Blotner L-85 IFC

I’ve added a bunch of UrbEx photos to flickr for the Blotner IFC, FJETC, Runway POL Garage, and the Dow WSA.

As always you can also view my photos by following the Photography link at the top of my blog. Thanks for viewing!

The exposure time on these photos range anywhere from a few seconds to over a minute, I basically put it on manual (“bulb”), held down the shutter release button, and waited for a strike. When I saw one I let go and repeated. These aren’t as close up as some of the others I’ve taken, but I’m really happy about how many I managed to capture! You can also check them out in my photo section or as a slideshow. If you’re interested, you can see my previous lightning photos here.

We chose to go up the Gorham Mountain trail. It’s listed as a moderate trail, but doesn’t require any climbing. It did get our hearts pumping though!

There was a nice little overlook that we stopped at to catch our breath and take some photos.

Eventually Amme let me know how she felt about the camera being pointed at her, lol.

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When we got to the summit we took a little break to enjoy the beautiful view and how gorgeous the ocean looked.

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We still felt pretty energized so we decided to keep going forward instead of backtracking, continuing on the backside of the Gorham trail.

We met up with the Beehive trail and on the way down, saw some hikes taking a more perilous trail above us. The Beehive trail ends at the Park Loop Road at the entrance to Sand Beach.

Once we got there we hiked a ways back towards the car and had a picnic on the rocks just above the rising tide. We ate bologna (Wunderbar!) sandwiches and then sunbathed for a while before heading back to the car. I was too relaxed to remember to take more photos, but Amme did!

While we were hanging out on the rocks some ballsy seagulls pestered us. After feeding them a while they got even bore brazen and tried to grab our bag of orange and banana peels (which is funny because Amme threw them a piece of orange and they were having none of that!). This photo was snapped while he was about 3 feet from my face.

We drove into downtown Bar Harbor after hiking back to the car and got some huge dark chocolate truffles before heading home. I love hiking days!

PS: See the full album in my photos section, or on flickr, or as a nifty slideshow!

Whatcha think?

Barring minor tweaks, My new layout is now done! Most all of it is a 3rd party theme, a first for me! But I chose to use it because I both learned a lot from modifying it, and because programmers always say don’t reinvent the wheel! I chose instead to modify a lot of the spacing and positioning, and add some little touches here and there.

I like how much information it shows, hopefully it doesn’t look too cluttered. As Tufte says, information is the whole point so your design should focus on it and provide a high density without making it unusable. This isn’t exactly ultra dense, but does give you a quick glance at what I’m up to online, as well as focus mainly on the posts–the whole reason for this blog.

I still want to add a couple of navigation links because right now it’s hard to go from post to post (done!), but other than that I’m really happy with how it looks and behaves. Please let me know what you think of it, and offer any suggestions/constructive criticisms. This site is for my readers so I want it to be as easy for you to use as possible!

I’ve also been uploading my backlog of UrbEx photos. I’ve recently added the rest of the POL Tanks, Coal Elevator, Building 943, and the Civil Defense Bunker.

The new albums are: X-mas 2008, Virginia Fall ’08, Nanny’s 75th B-day.

Japanese American Memorial

Union Station

Parker on X-mas 2008

Lately I’ve just been working and finishing up classes. The mall on campus (long stretch of grass, not shopping mall) is once again the constant home of one of the many slacklines owned by those of us that love the discipline. I love having a break between classes and going out there to find that there is always a line set up. Sometimes one of us will put one up, go to class, and come back later, knowing that our friends will make sure nobody steals it while we’re gone. I’ve made some really cool friends through slacklining over the last few years. Amme hasn’t had a chance to do it since the beginning of the summer, but she’s gotten really good.

I’ve also started climbing again at the rock gym here on campus. Its free for students which is awesome, and I still fit my shoes so that’s a bonus. I can’t climb at the level I used to, but I still know how to move and not overexert myself. I’m making progress slowly.

The leaves were all messed up this fall. We had a couple of bouts of cold weather that caused some of the trees to change and others not to, so we didn’t get the nice vistas of dense autumnal hues. Instead there were a few beautiful trees surrounded by clumps of green or dead brown. This made for some nice contrast, but I didn’t get any good landscape photos. I’ll have the photos up on Flickr within a week. I also have some shots from UrbExing around the former Loring Air Force Base on there, so be sure to check those out.

