We found stuff I didn’t even know we had… for instance, I had no idea that we have 3 5D’s, nor that we still have 3 550EX’s.  I had completely forgotten about the 17-40L, and we have 4 50mm lenses (5 if you count the 45mm TS-E).  And then there’s the film cameras, the point and shoots, and all the lighting and grip stuff… before even getting into CF and computers.  Obviously, we need to have a spring cleaning sale!

There’s a saying about photography that I’ve always kinda liked – “How do you make a small fortune in photography?  Start with a large one.”

On a completely unrelated note, I found a couple images that I shot from the plane on a solo flight a month back or so.  Nothing spectacular, but if you like the Salton Sea like I do, then you might find these frames at least passably interesting:

Bombay Beach’s flooded waterfront

And Salvation Mountain – Leonard’s magnum opus (does anyone know if that guy is still alive?)

Check out a past post with some pics of these areas HERE.

So I took N361ES, a Cessna 172, for a little joyride behind the Orange Curtain.  It sucks that there isn’t an airport any nearer than John Wayne up in Santa Ana, but the uptick to that is that we’ve got a good 15-20 mile wide section of uncontrolled airspace right over our house, and that I can basically fly back to OC via the same route I use to drive to Corona (over the 241 toll road) and still duck the corner of OC’s class C airspace as long as I stay under 3500 feet.  And the coast along my favorite surf breaks is all fair game, too.  I took it back to Chino for some touch-and-gos before going back to Corona, since Corona has a tiny runway, and if you don’t touch down right on the numbers you’re pretty much taxiing back to the beginning of the runway to go up again…

So I cruised down for an aerial view of my backyard, enjoying clear skies, good weather, and some LTJ on my iPhone, which, as luck would have it, can connect directly to the headset I bought for a little in-flight music.  Called up Chenin to say “hey!  look up here!” but she couldn’t find me…

A little pic of Laguna Beach from 1100 feet and about a mile or so off the coast.  You can see the Surf and Sand Resort on the right side there…

And a little snap of 1ES’s instrument cluster, showing the tachometer in its working state (it started acting goofy a little later on, so I cut my flight short by a little bit…)  Climbing back up to 3300 feet or so to make it over the hills on the way home.  Look at all the buttons and dials!  Actually, this is the nicest non-glass cockpit plane they have at the flight school… most of the stuff in it works, it doesn’t stink, and it has cupholders (yeah!)

So now that I’ve proven to myself that I can fly somewhere without killing myself, it’s just a matter of knocking out the other instructional requirements, then checkride time!  With our little bundle of joy due next month, who knows when that might happen, but in the meantime, it sure feels nice to know I can fly a plane around!

Chain Timer

While tray-processing some sheet film a couple nights ago, I stumbled across an awesome way to use your iPhone as a darkroom timer.  Roll-film wouldn’t be a problem, since you can do the actual processing with the lights on.  Nor would 4×5.  But 8×10 basically has to be processed in trays, in complete darkness, from the time you take the film out of the holder, to the time you’re done fixing it (about 12 minutes with my film/dev combo of Fomapan 200 and HC-110 @ 1:63).  Add to that the fact that most stages of that process are fairly time-critical, and you have a bit of a challenge for cheap bastards like me.  Fortunately, I found an iPhone App – Chain Timer, which allows you to set up multiple timers that will be executed one-by-one.  So you set up a timer of a couple minutes for unloading your film, a minute or so for a pre-wash, 8 minute dev, and so on.  Chain Timer will then make a sound after the first timer, then start the second timer, make a noise at the end of that, then continue on.  Perfect!  If you happen to be, like me, and occasional 8×10 shooter who tray processed their own film and has an iPhone (not likely, I mean what are the odds, right?) then this is the app for you.  It’s only $0.99.  Much better than the previous solution I had, which was a looped 30-second timer running on my PC laptop.  That required too much counting.

gettotallyrad.com In Your Pocket

If you have an iPhone, and are away from the office, and absolutely need to look at the Totally Rad Actions site… well now you can!  The folks at Into The Darkroom have decided to use www.gettotallyrad.com as their first foray into dHTML versions of Flash sites.  More of a novelty to most folks, I’d imagine, but it’s cool!

If you want to check it out on your iPhone, just go to www.gettotallyrad.com/?flash=false (this works on your real computer, too).

If you want to see the Flash version again, you’ll have to visit www.gettotallyrad.com/?flash=true (since a cookie is stored with your flash preference – you’ll need to reset it with this link)

LOLs All Around

I’ve recently discovered the joy that is failblog.org, and the whole family of blogs hosted there (well, alright – the main draw is a site devoted to kitties, but MY personal journey to cheezburger land led me through failblog).  Anyway, get this app and never be without something to do again.

Gangsta Rap

Metal

I love how they added a DOF effect, too, so that the face in the back is more OOF than the others.  I don’t know how the hell people entertained themselves before Google.

Second, we’re having a sale on the actions from now through midnight Sunday.  Save up to 15% on the actions you’ve been craving!

PS – the sale really, truly does end on 9/21/08, so PLEASE don’t read this post two weeks down the line and then email to ask why they aren’t on sale… make sure to sign up for our mailing list to be kept in the loop about these things in the future!

And just so we have something visual to post here, allow me to waste a minute of your time with some things that you may or may not find even slightly funny.

Anyway, I hope I don’t get sued over the comparison, because I was pretty fond of the name for the action.  Basically, this video shows you how to quickly emulate the look of lens tilts and swings (or the use of a t/s or PC lens, if you have never had the pleasure of using the real thing) to accomplish a reasonable fake of selective defocus using those tools.

So for everyone out there wondering what the heck those actions were for and how they’re used… this one’s for you!

[See post to watch Flash video] ]]> http://dougboutwell.com/2008/09/16/fake-front-swings-and-tilts-with-fzero/feed/ 8