George's Blog For Friends

Friday, December 7, 2012

Fall on Tualatin River

Clickable!

Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge, Sherwood, OR, 2012-11-15

For many years it was the only thing we were waiting to see on TVs in Romania. Saturday, at 8 or 9 PM. I think it was for a decade or so. Didn't have color. I mean there was no broadcast for color TV until 1983 and receivers until much later

Pamela and Sue Ellen were the prototypes for any male's subconscious dream. Bobby, the gentleman and JR, the tough guy. And the drunk. Larry Hagman, may God forgive him might have given a dreamy sense to many of my conationals' pre-revolutionary cirrhosises.

And yes, it is true. Dreams sometimes can be stronger than reality as a sexy woman can be more attractive than a real beautiful one. (I'm seeing all the time sexy women and poses on the internet and on TV that are sexier than sex itself.)

Why it was allowed? Now i hear Ceauşescu was a fan. He was projecting the episodes obsessively in a private cinema. But now we all also know how much a weak mind can be influenced by his own advisers and trusted entourage.

But not only that. Every singer and type of movie was imitated by different officially professional artists in Romania, and this for not to say mocked.

If it might have contributed to the demise of the communist regime in there? I'd say definitely yes. If it was not the main cause, it was a very important factor. What we knew of the west behind the iron curtain? Anything we saw on TV. But with a twist. Since most of the characters in the soap were rich, we didn't quite realize that it could not have been us and we were all fantasizing. The result can be seen even today as every man with a college degree in Romania, a bit of understanding of English when liberally drinking thinks himself rich.

But that's not all. I have a shred of suspicion that JR's face is a geometrical average between Jimmy Carter's and Bill Clinton's. I see lately less and less conspiracy theories about subliminal messages and stuff. Don't let them die because those theories might be our only hope. If we have not already succumbed to the economic crisis and dare not think any more.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

AGFA. CCD vs CMOS

My compact camera just broke. I say just broke but in reality it slowly died for a few years now. I dropped it too many times, it was all bumped at edges and the lens lid wouldn't close anymore except if i hit it strongly. Now it refuses to focus anymore no matter what. Goodbye Coolpix L18! It was one of the best spent 100 dollars!

I needed badly a small camera to fit in my pocket and still make quality pictures when i couldn't take the big DSLR with me (Sony DSLR300 that by the way has a 2/3 CCD sensor).

And started looking around. And a brand popped on the screen. An old aquiantance. In the 70s at the Children's Club in Câmpulung Suceava we used to have 16 mm film cameras that where using the AGFA brand films. They were also the magnetic tapes for recorders. And i looked in the wikipedia and saw that there is still such a brand, as a holding company, still in Germany. Most of the cameras in US today are Japanese. Never saw a compact camera brand from Germany until now.

So i ordered at Amazon an AGFAPHOTO Digital PRECISA 1430 for 75 bucks. At AGFA site it is 59,95 €. THEN i downloaded the manual and looked at the specs.

Many of the spec are smilar or slightly below competition at that price.

But a few things caught my eyes. 7 elements lens. Live Histogram. CCD sensor. Artificial Intelligence Metering (wow, what can that be ? LOL).

I keep saying for years now that CCD sensor always seemed better to me. Since there is not any on pixels processing, the signal is sent outside the sensor area for processing, the signal capturing area of the pixel is bigger than at CMOS because it's not used for other components but just for light capturing. Don't know exactly but probably twice bigger. So it captures more light and there is less noise in the output signal. Probably the equivalent CMOS sensors would be twice bigger as area. According to this theory a good CCD 2/3 sensor could give better quality pictures than a full frame CMOS but that's my opinion of course. On CCD there is also more signal uniformity because of not processing each pixel on its own different components. There are more arguments here, you can read them in the site framed at the bottom. Until i get it, without even having it on my hand i dare recommend this to all. I don't know yet if they could improve color depth as well on any compact but i will come back with that.

For my Romanian friends, i see there it is not available yet in 14 MP but there is in 12. Who needs those megapixels anyway?

