Rubinary Blog

Dying Flowers

Daniel — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:47:37 +0000

A bunch of dying flowers, shallow depth of field, some tone mapping and you end up with sadness.

18 Недель

Alena — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:30:43 +0000

Потихоньку приходит весна. Хотя последние 3 дня было очень пасмурно, дождливо и ветренно, всё равно чувствуется свежее дыхание нового сезона. У меня уже начал появляться животик, который для людей посторонних выглядит скорее как плотный ужин, чем развивающийся дитёнок. Поправилась я за эти 18 недель почти на 5 кг. Не знаю много это или мало, но уж что есть — всё мое. Чувствую я себя по прежнему тьфу-тьфу хорошо. Изредка появляется лёгкая тянущая боль внизу живота — врач сказал что это нормально, и что неудобства мне причиняют растягивающиеся сухожилия.

Я очень рада, что Даня ходил со мной на предудущее узи когда нам сообщили что скорее всего у нас будет мальчик. Как я уже писала, мне было всё равно кто у нас будет, и в моей голове проигрывались фантазии на тему младенцев разного пола. Даня же лёгкое предпочтение отдавал сыну, поэтому я рада, что кого заказывали — того и получили. Теперь вот выбираем имя. Пока что на месте #1 укрепился Aaron.

Завтра понедельник — на работу идти как всегда не хочется (а хочется путешествовать!). По пути на работу читаю сейчас книгу Эфраима Севелы с повестями и войне. Увлекательно пишет — хоть и грустно, но всё равно герои его произведений такие светлые… Еще пару недель назад читала “Белую Голубку Кордовы” Дины Рубиной, которую мне в подарок прислала Таня Шуст. Получила удовольствие от прочтения (хотя Рубина не всегда идёт легко).

Жду когда почувствую первые шевеления. Сегодня по пути из Манхэттэна (мы ездили в фотомагазин), мы заехали в Babies R Us, распложенном в районе Bensonhurst (это самый близкий к нам магазин товаров для младенцев). Прогулялись там, посмотрели на ассортиментик. Вчера на дне рождения Миши его друзья посоветовали для начала купить вместо кроватки portable playard, в котором ребёнок может спать первые пару месяцев и на котором так же есть “changing station”, что весьма удобно. По-моему, очень хорошая идея. А вообще, конечно, немного страшновато от неизвестности и моя голова идёт кругом когда я думаю о всех мелочах, которые надо будет купить, но есть во всём этом “гнездовании” что-то приятно-волнующее. Интересно всё же устроены люди…

Hurricane

Daniel — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:30:07 +0000

Yesterday we had some of the craziest weather in a long while. First of all the was a lot of rain. But that wasn’t the bad part. The bad part was an incredibly strong wind.

My mom called me all panicked in the middle of the day. She was home alone and needed help. You see, they have wall mounted AC units. One of those got blown out by wind into the middle of the living room. I know it sounds crazy and speaks volumes of the installation job, but still. I almost killed myself lifting that thing back into its place. Blown out by wind?

The waves where incredibly high in the canal along the Emmons avenue. And it’s an enclosed space. What was going on in the open ocean? Many thanks to Misha for picking us up and driving us back home from his own birthday party. And today I took some photos of a fallen tree on the nearby block.

Misha is the first of many to …

Daniel — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:23:55 +0000

Misha is the first of many to hit 30 this year. Celebrating at Istanbul. (via Gowalla)

Peculiar AF Issue

Daniel — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:13:15 +0000

This post is a place where I can refer people to about a really bizarre auto focusing issue that I’ve been having, without having to repeat it over and over again.

Introduction

I’ve been using D70 for over 5 years and I’ve taken about 50,000 shots. I’ve had D700 for 2 weeks before I exchanged it for the pricing reason¹, and B&H shipped the same camera back to me and I haven’t noticed an issue. I first noticed the problem on the day that I received this camera and a lens for the 2nd time.

The Issue

In short I believe there is an AF problem that happens in very specific conditions. It also seems to me that this must be a defect with the camera, the lens, or both. It happened so that my test subject of choice was a sticker on a Peach Snapple bottle that was on my desk. This, in fact is the one and only item that I can replicate the issue on.

This is my test subject. The photo is taken when everything worked without a problem.

Specifics

Here’s a way to trigger the problem. These are the steps that I’ve been taking to consistently reproduce the issue.

Camera is set to single servo, single point focusing. Central point is used.
Focus on a word “black” in the center of the sticker by half-pressing the shutter release button or by pressing AF-ON button. Keep the distance between the camera and the bottle as small as possible. Camera achieves good focus and indicates this by lighting up a green circle in the view-finder and beep sound.
Refocus the camera at an object at infinity — something outside the windows worked for me.
Point the camera back to the bottle and engage the AF again. Camera attempts to adjust the distance on the lens and reports a focus lock by the use of the green circle and a beep. However the object is widely out of a focus.

