Converting Black and White

I have mixed feelings about converting to black and white, and I've got even stronger convictions against "selective" color black and whites (i.e. red rose, black and white everything else). I do like black and white conversions when I feel that it allows the primary subject to stand out. I like the picture to the left because it's so fluid compared to the awkward stumbling of most children on a dance floor. Foot kicked up, both hands flowing, and eyes closed in concentration. You'd almost think it was her wedding to have.

Many programs out there will convert a color picture to black and white with simple De-saturation. Try messing with the color curves or filters to get an effect you like, for instance increased grain for that film feel, or upping the contrast/brightness. I might try again with the picture of the dancing flower girl, but for now I'm satisfied with the results.

Great Camera Recommendation (deal is now expired)

The Canon S2 IS 5.0 megapixel camera is an excellent camera, but for 280$ it's an amazing camera. Yeah, it's a point and shoot, but it's got more features than most, along with Image Stabilization. Blurry shots be gone! You also can't go wrong with the optical zoom of 12x. Some video cameras can't even do that. Here's the link (expired)

This is actually last year's model, but the current S3 IS doesn't offer anything better for twice the price. Also, it's been argued that the S2 still has better image quality. Shoot if this deal lasts until next week, I might buy one myself. Sadly, they never do last, so get ON IT!

Reasons to Buy:

• 12x Optical Zoom
• Image Stabilization
• Fast Glass (the front element is much larger than most point and shoots)
• Uses conventional sized batteries (AA), stick with NiMH 2000mah or above.
• Great image quality (i.e. the sensor)
• All these features, and it's not a monster in your pocket.
• You can't beat that price.

It's such a good camera, I've recommended it to several friends, and many co-workers. Don't forget a nice 1GB or 2GB memory card!

The Comment Nazi Accusation Peace Resolution Accord

This morning I found out from m-scribbles that I was perceived as a Comment Nazi; a brown shirted (maybe more like skinned) fascist regime hell bent on silencing my detractors and oppressing the weak. This misconception was born out of the fallacy of my previous e-mail forwarding provider Netforward. Their ineptitude and disregard for customer service has caused me all sorts of ill. I'm missing at least a weeks worth of e-mail (though arguably it's just spam). But it's also the source of me being the new Internet Mustachioed (sorta) Totalitarian Dictator. Apparently none of my blog comment moderations ever got to me. So I've since fixed the problem, and I can now believe that people actually read this, instead of me typing to myself in a narcissistic weekly basis. Comments are now a free for all, and I shall take the burden of comment spam removal upon my shoulders. Thanks for stopping by!

Meowr?

Meet Emory. He's a cat. An 'onry cat at that. He's named after the University he was found at. Enough with the unintentional rhyming.

This picture was taken months ago, but I just decided it needed some cleaning up. A little contrast and fill light, and then some sharpening.

Sorry for the relatively short comment. Working from the Picasa Blogger interface is kinda strange. So I post, then come back to it from the main site.

This little guy is my friend Heather's pet kitty. She wanted me to take some portraits of Emory while he was still young, and cute, before she kills him because he's so frisky. From what I recall (i'm sure I can check the exif data, but i'm lazy) this is with the 85mm f1.8 lens.

Pet pictures are just like people pictures. Focus on the eyes, fill if there's backlighting, and do everything you can to get their attention, including treats. Scooby-snack anyone?

Cookies. Damnit. (now with actual content!)

Well damn. I had a nice long post that was informative and all, but I lost it because it took so damn long to type. I'll recall the info and post it later tonight. For now, have some cookies.

