Document this world through lens

10/19/2009

slideshow test

10/09/2009

This is it! Canon Rebel T1i (EOS 500D) first look!

Five days later after I hit the 'Place an order' button, I finally got my first DSLR in my life time. Let's go take a look what does it look like!

I ordered from Amazon.com. It's pretty cool; you don't need a penny for tax, as long as the stuff you are going to get is sold by Amazon, not any other seller. I often go test and take a look the real stuff at an actual store, like Best Buy, Fry's... and back to Amazon to place the order. And by the way, their return policy for the exchange is pretty awesome, if you just don't satisfy the product, you can simply just ask for exchange, they will send you right away (like 3 days fast) without any BS.

My product has been protected well with these 'air bags'

I also ordered a 16G SDHC memory card for bigger storage with RAW files in case.

The shiny Canon Rebel T1i (EOS 500D) product box!!

Let's peep the top layer of the box and it's placed with warranty and manual papers

Then, let's keep looking at the bottom layer. From left to right, wires, belt and... the camera body!

Wait, where is the lens? Oh, it has been hidden behind the wires and belt...

Ok, say cheeze~

10/06/2009

From Sepulveda Center

This photo has been taken on the parking lot roof of the Sepulveda Center which is also our office located in. It was about 6:40pm.

Took in Lancy Park. HDR study photo.

10/05/2009

HDR Study in Arcadia, CA

It was almost four o'clock in the afternoon. I just walked out of a Dim Sum place. At that moment, I felt it was a pretty nice and comfortable weather for outdoor photography. Sun was not too strong to burn my eyes, and some good looking clouds on the sky. mm... it's good day to test shot with HDR photography study.

I kept driving to the north on the Baldwin Ave and looking for a good spot. Finally I found this park, it is just right next to the Arcadia Mall. It got some nice red, green color and if I can frame them with the blue sky into a picture must be good to see!

I tired several different angles to get a satisfied look, eventually I laid down my G10 on the grass with some leaves in front of it. To achieve this HDR image, I took at least 5 RAW images with different exposures in -2,-1,0,1,2 separately.

When I was back home, I assembled them into HDR image via Photomatix. In the first place, the HDR image was not so good, because, I found I didn't make it align well becasue of the wind. I decided to take a detour. I picked one RAW which I think is the best to get my target HDR image and tweak this one RAW into EP1,EP0 and EP-1.

From left to right are EP-1, EP0, and EP1

EP1 and EP-1 are all converted from EP0 this RAW file. There still other 4 different RAW files I can use, but I only picked this one is because when in low exposure, the cloud still has good definition. In higher exposure, the details of the bush (on the left of the middle) gradually emerged, but the sky is still not blown out. In other word, a HDR image must not only can display enough details, even in the darker area (but not totally black), but also can have good definition in the brighter part (but not blown out).

When all images are ready, simply dump all 3 images into Photomatix again to get this satisfied result as my HDR study image.

10/04/2009

Joshua Tree, HDR pre-testing with exposure

Joshua Tree, seeing lights inside the grey scale

Joshu Tree, the weird rocks, the weird trees...

Joshua Tree, the Lost Horse Hiking Trail

This hiking trail normally takes two hours to finish, but I spend three hours just because I was taking photos by the way.

(The layout is damn time consuming...)

10/03/2009

Joshua Tree: The sunset...

Finally, I click the 'Place the Order' button

Yea, I finally placed the order for first Canon T1i (eos500D) + 16G SDHC memory card + SLR backpack.

this image belongs to this site

I already have Canon G10, and really love it! It performs amazingly good for landscape photography with its 28mm lens. And it also has macro function allows to take a very close shot about 2.5cm to object with almost full control, like with manual mode, ISO control, RAW image and auto/manual focus. I pretty enjoy to have G10 carry on as a pocket camera. (See G10 photos here)

But sometimes, when I need more control, especially for portrait shooting with a shallow depth of field, I need some DSLR to achieve that goal. From my friend's strongly recommendation, and also my research, I finally went to Canon T1i. This one got a really good review, and very popular for now. and it not only performs great in static photos, but it has 1080p HD camcording function. With some different lens, I can play it around with some experimental short films.

And for the bag, or backpack, ope this one is good for me. I really need some kind of back not only can carry my DSLR with at least one extra lens and one tripod, but also can carry my macbook when I go overseas. In the picture above, it looks pretty matches to my need, but it is a product picture, we'll see.

9/15/2009

Road Trip to Great Canyon:Day One, night 意料之外的好旅館

Everybody knows, there are tons of hotels and resorts in Las Veas, you can say it's a most competitive hotel business here. The closer to the Las Vegas blvd, the much more bucks you need to pay.

When I arrived Las Vegas, it's already two pm, I was damn exhausted...All I want is just a clean shower and comfertable bed to get a sleep. I randomly pick one hotel as my current destination from my GPS. It told me 'Holiday inn Suites', 'Ok, it's fine'. 'Drive 5 miles then turn right...' the cold, feelingless GPS lady told me to do so...

Turn on the radio, press 'scan' to see if still any talk program still on the air for this late night and kept driving and driving...god, how come 5 miles route takes like forever!

'Make a U turn , if possible, and arrival destination on the right...', the cold, boosy woman taught me how to drive again.

Finally, I am here!

I finished parking quickly, and walked toward to the front door of the hotel, then looked up the Hotel sign, 'WTF? it's not Holiday inn' it's Hampton Inn! I think I was too tired to seeing and hearing things at night. But any way, it's still a hotel.

When I get in, the environment is pretty comfortable. The front desk lady asked me with a nice smile, 'Any room still available?', 'uh... we have double queen bedroom, and one single king bedroom...'

'Which one is in the higher floor?' I ask.

'the king bed..'

'Great, I 'll take it!' 'Oh, by the way, how much is it?'

'You will check out tomorrow, right?' she asked.

'Yep, I just need a place to sleep and head to Great Canyon tomorrow morining.'

'I see, it's $49, needs to add tax'

(Holy ...cow, it's so cheap than I thought! and of course I took it!)

'Oh, I forgo to tell you...' When I was heading to my room, she held me up.

'We offer free breakfirst buffet tomorrow till 10am, would you lke to have a morning call?

'That would be great!' I said.

'and this is the internet access account and password by the way'

'In the room?' I asked (how stupid the question is...)

'Yes!' she siad.

(wow, $49 per night + free breakfirst and unlimited internet access in room, so great! @@)

I went bed around 4am, and woke up by 9:30ish, so damn tired...

Anyway, I did a quick morning shower then ran to restaurant to check at how the breakfast looks like. It looks better than I thought! For free meal, this really gets some quality.

It's really a nice hotel!