armtuk

Today we have some macro shots - mostly of dice.

Photos of Dice, some of which I really like.

Most of these shots were taken with a 100mm f2.8 macro lens with a 2x extender, and then a 25mm extension tube. The really close ones were taken with a MP-e 65, which I also added the extension tube to just to see how close I could get. Focusing was mostly achieved with a focusing rail mounted on my Velbon tripod, which I LOVE. I also lit the scene with a single 85 Watt Fluorescent bulb (300 Watt equivalent) (maybe next time I should use the 5500K bulbs, but I left them upstairs).

Crystal caste makes semi-precious gem dice that I think would be totally awesome to take at this proximity/zoom level. I'll have to avail myself of a set or two of them I think.

Pictures from my walk today. I went down Park Rd to the actual park part of Marsh Creek Park. It was pretty, but very cold. Not much to take pictures of though. A few birds, and some people fishing in the ice. I did the birds today, if we get another cold spell, I'll go back and do the fishermen next time as I ran out of time. Somebody else clearly had the same idea as me though, as another gentleman with a tripod and camera wondered out toward the lake a little further down.

I just picked up a Sigma 10-20mm wide angle zoom lens. I really enjoy taking landscape style photos (actually - I think I just enjoy taking photos of all kinds period), and I wanted a wide angle lens to do this well. The Canon lens is 50% more expensive than this, so I looked upon this as an experiment to see what Sigma lenses might be like, and I figured if I didn't like it, I could send it back to Amazon, who are great about returns.

The lens arrived today, and I took it out of the shipping box, and opened up the lens box. Firstly - it comes in a really nice case. The case is padded and fitted to the lens. Not only that, but the appropriate lens hood is in the bottom of the case, all tucked in neatly. I pulled the lens out and was immediately impressed at the feel of the piece. It had a good heft to it, and the surface finish was not the smooth plastic finish of most of the canon lenses, but a slightly more grippy gritty finish. Twisting the zoom ring, I was immediately impressed at the feel. It's just right. Not too sloppy, and not too tight. The ring has enough resistance to make fine adjustments easy, but relaxed enough to make sweeping twists pleasant. The focus ring is similar. Both rings have enough grip depth to be easy to work with, rather than some of the canon lenses that make manual focusing quite uncomfortable. I have only taken a couple of pictures with it, and both at very low light conditions, so it's hard to tell what the picture quality is like yet, but I think I'm going to pack up my camera bag and take a lunch break tomorrow in the direction of a park, there seem to be about half a dozen parks within about 5-10 minutes driving distance of my office.

Pictures to follow!!

While we were in Philly yesterday visiting with Amy and John, we sojourned in a Borders. I picked up some music that turned out to be a bit naff, but picked up this book on design.

It is full of awesome. It explains design concepts in a clear fashion, helping me understand what works and what doesn't with concrete examples of each. I think this is quickly becomming one of my favourite books on design.

I'm SO pissed at Flickr. It's just SO crap compared with Google's Picasa. The simple and decisive factor is the storage. I get unlimited storage at Flickr compared with a pathetic amount at Google for a very small annual charge. I would need to pay google VAST sums of money for enough storage for all the photos I'll probably take this year, and then what about next year?!

I tried to batch rotate in Flickr. It lost ALL my photos :(.

We took some picture of the lights that people had set up around our neighbourhood this year. It seemed like fewer people had lights up than last year, but there were a few with some good displays. We didn't get a good lit nativity really, the only one that was any good at all seemed like Mary was not lit, and the other lights weren't very bright. We took a picture or an awesome santa and snowman turning about. I'm going to make an animated picture and post it!

So in MySQL it's possible to have a table:

create table fish (
created_date datetime not null
);

and do

insert into fish values ('0000-00-00');

This is valid.

wow. Wow. WOW.

Let's face it - it's just not a serious product.

Java will of course fail to convert '0000-00-00' into a valid java.sql.Timestamp

I am going to have to write code that runs on initialization of the context that fixes the data in the database because MySQL is such a pile of rubbish.

Today I bought myself a new monitor because the old one SUCKED. I've been doing a fair bit of research, and I knew I wanted an IPS based monitor. I plumped for the Apple 20" Cinema Display. It seemed to be one of the more cost effective IPS LCD monitors that has a reasonable colour gamut.

I am not dissapointed. It's sharp as a pin, and the colours are gorgeous. Totally awesome buy. I would have liked the 24", but there is no adapter for mini-display port to DVI yet. And the 24" screen is like $300 more, and I really didn't want to spend that much on a new screen. This one is big enough for now.

Also it comes with a cloth in a box to clean it with. How wanky is that?