"In a CCD sensor, every pixel's charge is transferred through a very limited number of output nodes (often just one) to be converted to voltage, buffered, and sent off-chip as an analog signal. All of the pixel can be devoted to light capture, and the output's uniformity (a key factor in image quality) is high. In a CMOS sensor, each pixel has its own charge-to-voltage conversion, and the sensor often also includes amplifiers, noise-correction, and digitization circuits, so that the chip outputs digital bits. These other functions increase the design complexity and reduce the area available for light capture."

Got it today 10-05. QED or this is why they say 1 picture=1000 words.

From kitchen window, Dec.1 2012. clickable! (try middle click)

Directly

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6JMM9-izvqh3HDR960rLp8k241_ag3IPXeMJXJETWrVKvITxyVunkRintSmiycZAZM21vIeKAxjQXaxgYXRgH6aet6TaZx7AWVDjxYCD3b6ZLW5vO8bWpKoR_hyphenhyphendr1-O-Sy4EuqUMoeM/s1600/APDC0035.JPG

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

How Weather Works

First let me introduce you to the jet streams. They are four rivers of air in the sky at high altitude, that flow from the west to the east, two in the northern hemisphere and two in the southern. You cannot feel them blowing at the surface.

Their speed in the center can reach in the range of hundreds of mph and their cross-section can be in the hundreds of miles. There are a couple of pictures in the site framed below showing them.

Their existence it totally conform to the model of an atmosphere on a planet that rotates and is heated by a Sun. The phenomenon is due to the rotation of the Earth and the atmosphere at different rates at the pole and equator and the differences in temperature between poles and equator.

Their speed and direction vary constantly. Sometimes they are interrupted and start further down the stream or they merge into only one per hemisphere. But ideally they divide the atmosphere in 5 regions, two polar, one intertropical and two intermediate.

The intermediate or temperate regions are coincidentally the most livable on the planet.

By changing direction the jet stream create the so called pressure (high and low) fronts.

And yes, airlines sometimes try and save fuel flying inside the jet streams.

The thing is you can pretty much know the weather if you know the positions of the jet streams. It's that simple. It's cold north of the jet stream, warm south and right within if there is enough moisture in the air there are precipitations. Because of Bernoulli's law of course, static pressure is lower where the air flows. Lowering the static pressure of the moist air makes it condensate more and fall to the ground. Rain.

There are very few precipitations outside of the jets streams.

Meteorologists use all kind of mysterious languages trying to trick us into thinking they are true seers of the future. And they continue to keep us ignorant of a simple mechanism. It is an old and known theory and weather model.

But the question is: What if... someone could use some weird technology like very powerful microwave beams (in the GW range) heating the ionosphere above the jet streams in places where they pass most of the time trying to steer them using complicated computer models?

Or use incredible powerful supercomputers to precisely model the weather in vast regions by using various feedback networks of sensors and intervene punctually with a minimal amount of energy and again steering the jet streams?

And here is further proof of the theory on the current weather. You can click on the left in the menu for the different options of the map especially satellite, jet stream and temperature.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Film Rules

And flickr started to hiccup. After a number of pictures in my photostream they reduce the default viewing size of the picture. I also noted a significant slowdown lately. That's why i will try to move some of my better pictures here. Don't know how yet but i'll figure something. Until then here is a series i recently "digitized" from old paper prints pulled from a shoe box using my DSLRA300 from a distance when i can hear the gear in the lens getting stuck from not being able to focus anymore. That is 9 1/2 inches from the first lens element to the paper print. I hope i'm not gone break the gear again, as i did in the past when shooting at seagulls near the ocean with the lens going past the limit trying to focus at infinity. The focusing motor on that camera (which is on the camera body as opposed as being on the lens as in most current models) is a bit too strong for a cheap, stock lens, Sony DT 18-70mm.

Light source was a 50 W halogen bulb and had to move it around until i saw no more reflection in the coating of the prints. For WB on camera i used 2600K.

Each picture is enlargeable by clicking on it, best results with the middle click and opening in a new tab.