28/02: 2,000 again!
It looks like my website has broken 2,000 viewers again this month. The total for yesterday was slightly over 2,000. I expect by the end of today I'll have matched January's figure. This is very interesting news. Quite whether it has any worth in the commercial world has yet to be seen. I am encouraged that people are viewing my photo website, even though not as many as I would like. Most seem to like my blog for some unknown reason. Perhaps they learn something from it or perhaps it has some entertainment value for them. For me, it's just an online log of my daily life and my struggle through the world. Now it sounds like I should have called it "My Struggle" which was the name given to a book back in 1925 and which I have read and found pretty turgid reading.
Interestingly, I was looking at a photo taken with a flash set on 1/64th of a shot being fired from a Glock 40. The bullet was blurred but visible in the photo. This is excellent news. It means that for the vast majority of high-speed imaging, an ultra-high speed flash is really not needed. Having said that, a higher speed flash would mean the images were that much less blurred. After encountering some extremely obnoxious people on Flickr online forums, I decided that I was probably going to build a microflash but that also I was going to milk the most I could out of my ordinary flash. Even more interestingly I've come across many different styles of high-speed imaging, using a single flash, three flashes, two flashes, a single microflash etc. The major problem with microflashes is that they're very big and very bulky. They're also limited in that they have just one flash head. It should be possible to build them with bigger flash heads but then the question would be whether there was enough power in the base to power two or more heads. It's a project that's on the back burner for the moment. I can do so much with a Vivitar 283 that I don't need to bother just yet. Speaking of Vivitar 283s, they're cheaper than Canon 580s and, as I found out when I dropped my 580, cheaper to buy than the 580 is to repair! Even the latest generation of Vivitar 283 - the Vivitar 283HV, brand new, is cheaper than a repair on a 580. Having said that, I make a lot of use of the ETTL facility of the 580 that the 283 just doesn't have.
On stats, most people seem to be viewing my blog. An increasing number are viewing my photography website and a few are viewing the version designed for mobile phones. Hardly anybody is viewing my PC repair website.
I am in two very competitive fields - photography and PC repairs. Just about every kid out of high-school picks up some computer repair skills and then tries to use them. The really hard thing is data recovery. That's a much more lucrative field. Having said that, the software is now available free, which is a bonus. Some of the really hard data recovery stuff such as hard drive disassembly I wouldn't even want to attempt. Unlike what others say, it's not a "clean room" job. It's just a case of keeping fingerprints off the disk and using latex gloves in a dust free (or as dust free as is practical) chamber. That chamber could quite easily be a clear plastic bag.
Photography is competitive because everybody with a camera and an internet connection wants to try to sell their work. Thus sites like the photo sharing sites make their money from suckers that think they'll sell photos just by sticking them on-line and waiting for a buyer. It's not going to happen - it's never going to happen. Occasionally they might make the odd sale but so infrequently that it's just not worth the bother. The best thing is these sites have it made. They have arrangements to have prints made but they don't do the printing themselves. They do the marketing and sell accounts that will take credit cards but they don't do anything else. Most people will end up funding the site through membership fees while a very lucky few might sell a few images.
I had a very interesting experience earlier in the year with a client who was completely unable to download images from a popular (but free) photo-sharing website. In the end I put them on CD and posted them. That client could no more download than order prints off the photo sharing website. It was not a website problem. It was just too technically challenging for that client. Overestimating the technical capabilities of a client is one of the things many inexperienced photographers do. I used to hear a load of rubbish on-line from amateurs who used to use online print sales etc. Clients aren't all capable of that. Most are just about capable of taking a CD to WalMart but nothing more.
I hear a lot of people whining about two things - the first is people copying prints instead of buying copies at inflated prices from the original photographer. The other is of people putting images onto a CD and handing the CD to the client. I see nothing wrong with clients doing their own printing nor with clients copying images. Every copy will be worse than the original. If I scan a print and then print from that print, it'll look similar to the original but not quite as good. Each generation will be worse. Only an original will be high quality. Mind, one thing the people saying that kind of thing forget is that a genuine print will have at least a rubber stamp on the back identifying it as the work of a studio/photographer. A copy will not have that stamp.
Speaking of quality, some people wouldn't know quality if it picked up a baseball bat and smacked them between the eyes. Thus a scanned image that has a horrible colour cast and isn't quite straight or in focus, is covered with dust and fingerprints will look just fine to them. Such people are more than likely to do their own photography with a zoom compact without even comprehending the quality difference of an SLR. I'll be the first to say though that the quality of zoom compacts has rocketed since I had my first in 2001 and since people were posting VGA sized images with turquoise highlights from top-end digital compacts in the late 1990s. They're not yet on a par with an SLR though.
The tally for February was pretty close to January's total. If February had 31 days or even 30 then I would have matched January. I seem to be getting a few hits a day on my photo website which is welcome. I definitely need to go viral with my photography website. Thus I set up a Facebook group with some of my photos on it. I need some more spectacular high-speed images though, in order to make it successful. I'll have to get some cardboard boxes from work tomorrow night and use them as a portable fragmentation studio.
I just looked at my photos, thinking about how to make them go viral. Clearly I need to do some more editing. I don't much care for extremes of photo editing but to make things go viral they need an almost cartoon-like quality. This is achieved by ramping up contrast and saturation. I also need to work on brightness for many of the images I display online. Personally, I like things to look natural but the high-speed imaging is what will make my site go viral. I need to do a fair bit more of it. It's my attention grabber. Once I have people's attention I can start selling the more mundane stuff.
