You don't always get what you pay for, or have to pay for what you get. Here's a list of free programs that will keep your computer happy, and add convenience to your experience.
We'll start with several programs that protect your computer from malware, spyware, tracking software, and malicious attacks. But we round that out with an office suite and some graphics software for the digital photographer. Also provided is a few links to sites that index and review freeware programs, and a nice collection of free clipart.
Kill Those Nasty Bugs
AVG Anti-Virus : Free for personal use, AVG is a full featured program that gives you the option of configuring your protection if you care to do that. Updates are frequent and install automatically. Custom settings and configurations are possible though most users will find the default setting acceptable.
AVG Anti-Spyware : A combination of freeware and shareware, in that AVG allows you to install and use the full featured program for 30 days before it reverts to the freebie. This is a nice touch in that you get to see what you'd be paying for, and yet if you don't use the additional features, or don't feel they are necessary, then you can continue to use the program.
After running Adware and Spybot (below) I ran AVG-AS for the first time and it found dozens of tracking cookies that the other programs did not. The freeware version does not however provide a shield to prevent installation of malware, etc., so if you don't upgrade you may want to add SpyBot to your protection scheme.
SpyBot Search and Destroy: A mature spyware program that not only cleans your system of spyware but provides immunization against those bugs and bad guys. You can run it in simple or expert mode which allows you to configure your protection. You can lock your home page, for instance, and even save and restore the spyware it removes in case it disables a program that you decide to keep.
Ad-Aware SE : One of the original spyware programs, and still quite good for spotting bugs. Can be run in combination with other programs, like SpyBot for more complete protection.
Spyware Blaster : Focused on the Active X controls that can manipulate your browser, SB inoculates your browser so that malicious web sites can not invade your system. This should not be confused with AVG-AS, SpyBot or Adaware. Run Blaster in addition to one or more of the others.
SpamExperts: : The Home edition is for personal use, and it's simple enough. After an install it sends an email through your ISP, and provides some basic information and a link to their site. There's an interactive process where you can evaluate what program considers spam, and correct that if you wish.
The program resides in your taskbar near the clock, and the user interface is self explanatory. Though they estimate two weeks for the software to learn your preferences, it immediately identified spam targeting my Inbox.
Tip: After launching SpamExperts, go to Settings and on the General Settings tab check the box for Launch SpamExperts at Login. A web based email account (on Yahoo for instance) is always the safest, but if you've been targeted by the spammers and don't want to change your email address, SpamExperts has a solution that works.
Final Recommendation
As a computer and network technician I've been asked more times than I can count to find out what's wrong with a system. Many people automatically assume they have a virus. I've not found that to be the case. Most often when your computer starts hanging or slowing down it's because your registry is conflicted, or you have programs running in the background that are consuming the system resources.
My first advice has always been to moderate your browsing. No porn sites, freebie sites (not to be confused with freeware), and stay off the chat channels. But some people can't resist. If that's you then load up on some good software, and either buy a full featured program or run at least two of the above programs once a week. Don't forget to check for updates to the programs or turn on the auto update function.
Web Browsing
FireFox: : A healthy alternative to Internet Explorer. Firefox offers tabbed browsing which makes it easy to monitor several sites at once. Right click on a page and you can open it in IE, or search the web for a highlighted phrase, drag and drop text selections to search engines like Google or Dictionary.com.
FireFox won my heart by offering an extension called AdBlock. With this plugin you can eliminate ads selectively with a mouse click, or download a file listing the most common offenders to bandwidth.
Firefox can also be configured to delete cookies and files when you close the program. It has a built in download manager, and a password and forms manager that are both configurable.
Office Suites
Open Office: : A complete office suite that should appeal to individual business people, students and users who don't care to spend several hundred dollars on Microsoft Office.
Writer is a word processor that resembles Word Perfect in the GUI, but also offers features like the ability to save to multiple formats. In my experience the results vary, but you can always save to the doc format for Word.
The drawing program allows you to create slides which can then be used in the presentation program, and the database offers both business and personal formats. The suite also comes with a spreadsheet and a module titled Math that seems fairly intuitive.
A bargain at twice the price, Open Office version 2 is reasonably stable and well-featured suite that deserves a serious look, even if your interest is only word processing.
Images
Picasa 2 : Google's entry for browsing photos and image files also offers web space to display and share your photos or artistic creations. Once installed it will catalog every image on your hard drive, and provide an Explorer type interface to view them.
For casual users it provides some basic tools for editing images, and the cool thing is that any action can be reversed even after the changes have been saved.
Irfanview : A first rate image conversion tool that allows you to save in all standard formats and rename by your own convention. You can resize images quickly, and there's some basic editing tools as well. IV also plays movies, audio files, and makes a multi-media slideshow easy to assemble. A standard among serious photographers for several years.
JAlbum : This is a feature rich program for developing contact sheets, slideshows, and photo albums that can be displayed with a web browser. Place your prize photos in a folder, resize them to 800x600 (a nice size for viewing) and run JAlbum. The interface is fairly intuitive, and you can redo your project if you don't like the result.
JAlbum will make thumbnails of your images and display on a web page inside your new folder. You have several options, or skins, for the web pages, and since the code is written in Cascading Styles you also modify a skin to your satisfaction.
You can also upload the page and files to a server on the web, or burn a CD/DVD and send it to your friends or family. You may need to update your Java Virtual Machine, but that's also for free, from Sun Microsystems.
Utility Programs
Yankee Clipper III : If you're doing a lot of cut and paste, or just want to save the information that you copy to the clipboard then you'll love Yankee Clipper.
Capable of storing 200 text items, 200 web site URLs, 20 bitmaps and 20 metafiles in its standard History Mode, YC also offers users the option of permanently storing all formats in Boilerplate Mode.
