Seeking a balance between technology, art and life

This past Wednesday was spent in western North Carolina in the city of Asheville. I’d taken some furniture to my daughter, who lives there, and spend the day with her. One of our activities was a little nature photo walk-about.

Asheville is a beautiful area that has a lot to offer those who live there. Perhaps the one thing it doesn’t offer is an abundance of well paying jobs, so finding a way to “live well” can be difficult.

While attending the University of North Carolina, Asheville, my daughter grew to love the area and decided to stay on post-graduation. Asheville feels like home to her now. I think she made a good choice. She enjoys photography, which is something we can share, but I don’t know it’s a passion for her. Perhaps it will be someday. Meanwhile she’s getting some of my hand-me-down equipment.

Later on Wednesday we went to see the movie “Batman: The Dark Knight.” Best Batman movie yet in my book. I liked it very much and I’m not a big Batman fan.

About the Photos: It seemed like an idyllic composition for a photo when we came across the Grey Heron posing above. Just one problem, there was an abandoned automobile tire in the water at its feet that would be in every shot. A sad statement to the times in which we live. Can everyone say…”Photoshop.”

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Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event on September 9th introduced new models of the iPod Nano in “nano-chromatic” colors and an enhanced iPod Touch, all at lower prices. In addition new versions of iTunes, Quicktime, Front Row and iPhone/iPod Touch 2.1 firmware were announced with new features and enhancements.

Apple also announced that NBC Universal was returning to the iTunes Store and that the App Store had topped 100 million downloads worldwide.

Apple seems to be a master at keeping the shine on its core iPod/iTunes business. The iPod line has continued to evolve and grow when many thought it would reach a dead end.

As a side note, Microsoft also released new versions of the Zune that actually have some credible features. Will anyone notice?

If Microsoft selected this date for releasing the new Zune in the hopes of stealing some spotlight from the iPod, they’ve failed miserably. It’s a good thing Microsoft has deep pockets.

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Yesterday, I believe someone tried unsuccessfully to gain administrative WordPress access to this site using an old or ineffective ploy.

They registered a user called “admin” and then requested the system to change this users password several times perhaps in hopes it would change the WordPress default administrators password, also named “admin.” I’ve renamed the WP administrator so it wouldn’t have worked in any case. The email given for user registration was “icanhascheckmate (at) yahoo.com” which makes it seem more like a ploy rather then just someone screwing around.

Their admin user never had access above subscriber.

As a precaution I’ve changed my administrators password, deleted the false “admin” user and set the parameter to “no” for the “Anyone can register” option.

Anyone hear of this one before?

Update: It turns out this isn’t an old ploy but in fact a new security weakness for which WordPress 2.6.2 has just been released. Per WP 2.6.2 release notes:

With open registration enabled, it is possible in WordPress versions 2.6.1 and earlier to craft a username such that it will allow resetting another user’s password to a randomly generated password. The randomly generated password is not disclosed to the attacker, so this problem by itself is annoying but not a security exploit. However, this attack coupled with a weakness in the random number seeding in mt_rand() could be used to predict the randomly generated password.

WordPress 2.6.2 is a critical release for those who allow registration on your blog…at this point I do not.

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Anyone who owns a Nikon DX camera has hear of the 1.5 magnification/crop factor. This crop factor is the ratio of the dimensions of a camera’s imaging area compared to a reference format. The reference format is most often the 35 mm film format or what is called Full Frame (FX) in Nikon digital camera lingo.

The crop factor as described by Ken Rockwell:

If a photo is made with the same lens, but a smaller sensor, it shows a smaller area.

This is why it’s called a crop factor. The smaller sensor is cropping the lens’ image compared to a 35mm film frame. Ditto for what you see through the viewfinder…

…Nothing changes about the lens; it’s simply the amount of the image we get from the back of the lens.

Paul Lester stated in a recent comment that he would love to see two pictures taken from the same spot with the same lens using a D700 and D300 camera. It sounded like an interesting project so I set my tripod up on a cement walkway and proceeded to take two sets of photos using the same 20 mm, 50 mm and 105 mmm prime lenses on both cameras.

All the photos were shot from the exact same spot with the focal point being the first Crape Myrtle tree just to the right of the white mail box at the end of the driveway. The photos have not been post-cropped or altered in any way.

20 MM:

50 MM:

[ Nikon D700 - 105 mm ]

[ Nikon D300 - 105 mm ]

You’ll notice that the D300 photos appear to be cropped compared to the wider field of view (FOV) the D700 provides at the same lens focal length.

There also appears to be a magnification factor with the D300 photos. How can this be if the lens produces the same magnification no mater what camera it’s attached to? The image produced on the small-sensor DX (D300) will be enlarged more to produce output (print or screen) that matches the output of a longer focal length lens on a full-frame/FX (D700) camera. This “enlargement” is a internal system magnification not a true lens magnification but the result is somewhat the same.

In situations where you’re shooting wildlife and need the highest magnification possible you may want to consider the D300 as you’ll be able to get more magnification with a shorter and less expensive focal length lens.

That’s one reason I’m keeping my Nikon D300. It has it’s advantages and is a complimentary companion for the Nikon D700.

You read about the magnification/crop factor of DX cameras but it’s still interesting to view the differences for yourself.

Note: The color mode on the D700 was set to Vivid while the D300 was set to Normal. This accounts for the slightly higher color saturation in the D700 photos.

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