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Vertical Shutter Slit Photography

~ randyaa ~ 4 Comments

I’ve been reading Derek Miller’s blog for a while now and I love his Camera Works series.  Most of the stuff he posts in the series I already have a pretty good handle on but he does an excellent job describing (and simplifying) exactly how Cameras (and photography) work. Back in September he posted an article about Shutters, Flashes and Sync Speed.  Although I have a general knowledge of how all 3 work Derek provided a great in-depth write-up.  I have no idea how I missed it before but I read it today and it’s fantastic!

One key idea I’ve never really understood is how camera’s overcome their technical (mechanical) limitation on shutter speed.  Derek provides exactly the write-up I needed.  Essentially they don’t, they just use 2 shutters at the same time (both moving in the same direction) to allow a ‘slit’ of light through rather than expose the entire frame/sensor at a time.

If a subject is moving fast enough and the slit is moving slow enough, this can result in some interesting photographs, like this famous 1913 Photograph by Jacques-Henri Lartigue.

lartigue_car_trip

As Derek writes, this is an exaggerated effect and will most likely never be so dramatic with today’s cameras DSLRs without something moving at extreme super-sonic speeds.

Please visit Derek’s site for the full write-up.

EDIT: Derek was kind enough to stop by and suggest that this discussion really only applies to DSLRs (or Film Cameras ::Gasp::) since they’re the only ones with mechanical shutters.  Most (if not all) point & shoot cameras (including your cell-phone cameras) simply turn the sensor on and off.  Some of these electronic means of exposing the sensor even go slow enough to produce the same effect.  See the background of the following photo shot with my iPhone:

Warped iPhone photo

Each one of those slanted boxes should be a perfect rectangle.

Felix the Rabbit

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Our yard seems to be a breeding ground this spring. We’ve had everything from baby robins to baby rabbits. The baby robins showed up last weekend (completely expected, their nest has been in our garage for a few weeks/months now). Had I noticed the nest getting built It wouldn’t have lasted long (birds cause a mess) but I didn’t so we were graced with the presence of at least 2 baby robins. Rachel and I saw them both make it out and into the wild. Our garage is now safe from the birds, thank god!

felix-in-grassThursday while trimming the grass around the various bushes Rachel found a nest of rabbits.  They were all huddled in a hole in the grass around a young lilac bush she planted last year.  All of the rabbits hopped away and hid under the bushes next to the house.

When I got home that night Rachel wanted to show me, so we went outside and found Felix.  Rachel has a tendency to name random animals we see, like charlie the squirrel in the Grand Canyon and now Felix the baby rabbit.  There have been countless others, but their names escape me.

All the rabbits were gone (read: hiding) except for Felix.  In fact, he seemed quite friendly, and even allowed us to pick him up and hold him for a bit.  I’ve had pet rabbits before and usually they fall into one of two categories:

  1. schizophrenic – running and hopping everywhere and generally trying to get away.
  2. terrified – huddled down and not moving, basically pretending to be a stone.

felix-in-handAt first Felix seemed to fit into the second category.  However; the longer we held him he seemed to become comfortable and even curious, sniffing and moving around a bit.

While it was fun to play with him a bit, we thought it best to get him back to his mother, so we put him under the bush next to the house (where we knew the rest of them including the mother had gone) and he hopped inside and disappeared.

We’ve seen baby rabbits every day since then, but we don’t think we’ve seen Felix again yet, all the markings have been different and the ones we’ve seen have run away as fast as you can see them.

Normally I wouldn’t like rabbits, but we only have a small flower garden to worry about so it’ll be fine.  Also the bush that they’re calling home for now is scheduled for removal very shortly.  I assume once it’s gone they’ll vacate the premises.  Until then we’re happy to share our home with Felix the rabbit.

Dog excercise – A New Method

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We found a new method of keeping the dogs worn out. I’d been eying our bikes for a while but the proposition was a bit scary. For whatever reason, I got it into my head to give it a go today and I’m glad we did. What fun! The dogs love it ALMOST as much as we do.

