UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Windham 2015

This is one of those sports or should I say extreme sports that I have to witness to believe it.  It is insane.  My pictures don't do justice to how fast and dangerous the sport is.

My legs are gone after shooting the event from 12:30 to 5, the total 6 hours driving to and from Windham doesn't help either.  The environment is just not for an old man like myself.  When compared to shooting track in a velodrome, this is harder.  First the velodrome is very much a controlled environment.  The riders ride in circles and always come back for you.  I am a lazy person so I pretty much pick a spot and stay there waiting for the riders to come to me.  For downhill forget about it, you shoot a sequence and she is gone, downhill, for good.  Navigating the mountainous terrain is a challenge and a hazard for an old man, add two cameras and an assortment of lenses and accessories is almost suicidal.  It is no joke.  I was staggering and tumbling down the mountain most of the time.  The fact that I am still alive is a minor miracle.  I must thank the media room at Windham, especially Penny, for the hospitality.

Photos:  Missy Giove doing her thing.  The album can be found here at Flickr.

Ubuntu 15.04 and Ralink rt61pci Problem

update 8/12:
The latest is I removed network-manager and use wicd to "manage" the network.  I think it's better than before but still iffy.  I know it sounds very not scientific but that's me because I am not scientific.  Basically the Wifi support for Ubuntu 15.04 has been terrible ... for me if not for everybody.  I think this article kind of resembles what I experience.  In the last post it says "removed network-manager package, and used netctl for managing wifi, and the problem is gone"  I am not wizard so I have a difficult time figuring how to install netctl in Ubuntu GNOME.  In the end I gave up and installed WICD.  At some point it got stuck at 1Mb/s but if I wasn't dreaming I think it did connect at 36Mb/s.  It now connects at 11Mb/s.  I am not exactly complaining as long as it is double digit.  All in all it's iffy.  Not good.
Before I did all the above I also ordered a card that supposedly works out of the box on 15.04, I will find out soon.  It's a b/g/n card with max rate at 300Mb/s.  I doubt I can reach that but I would be thoroughly thrilled if it reaches 50Mb/s, the top speed of the router.

I guess I was happy too soon.  The connection drops and wouldn't reconnect.  And when connected the rate drops to 1Mb/s, like modem or something.

I am counting on my new card now.

----------------

Basically I have very slow connection rate, from 1Mb/s to 11Mb/s or mostly no connection at all with this combination.  Prior to 15.04, 14.04 LTS or 14.10, the WiFi connection has been pretty stable and the quality has been satisfactory, I don't think I ever reach the 54Mb/s rate but at least I got some where at 20Mb/s.  (My WiFi connected MacBook Pro get more than 50Mb/s and noticeably faster)

I thought ndiswrapper would be the solution.  Alas it was, only momentarily.

So the struggle continues.

PS: I should have left it at 14.10 because seemingly the WiFi is solid and I have no random reboots like I have had on 14.04 LTS

PPS:  In addition to the WiFi problem, I have had a few random reboots in 15.04 already.

PPPS:  Shotwell unequivocally continues to suck.  Part of the library continues to disappear, the import is still very very problematic.  I wonder does anybody ever get it to work like normally?  Part of my motivation to get on board to 15.04 was to see if Shotwell would work better.  Now I know.

PPPPS: So in a nutshell, the 15.04 offers no benefits to me.


NOTES TO SELF:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1433233 back in 2010
https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/solved-ralink-rt2561-rt61-wifi-problem-15-04-beta2/828/7  this is where I got the idea.  Unfortunately just like one of them, the ndiswrapper doesn't quite work for me, it drops connection just like the Linux driver installed originally.

http://us.edimax.com/edimax/download/download/data/edimax/us/download/product/home_legacy_products/home_legacy_wireless_adapters/ew-7128g/ manufacturer's support site

http://www.mediatek.com/en/downloads1/downloads/rt2501pcimpcicbrt61rt2561rt2561srt2661/


http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/30ish0/ubuntu_14041504_uefi_restartpower_off_problem/

2015 Kissena Twilight Series Week 14

This is done with pan.  The yield should be higher if only I remember to stay very focus, and just follow and predict where the movement is going to be.

UPDATE:  If you feel like you haven't suffered enough, you can check our the About Me page, My Instagram and Facebook account has the full collection.

Sunpak auto 120J

Every so often, I got myself into some photographic gear obsession.  My latest infatuation is the bare bulb flash from Sunpak from many many years ago.  I got one with a hair line crack which turns out a bit worse than I thought or led to believe on the listing.  Whenever I pivot the head, the casing moves and the crack actually expands.

So I got myself a little project.  I got myself some epoxy.  I could have just applied it on the crack.  But I thought it would be cool and more thorough to disassemble the flash to apply the epoxy.

