my little corner of the 'verse

The Roving Sea Turtle

2010-11-21T09:10:00.001+01:00

Exactly a month ago I watched another Sea Turtle being released into the Adriatic Sea.

Atlante, that’s her name, had been caught into a crawl net and hurt in the process but luckily the fishing boat brought her to a specialized center, the Cetacean Foundation in Riccione, where she was nursed back to health. Fast forward 10 months and she was on the beach of my hometown, surrounded by hundreds of very excited and very loud school kids – not to mention a few dozens of equally animated adults -- for her “release party”.

After enduring with turtle poise her role as the star of that particular show, she was let go a few meters from the shore and finally dived into the sea with all the gusto one can imagine a prisoner (if by quite benevolent and well-intentioned captors) finding her freedom at last.

Since then, Atlante has, as they say, been around: the GPS receiver mounted on her back is enabling a group of marine biologists to track her whereabouts. They’ll be mapping her roaming across the Adriatic (which explains her male name even though she’s a female: Atlante is Italian for Atlas) for at least a year and the results are readily available on the web.

Godspeed, Atlante!

I’m a web necromancer because I love my town

2010-10-07T15:52:00.001+02:00

I’m a bit in love with my hometown today. Not only we’re about to host a mobile video/web video content festival, which for this parts is akin to predict the Internet in the fifties, but we’re also having an online news sites festival this week. Regardless of how both events will unfold and how much (or how little) they will grow in the coming years, I think it’s awesome. So much so, I basically resorted to web necromancy, posting something new here.

Back into the blue…

2009-10-28T17:56:00.001+01:00

Or, rather, the green with a mild yellowish tint… but I don’t think the eleven sea turtles that were freed today really minded the color of the sea. These young animals (the oldest is just 8 years old) were all found dying and were nursed back to health in Riccione, Italy by the local Cetacean Foundation. This morning, at lunch time, they finally went home 200 km south in the Adriatic Sea and 2 miles offshore after a short trip on board a Coast Guard patrol boat (and, btw, thank you for the ride!). It was fun and actually moving seeing them excitedly shaking their flippers in the anticipation of going back in the water.

This one, above and below, is Orange, the “elder” of the group.

2009-08-29T09:11:00.002+02:00

Crazy about the blue

2009-07-24T16:32:00.001+02:00

I’ve decided that a blue tennis court is my new most favorite thing right now. Last year Recanati had a fine-looking green hard court, this year they painted it blue (and still green on the outs). I like the new color so much that this morning not even the 40 degrees (centigrades!) discouraged me from getting out there and shoot, shoot, shoot.

As one comedian used to say: I like it.

ATP Challenger Recanati

2009-07-22T20:46:00.001+02:00

The tournament is midway through, tomorrow the second round will be completed, leaving only 8 players fighting for the title. Among them won’t be Riccardo Ghedin, who put up a good fight today against the number two seed Sergey Stakhovsky. Ghedin is a fun player to watch, he’s very aggressive and serves & volleys pretty often, at least on this surface.

Stakhovsky isn’t boring, either and not the waiting type, even though my picture shows him on the defense, scrambling:

Tomorrow play will star at 6 pm, which kinda sucks because there’s only one good hour of light to shoot at 200 or 400 ISO with high shutter speeds (I like to keep at least 1/1600 with tennis if I can). Of course I can up the ISO and later on the light is beautiful (the magic hour, you know) but harsh and bright do help with action.

Qualifying in Recanati

2009-07-20T12:36:00.002+02:00

Amazingly enough, two posts in one day. I almost feel like a blogger :D

Recanati’s ATP Challenger is on this week and I’m there with my beloved camera. Recanati’s the only Italian Challenger played on hard-courts and this year they have been painted a nice combination of green and blue (it used to be all green) which looks fantastic. And very US Open-ish ;)

The weekend saw the qualifiers fighting for a place in the Main Draw, which starts this afternoon. Here’s a few shots, first Morocco’s Rabie Chaki:

Then his “victim” in the Qualifying second round, Italian Thomas Fabbiano:

Young up-and-coming Grigor Dimitrov, who lost in the first round Saturday:

And Nikola Mektic, who ousted him:

And can I just say I hate when players wear a hat that casts a shadow on their faces? Well, I do.

ATP Challenger San Benedetto

2009-07-20T11:43:00.002+02:00

Ideally I should have posted this at least a week ago, but my internal clock said it was time to do anything BUT. I also slept a lot. The tournament, btw, went great. The stands were always full for the night sessions and that was a beautiful thing to see. The only snag were the early upsets and retirements: the tournament lost 7 of its 8 seeds in the first two rounds. Things straighten up in the end, though, with the victory of the young and promising Italian Fabio Fognini, the number 1 seed. Here’s a nice (I think) picture of him during the final:

Fognini’s opponent in the final match was Argentina’s Cristian Villagran, one of the nicest guy ever. He also won the Doubles with Stefano Ianni, so he didn’t go home empty handed. On court, he’s a fighter:

I’ll finish with my most favorite tennis shot… ever! The player is Marco Crugnola. The linesman keeping his eyes on the line behind him is what makes the shot, in my very amateurish opinion.

