Wireless TTL

_MG_9569, originally uploaded by photogeek21.

So I gave into my gadget weakness again and broke down and bought a set of Pocket Wizard Flex TT5s to wirelessly sync my speedlights in E-TTL mode.
This image was taken at 10 pm on my front porch the TTL let me play with my ISO - I needed to push it to 6400 inorder to get the landscape lights to show up in the exposure - the TTL automatically adjusted my flash output as I upped the ISO to prevent Aly from being over exposed. Sorta nice to work this way especially when the speedlight is mounted somewhere out of reach.
Now, I did hear how unreliable these TT5s were before I bought them and I'm sadden to say all the reports were true, I was getting about 25% no fires - even with my 550 ex which is NOT suppose to have the RF noise problem my 580exIIs have. But the promise of HSS and Wireless ETTL is keeping me here hoping someone finds a solution....

Retro Camera

 Found an Interesting app for my Android Phone. I usually don't like heavily processed photos that are canned but this adds some dimension to the typical cell phone photo. It has several effects which are suppose to replicate several toy cameras I never really heard. I can't comment on how representative the final picture is to the camera it's supposed to be replicating but who cares as long as you like the effect and the border it creates. In typical mobile app fashion you can pay for the app or get an ad supported one for free.  

Posted via Android and Posterous.com (http://barryshaffer.posterous.com)

Another reason for RAW

Morning's first light, originally uploaded by photogeek21.

Just found another plus for shooting raw. I recently upgraded to Lightroom 3 which has a couple new twists in it's raw processing engine one of my favorites recently has been it's noise reduction. The above image was shot at ISO1600 on my 1DmkII which left it quite noisy. I felt the noise distracted from the peaceful mood I was trying to set with the image and it was cast aside in my original culling. But after seeing what LR3 could do I pulled this image up and turned that noise into a silky smooth tones, added a nice under exposure gradient at the top of the image and now I have the image that sets the mood I was going for but couldn't execute back then. Nice. Software is always advancing and it's neat to take old images and breath new light into them.

Scott Kelby World Wide Photowalk 2010

Ride like the wind, originally uploaded by photogeek21.

Weather in Arizona during the month of July isn't exactly what you want to be in while shooting photos outside. But for some reason I signed up again after taking a couple years off. This year I headed up to Cave Creek to shoot the sights around Frontier town. The old west motif was all over this quaint little tourist spot and I found it quite challenging to take a unique angle on the statues and wagon wheels that were all over the place. But I gave it a shot, and the weather cooperated as well. I wont say it was cool but we were fortunate enough to get a bit of cloud cover that morning which 'cooled' things off to just around 98 degrees, compared to the 112 degree weather I shot in on the last photowalk I did in tempe several years ago, it was heaven.
Once again, I had a great time and met some really great fellow photogs.

Time to check my focus

Found a really good article on several techniques on setting the microfocus adjustment on my 5d.

 AF microadjustment for the 1Ds mark III, 1D Mk3, 5D Mk2, 7D 

Nordic Components NC22 First Impression

Last November I picked up a certificate for an NC22 rifle off the prize table of the Area 2 Desert Classic. I didn't really know what it was but I thought it'd be fun for my Son to shoot since my real AR is still a bit big and heavy for him.

Well the rifle arrived last week and I was extremely pleased to find how well made this rifle is. It appears that Nordic components fits a custom upper, specifically designed and optimized for running 22lr rounds to a standard AR lower. The upper to lower fit was nice and tight without a bit of slop or rattle.

The rifle came with one BlackDog 10 round magazine. I fitted it with a spare CMore sight (that I also picked up off the prize table) and went to the range to sight it in.

While I didn't shoot any groups as with a CMore, I wasn't setting this up to be a target rifle. But what this rifle is is FUN. A well balance AR platform shooting .22lr rounds just doesn't recoil and makes double taps and rapid fire strings a blast to pull off.

I shot about 700 rounds of a mixture of Federal and Winchester 36gr. copper plated bulk ammo through it and it never skipped a beat.

Ryan and I shot it this week in a local tactical rife match that was half close range rapid fire targets and half long range work - I took fifth which I thought was pretty good considering I didn't know what I was doing and a 12MOA red dot CMORE isn't the right tool to be pulling off long range work.

The one down side of the rifle is that the trigger leaves MUCH to be desired, but that could just be that I haven't shot a stock trigger in years. It does appear that they're just standard GI parts so I may have a go with some polishing compound and some spring cutting to see what happens.

So my bottom line on the Nordic Components NC22 Rifle? One hellova fun gun that's built right.

Android goes old skool...

It's been almost 12 years since I used Graffiti on my Palm X, but when I saw it land in the Android marketplace, I loaded up and all the gestures came back to me. It's very true to the original graffiti but it seems a bit faster and more accurate than I remember.

It is quite a bit more motion than just typing on a standard keyboard or using something like SWYPE but I find it much more accurate. I recently gave up on SWYPE and went back to the standard Android keyboard which I found much improved in the latest Froyo update. One of thing that I find great about the new Android keyboard is that its predictive text is excellent I usually only have to type a few letters and the correct work pops up for selection so I usually find myself only needing 3 or 4 characters per word which really lessens the strokes. SWYPE requires that you trace the entire word out before it can predict the your intent (and it gets VERY aggravating when its wrong). Graffiti doesn't have any predictive text so you don't get any annoying corrections but the downside is you have to type the entire word. I think if they can add predictive text as good as the stock keyboard - this will be my new full time keyboard.