Active Photos

I don't know how I did this but I am looking through some photos I took a few weeks ago and I have a video that is a string of photos with a few seconds of video on each side. I believe some version of Apple iPhones have added this active photo mode with a second of video or something. I managed to do it with my Canon PowerShot SX60 HS Digital Camera.

I have occasionally managed to turn on the video without noticing so I get a bit of video instead of a photo. But this is weird it is a video that jumps from place to place. It is really weird. I have no idea how I would make it do this if I tried. If it was one long video I could understand but it isn't it is like it started and stopped when I tried to focus for a photo and then a bit after the photo was taken.

In addition to that video I have the individual photos that I took while the video was recording.

See Curious Cat photos.

Photo Essay: Longwood Gardens, Delaware

See photos from my visit to Longwood Gardens in Delaware.

Photo Management and Web Gallery Creation Software

What suggestions to people have for photo management and web gallery creation software. I don't need anything fancy. I have been using Picasa and it is ok. It does take me a long time to do some things though. And the latest version (Picasa 3.0 for Linux) seems to eliminate the main function I liked (replaced with only letting you upload photos to their web site).

Essentially what I have been doing is

• putting the photos I want in this gallery in one folder (these are the high resolution unedited photos)


• cropping the some of the photos


• using Picasa's make a web page feature (which automatically created thumbnails and let me set the maximum size of photos [say 800 pixels] and it reduced the image size - for web display)


• it also created pages for each of the photos (the idea is you could just upload the resulting files (html and jpg) to your site and you had a live web page

I like this model. I want to keep the photos on my Curious Cat Travels site - not some third party site (like Picasa Web, Flickr...). The most annoying thing about old process was I had to manually edit each page and the html Picasa generated wasn't really what I needed - so I just cut out a portion of the html from each page and pasted it into the template I had for my photo galleries.

Does anyone have suggestions for the best tools to do this using Linux?

I am installing digikam, now and will try it out.

Related: Curious Cat Travel Photo Blog - Using Your Digital Camera

Proof People are Crazy

This is proof people are crazy. This is an enjoyable read but I think anyone that actual does this is asking to die. There are plenty of places to get great views without risking your lives. See Curious Cat travels for some examples: North Cascades National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Costa Rica...

You are about to view pictures of what has to be the most dangerous Tourist Hiking Trail in the world. After you see the pictures, I have little doubt you will agree.
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The only reason we were here was because we didn't know any better. I was incredulous that something this deadly was open to the public. Sure there were warning signs down below, but nothing had been said that could possibly let us know how much trouble we were getting into.
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The only reason we continued was those Chinese college kids. Laura and I watched them cross. It looked like they were dancing... step apart, step together, step apart, step together... they walked sideways across the cliff! And they were laughing!

I swear to God if it wasn't for those kids, Laura and I would have turned around a long time ago. Left to ourselves, we would have given into our panic, but to see those crazy kids fearlessly move across the cliff made us think we could do it too.
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I shook my head in disgust. One mistake would kill you instantly. This area was so dangerous it required proper mountain gear: climbing boots, carabineers, belay devices, bolts, and ropes. But all we had was our bare hands

Urban Exploring: Detroit

It will rise from the ashes

Detroit, with its thousands of abandoned structures, is something of a mecca for kids and adults who still do this sort of thing. There's a whole community of them here, and people come from all over the country to "explore" the city's ruins.
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This city's school district is so impoverished that students are not allowed to take their textbooks home to do homework, and many of its administrators are so corrupt that every few months the newspapers have a field day with their scandals, sweetheart-deals, and expensive trips made at the expense of a population of children who can no longer rely on a public education to help lift them from the cycle of violence and poverty that has made Detroit the most dangerous city in America. To walk through this ruin, more than any other, I think, is to obliquely experience the real tragedy of this city; not some sentimental tragedy of brick and plaster, but one of people

More photos of the Detroit Public Schools Book Depository

Using Your Digital Camera

9 Digital Camera Settings for Every Photographer to Discover

Aperture and Shutter Priority Mode - Where to find it: Usually on the dial on top of your digital camera.
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Any photograph has both an aperture and a shutter speed. The aperture regulates how wide the lens opening is, while the shutter speed regulates how long the shutter was left open. These two items, in tandem, regulate the exposure of a photograph.

In an automatic mode, the digital camera chooses its own combination of aperture and shutter speed to create a good exposure - you don’t have to do any of the thinking. But sometimes, you want more control over your digital camera, and that’s when shutter and aperture priority come into play.
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Aperture priority mode allows you control over the depth of field of an image. The more open the lens is, the more shallow the depth of field is.

Related: Canon Power Shot A700 - Curious Cat Travel Photos - Travel photo directory

Ubuntu 7.1

I upgraded to Ubuntu 7.1 today. It went very well. It was a large download but otherwise no problems at all. Simple download, upgraded Ubuntu and lots of supported applications. And it removed some no longer supported applications. It is a wonderful free operating system based on Linux for the desktop and very good for non-IT geeks. It automatically notifies you of updates and installs the updates with no need to reboot most of the time. Also it is Linux based and therefore very secure.

I did have one problem with Ubuntu last week. I could not download the photos from my digital camera. I tried various thing but couldn't figure it out. My friend was able to figure out there was a limitation in the software I was using that failed with over something like 1,000 photos (I had 1,085 photos from my trip). We tried another photos software but it failed too. I was able to delete some (that I got off the camera using a Windows computer at work) and then it worked fine.

Great Photos of Animals

Suneko's Animal Photos, great photos like this one.

Tourists and Attractions

Roll up, roll up, and watch the Mona Lisa weep

Just a few weeks ago the Sistine Chapel took action to protect the Michelangelo and Botticelli frescoes, cutting opening hours and raising prices. My recent memory of this, the ultimate shrine of Christian art, was struggling to stay on my feet in the middle of a yammering mob while a team of young priests went hoarse calling for silence and respect. It was like Grand Central Station, except that there just wasn’t room to sit down and weep.

As anyone visiting popular sites has, I have noticed the same thing (the photo shows the room with the Mona Lisa in it). It seems like the only likely solution is to use attractions to draw the crowds, like months to a flame, and then try to enjoy what remains. This works better at places like the Grand Canyon where you can hike for days but most tourists spend 17 minutes outside looking at nature according the a Park Ranger the last time I was there.

Even on the South Rim hiking down one of the trails, leaves the crowds behind in just 30 minutes (and on the North Rim I hiked 2 different days without seeing more than a handful of people (granted it was literally the first 2 days the lodge on the North Rim opened.

But even this will be overwhelmed with time. So I figure they should add several trails at national parks just to attract the hoards and then I can go on more remote trails and enjoy them. Even if they are not the best trails they will still be great and I prefer having the option to avoid the crowds. With other museums I am sure you can do the same type of thing, though someone probably needs to repackage this concept to be "more positive" before it will be used on a wide scale.

A strategy for museums is to go early or late stay until closing (though even this at the Louvre is not that great a help but at many places it is).

Photos: Paris photos - Grand Canyon National Park - The MET, NYC - Rocky Mountain National Park