Tutorials, hints and personal tricks in misc. fields such as photography, diving and web design

Ticks and tricks: Tutorials, hints and personal tricks in misc. fields such as photography, diving and web design

2009

A weird trick

New York, as it turns out, is plagued with late season-blooming mosquitoes. As the temperature rose yesterday to 18°C and is now hovering around 15°C, the little bastards manage to rise again and again, like Peter Sellers failing to die in the hilarious opening scene of « The Party ».

By late autumn, one grows weary of slapping around frantically - and often missing. Fly swaps are messy and leave red stains on the walls. So let me give you a trick that has done wonders for me lately, especially for the late night buggers that won’t let us sleep - a mosquito buzzing around your head in a dark silent room is like the sound of bombers approaching London during WW2. Or so I imagine.

So my trick in two words: shaving cream!

No, seriously! It’s instant mosquito glue. Rub around a bit of cream on the palm of one hand and merely wave your hand close to the insect. Make sure to be in its path as it takes off. It’ll stay stuck as surely as if the shaving cream was contact glue. Wash your hand up. You’re done.

Posted at 12:24 PM in ICMOL: & Ticks and tricks: 2 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

2009

</IE> or hoping for the Internet Explorer plague to go away

A long time ago, a talented hacker named Bill Gates decided to take control of home computers worldwide and he launched a massive virus called Windows. Bundled with the virus came a web browser labeled Internet Explorer. The browser was very similar to its Windows host in that it was buggy, crippled, imperfect and vulnerable - but therein resided its strength: early release allowed Microsoft to inundate the market with a less-than-perfect product at a rock-bottom price with the promise of updates and improvements that, it turns out, never came. But in those days, IE had an almost-total monopoly and was considered better than nothing.

Sure, there were updates. But they never fixed anything. The browser remained bugged and more importantly, its many subsequent versions never became standard compliant. You see, there are a bunch of very smart and Microsoft-proof people out there who set the standards for web programming languages and protocols. They are the ones who shape up the internet as we know it, by adopting new guidelines and progressively enhancing old ones. They don’t decide of anything, but they are the authority on the subject. When designing a web browser, one would be smart to follow their lead and comply with widely accepted standards. Gates never has.

As a result, even in its current 8th version, Internet Explorer still plain and simply sucks. It remains the least standard-compliant browser out there ff-ie and is every web designer’s nightmare. It forces one to double-code and invent workarounds for many features and visual design aspects that work well with most browsers but still fail on IE.

And so if you are reading this from the lazy comfort of your good old Internet Explorer version.x, I have bad news for you: you are not getting the full effect of this web page, and neither will you on a growing number of other web sites. Many designers, me among them, are stopping once and for all the impossible quest for IE-compatibility and creating web sites that are specifically optimized for better-complying browsers, Firefox obviously being the leading contestant. Much of this has to do with simple eye-candy and won’t necessarily affect the core functions of a page. But in an age where web programming languages have evolved to the point of allowing full application-like interfaces, incredible user interaction and fluid animation, eye-candy is really one of the hottest feature out there.

As a small example, consider this very blog. Every main browser out there, be it Firefox, Chrome or Safari, will render its various boxes and frames with rounded corners, and will apply elegant drop-shadows to picture thumbnails, quotes and comments. In IE however, you’ll see none of the above. All corners (apart from those rendered at the template level with images) are square and drop-shadows invisible. Does that affect your reading of the blog? Probably not. But you are missing something, not seeing the page as I intended it; and somewhere along the line, at an artistic level, a absent drop-shadow becomes as important as period gone missing at the end of a sentence.

So what are your options? a) Stick with Internet Explorer and become a dinosaur, accept or ignore the headache you are causing me and many designers, and slowly fall behind everything so Pie cool the web has to offer. b) Get yourself a new browser. It will take minimal getting used to, and then you will be all set. These browsers are free and none of them is force-integrated with an operating system the way IE is.

