The lamest video I have EVER seen.

Of course I love my “neekon” equipment, but it seems to me something went wrong. Earlier in the year Nikon was talking up a huge press release, which ended up being Blues Traveler concert, and there was tons of speculation flying about on nikon rumors and Ken’s site about new camera bodies being announced at PMA 2009. All we got was this video, and a “yeah we haven’t changed our lens mounts in 50 years!”

Bummer, really. I was hoping some newer camera bodies would drop the price of the D700. Looks like I’ll be waiting a long time to go full frame digital.

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.

A few grips came out early on, most with built in battery, but no shutter release. Following these first entries were a few that utilized IR, much like the remote. Which meant that while you could technically use the vertical shutter release, you had to have the camera in IR mode. A few tests with the IR remote however, show me that if I depress the shutter release, I don’t get half press focus, full press fire. The other thing that lacks is any control over aperture and focus and exposure lock.

I’ve been watching this market since I got the D40, since I knew eventually it was an upgrade ‘d be interested in. When I spotted a grip from Targus, I got excited for two reasons… First it was at least a company making the grip I had heard of before. The second was the fact that the photo (on walmart.com above) clearly showed the grip had controls, and control pins that would act to directly control the camera!

WRONG!

I excitedly ordered the grip from Adorama, who had the same photo as above on their site. As I anxiously awaited it’s arrival I also found it on Walmart.com (as shown above). When it arrived however, it was clearly a different product then pictured.

This is what arrived. I quickly took a photo and put it on flickr in order to show the folks at Adorama they had sent me the wrong thing. I then ordered it from Walmart.com while planning to return the one from Adorama.

The next morning, I awoke to find a note from a person calling themselves an Adorama Customer Support Ambassador had contacted me through flickr. With some back and forth, she put me in direct contact with a sales person at Adorama who tried to help me out the best they could.

Admittedly, with a little more back-and-forth then should have been necessary, I received a return label to send the grip back. Today, I received my order from Walmart… SAME DARN THING! Now from what the Ambasedor told me, it seems Targus is issuing the wrong photo for online retailers!

So this, not to be mistaken for complaining, though I am aggravated, but rather a plea to Nikon to buck up and give us a grip. There are contacts clearly available in the battery compartment, and the battery cover easily comes off. So what’s up Nikon?!

Of course its also is a bit of a WTH? at Targus. If your selling something for visually oriented people, I’d suggest getting the photo right.

I love this bird. My love is only amplified by the distinct personality of a bird of prey used to hunting on a college campus.

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’ve been focusing more on photography again and neglecting my blog. I’ve been chasing after wildlife, and trying to get my gigs of photos at home sorted, tagged and uploaded to flickr. When I first started, I didn’t have a good plan for keeping my photos sorted, so now I’m paying for it. Thanks to Adobe Bridge CS3, I’m making short work of it.

I’ve also been experimenting with geotagging, or the correlating of GPS data with the exif data of photos. I think I have a semi working method involving a laptop in the car running Delorme Street Atlas 2008 and some great software available on both Mac and PC. There are much better ways to do it, but this method used existing hardware/software to my inventory to proof the concept without paying out any monies.I’ll elude to writing something about it at a later date, but don’t wait holding your breath, o.k.?

Finally, I’m angrily waiting for the Amazon Associates program to pay me for the referral fees from you folks shopping through my store. For 4 straight months now I have far exceeded the minimum amount for payment, and received no payment to date. I’ve been fed “We’re looking into it” for 2-3 weeks now and latest inquiries have gone unanswered. I’m sure an in depth write up will occur soon as well.

As far as the Dude you’re getting a Dell story, things turned out ok in the end. Anonymous got the machine, albeit by driving from Concord to Portsmouth to pick it up at the DHL location the Saturday before Christmas. Where he was in line with other folks picking up their Dells. A long and frustrating tale goes along with that, but it’s a new year. He also got a small refund for the annoyance.

So as I eluded, I’ve been taking photos, so here are some of the latest.

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

Every year Mom brings us Japanese lanterns from her garden. We’ve had to walk down to the garden in the past to stop tourists from cutting some. For some reason, they think they can just walk on to the property and start cutting. . .

Ha! I’ll be sleeping on the couch for this one! Redneck Sexy. . . Be careful to remember to brush your teeth and finish your coffee before putting on your dress for a wedding. Then you won’t end up looking like this. ;-)

Friends Eric and Liz (next in the schedule for marriage [congrats!]) enjoy a peaceful moment before Dave and Julie’s ceremony

I’ve been playing around with lighting and such lately. In this long exposure, I painted the word hi with my LED key chain flashlight.

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.

You need to have an Amazon Associates store to begin with. If you have one, go to your familiar “Build Links” section and choose “Context Links (Beta).” You’ll be given a little javascript to add to the footer of your site. It will then spider your content and turn phrases into links all on it’s own. Pretty sweet if you want to be a lazy salesperson.

Lets give it a try. . .
Hormel Chili makes me gassy but tastes good, I guess. I’ve never really had it. I like to use Adobe Bridge on my work Mac Book Pro, I wish I could get a Mac Pro for home, part of the reason I have ads, to generate money for toys. I like Lego, right now I’m into the Lego Castle theme, I just bought a few Lego 7090 sets so I could get extra knights and skeletons. I love my Nikon D40, theres a D40x but even though it offers more mega pixels, it lacks some crucial features.

O.K. that was almost as bad as an episode of The Price is Right. I feel dirty.