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The basic idea is that any GPS logger that exports a .gpx file can be used with any digital camera. Assuming the clock on your camera is correct, during post-production you sync the .gpx data file with your photos using Lightroom or other software. Your location data is matched to your photo based on time (for example, at 4:05:42, you were at such-and-such coordinates).

Lightroom 4 has .gpx import built-in. For Lightroom 3 or earlier, you can use the donationware plug-in from Jeffrey Friedl called GPS Support. If you don’t have Lightroom, Mac users can use MyTracks (works with JPGs, not sure about RAW files).

In early 2011, while preparing for a trip to London, I knew I would want to geoencode my images. I don’t own an iPhone; for many users, that would be the easiest choice. So I knew I had to purchase some kind of GPS unit.

The main problem I had was getting the logger to sync with my Mac. If you are a PC user, you’ll have no problem; the units generally come with a small-size CD with PC software on it. On the Mac, you have to download third-party software that will sync with your unit. Most (all?) Garmins will sync with Google Earth directly. For other units you can use the free HoudahGPS or the inexpensive and very elegant MyTracks. Most GPS loggers sync over a bluetooth connection; so you have to configure your bluetooth settings properly, and get the software to download the file. This requires some amount of fiddling with settings to work, even in the best of circumstances.

I began with a handheld Garmin 60C, which I use for hiking and geocaching. It syncs easily with my computer over a USB cable connection, and the unit is accurate. But the battery only lasts a few hours, not long enough for a whole day. Plus the size of the thing is relatively large; carrying this big thing around London was not something I wanted to do.

So, I ordered the iGotU (US$60). The plastic on the logger broke pretty much immediately. I sent it back without further testing.

Then I spent a little more and got the $100 QStarz BT1300ST, which is a beautiful little unit. The battery lasts all day, and it’s small and has a nice keychain attachment. I was able to get it to occasionally sync with my desktop iMac, but it never sync’d with my MacBook. It appears to be highly accurate, but since I couldn’t reliably sync it with the MacBook I would have with me in London, I decided to try another unit.

I then got a Wintec WBT-201, it is almost as small as the QStarz, though noticeably fatter. Luckily,  I can reliably get it to connect to all my macs. Unfortunately, it does not appear to be terribly accurate. During a walk along the south side of the Thames River, the unit had me crossing the river zigzagging from the north side to the south side several times, as if I were swimming across the river again and again.

Disclaimer: Since then, there are new versions of HoudahGPS, and I even have a new MacBook Air with a new operating system. I really ought to try syncing the QStarz again, it’s a great little unit with a small size and long battery life. It’s entirely possible that it sycs fine with the MBA, I just haven’t been traveling in quite a while.

A friend held a contest to guess how many standard M&M’s are in a 1-liter Nalgene bottle.

The wining answer was 1050. My guess was 1070, based on this post, and I was close enough to win.

Google search beats mathematics.

Video 2

You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

Slideshow

I’ve been a longtime user of Adobe Lightroom, and I love it. I’ve been asked to give presentations on Lightroom at my photo club, and I sometimes use my notes from that session to share on bulletin boards on Reddit. So here it is, for my own reference:

Q: How is Lightroom different from Photoshop? Photoshop is for doing intensive manipulation of individual photos.

Lightroom is for managing your whole photo workflow, including:

Organize your photos

• Manage metadata
• Find, sort, and rank photos
• Create collections
• Compare similars
• Export

Develop your photos

• Color correction
• Dust & redeye removal
• Tonal adjustments
• Sharpening
• Noise Reduction
• Lens corrections
• Virtual copies
• Cropping
• Compare before/after
• Presets

Slideshows

Easy Printing

Web Galleries

Q: How is that different from Bridge?

The corrections are all the same that you can do with Adobe Camera RAW; I believe Bridge, Photoshop, and Lightroom all use the same Camera Raw. So those are more or less the same.

However, Lightroom is based on a database. Any changes you make to the photos are stored in the database, not the original image. Similar to the XMP files that Bridge uses, but more robust.

You can save develop settings as presets. And you can share presets with other users. I have a library of dozens of presets I have collected, and I can go from one to the next with just a click.

Like in iTunes playlist, you can make collections. An image can be in multiple collections. So you can organize your photos for projects. You can also make smart collections; so you can instantly collect in one place all your photos with a particular keyword, or multiple keywords: all your “four star” images taken in “london” with “Susan” in them. Or see what lenses you used the most in 2011.

But probably the biggest difference from Bridge is virtual copies. You can replicate an image over and over without actually replicating the file. That way, you can try different processing variations and compare them side by side.

There’s also a printing module which is useful if you print your own photos. I used to save off .psd’s at different aspect ratios, creating multiple files of my favorite images at 8×10, 5×7, etc. With Lightroom, it’s just a preset for each image size.

We all know that the best times for landscape photography are sunrise and sunset. And we can reliably predict that the sun will set each evening. The question is, how do we know when the weather conditions create a beautiful sky?

It does seem to me that low humidity can correlate with the blue skies and white cumulus clouds that I like for photography. This time of year in particular — late August through October, generally — brings us lower humidity, clear air, and a lot of pretty sky. That, plus the foliage of autumn, is why autumn is my favorite time of year to plan a photo trip.

Of course, even in autumn the weather can be variable. It’s important to note that a change of weather can be the best time to shoot; when the forecast says “rain this afternoon, ending toward evening” can be a really good time to plan a sunset shoot.

But it’s always a crapshoot. I’ve had gloomy overcast days suddenly open up for a gorgeous shot of the sun peeking through the clouds, after I had decided to stay home. I’ve had beautiful clear days suddenly block up in the west more times than I can count.