I know I am not a handy kind of man when it comes, actually everything.  Still I go ahead.  Because I need to desk adventure or maybe I secretly wish I would screw up.  The moment I opened it was the moment I regretted it.  But I never learned.  I applied the epoxy when inhaling the toxic fume and got my fingers glued together.  Next time if there is a next time, I will wear gloves.  I waited for the following day before I put the casing back together.

A picture is worth a thousand words.  So here we go.  A bunch of iPhone pictures.

I only disassembled the base and mostly the top half.  Lucky that there wasn't any electronic part to fix.  But just to open it up and putting it back together is such an ordeal, for me, anyway.

I was pretty much sure I couldn't put it back together.  But lucky me.

Well I hope the pictures will be of some help to some folks.  I did try to search on service manual or repair manual or any diagram or pictures but to no avail.  I dare not nor do I need to open the head.  So I guess the pictures won't be a lot of help.

Do it any your own risk.  You may get electrocuted by simply opening the case.

AirDrop

I wish AirDrop can work like 99% of the time.  As of now, AirDrop kind of works like maybe I don't know, when it feels like it.

After I processed my Instagram pictures, I just AirDrop it to my iPhone 5s so I can upload them accordingly.  I really like the Instagram way of doing thing.  They will only support desktop upload until hell freezes over.  I really admire the stubbornness if not anything else.

Back to AirDrop, it really works mysteriously--for ignorant people like myself almost anything works mysteriously.  Initially I thought AirDrop works with Wi Fi but I notice when I turn on AirDrop it also turns on Bluetooth.  So I have no idea.  I think it gives more trouble with iPhone 6--again it does work but with extreme temperament.  My experience is AirDrop works actually better with iPhone 5s.  I am talking about MacBook Pro with iPhone here.  Though I have heard some people claiming AirDrop is meant for iOS devices only.  To those people I'd like to say go to have fun with yourself.

Drive in Theater

About to watch Inside Out and the latest Terminator at the Warwick Drive-in Theater.

Red Bull Mini Drome NYC 2015

A video

I am not sure how good or bad, most likely bad it would appear here.  They are mostly from still pictures with a bit of video here and there in this 44 second edit.  I mean to make it a high energy edit so it's kind of fast and loud and only 44 seconds short.  Every time I edit any video it's a new experience to me.  Like I forgot everything I learned.  There is always some hiccup something unexpected.  Things got a little bit easier as I think iMovie is rather stable compared to Cinelerra.  And having a quad core and 16GB of RAM certainly helps.  I used to take a shower when I hit rendering.  It just took a long time to render.  Now it's just fast.

Head directly YouTube I guess the video quality is better.

Watermark

Finally I sat myself down to do some watermark script using ImageMagic.  Again it was some hack job, I didn't know what I was doing, just to make it work.  Being a no talent self important least necessary photographer, some watermarking is absolutely essential for my ego.  I don't know why I waited all these years to actually watermark my images.

Almost all of my images were taken at ISO800.  I found this ISO very much usable or usable without involving any Photoshop wizardry which I have none and in turn I can save on my flash power.  High ISO upto 800 doesn't cost me anything.  I loaded my SB-600 with fresh batteries before going to the event.  I think after some three hundred shots in iTTL, the recycling time became a bit of a problem if I were to shoot consecutively in less than 3 seconds.  The SB-600 performed admirably.  This was the only time I shot the entire event in iTTL, almost exclusively.  Not to miss any shot, I took the fresh batteries from the Metz I brought with me but didn't use, and put them into my SB-600.

... to be continued.

I used a CB min bracket, SC-17 cable for my SB-600, my usual setup.  There isn't really any empirical evidence that the lighting is better this way but I just feel like this is a cooler way to shoot on camera flash.  So psychologically it works for me.

And I don't put any, in my mind, silly dome to cover the flash head to make the light softer.  And I certainly didn't bounce my flash as the ceiling was like 50 feet above.  I just don't understand why some people chose to tilt their flashhead when the ceiling was 50 feet above.  There are so many things I don't understand.  The flashhead as it was, in my bare naked eye, didn't produce any hotspot on the face.  Though I must say I in most cases, tuned down the the camera and flash exposure and power to minus -0.7.  I always prefer under to over exposure.

A Portrait of the Cyclist as a Young Man

This is my rather lame attempt to create a black background in the outdoor by using some external flash.
Nikon D700, Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR, Nikon SB-600 as slave on TTL, on-camera flash as command.
The flash has the channel on 3 while the flash had it on 1, or the other way round.  Anyway, it wasn't working initially because of that.  On location trouble-shooting is always stupid and challenging.  You or I become extra stupid when trouble shoot on location.  And you are always tight on time or running out of it.  Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.  Basically I got a minute or two or three to make it work.  It was after the race when the kids were leaving already.  Billy is a good kid and unlike my own, doesn't mind to have his picture taken by me.  I guess with some diffuser put on the flash will make the light more pleasing or add another one to the right.

