photonelly.com Blog

New Photoset: Winter Classic 2009

2009-01-01T22:18:00.002-06:00

Weather conditions for some hockey history today here in Chicago couldn't have been more perfect. And as a bonus, the slightly overcast afternoon in the Windy City offered some fairly nice lighting conditions for shooting a very memorable outdoor hockey game.

While I witnessed history from the comfort of my living room, and in 42" flat screen and full HD glory, my brother and his buddy were at the game with about 40,000 others. He was kind enough to bring along my Canon SD890 for the afternoon and took some really great shots that I wanted to share. Even though the main focus of this site is aimed at showcasing my work as a photographer, I felt the quality of these photos was a strong testament to how versatile the Canon SD890 really is.

Perhaps the biggest thing that sticks out with this set of photos is the image quality using the 5x optical zoom of the SD890. While his seats were pretty decent, the optical zoom got him closer to the action without introducing noise and other distortions that digital zooms are known for. Even in the hands of someone that just picked up this particular camera for a few hours, this Canon did a very respectable job of capturing some great memories.

You can see more of these photos in the Flickr photoset Winter Classic 2009. And if you like these, check out my hockey page in Viewfinder section for more.

These photos are courtesy of Bobby Nelson.

Flickr Idea: Making an Online Photo Calendar

2008-12-29T21:07:00.003-06:00

I said it before, I love being a photographer and a web developer. Here's another reason why.

Making an Online Photo Calendar

What started as an idea in mid-November turned into a relatively easy to make Google Gadget to showcase some of my favorite Maui photos. And all it took was:

a little preparation,
some convention,
and 2 Flickr API methods

Sparing all the minor details, here's the jist of what I did.

The Preparation
After making a small web prototype of the gadget, just to get the sizing and the HTML/CSS down, I determined that the photos I wanted to use for this would be square. Looking at the different sizes that Flickr offers you, the only "square" option by default is 75 x 75 pixels. Obviously, that wasn't going to cut it.

So, that just meant I had to do a little cropping for each photo I wanted to use. If I crop the photo to be even on both sides, I now have the choice of 100 x 100, 240 x 240, or 500 x 500. Initially I thought 500 x 500 pixels would be great, but alas, making this fit onto an iGoogle page along side other gadgets meant I had to choose the 240 x 240 pixel size.

Just to keep track of these photos, I threw them in their own photoset on Flickr, which you can view here.

The Convention
I didn't want to write a heck of a lot of code for this, which meant designing and populating a database full of photo IDs and dates was out of the question. Getting a little creative, I decided to use a naming convention for tagging these photos. Then, using the API methods mentioned later on, I could pull the photo for the current date based on the tag.

The convention I used was to prefix the tag with an arbitrary value (in my case, the letter "c") followed by the month and day to display the photo on. An example would be this photo, which has the tag "c1117" and would be displayed on November 17 (11 for the month, 17 for the day). Another convention I chose is to store the text for the calendar as the description of the photo. While this results in a second API call, which I'll explain next, it was very convenient for having just one place to "edit" my calendar.

Lastly, since the Flickr Community Guidelines state that using a photo hosted on Flickr must link back to the Flickr photo page, I decided to take the opportunity to share more details about the photo by adding a comment on the photo as well. That way, if someone using the gadget likes the photo and clicks on it, they can see more info about that photo and, in some cases, view a link back to my Maui site. And of course, they could also leave a comment themselves (if they're a member of Flickr, that is).

The 2 Flickr API Calls
Based on the conventions mentioned above, I really only needed the following information about the photo:

The actual photo for a given day, based on the tag,
the URL for the photo in the small format (240 x 240 pixels),
and the description of the photo to display in the gadget.

It turns out the first two items can be returned using the Flickr API method, flickr.photos.search, and specifying the value of the optional Tags parameter as the date formatted in the convention above (i.e. c1117). That returned the 4 pieces of information I needed to build the URL for the photo, which of course are the farm-id, server-id, photo-id, and the secret.

The only thing that was missing was the description, which was just as easy to get with a second API call. This time it was to flickr.photos.getInfo, and merely required the photo-id returned from the first call.

With the data from those two method responses, I was all set to assemble the HTML and tell people what day it was.

The Rest of the Code
I already said I wasn't going to dive into the minor details, but I did want to mention one other thing about this gadget. While I could have done this gadget completely with JavaScript by calling the Flickr API using the REST requests in JSON format, I chose to implement this logic using the XML format and a PHP script on the server side. The reason I did that was so I could save the responses from the two API calls on the server, so that way I could just use those files instead of calling the Flickr API every single time.

As for the Google Gadget code, that's an entirely different area altogether and not worth covering here. While I chose to do this as Google Gadget, this can really be done with almost anything.

The Conclusion
Hopefully this was an interesting little article that gave you some ideas on things you can do with the Flickr API that you might not have thought of. For those out there that aren't full fledged web developers like myself, that initial list of API methods might seem a little intimidating at first. But as you can see here, it's fairly simple to tackle once you know how you want to approach it.

Now Reading: The Digital Photography Book, Vol. 1

2008-12-28T18:48:00.003-06:00

Photo Credit: Amazon)

I mentioned a few days ago that I received a copy of Digital Photography Masterclass as a gift this Christmas. I also noted that in the process of reading more about that book on Amazon, I came across Scott Kelby's, The Digital Photography Book. Well, seeing that it was listed as the #1 book in all digital photography categories on Amazon, and #52 of all books sold there, I thought I'd check it out for myself.

