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In focus areas are highlighted in bright red (after Focus Peaking Lines Only action).

Focus peaking is a relatively new feature that is currently making its way into the newer digital cameras that are coming out. Peta Pixel reported on this feature appearing on the latest Sony cameras here:

One of the interesting technologies Sony introduced into its line of NEX mirrorless cameras last year (starting with the NEX-C3) was “focus peaking”, a feature from the video recording world that highlights in-focus areas of an image to aid in manual focusing. You know those colorful pixels that image editing programs use to indicate blown out or underexposed areas of photos? It’s like that, except for focus. What’s awesome is that you can adjust things like focus, focal length, and aperture, and then see the depth of field adjust on your screen in real time.

You can see a video below of how this works:

Basically the areas of the image that are in focus are being highlighted by the camera so that you can easily see what will be in focus when you take the shot. It enables you to fine tune the focus precisely the way you want.

Continue reading “Focus Peaking Action and Tutorial for Photoshop”

Broken, but not beyond repair

Almost a year ago I wrote the first part of this article series on Understanding Women. Shortly after publishing the first part, I wrote three more parts where I dived into some of the background information and details that I left out of the first part in order to keep it relatively short. Since then I’ve discovered more information on the subject that I want to discuss in this fifth part of this series.

Not too long after publishing the fourth part of this series, I was surprised to find an interview online with, in my opinion, one of the most brilliant men to have lived on this planet: Nikola Tesla. If you don’t know who Nikola Tesla is, you may want to read up on him. Tesla has become somewhat of a legend especially on the Internet. A lot of the technology that we take for granted and use today is all due to Tesla’s groundbreaking work in the field of electromagnetism. But Tesla wasn’t just a physicist and engineer; he was also a futurist and philosopher. And this becomes clear in this interview he did in 1926 titled “When Woman is Boss” (PDF) where he also talked about women. In this interview Tesla mentions some very interesting things that reveal he must have thought about the subject of women for a long time during his life:

Mr.  Tesla regards the emergence of woman as one of the most profound portents for the future.

“It is clear to any trained observer,” he says, “and even to the sociologically untrained, that a new attitude toward sex discrimination has come over the world through the centuries, receiving an abrupt stimulus just before and after the World War.

“This struggle of the human female toward sex equality will end in a new sex order, with the female as superior.  The modern woman, who anticipates in merely superficial phenomena the advancement of her sex, is but a surface symptom of something deeper and more potent fermenting in the bosom of the race.

“It is not in the shallow physical imitation of men that women will assert first their equality and later their superiority, but in the awakening of the intellect of women.

“Through countless generations, from the very beginning, the social subservience of women resulted naturally in the partial atrophy or at least the hereditary suspension of mental qualities which we now know the female sex to be endowed with no less than men.

The Queen is the Center of Life

“BUT the female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated to an activity that will be all the more intense and powerful because of centuries of repose.  Woman will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress.

Continue reading “Understanding Women Part V”

Canon EOS 5D Mark III Review (Model credit: Carol Chen Poun Joe)

A few months ago when I wrote my thoughts on the Canon EOS 1DX, I wondered if 2012 could be the year where Canon makes a serious comeback in the professional photography industry. Some of what I wrote back then:

For the last 4 years I’ve been bashing Canon here on my blog for their poor quality control, poor product releases (50D, 5D Mark II, 7D, 60D) and questionable business practices (5D Mark II, 50mm f/1.2L). I’ve also often mentioned how it seemed like Canon was out of touch with the market and didn’t listen to what professionals were asking for. But with the announcement last year of the EOS 1DX, I think I’m starting to see the long awaited change we’ve been asking for.

Little did I know how much I would be blown away just a few months later when the Canon EOS 5D Mark III was announced along with an entirely new Speedlite system with RF (Radio Frequency) based wireless triggering capabilities. With all the new products in the EOS range that Canon has announced and is still going to announce this year, I really feel excited again to be using Canon equipment. Once again Canon not only has the most complete lineup of lenses, but they also have bodies capable of delivering great images and video. In fact, when you look at the entire EOS range for stills and since recently also for video, and the way in which you can mix these products and use them together, you quickly realize that Canon has an unbeatable ecosystem of professional products for creatives. Nobody else in this industry comes even close.

Continue reading “Canon EOS 5D Mark III Review”

A graph of the Internet showing the millions of connections between computers. Source: Opte.org

For the first time in the history of humankind we’re reaching a point where we’ll finally be able to become united as a species and form a planetary civilization. We’re finally reaching a point where we’ll be able to mentally evolve a lot quicker than was previously possible. Due to recent advances in communication technologies, today we’re able to connect with each other instantly almost anywhere around the world. We’re able to talk to each other, share ideas, help each other and learn from each other very easily. And the key piece of technology that is allowing all of this to happen is the Internet.

The Internet is becoming the equivalent of the human brain for planet Earth - A Global Brain:

The global brain is a metaphor for the worldwide intelligent network formed by people together with the information and communication technologies that connect them into an organic whole. As the Internet becomes faster, more intelligent, more ubiquitous and more encompassing, it increasingly ties us together in a single information processing system, that functions like a “brain” for the planet Earth.  Although the underlying ideas are much older, the term was coined in 1982 by Peter Russell in his book The Global Brain. How the Internet might be developed to achieve this was set out in 1986 .

