In a rural stretch of Germany, I was in a traffic jam at 115mph. Very weird -- large Mercedes, Porsches, Audis were trying to get past, and I was stuck in a very nice Renault with a top speed of only about 125mph, so I was getting out of the way.

Something like 90% of European drivers are educated about driving on highways and other roads and willingly give right of way to faster drivers. That other 10% thinks they are driving tractors in the fields. In the US, probably about 40% of the people behind the wheel are capable drivers during their entire time behind the wheel -- whether the distraction is kids, the car, the phone, texting, lack of training or desire to function properly and courteously while driving. Going slow in the left lane, failure to yield properly in most circumstances, lack of attention, or a lack of understanding and experience combine to cause most traffic and wrecks.

A for-instance: people change lanes directly into the path of faster cars without speeding up first. They are only thinking about themselves. Which is it most: a lack of courtesy, experience, poor driving habits? Speed is a much lesser danger than incapable drivers, but the problem is that people are culturally unable to grow and become better drivers.

/..

View On Monitors

Every modern photographer depends on their computer and its monitor(s) throughout the workflow, once the image is captured. Often, as much work is done here that affects the final output as in the camera.

My plain old, discount Samsung SyncMaster 203 is getting hard to start -- the bulb is taking longer and longer to warm up. But once it's going, it works great (like with most monitors, esp. LCD's, don't look for critical color and density adjustments until at least half an hour! after they start.)

So I looked into repairing it: replacing the bulb may be all it needs. This probably will require some surgery dealing with whatever I find inside: cutting out the old bulb, adapting the new one to fit, soldering in new connections, finding and matching specs on a new bulb, etc. I don't recommend trying to repair your own monitor because everyone has a different skill level and there are several levels of potential danger involved; it might be better to find a new monitor in most cases, or a repair shop.

Two bulb sources:
www.xoxide.com
http://www.lcdparts.net

It may be better to replace the current screen with a new one, so some basic understanding of the terms and technologies is a big help. This website, www.tftcentral.co.uk has lots of basic (and more advanced) info to guide the shopping process.

Effort Required for a Corporate Thrust

In the 45 days since I asked in the brand-new commercial Starbucks Coffee Company group on Flickr (on September 28) if Starbucks permits photos in their locations the company has been unable to articulate that they do or do not allow casual photographs to be made on their property and within their establishments.

It's more than a bit ironic, if not downright absurd, for them to attempt to establish a fan group of photographers on a photography forum website, such as Flickr, without a clearly stated and unequivocal policy that photography is permitted within their locations. There have been many reports that cameras, especially large ones, freak out the coffee makers, managers and sub-managers, and even the cleaning staff. There are many anecdotal reports of people being harrassed, yelled at, and demands such as that they leave and or delete their photos immediately appear to be commonplace. (You can be asked to leave the premises for whatever reason, but can not be forced to delete photos at any time by a shop owner or employee, meaningless threats notwithstanding.)

One of the most interesting aspects of this caffeine crazed situation is that many managers and employees have quoted 'Company Policy' while yelling and making demands of people with cameras that range from iPhones to Nikon D3 's. The 'Company Policy' seems to emanate from the 'Manager's Handbook' or guide to running the business, wherein the edict that photos shall not be made upon Starbuck's property is apparently engraved.

Last, the interesting thing about a policy of photo-permissibility entering the Starbucks culture is that, of course, all the normal rules would apply: you could not sell your photo for advertorial or other commercial use without explicit permission of the people in it, and for safety's sake, the explicit permission of the property and trademark holders whose image components appears prominently within said photos -- without fear of potential civil liability (actionability.) IOW, though Sbucks allows you to take personal photos onsite, you cannot run them as an ad for Gucci in Vogue without lots of paperwork (see your attorney,) which you will not likely get. Grow up, you know better by now. Starbucks need have no fear of you casual photogs, because you understand all this right? Right?

Juan Valdez is rolling over in his hacienda....

