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Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
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7:56 am - Sauce for the gander…
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From the New York Times: American companies play a smaller role in the global renewable energy industry, but some of them are also growing exasperated with the Chinese market. “That has been a tough market for non-Chinese manufacturers,” said Victor Abate, General Electric’s vice president for wind energy.
Kevin Griffis, a Commerce Department spokesman, said that the agency had not heard from American companies about difficulties in the Chinese market for renewable energy.
“Generally speaking,” Mr. Griffis said, “we support a business environment that is open, transparent, and fair so that all companies are able to compete based on product performance, not country of origin.” The Commerce Department is part of the same government that put a "Buy American" policy in place for a whole host of infrastructure programs, right?
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| Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
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10:42 pm - …you're the one…
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The armed forces, celebrating diversity in the bathtub…
Actually part of an exhibit showing how camo patterns have entered popular culture at the Canadian War Museum.
Location: Canadian War Museum, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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| Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
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8:02 am - Stouffville Farm — HDR panorama
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Driving back from Ottawa long highway 7, I decided to head west along the Goodman Road instead of cutting south along 7a just past Port Perry. Unfortunately traffic was busy enough that there weren't many places to pull off safely and take pictures (especially as my car was getting rather muggy from the bright sunlight, so I wasn't reacting as quickly as I should have been). I managed to get this panorama of a typical farm, but missed several better ones because some idiot was tailgating me and I couldn't safely stop.
This is a High Dynamic Range panorama stitched from 54 images using Hugin and tone-mapped with enfuse.
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| Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
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10:36 pm - Photographers are Terrorists
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An interesting episode on DMM's holiday. Click through to read the story behind the scan…
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8:00 am - Castle Mountain above Bow River
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En route to Banff there’s a little spot one can pull off the trans-Canada highway and admire the Bow Valley. The fence is new since I was last there (two decades ago!), and the ambiance is more truck-stop than national park, but the scenery is wonderful and gives a taste of what awaits further in the Rockies.
This panorama was stitched from five images using Hugin, and cleaned up in Aperture.
To make this video I took the original panorama and imported it into iMovie HD, so I could animate it using Ken Burns effects. I exported the result as an H.264 QuickTime file. I used this file and Abaltat Muse to create a soundtrack, which I edited in GarageBand and saved in iTunes. I then used iMovie 08 to import the video file and soundtrack, as well as add titles, and exported the final cut as another H.264 QuickTime file for uploading to Flickr.
As always, click through to Flickr to see the video in HD.
Location: Castle Mountain Lookout along the Trans-Canada Highway, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
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| Saturday, June 27th, 2009
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2:00 pm - Rocks at Snicket Park
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Snicket Park isn’t fancy: just a bit of the waterfront plus a bit of forest. Still, it shows more urban planning than Toronto managed, because it means the waterfront is accessible to ordinary people, not just boaters and condo owners.
To make this panorama I stitched five pictures together with Hugin, then cleaned it up in Aperture.
Location: Snicket Park, Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada
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| Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
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8:51 pm - False Creek
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On the left you can see Granville Island and the marina on the south shore of False Creek; on the right are the condos lining Pacific Avenue.
This panorama was stitched from five images using Hugin, then cleaned up in Aperture.
To make the movie I imported the original panorama into iMovie HD, animated it using Ken Burns effects, and then exported it as an H.264 QuickTime video. I used that video as the basis for the soundtrack, composed with Abaltat Muse and converted to AAC in iTunes. I then imported the video into iMovie 08 to add the titles (and music), and exported it again as an H.264 QuickTime video for uploading to Flickr.
As always, click through to Flickr to watch the video in HD.
Location: Granville Bridge, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
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| Sunday, June 21st, 2009
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2:49 pm - Church and Barn
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It's just becoming spring here. Snow still on the ground and the lakes still frozen enough for ice fishing, but the days are getting warmer and the ground is beginning to thaw.
The building on the left is St. Stephen’s Anglican Church. The light still has a tinge of the rich yellow winter afternoon light often has, but only a tinge. This would have been a lot better later in the day (or maybe not: a front moved in and we lost the sun just as the light was getting good).
This panorama is made from 75 hand-held bracketed images, shot with my Tamron lens set to 50mm. I took two rows of pictures with the camera turned sideways (to portrait orientation); base shutter speed was 1/200, the aperture was f/11, and (unfortunately) the white balance was automatic because I keep forgetting to set it to manual! After importing into Aperture I exported the images as 16-bit TIFFs, used Hugin to stitch them and enfuse to to the tone mapping, cropped and compressed with Photoshop, and finally imported this image into Aperture for storage and retouching.