Rainy day, new photo tent…

2009-05-31T22:23:00.001+02:00

I recently picked up a cloth photo tent to replace my DIY lightbox. The setup is still a far cry from anything resembling a serious rig but does a better job to diffuse the light (I think). It also doesn’t stick in the room like a sore thumb, or, actually, it probably does but it’s less… sore-y. Also, it was dirt cheap, off Amazon. That’s nice too.

Today’s rain, or should I say tropical downpour, is still going strong and with nothing better to do, it was the perfect opportunity to play with this new toy. It’s weird but I never feel like trying my hand at this kind of photography with a nice weather. Wait, that isn’t weird at all.

As subjects I chose a bunch of different stuff, bounty of a quick hunt around the house: a nice fat plant covered with small red berries, a wood giraffe, a blue stylized cow made of ceramics, a steel surfing man that moves (almost) on his own… I’ll get around to my action figures next, I suppose.

Here’s the surfing man:

This is how it looks when he’s motionless…or, yeah, shutter speed is enough to freeze it. The Surfing Man was a Easter Egg gift. It was pretty dusty, it shows, and I did clean it beforehand. But I like it anyway.

This ceramics cow, I honestly have no idea where it came from: some travel souvenir, for sure, but not mine. I’d rather fancy visiting a place where they make blue cows, so I’ll make sure to find out.

I must admit I’m pretty happy with these three. DPP (and the RAW format) was again my friend: the black wasn’t quite this black out of the camera. It still isn’t full black, but it’s very close now. Close enough, I’d venture.

There’ll be a general wind theme

2009-05-18T09:33:00.001+02:00

We’re getting warmer and nicer weather by the day now in my corner of the world and beach activities are picking up. One such involved one I would hardly had interest in if I didn’t like taking pictures: a Flying Kites Competition/Festival. My relationship to kites is pretty much akin to Charlie Brown’s, with a pivotal difference: he, at least, usually gets to fly his though it always ends badly. Mines stubbornly refused to.

But I’m all grown up now so I picked up my camera and went to watch people who are really good at building flying kites that actually fly (or possibly they’re good at flying kites in addition to building them). Anyway, I mostly used my standard zoom but brought along the Tammy 70-300, for two reasons: it’s my longest lens and, in a situation where sand and wind are involved, I’d rather have a € 130 lens than a € 600 one. In retrospect, I regret not using the Tammy a lot more. On site it felt like shorter and wider was the way to go but watching the pictures I miss not having a few more close ups. And my two favorite shots came from the Tammy. This guy making his kite soar:

And this close up:

In addition to slapping a polarizing filter on the 18-55 (I don’t have one that fits the Tammy) I used the Landscape picture styles in DPP on all the pictures: this picture style enhances the blues and the greens so I think I reached really unhealthy levels of too-blue-to-be-true skies and general oversaturation. I look forward to browse these pictures in a few months and recoil in horror.

Kittens make stupid currency but are great for snapshots

2009-05-12T11:07:00.001+02:00

Photographing cats is usually very rewarding because cats are unable to look bad. Really, what feline isn’t amazingly photogenic? So the chances of taking awful pictures are low and confined to technical issues. Cats can be tricky, of course: they move fast, they’re unpredictable, they have special personalities. Our happy mom, for instance, hates to be photographed. She always moves or hides her face as soon as she sees me with the camera, I’m not kidding. The kittens, and I almost wrote “the kids”, are another story, they’re playful and curious about everything, plus completely adorkable, something adult cats can never be (they’re still adorable, though). The coloring of this litter, all that black and white, makes it a bit difficult to expose correctly but that’s what full manual controls are for, assuming one knows what one’s doing (which isn’t always my case).

I simply adore this one above, because it looks like they were posing and pulling faces to boot, at least the one on the left. He (or she: we’re still a bit uncertain about the genders) was, of course, yawning. But I like to think otherwise.

As I said, adorkable. One more:

Sunday, cars and a kit lens

2009-05-05T11:00:00.003+02:00

The so called “standard zoom” is the lens I used the least. Point of fact, I still have the original kit lens (Canon) even though, as every Internet-indoctrinated newbie photog can tell you, I’ve been thoroughly enlightened on its awfulness (we’re talking the 18-55 non-IS version here: the newer model is supposed to be better optically, aside from having image stabilization on its plus column. It doesn’t get the hate the old model does, anyway). I just don’t use it enough to make it a priority upgrade: even now, after a couple of years, a better standard zoom is probably 3 or four on my shopping list, far behind a ultra wide-angle and a couple of fast primes.

This strikes me as odd: this focal range is called “standard” for a reason, after all. And yet. Anyway, this preamble takes me to my Sunday activities, namely shooting a vintage cars showcase with my not-so-standard-for-my-habits zoom, equipped with a polarizer since it was outdoor, a very bright, very sunny outdoor. Polarizers are a wonderful thing as far as I am concerned, I use mine too much (skies too blue to be true? Yep, I’ve got plenty of those). Well, it was fun, though in retrospect I kick myself for shooting just the cars mostly. The people ogling them were interesting, too. Next year or next car show, I suppose.

