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American Le Mans Series (ALMS) 2010 @ Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

May 242010

On May 22, Saturday, I spent an unseasonably chilly and windy day at Laguna Seca watching (and of course photographing) the ALMS 2010 race. Monterey is the third stop in the American Le Mans series. The race is a six-hour, 11-turn, 2.238-mile circuit. Some bill this race as a warm-up for the 24 hours of Le Mans in France in June. Today’s race will air next weekend, May 29, on CBS. Live streaming and more information on the series can be found at the series’ official website, http://www.americanlemans.com.

Patron Highcroft racing took the overall podium in the LMP class with the HPD ARX-01c of David Brabham, Simon Pagenaud and Marino Franchitti.

This year’s race was highlighted by several accidents, 10 full course periods, and a finish where first and second in the GT class was 3/10 of a second apart. In the highly contested GT class, four ferraris, BMWs, two Porsches and two Corvettes all ran within 10 seconds of each other for most of the race. Environmental friendliness seemed to be a re-current theme. The “race within a race” Michelin Green X challenge in all classes had teams competing for the prestige of the award. The running of the two Rahall Letterman team cars on E85 Ethanol and other teams running on E10 Ethanol added to the green theme.

Of note this year, Rahal Letterman Racing enters the GT class with two BMW M3s running on E85 Cellulosic Ethanol fuel along side other cars such as the #3 Corvette ZR-1 from Corvette Racing. E85 Cellulosic Ethanol fuel is made from non-food products such as corn stalks, wood chips and switchgrass, presenting a more green alternative fuel. The fuel has its advantages such as lower emissions but also has drawbacks such as lower power output. No. 90 M3 GT of Joey Hand and Dirk Muller finish second after a re-build from an accident earlier in the day. No. 92 M3 GT of Bill Auberlan and Tommy Milner finished eigth. Oreca’s FLM09 debuts in the 2010 series. Corvette’s, headed for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a few weeks finish third and sixth in the GT class. The JaguarRSR XKR GT completed its first endurance run here.

In the meantime, I’ll be posting some shots from the event, with on-track shots and paddock shots, during the course of the week. Check out my gallery for this event at http://cchinstudios.zenfolio.com/alms2010.

For more information, other resources;
American LeMans Series Official Site – http://www.americanlemans.com
Le Mans Official SIte – http://www.lemans.org/en/
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca Official Site – http://www.mazdaraceway.com
Racetrack Map – http://www.mazdaraceway.com/pages/Track_Map
Paddock Racing News – http://paddocktalk.com/news/html/index.php

Wildflower 2010 Location Report – Mt Diablo – Mitchell Canyon

Photography, Travel 2 Responses »

May 082010

Location: Mt Diablo -Michell Canyon, Clayton, CA
Directions: From 680 North, exit Ygnacio Valley Road, head east for 7.5 miles until you get to Clayton Road, turn right. Go 1.0 miles, turn right onto Mitchell Canyon Road, go to end. $6 car fee for day use.
Date of visit: May 5, 2010 – Cinco de Mayo.

Mitchell Canyon, located on Mount Diablo’s North Side, is located in the town of Clayton. Known for it rock formations and wildflowers, there are wildflower viewing opportunites for all abilities. We had a chance to visit and hike this area during the past week. The wildflowers are still out in force, though some are starting to die off. Different specicies can be found at different altitudes.

During this visit, we had planned to take it easy and do the Mitchell Canyon Nature Trail. However, due to the lack of details and signs, we were not able to find the trail. Starting from the opposite side of the parking lot from the visitor center, we headed out on Bruce Lee Road in an attempt to find the Back Creek Trail. We ended up doing a few circle and eventually decided to hike up the Back Creek/Mitchell Canyon loop for a total of about 8.1 miles and a 1600 foot elevation gain.

Heading up what turned out to be the Back Creek Trail, we found lots of varieties of wildflowers. At the lower elevations, we found Rose Clovers, Pineapple Weed, California Poppies and Wild Mustard. As we gained elevation, we proceeded to find an abundance of Ithuriel’s Spear, Winter Vetch, Scarlet Pimpernel, Royal Larkspur, Gray Mule’s Ear and Woolly Paintbrush and Indian Paintbrush. Throughout most of the hike, wildflowers were all around affording many photo opportunities. At the top of “Twin Peaks” on Deer Flat, one is afforded a panorama viewing opportunity to see Clayton, mountains and valleys. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture the fames Fairy Lantern which is the signature wildflower of Mount Diablo. A gallery of my 2010 Wildflower photos can be found at:

http://cchinstudios.zenfolio.com/wildflowers2010

It looks like the wildflower viewing should be good for another week or two, depending on the heat. For more info on hikes and features, go to: http://mdia.org/hiking.htm

Stay tuned for more wildflower reports!

