Category: Technology

Views of science and technology from around the world

Sunday (10-April-2011) — New Jersey

Springtime in New Jersey.

Snapshot of the CSX 7683 engine at a rail road crossing near my home in New Jersey. Getting a “grab” shot with a point & shoot camera is a challenge. After coming to a stop at the RR crossing, I had to get the camera out of my pocket, remove the lens cover, turn the camera on, adjust the zoom, and try to compose the image through the front window of my car. This was the second shot, and I was lucky get the train in the center. I didn’t get the best composition with the full rail road crossing sign being clipped at the top. Composition with a point & shoot camera requires a lot of luck with the delay between hitting the shutter button and the actual shutter release, and trying to compose the image with the rear LCD display. The other problem I discovered after the fact, was the camera was in “manual focus” mode, so focus for this image was just lucky.

CSX 7683 Engine at Local Rail Road Crossing in Skillman, New Jersey. Snapshot taken with Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 14.9 mm, f/4.5, 1/800 sec). (David J Mathre)
CSX 7683 Engine at Local Rail Road Crossing in Skillman, New Jersey. Snapshot taken with Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 14.9 mm, f/4.5, 1/800 sec).

Saturday (12-March-2011) — New Jersey

Winter Nature in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Delaware River Flooding at Lambertville and New Hope.

When I checked the USGS website this morning I saw that the Delaware river was above flood stage at Lamberville/New Hope. I cross the Delaware River at the Lambertville/New Hope bridge when going to work in Pennsylvania. I went to take a look and took  a few images. The river level was high enough to start to flood the Lambertville Inn parking lot and deposit a lot of trash and debris. Every several minutes a tree floated down the river. The Lambertville Inn is built to allow flood water to flow through and not reach the main floors of the building, and have an image looking through this open space. I assume that the Inn was built this way to protect it because of a history of flooding at this location.

Delaware River -- Flood Stage. Lambertville and New Hope Bridge from the Lambertville Inn Parking Lot. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 5.1 mm, f/4, 1/1000 sec). (David J Mathre)
Delaware River — Flood Stage. Lambertville and New Hope Bridge from the Lambertville Inn Parking Lot. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 5.1 mm, f/4, 1/1000 sec).
Delaware River -- Flood Stage. Lambertville Inn. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 10.7 mm, f/4, 1/800 sec). (David J Mathre)
Delaware River — Flood Stage. Lambertville Inn. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 10.7 mm, f/4, 1/800 sec).
Delaware River -- Flood Stage. Looking under the Lambertville Inn. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 10.7 mm, f/2.8, 1/320 sec). (David J Mathre)
Delaware River — Flood Stage. Looking under the Lambertville Inn. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 10.7 mm, f/2.8, 1/320 sec).
Delaware River -- Flood Stage. Lambertville New Hope Bridge. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 7.5 mm, f/4, 1/800 sec). (David J Mathre)
Delaware River — Flood Stage. Lambertville New Hope Bridge. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 7.5 mm, f/4, 1/800 sec).

Four-Years Ago (24-February-2007) — New Jersey

Backyard Winter Nature in New Jersey: Turkey Vulture and Using Focus Magic to Remove Motion Blur.

I often use Focus Magic to sharpen images. I prefer using this program since it uses a deconvolution algorithm to sharpen the image, rather than unsharp mask (USM). Here is an example where I used Focus Magic to remove motion blur. On the down side, Focus Magic has not been updated for some time and only runs as a 32-bit application. I can only use it as a plugin in Photoshop CS5 when running the 32-bit version of CS5. For this example I am using an image of a Turkey Vulture in flight (from four-years ago). I tried to improve the sharpness of the head, eye, and beak. The 2nd and 3rd image are 1:1 zooms of the head — first without removing the motion blur, and the second with the motion blur removed (350°, 9 pixels). The results are not perfect, but better than the original image. One of the reasons I do not delete images — new software can sometimes be used to recover and image that previously would have been rejected.

Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. Motion blur reduced using Focus Magic. (David J Mathre)
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. Motion blur reduced using Focus Magic. (David J Mathre)
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. Motion blur reduced using Focus Magic. (David J Mathre)
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. Motion blur reduced using Focus Magic. (David J Mathre)

Sunday (20-February-2011) — New Jersey

Technology Update: Digital Image Storage and  “Image of the Day” Photoblog Redesign.

Once home after the Patagonia Photography Workshop, my first priority was uploading and backing up images from the trip to my primary storage and backup hard drives. During this process, I discovered that one of my Western Digital My Book 2 TB disk arrays was having problems. Then when restoring images lost on the Western Digital My Book disk array, I found that my backup Western Digital My Book array was also having problems. I ended up restoring the images from a number of Western Digital Passport USB drives (tertiary backup). Even though the backup drives are USB 2.0, the transfer rate was slow and it took almost two weeks to completely restore the lost files. In the middle of this process I also lost a HP Pavillion HDX9200 laptop during the ice storm. I was surprised that the UPS power supply didn’t protect the laptop during the several power disruptions. I have used the time to rebuild and optimize my Lightroom Catalogs. This has significantly improved the performance to find images within Lightroom.

I have updated the layout of my WordPress “Image of the Day” Photoblog site. A thumbnail slider for the current month goes across the top of the display. Images from the most recent three posts, and slides on chronologically going back several years. This replaces thumbnails for the most recent 8 posts. Which allows the most recent post and image to be front and center. The calendar for the current month then moves to the top of the right hand sidebar column. Clicking on any of the dates highlighted in blue get to the post for that date. Below the calendar, is Tag Cloud. I’ve gone back and tagged all of the posts with keywords. The tag cloud shows the top ~50 tags, with the font size related to the number of times the tag shows up in all of my posts. (Thanks to Hans for using tags). Below the tag cloud is a Blog Search function that searches all of the posts and images. Thumbnail links to the Monthly “Images of the Day” Galleries in Photoshelter. PhotoShelter is where all of my posted images are stored, and is the online location where images can be purchased. At the very bottom on each of my pages there is a PhotoShelter Search app, where all images stored in the David Mathre Image Gallery  can be searched by keyword.

Comments regarding the Images of the Day Photoblog redesign are appreciated. The goal was to make the site easier to use and navigate.

Wednesday (10-November-2010) — New Jersey

Macro Images: Crystals.

I have always been fascinated  with gems and crystals. I loved growing sugar and then alum crystals as a kid. Ultimately, I became a chemist where growing crystals became part of my job. These are several random rough crystals that I have grown over the years. Image taken with a Nikon D3x camera and 60 mm f/2.8 macro (ISO 100, f/11, 30 sec). Processed using Capture One Pro 5, Adobe Photoshop PS5 and Focus Magic.

Random Rough Crystals. Image taken with Nikon D3x and 60 mm f/2.8 macro (ISO 100, f/11, 30 sec) (David J Mathre)
Random Rough Crystals. Image taken with a Nikon D3x camera and 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens (ISO 100, f/11, 30 sec) (David J Mathre)