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There’s a lot of information out there about which camera you should choose, be it reviews or just general opinions. Of course this is a good thing; cameras can be pretty expensive, so you need to get the right one. But there are a couple of things that don’t always get stressed enough.
The first is that it needs to be the right camera for you. There are lots of little things about the way cameras work that can make them a pleasure or a hassle to use, and most of these things are pretty particular to the individual user. (That would be you.) Mostly what I’m talking about here is that thing geeks call “user interface”, but it can also extend to making sure the features and performance of the camera match what you want to do with it. I personally prefer handling most things manually, so I had to make sure my camera not only supported that (any dslr should), but made the controls easy to access. Some people might want a camera that can just do the work and take good pictures, so they would probably want a completely different camera than I would. I really suggest studying as many reviews as you can (start at dpreview.com) to get an idea for how the camera works. Make sure it will work with you, not against you. There’s actually a lot more that could be said here, but I want to get to my main motivation behind this post. I might come back to this subject another day.
The second thing that people forget easily is that the pictures are what matter, not the gear. As many have said before, the best camera is the one you have with you. If you aren’t going to have it with you, well, it won’t do you any good. I enjoy taking “photography” pictures, but I also find myself taking many more pictures of the “documenting life” variety. To be honest, I’ve recently learned that these are really more important. And you don’t need a perfect camera for these kinds of pictures. In fact, you don’t even have to take good pictures to get good results here.
I recently lost a friend of mine. We’d spent quite a lot of time together, and most days I’d pull out my phone and snap a picture of this or that. Not thinking they were very important (after all, they were only phone quality and I’d have many opportunities to take more, right?), I wasn’t careful about backing them up. Fortunately I was able to recover most of them from my gmail sent box. So I ended up with 30+ low quality photographs with extremely high sentimental value. These were the ONLY pictures I had of her, so I wanted to do something with them. After looking through them all, I settled on this one as being my favorite. I decided to have it framed.
You might have noticed a couple issues there. First, and most obviously, my thumb had slipped (it was, oh, 90 degrees out, and my hand was sweaty). Second, the edge of that barrier kind of spoils the rest of the composition. Finally, as this was taken with a phone, I wouldn’t be able to pull too much out of it. To fix the first two issues, though, I went to work. The cloudless day was a real blessing here.
The thumb and the barrier are gone, leaving a nice clean shot of a girl hanging from a fake mountain. (There’s some color fringing there, but I wasn’t worried about it wen I was making these edits.) Not a bad picture in and of itself, but if I was going to print it, it would have to be at 4” x 6” to avoid pixellation. I wanted to make sure the focus of the picture was on Molly, so I decided to go a bit further with my edits. To make sure it would work as a print, I set my crop tool’s aspect ration setting to 4 x 6, and then I drew a box where I wanted it.
I ended up removing the top of the tower as well as the trees. I was trying to remove cues telling people how high the tower was, to remove the fairgrounds feel that the original shot had. It also had the benefit of removing the color fringing, which I may or may not have been able to edit out in a natural way.
I uploaded it to walmart.com and picked it up, buying a $5.00 frame while I was there. The final product:
So, what’s the point of all this? The point, really, is that you can take a valuable picture with just about anything. So don’t stress too much about whether you have the best gear, just make sure you’re in the right spot.
So, in order to help me figure out my options, I’ve decided to throw together some “databases” of available lenses. Some of these already exist, but I’m gathering all brands into a single spreadsheet of similar focal lenths and costs. For instance, my first spreadsheet consists of lenses with a minimum focal length of 50 to 70mm and a maximum focal length of 200 to 400, with a maximum cost of $550. If you can’t make sense of that sentence, just look at the numbers. It’ll explain itself better than I can. Note that the “features” column is NOT complete. I’m still working on figuring out what all the abbreviations and acronyms. For now, if you want to know whether a lens has a certain feature, I would check amazon. Speaking of which, prices an availability are based on amazon.com as of 6 July 2010, using prices as shown in the cart. Some of these are on sale and the price may change at any time.
Note: This is a bit of a work in progress, but it looks good enough now to be useful, so I’m going to go with it. I’ll be playing with the formatting to make it look better on the website; I’ll also be changing the single “features” column into multiple yes/no columns; finally, I’ll probably be adding new lenses as I find them. Stay tuned for all that, plus new “categories” (like wide-angle lenses for under $1000, or something like that).
