I hiked up about 400 feet above where we were staying and got myself in (I believe) a little wheat field, set up the Italian tripod, manual setting, exposed for the sky, and shot six portrait shots.
PS CS3 stiches them together very well, much better than CS2. This is the result, just to give you an idea of what the rural part of China looks like.
I’ll be posting GPS coordinates soon.
CLICK HERE (go to the FAQ section, bottom of page)
People asked some questions, I went out and relayed the questions to Chinese farmers, took photos and videos of things, and returned with answers.
Title says it all. I just wanted to get a clip of this road that I’ve been telling people about. It’s a 5,000 foot drop off on the right side there.
Update: This POS Sony T-33 digital camera uses multiplexed MPEG-1/2 encoding. The Sony saved this 11-second clip as 15 megs. Converting it to FLV is 1.4 MB and, well, it’s about the same quality.
Next P&S digital I buy must have H.264 or On2 encoding, or I ain’t buying it.
After this latest trip to E Jia I took about 800 RAW format photos. Now I’m faced with the task of selecting a few, editing them, exporting, creating galleries, making prints, etc. I’ve found that by converting them to DNG format I can save space while keeping the RAW format options available.
Adobe DNG Coverter is a useful app to “compress” your RAW files down a little (but keep the RAW functionality) and at the same time is creating a standard for all those different camera types.
Some stats: DNG compressed (loseless) some NEFs down about 35%, and some CRW down about 18% (average of 800+ files).
I found a detailed web site explaining the benefits of DNG.
onOne’s Mask Pro 4.0 is hella cool. Masking software, I know, it’s been around forever, but I never used it until now (someone was showing it to me when it was still Extensis, and it was cool then.)
It has about a 5-minute learning curve, but if you watch their online tutorials, it’s very easy to use and works very well. Their tutorials are inline with what I would make if I were a developer trying to sell software. Anyway this app is very useful, well worth the $150+ USD.
I hope these two little apps will help me along with this major photo project.
We just got back from an impressive trip in the mountains of Chuxiong, China. I shot all pictures in RAW mode on my (aging digital) Canon Rebel and I’m excited to go through and see which ones turned out.
There are many stories, so I’ll start with this picture. The picture above was taken at about 7:40ish in the morning at about 5600 feet above a valley of fog, and is just an small example of the kind of scenery we experienced.
Also, I’m putting together a short documentary on “the making of sugar without the use of any electricity”, look for it in about a week. I hope it has an impact on people — it certainly did for me to watch it live in person. (Yes I tasted it, it’s hella good.)
All in all, I have thousands of pictures and hours of video, so check back soon to see an “untouched” part of the world.
We’re leaving on our 10-hour journey south to E Jia to celebrate the Chinese New Year with some family.
Because my video camera died, I’m using our Sony video camera as a backup. It is about five years old, is incredibly small, makes a lot of “ding” noises when a button is pressed, and uses MicroMV cassettes (pictured). MPEG-2 technology, so. That’s the best I can do, until I get back to the US and get my hands on an HD 3CCD camera of some sort. I also loaded up my GPS with new batteries and will pinpoint our locations on Google Earth.
I’m excited about this, because as I have previously mentioned, this place we’re traveling to has never been visited by foreigners or tourists before (except for me, as stated by the locals, last time I visited, apparently I was “the first”). It takes 10 hours to drive to this little mountain village, and it’s only about 80 KM south of Chuxiong, Yunnan. The reason it takes so long is because of the roads, and especially the side of the mountain road, which is only the width of a car at times.
I’ll be back with videos and pictures on the 21st. (My cell *should* work, fyi.)
Kunming [wiki page] has a grievous traffic problem. Don’t get me wrong, we always have a great time here, but the other day I left our house to meet up with some friends for dinner. Downtown is about 2 miles away. It took an hour to get there. Granted, it’s the biggest holiday in China, but this is insane. Prime candidate for a subway system…
Is it just me, or is Alias the most predictable show.. ever? And who else is in favor of renaming the show to Plot Twist? I mean, they f’in killed Sloane with lethal injection and his heart rate flatlined for like 8 minutes, but because he drank the wine elixir he never actually died and was brought back to life.
In about 36 hours we’re off to E Jia. I got my GPS, cameras, video camera, and a bag full of cables and power cords for this trip. Look for a little Flash Video doc when I get back. There is also a chance that we will interview the Su family (from the water buffalo movie) on the way back.
Update: Listen Robert Thompson’s interview with CBC radio (Sirius) about the water buffalo movie here.
Listen to it live, today!
“People can listen today by going to www.cbc.ca, clicking on RADIO then LIVE RADIO. This pulls up a map of Canada. If they click on Victoria (far left of the map) around 3:00 or 3:30 pm.”
Or just go here and on the right side, click Victoria.
If you missed it, I’ll have a direct link soon of the actual broadcast.
I was interviewed last week by CBC’s Freestyle show and the topic was the water buffalo movie (movie details here) I made with my wife, Chun Mei — graciously donated by Philip Greenspun and Craig MacFarlane.
We leaving in about 10 minutes to go to Kunming to:
- try to fix my Panasonic 3CDD video camera that mysteriously broke after the shooting of 4 Generations.
- buy batteries for Chun Mei’s Sony video camera as a backup.
- have a life
- celebrate Valentine’s Day (hint for all the guys out there, experience talking: don’t start planning this day on the 14th.. doesn’t really work that well. You still have three days, go figure something out.)
I may not be online during this time, use the cell if you need us. Will be back February 15, but will immediately go to E Jia, deep in the mountains. This one isn’t a “maybe” — there is no intronets there (demand is kinda low), but I’ll doc the trip to post on my blog in a few weeks.
So, for about 11 days I’ll be semi-offline. If you’re bored you can check out the site I just finished for my wife, Chun Mei, here.
It’s just around he corner, get your red clothes out. We’re going ti E Jia and this time I’ll try not to lose my camera, so I can take some photos of a place that no foreigner has ever been to (according to the locals, I was the first last time I went.)
Also, we’re going to try to swing back to Da Zhuan and see Little Longhorn and the rest of the crew, but this is up in the air, as it is a little out of the way. I’ll try to make it happen.
So we’re traveling Feb 16-21. Happy new year!
ENLARGE
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