Planet TLUG

Zuco.org becomes DarkBoxNotes.com new blog

2010-03-12T10:39:19+00:00

Thank you for following this blog all this time. As many of you already know, Zuco.org was like a chameleon. It changed so many times since its first moments in 2004. I picked up this name because this is my surname and the phonetic is weird and short enough to make a domain worth it. Zuco.org reflected many changes in my life. Since its first creation it was a place to share my thoughts, experiences and everything that I considered worth mentioning online. I deleted many of its contents during this time, redesigned it, stopped it, and started it again. It changed at the same time I changed my interests and visions of life.

Zuco.org until now was a photography blog and I’m spending a lot of time working on this, just because photography is my passion. So I decided to migrate the main purpose of this to a new blog, with the same design, the same ideas, everything is the same. Only the domain changes “DarkBoxNotes.com” This name matches what I’m doing in this blog and reflects better than “zuco” the contents of this blog.

What is going to happen to Zuco.org???

The links work, so for those that link from other blogs, don’t worry all links will work. If you find a broken link, please drop me a line. I’ll really appreciate it.

I will give about 30 days of life to actual Zuco.org and then I will transform this blog in my daily life diary, opinions, thoughts and so forth. It will be the same as it was before it got irradiated and mutated to a photography blog.

About languages, of course I will replay to comments in Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Catalan but the main language will be English. No time to maintain all this stuff in so many languages…

Why the name DarkBoxNotes?

Darkbox means that box that every photographer carries all day long: our loved camera. Usually is dark or even colored as the new Pentax K-X but inside all of them there is the kingdom of darkness. For just a few instant, light passes through the lens and captures unique moments.
Notes because I write about that darkbox in this blog.
Thanks to my friends @papadimitriou, @dannychoo, @tamegoeswild, @tangerinejp, @stevenagata and @Ashuttleworth for their help and suggestions.

I also created a twitter account for @DarkBoxNotes, please follow it if you found the content of zuco.org interesting.

Eric's Soccer

2010-03-11T09:03:34+00:00

Eric's Soccer

Erics soccer clubs send me more mail than anyone I know and most of the time it is anoying silly stuff. I would ignore them but if you do not reply they call the house and ask "Why haven't you replied to our mails?" To which I say "I was busy."

Here is a sample of 1 weeks worth of mails.

Man of the Match

2010-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

Man of the Match
So the Tokyo Gaijin rugby football club, my team played the All France team.

We went onto the field with a very lazy attitude and it showed in the literal ass whooping we received.
We had not been beaten by All France ever since I had been on the team and I was pissed as I watched it happen in front of my eyes.

We did play most of our 2nd and 3rd string players and allot of them are use to having other players on the field that they can count on to show them the way. It was weird for me to be on the field with so many guys who had either never played for the team or never played. That may have been the other reason for our down fall.

The first half was over way to quick and at 1/2 time some one told me that I needed to come off the field. I was a little shocked cause, there were a lot more fatter guys who were sucking wind and not pulling their load. On the sideline I took off my head gear and jersey and prepared to help with water duty.

Some forwards went down with injuries and need to be replaced. I went back on with out my head gear, but more fired up then I had been in recent weeks. I got in and got it on. I jumped in line outs and contested winning every ball back for us except one. I tackled and rucked with ferocity that I had not had in a long time, and generally was in the right place at the right time, most of the game.

At one point I knocked some one out of bounds but was having trouble getting myself back up to my feet. Eric ran over with my head gear and handed it to me in a all excited voice like a 8 year old kid gets "Here Dad put this on it is good!" He helped me get it back on my head and helped me to me feet. I ran back out there and smashed on.

I came up just short of a try two times and was the first to the ball carrier on most kickoffs. I was on fire but the rest of my time the team was lack luster. Which is sad.

I love playing rugby but wont be able to play for a couple of months. It was good to go out with such a good game.

At the end of it all I was awarded Man Of The Match by our team captain. I made a little beratying but true speach and said "It is a sad day when I am the Tokyo Gaijin Man of the Match. You are all better than the preformance we put out today."

At least that is what I meant to say.

Link to the TGRFC match review.

Family Photos

2010-03-11T03:57:56+00:00

Family Photos

The other day we had a little time and I tried to sit the kids and me down for some family photos. It was too much work. Anna is so fast now and if she sees something that looks like it might have a light or make a sound she is grabbing it and disrupting the shot. Eric was fine with the whole thing and wanted to make a bunch of funny faces which we did, but we could not seem to get one photo where we are all looking at the camera and paying attention.

Oh well that was just the jeans and tshirt version. We will try again later maybe with some nicer clothes on too.

E./

Yuzawaya Closing

2010-03-11T03:49:23+00:00

Yuzawaya Closing

We went to Yuzawaya the other day to pick up some model glue for Eric and I to do some projects with.

I was wondering why it was so jam packed and where most of the stuff was... whole sections of merchandise had seemed to disappeared and been replaced with close out tables filled with purses and wallets.

I liked Yuzawaya and will miss how convenient it was for getting hobby type stuff, but the building that houses Yuzawaya is pretty old so it would be a good idea to tear it down and put up another.

How to use white balance and what it is

2010-03-06T15:42:28+00:00

Simply talking, we can say that White Balance is that thing you have to properly set in the camera to have the real colors! If you want an extensive technical explanation, go to the wiki.

So white balance is just a method to find the right color balance. That means “understand when white is white” and from that point, understand the real color of things in the image. The automatic white balance (AWB) in almost every digital camera, does not match 100% the colors and sometimes we have to specify what kind of light we are exposing the picture.

What kind of light? Light is just light! Different light sources produce different temperature lights. For example, the light in a cloudy day is totally different from the direct light of a sunny day or from the light of an electric neon tube. The colors render differently and our eyes and brain adjust automatically to that light to show us colors as much close as possible to the original.

An image will clarify this better.

These two images have been taken the same day, at the same time. I just changed the white balance. The first one, told the camera to adjust to a light temperature that didn’t match with the light in that moment. Let’s think about light from a non-technical point of view. Light comes from one or multiple sources and it reflects all around. Objects absorbed some portion of that light and reflect some other portion of it. The reflected light is the color of the objects. Depending on the light source, that irradiates the scene, the reflected light, it means the colors, will be different as well. That’s why white balance is so important in color photography. In monochrome or black and white it is not a mayor issue, specially in digital photography, because we can adjust the final image to match the tones of grays that we want.

How to use the white balance.

To understand the process, just imagine the light at dusk. Objects under that light get an orange tone. Our brain doesn’t try to render them with their real colors. The color of dusk light overcomes the rest, and all the image has that special orange-gold color. We can try to force that image to match as close as possible the real colors, but depending on the situation, this effort might be a waste of time.
Don’t confuse white balance as a way to render always the real color of things. Think about it as a way to render the image as real as the one we are seeing with our eyes.

These are the common symbols that you can find in any digital camera. They represent different kind of lights.

Usually it’s more comfortable to set the white balance in automatic (AWB), so in case of a hurry to shot, we don’t have to think about the light and set it manually. Just let the camera sensors decide for us. In case of low light environment, specially in closed locals with different kind of lights, the pictures tend to have a reddish color. To avoid this is not easy. It also depends on the camera.
Usually DSRL cameras and also some compact cameras, let you set the white balance based on the light temperature in Kelvin degrees. Just think that light can be expressed in temperature, the sun is the highest and the blue of a gas fire in the kitchen is one of the lowest. Based on this, setting the temperature as low as possible, will help to overcome that reddish light.

This is the menu to set the light temperature in a Nikon D200. The showed temperature, 2500K is the lowest and the highest is 10000K

Some cameras, like the Canon G11, have a superb automatic white balance based on the environment. This let you set the white balance in really hard situations with low light conditions.

Anyway, in case the white balance was not properly set, if you shot in RAW and you use a good edition software like Lightroom or Aperture, this can be easily fixed to match it as close as possible to the real colors.

Just remember. White balance has a direct relationship with the way colors are rendered in the picture. So before you shot in an environment with artificial light or if you are going to use a flash, think about the white balance.

GNOME.Asia in China

2010-03-05T14:13:34+00:00

Nice to see more open source conferences going to China. I can easily see that in the future the vast majority of my work will be done with significant connections to China. I'm especially interested in the China, Japan, Korea relationships, actually. Also great to see Sun sponsoring of the conference, and Sun engineers participating with technical sessions and community building talks.

Japan Linux Symposium: Tokyo, October 2009

2010-03-05T05:10:41+00:00

It's excellent to see the 9th Annual Linux Kernel Summit and the 1st Annual Japan Linux Symposium coming to Tokyo in October. Check out this language from the LF website: "The Japan Linux Symposium will be the showcase Japan and Asia Pacific conference for The Linux Foundation." Showcase. This is significant. The Japanese may not shout about it much, but developers in this country are contributing to FOSS and their contributions are growing. The potential in Japan for open source is huge. I've been saying it since I got here. So cool that the LF clearly recognizes this potential by bringing their conferences here. Also interesting: the LF website appears in two languages -- English and Japanese.

