Miyakojima (宮古島) – Part 1

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Miyakojima

A few months ago I signed up for the annual Tour Du Miyakojima, a 100km cycling road race on the Island of Miyakojima. Miyakojima is about 300km southwest of the main island of Okinawa.

The plan was to ditch the kids with their grandparents and to have a nice weekend getaway with just the two of us. And to race 100km on a bike somewhere in there. But as the race got closer the weather forecast looked worse and worse. It seemed like it was going to rain all weekend. The plan tickets and hotel were already paid for, but it was starting to look like a miserable weekend for a bike race. So I decided to leave the bike behind, and just spend a weekend on an island with my wife. I figured a weekend of relaxing would do me good, even if it was rainy. And of course I was hoping to make some good photos.

As it turned out, the weather was perfect! But I don’t regret skipping the race. It was pretty hot, and those guys looked miserable. And since I didn’t have the race to worry about we had a great time touring the island.

We arrived around 10:30am and had several hours before checking into the hotel. We spent the time driving around in a rental car and taking in the sights. Misakojima is beautiful. And unlike most places in Japan that are worth visiting, it wasn’t crowded at all. The roads were empty, the parks were empty. After 4 years in Tokyo, I felt like I could finally breath again.

One of the first places we stopped was Sunayama Beach (lit. “sand mountain beach”). Surprisingly enough, it’s a big mountain of sand that drops down to the water. We saw butterflies, pretty flowers, beautiful green plants, and the amazing emerald green of the Pacific Ocean. Truly island paradise stuff.

All images © 2010 by Jason Weddington, All Rights Reserved. No Use Without Written Permission. Contact me at the_wandering_eye [at] yahoo [dot] com for usage or licensing requests.

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First Wedding Shoot – Part 3

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Planning for the Wedding Day (continued from here)

Wedding Photographer's HandbookThe Wedding Photographer’s Handbook really opened my eyes to the amount of planning that the pros put into a wedding shoot. Hurter recommends talking to the flourist, the caterer, DJ, etc before the event. He also suggests studying the wedding gown from a fashion and design perspective to achieve an awareness of what details to shoot. And perhaps most importantly, visit the location prior to the ceremony at around the same time of day to get a feel for the lighting. This is serious stuff!

I didn’t have time for the detailed in-depth prepartions recommend in the book, but I did visit the setting about 24 hours before the actual wedding ceremony. I took pictures of locations that I thought would work for group shots, and I made mental notes of how the shadows were falling, and where to place my flashes. I also studied the lighting using Lighttrac for iPad to see where the sun would be a different times in the day. Read more about this cool app [here].

That night I reviewed my test photos, and organized my shot list. My mom had kindly provided an impossibly long list of requested group shots. My sister and I hacked away at it for a while to make it more reasonable, and I tried to organize the final list by location, hoping to decide ahead of time which shots to take where. This helped a little, but I ended up making several changes on the wedding day because of people camped out in the background of my planned shot areas.

Next: Backing up photos onsite

First Wedding Shoot – Part 2

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Group Shots (continued from here)

I’d been to enough weddings to know that there would be a need for lots of group shots. I was sure this would be a challenge. You always see the photog referring to a paper shot list, and in addition to that, there’s always someone yelling at the last minute “oh, let’s get one with uncle Bob!”

And that’s before you get to the technical issues like having enough depth of field to keep everyone in sharp focus, making sure no one’s face is in shadow, and making sure uncle Bob doesn’t have his eyes closed in the shot. Kelby’s book has a couple good tips for these issues too. For groups of people he recommends shooting at f/11 and focusing on the eyes of the person in the first row. Perfect! Practical advice I can use right away without having to trial-and-error my way to the same conclusion. Kelby also mentioned that in group shots someone always has their eyes closed. He recommends telling everyone to close their eyes at the outset, count to 3 and then tell people to open their eyes and smile. This trick works great and has the added benefit of being funny and unexpected – so the smiles are genuine.

Another book that was very helpful was the Wedding Photographer’s Handbook, by Bill Hurter. If you’re shooting your first wedding, you need to read this book. It’s full of practical advice, sample photos, ideas for album layouts, etc. The constant “watch your DoF” reminders were especially helpful. I often use shallow depth of field for creative effect, and I really did need to be reminded of the situations were I’d need to stop down to f/11 or so to get enough DoF for the group shots.

Next time: Planning for the Wedding Day

First Wedding Shoot – Part 1

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Back in December my sister asked me to shoot her wedding, which was about 6 months away.

At the time I knew just enough about wedding photography to know that I was completely unqualified to shoot a wedding. So of course I agreed. In the next series of posts I will recount my journey over the last several months and the steps I took to prepare for the wedding.

