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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/11, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sorta.... well, Small

Since finally getting a real macro lens (a Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5), my world has opened up to enjoying some of the smaller things in (and forms of) life. Sometimes, such as with the photo above, a complete lack of scale pretty much kills the “oh, tiny!” appeal, especially these days when the same shallow depth of field can be achieved with a tilt lens or the Brenizer method.

Zooming back a bit somehow helps establish the smallness of the scale...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/8, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos

... but without context, it's still lacking something. We like context, and search for it, and feel odd when we don't get it.

The context in this case is a bush near the corner of my youngest brother's wife's mother's brother's house, which I had occasion to visit today:

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos

So, perhaps context isn't all it's cracked up to be. 🙂

You can barely see the scarlet pink in the photo above, as most of the plant was bare:

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/8, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos

But oddly, there were a few sections that held baby-new growth...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/8, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos

... so it seems the plant had no idea what season it was.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/8, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Curl
f/8 not as helpful as I had hoped

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/1000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dropping in for a Bite
( let's pretend the focus was done on purpose here, for its... uh... “artistic impact”. Yeah, that's it )

A big part of the experience of visiting my folks' in Ohio is feeding the birds on the back porch, and for me, trying to photograph them (such as reported with varying degrees of success here, here, here, and here). Usually I just run out for a quick picture, but the other day I sat down with a cup of coffee and a big lens and tried spending just a bit more effort on it...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/9, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos

I started out using the Voigtländer 125mm, but for the goldfinches on the feeder that I intended to concentrate on, it required me to be too close to have a bird fill the frame. (Unlike the chickadees that will land on your laptop while you're using it; the goldfinches are more skittish.)

So, I switched to the Sigma Bigma 50-500mm zoom, which at 500mm has enough reach to put me far enough away from the birds. Its image stabilization helped a lot, too.

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/13, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Scene
with the Sigma at 50mm

My sister snapped a picture of me while I was at it:

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Photo by Marci Kreta
taken through a window covered with netting, as seen here

My results were “okay”, but nothing exciting...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/13, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Even at f/13, at 500mm the depth of field was pretty thin. In the picture above, I think I got the focus pretty close to his eye, but even then, his near shoulder is already out of focus...

With a sideways crop, the bird fills the frame a bit more, so maybe the 500mm really wasn't enough...

D700 + Sigma “Bigma” @ 500 mm, cropped — ¹/500 sec, f/9, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos

D700 + Sigma “Bigma” @ 500 mm, cropped — ¹/500 sec, f/13, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos

I could try with the Sigma 2× TC to give me 1,000mm, but as I demonstrated once, the combination is really soft.

The Bigma's zoom was useful to open up to get this shot of a tree not far away.... there's a goldfinch in it. Can you find it?

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 95 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/13, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Find the Goldfinch
he's sitting in the tree

Often when I look out the window from the house, I'll see a dozen or more birds all crowded on the feeder, but while I was there (perhaps because I was there), there weren't many. Early on there was a minor traffic jam with four birds...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 116 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/9, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos

... but for the most part, it seems that action moved to a feeder down at the end of the veranda:

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 340 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/13, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Farther Away

At least its lighting was nicer.

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Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — ¹/20 sec, f/5, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
iPad: Like Crack Cocaine for Kids
photo by Marci Kreta

Continuing along from yesterday's post about kanji-study apps and the previous day's app review by a toddler, this post is just some cute (to me) pictures of the kids playing Air Hockey on the iPad.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Mano a Mano
Anthony and Josh playing flipside5 Air Hockey, one of many air hockey games for the iPad

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/160 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
23-Month-Old Jena Getting in on the Fun

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/125 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/125 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Score!
the screen flashes red to indicate a score; apparently, Anthony was able to get by Jena's defenses

We try not to let the kids do too much with computer games, but it was the day Josh and Jena were returning home, so wanted to indulge them a bit. They knew air hockey from previous real-life experiences, such as this from last week...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/80 sec, f/1.4, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Concentration
Anthony anticipates Josh's attack

... and this from a year ago...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Aaaaaaaaaaa
While playing against Cousin Grace, three-year-old Josh plans to eat the puck if it gets past his defenses?