During a trip to the bookstore this weekend, I decided to take a grab a copy off the shelf and read through the first 20 pages. Those first few chapters were a very fast read, and I was very pleased with the organization of the book. So I left with my own copy.

This book, and the second volume released this year, is written from a completely different point of view than most other photography books. Right from the beginning, Kelby sets the stage for the book and makes you his virtual shooting buddy. The style that "The Digital Photography Book" is written in consists of a series of related photography tips that Scott offers you as if you and he are out on a photo shoot together. The tips are quick and too the point. No extensive technical background on each camera setting or photography term, saving that for larger books that are already very prevalent.

For 240 pages, it is still a very small book. While not quite pocket-sized, it is easy to carry with you and reference back to when needed. I mentioned above that it's a very fast read, so I'll likely finish this first volume by the end of January and look add volume 2 to the list of books I'm taking to Maui in seven weeks. Besides from reading through the first volume in the coming weeks, I'm going to try and find a few projects closer to home to get in some practice before we go on vacation. I'll post more details on those as I come up with them.

Now Reading: Digital Photography Masterclass

2008-12-26T13:43:00.003-06:00

Photo Credit: Amazon)

Freshly unwrapped as an Xmas present yesterday, I now have new photography book in my library. Digital Photography Masterclass, by Tom Ang, is over 350 pages of photography lessons, tutorials, and self-paced assignments that looks to be another great resource for me as I continue to push myself further to take better photographs. After thumbing through it a little bit after dinner last night, I liked the way the different chapters and subjects were layed out, and there were a lot (albeit somewhat small) examples of different variations and combinations with the concepts covered in each chapter.

There were only a handful of customer reviews at Amazon, but the majority of responses seemed positive. For the real test, though, I need to carve out some time to sit down, read through it, and get some practice in. My next trip to Maui is coming up fast, and while this looks like a great book, it's a little too heavy to pack and bring with me. That doesn't leave a lot of time, and while I'm not going to learn everything the book has to offer in just 6 weeks time, I'd like to have at least a few subjects well rehearsed by then.

Another Option

I also received a pair of gifts cards to Barnes and Noble and Borders, and while reading up on Digital Photography Masterclass on Amazon, I also stumbled across Scott Kelby's The Digital Photography Book, Volume 2. That one seems like a big seller and very popular on Amazon. I became a fan of Kelby's books when I picked up his 7-Point System for Photoshop book. I'll have to stop by the bookstore and browse through it, and then I'll have to decide how I want to get prepared for my next trip to Maui.

If you have read either one of these books, let me know what you think. Also, if you have other recommendations, those are welcome as well.

Thanks.

Now Sharing on Hawaii Photography

2008-12-22T20:02:00.002-06:00

I found a great site for Hawaii photography fans and photographers alike, named, what else... Hawaii Photography.

After browsing their site and seeing some of the most stunning Hawaii photos around, I decided to fill out the registration form and was accepted. I uploaded a handful of photos today and will probably add a few more each day during this week off. You can view the photos I've posted there on my profile page.

The site has a good mix of professional and amatuer photographers, many of whom live in Hawaii (which I hope to do some day, too). There is also a nice variety of portraits, landscape, and nature photographs, and a few forums and groups for each of the different islands. Not bad for a site that currently has less than 60 members.

So if you're looking for my very best from Maui, be sure to check them out. I know I'm way down on the experience scale compared to my new co-members at Hawaii Photography. I hope I can continue to hold my own, make a few new friends, and get some great tips before my next Maui trip in February.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II Reviews

2008-12-21T14:53:00.002-06:00

(Photo Credit: Amazon)

From the "If I only had the money" category, I thought I'd share a link to reviews on the latest and greatest DSLR from Canon, the EOS 5D Mark II.

As mentioned on this Engadget post, this dream camera has reviewers and photographers alike raving about all the great things this camera has to offer. From a 21.1MP full frame sensor to the ability to shoot full 1080p HD video, anybody would be very fortunate to carry this one in their bag.

A quick check on Amazon shows that even at a price of $3,499.99 (sold by Amazon) it is hard to keep in stock, although it is available for a premium from other merchants there. The only bad customer reviews at Amazon for this camera are for the price. While other merchants seem to be way overcharging for this item, Amazon itself doesn't seem to be that far off. I took a look at Adorama, another place I shop for camera gear online, and they were selling the body + lens kit for the same price as Amazon. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any in stock, either.

So I guess, I should add this to the "If I only had the money, and could find it in stock" category. In any case, head over to the article at Engadget and browse through all the great reviews that this camera is getting.

New Photoset: Gussie's 95th

2008-12-15T12:06:00.003-06:00

As I mentioned last month, one of my projects in December was the 95th birthday party for my great-grandmother (God bless her). In that post, I mentioned a lot of the unknowns around trying to shoot a lot of photos and doing portraits instead of my usual landscapes, etc. Well, most of that all turned out not the way I had anticipated.

All was still well, though. It was a nice party and everyone had a good time. I've posted my first set of photos (one of two cameras), and you can find them on Flickr under the Gussie's 95th photoset. I've also included a few of my favorites below. There were a lot of people taking photos, and these are utlimately being used for our family's website, The Ciolinos. A few of my distant relatives, many of who I just met on Saturday, will be emailing me their favorites as well, so those will be added to the same photoset. Attribution will be credited to photos that I didn't take, once they're posted.