They include our trip to the old Nuclear Weapons Storage Area, the first of its kind in the US! There are no weapons there now, of course, but you can really see how hard they were hiding the stuff from satellite surveillance and how thick the walls and vault doors were. Its pretty nuts thinking back on it. There are also photos of some of the Oakfield Station in Maine, for you railfans.

Classes are good, I’m finishing up my second degree and can’t wait for it to be done. I want to WORK not have all of my time monopolized while I pay for it. I’d love to start my own company but I need to learn more about the process. I also need the free time for it. I’ve let friends down in the past by trying to take on projects that I didn’t have time for and I hate myself for doing that even though I’m putting schooling first.

Amme and I went to NY for her cousin Subee’s wedding. We had a great time; it’s been so long since we saw a lot of the family down there. I have the photos up here and here. BTW: the facebook photo resizing algorithm makes my photos look all artifact-y. If you want a high quality photo from that album email me and I’ll send you one.

I have two wisdom teeth coming in. One of them is already exposed and is currently stopping me from opening my mouth all the way. It makes eating difficult. It just started doing that out of the blue, else I would have had it extracted by now. I went to the dentist at the healthcare center here that has a sliding pay scale since I don’t have insurance and it’s very affordable. They did a panoramic digital x-ray of my jaw, which was very cool. Our vet uses a digital x-ray as well. They can open the image in a viewer and change the contrast, levels, and zoom in and out to get infinitely better images than the film and developer x-rays. That visit was fast and cheap, but to get my tooth extracted the next opening they have is in the end of January! I won’t be able to open my mouth at all by then, so I have to look elsewhere for an oral surgeon. I’m homing someone has an opening within a week. I’m tired of eating
soup and cutting things into toddler-sized
pieces.

Amme has been taking good care of me though. I hope I take just as good care of her. I’m anxious to get on with life and make a name for myself, but as long as we have each other I can never be discontented. I could move out to the woods, build us a house, and just provide for us both and be happy forever.

“English System MOTHER-[beep]: Do you speak it?”

What a great few days this has been. This past Friday I went up to Caribou for my nephew’s 1 year birthday. For the next 12 months he will be “1 year and N months”. When he is 1 year, 6 months, it shall not be said he is “18 months old”, or I will start punching people in the teeth. Why? Because one of my pet peeves is people counting a child’s age in months after they’ve reached the next higher increment (YEARS). I am not 1120 16ths of an inch tall, I’m 5 feet 10 inches. Your car doesn’t hold 192 cups of gasoline, it holds 12 gallons, etc. He’s 1 year old. He’s also 12 months old but you don’t say that out loud. Wow, rant. Where was I?

Oh yeah, so my nephew, Parker, turned 1 year old last Wednesday, so my mother and sister came up to celebrate with the rest of the family. I hopped in with them at Bangor and we all drove home together. After stopping in to visit Lindsey, I hopped online and played Zombie Master with Doody, B, Jesse, Aaron, and Zach(!!!) while chatting on Skype. It was so awesome to talk to Zach in particular, and great to play with everyone. The internet isn’t killing humanity, rather it often brings us close together when we otherwise could not be. After gaming until about 4am, Doody came over and we caught up on stuff before crashing an hour later.

The next day, or later that morning really, we awoke and got ready for the party. Grammy and Grampy, and my godmother and Parker’s grammy and grampy and great-grammy and aunt and loads of other friends and family including Mom and Dad all were there (I even convinced Doody to stay!) and we had a great time. Parker got to grab fist-fulls of cake, made by the same lady that made Alyssa and Lindsey and I’s first cakes (she came out of retirement from cake making to do this one last one for Lindsey), and we chatted and had fun and ate and opened presents. Parker helped me put a couple of toys together with Alyssa–he kept grabbing and trying to turn the screwdriver–and he is wonderfully smart. It only takes him seconds to figure out new concepts, and he loves all things mechanical. I can see he’s going to be a lot like me when I was little, taking things apart and being fascinated by mechanics and electricity.

After the party we managed to get a hold of Jalbey, and we gossiped some more with him before going out to rent Mulberry Street (one of the “8 more films to die for”). We watched that with Dad and it was just so-so, picture a zombie movie where the zombies are actually infected humans turned rat mutants, but it was entertaining at least. We had fun punning though. “You rat bastard” and “President Bush doesn’t care about Rat People” were among the best. Doody and I stayed up browsing the internet for a while then crashed again.