WinZip : The most popular compression utility for Windows users, WinZip provides a mature interface, a wizard for the timid, and rock stable performance.
Good start pages for freeware
For 10 years No Nags means the software is free and there's no splash screens promoting you to buy the program. Programs are rated on a reliable 6 duck scale.
FreewareFiles is another site that provides user reviews of the software with a 5 star rating based on those reviews.
If you're looking for clip art to spice up a web page or a presentation, you'll find over 13,000 images to choose from at WP Clip Art. You can even download the entire image database which self installs into a folder arrangement. Since the images are in a png format (portable network graphics) you can significantly enlarge the image without degradation.
So before you lay out your cash, or your credit card, for software that may be only marginally better, if that, you might want to try a freeware program that does the same thing. After all, it never hurts to shop around.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Monday, September 25, 2006
Review: Iraq For Sale
"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." — Japanese adage
Iraq For Sale contrasts the war in Iraq with previous conflicts, noting that there are over 100,000 private contractors employed in this effort. Jobs that were previously the domain of the US military are now outsourced to firms like Blackwater Security Counseling, CACI, Titan, and KBR (and its parent company, Halliburton). Private security contractors number approximately 20,000, more than any other contingent of the coalition forces, including the British army.
The film asserts that the use of private contractors escalated because Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was desperate to deal with the Sunni insurgency that continues largely unabated today. Given the current level of troops deployed in Iraq, that means that private contractors are the largest non-US military contingent of the multinational force.
Investigators always follow the money, and director Robert Greenwald reports that of all appropriations for the war, 40% of the funds go to private contractors for troop support and rebuilding Iraq. At issue are the 'no bid' contracts that exclude competition, and 'cost plus' provisions that provide a guaranteed percentage of profit based on expenditures. But the film also points out that profit often takes precedence over service to our troops, and companies have also cut corners that place their own employees in danger.
As the allegations of abuse, profiteering, and fraud surfaced there have been a number of amendments proposed by members of Congress to investigate and regulate contractors, but each has been defeated by the Republican majority.
The most persistent in this regard is Senator Dorgan of North Dakota, who has offered an amendment at least four times that would establish a special committee in the Senate to investigate the allegations. This committee would be bipartisan and follow the precedent established by the Truman Committee that was established in 1941. One of the special features on this DVD provides C-Span footage highlighting the arguments made both in favor and against these amendments as well as the roll call vote that followed.
"We used to call them mercenaries." — Former Marine general
As the documentary begins, Greenwald first points to private security firms and focuses on Blackwater SC and the contractors who were killed and whose charred bodies were hung from a bridge in Fallujah. The movie introduces us to the families of two of the men killed.
The idea is to make us familiar with these men as people, to develop an emotional appeal. This may resonate with some viewers, yet these men were veterans of US Special Forces. They knew the risks they faced and accepted the conditions of their employ. That they were sent on a mission without a map, and undermanned, doesn’t negate the fact that they made a choice and died as a result. What the film doesn’t tell us is that Blackwater operatives are paid as much as a $1000 a day to provide security services, though one mother does mention that the money was good. Very, very good if you compare that to what we pay our soldiers and reservists.
The reaction of Blackwater is more telling and supportive of the overall theme. By the next day they had hired a lobbying firm to make the right contacts and insure their viability as a contractor. Visits to Senators Warner and Santorum and Representative Hunter were apparently successful as Blackwater suffered no adverse consequences, and indeed managed to garner even more contracts, doubling their value in 2004 and raising it to $221 million in 2005.
"We gotta get outta this place." — The Animals
Moving on to the Abu Ghraib prison and the scandal that erupted in October 2003, Greenwald again finds private contractors doing the work that previously was reserved for the military and CIA. When photos surfaced showing abuse of the detainees, several soldiers were charged and court-martialed, the most famous being Lynndie England and Charles Graner of the 372nd Military Police company.
In the film, former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski claims surprise when viewing the photos and seeing civilians inside the cells, giving the impression that that was first indication she had that contractors employed by CACI were active within the prison. But it was no surprise to the enlisted men who were interviewed. One army interrogator even recounts a conversation with a CACI employee who told him that he made four to five times the money for doing the same job.
Another man filmed in silhouette explains that CACI contractors were given the rules of interrogation, but with a "wink and a nod" that provided the chain of command "plausible deniability" as to the actual methods used. To date none of these private contractors have been held accountable.
To facilitate interrogations of detainees, a company called Titan employed under contract as many as 4,000 linguists. One of the men hired claims his interview over the phone lasted only a minute, and that no further training was provided. He also claims that many of the translators were only partially fluent in English, and that they performed their work without supervision or follow up. Obviously under these circumstances the potential for misunderstanding exists and the consequences not only include bad intelligence, but for our military men and women in the field it could be catastrophic.
An amendment authored by Senator Dodd of Connecticut to limit or prohibit the use of private contractors for detention and interrogation of prisoners was defeated, like Senator Dorgan’s amendments, along party lines.
"Highway to hell" — AC/DC
Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR (aka Kellogg, Brown & Root) has long been a target for critics because of their acquisition of no bid contracts, and of course Vice President Cheney’s association with the firm. Iraq For Sale highlights the firm’s involvement in logistical transport, and services provided for our troops, such as water purification, meals, and laundry.
We hear the story of Americans who signed on as truck drivers and were ambushed by insurgents after being sent out without an escort into an area that was hostile. Again, we meet these men and their families, and hear their stories of the attack. What we learn from them is that under the corporate model they are expendable, and one describes the initials KBR as Kill, Bury, and Replace.