Two Bodies

The Digital Photography Book, Volume 1The first thing I did was look for a few good photography books to learn more about wedding photography. One of the books I picked up was The Digital Photography Book, Vol. 1, by Scott Kelby. It’s more of a tips and trick book than a detailed how-to, and there are a lot of little gems in there. On of the first things I noted in this book was the importance of shooting with two bodies at any event that has lots of action happening in various locations. You put a wide angle on one body and a telephoto on the other and you’re all set to catch the whole scene, and grab candids of people in the kind of natural happy moments that happen at weddings, sports events, etc. Continue reading →

Looking up in Toranomon

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Lunch break photo walks are hard; almost nothing looks good with the midday sun directly overhead. I started doing these because I think I need more time behind the camera and finding a good photo in a limited amount of time in difficult lighting conditions with only one lens to choose from can be good practice.

(I bring only a single prime lens for my week-day practice shoots. Usually it’s the EF 24mm f/2.8 because that lens is small and light and fits in my bag nicely, but today I brought my EF 35mm f/1.4L)

But I’ve already walked all over Akasaka, and taken pretty much every photo that can be taken within walking distance from my building on a one hour lunch break. The images are starting to blur together and I’m beginning to hate myself for taking so many pictures of flowers. Continue reading →

Skype for iPhone works on 3G networks!

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I just installed the updated Skype for iPhone and got a nice surprise. You can now make voice calls over 3G networks! This was clearly stated in the details for the update, and a pop-up message in the app gives more info.

I installed the update and made a test call to the Skype call testing service. Flawless!

This never used to work. In fact none of the VoIP apps worked over a 3G connection, only on WiFi. What’s going on here? I assumed this was a restriction that Apple placed on the device to keep the carriers happy. A quick Google came up with nothing on this recent change, only old articles on how to jailbreak and get VoIP apps to work.

Clicking on details reveals the page below. It seems that Skype-to-Skype calls will be free “at least” until August 2010, and after that there will be a fee. Fee for what? Skype-to-Skype calls are already free, but never worked on a 3G network.

Just speculating wildly here, but maybe Skype will give some of the mentioned monthly feel to Apple, who will then toss a stipend to their carriers to get them to stop crying about VoIP calls killing their (already crumbling) business models?

I logged into my account online and couldn’t find any details on the mentioned “mobile subscription.” Comment if you know something.

iPad First Impressions

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Ok, I’ve had an iPad for just over two weeks now, so I guess it’s time for some first impressions.

Let’s start at the very beginning.  The very first thought than ran through my mind when I pulled the thing out of the box was “oh, that’s heavy!”  I’d seen the keynote video of Steve Jobs flipping flipping his iPad around like it’s a feather.  He either practiced that, or they made a special lightweight version for him to play with.  It’s not like it’s super heavy, but a little to heavy for comfortable reading while standing up on the train.  I suppose that half of the weight is battery though.  And I’m not sure I’d sacrifice the amazing battery life for a lighter device. Continue reading →

Ikegami Honmonji (池上本門寺)

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This morning we jumped on the bikes and took a ride to Ikegami Honmonji (池上本門寺). My goal was to make some good photos, but it was also a family outing of sorts. I dragged along the 5D Mark II and two lenses: 24mm-70mm f/2.8 and 70mm-200mm f/2.8.

Japanese temples are interesting places. In Tokyo they are an oasis of peace in the middle of a crazy, crowded, and sometimes insane city. We went early enough in the morning that there were still very few people there. It was a nice break from the crowded trains and tired people that I see on a daily basis.

I’m never sure about taking pictures in cemeteries. I’ve been here long enough that I no longer feel like a tourist. When you’re a tourist you point your camera at anything and everything, and think nothing of it. Everything is new and foreign, and photo-worthy. And the locals just think “stupid tourist” and go about their lives. But once you’re not a tourist anymore you start to worry about things like “is it OK to take pictures here?” And I assume that the locals, instead of thinking “stupid tourist” instead think “why is that guy taking pictures here?” I don’t know, probably I worry too much. People tell me I’m too serious. Continue reading →

LightTrac for iPad

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LightTrac for iPad is a simple application that shows the sun angle at a given location at a specified time of day. Colored lines showing sun angle at sunrise, sunset, and the specified time are superimposed onto a Google map. The map can be toggled from regular to satellite mode.

This is a great tool for anyone shooting outdoors or indoors with available light. I recently used this to plan ahead for a wedding shoot. I knew the time and location of the wedding, and pulled the scene up in LightTrac to get a feel for where the shadows would be, and where to place my strobes. Of course I also visited the site before the wedding, but getting a top-down view of the setting before going onsite was very helpful.