Sunday I woke up and cleaned the inside of Amme’s Camry, and Dad waxed the crap out of it (it looks like a mirror, beautiful). Before I headed back down to Bangor Doody and I went to the Jade Palace for lunch and had some seriously good buffet and had a couple more good puns (“jimmy’s buffet” and “the bob buffet” PROTIP: say buffet as buf-fet). This comes from reading too much Spider Robinson, I’m afraid.

“I swear I won’t start singing Peaches & Herb”

After being reunited with my lil’ angel on Sunday night, we went to bed so we could wake up at 6am to head down to Boston. We got to Alyssa’s around 12pm and went straight out downtown to go visit the Aquarium and do a little souvenir shopping. Later we went home to change and headed back out to the game, Sox vs. Diamondbacks, which was really fun since it was Lindsey and Amme’s first games, but incredibly slow since no runs were scored until the 6th inning when Arizona scored 2 runs, and the Sox never did come back, scoring just 1 run. However with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 8th, the tension was palpable.

“Yes Margaret, it is possible to spend several hours reading about shaving.”

At this point, I should mention that I’ve become a huge shaving nerd. Yes, shaving nerd. This came about from 2 distinct events. Last year I read an article about how you can save a ton of money and get a closer shave with less irritation by switching to a safety razor (the old double edge metal ones). I thought that was really cool but never got around to buying one. Then just a couple of months ago, my friend Andrew told me he’d started shaving with one, and there was a whole online forum devoted to the art of shaving (and lathering, which is almost more important than the razor) called BadgerAndBlade.com. My curiosity was piqued and I decided to check it out. What I found was a very friendly and helpful community of people who had set out to find the secret of getting a better shave, with less irritation, and had ended up finding a place to share stories, make friends, and get guidance on what to buy and how to use it.

I’ve been shaving with a safety razor and badger-hair brush for a few weeks now and I’ve never had such a smooth shave or less irritation. Whats more, I spend about $4 on 20 razors, instead of $20 on 4 mach-3 razors!!!

Anyway, I bring this up because The next day we went to the Natick mall. For you Family Guy fans, there WAS a Twinkie factory in Natick, but she’s gone :(. Despite that tragedy, we had a blast shopping and hanging out and just enjoying everyone’s company. My mission was to find all the shaving supplies I needed but couldn’t get in Bangor. This included some shaving soap and/or cream, a high-quality badger-hair brush, aftershave lotion, possibly some cologne, and some good aftershave spash with witch hazel and no alcohol.

Armed with reviews from B&B, and a list of stores with possible supplies, I came away with everything I needed. I also got some new clothes (I clothes shop about every 1.5 years, or 18 months for you unit-impaired new mothers out there).

“Nom nom nom”

Before Amme and I had to head back to Bangor, Alyssa took us all to Asiana Fusion in Watertown, that has absolutely amazing food. This is real asian food, as in authentic Korean bulgogi, kimchi, and kalbi, as well as Pad Thai and other Thai and Japanese and Chinese dishes. Everything we got was just excellent, and we chatted with the Korean girls there and got some most excellent deserts! I highly recommend it to anyone near the Boston/Watertown/Waltham area.

The following morning we all went to Alyssa’s work for a little pizza party and met a lot of her co-workers. It was brief but really nice to meet everyone. Amme and I headed home after that and had a pretty un-eventful drive back home. It was really nice to pass out in our own big comfy bed with the A.C. on.

This work is impressive, imaginative, beautiful, and hauntingly organic. I could look at this gallery all day and continue to gush about it for as long. What makes me even happier is that they use medium format (120) E-6 film like my Seagull uses!

Really, though. Go view that gallery. now.

I just finished assembling it and took it out for a little ride. Its smooooooth and has a ton of pop.

View more photos on my flickr slideshow

Les Spécifiques

• ELEMENT MIKE V AVIARY DECK – 7.88 width – On sale, and its a helium deck, so its lighter and stronger.
• TENSOR RODNEY MULLEN CUSTOM MIDS TRUCKS – Mullen is my all-time favorite skateboarder and he personally designed these trucks.
• SPITFIRE OLSON LIFERS WHEELS – 57mm, 97a durometer, for a smoother ride over crappy asphalt.
• FKD SAWBLADE SPEED BEARINGS – ABEC 5, IMHO the best balance between speed and durability. These ones have a clear shield so you can see inside, with a red spacer for a little extra bling.
• BLACK MAGIC GRIP TAPE – of course!
• MYSTERY RISERS and hardware – No real difference in performence, but they are white and complemented the trucks nicely.

