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Lichtbold's Blog
12 posts / 1 comment
ipernity's Blog
75 posts / 12 comments

April 6, 08

Automatically add Pictures from an ipernity-album to your Wordpress-blog

Today I published version 1.01 of a Wordpress plugin called "Liperbox".

With that plugin you're able to automatically add thumbnails from an album at iperny.com to your Wordpress-blog. These thumbnails are clickable and open as enlarged pictures in a Slimbox-popup that also includes the original link to the file at ipernity.com. You may see how it works here for example.

Visit its Download - section for further information and please let me know about bugs and suggestions.

© Published at 09:40 ( 6 comments / 336 visits )
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January 29, 08

DIY Pocket-Monopod

Just stumpled across this little idea. I haven't tested it yet but even now I would suggest to take a more stable piece of string:

www.metacafe.com/watch/1041948/1_image_stabilizer_for_any_camera_lose_the_tripod

© Published at 23:07 ( 3 comments / 479 visits )
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January 28, 08

Hot Water Music - Turnstile

Video taken at the reunion-show in Sayreville, NJ.

 

<3 <3 <3 Simply awesome!

© Published at 20:52 ( 3 comments / 332 visits )
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January 4, 08

Off for a while...

Hey there, happy new year to all of you and thanks a lot for all those nice recent comments!

As I am going to move to a new flat I won't be able to upload any new photos during the next weeks until I get an internet access. I'm really looking forward to see you and your photographs again next month! :)

Take care,

dan.

© Published at 16:21 ( 2 comments / 311 visits )
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December 14, 07

DIY Macro Adapter

Funny thing...did you know taping a simple magnifying glass in front of a UV-filter can give your lenses basic macro-abilities? Be sure to attach it reasonably centered.

Self-made Macroadapter

This very quickly duct-taped adapter-thingy reduced the focus-distance of my 18-55 kit-lens from 82cm to around 4 cm. Quality is good enough to play around, I'd say :)

This bitter Pill...

Try yourself and take care,

dan.

© Published at 17:43 ( 8 comments / 421 visits )
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December 12, 07

DIY Remote Control

Being too stingy (well...say "poor") to buy one, I just built my own remote control. Till now I was only able to test it here at home with a Pentax K10D and a K100D but it should work on almost every camera with a 2,5"-remote-connection.

Remote Control
Materials: 2 Buttons, 1 Switch, one 2,5" plug, an old stereo-cable and a casing of any kind.

Costs: 6 - 8 Euro (depends on what items you already own...most expensive one was the casing with 3 Euro)

Time afford: I required about 1 hour. Installing the buttons/switch was a bit difficult because the casing consists of two parts so you might be faster if you use a different one.

 

 

Howto?

Unfourtunately the idea of posting this came to me just after mounting the case, so there's no step-by-step description...but cabling is really easy.

There are 3 seperate wires in the stereo-cable: a red one, a white one and an uncoated one (the ground connection). The ground connection has to be soldered to one connector of each button and the switch. As there are only two connectors on each button/switch you are free to chose which one you take but be sure that you connect the ground connection to every button and the switch (you may split the wire into 3 pieces to achieve that). Now the other two wires (the white and the red one) need to be soldered to the 2 remaining buttons. Try out which one is for focussing and which one triggers the shutter. If you want to use Bulb you also have to solder the "shutter-wire" to the second connector of the switch.

Ground, white and red wire have to be attached to the 2,5" plug at the other end of the cable, too of course! :)

Anyway, here's a quick drawing:

remote

Ask me for questions. Enjoy and take care!

dan.

© Published at 19:42 ( 12 comments / 534 visits )
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December 5, 07

Yeah!My first photo in "What's hot"!

Thanks everyone!

Asleep

Take care,

dan.

edit:

 

and a second one :)

© Published at 20:48 ( 15 comments / 348 visits )
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November 29, 07

Re: Konzertausrüstung

Someone just ask me about my technique/settings when shooting small club-shows. This is my rather short answer, maybe it's useful to anyone and maybe maybe I'll translate it in English and add more stuff:

Here we go:

 

Zitat von XXXXX

Hey, deine letzten 4 Bilder in dem Konzert Ausrüstungs Thread gefallen mir sehr gut.

Verrätst du mir, mit welchen Einstellungen du da gearbeitet hast? Vielen Dank!

Bin am Samstag das erste Mal mit dem FA35 auf einem Konzert, bzw. generell das erste Mal auf einem Konzert mit der Kamera!

