Completely Random Things – Olympic Edition
Posted by Stephen on
August 14, 2008
It’s been a few days since I’ve posted as it has appeared that I have caught the “Olympic Fever”. I’m not really much of a sports watching guy. I’m more of a get out there and do it type of person. However, every four years, for some reason, I find any sport that one of my fellow Canadians are competing in, interesting…even badminton. Here are a few completely random things that I’ve got on my mind…
Why Do My People Have to Pull This Shizzle?
If you haven’t already seen it, the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Beijing were probably some of the most spectacular ever. They better be for a cool hundred million or so. I thought it was a solid 4.6 out of 5.0 though it did drag for me in some section.
If you haven’t heard already, it appears the event wasn’t totally authentic. For example, the 29 foot steps that paved the way to the birds nest: Fake. CGI was introduced into the first 55 seconds of the opening ceremonies to give the effect of footsteps walking into the city of Beijing. Chinese officials say that it was too dangerous to have a helicopter pilot follow real fireworks foot steps so they faked it.
That wasn’t really such a big deal, but the biggest fakery: Lip Syncing Nine Year Olds. The little girl that sang the song that opened the cereomonies wasn’t cute enough to be in front of the camera so they replaced her with a lip syncing double. The original girl was singing live in the background. We like your voice, but your face is fugly. Wow.
I can’t say I’m really suprised. I mean, fake things have been coming from China for years, from Gocci, Prado to Rolax. I just didn’t expect them to perpetuate the stereotype. Oh, my peoples…
Peanut Butter Scooter Time!
Well, I hadn’t filled up since Dot Com Scooter Gang so today I decided to fill’er up and put in only $5.61 of 94 octane with the needle at a millimeter or two from the red mark, at 697KM’s. It’s actually my first full 94 octane fill up as I did a half tank before Dot Com Scooter, after finally cluing in that they use a separate hose only for 94 octane while the other grades share the same hose. Though this is not a big deal for a car, the scooter takes far less fuel so I probably got 87 octane when I paid for a 92 octane fill up at 322KM’s.
After Dot Com Scooter Gang, Carl filled up at just over $6.00 for half a tank after riding 5 hours on the Honda Metropolitan that CycleBC rented out. Kwanye was a hair above $4.00 because he never cracked the throttle wide open. I can’t count Gary’s total because John ripped the nozzle from out of his hand and proceeded to fill his own scooter.
I rode out from Port Moody to Vancouver for Dot Com Scooter Gang and back and hadn’t filled up for eight days till today. It’s already over 60 KM’s from Vancouver and back, plus five hours of non-stop scooter terrorism with the Dot Com Crew and I always ride nearly wide open throttle. I think this is a new mileage record but I forget how many KM’s I filled up at last time. I guesstimate that this is just over 200 KM’s on a tank. Let’s see how many KM’s till the next fill up on this tank so we can find out for sure.
tags: Olympics, Rock Band, Scooter
4 Comments
My Ghetto Photography Studio
Posted by Stephen on
April 6, 2008
At the beginning of this year, I made it a point to become a better photographer so I went back to school. Since then, I’ve learned tricks like how to get better exposures by avoiding the flash and working with long exposures. Afterall, having some kick ass gear means having to learn some kick skills to go with it. Though I’ve always been into taking pictures, mainly for my work with Futurelooks, I’ve only recently begun to explore the posibilities.
I learned a lot of things from my photography class. I even got to shoot real models with studio strobes and lights. However, the most important thing I learned from my teacher, Syx Langemann, was how cool ghetto lighting setups were. From the tips that I was given during my 10 weeks, I was able to build my own ghetto studio.
Shooting in the Ghetto…
Only shutters. No guns. Welcome to my ghetto studio.
The backdrop that I’m using is a $40 Levelor pull down blind that is white on one side and gray on the other. I chose the blind because it was easy to roll up and easy to clean and reuse. Studios normally use rolls of coloured paper, but I didn’t want to kill anymore trees (and the rolls are heavy). Also, with a gray backround on one side, I can backlight the backround to any colour I want by using cheap gels and some cheap lamps with reflectors, available for about $10 bucks each at home depot. The bottom of the roll where I place the products that I shoot is protected by a clear 18″ x 24″ plexiglass sheet. I originally went with a large piece of glass that I robbed off a photo frame from the Dollar Store for $5, but the glass had a weird green tinge that showed up in my shots. The plexi is totally clear and doesn’t have the same problem. It was about $10 bucks.
The only thing that is a REAL piece of photography lighting equipment is the Cameron 30 inch Silver/White reflector that I got for $40 bucks. I’m actually going to see if I can use an automotive sun reflector instead to keep it truly ghetto, but I might hang onto the reflector because it folds up nice and compact.
