A Friday Distracted

So I started my day with breakfast at the Pantry with the old cadre of inspectors, the old guard so to speak, then back home via the long way, city streets in Down Town Los Angeles.

Got a grab shot of the Cal Trans Building on the East side looking up.

Then it was off to get the morning jolt and plan the coming day, a good place for a second start on a quiet off day is teh Kaldi Coffee and Tea shop in South Pasadena, a nice quiet place off the beaten path to catch some caffeine and quiet that is frequented by locals. Also the place can bee seen in various movies and television programs as it is a popular place to film.

Afghan day trippin'

This picture has a lot to say, from the little boy on the left waving to either the camera or one of the adult men in the foreground, the the women all covered up, including the little girls, except for one who is looking at the camera on the right, to the message on the wall which is obviously intended for the invading/liberating forces and the final one which is who are the adult men of fighting age? Fathers of some of the children? Police? Foreigners, they have no facial hair?

Want to know more about where this picture was taken?

Autofocus in the dark

Modern cameras often have a focus assist light on them and in the case of flash units a IR assist light.

Me being a pin head and realizing that with a really fast lens you don't need a flash but sure as hell could use the focus assist provided by an IR light, I came up with a hack to get the focus to work in the dark from reasonable distances. An array of IR LED's running off of two AA batteries wired as follows

Solution 0: 3 x 8 array uses 24 LEDs exactly
    +----|>|----|>|----|>|---/\/\/----+  R = 10 ohms
    +----|>|----|>|----|>|---/\/\/----+  R = 10 ohms
    +----|>|----|>|----|>|---/\/\/----+  R = 10 ohms
    +----|>|----|>|----|>|---/\/\/----+  R = 10 ohms
    +----|>|----|>|----|>|---/\/\/----+  R = 10 ohms
    +----|>|----|>|----|>|---/\/\/----+  R = 10 ohms
    +----|>|----|>|----|>|---/\/\/----+  R = 10 ohms
    +----|>|----|>|----|>|---/\/\/----+  R = 10 ohms

The wizard says: In solution 0:
  each 10 ohm resistor dissipates 100 mW
  the wizard thinks ¼W resistors are fine for your application
  together, all resistors dissipate 800 mW
  together, the diodes dissipate 4080 mW
  total power dissipated by the array is 4880 mW
  the array draws current of 800 mA from the source.

The above calculation was made for use of a 6 volt power source with 24 Ir LED's,  LED forward voltage of 1.7 volts and LED forward current of 100 mA. Each line consists of three LED's and one Resistor in series with a buss connection on either end. If using Energizer AA4 rechargeable batteries that are 2300 mAh the device should kill the batteries in just about two hours and forty minutes or so. I had thought of using more batteries but who the hell wan't to tote around a ship load of batteries?

The assembly could benefit from a on off switch and of course would have to be mounted on a circuit board and have some means to attach to a camera. My immediate solution would be the use of a 1/4 x 20 screw connection to the tripod mount.

A great place to find may electronic resources is the venerable Digi-Key, where if I did this correctly, the following part numbers will be for the parts required for this little trickery.

 

LED Digi-Key Part no. QEE123-ND

 

10 Ohm resistors Digi-Key Part no. PPC10.0ZTR-ND

 

I am sure that if you were really lazy you could probably also find suitable project enclosures, toggle switches, and battery caddies for the AA batteries that this hack will need.

Now I have done the most difficult part of the project, the thinking. I wonder if any one will beat me to the punch with one of these little hacks?

That is just a golf trophy. Get your head out of the gutter.

Paul on the iron

Doing good work is rewarding.
See the ant sized people walking on the blue painted path in the parking lot below? 

Quick thought, NO GREEN SCREEN please.

Oh ya, a green screen is the standard way of compositing one picture in front of another with video technology, but while recently looking over some old pictures and remembering the color correction night mare that a green screen produced when the subject was in front of it I have on tip on the subject.

Don't use a green screen!

Light is a wonderfully promiscuous thing and likes to play off of every thing except for very few surfaces, and when it does it always picks up a cast from the surface it is reflecting off of. So I shot a subject in front of a green screen and had all sorts of ugly green light creeping in and making the lovely warm flesh tones look gangrenous and sickly.

Now it was not uniform, some thing akin to a zombie slowly rotting away from the outside edges in (no offense intended if it was you in the shot) so doing a quick color correction with levels was a little more tricky. If I could do it again, I would have the green screen put away in favor of a nice clean white wall that I could control as to being white, grey, or black with flash manipulation.

UPDATE: Reviewing the use of a green screen in photography I think that I discovered part of my problem. You need to light two subjects when shooting against it, first the green screen (a fraction of a stop under your subject) then your subject.

When I did my green screen shot I used a three light set up and with the green screen I should have used five lights. Outch, I don't know if I can afford to do that, five strobes and six PosketWizards...

The vikings are coming, and they are pissed off.

 

Lunch time

Mac & Cheese with Bacon and a pint of Guinness. I suspect that the calories are coming from the Guinness and not the mac and cheese....

Went to the observatory with a photo buddy

Some of the found light at sunset was quite spectacular, just wish I had a better subject to shoot. Photogs can be a pain in the ass as subjects, they are too busy composing shots to be in one.

Thursday

Up on the tenth floor on a Thursday, in my corner office with a view.

Sort of interesting how the camera makes the height seem less dangerous. But then again, it does seem to be just about how you have to visualize it when you get out in the fun side of the iron.

A beautiful Sunday

Wow,  went out side this morning and was blown away by how beautiful a day it is and just had to do a little walk about.

Got a photo thing to do today in the late afternoon that will find me in a formal setting with old friends in the greater Los Angeles area, should be a fun and awesome one day off.

Going over the old pictures

Playing around with old pictures and making them look old.. Ha ha ha notice the new car on the side street? Blows the old picture look.

Weekend is almost here

Another week almost over, got eight more hours before it is official for me. I will spend it up on the 9th floor of my tower, all trussed up in my safety harness with the rarified air up there will be blowing across my face as I climb the iron like a mountaineer to gain access to the points that require inspection. I love my job.

On a plus side I am happy that there is a strong chance that I might just be able to get a chance to take some pictures on sunday. Joy.

Spring time is coming

Yes, that means that the spring colors will be coming and the deserts will be full of blooming flowers, a photographers playground. It is my understanding that there are poppy fields that are worth seeing up north of here.

Only on concern is that working the 56 hour work week and doing two nights of school on top of an eight hour day leaves me with precious little time to organize or travel for my leisure time pursuits.

http://www.desertusa.com/wildflo/ca.html