Wednesday, May 28, 2008
I’d like to share something that I’ve observed quite often in my experiences with a polarizing filter, but that is not a common topic of articles that I’ve read. I hear a lot about polarization’s abilities to reduce glare, darken the blue in the sky, and enhance the greens in plants. However, rarely do I hear about it’s ability to make hair color (particularly red) significantly ‘pop.’
A circular polarizing filter is like a pair of polarized sunglasses for your camera. Polarization relies on the fact that certain forms of light (such as most reflected light) travel in a uniform manner. Due to this consistency, a polarized lens is able to filter out a specific group of light waves while allowing the remaining light waves (usually what we care about) to pass through with less disturbance. To illustrate this behavior, here’s a quick example of what polarization is most known for: it’s ability to significantly reduce, and sometimes completely remove, reflections so that you can see “through” glass and water.
The two pictures above are from a recent trip to Rome where I caught three police officers reading about a soccer match in their car. You can’t see the third officer in the passenger seat in the first picture because of some intense reflections on the windshield. But with the polarized filter adjusted correctly in the second picture, the reflections are almost completely removed and the light waves that I care about (those bouncing off of the person in the car) are able to hit my camera’s sensor without the interference of the reflections.
Now let me show you an interesting example of how this same process of reducing reflections in shiny hair can significantly saturate it’s color. The following pictures have not been graphically altered and are straight out of my camera. The difference you see in the colors are a result of the polarizing lens blocking out the reflections in the woman’s hair!
The only down side that I can think of is that objects with reduced reflections tend to flatten a bit. Reflections naturally help our eyes perceive the 3D, spacial dimensions of an object. Removing these reflections sometimes has an equal result of flattening the image. I’ve zoomed into an area of the pictures above to illustrate this point. Notice below how the reflections in the woman’s hair on the left help define the curvature of her head and how it is somewhat lost in the picture to the right.
Though, I’ll take the saturated colors over the curvature 98% of the time!
Monday, August 20, 2007
I needed to find some product information while doing some comparative shopping at Best Buy this past weekend. I used one of the iMacs on display in their “Apple Shop” to browse the Internet…lord knows I wasn’t about to ask one of the “highly trained” employees they have on the floor. As I wrapped up my investigation I was met by a girl...no, she was definitely older than just a girl…a woman, early to mid-twenties with no valid excuse for being an idiot, who came up to the iMac next to me and started petting it.
“Mmmmm. I just love these things. Don’t you?” she asked.
“Yeah, they’re nice,” I responded casually.
“No, you don’t understand,” she continued “these things are amazing. You see, I believe that Apple is going to take over the world someday and I think people should start using their computers now to get used to them because that’s how it’s going to be in the future.”
How does one respond to an opening statement like that?
“It’s just a computer,” I said.
Let’s pause here for a moment. You see, my opinion on this subject has become very apathetic in the last few years. The truth is that Windows and Macs both perform equally well, both crash, both get viruses (yes, Mac users, they do) and both have a slew of things that should be fixed; it’s how you use it that matters. I guess it’s just the opposite of the “grass being greener”…it’s more like “my grass is greener because it is what I stand on everyday.” My point is, what ever you are used to is what is better for you. Ok, enough said. Let us return to the conversation:
“I’m just as fine with a Windows machine,” I added.
“Oh,” she expressed sympathetically. “Are you not creative?”
And that’s when I walked away. No goodbye. No polite smirk. Just a turn of my head and I was on my way, contemplating the irony of her logic: we should all conform by being “Mac users.” That way, we’ll be able to express ourselves creatively in our iLives.
People tend to get distracted by the marketing bullshit and actually believe that having a Mac instantly makes you a creative individual. Following this logic, not having a Mac means you’re not creative. How shallow.
That being said, I own a Mac and am very satisfied with it. But I happen to use more than iPhoto & Safari bitches. I like Apple’s hardware and occasionally their software as well. I love the fact that I have access to a UNIX environment and can run all my C programs through the terminal pretty much out of the box. However, I recognize that Steve Jobs is in fact mortal and that his corporation has many similarities to Microsoft — a company people are so quick to criticize.
This post is for all you people who posses Apple stickers: don’t be so quick to assume that there is only one solution people should conform to. After all, that’s what the Nazis did.
A more drastic, but fairly accurate view point.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Part I of what I expect to be a series of posts.
You know, there’s something that really bothers me about dumb people. I was browsing through Adobe’s site to check out the new features that the new Creative Suite offers and I ended up watching the “Feature Tour” for Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Photoshop and Indesign CS3. Did you know one of the features of Indesign is that it, and I quote, “has mouse wheel support?” “This is especially helpful when working on long documents.”
Really? What a novelty!
Oh, and don’t miss out on the awesome features of Photoshop CS3. Adobe has a good example of how you can hide and unhide a layer in their “Feature Tour” so be sure to watch the video.
No, really. The photographer that Adobe interviewed toggles the layers for a good portion of the video and says that “the new version is so easy to use and that it really has what we need.” Way to show the true power of Photoshop you moron!
People treat these new releases as if they are groundbreaking and innovative, but more often than not the new features are few and you’re use of the product won’t change much. The face of the product is what changes the most and people seem to think that means a whole new product. Sure, Adobe is the industry leader with their product line (don’t forget they purchased Macromedia a while back), but it doesn’t make them smarter than most other software developers out there.
Remember not to get carried away with what is advertised. All these advertisements are written by marketing folk who, even though have product knowledge, are just trying to get their job done and will say wonders to brainwash you into thinking that what they offer is the best available.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to single out Adobe. This bitch session of mine applies for all the idiots out there, especially the “Steve Jobs is God” lemmings.
Monday, October 24, 2005
I'm in spain! Just testing this whole Blogging thing.