Now to go work of those extra pounds!

We also had a little malfunction with Doody’s camera due to an overzealous shutter release cable, so I’ll be posting instructions on how we fixed it.

I’ve also uploaded a ton of new photos to my flickr account. Please do check them out and let me know what you think! You can also view them by clicking the photography link at the top of this page.

Finally! Thursday night at ~7:30pm I received my Seagull TLR from UPS. Its as cool as I knew it would be. After reading all about medium format and TLR cameras for weeks I’m so glad to finally have it in my hands. The only problem has been that was too dark on Thursday to take any photos and I worked all day Friday! I have managed to sneak out when it wasn’t raining on my break and take a few photos, but I really want to finish this first roll of 120 film to see how it comes out.

In lieu of taking photos with it, I’ve been examining it, drooling over it, and taking photos of it. Today I’m working all day again, but I will get out a 5pm and still have time to go shoot photos for a couple hours. Doody will probably be up here by then as well (he was in Portland) so we can go TLR shooting together!

If you really hunt around online you can get some decent info on Seagulls. Most people either love ‘em or hate ‘em. They aren’t exactly bulletproof, so you have to baby them if you want to get 90+ rolls of film through them without repair. The reason for this is they are a cheap camera. As such, while the glass in them is wonderful, the internal mechanisms can jam if you don’t 1. Keep it lubed and 2. Adjust the f/stop and shutter speed BEFORE cocking the shutter. This is a must, but once you’re in the habit in no way inhibits shooting. They take wonderful photos and are dirt cheap, so if you love your Seagull, it will love you back.

Despite the info I gleaned from forums and reviews of the Seagull 105, I couldn’t fine any nice big photos of it. I’ve decided to alleviate this.

I really wanted to find a freeware 360 degree QTVR creator, but after much fruitless searching I had nothing. Then, finally, I came across a 360 degree presenter that uses only javascript! Its called 3DNP and I sincerely thank Thorsten Schlueter. I’ve since posted some views of it on my flickr page, but for a real treat check out the 360 degree view of it here.

Expect another update as soon as I get this first roll processed! Yay!

The wonderful folks at foliagenetwork.com say the leaves are not yet at their peak in my area, although they are very close. I agree with them that the trees are confused by these conflicting periods of very cold/warm weather we have been having. Some places the leaves are vibrant or falling off while 10 feet away they are still green as your neighbor’s lawn.

I am hoping the peak of color holds off until next weekend, although when they go, it is like lighting a string of Black Cats, they will not stop for you, you must stop for them. Besides the weather, I want the leaves to hold off because I have a lovely, delicious Seagull GC-105 medium format TLR camera coming my way via UPS!

I have always been fascinated by TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) cameras ever since I first saw one at one of my Uncles’ weddings when I was just a wee lad. When I started really getting into photography I went straight to digital because I am a geek like that, and that was the camera I had at my disposal. Of course I had used 35mm when I was younger, and even developed my own black and white film in Graphic Arts class in high school, but I had never shot 35mm film with an artistic eye. Because of all this, I never really thought about using any film camera, much less a medium format camera.

That all changed fairly recently. One day while perusing the local Goodwill out of sheer boredom I came across a cool looking old 35mm camera. I bought it for $7, took it home and looked up the instructions for it online. I came across Ken Rockwell’s website and found out what I had was a Nikon L35AF with an amazing 5-element lens! After shooting 1 roll with it at Mount Katahdin my interest in film was renewed. Now Doody and I love to go hunting for cheap vintage cameras at thrift stores and (if we ever find any) flea markets.

Despite my rekindled fondness of film, I had assumed it was prohibitively expensive to get into medium format photography, and hence never bothered to check. Do you see why ignorance is bad, children?

Thanks to Doody purchasing a Seagull TLR (Seagull is THE oldest camera company in China, so they know a thing or two) down in Portland, my interest in both TLR cameras and medium format photography was renewed. A little research online showed me 120 size film is not nearly as expensive as I thought it would be, and as you will see below, great cameras can be had on the cheap as well.

