Ronnie Chung's Blog
My Little Corner on the Web
Flickr Hates You
Feb 24th
Ok, so Flickr doesn’t really hate you. It doesn’t care about you or your property though. Flickr is an online photo hosting/sharing service that I have recommended to many people, including family and friends, and one that I am very fond of. However, like many free services it has it’s flaws. Some are technical, others based in policy. Today, I will be focusing on the policy aspects.
As many may already know, Flickr offers both a free and “pro” version with the latter being a paid subscription. Before I start bashing on Flickr, I should say that I still use it and still recommend it. The pro version acts as a great online backup system because it allows you to access your original image (the one you uploaded). That doesn’t mean that you should be using it as a backup system which brings us to the point of this post.
Flickr has a bad habit of deleting people’s accounts permanently without warning to the owner/user. Not only is it without warning but all images and videos that are removed with no way to recover them. Imagine posting hundreds of your pictures onto Flickr and one day signing in to find that they’re all gone. What a bitch… Here’s an article relating to this topic: http://thomashawk.com/2009/01/how-would-you-feel-if-your-flickr-account-were-permanently-deleted.html
“But I use Smugmug/Photobucket/[insert other photo service] so hah!” Ok, so you don’t use Flickr but that doesn’t mean you’re immune. In late October 2008, Digital Railroad shutdown and gave their users only 24 hours to retrieve their data before the servers were taken offline. For those that aren’t in the know, Digital Railroad was a professional photo storage and hosting site that was used by many companies (including VII Agency) and individuals as part of their hosting and backup strategy. The point is with online hosting/storage services such as Flickr, Photobucket, etc., you’re never guarenteed that the companies behind these services will treat you or your data with respect. And you can never predict what events might unfold such as what happened with Digital Railroad. I’m not telling you to avoid using these services and start hosting all your photos, videos, etc. off your own server like me. I’m just saying that you should bare in mind the grim reality. Anyway, just thought I should give everyone a heads up since I recommend these services so freely.
Till next time…
Edit: Changed October 2009 to 2008. It was a typo… obviously…
Photo Shoot: Tanya Manifold
Feb 23rd
This photo shoot was purely portraiture, which is a little different from my previous shoots. This was the first shoot with the 1Ds Mark II and loved it. Went back to the basics for this shoot. No fancy lighting, mostly done with available light and only had one flash out at any given time. Thanks again to everyone involved in the shoot.
Still trying to figure out how to format the text correctly in wordpress so bare with me. If anyone know how to remove the “double spacing” for a block of text, let me know in the comments.
Photographer: Ronnie Chung
Model: Tanya Manifold
Assistants: Ron Fu and John Jutiyasantayanon
Location: Schabarum Park (I really need to stop shooting there…)
Had a great time during the photo shoot. Comments and critiques are always welcome. Reference the pictures by the number in the gallery. For example, image 10/15 would be image #10.
UPDATE: Galleries removed upon request of those involved.
A Picture A Day – 02/22/09
Feb 22nd
Picture for today:
Hummingbird on a tree on the front lawn - Taken with 1DsII and 70-200mm f/2.8 non-IS
By the way, the picture for yesterday was the “Walking to the car” one.
Till next time…
Random Happenings
Feb 21st
First off, a sneak peek from my most recent photo shoot with Tanya. She was great to work with but I wasn’t on the top of my game. Thanks for being so patient, Tanya.
Behind the scenes shot from photo shoot with Tanya - Taken by John Jutiyasantayanon
Behind the scenes shot from photo shoot with Tanya - Taken by John Jutiyasantayanon
Behind the scene shot from photo shoot with Tanya - Taken by Ron Fu
Rest of the pictures are just from random events in the past few weeks. Nothing special.