Panorama Shots and Photo-stitching

Photography 1 Response »

Apr 282010

When visiting places, many people struggle to capture shots that represent what they see and experience. For vast landscape scenes, panoramic shots generally is one of the main answers. In this area, technology has helped make the capturing of the photo easier but processing challenges arise. Most of the challenges lie in the way that the camera works with the lense. Perspective, distortion and blending are three key elements that must come together to produce a decent panoramic image. The effort to merge several photos into one and make it look consistent and natural can be challenging.

Most of today’s photo processing programs do a pretty good job at automatically finding stitch points and stitching the photos together. Hardware and software requirements vary and memory handling sometimes is a key factor in processing (more on that in another posting). Correcting photos for barrel distortion, uniform color, contrast and tone, and finally adjusting for perspective is where this process gets challenging. For example, the above shot, taken from Sutro Hill in San Francisco, at first glance looks okay. However, what many pixel peepers will notice is that this photo is actually a stitched photo, comprising (in this case) of three separate photos.

In this example, three vertical shots were taken to be stitched together. The goal was to capture the view from the top of Sutro Hill looking towards downtown. I chose to shoot vertically to capture as much of the city (from the base of the hill) as I could with as few shots as possible (given my existing equipment). The other option, as a photographer with a modest camera, was to shoot 9 separate horizontal images to get the desired level of city detail. The stitching of the photos in many programs is handled automatically. The method to correct for consistent tone and color, barrel distortion and other nuances distinguishes the better programs from the crowd. Other features, such as the ability to create a Quicktime VR (think real estate 360 degree VR tours) or merging a non-sequenced series of photos either horizontally, vertically or matrixed are all available in various programs. For example, using a friend computer in the field with The Panorama Factory, I used the same seven shots that produced the photo below and converted it into a Quicktime VR fairly easily (as seen by clicking below on “Sutro Hill Panorama” – be patient. Once loaded, click on photo and use mouse or arrow keys to pan left and right).

Sutro Hill Panorama

So now comes the question of which software to use. Most cameras today come with free photo processing software that has the capability to create panorama shots (such as the Canon software) and sometimes Quicktime VR. Commercial and free programs/plug-ins such as The Panorama Factory, Panorama Tools, Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom, PTgui, Panavue, Arcsoft Panorama Maker and a plethora of others exist out there to choose from. Choosing one or a few shall be the subject of upcoming reviews as I search for the “best” one to use…stay tuned!

SF Bay Area Wildflowers 2010

Photography, Travel Comments Off

Apr 262010

With this spring’s on and off rains here in Northern California, one would of expected an excellent wildflower season. Most reports are saying its been a so-so season so far. With Carol Leigh’s Wildflower Hotsheet being shut down by the author, getting information on where to find wildflowers can be dificult. Even worse, if you live in the bay area and do not want to travel far, your choices are even more limited.

The good news is that unless you looking for field or hillside full of wildflowers, it is possible to find some in your own backyard(almost). For example, last weekend I was shooting from the top of Sutro Hill in San Francisco. Driving up and down from the hill there were plenty of wildflowers to be found even though I wasn’t looking or expecting them. Here’s two examples. Other notable examples are generally found roadside off the major highways, especuially in the east and south bay areas.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll continue my search for local places to shoot wildflowers (any suggestions welcome). As I visit these places, I’ll post some brief location reports and pictures. Collectively, you’ll find the gallery at: http://cchinstudios.zenfolio.com/wildflowers2010. Stay tuned!

Adobe CS5 Launch

Editorial, Photography, Technology 3 Responses »

Apr 122010

Today was Adobe’s official launch of the new Creative Suite 5, otherwise known as CS5. The product has been out in beta for awhile now and was officially launched in an online webcast(first 37 minutes). Having been briefed last month, where we were given a sneak peak into some of the new features, I can say that I’m impressed with the new features. My favorite new photography improvements are Content Aware Fill, Puppet Warp, improved RAW processing and Black and White conversion. Despite all of this marketing, a few questions remain;

When will the product be available? Right now, they say the expected ship date will be mid-May.
Should this have been simply an upgrade to CS4?
When should we expect the new version of Lightroom 3 which is now currently in beta?

These and more detailed specific questions shall be answered in a detailed review of the product. In the meantime, here are some of today’s highlights;

Overall Key Improvements/Enhancements

Time savings workflows and features
Collaborative features
GPU Acceleration Optimization
64-Bit Native Processing
New Mercury Playback and Rendering Engine
Content Aware Fill

After Effects

Roto Scoping – New Roto Brush saves a lot of time and effort by allowing you to move foreground objects from their backgrounds automatically creating transparency around the foreground object.

