[Update 7/23/05: okay, the rule of thumb seems to be, “if you can’t handhold a 50mm f/1.4 at ISO 100-400 and get the shot, spot-meter off a gray card and check the histogram before trusting the exposure meter”. This suggests some peculiarities in the low-light metering algorithm, which is supported by the fact that flash exposures are always dead-on, even in extremely dim light.]

[Update 7/22/05: after fiddling around with assorted settings, resetting the camera, and testing various lenses with a gray card, the camera’s behavior has changed. Now all the lenses are consistently underexposing by 2/3 of a stop. This is progress of a sort, since I can freely swap lenses and get excellent exposures… as long as I set +2/3 exposure compensation. I think my next step is going to be reapplying the firmware update. Sigh.]

The only flaw I’ve noticed in my 7D was what looked at first like a random failure in the white-balancing system. Sometimes, as I shot pictures around the house, the colors just came out wrong, and no adjustment seemed to fix it in-camera.

Tonight, I started seeing it consistently. I took a series of test shots (starting with the sake bottle, moving on to the stack of Pocky boxes…) at various white balance settings, loaded them into Photoshop, and tried to figure out what was going on. Somewhere in there, I hit the Auto Levels function, and suddenly realized that the damn thing was simply underexposing by 2/3 to 1 full stop.

Minolta has always been ahead of the curve at ambient-light exposure metering, which is probably why I didn’t think of that first. It just seemed more reasonable to blame a digital-specific feature than one that they’ve been refining for so many years.

With that figured out, I started writing up a bug report, going back over every step to provide a precise repeat-by. Firmware revision, lens, camera settings, test conditions, etc. I dug out my Maxxum 9 and Maxxum 7 and mounted the same lens, added a gray card to the scene, and even pulled out my Flash Meter V to record the guaranteed-correct exposure. All Minolta gear, all known to produce correct exposures.

Turns out it’s the lens. More precisely, my two variable-aperture zoom lenses exhibited the problem (24-105/3.5-4.5 D, 100-400/4.5-6.7 APO). The fixed focal-length lenses (50/1.4, 85/1.4, 200/2.8) and fixed-aperture “pro” zoom lenses (28-70/2.8, 80-200/2.8) worked just fine with the 7D, on the exact same scene. Manually selecting the correct exposure with the variable-aperture zooms worked as well.

These are the sort of details that make a customer service request useful to tech support. I know I’m always happier when I get them.

Apropos of nothing, I thought I’d mention that the two most recently posted pictures here were resized in Photoshop CS, using the new(-ish) Bicubic Sharper resampling method, available in the Image Size dialogue box. I hadn’t seen any mention of it until about two weeks ago, and had been using Mac OS X’s command-line tool sips for quick resizing.

Bicubic Sharper is much better than the standard Photoshop resizing, sips, or iPhoto. It’s particularly good for rendered images with fine detail. I’ve been working on a Roborally tile set for Dundjinni, creating my basic floor texture with Alien Skin Eye Candy 5: Textures. Dundjinni expects 200x200 tiles, but Eye Candy renders best at larger sizes. Resizing down from 800x800 using the straight Bicubic method produced an unusable image. Bicubic Sharper? Dramatically better.

I found the tip in a discussion of photo-processing workflow, which makes sense. For a long time, photographers have been making Unsharp Mask the final step in their workflows, because if they sharpened at full size, the slight softness introduced by resizing for print or web use would force them to use Unsharp Mask again, which tends to look pretty nasty. Integrating it into the resizing algorithm takes advantage of the data you’re discarding, reducing the chance of introducing distracting artifacts.

Based on these comments over at Cold Fury, I’m going to have to say “both”. It’s not just a baseless insult, it’s a way to avoid discussing the issues by insisting that your opponent is not allowed to disagree with you.

Conveniently, if your opponent has served in a war, you can dodge the debate again by calling him a “baby-killer”. Both are about as productive as Ann Coulter calling everyone to her Left a “traitor”.