This is my favorite shot of the day:

This one is a cheat: it’s twice a cheat, actually. It’s a cheat once because in the pre-processed photo the car was in focus and it’s a cheat twice because the fake bokeh effect (and the b&w with just one spot of color) were done using Picasa’s presets and not slaving hard (assuming it requires hard slaving, I didn’t try) in Photoshop or similar “serious” photo editing software. I think it looks nice, though:

This is, I think the word is curious, not the picture though, just the subject. All I have to say is, this old Jaguar came very well equipped. And I’d love to have such a cool tool box in my car (which is not a Jaguar, either old or new. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t have one):

I also shot cars in their entirety: but for some reason I always like the details better than the whole picture (pun mostly intended). Maybe that’s why the standard zoom doesn’t work as a standard for me.

Black, red and notes

2009-04-19T11:47:00.003+02:00

So, I’m on the jury for this rock contest (I’m the not.musician person on it) and last night I brought my camera too and had a little fun with. I basically had little to no idea about what I was doing because it was the first time shooting this kind of event: I took a couple of pics using the built-in flash, then I cranked up the ISO up to 1600 (sadly the max my aging 350D goes), fixed the aperture at 2.8 and went for it. As a lens I used the 60mm macro, which is the fastest one in my kit and of course I kept wishing I had something faster. And a bit shorter too, especially when the local bands where performing and there was no way to take the full stage in with all the people pressing toward it. Anyway, these are some of the results of the night. White balance was kinda of a pain, I went through adjusting it in DPP but then I realized that stuff actually glowed with the colors of the lights (lots of reds and yellows). Why should I adjust it, if that’s what they looked like? So, I did and didn’t. It’s a thing.

First, equipment:

Then, those who use it:

Finally an…experiment:

Light pollution, you say?

2009-04-15T08:09:00.002+02:00

You know how they tell you about the terrible light pollution that denies the stars to the modern human and all you think about is how crappy half of the street lamps in your town are? Well, no more. Either the Universe has dramatically accelerated its expansion and we’re way closer to the Big Freeze, or light pollution is really stealing our stars.

Last night, after about a week waiting for a clear sky, I set up to shoot the stars from my balcony. It was a bust. Oh, I did learn a few things, one being there’s way too much bleeding light coming from street lamps and houses, to get enough stars to appear in a pleasing way. Also, I did manage to experiment a lot with exposures and full manual controls and I have a clearer idea on how to get pointy stars or trailing stars. I wasn’t expecting to get good or even decent pictures the first time around, but the lack of stars showing up or how dimmed most of them looked even with very long exposures (tried everything from mere seconds to over an hour) was disappointing. So, I have a lot of reading and a lot of practice ahead of me, but the latter will wait until the first weekend in the country where hopefully the sky will be more vivid.

Resetting the cuteness scale

2009-04-13T16:58:00.004+02:00

So here’s shamelessly stealing a Buffy line once again, but it seems appropriate: not only this little guy resembles Miss Kitty Fantastico in appearance, but the cuteness of him and his brothers and sisters really is off the scale. This is what a kitty looks like at 3 days old:

No idea what to name them yet, but I’m leaning toward Echo, Sierra, Victor, November and Tango. Or possibly Topher. Here’s an unconventional (?) shot of the mom:

I have to say I think all this black in the pictures led to some interesting results, even though shooting such dark subjects was a bit of a pain.

Fun in the country

2009-04-12T17:56:00.010+02:00

So I spent most of Easter day in the countryside, hunting for bugs and exploring the advantages of using a tripod. I think my favorite and I guess also the best result of the day was this butterfly, incidentally the first butterfly ever I've managed to shoot. This was handheld, with the 70-200 at 200mm, 1/1000 f5:

Then there was this tiny, tiny and frankly adorable snail, I’m guessing a very young one rather than a small kind. Not that it matters. I pp this a bit to bring out the greenness. Shot with the 60mm on the tripod, 1/25, f13:

By this point I was experiencing first hand some of the basics how-tos and books usually cover about macro photography. First of all: bugs are twitchy. They don’t especially like to have their picture taken. This is where a longer macro lens (or longer lens anyway) would be a better choice. But the only other (sort of) macro lens I own is my old Tamron 70-300 that can double as a 180-300 macro lens. It’s not really true macro and can’t compete in any way, shape or alternate reality with the sharpness and the optical quality of the Canon 60mm. So for the time being, I’ll settle to upset bugs and lose some pictures in the process. A longer macro lens to hunt insects is quite far down of my shopping list at the moment. Speaking of bugs, I have no idea what this one is, but it’s not of the twitchy variety and calmly sat on this daisy (if it’s a daisy, I’m not too clear on that), allowing me to try out different settings. First, a relative small aperture (f11 1/125):
Next, the same picture but wide open (f2.8 1/2000):

I’m not sure which one I like best. Maybe the third one I didn’t shoot, with an aperture in between these two (f5 maybe?).

Moving on: for the first time in a long time I missed the vari-angle lcd of my beloved Powershot S1. Live view surely would have helped while the cam was on the tripod but I really, really hope Canon (and the other makers too, but I shoot Canon, so that’s what I care more about) will add a vari-angle screen to its future DSLRs as well.

Among the reasons to use a tripod for this kind of photography that I’ve found spot-on: the ability to use the lowest ISO setting without worrying too much about blurred pictures due to slow shutter speed. Well, unless it’s really dark and/or really windy. Manual focus can really make a difference: too bad I suck at it. I blame the small viewfinder of the 350D. And my less than 20/20 eyesight. And my glasses. Plenty of scapegoats, I like it!