One of the unanticipated things on my part was that there was about 8 different people with cameras all trying to take photos at the same time. A few of us commented that it was kind of silly the way some of these group photos came out because different people were looking at different cameras. With 80+ people crammed into a tight golf course restaurant, there wasn't going to be any chance of making order out of that chaos.

Still, it was good practice. Shooting portraits and group photos is not exactly my primary focus. I'm not certain that it ever will be, but experience is experience, and the more photos I shoot in many different situations, the better. I will no doubt learn from all of them.

Small Photoset: Outdoor Hockey Net

2008-12-13T22:15:00.003-06:00

Just thought I'd share a few shots I took earlier in the week using my Canon Rebel XSi. These photos were taken at an inline hockey rink that is about 5 minutes away from my office, and where I spent many summer lunch hours playing roller hockey this year.

Photos from Wed, Dec. 10th, 2008

We had just gotten a good amount of snow the day and night before, so I was actually going there to try and get some shots of the snow covered trees. Since the skies had been mostly clear and the sun was out all morning, that plan evaporated, so I decided to checkout the rink instead. Now part of me was really hoping to find a nice sheet of ice frozen under the new layer of snow, which would mean I could hit the ice during lunches all winter long. But there was no ice, just snow.

Seeing how perfect the snow had settled on the rink itself, and how solitaire the hockey net looked, I chose to take advantage of it. Below are a few of the photos I took while standing out in the 11°F winter air with the very bitter wind chill. Check out the link above for the rest.

New Photos: Door County - Dec '08

2008-12-09T12:30:00.004-06:00

Well, we're back from our second trip up to Door County, Wisconsin, and it was surely as cold and as snow-covered as I had hoped.

I didn't get to take nearly as many pictures as I would have wanted, since conditions on Saturday were fairly brutal to say the least. I did get some good shots on Friday, however, and I have started uploading the initial ones so far.

Here are just a few of my favorites, and you'll be able to find all of them in the Door County - Dec '08 Flickr set. To find out more about why I enjoy shooting in Door County, check out the Door County Viewfinder page.

Thanks.

Upcoming Projects for December

2008-11-28T20:26:00.003-06:00

With the Thanksgiving holiday now behind us, it's time to look towards what December has in store. From a photography perspective, I have two projects right out of the gate. I thought I'd take a moment to mention them.

The first is as early as Thursday, when we make our second trip up to Door County, WI. I've been tracking the weather up north and hoping for a winter wonderland to shoot in. Unfortunately, so far it doesn't look very promising from a snow cover perspective. None-the-less, it will be good to get back to the peace and quiet that we experienced in September, and I'm sure I can find enough to shoot while I'm there.

I'm also looking into an outdoor skating rink near our lodge in Sister Bay. Primarily, I'm looking to bring my skates and get back on the ice, but there's no reason I can't bring along my new Rebel or my 20D and get a little creative. It will really depend on how crowded it will be, and if they're open during the day, I might be able to take advantage of all the kiddies being in school and have the rink to myself.

The second project involves something a little bit more out of my element, portrait photography. Up until now, the majority of my focus has been on landscape, night time, and astrophotography. The only person I've really taken pictures of is my wife when we're on vacation. With this upcoming project, I'm both nervous and excited at the same time.

It's going to be the second weekend in December, when we go back to Wisconsin, Lake Geneva this time, for my great-grandmother's 95th birthday. We're having all of our relatives from across the country coming into town for this one, and I came up with the idea of putting together photos of everyone while we're there and leaving it all on a digital photo frame for her to take home when it's over.

I've never really done anything like this where I setup things like a potrait photographer and have different people line up and have their photos taken either individually or with their significant other. I do have a pretty good idea of how I'd want it to work, but there are a few unknowns that I'll have to wing. First, I know we're having it at a country club, but I won't really have any idea on where to set this up until we get there. Is there going to be enough room? What will the lighting be like? Can I get a spot near a power outlet for my camera and laptop?

I already have a tripod that I can use to shot in Portrait mode should I chose to, and I just ordered a Canon Speedlite 430EX II Flash to use with my Rebel XSi if I need the extra lighting. I also have a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens that should be perfect for individual and couple shots, and can use one of my wider lenses in case we want to take larger group photos.

The other unknown and what's making me just as nervous, is how much time am I going to have? Not only will I have to scout a location and setup, I'll also need to take names, match them with photo numbers (since I've never met most of these relatives before), and then post-process, arrange, and tranfser to the digital photo frame all before we have to leave for the night and the drive home. I'll have my XPS laptop with me, and I haven't decided whether I'll install my Photoshop CS4 upgrade by then or just still with CS3 for now. I'll also need to brush up on my batch editing skills, too, so I can speed up the redundant stuff.

Aside from the rush to get things finished, I'll have a lot more time to put something together more elaborate and more for everyone online to remember. Not only can I post them to my Flickr account and do slideshows, etc., I also plan on posting it to our family's website, The Ciolinos. I haven't had much to do with that website recently, so it will be a good reason to bang out some new code there.

Hopefully after getting through those two projects, I'll have some more experience under my belt and some time to get outside and shoot some winterscapes. If I can get a good clear day and we have enough snow cover in Chicago by then (which believe it or not, is hit or miss), I'd like to go back to the forest preserve near our home where I shot these autumn photos in October. If not, I'll have to wait for the new year.

