SNAP of the Symmetries

Life isn't perfect, so I love to find some perfection with photography. While it may be difficult to get other aspects in perfection, perfect symmetry is easy to achieve, especially with the easy cropping of digital photos.

This one is totally unaltered, not even cropping.

scaffolding and blue sky

With a very cheap digital camera, the image quality is rather low... if you judge from a pure photography point-of-view. However, for screen view, it may have some special mood.

Just tuned a bit of the curve, and add polarization for added surrealism.

Immortality inside the showcase

The intriguing contrast between the immortality inside the showcase; and the man in the reflection who have to suffer the aging as time passes by. Which one you really prefer to be?

Thanks to the convenient curve function in Aperture, I can life-up the shadow conveniently without going to PS.

Pentax launched the new medium format DSLR!!

A good news for Pentaxian!

The spec is not bad, but very pricy!! Luckily I don't use Pentax in the medium format, so no temptation for me to 'upgrade'.

reflection of a closed gate

Another old snap shot with Olympus 4040. The highest sensitivity is only ISO 400, so shooting at such condition is a real challenge. The technicals of this pic is bad: grainy and shake. But I like the mood.

Changed to b/w in Aperture.

Image organization in Aperture

When I was using Aperture 2, I build a 'Project' for each year, and import the folders on HDD into as 'Album' under the 'Project'. However, Aperture 3 doesn't have the option to import folders as "Album' under the 'Project'... it can only import each folder as a separate 'Project', or select images to import into the 'Project' directly.

I feel a need to really understand the concept of image organization of Aperture. And I find this webpage. Great! Since I am old enough to manage slide when I start photography, now I totally understand it.

I decided to:
1) Build a "Folder" under the root for each year
2) When I import images, each folder of the same date (that's how K20D store the files in the first place) will be an individual "Project", under the year folder.
3) I will rename the "Project" if it is of some special occasion, function or job.

Subdued human, majestic mascot

Mascot in showcase looks majestic; while real human humble and subdued before the temple.... how ironic!!

Angel's wings?

Interesting light and reflections are everywhere in the cities. We just have to pay attentions to find it out.

This is an old snap with Olympus C4040, a 4MP ISO 400 DC. The pic is noisy; the cam focus slowly, but I have been snapping around with it for almost 4 years. In snap shots, camera is really not that important. The only thing matter is: you just need to shot more.

"X" / On Zone Focusing

Another non-finder snap by P&S DC. Since I am doing a lot of non-finder street quick snap, the focusing speed of the DC is very important. I was and still using the Fujifilm F10, and the response time is quite good.

For non finder snaps, the old masters will use zone focusing (or pre-focusing), ie. use relative small aperture eg. f/8, and pre-focus the lens to something like 3 or 4 meters, and most common subject will fall into the depth-of-field...... It sounds complicated, but it's actually very simple and basic photographic skill. This technique is getting lesser attentions, and I guess there are a few reasons behinds:
- Modern cameras have very fast and reliable AF system, so there is no need for zone-focusing (sorry for Pentax, the K20D + DA21 combo sometimes let me down in non-finder shots).
- The depth-of-field idea is actually an approximation: ie. the photo will 'looks' sharp for 'reasonable' viewing distance. Reasonable means you are looking at a 4R photo at around 25cm distance. So if you scale-up your photo 100% on screen, it's not sharp at all. Too bad most people do zoom-up on in computer to closely look at the photos, and zone focusing just don't work for this kind of critical scrutinization.
- MOST IMPORTANT REASON: most modern lenses do not have a depth-of-field scale... so there is no way to use the lenses for zone-focusing.

Lovers in a mall

A non-finder street snap with small P&S camera.

B/W in post-processing.

A new camera 'system' design from Ricoh: smart or dumb?

Ricoh announced the new GXR camera 'system', with a whole new concept of interchangable lens... the camera is actually a I/O interface, and the 'lens module' actually includes lens, focusing mechanics, and image sensor.

IMHO, this is a dumb design and this system is doomed. Immediately after I read the news, I came-up with a lot of problems for this idea:
- Cost: every lens module is another digital camera without the I/O. Don't think that will come cheap
- Choices of lens: Only Ricoh is making the lens module. How many choices do you think Ricoh will offer you?
- Reliability of the mount: The mount is slide-in type, with a lot of electronic connections for the LCD viewfinder, memory cards... etc. When dirt gets into the lens mount of a traditional DSLR, you may get a dust mark in your photos. But if dirt gets in the GXR module mount, you may get a card writing error.

Honestly, I can't see any point with this product. I am very happy with my Pentax and DA Limited lenses.

New Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.1

Released by Apple last week, support for K7 is included. Recommended for Mac x Pentax users.

Silhouette of dead tree

Another tree branches photo against blue sky. With the direct midday sun as the background, I need to carefully avoid flares even with the legendary Pentax SMC, well, that may be impossible with N or C lenses. Of course, you have to remove any filter in-front of your lens.

Strong vignetting is added in post-processing.