I already hang out with the Tokyo Linux User Group (here, here), so I hope to attend this event in October.

flymake for sml

2010-03-01T17:05:57+00:00

sml用のflymake


;;for sml
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist (cons  "\\.\\(sml\\)\\'" 'sml-mode))
(autoload 'sml-mode "sml-mode" "Major mode for editing SML." t)
;; flymake for sml
(defun flymake-sml-init ()
  (let* ((temp-file (flymake-init-create-temp-buffer-copy
                     'flymake-create-temp-inplace))
         (local-file (file-relative-name
                      temp-file
                      (file-name-directory buffer-file-name))))
    (list "~/bin/flycheck_sml.rb" (list local-file))))
(add-hook
 'sml-mode-hook
 '(lambda ()
    (if (not (null buffer-file-name)) (flymake-mode))))
(push '(".+\\.sml$" flymake-sml-init  flymake-simple-java-cleanup)
      flymake-allowed-file-name-masks)

(add-hook
 'sml-mode-hook
 '(lambda ()
    (define-key sml-mode-map "\C-cd"
;;      'credmp/flymake-display-err-minibuf)))
      'flymake-display-err-menu-for-current-line)))

sml-yacc用のflymake

;; for sml-yacc-mode
(defun flymake-sml-yacc-init ()
  (let* ((temp-file (flymake-init-create-temp-buffer-copy
                     'flymake-create-temp-inplace))
         (local-file (file-relative-name
                      temp-file
                      (file-name-directory buffer-file-name))))
    (list "~/bin/flycheck_ml-yacc.rb" (list local-file))))
(add-hook
 'sml-yacc-mode-hook
 '(lambda ()
    (if (not (null buffer-file-name)) (flymake-mode))))
(push '(".+\\.yacc$" flymake-sml-yacc-init  flymake-simple-java-cleanup)
      flymake-allowed-file-name-masks)
(add-hook
 'sml-yacc-mode-hook
 '(lambda ()
    (define-key sml-yacc-mode-map "\C-cd"
;;      'credmp/flymake-display-err-minibuf)))
      'flymake-display-err-menu-for-current-line)))

sml-lex用のflymake

;; for sml-lex-mode
(defun flymake-sml-lex-init ()
  (let* ((temp-file (flymake-init-create-temp-buffer-copy
                     'flymake-create-temp-inplace))
         (local-file (file-relative-name
                      temp-file
                      (file-name-directory buffer-file-name))))
    (list "~/bin/flycheck_ml-lex.rb" (list local-file))))
(add-hook
 'sml-lex-mode-hook
 '(lambda ()
    (if (not (null buffer-file-name)) (flymake-mode))))
(push '(".+\\.lex$" flymake-sml-lex-init  flymake-simple-java-cleanup)
      flymake-allowed-file-name-masks)
(add-hook
 'sml-lex-mode-hook
 '(lambda ()
    (define-key sml-lex-mode-map "\C-cd"
;;      'credmp/flymake-display-err-minibuf)))
      'flymake-display-err-menu-for-current-line)))

■

2010-03-01T17:05:56+00:00

MySQL ユーザコンファレンス 2008: Tokyo

2010-02-26T17:06:38+00:00

If you are in Tokyo 10/30 and 10/31 stop by the MySQL User Conference right near Tokyo Station. There will be about a thousand or so people there.

Private Line

2010-02-23T06:37:25+00:00

This is my Private Line!

On the train last night I was sitting there and this REALLY drunk guy got on the train and started screaming his head off about some "Private Line" I was not sure if he meant the trian line was his private train line or he was talking about a private phone line that some one was talking on. Either way my Japanese listening is not really that great and he was not making any dam sense.

I remembered that I had my camera on me in my handy carrying case so I tried to get this clip of him acting foolish.

It was pretty funny to see the Japanese way of dealing with a problem like that, ignore him and maybe he will get off soon.

That is what happen too. The part that I did not expect is when he did get off the old woman siting next to me started laughing. ALLOT and then 2 other people started laughing till finally everyone was having a lite chuckle, then the train started moving and it was back to the silence of a normal train ride.

Snow Day

2010-02-22T04:15:56+00:00

Late

I was a little late for work the other day. It had snowed for the 2nd time this year in Tokyo.

Eric woke up early and got out there and started working on a snowman. I was a little under the weather from a late night.

He was pretty excited and when I did get out there he was doing pretty good on his own so I helped him out. I took me about 15 minutes that I did not really have to help him get done.

But it was well worth it. Click the image at the right to see more pitctures of Eric building his snowman.

Sun and Software Freedom Day

2010-02-21T11:34:40+00:00

Sun is participating in Software Freedom Day on Saturday September 20th. See Glynn Foster's notes to the OpenSolaris User Groups, and also in the OpenSolaris Advocacy Community. Should be cool to see this all come together around the world.

Kernel Conference Australia 2009

2010-02-21T11:18:52+00:00

Don't forget to stop by Brisbane in mid July ...

Mephisto Backup v1.10.1 Released

2010-02-20T04:05:53+00:00

We decided to make v1.10 a long term release.
V1.0 was almost a complete code rewrite and was deemed stable. However, it shipped with 3 bugs:

1) Config Parser not working – Fixed in v1.11, waiting on the back port to v1.10.2

2) Restore.java – mkfs did not specift an inode count and gurb would fail to install on Redhat based distros. Issue resolved in v1.10.1

3) LiveCD.java – When blkid is called, the complete path is not specified. Added direct path for blkid for sys admins that do not specify paths correctly or at all. Issue resolved in v1.10.1

The Mephisto v1.10 code base will receive bug fixes only. We are currently working on v1.11 .

Features to look for so far in v1.11:

1. Partitioner
2. Bug fixes such as the ones mentioned above.
3. Ability for users to create an official Mephisto backup disc.
4. Tool for Mephisto Developers to package Mephisto for production use.
5. Idea – Create a module so that people can use any LiveCD or atleast an Ubuntu/Fedora LiveCD.
6. v1.11 checks for RedHat based distros and disables Selinux to prevent restore issues.

Searching for models in Tokyo area (beginner, amateur or professional)

2010-02-16T12:09:32+00:00

I’m looking for models in Tokyo area, for my portfolio.

Requirements

I’m looking for beginners or amateur models that would love to pose in front of a camera. Age (+18), Ethnicity, Language and Gender are not a problem. Professionals are also welcome but please read about the payment and benefits at the end.
If you want to learn how to pose or you want to get used to be in front of a camera, I will love to help you in this process as well.

What kind of photography?

I’m not fixed with a concrete style. I like creativity and I love to hear from you, about your ideas as well. This is not a lonely-photographer game. This is a team work, the photographer and the model are a combo, that work together to express in the photography their feelings and their creativity. If you desire to play a particular role, to dress in a particular way or if you always dreamed about posing for a concrete kind of pictures, just let me know. I will love to listen about your project and work together to achieve it.
If you lack of ideas, don’t worry I have a lot of them :)
The kind of photography I’m looking for is:

Portraits
Fashion
Make up
Urban
Cosplay
Art nude (Check details at the end of this post)

Payment and benefits

I prefer to avoid to use money, so I won’t pay you with money. Anyway I don’t discard this possibility, so drop me a line and let’s discuss about this.

I’m actually asking for a collaboration where we both have a benefit.

Common benefits and agreements:

I will give you the pictures, printed or in a CD or any other medium that you prefer. Of course in full resolution. This is also called: TFCD/P (time for CD/Print)
The pictures will have a small watermark, linking to this site in the bottom.
You are totally free to use those pictures for your own book, blog, web site, whatever.
In a normal photoshot I can shot hundreds of pictures. I will reserve to myself the right to choose and edit the final ones that I will deliver to you. I never upload full resolution pictures in this web site but of course I will give you the full resolution ones in the CD.
If you have a blog or online book, I will link you from this blog helping you to promote your name and your site. I’ll do this from this blog, from flickr, from twitter and from facebook.
I we do a good job, I will recommend you to other photographers that are interested in finding models.
We can also be friends :-)
If you want to learn how to pose and get used to be in front of a camera, I will help you in this process.
You have to agree that your pictures will be posted in this web site and my portfolio.

Art nude details

Models have to be more than 18 years old.
Only females, sorry guys…
For nude photography I focus only in the artistic aspect.

You can contact me in many ways:

twitter
facebook
Flickr
Drop me a comment and fill the e-mail text field, it won’t be shown in the site

Axe Cop

2010-02-16T01:59:54+00:00

Axe Cop

Axe Cop is a web comic written, by a 5 year old and illustrated by his older brother.
According to Comics Coast To Coast.