My recommendation? Get Firefox. I’ve seriously tested Chrome, Safari, Opera, Firefox and IE in their latest versions and Firefox remains my absolute favourite in terms of overall performance, speed, ease of use, security and customization options. The ex aequo second-best would be Chrome and Safari, in terms of standard-compliance. However, Chrome seems to be the new fast-rising kid on the block with the recent announcement by Google of an upcoming open source Chrome OS, a lightweight and mostly web-based operating system initially targeting the laptop market. I can already hear Bill’s teeth grinding...

The pie chart above right represents visitor browser distribution on my site for the last 30 days, as per Google Analytics. As you can see, Firefox is going strong. Of course this isn’t necessarily representative of the internet as a whole because of demographics and subject-specific browsing trends. But it shows the 3 major contenders these days. I believe that a global survey would reveal Firefox slightly ahead of IE, both of them in turn largely ahead of the competition.

Any way. Switch. Jump. Take the plunge. Ditch Internet Explorer. You won’t regret it and I sure will breathe easier next time I add a feature in here!

Posted at 12:22 PM in Ticks and tricks: & Web site news: 5 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

2009

Ticks and tricks: 5 reasons to use a photo tripod

Well, thanks to the little Skribit widget I recently installed in the upper left corner, I am getting reader suggestions for potential post topics, and - time allowing and subject appealing - I will be happy to elaborate on those suggestions. Here, hence, is the first in a series of photography ticks and tricks entries.

To the question « Why do I use a tripod? », I would simply tend to answer « Because I’m lucky enough to have one. » and that would feel like enough has been said. However since 6 lines do not a thorough entry make, I shall now explore the issue a little deeper.

Let me start by making a statement: All that is tripod does not glitter. There are tripods and tripods, and if all were equal, our lives would be simple. They are not. While one can find many a creatively packaged and richly bells-and-whistles adorned tripod at the local superstore, these things have little else to offer their customer than a relatively thin price tag. We must face it, a really good tripod is not always good looking but enormously expensive compared to the camera it will support.

So what makes a tripod that good, and what would it be used for? Let’s see... Self-defense is the first advantage that comes to mind. ‘Nothing like a nice heavy tripod and it’s fancy fluid head swung at arm’s length in dodgy situations. Impressing chicks would be another, even though I am posting this one only as a courtesy to fellow photographers because I personally need not impress any chick, having my own, and generally being the one who is impressed by her. Oh, and tripods impress guys, too.

Ok, seriously now. A tripod is a commitment. It’s a photographer’s way of saying « I do. » What was the question? « Do you, X, accept the fact that your photos could be taken to the next level? Are you willing to commit your time to achieve it? Will you agree to have and to hold and carry the bloody tripod around endlessly, until death - or a new model - do you apart? »

If you answered yes, you are ready. A tripod can mean tremendous improvement to your photography and certainly opens up an incredible creativity Pandora’s box. Before jumping to the actual use of it, here’s a brief outline of handy or essential tripod features that are worth considering, keeping in mind that some of these are much pricier than others - but I won’t discriminate.

Stur-di-ness. The absolute, bestest, mostest important feature for a tripod. A flimsy tripod will give you terrible headaches and only correctly handle 50% of your needs. Price, sadly, rises exponentially with sturdiness. Look for strong and steady leg and extension locking mechanisms and a head that both pivots fluidly and locks down in an iron-fist grasp. Video heads are even more fluid but heavier, pricier and superfluous for photographers. Test your tripod before buying; once locked in any position, including full extension, it should remain as sturdy as if bolted to the ground. Keep in mind that the further up an extension slides, the more prone to shake it will be. Height always compromises steadiness.

Height. The above mentionned notwithstanding, I’d recommend the tallest model you are willing to carry around because when the time comes to take multiple shots of a sunset over a period of an hour, your back will thank you profusely if you don’t have to bend down towards a waist-level viewfinder for the duration of the shoot.