Wish me luck.

Shooting ISO 3200 with the Canon SD890

2008-11-21T19:48:00.002-06:00

So what can I say, sometimes I do things a little backwards. Normally, its the people who are used to their point and shoot cameras that need a little extra help with, and take a little longer to learn about the more complex settings of a Digital SLR camera. Well, after using my Canon EOS 20D for two years and picking up a Canon SD890 as an anywhere/anytime take-along camera, its the point and shoot camera that I'm still learning about after two months later.

When I tried to shoot the flurries outside here in Chicago yesterday during my lunch break, all I had with me was my SD890 (again anywhere, anytime). Trying to catch the giant snowflakes whizzing around my car window with the normal modes from the SD890 just wasn't working. They snow was flying too fast and the shutter was taking too long. Everything was coming out blurry.

The Solution
Flipping through the Scene (SCN) options, I found the ISO 3200 setting and gave it a shot. To my amazement, the photo appeared on the screen almost instantly, way faster than using the normal shutter mode. After a few attempts, I was able to snap the photo on the right here, which was just what I was looking for. While you can only see the biggest snowflakes in this small thumbnail, click on the image to view the large size on Flickr to see the tiny flakes in more detail.

Not only was I happy to get the photo I wanted, I was also excited because I had a way to capture a wider range of photos for moments that wouldn't be possible with slower shutter speeds. Remember, I've been shooting mainly with a DSLR, so this was a new problem to me.

Drawbacks
Of course, something this helpful will also come with it's share of drawbacks. The first is in relation to the photo's size, which isn't too bad. Shooting with the SD890 in ISO 3200 mode puts your image size to a maximum setting of 3M, which is roughly equivalent to 3 MegePixels. It also restricts the resolution of your image to 1600x1200. Still, that's pretty decent to use in cases where you would otherwise miss out on a shot altogether.

Now, just like with DSLR and even film cameras, the higher the ISO setting for film or an image processor, the more "noise" you will see in your photos. Depending on the situation, this can mean quite noticeable degradation in the fine details and quality of a photo. For example, the photo on the left here was taken in ISO 3200. Now, this is just a set scene and there's no real reason why it has to be taken in the SD890's ISO 3200, but it proves the point about the image noise that can result.

Once again, click on the photo to view the larger size on Flickr. If it was taken with the normal shooting mode of the camera (which I should have done for further comparison here), the details of the handwritten note on the Post-It would be a lot more legible, and you could probably even read my own chicken scratch on the pages underneath the bottle of water. With a proper settings and exposure time, this image, and all of the camera's 10MP glory, would have been so much better.

What took so long?
Why did it take so long for me to figure this out? I can't really tell you, other than the fact I don't really read instruction guides as much as I should. I have known for years now that, for low-light and night photography, raising the ISO setting will allow you to shoot with faster shutter speeds. But I guess I never applied that line of thinking to a point and shoot camera like the SD890. Live and learn, I guess.

Sample Videos from my Canon SD890

2008-11-14T12:08:00.005-06:00

As a follow up to my post on my first photos with the Canon SD890, I thought I'd upload and share a few of the video clips I've shot with it and help give you an idea of what's is capable of, and what it's not.

The first one I shot was taken back in September, when it was still nice out here in Chicago. A little background, a few coworkers and I spent most of the summer rollerblading during our lunch break, and this little clip was me following them down the overpass on our normal route. As you can tell, the audio isn't that great on a windy day when you're whizzing down a fairly steep hill, but it kind of clears up near the end.

The video quality, however, isn't that terrible at all considering the amount of action and motion in this clip. There's noticable degredation because of it being compressed for online viewing (in this case, by Flickr), but playback on the camera itself or on your computer right from the memory card is amazingly crisp. Of course, your milage might vary and it will also depend on the hardware you're viewing it on and what your expectations of "good video quality" is.

This next shot is a little less exciting, but I felt it was a good baseline to get a sense of what something closer to a still life or shooting a fixed subject would be like in comparison to the first one. Again, the difference in video quality is less when compressed for online viewing than it would be just on your computer and unprocessed. Still not that terrible for a photo camera.

Again, these are just a few, hopefully helpful, examples of what the Canon SD890 can do with it's built-in video mode. Since the majority of my time the past 2 years have been spent with my Canon EOS 20D, I don't have a lot of history shooting video with other digital cameras to compare it to. My wife's older Nikon E5600, however, does shoot video as well, so I'll make a point of tracking down a few of those clips to post and compare with.

From a spec standpoint, the Canon SD890 records in the standard AVI video format with only Mono audio. You can find out a little bit more (but not much) on the official Canon specs for this camera. They don't call out the video very often, since it's likely just an afterthought.

Tough Choices: Canon EOS 40D vs. 50D

2008-11-12T19:25:00.005-06:00

No doubt about it, now is certainly a great time to be a fan of digital photography and especially Digital SLR cameras. Not only is the technology making leaps and bounds over cameras from just a few years ago, competition between more than a few name brand camera makers is pushing down prices and getting that technology into the hands of consumers faster than ever.

Even though I've only had my new Canon Rebel XSi for about a month now, I still like to look toward the future and for a replacement for my EOS 20D. As a big fan of Canon and with an existing investment in their lenses and accessories, there's no trouble sticking with their expansive offering of prosumer models. The trouble I'm facing right now, though, is deciding between the fan favorite and battle tested EOS 40D or the new shining star, the EOS 50D?