The camera that revolutionized the TLR market in the early 1900s and is the model all others have since copied was the Rolleiflex by Rollei. Rollei still makes cameras today and you can pick up a Rolleicord TLR for about $3500 (OUCH!), OR you can get a vintage Rolleicord, Rolleiflex (the amateur line of Rollei TLRs), or Yashica Mat off ebay for about $100 (+/- $50) depending on condition. A 50-70 year old Rollei or Yashica will take better photos than any modern 35mm camera if the lenses are in good shape. These cameras cost the same to repair as they do to just buy a working one, so only but a used camera if the seller guarantees the shutter works and the shutter speeds are correct, and that the camera as a whole is in good working order (never by “as is” or “seems to work”). Another major point: make sure the lenses have no scratches, are not fogged, and have no lens fungus.

Sorry, I suppose all that is for another post, but what I am getting at is that I went camera hunting! Now I should mention that there are many other types of medium format cameras besides the TLR type, but they hold a special place in my heart with their two lenses and top-down viewfinder, so that is what I wanted. After watching a couple dozen auctions (you have to be diligent to get one for $75-100 instead of $150-200) I found a Seagull TLR, supposedly used only a couple of times, in absolute perfect condition! I ended up picking it up for $96, and it is en route as I write this. I will definitely post later with high resolution photos and updates on my adventures in medium format negative and slide film.

So, beside the fact that I am a sucker for old cameras, why would I shoot medium format film? For one, medium format cameras just look cool. They have that vintage look and feel about them, are very interesting with their top-down viewfinder and, in the case of TLRs, two lenses. The biggest point, however, is that any decent-condition medium format camera can run circles around any digital SLR in terms of image quality. The reason for this is the size of the film. Only cameras approaching 10 megapixels or more can rival 35mm quality, so imagine how much quality you gain when using film 4 the size of 35mm!

Another great thing is that if I want a new digital SLR it will set me back $700+ (the Canon Digital Rebel XTi I want is about $700 with lens at a good priced store) while my Seagull is 1/7th that price! On the other hand, buying and developing large quantities of film is quite expensive if you are not being paid to do it, so I do still need that Rebel at some point in the future. There is nothing wrong with digital, but TLRs are just another fascinating facet of photography to explore.

Ok, time to head home and relax. I am still not 100%. Expect updates very soon!

PS: This post was purposefully contraction-free for no particular reason.

The new photos are all contained in the new first 7 sets which are: Windmills, Trains!, 1st Red Sox Game, Loring AFB, Projector, Amme’s Graduation, and Baby Parker, but there are also new photos in some of the other sets, so you can just scroll through my main flickr page (called the photo stream) to see all the new photos without going to each set individually.

Lastly, one of my favorite ways to see all the new photos is to just use this interactive slideshow!

Enjoy, and I do love feeback via the comment system within flickr or on euicho.com.

Lindsey went into labor yesterday around 12:20pm yesterday and after nearly 8 hours of labor they decided to go cesarean. They both did just fine and the baby is adorable. I only have one camera-phone photo as I couldn’t go up to caribou for the birth, but I’ll take tons of photos this weekend if I go up.

Updates and photos after the weekend!

WARNING: VERY big file!!

Hopefully some day soon I’ll be able to create a ‘little planet’

You can expect about a dozen meteors an hour, so if you scan the entire sky, you’ll hopefully see one every 5-15 minutes (+|-). For a real treat, set your camera up on a tripod and take some nice long exposures (minutes a piece if yours allows). Your photos should come out with streams of white arcs from the stars as the earth rotates, and if you catch a meteor, it will be a straight line cutting through some of the arcs. They make for really neat photos.

Earth & Sky has a better article than I could write on the subject, so go check it out for some more pointers and info.

If you want to know when you can catch the more impressive showers, read Watch Meteors Like a Pro in 2007, also by Earth & Sky.

Took this in total darkness to get my iris so big : )

Knowing my penchant for procrastination and my inability to post regularly, I’ve decided to work on it and have fun at the same time with a little project. Anyone who knows me knows I love photography; I’m always looking for ways to be a better photographer. So I was pretty excited when I happened upon photojojo’s Project 365: How to Take a Photo a Day and See Your Life in a Whole New Way.

The idea is pretty self-explanitory: Take a unique photo every day for a year. This is a really fun idea because, as Photojojo says:

PHO-TO-JO-JO!

• Imagine being able to look back at any day of your year and recall what you did, who you met, what you learned… (Often we find it hard to remember what we did just yesterday or even last night, let alone a whole year ago!)
• Your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.
• Taking a photo a day will make you a better photographer. Using your camera every day will help you learn its limits. You will get better at composing your shots, you’ll start to care about lighting, and you’ll become more creative with your photography when you’re forced to come up with something new every single day.