Liebe Grüße

 

Hi,


aaaaaalso, das allerallerwichtigste ist, dass du in RAW fotografierst, damit du später noch die Belichtung und den Weißabgleich nachregeln kannst.
Dann solltest du die mittenbetonte Lichtmessung (oder Spot) wählen und die Belichtung an den AF koppeln (oder, falls du manuell fokussieren willst/musst: nach dem Fokussieren den Belichtungsspeicherknopf drücken), da die Automatik sonst verrückt spielt, wenn sich das Licht oft ändert. Das FA35 ist schon bei Offenblende n Knaller, also kannst du ruhigen Gewissens Blende 2.0 oder auch 2.4 nehmen. Der größte Qualitätsfaktor ist der ISO-Wert: je niedriger, desto besser. Wichtig ist,dass die Belichtungszeit nicht unter 1/15 kommt, alles drüber kannst du durch Bewegungsunschärfe eigentlich meist vergessen. Kommt natürlich auf die Bewegungsfreude der Band an. Evtl. geht's noch langsamer (bei ruhigen, sitzenden Musikern) und wenn du Pech hast ist schon bei 1/90 Schluss.

Bessere Zeiten und/oder ISO-Werte bekommst du, wenn du mit Absicht eine halbe oder ganze Blende unterbelichtest (und das dann später zuhause korrigierst). Hmm, was noch?Ah ja: rotes Licht ist meistens supermies und lieber ein bisschen an den Einstellungen feilen als 300 Fotos auf gut Glück zu schießen...dann hast du auch noch was vom Konzert

Hier noch die (gekürzten) EXIFs zu den 4 Bildern:

The Gaslight Anthem III
Camera: PENTAX K10D - PENTAX Corporation
Exposure: 0.033 sec. (1/30)
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 35.0mm (35mm equivalent: 52.0mm)
Flash: Off
Exposure Compensation 0
ISO 1600



Nikola Sarcevic
Camera: PENTAX K10D - PENTAX Corporation
Exposure: 0.05 sec. (1/20)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50.0mm (35mm equivalent: 75.0mm)
Flash: Off
Exposure Compensation 0
ISO 800


Weltraumraketenabschussbasis
Camera: PENTAX K10D - PENTAX Corporation
Exposure: 0.011 sec. (1/90)
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 35.0mm (35mm equivalent: 52.0mm)
Flash: Off
Exposure Compensation -5/2
ISO 100 (auch das geht ab und zu mal!)

Nikola Sarcevic
Camera: PENTAX K10D - PENTAX Corporation
Exposure: 0.022 sec. (1/45)
Aperture: f/1.7
Focal Length: 50.0mm (35mm equivalent: 75.0mm)
Flash: Off
Exposure Compensation 0
ISO 400

2 und 4 sind mit dem A50/1.7 geschossen, die halbe Blende Unterschied sollte sich aber nicht allzusehr auswirken.

Das ist erstmal alles, was mir einfällt...wenn du noch Fragen hast (oder am Sonntag nach dem Konzert) meld dich einfach. Bin auch mal auf die Bilder gespannt!

Schöne Grüße,
dan.

© Published at 19:21 ( 2 comments / 287 visits )
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November 25, 07

Image Quality of uploaded Files...

I just stumbled over a comparison in image quality between Ipernity and Flickr and wondered if anyone else can confirm these huge differences between this doc and this one being an issue of the Iper-uploader.

And if so, is it a well-known problem that the Iper-Team is already working on and/or are there any workarounds or something?

I noticed loss in quality and sometimes jpeg-artifacts when uploading but as I don't have a Flickr-account anymore I can't really compare but I always had the feeling that the pictures could look a bit better :-/

Take care,

dan.

 

© Published at 14:56 ( 20 comments / 323 visits )
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November 16, 07

Robot Guitar

A self-tuning guitar...looks awesome and you can even install that system in your own guitar!

 

more (in German) -> www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/spielzeug/0,1518,517579,00.html

© Published at 12:29 ( 4 comments / 233 visits )
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November 11, 07

Windows Boot DVD?

Can anybody tell me, if it's possible to create a bootable DVD or USB-stick that starts Windows XP with a few chosen applications and drivers installed?!

I'd like the idea of having a complete setup (basically a very simple Windows XP with Ableton Live, Guitar Rig, ASIO drivers and some templates) ready when using my laptop at shows or during band rehearsels without a second partition on my HD etc...like Ubuntu's live-DVDs for example.

Take care,

dan.

© Published at 15:33 ( 8 comments / 288 visits )
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November 7, 07

Digital Mixtapes

When I was a lot younger (well...say 10-11 years ago or so), me and my friends bought loads of vinyl records (mostly hardcore and punkrock - stuff). We always did mass-orders at our favourite mailorder or checked the local dealer for new records after school. There was a (rather silly) golden rule that was something like: "Never buy a record that some of your friends already owns" and as there was no such thing as mp3 or (affordable) CD-R we nearly had to put every album on cassettes and exchanged them with each-other. A rather time-expensive work but I remember myself having a different access to music back in these days: you really had to deal with an album. Hearing your favourite song was nothing like today's "click and hear it" as you always had to wind the tape forward or backward first. The supreme discipline in recording was doing a mixtape: basically a collection of hits, one song from each band. Sounds simple but keeping in mind that you could not simply skip a track that you did not like, you had to create a climax to keep the mixtape interesting through all its 90 minutes. You had to design the casing, cut and paste a tracklist (in the most verbatim sense), put photos in it etc.There were guys that just were not able to achieve that and listening to their tapes was often no fun at all. Luckily there also were extraordinary good ones and a couple of weeks ago I discovered some old cassettes and realized that my tapedeck was no longer working. We somehow/someday switched over to recording CD-R but that was nothing like before: it was a soulless massproduction, repeatable and nothing special at all. The worst thing (at least to me) is that if you don't like the song-order, you can just change it with a few clicks and reburn the CD-R.

