December 31st, 2011 Thomasso
Well, this is it! The last post of 2011, and tomorrow will be next year.
Everyone please behave yourselves tonight. Drive safe, and please do not drink and drive, and try not to wake up the neighbourhood at 2:00am in the morning, as some of us do like to keep our regular sleeping times going through the holidays. 
HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2012, here we come!
Posted in Art, Events, General | 2 Comments »
December 31st, 2011 Thomasso
Finally another evening with some clear skies that I can just walk out into my back yard and start shooting the stars.
I focused on focusing, becuase this seems to be my biggest issue with this camera. The wide angle lens that I have, is the kit lens that came with the camera, and it does not have an infinity mark on it, so focusing to infinity is difficult. Focusing is frustrating when set up at night with only the stars to focus upon.
The image is 30mm, ISO 200, F2.3 for 20 seconds. Using the 600 divided by focal length rule, I was just outside of the star trail effect with respect to the Earth’s rotation and my exposure time.
Setting stuff like the ISO and F-Stop I have down. Using the timer on my tripod is a huge bonus since I still do not have a remote switch for it yet. But, my night time photography has come along ways since my first night with the camera, just need more time and money.
On my wish list, I really want a wide angle lens, say, something like a 25 or 30mm macro that I can do a vast amount of sky with it. I am really liking this Sony a33. Learning new stuff with it everyday.
Posted in Astronomy, Bitching about weather, General, Photographs | Comments Off
December 27th, 2011 Thomasso
Yes, another inspiring moment in art, all done within fine minutes using my 9 by 12 inch USB drawing tablet. As per usual, I was board out of my tree, and needed some mental stimulation last night to get me through. I was tired from my marathon of reading, and had a few hours to kill before I needed to get to bed to sleep to start my work week on the right foot. My sleep cycles got all mixed up from the long weekend, so setting myself up for sleep was a priority. I plunged in my graphic tablet and away I went.
I know, it is not much to look at, but what do you expect for five minutes of drawing time?
I used a program called My Paint, which is an open source and it is free to use. It has some amazing brushes and brush effects in it, and it is very easy to use. It is nothing like the thousand dollar proprietary software you see on the market, but for its cost, this program rocks!
I did have a hard time sleeping. My sleep through the night was difficult becuase I was not that tired; in fact I was a little cranky this morning from the lousy quality of my sleep last night. My five minute art therapy was a bust in that regards, but it was fun.
My hand and eye coordination is off becuase I am drawing on a tablet, and the results, or what you are seeing, are up on the monitor, so I found my arm wanting to do weird positions while I was drawing; I was having to really think out what I was doing. A very weird feeling to get used to if you are only used to drawing on a piece of paper instead of looking up at a monitor while drawing on the table.
Posted in Art, Diatribe, General, Humour, Software, Story Telling | 1 Comment »
December 26th, 2011 Thomasso
I was going through some old disks, the old fashioned 700MB CD type, that I had tucked away. I found this disk that was not labelled, other than “Digital Camera” on to, so I threw it in the PC and fired it up to have a look. Reminiscing through these old digital photos of 2002 made me laugh, and some sadden me as there are people who have passed away since, but the photos were neat to look at again after all these years even though they were small JPEG 800 x 640 images. The quality is poor on these from that old Kodak Point and Shoot camera – which by the way cost a whopping $800.00 at the time!
This photo stood out for me. It is a photo of my return trip from Vancouver Island back in October of 2002 from where a mountain of detergent foam covered the road at the intersection of Highway 10 and 58 Avenue in South Surrey, BC. Because I was driving, I had to drive ahead, pull over, find my camera, then drive back to take this shot. The foam had already retreated back to side-walk by the time I took this shot.
I had to retouch the photo, and converted it to a PNG file. I also added the 2012 LOGO on it too becuase of the modification I did to it.
Apparently this happens numerous times a year when jokers put detergent in the fountain, and it bubbles up and spills onto the road. I remember hearing people laughing as they drove by; it was quite the sight!
