UPDATE: They finally scored, so what do we see? NO HOCKEY! OH NO, we’re still watching fans and players in this stupid lacrosse game. WTF?

A quick search, with multiple results led me to an article such as found here. I thought I remembered reading in one of the search results that in some instances could be a result of drive size. A lot more also reference Norton, which I haven’t used since the late 90s.

Either way, the quick fix, was to do the registry edit, restart the machine, and all was well.

1. Click Start, click Run, type “regedit”, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
3. Click Edit, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type “IRPStackSize”, and then press ENTER to name the value.

   Note Type IRPStackSize exactly as it is displayed. This is case sensitive.

5. Click Edit, and then click Modify.
6. In the Data Value box, type 30 or any value max of 50, and then click OK.
7. Restart the machine

During my presentation I spoke from the experience of an amature photographer. One that has taken a few classes, and done a lot of reading online, and lots of playing in the field. I shared little tidbits I pulled from my travels on the web, that some people might have never seen, and added my own experiences to the mix. This post acts as a warm up converting a presentation with visual aids to an online format. So what I’m saying is, stay tuned! I’ll cover the basic terminology, and basic rules of photography so we can then begin to bend and break them.

I’m also working on a specific category for these posts so that they can all be retrieved together while cutting out my other various rantings, which I’ll add to this post as well. Until then, happy surfing

I’ve messed around with time lapse a few times with my Nikon D40 and D70, but it usually means being tethered to a laptop (PC) and using Nikon’s expensive Nikon Camera Control Pro software. It works for in house set ups, but what if you want to do something in the field?

I spent some time yesterday and today trying to find an inexpensive intervalometer to trigger my camera’s shutter. Most cost $160 (or more!) which really made me think I would consider a lightly used Nikon body with this function built in if I could sell my D70. The biggest problem is most of these devices required pc-sync connections on the cameras to work. Both the D40 & D70 lack this, and rely on a small IR port for remote shutter release. Then it hit me.

Some time ago I purchased an Asus A626 mobile pc to help me keep track of my life. Among other things it contains an IR port for communication. It took me a little while this morning to track down a solution, but I finally found it. I downloaded the trial of TV remote controller 5.7 from pdawin.com. Now, I’m not entirely sure why anyone would use their PDA/Mobile PC to change the channels, etc on their tvs, but hey lets exploit it!

What set this apart (beside the $14 price) was this software could learn any remote code, and has a timer setting. After quickly running through the learn sequence using my ML-L3 remote and programing it to a custom function I tried the timer function setting it to activate the virtual button as quickly as every 15 seconds and I was soon firing both D40 & D70 at the same time!

Now granted, if you factor the cost of the A626 it’s a fairly expensive set up, however if you already have a Mobile PC, or PDA with an IR port and can find the right software to do this, you just found an inexpensive and light way to do time-lapse in the field.

Good macro lenses cost a lot. I’ve found a way to utilize some lenses you might already have to reach crazy reproduction ratios, like 2:1, 3:1 or more. Now NOTHING beats a REAL macro/micro lens. Nothing. However, if you want to have some fun with a different way to get extremely close, check out a Macro Coupler. It’s like a filter with two sets of male threads.

What you’ll need

• 50mm lens recommended to reverse. It must have an aperture ring, you’ll need to open it up all the way.
• Lens(es) that will magnify between ~70mm & 200mm. Too short and you’ll have way too much vignetting (like at 70), too long and it’s all but impossible to achieve a good depth of field.
• Macro Coupler that has the right filter size for one of your lenses, and optionally step-down/step up rings to match the filter size on your other lens.

I found when ordering the pieces I needed, it was easiest to match the common 52mm filter size of the 50mm lens. So I started there. Drew a rough representation of the lens, then drew in the coupler, and across the paper drew the lens I wanted to attach to. Then, with web site in hand, bandhphoto.com had the most selection, I found the rings I would need. Luckily, only one more ring was needed to get from 52 to 67mm filter size.

Then just put it all together and you have a crazy macro lens. The draw backs are you need to have the end of this contraption really close to your subject, so nothing live will play along with you. You have a very shallow depth of field, even more so while focusing, making it really hard to compose your photos.

I found to over come the DOF problem, it was easier to get a really stable camera setup (good tripod, head, and something to rest the lens on are necessary here) to move the subject.

Because your shooting through 2 lenses now, you need to use the best pieces of glass you have. You’ll lose a lot of light with this method as well, so be prepared to over light your subject.