Dreamweaver

Discover within Dreamweaver can take a page from a website and determine/show all other pages necessary to render the page, in Live View within Dreamweaver. Helps you work with different CMS’ such as WordPress, Drupal and Joomla.

Flash Catalyst

Create flash content using native Photoshop and Illustrator files without coding

Flash Professional

Integration with Flash Builder and packager for iPhone which will package product as a native iPhone application ready for the iApp Store.

Illustrator

Variable Width Stroke allows you to modify line width for some cool effects

InDesign

Create flash content from within InDesign without coding
Can preview and change flash content from within InDesign

Photoshop

Natural and customizable paintbrushes – Can change a photo into a painting or add artistic effects using the new Mixer Brush. This brush allows for color blending and different bristle tips which produce lifelike brush strokes.
Repousse – Create 3D logos and objects from any layer, selection, path or layer mask. You can twist
Mini Bridge – Navigate and access files within Photoshop
HDR Pro – new version allows for more creative changes with new controls, save presets and remove ghosting and pull replacement content from whichever exposure you’d like.
De-mosaic and sharpening and noise reduction improvements
post crop vignetting – ability to darken or lighten image as if you were dodging or burning in traditional darkroom processing.
Automate lense correction based on camera model – corrects distortion, aberration and vignetting.
Content Aware Fill – AMAZING – can remove objects from photo and Photoshop will intelligently fill in space automatically to make it look like it was never there.
Natural Media Bristle Tips – allow you to make paintings from photo or scratch. Bristle quality, length, stiffness of brush are all controllable
Mixer brush tool allows to realistically blend colors.
Puppet Warp – ULTRA COOL – Drop pins on object in photo then can make natural distortions
Camera RAW 6 – Inoise reduction, better sharpening, more vignetting options and the ability to add grain to a photo are some of the highlighted features.
Refine Edge feature – The new Smart Radius option will automatically detect the type of edge being outlined and can also detect and remove color fringing.
Automatic lense correction – PS5 will read the Exif data and make corrections based on camera body and lense combinations. Corrections include chromatic aberration, vignetting and geometric distortion. You will also be able to create your own profiles and share them online.

Script to Screen workflow

Adobe Story – On Location – Premier Pro – Allows for full control over the process from editing of scripts from multiple sources to passing/using meta data throughout the lifecycle.

CS Live

BrowserLab – Determine how something will look in many different browser/platform combinations and compare. Has onion skin view which helps user determine minute differences between browser looks.
Site Catalyst Net Averages – Give user device and operating system data early on in creative process to help optimize design decisions for largest audience.
Adobe Story – Bring in scripts from a number of sources where you can edit and carry metadata through out the production process.
CS Review – works with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Allow user to share work to get feedback from others online, even if they don’t have CS products.
Using Acrobat.com a shared screen and collaborate in real-time.
Complementary use for a limited time.

Flash Player 10.1

New version will allow flash content to work on wider range of devices – netbooks, smartbooks, smartphones, tablets and televisions.

Business Catalyst Online Business Platform for Web Designers

Set of solutions for designers to build online businesses without coding.

There is so much more to cover depending on which angle you’re coming from. Adobe.com and tv.adobe.com both have numerous resources explaining all of the new features and enhancements. Check it out…I’d be interested to hear from you to see what you think of the product.

Brief Review of Canon S90

Photography 3 Responses »

Apr 122010

Canon’s s90 is designed to be an avid photographer’s travelling companion. The S Series was last produced in 2005 and historically was meant to fit in between the Powershot Elph series and the G series. The size, features and build were in-between that of the Elph and G series. The s90, introduced in August, 2009 reintroduces us to the S Series and breaks the size mold. The s90 is fairly compact in terms of length, but is a bit wider than most of the Elph series. This is due to one of its control rings mounted on front around the lense. Despite the size, the camera has a solid build feel.

As with most other photographers, the first thing I tested was its performance in low light situations. This little camera performed remarkably well turning out great looking photos. In more brightly lit scenes, such as the outdoors, the resulting picture had rich color, great detail and low sensor noise.

Another use for this camera is its macro capabilities. The f2 lense seemed quite adept at taking great food shots with little effort.

The main competitor to this camera is the Panasonic LX3. A review can be found at dpreview.com.

