Memorial Day Tromp

On Sunday before Memorial Day, Emily and Violet and I tromped around the trails near our home. Izzy had left hours before to do more adventurous hiking in CT, but we opted for a 10-minute-drive sort of hike. On the trail, we spied an Osprey, a Heron, a Japanese shore crab, and a curious Robin. Not bad for a Sunday morning!

p.s. I had unwittingly left both of my new fancy camera bodies at the workshop, so I grabbed my Canon T3 & the long zoom for this walk. Other than the vignetting on the zoom, it’s still a pretty fantastic combo.

Spring has sprung

Here in the Northeast, the COVID-19 lockdown is slowly loosening. Things are far from normal with many restrictions still in-place, but with the weather warming we’re spending more time out in the yard and less time in the house. A welcome change.

We enjoyed our first evening fire of the season:

Emily and I drug Violet along to the workshop one evening to take some product photos of the masks we’re making. Understandably bored, I helped her rig up a chair to a hoist so she could fly up and down for amusement.

Flowers!

Indoor Photo Challenge

On Saturday, day 31 of social-distancing, I challenged Violet to an indoor timed photo exercise. We made a list of 10 ideas to photograph, set Alexa for a 20-minute timer, and headed off to search the house for snaps. Our only rules were:

  1. Stop taking photos in 20 minutes

  2. Stay in the house

  3. iPhone-only (no fancy cameras)

Here’s what we came up with. Violet’s photos are first in each instance:

Look Down

Funnily, we both did the same thing on different floors of the house! Stand a chair, point down.

Look Up

Violet eyed the seashell Xmas lights we keep in the kitchen, while I tried to induce some reverse vertigo looking up the stairs.

Tiny

I love Violet’s take here. Look for the head of a little green pin in the beige carpet. I took a closeup of a pop-up Valentine’s Day card.

Liquid

In our house, you’re never more than an arm’s reach from a mostly-empty cup or bottle. Violet found twins. I tried shooting through a bottle of olive oil.

Low-Light

Tough to get the iPhone to take a dark shot. Here the phone’s insistence to meter stole Violet’s darkness. It took me a few tries as well to convince my phone that I wanted a poorly lit scene in the basement.

Super-Bright

And in reverse, the iPhone toned Violet’s pic of Emily’s sewing lamp way down. I tried to capture some lens flares under Violet’s bunkbed.

Angles

Violet found a bunch of angles in Emily’s sewing machine. I dug into Emily’s sewing project storage to find a jumble of curtain rods.

Curves

Star charts provided Violet a curvy view. I opted for the curves of a clock face (from Gwen).

Shiny

I love all the reflections Big V found in her tinsel. I spied a shiny bracket on a ceiling fan.

Black and White

My Van’s provided some good black/whit contrast for V. I switched to B&W mode on the phone and stole a shot of Emily’s thread spools.

Isolation Easter

For the first time in many years, we spent Easter with just the four of us (though Izzy spent most of the day in her bedroom really isolating). Rather than our usual celebration with my sister Gwen and her family, we hung out and chatted with folks on the phone, or Skyped with family. Emily picked up a few bits of Easter flair at one of her recent, carefully executed, trips to the grocery store. She found some hollowed eggs filled with confetti. At the end of the night, we went out on the back deck and tried out different ways of cracking them open. Here are our results.

(I shoulda set my shutter speed faster. Fearing I’d miss the shots, I just cranked the camera to aperture priority and left shutter & ISO on AUTO. You get the effect, but the it’d be better with a faster shutter traded for some more grain at higher ISO)

Photos from Before Stay-at-Home Orders

Like most other humans these days, we’re spending our time mostly indoors at home, or out walking with a 6-foot buffer between us and others. Friday was the last day of work in the plant before shuttering the business for a two-week furlough. Thankfully, all my family and all my employees remain healthy. So for us, at this point, it’s mostly an exercise in avoiding cabin fever and figuring out how to handle the financial crunch in the business.

Before Rhode Island started official social-distancing directives (and before the panic managing the business as sales stopped) I snapped more photos with the Fuji XT-30.

Board Games and Music

Izzy is home from school after the University closed campus. As a family, we’ve always enjoyed board games, and Carcassonne is a fun one. Having both girls at home, they have played a duet once or twice which is a treat!