I took a short trip to the local walmart today, and on the way back I decided to… not go back. The sun was getting ready to set, and I suddenly remembered a spot on the river where I might be able to get a few good shots. Unfortunately I apparently didn’t remember how to get there, so that will have to wait for another day.
Instead, I ended up following a back road for a few miles, in the general direction of my house. Just when I’d about given up, something caught my eye. I hit the brakes on pulled onto the side of the road.
it’s not the best picture in the world (personally I wouldn’t even call it good), but I did find a new goal. I need to practice my focusing skills and depth of field, but later I’ll go back there at around the same time and get that shot again.
Sadly I didn’t find anything else to take a picture of, but we’ll see what happens tomorrow.
In the mean time, I’ll try to get a better photo setup going on this site, and upload a couple of better pictures that I took the other day.
In October of 2008, I met a girl. She was my boss’s daughter, and since our office was in my boss’s house, I saw her around. One day, I happened to be in the kitchen microwaving my lunch when she came in to get a yogurt from the refrigerator. Ignoring my immense shyness, I managed to look over and say “hi”. We went on to have a chat; it was pretty clear that she hadn’t meant to stay in the kitchen that long, but she didn’t rush off as soon as she finished her yogurt, and that was enough encouragement for me.
Over the next few months, I packed my own lunch almost every day, and I just so happened to eat it when it sounded like she was up and about. We had quite a few conversations. We were starting to become friends. I was starting to develop a bit of a crush.
One day, she came out wearing a dress. This was in early December. I don’t think I’d ever seen her in anything other than capris and a t shirt, and it caught me completely off guard. It was a cute little dress, stopping right below the knees. Very… fun. Happy, even. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much of a chance to see her that day; I had already taken my lunch, and she spent most of her time getting ready in the bathroom doing her hair. I knew she worked at the local outlet mall, though, and I remembered something about a purse store. Not knowing when I’d have another opportunity, I decided that I couldn’t pass up the chance to see her again that day. I headed over to the outlet mall after work, and after a bit of walking I found the place. We spent almost an hour talking. That was the day I found out just how much fun she was to be around. My small crush turned into something much more that night. At one point I stepped away from her to grab something a few feet away. Walking back, I had a chance to really see her, from her head to her toes. (She was wearing these small yellow slip-on shoes, and I didn’t understand why she picked those with a dark dress. I found out later how simple the answer was: they were comfortable.) I worked up some courage, and told her, “You look beautiful”. It came out “that’s a nice dress”. We spent the next few minutes talking about how she got the dress, and that particular moment was gone. At some point her boss told her to “take a break”. Soon she became less subtle and politely suggested that she had work to do. I left.
It was almost closing time. I hadn’t had enough, so I waited around the exit for her to come out. I had decided to ask her to dinner. She never showed. I realized later that there was an unseen employee exit out the back. I should have just gone back.
The next day came, and I hadn’t stopped thinking about her the entire time. I went back to the mall that night. She had mentioned these chocolate covered potato chips sold by another store in the mall, and that she always wondered what they tasted like. I bought a bag and went to her store. Somehow I managed the courage to tell her I had bought them for her… and she told me that thanks to her epilepsy, she couldn’t consume large amounts of sugar. Foot oh so firmly in mouth. We talked for a while, but I never really recovered from having my plan throw off track. I didn’t ask her out that night either.
Again, I spent that whole night, and the next morning, thinking about her. I practiced the words over and over: “Would you like to get dinner some time?” When lunch came, I saw that there was another person in the kitchen. She introduced me to her boyfriend.
I don’t handle disappointment well. While I continued to go to the outlet mall and talk to her at lunch, I didn’t know how to, or whether to, ask her out. Finally I found out another guy beat me to it. He’d been going to the store over and over just to talk to her, and he finally got up the nerve. What a loser, right?
I was really disappointed this time. We continued to talk, though, and at some point I decided that I was happy to be her friend. We continued our chats, but I could never get her to agree to anything outside of one of our workplaces. She was always busy with work or school. Over the course of our friendship, she was never terribly open about her current relationship status. I never asked. She couldn’t seem to find the right person though: Ever once in a while I’d hear about her thinking about dumping her current guy. In some cases it was a bit of her mom’s wishful thinking. In all cases, it seemed like she would stick with a guy for however long it took to prove her mom wrong. (One time she told me that she was pretty sure one of her former boyfriends was gay, but that I couldn’t tell her mom about it. I told her that I was pretty sure her mom already thought that. “I know. If she finds out she was right I’ll never hear the end of it.”)
