Month: July 2003

Dallas Camera Club Competition Meetings

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

I discovered the Dallas Camera Club last month and I’ve been going to their meetings since then. They have meetings on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month; the 3rd Tuesday is their regular meeting while the 1st Tueday is the competition meeting.

Not having much interest in entering pictures, I didn’t give much thought to competition meetings. However, at the last regular meeting, they had to finish some business from the last competition meeting since they ran out of time. So, I had the opportunity to see what went on at a competition meeting.

In addition to participants handing in images for that month’s competition, each competition meeting also includes commentary and results from the last competition. When the photos are turned in, they’re sent off each month to a judge such as a professional photographer or a photography professor. He or she then scores each photo and records some commentary on an audio cassette.

The pictures are mailed back to the club and the commentary is presented with the images. The room is dimmed, with the exception of a lit easel in the front of the room and, timed with the commentary, the various photographs are displayed.

So, of course, all of this happened at a regular meeting and I was pleasantly surprised — I had in mind that the competition meetings would be fairly boring as people turned in their photographs and received their scores. On the contrary, it was fascinating to hear the comments of a professional on such a variety of photographs.

The audio commentary really made the photo sequence much more interesting. And I now find myself really looking forward to the next competition meeting (August 5th).

Adrian’s Road Trip Log

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

My brother Adrian and a couple of his friends decided to make the most of their time off to drive from our house in Pittsburgh to the Grand Canyon. And, Adrian thought to take his new PowerBook along and write a log, uploading it from time to time via free WiFi that they happened to come across.

Andy, Dave, Randy and Adrian all went to high school together and they’re good friends. The PowerBook is Adrian’s so all of the entries are his, with the exception of the occasional entry from one of his friends. They also brought along more cameras than people and they took plenty of pictures (some of which are included in the log).

They started the trip last Sunday (July 13th) and made it to the Canyon by Wednesday. But, instead of turning around and heading back, they decided to head on to Las Vegas — and from there, on to LA.

One twist is that Dave is part of the ROTC program at Virginia Tech (in the Navy, in his case). So, the four of them had to get Dave back to Blacksburg by midnight on Saturday in case he was called to a ship. So, you’ll see references to that from time to time.

Adrian’s not a blogger, but I enjoyed his writing style. And, if he wanted to try blogging, I’d be happy to setup something here on HandCoding.com for him ;).

More Greece Pictures

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

My brother and I both took many pictures during our vacation in Greece. I’ve posted some online and Adrian has uploaded some as well. His photos are in directories sorted by film type (b&w, print, and slides).

Adrian brought along two SLRs and two lenses (this way, he could load one with slide film and the other with print film). One of the lenses was a wide-angle which made for some striking shots (and I’m now tempted to get the wide-angle attachment for my camera). I don’t want to incorrectly write-up about the bodies and lenses, but perhaps Adrian can leave a comment with more specifics.

The pictures are perhaps best enjoyed just perusing through them on your own. But, I'll provide a few comments on some in particular:

  • Theater.jpg: This was the shot that Adrian took on self-timer — you can see him preparing for the shot in this picutre from my Gallery.

  • Airplane.jpg: My brother got this errie shot of the airplane cabin through the pleasant accident of completely underexposing the film. It was taken with ISO 50 film — but the camera happened to be set for 200 ISO.

  • DadsShadow.jpg: Here’s a shot with a door and a shadow, but that description just doesn’t describe it well. It has such intense colors that I’m not sure if the shot would be achievable with anything but slide film.

  • Afternoon-Alone.jpg: At times, we didn’t all go to the same place. And, in this shot, Adrian found a quiet bar and some time for reading. I can really feel the tranquil atmosphere coming through the picture and the idea of an occasional afternoon with a good book and a cold Warsteinersounds rather sensible to me.

Terminator 3

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

(no spoilers) I went to see Terminator 3 on Friday with Cyrus (one of my good friends from high school). In the end, it may not surpass Terminator 2 but there were times during watching it that I thought it just might (it’s that good).

In a HHOS kind of way, I’ve noticed a pattern that Guns + Explosions make for a good action movie; I was not disappointed on either account. The 66 score at MetaCritic indicates generally favorable reviews and if you liked Terminator 2, I’d recommend this one. I wouldn’t even mind seeing it again sometime.

I’ll be vague in the rest of this paragraph, but if you’re really concerned about spoilers, you could skip it. My favorite scene: the manhole sequence (I’d watch it again just for that). And, my favorite line was Arnold’s “I.K.Y.” to John Connor (I haven’t spelled out the acronym so as not to spoil it, but if you don’t get it I can elaborate).

Oh, and T3 probably has the second best movie chase sequence this year ;).

Autocross Pictures

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I went to the autocross on Saturday held by the BMW Club of Texas (yeah, as long as you pay the fees, they allow any car to participate). They have one every month (well, for nine months of the year) and they’re usually at Mineral Wells airport.

An autocross, if you’re not aware, is a timed event around a course. The BMW club sets up orange cones early that morning (and they have new course each month). Typically, the runs last around 100 seconds; there are four in the morning and four more in the afternoon (all for $25).

Depening on who you talk to, the airport at Mineral Wells was either last used for WWII training or for helicopter training for the Korean War. In any case, the tarmac is no longer used for airplanes ;). So, there is some gravel here and there and the occasional tuft of grass growing through a crack in the pavement. But, it’s still very drivable.

Since getting my new camera, I was looking forward to getting some shots at the autocross. In particular, I wanted to try panning — following the action in order to blur the background while keeping the subject in focus (this is typically done by forcing the camera to use a lower shutter speed than it would normally select, to ensure the blurring).

I took 116 shots, of which I’ve posted 6 in the Gallery. Yeah, that may seem like an unusually low number, but this was mostly due to the continuous-shutter mode that I was making use of.

In high-speed continuous mode, the camera take three frames per second (while low-speed continous takes three frames over two seconds). And, the camera blanks the viewfinder LCD as soon as the shutter is depressed — so I’m able to frame the first shot in a series but I’m flying blind after that.

I took all my photos during an afternoon session while I was corner-working (people who are corner-working pick up any toppled cones and call in the 1-second penalty to the timing station via FRS radios). I was standing at the center-point of a hairpin turn and so I had to pivot quickly to follow the cars. Because of that, I ended up with quite a few “air balls” where the shot consisted only of pavement ;).

I set the camera on shutter-priority and locked the shutter at 1/250sec — my goal was to blur the background as I panned, while keeping the car in focus. And, that actually worked too well (the wheels were not fully blurred at that shutter speed) so I adjusted to 1/125sec after a few shots. You can see the difference in the Gallery — earlier shots are at 1/250sec while latter shots are at 1/125sec.