Evening in Rhode Island

The light in the early evening is pretty. Here’s some shots from around Providence and the East Bay.

Birthday!

Violet’s birthday plans had to change because of the virus concerns. Rather than crowding her friends into a Lush party at the mall, we spruced up our deck with some hastily hung lights, and invited a few neighborhood friends over to enjoy the backyard with cupcakes and smores. Looking at these photos just a couple weeks later, those kids were too close together…

PVD at Night

We’re back to a bit of cold weather, but undeterred I spent some time in Providence this weekend in the brisk nights snapping pics. Lots of photos, very few made it through review (trash, trash, trash, oh that’s ok, trash, trash, trash). The views of the pedestrian bridge are my fav, though the neon sign is fun too.

India Point Park

On Sunday, after a blessedly short run and subsequent shower, I grabbed my Fuji X-T30 and drove to India Point Park around 3p. The light was just starting to get golden when I started walking and snapping pics. I shot >200 images, and held onto 15. Certainly didn’t nail it, but I like all the curved archways under the 195 bridge – makes for some cool patterns and interesting frames. I’ll have to head back to take another swing after I critique these a bit more to figure out what didn’t work.

Los Angeles Feb 2020

I almost titled this just Los Angeles, but I think I have a bunch of trips on the calendar to L.A. this year, and hopefully this isn’t the last time I take pictures in sunny California. Last Thursday morning, I woke up early and tried to make it out onto the street before sunrise to catch the light. That didn’t happen, but I still made it outside early in the sunrise for some fun lighting.

As I walked down the street, I saw a fountain in the entry to an outdoor mall. I started taking a few pictures. After a dozen shots, screwing around with the exposure, a security guard approached and tiredly said, “Sir, no professional photography on the property.” “Oh, so sorry. Thanks,” I replied. As I walked away, all I could think was “He thought I was a pro!”. Hahaha. On the sidewalk, a young man approached, “Hey, do you have a business card? I could really use a photographer for my Instagram presence.” Oh, LA, don’t ever change.

First snaps with Fuji X-T30

“Wait, what? I thought you just got a new camera? You got another new camera?!?”

Yeah. I did. And I’m not ashamed (much). I’ll fill in the details shortly, but suffice to say that the Fuji X-T30 was the camera I really wanted back in January but didn’t feel comfortable with the expense. However, in the past couple months I’ve satisfied my guilt by continuing to explore this new-found hobby and produce a pretty sweet video for work using the gear. So I gave into the urge and bought the X-T30, and so far it’s glorious. Don’t get me wrong, my photos are still rubbish, but I enjoy the camera even more :-)

So here are the first few pics snapped around town. These are all JPEG straight out of camera. I did shoot RAW pairs as well, but didn’t see any need to edit them in Lightroom. The color and detail are just great. Not to spoil the blog post brewing, but having the EVF (electronic viewfinder) and being able to see the exposure before the shot is transformative. Or at least it feels transformative. Still doesn’t improve my composition skill. I wonder what button I push for that…

Oooh, and I love the easy controls for long-exposure shooting on the X-T30. I have a childlike fascination with long-exposure at night. Like it’s magic that the camera can see more than I can when it doesn’t blink for a loooong time. I do love it though…

Winter Beach

On Valentine’s Day, Emily and I took a stroll down to the “beach” (waterline by the house) and took some pics. The wind was pretty fierce and the temperature below freezing, so we didn’t hang around too long, but managed to grab a couple of good shots with my Canon SL3.


Bristol Walkabout

Snuck in an 30-minute photo walk in Bristol this past Sunday around 4:30pm. The day was overcast, but found a couple of nice shots at the water’s edge.

And, a couple shots from an early morning walk a week ago. I didn’t have my Canon SL3 with me, so I snapped these with my iPhone 11 instead. The colors were spectacular.

Warren Walkabout

Avoiding the task of working on the company budget for 2020, last Saturday I walked around the town and captured some images. The day was overcast, and Warren is threadbare, so it all looks a bit sad. There’s a auto shop of sorts next to our workshop that has a Sanford and Sons vibe.

I really like this shot of the lonely mailbox, not exactly sure why.

A rig truck parked by the grave marker lot has loads of texture.

This utilitarian building never had good looks to spare, but time hasn’t improved the aesthetic.

