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After inadvertently stopping up the kitchen sink, and then going to a lot of effort, ultimately successful, to unstop it, I feel satisfaction and accomplishment as though I had done a good day’s work. I will sleep well. But it’s all an illusion since I have merely undone an annoying situation that I created myself by my own boneheadedness. Nothing was really accomplished. However, if I did something boneheaded out in the desert or wherever and almost got killed but escaped by the skin of my teeth it might be called a great adventure. Does this mean that context is everything, that adventure is overrated or that I am overthinking this?

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Most of the time, the farther Left I look on the continuum of political opinions, the more I see people who do not reason well or are ignorant about history. Maybe I am overgeneralizing from my own experience. Most of the conservatives and libertarians I meet seem to have coherent worldviews even if I don’t always agree with them. A much larger fraction of the leftists I meet seem to have incoherent worldviews in which issues that I see as related exist as unconnected islands, or in which events that I see as consistent with spontaneous order and feedback mechanisms are seen as manifestations of conspiracy.

Perhaps the “Screwed Generation” would have benefited from better education. Perhaps they will learn from experience.

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James Q. Wilson reviews Tim Groseclose’s recent book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind. (Via Power Line.)

Peter Robinson recently interviewed Tim Groseclose here.

It’s easy to believe what we want to believe, and often we want to believe things that aren’t true. That’s human nature and it’s why empiricism is important. Many people believe that our big media impart a leftist slant to the news; many people believe there is no slant or that the slant doesn’t affect media consumers’ voting behavior. Groseclose and other researchers mentioned by Wilson have been trying to quantify media bias and its effects. So far they appear to have confirmed conservatives’ beliefs about leftist bias. Of course it’s possible that the researchers are wrong, and it will be interesting to see how other researchers respond to Groseclose’s work over time.

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Does this story mean that the US govt is not only not collaborating with Israel but is trying to undermine Israeli covert efforts? If so that is very bad news. We need more information. If the story is valid and our govt has decided to leak it to the press now, that suggests that we are 1) shockingly inept or 2) may be trying to cut a deal with the mullahs by sacrificing our ally or 3) both. Either way it sounds bad. I hope there’s more to the story.

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I was going to vote republican, but since some bimbo with cleavage likes Obama, I have no choice but to discard my reasoned analysis and run with the herd. It’s the only intelligent thing to do.

-Commenter “Pizzullo” in Reply #10 to Politico’s article about “Obama Girl”

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Just released and looks like the hottest digital camera yet. 36 megapixels puts it in the performance category of specialist high-res cameras used for landscapes and commercial photography that cost many times more and are less versatile. For a few extra bucks the D800E has even higher resolution because it lacks the D800′s anti-aliasing filter. The D800/E won’t ship for a month or two, but you can order it and cancel or return it if you change your mind — IOW, a free option.

Nikon D800/D800E at Amazon

Nikon D800 at B&H

Nikon D800E at B&H

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Today marks 60 years since she acceded to the throne. Chicagoboyz wish her all the best.
 

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Our friend J. Scott Shipman, who has been blogging at zenpundit.com, has a new website, blog and forthcoming book.

Check them out.

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Following a couple of posts (here and here) about time-lapse videos I did some experimenting. It turns out to be simple to create a passable time-lapse sequence using an inexpensive digicam and some freeware.

You need an interval timer. I don’t know how many cameras have this feature. However, if you have a Canon PowerShot camera you can download a quite sophisticated bit of freeware called CHDK that, among other capabilities, functions as a user configurable interval timer. CHDK is well documented but the online wiki is a bit intimidating. Don’t worry. Go to this page and work your way down. It gives the essentials.

I used my Canon S95 with CHDK, configured to take photos continuously at five-second intervals. Put the camera on a tripod or other support, use JPEG rather than RAW if this is an option and deactivate your camera’s stabilizer if it has one. Focus manually if you can. Then point the camera at something interesting and start the interval timer. The video below represents about an hour and a quarter in real time, 924 exposures. (Your camera battery will run down pretty quickly doing this, so you may want to turn off the camera’s LCD if possible. The CHDK documentation mentions a way to trick the camera into turning off its LCD by plugging something into the “video out” socket, but I haven’t tried this yet.)

There are probably many ways to stitch the photos into a video sequence. I used Microsoft Windows Live Movie Maker, which is part of Windows Live Essentials, which may have come with your computer if you use Windows 7. (It’s also available as a free download here.) Simple to use: Start a new project, import your photos (batch edit them first if you want), select all of the imported photos, click the Edit tab, set Duration to .03 seconds (the minimum), hit the enter key to apply this duration to all of your photos, then save your movie using the quality setting of your choice.
 

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A thoughtful interview, here.