"Just as interesting as the webcomic itself are the creators of this viral internet phenom. The writer, Malachai, is only 5 years old. His brother Ethan, the artist, is 29 years old. Despite such an age difference they are able to work as a team to create a powerful and amusing webcomic that has the creativity of a child with the artwork of a self taught cartoonist. In other words...pure magic."

Here is a the latest video and if you have the time check out the pod cast at iTunesAnd of course check out Axe Cop.

Mobalean and Keitai-dev Wiki merge

2010-02-15T04:08:00+00:00

We are proud to announce that the Mobalean wiki has been merged with the Keitai-dev wiki. The Keitai-dev wiki was created in 2004 to serve as an English language resource for Japanese mobile development. At Mobalean, we created our own wiki with a similar purpose in mind, so this merge is natural. With this merge, the Keitai-dev wiki becomes the premier English language resource for Japanese mobile web development.

Mobalean will now handle the management of this wiki, and continue to expand it with content relevant to Japanese mobile development. Thanks to Starling Software, the previous host of the Keitai-dev wiki, for creating this resource and helping us merge these two resources.

CGM Night – February 2010

2010-02-14T03:17:24+00:00

Some pictures of CGM Night organized by Danny Choo that took place at Japanese Red Cross Society facility Akiba:F

Amano Ai-chan

Nekomimi

The three guys! From left: Peter Van der Weeen, Rob Van Nylen, Andrew Shuttleworth

Oren in Lady Gaga style ^^;

Big brother was watching us…
This is the “eye” created by Steve Nagata that broadcasted the event. Check Steve’s channel at USTREAM

Look at previous events:
CGM Night December 2009
CGM Night Episode #5

japanese-handset-release-dates

2010-02-12T02:55:58+00:00

In Japan, handsets are released throughout the year. However, the number of handsets released varies from month to month. The following graph illustrates the number of handsets released.

TV News How To

2010-02-10T07:01:02+00:00

Seriously funny take on how useless TV News has become.

How to play with Bokeh and depth of field

2010-02-07T13:29:20+00:00

The term bokeh is the effect associated to a blurred background and a perfect sharp subject. Our vision is like a fast prime lens. We focus on subjects all around us, and we never mind about the background, except when we see a panoramic view.

For example do this simple experiment:

With one hand close one eye and put your finger just in front of you but don’t cover the background, just move it a little bit to the right or left side, depending on which eye you had closed.
Now focus on your finger, just look at it and, don’t move your view from it! Try to see the background without moving your view from the eye. You can see that it’s blurred and your finger focused.
Now try the opposite, focus on the background and see at your finger without moving your view from the background. It should be blurred.
You have two fast prime lenses in your head! :)

We are used to see the world through our eyes, which behave approximately like a fast 50mm lens. That means that when we see a picture with a good bokeh our attention will point immediately to the subject and then we have the opportunity to admire the soft and nice texture of a blurred background.
Think about it, we are not able to see that background with our own eyes. Well, actually we are, but we cannot see it directly, we can only perceive it from the external borders or our vision.

To understand the technical details of the Bokeh, you need to understand the depth of field. For a technical explanation check the wiki. Anyway you don’t need to understand to go so deep into technical explanations to be able to use it. Let’s discuss here the practical (and funny) part of it.

The depth of field is directly related with the aperture. That is the amount of light that your lens let pass through it. The wider the aperture, and the bigger the blur. The narrower the aperture, the smaller the blur. Don’t get confused with the f/stop number. Check out the aperture controls in your camera.

Left: Wide aperture Right: Narrowed aperture

The number used to indicate the aperture is called the f-number or f/stop. There is not a concrete definition of the term stop in this context. Think about it as an attempt to say “something that stops light to enter!”. If we narrow the aperture, in some way we are stopping light to enter. The lack of a concrete context for the term “stops” could lead some confusion. Let’s focus on the practical matter: the f-number has a direct relationship with the diameter of the circle that we saw in the previous pics. Remember a big f-number indicates a narrowed aperture and a small f-number indicates a wide aperture. So don’t get confused. If somebody tells you “increase the aperture!!” what do you understand by that? Increase the f-number, “stops” light to enter or increase the diameter of the diaphragm?

Remember:

The smaller the number, the wider the aperture and the bigger the amount of light that will enter through the lens.

To obtain a good bokeh we need a wide aperture, that means a small f-number.
The best lenses to obtain this are the fast prime lens, the most common ones are the 50mm and 85mm at 1.2, 1.4 or 1.8F. Anyway, any lens that could be set to an aperture less than 2 or 2.5 is enough.

With this kind of photography we have to be specially careful of two things:

- It’s really hard to focus with such a small depth of field. We cannot rely 100% on the autofocus. Sometimes it’s necessary to deal directly with manual focus.

- In well illuminated environments we have the camera to shot at a huge speed. Depending on the equipment, sometimes the camera cannot afford the required speed. In such cases we can use an ND filter

ND FILTER (Neutral Density)

Check these three pictures that will show the meaning of the depth of field

If we narrow the aperture, the depth of field also changes and the sharped zone increases as well.

Also, the depth of field could be used to bring to focus the subject that we are interested to show. For example, in these two pictures, the second one shows the doll in the back giving a sense of depth. If we compare the second pic with the first one, we can see how we increase that sense of depth focusing subjects that are not in the first plane.

In this video, you have the depth of field in action.

Video took with a Pentax K-X and Super Takumar lens

Direct link here

The depth of field is a powerful concept that we can use for many different creative purposes. From a basic understanding, it’s used to put in evidence a particular subject and to catch our attention to the sharp point. From a generic point of view, depth of field is just an art, so let’s talk about it a later post.

Check some bokeh in Flickr

mobalean WURFL patch merged into core WURFL

2010-02-05T08:39:00+00:00

In June of 2009, mobalean release a patch for the WURFL containing Japanese handsets. This patch ignored the existing data on Japanese handsets in the WURFL as it was sparse and mostly incorrect. However, this also made it incompatible with the core WURFL, and applying the patch either required using one of the more lenient libraries, or manually editing the core WURFL.

After half a year, thanks to the hard work of the WURFL maintainers, these incompatibilities have been reconciled, and the data merged into the core WURFL. Any developer using the WURFL can now use it to start building Japanese sites right away.

Because our patch has been included in the core WURFL, we will no longer maintain a separate patch file. All new handset data will go directly into the core WURFL.

The updated WURFL is available through the WURFL project page.

Bay Blade

2010-02-04T10:01:00+00:00

Bay Blade

Eric is supper into Bay Blade. Basically it is just tops that you spin against each other to see which can knock the other out or make the other stop. Funny thing is it 2010 tech tops.
They are made up of 4 different parts. The face, the metal wheel, the truck, and the bottom. The way you combine the four pieces decides how it will react when you spin it. Some combinations are for attack, others are for defence. I really do not understand how the configurations work but Eric does completely. I wish he paid that much attention at school. Maybe I can take some comfort in the fact that "it is a geometry thing" and he will get something out of it.

But I wonder/worry about him and his kind of obsession mind set. Everything that comes along and is "cool" for the moment, he is so into, Pokemon, Nintendo DSi, etc. They all occupy a intense, INTENSE, interest for a moment in time and then quickly fade away.

The affect on my wallet is usually substantial but survivable, but I wish he would get "more" out of these experiences. Recently I have been thinking he should do some other activity like Judo or learn to play the guitar or other individual thing where he can express him self with out the influence of all his classmates and friends.

I like all; well most of his friends, so the problem is not them, I just wish he would learn to be more of a individual, and less of a follower.

Either way he is a good kid, not perfect but, as close as a 8 year old with as many life hurdles as he has can be.

Finally, as a Dad with as many problems as I had as a kid, I do not think I could ask for a better son.

E./

Bacon & Chicken YEAH!

2010-02-03T02:01:06+00:00

Home Cookin'

I cook food that I think will be good. I love bacon. I love chicken. I love cheese. All 3 together are great. I cooked this receipt from allrecipes.com it was chicken and bacon with Cheese and BBQ sauce, and it turned out GREAT!

I had 2 types of mustard so I tried the all American home grown Buffalo brand Webbers Horseraddish mustard VS. a fairly fancy looking Japanese brand. In the end both were outstanding!

When it was done the cheese and BBQ sauce ran together and there while the edges of the bacon where
slightly seared. It was plump and juicy inside as well. I plan on making more stuff from allrecipes.com in the future.

E./

Let it snow!

2010-02-02T02:11:29+00:00

It snowed last night in Tokyo. It typically snows once or twice every 2 years or so and not a heck of allot when it does snow. For me it is the perfect amount. Just enough to remember how much fun I had in Derby in the winters, and not enough to be annoying. Lots of people stayed home and my morning commute was very nice and not so congested.

New Do

2010-02-02T01:01:01+00:00

NEW HAIR CUT!

I had my birthday and it was kind of a non-event. We had a cake and sang Happy Birthday. After this weeks rugby game, in which I played quite a bit, we had another little , for Joffa, Warren, Paulo and I who all have birthdays with in the same week or so. Actually Warren and I have the same birthday.

