Crop the pictures

最简单对图片的处理就是crop了。

画画是一笔一笔把白纸变复杂，而照相却经常会有太多的内容需要去一点点切割。当然，一开始就计划好构图自然是好，不过有时候却由于种种原因不得不切割。譬如，照个花花草草，没钱淘个macro镜头，也没有折腾reverse ring，就用普通镜头照的总是范围太大，crop一下就好了。

碰见一个采花大盗

蜘蛛网：

这张也剪过，纯粹是一开始没有够好图

Some good photography resources

Just to keep a bookmark of a good photography resource list.
in reference to:

"National Geographic – Photo Tips
Popular Photo – How To
Shutterbug – Techniques If you pick up a copy of the August issue you’ll find an advertisement I’m in.
Rangerfinder – RFTV
Digital Photo Pro – Techniques
Photofles Lighting School
Nikon
Kodak
Canon Learning Center
Olympus – Photo Lessons
Adoram Photo Learning Center"
- 10 (+1) Great Online Resources for Great Photography Advice | Gizmotastic (view on Google Sidewiki)

Inspiring article of shooting in the day

Traditional tips say: never shoot in the middle of the day, and even if you do, shoot in the shade. Then I saw a interesting article on how mid-day shadows emphasis texture on DPS, and later, I saw this great article.

It's about shooting portrait using natural light, with lots of great examples. Key summaries:

1. Be creative and look for interesting shadows and shapes, practice and shoot tons of them.
2. Put light in the back of the object to prevent blinks, and make it more natural.
3. Use silver reflectors to reclaim some details in the background (well, prob this tip is not for me right now).
in reference to: Shooting with Available Light - Lifestyle Portraiture (view on Google Sidewiki)

So complicated

The relationship between ISO and sensitivity is so complicated, that I totally don't know what the author is talking about. Key points from the article:

1. Digital sensors convert light into electrical charge in a linear fashion (I thought it was log before), which is different from human eye.

2. ISO is a combination of the sensor's physical sensitivity and the tone function to convert the signal, and maybe the metering.

3. There are many ways to define ISO, and it is possible each camera manufacture has its own definition.
in reference to: Sense and Sensitivity: dpreview.com Editorial blog: Digital Photography Review (view on Google Sidewiki)

Random Shots of San Francisco

上周搬出了三藩，贴几张最近照的相片。

雾大，城里总是雾气朦胧。这是一天迷路莫名其妙上了80之后干脆就跑到垃圾岛上照的夜景。很可惜没有三脚架，只能凑活着用极高的ISO靠着栏杆照了。一片灯火辉煌，其实米国城里看起来也不算那么冷清。

换一张日落时候的相片。这是在九曲花街拍的。黄昏的颜色很漂亮，可惜直接照的那些相片都觉得很普通，就贴这个楼梯照了。

接着贴几家店：Macy

苹果店

LV门口匆忙走过的行人：

再来：某小学墙上的图画，在铁栅栏之外拍的。

芝士学校，不知道是教做芝士呢，还是教品芝士？

有人知道这是哪里么？居然在大马路上发现了一个旋转木马（左下角这个东东）。

别在这家人门口乱趴车……

最后，路边摊卖的面具。

Come on new macs

Looking forward to see new iMacs (needs a SD card reader!) and new macbooks (lighter and cheaper)
in reference to: AppleInsider | Apple close to unveiling all-new MacBook line (view on Google Sidewiki)

Smart phone biz

Ballmer's insight on small/big-ish consumer device is interesting, and prob he is right on the phone market: software will win in the end. We'll see how this play out with iphone in the next two years...
in reference to:

"I’ll call anything that’s north of 300 million a year non-niche. PC’s are not niche devices. Part of the reason I think they’re non-niche devices is, multiple people can manufacture them, they all interoperate, they work together, etc. TVs are not niche. You know, there’s more than, well over 300 million of those sold a year. They interoperate in that case mostly based on standards, but with some innovation. Phones are not niche. The categories where, I think, a single player can control a large percentage of the volume are the smaller categories. What does Apple sell every year of iPods: 30 million, order of magnitude, something like that. What is the whole video game market is maybe 30 or 40 million in units a year. But when you get these categories that are 300 million, 500 million, a billion, a billion-five a year, the truth of the matter is you’re gonna want multiple points of manufacture, with a lot of innovation around it whether its supply chain, for geographic diversity, and our basic play with our software is to try and be super high volume. So I think you can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that’s gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that’s sold by somebody who doesn’t make their own phone. And, we don’t want to cross the chasm in the short run and lose the war in the long run and that’s why we think the software play is the right play for us for high volume, even though some of the guys in the market today with vertically oriented solutions may do just fine."
- Exclusive Interview With Steve Ballmer: Products, Competition, The Road Ahead (view on Google Sidewiki)

Web annotation, deja vous!

Google launched side wiki on toolbar, and sounds like deja vous for dotspots. Do internet users really want to comment on web pages? We'll see.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/help-and-learn-from-others-as-you.html
in reference to:

"DotSpot"
- DotSpots | Spot the Truth, Connect the Dots (view on Google Sidewiki)