Sounds pretty convincing to me!

As I said, I’m doing this to both improve my photography and teach myself a little discipline (which will hopefully also translate into more frequent posts here at euicho.com), but I also am going to use it as sort of a quick daily journal. I’m displaying this little project on Flickr (of course), and in each photo’s description I’m going to put a little mini journal entry about what I did that day and anything interesting that happened. Since I try to keep euicho.com more professional and less like a journal (with the exception of my photos, and posts like this), this new pseudo-photo-blog will be the perfect place for friends and family to go read up on what I’ve been up to lately. I’ve just started a week ago, so check back often to see how its going. You can see my A Pic A Day project as a slideshow or not. And please read the full Project 365 article at PhotoJojo.com. They are a great photography newsletter.

I’ve added about 40% more photos to my Flickr page. A few are transfers from my old album page, but most are brand new. If you have a mo’ then please stop by and check them out, and comment on any you think are cool. I’d greatly appreciate it!

Some new and updated sets are: Portland Headlight Trip, Portfolio, Fall 2006, 35 mm, and Pets (including new Bruski photos!)

Tip: hit the “View as slideshow” link on a set’s page to see a pretty flash slideshow of the set.

I’ve always been a truly firm believer that everyone has an evil (or nice) twin, or maybe just a doppleganger. Whatever their disposition, this photography project by francois brunelle definately confirms my suspicions. The cool thing is that these are only some US/UK look-alikes. Imagine how many there are in the whole world!

Go to his website (http://www.francoisbrunelle.com) to see these freaky black and white photos. You can also read up on some of the details behind these coincidences… if you can call them that *cough*boysfrombrazil*cough*.

Hey guys, thought I’d post a quick “howd’yadoo” to let you know I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.0.4 (which doesn’t really make a lick of difference to you, but I’m very happy with the admin section changes), and also that I’ve posted a bunch of new photos! Wow, some guy just asked me if I liked the ROFLCOPTER or WOOTWAGON better… random.

I don’t recall how I came across Moo — It must have been either Nyrath or del.icio.us/popular — but in any case, come across it I did.

Do you like business cards? Meh, boring right? Do you love Flickr and your photos? Sure, we all do. Why doesn’t someone combine the two? Moo did. They’re a wonderful little printing company that currently offers a product called MiniCards.

MiniCards aren’t strictly business cards, they’re much smaller and more creative. They’re more like little calling cards or “hey want a cool little fun snippet of one of my favorite photos?” cards. I plan on using them to promote my photo sales or just to give away to friends that ask for my email/hompage address.

Moo uses Flickr to get your photos. You click a link and it brings you to the Flickr security page that asks whether you trust Moo. Its ok, you can trust Moo. Once thats done you’ll jump back to the MiniCards page where it asks you which photos you want to turn into cards. I got in on the 10 free cards to Flickr Pro members promotion (sorry, they ended the promotion after 10,000 packs) but you normally buy a 100 pack for $20. Once you’ve selected your photos you just crop them a little and tell them what to put on the backs (colors, fonts, name, contact details, whatever you want).

These little cards are as beautiful as they are functional. I can’t wait to show them off! Check out my 10 pack and the little holder they came in on my flickr (also check the Moo pool), and go check out Moo’s MiniCards too. If you don’t have a flickr account, you really should get one anyway, but thats for another post.

Carl Zeiss (who also produced the lens in my own digicam), have announced a custom lens they built for a private party thats the biggest non-military lens ever produced!

This beautiful beast weighs in at 564 lbs and has 15 optical elements arranged in 13 groups. It has a focal length of 1700mm and Carl Zeiss had to come up with an all new focusing and aiming system using servos to move the heavy glass elements. It’s made to mate specifically with a Hasselblad 203FE 6x6cm medium format camera as per the customer’s request. I can’t imagine the photos this takes.

I knew it was only a matter of time before this happened. My Sony DSC-F717 finally fell prey to the inevitable: ccd failure. It was all at once too, one night i’m taking a picture of my cat passed out in a laundry hamper, and the next day I go to turn it on and get an abstracted smear of purple vertical lines.

This is a problem for many older sony cameras and clies manufactured between 2002 and 2004. Many other manufacturers also use the same defective ccd, a complete list if affected cameras can be found at the link above (imaging resource).

