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Monthly Archives: March 2010
30 Inch Monitor, 100 Year Old Photographs
One of the unfortunate aspects of owning a 30″ monitor is that, aside from thedude.com, there are very few web sites that post images at a resolution any wear near full-screen size. And, if you’re like me, you bought that 30″ monitor because you like images, right? There’s nothing quite like a super sharp image on a nice 30″ monitor. So, when I want to see the best of the best, where do I go? To shorpy.com, of course. The meticulous scans of old 8 x 10 images are custom-made for us large screen users. I check in often, and am always blown away. Check it out!
Posted in Computing, Design, Just Blogging, Photography
5 Comments
Oakland Marathon!
For the first time in 25 years, Oakland played host to a marathon today. Six thousand People of all shapes and sizes come out to run and watch the 26 mile course on a beautiful Sunday morning. I love it. Go Oakland!
Posted in Bay Area, Loft Life, Within Walking Distance
1 Comment
Wolstenholme Fjord, Greenland
My latest scanning project keeps turning up gems. I am so glad I shot this panorama of Wolstenholme Fjord — purportedly the only place on earth where three active glaciers join together. If I could have anticipated today’s technology, I might have made a much more detailed shot than this one – consisting of just two images shot with my trusty Pentax ME Super on grainy Plus-X way back in 1986.
I did a Google search, and I could not find any other photograph that shows all three of these glaciers in a single shot. Yay me!
Posted in Greenland, Panoramic, Shameless Self-Promotion
2 Comments
Bilateral Upper Lid Blepharoplasty
I know – pretty scary. But this image shows why I’m going in for surgery today. Excess fat in my eyelids pushes my eyelashes down into my field of view making everything a bit blurry. I’ve been trimming my eyelashes with a scissors for the last few years, but aside from being dangerous and difficult to do, this practice comes with it’s own special side-effects including the way the eyelash stubble irritates the skin underneath my eyes. Who’d a thunk growing old could be such a pain?
I’ll look pretty bad for a few days, but I promise to post follow-up pictures as soon as I’m presentable.
Posted in Just Blogging
15 Comments
PTLens to the Rescue
I have mentioned this invaluable tool before at thedude.com, but it’s worth mentioning again.
My workhorse lens is a rather cheap Nikkor 24-85 mm. Although sharpness is acceptable, the lens suffers from complex distortion. At the widest zoom setting, the distortion is like a wave – barrel distortion in the center and pincushion at the corners. This causes very annoying “M” shaped lines near the outer edges of the frame.
One answer to this problem would be to spend a bundle on the excellent Nikkor 24-70 mm lens I’ve been coveting for some time. It’s considered one of Nikon’s best lenses ever and, unfortunately, that is reflected in its price.
The other answer was to whip out the versatile PTLens. This $25 program runs stand-alone or as a PhotoShop plugin. Using it could not be simpler. Just open the image in PTLens and click Apply to completely eliminate distortions introduced by your particular lens. PTLens does this by reading image EXIF data and applying corrections from its extensive lens database. PhotoShop’s built-in Lens Correction tool can not do what PTLens does. It’s amazing.
PTLens can be used in other ways too. It can eliminate Chromatic Aberration and be used to simulate the effect provided by view camera tilts and swings. A must-have tool!
Posted in Computing, Design, PhotoShop
2 Comments
We See DC
Kelly brings good weather wherever she goes, and this time it was to our the nation’s capitol. We enjoyed sunny skies and temps in the mid-70′s during our short visit to Baltimore and Washington DC. The hotel in Baltimore was very nice — great view, comfortable bed. Parking in DC was easy, the food was fabulous. This was a most excellent adventure!
Here are a few of my favorite images from the trip. There is an awful lot to photograph in Washington DC, so please click here if you’d like to see a few more.
thedude recommends the friendly and excellent Oyamel restaurant. Try the Chapulines. You never knew grasshoppers could taste so good. Also, you must have lunch at Zaytinya. We had time to try just a few menu items, but they were all great. The brussels sprouts and the scallops are amazing. (Evidently, José Andrés knows how to run a restaurant.) Then, after lunch, be prepared to spend as much time as possible at the National Portrait Gallery — our favorite DC museum. It’s a few blocks off the mall, so there are far fewer noisy school kids than at art museums on the mall or at the Air & Space Museum. Recently restored, the spaces are beautiful, and the displays breathtaking. There is something for everyone here. You could easily spend a week at the National Portrait Gallery.
We also liked the Hirshhorn for its architecture, bold, colorful modern art and quiet spaces. Here are a few from the Hirshhorn.
While in Baltimore, we recommend Meli. The crabcake we had there was the tastiest!
Posted in Washington DC
8 Comments
Happy Birthday, Laminator!
Welcome to your fifth decade, Dude. Hard to believe. Don’t listen to Hillary – I love the shirt.
Thanks to Debra for throwing a super surprise party. More images here.
Posted in Bay Area, Old Friends
5 Comments
Apple Design
The jury is still out about moving images on thedude.com.
But there’s no debating the beauty of these renderings.
The animation was done entirely using 3Ds Max and V-Ray render and took about 10 days to complete. Professionally done 3D visualization is the perfect tool to present concepts or new products in a beautiful, photoreal style, while creating a mood with music and conveying a message, through on-screen text or narration.
Posted in Computing, Design, Video
2 Comments
The Dude Rolls at the Oscars
thedude’s favorite actor earns an Oscar.
So, like, e-mail me, Dude. We can talk about the domain name. But only if you’ll promise to do a sequel. ;)
Posted in Just Blogging
2 Comments
The Golden State Turns Green
It’s Windows wallpaper season in California. And that’s no bull.
For those who don’t know, most of California looks more like this most of the year.
You may be interested in learning more about the the Window “Bliss” wallpaper.
Posted in Bay Area, Computing, Design, Shameless Self-Promotion
2 Comments
A Pattern Emerges
I’ve always been drawn to symmetry in my images, but when you view a few of them in a group, the effect can be ridonculous! Or maybe not. What do you think?
This is the barracks I lived in from September, 1985 until March, 1987. It must be summer, because my pals are firing up the grill. Funny. I think I have more pictures of the exterior of my barracks in Thule than I do of the building I live in now…
Posted in Greenland, Photography
1 Comment
Scanning — Again
Yes, Kelly found a stack of old negatives, and I’m back at it. These days, I basically have the scanner running whenever I’m at the computer. I load up the negative carrier, preview scan a bunch of images, and final scan the best ones. The process is time-consuming, but my new computer is fast enough that I can now run the scanner software in the background pretty much no matter what I’m doing, which is sometimes quite a lot. So, in an evening I can now get 6 or 8 scans done – sometimes without even having to reboot. Yay Windows!
So, I have this shot of Dave that is much taller than it is wide, but man, it looks really nice if you happen to have a your 1600×1200 pixel display in portrait orientation. So there ya go.
Posted in Computing, Design, Shameless Self-Promotion, Wisconsin
2 Comments
