dangerismymiddlename.com

Luck shooting is when one takes many pictures in hopes that some will be good. Some of the photographers out on the interwebs like to complain about beginners that do this, as if these beginners would gain the ability to determine what's good, before they have the experience to do so, if only they would behave like "real" photographers.

Dealing with too many images is extremely time-consuming. People figure that out immediately. That person that appears to be luck shooting is simply someone who has not-yet developed their ability to previsualize. If they could do that, then of course they would take less photos, dealing with lots of images always has a cost associated with it.

Filed under: 2) Photo Equipment and Technique No Comments

19Jul/140

Pixel Peeping Is A Virtue (Yes, Really, Here’s Why)

Pixel peeping is when a person views their image at 100% zoom (1 pixel in the image takes up one pixel on the computer monitor) in order to get it as sharp as possible. Obsessing at this level might be unnecessary, and potentially counterproductive, because most images, even ones that are excellent as-is, have flaws at 100% zoom. It's common to see this criticism on the interwebs: "You don't need to be pixel peeping, because you aren't printing the images that large."

That is incorrect. The minimum size photo that you should be (pun ahead) shooting-for is 21" x 12" at 12" away. Why? That's close to the dimensions of a 23 inch monitor. Those monitors are now common, and using computers to enjoy photos is now the preferred way: at least for non-photographers. Your customers will judge you by how sharp your photos are at this size or larger, and in many cases, depending on your monitor's resolution, your images will be close to 100% zoomed at this size. Pixel peeping is a virtue.

Filed under: 2) Photo Equipment and Technique No Comments

14Jul/140

I Have To Side With The CDC On This One, And Not With The American Motorcyclist Association

Every year I struggle with this decision: do I stay in the AMA (the motorcycle one), or not. In the end, I stay. Why the struggle? The AMA's anti-helmet law activism posing as fence-straddling.

Do riders avoid Missouri? Not that I can see. They wear their helmets in Missouri, and pull over to take them off at the border. If this is all it takes to increase helmet use, then I am all for it.

People hated it when we instituted seatbelt laws, they said that during an accident, they didn't want to be trapped in the vehicle. Do people still complain about seatbelt laws? No. The laws changed our future values. This is how we resolve our cognitive dissonance, and in some cases, that's a very good thing.

In the AMA's response to The Community Preventive Services Task Force's recommendations on helmet laws. Wayne Allard, the AMA's vice president for government relations, said, "Instead of trying to draw conclusions from this type of observation, the CDC task force could have better spent its time and resources searching for cures for infectious diseases." Does he really believe that our government shouldn't be looking into the prevention of motorcycle deaths at all? Is this even logically reasonable? No, it's not.

Filed under: 3) On Two Wheels, Safety Equipment and Technique No Comments

6Jul/140

A Pixel Is Not A Little Square (or anything else that’s shown in this video)

This video was shared by a couple of my favorite photography websites. Here are some of my thoughts about it.

I highly doubt that the analog-video-tech described in the video inspired digital-imagery, at least not directly. "Pixelated" (rasterized) images are closely related to arrays, which are data structures that existed long before computers had video terminals. Rasterized-image history started with the teletype. Teletypes created images just like typewriters.

OK: so if pixels were digital, and video was analog, then why did they both have lines? Because books have lines!

The pixels that make up an image, are exactly the same regardless of which display technology is used. So the RGB designs at the end of this video are not pixels. (Where he says, "shapes and sizes on a variety of screens.")

Pixels are one-dimensional points, just like in geometry class. To get a better understand this, you could read Alvy Ray's essay: "A Pixel Is Not A Little Square! (And a Voxel is Not a Little Cube)". If my next paragraph doesn't sound right, well, Alvy Ray has a more precise explanation.

Now you might be thinking of how when you zoom into a picture you can see the squares that make up the image, but the decision to render the image as squares when you are zoomed-in is something that the computer programmer chose to do. Also: the squares are easier for an artist to deal with when zoomed-in to a paint program (such as Photoshop). As an alternative, the programmer could have chosen to calculate the hues and brightness for the points (pixels) in between the current pixel data, and rendered those when zoomed-in.

Digital video is even stranger. It doesn't have pixels in it, instead it has a digital representation of what the CRT guns would do, if displays had CRT guns, which they no longer have. More on that later.

Here they get it wrong again, by showing an example of macro-blocking and saying that it's a lack of color-depth, which it's not.

Filed under: 2) Photo Equipment and Technique, Software and Computer Programming No Comments

8Jun/140

THE BOURGEOIS PIG

This luxurious Excalibur was ironically in front of The Bourgeois Pig.

Here is a link to the Redbubble version.
Here is a link to the 500px version.

