happylife

JOBY

Joby is a well-designed tripod for compact cameras. It is made of 30 plastic balls, each of those works as a flexible joint just like octopus legs. By using this tiny tripod, we can fix our camera not only on a flat surface, but also on rocks, branches, nets, poles and so on. As the three legs can be twined around even a vertical pole, I think I can take pictures from new angles. According to the spec note, this light weight tripod can hold most compact cameras except for single-lens reflex cameras. (I hear that another type of product is to be released so as to hold heavier single-lens reflex cameras.) I'm thinking about carrying this new item with the digital camera, and taking more interesting pictures.

Color temperature

Does this picture look strange in color? I took it with my compact digital camera without any special setting. Of course the real view was different in color. The sky was not so blue. Is my camera out of order? No, it isn't . The reason for this strange color is known as "color temperature." Color temperature differs according to the light sauce and the lower the temperature, the more red and the higher the temperature, the more blue the color temperature changes. Most traditional film is set to day light color temperature and if we take a picture with it under an incandescent lamp, the picture looks red or orange. In terms of digital cameras, most of them have built in function so that the color temperature or white balance is set automatically by an image processor. It is very easy and convenient because a film camera user had to correct the color temperature by choosing filters suitable for the color temperature of the object. In this case of my picture, the processor mistook the color temperature setting because of the strong light sauce of the road side mercury lamp, but thanks to the malfunction, I could get this interesting picture.

Close-up photoes

Most cameras, whether digital or film, have a mark of tulip flower on it. I don't know who decided that it is the mark of close-up mode. When we choose the tulip mark and take a picture, the focus is set to very near and we can get a close-up photo. In the mode, the depth of field is set to very shallow and we can get a blurry background image. By using close focus and blurry background, we can sometimes get unexpected, vivid, close-up pictures. This picture of a fern I took in the Stanley Park while cycling. It was just a fern but by only closing up to it, I could get this beautiful image. Of course I have no special macro lenses or lighting system. I used just a compact digital camera with macro mode. Anyway, there are a lot of people around me who don't know what the tulip mark on their cameras is. One of my friends, who have a very good digital camera, believed that she can take a vivid picture with the tulip mark on and she always took picture with the tulip mark. Of course her pictures were always out of focus.

The crescent moon

A crescent moon is called "Mikazuki" in Japanese which means the third day moon. This is just the third day moon I watched this Sunday from my friend's room using his telescope. As the telescope had no adapter for cameras, I took this picture by pushing my camera onto the eyepiece. In spite of the primitive way of taking pictures, this picture is not bad. It was when I was an elementary school student almost thirty years ago, that I first watched the moon through a telescope which my parents bought for me. In Tokyo, even thirty years ago, it was difficult to watch a clear moon like this because the air was not clear enough and a lot of building disturbed my watching the night sky. If I were born in Vancouver and had a telescope, I would have become an astrologist.

A spot light

What do you think this picture is? It captures the image soon after the third fireworks show by China. The red lights are those of boats going back from the fireworks place to their harbor. As all of them are sailing from right to left on the picture, the port side navigation lights which are red can be seen. If this picture was taken from the opposite side of the creek, all of the lights would be green. The spotlight from the police helicopter is lighting up some people on the beach. They are so excited that they might fight each other. Most people who watched the fireworks show rushes to their home by walk or on boats in the 30 minutes after the show. It looks like a huge river flow.

Photo Album

I like taking pictures and have been enjoying it more than ten years. I used to use a film camera before because there was no good digital camera until five years ago. A film camera was good but it had two major problems. One is that films cost much and the other is that films are hard to storage and manage. All these problems were solved after digital cameras appeared and I get to take much more pictures with a digital camera. The greatest advantage of a digital camera I think is that I can do try and error as much as I like and confirm the result right after taking it. It means that I can take hundreds of pictures until I get only one successful shot. I'm showing my best photo album on the web and it is my pleasure to make it better by replacing the old shot with the better one recently taken. If I continue this procedure day after day, my photo album would become much better.

Slow shutter

I like taking pictures and often shutter my digital camera in my everyday life. Vancouver is such a photogenic city that I can easily find beautiful scenes. Fortunately my room has a spectacular view, and I have more opportunities to take beautiful pictures. It was a moonlit night and the sky was spotted with clouds. The light of the moon came through the clouds making a wonderful scene. It was like a dream world. I picked up my camera and took pictures using so called night view mode in which shutter speed is set slower to prolong the exposure time. This is the picture at the time. It is more dramatic than the real scene. Interesting!

Long time exposure

This picture I took using long time exposure technique in which I put my camera on a tripod and set the shutter speed at 8 seconds and the F number at 4.0. By using this technique, we can see an invisible scene. For instance, the pool-side plants couldn't be seen so clearly and brightly with my own eyes. Long time exposure is a kind of try and error methods and we had to waste many films until years ago. But now, with a digital camera, we can easily take this interesting photo technique without wasting films. We can check the result on the spot and all we have to do in case of an error is just deleting the data. It's quite easy and interesting because we can sometimes get unexpected results.

Robert Capa

Robert Capa is one of the most popular camera mans in Japan. His exhibition is held in Tokyo now. It is named "Capa in color." It is said that his newly found color photographs are shown and some of them were taken in Japan more than fifty years ago. I'm very interested in them. I got a ticket for the exhibition and I was looking forward to seeing it. But now, I have a cold and I can't go out. Unfortunately the exhibition is closed tomorrow. I really hope I recover by tomorrow.

Bud

The cyclamen in my old, flawed cup is budding. The color of the bud is gradually changing from light pink to vivid crimson. It's very interesting and cute. As I have no macro lens for my digital camera, this picture is a a little bit blurred. But by using a black bag as the background, I could record the vivid color.