It’s been golden light this afternoon.
This shot was taken early in the sun setting process.
Notice how it’s burnt out in the whites.
It’s the JPG file from the camera, and is not what I was seeing.
This shot is no masterpiece but notice how the whites are all there? This isn’t exactly what I was seeing either, but now I have the choice to adjust it as I want.
That’s because it’s the RAW file, recorded alongside the above image in the camera at exactly the same time (simultaneously), but not processed (turned into a JPG file) by the camera for me.
That allows me to make the decisions about exposure adjustments later, saving the highlights and lightening the dark areas as I choose.
Provided I set the menu, I get a RAW file for every shot, alongside the JPG file. Double indemnity. A bet each way. The RAW file adds 15MB or more for every shot, but with SD card prices so low, … ?
So endeth the lesson. I’m a bit peeved because I set the camera up on the tripod and set the intervalometer to take a shot every two minutes to capture the changing light. When it got dark I went out to look, and found it hadn’t even started the sequence! I hadn’t realised you have to confirm the menu setting and press OK before the sequence will start. Duh. I’ll try again tomorrow night.
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I’m being driven mad at the moment (well, I was mad already, really) by a BIP! every 10 seconds from a smoke alarm in my spare bedroom. It means “replace the battery”. It started a couple of nights ago but stopped after about an hour. Just reminding me.
But this time it isn’t stopping, so a few hours ago I got the ladder and set about changing the battery. (7:30pm Ah! It’s stopped. Battery’s flat. Good. I’ll sleep tonight.)
Gloom. I can get up the first step of the ladder, but my just legs will not lift me to the next step. I tried every way to get up high enough, but it was getting dangerous, so I’ve had to close all the doors between the alarm and me and put up with it so far. The battery will conk out eventually, but if it continues to bed time, I may have to get a rake and just pull it down off the ceiling! It’s only a $15 double-sided tape stick-on, so it’s no loss, and I have a proper mains powered unit in the passage nearby so it doesn’t matter. But … sign of the times. I’ll have a couple of young guys here next week and they’ll do the job (battery or new one) in 2 minutes.
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I read last night (Sunday) that it was Bloomsday, the anniversary of James Joyce yesterday. I haven’t read any of his works, but I’m aware of them (Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake etc.) Notoriously difficult to read, but if people still worship them a century later, he must have got something right!) What I wasn’t aware of is that copyright on his works finally expired on that day, yesterday, 108 years after his death in 1904.
Aha, good news, it seemed. What I didn’t know is that his grandson, Stephen Joyce, living in America, is the world’s worst copyright enforcer and rights litigator. see http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/01/james-joyce-public-domain.html Even now, more than 100 years after his grandfather’s death, he stomps on anyone, even academics, who tries to quote from his grandfather’s works.
It even extends to denying James Joyce admirers permission to read from his books at celebrations in Dublin, at the shops and pubs Joyce wrote about. It even extended to a man who had memorised whole sections of the books so that he could recite them at meetings from memory. This grandson got a court order and the Dublin organisers had to cancel the celebration events! Obviously, the guy is a nutter.
Even so, it’s not over. Even though the copyright has expired, courts routinely grant extensions and may well do so again in this case. Pshaw!
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Phew! Greece pulls back from the edge of the cliff. They have a long way to go, but at least the hatred party, the neo-nazis, the anti-immigrant party, have failed in their quest to gain power.
Note I said anti-immigrants? Hatred of “illegals”, immigrants, people they think have no right to be there. Hatred of foreigners. Queue jumpers. Boat people. Why don’t they join the queue, go through the proper processes, stand in line outside the embassies where the Taliban can pick them off.
I’ve been told, seriously, by someone I once respected, that Northam army camp has been turned into a luxury hotel for illegals while our army soldiers have to live in sub-standard accommodation. No need to check his facts; a mate told him this and he believes it. Sick.
