Monthly Archives: February 2012

Weekend Photography Tips – zoom and lens distortion

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Chances are good that if you have a compact or an entry level camera you have a zoom lens either built in or that came as part of your kit.  Most of us love the flexibility of a zoom lens.  It does a lot of legwork for us.  Understanding the perks and pitfalls of your zoom feature can really improve your photos. 

First let's address the two kinds of zoom on most compact cameras – digital and optical. One is good, the other is to be avoided.  When you use optical zoom, your camera lens is extending to its fullest focal length.  This is a good thing.  It can greatly improve the composition of your pictures, drawing attention to your subject and eliminating distracting backgrounds.

When you continue past that, the digital zoom kicks in.   This is a bad thing.  Digital zoom basically crops your image and enlarges part of it. You lose quality with every increment further you zoom in as seen here.  When you get that image onto your computer you will see more pixelation and less clarity.  You want to take advantage of your optical zoom and avoid the digital zoom. 

Here is another good reason to become familiar with the various lengths of your camera lens: lens distortion. The best example of this is found in self portraits, where the camera is held by the subject.  Things can appear a little wonky.  Noses become predominant.  You may notice this as well in pictures taken of children when mom gets too close with the camera.  

The reason for this is that most compact cameras and dslr kit lenses have a very wide angle at their low end.   Mine came with an 18-105 lens originally. 18mm, its widest focal length, is not much different from a fisheye lens if you are close to your subject.  You can see examples of that here. 

A wide angle is really nice for taking in a sweeping panorama.  It is really awful for taking a picture of a person within a few feet of your camera.  Better to back up and zoom in a bit than to be physically close when shooting wide.  

lens diptych

Weekend challenge:

Get a willing volunteer to sit for you take the same picture of him/her from very close and zoomed out.  Then step back and zoom in a bit more with each shot, trying to keep the same amount of person in the picture each time.  Got to the end of your optical zoom with this experiment.  Then upload your pictures and see what you get.  

 You may have heard that the camera doesn't lie.  Well, it does. In fact the camera records the same image quite differently at different lens settings.  

This page gives a good visual comparision of the effect of various focal lengths.  50mm is usually considered to be 'normal' perspective.  It is pretty darn close to what the naked eye perceives.  The further you zoom OUT (lower number, lens is pushed back to camera) the more pointy and narrow the face appears.  The further you zoom IN (higher number,lens protruding out of camera) the more the facial features flatten out and become more flattering to the subject.  Most zoom lenses perform best somewhere in the middle of their range. 

 

 

Montessori at Home – Multiplication Manipulatives

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Aidan smiled when he saw Brendan using the muliplication mat.  "Oh! You got out that thing-a-ma-jiggie!"  Yes, indeedy.  That OLD thingamajiggie is an idea I altered from the basic multiplication board in the Hainstock book.  It is cut from an inverted bathmat (the kind with lots of tiny suction cups) which has not fared well in storage across the ocean. The numbers 1-10 are labeled across the top.   You can easily drop pony beads or beans across the rows of cups to illustrate groups of numbers.  

multiplication mat
(You can also use the bath mats to make Hundred Boards.  Just use a fine tip sharpie and write the numbers on the cups.)

multiplication mat

Doesn't take long before you transition into a times table chart like this.  It is good to have some hands on work with the beads first so they can really visualize what is happening before they memorize the chart.

page
You can, of course use a printable, but when you realize just how far a pony bead can travel, and at what remarkable rates of speed, you become highly motivated to corral them. <g>

PS – you can print out multiplication problems here.   We are using inexpensive math workbooks and hopping around some for convenience. 

The Bodyguard

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When I was little I used to pour over the D encyclopedia.  I memorized the names of all the dog breeds and could sort them into classes – toy, working, hound etc.  I was an animal geek for sure. 

I remember watching Benji (and reading the book and hanging the poster…) and sighing with longing for the little white Maltese sidekick of his.  My mother and I were barely scraping by however and exotic dogs were totally out of the question.  The closest I ever got was pressing my nose up to the pet store window in the mall. Oh for a dog with long flowing coat to pull up into bows and brush long into the night. 

Fast forward about 30 some years.  Toy dogs are slightly less exotic than they were in the Upper Midwest of the '70's.  Ours arrived here after bouncing around to a few other homes.  They arrived with all those flowing coat genes.  And matted to the skin.  

I admit I silently tsk'd their negligent owner and for a moment was transported back to those days sprawled out with the Brittanica.  Visions of grooming perfection wafted through my head. Never mind we owned a large shaggy dog for many years in CO who was frequently trimmed down to a very short coat.  That was the country however.  This would be different.  How quickly we forget. 

gizmo

Well truth is, we aren't all that good at dog grooming.  There are a fair number of little people under this roof who need grooming help too.  The dogs got to be a mess while I was sick last fall.  So, we told the groomer to start over and here we go again.

Gizmo's ears promptly sprang up like Dumbo's as soon as they were shorn.  Since it was December he also got cold.  Aidan found a coat to fit him until his own grew back.  Check it out….

gizmo

Yarn Along – the pink hat

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Behold, knitting project number two. : ) The hat was actually done but I didn't get around to sharing for last week's yarn along at Ginny's.   I so enjoyed making this little hat although the yarn I used was lighter than called for so the hat was smaller than intended.  That's ok, there are a couple of small heads around here.

HAT

This was my introduction to circular and double pointed needles.  The circular knitting was a dream.  LOVED that you can get stockinette stitch without purling. No major errors, just a few stitches looser than the rest.  It seems my tension level isn't constant, much like in life…. lol.

The double points went alright but I did that part wrong.  I divided the stitches among all the needles and then began to knit so I kept ending up with too many stitches on one needle. Rebecca explained that part to me afterwards and I think I can do it right next time. 

HAT

I am stymied now for the next project. Trying to align pattern difficulty with yarn and needles I own has been impossible.  I think I am going to try to let go of the acrylic yarn stash I have and just find a pattern and the necessary yarn and needles for it.  Way too many hours on the net have not panned out. There is a fine line between thrifty and scrupulous.  A line I sometimes cross.  So someone have mercy and point me towards something small and pretty and simple.  I heard of a yarn shop not too far away and will be finding it next week.

Most of my reading has been aloud lately.  We found a Bill Bennett anthology we haven't seen before and have thoroughly enjoyed the renditions included.  The story about the young married couple and the fountain of youth nearly brought me to tears.  There was also a moving retelling of the Story of Ruth.  I see it got one glowing and one negative review on Amazon fwiw.  I like Michael Hague so it's thumbs up here. 

Another big hit was Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes.  It is all the more interesting since Sue and I have been working together at Snapshots Around the World this year.  We plan to exchange a box of goodies with their family.  This is the best sort of story stretcher. 

Continuing that WWII theme, Aidan just finished The Winged Watchman for school.  We are going to tackle the book report tomorrow.   We also coincidentally rented Sophie Scholl in German last week.  I didn't realize it was subtitled 'til we got home but everyone who watched loved it.  We agreed this story was much better with German actors, having lived here.  I tracked down the book version and hope to hit that soon.