Faulty ISO Information

*Note! Some (all) of this information is incorrect, look at the comments to see the corrections!*

Dear reader(s),

I apologize for the absurd amount of time it has taken me to post another entry and I promise that I will attempt to do the one-a-day posting from now on! If I don't...then there's not much that could really punish me at this point unless one or all of the existing pantheons decide to strike me down. However, to make up for my hiatus I will impart what little gems of knowledge that I have garnered from my fruitful week-long internship!

First of all, I have come to the realization that in every field and profession, there comes a point that individuals achieve a certain level of mastery after which the basics are taken for granted. This morphs into the assumption that every single human being was born with knowledge of what an arhat is, what ISO means and does, and at what point should a meat thermometer be inserted into the meat (it actually depends on whether or not it was an oven built thermometer or one that is an instant read and should only be inserted at the end to get a gauge of internal meat temperatures).  Since I will (hopefully) achieve this mastery in photography, I should probably start writing down now everything that I have struggled to learn before I too succumb to the allure of smugness. The following hints are for manual operation on DSLR cameras.

Lets see, so ISO stands for...okay, I don't actually know what it stands for BUT I do know that the lower the ISO, e.g. 200, the more light is let into an image which makes it brighter. If you are taking pictures on a DSLR camera and do not have it on an automatic setting, you'll have to manually adjust the ISO smaller or larger depending on how bright the photo is. If it's too bright, raise the ISO. I don't really have a cheat sheet yet for what are typical numbers, I'm still getting a feel for it myself, but that's the basic premise. I had the opportunity to play with a Nikon D700 this week (it is AWESOME) and this professional type of camera actually allows ISO change and manipulation right in the toggles and buttons on the camera. My awesome D5000, beginning more of a starting point and a good transition into professional cameras, only allows ISO change through the menu. A little more time consuming but once a setting is done, you shouldn't have to change it too much unless you're moving around a lot between well-lit and dark areas.

Also in line with how much brightness is in the shot is the F-stop (aka relative aperture, focal ratio according to wikipedia). I'll spare you the wading that I had to do through convoluted explanations of what this does and give you the easy answer: the lower the f-stop, the larger the aperture, the more light that enters the camera! So, if the picture is too dark, then just lower the f-stop and it should lighten up. Conversely, if the picture is too light, adjust the f-stop higher and it should darken.  Watch out if you fiddle too much with both the ISO and the f-stop or you could end up with a ridiculously light photo even at night.

                                                                 before

                                                      after

White balance is another way to lighten or darken photos by adjusting it higher or lower depending on how much light you want. Shutter speed I'm still figuring out...through some sort of finagling I managed to get the shutter speed to 1/6000 of a second which contributed to the lightness of the above photo. When I know more, I'll be sure to post!

Well, that's it for now. I'll write something soon comparing Picasa (the google free editing software) and Lightroom (adobe's pricey version).

 Adieu!

Evolution Redux: A Story of Moldy Bread

Since I'm waiting for some statistics to download for my perceptions of Africa paper, I thought I'd take this opportunity to write my entry for the day. Not much of humorous note has taken place within the last 24 hour period, so I'll just focus some more on photography! I've been experimenting with filters and different settings on the camera and in order to make this process a little more interesting, I'll tell a little story alongside the pretty pictures. Here are a series of shots of the growing world that sprang from a single loaf of bread:

Notice that there are basically two main spheres of growth. From a distance they look like googly eyes! I imagine that were we to shrink, they would either be giant whirlpools of a churning maelstrom or bogs and forests filled with varieties of woodland sprites. Notice that the majority of the world is brown and would likely be deserts and giant canyons. The plastic enclosing the bread-world is the atmosphere. As the maelstrom rages and the forests and bogs continue to grow and produce liquid, cloud formations begin to form, further fermenting the living organisms within. Thus far, the only gods that exist are pagan, and centered around natural formations such as water and earth and green growth, e.g. the woodland sprites.

Now, fast forward two weeks our time (a few million years bread-world time) and see the changes that have taken place. The atmosphere is now fully formed with traces of regular rain storms and climate cycles seen in the droplets of water.  The world is now completely green and prosperous, without arid land to hinder agricultural growth. However, as seen from the first picture, an evil force has taken over the land, and that being's name is Sauron, the villain from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. You can see his evil yellow eye staring malignantly out from the beleaguered world. He has clearly claimed the entire world as his own and harnessed the woodland sprites to his bidding.

Alas that this world rest beyond both hope and redemption. It grows worse daily, the pure green now diluted and warped by a sulfurous yellow that chokes the life from the once bountiful land. There is only one way to handle this situation: put this world out of its misery and destroy Sauron once and for all. So, a hero was called forth from among the dying masses. It was she, the magnificent mistress of trash, who took control of her fate and the fate of all the worlds. She banished the evil being and exiled her own land into the gaping, stinking abyss in which they would be trapped for all eternity.

Through her sacrifice, the rest of the universe is now safe.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my story, I got a nice chunk of procrastination out of the way!                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

First Post

At the Trevi Fountain in Rome about to make a wish!

I started this blog because of a competition (that I did not win) and I have continued it because I found it a good place to mix my thoughts and photographs. The reason I chose the name Unsettled TCK is because of how I grew up and how I have chosen to continue to live my life. As you can read on my About Me page, I am a Third Culture Kid (I was raised in multiple countries around the world) and I am unsettled because I have yet to find a home.

I do not know if I will ever live in one place permanently. I actually hope I don't. Stability is overrated for me and I actively cultivate my grass-is-always-greener mentality. Moving and travel has never seemed daunting to me whereas the thought of a suburban neighborhood home sends me screaming for the hills. However, I do not think my escapist mentality is entirely healthy and I am working really hard on being able to appreciate the here and the now, so wish me luck.

I hope that you enjoy living vicariously through me and that this gives you the push you were waiting for to go out and explore. The world is a big place and the only way to make it smaller is to cover as much of it as possible. Travel really is not as daunting as it seems, so what are you waiting for?

"Like" me here: Unsettled TCK Facebook Page
Tweet me here: Unsettled TCK Twitter

Gawk at my photographs here: Unsettled TCK Gallery
Buy prints here: Unsettled TCK 500px