This is Oslo

Boy, I love Oslo..., originally uploaded by mandus.

Well, the place in the front seem to be a nice place, but all the stuff behind there...

Sorry, the harbour of Oslo isn't very nice.

Python snippet

Picked up a trick from comp.lang.python. Probably "documented" elsewhere, but I put it here for easy reference...

Python lack the ?: conditional short-cut from for instance C. It is, however, possible to do:

a and b or c

There is, though, a small problem with this. If 'a' evaluates to True, the result should be 'b'. But if 'b' also evaluates to False, python will go on with 'c', and return the result of 'c'. A quick fix is:

(a and [b] or [c])[0].

As [b] always is True, regardless of 'b', the result will be [b] if 'a' is True, and the last [0] will extract the first entry from the list [b], which is 'b'.

Take care!

St. Hans

St. Hans - midsummer celebration, originally uploaded by mandus.

Som vanlig, brenner vi bål og feirer midtsommer-dagen

Yet another flower close-up

Yet another flower close-up, originally uploaded by mandus.

Focal-length statistics!

Have you ever wondered how the distribution of focal-lengths among your pictures are? If you have, I have created a tiny piece of script that can help you out! The EXIF data in the pictures are used.

Download img-focalstat. Save the file as img-focalstat.pl or whatever you like.

img-focalstat is a Perl script which takes a directory as input, scan the directory recursively for jpeg's, and check the focal length for each picture using jhead. The script show the number of pictures for each focal length, sorted from shortest to longest.

If you like, a GD bar-plot can be made of the data, with a width of each bar of your choice.

Also, all images for a particular focal length can be showed. This requires gthumb at the moment. May be made configureable on user-request.

To use the script, you need perl with File::Find, Getopt::Std, POSIX, and GD::Graph, as well as jhead and optionally gthumb. Should work on any linux, Mac OS X or other **ix. May work on Window$ as well.

The script is licenced under GPL.

syntax: img-focalstat.pl [directory| [-s focal-length] [-g ] [ -o filename ] [-n integer ] [ -i ] [ -b directory]

Description of options:

-s focal-length: Show all images with the given focal length using gthumb. Focal length should be specified as jhead show it, but without "mm". For instance 24.0 (and not just 24, at least with my jhead...)

-g : Make a GD::Graph bar-plot

-o : Output filename for bar-plot, must be a non-existant file, the script refuse to overwrite. Output will be a PNG image.

-n ingeger : The number of bars to have in the plot. Focal length will be distributed evenly on this number of bars.

-i : Include images with unknown focal length in the count and bar plot, show up as "n/a". For those cases where jhead are unable to detext any focal length in the EXIF data.

-b basedir : The basedirectory to scan. If any options are given, the base directory must be specified with the -b option. If no option is given, the base directory can just be given as the only argument to the script (without the -b)

Feel free to use or abuse or whatever. Comments are welcome :-)

Take care!

Closeup experiments

More flowers, originally uploaded by mandus.

Try the +4 closeup on my 75-300, in my garden. A nice sunny day, and stopped down the lens can still be kind of sharp.

Haven't done any rigorous tests, but I think the closeup give me at least true macro (1:1 magnification) on the 75-300.

In other news, I am still writing my Ph.D stuff.

Salt and pepper!

Salt and pepper!, originally uploaded by mandus.

Got a new close-up diopter/filter for my lenses. It's a +4 strength close-up
that fit on both the kit-lens and my 75-300. This picture is with the
kit-lens. The magnification is significantly higher with the 75-300, but
it's hard to do anything serious without a tripod (which I do not have yet).
Will probably go look for bugs in the garden tomorrow...

flies having dinner

flies having dinner, originally uploaded by mandus.

Took a little detour with the camera today. Didn't get that many great shots, but at least a few.

I am pretty satisfied with the EF 75-300 for now. Sharpness is quite ok, and the range is great. Good learning-tool together with the kit-lens.

Another in the oow series

Another in the oow series, originally uploaded by mandus.

I like the place I live. Who wouldn't when this is what it looks like out of your home-office window!

Sunset in Oslo

Sunset in Oslo, originally uploaded by mandus.

Late in the evening, 09.06.2005, on "Gamle mosseveien" close to Ingierstrand.

What a day!

Sarge is finally out, Norway celebrates 100 years of independence, and Apple decides to go for Intel processors. Not all of that are on the positive side, but remarkable events nevertheless. Lets hope Etch will be out before Norway celebrates another century...

On a completely different end of things, I manage to get a ride on my bicycle yesterday - about 22km. Man, that hurts. Too long since last time I did something like that - I'm in even worser shape than I thought. So I better get started with some training.

No good pics today, sorry folks.

Take care!

Another one in the oow series...

Another one in the oow series..., originally uploaded by mandus.

Got a new lens, so I tried a different shot out of my window.

Out of my window - experiment

Out of my window - experiment, originally uploaded by mandus.

Zoom while shooting.

Building in perspective

Building in perspective, originally uploaded by mandus.

Flies in the sun.

Flies in the sun., originally uploaded by mandus.

Lots of flies heating up in the nice sun-shine.

Out of my window - Spring-time

Out of my window - Spring-time, originally uploaded by mandus.

Not many interesting shots these days. This is from my "Out of my window" series.

Take care!

17 mai!

17 mai!, originally uploaded by mandus.

Gratulerer med dagen, alle nordmenn!

Another flower

Another flower, originally uploaded by mandus.

Maybe not the greatest - just played around with the 350D. At least, the kit-lens do work quite well close-up. Now I only need to get a diopter or close-up filter/lens, strength around +3 should give more or less true macro (1:1) if my computations are correct. That will be cool to try out :-)

Out of my window!

Out of my window!, originally uploaded by mandus.

I am running a "Out of my window" series over at OutOfWindow and think this one is particular interesting. Not for the looks of it, which is not that interesting, but from the gimp'ing.

Based on a suggestion in a post in the Canon300D/350D forum over at dpReview, I played some tricks to remove haze from the far away parts of the picture, as the kit-lens of the 350D isn't particulary sharp far away. I think this turned out not that bad! The steps are basically:

1. Duplicate layer, add layer mask, make it selected.
   
2. Create a black to white gradient in the layer mask, such that near stuff are blacked out
   
3. Apply layer mask
   
4. Layers->Colors->Curves and play with the curve for the Value-channel (add a couple of control points, drag it down) in order to make the distant stuff more haze-less.
   
5. Merge layers, and do whatever more you want/need. For instance USM.
   

That's about it, judge for your self the result. By the way, don't you think thats a nice place to live - very refreshing view!

The bridge of Leonardo Da Vinci

The bridge of Leonardo Da Vinci, originally uploaded by mandus.

Walked around in the neighbourhood yesterday evening. The bridge of Leonardo Da Vinci was build close to where I live a few years ago. This is it.