Geneva Photos
No time to take more pictures the last couple of days, so here are a few that I took over the weekend but didn’t post on the work blog …
Gone to Geneva
I’m in Geneva on business for the next week and probably won’t be posting much here, but I just posted a few photos on the work blog.
Goodbye, Fidel
Today is a big day in American history: Fidel Castro is stepping down.
I’m sure our government will continue to try to teach people that we should be scared of Cuba, or that the Cuban government is worse at taking care of its people that the US government is, or more corrupt, or less competent, or whatever. History will answer those questions on its own, thank you very much.
But this is the beginning of the end of an era. Raul isn’t going to outlast 10 US presidents like his big brother did, you can bet on it. So go visit Cuba while it’s still real. The clock’s ticking faster now.
More HDR
All things in moderation, that’s what I always say. These are taken down at the Leschi marina a few blocks from where we live.
This Photomatix software makes me want to go back to Venice. When we were there in 2005, I took many bracketed sets of photos on a tripod, but then I decided I didn’t want to waste so much disk space, so I deleted all but my favorite exposure in each of those series. This shot, for example, which happens to be the top example on Photomatix’s examples page. Small world.
Lincoln Square Sunset
I stopped at Microsoft’s Lincoln Square office in Bellevue this afternoon and watched the sunset from the balcony of the 28th-floor cafeteria. Nice place to be on a clear evening.
High Dynamic Range (HDR)
I’ve been playing around with various ways of combining multiple shots of the same scene (with varying exposures) into a composite image. the result is an image with more detail in the highlights and shadows than any one of the source images had, and this technique is known as HDR. Photoshop has a way to do this, and I also have a dedicated HDR application called Photomatix that does a good job.
Here’s a sample from very early this morning over on Yesler looking down on I-5 and the Smith Tower:
And looking east across Lake Washington at I-90:
For some more extreme examples of what’s possible with HDR, check out the Stuck in Customs HDR tutorial by Trey Ratcliff.
Nikon D40
After buying a Nikon D40 today, intending for it to be a backup for my D70, I’ve quickly decided its’s the other way around. Due to its smaller size, ultralight weight, and bigger brighter LCD, the D40 is now camera #1. The D70, long overdue for a trip to the Nikon mothership for a few repairs, will now be the bigger heavier alternative. I might just leave the fisheye on it a lot of the time.
Another thing I didn’t see clearly was what to do with the 18-55mm lens that comes in a kit with the D40. I thought I’d have no use for it because it offers a subset of the 18-200mm lens’s functionality. But the 18-55 lens is so incredibly light — it weighs nearly nothing. I’ll still use the 18-200 when I want the extra range, but most of the time I think I’ll keep the 18-55 lens on the D40 and have the lightest, handiest SLR I’ve ever seen.
It will take a while to get used to the differences in the controls, but it looks like the D40 will be very easy to use. And I don’t feel any need to learn it well for now, because I have a camera I know well if I need it.
I already charged the battery and found the shutter, though. Here are a few shots taken right after charging the batteries. Lots more to come, I’m sure.
Washington, DC
A few photos I snapped this afternoon/evening here in the DC area. Now it’s all business for two days, then back to Seattle, where it’s all business every day these days.
Little Pleasures
A rare lazy saturday afternoon at home … I finally got all of those silly Intel/Vista/whatever stickers off my laptop, and the boys went outside for a while.
Oh yeah, it’s not cool to post pictures of your cat more than once a month or so. I forgot … damn, this will just drive traffic down. How will I ever get to the A list now?
