Author: gfox (old content)

Exposure Assignment

The Photography Class last night was great. I learned lots of useful things. Let’s see, topics covered were: focusing techniques, shutter settings, aperture settings, and exposure meters.

Different cameras have different focusing techniques. The instructor explained some of the benefits and drawbacks to split image focusing, micro prism focusing, grid-matte focusing, and the straight up very familiar autofocus.

We learned how changing the shutter speed can affect the picture taken. Changing the aperture size affects the depth of field. The right combination of shutter speed, and aperture size determines how your vision of what the photo should look will actually turn out. Lots of experimentation is needed to get it right on a consistent basis. Exposure meters help you figure out the correct aperture and shutter settings. Like I said, lots of useful topics were covered. This is the kind of stuff I wanted to learn.

The assignment: Lines. That is the only description he gave us. Cool. I am excited by this, but I don’t know if I will really have a lot of time, or any time for that matter, to do this assignment.

Christening Quails

Where did the week go? I can’t believe that it is Thursday already. Time has just flown by this week.

It all started on Friday. I left work early so that Sue and I could travel with Krista, Clint, and Elizabeth to Kelowna for Elizabeth’s Christening. We missed the 5 pm ferry, but luckily for us there was a 6. More and more I am missing ferries, and it is a royal pain in the ass. I certainly hope that the new Ferry Services company can improve their throughput. To me that is the single biggest problem with the ferries. I digress.

We arrived in Westbank quite late, and quickly went to sleep. Saturday Sue and I went exploring. We headed to Kelowna, and I did some shopping. 2 new pairs of shoes, a pair of pants, and a Christening gift later we left Orchard Park Mall.

We needed lunch, and we had heard that the Quails Gate Winery had an excellent dining room. We also planned for a tour of the facilities. Those plans were dashed when we got there. The dining room didn’t open until May 1st, and the tours didn’t start until the May long weekend. Darn.

We then headed to the Vintage Hills Golf Course for lunch. It was pretty good. The broccoli and cheese soup was excellent. From there it was up to Mission Hill Winery. We were hoping to get a tour, but they were all booked up. We did walk around the grounds though. Beautiful winery. Very modern looking. I took a bunch of pictures which I will put up soon. It was back to Westbank for dinner.

Sunday was the Christening. Nice ceremony, but it was an odd feeling for me to be sitting in a church during service. Honestly I felt like a fraud, and that I shouldn’t be there at all (for the days service, not the Christening). After the service it was back to Krista’s parents place for brunch.

Sunday afternoon Sue and I went for a drive to Penticton. Very nice drive right along the lake.

Monday we came back, and Tuesday I went back to work.

Next up: This weekend I have my first (and perhaps only) Downhill race of the season. Hammerfest 10! I am looking forward to it. I have a lot to get prepared before I leave. I am leaving tomorrow night after work (the current plan), so that means I will most likely miss the Canucks Game.

Innovative Expansion

I have been thinking about a new PDA recently. There are lots of new and innovative designs being released all the time. I know I want to stick with Palm OS, but what features do I want? I love the idea of Bluetooth. WiFi sounds pretty cool, but would I really use it? I know of only one person with a WiFi network (there isn’t a WIFi network at work either). Now GPS would be cool, but do I really need that?

Features I definitely want:

  • Palm OS5 or greater
  • adequate memory
  • expansion capabilities
  • wireless something

Here is a small list of the handhelds that have made the short list:

  1. Palm’s Tungsten C (incidentally, here is the best review I have read on the TC)
  2. Sony CLIE PEGTG50 – I love their Jog Dial, but I am not sure if I am sold on the tumbboard. It does have soft grafitti though. Not sold on the memory stick.
  3. Garmin iQue 3600 – GPS is way cool, but I am not convinced I would use it as much I would use Bluetooth or WiFi

Not sure what to do here. I am not looking to make any decisions any time soon though. It is just a dream for now. There are more important things to spend money on. My Prism still works, it is just feeling a little dated.

