Wandering in the LightWandering in the LightThings They Forgot to Tell You About DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY 
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More mutli-photo stuff
2008-11-10 10:48:00 This Photo synth is based on the very quaint Victorian Artist Society building in Eastern Hill Melbourne. This time I have managed enough overlap to get 100% synthy (a weird measure used by microsoft to record the ?overlappingness? of the images). Despite being over towered by the more mundane architecture of the eye & ear hospital, this place keeps the charm of an interesting time in Australian Art. You can almost see Roberts. Streeton and McCubbin chatting on the steps. You can see other photosynths I have created here. More About: Stuff
More Collage Fun
2008-11-09 10:21:00 I must admit I do like photo collages, they give you the opportunity to show more than one aspect of a subject at a time. This creates a lot more interest in the viewer. The downside with collages was they can be very time consuming to prepare. Ok there are a lot of automatic photo mosaic and collage software but most just quickly deliver a boring result. My complaint was that most are very predictable and symmetrical. Then along came the new layouts in picasa 3.0, just enough freedom to play and create something unique. The collage below is the based on the frame mosaic, a square format, with a gaps between images, a related background photo, and drop shadow generated for each photo panel. All fun to do, rather than tedious. This collage is various view of the Rotunda on the Sandringham foreshore. Architectural subjects really lend themselves to having multiple views. More About: Collage
Jo would be proud
2008-10-27 08:07:00 Sir Joseph Banks should be proud of this banksia flower More About: Proud
Turning off the Photo Viewer
2008-10-26 12:26:00 When I first downloaded picasa 3.0, and looked at the new features, I must admit I thought the picasa photo viewer was a pretty nifty, fast and easy and it "transparently" overlayed the view of the image over the working window, rather than opening yet another window frame. It also creates and iphoto style film strip under the image and it gives you access to a number of picasa actions like zooming in uploading to the web & emailing without having to fire up picasa.Well I've come to the conclusion I'd rather fire up picasa to do things with my photos and just want explorer to handle images as before. Now the pesky problem of how to restore the default viewer for all those graphic file types. It turned out to easy. Under tools menu in Picasa select the item Configure Photo Viewer an you will see the dialogue (show on the left), and tick the don't use Picasa Photo Viewer line and it will not appear and you will be back to your previous setting. If I ...
Sunset Gull
2008-10-24 13:46:00 I often set my camera to multi-shot mode (on most digital cameras this is the setting marked with the three open overlapping squares, and may be called continuous mode or burst mode) when I notice I have the opportunity to capture birds in flight. This gull was some distance away and with no time to change to my long lens he ended up tiny. To complicate things his flight path meant I was pointing directly at the sun, but luckily I had my polarizing filter in place to avoid a total wash out Still the individual images were interesting, both in composition and colour and I figured it would be worthwhile seeing what autostitch could make of the set (see also capturing the glide). To my surprise it created a decent image, a time lapse style capture. Instead of nude descending the stairs it is gull into the sunset. The slight halo effect appears to be an artifact of the splicing process by I think it adds to the image. More About: Sunset
It is written
2008-10-21 14:43:00 I have been photographing the interesting patterns of life, shell trails, as below, crab balls and diggings, footprints, etc on the sand for some time. I don?t don?t how to read their hidden message, when the next tide is, or is the swell dropping, or is a big flood likely, or is it just dinner time. Or is there even a message there at all? I am finally succumbing to watermarks on my images uploaded to the net. I know a lot of folk hate them but there is just so much open theft and disregard of the rights of those posting on the net. I once championed the idea of the creative commons system that was adopted on flickr. Now I see the same images reposted so often I?m saddened. The copyright doesn?t mean I wont give permission to use and repost my work, but please write to me first. There are lots of utilities to add watermarks to your photos, many free and it is a common feature in photo mangers. I?m using the new feature to add a watermark included at the bottom of the file ... More About: Written
New Growth
2008-10-16 08:31:00 Backlit new growth on a late spring afternoon can capture some beautiful textured lighting. This collage is an example of one of the new mosaic collage options in picasa 3 beta More About: Growth
Balcony View
2008-10-14 13:43:00 balcony view, originally uploaded by imageo.Available light, taken by resting the camera on the planter box. I had intended to take the sunset but the rapid tropical sunset beat me! More About: View
Spring Collage
2008-10-03 13:47:00 Spring has arrived in vibrants colours and strong lighting. This is one of the new collage types available in picasa 3. More About: Spring , Collage
Where is everyone?