In the spirit of chicken-labeling, though, I decided to see how the argument held up when applied to other contentious public policy issues:

• If you support gay marriage without sucking dick yourself, you're a chickencock.
• If you oppose privatizing Social Security without relying on it as your sole method of retirement planning, you're a chickenstock.
• If you insist that organic agriculture should replace conventional without saving your own waste products for fertilizer, you're a chickenshit.
• If you insist that violence is always wrong but call the cops when someone mugs you, you're a chickenpacifist.
• If you oppose legal abortion without adopting, you're a chickenparent.

I could go on, but I can’t come up with a single example that isn’t trivial, silly, or dishonest. Just like the original.

Had a going-away dinner Wednesday night with friends and co-workers (they can decide which are which…), at a small, low-profile Japanese restaurant in San Mateo called Oidon (71 E. 4th Ave, second floor). A Good Time Was Had By All, and the sake was as good as the food.

I stopped by Mitsuwa on my way home this afternoon and picked up a bottle:

I’m sure I’ll find a use for it.

Update. The calligraphy leaves me only 90% certain about the second character in the name, but I think it’s 酔鯨 (“Suigei” for the kana-impaired, meaning “drunk whale”). $40 for 1.8 liters, which is downright cheap compared to a good single malt scotch.

Today’s Rosetta Stone lesson could prove useful, in the right circumstances. Or perhaps it’s intended as a moral lesson…

Transcribed with pop-up furigana, the four sentences are:

彼女は一口飲んでいます。
彼女はゴクゴク飲んでいます。
彼女は吸っています。
彼女は吹いています。

Okay, I’ve adjusted to the fact that online credit-card processing systems are written by morons who can’t grasp that entering a 16-digit number is a lot easier if you can use whitespace between groups of digits, the way they’re printed on the damn cards. It’s mind-bogglingly trivial to do the right thing, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of sites who even try.

Today was the first time, though, that I had a form reject me because I left out the leading zero in the expiration month. Blech.

So, nearly two weeks after I gave notice at my current job, I finally got the written offer letter and new-hire packet from the new one. I wasn’t terribly worried about the offer suddenly being withdrawn, leaving me out of work; anything that happened would be at best a temporary HR glitch, and I’m in excellent shape financially.

The worry came when I read the current version of the I-9 form and searched the house for acceptable documentation. I’ve never had a passport, and I couldn’t find either my Social Security card or a copy of my birth certificate. They’re both around here somewhere, but I haven’t needed them in 12 years, and my filing system is a touch “chaotic”.

Applying for a new SS card is easy, but they mail it to you in 7-10 days. It might arrive in time, but it might not. So I went to Google and asked it to conjure up the appropriate department of the Ohio state government for acquiring birth certificates.

I expected to get a short list of random offices with phone numbers. What I got instead was a long list of companies who will cheerfully sell you certified copies of birth certificates online, “just what you need to prove citizenship!”. Some of them looked reputable, others looked more than a little dodgy. The ones who promised the fastest service tended to look the dodgiest, taking shortcuts in the critical area of verifying your identity. Your credit card, yes; your right to have a certified copy of someone’s birth certificate, not so much.

So I called Mom. Her I trust.

Don’t ask me why…

上を向いて歩こう
涙がこぼれないように
思い出す　春の日
一人ぼっちの夜

上を向いて歩こう
にじんだ星をかぞえて
思い出す　夏の日
一人ぼっちの夜

　　幸せは　雲の上に
　　幸せは　空の上に

上を向いて歩こう
涙がこぼれないように
泣きながら　歩く
一人ぼっちの夜

思い出す　秋の日
一人ぼっちの夜

　　悲しみは　星のかげに
　　悲しみは　月のかげに

上を向いて歩こう
涙がこぼれないように
泣きながら　歩く
一人ぼっちの夜
一人ぼっちの夜

…but if you must know. [update: changed the link to a site with better romanization and translation]

more...