The Results…
Here are a few shots from my little ghetto studio…
Both shots were done with my Nikon D80 tethered to my laptop. The advantage of tethering to my laptop is that I can see my shots as I take them as this drops my files directly to my laptop, versus writing them to the memory card. I have Adobe Bridge opened up and can look at the pictures exactly as I’ve taken them, allowing me to recompose or change settings in case I don’t like what I see.
With my Nikon, I need to use a piece of software called Nikon Camera Control Pro 2 to take advantage of this feature. This software lets you totally take control of your cameras settings and even allows you to hit the shutter right from the interface. It runs about $69 for this software, but you can download a free trial to see if its for you. Canon shooters get a version of this software free with their DSLRs.
Things To Consider With Ghetto Lighting
The total cost for my ghetto studo setup was about $126 bucks, which is ghetto cheap. However, there are things you need to consider when using this sort of setup.
For starters, you’ll definitely need to use a custom white balance. Halogen lights tend be very yellow and this requires you to custom white balance at the beginning and after about an hour later since the lights get yellower once they get nice and hot. For white balancing, I just use the whitest possible card stock that I can get from Staples. I just put a small black “X” in the middle in pen so that the Auto Focus doesn’t throw a fit. Beats $20 – 60 for some of those “Digital” gray cards that have been floating around out there.
Speaking of hot, if you have small children or pets, you want to keep them away from your lights because they get hot enough to burn you. On the other hand, if you’re shooting food, at least it will stay warm while you do your thing, but watch the melty cheese and ice cream.
The other thing that you need to keep in mind is that with an indoor lighting setup, ghetto or otherwise, metering can be an issue. Getting yourself a light meter can save you a lot of time. I’m finding that I’m doing lots of exposure corrections in Photoshop or using a lot of exposure compensation on camera because the meter in the camera is having a hissy fit in this type of environment. This is why professionals in studios always use a lightmeter. I plan to pick one up when I’m in Taiwan for COMPUTEX as they aren’t exactly cheap around here at $300 for a good one. I’m sure I’ll be able to get one for less than half that like the Sekonic L-358.
So there you have it, my $126 (less, if I ditch my Cameron 30 inch reflector for $5 sun shades) ghetto studio. I hope this inspires you to come up with some of your own ghetto setups and some cool looking pictures. Happy shooting!
Birthday Wishes a New Distraction and Getting Edumacated
Posted by Stephen on
January 23, 2008
Sorry about the lack of updates. It’s been pretty…umm…busy around here. Let me fill you in…
Birthday Wishes…
Speaking of birthday wishes, Leo Chiang just celebrated his “fourth” annual 29th birthday. The funny thing is that “33″ is what he does at his day job and was also one of the episodes of Battlestar Galactica where he was overfeatured quite prominently. It looks like he had a really good time. Please note the NSFW warning 
Also on the January birthday wagon this month is Ed Lau. Ed thinks he’s getting old. He’s pondering getting tattoos and a motorcycle. I wonder when Leo will turn that ‘Stang into a Hog. Personally, I’m taking a different route dealing with the “old thing” this month.
Rock On!
OK, so I’ve been busy playing RockBand. I got it a few days ago and I’ve been going at it non-stop. I’m so addicted to the drums. I’ve been pounding on those things every night with the headphones on and I can’t remember having so much fun rocking out to my favourite tunes through the rock of ages. Since CES, I’ve been pre-meditating the purchase of this game. Now I’m going to need to get a projector because if playing GH3 on a Huge Ass Screen is fun, RockBand will be…twice as fun! It’s easily the best deal of any game out there right now. I mean, just look at all the stuff you get!
Getting Much More Edumacated…
This past Xmas, I gave myself a gift of some new camera hardware. A Nikon D200 and D80 made their way into my life. With all the hundreds of features contained in both cameras, I decided that taking a photography class wouldn’t be a bad idea. For the next ten thursdays, I’ll be taking a course with Vancouver Photo Workshops to improve my command of these two beasts. One of the problems with my picture taking skillz right now is that I tend to take too many pictures. You could call me a “Rapid Fire Whore” with the 5 FPS capabilities of the D200.
Processing so many pictures takes a ton of time and when I do find a good picture, I couldn’t explain to you how I got the shot. I have no real photography background so hopefully by bringing up my knowledge of the basics (White Balance, Shutter Speed, ISO) and how they work together, I’ll be able to take my photography to the next level and be more consistent in getting great shots more freqently without peeling off all my available frames. Not to mention, my D200 has no magic “Green Button” to get me out of trouble anymore.
It’s also time for me to get back to learning Mandarin. With COMPUTEX creeping up on us, I’m going to need to brush up on my language skillz.
Are any of you folks getting much more edumacated in 2008? 
