April 2009
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Month April 2009

Entries 10 Total

Insist On Bowes

Apr 17, ’09 10:00 AM

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Apologies for the continued dearth of regular sketches — other things have again taken precedence for a short time.

Lately, my reading has focused on The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes by Joe McNally. This book is totally dedicated to the subject of best employing small strobe units (such as the Canon 580EX II, Nikon SB-900, etc) to control lighting. I’ve already implemented some of the author’s suggestions. For example, I recently switched exclusively to using second-curtain — AKA rear curtain — flash sync, since this allows the camera to expose for the scene first, then pop the flash to render in foreground details.

I can’t wait to employ some of the other tips in the field. If nothing else, hauling around both strobe and camera will give me a better workout.

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No Trespassing

Apr 16, ’09 11:00 AM

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Old man McCurry’s place.

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N. Corren Conway: WNYC Street Shots

Apr 15, ’09 10:00 AM

More of N. Corren Conway’s work is visible at forever12.com.

(Just a note: There are quite a few of these great WNYC Street Shots mini-documentaries available on youtube now. I’ll continue to post those I find most interesting, but they all offer some worthwhile insight into the way other photographers work.)

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The Fifth Discovery

Apr 13, ’09 12:00 PM

They found it in the depths of the wetlands there — gathering all the light, tumorous, bearded in still-green moss.

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The disturbances were first noticed almost a thousand years earlier. Marginalia inscribed by some nameless, freezing monk upon that famous map: “Site 5: Halted water, prismatic light; instruments inaccurate — ”

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The passage concluded: “Interference patterns evident in behavior of fauna — 2-5-1933 Akron.” Two hyphens, a date, a name. “Low-theta glyphs” according to the literature. Unimportant.

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In the face of that ageless, dark concretion, significance itself has none.

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Sandra Roa: WNYC Street Shots

Apr 13, ’09 10:00 AM

More of Sandra Roa’s work is viewable at her website.

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We Are Not Lost My Beautiful Bird

Apr 10, ’09 12:00 PM

The scene is a forest. A large bird sits on the ground below many small trees. The Orange Cat rests against her left wing, apparently reading a map.

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Bookmarks for April 9th

Apr 9, ’09 3:30 PM
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Joe Wigfall: WNYC Street Shots

Apr 9, ’09 10:00 AM

More of Mr. Wigfall’s excellent work is visible at Flickr.

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Nine Inch Nails Location Aware Application

Apr 9, ’09 3:00 AM

Thanks to Samosaur for the heads-up on this interesting use of location-aware technology. I particularly like the inclusion of location obfuscation for security conscious users.

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Be Careful

Apr 8, ’09 12:00 PM

Jonathan Stroud’s Heroes of the Valley is fantastic. Since purchasing the audiobook two days ago, David Thorn’s incredible narration has consumed every moment in which my ears weren’t needed for something else.

The story employs one of my favorite devices: a seemingly impassable, highly dangerous boundary which must inevitably be crossed. This is archetypal of the hero’s journey and Stroud deftly wields it in setting the stage and driving the development of his characters and their story forward.

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With not a little difficulty, I recently acquired a telephoto prime lens for my camera: the fabled Canon 135mm f2l. Preliminary testing raised serious questions. Is it actually legal to point something this sharp at other humans?

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Update 2009-04-08: To further expand on the test shots above and the 135mm f2l lens: I was a little over a meter from the subject for each of those shots. The minimum focusing distance on the 135mm is selectable — either .9 or 1.6 meters. The actual focal length on my camera — a 20d — is about 216mm due to the crop factor.

I should note that the lens does tend to hunt for focus in low-contrast and low-light situations — sometimes racking to either end of the focus range before locking in. This appears to be dependent on the minimum focusing distance setting — at .9 meters there’s generally more hunting than at 1.6 meters.

The 24-70mm f2.8l is quite a bit more certain under similar conditions.

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