(Photo Credit: Amazon)

Canon EOS 40D
The Canon EOS 40D is indeed a fan favorite although it has only been out for just over a year now. It comes with a great track record and it's 10.1MP would be a nice upgrade from the 8.1MP sported by my 20D. It can shoot at 6.5 frames/sec and utilizes the DIGIC III image processor paired with it's CMOS sensor.

What also makes the 40D very appealing right now is the slight freefall that it's price is experiencing with the recent release of the 50D (below) and the huge anticipation for the HD, 1080p video shooting EOS 5D Mark II, retailers are apparently making room on their virtual storeroom shelves by emptying out their stock in the 40D. A few hundred dollars saving on a body-only purchase of the 40D over the 50D can go along way in procuring a top notch lens that I can use for all my cameras. Very tempting.

(Photo Credit: Amazon)

Canon EOS 50D
Now, with all the advances in technology I was just mentioning earlier, the latest and greatest in the 50D sounds like a no brainer, right? On paper, the 50D boasts a 15.1 MP CMOS sensor and the new and improved DIGIC 4 image processor for quicker photo processing and writing out to storage media. It also features a brighter LCD review screen with a higher resolution than the 40D, and an HDMI output jack for viewing photos directly on your HDTV or monitor.

So where does the tough choice part come in? Even though the 50D is only beginning to make the rounds with photography enthusiasts out there, I'm starting to see a concerning contrast between the rave reviews and marketing fluff from Canon and some initial reviews and feedback from photographers that have used the 40D and made the switch to the 50D. Just this afternoon I was reading a few customer reviews over at Amazon and picked up on a theme starting that bigger isn't necessarily better in terms of megapixels and new processor and it doesn't automatically mean better photos. And at the end of they day, isn't it really the photos that make all the difference?

The Verdict
Well, there really isn't a verdict at this point. I do plan to keep an eye on the type of reception that the 50D receives as more and more people rack up the exposures with it. I realize that there is no one camera that will be perfect for everyone or every situation, but in a technology race with Nikon, Sony and others, it wouldn't suit Canon well to just push out cameras that beat the other guys in the numbers alone at the sacrifice of quality and user satisfaction. I'm not in a position to say that is the case here, since I haven't had the chance to use either of the cameras yet. I will say, though, if the price on the 40D continues to fall in comparison to the 50D, that might push me to try it out next year and save my coin for the EOS 5D Mark II in the years to come.

Time to wait and see.

New Favorite: Footprints in the Sand

2008-11-10T17:10:00.002-06:00

While looking through my photos for candidates for updating my Facebook profile picture, I happened to stumble across this one from when we were beach hopping in South Maui earlier this year and it became an instant favorite.

It was taken while walking back from about an hour long shoot at Maluaka Beach near Makena, and you can read all the details about it here. I also decided to feature it in my Sunday Photo Series this past Sunday over at the Ka'anapali Dreamin' Blog, and even though I haven't decided on keeping it as my Facebook profile yet, it did make it to be the first desktop wallpaper photo on my new Dell Mini. More on the Dell Mini and how it fits into my photography plans in the coming weeks.

Aloha for now.

A Few Shots from Chicago

2008-11-03T19:22:00.002-06:00

For someone that has grown up his entire life in the northern suburbs of Chicago, I haven't spent much time downtown in my lifetime. In fact, in the time span of almost 30 years (boy, that number's starting to scare me), I've probably spent a grand total of 7 days downtown. Sheesh.

Well, with not much to do this past Sunday, we decided to hop in the car and take an afternoon drive downtown, and of course, I had to bring my camera. We found ourselves at Belmont Harbor, just north of all the major sights and attractions like Navy Pier and Soldiers Field. We walked around for about a half hour and I was able to take a few dozen photos while we were there. It was such a beautiful day out temperature-wise, albeit overcast, for the first weekend of November, and there were quite a few people out there on bikes, roller blades, or just their running shoes and man's best friend trotting along side them.

Most of the day after that first stop was spent driving around and getting familiar with where everything is. We cruised Lake Shore Drive mostly and took a view side trips to see if we could get lost. :) For whatever reason, I've always had a weird stigma about driving around downtown Chicago, but I think this was a good step forward for me (as childish as that sounds).

After this initial trip into the big city, we're certainly going to be planning a few more visits in the coming weeks. It's always a magical sight in Chicago during winter when the streets light up, shopping down Michigan Avenue becomes a battle against the elements and the crowds, and everyone is in such a jolly mood. I look forward to capturing many of those moments in my photos.

Until then, you can check out my newly created Chicago photo set on Flickr and be sure to check back for more photos in the coming months.

My Canon Rebel XSi: First Photos

2008-10-31T12:04:00.005-05:00

The first assignment for my shiny new Canon Rebel XSi was at the Allstate Arena for an American Hockey League match-up between the hometown Chicago Wolves and the near-hometown Rockford Ice Hogs. To make matters more interesting (from a hockey perspective anyway), the Ice Hogs are the minor league affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks, of which we've been big fans of this year.

Personally, I've played hockey since I could walk and have been a fan my entire life, so being able to shoot at hockey games is a combination of both passions. This was only the second time I went to a game fully intent on taking photos, and the last time was with my Canon EOS 20D. That gave me a good base comparison for how the Rebel XSi would fare in similar use.

