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Sad for Life

What exactly is the purpose of life? Why are we born and what are we supposed to be doing here on this planet and in this reality? Those are questions I’ve asked myself almost every day ever since my early childhood. And I still don’t have answers to those questions. It bothers me every day. What bothers me even more, is that I think it won’t ever be possible for me, or anyone else, to really find answers to those questions. At best it will always be a lot of guesswork.

The fact that I don’t really know what I’m doing here makes it difficult to live life. Difficult because it’s impossible to find a meaningful direction in life without answers to those questions. I look around me and I see people chasing after lovers, careers, money, fame, power and many other things that in the end don’t matter at all. Why not? Because when we die, we leave everything behind. All of it. So really, what is the use of constantly pursuing any of those things in life? What’s the use of constantly wanting to achieve more and more?

Continue reading “Infinite love is the only truth”

A while ago I saw a documentary on electrodynamics and free energy, where Tom Bearden was interviewed explaining the concept behind free (or radiant) energy. The documentary is titled “Hidden electrodynamics and the final secret of free energy” and is the fifth part of the Energy from the Vacuum series. If you’ve never heard of this series, I highly recommend you check it out. In the interview Bearden explains how it’s possible to get energy out of the vacuum, seemingly out of nowhere, by creating a charge and having the environment (or vacuum) react to that essentially trying to neutralize that charge. It’s important to understand that this isn’t just theory anymore, as there are working concepts of machines that demonstrate how this works. All of this can be seen in the documentaries.

Continue reading “Karma explained by Electromagnetism”

Colorful Eyes

I’ve moved my blog to its own subdomain at http://blog.kareldonk.com. If you had subscribed to any of my feeds please make sure that you update the feed URLs in your reader. I’ve made every effort to make sure that old links work and that everything gets redirected to the new location, but I may have missed something in the process. If you find any broken links, please leave a comment or send an email and let me know.

This blog update is part of some changes that will be made to my website in the coming weeks as time permits.  My current website went online in 2007 and an update is long overdue.

A car belonging to a frustrated Korean photographer. The text on those banners translates to: “Camera that is a piece of trash – Canon EOS 1D Mark 3”

Canon has been seriously disappointing everyone since the release of the EOS 1D Mark III camera. The 5D Mark II sucked, the 7D sucked a little, the 50D seriously sucked, the 60D sucked, and the recently released 600D and 1100D also suck. Professional photographers using Canon equipment are in desperate need of a working DSLR body that will make them competitive again compared to other photographers using Nikon gear and these days even Sony gear. The only good option Canon has right now is the 1D Mark IV, but even that can’t deliver image quality as good as the Nikon D3s for example, and costs close to $4500 while being a lot bigger and heavier (not something most photographers appreciate).

Fake Chuck Westfall has put up a petition online for feature requests for the next update to the 5D Mark II, which may be a 5D Mark III but could also be a new model like a 3D or 6D if we are to believe some of the rumors. If you are a Canon user that needs a good body now or in the future, take the time to sign this petition and let’s hope Canon Inc. will actually deliver something close to what is being requested demanded.

Cactus V5 Transceiver Review. Model credit: Carol Chen Poun Joe (more test images with this model in the gallery below)

In the second week of November 2010 I was contacted by Harvest One Limited as part of a small group of photographers around the world about testing a new version of their Cactus wireless flash triggers. At that time their latest model was the Cactus V4 Wireless Flash Trigger which I had been using for a few months already. So when the opportunity was presented to me to be able to have an early look at the next generation of these triggers I accepted it immediately. Harvest One would ship all participating photographers a couple of pre-production versions of the new units and the only requirement was that we would give suggestions for improvements and other feedback during the testing period and in the end write about our experiences with the new units on our websites and/or blogs.

