Maybe we should just buy a roll of sod grass.
***UPDATE*** Wow. This post really got me thinking about just buying pre-grown grass, so I looked it up. Turns out this place in Martinez sells sod grass for $0.29/sqft if you pick it up yourself. That means it would cost $9.47 to cover our 56″x84″ patch of dirt! Gas would literally cost more!
Because we were tired of Bonham diggin’ holes and otherwise letting weeds take over our patch of dirt. Bonham loves to scratch his back in the grass. Randomly during walks he will plop over on some random neighbor’s lawn and go crazy pants on us scratchin’ his back and baring his teeth like a mad dog. Then he’ll get up like nothing happened and continue the walk. We went to Home Depot and picked up a $15 bag of “Just Add Water” sod and grass combo. One week later we have the beginning of a 6×4 foot front lawn! I can just see us wrastin’ and playin’ catch. Maybe invite the boys over for some football. I could put a hammock up. Pay the neighbor’s kid to mow the lawn. It’s the American Dream my friends. And I’m livin’ it.
It’s not like I didn’t know about the bulb ramping feature, I just didn’t understand why it would be necessary. To be honest, I still don’t. But for some reason it takes a hacker and his code (ML) to get my camera to take a decent time lapse. Here is the proof. I set my camera to Av, f/3.5, manual WB (tungsten) and checked the oh-so-important bulb ramping box this time. As I said before, I still don’t know why my 60D doesn’t know how to expose properly when in intervalometer mode but bulb ramping fixes everything. This is what it does: first you have to take a properly exposed photo of the scenery you want to record. Next you activate bulb ramping and Magic Lantern thinks for a bit as it examines your photograph and draws a neat little S-curve on the LCD. When finished it gives you the opportunity to tweak the settings a bit (I chose 61% at 65 percentile. ML Manual says this has to do with the tones and suggests 50% so I just chose the closest value available. I’ll have to experiment with this some more). When you confirm, you just sit back, relax and let Magic Lantern do all the work. Bulb ramping works because it examines the previous photo and choses an appropriate exposure for the next photo all the while staying close to the S-curve it calculated in the beginning. What’s cool is that if for some reason there is a bright light in one of your photos and it throws off the exposure, Magic Lantern will recover in ~3 photos and get back on that curve. Amazing! Enjoy the time Lapse below. Now that I’ve had fun experimenting, I need to find a scene that is actually worth taking pictures of :)
My second attempt at a time lapse video fared as well as the first – not good. For some reason my 60D makes drastically different exposure decisions in low light. I don’t have this problem when I shoot regularly, it only seems to be a problem when using the intervalometer. I should also note that I forgot to set the ISO to a reasonable setting before starting the time lapse so the first half was taken with ISO 100 then in between shots I switched it to 200, 400, and finally 800. I don’t think this had any affect on the outcome (as in, it would have made no difference if it had been left on 800 for the entire time). My camera just sporadically meters poorly when taking pictures at intervals in low light conditions. The following movie looks much like the previous.
I was bored one day an decided to hack my 60D by loading it up with Magic Lantern. It’s basically a layer of software that goes on top of Canon’s OS which unleashes the camera’s true potential. Amongst many many other features, the ability to set the camera to automatically shoot at specified intervals (an intervalometer) was what I wanted most from Magic Lantern. I decided to give it a test today and the ensuing video is what I got. Mind you, this was a very preliminary test. I really just wanted to get a feel for how an intervalometer works. The shot is a view from my front “yard”, the first picture taken at 7:38 pm and the final picture at 9:33 pm at 16 second intervals. This produced 431 individual photos at a reduced resolution of 1920×1280 (S2). The camera was set to Aperture Priority (Av) mode and the ISO was set to Auto. Leaving the ISO on Auto was probably my biggest mistake. You’ll see toward the end of the time lapse some drastic flickering as every so often an extremely underexposed image was taken. I threw the pictures into Aperture and viewed the photos metadata in a spreadsheet view. About halfway through the time lapse the ISO reached 3200 which is the highest setting the camera will go to when set to Auto. The camera then had to take longer exposures to make up for it but apparently had a difficult time metering. The culprit could have been the Moon. It creeps up near the bottom right of the frame around the middle of the time lapse and peeks in and out of the shot through the branches of the trees. I didn’t consider this when I framed my shot. But that’s why this was a trial. Tomorrow I will shoot another two hour time lapse (I left the tripod out side in the exact same position) but will either A) change the ISO to a fixed value (maybe 800 or so, I can deal with long shutter speeds so long as they don’t exceed 16 seconds. However that will drain my battery more. Today’s two hour time lapse used about 30 percent of my battery) or B) turn on the Bulb Ramping feature. I don’t know much about it, but Bulb Ramping is supposed to create a smooth transition from day to night when shooting a sunset for example. Once I can create a nice time lapse at my light polluted apartment complex, I’ll move on to prettier scenery where the stars will show much better. Until then, enjoy this humble time lapse. If you watch it at full resolution you can see stars in the sky during the last half (even more were visible before I uploaded it and YouTube compressed it…)
When it comes to buying a Casio watch (and lets be honest, why would you buy anything else?) you have five choices that are sure to meet your classy yet quality needs. I outline the pros and cons of each timepiece and offer my sage opinions for the novice buyer.
The F91W-1: This is the pinnacle of Casio watches. The end all say all. The Alpha and Omega. You could stop reading this post now, buy this watch on Amazon for a ten spot, and live a satisfied and punctual life for the rest of your days. The vigilant buyer will read on however as the superlative “best” does not imply that it has the most features nor the right features for your particular needs. The F91′s superiority stems from its balance of classy looks and middle-of-the-line feature set including a stop watch and micro light. It is water resistant as pointed out by its “water WR resist” logo but I wouldn’t count on it resisting anything more than a quick wash of the hands. This is a watch with which you cannot go wrong.
The F28W-1: And you thought watches didn’t get any cheaper. Enter the F28. This watch is essentially the F91 minus the stop watch and with flush buttons on the side instead of the cylindrical metal buttons which are prone to being accidentally pressed. Use this watch in an active work environment where time is money and where accidentally switching to military time could cost you your 24-hour-illiterate ass. Actually, this watch doesn’t even have military time.
The F59-1V: Are you frequently diving to the bottom of the sea floor? The F59 sports a water resistance of up to 50 meters. The lettering and logos on the face are rearranged a little from the F91 and the band is a different pattern but other than that it is an F91 with a tighter seal.
The F105W-1A: Aside from having the longest model number the F105 improves upon the uneven lighting of the micro light with its EL backlight. This welcome upgrade successfully illuminates the entire LCD panel with a elegant blue hue. Marathon runners beware, while a stop watch is included, it resets at 23’59.99 as opposed to the measuring capacity of 59’59.99 of the F91 and F59. I guess it can’t have all the luck.
The CA53W-1: Who needs an iPhone when you have a computational beast strapped to your wrist? This watch is nerd perfection. Let the CA53 help you cheat on your calculus exam with its ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide. All this computing power comes at a cost however; only 5 years of expected battery life. This is a whole 2 years less than the life expectancy of the other watches reviewed. ***UPDATE: While this watch certainly delivers on the nerd factor, over the past few weeks I’ve noticed it’s lacking a couple key features, namely, a light and the day of the month. The awesomeness of the calculator outweighs its shortcomings from my perspective but new Casio owners should consider the tradeoff.***
Need to dress it up? Other watches to consider are the silver or gold metal collections from Casio. All these come with an adjustable (or rather sinchable) wrist strap and a slightly higher price tag to boost your ego. From left to right: A158W-1, A159WGEA-1, A168WG9-1.
