personal diary – Page 39 – frans goes blog

jagged lines of summer pics

I have been thinking about how to organise the images from the EOS I am going to shoot this summer. The Photoshop Elements 3.0 is doing decent job in keeping an archive, but too often it crashes (there are c. 3700 pics in the archived folders so far, wonder if it is the numbers, or if the programme is just inherently unstable) – but then there is the online reference thing. Currently I am pondering between making the online folders from the Elements, or continue using JAlbum, which prints the techical data nicely, but on the other hand, the scaling-down of hi-rez original produces nastily jagged artifacts into lines, as you can see from this sample of a crow in Midsummer evening.

The rest of this photo trip into summery Häme, as handled by JAlbum, are visible in this folder.

summer is here

Still jetlagged, but luckily we have a recreation day, no business today. Summer, finally!

playing with photos

Friday, I finally got the digital SLR I had been planning and saving for during whole this spring. I did the purchase order first into a German net store (for obvious price reasons), but after several weeks of delays (they sell stuff they do not have in store, or even do not exactly know when they’ll get some) I went to a local shop (Rajala). The arbitration between Nikon D70s, Canon EOS 350D and 20D was long and hard, but finally I decided to go for 350D. The price of the kit was practically at the same level with D70s, which would have offered better controls, lenses and a more robust design. But when testing, I realised that I have been shooting with a Canon EOS camera from 1987, and the “Canon language” has become so natural that transfer to Nikon felt hard. And Nikon was not getting as good reviews for the picture quality – there was the moiré issue, for example. None of these were perfect cameras of course, but on the other hand all of them were very good. 20D was a bit pricy, and instead I decided to go for 350D, but equipped it with the vertical battery pack (BG-E3) which made a real difference to how the tiny camera handles. The glassware I could afford at this point was not so great (including the plastic-feeling kit lens), but I bought also a Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6 II APO which is a cheap “Macro Super” zoom, meaning I can go pretty close to those details, textures, insects and other little marvels I love to look at and photograph. In the post-processing, I am currently getting acquainted with the RAW data format; it seems that Adobe Elements 3.0 which I bought as the editing and archiving software can handle 350D RAW, but only after installing a separate update file. There are many features in this program I already love (take a look at the sample web photo folder it created from the originals with a couple of clicks), but it also appears still a bit unfinished and unstable (getting crashes and Visual Basic errors tonight, probably my photo library is just too large for it or something). I also realised that Elements 3 does not retain exposure, aperture and other tech data when you export RAW files into JPEGs, so it is perhaps best to shoot both files at the same time; RAW for print jobs and archiving, JPEG for web publishing. Need to study this some more. Other stuff: a Wacom touchpad for editing, Manfrotto tripod for support (got a remote control, too). The Manfrotto (055PROB) seems actually versatile enough, with its horizontally adaptable center column and legs that can be tilted absolutely flat against the earth, if need be. But the mini ball head (484RC2) is unfortunately not really compatible with it, so I have to get it switched. The first dozen or so pics, taken at a nearby Tohloppi lake shore at sunset should give some idea how rich in details and how huge a colour and tonal range these things can deliver when shooting in full 8 mega-pixel resolution. (I am going to need lots of hard-disk space soon…) Never having worked with a digital SLR before, I am just so dazed! 🙂

next DiGRA board canditates

There is now call for canditates into the next DiGRA executive board, 2006-2008 in http://www.digra.org (see forums). Please check it out. – Writing this from Juha Herkman’s PhD thesis defence (picture below); these are major academic events and “tribal gatherings” in Finland, don’t know so much what is their role in other coutries. This one is both fun and illuminating; also political. Tomorrow Copenhagen (www.nordes.org).

the incredible expanding [shrinking] games universe (and then some garlic)

After doing some overtime again with a load of student papers, DiGRA conference reviews and some book project reviews, and so on and so forth, I find myself in bed with a flu – just as the sun and temperature outside tell that summer really is approaching also these sub-arctic regions. Well, good time to eat piles of garlic and travel around the blogosphere.

There are the stars of Finnish game design, guys from Remedy Entertainment reappearing to show off their forthcoming “psychological action thriller” Alan Wake; see link and an interview in Gamecloud; link. The emphasis seems to be on atmospheric visual design, and it surely seems pretty – but it is too early to say much more.