Continue reading “Review of the Cactus V5 Transceiver”

Snapsort

Today if you want to buy a digital camera, and especially if you’re new to photography, it can be quite difficult to choose a camera from all the many different brands and models out there. The market is saturated with all kinds of cameras with various capabilities at price ranges from $200 to $8000 and more. In addition there are many websites on the Internet where you can find reviews for cameras which can often be many pages long containing all kinds of technical information which may or may not mean something to you. Making things even more difficult is the fact that on these review sites the reviewers often give a very subjective rating to the cameras. For example, if you compare the Nikon D7000 with the Canon EOS 60D on Dpreview, the Nikon D7000 has a score of 80% while the Canon EOS 60D has a score of 79% making it seem like these cameras are practically similar and that it almost wouldn’t matter which one you choose. But this is very far from the truth. Dpreview used to be a lot worse in the past, where almost all cameras got a simple “Highly Recommended” rating in the end, making you wonder why you’re spending time reading 20-page reviews if every camera is highly recommended anyway. Many other review sites have similar issues.

Continue reading “Snapsort and Lenshero help you choose the best camera for you”

In the second Matrix movie, “Matrix Reloaded,” the Architect says to Neo:

“Hope… it is the quintessential human delusion - simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.”

And he would know, because he had been abusing this weakness for the sixth time up to that point if you follow the story in the movie. In fact, Neo was part of the problem: An intentional creation by the Architect with the purpose of giving humans inside the Matrix hope so they could continue to be exploited for as long as possible. As explained by the Architect, he found out that humans would only “accept the program” if they were given a choice. By giving them a choice, not only do you make them feel in control (while in reality they have no control), but if the choice also promises a better future, you also give them hope. If there’s no choice and no hope, there’s no reason to continue and so the entire system comes to a halt and, as agent Smith put it in the first Matrix movie: “entire crops are lost.” To keep the system going and to have everyone accept their current situation, you have to give them something positive to look forward to, you have to give them a reason to make the choice to continue… you have to give them hope. And Neo served that purpose in the Matrix as the savior everyone was waiting for to help them escape from the Matrix and to bring them better times. And the “prophecy” of the coming of the One (Neo) kept everyone going and kept the system running.

Continue reading “The Dangers of Hope”

Canon EOS 60D

I’m going to be very short with my review of the Canon EOS 60D: IT SUCKS.

On second thought, let me elaborate on that.

The Canon EOS 60D is a step backwards in the xxD series on almost all levels. If you own a 20D, 30D, 40D or, heaven forbid, a 50D, then by getting a 60D you won’t really be upgrading. Well, maybe if you own a 20D and 30D you could consider it an upgrade but only because those cameras are now very old and outdated. But in the case of the 40D it is definitely a downgrade, and in the case of the 50D everything is a downgrade except for the image quality, which will be better on the 60D (but keep in mind that the image quality on the 50D was terrible compared to the 40D).

Why am I saying this? First because the imaging sensor used in the 60D is the same sensor that is used in the 7D. I have said a lot about the inferior image quality that the sensor in the 7D produces compared to the 40D. For details on this, please read my review of the EOS 7D. The same things I said there about image quality on the 7D apply to the 60D as well because both use the same 18MP sensor. Basically the images from the 60D will also contain more noise compared to images taken on the 40D at ISO values lower than ISO 3200. So if image quality is important to you, then the 60D is not the best choice right now, especially not when you also consider the competition, namely the Nikon D7000. A comparison between the EOS 7D, 60D and 40D models can be seen on DXOMark if you follow this link.

In the graph above taken from a comparison on DXOMark you can clearly see how the performance of the 7D and 60D are very similar, and how they both perform worse than the 40D with regards to noise levels on screen.

If you compare the 60D and 40D to the Nikon D7000 on DXOMark (follow this link) you get the results below:

In the graph above taken from a comparison on DXOMark you can see that the image quality on the Nikon D7000 comes close to the Canon EOS 40D as far as on screen noise is concerned. This is a great achievement for Nikon, as the D7000 has a 16MP sensor while the 40D has a 10MP sensor. The 60D performs worse than the new Nikon D7000 and worse than even the 3 year old 40D. This is a shame for Canon.