This is a resulting shot. Everything is out of focus. But even looking like this you’ve got to give the credit to the Nikkor lens for making it look pleasing anyhow.

Another way to reproduce the issue. Basically the idea and the concept is exactly the same as above.

Focus on the sticker and achieve good focus and focus lock by pressing AF-ON button and release the button.
Spin the manual focus ring on the lens all the way to infinity.
Engage the AF function by hitting AF-ON again. The camera thinks that it locked on by displaying a green circle and beeping, yet everything is way out of focus.

The Bizarre Part

Naturally my next step was to test the camera and the lens in different combination. I’ve done the following test with the same exact result — false positive on focus lock.

D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm
D70 + Nikkor 24-70mm
D70 + Nikkor 18-70mm
D700 + Nikkor 50mm

This might suggest that this is normal behavior, but I find that hard to believe. My mistake was not testing D70 with 18-70mm lens first. Now I have no way of knowing if it in fact did behave this way all this time, or if the lens caused it to malfunction. I also don’t want to test with any Sigma lenses at this point as I’m not sure how it’s affecting the bodies and the lenses. If I were told about this by somebody else I would classify them as insane, yet this what I’ve experienced and I have no explanation for any of this.

Clarifications

Do note that I’m not talking about the camera being unable to focus — that can be caused by many different things — lack of light, being too close to the object, etc. The issue is the fact that it does think that it focused, as indicated by the green circle in the viewfinder and a beep sound. I also have camera set on focus priority in AF-S, meaning that the camera would prevent me from taking a shot that it didn’t focus on.

Looking For Help

I’ve tried posting on various forums with no good results. I contacted Nikon support and so far haven’t heard a word back from them, even though I was promised an answer back on Tuesday. I’ve contacted B&H tech support and they were puzzled as much as I am.

At this point what would be really helpful is someone with a Nikon body and a lens performing a number of these tests on the same type of Peach Snapple bottle and trying to replicate the issue.

Conclusion

I myself am planning on going to B&H as soon as I’m able and asking to test a different copy of D700 with 24-70mm lens. Also I’m hoping that if this is not a normal behavior they will not have a problem exchanging my equipment.

In all other respects camera performs exceptionally well. I was not able to cause it to miss focus in any other way, but again, I want to get to the bottom of this problem and establish if it’s a common behavior, I’m doing something silly or I have a faulty combo. It’s not a cheap toy to just let this go.

I also performed a normal focusing test on the lens and the results are very good. Note that focus line might not fall exactly where it should because I’ve misaligned the test chart slightly while taking photos.

Update

Went to B&H today. As was recommended to me I spoke with a guy named Gerry who worked with Nikons for many years.

He hasn’t seen a thing like this before, but he spent about 30 minutes listening to me and working on the issue with me. Eventually he brought over another body and a lens (same combo) and we easily replicated the problem.

So this is the conclusion. All Nikon (didn’t test the others) bodies seem to do it. Some choice of a test subject I had, eh?

I’m satisfied to know that my copy is perfectly fine. Huge props to B&H yet again for superior customer service.

Nikon started a rebate program 2 weeks after my order that would save me $300 when I buy the camera and the lens that I bought as a kit instead of as separate items. B&H had no issue closing out the first order and creating a new one so I would qualify. They didn’t have to do it, but they made this customer very happy.

CatEye V3

Daniel — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:07:11 +0000

I have this waiting for me. It can only mean one thing — I’m waiting for something else to come through really soon. So far the ETA is not clear though. I’m hoping for this or next weekend.

Table Cloth

Daniel — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:31:13 +0000

The oldest trick in the world. Like Duncan said — makes you wonder how many takes it took to get it right. If it is real to begin with. (via Duncan Davidson)

Кошкофото

Daniel — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:43:38 +0000

Meet another member of our extended cat family — Rysya. Sadly they are not really friends with Shublik. Kind of the opposite actually. However unlike Shublik, Rysya doesn’t mind posing for the camera at all. She doesn’t really mind doing anything as long as she can lie in one place and not move.

Big News

Daniel — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:13:39 +0000

Today we had another ultrasound appointment. Alena and I took a day off from work and went together. They did a lot of scanning (45 minutes) and took a lot of pictures. We saw the face, little palms and feet, heart bit and something else.

She confirmed it from 3 different angles and told us that we’re going to have a boy. When I asked if it was 100% certainty she said that they never give 100%, but she gave us 95%. Those are pretty good odds.

Otherwise everything looks great. The heartbeat, the size, perfect. Needless to say we’re very happy. We’re going to have a son.

Grand Geyser

Daniel — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:40:43 +0000

One of the most unusual things I’ve ever seen. A huge fountain of water coming from under the ground with no involvement of a mankind.
Yellowstone National Park. July 2009.