After the game I met Satomi in Kichijoji and took Eric to get his haircut. I decided to get one too. It was a time for a change, so as I sat in the chair I told my barber, shave it off. He asked 4 times if I was sure that is what I wanted to do, then said "Hai Ikimasho!" or "Lets get started!" Eric seemed pretty shocked but really excited. Here is what I looked like right after. I need to get some clippers to maintain it I think.

E./

Techno Baby

2010-02-01T12:03:06+00:00

Anna-chan "Techno Baby"
Anna goes nuts every time I get out my phone or camera or any other piece of technology. Most of the time I think it is cute so I just give her the phone and let her have at it. She is really into the lights and colors that seem to come alive when she starts hitting the buttons. I know she does not completely understand what they mean but she likes them all the same. This time however she called my dad in America and left him a message, at 5 AM his time.

Super Takumar 55mm Pentax lens

2010-01-30T15:52:48+00:00

The Takumar is the name of a wonderful lens, that the previously Asahi Optical and now Pentax, gave to its lenses.

I bought one for 3000 yen ($33) in a shop in Akihabara (Techno district of Tokyo) that sells junk stuff. The glass is in perfect conditions and the big aperture plus the good ISO performance of the Pentax K-X makes a good combination for nocturne urban photography.

The lens started to be manufactured in 1962, based on the data in this database. It uses the old but popular M42 mount. Basically it’s just has a screw and you have to turn it until it got fixed into the camera body. In fact it’s not practical, it takes some time to change lenses. Actual Pentax K-X and other models don’t use that mount system anymore but there are adapters for them. I used an adapter that cost me the same as the lens!

This is the lens mounted on the Pentax K-X

I love the retro fashion of the lens :)

It’s not so big. Anyway it’s a little bit odd to see that lens in a new camera. When I see it, remembers me to see an old lady dressed as a teenager…

I love the bokeh and quality of this lens. It has a finest and soft bokeh, much better than the 50mm 1.4F for example. The aperture is manual and it’s better to use it in manual, because the camera automatic settings will get confused with no aperture control. When you use it in manual, changing the aperture and the focus, reminds me of a time where all those automatic capabilities was just science fiction. Changing manually the aperture and the focus, for some reason makes me feel a Leica experience. I just have to worry about few settings and I need an understanding of those settings as if they was part of myself. Just set the aperture, speed, focus and shot.

Look at the soft bokeh in the leaves.

Don’t worry to buy old lenses. Just keep in mind that you maybe need to use only manual settings. It’s important to check carefully the lens, anyway. Scratches, malfunctioning or humidity could be there, hidden for an inexperienced eye, so if you still have no experience with this stuff, try to go to the shop with a friend that could advise you.
Soon I will publish a post about who to check the quality of used lenses.

What do you need to shot portraits in any place, howto #1

2010-01-30T14:39:36+00:00

Portraits is one of the most extensive fields in photography because it’s the direct interaction with a very difficult thing. The thing we want to shot is a living entity and it doesn’t follow a natural instinct pattern. That thing is also intelligent, or some of them pretend to be so improvisation is a must and hunting the right moment is an instant of spiritual inspiration. Well that thing are “we”, humans :)

To shot portraits do we need a studio? do we need a special high quality gear?
Of course if we have a studio, the knowledge, the time and the equipment we can do almost anything! But usually we lack of the necessary tools when we find the right person and the right moment to shot a good portrait.

This little Howto will explain how to do it with a DSRL, a small flash, an extension cable and a white sheet.
All this stuff can be easily carried in a bag.

This is a reflector. A small and cheap one is more than enough.

Ok we are ready to shot portraits that looks like made in a studio.
Now the only thing we need to understand is the light.
Think about light as it was a high pressure water stream but without the damage that the water can produce. It’s easy to see the root source of a stream of water but it’s really hard to understand where the light comes from.
In a studio we can control light sources and direct it where we need. In case of an improvised portrait we have to minimize as much as we can non controlled light sources. That’s why we need a flash and a reflector, just to overcome environment lights.

Many other factors will come depending on the situation and the subject. For example, a cap, long hair, color of the skin and so forth. All of this can only be understood with practice and the practice is the funny part of this :)

How to make the background dark?

The darker the environment is the easier for this kind of portraits.
In case we have to take it in a well illuminated environment, we have to play with aperture and lights.
The flash light will be stronger than interior lights and this will help us.

For example, instead to bother a real model let’s take a drossel figma dool that will never complain to be tortured with the flash :)

This is the artificial illumination of a neon light at home. This is the illumination as perceived by a naked eye.

What we have to do is set the camera parameters so the background and the subject get totally dark without flash light. In this case I chose: aperture f/11 and speed 1/250.
Just increase the speed and reduce the aperture to minimize as much as possible the light that pass through the lens.

This picture still contain some information, if we increase exposure, brightness and fill light in Lightroom we can see that behind that dark square there is still something

So at this point we have to set our reflector as close as possible to the subject as well the flash. We don’t want that any light goes to the background, we want it dark.
This is the final result

Here you are, portraits everywhere and no need of studio or too expensive illumination equipment.

Finally this is the way to put the reflector and the flash.

In case the background don’t get totally dark, don’t worry, you can always use some post processing to make it dark :)

Check these pictures, they were made with the same technique in bars and streets:

Debugging when puppetd gives `read_cert’: super: no superclass method `read_cert’ (NoMethodError)

2010-01-29T03:03:37+00:00

I just ran into this obscure problem with Puppet. I’m writing it down in the hopes I will remember not to do something like this again…

$ sudo puppetd --test --noop
/opt/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/puppet/network/http_pool.rb:41:in `read_cert': super: no superclass method `read_cert' (NoMethodError)
        from /opt/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/puppet/executables/client/certhandler.rb:62:in `read_cert'
        from /opt/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/puppet/executables/client/certhandler.rb:24:in `read_retrieve'
        from /opt/local/bin/puppetd:347

THE FIX

This error is caused by old puppet binaries that were installed from source that were not removed with subsequent upgrades of puppet itself. The newer versions I am installing install via packages which always installs puppetd into /opt/local/sbin.

To fix this, delete the old puppet binaries from wherever they were installed. In my case it is /opt/local/bin

# Hope there aren't any useful binaries named pu* that are not puppet-based
$ rm /opt/local/bin/pu*

Now we have a working puppet run!

$ sudo  puppetd --no-daemonize --verbose --debug --onetime --test
debug: Failed to load library 'selinux' for feature 'selinux'
debug: Failed to load library 'shadow' for feature 'libshadow'
debug: Puppet::Type::User::ProviderNetinfo: file nireport does not exist
debug: Puppet::Type::User::ProviderLdap: true value when expecting false
debug: Puppet::Type::User::ProviderPw: file pw does not exist
debug: Puppet::Type::User::ProviderDirectoryservice: file /usr/bin/dscl does not exist
debug: Failed to load library 'ldap' for feature 'ldap'
debug: /File[/var/puppet/state]: Autorequiring File[/var/puppet]
debug: /File[/etc/puppet/ssl/private_keys]: Autorequiring File[/etc/puppet/ssl]
debug: /File[/etc/puppet/ssl/certs]: Autorequiring File[/etc/puppet/ssl]
debug: /File[/etc/puppet/ssl/certificate_requests]: Autorequiring File[/etc/puppet/ssl]
debug: /File[/var/puppet/clientbucket]: Autorequiring File[/var/puppet]
debug: /File[/etc/puppet/ssl]: Autorequiring File[/etc/puppet]
debug: /File[/etc/puppet/ssl/public_keys]: Autorequiring File[/etc/puppet/ssl]
debug: /File[/var/puppet/lib]: Autorequiring File[/var/puppet]
debug: /File[/etc/puppet/ssl/private]: Autorequiring File[/etc/puppet/ssl]
debug: /File[/var/puppet/client_yaml]: Autorequiring File[/var/puppet]
debug: /File[/var/puppet/log]: Autorequiring File[/var/puppet]
debug: /File[/var/puppet/facts]: Autorequiring File[/var/puppet]
debug: /File[/var/puppet/run]: Autorequiring File[/var/puppet]
debug: /File[/var/puppet/state/graphs]: Autorequiring File[/var/puppet/state]
debug: Finishing transaction 80433160 with 0 changes

IMJ Mobile Releases Free Collection of Mobile Surveys

2010-01-27T01:23:00+00:00

IMJ Mobile has released Mobile User Book 2010, a collection of 8 surveys (in Japanese) about the following topics:

Mobile Video Usage
New Mobile Services and Technology
e-Commerce Sites
iPhone
Cloud Computing (what is the connection to mobile?)
Industry's Usage of Mobile Sites
Usability of Mobile e-mail Magazines
Flash Mobile Site Usability

The book is available for download as a free pdf, so if you're interested in mobile in Japan, it's worth checking out.

