Cars, Models, Sunsets

So, what would you see through my viewfinder lately? Same old, same old: Cars, Models and Sunsets. I need a bit more variation....

Transport Show 2010

Aliwan Festival 2010

Rabon, Pangasinan Sunset

Manila International Autoshow 2010

Carl's 1968 Camaro

Russian Model, Natasha C.

Goodbye Scott

Scottie, our Canadian Husky spent his last day with us today. After 2 weeks of a gradual deterioration in health, he said goodbye.

I arrived early Maundy Thursday morning and he was on his bed wagging. But I didn't notice he was unable to get up. I'd spent Thursday and Friday, watching over him, feeding him, giving him meds, carrying him in and out of the house. But, late Friday night he took his last breathe with all of us around him. His suffering ended on Good Friday.

He was always a loyal companion to my mom who often was alone at home. We think it was just complications as he wasn't a young dog anymore. But there wasn't any clear indication he was really sick though. He just started losing his appetite but still loved walking around the house. Then he started getting weaker this last week. The vet gave him some meds and took urine samples on Thursday since she too was unsure what was wrong with Scot. She was also optimistic he could recover because he still looked so healthy. But Friday was a different story. He seemed weaker, he ate a bit, drank a bit, but lost appetite for everything by the early evening. Then, before 10pm, he was gone.

Thanks for all the good times Scott!

It's Festival Season!

Some pics from the last few months:

2010 Panagbenga (Baguio's Flower Festival)

1st Pyro Musical Competition (Mall of Asia)

2010 Hot Air Balloon Fiesta

Natasha (Joya Towers)

2010 Caracol Festival (Makati)

Photo grabbing

Ah crap, I found more of my photos grabbed off the web and posted in a compilation video. I've had photos grabbed before and used in blogs, and even some commercial sites. And so far, I've only received less than 5 requests for permission to use my photos. Oh well, theres no fighting it, at this day and age. The only thing you can do is use BIGGER WATERMARKS.

Beware, WATERMARKZILLAAAAAAAAAA!

The Exposure Trinity

A good way to retain stuff you learn is to write it down...

The Exposure Trinity

There are 3 major components which directly affect a photographs exposure:

1. Aperture opening - How big the aperture is

2. Shutter speed - How long light is allowed to hit the sensor

3. ISO - sensor sensitivy

The Aperture is a hole through which light passes. How big this hole is set affects how much light flows. The size of the hole is usually indicated in f-stops (f/1.8, f/8....). This is a ratio of the lens focal length to the aperture diameter. A full f-stop, refers to a 1.414 * f-number, this has a corresponding 2x change in light intensity. For example f/1.4 is a full stop away from f/2, allows 2x light compared to f/2. The image below illustrates different f-stops and the corresponding hole size.

(image source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Aperture_diagram.svg/462px-Aperture_diagram.svg.png)

In relation to how big the aperture opening is, is how long light flows through this hole. This is what is more commonly called as shutter speed. So, to get the same amount of light, you can have several aperture-shutter speed pairings. A good analogy would be a faucet: You can open the faucet to allow just a trickle of water to flow for lets say 20 sec. The water you accumulated in that time could also be achieved with the faucet fully open for maybve 1/250sec.

The third component to "The Trinity", although less frequently adjusted, is ISO (or ASA). This is an indicator or how sensitive the sensor is to light. The lower the ISO, the less the sensitivity to light. Be aware though, that as light sensitiviy is increased, so does noise.

A question I got from a friend a while back was: "If different aperture and shutter speed settings give me the same exposure, why don't I just set it to one and use that everytime?"....