us, looking for lunch. Spellbinding!

20071-385-1896.jpg A few minutes later I’m reviewing my perfectly exposed images and wincing. They’re nice, but the window has destroyed the details (you can see it in the sun’s reflection in the eye — it appears elongated because there are multiple spots there — the background also has some “unnatural” striping). The double panes create multiple refraction surfaces and the images are less than ideal. Sigh! All that wonderful technology and still, if I want a great photograph, I have to open a window (which is kinda hard in the dead of winter).

I don’t care — just watching these magnificent birds is good enough for me. But as soon as it warms up, I think I’m going to spend a few Sunday mornings outside in a blind….

By Dave | Also posted in Photography | Comments (0)
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