Posting less frequently.....

This is a busy time of year, with a lot of stuff happening, so I will be moving to a less frequent posting schedule. 

Voluntary blogs run into the problem of, you eventually run out of things you want to say, on a regular basis, this leads to you heading in two directions, you either move to a less frequent schedule, or you add some off topic stuff, like politics.  Since this isn't a paid site, and it doesn't currently derive income from advertising, I am moving to a less frequent schedule.  I will try to post something a couple of times a month, one at the end of the month, the other in the middle, in January when there is more time available, I may post mote.

Thanks,

W

Professional Slide shows in the old days

Last week we looked at digital slide shows, and you could have music and pre-built narration and everything.  This has been possible since at least the early 1950's, but was much more difficult.  You needed a tape player and two projectors, the slides would alternate from one projector to the other, professional grade slide projectors could be purchased that had a fade capability, as one faded out, the other faded in.   This could be based on time, or using an audio tone with a special remote.  A tone would then operate the projector, some people used separate audio tracks, one was connected to the sound system, the other to the projectors, so the tone was not audible.  Of course if you dropped the tray of slides, then you needed to start over, although smart people would number the slides, for example 1-14 would be in tray  1, slide number 14.

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Many people in building such setups would, have copies made of the slides, and only the copies would be projected, as the intense light passing through the slides would cause them to fade over time, plus you protected the original slides from damage in handling.  Projectors setups needed to be perfectly registered so the images would line up.  A target slide could be placed in each projector and then they would be lined up, and re-targeting would be required for each venue as a change in the distance from projector to screen would throw off the targeting. 

All to say, it's a little like digital printing, it's easier and often faster then the old days, but it's incredible what was possible in the bad old days.

This weeks image is from last year, of a mother goose and her gosling.   If I recall correctly this was taken at the Toronto Islands.  You almost lose the gosling in the grass, but not quite.

I know, quite short this week, but that's all for now.

W

Slide shows

Back in the old days of film, producing a high end slide show was not easy, we often ended up watching the slides from Uncle Howard's Trip to Cucamonga with Aunt Helene.  Half the slides were mispositioned, because Howard dropped the tray of slides out in the driveway, and now his commentary after 7 bottles of beer is closer to a slurred verbal diarrhea,  that goes on far too long, and  how did he manage to create 85,000,000 slides and cut off part of Aunt Helene in every shot.  I think only 4 or 5 are actually in focus. 

We can do a lot better digitally these days. software like Openshot can be used to create wonderful slide shows, you can give each slide a certain amount of time, say 10 seconds, then use a professional style fade or wipe to the next image, rather than a black out.  A fade is where one image gradually replaces another and a wipe is where one seems to roll over the other.  If using wipes, don't use too many different ones, or you can make your audience "sea sick".  You can use a simple microphone to add commentary over the slides, a good way to do this, is to watch the pictures a few times, and write some notes, as to when you want to speak, and what you want to say, then script the show, if using a microphone, you want it on a stand, about 30cm away from where you're sitting.  You can also add a music track, don't use songs from the radio or a CD, as it creates copyright issues, there are places to get music for this, Youtube has an audio library of songs you can use, the ideal is to load the commentary into software like Audacity, then mix the tracks, for example you can reduce the volume of your commentary when not speaking, to remove background noise, or have the music lower below your speaking, and then higher when you're not speaking.  If using several songs, your can "balance" the volume between tracks that were recorded at different levels.  Once the audio track is completed, you can add it to the video.  You can also add titles to your show. 

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Of course this does nothing for images that are out of focus or that have the subjects head off, but nothing will fix that, better then a good edit. I may do an example slide show, and add a link here later on, but for now we need to make due with just a photo.  If I do a show it will probably be posted on Youtube with a link added here in the comments.

This little guy resting on a not quite  open rose from 2008 will need to do.  I think it was a backyard shot, as we often have flowers in the back yard and they are typically easy to obtain. 




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I think that is all for this week,

W.

A week off....

