Polarizing Issue

With my new lens and polarizing filter, I went out the other day and was playing around taking some shots. I was actually a bit surprised by how dramatic the difference was when using the filter wrt the orientation of the sun. Below is a photo that was pointing in the general direction of the sun.


And this is a shot where the sun was at 90 degrees to the camera (sun pointing at my shoulder)


Pretty dramatic difference with the blues and clouds. As my ongoing improvement process, that will just have to be another thing that I'll have to think about before holding the camera up to my eye.

Awkward

Sometimes when you're booking vacations you always assume things are going to go well. Today we booked a hotel room in Quito. You know, the same day that renegade police attack the President Rafael Correa in something that he says is an attempted coup d'Ètat.

Awkward....

Time vs Money

The old saying "time is money" never sticks in my head as much as when we travel. On our first big trip, we took things slow because we couldn't afford to go fast. We did everything on the cheap, even if it took more time. Contrast that to our last trip where we wanted to do a lot and actually had enough enough money to pay for flights that would move us quickly. However we were limited for time. We sacrificed money for time.

It's funny how it's always the resource that's in shortest supply becomes the most precious.

Headache treatment

I get headaches frequently. Perhaps I should see a doctor about that. Most of the time I "self medicate" by drinking something with caffeine, usually coffee. But today I figured out another good treatment:
I walked to the river and sat on a bench there.

Seemed pretty effective. A lot easier on the stomach than other treatments too.

Vegetables are what food eats

Well, the title is what my brothers always joke. I have to admit that the "vegetable" part of my meal isn't always my favourite. Specially not when it's just a pile of one type that fills half of the plate. Ugg.

One of my least favouite veggies has been eggplant Fried, baked, chopped, ugg. But then I discovered a secret - (almost) everything tastes better if you bbq it. So my quick way to satisfy the "half the plate should be veggies" requirement is that I just make a huge grilled veggie salad. It's easy, stays well in the fridge, and tastes great (as much as veggies can). Below is a rough guideline of possible ingredients for my salad. I never make it with the same things twice, so it really is just a rough idea.

Grilling ingredients:
1 eggplant, sliced length wise 1 cm thick. Lightly brushed with oil
1-2 zucchinis, sliced into thirds length wise, brushed with oil
1 red pepper, cored and cut into flat sections (usually 3)
1 red onion, cut into 3 slices
1 bunch asparagus

Non-grilling ingredients:
1 little box cherry tomatoes
2-3 sticks celery
1 handful chopped coriander / cilantro
1-2 handfuls small mushrooms (possible to just cut into 1/3 or 1/4's)
3-6 cloves roasted garlic chopped / pressed / whatever (optional)

Grill the grilling things, then cut into bit sized pieces. Toss everything into a bowl and either add a oil based salad dressing or some red wine vinegar and oil. Season with some salt pepper and you're done. Makes enough for 6 (at least).

Everything will have a nice smoky flavour and you'll be able to trick yourself into eating veggies.

Travel to the sights and listen

When traveled to Costa Rica, one of the things that we went to see was the Arenal Volcano. Before going I knew that we weren't going to see the spectacular eruptions that they have in the pictures. What I didn't expect showing up was when someone said "ya, you should be able to hear it well today". Whhhaaat? You can hear it?

The rumblings, the tumblings as rocks rolled down the sides, the crack of rocks hitting each other. There weren't many people around, but usually people outside aren't quiet. There people spoke in hushed tones - with a quiet reverence. I've read about people feel like they are sitting next to an angry giant when near volcanoes. That feels like a understatement. There was so much power sitting there in a mountain. I totally understand now why people believed that gods resided inside volcanoes.

My advice for anyone traveling - pictures are wonderful, but make sure no matter where you go, you use all your senses because those are what really makes it real.

Jim Likes This

I really don't understand why people "like" things in facebook like bands and movies. I understanding "liking" content that a friend has posted, whether it's a comment, link, or picture, as a vote to that friend that you appreciate their contribution. The thing that I don't get is "liking" things like movies. Maybe it's just because I view facebook as a giant data mine for advertisers, adding a vote to something like a movie or already famous band doesn't seem to help anyone other than the advertisers. You're not going to discover a new friend because you and only 192,281,928 other people like Star Wars. You're not providing your existing friends with any valuable information. Wow, you like movies, books and music - you're such a unique flower.

I just don't understand spending the effort adding content to a site that claims instant ownership over anything posted.

Depth of Field

With the recent new addition to our lens family, I started to play around with setting the aperture to play with depth of field (DoF). I took a couple of sample images with the new lens out our front window.

At F 1.8. Most open, shortest depth of field. Also the fastest exposure time because the most amount of light is entering the camera.


At F 2.8. Might be good for short depth of field portrait were you want the whole person in focus.


At F 8.0. Widens up the DoF with some slight blurring.


At F 22.0. Longest DoF, smallest aperture, which also means the longest exposure which could introduce camera shake.


In hindsight with this experiment, I made a poor choice of subject. I should have chosen something that had more objects along a whole focal range. But I couldn't help it, I was just so excited to play with my new toy.

Damn It Feels Good To Be An Adult

Sometimes life is difficult. Things might not be as good as you had hoped. I think that being an adult means sometimes you do things that you don't want to do, but because they need to be done.

Other times being an adult is just awesome because you get to pick out your own toys for your birthday. And then open them early. Awwww Some. *blogsphere high five*