The view from outside our office this morning. Bittersweet.
It’s a Gas
I spotted this outside of our office yesterday, and thought it’d make a “cool” shot.
World High Temp Overturned!
Check out the developing news story at Weather Underground. Congratulations, Chris! This is an AMAZIMG achievement.
A Day at the Races
My friendly neighbor Lynne gave me two free tickets to the Sonoma Indy Grand Prix at Infineon Raceway today. It turns out my best pal Julie is a huge race fan, so she and I took the top down on the Smart Car, and did the short cruise to wine country. We had a great…
First D800 Panorama
This 14 image panorama of the cavernous Craneway Pavilion was reduced to approximately 1/10 of its original resolution, and it’s still 8,000 pixels wide.
First SONY DSC-RX100 Shot
After reading a couple of glowing reviews like this one, I decided to pick up a SONY DSC-RX100, the images I’m seeing from it are very impressive! It’s amazing that a camera this small deliver images this big! The list of technological achievements in this tiny gem is long. An f1.8, 3.7X zoom lens, 20…
D800 for Product Photography
I shot this on the floor in the hallway on a roll of white paper with my beloved FourSquare handheld overhead and a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lens which I purchased for $95. (Ken Rockwell describes this incredible bargain as, “…among Nikon’s sharpest lenses ever“.) The LCD display and updated logo were added later with PhotoShop.
Holy Crap – My Mind is Blown
I’m speechless. After looking at a few of these, I guess I’ll just throw my cameras away. Way back in 2008, I shot some photos from a balloon over Bagan, Burma, and was pretty satisfied with the results. Well, I’m humbled to say that I’ve been utterly outdone. This Russian Panorama site is absolutely amazing…
Andrew’s Largest Work – So Far
I brought the new camera to try and capture the sheer size of Andrew’s latest masterpiece. I think it’s amazing. No matter how many times he explains it to me, I’ll never understand how he does this sort of work. I would not have a clue where to start… Click here for a (5 MB)…
Kelly and GoGo
Practicing with the new camera.
First D800 Shots
After a 6 month wait, I finally received my new DSLR. I actually gave up on ever receiving the Nikon D800E, so I settled for the D800. I must say, I’m impressed. The images are absolutely enormous – 7360 x 4912 pixels. I had to reduce the resolution from more than 36 megapixels to 6…
Best Meal in a Glass
This is what Oakland Magazine had to say about the “Baconized” Bloody Mary at Chop Bar. The corned-beef hash was pretty darn good too! Thanks to Grant and Sandy for providing the perfect excuse to over-indulge.
Fourth of July Cruise
We decided to check out the San Francisco fireworks this year. Neither of us has seen them close up for decades, so we braved the fog and bitter cold to sail out on the USS Potomac. The ship parked close to the action for a relatively fog-free show. But the coolest thing about the event…
It’s All Happening at the Zoo
One event we will never miss is the annual Oakland Zoo fund-raiser – “Walk in the Wild”. The adults-only evening at the zoo features fine wine and delicious food prepared by dozens of local eateries. The event also gives us a chance to personally thank some of the largest contributors to our wonderful zoo. We…
My, How We’ve Grown!
We’ve come a long way, Baby! What I find amazing about this group shot is that the cold weather kept a lot of people away. My guess is that there are at least 100 others that did not make it to the party. I’m going to need a taller ladder for the next shot! Many…
Oops – It Must Be Sunday
I think I need to add a new “horsie” category to my blog! By the way, I used my el-cheapo Korean 85mm 1.4 lens on today’s shoot. I love that lens!
Happy Anniversary
We’re 2-1/2 months late, but we finally got around to celebrating our anniversary with a day trip to wine country. What a beautiful day. Happy Anniversary, Kellster!
Tornado in Aisle 12 – Full Episode
Boom! thedude’s fire story begins at 28:45. Sorry about all of the annoying ads. I guess it’s the price of fame.
Point Arena, 2012
We just returned from a super-relaxing trip to Point Arena with most excellent hosts Tom and Julie. In an absolute stroke of genius, we decided not to drive to Mendocino like we always do. Instead, we stayed around the beautiful ocean side home and limited our activities mostly to eating and drinking, interrupted only by…
Annular Eclipse!
Despite Chris’ predictions, the world did not come to an end, and the steaks were delicious.
Another Sunday, Another Horsie
Meet another of Kelly’s pals from the Xenophon herd – Starlight.
After Hours in the Virtual Lab
While working on a visualization for a new lab space, out of curiosity, I decided to render the scene after dark, and was quite surprised by the results. The dramatic light provided almost entirely by a single omni-directional shadow-casting light somehow makes the scene look more real than it does with the lights on. It…
xfinity Logo Design
You can learn a lot about the process of designing a logo by tracing one. The design appears to be based on the ubiquitous DIN typeface – so popular it has its own web site. Simple tweaks were made to every character but the “n”, and the dots were dropped. You can see the minor…
That’s Just Dandie
Kelly poses with one of Xenophon’s newest therapy horses on a beautiful Sunday morning. Oh – Kelly likes this shot too. Something about Dandie’s ears being pricked.
Practice Makes Perfect
I see so much on TV and in other media that was almost certainly created with Cinema4D. So, to practice, I copy it — with varying degrees of accuracy. To create this, I Googled a logo, downloaded and traced it in FreeHand (Yes, I’m old-school.) The resulting .AI file was merged, extruded and rendered in…
How Does This Happen?
I just saw this in front of our office. Great googly-moogly!
On Location
Our trip to Death Valley was not strictly for pleasure — we had an ulterior motive. Chris has just made a remarkable meteorological discovery that will be ‘officially’ announced by the United Nations WMO (World Meteorological Organization) later this spring. It’s all very exciting, and helps to explain the film crew trailing him in the…
Vegas Interiors
Shot at City Center and Bellagio.
Golden Canyon
It must be said – this is one god-forsaken place. I can see why it was used as a proving ground for the Mars rovers and cast as the home of the Jawas in Star Wars. We found some interesting views along our 2.5 mile hike, but mostly just rocks and sand.