CORRECTION: The actual address is Highway #10 and Scott Road in Surrey, BC. Highway #10 is also 58 Avenue (Dec 27, 2011).
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December 25th, 2011 Thomasso
While I was doing my morning chores, I heard the familiar sounds of the gang of Crows perched on the trees cawing away. As usual, they were making their morning racket of noise. This means that they are anticipating food, or one of my deviant neighbours had just fed them peanuts. Either way we go to great lengths to scare them away becuase they cause havoc for the rest of us – the Crows leave their droppings on everything.
Sadly the authorities cannot do anything about the offending people who feed them, so some have devised other means of keeping them away without harming them (the neighbour), and the Crows.
By the way, this post was not suppose to be about issues of bird droppings, but I guess it turned out this way. And, I also do not endorse the harming of any living thing, even Crows – they were here long before we humans were.
So here are some shots of the Crows, doing what Crows do best:
The above image is the Crow that left his gift on my Nissan Pathfinder after I took this photograph. He landed right on the Pathfinder and did his business.
Side note: One of our older neighbours invented a “Sonic Cannon.” He got the idea from the RCMP, who had something similar used for the 2010 Winter Olympics to use on protesters. The device sends out a powerful, yet very narrow, sonic wave that is so loud that your ears ring afterwards. You cannot hear it unless it is aimed right at you. Only a 2 sec long, 120 decibel treatment, is enough to send the birds on their way. They only need one session with it, and after that they only need to see it and they fly away – classical conditioning!
Posted in Diatribe, General, Law and Order, Photographs, Social Justice | Comments Off
December 24th, 2011 Thomasso
With every specialised field, there comes its specialised jargon. So, enter the world of photography with its complete specialised language and slang that would make any non-photographer’s head spin. After a couple of hours reading on the subject, and referring to a number of on-line videos, I found two very important topics that have always intrigued me. First, the concept of the focusing depth of field in a photograph, which as I found out today, has a really weird name called bokeh. The second is the concept called the Rule of Thirds, which helps makes the photograph more interesting by framing up the subject in the photo with the background.
After spending most of the morning reading on these two topics, I decided that I should do some experimenting with my camera. Hey, it was rainy and cold outside, so doing indoor shots was more appealing to me. My camera has in its viewfinder and eye piece display an option that divides the view finder with the guidelines that shows me the four points from the rule of thirds method. All you are doing is dividing up the image into three horizontal and three vertical areas, and where the lines connect you will have four points. It is on one of the point(s) that you place your subject. I have to agree that placing the subject in the centre of the image is boring. The rule of thirds method is far more interesting to look at in a photograph.
Next is blurring out the foreground and background in my shot. Now that I understand the concept, is seems logical now. Lower the F number, the more specific the rang of focusing in the image is, and the higher the F number, the sharper the image, and everything is generally in focus. This is called bokeh, which is Japanese for blurring. Bokeh, seems to also mean the depth of field. The F Stop, or aperture setting, also controls the amount of light reaching the camera. Thanks goodness for the auto settings eh!
Here is my example of using the rule of thirds, and using bokeh, in my shot of my plant(s) on my work table.
I have also done the White Balance for this image too becuase most of the light is coming from a lamp that has a compact florescent light bulb inside it. I did use the flash, but I would rather have the natural light from the room, but that is me. Maybe, perhaps, my next investment will be studio lighting?
Posted in Diatribe, General, Photographs | Comments Off
December 23rd, 2011 Thomasso
This morning I did the firmware update on my Sony a33 camera which added some very cool effects on top of the cool scene choices I had with it before. Of the eleven new “picture effect” options that the firmware update added, the colour partial effects are so far my favourites.
What you get with these partial colour effects are a black and white image with only the primary colour you choose as the only colour in the image. In the above image, I chose Red. My website’s logo is not part of the original photo, by the way. In this case, you are looking at a red SADA cable on top of a brown wooden table. Only the red colour is produced. The red also shows up in the view finder too!