E3 news are all over the place and they appear to be mostly about new tech, consoles, tie-ins, sequels, the usual suspects. The word “Revolution” seems to mean just the name of Nintendo next-gen console these days rather than any forward step in actual games design (let alone some social or cultural transformations, god forbid). (On wildly jamesjoycean gesture of associative thought, this brings to my mind that there is now an EA website for Spore, the game concept Will Wright hyped in GDC and E3, as explained in this GameSpy report.) In the Guardian Gamesblog, Aleks Krotoski speculates on a line of Nintendo press release about the option that Revolution will be open also for indie games designers and bedroom coders. This would indeed be an exciting option and this kind of window of opportunity for alternative games content entire industry and games culture needs right now. But wait and be disappointed? Gizmodo link shows why you probably will be. (Links: Guardian link (based on note by Boing Boing, followed by the Gizmodo cold shower: link). But then, there is also the good press Nintendo is getting from making Revolution to run the entire history of Nintendo console games, see link. Promising or not?

mayday, cold and grey

This May Day was one of the cold and grey ones: freezing temperatures outside, not much to do expect play games, write articles for a Finnish horror bibliography project I got involved with, eat some. The photos I took outside pretty much tell it all. Saw Magnolia (the movie) finally. Liked it. Fun part is, that after seeing my preferences, Movielens gives as the top recommendation for me now The Princess Bride. 🙂 (PS – Blogger makes life again difficult – it is pain to get anything published via their service any more. Pity…)

kookos & co

Having fun in Helsinki. Kookos-cat hugs his lit’l friends tonight. They do enjoy it, don’t they?

Moblog with PicoBlogger

no sleep until vancouver

I feel slightly drunk. The consequence of chronic lack of sleep in this case, rather than merry life, it nevertheless has some uplifting potentials. Last days and nights have been marked by the proximity of DiGRA 2005 full paper deadline, which was finally passed last night. Despite all advance planning, there is always rush and hurry at the final hours. In this case there was also the coincidence with the reviews of ACE 2005 coming within the same hours, people puzzling over where to submit and where to withdraw. Seven people from our lab will fly over the Atlantic for several days, which is a sizable investment of course, but I trust it will be worth it. Not everything will be on everyone’s key interests, but I am looking forward to several sessions, already.

There has been something wrong with Bloglines today. I can see in my Notifier over hundred new posts, but I cannot access them. The service won’t accept my password, and while I tried ‘recover password’ function I get two messages, the first one saying that I had entered incorrect email address, and the second one claiming that the password has been emailed to my email address. Huh??

animal crossing and spring potatoes

This weekend has proved finally to me too the addictive powers of Animal Crossing by Nintendo. Discussing with cute (or irritating, depending on your view) little animals in a colourful little town that you learn to know and which learns to know you, decidedly carries much charm. In terms of addiction creating qualities, AC:

is easily accessible, yet immediately rewarding
provides a form of personalised content and characters which you form personal relationships with
is endless in offering new upgrades or extensions into your house, clothing, fashion designs, insect & fossil collections and so on.

This last part got me thinking about the similarities of this game with so-called real life. You all have seen how people spend their free times acquiring, fixing and maintaining their houses, cars, clothes and other belongings, while their working days are providing money to get more of those things. AC is one of those games that nicely captures the endless and addictive character of our lives as consumers: running around in our little errands, trying to get the new parasol with the design of this summer’s fashion. There is something deeply rewarding and even instinctual in all this; maybe some kind of echo from our hunter-gatherer days?

Btw – Nikon has been promising a late April release of an upgrade for D70, as well as an entry level digital SLR (D50?) So, I might wait until May to see the situation before getting my new system.

Tried to shoot some extra-close details shots of earth, sand etc. today, but Ixus and its optics just cannot handle so close macro work. Particularly the auto-focus did not work at that range. Well, here are some Easter-time pictures instead: the first spring potatoes and the first spring beers in a (freezing!) terrace by our merry hyperlab group.

on wheels again

There was an accident in 1994, after which I did not drive bicycle for a decade (bike vs bus kind). Last summer I finally invested into a new bike: Nakamura Xrider. Going round Tohloppi lake, I saw a wedge in the sky. Cranes? Too far to see, really.