updated!
d (^.^) b <--little face with thumbsup There's just something about the sight and smell of a homemade chocolate chip cookies that both warms you up and starts up your appetite. Makes you wish for a glass of milk eh? I took the above picture using the same portrait setup as the wedding shots posted a month ago( Canon 20d, 24-70mm f2.8 L lens, 420EX flash bounced off a Demb Big FlipIt! ). These cookies were a donation to a bakesale that I helped organize as part of a peer staff council at work. We were pretty successful in our initial endevour, as we raised about $450 for 2 cyclists that were participating in an AIDS benefit race. We had lots of donations, everything from poundcake, carrotcake, chess-pie (?), chocolate dipped pretzels, and of course chocolate chip cookies. We sweetened the pie (so to speak) by actually making it a sort of contest, Iron Baking as it were. For the curious: The photo was shot in horrendously unfriendly flourescent light, filled by my bounced flash (diffused fill, bounce off the ceiling). This results in a fairly "cold" picture, but the light's more uniform, while highlighting the details in the sugar. A bit of adjustment on the color (warmth!) and saturation and some sharpening and voila' food for the eyes. For my friends who are trying to take their photography more seriously (the rest of you can stop reading now, cuz this is pure camera junkie crap): Get an external flash. Even if you don't think you need the flash, you can't go wrong by having it attached and ready. Think about it, all the major components of a camera are meant to either record, focus, or record light. Without enough light in the entire picture you end up with a murky darkness. You'll never hear "there's too much light in here!" from most photographers. Unless you're carrying a tripod and do available light shots, a flash is a must have for on the go photogs. Don't even think you can get by with the flash that's built in on most modern SLRs and consumer D-SLRs. The standard model flashes used by both canon and nikon (the 430ex and SB-600 respectively) have a flash power rating, called the Guide number that's 10 times more powerful than the pea-shooter built in to their any of their SLRs and D-SLRs. What's this allow? Well say you want to compete with the brightest source of light we can think of, the Sun. You've got your subject a good distance in front of you, but behind them is the sun. Since they're backlit, if you had no fill flash, you'd just see an artsy silhouette of them. With your built in flash you'd get a few details like possibly a nose or the hair. Since they're not right up in front of you, the light from your flash has to travel further, losing potency at an increasing rate over distance. So a flash that's 10x more powerful is a necessity in a brightly lit scene! Now, the oppossite, a dimly lit bar, a few friends across the way. No flash, and you have a blurry mess. With the built in flash, you'll get your friends faces, but since you only have a single directional light source, you'll get a very dark background. If you're all in a drunken stupor how are any of you going to remember where you were? ;-) Here an external bounced flash does wonders. You not only see your friends, but you see what's around and behind them. For those of you that like taking photos of people, there are two added benefits to an external flash. The first being a pretty "catchlight" in your subjects eyes, and a huge reduction in "red-eye". Red pupils are a reflection of light off of the blood vessels and retina. Seeing the demon-eye is a function of how close the flash is to the horizontal axis of the lens on your camera. Don't believe in red-eye reduction pre-flashes, not only does it reduce your battery time immensley, but it is more likely to cause a bad photo as your subjects are blinking like crazy. What's that you say? It's expensive? Yeah, but it's WORTH IT. Don't even think of going with a cheap 3rd party flash. These guys have to try to reverse engineer the communications between a camera and the 1st party made flashes. Stick with the manufacturer of your camera, and you'll never go wrong. Canon users this means the 430ex at $230 or so, and Nikon-ers it's the SB-600 at $190-200. (okay I'll bite, the canon is more expensive because it's newer and is optimized for use with the smaller sensors on most consumer digitals, while still performing as before on full frame film and digitals).

For my friends with other digital cameras or smaller point and shoots, you could benefit from an additional flash too! Some of the bigger point and shoot (film and digi) have 1st party flash shoes just like their SLR and DSLR big brothers. Canon cats, you can probably get by with a 220ex. I don't know what the Nikon equivalent is. For those of you who only have the little onboard red-eye enhancer flash on your cameras, you can use something like this little honey from Metz.

Yeah, food bloggers, this applies to you too. You'd LOVE it.

-k

Impromptu Reviews: Wicked & RENT

Make no mistake about it folks, I like musicals AND I like girls. A cosmic conundrum I'm sure, that makes me some sort of Heterosexual Heathen in some circles. I won't defend it other than say I appreciate music to the extent I appreciate vocalists and count them as much as an instrument as they are a person. Even technically "bad" singers can offer something fascinating like warble of Connor Oberst (Bright Eyes), or the calming monotone of Mason Jennings. But it's always a joy to hear somebody who has pipes that can knock back a nuclear blast. Both touring casts of Wicked and RENT had a few such artists.

Wicked the Musical, an adaptation of an interpretation of the back story to the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. Maguire's twist on L.Frank Baum's original Wizard of Oz was an involving dual character study in novel form with dark and sexual overtones. The musical keeps the sexual side of things, but tones it down for a PG-13 show. Musically, Wicked comes on strong, and has humor and bounce. It gets a bit synthy for some, but it's terribly good fun in all regards. It's like your favorite ice cream, you know you shouldn't have a second helping, but you just can't stop. The story in Wicked veers off in a lot of ways, because frankly, the book isn't very kid safe. What's a morbid horror in the book turns into a mild inconvenience in the musical. Our particular performance had one problem. The lead male was atrocious, granted he was the understudy... but the complete opposite was true of the lead female, Elphaba, who was also played by an understudy. Our consensus was that if the understudy was that amazing, how much more amazing could the principle be? Verdict: 8.5 out of 10. Easily could have been a 9, if it weren't for the 1 actor/singer.

RENT, sometimes credited as the first Broadway musical to openly address the following: Transvestites, Homo- and Bi- sexuality, AIDS, and heroin usage. Seems like a totally jam packed humdinger story, which it is, but not to the extent where your distanced from the characters by the hugeness of the situation. Most of the characters are fairly well fleshed out on stage and in song, so you eagerly want to know how each one handles their predicament. Musically it's ... not your mother's musical. There's an onstage band led by the pianist-cum-synth-rocker, and at times they can very nearly overpower the cast, but for the most part it's well balanced. The ballad themes are infectious, and the sadder pieces will leave you near to tears. Given the characters stories, RENT is a righteous celebration of life and the time that people have; either forgiving the past, forsaking the fears of eminent future, or just living in the now. The touring production we saw was incredibly cast with not a single weak performance. My favorite was the gorgeous actress/singer who played Mimi. Either as a drugged up purring seductress or a wailing lover, she moved mountains with her talent. Runner up was the tenor in the character Tom Collins. His fantastic performance on the piece "I'll Cover You"(reprise) will coerce water to well in any human eye. Save the few technical difficulties in the opening act, I give it a 9 out of 10.