It’s understandable that they did not expect to be in the middle of a war. They went to Iraq to work on the reconstruction effort, and to make several times what they could make in the States, all tax free as well. Their naivete is engaging, yet the film also brings out the fact that American contractors can resign their positions at any time, unlike the Third Country Nationals who are obligated for two years.
This segment also brings to reality the cost plus provisions of these contracts, and how equipment is routinely destroyed rather than repaired because the more the company spends the more profit they make. In other words, because KBR and perhaps other contractors are paid a percentage based on expenditures, there is a concerted effort to run up the costs. One example involved the leasing of vehicles for $7,000 a month for 36 months resulting in a cost to the taxpayer of $252,000 for a truck that could be bought outright for approximately $45,000.
"Don’t drink the water." — Advice to the turistas
One of the more disturbing aspects of the film is presented by Ben Carter, a water purification expert who testified before Congress that of 67 plants operated by KBR, 63 delivered to our troops water that was not chlorinated and contained blood-borne pathogens like typhus, malaria, cryptosporidium, and others. While the primary use was for bathing and toilets, the possibility of infection and chronic illness exists.
KBR also operated laundries that reportedly charge as much as $99 for one bag of clothes, and chow halls where the lines were an hour long. Worse, meals were provided at designated times, allowing the insurgents to target the facilities when they were full of soldiers, rather than operating on a 24-hour schedule so the troops would not be present en masse.
"It's like déja vu, all over again." — Yogi Berra
Obviously a good portion of this documentary revisits the exposés already headlined in the news, and how much of this has changed is not known. But the overall presentation paints a picture that is antithetical to our values as Americans. Private contractors apparently answer to no one in the performance of their duties, and yet to the Iraqis they represent America. Combined with the failure of Congress provide oversight and exert fiscal and moral constraints, it’s safe to say that our interests are secondary to what Dwight Eisenhower termed the military industrial complex.
In part the lack of accountability stems from an unhealthy symbiosis between our government and the contractors it employs. Inside the Beltway those who achieve a prominent position in government can easily find employment with a firm that does business with the parent agency. In some cases, especially among political appointees, there’s a revolving door as they enter and reenter the public and private sectors.
None can call it bribery when a government official resigns to work for a company that he or she previously regulated. And as the officer corps migrates to defense contractors, and congressional staff members head for a K Street lobbying firm, and political appointees alternately sit on corporate boards, there will be the equivalent of insider trading in our capitol. But as Major General Smedley Butler, two-time winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, wrote in his treatise "War is a Racket", there’s no time for making money as when the bullets are flying.
There’s no doubt that Robert Greenwald is an accomplished director and a muckraker to boot. He takes on the task of sorting through the muck known as the Iraq War and points out the slimy details of outsourcing our military and making a profit while doing it. Of course, like most muckrakers, he has a political agenda as well. Make no mistake about the timing of this release, or the underlying message that we’d be better off with the Democrats running both houses of Congress. The filmmakers encourage sharing the DVD with friends and neighbors. In fact, the DVD offers a highlighted version specifically edited for organizing.
Iraq For Sale merits four out of five stars, and is worth the money. The idea is to share it with friends and neighbors, and whether they’re liberal or conservative, there’s food for thought for everyone who cares about America, its future, and our troops abroad.
Friday, September 15, 2006
A Brief Guide to Digital Photography
Would you like to shoot like a pro and have your photos come out ready for print? Well I can’t promise that, but I can help you get closer to that point if you follow a few basic rules when you’re taking pictures.
First, you must know your camera. There are several websites that offer a detailed review of most of the cameras on the market today. Even if you’ve already bought a new camera, or you’re shopping for a used one, you’ll find these reviews helpful because they often describe the idiosyncrasies of the model, and provide some information on settings that will improve your ability to take a better photo.
For instance, after reading Phil Askey’s review of the Canon 10D (http://dpreview.com) I decided to set my exposure compensation to a negative value when shooting in bright light. This pulls the exposure back from pure white, and avoids the loss of highlight detail. I might have learned that on my own, through trial and error, but that would have meant that some of my photos would be less than optimum.
Just the same, you can increase the exposure value in low light. This is advantageous if you do not have tripod handy, or your subject is moving. You probably know that your digital camera, like film, has an ISO rating or setting, and you can think of the EV or exposure value as an intermediate value, or a means of fine tuning the ISO.
The best way to insure that your color photos are well balanced is to manually set the white point with a gray card. Now that’s a bit confusing isn’t it? Well consider that it is very difficult to find anything that is pure white, even paper has a tint, so the standard is instead a precise level of gray. 18% gray cards have been used for over a half century, though some recommend 12% gray for digital. (Canon recommends using a white card or plain sheet of paper)
The main thing is that you have a color neutral surface so that you can register the light source. This sets the camera so that it captures the colors without the tint associated with artificial lighting. You can buy gray cards, and even lens cleaning cloths in gray, from any decent photo store. By taking this simple step you will insure that you’ll get the best color rendition that your camera offers.
To do this you’ll want to enter the menu and select Manual White Balance, and then meter the card. There is a difference between incidental light, meaning that which falls on the subject, and the reflected light coming from the subject. While the camera only meters reflected light through the lens, you’ll get your best results by placing your gray card so that you can meter the light as it falls on the subject. In some cases they’ll be the same, or very close, but it’s a good idea to understand the difference if you’re going through the trouble to set the white point or balance your color using a gray card.
In case this has you worried, all digital cameras have a default setting that automatically sets the white point. This generally works well outdoors. There’s also specific settings for florescent lighting and incandescent lighting. Some cameras are better than others, and when shooting indoors you can use the flash, but under artificial light the only way to be certain is to use a gray card.
