Archive for August, 2009

The Final Destination (3D)

Posted by John in Blog, Reviews on August 31, 2009

The Final Destination (3D) is just awful.  How awful is “just awful?”  I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, even if they were seeing it for free in an air conditioned theater while it’s 100 degrees outside, and the filmmakers themselves were there to personally give each moviegoer an hour long massage… with a happy ending (which is pretty close to how I saw it… minus the happy ending). Read the rest of this entry »

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HDR

Posted by John in Blog on August 31, 2009

So I’ve been wanting to play with HDR photography for a while now, and today seemed like the a great day to try, given the kind of eerie beauty of billows of smoke in the distance.  For those of you who don’t know, HDR photography stands for High Dynamic Range. Basically, you take 3 similar images of the same subject (best done with very still elements and a tripod), and shoot each image at a different level of exposure.  The first image below is -1 (underexposed or exposing for the highlights), the second is 0 (normal exposure), and the third is +1 (overexposed or exposing for the shadows).  By doing this, you get three images of the same subject at different exposures.  Click each image to enlarge.

And using certain software and photoshop techniques, you can combine the exposure data from all three images to create a single image that has all of the data for the under, normal, and overexposed images.  This gives it a higher dynamic range of exposure than a single image, and thus more information to fill out the shadows and highlights within the same image.  With all this extra information combined into a single image, the photographer/photomanipulator can adjust various levels of contrast, brightness, saturation and other elements in order to produce an image that is much more striking and vibrant than would normally be captured by conventional means.

So here’s to my first attempt at HDR photography, and I can pretty safely say that I’m hooked on it, so you can expect some more images in the future.  Until then, you can check out some other stunning examples of HDR photography.

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District 9

Posted by John in Blog, Reviews on August 14, 2009

District 9 is the best sci fi film I’ve seen in years.  I’m tempted to leave  my review at that, but not discussing how awesome and how much fun the experience of watching this film is, would be a disservice to my reader.  I know that science fiction can be pretty hit or miss with some audiences, but I promise you that if you give District 9 a chance, it will completely blow you away. Read the rest of this entry »

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Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Posted by John in Blog, Reviews on August 13, 2009

The latest installment in the world of Hogwarts and the adventures of Harry Potter is a much more successful and enjoyable film than that of David Yates’ previous attempt with The Order of the Phoenix.  When I first saw The Order of the Phoenix in theaters, I was originally unimpressed with where the franchise was going.  I felt that David Yates was a very competent story teller, but the first time through, The Order of the Phoenix just felt boring to me, despite having some very visually spectacular and exciting scenes.  Upon a second viewing, I began to appreciate the film more and more for it’s sociopolitical commentaries, and success in conveying the very deep and isolated feelings that Harry was experiencing.  Unfortunately, upon a third viewing, I was back to square one with the novelty and appreciation for making something more out of the Harry Potter franchise, completely wearing off.  Which leads me to The Half Blood Prince. Read the rest of this entry »

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