Mr. & Mrs. Zhang

Apologies to my Oriental friends for playing. Why Zhang (or Chang) instead of Smith? The latter might be the most common surname in the Occidental countries, but by sheer numbers alone, the S/SE Asia (more specifically China) has them beat :) Plus, the majority ethnicity on campus is, indeed, Asian. So hah! Can't believe I was so obtuse as to also miss another angle: the typical street in China, with bicyclists everywhere. Thanks, Blue, for pointing that out.

Celluloid, forgotten

Light reading

I'm rather fond of wordplay, if you haven't gathered thus far :) Also, I tend to prefer to shoot as-is, so these were left slightly leaning and not leveled or squared to the camera.

S(+)uck

Thanks R.M. for the pun idea.

Roots

Date palm roots, erupting from the ground for some reason--the whole area at its base shows signs of turbulence.

Two for today

Apologies to my readers (all TWO of you) for not making good on the photo-a-day claim due to various circumstances which are not of relevance here. So, here are two taken today (sorry!), which should bring me back into the black.

No, really!

That's how I found this stack of form-fitting foam blocks. They stack up rather nicely, wouldn't you say? Saw them on the way out from work, and the sun was lighting them up very nicely. I must say, the default camera metering did a great job--Program mode, auto everything, no EV compensation or fill-flash. Thought about using those, but looking at the post-capture review it looked good, and the histogram couldn't have been better!

Every cloud has a silver lining

No doubt you've heard that aphorism before; after a night (and day) of scattered thunderstorms, there was a short break with soft sunlight diffused through the mostly cloudy skies--perfect for this "shot" I've walked past a few times before, but lacking the light to make it work. Same building as the one from yesterday's post. Almost all the buildings on campus use the same coloured bricks. I believe the door pictured is an emergency exit at the bottom of a stairwell; the stepping stones are just there to make it look pretty, as it exits in the middle of a grove of grapefruit and orange trees which are ornamental in nature. The oranges, when ripe, do make for a tasty and quick snack as this is a a few dozen metres away from my current place of work.

A little something from a lunchtime jaunt

Got up very early this morning, with the intent of getting to campus a little after daybreak and have some time in the lovely morning misty light. Nasty accident on the road, got there with no time to spare before work, so a little stroll during lunch was taken. As expected, the noonday light was harsh and unflattering, but this little creeper on the lee side of a building caught my attention, so the time spent wandering around was not completely fruitless.

Outgrown

-2EV flash compensation again, for fill.

Weekend backlog clearing

Since I've had the camera since Tuesday and tonight is Saturday, there should be 5 pictures up--which aren't. Time to clear up the account and a bonus shot for good measure.

This photo was a fun juxtaposition :) Would be a real cracker if the dog's name was Brinks, but I know it isn't. Still, dog, behind fence, half asleep, next to security sign...couldn't resist taking the picture.

When I first bought mom a digicam, I'd tried to do a very similar shot; now having much more control over exposure parameters and camera position, did it again. Perhaps a bit more exposure could be applied to get a brighter halo, but it would wash out detail in the central hotspot even further.

An experiment in fill-flash, since the the weeping bottle-brush was backlit (note the glowing "hair" on the edge of the leaves). -2EV flash compensation.

Stripped EXIF

It appears that some photos are not displaying EXIF data; mea culpa, it will be fixed soon. Reasons will be forthcoming.

Help me...

...find a pithy title for this photo. Credit will be given, of course, and admiration from the masses surely must count for something :) Straight off the camera, as noted previously. WinXP users can rightclick the image>properties>summary>advanced either in the browser or download it, if you'd like to get full EXIF header information.

As promised...

Had the camera for a couple of days now, so the obligatory pictures are now live, straight out of the camera with no post-processing of any kind whatsoever:

Note the very neutral colours, and smooth tonality. In-camera contrast and saturation were set to "low" which is the minimum. Size was 640x480 pixels (the smallest option) and quality was 1/8 JPG, the most lossy and therefore lowest quality. Not bad, huh? 140mm equivalent. Not sure how close I was (close enough to require macro mode, but not close enough to hit minimum focus-distance limitations). Program mode, ISO80 (minimum), Auto White Balance. Yes, it's not tack-sharp, neither is it contrasty, nor eye-poppingly rich in colour... that's a matter of preference and taste, but I wanted to see what this thing can do out of the box, so to speak. Minimal processing in-situ will allow for better results later in an image editor.

One of my favourite things about the camera is the incredibly fast lens (numerically smaller f-number), so transition from in-focus to out-of-focus is very creamy, as surely you have noted above.

Another example is the egg photo to the right where you can better see the effect of the foreground being out of focus. The slightly green tinge is due to camera being in AWB mode under flourescent lights--very few cameras can pull off perfect hues under those conditions.

No more excuses

I've finally crossed into the modern world by ordering a digital camera. The self-imposed goal is to have one quality photograph each day, shot preferably the same day (none of this shoot a whole "roll" in the park and post one keeper each day). Scheduled arrival is 13 Sep, but I'll see if something can't be done to have it in my eager hands just a tiny bit earlier :)