Aside from being just pure fun, high-speed images do have a major use in industry with destructive materials testing. The general public doesn't get to see too much of it so something viral might just be the ticket. I'm pretty sure that presented in a bright, stunning way, people's jaws will drop and it will go viral. Additionally, it'll be extra material to put in my book and I'm not going to be spending extra money to do this. I already have everything I need aside from cardboard boxes, which are free.
Interestingly, I was looking at a photo taken with a flash set on 1/64th of a shot being fired from a Glock 40. The bullet was blurred but visible in the photo. This is excellent news. It means that for the vast majority of high-speed imaging, an ultra-high speed flash is really not needed. Having said that, a higher speed flash would mean the images were that much less blurred. After encountering some extremely obnoxious people on Flickr online forums, I decided that I was probably going to build a microflash but that also I was going to milk the most I could out of my ordinary flash. Even more interestingly I've come across many different styles of high-speed imaging, using a single flash, three flashes, two flashes, a single microflash etc. The major problem with microflashes is that they're very big and very bulky. They're also limited in that they have just one flash head. It should be possible to build them with bigger flash heads but then the question would be whether there was enough power in the base to power two or more heads. It's a project that's on the back burner for the moment. I can do so much with a Vivitar 283 that I don't need to bother just yet. Speaking of Vivitar 283s, they're cheaper than Canon 580s and, as I found out when I dropped my 580, cheaper to buy than the 580 is to repair! Even the latest generation of Vivitar 283 - the Vivitar 283HV, brand new, is cheaper than a repair on a 580. Having said that, I make a lot of use of the ETTL facility of the 580 that the 283 just doesn't have.
On stats, most people seem to be viewing my blog. An increasing number are viewing my photography website and a few are viewing the version designed for mobile phones. Hardly anybody is viewing my PC repair website.
I am in two very competitive fields - photography and PC repairs. Just about every kid out of high-school picks up some computer repair skills and then tries to use them. The really hard thing is data recovery. That's a much more lucrative field. Having said that, the software is now available free, which is a bonus. Some of the really hard data recovery stuff such as hard drive disassembly I wouldn't even want to attempt. Unlike what others say, it's not a "clean room" job. It's just a case of keeping fingerprints off the disk and using latex gloves in a dust free (or as dust free as is practical) chamber. That chamber could quite easily be a clear plastic bag.
Photography is competitive because everybody with a camera and an internet connection wants to try to sell their work. Thus sites like the photo sharing sites make their money from suckers that think they'll sell photos just by sticking them on-line and waiting for a buyer. It's not going to happen - it's never going to happen. Occasionally they might make the odd sale but so infrequently that it's just not worth the bother. The best thing is these sites have it made. They have arrangements to have prints made but they don't do the printing themselves. They do the marketing and sell accounts that will take credit cards but they don't do anything else. Most people will end up funding the site through membership fees while a very lucky few might sell a few images.
I had a very interesting experience earlier in the year with a client who was completely unable to download images from a popular (but free) photo-sharing website. In the end I put them on CD and posted them. That client could no more download than order prints off the photo sharing website. It was not a website problem. It was just too technically challenging for that client. Overestimating the technical capabilities of a client is one of the things many inexperienced photographers do. I used to hear a load of rubbish on-line from amateurs who used to use online print sales etc. Clients aren't all capable of that. Most are just about capable of taking a CD to WalMart but nothing more.
I hear a lot of people whining about two things - the first is people copying prints instead of buying copies at inflated prices from the original photographer. The other is of people putting images onto a CD and handing the CD to the client. I see nothing wrong with clients doing their own printing nor with clients copying images. Every copy will be worse than the original. If I scan a print and then print from that print, it'll look similar to the original but not quite as good. Each generation will be worse. Only an original will be high quality. Mind, one thing the people saying that kind of thing forget is that a genuine print will have at least a rubber stamp on the back identifying it as the work of a studio/photographer. A copy will not have that stamp.
Speaking of quality, some people wouldn't know quality if it picked up a baseball bat and smacked them between the eyes. Thus a scanned image that has a horrible colour cast and isn't quite straight or in focus, is covered with dust and fingerprints will look just fine to them. Such people are more than likely to do their own photography with a zoom compact without even comprehending the quality difference of an SLR. I'll be the first to say though that the quality of zoom compacts has rocketed since I had my first in 2001 and since people were posting VGA sized images with turquoise highlights from top-end digital compacts in the late 1990s. They're not yet on a par with an SLR though.
The tally for February was pretty close to January's total. If February had 31 days or even 30 then I would have matched January. I seem to be getting a few hits a day on my photo website which is welcome. I definitely need to go viral with my photography website. Thus I set up a Facebook group with some of my photos on it. I need some more spectacular high-speed images though, in order to make it successful. I'll have to get some cardboard boxes from work tomorrow night and use them as a portable fragmentation studio.
I just looked at my photos, thinking about how to make them go viral. Clearly I need to do some more editing. I don't much care for extremes of photo editing but to make things go viral they need an almost cartoon-like quality. This is achieved by ramping up contrast and saturation. I also need to work on brightness for many of the images I display online. Personally, I like things to look natural but the high-speed imaging is what will make my site go viral. I need to do a fair bit more of it. It's my attention grabber. Once I have people's attention I can start selling the more mundane stuff.
Aside from being just pure fun, high-speed images do have a major use in industry with destructive materials testing. The general public doesn't get to see too much of it so something viral might just be the ticket. I'm pretty sure that presented in a bright, stunning way, people's jaws will drop and it will go viral. Additionally, it'll be extra material to put in my book and I'm not going to be spending extra money to do this. I already have everything I need aside from cardboard boxes, which are free.