One day, she finally agreed to see a movie with me and a group of my friends. This was the first time she’d ever agreed to do anything social, so I was pretty excited.
Around the same time, she started working for the company. As I’d become the senior (only) full-time estimator, this meant I was the one responsible for training her. I got to talk to her every day. I told a friend how happy this made me – she called me a dork. She meant well.
One day she was leaving with a friend, and temporary coworker, to go rock climbing. At some point I mentioned that I’d always wanted to try it. She said it was a lot of fun, and I went back to work. Right before she left, she came into the office to ask me if I was ready to go yet. Color me thrilled.
This had to be in mid may. It became habit for us to go to the rock climbing gym one, twice, three times a week. In June, I volunteered to join her Relay for Life team. The day of the event, I got to hang out with her through most of it. I had decided, yet again, to ask her out. I asked her to walk with me for a minute. We got to my car and I showed her a housewarming present I had gotten for her: a pull-up bar. Weeks ago she mentioned wanting one so she could train more for climbing. She was pretty excited. “I can’t take that. You already do too much.” (Earlier that week, I’d helped her paint her new bedroom. In fact, I basically painted it myself. She didn’t seem to understand that the chance to be with her was more than repayment for anything I did.) I’d never had a gift rejected before; I didn’t know what to do. We stated walking back. She told me that I was the most reliable guy she knew, and that I was basically her best friend. I tried to tell her how much I cared about her, and I failed. As happy as I was, I was also thrown off: what if I asked her out, and made her uncomfortable? I couldn’t risk hurting her.
On the third of July, I invited her to hang out with me and a friend and blow up some fireworks. If I hadn’t already, this was the day I fell in love with her. I already knew she was beautiful, and funny, and fun, but now I knew she liked explosives. I’d never even heard of such an amazing girl. My plans fell through for the 4th, and it was the best thing that could have happened. The three of us spent the entire night at her house, blowing up more fireworks and generally having a hell of a time. Even though I wanted to be with her more than ever, I decided not to risk what we had going. Besides, I was spending more time with her than her own boyfriend, and I was happy.
At some point, she left that boyfriend, and ended up with another. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of the end of our friendship. She started spending every spare waking moment with him, and all of a sudden we weren’t even climbing together any more. I was hurt. Just when I thought she had had enough of me, she called me out of the blue. She wanted to hang out. That night was great, and my spirits were back up. She had promised to start making some time to hang out with me… unfortunately that isn’t the way it went. I almost completely lost touch with her after this. (She was no longer working regularly with us.)
That had to be October of 2009. We had still managed to text every once in a while, and on January 31st she agreed to hang out again. After losing her for months, I decided that I had to ask her out or risk losing her for good. I lost the nerve. I called her the next day, and when she picked up I asked her if she wanted to hang out that night. I hoped to ask her out in person. She said that she was really sorry, but she just made plans with her ex-boyfriend. I missed by a matter of minutes. After we hung up, I texted her. I had just spent half an hour trying to find something for us to do, to show her that I could be a fun person. (At some point over the earlier months, I started dealing with depression, and I was a downer on everyone. The last few times the two of us talked, we ended up practically arguing.) She never responded to that text. I texted and called her every week for a month and a half, but she never responded. I assumed she was mad at me for trying to ask her out, and eventually gave up. If she didn’t need me, I didn’t need her.
I saw her a couple of months later when she came to our new office. She looked my way, and I nodded. Later, I walked right past her to talk to someone. I heard her ask someone if they wanted to go for a walk to the local airport. When they declined, I wanted to tell her that I’d been thinking about taking that very same walk. I stayed silent. I was insulted that she hadn’t asked me.
Last week I decided to move out of my parents’ house and in with a friend. I didn’t realize it when I made the decision, but our place is only a short drive from hers. She always hinted that I needed my own place. I’ve also recently started to get into photography. The last time we hung out, she was talking about how I should follow my desires. I told her how I’d always wanted to do photography, and she thought it was a great idea. She mentioned the two of us taking a roadtrip together, taking pictures along the way.
She died two days ago. I was about to post my first photos to my website when I got the news. I’ll probably never know why she stopped talking to me. I spent the last five months telling myself every day that I didn’t need her so I wouldn’t have to remember how much I missed her – even as I tried to live up to the expectations I imagined she had. If I made myself better, she’d finally want to go out with me, right?