At USD $3.99, outdoor shooters can’t go wrong with this app!

Canon Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2

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I couple weeks ago I bought the Canon Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2.  I’d just finished reading Lighting 101 over at Strobist (which if you haven’t read, you need to stop reading this and go read that instead) and was itching to get my flash off the camera and start lighting stuff remotely.

I have an old Speedlite 420ex from about 8 years ago.  So all I really needed was the transmitter.  Pocket Wizard definately offers more flexibility, but I decided to go with the ST-E2 as a cheap way to get started with my existing flash.  (the old 420ex has no manual mode, though its replacement, the 430ex does)

Also, I was shooting my sister’s wedding the following weekend and I was not comfortable learning manual flash in the time I had to prepare.  I wanted to leave it up to ETTL flash metering and tweak the power with the flash ex comp controls on the camera.  While a little hit or miss, this is a technique I am comfortable with, and a wedding is not the place to cut your teeth on a new lighting technique. Continue reading →

Penultimate for IPad – Just like real paper… Unfortunately.

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(this is a copy of an app review that I posted to the iTunes AppStore a day or so ago)

Penultimate for iPad is an amazing digital rendition of the traditional paper notebook. The on-screen writing is smoother than any other handwriting or drawing app I’ve tried, and I’ve tired several. This is the only app in which writing and scribbles actually look acceptable. No straight lines or blockiness, even when you write fast. Other apps seems to have trouble keeping up with the speed of on-screen writing or drawing. After trying several drawing and writing apps I thought that this was a hardware problem, but this app manages brilliantly so obviously this is a challenge that solid development can overcome. Really great job with the handwriting part!

The line thickness gets thinner when you write faster. The is a very nice touch and looks like real pen strokes on paper.

If I was rating the handwriting function alone, this would be a five-star app. But the overall usability is somewhat lacking, so I have to give it 3 stars. The problem is that this app functions just like paper notebooks, and replicates all the problems inherent in it’s analog counterpart. This would be a 5-star killer app if the developers could combine the smooth handwriting with digital features like thumbnails.

Problems and Suggestions

1. The interface for switching notebooks is slow and clumsy. You have to scroll horizontally across your collection of notebooks, and every once in a while one of them flips open to preview the last page written, rather than scrolling by like I want it to. I want to use this for taking notes in meetings, and I created a separate notebook for each regular meeting, plus a notebook for non-regular meetings. But scrolling quickly to the notebook I want is difficult.

Suggestion: instead of the left-right scrolling interface with the title under each notebook, fill the screen with thumbnails of each notebook, and put the title on the notebook itself. This would make better use of the iPad screen space. Get rid of the flip-open preview since the left side page of the open notebook doesn’t have any writing on it anyway. Instead, preview the notebook with a single-tap by just changing the thumbnail from the notebook cover to a picture of the last written page. Double-tap to open the notebook and jump to the last written page.

2. Just like a paper notebook, you have to flip page by page to find something you wrote in the past. But quickly flipping pages is easier with real paper than it is on the iPad screen. Also, with a real notebook you can flip several pages at a time. When you look for something you wrote several weeks ago in a real paper notebook, you don’t flip back one page at a time. You start by flipping several pages, and as you think you’re getting close you start flipping page by page. But there’s no way to do this with this app, and actually there’s no need for this limitation on an electronic device like iPad. I’m afraid it will be impossible to quickly find something written several weeks ago in a notebook that has dozens of pages.

Suggestion: Add a “thumbnail view” button in the toolbar when you are inside a notebook. Allow the user to explode the notebook into a screen full of thumbnails of each page and scroll quickly to the desired page. This would completely eliminate the limitation of real paper notebooks, and make this app “better than paper.”

3. Wrist protection works great, but starts to fall apart toward the bottom of the page, especially the bottom right of the page. (I’m right-handed) I assume this is because my finger and my wrist get closer together as I try to squeeze text into the bottom corner.

Suggestion: Continue to tweak this, and and maybe make the tolerance greater towards the bottom of the page. Or give us a slider in the preferences to adjust the tolerance for ignoring the wrist.

All in all, this app is off to a great start. The next step is to keep the paper experience, but leave behind paper’s limitations. For note-taking on iPad to really take off, the apps have to be better than the real thing (paper notebooks). This app is just as good as real paper, which isn’t good enough. The iPad needs a replacement for paper that is better than paper, not just a digital copy of an analog notebook.

I’ve mailed the developers this review. I have high hopes for this app, so let’s see what future updates bring.

(this is a review of version 1.1 of the app)