Davey Shafik's Pixelated Dreams

Today is day 3 of my little experiment.

My plan for tonight was to try and improve on last nights photos, by trying to capture more on the left and right edges of the photograph. Unfortunately Mother Nature conspired against me and the sun was much lower in the sky tonight than it has been on previous nights.

However, whilst at work and discussing this with my boss, we both felt it would be very cool to take a close up of the moon.

So, with this in mind, I decided to try and do this.

Part of the appeal of the moon tonight were the pretty clouds, and I'm happy to say that I think I managed to capture it quite well in a couple of shots.

The first, which was taken at the lowest possible digital zoom setting can be seen here:

This picture obviously is better in larger sizes, so check out the Flickr Page. This was taken at F/3.5 and with 1 second exposure time.

The second image I want to show you is my favourite, it is the Moon in between two branches. It almost looks like somebody holding the moon between their thumb and index finger.

Again, please see the Flickr Page for larger sizes.

Between the first and second shot on the Flickr Stream, are the other two pictures I took tongiht, both very similar to the first. The first was taken with the exact same settings as the one above, the second however was taken at the same settings as the first above.

I like how this is moving, it is my first real attempt to "study" a single subject.

I am hoping tomorrow night that I can shoot a little later so that the moon will be higher and I can try to get the full image as was my goal tonight.

- Davey

Following on from my Canon S2 IS mini-review I thought I'd post an update.

I've been using the camera for about a month now, and I can honestly say its just amazing (yes, I will elaborate in a little bit).

Going from my simple point and shoot to something more like a SLR means there has been something of a (self-imposed) learning curve. Whilst it is fully possible to shoot in automatic mode, and get good results, the more advanced photography (good night time photography, moving objects, etc etc) require you to play with the settings some more.

I've decided that one of my all-time favorite photographic subjects is light. This includes natural and unnatural light, sunsets, sunrises, the moon, whatever. I'm also fascinated by extended exposures and light painting.

So, I've decided that this week, whilst them moon is waning (I believe it was full last night) I will shoot it each night trying to learn from the previous night's shots. I am currently 2 days into this "regime".

Now, during my course of learning, I have come across so many new terms, things I had seen bandied around on IRC but never really understood, so I will do my best, to impart this knowledge to you in the simplistic terms that I myself now understand it. Perhaps it will give somebody a jump-start.

ISO

This is sometimes referred to as a films speed, but this isn't entirely accurate. Now obviously, a digital camera doesn't have film, but the term is still used for what it really means:

The ISO of a film is a measure of how sensitive the film is to light. To take the same picture with less sensitive film (lower ISO number) requires longer than a more sensitive film (higher ISO number) because it takes longer for the light to make the same impression on the film. With Digital Cameras, it is the sensitivity of the sensors, and you will typically see noise (AKA grainyness) at the higher ISO speeds. With my Canon, I find it best to stick to ISO 50 or ISO 100, above that and the grain is too clear. The max ISO for the camera is ISO 400, which as someone explained to me, should only be used to prove you saw a UFO.

Aperture (AKA F-stops or That 'F' number)

The aperture setting is how big the hole in the lens is that lets light in. The smaller it is, the less light gets in, very much like the pupil in your own eye. Another similarity it shares with your pupil is that when "looking" at brighter objects, to see them without "blinding yourself" (or in this case, overexposing the photograph) you need to turn the aperture to a smaller number. Aperture is expressed as F/{some number}, the larger the number, the smaller the amount of light reaches the sensor (or film) (it is a fraction, F/2.7 == 1/2.7, which is larger than F/27 or 1/27). A common use for aperture is when photographing something in low-light, you can increase the aperture to make sure the maximum amount of light hits the sensor. Aperture F-numbers are measured in factors of 2, each stop (i.e. 2, 4, 8 ) allows half as much light as the one before it. My camera (and it seems the common thing) will not set apertures to whole number, for example mine will go from F/2.7 (or F/3.5 depending on the current zoom level) to F/8.0

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is very important. When you consider the two items above, it is obvious that shutting the light out at the correct point is crucial to not overexposing your photograph. Shutter speeds are measured in seconds, or fractions of a second. For example, 1/1600 is one 16-hundreth of a second (*damn* fast). The balance between ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed is what gives you the most crisp resulting images.

Moving on...

Moving on to my experiments, with the above in mind, lets see what I've done so far. As mentioned above, I am shooting the moon over a street. There are several reasons I chose this particular subject. First and foremost, I think it will make a pretty composition. It encompasses both the static moon light source (comparitvely) and fast moving light (the cars). It's also something that I can shoot for a while without it changing *too* much (so long as the weather holds out!). I also prefer to shoot in Black and White, I think that conveying something without color means that the eyes are not distracted by shiny things and that you also need to be more artistic with the shot to make it stand out among the color shots. (Though one B&W shot in a bunch of color ones stands out enough, its the reverse of the little girl in the red coat from Schindlers List...)