Apart from the inferior image quality, the 60D is also a step backwards in the xxD series when you consider build quality. Older models like the 40D and 50D had a strong magnesium-alloy body whereas the 60D has a body that is made up of aluminum and plastic, putting it more in the entry level Digital Rebel (xxxD) category. Essentially the 60D became a Digital Rebel that’s a little more advanced than the EOS 550D. Perhaps Canon didn’t want the 60D to compete too much with the 7D, and I’m sure that in true Canon style they also wanted to save a couple of bucks on build quality so they could make even more money off of us. But the result is not worth the money they are asking for it in my opinion ($1100), and especially not when Nikon came out with a body in the same category that DOES have a magnesium-alloy body, namely the Nikon D7000 costing $1200. Canon is now slowly building up a history of wanting to sell products with inferior specs for a lot more than they are worth. In a similar way they priced the 5D Mark II at $2700 with a ridiculously underperforming autofocus system, while Nikon had their D700 also priced around $2700 with an advanced pro-level autofocus system. This time Nikon is one-upping Canon again with their D7000, as they have consistently done since the release of the D3.

As if scaling back the build quality on the 60D wasn’t enough Canon also removed some features such as autofocus micro-adjustment for lenses, an essential feature that was missing on the 40D, introduced with the 50D, and now taken away again with the 60D. When you’re familiar with all the autofocus issues with Canon cameras and lenses, you realize even more how important such a feature is on a camera. You only have to do a simple search on Google to find thousands of cases where people are complaining about their (often even brand new) lenses having front or back focus issues. In such a case the autofocus micro-adjustment feature is very handy to try and correct the issues yourself, or to fine-tune autofocus on your camera in combination with the lenses you own. But somehow Canon had to remove this from the 60D, I suspect to make it even more inferior to the 7D. But guess what? Nikon put this feature in their D7000, again one-upping Canon’s 60D.

And so it appears again that engineers and marketing people at Nikon have a much, much, MUCH better understanding of what photographers really want in a camera, and what combination of features make sense. While Nikon went a couple of steps forward with their D7000 compared to the D90, Canon actually went backwards on exactly the same steps from the 40D to the 60D. Nikon even equipped the $1200 costing D7000 with an advanced 39-point autofocus system. It may not be as good as the 51-point AF system in the D300s, for example, but it won’t surprise me one bit when it turns out to be A LOT better than the old 9-point AF system in the 60D that Canon has now been using ever since the 40D (!!!). It seems that Canon purposely holds back every time while Nikon is constantly innovating and pushing the envelope with each new DSLR model they release. It is incredible what Nikon has achieved with the D7000. The D7000 is so good that it can easily compete with the Canon EOS 7D ($1800 price range). Even the image quality of the D7000 is better compared to the EOS 60D and EOS 7D. If you look at the features of the D7000 and the 60D side by side, it becomes very clear that the D7000 is vastly more superior than the 60D while costing just $100 more. Some of the features on the D7000 include dual memory card slots, autofocus micro-adjustments, continuous AF in movie mode, magnesium-alloy body with weather sealing, 39-point autofocus system with 3D matrix metering and of course better image quality – all for almost the same price as the 60D.

So as far as I’m concerned, the 60D is another disappointment in the line of very disappointing camera bodies Canon has released in the last 4 years. Clearly Canon is trying to sell us inferior technology at a premium price, while the competition has a lot more to offer at the same price levels. If you’re looking for a DSLR in the $1000-$1200 price range, the Nikon D7000 is currently the best there is on the market. The D7000 is a better choice compared to the Canon 7D, 60D, 50D, 40D, the Nikon D90 and the Nikon D300(s). Depending on your needs, the D7000 is also a better choice compared to the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (only if you really need 21MP and full-frame) and the Nikon D700 (only if you need full-frame).