2008-09-27 13:17:00 Its a warmer day, the surf is glassy and its the school holidays. It is that day in September. It is late in the third quarter of the grand final, the hawks are beginning to make there run and the beach is deserted.
Worth the wait
2008-09-18 16:28:00 The beta version of picasa 3.0 is now available to download, and there are quiet a few new features in the picasa web album to go with it (I'll report on those in later blog posts). There is one features in the new picasa which pleases me a lot. It is the addition of a clone like tool, called retouch. Having to use a clone tool which copies texture from elsewhere on your photo to cover dust marks or remove unwanted distractions is the one thing I seem to routinely do outside picasa these days. Best of all this new tool is really easy to use. I took this picture while concentrating on the snooty tern, as it went into a dive so did a pacific gull, both spoiling each others approach. No fish diner for either I'm afraid. Unfortunately when I looked afterwards there were a lot of dust particles on the image spoiling it. So it was a perfect photo to test out the new picasa retouch feature. The retouch tool is on the basic fixes tab, that appears when you select a single photo... More About: Worth , Wait
Lens flare
2008-09-12 10:49:00 The bigger your lens and the more glass surfaces in it (zoom lense have lots), the more likely you are to suffering from lense flare when you point towards a strong light. Shadding the lens with a lens hood (often supplied with the lens) can help a bit, and not pointing close to the light source usually avoids flare, but then you will probably miss the interesting lighting you wanted to catch. More About: Lens , Flare
Cern Conserns
2008-09-10 09:30:00 Well the world didn't end, not that I was worried, but a sundowner on the deck seemed a good way to record the event
Nice Bridge, but ...
2008-09-02 12:09:00 Yes the new pedestrian/bike bridge across Dandenong creek between Jells park and Chesterfield farm is nice. But did it really cost that much! More About: Nice , Bridge
more synth-ony
2008-08-29 05:26:00 This is my "over the top", attempt at a "full immersion" photosynth, which has not worked out quiet as I expected. A lot of the obvious connections between the panorama sets haven't connected and there are some large jumps in the flow. I took 16 separate multi-image panorama (see below, click on them to see more detail), while walking through this picnic pavilion and along the edge of the lake. Still it is huge, 171 images in all, and gives me encouragement that a "deep" experience may be possible. I'll just have to research more how to handle seeing around corners! More About: Synth
Demarcation Dispute
2008-08-28 09:14:00 This feisty little eurasian coot (Fulica atra, or more commonly water fowl) was giving it to the larger pair of mallard ducks to get out of his/her territory. Taken during the photographing of several overlapping panoramas for my next photosynth project, if you look carefully you can see the battle progress in the synth. More About: Dispute
Photosynth'ing
2008-08-22 12:31:00 Microsoft's Live Labs have released a new free photo service called photosynth. It is a photo splicing service with a difference, its uses lots of images with lots of overlap to create a convincing 3D view that you can zoom in and out "smoothly" around pan around the scene. Such facilities are not new to the web many real estate site now use walkthroughs, but this is pretty impressive and you can create your own, without much effort. there are two technologies involved the first is the ability to reconstruct the scene or object from a bunch of flat photographs, and the second independent technology, called seadragon, that allows seamless scrolling through 100 of MB over the Internet. There are two parts to creating your own synths. You must first register at the service, (for which you need a windows live ID) then download a small uploaded application, that not only help you prepare the images and upload them but monitors the splicing process. There are a few c...