Other random observations: using a tripod can be really slow work, though it’s possible the 3way head isn’t the best for macros. The iPod Touch can be really useful to take notes. And something must really be seriously wrong with the environment because there were much fewer bugs around than I thought there would be. Maybe it’s still too early in the spring. Or maybe it’s because this time I went actively looking for them instead of trying to avoid and running from them.

So, this thing can embed videos?

2009-04-12T09:19:00.008+02:00

Just for the heck of it, since I'd never done it before (and probably will never do it again), here's 30 seconds (or possibly 45) of the new kittens, born just last Friday. Shot with a photocam, not a videocam, and then converted to a more reasonable size with a nifty little app I used to make vidz for the iPod.

What's in a tripod?

2009-04-08T15:24:00.007+02:00

So today the courier came and went and left the newest addition to my gear: a Manfrotto tripod, specifically the 728b model. The model in question has just been discontinued by Manfrotto, who has launched a brand new line of lightweight, multipurpose tripods geared toward entry level dsrl users (people like me, in short).

Why didn't I get the newest model, then? Well, the 728b doesn't look noticeably different, same type of build, same material (aluminum), same unremovable head (it's a 3way head). It's slightly heavier (but the max load is exactly the same) but about 20 cm taller at its full height. I can comfortably place the camera to my eye-level without having to spread the tripod to its full height. Which I think should translate to better stability in those conditions.

Hopefully tonight the weather will be nice enough for me to start dabbling into shooting the night-sky. Rebuilding my homemade light-box for some indoor macro fun comes next.

Star Trek XI

2009-04-07T09:00:00.003+02:00

Yup, I'm a big nerd. What else is new?

2009-04-04T11:43:00.005+02:00

I've been catching up to The Big Bang Theory this week and it strikes me how much I get and actually have in common with Sheldon. Aside from the fact that he's a brilliant physicist and I am... neither.

But I share many of his idiosyncrasies (now that's disturbing) and even though a napkin stained and signed by Leonard Nimoy wouldn't render me speechless with geeky joy, I can see myself dressing up as a Starfleet officer at a Reinassance fair pretending to investigate some primitive alien planet. I would quickly don a period costume, though, hiding my Starfleet uniform and combadge under it: I mean, I wouldn't want to violate the Prime Directive, you know.

I do spend a few minutes choosing the best possible seat in a theater (but not for the acoustics: my goal is a perfect, centered view of the screen/stage and comfortable leg room), can be awfully particular about my food if I don't check myself and consider staying home reading, watching tv, playing videogames or just goofing on the 'net a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a Friday night. Or any other night, for that matter.

The show, btw, is really hilarious and totally worth watching, any day or night of the week. Besides, people breaking up because one supports String theory and the other Loop quantum gravity? On TV? Check those quantum signatures, we may have switched to a parallel universe.

ATP Challenger Barletta

2009-03-30T19:14:00.006+02:00

A few chosen shot from the final, won by young Ivo Minar. This Challenger has been pretty prescient in the past (one name above all: Rafael Nadal won it in 2003), so best wishes to Minar to follow that tradition. Minar beat veteran Spaniard Santiago Ventura, tired after a long semifinal against countryman David Marrero and the doubles final, both on Saturday (Ventura won the doubles with Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo). The final wasn't the best match of the tournament but it was entertaining, strong wind notwithstanding. I had a great time finally shooting to my heart's content for the first time in the week. Here's my favorite shot (with a higher dose of pp than usual):

And more of Minar: Ventura favored the drop-shot and Ivo had to scramble forward often enough for me to catch him doing it ;)
He also had a good laugh with the ATP Supervisor Carmelo Di Dio and Chair umpire Gianluca Moscarella at the end, waiting for his trophy. Both he and Santiago are playing Naples this week.

Sunset in Barletta

2009-03-28T17:03:00.010+01:00

The ATP Challenger in Barletta is coming to a close. I had very little shooting time but I plan to make it up tomorrow morning for the Singles Final. In the meantime here's a little shot of the sunset behind one of the stands around the center court.

This tournament is played in a beautiful club but it doesn't have a real center court. The tournament could certainly gain a lot by adding a couple of showcourts to the five they already have. On the practical side of things, these courts are really good and well tended, it rained pretty heavily early in the week but the staff always managed to make them ready to play with minimum delays of the schedule. Well done, Barletta!This one above is going to be my new wallpaper for a while, I think. They're Malisse's feet, btw, he lost in the second round. Santiago Ventura and Ivo Minar will battle for the 2009 trophy tomorrow morning.

White Palms...

2009-02-18T14:28:00.008+01:00

Let is snow, let it snow, let it snow... ok, let's not find out how many more cliches I can amass in a single post. The short version: today snowed. It's unusual around here. Obviously it happened in a day on which I had little to no time to shoot anything, but as always I had my trusty Ixus with me and I managed to grab a few shots of the beach and the palms covered in snow. Yay me! (I'm definitely watching too much Buffy). Here's the view around midday, when the worst had already passed:

New toy

2009-02-17T15:22:00.004+01:00

I finally caved in and succumbed to the charms of the iPod Touch. I had my eyes on it for a while now but always managed to rein in my shopping crave. Not this time and, frankly, I think it was a good thing. This is one brilliant piece of hardware. I'm sure I'll find things to nag about along the way but for now I'm duly impressed.