Another consideration is the file format. Some cameras only offer one format and that is jpeg. This is a compressed file, and in processing the compression there’s always some level of artifact and loss of information. Generally this is not a problem, but naturally as compression is increased, so are the artifacts. There are software programs that can remove most of the artifacts, but none can add in the lost detail.
That’s one reason why professionals and serious amateurs often select a raw or tiff format instead of jpeg. The raw format stores the actual information collected by the sensor and allows the photographer to manipulate that data. Tiffs are uncompressed images with the camera settings applied, but not many cameras offer this format.
Raw files are approximately the same number of pixels as the sensor. Because the raw data is interpolated to provide red, green, and blue pixels the file size of a tiff will be at least three times the size of a raw file. If your camera records in more than 8 bits per color channel, typically 10 or 12 bits per channel, the tiff file will be six times the size of the raw file.
To add some clarity to this I’ll use my Canon 10D as an example. The raw file is 5.8 megabytes. At 8 bits per color channel the tiff file is 18 megabytes. At 16 bits per channel the tiff file is 36 megabytes.
The camera only records 10 bits per color channel, but the image can only be saved as either a 8 bit or 16 bit file. That’s just the convention and there’s no getting around it.
So what’s the difference? Eight bit color is sometimes described as “true” color. It’s about what we can see, or readily discriminate. Basically 256 levels of intensity in all three channels—Red, Green, and Blue. That also corresponds to the binary system that our computers use, and display. In binary it takes 8 bits to count to 256.
However, in the real world there’s an infinite number of colors. And professional grade photo printers are capable of printing wider range of color than our monitors normally display. So, relatively speaking, a camera that records 10 or 12 bits per channel provides more color information, and therefore detail, for those who are capable of printing the wider gamut or range of colors.
Photography became popular because of the 35mm format. The actual size of the frame is 36mm by 24mm so why it’s called 35mm I’m not sure. The point here is that SLR digital cameras use the same lenses that a 35mm film camera does. Consumer models use smaller lens and quotes the focal length in 35mm equivalents. Keep in mind there’s a difference between 35mm as a format, and 35mm as a focal length which also determines the field of view.
The use of the 35mm standard made it convenient for photographers who gravitated from film to digital. However, most digital SLRs have smaller sensors making them more affordable. However, this also causes a cropping of the image projected by the lens and results in a telephoto effect. My 10D has a crop factor of 1.6; therefore my 50 mm macro lens is equivalent to a 80mm lens on a 35mm film camera. Of course we are now seeing full frame digital SLRs meaning that the sensor is the same size as the 35mm film frame, so these cameras do not crop the image. The least expensive is the Canon 5D which as of this date sells for $3000, no lenses included.
So most digital SLRs have a crop factor, and certainly all of those within the price range of the average enthusiast. Now there different ways of looking at this. On one hand my 7-300mm zoom suddenly taps out 480mm. That’s a nice long shot. But the 20mm I just bought is effectively a 32mm which drops the field of view from almost 90 degrees to maybe 60. That’s still wide angle, but it also cost me another $200 to get it.
Consumer models have fixed lenses. All that I know of have zoom lenses, some that look like an SLR and provide as much as a 12x magnification. The focal length of the lens is quoted in a 35mm equivalent, but the lens itself is actually many times smaller. The reason for this miniaturization is that the sensors are very small. My Canon G1, for instance, has a sensor that measures 7.18mm x 5.32mm, or about one-fifth the size of a 35mm film frame.
To fit the lens to the sensor, the lens had to be made smaller. So the 7mm to 21mm zoom lens is quoted as a 35mm to 105mm equivalent because the field of view is the same through the lens as those focal lengths on a 35mm film camera.
The reason for bringing this up involves the effect on depth of field. Normally when taking a photograph some consideration is given to the depth of field because you always want the entire subject in focus, and just the same there are times when you’d like the background to be out of focus (this is known as bokeh, a Japanese word). The problem that I and others had with the early digitals was that there was no bokeh even with the lens wide open. And there was a bit of wonder when at f4 we were getting sharp pictures of objects some considerable distance away.
Depth of field is controlled by the aperture, or the opening of the lens. For several decades aperture is expressed as a function of the size of the lens. So f2 is the focal length of the lens divided by two. (In other words, the lens opening is half the diameter of the lens.) Naturally this varies with the actual focal length and on a 7mm lens the actual size of the opening at f2 is 3.5mm. But the 35mm equivalent in field of view is a 35mm focal length, and f2 on a 35mm film camera lens is actually 17.5 mm.
Now the tricky part of this is that while the aperture of the lens is relative, the depth of field is determined by the actual size of the opening. If in fact you were to stop down the 35mm film lens to an opening of only 3.5mm, the aperture would be an f8. Extending this to the minimum aperture, an f8 on my G1 would be equal to f42 on the 35mm focal length film lens. That’s extraordinary, and the reason that the depth of field was significantly enlarged.
The camera manufacturers have made allowance for this phenomenon and all the newer models (2000 and on) offer a choice of scenarios. And if you’re a casual shooter you’ll definitely want to use the portrait mode, or macro mode, if you want the bokeh in the background; and landscape mode if you want the entire scene in focus. If however, you aspire to understand this better you can do a search on "depth of field" and the "circle of confusion" which is the zone where the image appears to be in focus.
In addition to the lens and aperture issue, consumer cameras also exhibit a higher noise level than the SLRs. Because their sensors are very small, the pixels are closer together. And the more pixels they pack into a sensor the more noise they generate. This has led to noise reduction algorithms in the camera’s firmware and essentially negates some of the advantages of the extra pixels.
