The Author – Bart Busschots
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Mar
27
Photo of the Week 163 – Jogging on the Graff
Filed Under Photography on March 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment
One of the things I really miss with all this being sick is spending my lunch times out and about enjoying the grounds of St. Patrick’s College, so I thought that this week I’d share one of my favourite shots of people enjoying those great grounds. As you can see from the photo – it’s “Pedestrian Traffic Only” along this lovely avenue of Linden trees, but that doesn’t mean it’s not busy 🙂
This general part of the college is known as ‘the Graff’ (technically I think the original Graff was one path to the North of this one) because it’s apparently as long as Graffton St. in Dublin city. Not sure how true it was, but when I worked as a tour guide for the Students’ Union during Freshers Week in the past that’s what was written on my script!
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/100 sec
- Focal Length: 38mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.67ev
Mar
20
Photo of the Week 162 – Snowdrops in the Cemetery
Filed Under Photography on March 20, 2011 | 1 Comment
This week I thought I’d post a re-mastered version of an image from two years ago that I think really captures the beauty of spring very well. This was one of the first shots I ever edited with Aperture (then version 2), and re-visiting it with the upgraded Aperture 3, and two years more experience has really paid off (you can see the original version on Flickr).
This shot was taken in the old part of Laraghbryan Cemetery (just outside Maynooth, Ireland), next to the ruins of the old church. The cemetery is still in use, but the part of it around the old church is very old, and now out of use. It’s full of very old and very worn tomb stones like this one, and is blanketed in beautiful Snowdrops (Galantus nivalis) each spring.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/1250 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.3
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.67ev
Mar
17
What a Difference a Glif Makes
Filed Under Photography on March 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment
When I first got my iPhone 4 I played with the video a bit, but it never quite lived up to my expectations because I just couldn’t hold it still enough to get nice video out of it. This is the kind of thing I was able to get free-hand:
I was able to do a little better by bracing the camera against something solid – like the edge of a bridge, but still – the results were not ideal:
If only I could attach the iPhone to a tripod! Well, this is where the Glif comes in. It’s a small piece of moulded plastic that has a standard tripod screw hole at the bottom, and that grips the iPhone securely. You can use it on a full-size tripod, and it works very well, but it does look quite silly. I find it much more useful to use a mini tripod instead, so I can literally carry me entire video setup in my pocket!
As well as acting as a tripod adapter for the iPhone, the Glif can also function as a handy little iPhone stand, in a surprising number of configurations. If you’re curious about what all the Glif can do, they have a nice little video on their site. The Glif is $20 + shipping, which is quite steep for a simple piece of plastic, but I have to say, I’m very happy with it, and I’m certainly getting good value for money out of it.
Finally – here’s an example of the results I’m getting with it:
Mar
14
Photo of the Week 161 – Swans in Carton Estate
Filed Under Photography on March 14, 2011 | 2 Comments
This is an older shot that I recently stumbled across in my library, I thought it was worth sharing as a Photo of the Week. This is a great example of why bad weather can be great for photography – I believe Americans call this “storm light”, where you have weak soft sunlight against a dark angry sky. Here we see swans swimming along the river in Carton Estate near Maynooth in Co. Kildare, Ireland.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/800 sec
- Focal Length: 38mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.33ev
- Processing: created by tonemapping a single RAW image with Photomatix Pro, and tweaking the result with Aperture’s built-in Dodge & Burn plugin
Mar
11
Pan Fried Pork Chops
Filed Under Cooking & Food on March 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment
This isn’t so much a recipe as a quick and simple tip for making fried pork taste great. You can use regular pork loin chops, or some of the more exotic cuts like gigot Chops.
All you’ll need is your pork, some ground Nutmeg, crushed black pepper, salt, and a little vegetable oil.
Mar
9
Photo of the Week 160 – The Sliabh Beagh Way
Filed Under Photography on March 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment
This is the second shot from my walk along the Sliabh Beagh Way around this time last year. This shot was taken near the Penal Cross at the top of the mountain as we started our descent backdown. As you can see – these are very gently rolling mountains – not as dramatic as craggy peaks, but with a beauty all their own regardless.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/500 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Processing: created by tonemapping a single RAW image with Photomatix Pro, and then tweaking it a little in Aperture
Mar
2
Automator Workflow for Stripping Keywords from Images
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development, Photography, My Projects on March 2, 2011 | 5 Comments
Following on from my post yesterday with three examples of using Automator to create Services, and some good suggestions in the comments, I spent some time this afternoon making the script in the third of those examples a little more efficient, and a lot more robust.
The Service I optimised was the one to strip keywords from image files. This Service assumes that both Growl and EXIFTool are installed, and that you’re running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later.
Mar
2
Automator + Services = Image Editing Automation Heaven
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on | 6 Comments
Some Apple haters just love to say that there is nothing to a Mac except for flashy marketing. There are a million different reasons that’s BS, but one in particular is ease of automation. The learning curve to start automating your Mac is very short and very gentle. Without ever seeing a single line of code you can add your own custom functionality to OS X to relieve you of your most boring repetitive tasks. If you can tolerate seeing a line or two of code, you can take things even further and tie Unix command line tools straight into your GUI. The best candidates for automation are simple repetitive tasks that you do often. You might only save 30 seconds each time, but if do that 10 times a day that soon adds up! In this post I just want to give three simple examples to whet your appetite and hopefully get you thinking about some simple tasks in your computing life that you could easily automate.
Mar
1
Photo of the Week 159 – A Galway Evening
Filed Under Photography on March 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Something I’ve not really mastered is minimalist shots – this is very much the exception that proves the rule. This wonderful view is out across Lough Atalia in Galway, Ireland taken from in front of the Radisson Hotel where I was staying for a conference. The entire massive sweeping bank on the far side is artificial, built by the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) to allow their main line from Dublin to cross the lake and enter Galway city. In the distance you can see the last train of the evening from Dublin to Galway crossing the embankment. The train is an Irish Rail Class 22000 six-car diesel multiple unit (DMU).
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/125 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.3ev
- Processing: created by tonemapping a single RAW image with Photomatix Pro, and then tweaking the resulting image in Aperture 3