Vaja ivolution Top SP Case

Daniel — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:28:53 +0000

Never posted a note about the 2nd Vaja¹ case that we ordered — ivolution Top SP. Alena uses this case on her phone.

This is my own personal opinion of the case and since I’ve never extensively used it myself treat it as such.

I think it offers superior phone protection when compared to my case at least with regards to having all corners covered.

The leather itself is soft and very pleasant to the touch, much nicer that the shiny plastic on iPhone itself.

The screen is protected really well, but as you can see it doesn’t cover the bezels on the sides of the screen itself, which is a good thing — no issues using the screen near the edges.

Originally I thought that it would be hard or impossible to open the case with one hand, but by now I have no issue with that — just takes a little bit of practice.

The phone in the case can not be docked, if that’s your thing.

As you can see the wear shows after about 7 months of use, but Alena keeps it in her purse along with all other stuff. The wear however is purely cosmetic.

The cost was $85. There are a lot of color choices for the case itself and for the central stripe. This case gets thumbs up from me. A very good, functional and stylish case by Vaja.

I can’t link directly to the case because Vaja uses Flash on their site.

Mylène Farmer

Daniel — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:48:43 +0000

Listening to C’est Dans L’air by Mylène Farmer. Heard it on Area on Sirius as a part of Tiësto’s Club Life. I never used to like Tiësto’s mixes, but lately I like more and more of his stuff.

Shepherd’s Pie

Alena — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:23:24 +0000

Весь вчерашний день и ночь, а так же сегодня пол дня шел снег — поэтому я работаю из дома. Вчера же я ехала на работу с Ларой – девочкой из нашего подьезда, которая работает всего на одну остановку Path Train дальше меня. Ехали мы с ней вместе первый раз (надеюсь, не последний), и очень хорошо поболтали. Она-то и подкинула мне идею вчерашнего ужина – пастуший пирог.

Звучит название весьма интригующе, а на самом деле блюдо представляет собой фарш, обжаренный с овощами и запечённый в духовке под шубой картофельного пюре. Простенько, но для будничного ужина очень даже хорошая идея (дёшево и сердито). Лара поведала мне рецепт, которым пользуется она, но я еще на всякий случай глянула на интернете — и вот этот рецепт Рэйчел Рэй оказался очень похожим на Ларисин.

Что делала я. Обжарила одну среднюю мелкопорезанную луковицу на ложке растительного масла (минут 5), добавила в сковородку нарезаные грибы (небольшую коробочку) и пожарила их вместе с луком еще минут 5-7. Потом туда же добавила фарш (где-то 0.8 кг), соль, перец, кумин (зиру), пожарила минут 5, добавила туда немного белого вина, Worcestershire соус, порезанную мелкими кубиками морковку и пожарила всё вместе почти до готовности фарша. Забросила в сковороду пакетик замороженного горошка, пожарила еще 2-3 минуты.

В это время сварилась картошка, которую я размяла в пюре (с молоком, яйцом и ложкой сметаны).

Последний шаг — это выложить фарш в форму для духовки, а сверху накрыть шубой из пюре. Запекать при 365 F где-то 20 минут.

Перед подачей посыпать петрушкой. Вкуснее это блюдо есть с томатным соусом для спагетти.

За Окном

Daniel — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:32:22 +0000

I’m still shooting snow storm pictures from the comfort of my apartment. It’s too cold to go outside. Here’s a slightly different perspective than usual.
February 2010.

Chicken Soup with Lemon and Rice

Alena — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:03:27 +0000

Этот супчик я готовила где-то пару месяцев назад, и всё никак не доходили руки поставить рецепт на блог. Готовится он легко, на вкус тоже вполне ничего — вобщем, хорошая альтернатива обычному куриному супчику с макаронами.

Рецепт я вычитала в NY Times. Естественно, готового бульона у меня не было, поэтому всё процедура выглядела примерно так.

Порезала куриные грудки на кубики, забросила в кастрюльку с подсоленой водой вариться вместе с луком, морковкой, сельдереем и зеленью. Минут через 20 после закипания воды достала оттуда овощи (они нужны были для придания ароматности бульону) и забросила туда мелко порезанные 2-3 стебля сельдерея, порезанную же белую часть от 2-х стеблей лука-порея, 3-4 порезанных тонкими ломтиками дольки чеснока, перец, сок 1 лимона и сырой рис (не помню стколько). Всё это добро на медленном огне должно повариться еще минут 20-30, после чего надо закинуть в суп нарезаный дольками молоденький зелёный кабачок и поварить еще минут 10. Проверить суп на соль, перец, кислоту, добавить мелконарезанную кинзу, дать закипеть, подождать еще минутку и выклучить огонь. Всё. Быстро, вкусно и полезно.