How to develop the photographer eye #1 – Composition

2010-01-23T14:05:07+00:00

This is the first of a series of posts to learn how to develop the eye to take photographs.
There is no technical explanation to understand this. It’s like “how to understand art” or “how to understand beauty” It’s personal, subjective and any attempt to just create rules to understand it, is a waste of time.

So with these HowTo’s posts I want to explain how to develop that eye, and not how to understand that eye.
This makes a huge difference. Teaching how to develop something is nothing more than teaching one, of several paths, to reach the same point. So you don’t have to follow any path, you just have to see how other people feel and walk that path to get what you like for your own path. That’s why it’s not possible to explain the photographer eye, it’s only possible to show how people feel it. From that experience we can wake up our own one.

Let’s start with Composition. How important is to find the proportions and distance relationship between the elements in a photograph? There are some common rules called: Golden Rules If you don’t know them, please read about that first! Please don’t blame me because I told you before that no rule can explain how to develop the photography eye. These rules are related with the way humans perceive visual information. Of course, these rules can be broken to achieve the unachievable.

How can we put together the elements to have a good looking picture?

Every person, when seeing an image, has a different approach to it. Some people just see it as a whole, other people from one angle, because something called their attention, whatever.
So first of all, remember that it’s impossible to take a picture that everybody will love. Some people will consider it a crap and some of them may consider it a visual masterpiece.
Anyway, independently what people could think about the image, remember what a picture is, or one of it’s multiple definitions. It’s the art that captures that static moment in time, the real present. It can tell you a story.

Don’t try to think about this in the few instants before you shot it! Instead of that, try to get out with the proper attitude. You will notice how after some time, you will develop a better capacity to observe and see details that before just passed out unnoticed to your view. Take your time, see the things that surround you. Do those things tell something to you? Do you feel something when you see that moment that you thing it’s worth taking?

I got a good acceptance with this picture in flickr. It was taken with a Nikon D70, just a normal, entry level, old digital camera.
It was near one of the first places I lived in Tokyo, in Higashi Nakano.
To be honest, I didn’t feel really good that day. I started to live for a long term in Japan at the end of 2006, and at that time I was new here with almost no friends. I felt sometimes really alone.
So I decided to get out at night and do some photowalks until dawn was breaking in my lens.
So that picture tells a story, I still had a long path to do, starting my life in a new country, discover a new culture… It was dark, like my feelings of loneliness, and nobody was there, as my life was at that time.

So what I want to say is: if you shot your pictures and you just forget that you have a camera, try to feel the environment, smell the air, look at the simple things, like a street or a window, or a traffic light, or a taxi, whatever. Walk, see, feel, think, let yourself go… And in that moment, as an impulse, you will feel the need to share the whole moment with others. The only way to do it is using that camera in your hands!

So what about the composition???

So the secret is, when you see your story, when you feel that, when you are synchronized with the things you are seeing, in that moment try to see through the lens the same thing you are seeing with your eyes. Remember the basic rules and try, practice. After several shots you will realize the technical differences between the camera and your eyes. As a technical thing, you will be able to overdue these differences quickly and you will concentrate to develop that feeling, set your mind to the exploration and the harmony between you and the environment. You won’t have to worry what composition is anymore.

Try it and let me know your experience. Send me links of your pictures if you try to do this :)

Golden rules of photography

2010-01-23T13:51:11+00:00

I don’t like to talk about “rules”. I prefer to call them just advices. In fact following rules in photography means to understand nothing about it!
Anyway everybody calls them “rules” so let’s keep the traditional name.
These rules are based on the The Golden Ratio. It’s a special proportion that exists everywhere in nature. For some reason, it’s related to us as living beings in this universe and it affects the way we interact with things.

Rule of Thirds

This rule is more about composition. It has a strong relationship about how humans perceive reality and how humans read visual information.
You just have to divide the frame in three parts horizontally and vertically. So we will have three zones and 4 intersection points.

Try to place the objects of interest in the intersection lines and avoid to center the object in the middle of the image.

Of course it depends, for example, in this picture I cropped it to put the main subject (it was me…) in the middle of the frame. Why? Because the main subject of this picture is not related to the sharpness of the image but to the whole situation that shows a man fighting the wind with his bicycle.

One more scenario where the Rule of Thirds is applicable is in landscapes, where the horizon line plays an important role in the composition. Just try to avoid the horizon line to divide the image in two perfect parts. Just place the horizon line in the upper third or the bottom third, depending on which part of the image you want to give more emphasis. For example, if it is the sky, put the horizon line in the first third from the bottom.

Of course there are exceptions, for example in this picture I preferred to leave the horizon line just in the middle because in this picture the important part is just the horizon!

Diagonal rule

In this case we use the zone indicated by the following image. The important part of the image will reside in the zone delimited by those lines.

For example these pictures can illustrate these rules:

Golden Spiral

One more application of the golden number is an spiral. The one I draw in the picture is not perfect, but it renders the idea.
It’s not necessary that the object takes the whole picture. The important thing is that the composition makes the eye move to the center of what you want to show.

For example in this picture, your eyes will go immediately to the faucet. Okay, it’s the biggest object in the composition, but if I would like to take the faucet in the middle of the frame, the eyes wouldn’t point directly to the faucet as in this case:

There are more rules, these are the basic ones and the possibilities to play with proportions and discover new properties are infinite… So let’s try and play :)

Fighting the wind

2010-01-21T12:20:22+00:00

I was just riding my bicycle on a big bridge. The wind was really strong. I had to stop and go by walk so I thought that it was a good moment to shot a picture.
It was really hard because the wind moved the camera all time so finally I found a way to fix it against the border of the bridge. Fortunately it didn’t fall down to the water ^^;
Shot with a Canon G11

Ashe photoshot

2010-01-19T11:29:25+00:00

A sunny winter Sunday in Tokyo, with my friends Steve and Tangerine. We where armored with photographic gear and a beautiful model, Ashe. She and Tokyo as a background, gave us a really funny day.

These are the pictures I got that day. De-saturation and other post processing with Lightroom.

I like to leave some parts in color and black and white. The thing that I’m trying to achieve is to do it as it was natural. The meaning depending on the moment. I feel different sensations when I see color or monochrome images. This sensation, this feelings I want to show could be expressed using the color as a medium. What do you feel when you see images with unreal color or lights?

To obtain this picture the camera was set for long exposure of 3 seconds. I hold a flash in my hand, and Ashe was ready to move as soon after the flash shots.
So: shot, flash and run. In this way the background mixed with the image of her.

Let me know if you like to see images post processed in this way.

new

2010-01-19T09:30:51+00:00

Its fuller reaches underneath the hammer!

the new news is finally here

Community Leadership Summit: Photos

2010-01-19T09:16:58+00:00

Here are some images from the Community Leadership Summit (CLS 2009 Retrospecitve by Jono Bacon) last weekend in San Jose. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to participate in this event. I didn't have a chance to check out OSCON, which followed CLS, but I think this un-conference style of gathering better fits my interests anyway (see this tag here for BarCamp & other community events events in Tokyo). I hope the photos came out ok ...

Some night shots with the Canon G11

2010-01-14T14:17:00+00:00

I really love this camera It’s versatile, small, it has a good quality and a full manual control.

I was riding my bike all around Tokyo, until Odaiba. In these days the weather is really cold here but the air is clean and there is no humidity at all. Perfect for night long exposure shots.
The main problem is to find a place with no vibrations. I didn’t have a tripod this time, but even with that it’s really hard to have a perfectly sharp image. The main reason is because Tokyo is a city with hundreds of subterranean trains, it’s in a seismic country and has a huge amount of traffic. It’s almost impossible to have a vibration zero zone.
The best place is in the top of a big building that absorbs almost all vibrations, and it’s specially made to resist earthquakes, so minimum earth movements remain almost unnoticed.

This place is near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. I just stopped with my bike and took this pic.
The water gets no replacement… so I really don’t want to imagine to dive into it…

View from one of the bridges that connects Tokyo to Odaiba (an artificial zone made with recycled trash).

Cropped version :)

I like to desaturate certain zones of a photograph to express the feelings representing the desaturated and the colored zone. I didn’t want to continue because I already ride too many up and down bridges after a long day riding my bicycle.

Hawaii

2010-01-14T10:01:00+00:00

Hawaii

From Wikipedia "Hawaii's natural beauty, warm tropical climate, inviting waters and waves, and active volcanoes make it a popular destination for tourists, surfers, biologists, and volcanologists alike. Due to its mid-Pacific location, Hawaii has many North American and Asian influences along with a vibrant native culture. Hawaii has
over a million permanent residents along with many visitors and U.S. military personnel. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu."

What can I say about my family trip to Hawaii. It had all the ear-markings of a disaster in the making. I invited my Dad with out consulting my wife. I did not really do any planning about what we would do and how we would do it when we got there. I remembered to leave my pocket knife in my carry on, but forgot the battery charger for the camera. Heck I was not even sure what island we were on till the last day.