If there’s a real science about it, I still have not figured it out.

Someone on Flickr noticed that I uploaded some photos using the Sigma 50-200mm f4-5.6 DC OS HSM lens, and asked me what I thought about it. I always find it so hard to answer these kinds of questions. Obviously, a $160 lens is not going to be as sharp as an “L” lens, or as fast as a 2.8 lens. The question becomes, is it “good enough” for what I want to use it for.

I bought the lens for the Jon Stewart “Rally to Restore Sanity” rally in 2010. I also brought it on a family trip to Florida, and I shot a Brown commencement with it. All of these were outdoor, casual uses. From my point of view, if I’m shooting serious stock, I’m going to use my big gear: the 5DMII and Canon L glass. I got the Sigma because I wanted a low-price lens for casual travel snapshots. I also thought it would be good for family hikes. At $160, it was not a big investment, so it seemed worth a shot.

This lens creates a nice compact, light combination when paired with my Canon 20D. The 50-200 range is very, very useful on a 1.6x crop sensor body; you can get from moderate telephoto/portrait at the 50mm range to significant telephoto at the 200mm lens.

Is the lens sharp in the 100-200 range? Well, looking at some examples a medium apertures, I would say it was sharp enough for my purposes. Would it be sharp wide open indoors? Maybe sharp enough. Would I use it for indoor sports? I would not, as I have a 70-200 f/2.8, so I guess I can’t answer that question. Unfortunately, I’m just not the kind of guy who’s going to do all kinds of objective tests to find out exactly how a lens performs, so this is not that kind of review.

Overall, I think it’s a great lens for the money. I mean, as far as telephoto lenses go, it’s about as cheap as you will find. It’s small and compact and light, which are really important to me in some situations. It’s not very fast, though, either in aperture and focus speed. And the bokeh looks a little funny to me.

Anyway, seeing is believing. I posted some samples at 100% size; please use them for reference only, do not use them for publication of any kind. Also, here are my Flickr photos using this lens.

This question comes up a lot on online forums: “I’m new to photography. What are some good subjects to photograph? How do I come up with subjects?”

The short answer is shoot what interests you, shoot what you can get to. Almost any subject can become a photo project. Shoot that subject frequently, at different times of day and different times of the year. The subject can be a community of people, a place, or a thing or collection of things. Here are a few random examples:

I hang around a lot (too much) in online forums, and this question comes up all the time. A beginner photographer is new to the hobby and would like advice on what DSLR to choose.

If you are buying new: Of course Canon and Nikon are the most popular brands; they have the lion’s share of the market and they make fine equipment. You can’t go wrong choosing either one, see which brand feels right to you and which model fits your budget. If you have friends who shoot one or the other, it might make sense to pick that brand because you can borrow/share lenses and equipment. Personally, I was borrowing Canon DLSR’s since they came out, so I was familiar with Canon and everybody I knew at the time shot Canon, so that’s what I bought. Personally, I like the thumbwheel on the back that can be found on the x0D line of cameras, I have always owned Canons with the thumbwheel.

If you are on a tight budget and if you have no particular reason to go Canon or Nikon, I can recommend Pentax line, it has very good value for the money across the line, and the top-end Pentax cameras are as good as anything out there. Plus, the Pentax lens mount has not changed in decades, so there are loads of older manual focus lenses that will fit on it. Pentax offers some sweet and useful lenses such as the Pentax DA 40mm f/2.8 ultra compact lens. Be aware, though, that while Pentax has superb sensors, the line currently has no full-frame sensor bodies available. If you really think you will be pursuing serious fine-art photography or go pro at some point, you might want to stick with Canon or Nikon for this reason. Although I think for most hobbyists, this should not be a consideration.

If you don’t mind buying used, I generally recommend Canon 20D or 30D (not D30). The 20D and 30D are about the oldest DSLR’s that are really good (they are very similar models, although the 30D has a larger LCD).  I do recommend that you avoid anything older than the 20D: this would include the Canon D30, D60, and 10D, as they have very slow buffers and a startup lag (they can take one to three seconds to “turn on”). Here is a Canon DSLR timeline to help you tell them apart.

Be aware that Canon has a (not well-publicized) “Canon Loyalty Program” which allows Canon owners (in North America, at least) to send their used (or even broken) DLSR to Canon in exchange for a significant discount on a refurbished Canon product (approx US$200). This tends to put a floor on the market for used Canon cameras, since they always have a trade-in value of around $200. Don’t expect to find a used Canon DSLR of any vintage for under that price (or if you do, you could try calling Canon to get the trade-in yourself).

As far as used Nikon bodies go, I’m not very familiar with them, so I can’t really comment on specific Nikon models.

A billionaire, tea party guy, and union member are sitting at a table with a dozen donuts. The billionaire scoops up 11 donuts and says to the tea party guy, ‘watch out, that guy is trying to take your donut.’

I’m not convinced that longer incumbency equals greater (what exactly is the problem?) incompetence or poor performance. In fact, I think surveys have shown that the most bipartisan and effective members tend to be the ones who have been there the longest (Alan Simpson and Ted Kennedy come to mind). The most partisan members tend to be the new ones — just look at the current crop of “tea party” freshmen who are blocking everything.

2ndly, term limits are inherently undemocratic. Congresspeople regularly come before their consitiuents for re-election; why shouldn’t people be allowed to vote for someone they like? If you want to take aim at a branch of government that is filled with deadwood, take a look at the Supreme Court. I would support 25-year term limits for Supreme Court members, who currently cannot be removed no matter how incompetent they are.