Torremolinos 73

Thanks to Kgani for recommending Torremolinos 73 (US link - US/Eu link), which is a quirky and unusual Spanish/Danish comedy. It's very funny at times (and sometimes unexpectedly sexy), if you don't mind quaint movies. It also has a good role for Danish star Mads Mikkelsen.

Ambigram

This is an ambigram, it reads the same and looks the same upside-down. It's a very clever thing to do.

Although, just like drawing and solving Rubiks' Cube, I'm sure there are mechanical skills to it which can be taught.

Young C. Park, model maker

[Thanks to Uncle Ron]

Young C. Park, model maker.
Hand-build aluminium aircraft. Impressive. The detail is ridic. (I wish the photos on the page were larger.)
They say all the controls work as designed, by cables, chains, linkages and levers.




Well, he's not afraid of work!
I've noticed, though, that most of the time when you see really good models, it's war planes, war ships, war vehicles...

The Internet Craftsmanship Museum. Kewl.

Les Mondes Engloutis

New free song by Ugress, Les Mondes Engloutis. I like it on first listen.
(The page does not make it clear how to download it, but the text saying "Trouble downloading with Soundcloud? Here's a direct link" has a normal download link.)

Teachers caught nekkid

[Thanks to Joe]

Two female teachers caught naked together in empty classroom. Article.

They say investigation is pending and nothing has been decided, but you will notice that people are already talking about the two popular teachers in the past tense. They know they will never see them again.

Again this intense fear of anything sexual. They weren't hurting anybody. Instead of ruining their careers, the janitor should just have leaned against the wall for a leisurely look (very pretty women both), and then said: "Come on, that's stupid, you're in public, some people might get upset. Go home or to a motel. Wait, will you pose for an iPhone photo?"

A xmas song

I hear the singer is considered attractive...

OK, I can see it. But what's up with that scene lighting? There's only light on her face, her body (and those of the pretty backup singers) is hidding in black-on-black. Stupid.




Update:TC[Girl] points to this video of theirs, which shows they are more than just a pretty singer (although this vid does have a little kitty).

Still queasy after all these years

It seems that having just entered middle age, part of my position is to think up sayings which involve aging. Well, at least it so happened that two occurred to me today:

Still queasy after all these years.

And:

Youth is wasted on the wasted young.

The Dying Swan 1917

[Thanks to Jim]

Combining exposures

With one of the Evening Light photos (red house with bars for the windows) I tried to combine two exposures, to get more of the blue sky. But I found it tricky, because the camera had moved slightly between exposures, so I could not get the two pictures to fit exactly over each other in layers in Photoshop, making masking difficult. Does anybody know helpful tips on this?

Update: Paul B mentioned the "Merge to HDR" in Photoshop. For some odd reason, I'd forgotten about that capability. Maybe because I did not think it would work with hand-held images (Helicon for depth-of-field can't handle them). It was not a very intuitive function, but after reading MR's introduction, I managed a first result (see below) which is good, in fact much faster and better than what I had done by hand. This is with the "equalize histogram" setting. Oddly, both this option and the otherwise promising "local adaption" option gives me much paler images than what the preview shows while adjusting the filter, rather impractical.

Also mentioned is Photomatix Pro, specialized software for this purpose, I am trying it. It seems though, like Gary hinted, that this software is not very good at combining hand-held images, which makes it at bit pricey at $99, when Photoshop can do a pretty good job alone at HDR, and better at merging (so you don't have ghost details).

The underexposed in the bracketing set:

The overexposed:


And the Photoshop-combined picture:

The Panasonic G1 (and GF1) has 2/3 stop as the maximum difference in exposure between bracketed shots, which I think is too little.

-------------------------

The BW Portrait contest is still open. If you don't have a handy model, use yourself, a few entrants have already done so with good results.

PhotoCard

PhotoCard is an iPhone app. Sounds kool. It's made by Bill Atkinson, of both photographic and computer fame.
"PhotoCard is a program that allows you to create both electronic (email) as well as real physical post cards, using your own photographs as well as those provided by Bill and other talented photographers.
The program cost $4.99. You can send an unlimited number of electronic postcards to any email address without cost. Above is an example. If you wish to send real physical post cards via the postal service you can purchase postage credits from within the program via PayPal, and then send postcards from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world.
[...]
The real magic in PhotoCard, beyond the email cards (which are pretty cool), is that Bill has set up a system whereby you can choose to send a real physical post card of your chosen picture and text. When you purchase Photocard credits via PayPal you can send postcards that are printed by a very high quality printing firm in the San Francisco Bay Area. I've seen the printed card quality and it is exceptional. Better than just about any commercial postcards that I've ever seen."
-

It's $2 inside the states and $3 worldwide. That's dirt cheap for such a cool service.



Bill's own page about it is here.

I don't have an iPhone, I want this app for my Mac.

Evening Light

Evening Light (wide views), set from today. A couple of my faves below, and a full gallery here.

The top one is an example of why I think I'll use bracketing more often. This one was the minus-2/3 exposure, and it dramatizes the picture and really pulls out that beautiful sky. (And it's noticable how a bit of underexposure really deepens colors.)

(All are from Panasonic G1 with 7-14mm zoom lens. Mild photoshopping.)

Funny enough several of them were taken after I'd decided to stop being creative and just go home. I've no control over it. :-)

Update: I've printed the pillar picture (top) on A3 (12x16 inches) on Hahnemühle paper, and it looks great.
I'm learning some things:

1. With modern cameras, pictures usually look good right out of the camera. But many pictures you can rise up with only little work. The pillar picture for example needed over 20% of plus-saturation, but when it got that, it really popped.
2. To really fine-tune a photo is a lot more work, especially for print, especially wall prints. There are so many ways a photo can be adjusted and fine-tuned.
   
3. Small changes look like more on the screen than in the print.
4. Just like with paintings, one compromises between clear color and lightness. Clear, deep colors are quite dark. Unless you are doing stained glass, the only way to make a color/area lighter is to put more white in or behind it, which tends to water it out.
   

Full gallery here.

The Hartblei Cam

The Hartblei Cam, new outré European large camera development. Claims some pretty amazing capabilities. LL article.

For example it allows of Canon's 17mm tilt/shift lens on a medium format back, giving it the widest straight-angle viewpoint I have ever heard of: the 35mm equivalent of an 11mm lens! In super quality.
It's very remarkable that both Canon's new tilt/shift lenses actually cover this format. I wonder why.