No room at the inn

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I was uploading pictures to my iMac from my camera when I got a warning from Aperture that my computer was running out of space and that if I didn’t do something immediately to advert catastrophe, my library would be corrupted. Well, ok, the message wasn’t that dire, but I was still out of space.

I just don’t have the room on my iMac to hold all the data I want there. I was storing it there, then time machine was making a copy on it’s external drive, then I had two other external drives that I would sync with my pictures (not often enough) and finally I would send my pictures to the NAS so they would be available to anyone on the network. Well, this just isn’t working anymore, and frankly, creates too many copies of my images.

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Trying to learn photoshop

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I have been spending some time trying to learn photoshop. Some of my photos seem like they are pretty good, but just seem to be missing that little something. That is what I am trying to learn how to do. Also, I learned with the whole Gavin thing, that I am definitely in need of portrait retouching skills.

With that in mind, there have been a few things that I have been doing. I have been reading Scott Kelby’s Photoshop CS3 for Digital Photographers book. I skipped over much of the beginning on using Bridge and stuff, and went right for the good stuff. The back of the book has a whole section on portraits too. I have read a lot of good info, but have never sat down in front of the computer and tried anything. Now at least I have an idea what can be done. Next I need to find time to try some stuff.

I have also started working through another of Scott’s books, 7 Point System for Adobe Photoshop. This book, I am actually sitting in front of the computer and following through the chapters. That really is the only way you could get anything out of this book. I really like it, but I have a lot more chapters to get through still. I like how he takes you one image at a time through the system, over and over. I really need to be hit over the head sometimes before I learn/understand some of these retouching ideas. I was starting to “get it”, but the last time I picked up the book was a week and a half ago. I need to sit down with it again.

I also started to watch the pod cast at Photoshop User TV. I found that you can access the video’s a little easier though iTunes. Anyway, I tried to keep up with one of the tutorials that Cory Barker was doing (from episode 149), which was more of an effect than a photo retouch, and found out just how little I knew, and how fast they can move in those tutorials. I could use two monitors. I was also pressing that pause button every couple of seconds. Even following along I got stuck, but found the forums at Planet Photoshop, (Cory’s site) to be a lifesaver.

The more I get into photography, the more I realize just how much I need to learn.

T-Mobile selling the G1

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I saw my first add for T-Mobile’s G1 yesterday. The Google Android based phone has it’s own site now. On T-Mobile’s site you can currently buy one for $179 after a $200 rebate. (How do you give a rebate for your own hardware?) Last week Google officially liberated the source code. Here are some other pre release opinions. So now that it is live, how does it compare to the iPhone? Well, it sacrifices some size to a real keyboard that would be helpful to those that text a lot I am sure. Inclusion of a microSD is a great plus, but it appears to be limited to 8gig. The phone is still sim locked, and doesn’t appear to have a sync application. This is interesting. It is dependent on, and expects you to use Gmail and other Google apps. I am not sure I like this. I haven’t drunk the Google cool aid yet. I have a gmail account, but I still like desktop apps. If I could get my address book, calendar and mail to sync with Google’s offerings, then maybe it would work. Maybe I just need to give into the idea of cloud computing more. I think I will stand back and see how the next few months play out. The platform being more open than Apple’s should allow developers to create some interesting things. It will be worth watching.

Two deer on a map

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I have a picture of mine included in an online map/tourist guide to the twincities called schmap. I didn’t get anything for it, other than my picture on their site gets linked back to flickr. The site is free for people to use, so I figured I would. The picture is for Fort Snelling State Park. It is this picture of two deer.

Looking for food

Aperture Update

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Apple updated the software to 2.1.2 a couple of days ago. For just a moment I was quite excited. I thought that maybe Apple had updated Aperture to handle RAW files from a D90. Nope, Apple just says it updates book printing. Yippee. It was a little silly to dream of an Aperture update adding RAW D90 support. That will come as an OSX Core Image update, and then Aperture will be able to support it, just like the any other Mac application. What would have been a great update would have been the ability to do graduated ND filters in software like Lightroom now can. I guy can dream.

A trip to Ladakh and Kathmandu

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I didn’t get to go to Ladakh or Kathmandu, but if I had the money for a photography trip, this is the one I would go on. David took several people on this trip, and I have wanted to create an entry about it, and just never seemed to get around to it. The photographs that have come back from the trip are amazing, but the experiences of being there probably dwarf the images. Some of the picures I took way back when I went with Canada World Youth to Indonesia were pretty good (at least by memory), but it is the people and the experience of being there that you remember for ever. You can look back over the last couple of months on his blog for posts about great scenery, equipment, places, and the people he met, but this recent post finally pushed me to blog. In it he talks about kids that break stones for pennies a day, and other kids that carry piles of slate on their heads down the mountains in flip flops. In it he makes an appeal to think about them and others as we approach Christmas. As we save for gear and hope for camera related presents, it is good to have a reminder that most of the world is MUCH less fortunate than ourselves. This morning on NPR I also heard that food shelves are empty right at a time when more and more people need them. The less fortunate are not just in Kathmandu, but also around the corner. As we start to head into the Christmas season, lets remember to give a little of ourselves, our time, or our wallets this year.

Too skinny

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No, I am not talking about me post marathon. This blog theme is too skinny. I am getting tired of my pictures getting cut off on the right edge. I usually post the medium size from flickr, and it is just too big for the blog. I don’t really think the pictures are too big. I think I need to change the theme. To do that though, I need to also update the pictures that form the top banner of the site. They are all a fixed width, and will need to be updated. That will take more work than just pushing out the width of the main div.

Fall pictures

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These were taken before I went to Cleveland, but I didn’t get around to dealing with them until I was there and had some time. The first I took on the hood of my car, the second is from along the Mississippi river along Sheppard road that I took on my way home from work. The third is from a walk we took as a family. It was the walk where everything went wrong. The kids were screaming, and I lost Annie’s cell phone, but some of the pictures turned out.

Fire Leaves

Hwy 5 in Fall

Fall Walking

D90 Auto Focus Area Mode

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I was getting frustrated for a little while. I couldn’t figure out how to change the auto focus area mode. Every time I would go to take a picture, the D90 would pick one (or more) of the focus points and focus for me. With 11 focus points, it was doing a pretty good job, but I knew it had to have the ability to let you pick the point you wanted.

The other day, I found it. It is in Custom Setting Menu, a1. Great, but that is way to buried. I wanted this camera so that I didn’t have to dive into menus to do the things I change often. After reading the manual front to back, (That sucker is pretty long!) I now have two ways to change it easily. The first is that you can assign the Fn button on the front of the camera to this setting. That way I just press the button, and turn the command dial. Nice. But, the function button is a little hard to press, and sometimes I am looking at the LCD at the back.

Next up, I was just playing with this: My Menu. This is great, and even better than the D40’s. You can pick any item you want, put them in any order you want, and they all show up at the same level without any submenus. Right now I have

  • a1 AF-area mode
  • a7 Live view autofocus
  • ISO sensitivity settings
  • d3 ISO display and adjustment
  • a3 Built-in AF-assist illumninator
  • d10 Exposure delay mode

There is room for 2 more on the screen without scrolling. I will see what I am actually using soon, so this list may change.