A couple more worn out bits left to decay.

Around 2am, some fog had descended back home. Before falling asleep, I took a long exposure shot out in the road. The result was pretty good.

More night shots

Tonight was a great night for stargazing without a hint of moon. Around 10pm, I bundled up and trundled down to the river.

Got a couple of nice shots of Orion and The Pleiades.

Orion

Orion and The Pleiades

And, the Big Dipper…

Big Dipper

And a tree in silhouette with stars overhead.

All the above were shot at f2.8 with 8 to 10-sec exposures for minimal trailing, and ISO 800 or 1600 (higher than 1600 just turns into fuzzy noise). To help pop the stars out, I pulled down the dark tones significantly in Lightroom. Without it, there’s just too much city glow in the sky. Still aiming to get out into the country soon.

While I was down at the river, I swung the lens around at the horizon and took some 30-second exposures at ISO 200. Stopping down to limit the light, or open wide for different looks.


Snowy walk

We got a dusting of snow in Rhode Island this weekend, so I figured I’d tromp around with my camera and snap some snowy pics. Yesterday after breakfast I strapped on my new camera and went for a long walk. Took 280 pictures, with the majority snapped in a small wooded area nearby. I was having a tough time finding shots. I took a lot but wasn’t feeling very good about them. The compositions lacked depth, the colors were boring, just generally tough. When I imported them into Lightroom later in the day, I was correct – most were garbage. But a few keepers made it through.

I had the most success with reflections in spots of the creek that haven’t frozen over yet. I like the mixture of textures between ice, suspended leaves, and glassy reflections showing both the surrounding trees and skies overhead.

For the return journey, I headed towards the water. It proved more interesting terrain and the water more intriguing than leafless trees. The fluffy clouds in a bright sky helped too.

As I was trodding down the road, a jogger stopped and asked, “Hey, did you see the osprey? That’d be a great shot!”. I thanked him for the tip and went back to find the bird. It was perched high up in the tree. I had stuffed a new-to-me 55-250mm zoom lens in my pocket before leaving the house which was perfect for reaching way up to the top of the tree. Never having used a big zoom, I was quite impressed with the level of detail captured from a distance. Back home, I reviewed the photos and asked Emily for help identifying the bird. Didn’t quite look like an osprey. Turns out it was a red-tailed hawk.

Oh, and I nearly forget that a few nights earlier I took a second swing at night-sky photography. The light pollution near Providence is challenging, but I captured a bunch of stars that were invisible to the naked eye. Hopefully later this month, or next, Emily and I can head down to South County where the skies are darker. She can help navigate the constellations and bring along her telescope for real-time viewing and I can try taking better shots.


I mentioned earlier in passing that I dumped all these shots into Lightroom. That was only after struggling with the shots in Apple Photos first. I really enjoy the simplicity of Photos, both in the editing features and transparent cloud sync. However, when I imported 280 RAW + JPEG images at once, the app started behaving poorly. After initial import, I switched all the paired photos to use RAW as Original so I could edit with more data. That caused all of the thumbnail images to turn black. When double-clicked, the full-size image would render correctly, but as soon as I returned to the library grid all new images were rendered as black squares. Hmph. Then, after a few edits, the app hung for a bit before quitting unexpectedly. I repeated the attempt a few more times before giving up and pulling all the files back out to edit in Lightroom.

I knew of Lightroom, of course, and had been recommended it by a few folks, but previously avoided learning another piece of software for my modest editing needs. However, a few YouTube videos later, I had enough information to get the job done. So, for now, I’m going to try: shooting only in RAW, edit in Lightroom, export JPEG, import JPEG into Photos. This will hopefully keep the editing quick, and still leverage the seamless cloud sync in Photos. I’m undecided about holding onto the RAW files after editing. None of my stuff feels so precious that I need to start managing giant file sets, but we’ll see how it goes.

Experiments in Black and White

Got my new Canon Rebel SL3! Hope to write more about that later, but suffice to say it’s pretty great. I know, i know, it’s a very low-end, entry-level DSLR. But, it’s a fabulous upgrade to my ancient Canon Rebel T3. I took it out last night with the ISO cranked up higher than I could previously reach and took some shots in the very dark night. The color is pretty useless without light and noise above ISO 6400, so I took the RAW files and experimented with conversion to B&W. I think the results are intriguing, but like everything I need more practice.