So the advantage an SLRs offer is that sensor is larger, allowing more space between pixels, and therefore has less noise per pixel. In addition, some SLRs like my Canon 10D have a CMOS sensor rather than the CCD or charged coupled device used in the consumer models. It’s the primary reason that Canon is able to reduce noise and other artifacts in their digital SLRs to a level that has become the benchmark for all others.
Let me say it this way. If I am a CMOS sensor, I live in a house and I have 9 neighbors surrounding my property. If I were a consumer camera I’d have 9 neighbors but all in one very small apartment building. And that’s not an unfair comparison.
One of the complaints among reviewers is that manufacturers continue to engage in a pixel race, each year adding a couple of megapixels to their sensors, crowding them even further, rather than addressing the noise factor in the chips. For this reason improvements in image quality are incremental, and the impression on the consumers is somewhat misleading.
What I’m saying is that last years model shouldn’t be scorned because it has less pixels, and don’t be fooled into thinking that a ten megapixel sensor in a consumer model will provide an equivalent image to that from a true SLR. Ultimately it depends on how large a photo you wish to print, as well as what type of photos you like to take.
One of the best ways to learn what a particular camera will do is to join a forum based on that brand or model of camera. When you pose a question include some information about your skill level, and whether you take photos indoors or outdoors, of people of landscape or architecture, and what size prints you’d like to make, and basically what’s most important to you in a camera. That will usually generate some meaningful responses that will help you become a better photographer, and if you’re shopping, it will help you narrow your choices.
Finally, all the camera manufacturers include a software suite that’s adequate for fine tuning and printing your photos. So it’s a good idea, if you’re just starting out, to learn those programs before you go shopping for something reportedly better. And there are better or more fully featured programs, but unless you’re planning a career in photography you probably won’t need them.
That said, there are a couple of freeware programs that you may find very useful. The first is Picasa2, a beta program from Google. It requires either Windows 2000 Professional, some version of Windows XP, or Linux. What it does is index all your photos, offer some basic controls to enhance them, and makes it easy to publish them on the web. You also get 250 MB of storage (approximately 500-600 photos) for your web albums, and you can make them public or not.
The other is lightweight image viewer that can create slide shows, play videos or music. But Irfanview is more than that. It’s what I use for batch resizing, conversion to another format, and renaming photos. In other words, if I have just taken 50 photos and I want to rename the files September xxx then I just load the photos into Irfanview, designate a folder, let it do its thing. It happens to be very popular among amateurs and even some pros, so it’s worth your time to take a look.
If you’ve read this far you’re probably interested in learning more about digital photography. The web is a great place for information, tutorials and reviews. But I also encourage you to grab a handle and join a couple of forums where you can interact with other photographers, see what they’re doing, get some ideas of what you might do with your own camera. Above all have fun. You’ll always do better doing something you enjoy.
First, you must know your camera. There are several websites that offer a detailed review of most of the cameras on the market today. Even if you’ve already bought a new camera, or you’re shopping for a used one, you’ll find these reviews helpful because they often describe the idiosyncrasies of the model, and provide some information on settings that will improve your ability to take a better photo.
For instance, after reading Phil Askey’s review of the Canon 10D (http://dpreview.com) I decided to set my exposure compensation to a negative value when shooting in bright light. This pulls the exposure back from pure white, and avoids the loss of highlight detail. I might have learned that on my own, through trial and error, but that would have meant that some of my photos would be less than optimum.
Just the same, you can increase the exposure value in low light. This is advantageous if you do not have tripod handy, or your subject is moving. You probably know that your digital camera, like film, has an ISO rating or setting, and you can think of the EV or exposure value as an intermediate value, or a means of fine tuning the ISO.
The best way to insure that your color photos are well balanced is to manually set the white point with a gray card. Now that’s a bit confusing isn’t it? Well consider that it is very difficult to find anything that is pure white, even paper has a tint, so the standard is instead a precise level of gray. 18% gray cards have been used for over a half century, though some recommend 12% gray for digital. (Canon recommends using a white card or plain sheet of paper)
The main thing is that you have a color neutral surface so that you can register the light source. This sets the camera so that it captures the colors without the tint associated with artificial lighting. You can buy gray cards, and even lens cleaning cloths in gray, from any decent photo store. By taking this simple step you will insure that you’ll get the best color rendition that your camera offers.
To do this you’ll want to enter the menu and select Manual White Balance, and then meter the card. There is a difference between incidental light, meaning that which falls on the subject, and the reflected light coming from the subject. While the camera only meters reflected light through the lens, you’ll get your best results by placing your gray card so that you can meter the light as it falls on the subject. In some cases they’ll be the same, or very close, but it’s a good idea to understand the difference if you’re going through the trouble to set the white point or balance your color using a gray card.
In case this has you worried, all digital cameras have a default setting that automatically sets the white point. This generally works well outdoors. There’s also specific settings for florescent lighting and incandescent lighting. Some cameras are better than others, and when shooting indoors you can use the flash, but under artificial light the only way to be certain is to use a gray card.
Another consideration is the file format. Some cameras only offer one format and that is jpeg. This is a compressed file, and in processing the compression there’s always some level of artifact and loss of information. Generally this is not a problem, but naturally as compression is increased, so are the artifacts. There are software programs that can remove most of the artifacts, but none can add in the lost detail.
That’s one reason why professionals and serious amateurs often select a raw or tiff format instead of jpeg. The raw format stores the actual information collected by the sensor and allows the photographer to manipulate that data. Tiffs are uncompressed images with the camera settings applied, but not many cameras offer this format.
Raw files are approximately the same number of pixels as the sensor. Because the raw data is interpolated to provide red, green, and blue pixels the file size of a tiff will be at least three times the size of a raw file. If your camera records in more than 8 bits per color channel, typically 10 or 12 bits per channel, the tiff file will be six times the size of the raw file.