We arrived after a quick 6 hour flight and caught up with my Dad at the rental car agency.

The trip moved along pretty quick from there with shopping at Walmart, Target and the Mall. We got out of Wakiki a couple days after that and drove to the North Shore and Kailua Beach Park the next day. Around Wikiki we walked and tried some of the local foods and shops.

In all it was a good fun trip. The highlight for me was seeing Eric Surf like a pro after only a few minutes of lessons.

The food was good old American food with big rich portions. A initial argument I had with Satomi was "The hotel includes breakfast." To me this was no big deal, but I forgot how nice it is to start the day with a omelet pancakes and sausage and bacon. Get the breakfast buffet at Dukes, it is worth it.

Also having my Dad there to drive us every where was both convenient and irritating, but well worth it. He has a tendency to get a little too close to the car in front of him, which drove me completely insane and caused more than one argument, but other than that he was pleasant and easy to get along with the whole time, and Anna really seemed to like him.

All in all it was a good trip. I would do it again, but would change some things along the way. A quick list would be;

Do's:

Plan excursions more carefully
Rent a car Stay longer than 5 days if possible
Rent surf boards and other necessities away from the beach front hotels
Take surf lessons (especially for kids)
Rent a weekly apartment a little further from the beach front hotels
Picnic/BBQ Kailua Beach Park Bring a good camera for pictures of surfing on the North Shore and at
Diamond Head Hike up to the top of at least 1 volcano, to see the sunrise if possible.

Don'ts:

Spend whole time in Wakiki
Go on the Suicide 12 hour tour of anything
Eat at expensive restaurants in Wakiki
Go shopping on the first or second day, then the last day for any items you may have missed.

View Larger Map

Load Rails Fixtures from an arbitrary path

2010-01-13T12:19:10+00:00

Figuring out how Ruby on Rails loads up its fixtures was a royal pain in the ass. Instead of having a nice method like.

load_fixtures(path)

there’s only this in the ActiveRecord.TestFixtures module:

def fixtures(*table_names)
  if table_names.first == :all
    table_names = Dir["#{fixture_path}/*.yml"] + Dir["#{fixture_path}/*.csv"]
    table_names.map! { |f| File.basename(f).split('.')[0..-2].join('.') }
  else
    table_names = table_names.flatten.map { |n| n.to_s }
  end

  self.fixture_table_names |= table_names
  require_fixture_classes(table_names)
  setup_fixture_accessors(table_names)
end

So after digging around to see what did what I came up with a function to do the trick:

def self.load_fixture_from_path(local_fixture_path)
  table_names = Dir["#{local_fixture_path}/*.yml"] + Dir["#{local_fixture_path}/*.csv"]
  table_names.map! { |f| File.basename(f).split('.')[0..-2].join('.') }

  ActiveSupport::TestCase.fixture_table_names |= table_names
  ActiveSupport::TestCase.require_fixture_classes(table_names)
  ActiveSupport::TestCase.setup_fixture_accessors(table_names)
  Fixtures.create_fixtures(local_fixture_path, table_names, {})
end

iPhone photography, why so popular?

2010-01-12T13:31:21+00:00

Let’s put this clear. The camera in the iPhone is a crap! There is no doubt about that. And because of that, iPhone photography is getting more and more popular.
It’s all about effort. Humans feels better when they reach some point after some effort and suffering. Effort implies some kind of sufferance and this adds some value to the final result.
Usually the most admirable and incredible creations have been accomplished with the poorest and the most primitive tools. Just look at the huge art master pieces of the past. The artist didn’t have the resources, neither the technology. But after dedication and effort the final result lasted forever.

It doesn’t mean that only a great job could be accomplished with effort, and suffering, neither with primitive tools but the condition of “I have nothing more than this to do what I want to do; and what I want to do is going to exceed beyond the possibilities of my tools” is the condition that set our minds to start with the creative process to achieve what actually seems unachievable.

The camera in the iPhone is a crap, everybody knows that, but the challenge to do a great picture with it shots our imagination beyond the machine and its limitations, allowing the photographer to express, maybe easily, his/her talent.

It happened in the past when cameras were far away from the quality of our days and when digital photography was just science fiction. With very limited tools, photographers did a great job. Today to accomplish something similar we need some kind of limitation in our gear. The iPhone, just imposes that limitation and forces us to use our imagination to find the moment, the right composition and a plus: to use our imagination to combine several tools to edit our pics.

The only difference is that before the post processing happened in the dark room playing with time, mixture of chemicals, light, filters and so on. Now we have to do that using software. Anyway, at the end, the result is the same: improving our creativity and going always beyond limitations.

These are some pictures I took these last 6 months. I still need to get used to my iPhone camera.

Taking pictures with the iPhone force me to think different. I have to think about the limitations of its camera and how to show what I want to show. It’s interesting to have this kind of challenge, it’s a way to train myself in different scenarios where this crap of camera is all what I have :)

What do you think about mobile phone pictures?
The quality is not good? Do they force us to stimulate our imagination?

Seijin Shiki + Dannychoo + a day in Shibuya

2010-01-12T06:44:52+00:00

Coming of Age Day (成人の日) is a celebration for young ladies and gentlemen, for the day that they become “adults”. Many cultures in the world have similar celebrations and Japan as well. It was nice to see all those young ladies with their kimono :)

That day, my friend Danny Choo took the occasion to organize a meetup for a photoshot of the girls and then a photowalk around Shibuya

They are already 20 and supposedly adults. How many things do they already know about life?

Do you notice something unusual? There is a Storm trooper in the ceremony! ^^;

The Mac store in Shibuya is trying to sell iPhones to Stormtroopers as well.

Danny with two Guardian Angels in Shibuya.

There was also a small show. I like the gear in the picture on the left. It’s a flying camera :)
It was hard to catch the chair, I missed the first one and then I did as much as I could to be ready to catch the second one.

Check also the pictures of:

@stevenagata, Photoset on Flickr

@iMorpheus, Photoset on Flickr

@tamegoeswild, Photoset on Flickr

@KyleHase, Photoset on Flickr

Why did I choose Flickr?

2010-01-08T07:26:47+00:00

Flickr is an image and video hosting website and actually is one of the best and most visited sites for this purpose. By the way, many photographers asked me sometimes why I chose Flickr. The main complains from non Flickr users that I heard were:

The interface is ugly
It’s hard to browse
It’s not intuitive
I cannot create my own template
The design does not match my own style

Well I don’t agree with those assumptions, so instead to reply individually, let’s do it in this post.

Flickr is more than an online album or a hosting website for image and video. Flickr is the online Swiss knife for a photographer. It’s a tool that has the flexibility to adapt and help to promote and make a great diffusion of our photography work.

The interface is ugly? Well, what is ugly? It’s a personal and subjective impression. Maybe for some people it is ugly and for others it doesn’t. What about Google for example. Do you think that Google design is elaborate? It has the same design as 10 years ago! But it’s the best search engine out there and because it’s fast and useful it becomes a good tool.
Well for Flickr it is the same. It’s a powerful tool.

It’s hard to browse. It has a complete set of options for search. You can perform search by licenses, cameras, tags, people, titles, groups and so forth. Is it hard? It depends, if you just want to perform a simple search, go to Google and search for an image. Flickr can do sharp searches inside its database. In fact it’s used by many publishers to find great photos. Thanks to it’s powerful search options some publishers got in contact with me to buy full resolution pictures, for example here, here, and here

It’s not intuitive. To make something powerful you cannot make it stupid. Usability forces the user and the designer to reach a point of balance to keep the interface useful and easy. Flickr has a good balance, it’s useful for professionals and it is still easy to use for people that just wants to see pictures. Look at Flickr interface for a minute and please “read” the links in there. You can find a full set of options. There is also a slide show button that lets you see the pictures in a more fancy way.

I cannot create my own template. Please! Flickr is not a myspace-like site. It’s an online photo and video hosting service. It’s the visual-data-base of your photography life. Flickr provides more flexibility than just allowing users to create a simple template.
Flickr has an API that allows third party applications to make use of all its capabilities. There are hundred of applications making use of its API to present your photography in the way you desire.
For example:

Moo cards. Cheap and good quality business and personal cards totally customizable. Just link your Flickr account and feed moo with your photographs.
phpFlickr it is a class written in PHP by Dan Coulter you can use this class to create custom websites using the pictures in your Flickr account.
Many plugins for wordpress, check this list
And hundred of more applications out there, check this huge list

So you can create your own template to show your work stored in Flickr, using it not only as a storage system. Look at it as an interactive database of your visual work. Your own rules, your own design and an interface to interact with your content. Is that not enough?

The design does not match with my own style. Do you want to use Flickr as your own portfolio? And it doesn’t match with the design that represents your style? As in the previous point, think about it as a tool that, among many other things, includes also a web interface. It’s a tool, and as a tool the aim of it is to be used as a tool. Create your site, design it and use Flickr as your own database.

