High Level Design

I got two new tools for my photography plans. A Hoya R72 infrared filter for my sigma 30mm f1.4. I didn’t have much time to take a picture since I had to work today so all the photos I took on the front yard were over exposed, this was the best of the bunch.

I often see IR shots converted to a grey scale monotone but I’ll leave them unprocessed for a while till I learn what I like.

Andrzej Wrotniak has several great pages on Infrared photography. He has in fact more interesting things than just infrared, but here are two links to check out if you’re interested in IR: Infrared Photography with a Digital Camera Infrared Photography with the Olympus E-510

The other thing I got was an [Olympus EX-25](http://www.olympus-esystem.com/dea/products/lens/ex-25/ “OLYMPUS E-SYSTEM:Extension Tube EX-25″) which turns the [Olympus Zuiko 50mm f2.0 macro](http://www.olympus-esystem.com/dea/products/lens/50_20M/ “OLYMPUS E-SYSTEM:ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 50mm F2.0 Macro”) into a 1:1. Had even less time to play with this one but focusing was much more difficult than without the extension tube.

Photography

Heather every now and then geeks it up more than myself. This week was one of those times.

Heather bought a Roomba

Geeky, General

Here is a new photo of a Wood Duck that I took at the Montreal Biodome.

Photography

I work at QNX Software Systems where lots of exciting things are coming from these days. QNX released several new technical videos to YouTube today. Mine included is posted there, although mine isn’t that technical yet its good to start with an overview and I’ll get some more done in the future I’m sure.

Here is a list of current QNX Videos:

Instrumented Kernel – Collin Burgess

Momentics Overview – Doug Schaefer

QNX Multimedia Components – Dan Cardamore

General

Fall is my favorite season. Here is a new photo which is my current wallpaper.

May as well provide an update on my current camera setup which I’ve been adding to fairly quickly

As I said in a previous post I have an Olympus e-510 camera which I’m very happy with. As far as lenses go here is the deal..

I got an Olympus Zuiko 35mm macro lens which was pretty good and I got my awesome chain shot from it but I really want to do a lot of macro photography so I decided to return it to upgrade to the Olympus Zuiko 50mm macro which is an f2.0 lens so its nice and bright. Since then I’ve gotten several awesome shots from it which you can find on my macro gallery website.

In addition, I wanted a good normal view prime lens. After lots of research I figured that the Sigma 30mm f1.4 would be the best option for me. Its very bright so it gives me good opportunity to get some bokeh. Ed the tree was taken with this lens.

I have on order a third lens for telephoto work. I’m pretty excited for this lens since it is very well reviewed and will be great for Ultimate games. The lens is an Olympus Zuiko 50-200mm f2.8-3.5. This lens should be lots of fun and for a telephoto with zoom its quite bright. I had the Olympus Zuiko 18-180mm f3.5-6.3 for a few days but returned it because it only felt that usable in bright daylight.

I think its a pretty slick setup. Maybe some day in the (near?) future I’ll spring for a wider angle lens for indoor or days where I only want to carry one lens. In that case currently the nicest looking option is the Olympus 12-60mm lens which was announced recently but isn’t available yet.

Anyways, that it for now. I’ll keep you updated once I have some shots from the 50-200mm.

Photography

HDR stands for high dynamic range. Google has a tech talk about it here and its worth watching if you’re into this kind of photography.

Photography

Carl Sagan’s content is very interesting. Often its very straight forward common sense, sometimes it puts things in perspective (Billions and Billions) and other times it can be harder to understand but he does as good a job as any to make it for the average Joe.

An old clip of Carl’s is on youtube called “Pale Blue Dot” and is worth watching.

General