President D. D. Bouterse of the Republic of Suriname

It’s not every day that you get asked to shoot the official portrait of the president of your country, or any other country for that matter So when that opportunity presents itself to you, you grab hold of it with both hands. And feet, if necessary. The call came in on Sunday August 15th 2010 late in the afternoon. I was at home fooling around behind my PC when my mobile phone rang. I answered and a female voice on the other side started explaining to me that I was speaking to the presidential cabinet office of Suriname and that they were looking for a photographer to make the official presidential portrait (the president had been inaugurated a week ago). She explained that I got recommended by a few people and that they had a look at my work. Then she asked if I was interested to do it. I got a little nervous on the phone and I started wondering if I would be able to pull it off. It may look like something simple, and perhaps it is for a lot of pros out there, but this wouldn’t be a photoshoot for some model. It’d be for the president! What if I screw up? Obviously there’s a lot of pressure involved in such a high profile photoshoot.

They gave me a few hours to think about it and in the end I decided to do it. What was just another quiet Sunday became a day to start worrying about how I would do this photoshoot. The next day I went to check out the location at the presidential cabinet office where I’d have to do the photoshoot, and I decided to do it in one of the larger conference rooms. Meanwhile the date of the photoshoot had been decided and it would have to be done on the coming Friday which was just four days away. I didn’t know how I would do the photoshoot yet, but I did know that I wanted to do something a little different.

Flag of Suriname

As I was thinking about various ideas I decided that I wanted to do something with the colors of the flag of Suriname as the main theme. As you may know the colors in the flag all have their own meaning (Wikipedia: English and Dutch). I thought about using a red or green background and ultimately went with red. The reason why I went with red was because if you look at the flag of Suriname, you can see that there’s a yellow star in the red area. So since the president would be standing in front of the red background, I could light him with yellow light and then he could be the yellow star in the flag.

Now I had another problem and that was that I couldn’t just completely light the president with yellow light. Obviously that would make him look very strange. I quickly decided that I would have to rim-light him with yellow light. Not only would it then add some more meaning to the picture (meaning of the yellow color in the flag) but the yellow light would also help to separate the president from the background. But then I thought what if the yellow light would come from above? Obviously that could add some more meaning to the picture in a spiritual sense. During his campaign the president often talked about how his campaign and the formation of the current coalition was being directed by an invisible hand, and how a higher power was guiding the process of change in politics in Suriname, and I thought making the light come from above would make sense in that regard. By carefully positioning the flash I could also make the yellow light fall on just his head and shoulders.

And finally the president himself would be lit with a medium sized softbox on one side and a reflector on the other side. Two days before the photoshoot I experimented with the setup at home to see if I’d be able to pull it off and what equipment I would have to bring with me on location. Even for such a simple setup, planning and rehearsing is absolutely necessary to make sure you’re prepared and can make the most of out the short period of time you’ll be able to work with the subject. Once I was confident everything would work, I packed all the equipment I needed for the photoshoot.

On the day of the photoshoot I arrived on location an hour and a half before we were expecting the president. I had purposely planned it that way to allow for enough time for me to set up everything and test the lighting again before the president arrived. I knew that he would be very busy and I wouldn’t have time to fool around with the equipment while keeping him waiting. In fact, as I was setting up a TV crew was also preparing to set up their equipment in the same room and as soon as I was finished he sat down with them for their interview. That’s how tight his schedule was. So anyway, I’m glad I got on location an hour and a half earlier, it proved to have been just enough time to get access to the location, unpack, set up the equipment and test the lighting and have about 20 minutes to relax and wait for the president.

In the picture below, taken with my mobile phone, you can see how everything was set up.

Photoshoot Setup

As you can see there was no red background material, I decided to “paint” the white wall red by just placing a red gel on the background light (a Canon Speedlite 580 EX II). The distance between the subject and the wall is also big to make sure the wall would be out of focus and appear to be smooth in the pictures and also to minimize spill light from the softbox. I also didn’t use the tripod during the actual shoot with the president, it was easier to hold the camera and have the freedom to make quick changes in positioning and framing.

