Great to Be a Baby

Great quote from this episode ("Agent Doof"): Candace, age 16: "Now we need one of those old things... like a web page printed on paper... a newspaper!"

Olson sculptures

Olson sculptures, very nice stuff.

Bury your iPhone

Here's a weird thing. Apparently this apparatus takes your iPhone inside it, but then replaces the iPhone's camera with its own lenses and sensor.

So I guess it's aimed at photographers for whom 8 megapixels are not enough. But what serious photographer uses a white-and-gold camera?

I guess an entrepreneur who is also a singer and names himself "will.I.am" should signal that you'll get something which is more sizzle than steak.

... Oh! It also has a slide-out keyboard!

Sharp pictures

Ctein has a new article out about how to make sharp photos. I have not read it yet, but I'd just butt in prematurely with something I've thought about before:

Sharp pictures, pretty simple:

1. Get a quality camera. They pretty much all are, now. 
2. With a good lens. This is more tricky. How good you need depends on the use. For web images almost anything will do. For 3-foot prints you need a really good one. 
3. Focus correctly. This is not hard, you just need to pay attention to where the camera has focused (if you have an autofocus camera, almost all modern cameras are). Most cameras will hold the focus if you press the shutter down half-way and re-compose (if the main subject is not in the middle of the frame).
4. Hold the camera still. This takes a moment of concentration which many people forget, sometimes even experienced photographers. (I hold my breath too, though I'm not totally sure it helps.) You need a tripod or a shutter speed fast enough for hand-holding. The longer the lens (focal length), the faster the shutter speed you need. If the camera has stabilization, you may get away with 2-3 stops slower shutter speeds. 

That all said, many famous photographs are not at all sharp. Even the world famous moon rise photo by Ansel Adams is not very sharp, and yet has brought in probably millions to the photographer ('s estate). (Well, "not very sharp" compared to what his fine equipment could do. They say it's because his tripod was on top of his car and not on hard ground.)

It is easy to get into an addiction to quality, like sharpness. Lord knows I've been there, and I'm not even safely out yet, despite having learned this many times.
Well, the craftsman loves good gear, and quality. But to almost all the public, it doesn't matter one bit, they don't even notice unless it gets exceptionally gross.


Update:
Russ:

I think sharpness is more a preoccupation of gear-head photographers rather than appreciators of photography.

There is a lot of truth to this, though my short article here was on another level, trying to help less experienced photographers get better results. I edited some photos for a friend a while ago, and at least a third were just unusable because of drastic unsharpness. With a little education that's not necessary at all.

Key & Peele: Substitute Teacher

The 12M "best ones"

Area Woman Finally Uploads All 12 Million Pictures Of Her Vacation To Europe On Facebook, Onion article.
The online album, entitled “Eurotrip 2012!!!” was reportedly assembled from more than 15 terabytes of data spanning 960 16-gigabyte memory cards, each thoroughly documenting the landmarks, food, drinks, streets, buildings, plants, animals, people, signage, hotels, museums, sports, modes of transport, weather, and “miscellaneous fun” that Stevens and close friend Danielle Lu encountered along the way.

I think the article is gently poking fun at the phenomenon of lax editing of many online photo collections.

All prizes are dangerous

In 1926, on discovering that his novel, "Arrowsmith," had been awarded what was then called the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, author Sinclair Lewis wrote the following letter to the Pulitzer Prize Committee and declined the honour. He remains the only person to have done so.

The letter. 

And the Pulitzer Prize for novels is peculiarly objectionable because the terms of it have been constantly and grievously misrepresented.

Those terms are that the prize shall be given "for the American novel published during the year which shall best present the wholesome atmosphere of American life, and the highest standard of American manners and manhood." [...]

I invite other writers to consider the fact that by accepting the prizes and approval of these vague institutions we are admitting their authority, publicly confirming them as the final judges of literary excellence, and I inquire whether any prize is worth that subservience.

Great observations. Just look at Hollywood. Even the most serious actors and creators are looking at getting an Oscar as the highest achievement they could dream of, despite the media- and commercial circus this award is. And even if it wasn't, it's just an award. Surely one doesn't make art for the awards, but for the art and for what it can do?

And surely subservience, other than that limited by time and mutual agreements, is anathema to all men, not the least artists? 

---

... "the highest standard of American manners and manhood." 

Oh no... Fine standards by themselves perhaps, in some circles, but to set them up as standards for literary value? Oh-em-gee. 

Run, Cheetah, run!

See a cheetah run (about 50-60 mph), captured at 1200 frames per second!

What an amazing beast.
I'm almost most impressed by the fact that its head is going virtually in straight line, you could almost balance a cup of coffee on its head while it runs full tilt! Dang, that's precision.
Don't miss the making-of video. They had to build a 400 feet dolley track, high-precision to avoid wobbles.


Cheetahs on the Edge from Gregory Wilson on Vimeo.

Making-of:

Understanding Depth of Field in Photography

Understanding Depth of Field in Photography, article.

It's just the rudiments, but it's illustrated and seems pretty clear.

Store mannequin with spy eyes

Store mannequins with spy eyes, article.

Who Made That Emoticon?

Who Made That Emoticon?, article.

You don't think about that somebody has invented something as omnipresent as that, it's like "who invented oxygen?". But Scott Fahlman did it, though he's also a researcher in AI.

By the way, not so long ago a friend misunderstood something I wrote because I used colon-bracket instead of colon-dash-bracket. She simply did not recognize that as a smiley face. And I think the full icon is slightly clumsy to type, what the shift key being used for the first and last character, but not the middle one. So now I have a macro which types a few spaces and then the full smiley face. So I just hit control-right-bracket:    :-)

When I first started on the Net, I was against them as many people are, they don't seem "literary" enough. But heck, most scribbles over the Net is *not* literature anyway, are they? They are more like conversation. And after somebody took a very risky joke literally back in 1997, I started using them.

If you think about it, it's just like conversation. If you are talking to a friend or two who you know well, you can make a tricky joke with a straight face. But if you're talking to a stranger, you aren't familiar with his sense of humor (or not), so you automatically smile when you do it, to show you're joking. The smiley face is exactly that, and it's a brilliant invention.

Camera deals.

[Thanks to tOP]

Excellent Black Friday deals:

Canon S100 at only $229! Wow, fantastic deal.

The best deals from B&H.
(A small sales commission goes to Mike from tOP, he richly deserves it.)
(And the S100 has my own affiliate link. I usually use those, if I remember. But I only ever write my honest opinion of any product anyway.)

In my opinion the only compact which beats the S100 is the Sony RX100, and that one is rather more expensive and slightly bigger.