6 E 9th St, Lawrence Kansas, USA

Tools:
Canon EOS Rebel SL1
Sigma 18-250mm
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Adobe Photoshop
Photomatix Pro HDR
Nik dfine
Nik Sharpener Pro 3

Filed under: 1) Photos, Architecture, Parking Lot Series No Comments

26May/140

Modus Operandi

Filed under: 5) Other, Self No Comments

23May/140

Lamborghini, Less Than Two Seconds

This is a Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera. This composite photograph represents less than two seconds at Heartland Park Topeka's Turn 12.

Filed under: 1) Photos, Motorsports No Comments

20May/140

More Science!

American manufacturing isn't growing relative to the-countries-that-are-currently-undergoing-an-industrial-revolution, our children are being taught to hate science, and our public schools don't teach computer programming. Without more research, more production, or more software, what do we have to contribute to the global economy? Less-than-we-did-before is what I fear.

Filed under: 5) Other, Science No Comments

19May/140

Red Trans Am – Heartland Park

Date: 2014-03-15
Event: Heartland Park Topeka Touring Club Track Day
This was the first automotive track day for 2014.

The new hotness (this is the same photo with different post-processing):

The old and busted (just kidding, but I like the new version a lot more):
IMG 2688 Edit 512x341 Red Trans Am Heartland Park

Filed under: 1) Photos, Motorsports No Comments

18May/140

Forza 5 BMW

I "painted" this car, in Forza 5, and then "photographed" it in-game.

Filed under: 1) Photos, Games No Comments

17May/140

KANSAS CAPITAL, FLOORS 2-5 AND PART OF INNER DOME

The original was four images at 109 MB, combined to one image at 66 MB. I then uploaded a large JPEG version to RedBubble. This is a small version.

Filed under: 1) Photos, Architecture No Comments

16May/140

Forza 5 Alfa Romeo

I "painted" this car, in Forza 5, and then "photographed" it in-game.

Filed under: 1) Photos, Games No Comments

15May/140

Frozen River “Geography Quiz”

The movie Frozen River may have made a mistake regarding the geography of Akwesasne and Massena NY. I say "may have", because the borders are complex there: the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne incorporates parts of two Canadian provinces and one US state. Mohawk residents can buy-and-sell goods to Canadians without collecting taxes, and they can buy-and-sell goods to Americans without collecting taxes, but they cannot buy goods from the citizens one country and sell them to citizens of the other country without collecting taxes. If they do, then it's smuggling, and smuggling does go on via our northern border: fuel, cigarettes, etc.

IMDB (which hasn't approved my "Ontario" edit yet) and Wikipedia (which now has my Ontario edit) describe the movie as taking place "near Quebec". Which is accurate, but the movie depicts the Ontario-side of Akwesasne. The movie specifically shows Ray driving towards the General Motors Powertrain Castings Foundry Massena on State Highway 37. This is one of the few places in the movie that could only have been filmed near Massena. Massena's GM plant, ALCOA plant, State Highway 37, and international border between Massena NY and Cornwall Ontario share the same traffic circle. How likely am I to be correct here? Akwesasne does straddle New York, Quebec, and Ontario, but the Quebec part is south of the river, so Ray wouldn't cross the river before entering Quebec from New York.

Because of these aspects, I believe that the movie shows Ray driving over the ice from the US to Canada via Cornwall Island, but the St. Lawrence Seaway passes Cornwall Island on the south side. It can freeze, but the Canadian Coast Guard runs ice breakers through there, so driving on the ice is unlikely to happen on the south side of the island. It's also true that the Seaway closes for part of the winter, but the place where she drives is perfectly flat, and not like a place where ice had been broken by ships before refreezing.

A little story:

Some friends and I went to a bar-and-grille in Cornwall Ontario for a farewell-celebration before I moved to Texas. We played NTN there. We were doing very well, and beating other online teams, until we got a question "wrong". What was the question? "Cornwall is in what Canadian Province?" What answer did NTN grade as correct? "Quebec". We were actually in a Cornwall bar, and it was in Ontario: not Quebec!

Filed under: 5) Other, Stories No Comments

14May/140

Kansas Capital Indoor Pillar

What's with the wacky perspective Paul? I am glad you asked.

The bottom of this panorama is the floor. Then there's a round vent in the pillar's base, which does a good job of hiding its vent-ness. However it contains an electrical conduit that doesn't hide its conduit-ness. The camera was at the height of the round vent in every shot. From there it was pointed-up to get the pillar, and then the ceiling above. Yes, this vertical panorama includes both the floor and ceiling, and the whole thing leans back as if it were on the inside of a 3D "S".

The size of the original images was around 6 GB. They then became 2.04 GB after the bracketed images were combined in Nik HDR Efex Pro 2, and 183 MB when the HDRs were combined into a panorama by Photoshop. Yes folks, this one can fill the side of a barn (a guess, I didn't do the math) without loss of resolution. The version below is considerably smaller.

It's a pillar of society.