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You know, shooting irons isn't so bad. But I'm having a heckuva time getting good shots of drivers, fairway woods, and hybrids. They tend to feature large expanses of curved shiny metal. What isn't highly reflective metal is often highly reflective black paint instead.

I'm trying a lot of different things, but I'm fairly certain I'm going to have to create some sort of cube lined with black felt and missing two sides in order to get the shots I need. Back to Lowe's it is for me.

A NetFlix movie arrived today - "Stranger than Fiction." It's the same movie I received yesterday from NetFlix. One would think NetFlix would warn you or simply skip over an item in someone's queue if it's still checked out at the same address. Carey and I maintain our separate queues in the same account (she has one movie at a time, I have two), so we occasionally add the same item.

Carey's friend came over to scrapbook while I watched the Pens game (they came back from 1-4 down at Toronto only to lose in overtime). Still, with 101 points and five games left, and New Jersey back at 100 points with six games remaining, the Pens have a good chance of winning the Atlantic Division and getting the fourth seed in the playoffs.

In my spare time I watched Fast Food Nation - and didn't really care for it at all.

I went to Presque Isle's beach 6 last night in the hopes of seeing a sunset as spectacular as the one I saw on Wednesday while driving to the Y. The thing about taking pictures of sunsets is that, given at least somewhat favorable conditions, you just have to show up and see what happens. Most of the time you might get a lame sunset, but you certainly can't wait for a good one because by the time you get set up, it will be too late.

Unfortunately on this day, while conditions were fairly good, a thick band of clouds covered up most of the horizon, blocking a lot of the light. The shots seen in the extended entry range from ¼ sec. up to three seconds. I shot them at 70mm with the 24-70 at ISO 100 and f/22.

This was the first chance I had to use my Cokin filter with the graduated neutral density filter. Part of me wishes I had a stronger ND filter, or perhaps even one without the soft transition, as finding the position of the "split" was difficult, even stopped down to f/22 with the DoF preview button depressed.

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A while back I signed my name on a postcard with a black sharpie. I scanned it, desaturated it, and adjusted the levels in Photoshop to white out the background and make the darkest black true black. All is well.

Now, I'd like to use the signature as a semi-transparent watermark on some of my images, but I'm not sure how to convert the luminance to an alpha mask. Essentially, the parts that aren't true black should let some of the background color through.

How can this be done? I'm sure the answer is simple, but I've not discovered the method.

I'd like to begin offering some of the photos I've taken in the new "Desktops" section (see tabs at the top). Currently I'd plan to offer the following sizes:

4:3 Ratio             8:5 (Wide) Ratio
-----------           ----------------
1024 x 768            1280 x 800
1152 x 864            1440 x 900
1280 x 960            1680 x 1050
1600 x 1200           1920 x 1200
                      2560 x 1600

A few questions. Are all those sizes necessary? If so, is 1280 x 1024 also necessary?

Is there a Photoshop action I can download which will create all these sizes easily? Or even an Aperture export setting or AppleScript?

Additionally, if anyone has seen an image I've published here that they'd like to use as a desktop, let me know.

A sign up form is now available at udslr.com if you're interested in receiving updates. Current plans are to send only one update and to deliver future updates at the UDSLR site itself.

If the logo hasn't clued you in, the general idea is "University" of "DSLR."

I still slightly prefer the original idea - "DSLRU.com" - but that domain is owned by a squatter. It's currently running advertising for Russian DSL. Oh, the joys of the Internet. Gotta love those squatters.

I'm waiting quite awhile for the Lowepro Slingshot 300 AW to arrive at either Dodd Camera or Van Tuil. Van Tuil today gave me a line about "it's a new bag, did you know that? They're not shipping them until mid-April." Uhm, what? Huh?

I'd just order from B&H - again - except that I'd like to make sure the bag will comfortably fit my equipment and is as easy as it looks to use and carry. I'm also curious as to whether I could modify it to carry my monopod.

Spring must be here. Right? I golfed today, it reached about 76°F, and flowers are blooming. That must mean it's spring, right?