Software Misadventure

2015 version.  I think I have never changed.
Despite having all the software I need to manage my picture files, I still want to install something in addition to what I already have.
The challenge was get ImageMagick on my MacBook Pro or MBP.  Of course one thing led to another.  Before I knew it, I was using Macports installing things I have absolutely no idea of.  ImageMagick or IM was installed OKAY, so where was the challenge?  I must kick it up a notch and make it able to convert NEF to JPG, right?  Then I proceeded to install UFRaw ....  It just went on and on.  The crazy thing, at least in my mind, was I thought I only needed UFRaw but when I typed
sudo port install ufraw, it tried to install a zillion other things,  including something called lensfun.  Contrary to what its name suggests, lensfun was no fun at all. When it failed to install, ufraw wouldn't install either.  It's part of the dependency thing.   So I figured maybe I should just sudo port install lensfun.  But that didn't work either.  Why would it right?  So more Googling.  sudo port clean lensfun worked.  And then sudo port install lensfun worked.  After that I issued the command sudo port install ufraw, and bang, it worked, it started to install a whole bunch of crap, and it just went.  finally the moment of truth.  convert DSC_1704.NEF DSC_1704.JPG and it worked.  It most likely doesn't make sense to convert NEF using ufraw via ImageMagick but hey it works.

Handy Man Fail

The left mirror cracked this past winter and I needed to fix it.  After some research I was able to buy a genuine part and watched some YouTube video hoping that I could actually put everything together without making a trip to my auto mechanic in Flushing.  Of course that was delusional.  I never learned from my past mistakes.  This was the most expensive and frustrating mirror I ever bought.

Deep Thoughts

I think lots of jobs just involve doing a lot of stupid things.  Then try to fix things, and then do more stupid things.  It's an infinite loop.

Random Thoughts

Good things happened when I least expected.  Somebody was kind enough to fix the storm door.  I am grateful for that.  It seems easy just wait until I tried.  I can never deal with any handy works at home.  Never.

Sometimes I just need some support, people on my side so to speak.  But.

People are being polite, have low or no expectations.  I shot about 1,000 frames and 100 of them are somewhat usable in my humble opinion.  Of course it would be zero if it's for anything serious.

If you put your pictures on FB, does it mean free for all?  Is it the expectation?  Does it mean you asked for it?  Is it too much trouble to put photo credit if you must right-click and save?  I think people mean no harm but just don't care enough to put photo credit or what today call at least a shout out to the content creator.

Since I don't shoot with top notched gears, so I tend to blame my gears if the pictures aren't focus or sharp enough.  Maybe if I use an AF-S lens or a better body, I would get more focused pictures.  Your camera gears matter don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

New Level of Stupid

QUOTE
電視機跟電影熒幕都是4比3或者16比9，將熒幕中的人拉闊，所以女星要設法努力減肥到比一般人瘦，在畫面上才會「正常」。不過歌手就不一樣，聽歌是憑聲音而不是畫面，大家可否真的接受肥妹的世界？
UNQUOTE

it reads, in part:
TV and movie screen are either in 4:3 or 16:9 format, it widens people, that's why to appear "normal," female movie stars need to be skinnier than normal.  Singers on the other hand depend on their voices not appearances on screens ...

I can't go on anymore.

It's either written in snark that I don't quite comprehend or appreciate or it's a whole new level of stupid.

Extracted from mingpao

The Struggle is Real

Random Photography Thoughts

Any new photo gears may or may not help you take better pictures.  But most likely they will re-kindle your passion somewhat even if you're not exactly a gear head.

I don't think I ever suffer for my craft of photography except in monetary term.  But recently there were a couple of times that came close or actually qualified as suffering.  New York City was in frozen mode for the past few weeks or months.  It seems like the longest winter ever.  I was out taking pictures in the open for an hour or two.  Not only my fingers felt numb but they were also hurting badly.  I wore some thin gloves so I had better feel with the controls of the camera or so I thought.  I don't know if I had ever felt this kind of numbing pain when I was out skiing/snowboarding.   The pain was real and I thought how many fingers am I going to lose for my stupid photo expedition in the cold.  Luckily the number is none.