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New Year’s Eve 2011:

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Is Israel preparing to attack Iran? asks David Ignatius.

I think the obvious answer is yes. So why is the US govt trying to stop it?

-Answer 1: Obama doesn’t want any trouble (e.g., high fuel prices, possible US involvement) going into the November elections.

-Answer 2: Obama doesn’t want anyone to attack Iran under any circumstances.

-Answer 3: Obama is confident that his overt/covert appeasement/negotiation campaign will eventually work and doesn’t want anyone else to front run him.

-Answer 4: We really do want Israel to attack Iran, but as in 1981 with Iraq we will publicly condemn while privately applauding.

-Answer 5: Obama is planning to attack Iran and doesn’t want to share credit with anyone else.

???

UPDATE: Via Robert Schwartz, Barry Rubin’s well reasoned argument that there will be no attack on Iran.

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As Gingrich attacks Romney for being successful, and Romney proves too slow on his feet to talk about his admirable business career without apologizing or making gaffes, the Republicans cede the narrative to Obama. Intrade shows Obama’s reelection odds creeping up as Republican candidates, egged on by hostile media, bog down in discussions of fairness and the appropriate cap-gains tax rate for “the rich”. Romney in particular doesn’t seem to understand the political dynamic. He ought to put much more effort into attacking Obama, whose record in office is terrible. In this environment no Republican is going to win the presidency by being a nice guy.

Part of what’s happening is that the economy is recovering, to some degree because the Fed is signaling that it’s going to keep suppressing short rates and buying up long-term govt debt for the foreseeable future. This is an insane policy that funnels money to Obama’s Wall Street cronies while killing low-risk investment opportunities for middle-class retirees. It seems likely to lead eventually to significant inflation. Romney, as the likely Republican nominee, should be hammering the Fed for ineptitude and corruption, for running an unsustainable monetary policy and trying to goose the markets into the election. He should be hammering Obama for trying to reinflate the credit markets to buy votes. (The residential real estate market seems to be picking up, perhaps to some degree in response to Obama’s mortgage-subsidy vote-buying scheme. But it may also be that people see inflation coming and want to exchange cash, especially borrowed cash, for real assets.)

Obama has been very bad for the country. His high tax, high regulation, high cronyism, high uncertainty policies suppress productive investment and throw vast amounts of private capital down politically favored sinkholes. Conservative and moderate/uncommitted voters alike yearn for a Republican candidate who forthrightly defends free enterprise and the opportunity society against Obama’s decadent, stratified socialist ineptocracy. Romney, the great businessman, the man who has been running for president for six or seven years, is tongue tied. My first thought is, This is the best our country can do? My second thought is that maybe Romney will pick up his game as the nomination becomes increasingly certain and he focuses more on November. Hope springs eternal.

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Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invited you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.

-Christopher Hitchems, Letters to a Young Contrarian

(Via Alan Johnson)

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The topic of DSLR camera lenses will be esoteric for most readers here. However, it won’t go out of date and will remain on this blog for future reference by Chicagoboyz readers and parachutists from Google.

What follows is more a list of impressions than formal reviews and, perhaps, can provide some helpful perspective for prospective buyers. (Note that I link to outside discussions and reviews when I think this may be helpful to do.)

I prefer lenses that 1) are portable and 2) can serve multiple purposes adequately as opposed to being ideal for one purpose but markedly less suitable for others. I also greatly prefer lenses with built-in stabilizers (“IS” in Canon’s nomenclature). My sense is that online photo-equipment reviewers as a group skew toward gear-headedness and sometimes overemphasize technical perfection in one or another lens feature at the expense of versatility. In particular, I think that automatic focus is worth a lot even if some lenses that are optically superior don’t have it, and if you can get IS in a macro lens it’s a no-brainer because despite conventional wisdom you might want to use your macro without a tripod if you are, say, walking around outdoors.

Note that these particular lenses will fit any Canon SLR or DSLR camera made after 1986 and that my comments are based on my use on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Their optical qualities will be at least as good if you use them on a camera with a smaller image sensor, because in that case your camera will be using only the center of the image as it comes out of the lens, and with most lenses the center of the image field is the sharpest part of the image.

Note also that I earn affiliate fees if you buy these products (or anything else) via the B&H or Amazon links on this blog.

Note also that there is sample variation between lenses. It’s possible to get a bad one, and if you want the best quality it may make sense to buy multiple samples of the lens tht you want and then keep only the best one, as a reviewer I link to below suggests. For these reasons I recommend buying from B&H as they have a generous return policy.

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EF 17-40mm f4L USM:

Buy: Amazon, B&H

This is a versatile wide-angle zoom with some limitations.

