Recent posts
DIY desiccant canisters
Posted on Jan 23, 2010
Humidity is bad for cameras. Desiccants are widely used in industry and we should use them in our camera bags too. I have recently changed from desiccant satchels to canisters.
An expedition camera backpack, the LowePro DZ100
Posted on Jan 19, 2010
The Lowepro DryZone 100 is a medium-sized waterproof photo backpack. It is an expedition bag, suitable for wet environments. Here is my DZ100 review, after two years and several trips.
Like Fashion TV - mobile portrait lighting
Posted on Dec 13, 2009
It can be delightful and educational to watch Fashion TV, to see the photographers at work. At events, they walk around with mini-softboxes. I thought, we can just as well use a big umbrella.
Essential microphone pistol grip and shock mount project
Posted on Dec 2, 2009
I'm a keen nature recordist and use a shotgun microphone. This article describes a quick and easy pistol-grip and shock mount for a shotgun mic. It has improved my recordings.
Upgrading an Ebay LED camping light to 12 volts
Posted on November 30, 2009
In this article I modify upgrade a cheap battery-powered LED light to run on 12 volts. It's still a cheap light but at least I don't have to change batteries any more.
Megapixel madness, how many is too much?
Posted on November 25, 2009
I bought my first digital SLR in 2006, an 8 MP Canon EOS 350D (Digital Rebel XT). Since then I have been watching the megapixels increase in each successive model, up to 15.1 MP in the 500D (EOS Rebel T1i). Is more better and what is the practical maximum? I find that pixel densities on APS-C sensors are reaching the optical limit of the lens.
Standard zoom choices for Canon APS-C DSLRs
Posted on October 30, 2009
There is a vast range of SLR camera lenses available although we often end up using one or two for most work. I review three standard zooms for Canon DSLRs with APS-C sized sensors (1.6x field of view crop factor): Canon EF-S 17-55mm f2.8, Tamron SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 and Canon EF 17-40mm L. I am currently using the Canon EF 17-40mm f4 L USM, choosing durability over versatility. My current lens choices may be unusual for many photographers but I hope the discussion and reasoning is helpful.
Get a real operating system, Ubuntu Netbook Remix on the Acer Aspire One
Posted on June 6, 2009
My Acer Aspire One A110 came installed with Linpus Lite, a Fedora-based Linux operating system developed by the Taiwanese firm Linpus Technologies Inc. After 8 months of persevering with Linpus I finally hacked it to death in May 2009. I then installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix and the future looks brighter. Ubuntu is more open, easier to modify and upgrade and has better support. For me, UNR is a better choice for netbooks today and into the forseeable future.
Calibrating an Acer Aspire One with Argyll CMS
Part 3. Profiling
Posted on May 25, 2009
Profiling maps out a display's colour response and corrects it. In this post, I use Argyll CMS utilities to profile my Acer Aspire One. I could not achieve a satisfactory result, colours came out oversaturated and too warm. What I learned is that profiling will not make a limited LCD perfect, at best it compensates somewhat for it's shortcomings.
Calibrating an Acer Aspire One with Argyll CMS
Part 2. Calibration
Posted on May 17, 2009
In a perfect world, all computer monitors would have the same response. They don't and we should calibrate them for consistent viewing. Calibration basically aims to adjust white point and gamma. In this post, I use Argyll CMS utilities to correct display behaviour for my Acer Aspire One.
Calibrating an Acer Aspire One with Argyll CMS
Part 1. Pre-calibration: examining the display
Posted on May 12, 2009
Argyll is a free and open source, ICC compatible Colour Management System. Argyll CMS utilities support display calibration and profiling. I have used it to calibrate my Acer Aspire One A110 under Linux. This article describes setting up Argyll CMS and testing the display behaviour.
Swafogski, my experience with SLC 8x30 WBs
Posted on April 25, 2009
Most people know the brand Swarovski, they make crystals, pretty perhaps but useless. Less widely known, the same Swarovski also manufacture high quality optics. My first decent pair of binoculars were Swarovski SLC 8x30 WBs. They are brilliant binoculars but I I've grown tired of sending them back to Austria for repair. The warranty is 30 years but so what if your binoculars fail in the field?
I killed a Canon, the EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 IS USM lens
Posted on April 22, 2009
It is almost the perfect lens: sharp, fast f2.8, constant aperture, wide to medium telephoto and it has Image Stabilisation (IS). But it was never built like a professional L series lens and after some months of travelling it seemed to fall apart. I bought my lens in July 2007 and it gave up in March 2009.
Choosing a netbook, the Acer Aspire One
Posted on January 19, 2009
I discovered netbooks in October 2008 and soon fell in love. I wanted a computer to travel the world. It had to be ready for rough journeys and fit-in with the rest of my gear. I bought a netbook in November 2008.
Denoising digital photos: UFRaw versus GREYCstoration
Posted on January 13, 2008
This article compares two free and open source image denoising tools in Linux. I found that UFRaw achieves very good denoising of photos for little effort, better than what I could achieve with GREYCstoration. A procedure for tuning the Wavelet Denoising Threshold for different ISO sensitivities is described and results are compared with GREYCstoration.
The netbook craze, will it last?
Re-posted on January 13, 2009 (ex WordPress.com)
Netbooks are a new class of low cost, ultraportable laptops, designed for light duty computing. On technical specifications they seem weak but these little machines prove to be very handy and fit-for-purpose.
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