I pride myself surviving the cold and came back with pictures I am not ashamed of.  Surprisingly the Nikon D7000 and AF-D 80-200 f/2.8 worked well in the arctic cold.  One thing I discovered was some of my pictures had unnecessary high shutter speed and hence ISO.  I was shooting mostly shutter priority, manual with ISO auto max out at 6400, so essentially I am shooting auto.  I might even have picked aperture priority.  Anyway the point I am trying to make is my fingers are numb and all of a sudden the thumb wheel got turned inadvertently by my gloved fingers.  I honestly don't think it was an electronic malfunction on the part of the camera due to the cold.  This makes the case of big camera where the controls are bigger and not so cramped even with gloved hands.  Even the lowly D7000 can withstand cold below 10F for at least two three hours.

Another thing I experienced in the cold was over exposure.  One time when I was out shooting in the cold, I found my pictures at least over exposed by 2 or 3 stops with my AF-D 20-35 f/2.8, something I can tell right away looking at the camera LCD.  Initially I thought it must be the camera--because it just came back from Melville!  But later the following day I had second thought.  I think it could be the AF-D 20-35 f/2.8.  Though I must say I couldn't conclusively say that one way or another but my hunch is the cold make the aperture blades stick.  That's one theory I tend to believe.  I never had issues before or after with the AF-D 20-35 f/2.8 except that one time.  During that time, I dialed back the exposure compensation and kept chimping, essentially ruining the entire shooting experience.  If only I knew it--meaning the lens aperture, I would have chosen to shoot with f/2.8 the biggest aperture to avoid any opening and closing of the aperture.

Nikon ... Oh no not again

Just when dpreview.com enthusiastically uses the words "Gold Standard" in its review of the Nikon D750, there is a cacophony of internet chatters of what reminiscent of the oil spots of the old Nikon D600 not so long ago--the Nikon D750, at least quite a number of them, demonstrably exhibits some blocked flares in Live View and in pictures when shooting towards the light.  Personally I think it's a problem.  I can begrudgingly live with its square eyepiece, its top 1/4000s shutter speed and less than stellar buffer.  But this is not something a consumer signs up for, for paying $2,300 or $230 and got some weird blocked flare.  And I don't believe it's a feature or any acceptable by-product of shooting in sub optimal conditions.  If one thinks one does not have this problem or it's not a problem, I say more power to you but just don't go around and belittle folks who have this demonstrable problem.

Parts Direct from NikonUSA

Sometimes I think I live in a dream state.  I don't know if what I experience is real or not.

I just noticed that Nikon USA is selling parts directly online.  You can go ahead replace a tripod mount, a zoom rubber ring of your favorite lens with genuine parts directly from NikonUSA.

Lee Jeans and other thoughts

#lee #leetheultimatejeans #madeinusa #madeintheusa

A photo posted by laichungleung (@laichungleung) on Dec 12, 2014 at 10:56am PST

These two jeans bear the same 200-0147 designation and look almost identical.  The newer one seems to have slightly longer belt loops and wider leg openings.  It could be because the newer jeans are not worn nor washed after manufacture, no shrinkage yet.  The faded one has the scovill zipper while the new condition pair has the talon 42 zipper.  I am actually surprised to see a Gap hang tag there.  I witnessed Gap selling Levi's in the late 80s but never Lee.  Apparently at some point in time somewhere a Gap carried Lee jeans 200-0147.

Lee 200-0147 with talon 42 zipper.  Notice the belt loop on the right, it actually looks or is longer.  Is it an anomaly or a genuine design that accommodates the extra thickness of the belt going through the second time?  If so, I can really appreciate the thought goes in there.  It's fascinating.

Is the six belt loops construct better than five?  I am not sure.  Maybe it causes less stress on the belt.  But it somehow lessens if not destroys the symmetry.  Taylor Stitch jeans.  Worn and washed many times.  I don't know what people are thinking when they insist not washing their raw denims.

I like the seven belt loops and the cross bar tacks on the back pockets of Lee jeans.  Most other jeans, except for really big waist size only use five belt loops which in my mine is not optimum but not a deal breaker.  Some jeans even go for six, with the two in the front, two on the hips and two in the back, and none in the middle!  Again, not a deal breaker.  What I find disturbingly appalling is a slanted belt loop in the back, as if it is some real clever design, do they do this so they can sew the loop easier without the folded layers of thick fabric?  I have no idea.  The 200-0147 is not made of selvedge but I like the material, dye and the subsequent fade which is very distinct from Levi's 501.  I can say not all selvedge is the same or good.

Another New York Mystery

These news and sundry items kiosks dot the Manhattan streets and subway stations.  I always think to myself where is the bathroom?   One time on the number 7 train platform in Grand Central,  I peeked in I think I saw bottles of cream soda that's not in cream soda bottle perfectly lined against the side wall.   Another time, a man inside the kiosk with his left hand down in front of his torso told his customer to hold on a sec ....