Poppies & . . .

Poppies, Point Reyes  2011

Plant Frond, Point Reyes  2011

Poppies, of course. Don't know what that tassle-y thingie is.

Coast Camp Eucalpytus

Queen Anne's Lace & Eucalyptus, Point Reyes  2011

Lagoon & Eucalyptus, Point Reyes 2011

Looking from my campsite towards the ocean, then at the lagoon looking away.

Lagoon, AM & PM

Lagoon (AM), Point Reyes  2011

Lagoon (PM), Point Reyes  2011

Same scene as yesterday, different times of the day, in color.

Monday Crow Blogging

Crow & Lagoon, Point Reyes  2011

Mike did a mini-backpack a few weeks ago, hiking into Coast Camp at Point Reyes for an overnight stay. The next day he arose early in the morning, crawled out of his tent (with difficulty), got his boots on and tied the laces (with difficulty) and somehow made it down to the Coast Camp lagoon, where a crow was drinking some nice fresh water.

Fairfax Festival

Booth, Self-Portrait, Marin County  2011

Yikes! Mike sold just a few notecards, one framed and one unframed photo!

It's been interesting for him to notice how the recession is like a current that ebbs and flows, sometimes receding from consciousness, then returning with a vengence.

So, two extremely lackluster days, in spite of the booming business at the beer booth.

Odd Window

Window, Self-Portrait, Marin County  2011

Furniture repair shop window.

Odd.

Canon G12, continued

Canon G12, Marin County  2011

My initial October, 2010 impressions can be found here.

It’s really quite obvious: after using the Canon G12 for a number of months, I can confidently state that it's a great camera.

All those dials! Dials that I use! And features . . . more than I have knowledge of. (I should probably delve into the features. For example, customization functions. But using it in P-mode and adjusting the exposure and ISO as needed seem to work just fine.)

I’ve equipped it with a Lensmate lens shade (mainly to protect the camera’s leaf-style lens protection, somehow damaged on my old G9) and an Op/Tech neck strap. I’m thinking that on horsepacking trips I’ll remove the lens shade and switch out the neck strap for a lanyard.

The problem with the video .mov files, which I had mentioned earlier, was easily solved by purchasing a new $900 Windows 7 computer from eCollegePC. (OK, so I didn’t get the computer because of the video files. Still, it’s interesting the way that non-hardware issues somehow mandate one’s spending money on new hardware.) Oh yes: I still need to convert the Canon raw files to Adobe dng files. But the process is much faster now because of my new $900 Windows 7 computer.

And then there's the G12's “rival,” the iPhone.

Technically, there's really no comparison. The iPhone has 5 megapixels, the Canon has 10. The iPhone only takes jpgs, the Canon produces raw files. The iPhone only has digital zoom, the Canon has optical zoom. And so forth and so on, ad (almost) infinitum.

And yet it turns out that I've taken a significant number of photos using the iPhone, photos that would, at one point, have been taken with the G12. The phone is always there, and the quality is certainly acceptable as long as one recognizes the limitations it possesses.

One (last) interesting thing: I can't help but notice that, with a few notable exceptions, none of the pix I've taken with the G12 have made it into my booth. The thing is, I use it primarily for street photography. So, almost all the Melrose Avenue shots were taken with a G-series camera. And since I’ve discovered to my sorrow that street photography doesn’t sell, it follows that photos taken with the G12 are somewhat marginalized. (Not the fault of the camera!) For landscapes I would automatically reach for the Nikon D90 with its much larger sensor. 

San Francisco Lunch

Gracias Madre Sign, San Francisco  2011

Gracias Madre Mural, San Francisco  2011

After our hike we drove the short distance to San Francisco's Mission District for lunch at Gracias Madre: vegetarian Mexican food.

I had the sandwich made with, um . . . and Shawna had the special salad made with, um, let's see . . .

Anyway, it was good!

Which was better: the lunch, or the exquisite parking spot that I was able to find?

Flowers, Pacifica #2

Forget-me-nots, San Mateo County  2011

Iris, San Mateo County  2011

Identifiable flowers! Forget-me-nots and and an iris.

Flowers, Pacifica #1

Flowers, San Mateo County  2011

Flower, San Mateo County  2011

During our hike we saw numerous flowers, the names of which were unknown to us, alas.

Monday Cow Blogging

Just before the rain. After the rain, the cows had disappeared (under the trees?)

Photo: Cows—Marin County, 2011

Pacifica Hike

Ceanothus, San Mateo County  2011

Shawna and Mike went for a dayhike in the hills east of Pacifica a few weeks ago. Low clouds hung over the eucalyptus. Some spring flowers could be seen.

. . . from Barbara's Garden

Azaleas, Marin County  2011

Spring azaleas.

. . . from Barbara's Garden

Rose, Marin County  2011

Leaves & Rain, Marin County  2011

After a late-season June rain.

Limantour Beach

Limantour Beach, Point Reyes  2011

Part of a series. Here, for example.

Lupin

Lupin #1, Point Reyes 2011

Lupin #2, Point Reyes 2011

Walking from the Limantour Beach parking area to the ocean, lupin in bloom.