©2009 NewUncleMe@yahoo.com

Focusing a View Camera in Very Dark Conditions

There are a few things to help focus in extreme conditions. As always, start with the camera on neutral settings! (No tilt, no swing, rise/fall set to the same amount, all for front and back.)

One tip is to examine any highlight, point source, light, or a small detail (that even could be a dark spot): while focusing it on the GG, try to make it the smallest you can, then it's in focus.

For shots with as much as possible in focus, you have to try to do this for near and far objects, or use hyperfocal technique based on estimated distances and lens settings. If you intend to shift the plane of focus, you should understand the effect you intend to achieve and the limits, given your scene, before trying it in difficult conditions!

In dark conditions, close your eyes, or better yet, put a hat or dark cloth over your eyes for 2 to 3 minutes and just relax. Don't try to focus or use your eyes. They will do their best to adjust; then try focusing -- it should be a lot easier.

For framing -- you have to look at the scene and imagine (or use a cutout rectangle viewer) to see which details you want included in the frame borders. If you find it impossible to frame them accurately, then enlarge your frame (back up, switch to wider lens, etc.) and shoot outside the necessary inclusions and crop the frame later. Or don't crop, but sometimes it's necessary for the shot.

/..

Is the 14-24mm f/2.8 Nikkor a Good Lens for Rallies?

The 14-24/2.8 Nikkor is a really great lens, but its range is from wide to ultra-wide. The best use of this type lens, or any lens for action-shots, is to try to fill the frame with the subject and its immediate surroundings. To do this you must get very close with w.a. lenses! Usually photographers do this with longer lenses. If you think this way, then the 24-70/2.8 (an excellent lens) is good for middle distance, and the 70-200/2.8 (an excellent lens) is good for greater distance or to focus on details from the middle distance. A detail such as a face, head and shoulders shot, front wheels, etc.

What type of rally? You will typically get closer to the riders in a bicycle rally than you will to an auto or motorcycle rally!

The Mystery of Crop Size

The DX sensor chip that actually records the light coming through the lens in your camera has a smaller area than an FX (full-frame) chip. They use the FF chips in D3, D3x and D700 cameras.

Your lens projects a given-angle cone of light from its rear, depending on the focal length and subject and sensor distances from the optical center of the lens in its current state, the optical design and masking of the back of the lens. DX lenses like your 18-200mm lens, because of the last two factors, do not completely illuminate a full 24x36mm frame -- so they can be used on FF if they will mount (which they should if they are 'F' mount), but they may just light a circle in the center of the frame.

FX or film compatible lenses, OTOH, project a larger circle of good illumination that entirely covers the frame with an evenly lit and focused image (theoretically, if used properly). If you use a FF lens on a DX camera, the smaller sensor will only record a portion of the entire projected image, in the center of the circle. The lens does NOT change it's focal length -- everything about what it shows is the same no matter which camera it is used on: focal length, depth of field, quality and quantity of illumination, size of projected image, etc. (The DoF effectively changes based on the proximity and size of sensor elements, but that's another discussion.)

Crop factor is a relationship of a DX sensor to an FX sensor, for this discussion. If you have a crop factor of 1.5x to apply to your lens / camera system, then the image the sensor records is being compared to focal length required when used on a FF camera to produce the same image (or image magnification) at a given distance. To keep the subject the same percentage of the frame size on different sensors at the same distance from the subject, you would have to use a 1.5 time longer focal length on FX as on DX.

/..

My monitor is starting to fail. Shopping for an upgrade I ran across interesting (short) articles about improvements in color management in FireFox. It can respect ICC profiles in displayed pictures, and the articles describe this and tell how to turn it on:
-for tagged images (embedded ICC profile): 2;
- set it for all images and graphics to be color managed: 1;
- how to turn off color management: 0.

The code enhancements made the browser stop dragging when CM is turned on -- big speedup. I tried it before but turned it off. It's on by default in 3.5.

http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/06/color-correction/
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/ICC_color_correction_in_Firefox

It's also possible to set a default color space by putting in the path to a profile directly:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color\AdobeRGB.icm

Very geeky, very cool. Important read if you edit images and graphics for the web.

/..