Low bandwidth travel
2008-08-22 10:16:00 Whilst more and more of the world is getting wired to the broadest-band width, the places I often find myself seem to be less connected at slower rates. So here a few more tips and revisions about trying to travel and upload photos & blog.1) Turn off automatic updates (found under control panel). This avoids a really long delay before you can even get connected.2) Resize your photos, for blogs and to emails others, your photos only need a lower resolution and considerably smaller file size (eg 600 by 800 pixels is generally plenty) see earlier resizing post3) Use the no frills methods, the normal flickr web portal for your web browsers is a bandwidth nightmare (I just had a week of hell trying to use flickr in indonesia, usually waiting 10 minutes plus just to load the log in page! Other times I get a flickr is taking to long to respond message or it crashing out my net connection. You can also access flickr via the mobile portal (http://m.flickr.com/) from any computer an... More About: Travel , Bandwidth
Reflecting Progress
2008-08-20 08:36:00 Construction reflected in new building, Sudirman Central Jakrata More About: Progress
panorama from the top
2008-08-17 02:20:00 Looking north (towards the equator), a sunny day in paradise More About: Panorama
Autofocus Problems
2008-08-15 03:16:00 These beautifully camouflaged crabs where all over the beach this morning, and I though they would be easy to photograph with my telephoto lens (with macro feature). Well not exactly easy, because the translucent crab on sand gives little contrast for the autofocus to fix on and the camera was whirring away shifting the lens back and forth aimlessly. It was not until the crab crossed into my footprint that the camera had enough shadow contrast to focus properly. More About: Problems
South Pacific, West Papua
2008-08-14 09:37:00 Passing the lighthouse at sarong Preparing for a trip to Waimisi More About: Pacific , West , South Pacific , South , Papua
welcome to the heat, humidity and smog
2008-08-12 07:41:00 This balinesse inspired "gateway" is on the main toll road into Jakarta from the airport. Photographing from a moving car is always a challenge, and I have missed this gate before so I had my camera set on burst (multishoot) mode and managed to get a few reasonable shots but I really wanted things to be a bit sunnier, so maybe another day! More About: Heat , Smog , Humidity
Up close
2008-08-12 01:01:00 Still in transit at changai, and still on the nature trail, this time at the orchid garden. Most of these are available light, but there is just enough of it (providing I breath out as I press the shutter and have anti-shake turned on). Now it is time to get up close and personal (and switch to macro mode) More About: Close
from above
2008-08-11 14:36:00 There are several interesting nature walks in changai airport. This is a multi-image autostitched panorama of the fern forest from above (and just using available light and no tripod, so some bits are inevitably blurred!) The most interesting part really is the free wifi everywhere here, but you need a mobile phone to get the password to get started, still it works wonderfully
extra wide
2008-08-10 16:38:00 This wide, (not so brown) land. A 180 degree panorama created with autostitch, & wonderful natural lighting. More About: Wide , Extra
Giving a rainbow the google street view treatment
More articles from this author:2008-08-10 15:40:00 If you haven't tried it out yet check out google streets within google maps. Unfortunately only a few countries are covered at the moment but (for a change) australia is one with great coverage. But how is it done, whell its a whole lot of photos, several at each location taken simultaneously from a special camera mounted on the roof of a car, which also includes a gps unit to loate the photos. if you look into the link that you can obtain when inside street view you will see the keyword geocode followed by the latitude and longitude, in decimal format and to 6 decimal places.I'm not sure just how many photos where required for the 360 degree panorama. I have just used a few taken with my mobile phone and stitched them together with autotstitch. I wonder if google streets has captured a rainbow yet?Of course the challenge is now on to find the "noteworthy" (aka most notorious) street view images, well there vis a good start of things to look for in the google street view gallery. More About: Google , Treatment , Street , View , Rainbow 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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