Dynamic range

It's amazing how you can continue to learn. I've been reading about digital cameras for nigh a decade now, and I've been saying that higher dynamic range (the camera's capability for handling high contrast) is near the top of my wish list for the future.

But I had no idea that ISO setting has a significant influence on dynamic range. See the graph below from DxOmark. It shows that the Nikon D90 (which has excellent DR, by the way) has at 1.5 stops difference in DR between ISO 800 and ISO 200! That could be very important with high-contrast subjects (so you don't lose detail in shadows or highlights).

I've been thinking that since the newest "Canikon" models like the D90 hardly have any noise at ISO 800, there'd be no reason to ever set it lower (unless you need wide aperture or slow shutter speed). But in good light and contrasty subjects there will be.

Reichman

I like this photo by Michael Reichman. It was taken with the small system camera Panasonic G1*.


This week Mike has several interesting articles on Lum-Land. For example reviews of the high-end camera Sony A900, which has about the highest image quality one can get from a DSLR, but at lower price and weight than many competing cameras.

*This is the G1 with an adapter for Leica (or Voigtlander) lenses. Isn't that pretty.

Children on drugs

This is a trailer from a film about the growing problem about the wholesale drugging of children.
Where is the "think of the children" brigade when it's actually needed?

Xmas conflict?

Greg quotes:
“Christmas is not my holiday. For a practicing Jew, the twenty- fifth of December is no more significant than the twenty-fifth of any other month. But I enjoy the Christmas season a great deal. I appreciate the spirit of generosity and the reflection on reli- gious themes that the holiday engenders, and I love the mood, the music, and even the decorations. Many Jews and other non- Christians may feel a bit “out of it” during the Christmas season, but I have absolutely no problem with such a feeling… Moreover, I enjoy observing Christians celebrate their Christianity. For a Jew rooted in Judaism, Christians rooted in their identity are a bless-ing, not a problem… What this Jew does dread is an America that ceases to celebrate Christmas.” - Dennis Prager

Quite so. Is this supposed conflict even real? If somebody of a different faith than me celebrates a happy, giving holiday, and smiling wishes me a happy (insert holiday), then I find that pleasing. I find it hard to imagine a mind-set which would find it offensive. If anybody finds mentions of Christmas offensive, it must be a very tiny minority, and it's an artificial conflict.

Canon 5DII review

Video review of Canon 5DII at Cameralabs.

Conflict resolution

The whole world is waking up to non-hostility...

Oneness and art

I had a breakthrough yesterday regarding the connection between Oneness and art. I posted it on my art philosophy site, here.

Free e-books

[Thanks to TC.] Free ebooks (classics, out of copyright), nicely formatted, at Planet Ebook. There doesn't seem to be a catch, must be an enthusiast site.

Imaging-Resource ten years ago

I didn't know Imaging-Resource was over ten years old!
It's impressive that they have kept their old articles through what must be several redesigns since then. Check out this page, mentioning an upcoming Minolta camera, $6000 for 2.7 megapixels... (And if it was like all other cameras of those days, crappy megapixels too.)
Nowadays if you can find a 3-megapixel camera, it'll be one the dealer throws at you as you leave the store because you just came in to complain that your new $200 camera "only" had ten megapixels.

... I also didn't know they have a tutorials section. (IR: you should promote new pages in sections like this in the News pages, so people hear about them.)

Christmas message

I grew up in Denmark, which has protestant Christianity as a state religion. In the US it's a big deal to talk for or against the separation of State and Church, and I do think separation is good idea, but Denmark is an illustration that the mentality of the population is much more important than any laws you create, because Danes are very, very laid-back about religion, as they are about most things. You never find anybody in Denmark becoming violent against others because of difference of religion and such.

This laid-back-ness means that there was never any serious push by anybody for me to become a Christian or for that matter not to become one. My family wasn't. So I didn't. So I tend to regard Christmas as a new years celebration. Solstice. Or "jul" in Scandinavian. "Yule" in English. "Yule or Yule-tide is a winter festival that was initially celebrated by the historical Germanic peoples as a pagan religious festival, though it was later absorbed into, and equated with, the Christian festival of Christmas. The festival was originally celebrated from late December to early January on a date determined by the lunar Germanic calendar."

I marvel at the human capacity of mixing up traditions and using them together without any cognitive disconnect. Nobody seems to have any problem "celebrating the birth of Christ" by dressing up a fat man in a red suit and saying he arrived by flying reindeer.

But it's just silly to argue about beliefs. If somebody wants to believe we are all lice in the hair of god, I say more power to them.

Solstice is simply an obvious point to celebrate. For months, the days have been becoming shorter and shorter, and food has become more and more scarce. And now, it's turning. From now days are becoming longer, the light will return, and in a few months we can grow food again. It's a natural point to divide between years. And of course it gives us a pleasant holiday to look forward to at the darkest time of the year, when we need it the most.

I'm told that Time does not exist, and if it does, it's holographic, not linear. I would like that to become clearer to me, but at least if we see time as linear, then I say the future must be more important than the past, like the living are more important than the dead. We should put our attention where it does the most good.

I really appreciate having you all around, and I appreciate your comments of all kinds. And I wish you a lovely holiday time and a wonderful new year.

Letterpress poster

I've tended to do quick, simple art, and I do like that as an audience too. But I also have an affinity for painstaking art, and I hope to gain the patience one day to do some myself.

And interesting example is this typographic poster.
(Typically and sadly he does not put up a full picture of the poster in a reasonable size. Probably afraid of hurting his sales. I don't think he should be. I think it would help.)

The "Dangerous Pictures Law"

Despite protests from right groups and Amnesty International, a law will be activated on January 26 in the UK, outlawing "extreme pornography". Article.
"Lord Hunt of Kings Heath said: 'We are targeting this material not on account of offences which may or may not have been committed in the production of the material, but because the material itself, which depicts extreme violence and often appears to be non-consensual, is to be deplored'."

In other words, it's illegal because it's offensive.

Details are here.
How about this: it's illegal to have pictures of necrophilia because... get this: because a corpse can't give consent! How about a carrot? It can't either.