Lots of retouching, unfortunately. My sensor is dusty and I forgot to clone out the dust with lift-and-stamp before exporting the base images.
The final picture is 17055 x 6152 pixels, and clocks in at 142 MB!
To make the video I imported the panorama into iMovie HD and animated it using Ken Burns effects. I added a sepia tint to the beginning and exported the result as an H.264 QuickTime file. I used the QuickTime file in Abaltat Muse to compose the soundtrack, and imported both video and sound files into iMovie 08 where I added the titles and exported one last time for uploading to Flickr.
Location: Old Church Road along Highway 7, Ontario, Canada
Click through to Flickr to see the video in HD.
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| Thursday, June 18th, 2009
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6:55 pm - Great Wall at Simatai
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River crossings were protected by forts and special wall segments.
This rectilinear projection is a panorama stitched together from seven RAW images using Hugin, then cleaned up in Aperture.
To make this video I imported the panorama into iMovie HD, animated it using a series of Ken Burns effects (pan and scan), and exported it as a QuickTime movie. I imported the movie into Abaltat Muse, fiddled with the parameters until the music seemed OK, and exported the music as a MIDI file. I next opened Garageband and imported the MIDI file, changed the instruments to something more Chinese, and exported the AIFF to iTunes for conversion to AAC. Meanwhile I also imported the movie file into iMovie 08 to have the music and titles added, then from there exported again and uploaded to Flickr.
Click through to Flickr to see the video larger (in HD if you have a pro account, but larger even if you don't).
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| Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
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8:24 am - Bing Yu Guo
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Bing Yu Guo is a wilderness preservation area in Liaoning Province, sometimes called the "Guilin of the North". As you can see, it is very beautiful.
This is a small dam on the river, crossed by stepping over the gaps in the dam. No safety ropes, no warning signs — very Chinese! (There are boats to take you across if you don't feel like crossing the dam.)
I'm rather proud of this video: converting to black and white enhanced the timeless "mountains in the mist", and the music actually isn't too bad this time!
Click through to FLickr to watch it larger — in HD, if you have a pro account, but larger even if you don't.
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| Sunday, June 14th, 2009
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5:32 pm - Red Houseboat — HDR, perspective-corrected
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This houseboat really stood out from all its neighbours! At first the colour seemed a bit too gaudy, but after a while I decided it made a nice change from beige.
This is a High Dynamic Range composite, tone-mapped from three RAW exposures using Photomatix, imported into Hugin to have the vertical perspective fixed, then finally cleaned up in Aperture.
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| Saturday, June 13th, 2009
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4:08 pm - Houseboats at Granville Island
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I always thought that a houseboat was a mobile home, rather like a caravan on water. But these look pretty immobile — I guess you could tow them somewhere else, on a calm day, if you went slowly enough…
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| Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
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10:21 pm - Fort Henry
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This High Dynamic Range panorama was stitched from 207 bracketed pictures using Hugin, then tone-mapped with enfuse. Rendering took several hours, and as Hugin left some awkward artifacts (thin horizontal black lines) the cleanup in Aperture was tedious, to say the least.
This image is 28194 x 2906 pixels, down from the 59000+ pixel width recommended by Hugin. I tried that, but the resulting file was over 3.7 GB big, too large for real editing, so I re-rendered smaller. It's still a big file: 115.22 MB, even compressed to 8-bit!
Click through to see the movie in HD on Flickr.
To make the movie I exported the image again, imported it into iMovie HD for the animation, exported the result, used Muse to compose the music, imported the music into iTunes and the movie into iMovie, added titles, linked the music and some sound effects, and exported the result to Flickr as an HD movie.
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| Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
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10:22 pm - Fort Henry — HDR panorama
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This High Dynamic Range panorama was stitched from 207 bracketed pictures using Hugin, then tone-mapped with enfuse. Rendering took several hours, and as Hugin left some awkward artifacts (thin horizontal black lines) the cleanup in Aperture was tedious, to say the least.
This image is 28194 x 2906 pixels, down from the 59000+ pixel width recommended by Hugin. I tried that, but the resulting file was over 3.7 GB big, too large for real editing, so I re-rendered smaller. It's still a big file: 115.22 MB, even compressed to 8-bit!
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| Saturday, June 6th, 2009
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8:41 pm - Point Frederick
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The Royal Military College occupies a small point on Lake Ontario. Here you can see the cadets’ dorms glowing in the setting sun, and the Martello tower in Fort Frederick at the tip of the point.
This High Dynamic Range panorama was first stitched from three 18 bracketed exposures using Hugin and enfuse. A copy was further tone-mapped using Photomatix, then the two HDR images were blended using Photoshop (selecting the clouds and water from the Photomatix version, and blending the two vrsions for the buildings). The resulting image, after flattening, was cleaned up in Aperture.