To add some clarity to this I’ll use my Canon 10D as an example. The raw file is 5.8 megabytes. At 8 bits per color channel the tiff file is 18 megabytes. At 16 bits per channel the tiff file is 36 megabytes.
The camera only records 10 bits per color channel, but the image can only be saved as either a 8 bit or 16 bit file. That’s just the convention and there’s no getting around it.
So what’s the difference? Eight bit color is sometimes described as “true” color. It’s about what we can see, or readily discriminate. Basically 256 levels of intensity in all three channels—Red, Green, and Blue. That also corresponds to the binary system that our computers use, and display. In binary it takes 8 bits to count to 256.
However, in the real world there’s an infinite number of colors. And professional grade photo printers are capable of printing wider range of color than our monitors normally display. So, relatively speaking, a camera that records 10 or 12 bits per channel provides more color information, and therefore detail, for those who are capable of printing the wider gamut or range of colors.
Photography became popular because of the 35mm format. The actual size of the frame is 36mm by 24mm so why it’s called 35mm I’m not sure. The point here is that SLR digital cameras use the same lenses that a 35mm film camera does. Consumer models use smaller lens and quotes the focal length in 35mm equivalents. Keep in mind there’s a difference between 35mm as a format, and 35mm as a focal length which also determines the field of view.
The use of the 35mm standard made it convenient for photographers who gravitated from film to digital. However, most digital SLRs have smaller sensors making them more affordable. However, this also causes a cropping of the image projected by the lens and results in a telephoto effect. My 10D has a crop factor of 1.6; therefore my 50 mm macro lens is equivalent to a 80mm lens on a 35mm film camera. Of course we are now seeing full frame digital SLRs meaning that the sensor is the same size as the 35mm film frame, so these cameras do not crop the image. The least expensive is the Canon 5D which as of this date sells for $3000, no lenses included.
So most digital SLRs have a crop factor, and certainly all of those within the price range of the average enthusiast. Now there different ways of looking at this. On one hand my 7-300mm zoom suddenly taps out 480mm. That’s a nice long shot. But the 20mm I just bought is effectively a 32mm which drops the field of view from almost 90 degrees to maybe 60. That’s still wide angle, but it also cost me another $200 to get it.
Consumer models have fixed lenses. All that I know of have zoom lenses, some that look like an SLR and provide as much as a 12x magnification. The focal length of the lens is quoted in a 35mm equivalent, but the lens itself is actually many times smaller. The reason for this miniaturization is that the sensors are very small. My Canon G1, for instance, has a sensor that measures 7.18mm x 5.32mm, or about one-fifth the size of a 35mm film frame.
To fit the lens to the sensor, the lens had to be made smaller. So the 7mm to 21mm zoom lens is quoted as a 35mm to 105mm equivalent because the field of view is the same through the lens as those focal lengths on a 35mm film camera.
The reason for bringing this up involves the effect on depth of field. Normally when taking a photograph some consideration is given to the depth of field because you always want the entire subject in focus, and just the same there are times when you’d like the background to be out of focus (this is known as bokeh, a Japanese word). The problem that I and others had with the early digitals was that there was no bokeh even with the lens wide open. And there was a bit of wonder when at f4 we were getting sharp pictures of objects some considerable distance away.
Depth of field is controlled by the aperture, or the opening of the lens. For several decades aperture is expressed as a function of the size of the lens. So f2 is the focal length of the lens divided by two. (In other words, the lens opening is half the diameter of the lens.) Naturally this varies with the actual focal length and on a 7mm lens the actual size of the opening at f2 is 3.5mm. But the 35mm equivalent in field of view is a 35mm focal length, and f2 on a 35mm film camera lens is actually 17.5 mm.
Now the tricky part of this is that while the aperture of the lens is relative, the depth of field is determined by the actual size of the opening. If in fact you were to stop down the 35mm film lens to an opening of only 3.5mm, the aperture would be an f8. Extending this to the minimum aperture, an f8 on my G1 would be equal to f42 on the 35mm focal length film lens. That’s extraordinary, and the reason that the depth of field was significantly enlarged.
The camera manufacturers have made allowance for this phenomenon and all the newer models (2000 and on) offer a choice of scenarios. And if you’re a casual shooter you’ll definitely want to use the portrait mode, or macro mode, if you want the bokeh in the background; and landscape mode if you want the entire scene in focus. If however, you aspire to understand this better you can do a search on "depth of field" and the "circle of confusion" which is the zone where the image appears to be in focus.
In addition to the lens and aperture issue, consumer cameras also exhibit a higher noise level than the SLRs. Because their sensors are very small, the pixels are closer together. And the more pixels they pack into a sensor the more noise they generate. This has led to noise reduction algorithms in the camera’s firmware and essentially negates some of the advantages of the extra pixels.
So the advantage an SLRs offer is that sensor is larger, allowing more space between pixels, and therefore has less noise per pixel. In addition, some SLRs like my Canon 10D have a CMOS sensor rather than the CCD or charged coupled device used in the consumer models. It’s the primary reason that Canon is able to reduce noise and other artifacts in their digital SLRs to a level that has become the benchmark for all others.
Let me say it this way. If I am a CMOS sensor, I live in a house and I have 9 neighbors surrounding my property. If I were a consumer camera I’d have 9 neighbors but all in one very small apartment building. And that’s not an unfair comparison.
One of the complaints among reviewers is that manufacturers continue to engage in a pixel race, each year adding a couple of megapixels to their sensors, crowding them even further, rather than addressing the noise factor in the chips. For this reason improvements in image quality are incremental, and the impression on the consumers is somewhat misleading.