Detachable hot-shoe. You do not, repeat, do not want to be forced to screw your camera onto the tripod head every time you decide to take a picture, especially in cold weather. Instead you attach the hot-shoe to the camera once and for all and leave it there. Setting the camera onto the tripod then takes all of 2 seconds with the fast-release handle. Have a hot-shoe for each body, too.

Ball head. We’re already talking about a much more expensive feature, rarely standard with a new purchase, and which can easily cost as much as the tripod itself! Rather then having separate adjusting and locking levers for each axis of head movement, a ball head combines all of the above in one fluid control which locks and unlocks instantly with a single control. It makes leveling your frame with the horizon a breeze no matter what position the tripod is in, and it avoids having to shorten a leg to compensate for uneven ground.

Bubble levels. Very handy if you are shooting panoramic landscapes and must make sure your camera pivots around its vertical axis. Otherwise? Bof.

Anti-skid feet. I really like the system where a screw-in allows to switch from a rubber boot to a sharp metal point, allowing a good grip on both natural and artificial surfaces.

Bottom (or reversed) head attachment. Amazingly useful in macro photography to get the camera closer to the ground.

So. You’ve gone ahead and invested in a super-duper tripod. You’ve fitted it to your photo backpack and carried it to the grocery store a few times to get used to its bulk. You’ve practiced attaching the hot-shoe behind your back in the dark with frozen hands in life threatening conditions. You’ve tripped over it at night when getting up in the dark, and have then gotten used to folding it back up after use. You are tripoded to the max. Cool. Let’s proceed to the uses.

Here are, in no particular order, my top 5 reasons and tips for using a tripod:

1 - Say good-bye to blurry shots and heavy noise. Of course, when taking pictures of your drunk friends dancing half-naked in the street, there might not be enough time to setup the tripod. Don’t about you, though, but that’s not too high on my list of favourite subjects any way. Landscapes, on the other hand, allow for more preparation and are way worth taking the time to setup. Why use a tripod when you can hand-hold a camera? Perfection! By using a ground anchor, you are suddenly able to keep your ISO setting to a minimum and obtain the best quality image possible in terms of noise and sharpness. The usable speed range drops along with ISO and that’s why you need to be steady. But each lens has a sweet spot, an aperture at which it gives the cleanest results, and very often a tripod is the only way to achieve that setting if the light is anything but perfect. The whole spectrum of aperture / speed / ISO combinations becomes available, whether you are using a DSLR or a small point-and shoot.

2 - Play with motion blur. In step one, we got rid of accidental blur; it’s time to re-introduce it as a motion indicator. Photographs are not called « stills » for nothing; they can manage to shave a slice off of the fastest moving scene and freeze it into eternity. In come long exposures. When exposing longer (sometimes much longer) than a second, water turns fluids, nocturnal cars leave amazing light trails and people join a volatile crowd or simply disappear.

3 - Capture invisible light. Our eyes are poor sensors and only weakly register a faint portion of the spectrum. A tripod allows for long exposures in near complete darkness, when our brain has decided that the session is over due to overwhelming obscurity, and yet when the shutter has been open for a few minutes, a new world emerges, bright and colorful and completely unsuspected.

4 - Test your affinity with HDR. The only way to bracket efficiently for HDR is to use a tripod and either over and underexpose a number of shots manually, or use the camera’s auto bracket feature. I recommend using mirror lock too if you go into very long exposures to avoid the vibration caused by shutter movement.

5 - Explore the mesmerizing world of macro photography. Only a tripod permits the patience and precision required by most macro situations, but a set of macro focusing rails is the only way to maximize tripod use and allow for easy framing and focusing. If the tripod is still too shaky, hanging a weigth from its base will steady it a little more.

Time to go play. I guess now I’ll try to follow my own advice and apply what I have just preached so eloquently. I need a better bloody tripod.

Posted at 10:20 PM in Photography: & Ticks and tricks: 3 Comments » Toggle display • Reply