I used the Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L lens for this shoot. I had the 35mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.2 with me, but I found that the 50mm gave me the best framing at my preferred working distance on the EOS 40D body. Before you write in to me mentioning how I bashed the 50mm f/1.2 lens before here on my blog and ask why I keep using it, let me say that, yes, the focusing issues this lens is known for were present, but that at f/5.6 the focusing errors are not very noticeable in the pictures that have them due to the larger depth of field (depending on the picture and subject). Not only does this lens backfocus, but it also is very inconsistent when using autofocus. You can place the camera on a tripod in a completely static scene with a subject that is completely still and autofocus 3 times on the subject and get a slightly different focus plane each time (a slight difference that’s not so slight at f/1.2. The 85mm f/1.2 lens is very consistent in comparison.) So I shot many extra frames to make sure I’d have pictures where the focus was just right. I guess we can only thank Canon for this marvelous $1600 piece of engineering. And I hope you realize I’m being sarcastic here.

I’ve included a lighting diagram below where you can also see the equipment I used and some of the settings. You’ll note that I used a Cactus V4 wireless trigger and receivers to trigger the Canon Speedlites. I didn’t use the Canon ST-E2 because quite frankly it can be a pain in the ass to have to make sure every time that the infrared sensors on all the flashes are within line of sight with the ST-E2 trigger. And in this case the background light would be behind the subject so there would be no way for me to maintain line of sight with it. You would have thought that by now Canon would have already worked on a wireless flash solution based on a more reliable radio frequency technology. Fake Chuck recently wrote about this too, and one can only hope that Canon updates the old and overly expensive ST-E2 sometime soon with technology that’s worthy of the 21st century.

Lighting Setup (click for larger image)

The gels I used on the Speedlites were from the Rosco Strobist collection (very nice set). In the picture below you can see just the effect the yellow light had on the picture. The background and key light were turned off. Here I was trying to position the president in such a way that the light fell on his head and shoulders the way I wanted. I had to ask him to step back and sideways a few centimeters a couple of times.

Test shot with just the yellow light on top

And in the following picture taken after setting everything up you can see the effect that just the red background light and the yellow light had on the overall result. The flash with the red gel behind the model was pointed towards the white wall and made it completely red. There was some light from the yellow gelled flash hitting the flag and I tried to minimize that by repositioning the flash and zooming the head to give a narrower coverage. The black thing on the left is part of the softbox (turned off for this picture) and you can also see part of the reflector on the right. During the actual shoot with the president I had the softbox placed much closer to him and had him stand right next to the reflector.

Test shot using my assistant as the model, just the red background light and yellow light on top

And of course in the end it all came together to create the final picture:

President D. D. Bouterse of the Republic of Suriname

The makeup for this photoshoot was done by Gillian Calor, and she did a very nice job. There was very little I had to do in that area in post production.

As I mentioned before, there’s a reason why I chose to use the above setting for this picture and that is to add some meaning to the end result. The president is standing against a red background that’s supposed to resemble the red color from the flag. The meaning of the red color in the flag is love and progress. The president resembles the yellow star in the flag, which is why he is lit by yellow light shining from above. The meaning of the yellow star is unity of all ethnic groups and a golden future. Before his election the president often mentioned how it was his dream to bring together the people in Suriname, all the different ethnic groups, unite them and have them all work together for a much better (golden) future for everyone. So by making him resemble the yellow star I think that this portrait highlights one of his most important goals, and further communicates the idea that he’s the one who’ll lead the nation to achieve that goal. And he will do this against the background of love and progress for everyone (red color). In addition the yellow light is shining from above, which adds a spiritual meaning to it. During his campaign the president often mentioned how he was being assisted by an invisible hand, and how a higher power was guiding the process of change in politics in Suriname. So by making the yellow light shine from above and making it rest on his head and his shoulders it resembles the help and guidance he receives from above during his term as president of Suriname for the following 5 years. The president wore a purple tie that day and I decided not to modify the color in post production. Purple is the color of the National Democratic Party (NDP), which is the political party the president comes from. Although the overall picture is mostly about Suriname as a whole, the purple tie adds a hint to the NDP in the final result. So in summary this picture shows that president D. D. Bouterse, with the guidance he receives from above and against the background of love and progress for everyone, will further strengthen the unity of the people in Suriname and lead them closer to the promised golden future.