Incidentally in my wild applications hunt (you know how it is with new toys) I've found this nifty little software to post on blogger. It's called BlogWriter Lite and it's what I used to post this entry. Very nice.

What's on that desk? 2009 edition

2009-01-19T07:57:00.004+01:00

Eww, following up this rambling, here's the new stuff cluttering my desk right now, in addition to "the stuff that's always there":

two A4 spiral notepads
two A5 spiral notepads
another small notepad
assorted documents
four pens
three pencils
a book about Alan Moore
La Fontaine fables
a book about plants
ST TOS S3 dvd set
S2 & S5 dvds of Angel
S7 & S2 dvds of Buffy
MS Flight Sim dvd box
green cup
a magazine
joystick
amazon.co.uk receipt
flashlight
pocket digicam
cell phone

I must go out and shoot someting ASAP (with a camera)... or possibly tidy up. Ugh!

The final run

2009-01-18T11:36:00.002+01:00

It has begun. Nine more episodes and nuBSG will be history, as long as live (?) television is concerned. Sometimes a great notion was especially plot-heavy, not surprising considering this was supposed to serve as series finale in the event no more episodes could be produced (it was the last one shot before the Writers' strike). It's a good thing it wasn't, though, because, honestly, it would have been a lousy finale. Yeah, stuff gets revealed but overall it's pretty low on the whys and the hows. As the beginning of the final run, it works, but it definitely raised more questions that it answered. With only 9 episodes to go, it is a little worrying.

Currently I'm trying to shut up the insistent voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me I'm going to be awfully disappointed by the way this show will end. I'm also very excited to watch how it all ends, so confused and conflicted...yeah, that's me when it comes to nuBSG right now.

Bomb da Bomb

2008-11-25T21:51:00.003+01:00

We've had a bit of excitement this Sunday, when an Army unit came to town to defuse this old WWII bomb found on a construction site. The bomb, all 500 pounds of it, was dropped back in 1943 or 1944 by a RAF airplane to take out the railway but never exploded and the defusing operation made it possible to discover why: it was dropped at a lower altitude than necessary, so the little thingie that was supposed to release the striker onto the detonator never unhooked. Therefore, no kaboom.

Anyway, to defuse it and then transport it in an isolated quarry where it was safely set off, 4000 thousand people had to evacuate before 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning (half of them probably stayed in bed pretending they left). It was a big operation (over two hundred people involved to make it happen) and a major event for the town. I'm not even remotely happy with the pictures I took but the event is unusual enough that I had to upload at least a few of them. I may add some more once I sort out the other cards.

What's on that desk?

2008-11-24T18:44:00.005+01:00

I wage a hopeless battle against clutter on my desk: every once in a while I tidy it up and in a few hours it reverts to its natural state of major entropy. So, just to amuse myself, I've decided to list, roughly once a month, all the stuff that's on my desk. Note: mine's a custom-made desk, L-shaped: the | is two meters long, the _ is 70 centimeters. So, there's a lot of space above it and also quite a lot below it (shelves, drawers, the like). A lot of space means a higher tolerance for clutter, which is good, but it also invites it more, since, well, there's space for it. Anyway, let's go:

Stuff that's always there:

A small metal shelf, holding from top to bottom: the ADSL router/gateway, a wireless gamepad, an external hdd and a usb hub.
lamp
printer
cordless phone
mouse charger
4 satellites of a 5.1 audio system
a wood thingie shaped as a cobra that holds my headphones
headphones
another usb hub
a California Raisin figurine that looks like Michael Jackson during the Bad album era
monitor (22')
a table calendar with photos of kitties
2 pen holders with pens (gasp!), pencils, eraser and the likes
mousepad
wired mouse
wireless mouse
keyboard
5.1 audio system remote

Stuff that's there right now but has its normal place somewhere else:

buffy season 7 dvd boxset
angel season 5 dvd boxset
a green cup
a cat-shaped plate with a used tea-bag on it
digicam battery charger
digicam
assorted notepads
laptop
book on ancient Egypt's art
book of an Andy Wahrol's works exhibition
diary
flashlight
cellphone charger
house keys
pocket rule
newspaper

Under the table, always there:

drawers with assorted crap: old cd drives, ram chips, all manner of cables, blah blah
pc case
printer paper
photo paper
printer's ink cartridges
empty boxes of computer stuff
empty boxes of photo stuff
joystick

So, this is the sitch right now, fairly manageable and decidedly not messy, since I tidy it up this morning. How much worse will it be in a month? The experiment has started!

From China with courtesy

2008-06-21T21:58:00.009+02:00

These guys on the left are Yu Xin-Yuan e Zeng Shao Xuan and they're going to be, most probably, China's doubles team at the next Olympics. Xin and Shao have been teaming up forever, they're both from Bejing and are currently the number 1 doubles team in China.

