Who needs a movie mode anyway....

If you haven't seen it yet Nikon has released the Nikon D90 replacing the D80.
Quite a few changes and I am sure some of them inspired by the D300, D700 and D3 meaning you get quite a bit for the $$

One thing (being used to handling a SLR) I had been wondering about is the live view... Who would use that anyway??? being a lcd screen and giving a posture for holding the camera that doesn't really support it too good it's kind of well something to have to compete with the point and click ahh well Guess it can be good at times ;-)

But one thing that I thought was completely (hmm how do I put this right)... well let's say a feature that I figured would be useless at best and only add to the cost of the camera...

HD movie mode

Granted it's nice to have all in one... But have you printed a hi-res photo on one of those all-in-one (printer, scanner, fax) printers lately? yeah....

So I was thinking. Take a $995 camera and just make it do everything (except making coffee... still waiting on that one) and yeah it will only add to the cost and be a feature you will never use.

Today however I saw a post from a newspaper photographer recording HD video while being in the field (for good reference the paper is the British Guardian).

Check out this one:


Nikon D90 in Tibet from Dan Chung on Vimeo.


and a few links here for the full HD experience:
http://vimeo.com/1810729
http://vimeo.com/1728575
http://vimeo.com/1721300

However pessimistic I was about it... WOW

The cool feature is of course that you can use all the lenses you already have which means well that's cool :-)

oh btw. For Canon check out this one: One Night in Beijing

Driving to school

Having a long commute can sometimes bring up a few fun comments on the way.
As you may have noticed on Jacki's blog we have been out looking at houses and Emma has been with us.

So driving to school this morning we are at a red light and well being slightly late guess what I am thinking about traffic and all that....
Not Emma...
Emma: (seeing a nice little bright blue house) Dad, can we buy that house?
Me: naaa I don't think so Emma it's not for sale.
Emma: But dad I want to buy that house.
Me: Well I guess the people like living there and don't want to sell it.
Emma: We can just call Gloria (our Realtor) and she will take us in there and show it to us.
Me: Well if it's not for sale we can't buy it and I think we should look somewhere else (thinking it's right next to the road and all that).
Emma: I can just play outside in the back so I don't get on the road.
Me: Now that sounds like a good idea. We don't play on the road.
Emma: No and if I have to pee I can just turn around and walk on the porch around the house and go inside to pee.
Me: ...
Emma: Dad look at that plane taking off...

ohh yeah she does talk a lot and notice just about anything...

Dark field photo

I started reading a new book on photography and lighting in particular.

It's the book Light science and magic. This is a very good aid in learning about light and why light acts the way it does.

So it goes into angles, light types and reflections.

Reading the book you will want to try out some of the things described. And one thing that I just tried out is photographing glass ware. First try is with the dark field where the background is black and the edges of glassware is standing out.

It's a first shot at it. But given I haven't tried before I don't think it's tooo bad ;-) But hey judge for yourself :-)



ps. If you haven't looked at my new website lately go ahead and check it out here: http://udsigt.webhop.net

Calorie calculations

Now that Thanksgiving is coming up and Christmas is right around the corner it seems like we need a little adjustment to ensure that everyone knows the rules for calculating the calorie intake.

1. If you are eating something and nobody sees it. It does NOT contain calories.

2. If your drink is a diet it will break down any calories that may be eaten with the drink. (e.g. a bowl of ice cream + diet coke = 0 calories).

3. If and when you are eating in the presence of others. The only calories that counts are for the amount you eat more than anyone else.

4. Food items consumed for medical purpose such as hot chocolate and red wine never counts.

5. The more you surround yourself with people curvier than yourself the slimmer you appear.

6. Food items consumed during entertainment (popcorn, chips, chocolate etc.) does NOT contain any calories as they are not food items but part of the entertainment.

7. Bakery items does not contain calories if eaten by breaking small pieces of a larger piece as calories evaporates in the process of breaking a piece off.

8. Anything licked of cookware during cooking/baking does NOT contain calories as it is part of the cooking process.

9. Food items with the same color contain the same amount of calories (e.g. strawberries and strawberry swirl ice cream).

10. Any food item that has been frozen does not contain calories as calories is a heat unit.

That's it :-)

ps. Calories are tiny animals that live in your closet shrinking your clothes every night.

Who is you worst critic?

Who is your worst critic?

I know for me it's very easy. It would be myself (sounds like the new TV show my own worst enemy)... But it's true...

When I create something I always have to have it come out the best way possible and it often can't be good enough.

Anyway... I have been working on creating a web site and as easy as it sounds it takes a bit more when trying to get a "simple" layout that is easy to navigate while still providing the information and show casing photos.
Then of course there is the entire thing about selecting material... but that's an entirely different matter.

But if you would head on over here: http://udsigt.webhop.net and check out my attempt at a decent web site.

What do you think?

It's all about natural beauty

Yeah I know... It's not exactly a new one.

But just saw it again and well... it's all about natural beauty right?
Campaign for real beauty

Fall and butterflies

As you probably already read on Jack's blog we went on a trip to D.C. to the museums and most importantly to see the butterflies at the live butterfly habitat at the National History museum.

Sitting on the steps outside the museum I caught a view that was pretty cool. It was getting to be afternoon and the sun gave everything a warm glow. So here is your fall in the city



After getting in to see the butterflies I kept thinking about how much I could have used a medium/long macro lens to catch the details. But since I didn't have that around I grabbed my 70-300mm and held a close focus glass up in front of it. Kind of a hassle trying to get focus and being able to focus close enough but I guess it's kind of a trade off getting the zoom did help getting closer ;-)

Anyway. Here is a couple of butterflies from the exhibit.

Photos from October

wow... Finally got around to uploading the photos from October. Including the halloween photos :-)

You can find the little player on the right hand side or use the links to go and check out the album.

Speaking of which. Are you uploading photos to an online location for sharing with family and friends?
Do you or would you pay for a service like that?
Some are offering the convenience of being able to print from the galleries. Is that something you would do?

I am using photoshop express from Adobe.
I have to admit that my primary reason... yeah... It's Free...
But I also (in the same breath) have to admit that some of the new photo editing options they have made available are pretty good and will cover 80-90% of what you will need. And yeah it's Free.
Also on this one you can connect it with other online photo storage accounts and do prints and all that stuff... but I haven't really tried that just yet ;-)

Soo go ahead give it a try. I think you might just end up liking it. and well not to forget.... It's Free...

Check out our main account with albums on photoshop here

Busy weekend but time for a few photos

Sunday really should be a day of rest... But I'm telling you it's pretty hard work getting things done.

First I had to supervised the truck being cleaned. It's not really easy finding good hard workers these days but every now and then you can get lucky. Like this one:



Of course it doesn't come cheap...
After working hard we had to go out and do some environment research to ensure fall is progressing according to plan and inspect the local play ground. Here is one of the testers hard at work



Moving on to check Rady Park where fall has moved in. There is a little water in the creek so just to ensure the bridge is fully functional the reliable testers walked the bridge a 20+ times.



The trees are showing off some brilliant colors as the season dictates and while we are at it you can see that our hard working team is sprouting with colors as well...



At closer inspection it turns out that even the smaller of the inhabitants of the park is sporting some nice colors. Here we have the always fashionable black and orange.



This wrapped up a hard days work. It's a tough job to get through but as you know...
someone has to do it ;-)

Hope you all had a great weekend.

a little time in the studio

Check out this family studio shoot. Just about 10 min of photo time....
5 min studio shoot