Evolving stories, poems, pictures, images...: 2009

Saturday, December 26, 2009

RSS Feeds

I'm adding RSS feed capability to this blog. Just to check it out and see how it works.

This should be fun.

--Andoy

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

I have not been posting in this journal recently. Which is a shame. But things are looking up and maybe I'd get this blog up and running again. And soon.

Till then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

--Andoy
24 December 2009

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Her Morning Elegance by Orin Lavie

Found this nice stop motion animation music video. Great to watch. The tune is catchy in a late 1970's sort of way.

--Andoy
22 March 2009

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

UPIS Huling Kodakan, Feb. 28, 2009

Some pictures I took last Saturday at the UPIS grounds. It was a gathering for a last picture-taking before a big part of the grounds was taken over by the C-5. In fact, the construction area was already cordoned off and parents had voiced a concern for the safety of their kids over the ongoing construction.

From UPIS Huling Kodakan

The above sculpture was formerly a wider work. Unfortunately, one-third had broken off. And the main character's penis was defaced. A castrated Oblation. This is vandalism. Of course, I could be wrong. Anything could have happened which may have caused this to be in such a sorry state.

From UPIS Huling Kodakan

That's Mario and Aleli, two former high school classmates.

From UPIS Huling Kodakan

Herman Kraft. Another UPIS class of 1980 batchmate.

From UPIS Huling Kodakan

Click here to view the full-resolution picture in a new window.

From UPIS Huling Kodakan

Click here to view the full-resolution picture in a new window.

From UPIS Huling Kodakan

Click here to view the full-resolution picture in a new window.

From UPIS Huling Kodakan

Click here to view the full-resolution picture in a new window.

From UPIS Huling Kodakan

The construction area was to widen Katipunan into a full-width highway segment of the C-5. A view of the construction area. Click here to view the full-resolution picture in a new window. Caution: This is a wide picture.

From UPIS Huling Kodakan

This is another panoramic view of the UPIS grounds in front of the flagpole. It was taken across the street. Click here to view the full-resolution picture in a new window. Caution: This is a very wide picture.

All construction pictures were taken with a Kodak KZ740, stitched on Ubuntu Linux 8.04 using Hugin Panorama Creator and cropped using GIMP Image Editor. The group pictures were taken side-by-side with a Kodak KZ740 and a Canon Powershot A720, stitched on Ubuntu Linux 8.04 using Hugin Panorama Creator and cropped with GIMP Image Editor.

--Andoy

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Darwi at UST

Had a walking trip and a brief tour with Darwi at UST. We forgot to bring a camera, so her phone camera had to do. The knee support was for the injury she sustained about two weeks ago.

From Darwi at UST (Feb. 2, 2009)

The campus was being spruced up in preparation of the quadricentennial (400 year anniversary) of the university. The giant UST letters were just there I guess. This was the first time I ever stepped foot on the campus. It was not a matter of culture shock. In a way, it was more of being in a different milieu or environment. It was fun actually.

--Andoy
2 February 2009

Monday, January 26, 2009

Naruto Shippuuden 93: Hindi Mayabang!

I have been watching Naruto for several years now. I first heard about it in 2004, the summer before I started my personal blogs, when a colleague and fellow call center agent brought some VCDs of the series. I didn't watch it then. But I did get hooked later when my brother introduced me to the series.

It's a good story, and more engaging than the normal, growth and development of the usual anime of the ugly duckling/underdog/asshole main character in an environment where he is surrounded by cool bishounen colleagues (and villains), trainers, supporters and naysayers. The usual problem in animation and crops up, where the drawing sometimes suffers. There are the usual reasons of deadlines and change in artists and crew. But Naruto, the series has suffered more specially after the 140th episode of the original series.

In Naruto Shippuuden, the story picks up after several years of training away from the village. And the drawings a lot more consistent. But the latest episode I saw, had the artists flexing their muscles. Hindi mayabang ang dating. Some stills from one scene:

From Naruto

I'm looking forward to more surprises from the artists.

--Andoy
26 January 2009

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Kenneth's Angono Trip

Kenneth's class had an educational trip to Angono, and here are some pictures. Of particular note are these photos of him and his t-shirt. And on the bus as well.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Re-posting Pictures

Since the demise or shutdown of the picture sharing service I subscribed to, some of the prior posts suddenly had blank areas where the pictures were supposed to be. I just had to re-post the pictures.

Recently, I started doing just that. This is a slow going and not something I really look forward to for several reasons, but I've been working on it, off and on for the past several days.

I hope to continue to be OC about this for some time still.

--Andoy
22 January 2009

Friday, January 09, 2009

Benchmarking the Lens

I've always wanted to benchmark the Kodak Z740. For that matter, I've always been interested in benchmarks for cameras and lenses, the Kodak Z740 being just one of them. I just never did get around to it. That is, until recently, when Darwi gave a comment that she looked fat in the picture below:

From Celebrating the New Year at Marikina

This was taken last New Year's Day. And I had the knee-jerk reaction to comment that it was due to the Holidays. Everyone gains weight during the Christmas break. Of course, Kenneth beat me to the punchline.

But the picture got me thinking, because even Kenneth looked fat in the picture. Me, I looked puffed up.

Thinking about it, I did a simple benchmark photo using the camera. The procedure is very simple. Tape a graphing paper onto the wall and take a picture of it. I used the widest angle and the longest zoom for the pictures below. A scan of the photos is enough for to come to a conclusion.

The resulting photos (click on the pictures to enlarge):

From Z740 Lens Benchmark

The top photo was shot with the widest angle. While the second one was with shot at full zoom. For the Z740 with 10x optical zoom, the range is from 6.3mm to 63mm. At its widest, the lens is the rough equivalent of 25 to 28mm on a regular 35mm SLR.

With wide-angle lenses, you would normally expect some barreling on the resulting picture. However, the barreling is still evident on the second photo. This would have been a concern for a 35mm camera. However, the truth is that the smaller the camera, and the resulting lens, the more pronounced barreling would be.

Translation: take a portrait up close with a small lens and the subject would look a bit fatter due to the barreling effect.

Solution: move away from the subject and shoot with the telephoto, long focal-length lens. Even for a small camera or a small lens, the error would be lessened by the distance.

Besides all that, the camera is great!

--Andoy
10 January 2009

Saturday, January 03, 2009