Eric M.’s Blog

So Saturday night I was wide awake, and Sara was gone, so I decided to go bum around and take some pictures.

Of course we were having a ton of rain and it was completely overcast - but it had let up and was just sporadically sprinkling.

I stopped at the hospital near us because I saw the retaining ponds were flooding (click any image to see larger):

15s f/1.8 200ISO 50mm Map It

That's not supposed to be there

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On an island

I liked the starbursts on this image:

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Starbursts and a Flood

It was dark. Very Very Dark. It was so dark that I couldn’t even see (with my eye) that there was a dumpster there in this picture:

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A wet field

I personally love the look of night photography. To me, they always look like pictures of models, since the DOF is usually very shallow, and the colors are usually ‘off’.

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Some Trees

While I was out I also did a light trail or two:

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96

And experimented some with light graffiti:

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Hi - A little experiment

Full gallery below.

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I’ve been slacking, and have decided I need to start posting more pictures and photography related things. To that end I have added a few things into my WordPress setup (I had to hand code them…). I’ve added an option that allows me to show EXIF data at the bottom of pictures, and also will show a ‘Map It’ link if there is location data with the image. It will popup a new window showing that location in Google Maps.

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Howell Balloon Fest Kids

I take lots of pictures, and would love for those to contain position info (geotagging). I’ve wanted to do it for a long time, but never really looked into it, since buying a tagger for my cameras would be relatively expensive.

I found an application, Maperture, which allows me to add geotags in Aperture, using a Google Maps interface. It works pretty well, but it’s kinda slow and quirky to do to lots of pictures, and obviously requires me to know/remember where I was.

1/320s f/9 200ISO 24mm Map It

Up

There are a few options I have.

1. I can keep doing it with Maperture.
2. I can use a GPS data logger (or any GPS unit that can export GPX files) which can then be combined with the images based on time stamp in gpicsync.
3. I can use a GPS that inputs into my camera, which will code it at the time of capture strait into the image.

Number 2 can be done a number of ways. I even have a old hand held Garmin GPS that would work - but it’s really bulky. Something like this would work very well, and could just clip onto the camera strap, and would give me a full GPS track, showing where I went even if I didn’t take pictures. This option of course requires me to reconnect the location data to the images in the import work flow, and my camera clock better be accurate, or the sync won’t be right. Battery life might be a problem, not to mention the $100 I don’t have :).

Obviously #3 is the more strait forward in terms of work flow. But there are pretty few options. I can use just about any hand held GPS unit that does NEMA serial out, including the one I have, but I also need a relatively expensive cable, and that would be really cumbersome. Nikon, along with the D90, announced a new geotagging device, called the GP-1, that comes out in November (price TBA). That clips onto the hot shoe or camera strap, and has a short cable the runs to the camera.

GP-1 - Nikon Image

Unfortunately, nothing is really known about it, most importantly cost.

Because my camera can take standard NEMA serial in, I could actually make my own small unit, using things from SparkFun. It would be small, about the same size as the GP-1 or the data logger, and draw power from the camera, but I’m not sure if I could come in much below the $100 for the data logger (although I would guess I would come in quite a bit below the GP-1, but we’ll have to wait and see where they price that). But I would get the best of both worlds. I get a camera powered, can camera encoded GPS unit, and I would still be able to store and access the full GPS path if I wanted to (instead of just have the location of each pic). I’m such a nerd…

So for now I guess it’s Maperture. I’ll probably experiment with my GPS unit, and see how much of a pain it is to combine the GPS track with pictures in post.

So I’m sure everybody has of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), but I just came across this video. It’s a nice, easy to follow explanation of how it works. I love the bit about things getting more massive as they get closer to c - by the time they collide, the protons have 7,000 times more mass then when they are at rest. Also here is a link to a comic by a person who went on a tour of the facility (amusing comic normally, but this series is more informative)

Ok, just a few random items.

The launch of Atlantis has been pushed back to October 10th at the earliest due to delays from Hanna. Sara and I have LTT tickets to see the launch and we are working out if we are going, and if so, how we are getting down there.

Things have been hectic at work. The semester started on Tuesday, which is always the busiest time of year, and now the parking lots are always full. Suck.

Finally a wonderful clip from the Daily Show:

August 2008 weight chart

So this is my August weight trend. I guess Ill just have to deal with it being slower than previously, but at least I’m still moving consistantly down