Spring in January

The temperature in Rhode Island today was an uncharacteristic 65°, which is depressing environmentally but lovely in the moment. I took the opportunity to snap some photos at the shore near my house and grab a few interesting shots of different textures along the walk. The sun hung low around 3:30p, casting a gorgeous warm hue. A couple of these shots captured the light nicely.

Shopping for a new camera

Ok, I don’t need a new camera. But after a couple of weeks exploring photography as a hobby I am obsessing a bit over new gear. This isn’t shocking. Obsessing over new gear is a hobby in itself, and one that I’ve enjoyed for many years. The research rabbit hole is a pretty fun pastime and I generally learn a bit along the way.

DSLR vs Mirrorless

This seems to be the big debate, or maybe it was a couple years back. Mirrorless gets all the buzz these days. The reduced size and weight is a great convenience, but I’m open to the idea of getting another DSLR and enjoying longer battery life and startup speed. So, I could go either way.

My current camera is an old, entry level Canon Rebel T3. I have a couple of prime lenses as well as the kit zoom lens. Not a huge investment in lenses, but several hundred bucks of glass with EF/EF-S mounts.

Nominees

There are great options from Sony, Fuji, Nikon, and Canon. But I narrowed down to Canon and Fuji. I’m familiar with Canon, and like both the features and styling of the Fuji. This is merely a hobby for me, and I can’t get too carried away with expensive toys. A couple of ground rules:

  • Ideally less than $1k
  • At least one prime lens, starting with a wide-angle
  • Mic input for possible video work

Canon M50

A mid-range mirrorless cropped-sensor camera from Canon that gets a lotta love on YouTube. It uses Canon’s anemic selection of EF-M series lenses, but there’s an adapter which can be cheaply bundled with the body to use the large catalog of EF/EF-S lenses.

Positives

  • Roughly $600 for the body, kit zoom, and EF lens adapter
  • Though there are few EF-M options, the couple that exist are good and cheap. The EF-M 22mm f/2 STM is $200 and would probably be my first purchase if I buy a native lens. However, with the adapter I can get started with my existing EF-S lenses.
  • Good sensor
  • Digic 8 processor which
  • Excellent auto-focus
  • Fully articulated screen
  • Mic input
  • Touch-screen focus that can be used either with the viewfinder or rear display
  • In-body time-lapse

    Negatives

  • Dismal battery life, so need to buy some spare batteries
  • Micro-USB for data transfer only. No in-camera charging, no powering from commodity USB power banks.
  • Poor 4k video support (cropped, poor auto-focus in 4k)
  • No eye-detect auto-focus in 4k video

Canon SL3

Light and compact entry-level DSLR that uses EF or EF-S lenses. Though DSLR’s aren’t hip, this camera has a lot of appeal to me as a good value.

Positives

  • Body costs $500, which is the same as the M50 but unlike the M50, I won’t need to purchase any lenses
  • Loads of EF & EF-S lenses, some great bargains
  • Same sensor, processor, and screen of the M50
  • Excellent battery life (an advantage of the DSLR) when shooting through the optical viewfinder
  • Better battery life when shooting in live mode than the M50
  • Seems to have most of the mirrorless features when shooting in live mode with the rear screen
  • Has eye-detect focus when using the live mode with the rear screen
  • Mic input
  • Clean HDMI out, though I don’t imagine I’ll livestream (lol)

    Negatives

  • Larger than mirrorless (though it can be a positive too, as the ergonomics tend to be better)
  • Same poor 4k video support as the M50
  • Inexplicably lacks 24fps 1080 video
  • Micro-USB for data transfer only. No in-camera charging, no powering from commodity USB power banks.

Fuji X-T30

Fuji’s little brother to the X-T3 looks like a phenomenal offering. This is definitely a step up from the other two Canon cameras I’m considering. I love the retro-styling of the camera and the abundance of manual knobs and buttons.