There are a few theories as to why this happens. Either the use of epoxy chip packages instead of ceramic is causing moisture in, or a bad iodine-bearing bonding compound on the wiring, or just faulty ZIF connectors.

Regardless, Sony has shown an amazing care for its customers by repairing all affected Sony cameras for free regardless of warranty status, including S&H!

via IR

“From October 3, 2005 through October 2, 2007, Sony will repair, free of charge, affected products exhibiting the above-mentioned problem where it is caused by the image sensor device. Sony will also cover the cost of shipping and handling to service to correct this issue.”

I’ll post photos of the sensor later tonight, as well as update you on the process of sending it in for repair.

So, although I’m super-bummed about my camera being broken, a new CCD is at least cool, since mine is a few years old. And, if you own an older camera from any manufacturer, check the above linked website to see if your camera is at risk.

Why the change from the old gallery? Mainly because I didn’t like the photo importing of the old Gallery (which still contains my old photos until I put them up on the new one), I didn’t like that it wasn’t exactly themed to this site layout, and there was no persistant navigation from it to my main site. The conjugation of this trinity of irritation lead me seek other means to display my work.

The first thing I pondered was how much I was under-utalizing my flickr account. Flickr has a powerful API, and I love how easy it is to add and manage photos, yet I’ve left it pretty much stagnant for several months.

At first I tried to use litebox, but I would have to upload the photos myself, or at least form the links myself for each photo, and with several hundred photos uploaded at a time, I wasn’t about to take on that job. So Flickr it was.

Once I decided I wanted to make use of Flickr, I went in search of a flicker gallery or viewer that I could implement into WordPress’ pages system, or at least into my site’s layout.

I’ll spare you most of the details, partly because I don’t even remember all of the ones I tried, but I do remember SlideShowPro wasn’t free, and I’m poor. I also tried FAlbum, which has great features, and I ended up using it on the sidebar (with some custom code to link to flickr instead of the falbum default page), but I could not for the life of me get it to agree with my theme… Until today!

In the meantime, I had set up a more slideshow-style viewer called Flapi (FLicker API). Its flash based, which some people hate, I know I hate flash intros for websites, but it looked cool and didn’t require the latest version of flash so I decided to implement it.
Update: Since I’ve gotten FAlbum working, I won’t be using Flapi, though you can still view it here.

If you like how Flapi Looks, its based on flickr’s slideshow feature, available from any album page (except the recent photos one) by clicking the “View as a slide show” link at the top of the album.

So please try out my new gallery and tell me what you like and don’t like about it! It’s available from the Photos link at the top of all my website pages. Enjoy the new photos!

One of my best friends, Matt Blanchette, and his fiance Kelly who’s a wonderful person and whom I am not best friends with currently but hope to get to know better over time, got married!

The wedding was on saturday June 10th, so Amme and I drove down on 9th with Johnny B in tow to make it to the rehearsal. We met B, Doody, Trevor, and Franklin at the tux place in Portland. It was so great to see everyone again. We never seem to see Doody enough, and hadn’t seen Trevor for 6 months. Franklin had been MIA since junior year of highschool (6 years?) so that was a real surprise! He doesn’t look much different thanhe did back then, heh. Everything fit well except Trevor’s jacket. He’s the smallest in our group, but his jacket was bigger than mine! We got overnight alterations ordered and they turned out fine.

After that we headed over to the rehersal. They had it at a non-denominational chapel in a cemetary, and it was the coolest little gothic chapel i’ve ever been to! The building was quite small and made of rough-hewn stone, and it had cool wooden rafters. We basically played aroud a lot but got a feel for what was going to happen and who would do what and when. Trevor and I were selected to open the doors for the bride and her maids. Zach and Doody had readings to do, and Johnny was to play two songs. After getting all our ducks in a row we made our way to the rehersal dinner.

The rehersal dinner location was unknown until the day it actually happened due to the fact that the chinese resturant that had good vegan food for the Bride and Groom wouldn’t let us have the dinner until after the supper rush, and Matt’s mom didn’t want the seniors to eat too late. Ruling that out, there were no other resturants around town with a decent vegan menu. It ended up being at Ruby Tuesdays right next to our hotel, which was a plus. It was really fun to have so many people at one huge table, but unfortunately Jalb and Jason didn’t make it.