Based on experience I wanted a wide-angle lens, with field of view equivalent to 21mm or so on a full-size sensor, for landscape photography but wasn’t sure what to buy. I started a discussion here to get more information. Based on many thoughtful replies I decided to buy the Canon EF 17-40mm f4L USM as a first approximation, since it’s inexpensive and might be adequate. I reasoned that if it wasn’t good enough I could sell it and buy the more expensive Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8L USM, the still more expensive Zeiss Distagon T* 21mm f/2.8 ZE, which has an excellent reputation, or possibly the Tokina AT-X 16-28mm F2.8 Pro F.

The 17-40 is relatively light and small and has a very useful zoom range. It uses a common filter size, unlike the Canon 16-35, and per reviews is more flare resistant. It’s a popular lens and capable for the money. The downside is its mixed reputation for sharpness. User reviews typically include some that say it is unacceptably soft or soft in the corners. Usually, a noticeable minority of negative reviews that all say the same thing is a deal killer for me. In this case I decided to risk buying it and am satisfied so far. Center sharpness is fine, particularly in the range of 20-30mm. But the edges are indeed soft, and the extremes very soft, unless you stop down to at least f/8. Since I am using this lens mainly for landscapes at low ISO and usually on a tripod, my solution is to stop down to f/16 and be done with it. This yields good sharpness across the field, and even at f/16 there isn’t much of a diffraction hit on the 5D MkII. The tradeoff is long exposure times, which makes the lens marginal for handheld use except in bright sunlight, unless you don’t mind opening the aperture and getting less-than-sharp image margins. It’s sometimes difficult to avoid blurriness from camera movement on very windy days, again because I stop the lens down and this means a long exposure. This might also be a problem for photographing night skies unless you are trying for a star-trails effect. On the whole a good lens for landscapes on a full-size image sensor. You can probably do better for handheld use or for a crop-sensor camera.

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EF 35mm f/1.4L USM:

Buy: Amazon, B&H

A fantastic lens for night photography, people, environmental candids, street.

The 35L has a great reputation, I think mostly deserved. It is extremely sharp in the center of the field from f/1.8 on. f/1.4 is a bit soft and less contrasty but still quite usable, particularly when it’s very dark and you are happy to be able to make any kind of reasonably clear image. Out-of-focus backgrounds are smooth and attractive in a way that isn’t available from zoom lenses. The 35mm focal length is just right for making make head-and-shoulders and full-body portraits of people at conversational distances, though it’s a bit short for close-in facial portraits. At night you can use this lens wide-open, focus on people’s eyes and get good results (or use Live View with autofocus and face recognition activated). And you can make surprisingly good high-ISO night landscape images without a tripod at f/1.8. On the 5D MkII it makes nice in-camera B&W jpegs in dim restaurant lighting at ISO 6400; I assume the next generation of DSLRs will do much better.

The main drawbacks of this lens are its size, weight and price. Its hood is quite large relative to the lens itself, and with the hood on the lens looks like a gun barrel on the end of your camera — not optimal for discrete people photos. On my sample it was difficult to attach the hood without cross-threading the plastic bayonet fitting. I fixed this by wiping a tiny amount of Armor All® on the hood’s bayonet lugs. Now the hood slips on too easily and sometimes rotates a bit if I touch it inadvertently. Since the hood is petal-shaped, rotating it can ruin photos by causing asymmetrical vignetting, which I usually don’t notice until later when I check my photos on the computer. I purchased this B&W rubber lens hood as an alternative, partly to make the lens less conspicuous, and partly to facilitate photographing through airplane windows (by pressing the lens hood against the window to block reflections; I haven’t tried this yet). So far it appears that the new lens hood causes slight vignetting, so it may not be a good alternative. Also, this lens can have quite a bit of chromatic aberration, and this can be a nuisance with backlit subjects. But in practice if you forget about this stuff and use the lens you will do very well.

There are rumors that this lens is about to be replaced with an updated model. Unless you are sensitive to price it may be worth holding out for this.

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EF 24-105mm f4L IS USM:

Buy: Amazon, B&H

An extremely versatile general-purpose lens. It came with my camera as a “kit lens” and, knowing that lenses so labeled tend not to be the best, I was prepared to eBay it if I didn’t like it. However, unlike the typical inexpensive kit lens the 24-105 is very well made, as it should be for its price, and quickly proved to be very good — adequately sharp, light, reasonably compact, with a wide, highly useful zoom range and very effective image-stabilization. The f/4 maximum aperture turns out to be no impediment to general-purpose use including in dim light. Its only real flaws are somewhat harsh background blur, and a lot of distortion at the wide end. Most reviews I have read say that you can easily remove the distortion in software, and this is true, but the tradeoff for doing so is you lose some image area. If you buy a Canon full-frame DSLR such as a 5D MkII and you do not already own this lens you should buy it as a kit with the camera body, as the combo is typically significantly discounted as compared to buying the body and lens separately.