I didn’t know how to take the news. I’d spent so long being angry at her that I didn’t know if I’d even lost a friend. I sat at my computer for hours, shell-shocked and confused. Finally, I decided to assume that whatever reason she had to for not talking to me, she did it as a friend. Of course, this brings up one question: what if I’d called her last month? Or last week? Maybe she would have answered. Maybe things would even be different. If she was with me instead of being alone…
I’ve always tried to live my life without regrets. It never helps to dwell on what may have been. I don’t think that’s going to happen this time. I should have called her again. She was worth it, I knew that. I should have called her every single day until she answered. I should have driven to her god damned house if that’s what it took to make her talk to me.
I’ve been lost these past two and a half days. The only emotions I’ve felt are sadness and regret. I can’t tell you how many opportunities I missed to tell her how I felt. And that’s what I really hate: I don’t think she ever really understood how much I cared about her. How could she when I never told her?
But I’m going to try to move past the sadness now. There are other things that I need to remember. First, I was lucky enough to call her one of my best friends for almost a year. I’m sure I’ll always remember the summer of 2009 as being one of the happiest times of my entire life. Second, never take a day for granted. If you can do it today, DO IT. There isn’t always a tomorrow. Finally, don’t ever take anyone you care about for granted. Again… there isn’t always a tomorrow.
RIP Molly. I really hope you knew that I never stopped being the guy who would be there for you. And I’m sorry I wasn’t.
Also, Some things worth thinking about:
Is it possible to create a better email experience than Gmail? Maybe not. But my friend uses hotmail so that shouldn’t be aiming too high. In either case, using a prism-type thing to create a link directly from the desktop to the webapp, and integrating it with a desktop notifications system should be an improvement.
Speaking of which, I need to fix ubuntu’s fake-growl. Something about the way it works just doesn’t… work for me. I like hovering to click through to what’s under, but I should be able to click the notification to do something (the simplest thing is just to bring up the window). Again, digsby was perfect here: you could type directly into the notification and respond to the other person. I need to look into this more.
So, it’s been like three months since I said I would start updated my site, and I’ve managed absolutely nothing. In order to kill two birds with one stone (the other bird being a general lack of doing anything other than work) I’m going to start picking projects, working on them, and then writing about them here.
My first project deals indirectly with the fact tat I am moving out my my parents’s house and in with a friend. Since he doesn’t have a computer, we’re going to share mine. Problem: I’m running linux. Ubuntu, to be specific. So I need to stop being lazy and make it a user-friendly version of linux, which it hasn’t really been since I built this computer.
First, I need to get flash working properly. This is the biggest issue, since an unstable version of flash is really, really inconvenient. I just updated, so I’m hoping this problem is already solved. We’ll see in a few days.
Second, I need to polish the UI so it’s as shiny and useful as I used to be on both my old XP and Ubuntu builds. The goal here is to be intuitive, useful, and generally awesome.
Third, I wasn’t kidding about it being awesome. I’ve got a pretty powerful PC and I’m going to put it to use. Now that Windows 7 is apparently pretty good, I need to make my computer better. Anyone who say my build of XP would know how streamlined and sleek it looked; that’s the idea here.
Fourth, I need to get all my programs working together and correctly. This actually goes right along with fixing the UI. Specifically, I need to find a good, simple photo editing program; I need to make sure I have the best possible media player; I need to pull together a version of firefox that works exactly like people expect it to; I need to get Shutter to work automatically; I need to find the best social networking client — something like Digsby for Linux would be perfect, but I don’t think it exists, and I’m boycotting them these days anyways.
I might add to this if I think of anything else critical. Otherwise, I’ll probably just create new posts as “status updates” and describe some of the ways that I’ve come up with the create the best experience.
On life, UI design, geekitude and bedsheets.
EDIT: Also, music and movies like the media whore that I am.
So, over the past month or so, I’ve been updating the layout around here. I’ve finally settled on something I like, so I think I’m just going to leave it alone now, with the exception of fixing any bugs that crop up.
Now that I’ve got that taken care of, I’m going to start trying to get some content going. Basic stuff at first (I haven’t done the “about” or “contact” pages yet), but I’m also going to try to make sure to post one interesting thing a day. Or… say three time a week, at least. So if you’ve ever followed my progress here with any sort of interest, this should be a good time for you to peek in every once in a while.
Also: if anyone notices any display bugs or anything like that, leave a comment for me so I can fix it.
Edit: Comments are, apparently, completely broken. Well, display of them is. So I’ll fix that. So that’s fixed, but there are some weird single-post-specific formating issues, and I can’t find the right menu to fix them. On the plus side, they don’t affect anything major.
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