Here are some crocus shots I took in about six minutes in the front yard. Used the 24-70 at 70mm, changed the aperture from f/2.8 to f/11 to see how different the changes would be, and then popped on a 20mm extension tube for the semi-macro shot at the bottom. The wide shot is f/2.8, the semi-macro one f/11.

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Looking forward to some warmer temperatures (highs in the low 60s were predicted today), Carey and I ventured out at about 11am to Presque Isle. I threw my camera in the car with the 70-200 and the 24-70. When I get my bag, I'll likely just take everything. It was 50° in the garage, 42° outside, and about 34° at Presque Isle, which was enveloped in a massive, super-thick fog. I left the camera in the car and we began walking along the path. Just then a crew team emerged from the fog, cutting nearly silently through the still lake waters.

When we got back to the car, I got my camera out and waited for five minutes or so until the crew came back. I increased the contrast and pinched in the white and black points a little, cropped, and converted to monochrome because there was very little color anyway. Fog and haze will do a lot to "grey up" an image.

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I did it. I didn't use my computer for an entire day, on Shutdown Day 2K7.

I'm writing this post on March 17 at 6:03pm, but I'm going to date it 11:59:59pm on March 24, 2007.

If anyone wants to get me a birthday present… one of these would be nice. 🙂 Otherwise, I'll probably get one in two weeks when Dodd Camera in Cleveland gets them in.

I had intended to get a Sidney Crosby home jersey, but again, they were simply unavailable at the Penguins game. Then on Sunday, the right rear speaker in my living room surround sound system blew up, so I spent my birthday money getting a pair of cheapie Bose speakers.

LogoMaid - a design chop shop - has ripped off Dan Cederholm's SimpleBits logo, then gone so far as to threaten a lawsuit against Dan claiming he stole the logo.

Yeah, right.

John Gruber has more on this, and I'm posting merely to add my PageRank weight to the side that roots squarely against outfits like (and specifically) LogoMaid, the ripoff artists.

Sue, Dan. Sue.

After attending the Pens game last Friday, Carey and I went to visit my grandma in Bedford. The primary reason was so that I could take pictures of her for her 80th birthday. The family is throwing a little party in late April for the occasion.

I took several pictures, and had only two real shots in mind (two that are included here). The third shot with the large wooden spoon and fork just came about because they're two of the few remaining items from her old house. Since she'd lived in one place for as long as I've been alive until the past few years, that picture does a good job of capturing what I remember about my grandma ((It could have used a bit of a reflector, but I'd forgotten about my foam core boards until later.)). The three pictures (5x7 and 4x3) will fit inside an 11x14 frame, likely with a very light grey or white mat.

Beta testing for "Iris" is scheduled to begin just as the month of March ends. If you're interested in what is basically a drastically improved PulpFiction, leave a comment or otherwise get in touch with me (via email if you'd like).

The current schedule is as follows:
April 1 - Begin small beta test.
April 15 - Enlarge beta test.
May 1 - Release.

Subject to change, of course.

A favor: if you comment or email me, please provide a full first and last name.

Carey and I went to the Presque Isle Downs buffet last night. Despite having heard bad things about the food, Carey and I felt secure in our understanding of what "casino buffets" are supposed to do:

• Draw people to the casino. If a buffet is good, people will come to the buffet and "drop a few bucks" playing games afterwards.
• Keep people in the casino. If someone gets hungry around dinner time, you do not want "I guess I have to go home and eat" to be an excuse. Rather, you'd want people to say "they have such a good buffet here, I'll just stop in for a quick bite and come play some more."

In both cases, the buffet essentially acts as a way to promote gambling. Though not essentially a loss leader, it was our understanding that casino buffets didn't necessarily care to do more than break even.

Unfortunately, Carey and I were wrong, and the "Triple Crown Buffet" at Presque Isle Downs performs neither of its duties well. For nearly $27 (at lunch rates), Carey and I were shocked to find almost no variety of food contained in only 24 feet of buffet. What food was present was cold and/or stale - and I don't just mean one or two items, either. Everything was in bad shape. Carey and I are surprised we didn't get sick.

Golden Corral and Old Country Buffet look like feasts (and great bargains) compared to the low-quality, sparse pickings available at Presque Isle Downs.