/dev/random

I’ve uploaded my WWDC photos to Flickr in two sets.

All WWDC Photos

WWCC Thursday Night Bash

I also uploaded some general San Francisco photos.

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When I was walking home from the gym this evening, the sunset was really spectacular, so I rushed home to get my camera and take a few shots. Since time was running out, I didn’t bother taking the tripod. Here’s a 3 exposure HDR made without a tripod, using Photoshop’s Merge to HDR & Photomatix [...]

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Paulo Jordao has posted some new details on the time & route for the Fort Lauderdale Photowalk. It will take place on Sunday June 22 at 10:00 AM around the Riverfront & Las Olas.

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I haven’t done one of these for a while, but I saw this big green caterpillar outside my building so I had to take a picture of it.

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I’ve been working on my manual focus skills with the 50mm f/1.8 lens. I found that trusting the focus indicator light in the view finder is the key to proper focus. The subject will appear to be in focus across a range of settings, but it’s only in perfect focus when the indicator lights up. [...]

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Dragonflies seem to be swarming since yesterday. Luckily this one remained still long enough that I was able to get a few good shots of it.

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Paulo Jordao is planning a photo walk in Fort Lauderdale some time next month. The details haven’t been finalized, but most likely it will be on June 21 or 22. The location is yet to be determined, possibly around Las Olas.

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This is an old family photo I found and scanned. I have no idea who any of these people are but I know it’s from my mother’s family. It could have been taken either in New York or Odessa.

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One of the best things about DLSR cameras is that they give you a lot of control over focus, exposure, and depth of field, allowing you to choose exactly how you want your picture to look.
When I photograph flowers or plants, I usually like to use a very narrow depth of field to emphasize the [...]

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Creaceed has released a new version of Hydra, which includes a new HDR plugin for Aperture 2.1.
It doesn’t offer as many options as Photomatix, but the results are very nice. These were created with the same source images I had previously processed with Photoshop and the Photomatix plugin. The results look very natural, although it [...]

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Thanks to Thomas Hawk, I found lots of great photography links and subscribed to several photography related blogs. One of my new favorites is Stuck in Customs. They do some really amazing HDR photos. I had previously seen their HDR tutorial.

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Dean Allen writes about his experience of switching to a Nikon DSLR after using point & shoot cameras for a long time:
I feel like someone handed a slice of hot toast spread with cultured butter after a lifetime breakfasting on Skittles and government cheese.
I can definitely relate. Using a D40x changed the way I think [...]

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I haven’t done one of these for a while, but the dark clouds inspired me to make an HDR image.

I spent most of the weekend (when I wasn’t working around the house & garden) writing some Cocoa code for FriendFeed. So far I only support the features that don’t require authentication.

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I’ve never seen a caladium flower before, so I had to take a picture of it. I didn’t have my D40x with me, so I took this with my iPhone.

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I got a new camera bag from Crumpler, after reading Michael Mistretta’s recommendation. I got a slightly smaller one, but it still has enough room to hold my D40x with one lens attached plus two more lenses and lots of accessories.

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The D40 or D40x’s sport mode isn’t only for sports. It’s great for any time you want to capture fast action at the highest possible shutter speed. Using continuous shooting mode you can capture action at 1/500 or 1/1000 second shutter speed. I was able to capture this Polynesian dancer’s torch in midair.

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Today was Oakland Park’s Youth Day, one of our biggest events. I took over 2000 photos, which I’m still processing. I used the sport mode of the D40x and did lots of burst mode shooting of Brazilian Capoeira, Polynesian dancing, and martial arts events. Here’s the best shot I found so far. I managed to [...]

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You’ve probably seen photos where most of it is black & white with one bit colorized. If you have a photo with a strong contrast between subject and background, it’s pretty easy to do in Photoshop.
Earlier today I took this picture of roses blooming in my neighbor’s garden. I used the largest aperture for my [...]

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As you probably know, Flickr introduced their video feature earlier this week. Unfortunately their effort is half-assed and only detracts from the site. They only allow videos of 90 seconds or less, which isn’t really useful. It’s obviously meant for the short videos you can take with many point-and-shoot cameras or cell phones, but there [...]

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I really like the aged photo effect you can create at this Japanese website, so I attempted to duplicate the effect in Photoshop. These pictures I took in San Francisco last year seemed to be a good subject.
For my first attempt, I used the Aperture 2.1’s sepia tone & vignette effects and then used Photoshop’s [...]

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