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Showing posts from April 23, 2017

A New Waterproof Action Camera

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The Sony FDR X3000 action camera.      The other day, I wrote about how video resolution keeps increasing exponentially rather quickly. Unfortunately, my old Fuji waterproof camera that we've been using at the lake for video is a bit dated and is showing its age. This put me on a search for an affordable waterproof video camera (rather than a waterproof stills camera) which will hold me over for the next five or more years. I quickly found that, once again, Sony has proven that they are listening to what the consumers and professionals want and need. It seems the best action video camera on the market today is a Sony camera... the Sony FDR X3000, to be exact. It has 4K resolution... comes with a waterproof housing... has a separate controller with LCD screen that I can wear like I would a watch (or I can mount it on an accessory)... it has an app which allows me to sync and control with my cellphone... and has perhaps the best video image stabilization on the market today.

Proof Book

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A couple of times each year, I have a proof book of some of my photos printed. I just had another one of these proof books printed last week and received it the other day. I'm always amazed at the quality of my photography when I view the photos in print. Well... I need to put one condition on that... When I have my photographs printed professionally, I'm always amazed at the quality.   I've definitely had terrible print jobs in the past from many of the "discount" printers...  ie, WalMart, Snapfish, and perhaps the worst of the worst today, Shutterfly. You definitely get what you pay for in prints. There is a reason why these low cost prints cost so little...  crappy ink, cheap paper, low quality printers, and probably poorly paid employees who don't really know anything about color, calibration, printing standards and print qualities. To make this even worse, many of these 'low cost' printers contract out other low cost printers around the cou

Sailing Video Clips

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I've been struggling with some ideas of what to do with all of my older video clips shot on cameras with far lower resolutions than is typically displayed today.  The video world and televisions are quickly upgrading to 4K while 6K and 8K cameras are already readily available. Full HD video clips only fill one quarter of a 4K screen... so... what to do with all these older clips to make them look acceptable at a time when resolutions are increasing drastically? To make matters worse, I have a lot of HD video (not "Full HD") which is even smaller! I got to thinking that I could use those lower resolution video files in picture-in-picture windows and they might not look so bad at the higher resolutions. The only way to know for sure was to try it. A screenshot of this side-by-side video technique. I went searching for some video clips and found some sailing clips that I shot way back in 2013. We were at the lake for Adam's birthday on this day. It's always

An Exhausting Medical Day

I've done a pretty good job at avoiding medical appointments for almost a year. That may not sound like much but my health has been known to prompt m edical appointments a few times a month. One of the things I explained to my doctor today is that all of this mast cell nonsense has become my 'normal' everyday life so I rarely look at it as anything but normal. I also reminded her that, as a result, I often find myself not divulging everything I should to my doctors. In my mind, everything is 'normal'.   Not seeing my doctor for about a year doesn't mean anything as far as how my health is at the moment or has been for the past year. Actually, for the past few months, my health has been pretty damn lousy. Not seeing my doctor for about a year only means I've done a good job at avoiding medical appointments.  So, my doctor tracked me down and had me come in for a visit, exam and some tests. That appointment was today.  As luck would have it, I have be

A Little More Bird Photography

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I'm still waiting to get in to see my doctor (appointment is tomorrow) so I was still just hanging around doing nothing but hoping to find something to do. As I was boiling an egg for breakfast, I noticed a Nuthatch outside our kitchen window... "Hmmmm... I haven't seen these guys since last year!"  I quickly decided that I'd grab a camera and a lens and try to capture a few photos.   Last week when doing the same, I grabbed my smallest camera and longest lens. Since my smallest camera was plugged-in to recharge its battery this morning, I decided to use my larger Sony camera body. Once again, I grabbed my longest lens. I haven't really used this combo yet so this would be a good test while giving me an opportunity to practice on these jumpy fast moving birds.  None of these birds outside our kitchen window ever sit still for longer than about three seconds so you need to be quick if you want to capture a crisp photo. This morning was no different. It