Greg and Kat's blog

As many of you know, most of my pictures come from a Canon Digital Rebel XT. I’m very happy with the 18–50mm f2.8 lens from Sigma that I’m using with it.

As someone who (1) likes taking pictures and (2) is a geek, I’m always on the lookout for novel things to do with my camera. Over the last few days, I have been collecting links. I thought I should share them.

Pinhole cameras

Pinhole cameras are about as simple as you can get: film with a small hole allowing light in. But why limit yourself to little boxes and film when you have a perfectly good instant-gratification digital sensor lying around?

As it turns out, you can make a quite nice pinhole camera with a camera’s body cap. Throw in a toilet paper tube or two, and you can have a zoom pinhole as well.

Bellows

I’m sure most of you can picture olde-timey cameras with the lens on a set of bellows. Well, they make new ones too: they are view cameras and are just the thing if you want full-control over the image you’re taking, and want to record on a large chunk of film for high detail. This may be a good time to note that a set of bellows will do at least as much as tilt-shift lenses, including the fake miniatures fetured on Boing Boing.

Once again, why piss around with film if you don’t have to? I’m pretty sure my local London Drugs won’t process a 4×5″ negative anyway. You can buy a set of bellows for a regular SLR that does the same job. For US$2500. Then buy an expensive medium-format lens.

In the lower end of the scale, one can buy a Lensbaby for US$150 or $270 (depending on the model). Or, the right kind of person can make a set of bellows out of a toilet plunger.

Panoramas

I have experimented with making panoramic images before. The idea is to take a series of pictures from one location and stitch them together with software like Hugin to stitch them together. The results can be quite impressive.

Shooting panoramas of landscapes is easy, but when you get up-close, parallax becomes an issue: you have to hold the camera still (over just the right point) while you turn it. A special tripod head is required to do this right. Panoramic heads typically run US$400 and up and are probably worth it if you need to do that kind of thing professionally. A KingPANO can be had for US$150 and looks like it might be fun to play with.

Others

I have also run across AquaPacs for underwater photography. On the other side of panoramas are object panoramas. You can buy an object turntable or make one with Legos to assist with this.

I also ran across a couple of general camera-hack sites: DigiHack and DIYPhotography.

So…

I don’t own any of these things (nor have I made any). I have been thinking about getting a KingPANO for a while, so I might order one of those some time.

Another trend here is using the camera’s body cap to attach crazy stuff as a “lens”. I might stop by a camera shop and see if they have spare caps (from dead cameras or something).

Anybody else got cool stuff to add?

Okay, this one’s pretty geeky, even for me. Hold on tight.

I have heard many times that there is a correlation between musical talent and mathematical/formal reasoning abilities. None of that rubbed off on me, but it’s a good theory. I have recently been collecting links to prove the point.

I had originally heard The Eternal Flame/God Wrote in LISP a long time ago and thought it was a novel song.

Now, some folks on the Internet put their faith in C++.
They swear that it’s so powerful, it’s what God used for us.
And maybe it lets mortals dredge their objects from the C.
But I think that explains why only God can make a tree.

Then, I recently stumbledupon a page of math love songs. A Finite Simple Group of Order Two is particularly funny

When we first met, we simply connected
My heart was open but too dense
Our system was already directed
To have a finite limit, in some sense

A link there led me to the U Washington CSE Band. I had to stop Theory Girl to let the laughing stop at this line: (to the tune of Uptown Girl)

She never touches keyboard, mouse, or screen
Because she uses an abstract machine
It’s nice and clean.

It’s probably the only thing I’ve ever heard that’s only really funny if you have taken an advanced, possibly grad level, CS theory course. Others might enjoy None: (to the tune of U2’s One)

My friends show my no forgiveness,
they’ve all taken me for dead.
While I sit here reading Sipser,
they go out for drinks instead.

Finally, I happened across a link to Les Horribles Cernettes, who have the distinction of being the subject of the first photograph ever on the WWW, by virtue of having an office down from TimBL, who was at CERN in the beginning. From Daddy’s Lab:

I only like those guys who live to study matter
I’m gonna find my sweet one
And teach him more…
Much more than daddy knows

There’s no conclusion to this. Just a dirty feeling that I might be nerdier than I usually let on.

Update 2006-11-27: Monzy the CS rapper and his single So Much Drama in the PhD.

I recently StumbledUpon a video that captivated me for some reason: Where the Hell is Matt?

I know this is the second dancing video I have posted. Maybe it’s a theme? Anyway, it strikes me that there’s something very right with the world because this guy exists.

In the second video (the one at the other end of that link), there is a clip of him dancing on the Kjeragbolten (which probably means something in some language). There is apparently a 1km drop from that rock before you hit anything (and I don’t think it really matters what you hit at that point—it could be a million nerf balls and you’d probably still die). I’m not exactly afraid of heights, but you wouldn’t get me on there if I was wearing a climbing harness tied to a bulldozer. But that isn’t true of everybody. There are many Kjeragbolten images on Flickr.

Yarrr, it again be time for talk like a pirate day! If ye be unschooled in the ways of the pirate, watch ye a video of instructions.

Harr harr, this be fun! If only I could teach the scurvy dogs in such a way.

Okay, this doesn’t seem like the kind of thing we should do very often, but we thought a good chunk of our friends should watch the Evolution of Dance. (6 minutes)

Kat suggests picturing me doing the dancing. I don’t understand why that would be funny. It’s a good thing I didn’t have anything in my mouth to spit at my screen around 2:45, though.