What I’m saying is that last years model shouldn’t be scorned because it has less pixels, and don’t be fooled into thinking that a ten megapixel sensor in a consumer model will provide an equivalent image to that from a true SLR. Ultimately it depends on how large a photo you wish to print, as well as what type of photos you like to take.
One of the best ways to learn what a particular camera will do is to join a forum based on that brand or model of camera. When you pose a question include some information about your skill level, and whether you take photos indoors or outdoors, of people of landscape or architecture, and what size prints you’d like to make, and basically what’s most important to you in a camera. That will usually generate some meaningful responses that will help you become a better photographer, and if you’re shopping, it will help you narrow your choices.
Finally, all the camera manufacturers include a software suite that’s adequate for fine tuning and printing your photos. So it’s a good idea, if you’re just starting out, to learn those programs before you go shopping for something reportedly better. And there are better or more fully featured programs, but unless you’re planning a career in photography you probably won’t need them.
That said, there are a couple of freeware programs that you may find very useful. The first is Picasa2, a beta program from Google. It requires either Windows 2000 Professional, some version of Windows XP, or Linux. What it does is index all your photos, offer some basic controls to enhance them, and makes it easy to publish them on the web. You also get 250 MB of storage (approximately 500-600 photos) for your web albums, and you can make them public or not.
The other is lightweight image viewer that can create slide shows, play videos or music. But Irfanview is more than that. It’s what I use for batch resizing, conversion to another format, and renaming photos. In other words, if I have just taken 50 photos and I want to rename the files September xxx then I just load the photos into Irfanview, designate a folder, let it do its thing. It happens to be very popular among amateurs and even some pros, so it’s worth your time to take a look.
If you’ve read this far you’re probably interested in learning more about digital photography. The web is a great place for information, tutorials and reviews. But I also encourage you to grab a handle and join a couple of forums where you can interact with other photographers, see what they’re doing, get some ideas of what you might do with your own camera. Above all have fun. You’ll always do better doing something you enjoy.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
6000 Dead
I had work in the city and as usual I decided to camp rather than hotel-motel. Babler State Park was my first choice but they were remodeling so I pitched a camp at Robertsville. My birthday was coming up on the 14th and I was looking forward to having dinner with my daughter. She knows all the Tex-Mex joints and I know the Italian. Either was fine with me as long we could spend the evening together.
When I'm camped out I'm always up with the birds. After my coffee, I laid out some clothes and took a shower. I was just dawdling around when the campground host hurried over and told me that planes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York.
The only station we could get clear and with no commercials was NPR. They had Daniel Schoor and Diana Reems on. Then a plane flew into the Pentagon, and that really got my attention. Just how many more planes were headed for targets? That question kept us tuned in.
When I hear people speak of the shock, the horror, the fear, I just can't relate. Maybe it was the way my father raised me, my time in the Navy, or perhaps the innate insouciance I feel towards life in general and catastrophe in particular. In short, a thousand miles from the action I felt no danger.
Nor did I feel fear, or even anger.
The fact is, I found it pretty exciting. Something was happening and there was the scent of chaos, panic, uncertainty, and it stirred my adrenaline like the opening round of a title fight. Though in retrospect what it really amounted to was a fly-by shooting. Instead of bullets they were using jumbo jets with an exponential increase in effect.
Prior to that day, like most people, I was focused more on my life and getting through it than politics and world events. I wasn't unaware of the problems in the Middle East, but before September 2001 I hadn't really connected the dots. The first bombing of the World Trade Center, the embassy bombings in east Africa, Khobar Towers, and the USS Cole. In each case the Muslim jihadis had taken their best shot, and it seemed that we just didn't care. Just like when the Marines in Lebanon were attacked. It was as if our government could not be bothered, that there was no provocation worthy of response.
Personally I avoid troublesome people, but I don't make major detours when one of them crowds my path. Yet the more I learned about the jihadis and Al Qaeda, that's exactly what it seemed our government was doing. Just stepping around the wreckage, and ignoring the casualties.
I would come to feel great empathy for the people who had died in the collapse of the Towers, the Pentagon, and of course for those who simply wanted to get somewhere in a hurry. The videos that were broadcast would bring that home.
None of those who died five years ago in those attacks were known to me, though by some degree of separation I might find a link. As a veteran though, I do feel a camaraderie with those who serve in our military, and as the number of men and women who have died since 9-11-2001 in Iraq and Afghanistan now exceed the number of those who died that late summer day, I become more and more frustrated with those who are charged with leading this country.
Partisanship does not enter into this. The Clinton Administration hindered the investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole, ignored evidence of activity here in the USA and abroad, and failed to exert due diligence in too many other ways to list. Our bureaucratic institutions did not take the threat seriously and undermined those who did.
The present administration for all its bluster has not been effective. First they parleyed an alliance with Pakistan which has not only acquiesced to the jihadis, but has also provided North Korea and Iran (perhaps others) with nuclear materials and expertise. George Bush didn't send enough troops into Afghanistan, and then he quit the hunt for Osama bin Laden to settle an old score with Saddam Hussein.
Of course it was the previous Bush Administration that pieced together a coalition to oust Saddam from Kuwait, thereby favoring one dictatorial regime over another. Worse, they decided to maintain troops and air bases in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states as a deterrent to Saddam's aggression despite the knowledge that this offended bin Laden and others who believe that foreign troops desecrate their hallowed ground
Does anyone even remember Somalia?
And of course the question here is whether or not we are served by a foreign policy that entangles our government and our citizens in the affairs of those who do not share our culture or values, and are just as likely to turn against us as to remain a friend.