Interesting Blog Factoid

If one does a Google search on "What are the three main food groups?" and then keeps going to about the 15th or 16th results page one can find this helpful mikereport entry.

You're welcome!

Inverness Ridge

Bishop Pines, Point Reyes 2011

Indian Paintbrush, Point Reyes 2011

High on Inverness Ridge, a pulloff featuring Bishop Pines and a short hike to an overlook. Better than the overlook: the wildflowers scattered at one's feet.

Monday Dogsitting Blogging

Betsie, Marin County  2011

Betsie, seen before.

Ferns

Taken just off the road to Limantour Beach. Very wet this year . . . great for ferns.

Photo: Ferns—Point Reyes, 2011

Booth

This weekend Mike is at the Fairfax Festival in his booth amidst the redwoods and the dust. Here, the latest booth version, from an Oakland Farmers Market appearance earlier this year.

Photo: Booth—Oakland, 2011

Lily

Yes, yes. Kind of Imogen Cunningham-ish. I know. (Oh, and also, see here.)

Photo: Lily—Marin County, 2011

Skyline

Taken while heading back to Marin County on the Larkspur Ferry, the boat pushing through a fairly unusual reflection-enabled patch of smooth-ish water. Had to crank up the ISO though, in order to get a fast shutter speed: lots of wind on deck.

Photo: Skyline—San Francisco, 2011

Market Street Sightems

. . . the anti-terror monolithic concrete arches of the Federal Reserve bank, and some mailboxes with a Coca-Cola delivery truck.

Photos: Federal Reserve—San Francisco, 2011; Mailboxes—San Francisco, 2011

San Francisco Buildings

Mike was in SF last month delivering a photo. To be displayed in a SF highrise! Wow! He was also able to do the tourist thing and take pix of skyscapers and clouds reflected in windows.

Photos: Building—San Francisco, 2011; Windows, Clouds—San Francisco, 2011

Monday Gull Blogging

Gull, Monterey County 2011

Gull checking out the photographer, Monterey Bay in the background.

Mt. Tamalpais

Taken from the Larkspur ferry. Note the unique stand-up kayak thingies being used towards the bottom.

Photo: Mt. Tamalpais—Marin County, 2011

Using The iPhone as a Netbook

Things you will need: a proppy-up thing for the iPhone. (I use an iCarpus) and an Apple wireless keyboard. And maybe something like Evernote for the actual post.

You wouldn't want to write your novel using this setup (although, come to think of it, maybe you would) but for short-form stuff, blog posts and such-like, it's fine.

Photo: Starbucks' Table—San Francisco, 2011

Walking to the Gym

Mike parks his car over near Safeway, then walks four blocks to the gym. And, as he walks, he sees stuff like the above.

Photos: White Fence & Flowers—Marin County, 2011; Red Windows—Marin County, 2011

Tetherball

Just a touch of the surreal.

Photo: Tetherball—Marin County, 2011

Official Record of the Working Pictures/Mikereport Blog Design Correspondence

Mike has been fussing with his blog’s design for quite some time, as is evident from the number of querulous queries he posted to Carl Weese’s idiosyncratic Working Pictures blog over the last few months.

***

12/5/10

Mike Mundy said...

Carl:

So how did you get your photos to suddenly appear bigger? Fiddle with the innards of Blogger?

Looks cool.

Carl said...

Mike,

Don't need to get to the innards. The larger front page picture is enabled by the latest version of the Blogger software. Just upgrade and rummage around in the Design tab. Possible size depends partly on which template you choose.

12/21/10

Martina said...

Today it's Dec 21st - days will be getting longer from now on. :-)

Dennis Allshouse said...

not necessarily warmer.

Mike Mundy said...

. . . and not to be totally off-topic, but it seems like I'd have to switch to a new template in Blogger in order to get bigger pix.

Yikes! I thought that my template would be for Forever!

Carl said...

Martina, yes, looking forward to that.

Dennis, 20°F this morning, colder than yesterday.

Mike, the template switch is quite painless, shouldn't take more than an hour or so to do it on a practice blog, find settings you like, then apply them to your main blog.

 5/13/11

Mike Mundy said...

I continue to be impressed by the quality of your photos on the front page. Do you have to resize them in any particular way? My photos (using a Blogger old-style template) , before enlarging, are decidedly fuzzy.

Carl said...

Mike, I'm using a new-style template, and set the front-page pictures to "x-large". The file I upload is sized 1000 pixels wide (or 800 pixels tall for verticals) and saved as a level 8 JPEG. Since Blogger is resizing for the front page, the initial size of the uploaded file *could* make a difference, but I don't know what Blogger is actually doing under the hood.

Carl said...

Mike, I took a quick look at your blog (will go back for a better look later) and I think you need to update to the current software/templates to fix the issue. It's really not a big deal. A couple days ago I had to update my wife's blog, which we've only used to announce her exhibits and was still on the old software. Updating the software, specifying a template, customizing the "width" settings to accommodate the x-large front page picture presentation all took less than half an hour. I just used the same template as my blogs, so that's cheating a bit, but still I don't think you'll need an hour to cross your blog over starting from scratch.