Session Composition

Well, last night was the first session of the photography course that I am taking. I am pretty excited by the course. I think it is going to be pretty good. I like the instructor, and his teaching style. Yesterday we learned the basic operations of different styles of cameras. Each class we have assignments to do which are optional. We even get two field trips where we get a bit of instruction, then we just go off and take pictures. Last night he gave us 5 tips that will make our pictures 500% better.

  1. use a tripod, mono pod, or brace yourself
  2. use a shutter cable release or timer
  3. ???? (I can’t remember this one right now, but it was a good one to remember)
  4. looking vs seeing
  5. left eye vs. right eye

This is the course for me. You see, every once in a while I take an amazing shot. I am not sure why they turn out so good. I want to know why, so I can do it more often. This course teaches the technical aspect of taking pictures. Krista got me a cool book on picture composition, a topic not covered in this course.

I am really starting to develop photography as another hobby. I can see why it is so fun.

Easter Shower

My Easter long weekend started Wednesday (sort of). Chester, Duncan’s chocolate lab came to stay for the weekend! His parents were heading to Fairmont for the weekend. Yoshi was in love with him, and wouldn’t leave him alone. Poor Chester.

Thursday Sue and I went to an art show on the top floor of Victoria Eaton’s Centre (to be renamed Bay Centre). The local elementary schools had chosen two students from each class to do self portraits. Some of them were great. We were there to see one special one though. Jessica Timmins. Sue has known the Timmins’ for a long time. Again I took a bunch of pictures, but I haven’t posted them to my site yet. We had dinner out at Red Robbins. I had the Banzai Burger! The kids had the Mile High Mud Pie. Very yummy.

Friday Sue and I went for a hike with Yoshi, Chester, Jason, and Cathy at Thetis Lake. We took some trails we had never been on before. It was a pretty cool trail. I took a bunch of pictures, but I haven’t made them web ready yet. I will try to do that tonight. We were out for around two hours. It was a beautiful day out.

Saturday Sue and Yoshi left for Sechelt where her brother was in a dinner theatre play. It sounds like Sue had a good time. Chester and I had a lazy day. I spent most of the day on the couch watching TV, and Chester on his dog bed sleeping. I did get out for an hour or so to look for some new shoes for mountain biking. I didn’t find any, but I did have fun wandering downtown Victoria taking pictures (again they are not web ready). I finally got to see the big blue Johnson St Bridge go up! That was quite a treat. A large Tugboat and barge made their way under. Saturday night I rented The Transporter. It was a decent renter movie. Good action sequences with a thin plot. A good guy movie.

Sunday I was determined not to get stuck on the couch like I did Saturday. I ate breakfast, drank some Starbucks Sumatra then started on the house work. I managed to tidy the family room, the bedroom, the computer room, do 4 loads of laundry, clean the dishes, and fix the bathroom sink all by noon! I was on fire. I knew that if I sat at anytime, I wouldn’t be able to get up. I then got a call from Rhiannon saying that her and Steve were going to have people over to watch the Canucks! Woohoo! I took Chester out for a nice hour long walk right on the ocean. There is a beautiful boardwalk that goes from near my place over to Spinnakers. I didn’t make it to Spinnakers (or I would have stopped for a frosty BEvERage), but instead turned around at the half hour mark. Again it was sunny and warm. A perfect day for a walk on the water. After the walk I had a shower, then it was off to watch the game. I am happy to report that the Canucks won.

Monday I was off to work. I now realize, after typing this all out, that I had a pretty good weekend. I need to process those pics PDQ though. I never did catch up on my sleep. It didn’t help that Chester woke me up Monday at 5:45 am whining because he had to go out and pee. Oh well. At least I can function like a normal human now, and not the Zombie I was last week.

Aforementioned Poo

Note to all motorists: when you are driving near a pedestrian walking a dog, and they are carrying a small bag that looks like it has something squishy in it, it is not recommended that you piss off said walker in any way. The walker may retaliate with the aforementioned goody bag.

Today while walking Chester (a friends dog I am watching for the weekend), I had two instances where I was very tempted to fling the stinky poo bag at some cars because their drivers were being very stupid.