The firmware for the Sony A33 now brings me up to version 2.0 from 1.2. There are some other changes that the firmware has done to the camera such as, eleven new effect to the Mode Dial “SCN,” Added some customisation to the “D-Range button,” Sets display in the finder, and changed the menu selection to last menu selected, or the top menu selection. Sony’s E Support Page.
Posted in General, Photographs, Software | Comments Off
December 21st, 2011 Thomasso
As the population of humans grows ever more uncontrolled, our encroachment on the habitable land becomes ever more dense. The housing boom here in the Lower Mainland, also known as the Metro Vancouver Area, and Fraser Valley, has not really shown any signs of slowing, even with the global melt-down around us. In my little town, nestled along the banks of the Fraser River, practically in the heart of the Fraser Valley, construction is going at full speed, comparing it to the pre-meltdown of 2007.
Some call this gentrification, while others call it progress, but the one common dominator as I see it is change. In the shimmering backdrop of my front yard I once had the greenery of trees and the mountains. Then as progress crept in, I had a waterfront view of the Fraser River when the brush was cleared for development, and an entire forest and more mountains were revealed. Today, I have a view of a few dozen living room windows facing me, and people creeping me out with their binoculars from within them, on top of this, more low-rise building under construction that are even closer. The result is that ever changing view from nature to human habitation, from space and openness to walls and concrete, it is all artificial now.
Two things are for certain, besides my death, and taxes, that is my inevitable move from Fort Langley, and the peace and enjoyment that I once had here. Both seem to complement each other while offering the final solution to my relationship to Fort Langley in the future. In a matter of months I will no longer have the title as the Fort Langley Blogger.
So for now, I have the ability to capture my views, from the bushes to river water, and to the rooftops of today, I can see them all on digital film. Not as great as the real thing, but I can sit back and reminisce on the once enjoyable views from once upon a time on my porch.
The image is of a worker smearing roofing tar on one of the latest condo buildings in the Bedford Landing development, along with the Golden Ears Mountain in the background, looking Northward from my place.
Posted in Around Town, Diatribe, General, Photographs, Social economics, Story Telling | Comments Off
December 21st, 2011 Thomasso
Finally made it. Today, Solstice, is like Hump-day, everything starts to get better once you pass it. I am so looking forward to the nights getting shorter that it is not even funny any more. Sadly, the depressing thoughts linger as we now enter in the new season, called winter, and we all know that there is still four more months of grey cold days ahead. But to be optimistic, the days are getting shorter from now on for the next six months.
Like an old wise person once told me, “it is always sunny on the Solstice,” and today holds that belief to be true. All day was marked with wonderful sun shine, and an almost perfect blue sky in Langley City. It felt nice to have Sun on my face. I even feel ten times better after I was catching the rays.
Oddly, this fall has not deterred some plants from thriving. I think we only have had a dozen nights that have been below freezing. And if this year is going to be like the last one, then we should see more mild nights to come.
Tonight I am going to a light festival to celebrate the Solstice. I will try and capture this on my camera, and post it?
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December 20th, 2011 Thomasso
After five painful weeks of waiting for good weather, tonight unexpectedly gave way to clear skies, and the constellation Orion above my home. I finally captured Orion on my DLSR. Without further ado, Je présente, Orion.
Again, like I said in my December 17, 2011 post, I will put this image in my photo gallery becuase you really need to see it in a larger size to see the colours and detail that this image does not show in this size. I am very imporessed with this! I am getting closer.
The image was taken at ISO300, f4, 10 second exposure, using my 18-55mm lens. Anything longer than 10 seconds trails started to appear from the stars moving across the sky. I am also dealing with a lot of light pollution too in my neighbourhood, and there is a tree in lower right corner of this shot.
This is close to what I am aiming for with my night sky photography.
Posted in Astronomy, Events, General, Photographs | 2 Comments »