Positives

  • Great manual controls for aperture, shutter, and ISO speed.
  • Joystick focus control
  • Very slow shutter speeds for long-exposure photography
  • Large selection of cropped-sensor lenses (though they are pretty pricey)
  • Excellent sensor and processor
  • Better low-light performance than the Canon sensors from most reviewers
  • Useful film simulation modes
  • USB-C for data-transfer, charging, and continuous power
  • 4k video without a crop (10-minute limit)
  • Customizable buttons and dials
  • 120fps slow-motion video

    Negatives

  • Price. The body costs $900 and with a kit lens it jumps to $1300
  • Ergonomics seem poorer with the dainty grip and some awkward button placements
  • The screen can tilt up and down a bit, but not fully articulated
  • 2.5mm mic input requires a 3.5mm adapter
  • 10-minute limit on 4k video

Leanings

Though I’d love to grab the Fuji X-T30, after thinking on this for a couple of weeks I’m hesitant to spend the money. The Canon SL3 feels like the most responsible choice as it will be a noticeable upgrade from my Canon Rebel T3, preserves my investment in lenses, has great battery life, and is the cheapest option.

Night photos

Snapping photos is becoming a fun little hobby. I never know how long I will be inspired by an urge, so for the past week I’ve been trying to capitalize on my reinvigorated interest in cameras and photography to get out and take pictures. Watching too many YouTube camera reviews, I got interested in trying some long-exposure photos. On Wednesday night I bundled up and walked half a mile to the bridge near my house to try the technique. A few nights prior I tried an initial experiment, but both the lack of a tripod and my inability to focus through the optical viewfinder resulted in blurred images. I brought my recently purchased inexpensive tripod from Amazon to steady the camera and studied how to focus in manual mode with the rear display in 10x zoom (auto-focus is useless on my camera in the dark). Even better equipped, I only managed to salvage a few shots, but I’m pleased with the first effort. These were all shot with the EF 24mm/2.8, though I’d like to try again with the 50mm/2.0.

Dusting off a Canon Rebel T3

During the holiday break (more on that later), I spent an afternoon browsing through old Christmas photos. As I dug through the digital pile, three distinct eras emerged, marked by the quality of the shots.

  1. Good shots with point-and-shoot cameras (either Olympus or Canon depending on the year)

  2. Great shots with my first, and only, DSLR: a Canon Rebel T3.

  3. Smartphone pics ranging from poor to middling quality. My current iPhone 11 takes darned nice pics, but not comparable to the ones snapped with the big sensor & big glass in my entry-level, ancient DSLR.

This inspired me to dust off my Rebel T3 and use it. After annoying my family with loads of shutter clicking around the house, today I took a short trip into Providence to wander around a bit and practice using the camera. I brought two prime lenses with me:

  • 24mm/f2.8 pancake lens

  • 50mm/f1.8 lens

Since they are being screwed onto a cropped sensor you have to multiply the focal length by 1.6x (I hear that’s the Canon-specific multiplier) to get the full-frame equivalent (38mm & 80mm respectively). I love the pancake lens and find it easer to compose the shot using its wider field of view. To get better with the 50mm will take me more practice and perhaps a little more thought before I press the shutter.

In my effort to learn more about this neglected camera, I re-read the manual over the holidays and was experimenting mostly just with the aperture and shutter speed. However, a couple days ago I was also adjusting the white balance on the camera because I noticed the AWB wasn’t always giving great results with my low-light indoor shots. Foolishly, I forgot to reset the white balance before I started on today’s journey. When I stopped for lunch with the family, I downloaded all the shots I’d taken onto my iPad (thank you, USB-C) and saw that I had goofed. All the shots had a severe blue hue, so the ones before lunch had to be adjusted. Lesson learned that I should check all my setting before shooting, and I figured out how to adjust the white balance in Apple Photos. Win, win.

Make it Like an Espresso Machine

My company had a great year. A seriously-fantastic, blew-past-our-revenue-targets-in-June, doubled-our-insurance-premiums (‘cause those are tied to revenue lest the insurance companies go hungry) kind of year. I’ve had plenty of the other kind of year, this was way better. It was a ton of effort and everyone had to work some extra hours to meet demand as we were scaling up staff as quickly as prudently possible. Beyond paying the requisite overtime, and giving everyone some pay bumps, I wanted to improve daily life a little bit. We’d all be spending a little more time in the shop, it should be a tad nicer. Now, when I say we had a great year, this isn’t a Silicon-Valley great year. Nobody is lighting cigars with $100 bills here in little Warren, Rhode Island, but we can blow a little cash for a treat. Heck, if you can’t enjoy the good times, what are you going to do during the inevitable bad times? So I bought a few celebratory upgrades to the break room, but my favorite was an espresso machine.