The Seats
To start, I was behind the 8-ball from the opening face-off because we were sitting in one of the Suite boxes that was directly behind one of the goal nets. Great seats if you're a fan (which we are, and we loved the seats), not so great if you're trying to take photos through the giant protective netting that goes from the top of the glass up to the rafters. I knew that if I was going to get the types of shots I wanted, I'd have to sneak my way into some other seats (which I did).

For the Hawks game last year, we had the perfect seats, both from a fan's perspective and for taking photos with my telephoto lens. Where I moved to this game with the Wolves, I ended up setting right near the goal line about 40 rows up. The best shots I could get from there were of the opposite end of the ice to clear the glass that was in front.

The Camera
So, to what really matters, the photos. Initially, the auto-focus wasn't playing nice for me, which was do in most part to the netting and the glass that was in the foreground of my shots. I tried to stick it out, but ultimately had to switch to manual focus for the climatic shootout at the end of the game.

Being indoors and in a constant lighting environment for the entire game meant I didn't need to play around with too many settings between shots. That made taking pictures quicker, but didn't really test the entire range of features and usability like other situations would warrant. Overall, though, I was fairly impressed with the outcome.

One of the first noticable differnces from my Canon 20D was that the Rebel weighed a little less (about half a pound less according to the Canon specs). That is, however, until you put the telephoto lens on and then you don't notice the difference that much. The large LCD screen was a big upgrade from the tiny little window on my 20D, so that made reviewing photos much easier. It also was a change for me to see and control all the settings on the screen itself, since the 20D has the display panel on the top of the camera, but that was only a minor adjustment.

The Photos
Out of about 350+ photos that weren't total throwaways when I shot them, I ultimately ended up with about 40 or so keepers, which I'd say was pretty good. One of the issues I need to learn to correct when using the Rebel has to do with the Auto Focus settings. Even when I wasn't shooting through glass or netting, I still had more than a few shots that seemed like it would only focus on a single point in the frame and not multiple areas like my 20D would. I adjusted the focus settings to use mutli-area and tried the different AI and Servo modes, but to be honest, it was mainly trial and error at the time. I need to do my homework on that one.

I do struggle a little with indoor shooting from a white balance perspective, so trying to get the right balance in some of these photos, both during the shot and in the digital darkroom, was a little bit of work. Compared to the shots I took at the United Center last March (when everything turned out with yellow and orange hints), I think these came out a little better, but not the level I wanted to.

With a fast-paced sport like hockey, I like to throw my camera in continuous shooting mode and catch some of those moments in action. For hockey, some of the obvious favorites are slap shots, body checks, and face-offs. I was also fortunate enough to get a few shots of the shoot-out after the game finished overtime in a tie, so that was neat as a fan and as a photographer.

The Rebel XSi, however, was only able to shoot at 3.5 shots/second, while my 20D made it up to 5 shots/second. If I had brought both cameras with me (like I intend to do on vacations and maybe future games), I would have switched to the 20D for that part of the game.

You can view all the photos from the game at on Flickr here.

Now Installed: DisplayFusion

2008-10-30T12:22:00.002-05:00

The sweet little app DisplayFusion by Binary Fortress Software has just been added to the Software page here at photonelly.com. I've been using DisplayFusion for almost a year now, and have it installed on multiple machines, both at work and at home.

Perhaps the bread and butter of this application is the ability to independently setup and manage background displays for multiple monitors, which as anyone that has tried it knows isn't as easy as it sounds with just Windows alone. My favorite features, though, are the integration with Flickr and the ability to rotate your background images between your favorite photos. Sometimes it's just the little things in life that make me happy. :)

Flickr Integration
DisplayFusion allows you to search for photos from your Flickr account or from other users and use them as your desktop wallpaper. This can really come in handy if you host your favorite photos on Flickr like I do, or if you want to use that picture of your cute little niece that your sister posted last week. Or maybe you're planning a trip to Maui to see the whales this winter and want to grab a photo or two for your desktop. Just do a search, find one or two that you like, and you're good to go.

Rotating Backgrounds
The rotating background feature is part of the Pro version, but in my opinion, it's worth it. I currently have mine set to rotate every 15 minutes and pull from about 20+ photos from my various trips to Maui (no surprise there). You could, of course, choose to mix it up a little bit more than I do and switch between different themes or something like that.

There are more options, too, for what photos you choose to rotate. Although I choose to download photos from Flickr and save them on my laptop to rotate (since I'm not always online), you can also enter search criteria for Flickr to find and randomly display different photos to rotate between. That way, you're always getting something fresh, even if it's not a shot from a tropical paradise.

Give it a Shot
DisplayFusion comes in two versions, a Free version and a Pro version. I run the Pro version on my laptop, for the rotating background feature, and run the Free version on my other PCs and my wife's computer. The Pro version also have a free trial (currently free for 30 days), so if you're not sure which version you want, go with the Pro version first and see what you think.

If you currently use DisplayFusion or are thinking of trying it, be sure to let me know what you think about it and whether you'd recommend it to others.

Thanks.

Now in View: Door County

2008-10-27T12:24:00.003-05:00

As I've mentioned in recent posts, my wife and I recently made our first trip up north to Door County, Wisconsin for an extended weekend. We had it on good authority that we'd like it, and it was only about halfway throught the weekend when we know we'd be coming back often.