Continue reading “The Global Brain”

Access Denied

A recently published article titled “Benefit or burden? Attraction in cross-sex friendship” in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships confirms what many of us have known for a long time now, namely that it’s quite difficult for men and women to be just friends. Here’s some from the abstract:

We propose that, because cross-sex friendships are a historically recent phenomenon, men’s and women’s evolved mating strategies impinge on their friendship experiences. [...] Our findings implicate attraction in cross-sex friendship as both common and of potential negative consequence for individuals’ long-term mateships.

And from here:

“Attraction in friendship is happening, and it’s persistent,” says lead author April Bleske-Rechek, associate professor of psychology. “I’d venture to say, based on all our data, that in the majority of (opposite-sex) friendships there’s at least a low level of attraction. And if it’s coming more from one friend than the other, it’s probably the guy.”

Because opposite-sex friendships are a novel concept, evolutionarily speaking, Bleske-Rechek believes people’s hardwired mating instincts impinge on them. Notably, this seems to occur even when both parties claim genuinely platonic intentions. To put it in When Harry Met Sally terms, “the sex part” gets in the way.

What clearly stands in the way between men and women in friendly relationships are our natural sexual desires. Normally our sexual desires wouldn’t be an issue here, but because of the fact that societies around the world have a lot of female sexual repression built into them, this causes an imbalance in relationships between men and women. I’ve written before about the female sexual repression that has been present for thousands of years in societies around the world. For all the details, read my article series on Understanding Women.

Continue reading “Why men and women can’t be just friends”

The relationship between the RIAA, Buma/Stemra, CISAC et al. and artists/authors

A few days ago I saw a picture on Facebook posted by Lester Chambers, a member of the Chambers Brothers, where he holds up a written sign with his story of dealing with record companies. If you have access to Facebook and his profile, you can see the picture at this link including all the comments on it.

Lester Chambers tells us the truth about record companies

Chambers’ story isn’t unique. As a matter of fact, what Chambers describes there happens more often than you probably think. Record companies routinely screw artists/authors in bad deals, as explained by the video below:

You would have thought that with all the lawsuits organizations such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Ass of America) et al. are filing against copyright infringements, that they would themselves make every effort to pay the artists/authors who they or their members represent. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Continue reading “Why I’m against the RIAA, Buma/Stemra, CISAC et al.”

Hearts – What do they really mean?

In the above image you can see variations on the heart shape, which is usually associated with love or being in love. But it’s also associated with the (human) heart,  which is where I assume this shape gets its name from. At least, this is what is generally accepted by societies around the world. Lovers like to send this heart shape to each other, especially on Valentine’s day, to tell each other that they’re in love with one another. But what are you really saying to a person when you send this heart shape to him/her?

Continue reading “I Love You ♥”

This image is seriously in focus.

For the last few months I’ve been having a blast with the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye lens. I wrote about my first impressions of the lens soon after I got it in August last year. I won’t be repeating that here, so you may want to go back to read it. Back then I hadn’t yet used the lens for work, but now after a few months of using the lens on assignments I have a much better idea of how the lens performs. And in short, my conclusion is: it absolutely rocks.

Keep in mind that this isn’t supposed to be a review where I’ll discuss all the technical aspects and features of this lens. For that you’ll have to look elsewhere. I’m just going to give you my personal opinion of this lens after using it for a while.

Continue reading “Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye Review”

Canon EOS 1DX

Could 2012 be the year where Canon makes a serious comeback in the professional photography industry? Well, from the looks of it, it’s going to get very exciting for photographers using Canon equipment.

For the last 4 years I’ve been bashing Canon here on my blog for their poor quality control, poor product releases (50D, 5D Mark II, 7D, 60D) and questionable business practices (5D Mark II, 50mm f/1.2L). I’ve also often mentioned how it seemed like Canon was out of touch with the market and didn’t listen to what professionals were asking for. But with the announcement last year of the EOS 1DX, I think I’m starting to see the long awaited change we’ve been asking for.

Continue reading “Thoughts on the Canon EOS 1DX”

Microsoft Flight Sucks!

Back in January 2009 Microsoft shut down ACES Studio, the team at Microsoft who were developing the Flight Simulator game. The announcement came as a surprise to everyone, especially the large community of fans, developers and hardware manufacturers that exists around the Flight Simulator franchise. Why would Microsoft want to shut down the team that’s responsible for arguably one of the most succesful gaming franchises in the history of the personal computer? At the time there was the ongoing economic crisis, and the shut down of ACES Studio was just part of a layoff of around 5000 people at Microsoft. It seemed to me that Microsoft was trying to cut expenses during the economic crisis, but it’s unclear why they would want to shut down such a successful game like Flight Simulator. Back in 2006 when Bill Gates was showing off Windows Vista, Microsoft Flight Simulator X was one of the important games he demoed to show the capabilities of Windows Vista and DirectX 10. Up until today, Microsoft has never given a clear reason as to why exactly they shut down ACES Studio and apparently stopped development of the Flight Simulator game.

Continue reading “Microsoft Flight SUCKS!”