In WWII we trained the VietCong only see those tactics used against us. We supported Saddam in his ill-fated venture into Iran, only to oppose his ill-fated venture into Kuwait. We trained and supplied the mujhadeen and now face the same weapons and tactics that brought the Soviet army to its knees.
Would it not be more prudent to ally with those who have common goals and aspirations?
I have no compassion for those who embrace the jihadi philosophy, and I see no alternative but to assist them in their quest for martyrdom. Kill them one and all. Scorch the earth they inhabit, destroy the foundations and proponents of their beliefs, and do this with a zealous determination. But do this and all that is necessary with prudence and forethought. Know the enemy better than he knows us, and use that to destroy him.
On this day a recent Navy retiree named Bruce Gorman will drive into New York City a bus decorated with a photo collage of virtually every person killed on 9-11-2001. He's already been to the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to commemorate those who died there. But who will in likewise fashion commemorate the 3003 service members who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who will remind us that 21,000 men and women have been wounded in battle, and many times that number will suffer from the fatigue of duty in a war zone?
This is not a battle that we can relinquish, and yet we must be aware of the real price that our citizens and soldiers are paying, and make sure that a good result comes from their sacrifice and effort. For in the end it is not a matter of dollars and cents, but one of life and liberty.
When I'm camped out I'm always up with the birds. After my coffee, I laid out some clothes and took a shower. I was just dawdling around when the campground host hurried over and told me that planes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York.
The only station we could get clear and with no commercials was NPR. They had Daniel Schoor and Diana Reems on. Then a plane flew into the Pentagon, and that really got my attention. Just how many more planes were headed for targets? That question kept us tuned in.
When I hear people speak of the shock, the horror, the fear, I just can't relate. Maybe it was the way my father raised me, my time in the Navy, or perhaps the innate insouciance I feel towards life in general and catastrophe in particular. In short, a thousand miles from the action I felt no danger.
Nor did I feel fear, or even anger.
The fact is, I found it pretty exciting. Something was happening and there was the scent of chaos, panic, uncertainty, and it stirred my adrenaline like the opening round of a title fight. Though in retrospect what it really amounted to was a fly-by shooting. Instead of bullets they were using jumbo jets with an exponential increase in effect.
Prior to that day, like most people, I was focused more on my life and getting through it than politics and world events. I wasn't unaware of the problems in the Middle East, but before September 2001 I hadn't really connected the dots. The first bombing of the World Trade Center, the embassy bombings in east Africa, Khobar Towers, and the USS Cole. In each case the Muslim jihadis had taken their best shot, and it seemed that we just didn't care. Just like when the Marines in Lebanon were attacked. It was as if our government could not be bothered, that there was no provocation worthy of response.
Personally I avoid troublesome people, but I don't make major detours when one of them crowds my path. Yet the more I learned about the jihadis and Al Qaeda, that's exactly what it seemed our government was doing. Just stepping around the wreckage, and ignoring the casualties.
I would come to feel great empathy for the people who had died in the collapse of the Towers, the Pentagon, and of course for those who simply wanted to get somewhere in a hurry. The videos that were broadcast would bring that home.
None of those who died five years ago in those attacks were known to me, though by some degree of separation I might find a link. As a veteran though, I do feel a camaraderie with those who serve in our military, and as the number of men and women who have died since 9-11-2001 in Iraq and Afghanistan now exceed the number of those who died that late summer day, I become more and more frustrated with those who are charged with leading this country.
Partisanship does not enter into this. The Clinton Administration hindered the investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole, ignored evidence of activity here in the USA and abroad, and failed to exert due diligence in too many other ways to list. Our bureaucratic institutions did not take the threat seriously and undermined those who did.
The present administration for all its bluster has not been effective. First they parleyed an alliance with Pakistan which has not only acquiesced to the jihadis, but has also provided North Korea and Iran (perhaps others) with nuclear materials and expertise. George Bush didn't send enough troops into Afghanistan, and then he quit the hunt for Osama bin Laden to settle an old score with Saddam Hussein.
Of course it was the previous Bush Administration that pieced together a coalition to oust Saddam from Kuwait, thereby favoring one dictatorial regime over another. Worse, they decided to maintain troops and air bases in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states as a deterrent to Saddam's aggression despite the knowledge that this offended bin Laden and others who believe that foreign troops desecrate their hallowed ground
Does anyone even remember Somalia?
And of course the question here is whether or not we are served by a foreign policy that entangles our government and our citizens in the affairs of those who do not share our culture or values, and are just as likely to turn against us as to remain a friend.
In WWII we trained the VietCong only see those tactics used against us. We supported Saddam in his ill-fated venture into Iran, only to oppose his ill-fated venture into Kuwait. We trained and supplied the mujhadeen and now face the same weapons and tactics that brought the Soviet army to its knees.
Would it not be more prudent to ally with those who have common goals and aspirations?
I have no compassion for those who embrace the jihadi philosophy, and I see no alternative but to assist them in their quest for martyrdom. Kill them one and all. Scorch the earth they inhabit, destroy the foundations and proponents of their beliefs, and do this with a zealous determination. But do this and all that is necessary with prudence and forethought. Know the enemy better than he knows us, and use that to destroy him.
On this day a recent Navy retiree named Bruce Gorman will drive into New York City a bus decorated with a photo collage of virtually every person killed on 9-11-2001. He's already been to the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to commemorate those who died there. But who will in likewise fashion commemorate the 3003 service members who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who will remind us that 21,000 men and women have been wounded in battle, and many times that number will suffer from the fatigue of duty in a war zone?
This is not a battle that we can relinquish, and yet we must be aware of the real price that our citizens and soldiers are paying, and make sure that a good result comes from their sacrifice and effort. For in the end it is not a matter of dollars and cents, but one of life and liberty.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)