Basic Specifications
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Good:
good set of controls for manual and semi-manual shooting
great wide angle (28mm) with f/2 shooting
great low-light shooting
reasonable speed on processor for continous focus and dynamic histogram
allows for shallow depth of field shooting, RAW or RAW+JPG capture
relatively large sensor – 1/1.7″, .43 cm2
Dual anti-noise systems (High sensitivity and anti-noise control)
same sensor 10 megapixel sensor as the G11
fast 2.0 lense, though 2.8 is only available on wide angle shots.

Bad:
smooth finish attracts fingerprints while being slippery
no HD Video (shoots 640×480 at 30fps)
zoom only goes to 105mm

Overall Rating: Recommended, 4 stars

Sample Shots

Apple iPhone OS4

Editorial, Technology Comments Off

Apr 082010

Today, Apple announced the iPhone OS4. This new operating system for will bring over 100 new features. It will ship with the iPhone and iPod Touch starting this summer and later in the fall with the iPad. For developers, the new software development kit (SDK) will offer over 1,500 new APIs. The developer API beta is now available.

The major upgrades include mutitasking, folder organization, improved eMail (including support for multiple exchange acocunts) iBooks functionality and more secure enterprise support. The new OS4 will be compatible with iPhone 3G, 3GS, second and third generation iPod Touch and the iPad in the fall.

This announcement adds fuel to the fire around speculation of a new iPhone to possibly be released this summer, perhaps for Verizon. Of course, lets not forget the multitasking capabilities already available in Android phones.

Sunol Regional Park

Travel 1 Response »

Apr 042010

A hidden gem in the Sunol Valley is the Sunol Regional Park, part of the East Bay Parks system. A few miles east on Calaveras Road off I-680, this park has quite a variety. Fireroads, narrow single tracks, a resevoir, streams, falls, rock climable peaks, cows and wildlife, it makes for a great quick get-away to the outdoors. This kid friendly park has hikes that range from easy to strenous. Trails like Little Yosemite and McCorkie afford decent views with moderate effort. For the more adventurous, a trek into the Sunol Wilderness(and camping), a trek on the Ohlone trail (which requires a pass) or rock climbing on the basalt outcrop (Indian Joe Cave Rocks) are options. Overall, this park, has something for everyone. More information is available at the park’s website:

http://www.ebparks.org/parks/sunol

Wild Mustard Season

Photography, Travel 3 Responses »

Mar 162010

Mustard plants grow wild in northern california during the months from January to Marh, depending on weather and rainfall. As the hills turn green, mustard starts growing wild. Hues of green and yellow(from the wild mustard plants) define the hills and fields during this season.

In Napa Valley, one of culinary meccas of California, the annual mustard festival is held. This year, it runs from January 30 to March 27. Amongst the events, the feastival holds four contests;

Worldwide Mustard Contest
Mustard Recipe Contest
Art Contest
Photography Contest

This is a wonderful time of the ear to get out and explore the local landscape. The green and yellow hues change with the light and add definition to the local lanscape, especially the hills. Soon after this season, as the weather becomes warmer, the familiar brown hues return to the local landscape until the following year.

XAMPP – Local Web Development Environment

Web Design 1 Response »

Mar 112010

XAMPP is a localized web development environment that allows you to install everything needed to start designing and developing web sites and applications locally. XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl from Apache Friends. There are currently four distributions; Linux (tested for SuSE, RedHat, Mandrake and debian), Windows (for 200, 2003, XP and Vista), Mac OS X and Solaris (tested for Solaris 8 and 9). The distribution is free of charge under the GNU General Public License.

Downloads can be found at:
ApacheFriends: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/

Here at C Chin Studios, we’ve tested the Windows and Mac installations and found it to be simple and stratight forward. Add-ons, such as WordPress, can be installed into this environment to allow use locally. When you don’t have access to the internet, or its inconvenient, XAMPP is an excellent alternative to keep you going. Keep in mind that many features have been intentionally disabled to make things easy. Features such as security settings have been left off. One should be cogizant of these settings so when one moves work to an internet enabled site, they are correctly set.

There are a variety of other localized development distributions including MAMP, JAMP, PAMPA, Z:WAMP, VertrigoServ, EasyPHP, Repos Server, WAMP Server and WLMP.

In addition to the how-to install article on Apache Friends, there have been numerous article written by other on how to best install XAMPP. Some of our favorites include;

Debian Help: http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/xampp.htm
Drupal.org: http://drupal.org/node/161975
Six Revisions: http://sixrevisions.com/tutorials/web-development-tutorials/using-xampp-for-local-wordpress-theme-development/
WordPress.Tv: http://wordpress.tv/2009/11/12/installing-wordpress-locally-using-wampserver/

Having a localized development environment allows you easy, full control to design, develop and test web sites and applications. Just remember that XAMPP is intended only for localized develoment, though it can be switched to a production mode environment with modifications.

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