The food was good, though there wasn’t much variety for B and Kelly, but there was one small glitch (besides there not being any vinegar for Kris Blanchette and his wife’s french fries): Jesse and Kristen drove down later than the rest of us, and when they asked what exit to take to get to Ruby’s, we told them the exit number off I-95 instead of I-295, putting them in the Old Port clear across the city!
After much deliberation, arguing, and coaching, we got them on the right track and they arrived shortly therafter.

After the dinner we did something or other… I honestly don’t remember. We slept at some point.

The morning of the wedding is also somewhat of a blur. I remember getting up and going to the reception hall to set up the DJ equipment and go over the plans for setting up food before the guests came, and I remember getting my tux on and dropping a tux off at B’s Mom’s hotel. I also remember arriving at the hotel, but all the in-between stuff is a hazy. Stress and deadlines will do that to you.

Everybody looked really great when we all met up at the hotel. There was a limo, but Amme and I drove her car since we and Zach had to leave before everyone else to set up the reception. The chapel looked great, and so did the wedding party. Everyone was so spiffy. Kelly looked really lovely in her dress.

Just as the ceremony was about to start, Jalbey and Jason walked in. At least they made it! Trevor and I made our way to the back and opened the doors for Kelly and her sisters as they walked down the isle, then took our seats. Doody gave a great reading, then Johnny B played a great song. He’s such a great musician. After that Zach read a great poem, then Johnny played another wonderful performance. Everybody did so well.

When they wen’t to light their unity candle with their separate candles, all the wax flowed into it and smothered it so it wouldn’t light. A note to all you engaged couples: dig the wick out, heh. This was a minor glitch and we didn’t let a little unlit candle get in the way of this happy day. Matt and Kelly walked back down the steps to the front of the room and said their vows. Our little B started tearing up, but they got through them without bawling, which is always nice :) , and they were married!

Immediately after they preceded to the back of the room we took off to the reception hall, and I’m glad we did! The invitations specifically said the reception wouldn’t be for another 2 hours, but people started arriving minutes after we did! WTF?

This made it really hard to get the food out and things in place, but everybody worked extra fast and got it finished. The food was amazing. O’naturelle’s catered with some really great soups and sandwiches. I loved the sandwiches, especially the bread! They had pita bread and hummus that was incredable. Kelly even had a chocolate fountain they’d bought with lots of strawberries for desert.

I was the DJ, and I had a great setup. Someone from MySpace had let us borrow a PA system from their band, and it had a HUGE mixing board and a very powerful amp and speakers. All I had to do was plug my ipods into the board and navigate to my playlists. I had one of slow songs, one of fast songs, and one of essential songs like the first and second dance songs, etc. I did a little running around getting food in between announcements, but it all went great. I’m glad Kelly and Matt gave me the honor of being the DJ for their wedding.

As we were getting ready to toast, we forgot bottle openers for all of the sparkling cider! Luckily somebody found one and Zach went around to every table and opened the bottles. What a good waiter! LOL. Other than that it went off without a hitch. The reception looked really great. I especially liked the fireplace. Johnny B and Matt’s brother Kris B both gave great toasts. I forget if Matt’s dad gave one or not, but kelly’s sisters gave a really sweet one too, and I gave a toast as well.

There was much socializing and photography; Matty and Kelly looked so cute cutting the cake! I didn’t get hardly any reception photos because I was entirely too busy, but many others did including Michael and Renee Woodward, the photographers and close friends of Kelly and Matty. I didn’t get a chance to talk to them much but they seemed really fun. They take wonderful photos, especially portraits.

After the reception we all retired to our rooms and hung out. The next day we went to B and Kelly’s apartment to watch them open gifts with Michael and Renee, and then took off back to Caribou a couple hours later to see our lonely kitties and ferrets.

PS: Photos of the wedding will be posted soon. I hope…

Oh for h4x1ng in the rain!
My sweet and gentle Jesus!
Great googily moogily!

It’s… It’s… It’s HERE.

Yea fair readership, Wype thee fog frome thy eyes and beholdith the glory of: The Mammoth Photo Update.

I’ve finally finished sorting and uploading over at photos.euicho.com, and have added 6 new albums containing roughly 600 photos total. Its a biggie, and it took many an hour, so please stop on by and enjoy my hobby with me.

And remember, if you would like a print of any of my work (I’m currently working on an online store at the moment) please feel free to email me at euicho [at] euicho [dot] com. I’m modest, so my prices are very reasonable!