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I think I'm going to have to get into iPad app development... I just can't find the flashcard-type app I know should exist: to help Japanese kids study kanji (“Chinese characters”).

There are about 2,000 kanji that an educated Japanese uses on a daily basis, and Japanese kids start learning in first grade. The Japanese Ministry of Education sets out exactly which characters are learned in each of the first six years of grade school (currently 80 characters in first grade, 160 in second grade, and so on).

By the time kids start learning kanji in the middle of first grade, they already know how to write the entire language in the simple, purely-phonetic kana scripts, so learning kanji is an exercise in replacing the appropriate phonetic parts with kanji, as they get to them throughout the school years.

For example “summer vacation” is natsuyasumi, and any mid-year first grader would be able to read or write it phonetically as 「なつやすみ」. The character for the “vacation” part is a first-grader kanji, so some time during first grade they'll learn to write the vacation part like 「休み」 instead of 「やすみ」, so “summer vacation” becomes read/written as 「なつ休み」, at least until they learn the character for “summer” as well.

The character for “summer”, 「夏」, is a second-grader kanji, so once they learn that, “summer vacation” finally becomes read and written as the 「夏休み」 that adults use.

So, anything that helps Japanese kids study kanji must take into account not only what grade they're in, but how far along in the year they are.... if a second-grade class hasn't yet gotten to the character for “summer” in their curriculum, you would quiz with 「なつ休み」, but starting on the day they study the character for “summer”, you need to quiz on 「夏休み」. Simply breaking up the quiz into grades (“first-grader quiz”, “second-grader quiz”) is helpful only after they've completed the year. (Anthony loves the Mojipa game, but can't play the second-grader version because he's still in second grade and so far has studied only some of the characters that pop up.)

Furthermore, each kanji can have multiple meanings and readings (“sounds”), and they're not all necessarily learned at the same time, so while Anthony has already learned that “summer” ,「夏」, fills in for natsu, he hasn't yet learned that it can also fill in as ga in some words. So, anything that helps Japanese kids study kanji needs to take this into account as well.

A good study app would quiz the kid on words that use kanji in a ways appropriate to their specific location in the school year, using a large list of common words and phrases, quizzing both kanji→kana, kana→kanji, with standard flashcard stuff like repeating new or oft-missed items more often than others. It would quiz reading and writing, kanji production and recognition. And be fun.

There are about seven million Japanese elementary kids, every single one of which could benefit from something like this, and many with parents more than willing to spend whatever is required to help educate their kids. Personally, if it were well done, I'd easily pay $100 for an app like this. Getting the parents of just 1 in 1,000 to buy it at that price would net $700,000, as would getting 1 in 100 to buy at $10.

I'm way to busy with Lightroom to think about climbing the learning curve of Apple App development.... is there no one up to the challenge that I can give my money to?

(I know it's probably not effective ranting in English on my blog, but that's all I've got.)

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Screen Freeze From the “Uzu” iPad App
“kinetic multitouch particle visualizer”

Today's post is an audio review of the “Uzu” iPad app by Anthony's 23-month-old cousin Jena, who is visiting Grandma and Grandpa at the same time we are.

Jena gave this review yesterday, aged 1 year 11 months 0 days.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Today's Guest Reviewer
23-month-old Jena Kreta
watching a sudden downpour this morning

The $0.99 iPad app Uzu (iTunes link) describes itself as “a kinetic multitouch particle visualizer”, which of course means nothing, but in short it makes pretty patterns that respond to your touch in fairly complex ways. After hearing Jena's review, you may want to check it out... see this YouTube Video for an idea of what it looks like, and if you have this app, see this video for details on how to control it.

Here's the minute-and-a-half audio review, and a transcript...

Jena's final comment is to reiterate my earlier warning not to touch the “home” button on the front of the iPad, which exits the app.

Though she doesn't give a summary statement, I think it's safe to say that she'd rate this app “Two Full Diapers”, the highest praise that an app, or anything, can have in the toddler world.

Though Uzu wowed her into a relative loss for words such that she kept repeating the same superlatives, Jena is remarkably articulate for her age, and you can have real conversations with her. As I mentioned on last week's post titled “The Search”, she's also intelligent, watching and learning instead of just mimicking.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Contemplating Her Next Review?
or perhaps an app or two she'd like to develop herself