I then exported the image and imported it into iMovie HD for animation. The resulting video was exported again as an H.264 Quicktime file and I composed some music with Abaltat Muse. I imported the music into iTunes and the video into iMovie 08, combined the two and added titles, then exported the whole thing yet again and uploaded to Flickr.
Click through to see the movie in HD on Flickr.
Location: Crawford Wharf, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
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| Friday, June 5th, 2009
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10:21 pm - Point Frederick at sunset — HDR panorama (enfuse and Photomatix)
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The Royal Military College occupies a small point on Lake Ontario. Here you can see the cadets’ dorms glowing in the setting sun, and the Martello tower in Fort Frederick at the tip of the point.
This High Dynamic Range panorama was first stitched from three 18 bracketed exposures using Hugin and enfuse. A copy was further tone-mapped using Photomatix, then the two HDR images were blended using Photoshop (selecting the clouds and water from the Photomatix version, and blending the two vrsions for the buildings). The resulting image, after flattening, was cleaned up in Aperture.
Location: Crawford Wharf, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
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| Monday, June 1st, 2009
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9:02 pm - Shoal Tower at sunset — HDR panorama (Photomatix version)
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Kingston was originally going to be the capital of the Canadas, but politics intervened and the intended Parliament building became the city hall. This almost-great moment is commemorated in various ways.
Here we are looking at Flora MacDonald Basin, just offshore from Confederation Park. The round structure behind the yachts is Shoal Tower, constructed to defend the harbour from the Americans during the Oregon Crisis. It is the only Martello tower entirely surrounded by water, and is only open to the public one day a year. Just to the right of the Shoal Tower, in the distance, you can see a second Martello tower. This is Frederick Tower, part of Fort Frederick at the Royal Military College. To the right of Frederick Tower is Cathcart Tower (only visible in the large view, I think).
This is a High Dynamic Range panorama stitched from nine bracketed images using Hugin to create an HDR image, which was tone-mapped with Photomatix using the Details Enhancing algorithm, and final cleanup was done in Aperture.
Location: Confederation Park, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
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| Sunday, May 31st, 2009
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3:01 pm - Visit to Kingston
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I've been in Kingston the last few days, attending a physics workshop/conference. Interesting stuff, and I really needed to get out of Toronto by myself, to just wander around with a camera and no expectations. I was dreading the trip before I went (because I'm feeling overloaded it it was one more thing to get ready for), but I'm glad I went ‚ I'm relaxed for the first time in weeks!
I'll be posting up various pictures, as I get them processed. A lot will have to wait until I buy a new hard drive, as I've managed to fill the 500 GB drive that my Aperture library is currently sitting on. On Monday (hopefully) I'll be able to buy a 1.5 TB internal drive and start migration.
The Alexander Henry was built at the Port Arthur Shipbuilding Company and launched in 1958. The ship provided ice breaking service on the upper Great Lakes until 1984. In 1985 she was retired to Kingston, Ontario as a museum ship. A year later the B&B was initiated as a full museum service after a trial operation in 1985.
The Alexander Henry is the largest artifact in the Marine Museum collection.
This is a High Dynamic Range composite image made from three RAW exposures using Photomatix, then cleaned up in Aperture.
Location: Marine Museum of the Great Lakes, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
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| Sunday, May 24th, 2009
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9:24 pm - Summer Palace — Slow Panorama
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Boating on Kunming Lake looks relaxing, and probably is if you're not the one having to paddle the boat!
On the right of the picture is Longevity Hill with the Pavilion of Buddhist Incense (佛香阁) in the middle. On the left is Nanhu Isle (just out of the picture to the left is the 17-Arch Bridge).
This panorama was stitched from 12 16-bit TIFF images using Hugin, then cleaned up in Aperture.
Click through to Flickr to see the video larger (in full HD size if you have a Pro account, but larger even if you don't).
Location: Kunming Lake (Kūnmíng Hú, 昆明湖), Summer Palace (Yíhé Yuán, 颐和园), Beijing (Běijīng Shì, 北京市), People’s Republic of China (Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó 中华人民共和国)
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| Friday, May 22nd, 2009
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6:28 pm - Temple walls
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I liked the contrast between the green tile roof on the wall and the red-and-blue temple buildings.
This is an HDR composite created from three RAW exposures with Photomatix, using the details-enhancing setting, then cleaned up in Aperture.
Location: Temple of Heaven (Tiān Tán, 天坛), Beijing (Běijīng Shì (北京市), People’s Republic of China (Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó, 中华人民共和国)
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