Stanley's car wouldn't start so I went to jump start it. - Taken with 1DsII and 35mm f/2
Moon revealing itself during a break from the rain - Taken with 1DsII and 70-200mm f/2.8 non-IS
Nikolay's car overheating, that's steam coming out of the radiator - Taken with 1DsII and 17-40L
Walking to my car after ICS23 - Taken with 1DsII and 17-40L
That’s all for now, till next time…
A Picture A Day – 02/19/09
Feb 19th
Flickr doesn’t like you… I’ll tell you why in a separate post.
Picture for today and yesterday:
Motion! - Taken with 1DsII and 17-40L
Entrance to the building next to the engineering parking structure - Taken with 1DsII and 17-40L
Till next time…
Where’s My Camera?
Feb 18th
At home… the whole day. Woke up early this morning because we lost video sync on one of our channels at the studio. By the time I got home from that it was pretty much time to leave for school. Since I was in a hurry, I forgot to put the camera into the backpack. Didn’t get home until pretty late and then had to leave again to do other things at my cousin’s house. Afterward, video sync was lost again on a different channel and I had to go back to the studio (coming from home) and forgot to bring the camera. So didn’t really get any pictures today. I’ll make up for it tomorrow.
A Picture A Day – 02/17/09
Feb 18th
Since moving to the new server, some visitors to the blog might be wondering what this “A Picture A Day” thing is all about. In short, I try to take at least one picture every single day for the next year. Decided to do this after buying the 1Ds Mark II as a way to justify the price. I needed to really put the camera to good use and one way to do so was to start this project.
For those of you that are wondering what happened to the previous blog posts, they’re still on the old server. I will move them over to this server over the course of the next few weeks. The reason for taking so long is due in part to the Oscars which is this Sunday. I will be helping the TV crews from HK as usual. However, this year I might be able to go and take pictures with them this year. It all depends on how things go down in the next few days.
Anyway, here is the picture for today.
My trusty 1W LED flashlight - Taken with 1DsII and 35mm f/2 @ f/2
Till next time…
A Picture A Day – 02/16/09
Feb 16th
Post for today and a few more to make up for the other missed days. As usual, click the pics for bigger versions. The following picture is not part of the series and is taken by DJ in our ICS23 lab:
Taken by DJ with my 1DsII
Copyright is mine but I’ll give it to you if you want it DJ =P
Anyway, let the pictures beginulate.
Rays of light after the storm - Taken with 5D and 17-40L
Heavy rain clouds over La Habra - Taken with 1Ds Mark II and 17-40L
Mountain road during the rain - Taken with 1Ds Mark II and 17-40L
That’s it for this post. Till next time…
Facebook Owns You
Feb 16th
Looks like Facebook has returned to their old ways. They released a new Terms of Service (TOS) about a week ago which basically says they can use your pictures for anything they want including selling and profitting from it. Check out the article below.
http://www.xyhd.tv/2009/02/industry-news/all-your-facebook-photos-are-belong-to-us-new-facebook-tos/
1DsII High ISO Test
Feb 15th
Got bored tonight so decided to see how well the 1DsII holds up at high ISOs. The following are the results. All images were taken under semi-controlled conditions. No processing was done to the photos with the exception of the ones that I specify as having noise reduction done. Remember, all the other photos were straight from camera with no processing done.
First up, ISO 3200 and no noise reduction: ISO3200_NoNR
ISO6400 and no noise reduction: ISO6400_NoNR
ISO12800 and no noise reduction: ISO12800_NoNR
ISO25600 and no noise reduction: ISO25600_NoNR
Now for the same samples with noise reduction.
ISO3200 with medium noise reduction: ISO3200_NR
ISO6400 with medium noise reduction: ISO6400_NR
ISO12800 with medium noise reduction: ISO12800_NR
ISO25600 with medium noise reduction: ISO25600_NR
ISO 25600 is pretty much unusable as with ISO 12800. However, ISO 3200 and 6400 is perfectly usable. In fact, ISO 12800 is usable depending on print size or viewing size. Another thing that you will notice is the loss of dynamic range (DR) as ISO increases.
Anyway, that’s it for this post. Till next time…