Monday Night

On Monday night, I decided to play with the ISO speeds (and this is how I came to my surmisation of > ISO 100 above). Using my tripod, I took the same picture at each of my camera's ISO speeds. The best resulting image, balancing the brightness of the picture and the grainyness, is ISO 100:

(See the Flickr Page for larger sizes).

You will notice how grainy the image is, especially when looking at the larger sizes (Large size). I took this using the 'P' mode, which gives a little more control than the 'Auto' mode.

Tuesday Night

Wanting to improve on this, I decided that I would need to discover how to set my camera's Aperture and Shutter speed settings, so that I could shoot at lower ISOs. This was as simple as chaging the mode dial to 'M' (Manual?) and using the 4-way rocker button to change these settings, which are handily displayed on the screen

So, I set the ISO all the way down to ISO 50, and the aperture all the way down to F/2.7 (which would move up to F/3.5 automatically as I zoomed in, as mentioned above) and started to play with the shutter speeds.

I managed to get one decent shot (the rest are blurry due to cloud movement, or jogging the tripod. A few were ruined by cars passing right in front of the camera at the wrong time):

(See the Flickr Page for larger sizes again).

This time, the picture is a lot more crisp, even in the larger sizes (Large Size) however there is a lot of "dead" space to the sides except where the car headlights are. Getting a more complete picture is my next task. Tune in tomorrow for the results

More on the Canon S2 IS

Much to my dismay, only 2 weeks after buying the Canon S2 IS, Canon announced the Canon S3 IS. However, it will not be available till May - so I'm not too upset. However, it means that Canon isn't likely to release a waterproof enclosure (unless it fits both the S2 and S3, I guess). The only real big spec difference seems to that the S3 IS is 6MP instead of 5MP.

The good news for all you people out there, is this means the price on the S2 IS is now plummeting (and yes, this I'm upset about!).

Having said that this camera is just fine in "Auto" mode, you can get cheaper, point and shoot camers with higher Megapixel cameras (though less optical zoom), so if you're just taking family snapshots, and don't want to learn much beyond pressing the big button on the top, or you want something much smaller than the Canon, look into those.

If you really want the most out of this camera, read the manual, its rather large but really does tell you how to do *everything* technically with the camera, then you can just apply it to your artistic whims.

I hope this post at least helped you learn something.

- Davey

I won't put in any spoilers for those who have yet to watch it from their TiVos, but I will say this much:

The ending fracking sucked!

I really didn't like it, I felt like they broke the show, but it'll make for an interesting Season 3 I guess.

Doesn't Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama) look weird with a mustache!

- Davey

Update: It was the end of Season 2.

If anybody has been paying attention, the php|tek schedule has been posted for a while.

If you look closely, you'll notice that I will be speaking twice at the conference. Once on the topic of "Migrating to PHP 5.1" and then a second time on "Future Deployment of PHP Applications". This will include a look at what this means to you, your company and of course, your code.

The first talk will cover moving from PHP 4 to PHP 5.1, and will also spend some time on going over some of the finer differences between PHP 5.0 and 5.1.

The second talk will cover PEAR Channels, including Chiara_PEAR_Server and Crtx_PEAR_Channel_Frontend. More excitingly I will also be spending a lot of time giving what is probably the first talk on PHP_Archive/PHAR.

So, if you've coming to php|tek, I'll see you there. If you haven't yet decided, perhaps the chance of meeting me will sway you.

As I live just 90 miles from Orlando I will be there for the full 4 days hopefully, at least, I will be there April 26th - April 28th, but I hate to miss out on the first day seminars which look to be awesome, though I can't decide between Marcus' and Dericks.

- Davey

P.S.

Don't forget the First Tampa Bay PHP Meetup is tonight!

To everybody in the Tampa Bay Area, the Tampa Bay PHP User Group is having its first meeting in just under two weeks.

Brian Fertig whom I have never met, but in our brief e-mails this week seems like a pretty cool guy has gone to the effort of getting things set up for us.

When:

• Friday, February 17, 2006, 7:00 PM

Where:

Golden Corral
6942 West Hillsborough Avenue
Tampa , FL 33634
813-882-9805

For more information check out the details on meetup.com.

11 people have said they will attend so far, not many perhaps, but its a start

Myself and my wife will be there, so come down and meet us.

- Davey