The rest is left to trial and error while you shoot. I’ve only used this setup a few times playing around. The only photos that came out so far are these ones of the tick that my wife pulled off my back the other day. In November…

And for scale (yes, I still have my drafting tools):

Getting GPS Data

Since I take a lot photos when we’re on vacation, I almost always have a laptop with me to back up my shots. Because of this, I’ve settled for the clunkier but much more cost effective Street Atlas 2008 with
Earthmate Lt-120 GPS receiver option for in-car navigation, if needed. The added bonus is that you can do all sorts of cool stuff with it. Including just turn it on and let it track where you are, which is the first step in geotagging. When your done for the day, you can save the GPS log from your day’s journey. Street Atlas saves the log file as a special Delorme .gpl format. There are conversion tools out there that can read that and convert it, sometimes, but Delorme is cool like that, they know you want your data, it’s yours. If you click on the Draw tab, where you would normally design a set of waypoints for a trip, you can import the gpl file as a layer in either track, or waypoint data, to name 2 of the 3 important types. From here you can save it right back out as a .gpx file, or GPS XML file as they are known.

The GPX file is gold, this is what you want for output from what ever you plan to collect your gps data with. It’s an open and specific XML format, which means you can even open the file in something as simple as notepad and view the data. It also means that most of the free software for combining GPS and EXIF data can read it.

A little about EXIF data

Exif data, is metadata stored inherently in some formats of photos. Jp(e)g files and camera raw (raw, nef, etc). You’re probably familiar with it, just not sure what it was called. Most commonly seen on flickr, is the “This photo taken with an ________ camera.” This is just one of the things you can enter in exif data. Other common data that gets stored when you take a photo include iso, f-stop (aperture) and shutter speed to name a few. It doesn’t have to stop there.

A more and more common phenomenon is the inclusion of GPS data in the exif data, which can answer the question “where did you take that photo?” This data typically includes Latitude, Longitude and Altitude. According to the software, you can also automatically include data like Town, State, etc. The best software to do this I found it available for free (donation recommended) For Mac OSX Tiger and Leopard.

Software

The software, GPSPhotoLinker is available at http://oregonstate.edu/~earlyj/gpsphotolinker/. This software is sweet. You can load multiple gpx files and load directories of photos, or individual files. By clicking on the batch tab, you can run a batch write to the photos and be done with it. The sweetest part is that file formats included nef files, Nikon’s raw format. This meant that I didn’t need to convert all my raw files to jpg and then process, as I only keep the nef files on my server and upload the jpgs to flickr then delete them.

Other neat features include the ability to enter in ‘as the crow flies’ locations. Take the photo at left for instance. . . If you click on the image, it will take you directly to the exif info page at flickr about this photo. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see the GPS data. It displays latitude, longitude, altitude, atomic time and that the photo was taken 5km North East of the town center of Rye, New Hampshire. Pretty cool.

This photo was shot with my Nikon D40. I also shot other photos, like the ones on the right, on a timed sequence using a great little web camera from Logitech. The QuickCam Pro for Notebooks is a 2 megapixel (1600×1200) web camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and built in auto focus. I used Webcam Surveyor

to capture photos from the web camera every 3 minutes and save it to the hard drive of my laptop. The effect would be similar to timelapse, but in stead, by saving each photo separate instead of into a movie file, I could pick and choose the photos I wanted to keep, and still create a time lapse movie later if I wanted to. The software is only $30, and can do all sorts of great stuff including time lapse photo/movies, motion detection and recording (with the ability to mask) and other great stuff. It’s worth checking into. You can try it for 30 days to make sure it will work for your needs, I’m sure it will.

Work flow

Make sure your camera’s time matches your local time based on UTC time. HA WHAT? It’s simple. The date/time in the gps stuff will be based on UTC time and adjusted to your area. Look at your gps and see what time it says, and set the clock on your camera to match. The matching of gps location and photo is done with date/time photo was taken and the time stamp in the gps log.