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EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM:

Buy: Amazon, B&H

An excellent lens for a wide variety of uses. Of course it’s a good macro but it also has decent background blur and works well for portraits. Its high level of sharpness and lack of distortion make it particularly good for creating composite (“stitched”) panoramas with extremely high resolution. The image stabilization feature works well and makes this a good lens for walk-around nature photography.

The 100L Macro is often compared to its unstabilized 100mm macro counterpart, and to the unstabilized Canon 135 f/2.0L, which is highly regarded as a portrait lens. The argument is typically that stabilization is unnecessary for macro photography, which is typically done from a tripod, and that the 135 is sharper and makes smoother out-of-focus backgrounds than does the 100 f/2.8L. Both of these assertions are probably correct but miss the main point: the 100 f/2.8L is much more versatile than either of these two other lenses. Stabilization is well worth the extra cost, and macro ability is a great thing to have.

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EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM:

Buy: Amazon, B&H

This is a fabulous telephoto zoom, sharp and light with a versatile range.

It’s one of four variants of this design: f/4 stabilized/unstabilized and f/2.8 stabilized/unstabilized.

The f/2.8 version of this lens is very heavy and comes with a tripod collar. Wedding, sports and other event photographers for whom the extra stop is important use it. It’s too heavy for me, since I wanted a lens I could hike or bike with and use without a tripod. The f/2.8 lens is also much more expensive than the f/4 version. However, the current f/2.8 Version II may be sharper than the f/4 version (see this review for someone else’s comparative test results) and is worth considering if ultimate sharpness or low-light capability is important to you.

It’s easy to walk with a DSLR and the f/4 version of this lens around your neck, or to stuff the lens, mounted on a camera, into a padded knapsack if, say, you want to travel off road on foot or a bike. It only takes a few seconds to stop, whip out your camera and start taking pictures. This is an excellent lens for nature photography and landscapes, as 200mm gives beautiful perspective for city skylines as well as long-distance scenics of mountains and other large-scale natural features.

If you buy this lens, either the f/4 version that I have or the f/2.8 version, get it with image stabilization (“IS”). The stabilizer works extremely well and makes it much easier to get sharp images without a tripod. Mount the lens on your camera and look through it. Muscle-induced tremors that are obvious in the viewfinder with stabilization off, disappear as soon as you activate the stabilizer. The stabilizer’s panning mode is especially useful for photographing flying birds, aircraft and the like.

This lens is very good for portraits and people photos, particularly outdoors where the lack of f/2.8 isn’t a big issue. Out-of-focus areas in images look good, though probably not as smooth as they might appear in photos made with a comparable prime lens.

Reviews of this lens typically say that it’s sharp from f/4. That’s true in my experience, but if you need sharpness across the image frame it’s better to stop down. Something in the range of f/5.6-8 works best for me.

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(Cross posted on Jonathan’s Photoblog.)

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This is one of many new images in my Everglades gallery here.

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A just-released study suggests that Burmese Pythons have devastated Florida Everglades animal populations (e.g., raccoon and opossum sightings are down by 99%).

The pythons were originally released in the Everglades by people who had kept them as pets and their population has grown rapidly. It’s possible that much of the snake population was killed off by last year’s cold snap. However, as with cancer cells, a fast-growing population regenerates quickly unless almost all of its members are exterminated.

The cited article points out that it’s not certain the snakes are responsible for radical declines in small-animal populations but that no one has a better explanation.

The article mentions the possibility of preventing the snakes from expanding their territory but doesn’t discuss how close the snake population is to equilibrium in its current habitat. (Since a large number of prey animals needs to be around to support each predator, and Everglades prey populations appear to have been radically reduced, how close is the snake population to equilibrium?) Also, I wonder if the snakes will kill off the panther population by depleting its food supply.

Naturally, the federal govt has responded to the snake problem by banning importation and interstate trade of several kinds of snakes. This will have no effect. The snake is out of the barn, so to speak.

“Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America’s most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems,” said Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, whose scientists contributed to the study. “Right now, the only hope to halt further python invasion into new areas is swift, decisive and deliberate human action.”

I wonder if it’s possible to constrain the snakes to their current habitat. From the tone of the article, and frequent media stories about giant snakes captured in the wild, it looks like the Park Service is slowly trying to figure out what to do. Maybe they should try to eradicate the snakes altogether. OTOH, I wonder how much farther North the snakes can migrate before they get killed off by winter freezes.

I don’t know if there’s a moral or political point to be made here. It’s a difficult problem.

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Following this photo posted a few days ago, this new photo comes from the opposite side of the road, just before sunset.