allVishal.com - Cthululu! - Comments

Focus Tricks

Vishal — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 00:28:45 -0700

If you mean the way only parts of the picture are in focus and everything else is blurry, well that has to do with Depth of Field, which you can control with the Aperture setting on your camera.

Many consumer cameras do not have 'manual' controls like these, but if you do have a mode (usually called ASM or PASM) on the dial then you can change the settings to A (Aperture Priority, where the aperture can be set manually and the shutter and other settings adjust to accomodate it), S (Shutter Priority, where the shutter time can be set manually) and M (Manual, where you can usually set aperture, shutter, ISO (how 'fast' the film is) and other settings for the perfect combination.

A low aperture (2.8) will result in a shallow depth of field, so only a thin slice of imaginary area will be in focus in the finished photo. Setting the higher number apertures gives you a wider DoF and that can be used when you want a everything to be in focus. Note that the higher aperture means there's less light coming in and so you will either need a steadier, longer shot to keep things sharp and bright, a higher ISO setting -- or a combination of both.

DoF can also be enhanced or simulated in image manipulation programs like The GIMP and Photoshop (here's a simple example).

I used a Kodak c875 camera for these; a lot more on it later, including tips on how to choose a good compact.

By the way, did I meantion

Spyder — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 18:57:56 -0700

By the way, did I meantion that the soft fade out of focus thing you do is fantastic? Its one of the things that gives your photos so much character, you make them larger-than-life!

Any technical tips you can share for us non-techs out here?
What kind of camera do you have these days anyway?

Cute!

Spyder — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 06:55:50 -0700

Wow, those are wonderfully fantastic! Im vaguely curious to try this myself.... maybe start growing them in my cubicle as an odd piece of plant life in this drab, mustard colored space....

Names that came immediately to mind for no apparent reason: Mortimer and Sly.

Ive been trying to sprout avocado pits with no luck... poop.

Cthululu!

Vishal — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 05:12:57 -0700

Just before I went on vacation last January, I realised that there were still a couple of potatoes left in the house. They had already been around for a while and had started to sprout eyes. I decided on a whim to just leave them out and see what grew. When I came backthey were still there, shriveled, and the eyes had grown into weird clusters of purple and green tendrils. I could have probably taken pictures of them right then and there, but decided to wait.

Now, four whole months later, I took some pictures of them with the new camera. These are two of the best ones, and clicking on the second one leads to a 1024x768 version.

"That's it," I said to myself,they've served their purpose, and I was all set to dump them in the trash can, but... well, I'm a bit of a softie, and even though I don't like pets I had developed an odd fascination with the two potatoes, shifting them around to see which way the tendrils would turn to catch the sun, and just how long they might go fuelled by sunlight and their own body-mass.

I've decided to keep them, and as long as they don't spoil I will do so indefinitely; maybe even look up a way to grow them some more.

I know they're not the conventional idea of house plants, but they are cute in their own Cthulu-esque way.

Any ideas for names?

PS 'Cthululu' is a Duck Tales reference.