Cool way to create bokeh

with floating hearts :)

in reference to: DIY - Create your own Bokeh | DIYPhotography.net (view on Google Sidewiki)

Bokeh is an adaptation from a a Japanese word meaning blur. In photography this term is used to describe the quality of the areas in the picture which are not in focus.

When referring to Bokeh, we can distinguish some of it characteristics:

- Is the light/dark gradient smooth or sharp?

- What shape will a small dot of light take what it is in the Bokeh area? (mirror lenses for example, create a bagel like Bokeh)

We can play with those two variants to create a special Bokeh.

You will need :

• One large aperture lens (a Canon 50mm F1.8 is used here, but Nikon 50mm 1.8 will also do, and the superb Nikon 50mm 1.4 will work even better)
• One sheet of black paperboard

1. Cut and shape the sheet to make a fake lens hood. The Diameter is made so that it snugly fits on the lens.

2. In the middle of the filter the wanted bokeh shape is cut out - in out example a heart is used. I’m not sure how big a hole the shape can be. But you can check it right away by just looking through the viewfinder. On the 50mm lens @ F1.8 a 15mm heart gives a metering value equal to F3.2, so it can probably be a little bigger (you can use a puncher or cut it by hand).

3. Set your camera to its lowest aperture value (completely open).

Here are two shots to demonstrate this technique - one with a bare lens and the other with the hearted hood. see more shots here and here (I leave it as an exercise to tell which is which :)

Here are the parameters for the example shown above:

• Lens - Canon 50mm F1.8
• "Lens hood" Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inch)
• Hole diameter: 15mm (0.6inch)

Here are two more great examples for this technique from RottieLover (note - there only one "real" heart in each picture):

Do you have a cool bokeh? show off on the comments or on the flickr group.

This article was contributed by Karsten Stroemvig (aka Lullaby), see his other great photograph projects, or browse through our readers projects section.

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家门口卡几张

好久没有动过相机了，有点对不过去，就随便在家门口卡了几张：

邻居门上的稻草人：

破破的墙壁居然有些texture的感觉：

广而告之

这个创意不错，从带三个表那儿看到的。

董卓欲试手下忠心，
召众臣会于室，
使貂婵裸胸涂墨舞于室中。
忽，灯灭，目不及物。
倾尔，灯亮。
卓视众臣手皆黑，唯吕布手白。
卓欣然曰：布忠臣也。
布笑，露黑齿！
卓大愕，欲杀之。
布曰：“南方黑芝麻糊，口感真好！”

in reference to:

"你瞧瞧人家广告做的，再瞧瞧侯耀华广告做的"
- » 你瞧瞧人家广告做的，再瞧瞧侯耀华广告做的 (view on Google Sidewiki)

R trick to get column max

Learned from an email thread. This is the kind of problem you'll never think about if you are a student using R. Suppose you have a k by n matrix, say x, where k is small but n is huge (say 1,000,000), and you want to get the maximum in each column, that is, n different values.

The naive way of apply(x, 2, max) takes forever to complete.

The new trick I learned is:

# transpose x and convert to a data.frame
t.x <- as.data.frame(t(x))
# use do.call with "pmax" and the input matrix
x.max <- do.call("pmax", t.x)

经济危机真的已经结束了吗

大众媒体年中的时候就开始报道说经济危机最糟糕的时候已经过去，虽然不知道恢复速度会有多快，但至少形势不会恶化。可怎么最近的新闻和去年这个时候差不多糟糕呢？该裁员的接着裁员：著名游戏公司EA要裁掉1500，新的AOL也要裁掉1/3，索爱也要裁员，好些分部包括RTP都要关掉。

More in this New York Times Article: Jobless Rate Up in 29 States, Hitting Records in 4 of Them

山寨品牌

中国人真能折腾啊。

in reference to:

"某西方国家的商务部长在世界经济论坛上咬牙切齿的说：“与中国的竞争，就是场血淋淋的战争” 你看看下面这些个图，就知道这爷们为啥如此的怒向刀丛觅小诗了。"
- 真能整 - 奇 小 怪 - 博客大巴 (view on Google Sidewiki)

How to Make a Space Photo

Detailed steps, very interesting.

in reference to: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/making-space-photo/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

500 Days of Summer

Love this movie, the tunes and those wisdom lines.

Partygoer: So Tom, what is it that you do?
Tom: I uh, I write greeting cards.
Summer: Tom could be a really great architect if he wanted to be.
Partygoer: That's unusual, I mean, what made you go from one to the other?
Tom: I guess I just figured, why make something disposable like a building when you can make something that last forever, like a greeting card.

Tom: What happens when you fall in love?
Summer: You believe in that?
Tom: It's love, it's not Santa Claus.

Rachel Hansen: You know, all my friends love you and think you're great. It's like they say, there's plenty of fish in the sea.
Tom: [Looks at a group of twelve year old girls who wave at him and giggle] Those aren't fish. They're guppies.

Rachel Hansen: Better that you find this out now before you come home and find her in bed with Lars from Norway.
Tom: Who's Lars from Norway?
Rachel Hansen: He's some guy she met at the gym with Brad Pitt's face and Jesus' abs.

Narrator: Most days of the year are unremarkable. They begin, and they end, with no lasting memories made in between. Most days have no impact on the course of a life. May 23rd was a Wednesday.

教主这张相片实在比较ws

Drag the Shutter

Nice explanation: using flash to make shutter speed and exposure independent. Good examples on what the effects look like under different shutter speeds.

A very impressive example adding motion using zoom and dragging the shutter at the end of the article.

in reference to: 03 – dragging the shutter « planet neil – tangents (view on Google Sidewiki)

Free wifi this holiday

Free wifi at many airports and Virgin America provided by Google, free wifi at Delta provided by eBay, free wifi at New York Time Square provided by Yahoo and free wifi in lots of other airports/hotels provided by Microsoft.

in reference to:

"Google announced Tuesday that it would provide free Wi-Fi access in 47 airports across the country — including Boston, Houston and Seattle — through Jan. 15."
- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/technology/companies/11wifi.html?_r=1 (view on Google Sidewiki)

华山

Amazing photo