They got into it so much, they started pulling to make us go faster. The only tricky parts are turning, but they’re picking up on ‘right’ and ‘left’ commands pretty quickly.

This method seems to be far more effective at wearing them out than anything we’ve done until this point. A 15min bike ride has had them sleeping for 4 hours now. Not bad!

Under 40

~ randyaa ~ 2 Comments

Rachel and I ran our first race today. We participated in the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, a 3.5 mile corporate team race around the RIT campus.

I’ve been to the Corporate Challenge but this is the first time I’ve participated. Last year I was just a cook/photographer.

This year Rachel and I decided to run and so we’ve been “training” for the past month or so.

We completed the race, running the entire distance and we both posted times under 40 minutes (Randy – 39:42 & Rachel – 39:52). Pretty darn good for our first time!

From what I heard there were almost 3k less participants this year but there was still almost 10,000 runners! That’s a lot of feet… To give you an idea, check out the video from the starting line last year:

Next year’s goal? 30 minutes, 9 minute miles. Wish us luck!

Julia Nunes and Ben Folds

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We mentioned before that we saw Julia Nunes at the Ben Folds concert we attended.  Her performance was awesome, especially since we had no clue she was going to be part of it and I knew her from Youtube.  She finally posted a video of her performance, and while the quality isn’t very good it portrays the show perfectly.  About 5:20 into the video you’ll get to see Ben playing the drums for Julia which was completely unexpected and awesome.  She was totally clueless which made it even better.

In other news, we might be going to the 2009 Block Party with Ben Folds this Sunday.

The Passion of Ben

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Watching anyone that is passionate about what they’re doing is both exciting and rewarding.

At the last minute Rachel and I were able to get Tickets to the Ben Folds Show at the Waterstreet Music Hall last week.  During the show it became clear that Ben thoroughly enjoys his music and his shows.  He played some of the most energetic piano for over 2 hours and when he finally went off stage he shook his hands and you could tell he was exhausted.  Even so, as all bands do, he came back for an encore and rocked the house again.

Needless to say the show was incredible.  Everything was amazing from the opener, a band I’d not previously heard of called “Jukebox the Ghost“, to “The midnight Ramblers” (an acappella group from The University of Rochester) to Julia Nunes (a famous ukalele YouTuber from Rochester NY).  The only music we really knew was the older stuff from Ben Folds Five but it didn’t really matter, The place was alive and it was a blast.

Unfortunately all I had with me was my iPhone camera so It was difficult to capture the moment with any clarity.

I’ll remember the show forever even without the pictures.  That’s what Passion does.

A Week in Review

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I’ve had the camera for a little over a week now. However; I’ve only had a memory card for 3 days.  I wasn’t about to pay Circuit City’s prices so I ordered a 16Gb card as soon as I got home. Anyway after finally getting a card I’ve been playing. A Lot. My results aren’t the greatest, and they show I have a lot to learn but it’s been fun.

I’ve uploaded some of my photos from the first week with my 40D. Take a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=67348

Finally

~ randyaa ~ 3 Comments

After 1 year and 5 1/2 months I finally took the plunge.

While we were out today we stopped by Circuit city to see what sweet deals they might be having.  We only found one.  They had the Canon 40D DSLR on sale for $150 cheaper than I’ve seen it online.  I’m now a proud owner.  My reaction so far is it’s awesome, above and beyond my expectations.

40D

Don't Replace It

~ randyaa ~ 12 Comments

sigg-adI’ve been seeing these ads a lot lately.  They sort of drive me nuts.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for helping the environment, But ads like these make people think they should replace their old plastic water bottles with new environmental friendly water bottles.

You know what helps the environment?  NOT buying products you don’t need.  NOT throwing away your perfectly good non-environmental-friendly water bottle.

This works a lot like cars.  If you’re attempting to help the environment you should be driving a 1974 Chevy until it blows a piston rod, then you should buy another 1974 Chevy and drive it until it dies and then buy another… get the point?  That brand new Hybrid just means that another car will rot in a junkyard instead of on the road where it belongs.