I've first seen them last year in Rimini, then in Recanati, where they reached the doubles final and now, this year, again in Recanati. They travel with their coach Mao Rui and another coach I don't know the name of (sorry man :) ). They're all very polite, very professional and a joy to watch play because they really play doubles, no "parallel singles" with this two like it happens with some many other doubles teams these days.

Unfortunately their run here in Recanati ended tonight in the final: they lost 63 75 versus Benedikt Dorsch and Bjor Phau, two very good german players (Phau in particular has been a top 60 both in singles and doubles). Maybe next year, guys: third time is, after all, the charm ;)

Getting to know you...

2008-06-21T21:29:00.004+02:00

It's now been a week since I've started using my brand new Canon 70-200 f4 (the non IS version). To be honest, I was expecting a smoother path: the first few days my keepers' rate had drastically fallen and I was beginning to fear there was actually something wrong with my copy. I'm still not convinced everything is fine, because it doesn't seem as sharp as I was expecting it to be but the last few days things have improve dramatically. As soon as I get home I plan to post a couple of test shots on PotN forum to inquire about the sharpness issue, but so far I'm tending very strongly toward user error to explain the bad results (what a surprise there, uh? ;) ).

If I should make a comparison with my old Tamron (a very unfair comparison: we're talking € 450 of price difference here) the first thing that jumps to my eyes, even in the bad pictures, is the absence of any noticeable chromatic aberration (for noticeable I mean something that's immediately evident, even when you look at the picture at 50 % of its actual resolution). The Tamron was really awful in this department and I'm very, very pleased that my days of correcting bluish edges are over. And then, there's the autofocus. Man, this thing is faaaaaaaaast. Look at the picture here: this was undoubtedly a lucky shot, but with the Tamron it would have been almost impossible to get, it would have never focused fast enough to catch it without serious blurring.

This guy in the pictures, btw, is Horacio Zeballos, a 22 year old Argentinean who's going to play the final here in Recanati at the Guzzini Challenger tomorrow afternoon. Horacio, who has gained his place in the Main Draw by winning his qualifying round, has become a bit of a fan favorite here and tomorrow he will play for the title against Slovenia's Grega Zemlja. The tournament this year had a less than stellar line-up, due to the unfortunate date that has placed it in the same week of Wimbledon's qualies. Hopefully next year, without the Olympics to wreck havoc in the ATP calendar, Recanati will be able to move to its old July date or at least away from a Grand Slam.

New gear, testing begins

2008-06-14T18:30:00.003+02:00

Dear Blog, I finally cut out my indecision and pulled the trigger on a new acquisition for my gear. I'm now the proud owner of a brand new 70-200 f4 L. I debated long and hard whether to favor Sigma or Tamron f2.8 offerings for the same focal length and similar price.

Faster autofocus, QC, post sale assistance and, I have to be truthful, the allure of the 'L', all played their part in the final decision. Mostly autofocus and QC, since I bought it online and I didn't relish the possibility of having to send it back right away. That could still happen though, since I've barely had time to unpack it and snap a couple of shots just to see if it worked.

F2.8 would have been mighty nice, but this lens will be use 99 % of the time to shoot outdoor in bright light conditions. Hence, f4 will be enough (great to have constant aperture btw).

I'll be testing it intensely this coming week and I plan to have a blast with it. I'll still keep the Tamron (the new lens is intended as an upgrade for it) to use it whenever I want something light and cheap I don't worry about. But for the "important" stuff, like my tennis shooting obsession, the 70-200 is now my go-to-guy. I can't wait!

Sunshine in Gorizia!

2008-05-21T13:18:00.003+02:00

Amazing things are happening... the sun is shining in Gorizia. It's the first time since last friday and finally matches can be played outdoors as they're meant to be played. Not much to rant or muse about other than that, I'll just add a shot fresh from the RAW conversion (eh eh... okay, lame joke).

Rain in Gorizia

2008-05-20T16:59:00.005+02:00

I've just discovered that Gorizia is the Seattle of Italy. One of the, if not the, rainiest city in the country. I've been here for six days now and it's been raining everyday, some days with very little interruption. It's really depressing especially since there's a tennis tournament that's supposed to be played here. I've been able to snap just a few pictures, the one on the left is Victoria Larriere, a French player who qualified and then lost this morning against the Italian Alice Balducci in a match they started yesterday afternoon. Amazingly enough the tournament is still mostly on schedule, but that's only because the matches have been moved all over Gorizia's province, in other clubs with indoor clay courts. The weather forecast for tomorrow is decent though, so hopefully I'll be able to shoot more. I'm getting out of practice.

Tennis

2008-05-19T22:48:00.000+02:00

It's the main reason I went for a DSLR. Tennis, I mean. I've been in love with the sport since...forever, really, though not so much as a player. I did play when I was a kid but I was - still am - too lazy, basically and I hate to sweat. The only two sports I ever got actively into are swimming and horse-riding. You can't sweat in the water and horses do most of the hard work (actually, horse-riding can be really tiring BUT being with a wonderful animal as a horse makes it all worth it).