I nowadays sometimes create unicum-like CD-Rs by recording them and tinkering a cover, but as that does not change the "skip-able" tracklist, I tried something different today and here is the first version of my new "Digital Mixtape" - Series: Dear you... I : Borrowed Lights.

Twenty songs, merged together in 2 x 45 minutes. There also seem to be (small) accidental changes of tempo in the files that I personally like because they somehow sound analogue :)

Well...print the cover, put the songs on tape or just listen to them online if you like.

Create your own mixtapes and let's exchange them in the new group "Digital Mixtape-Club".

Ask me for technical questions or just call me a nerd.

 

Greetings,

dan.

© Published at 14:43 ( 7 comments / 207 visits )
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October 30, 07

Wacom...? *UPDATED*

Hey there,

can anyone of you recommend an affordable (60-80 euros) Wacom-pad to me? Size (as always) doesn't matter, DIN-A6 would be enough to me as I only need it to do some casual photo-retouche from time to time and do not plan to start drawing :)

respects,

dan.

 

*update*

a couple of days ago my brandnew Wacom Bamboo A6 arrived and after playing around a lot (!) with it, i definitely would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a small, robust and PRECISE widescreen-tablet. the din-a6-size is big enough for my purposes and you can easily program the 4 shortcut-buttons with nearly every function you'll ever need.

© Published at 20:50 ( 16 comments / 231 visits )
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October 24, 07

New Focussing Screen AND new Group!

As a i already mentioned before, manual focussing with most new digital SLR's viewfinders is (at least to me) a difficult thing to do in low light situations. My Pentax K10D's viewfinder is said to be comparable bright and big but at certain concerts i just wasn't able to get the focus right. Especially when musicians keep moving all the time and/or your (C-) autofocus does not work fast enough because of the little available light shooting often becomes a trial and error.

I have to mention that I almost never use a flash and so I have to use small apertures (=small DOF) so my chances to hit tend to be very small (as you can see on most of my concert-photographs,hehe).

One and half a week ago i discovered an ebay-dealer from China who sells focussing screens that fit into the K10D (and K100D/Ds) and due to the fact that 25 Euro were not that much money i ordered one. It arrived today and after inserting it and doing some testshots I have to say that it seems to work flawlessly!

The dealer offers screens for other cameras as well. I'm not sure if advertising him here is allowed, so just drop me line or just search for "Mattscheibe" and your camera-type at ebay.de and find out by yourself.

Oh, in case you're wondering what I'm talking about:

www.praktica-collector.de/images/BX_focussing_screen.jpg

Furthermore I just created a new group called "Everyday's Beauty".

Here's the description:

"Are you tired of photographs from far places that you might never ever see in your real life?

Well...I'm not, but I'd like to remind you that there is beauty in everyday day life, too.

This group is for extraordinary pictures of ordinary things everyone of us might see or use everyday.

No cats/pets/skys/whatever...please!"

Look here, if you are interested!

dan.

© Published at 13:30 ( 0 comments / 207 visits )
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October 22, 07

woohoo!

it's been nearly a month since i discovered ipernity and ever since all of you have been very nice to me. now i even won the first little weekly contest of my life and i'd like to thank all of you for your patience and reception!

dan.

© Published at 11:09 ( 2 comments / 205 visits )
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October 11, 07

my new favourite toy...

...i've been to some (badly lit) shows recently and would never like to miss it anymore:

A 50/1.7

manual focusing is a kind of tricky thing to do (it's a manual lens) without a proper split-screen focusing viewfinder and i think i'll have to replace the diffusing screen to get better results.

but at the moment: *thumbs up*

dan.

© Published at 11:29 ( 0 comments / 112 visits )
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September 24, 07

urlaub

so...eine woche istanbul.

ich hoffe, ich bringe ein paar schöne bilder mit! :)

bis denne,

dan.

© Published at 09:04 ( 0 comments / 86 visits )
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September 22, 07

ahoi!

so langsam sind alle (brauchbaren) bilder von "der anderen seite" hier rüber gewandert und mittlerweile fühle ich mich auch durchaus wohl nach anfänglicher verwirrtheit.

mal schauen, was das hier so gibt.

dan.

© Published at 19:03 ( 4 comments / 88 visits )
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