The final and more important characteristic of Flickr is the social aspect. Creating a photo and video hosting service with an indexed database and a search system build on it, is nothing far away from what we can find out there in other services. But creating a video and image hosting service that is also social, is a challenge and Flickr accomplishes that.
It helped me a lot to find people with amazing and inspiring work. It also helped me a lot to put me in contact with many photographers around the world and near my city. It has all the social tools to fit perfectly in a Web2.0 experience.

The social aspect of Flickr is the most important thing of it. If people don’t see your pictures, it’s the same that your pictures do not exist. Art made by humans will feed human minds. Social means people, people means eyes and minds that see what another mind saw through a lens. The feelings, sensations and messages hidden in any pictures can only by understood and transmitted if the public have access to them.

Where do you upload your pictures?
Why do you prefer a different platform?
What is the thing you really hate of Flickr?

Pentax K-X review

2010-01-05T15:09:35+00:00

Pentax really shocked me this time. I’m really happy with this camera, it’s amazing, indeed. I would have never imagined that for such a cheap price I could have such a great camera. Of course it has bad things too, but almost none of those “bad” things have a direct impact to the final results, that, by the way, is the most important thing! :)

This is not a pro camera, it’s an entry level one. But to be honest, you can have the same performance as many pro equipments. This camera has really full set of options, a big manual to read and a really huge menu to configure almost anything. BUT the great thing is that Pentax K-X has options for people that don’t know anything about photography as well. It’s possible to use it in automatic and never enter in the menu. This is a great thing and a big challenge at the same time: “How to make a camera that will make a pro feel comfortable and an amateur feel that an DSRL is not hard to use.”

Before introducing the details, here you have a quick description.

Good: Pentax K-X is good for night photography, it has a wonderful ISO competitive with high end pro cameras. It’s fast to focus, is light and easy to carry. It has a nice design, it takes the advantage of doing video with a DSRL, it’s compatible with almost all Pentax lenses, even the very old ones. It’s completely configurable and, at the same time, extremely easy to use. It’s good for pro and amateur. It has a really good price!!

Bad: It’s noisy, the plastic is good, strong but cheap. The menu design is ugly but at least really functional. It lacks of video and HDMI output.

The design is unique! You can choose from several colors combination. If I have to be honest with you, I confess that I never was interested in these things, but having something that is not only good for its purpose but also nice, helped to set my mind in a more creative and funny attitude.

It’s equipped with a High resolution 12.4 megapixel CMOS image sensor. K-X also features sensor-shift Shake Reduction for stabilized image and video capture up to 4 stops max! I tried it and I could really notice the difference! Specially when I was carrying the 300mm lens. I usually use that lens in the night, so helped by the darkness and the distance, I could have a discrete photowalk ;-)

The LCD is large up to 2.7 inches, featuring Live View with contrast, phase difference, and Face Detection autofocus. The quality is really good and the image is almost the same in a real monitor.

It also performs a widescreen HD video capture in full 720p resolution (1280×720) at 24 FPS cinematic framerate. It can use any PENTAX 35mm lens giving the possibility to experiment a huge range of angles. I will upload a video that I’m preparing to show the quality of the video with this camera later on.

I usually process my pictures in Lightroom but for those that love to do on-the-fly processing, like changing colors or applying special filters, this camera has a huge set of effects as many compact cameras do.

It has a fast 4.7 FPS capture speed and 1/6000 second maximum shutter speed. Specially for sport or nature pictures. I also use this option to shot people expressions in events. This is something I learned from my friend Jim Grisanzio. Just a little change in the muscles of the face makes a huge difference in the final expression. In portraits the subject knows that he/she is going to be photographed but in events, people is not usually aware of this, and photographers take advantage of this situation to catch natural expressions. It’s hard to catch that moment, specially for moving subjects. In this case a good FPS capture ration helps a lot. Check Jim’s pictures in flickr, to understand what a really natural expression means :)

The focus is fast!! It’s noisy, but fast. A responsive 11 point wide angle SAFOX VIII autofocus system helps for this purpose and can easily track moving subjects.

One more great thing is that it uses common universally available and easy-to-find AA lithium batteries (also compatible with AA NiMH rechargeable and alkaline batteries). I already tried using just one charge for the whole day and I didn’t even see the battery low signal.

Let’s talk about the lenses. I got the combo with the 18-55mm that also matches the color of the camera and a 300mm.
The performance and quality is really good. Some of the pictures bellow can be downloaded in full resolution.

The ISO is just GREAT! For that price I have a 6400 ISO with a really low level of noise!
Just to compare the ISO and the differences with older cameras and a new Canon G11 check this pictures at different ISO’s.
Speed 1/100 and 5F for all pictures.

Pentax ISO 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400. Click the images to see the original full resolution, it’s huge!

Nikon D200: ISO 400, 800, 1600, 2000, 3200. Click the images to see the original full resolution, it’s huge!

Canon G11: ISO 400, 800. Click the images to see the original full resolution, it’s huge!

Nikon D70: ISO 400, 800. Click the images to see the original full resolution, it’s huge!

One more example using the Pentax K-X with ISO 1600 in the night of Shinjuku (Tokyo), click to enlarge full size:

These are some pictures that I took with Pentax K-X during these days. I’m still getting used to it :)

Do you feel dizzy? I really feel dizzy when I look at this picture…

Do you like the colors?
Do you feel uncomfortable to carry a colored full camera with you?

I think that other makers should think about this possibility. The color does not change the quality of the camera. I would like to see a Nikon D3s in red or blue! why not! Don’t you?

Selected as one of the best pictures in 2009 at Flickr Blog

2010-01-03T09:36:26+00:00

Today I found that this pictures has been selected as one of the best pictures for 2009 in Flickr Blog under the category “rain”.
I got really shocked about this and now I’m really happy. The picture was taken with a simple Canon IXY in a rainy day in Shinjuku, which is one of the biggest urban centers of Tokyo.
I saw the lady in the bike from far away and just tried to catch her in the frame. Taking the camera from the pocket and trying to shot as soon as possible. Fortunately I could take this shot.

Thank you for your comments on Flickr and feed back!

Tokyo Beer & Blog

2010-01-03T03:16:25+00:00

Thanks to Steve to organize first Tokyo Beer and Blog meeting of 2010. It’s an interesting opportunity to meet new people and exchange ideas about blogs, internet, photography and technology with some beers. Check Beer&Blog site for more information.

Some pictures about yesterday night. The portraits have been made in the bar, the Hobgoblin in Shibuya.

Yukari Morishima, twitter: @yukari_m and Satoka F, twitter: @lhuga

Of course everybody had a poken :)

Mary Gibson, twitter: @maryag

Coming back home in West Shinjuku. You can find good yakitori in these streets. It was already late at night, no more trains and January 2nd, of course almost no people around :)

This is a Chochin. In Spanish this word has an interesting meaning ^^;

Do you have a Beer & Blog group in your city?

Canon G11 Review and Pictures

2010-01-02T10:22:00+00:00

I want to introduce you this piece of tech art called Canon PowerShot G11.
It’s a wonderful compact camera, ready to use at any moment. It’s the perfect choice for pro and amateur who don’t want to carry on a big DSRL.

The main advantages I find in this camera are the size, the low weight and the great functionality in such a small thing. It has the right size, not too big not too small. The weight is enough to keep the camera steady.

The 10.0 Megapixel CCD sensor is enough. I don’t want more Megapixels for a compact camera. The reduction of Mp in the G11 improved the light sensitivity compared to the previous model, the Canon G10 that was equipped with a 14.7Mp sensor.

The 5x wide-angle (28-140mm equivalent) zoom lens with optical image stabilizer really works in any situation. I shot at 1/20 sec and the image got quite well stabilized, almost no blurred. The only thing I miss is the possibility to create huge bokeh as I’m used to with lenses of 1.4F or 1.8F/stops.

I don’t care too much about the LCD screen. It has a 2.8” tilt/swivel LCD (461k dot resolution) It’s really enough to check the results. Compared to the G10 model, Canon made the LCD movable and this makes life a lot easier specially because this concept matches with the idea of a “combat field” compact camera. It’s perfect to catch moments and don’t get noticed, like this:

I never used RAW image recording for compact cameras. In this case I have to think twice due to the quality. In good conditions the G11 can match the same quality as many DSRL where a RAW format makes more sense for post processing. Also the decrease in price of the storage, makes it easy to save in RAW.

For those that don’t want to think too much about the controls, the G11 have 26 shooting modes with manual control and custom settings to match almost any situation. Anyway all controls can be set manually becoming a good choice also for pro or advance amateur photographers.

The video quality didn’t change too much from its predecessor the G10, VGA movies, 30fps. Just be careful with the memory card. If it’s a normal slow one, the video gets some delays creating some jumps like in this one:

It also has a great while balance control. Specially I love the on site average white balance calculations. It determines pretty well the real colors in hard situations.