I've added a new Door County page to the Viewfinder section with more details about why "The Door" is my newest favorite spot to take photos. Our first trip was in September, when the leaves were only starting to change into their array of autumn colors, and the weather was still nice enough to walk outside without a jacket. We're planning our next weekend trip for the first week of December, which promises to be an early winter wonderland by midwestern standards. I'm looking forward to making it my first focused effort of shooting the scenic snowscapes that is Wisconsin in winter.

Because we're in Chicago and Door County is only about a 4 hour drive away, we think we'll be making quite a few trips up there in the coming years. That said, the Door County page might be small now, but it could very easily expand at a fairly decent rate, so be sure to check back from time-to-time to scope out the latest.

Thanks.

My Canon PowerShot SD890 IS: First Photos

2008-10-25T16:22:00.003-05:00

As mentioned previously, I've had the Canon PowerShot SD890 for about a month now, and the first real test I ran it through was our trip to Door County, WI last month. I thought I'd share some of my initial reactions and first photos using this little guy.

The first thing I realized when I took it out of the box was that it was small, smaller than I had expected. I don't know why I was surprised, because after all, one of the reasons I bought this camera in the first place was because it was small and more portable than a full sized DSLR. I guess what made it seem smaller than I anticipated was the fact that my hands and fingers are a little too big for some of the buttons and dials. Nothing I didn't adapt to after a short while.

The next part that I had to adjust to after 2 years of using my Canon EOS 20D was not having full control and immediate access to everything. I got acquianted with the controls and the menus pretty quickly, and found just about all the settings that were available, but compared to a prosumer DSLR like the 20D, you have to jump through a few more hoops to get to things the way you want them.

For a camera so small, a good part of the backside of it was the screen, which was larger than I'm used to. I've shot with Cindy's Nikon E5600 from time-to-time, so using the LCD instead of the viewfinder isn't that big of a change for me, but the nice, clear screen on the SD890 made it very effective. Even in bright sunlight, where Cindy's Nikon sometimes suffers, it was still bright enough to get a good shot.

The video feature works well on the SD890, too, where that LCD display really shines. I've only shot a few clips here and there (nothing posted yet), but so far those have played back pretty well both on the camera itself and on my XPS laptop. I don't know the specs on the video off-hand, but the quality is pretty decent for a small little point-and-shoot. The audio is great, too.

Now, for what really counts... the image quality.

I was pleasantly surprised with how well the SD890 captured true colors with even the basic shooting modes. I had some success with adjusting white balance and exposure settings, but even out of the box or with one of the program (SCN) modes, it held up to the Canon name. As you can see with the colors in the photos here, everything looks crisp and vibrant, and for the few times we had clear skies that weekend, these shots came out great.

When the clouds started to roll in, I did have a little trouble adjusting the exposures to compensate. In all fairness, that is one of my current weakpoints and something that I'm always working on. That aside, I'm pretty happy with the SD890 as my everyday, everywhere camera. Even my wife has started taking a liking to it, which is good because once we're back in Maui next year, my quality shooting time is going to be spent with my DSLRs. :)

Here are a few more photos from our Door County trip taken with my SD890. You can view all the photos (20D and SD890) at my Door County - Sept. '08 Flickr set and see if you can tell the difference.

The First Assignment for My Rebel XSi

2008-10-24T20:00:00.002-05:00

It's going to to sound weird, but even though I received my Rebel XSi on Wednesday, I have yet to use it!!!

Yesterday during lunch was probably the best opprotuntity, although I chose to finish my latest Flickr hack instead. And by the time I got home, it was getting cloudy and threatening to rain. And today, it's been pretty rainy all day with some carry over into Saturday. Oh well.

But I do have my first assignment lined up for putting this new guy to the test. On Sunday, my wife and I have sky box tickets to the Chicago Wolves game with her family, and I'm getting my second chance to bring all my gear out to a hockey game for some fast action shots. And being in a sky box this time, I'll have more than enough room to shoot comfortably without upsetting those next to me.

It's actually going to be our third game of the freshly started hockey season, with the first two games at the United Center with the Blackhawks. I went cameraless to those game, however, since are seats were even out of the range of my 300mm telephoto. Still lovin' the live hockey action here in Chicago, though.

So if all goes well, I'll have some great hockey pics to share early next week and something to write about for my new Rebel. In the meantime, I still have stuff to post about my almost-as-new SD890 and our Door County photos from last month. I'll post about those over the weekend.

Until then.

My photos tagged by camera, thanks to the Flickr API

2008-10-23T20:21:00.006-05:00

I have to admit, being both a photography hobbiest and a web developer can lead to some interesting ideas and fun challenges.

With the arrival of my new Rebel XSi yesterday (more details coming), I've officially become a 2 DSLR shooter and, in addition to my other cameras, I wanted a way to showcase and browse photos from each camera. With almost all of my photos hosted at Flickr, you think it'd be pretty darn easy, right? Well, yes and no.

Flickr does have the capability to read the EXIF data of your photos automatically, including camerea information, as shown below:

So that's it, right? All you need to do is click on Canon EOS 20D and you can see all your photos with that camera. Actually, that takes you to everyone's photos with that camera, not just yours. A little disappointing, and it made me start to think whether I was the only one who wanted this feature.

