Detroit Photos

Finally got around to uploading some of the photos from Detroit. Didn't get the camera out too much, but when I did catch you can see below. It was great getting to see Ian and Mike, as well as Amon's Mom and Allen. Plus I made it to some parts of Detroit I hadn't been to yet. The last thing that I know of in Detroit that I really want to do is see the Zoo, still haven't done that yet.

One of my favorite, though brief, things we did while in MI was the Franklin Cider Mill. I'd definitely go back there again. Fresh, unpasturized cider and hot donuts? Yeah. I'll stop typing so you can go get a mop to clean up that drool.

The cider really was delicious. Cheers!

Ah, and that bag, Dana, fabulous.

An aerial view of Benny (did I spell that right, Dana?). Oh, and my shoes. I should have probably cropped that.

People Mover: Bad Decision.
Thank you for that observation Sufjan. Well the people mover is arriving, in this photo, to whisk us away on a magical journey around a select portion of the Motor City.

Bridge between US and Canada in Detroit. If only I had brought my passport.

Look how many places you can go on the people mover! It took us a whole 10 minutes to ride the entire loop. Ok, while short and kind of pointless as mass transit, as a cheap ride (50 cents) it was kind of fun. It let us get the above shot of the bridge between Detroit and Canada.

It may not be GLARINGLY obvious, but Amon really enjoyed the trains at the Detroit Historical society. We both did actually. There were buttons you could push to make it night time, to raise and lower hot air ballons, etc. It made me feel like I was 8 years old. Good times.

It may be hard to tell but nature's Remedy for the blood, apparently, involves the "arm of science" choking a...snake? This one really confused me. I guess in the olden days snakes made "moo" sounds as well as opposed to todays lazy snakes that just go around hissing.

Slackers.

Detroit

Yeah, that's right...Bunion Plasters

Megapixel Madness

DO NOT BUY A CAMERA JUST BECAUSE IT HAS MORE MEGAPIXELS THAN ANOTHER CAMERA!!!

I’ve been reading more and more articles lately saying that the number of Megapixels (how much information your digital camera captures when you snap a photo) is getting to the point where most people aren’t well served to simply look for the camera with more Megapixels.

Check out this link to West Coast Imaging for a fantastic (and colorful) chart illustrating how different megapixel ratings affect print quality at various sizes. (Hint: the number inside each little rectangle is the effective DPI. DPI is the dots per inch and is how you measure what quality a print is.)

200 DPI or higher is recommended for photographic quality prints.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find myself printing out two foot by 3 foot prints that often. Ok, never. The largest I’ve ever printed out is 8x10, and that was in photography class in college. That means that for most people, the biggest concern is that they want to crop their picture down and only print part of it.

Let’s say you crop your picture down so that you’re only using the bottom left corner of the image (throwing away 75% of the image…seriously, shoot more discriminately). If you did this with a 4 megapixel image (2464 x 1632 pixels), the remaining image (after cropping) would be 1232 x 816 pixels. Tiny, right? Well that image could still be printed at roughly 204 DPI as a 4x6 image (remember over 200 is considered photo-quality). 4x6 is the standard size for prints from a photolab.

Bottom line…if you are going to be lazy and shoot pictures that have to be cropped to one quarter of their size, a 4 megapixel camera will still let you print photo quality images at the most common size. If you are going to print photos as 8x10s (without cropping) you only need 4 megapixels. Everything above that only serves to allow you to crop more and still print at the same size, or to print larger than 8x10 with minimal cropping.

This tells me that the most important thing in cameras, 4 megapixels and higher, is how well they capture color, sharpness, how good the lens is, how small or easy the camera is to use, and how much it costs.

Last thought. If you are only going to post your photos to your website then keep in mind that most photos get posted at a maximum of the screen resolution. Screen resolutions right now range from 1024x768 to 1920x1200. However, much more common is for images to be used on websites inline with the text at resolutions of less than 640x480. You could do this with less than 25% of a 2 megapixel image Please, please, please, do not spend a couple hundreds dollars extra JUST to move from 6 to 7, or even 6 to 9 megapixels. If the camera has other features,GREAT, if you absolutely know that you are going to crop most of your pictures, then consider it.

Flying Eggs (or Gregarious Gargoyles)

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” - Lewis

Very odd imagery to start my morning with…flying eggs.

So much to do and so little time, not that this time of year is really known for slowing down and reflecting. I’m overjoyed that fall is finally here. Sure, it may warm back up for brief periods, but there is no denying that it is here.

I have been put on notice that some people that read this blog would like to here more of what is going on. Writing in the few free minutes at work before I really get to working doesn’t allow for too much elaboration, but such time as I have I will spend.

Amon continues to work furiously at teaching 10^th graders what Holden means when he asks where the ducks go during the winter, and she has new technology to aid her. She was able to talk her department into letting her use a spare projector and a document camera for her classroom. This means skipping the step of transferring things she prints at home to over head; she can now simply put the printout under the document camera and project that onto the screen. As an added benefit, she can supplement the reading with relevant movie clips projected onto the screen, much better than trying to see a 29” screen from across the room.

For my part, I just completed a rigorous class and testing where I had to be away from work and home for 7 days. The end result of this, hopefully I’m not being too premature, will be an internationally recognized certification saying that I’m a good Audiovisual design engineer. I’d have to change my business cards to add CTS-D to the end of my name. Not as prestigious as P.E. (Professional Engineer) but acceptable for now. Technically I have E.I.T (Engineer in Training) after my initials, but don’t really bother with that.

Aside from work related matters, we’ve spent limited bits of free time over the last few weeks being entertained and entertaining friends both from in town as well as out of town. One of Amon’s friend from MI, Kimber, was in town for a conference so we got to spend some good times with her. Then we’ve hosted brunch for a couple of our friends Malcolm and Mary, and been hosted by our dear friend Adrienne (Canadian Thanksgiving party!), and by Oh-So-Generous Tom and Alana. Entirely too much food was eaten, and as always it felt like time went too quickly for all the talking, laughing, and hugging that felt appropriate.

This weekend we’ll fly out to Michigan to spend time with Amon’s mom and Allen as well as both of Amon’s brother’s. We’ll be back there for Thanksgiving, but further north near Traverse City, in Omeena, at her Uncle’s Bed and Breakfast for a family Thanksgiving tradition. It’s such a happy and sad occasion. I’m looking forward being a part of Amon’s traditions (and I’m certainly not dreading spending time at a Bed and Breakfast in Michigan!) and having Amon be a part of my traditions, but there is also that bit of sadness at not being able to be able to celebrate both of our traditions at all times. It’s just not possible to spread ourselves out that much, and neither would it be healthy. So, we feel good in the decisions we’re making, but I wish that there was some way to clone ourselves!

I hope that helps bring people up to date, and tune in soon for more photos. Some day, maybe I’ll get around to setting up my Flickr account better then I can just provide you all with a link to that.

Prost