Personally I don’t like the strap it comes with. It’s too small and the camera weight is not enough to make the strap steady around your neck. So I prefer to use a hand-strap that also gives me the versatility to hide the camera easily in my bag or in my pockect, in situations where photographers are not welcomed :)

It has two memory banks you can select. For example, create a configuration in the menu and then save it in one of the two memories, C1 or C2. Every time you switch to one of those, the settings will be automatically set. I use it to have a black and white configuration, so anytime I need it, I don’t have to waste time looking through the menu settings. I just set the C1 memory and that’s it.

The optical view finder is useless, but sometimes I use it because I’m used to DSRL cameras more than compact ones. It does not represent the real view and there are no indicators inside. The viewfinder do not reflect the input from the lens as well, it’s just a glass that provides some approximate references about what we are going to shot.

The Macro is pretty good, in fact is one of the best things of this camera. See some examples:

The battery is powerful enough to stay one entire day of non-stop-shooting.

You can find this cameras for a reasonable price at Amazon and if you live in Japan don’t forget to check kakaku.com

Did you tried this camera already?
Feel free to comment your feedback.

Tateno Pool

2010-01-01T03:00:01+00:00

Tateno-pool

There was a really nice warm December day on a Saturday a few weeks back, which happened after a big rain storm. Some of the kids thought it was nice enough..... to go for a swim in the huge mud puddle that had formed.

Eric was fortunately smart enough to avoid the water but still came home a mess.

MephistoBackup v1.10 Released

2009-12-31T19:36:11+00:00

* [1.10 Current Features]

* Restore.java – When restore is complete, /dev/ /sys/ /proc are unmounted from the CHROOT environment. Fixes rebooting errors.

* Main.java – Arguments that automatically jump to the appropriate menu choice.

* Fully supports CentOS now.

* Gentoo support – Added Arg for users to create a fake mkinitrd tool so that Gentoo users can create a Live CD and restore from the Live CD.

* Specific Directory backup shows the file size of the tar file.

* When creating a LiveCD, users can specify their correct initrd image.

* When Backing up a system, the multiple initrd/kernel image message is gone.

* LiveCD.java/Restore.java – Automatic Restore from LiveCD automatically by bypassing Logo and Confirmation dialog.

* Untar from network share. User simply mounts the shared directory from the Live CD and then runs Mephisto.

* [1.10 Code Improvements]

* Restore.java, Backup.java, LiveCD.java object oriented.

* Removed unused Strings and Ints.

* ALL – Removed redundant code.

* BUG fixes.

* Fixed major bug for Homebackup.

* Patch.java is removed and replaced by Settings.

* Restore.java called by an argument instead of searching for live cd files.

* Fixed initrd bug in Restore.java and LiveCD.java

* Restore.java – Modified the GRUB command to bypass FD0, it may take 10 minutes to install GRUb the old way.

* Restore.java – Fixed UUID support for /boot and /home.

* Restore.java and LiveCD.java generates individual files though a function to guarantee accuracy with device information

* Removed fstab checking in Backup.java

* Config file reengineered by Nathan.

This program can do simple backups and syncs over a network or locally.It uses tar and rsync in the background. Mephisto Backup was made with the Java programming language. The key feature of this program is the ability to backup your system to an image and copy it to a Linux Live DVD for future restoration. The user can then take that cd and move his or her system to any PC.

http://mephistobackup.webhop.org

Release Notes:

* [1.10 Current Features]

* Restore.java – When restore is complete, /dev/ /sys/ /proc are unmounted from the CHROOT environment. Fixes rebooting errors.

* Main.java – Arguments that automatically jump to the appropriate menu choice.

* Fully supports CentOS now.

* Gentoo support – Added Arg for users to create a fake mkinitrd tool so that Gentoo users can create a Live CD and restore from the Live CD.

* Specific Directory backup shows the file size of the tar file.

* When creating a LiveCD, users can specify their correct initrd image.

* When Backing up a system, the multiple initrd/kernel image message is gone.

* LiveCD.java/Restore.java – Automatic Restore from LiveCD automatically by bypassing Logo and Confirmation dialog.

* Untar from network share. User simply mounts the shared directory from the Live CD and then runs Mephisto.

* [1.10 Code Improvements]

* Restore.java, Backup.java, LiveCD.java object oriented.

* Removed unused Strings and Ints.

* ALL – Removed redundant code.

* BUG fixes.

* Fixed major bug for Homebackup.

* Patch.java is removed and replaced by Settings.

* Restore.java called by an argument instead of searching for live cd files.

* Fixed initrd bug in Restore.java and LiveCD.java

* Restore.java – Modified the GRUB command to bypass FD0, it may take 10 minutes to install GRUb the old way.

* Restore.java – Fixed UUID support for /boot and /home.

* Restore.java and LiveCD.java generates individual files though a function to guarantee accuracy with device information

* Removed fstab checking in Backup.java

* Config file reengineered by Nathan.

http://mephistobackup.webhop.org

Kampai!

2009-12-31T15:01:01+00:00

Kampai!

Every year at work on the last day the big boss the big boss comes down and thanks us for our work through out the year. In a company of 3000+ people on 5 floors in 3 different buildings this can take quite a long time. Last year I waited till 830 or 9 and he still did not make it to our office.

This year we were first, or second. I am not a star struck kind of person. I know he puts on his pants the same way I do, but I have to admit I was impressed when he showed up and with the way he thanked us. It takes allot to impress me, but for some reason he always does. I get a real sense of purpose from his words and actions, which is strange because I really do not know him at all.

Conbini Bento Plus

2009-12-31T09:00:00+00:00

My Combini-Bento

Cash is low and money is tight these days so I usually bring leftovers from home for lunch. I forgot it the other day and could not find anything in the convenient store racks that suited me, so, I made my own. I bought a 400 yen ($4) bowl of pasta and sauce and a 100 yen piece of chicken and was able to get a semi decent meal out of it. The Marie's Hot Sauce definitely helped.

CNN Does The Daily Show in Japan

2009-12-31T02:01:00+00:00

CNN Japan

Apparently confused about what network they are or what is news and what is comedy, CNN has been showing The Daily Show with John Stewart at prime time. WTF?

Have they no news of their own?

Dont Drink and Ride

2009-12-30T09:00:00+00:00

Don't Drink and Ride

This a Odakyu Train line poster reminding riders of the dangers of drinking too much during the holiday season. Hazards like falling onto the tracks, falling down trying to get on the train, fighting with other passengers and of course, being too drunk and missing your stop.

I assume puking every where is part of it too but they kindly left that visual out of it.

All Cleaned UP

2009-12-30T01:00:00+00:00

All Cleaned Up

This is a after shot of the building that was being torn down in one of my previous posts. LINK Here we see that everything is all cleaned up and ready for construction of something new. A building in Japan typically has a lifespan of about 30 years or so. Then it is torn down and a new building is put up in its place. Not such a bad thing unless your living next to the property, then from the day they start tearing down till the day they finish building, plan on not sleeping in past 8 or 9 for a year and a 1/2 or more.

500

2009-12-29T14:00:00+00:00

500

I made 500 points on Reddit from my little 1 and 2 point comments I make. I actually am slightly above that now, but I have been meaning to post it for a while.

In reality I am not that much of a poster or commentator on Reddit, a co-worker of mine has amassed 11,000 plus comment karma points and another 5000 plus in link karma.

I wonder....

You can check out Reddit for your self here.

Selling a Canon IXY 210 IS

2009-12-27T03:34:14+00:00

I bought this compact Canon IXY 210 in August 2009, just few months ago. I used it just a couple of times so it’s almost new!

It has the guaranty until august 2010 bought at Yodobashi Camera. I have the case and all accessories and many of them like cables and the instructions book are still inside the original plastic bags, I never used them.

I also gift the Lowepro bag to carry and protect the camera. It perfectly fit with its size.

The price is 10.000 yen, it’s less than half the original price, I have also the Yodobashi Camera ticket.
There are no scratches in the surface, the camera has not been almost used.

Why I want to sell this camera?

I’m a DSRL guy and I wanted to carry a lighter gear so I thought about this camera. The quality of its pictures is really good, see an example, here and here.
Anyway I missed my Nikon D200 and my lenses so that’s the reason I’m almost not using this camera anymore. Instead of keeping it in the bag with no use, let’s sell it for a reasonable price and take some money to buy new accessories for my Nikon D200 ^^;

If you are interested you can contact me using several methods:

New year 2010 post, bye bye 2009

2009-12-23T14:44:49+00:00

Resume about 2009 and what I expect for the 2010. Thanks to all my friends![...]

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

2009-12-22T08:49:20+00:00

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

When I first saw our Christmas tree this year I thought it was ...... great. It was crooked, and had huge bare spots, but in a land of no Christmas trees it was perfect. Just like a block head like me needs to feel in the Christmas spirit.

Here is the finished product, one Charlie Brown himself would be proud of. The tree itself is in a pot and I thought it would be better if we did not cut it, maybe we can use old Charles next year.