So, anyway, I love tennis as a spectator. And most of all I love to take pictures of tennis players. It can be an extremely photogenic sport and, being played outdoor and in daylight most of the time, you don't need an insanely fast lens to get decent results. Getting decent results, in my opinion, isn't hard: groundstrokes can be very predictable and once you've observed a player for a few minutes, you should generally be able to catch nice forehands and backhands with the ball well in the frame almost everytime. Providing you set a fast enough shutter speed (1/800 is the absolute minimum I try to keep it at 1/1250 or more, depending of the light), things will look nice.

Getting great results, on the other hand, is a whole another deal. First of all, your equipment starts to matter. Fast autofocus, large apertures, high fps capability, all of these things will make the difference when you're trying to capture that unpredictable moment or maybe some netplay action. And then there's the skill of the photographer and the sensibility to catch that special moment, not necessarily one of action.

I'm in the first bracket: decent results with the predictable moments. I've realized that I'm noticing the limitations of my current budget telezoom more and more and I think that's a good thing. It should mean I'm getting better. Hopefully :)

Docking Adventures

2008-05-14T11:38:00.013+02:00

One advice you always get about photography is to never underestimate the photo opportunities' potential of anything. Look around you! self-help handbooks would say, even everyday subjects can become the most wonderful picture. It's all in the eye - and the ability - of the photographer. No, I didn't quote any actual passage of any real book but that's the general drift. And, you know, they're probably right. I've seen amazing stuff with the most trivial things for a subject.

But there's one thing even better and that's going to a location that's interesting on its own, and start shooting. And anywhere on Earth has a place like that, and I don't mean weird places hidden in the woods right behind the schoolyard (yeah, yeah, I'm watching Buffy, alright?), but just regular, everyday places that are intrinsically interesting. Like the Docks.

My town has a fairly sized port, that used to be very important before the fishing industry got in trouble. It's still pretty active and has a growing touristic section, for leisure boating and the like. So on one arm you have fishing boats and ships, on the other sailing and motor yatchs. There's plenty of interesting stuff, for all kinds of photography, from macro work to wildlife (seagulls ;)

I went on a shooting spree a few weeks ago and this one on the left is probably my favorite shot of the lot. It's the tangle of ropes that keep the boats tied to the quay. Mostly I'm happy with me identifying this as a suitable subject. Could I be developing an 'eye' of some sort? Well, let's not get carried away here. Anyway, I made a gallery just for my "Docks" pictures and I plan to keep adding material.

On a cautionary note, photographing a port may slightly be against the law, just like with train stations and such. Details are fuzzy. But this last picture I think is comforting: the sign says "No Entry" but the place - it's the south pier of the harbour - is a tourist landmark and a regular destination for anyone going for a walk - the real kind I mean, not the "walks" people take when they run away and disappear.

There's a tacit understanding about this "no-entry" thing: the sign is there because it has to be but nobody is ever going to stop you. It's difficult to explain, it's one of those Italian things where the law is more of a guideline. So I think I should be able to keep shooting fish boxes, seagulls and people walking ;)

To buy or not to buy

2008-05-14T11:37:00.001+02:00

Dear Blog, I'm in a bit of a quandary. Nothing remotely serious, mind you.

I was set to buy a UWA (that's ultra wide-angle for you) before the summer, eager to try out weird perspective shots and work on my landscape photography skills, which are sorely lacking. To this end I had decided to postpone the upgrade of my less-than-stellar Tamron 70-300, due also to severe indecision on what to upgrade to - I have at least 4 candidates, possibly 5. On the UWA front, things looked way easier: the Sigma 10-20 was clearly the winner in my mind: cheaper than Canon's 10-22, even cheaper considering it comes with a hood and the Canon does not, and not so distant in terms of IQ to justify the extra cash. The 12-24 from Tokina and Sigma I excluded from the start: I wanted to go wiiiiiiiiiide and those 2 mm count, especially since I'm not planning to go full-frame anytime soon. Finally, Tamron 11-18 didn't look so hot. Therefore, decision made. Right? Wrong!

While I was choosing the online retailer (I have a few favorites I always go back to, like most people I suspect), here goes Tamron announcing a 10-24 UWA that may or may not be on par or even better than the Sigma and may or may not cost less money. It's a mystery, because the lens isn't on sale yet, but it's not the good kind of mystery when you're about to fork out a nice amount of cash. It will be f3.5-f.4.5, and that is for sure better than what the wigma (its catchy nickname on english-speaking fora) has to offer.

To complicate matters even further, now Tokina is selling her new 11-16mm lens, which seems to be the new king of the hill in the UWA arena and offers a constant f2.8 aperture. Now, I may be a newbie photographer, but I can appreciate a large aperture as much as the next photography enthusiast. It's not such a big selling point if you're going to use your UWA for landscapes only, but really, if you could have it, wouldn't you want it?

So here I am, riddled with doubts once again. Although the real dilemma here is whether getting the Sigma and start having fun now or postpone my UWA purchase until the Tamron is out and there's some user feedback to go by. The Tokina appears to be a fantastic lens but 11-16 is such a small focal range that I'm afraid it will limit its use, at least for me. The 10-20 and, especially, the still up-in-the-air 10-24 from Tamron can function as walkaround lens: think a small medieval town (there's quite a few of those here in Europe, you know), with narrow streets and very little room to zoom with your feet. I don't think a 10-24 will ever leave my camera, in such a situation. I mean, on a crop-body that's the equivalent of 16-38. Plenty to work with.