I shoot in raw, probably don’t need to, but I do. I like knowing I have the most flexibility with my photos I can when I get them home. IT gives me warm fuzzies inside. So it was important for me to have software that could work with the raw files. Again, this is why GPSPhotoLinker is so great. However, I did find two things that I had to work around by adjusting my work flow. Really not a big deal now that I know. This is also why I went on several test runs prior to the big trip where I wanted the system to be flawless. I use Adobe Bridge from the Creative Suite to manage my photos. I use it to sort, tag and rate my photos. The first time I tried compiling the results, I did my normal sorting out, adding additional metadata to make it easier to find a photo later, rated the ones I wanted to post to flickr with the stars and did a little color correction, cropping and sharpening, then ran Photlinker to add in the GPS data. Here’s where I hit one small snag. Somehow, the link to the xmp file (xml file containing edits to the nef file) was lost. Metadata stayed, but exposure correction, cropping, and ratings in bridge were lost. I had to go back and do it again.

The other slight snag I hit was that the photos recorded from webcamsurveyor did not have exif data that could be read correctly. I had to use a second piece of software called GPicSync to tag those photos. It was able to read the file created date to enter the gps data into the exif data. I suspect though, that this is more from the way photos from a webcam are saved then GPSPhotolinker.

Summary

I could go into so much detail on this process that you would never read the whole thing, maybe you didn’t. . . Anyone still there? If so, congratulations! There are much better ways to do this, including gps data loggers that clip to your pack if you’re straying from your car, or devices that clip into your hotshoe and write the gps data when the photo is taken. But these can cost from $50 to $400 respectively. I’d be interested in finding out if any of you have tried this out, and what you found worked for you.

I’ll start with this, since everyone has the same response: Yes I own 2003 legally, why is this such a surprise that an individual could care to have a real (lets forget the linux vs MS bashing on this one) server environment in their home? I have need to host a few small web sites, run some simple PVR software, and to run data collection from my weather station as services, I enjoy the ease of maintaining the box since I have no useful experience with linux servers, and I use it as an environment with RAID to store my photos and mp3 collection.

So when I discovered there was no easy way to stream any of that media to my xbox 360, I was a bit disappointed, but I didn’t give up. I’ve long been using my Xbox (1) to stream files to my entertainment center using the awesome, Xbox Media Center. Of course this meant if I wanted continued functionality, I had to keep both machines in the already over crowded entertainment center.

In order to share media with a 360, you either need a machine running XP and Media Player 11, or a media center pc. I had no desire to bring up yet another pc that was on all the time just to share files. With a bit of searching, I found an excellent article on getting WMP11 on to your 2k3 box. So far, I’ve got it installed, the only gotchya (if your sans-sleep) was that the search does not check hidden files and folders unless you specify to do so under “More Advanced Search Options.”

When I found the desired files I decided to copy them out on to my desktop, where I also pasted the article into a text file. This way I can burn all this to a cd and use it later, without the searching if I lose my OS. Install was easy, all files did need to be run in compatibility mode, and it was a bit scary restarting the machine remotely, but hey, WTH right?

So I got it installed, with the help of that article, and it has been configured to use my media, of which is a bit limited in file types. The next test will be to see if I can truly fire up the 360 and use the media, at least some of it anyway.

So lets think back to what brought this blog to life. . .

Oh thats right, those damn raccoons. They’re still around, in fact I had great fun, ehr, I mean I was left no other option, then to shoot one a couple weeks ago with my paintball gun while I had the electric fence repurposed on the garden for the summer.

But of course, I wouldn’t be here with such an audience if it wasn’t for my peeps. Those folks that both read my insane ramblings, and those that link to my blog. So since I can’t thank every single one of you by name, I’ll be certain to report out what Wordpress tells me are the good folks linking to my site.

Thanks!

• Notes to Marquis
• Wii Sixty: File under – Suck it Sony
• Strong Kids, Safe Kids
• Moldy Snack
• mandymag.com
• Users Suck!
• spiralbound.net

I picked up a small fog machine this weekend. I saw an example of usefulness in photography recently and just had to get one. Most likely it will help me add mood to my Lego scenes.

The setup was fairly straight forward, but required some dialing in. I have a D40 and an SB-600 flash. So in order to fire the flash off camera, I either need to use my SC-29 which is similar to Adorama Off-Camera iTTL Coiled Flash Cord (3-Ft Max) for Nikon Cameras. For this setup though, I went with my slave trigger that fires when it detects another flash firing. I was able to put this on a short tripod off to the side behind the fog machine.

I used the flash compensation on my camera’s built in flash to lower how much it fired. I brought it down to -3 and set my SB-600 to manual, 1/32. Then by adding a red gel from a Halloween strobe over the front of the flash, I was able to get a good balance of white flash on camera and red fog back lighting.

Go to flickr for the annotated setup by clicking on the photo.