I’m glad that they trusted me enough to give me a lot of creative freedom to do what I wanted to do. I’m also glad I really got the expression on the president’s face that I was looking for. I was worried that I would not be able to get the expression I wanted from him. Usually the president looks serious, neutral or cheerful. But I managed to get this very friendly look from him after trying for about 30 shots. Two shots later I was done. This look was important to me because it portrays him as a nice and friendly person, and hopefully it will contribute to his image in a positive way.

And finally I thought it was nice to see how this portrait compares to official portraits of previous presidents of Suriname and other presidents in the region:

Presidential Portraits (click for larger image)

UPDATE September 17th, 2010:

Yesterday David Hobby from Strobist.com linked to this post on his website, and I’ve been receiving a lot of comments and exposure as a result of that. I don’t think I have to say what an honor it is for me to be mentioned on Strobist.com. It’s one of the most important websites on the Internet as far as off-camera lighting is concerned, and I have learned a lot from all the information there, some of which I’ve used in the shoot I wrote about above. I even used the Strobist filter kit. I appreciate all the comments, the positive ones and also the criticism, I can’t reply on each and every one of them with a “Thank you” but I want to let you all know that I value all the feedback. Thanks a lot

UPDATE January 8th, 2011:

Radio Nederland Wereldomroep (RNW) interviewed me about taking the official portrait of the president of Suriname last year, and I’ve now uploaded an MP3 of this radio interview which you can download here. There was also a newsitem on their site, and you can download a PDF copy of that here.

Picture of a deep part of the universe, taken by NASA.

The picture of the universe above shows us what is typical of such pictures: Little bits of light surrounded by a vast ocean of darkness. This picture tells us a lot more about the universe, about nature and about life in general, than most people will realize. One of the most important things to take away from this picture is that the universe is a LOT more about darkness than it is about light.

I wrote before about the fact that we’re living in a world of pain. Every day I look around me and I see lots of suffering and lots of pain. Sure, there are positive things happening here and there, but all of that is surrounded by and drowned in all the pain and suffering. It seems that anything positive doesn’t last for very long, and in fact, like I also wrote before, there can never really be lasting happiness in life. And if you look at the picture of the universe above, that is exactly what it is showing us. Small specks of light surrounded by an ocean of darkness. Small positive experiences surrounded by an ocean of negativity. Little bits of happiness surrounded by an ocean of pain and suffering. The little bits of happiness are like a small drop of water on a hot plate; in the end it really has no effect. This picture tells us what life in this universe is all about.

The universe is more about darkness than it is about light. It’s more about the dark experiences than it is about the pleasant experiences. It is more about the negative than it is about the positive. At its core, life is all about darkness, about pain and suffering, from the moment you’re born all the way up to the moment you die. You cry yourself into the world, you enter a constant struggle to stay alive in an environment filled with hostility and in the end you grow old and die anyway. In between you might experience moments of what most people refer to as “happiness,” but it will always be against the underlying purpose of constant struggle, pain and suffering. Again, a small drop of water on a hot plate. If there really is such a thing as a hell, the universe could certainly be classified as some kind of hell. It could be worse, but it’s pretty bad already as it is.

I’m not a religious person and I don’t think much of religion, but it’s interesting to note that even the bible mentions that in the beginning there was first total darkness until god created light. Darkness must have been the very first thing god created, for obvious reasons. And as you can see in the picture above, the light he supposedly created in the universe is almost nothing compared to the darkness that exists. In fact, all the light seems overwhelmed by darkness. It really doesn’t stand a chance. Stars come and go in this universe, but the darkness will always be there. Happy moments may enter your life to stay for a short period, but the only thing that always stays, whether you like to admit it or not, is the underlying purpose of pain and suffering.

And that sums up my experience with life nicely.