Sunday, July 20, 2008

Nonopolitan - MyMiniCity

For all you Sim City fans out there, this is not for you. MyMiniCity is an online city-builder that looks a lot like SC2K, without the usual Sim City god-like control **evil laugh**. Population, industries, etc. grow by having your city endlessly clicked or visited daily. It's that simple. A great way to waste your time on the net!


Here's my city.
Click, click, click!




Sunday, July 13, 2008

Rumor No More

Can't wait for the biggest event of the year.
http://www.philstar.com/archives.php?aid=2008071263&type=2

Flash: Eraserheads reunite!


Sunday, July 13, 2008

Yes, it’s confirmed: The Eraserheads are reuniting after many years of being apart, not for good but only for one show slated for Aug. 30 at the CCP Open Grounds.

According to the STAR source, all the original members (photo) are performing — Ely Buendia, Buddy Zabala, Marcus Adoro and Raimund Marasigan.

This piece of good news should make the Eraserheads fans very happy.

Said to be the ‘greatest Pinoy band,’ the Eraserheads will sing all their hit songs, including Alapaap, Toyang and Ang Huling El Bimbo.

So much water, so to speak, has flowed under the bridge since the band broke up years ago.

Ely, who survived a heart attack two years ago, has formed two bands, Mongol (which didn’t last long) and Pupil (still playing).

‘It took one big company to bring the former band members together,’ said the source who is keeping the company’s identity ‘confidential’ for the time being.

Really now, don’t the Eraserheads fans wish that the band would stay together not just for a one-night-only concert but for good...for old time’s sake?— Ricky Lo

Thursday, July 3, 2008

DIY: Dry Box

Like any other expensive toy we've invested our hard-earned money on, our DLSRs deserves to be babied with TLC. And one way of ensuring it is well taken cared of is to store it together with its accessories in a safe place devoid of high humidity that could foster fungal growth either on the lens or on the body.

Presenting the Dry Box, a box that exactly does just that. Perfect for tagging your precious DSLR along beach trips or plain storage at home, the Dry Box comes in many different sizes and ummm, flavors. Some simply hold a ton of dessicant inside for sucking the moisture out the air while some employ electronic dehumidifiers. Other include a hygrometer for monitoring and even a sensor for detecting broken seals. Whew! Talk about technology for such a simple box. And technology comes at a price.

So since I couldn’t afford a PHP3k+ dry box, I decided to go DIY. All items were purchased from SM Hardware section.
  1. 10L Lock and Lock container: P599.75
  2. 1 box of Silica Gel: P64.75
TOTAL: P664.75

For thousands less, you get the same air-tight, water-tight and moisture-free compartment its more hi-tech counterparts offer. Ok, it's probably not the same as those that pump air out but the Silica Gel still works as expected. If you manage to scour for Silica Gel packs from your old shoeboxes, you could shave 60 bucks more. That’s about 1 liter of gasoline already!

I could have added a Hygrometer but I really have no intention of making humidity readings, more so, monitor the humidity level inside the box. I'll just remind myself to recharge the Silica Gel everytime they’ve already sucked in enough moisture from the air. To recharge, just leave the packs under the sun or cook it very quickly in a microwave oven. until the color clears up. The Silica Gel I got turns reddish when packed.


As for the container, the dimensions I chose are good enough to store the Nikon D40 body + the long 18-200VR lens attached, a Nikon Speedlight SB-800 flash (if I decide to buy one), another small lens like the 50mm f/1.8D or even a Nikon 12-24 UWA, and several stacked filters. Perhaps even a 70-300mm would still fit sideways. Plus it’s got a neat handle for carrying around.

TIP: Never store or place your camera in the following conditions:
  • Direct sunlight (that's hot!)
  • Wooden closet (it's very humid in here)
  • Near places with water such as aquariums, sinks, laundry room (I mean why would you?)

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Infobits: Normal and Slow Sync Flash

In the aftermath of a failed UP night shoot last night (how redundant), I decided to fiddle around my cam while reading Ken’s User Guide in the hopes of learning something new.

After around 5 minutes of endless browsing, I came across a topic I rarely delve into – flash. Well, it’s about time I got to know a tad about it anyways since I get to use it every now and then without really knowing what it does. So for the first time, I got to grasp the difference between Normal and Slow Sync Flash and how it affects the exposure. Or at least that’s what I’d like to think

Normal Flash
In Normal flash, the flash fires instantly after the shutter is released. My friends call this the “blinding mechanism”.

In P(rogram) and A(perture) modes, it also normally tells the shutter to stay open no longer than around 1/60 seconds (according to Ken and which I was able to validate last night).

1/60 seconds is relatively short so usually you may notice that indoor pictures taken with Normal flash produce a brightly exposed subject but with a substantially underexposed (near black) background.

The dark background is due to not having a long enough shutter to let enough ambient light fill the background.

The bright subject on the other hand, is caused by too much direct light hitting the face. On people with make-up, it’s as if too much face powder was put on. Might as well used a cheapo flashlight if you really intended to have this effect. This is where flash diffusers or bouncers come in very handy because they diffuse or soften the intense light hitting the subject (thus also minimizing harsh shadows) and/or bounce the light off, say the 10-foot ceiling, to create incident light (which is softer on the skin) and adequately light the background as well.

On bright sunny days especially when you have no choice but to have the sun behind your subject to capture the breathtaking backdrop, you can also use Normal Flash to provide fill light to an otherwise shadowed out subject. I use this a lot.


Slow Flash
Slow Flash on the other hand, which is only available in P(rogram) and A(perture) modes, lets the shutter stay open long enough to let ambient light expose properly with the flash. This creates a very well exposed image since both the subject and background are well lit – the subject is lighted by the flash while the background is illuminated by ambient light (and the flash as well) due to the longer shutter. The trade-off though of the longer exposure is that moving subjects are blurred and in very dark rooms, the shutter can be awkwardly very long for people as subjects.

The rule of thumb for capturing sharp pictures with no blur is to use a shutter speed of 1 over the focal length (1/f). With the kit lens at say 50mm focal length, the ideal shutter speed would be somewhere around 1/50 seconds. Note however too that it may be hard to avoid blurs while taking hand-held shots at shutter speeds slower than 1/50 seconds, especially if you’re “pasmado” like me. If you have Vibration Reduction (VR) lenses like the Nikon 18-200mm VRII or the 55-200mm VR, you could lower this minimum to around 2 to 4 more stops. Otherwise, a tripod is a must if you want to use Slow Flash in inadequately lit rooms.

In daylight, Slow Flash would presumably have the same effect as Normal Flash since the required shutter would be relatively short anyways.

Slow Flash ain’t available in M(anual) mode since you can adjust the shutter speed as desired. But it gets tricky since it would be hard for newbies like us to estimate how long it would really take to have a well-exposed image with flash. It comes with experience. So I guess this reason is enough for me slowly shift away from M(anual) and start familiarizing myself with P(rogram) mode now.

Test Shots
Both shots were taken at 18mm focal length using P(rogram) mode at P* f/3.5 under ISO200. I used a tripod as well to maintain the same framing and counter my unsteady hands.

Normal Flash (1/60s) Slow Sync (2s)











Keep on shooting!