Occasionally I will be taking a week off, it is Thanksgiving here in Canada, so I will be taking the week off.  See you back here next week.  The next break will be 2 weeks at Christmas time....

Some newer stuff

Sort of a continuation of last week, we have a series of images, one or two from each year from 2011 to 2017.  Each of these images has some meaning, as I try to remember what I was working on, when I took the image.  Some of these will have pretty exact descriptions.  There will be a slightly different format this time, I made the pictures a little larger.

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This first one was taken off a small road that is near Wiarton, ON.  It can be best described by what it actually is, an honest to goodness swamp.  The water level is about 3cm below the road, the ground is about 10cm below the road.  In the spring, the road floods and the town puts out signs that the road will be underwater.  It's a gravel road, called Zion Church Road.  The flooding actually doesn't hurt it.  When it dries out, the stone dust and gravel hardens so that it's harder then concrete.  Never knew when I lived there that this is actually called the Gleason Brook Management Area. 




This next one  was taken on Flowerpot Island, although known mostly for it's rock formations that look like giant flower pots, there is a lighthouse and I found this guy near the lighthouse where there is a small cafe that had some lilac bushes near it.  This guy was just chilling on a leaf.  I did for the record take some pictures of the flower pots.  This is part of the Fathom Five National Park, which is just off The Bruce Peninsula from Tobermory,  There are a number of boats that ferry people to Flowerpot, leaving from Tobermory, some of them are cruise type boats that cover portons of Fathom Five.

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At one point in things I decided I didn't want to carry the big 300D everywhere and picked up a cheap little point and shoot, a Canon A810. I find that as a camera it is dreadfully slow.  Images were not that bad, providing it was fairly bright daylight.  Many of these little cameras have that problem, a very limited range of lens stops, mean that if light is a little lower, you end up with longer then you would like exposures.  IIRC This was taken at Lion's Head a small village north of Wiarton, that is part of the town of Northern Bruce Peninsula, which like South Bruce Peninsula was a town that was a merger of a number of smaller places.  Hard to tell but the temperature on this day was -10C, and yes that IS open water.

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After we moved back to Toronto, in the spring is the cherry blossom festival, one of the trails actually leads to a swan nesting area, there are a number of ducks and other waterfowl that nest there.  I believe that in 2014, the cherry blossoms were a little late, but the Swans and other birds were pretty much on regular schedule.  This is a mute swan, and they are not native to North America, but rather from Europe.  They have had large increases in population, and in North America are consider an invasive species.  They still take a nice image though.

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This next one is actually a film image taken with the FC-1.  I know it was the FC-1 because the TC was fully retired by this point.  Film would be Fuji Superia looks like 200, as I had a bunch of rolls in the freezer and it's a colour image.  I don't remember much about it, I think I had a few things on this roll, and I think I was just using it up at this point.  Currently if I decide to shoot some film, I need to find some, and a lab to process it, and that would be a big hassle.  I actually planned to sell the camera a couple of years ago, but it's resale value is just about zero, so I held onto it.  This is really quite sad, the camera is nearly 40 years old, and still works amazingly well, just it's not worth anything anymore.  I think on this one I used an old numbering system, because I forgot I had changed it.

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While cameras generally don't like getting wet, cloudy days give a more even light, and sometimes a natural watering adds a whole new dimension to an image.  I think it does here, especially since the leaves actually appear dry.  This is a little false though, because there is a massive cedar hedge that shelters these leaves somewhat, so they probably are dry, but the flower was further out, and got wet.   This one was easy to find, it was actually in my backyard.  Backyard flowers in large flowerpots can make great images, because you can turn the flowerpot in order to get a better image if you can't put the camera in the right place.

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I debated for a while about actually publishing this one in colour, as the light part of the wings is a bright blue, but the blue would draw the eye away from everything else.  You might not notice the dots on the wings or the veins in the wings, if all you see is bright blotch of blue.  It's an image I might just try and do in colour at another point, and see what people think. 

I intentionally didn't include this years as the year is continuing on.  This is about all for this week, and we may just revisit this butterfly to see if it really is better in monochrome or colour. 

W