Photo Manipulation At Its Finest
Photographer Compares Aging Faces Across 60 Years
Hilarious Couple Creates Matching Engagement Photos
Click each link to see more photos from the gallery.
SmugMug just released a huge update to how their photo galleries are displayed. It was built from the ground up and looks gorgeous. You can read about the details of that here: The New SmugMug Is Here
My old SmugMug page I thought looked decent and was functional. However, when compared with the updated gallery layouts that are available now, it seems extremely outdated.
Here is what my main page looked like before:
Old SmugMug Main Page
When I was digging through some of the files that I had backed up on a random CD I found this assortment of some of the first photos I took with my, then new, Minolta G400. These are all unedited. Unfortunately, I’m missing a couple of them here and there. The ones I deleted must have been really bad because those that I kept aren’t that great either!
My Smugmug gallery is here: First Minolta G400 Pictures
Here’s some examples:
Very first photo taken! 12/24/2003
I had some time today so I was able to get through editing a bunch of RAW photos. I’m including the brand new galleries as well as photos from recent trips that I’ve been on.
A friend just showed me this terrific program that creates a unique slideshow with background music. You can upload your own photos or access galleries already created on Smugmug, Flickr, Picasa, and others. Clips of around 30 seconds are free, but then there is a charge for already videos.
Here’s one of Joe’s recent wedding that I think turned out pretty well:
Believe it or not, but I do have a ton of stuff that I’ll eventually get up on the blog. Sorry for the huge gap in updates. For now, I’ll post some pics and links to a couple of the weddings that I attended this summer:
Justin and Allison’s Wedding and Misc Photos from Atlanta:
Joe and Anne’s Wedding:
In this tightly cropped image, the NASA space shuttle Atlantis is seen in silhouette during solar transit, Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from Florida. This image was made before Atlantis and the crew of STS-125 had grappled the Hubble Space Telescope. Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault)
In this tightly cropped image the NASA space shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope are seen in silhouette, side by side during solar transit at 12:17p.m. EDT, Wednesday, May 13, 2009, from west of Vero Beach, Florida. The two spaceships were at an altitude of 600 km and they zipped across the sun in only 0.8 seconds. Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault)
I lost my trusty old Minolta G400 that I had for quite some time. Over the years it sure took some great photos from all over the world. I’m still hoping to find it somewhere… Recently, I’ve been using my Canon Digital Rebel XT (lenses: Canon 28-135 f3.5-5.6 EF IS USM, Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II, Canon 18-55 f3.5-5.6 EF-S USM). However, it would be nice to get a compact camera. I started looking at point & shoots again last night when I saw that Amazon was selling the Canon PowerShot SD770IS 10MP Digital Camera for about $160. I’ve been very happy with the quality and performance of my Rebel XT so knew that I could trust the quality of the SD 770IS. It is the most popular P&S on Amazon and has gotten terrific reviews. I think it has okay manual controls (or as close to manual as you can get with a P&S, meaning independent adjustment of shutter speed, film speed, and aperture). However, after reading the more technical discussions on the dpreview forums, it became apparent that the camera is good but not that wide. I’m also a little weary of companies continually bumping up the megapixels without changing the technology behind the underlying sensor. Packing more megapixels into the same sensor just means that there will be more noise. Fortunately, the SD 770IS does come with a newer, faster processor than my Digital Rebel so it is able to fix problems with noise quite well. I was almost thinking about going ahead and buying the SD 770IS since Amazon is offering it at that price until it is sold out. That camera, I think, has a very stylish body, is compact, and has traditional Canon quality. However, I value picture quality and improvements in underlying sensor technology rather than just strict megapixel improvements. For example, a 6MP DSLR will take better photos than a 12MP standard point & shoot because the sensor is much larger. See here and here.
FujiFilm gets this: “There is strong demand in the digital camera market to increase the number of pixels on a sensor, which, all too often, is used as a convenient yardstick for image quality […] As the photodiode gets smaller, the problems of increased noise, blooming and clipping increase.”
Fujifilm has unveiled the FinePix F200EXR digital compact, incorporating its new 1/1.6” Super CCD EXR sensor. The camera is the first to use the company’s EXR technology that can use the sensor in three different ways to optimize resolution, dynamic range or low-light performance. The F200EXR has a 3.0″ LCD, 5x optical zoom, dual image stabilization and HD (stills) output. An EXR Auto mode lets the camera select which of the three sensor modes is used or the user can make that decision themselves.
Here’s FujiFilm’s introduction of the FinePix F200EXR. Here’s a description of how the Super CCD EXR sensor works. Youtube has a video of it. It is has a pretty nice looking body too and is still compact. However, it is pricey; Amazon has it for pre-order at $399. However, good quality + solid construction means that it will last me a long time. I’m hoping the price drops so that I can get it as a birthday present in July.
The Found on Smugmug blog had a great entry called “See Spray” that showed beautiful pictures of sailboats in the San Francisco Bay.
Over Christmas break this year my brother and I took a hike in our backyard. The snow was a few feet deep in some places. The animations below were created by taking RAW photos as fast as my Canon Rebel XT could in continuous mode. I then loaded them up in Adobe ImageReady and exported them as a Flash animation. They are about 16MB total, so they will take awhile to load. I’ve set them to only run once. To watch them again, just right-click and choose Play.
Here’s the traditional photos from Christmas 2008. We sure made some great homemade pizza!