I really want to see what Tamron will offer. Their 17-50 is considered one of the best lens in its focal range, the 28-70 is another very well-regarded lens of theirs and the new 70-200 f2.8 seems to be a cracker from the first reports.

So, I guess I'll be pondering this for a little while longer. In the meantime, I'll buy a real tripod. No doubts about that one, I did my research well and found a perfect solution for my needs. Amazing, uh?

Discovering Buffy

2008-05-13T15:33:00.005+02:00

After watching for the nth time the precious jewel that is Firefly, I've decided it was high time for me to get on board with Joss Whedon's previous creation. I have tried half-heartily once before and was unlucky enough to catch a weird episode built around a demon-infested computer. Now, I know some of my friends would swear that's a regular condition for a computer, but the whole thing was so silly I couldn't bear it for more than 10 minutes. And I changed the channel, never to return again.

But, on the aftermath of the depression (well, now there's a strong word for it) that always sets in for me after finishing Firefly (insert customary curse toward Fox Network here) I thought Buffy - and eventually Angel - could give me at least one of the things that make Firefly so great. Namely, Whedon-style witty dialogue. And, maybe, a taste of those effortless character building and interactions, too.

So off I went, determined to really give Buffy a chance this time, and here I am after having watched the whole first season. Well. I'm not into vampires. And supernatural phenomena. And fantasy in general. I'm a sci-fi fan, from hard sci-fi (basically non-existent on television) to space opera. Of course the supernatural creeps into everything these days on screen, big and small, and I'm not a fundamentalist. I had a blast playing Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, for instance, a great unsung CRPG commercially doomed by way too many bugs at its release and the closing of the development studio (the mod community stepped in and released a bunch of unofficial patches). Great game, all about vampires. Highly recommended. So I can dig it, if the occasion warrants it. Still, not my thing usually.

Apparently Buffy's first season isn't all that to begin with, according to Buffy fans. I can confirm that. It's the season of the demon pc, btw, as I've discovered. Yuk, that sucked. But, the witty dialogue is there, though a bit forced at times. And Sarah Michelle Gellar is spunky. Nerdy Willow could be my twin soul. And Armin Shimmerman (Quark in DS9) has a recurring guest role. There are seeds of potential greatness in this. There's also a lot of silliness, cheesy monster-of-the-week plotting and a lot of camp (the latter is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you). I'll stick to it though and watch season 2 as well. After that, if I'm not hooked, I'll give it up. And probably take out my Firefly DVDs once more. Ah, Fox, thou shall suffer greatly.

BTW Joss's working on a whole new show, tentatively (?) called Dollhouse. Tahmoh Penikett, aka Helo on Battlestar Galactica, is one of the principals. It went in production last month and should air in 2009. On Fox. Could Mr. Whedon be a little on the masochistic side?

Powerboat P1

2008-05-13T11:37:00.010+02:00

This past weekend my town hosted a leg, the first leg of the 2008 calendar actually, of the Powerboat P1 World Championship. For those who don't know - and believe me up until last Friday most of the people here didn't have clue about it, and that includes me - the Powerboat P1 is supposed to be to off-shore racing what Formula 1 is to car racing. I won't get into details but their website has a lot of over the top descriptions of the whole thing for those interested.

Suffice to say people here went nuts, the harbour and the beaches were packed to watch the races and I dutifully took the opportunity for some shooting. It was fun although my results were overall disappointing, especially regarding the pictures of the actual races. Single boats make for boring images, my reach (300mm on a crop-body) wasn't quite enough to capture interesting details and being completely inexperienced with the sport didn't help. I did have the opportunity to practice panning, though, and I managed to get the hang of it, though it will take time to approach the kind of astounding pictures I've seen done with this technique. But it's not just a theoretical notion for me anymore, so... progress!

My favorite shot of the lot turned out to be the one posted here. I shot it from a slightly elevated position - I was on the external arm of the south pier - and had a CPL filter on my kit lens (the much maligned ef-s 18-55), which explains the very blue sky and overall saturated colors. This is almost straight from camera, minimal pp including the RAW conversion. I really like it. I've uploaded more favorites to the gallery.

Photographic woes aside, it was a lot fun, the atmosphere was fantastic and I really hope they'll be back next year, although I don't see how this event may ever be compatible with the sea-life sanctuary that's about to be established in our waters. Oh well, maybe we'll get a sailing competition instead.

And so it begins...

2008-05-13T09:29:00.006+02:00

Well, this is going to be my first post. And it doesn't have anything at all to do with photography. Because, Dear Blog (yes, I won't pretend I have readers), I will use you as a tuttifrutti rambling tool... what I mean is, I'll write whatever crosses my mind.

So now that we got that out of the way, I'll let you know that I spent half an hour choosing a template for you and went with the 'Minima Dark' because, I'm embarrassed to say, it was the easiest to modify the header for. I like it well enough, though, simple, clean and easy to read. Not sure about the background color yet, I may revert to the original black one. We'll see.

Well, Dear Blog, this wasn't much of a post, but it's the first. Things will improve. I mean, we wouldn't want to start with some wonderful witty entry and then being unable to follow, would we? No, better to begin at the bottom, so we can only improve from here. L8r, c-ya, and all those sort of things.