Not everyone in our company drinks coffee, but nearly everyone does, and those of us that enjoy coffee really enjoy coffee. So I wanted to get the best espresso machine and headed over to The Wirecutter to find it. Reading through their typically thorough reviews, it dawned on me that I actually didn’t want the best espresso machine. What I wanted was a reliably very good cup of espresso with as little fuss as possible. I don’t want, nor do I want my co-workers, to learn how to operate an espresso machine to pull the perfect shot. I just want to enjoy my coffee. The ideal machine would be no machine, rather a nice cup o’ joe materializing whenever I got a hankering for some robust, flavorful coffee. So I bought the recommended beginner machine and super-convenient grinder to go with it. It is about as close as you can get to one-button perfection. Stick the basket in the smart grinder, tamp the grinds down a bit, lock it into the espresso machine, press one button and moments later you have a consistently good cup of espresso.

With better machines you can pull a better shot, but you have to be more engaged in the process to operate the machine properly. By contrast, Breville Bambino Plus hides all the complexity behind one button. It obviously doesn’t make the internal process any easier, water still needs to be heated properly and pumped through the grounds at the correct moment, it just hides the complexity and uses software in the machine to do its best to mimic a good barista. You work for me, coffee machine.

This approach mirrors my feelings on designing scenic automation equipment for live entertainment. The products we design at Creative Conners aren’t the best in the sense that they aren’t the most sophisticated or don’t have the most features. Instead, we aim for simplicity. Breathtaking effects are absolutely achievable with Spikemark, but my goal is to make it possible for anyone to get into automation and move stuff. To achieve that goal I sacrifice features to keep the software accessible. The best automation system would be no automation system, where the scenery magically moves the way the designer envisions without any motion controllers, or drives, or rigging, or cue programming. Keep it as minimal as possible, hide the complexity, let us do more coding to keep it simple for the technicians charged with realizing the designer’s intent. That’s the lens I look through when scrutinizing our products.

As I look over the Spikemark UI with that critical eye I see complexity that needs fixing. Over 15 years of development we’ve of course added many features to the software. Those features are great and definitely needed. Projection mapping integration and ad hoc UDP messaging and grouped motion are all fantastic capabilities. But then I look at the Properties Pane for a typical machine and the huge list of parameters that can be adjusted gives me shivers. There’s a lot of numbers to tweak. And who the heck understands it all besides those among us that are anointed automation gurus?

Over the past 15 years, I’ve noted that users have less and less appetite for learning intricate software. I think that’s a good thing. It used to be that every decent sized application required studying and digesting hundreds of pages of instruction manuals. Nobody really wants to do that anymore, including me. Learning to use the software is not the goal. The software is merely the required tool to get to the goal. Our customers want to move stuff on stage. Everything else is a necessary evil, a distraction from their real purpose. Further, the majority of our customers are not full-time automation technicians. Automation is just one small aspect of their job. They are Technical Directors, Stage Carpenters, sometimes even Production Managers or Stage Managers that are trying to get a show up and ready for the audience.

The design of an automation system spans several disciplines, so I use a lot of different software to get my work done. Besides writing C and VB.Net and Python to help develop our software, I also use AutoDesk Fusion360 for mechanical design and EagleCAD for PCB design, and QuickBooks and Excel and Illustrator and... yeah a lot of software. EagleCAD, for example, is a great tool for circuit design and PCB layout, but oh my lord is it a bizarre, funky, unintuitive mess of a UI. I dread opening up that software after it’s been dormant on my hard drive for months, knowing that it will take hours to re-orient myself to the application. So I have sympathy for our customers. Maybe they haven’t opened Spikemark since last year when they loaded-in Christmas Carol and they just want it to work. Make. It. Move. Please. For the love of God. Move. Now!

The coming year promises to be a big year on the software product side for us. We’ve got some big network protocol changes happening under the hood, and some even fancier platform changes that have been months in the making. As we slosh around in the lower layers of Spikemark I’m taking notes on how we could use some of the new plumbing code to simplify the higher levels of the application. Get it all down to one button. Make it like an espresso machine (or as close as possible).