No worries, since I've used the Flickr API before to fix other issues, and knowing that the EXIF data for a photo was at my fingertips when using Flickr, I had myself a new little challenge to play with. The API method flickr.photos.getExif was sitting there waiting for me, and I was off to the races.

Knowing I could access the EXIF data per photo was part of the task, figuring out how to use it for browsing my photos was the other half. It didn't take me very long to decide on using Tags as the solution to that portion, and I was all set. I cracked open Visual Studio 2008 Express (C#), brushed up on the Flickr.NET API Kit, and started hacking away.

So the overall design of my little hack is simple:

Map the EXIF make and model values into different tags (i.e. EOS20D, SD890, etc.)
List photos from my account and read their EXIF values
Add the appropriate camera tag to each photo based on the EXIF values

And for the most part, that really was it.

One Little Snag
Just like everything, though, there were a few snags. The one worth mentioning is that some photos on Flickr didn't have any EXIF values. Why? Well, it turns out for some sets that I uploaded when using JetPhoto Studio (just one example) to merge in my GPS waypoints for geotagging, it seems to have wiped out the EXIF data during the upload process. To demonstrate, none of the photos from my Road to Hana '08 set have EXIF data. Bummer.

So what to do now? It turns out I was saved by my own laziness. :)

I still have all the original photos that have all the EXIF data in them, so all was not lost. Unfortunately, Flickr doesn't retain the original file name of a photo when it was uploaded, but since I have way too many photos to update individually, more than a few still have the original file name as the photo title (such as IMG_6298). While I'm not proud that many of my photos still start with IMG_, I was able to take advantage of it this time by matching the IMG_ file name on my PC to the title on Flickr and make the association that way.

Reading the EXIF data from a file on your local computer is a little bit trickier then just a simple method in the Flickr API, but it's still doable. I didn't use this exact code, opting to roll my own instead, but it helped me figure out where to start looking.

The Results
After only about 4-6 hours of coding and testing, the full update itself only took about 20 minutes to read and process some 2,600+ photos on Flickr. The results are individual links below to browse my photos by camera (via Tags).

Not bad for half a day's work.

Still More To Do
That's going to be it for now, other than featuring the links on my Cameras page. Another benefit of having this camera data saved as Tags (and also being a web developer), I can take advantage of some existing work I've done with the Google Chart API on my Maui site for my Island Tag Match.

Here, I used the Flickr API to search for a specific tag per Hawaiian island and chart the results. For my Cameras page, I plan on doing the same per camera model in my photos on Flickr.

In addition to just having a little chart, I can also use the Flickr RSS feeds to have separate feeds per camera model (again, via tags), and then mashup those feeds in a little preview panel on different parts of my site. Here's an example of the latest photos I've taken and upload with my Canon EOS 20D. Gonna be fun once I start using my new Rebel XSi.

Another leftover from the code I wrote from this little hack is that I know have an XML file I was using between the reading photo data and updating tags portions of my hack that has each photo, it's PhotoId, a title and the Geo tags if is currently has been placed on my map. One of the things I plan to do with that is add photos the maps section on my Maui site, where most of my photos that have been geotagged were taken anyway. A nice little bonus.

Other Fun with Camera Data
That's all from me, but I thought I'd share a few links of what Flickr and others have done with the camera information from EXIF data. BigHugeLabs.com, home to fd's Flickr Toys, has a cool ranking section that shows off the most used cameras on Flickr. Flickr themselves have a nice little camera finder that let's you not only browse through different makes and models, but also see photos on Flickr taken with those cameras.

If you've seen a similar hack or know of a site out there doing something cool with this time of camera EXIF data, please do tell.

Thanks.

New Mosaics created with AndreaMosaic

2008-10-18T10:55:00.002-05:00

When I first started getting into photography just a few years ago, I stumbled across a little piece of free software called AndreaMosaic. It's a simple little app that lets you create large mosaic pieces of art of any picture by using thousands of other pictures and shrinking them down into little tiles. While the concept is simple, and the software is great, I had a few problems back then.

I didn't have a lot of photos to use for tiles
My PC at the time wasn't that powerful, which meant I was waiting too long for things to finish
I couldn't decide on any "wow" photos to use for a mosaic

Well, after a few years, just about all of those have been taken care of now. :)

As you can see, I spent a little time this morning reacquianting myself with AndreaMosaic, now that I have thousands of photos from Maui from the past three years, and beefy Dell XPS laptop, and stunning wall candy to share. I played around a little bit with a few different settings, but these mosaics here and the others on Flickr I feel came out the best.

Let me know what you think, and if you have thoughts on AndreaMosaic or other software titles that you use and recommend. I'll leave you with one more of my favorites from this morning's session.

View them all here and check back every once in awhile as I continue to experiment.

Thanks.

My Rebel XSi is on the way

2008-10-16T20:56:00.004-05:00

While originally planned as a Xmas gift this year, it was featured as one of the Deals of the Day at Dell.com today and, with an existing 10% coupon code I've been saving, I was able to order my new Rebel XSi for only $560!!! That's a full $100 less than Amazon, and something I knew I couldn't pass up.

Even better, standard shipping (3-5 days) was free, although, there was a last minute shipping delay and it won't be shipped until next week (bummer). Since I hadn't expected to be getting it so soon, I don't have a lot to write up yet as a preview. I guess the week delay in shipping will give me a few days, so look for that soon.

I've also spent my first month with my new Canon SD890, too. I owe a review on that guy as well.