Category: Photography

Have nothing to do in another weekend …

No matter which photo album I use, I find their slide functions are no good. I finally found a good slide show utility in http://www.slideshowpro.net/.

It costs US$ 20 and a few hours of work – installation, configuration, testing and integration with my other site. Good stuff indeed.

http://www.80days.com/slideshow/. Enjoy !!

Have nothing to do in the weekend …

Worried about upgrading any software, I kept using Gallery 1.3 for many many months. With nothing to do one weekend, I decided to something special …

… so I decided to do something to my photo album – such as integrating Google Map into it. Then, I

  • Downloaded the Gallery 2.0.2, the latest version and installed it
  • Migrated all albums / photos from Gallery 1.3.3 to the new engine
  • Twisted a few graphics, logos and css
  • Downloaded the Google Map modules and themes; installed it
  • Applied the Google Map API Key from Google and installed it
  • Found all the GPS coordinates of the major albums, map to the Google Map.
  • Twisted again some more graphics, logos and css

Dah dah …

http://www.80days.com/photomap/

How’s that ? For a three hours work ?

I-Need-To-Buy-A-New-Camera Syndrome

Whenever there is a new camera announced by one vendor, the owners of the older cameras from this vendor or other vendors all suffer from one disease – and I call this “I-Need-To-Buy-A-New-Camera”.

For example, Canon just released the new DSLR 5D, then many Canon 10D and 20D owners all believe they need to dump the current camera and buy the new one.

Same to other camera owners, Nikon and Olympus camera forums all packed with comments like “Wow, I need to get one !!”, “Geez, my camera is now obsoleted!!” …

Come on, your current camera can still take good photos, why change ? Will you buy a new car because GM, Ford, Toyota released new cars last week ? Will you buy a new house because there is a new one next block ?

Lesson Learnt: People shoot good photos, not camera.

What Are The Settings ?

This is probably the most popular question in all photo forums – “What are the settings?”. You know, whenever someone posted a good picture, forum goers will then post that.

  • What are the aperture setting, shutter speed ?
  • What is the ISO, what is the zoom range, what is the flash setting etc. etc. ?

I am always puzzled by that kind of questions. You know, we shall ask “Why” questions instead of “What” questions, such as why you took the picture this way, why you set the aperture to F4.0 etc. etc. ? You can learn from good pictures only if you know the Why’s …

I mean, will you take a good picture if you know the setting, even though you’re in the same spot at the exact same time ?

Lesson Learnt: Why ? Why not ?