Memo to CFIF: Tone it Down!
I just finalized my FY 05 charitable donations, and you may note that the Center for Individual Freedom is not included among the winners, despite it’s apparent compatibility with my political philosophy. Why, you might ask?
Because over the last six months CFIF has bombarded me with frantic, hyperbolic rhetoric about the conservative issue of the day, with little in the way of useful information or counterpoints. A few choice extracts from the latest, regarding the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court:
This may be the most important thing I’ve ever asked you to do!
Not a good way to start.
Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court is in trouble!
Interesting, this is the only Right Wing Conspiracy(tm) organization which has told me this.
Even before he was nominated, Liberal ideologues vowed to spend millions to defeat anyone President Bush nominated to the Supreme Court.
As the Washington Post reported: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), and People for the American Way “rushed out statements blasting the nomination even before Bush announced it at 8 a.m.”
By the end of the day, the entire liberal machine was working at full strength: the AFL-CIO, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Alliance for Justice, MoveOn.org and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
Bastards!
Talk about knee-jerk!
Hell yeah! Goddam lib’ruls!
But, that’s what we’re up against: a well-organized, highly disciplined bunch who will do anything to defeat President Bush’s mainstream nominee to the Supreme Court.
This is among the most even-handed thing CFIF has to offer, though the use of the political term-of-art ‘mainstream’ (meaning ‘agrees with me’) devalues the statement in much the same way as consultant or marketing speak, introduced into a true statement, someone makes it feel false.
The Left is likewise attempting to condition the U.S. Senate with anti-Alito commercials. We must answer their lies with the truth — and quickly.
I suspect the Left is actually hoping to energize its Left base, which will in turn ensure Senate opposition. If commercials could directly influence Senate votes..well..the SuperBowl ad experience would be considerably different.
Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized 56 Blast Fax messages to President George Bush and all 55 Republican Members of the U.S. Senate. Tell them to confirm Judge Alito as the next Supreme Court Justice. Don’t stand by and let Leftwing ideologues shout down the President’s highly qualified nominee. Don’t let them “Bork” Judge Alito they way they “Borked” Judge Bork. Please Act Now!
And here it is: the pitch.
Several weeks ago, when we first told you that Judge Alito’s nomination was in danger, many of you answered the call.
Your Blast Faxes to Congress had a tremendous effect! Your voice was heard!
Within days even many of the liberal Members of the Senate “moderated” their earlier positions and indicated that they would give Judge Alito a fair shake.
So which is it? Is he getting a fair shake, or do we need to give ‘em hell?
But since that time, PFAW, MoveOn.org, the AFL-CIO, NARAL, Alliance for Justice and a host of other Leftwing organizations have regrouped and are spending unprecedented amounts of money to thwart the Alito nomination.
And they have already succeeded in bringing liberal Senators back into line.
As I write this letter, a massive drive to filibuster the Alito nomination is — once again — underway.
Ah, I got it. So it’s a game of tug-of-war.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I agree with CFIF on most issues, including the Alito nomination. What I don’t like about CFIF is the approach they take. Contrast the strident noisemaking above with the approach of the Federalist Patriot, which typically identifies an issue, provides a cogent analysis encompassing the whole picture, reaches a conclusion, and provides concrete refuations against specific arguments.
The CFIF way is not unlike the strident leftist groups they so often debunk. Name-calling and ad hominem attacks may work for the evil God-hating commie-loving hippie Left, but it doesn’t do much to energize me.
Life-changing insights into Z750 picture-taking
After I reached my Casio Exilim EX-Z750 conclusions, I began to rummage around the digital photography forums looking for insights from other Z750 users on improving its performance. I felt that the middling camera I was using was not the stellar camera favorably reviewed time and again.
Though my search for enlightenment is ongoing, I ran across some great posts to the Casio Talk forum at http://www.dpreview.com. In particular, Bart Hickman posted a great piece showcasing some nighttime photos he took with a Z750, which do not resemble anything I’ve been able to produce.
Subsequent research of Hickman’s posts revealed a link to Bart Hickman’s Best Shot Collection, which is a set of ‘Best Shots’ (basically camera setting presets which you can load into the Z750 in addition to its library of built-in Best Shots) which provide ‘virtual’ ISO 800 and ISO 1600 settings. This, coupled with post-processing using the exposure compensation curves he provides and a little noise reduction, enables high shutter-speed low-light photography with dramatic effects.
Hickman uses Paint Shop Pro 9, not Photoshop, so I’ve taken the liberty of converting his adjustment curves to Photoshop. They don’t yield quite the same results as Photoshop’s Exposure adjustment, but given that he’s calibrated them to the Z750′s frequency response curve at various EV settings, I’m inclined to give his the benefit of the doubt.
They are:
You can use them in Photoshop by creating a Curves adjustment layer and loading the appropriate curve values file using the ‘Load…’ button.
Hickman’s technique is to use his Virtual 800 or Virtual 1600 best shot profile (which one you use depends upon lighting), then dialing down the EV compensation until the shutter speed is acceptable, even if the adjustment leads to an underexposed shot. I didn’t realize (perhaps because I’m a digital photography n00b) that adjusting the EV compensation caused the camera to adjust the shutter speed; I thought EV compensation was just a post-processing adjustment to the data from the sensor.
Normally, underexposing the shot would suck, but Hickman’s exposure compensation curves allow you to re-adjust exposure in the other direction in roughly the same way the Z750 would adjust it by holding the shutter open longer. The adjustment curves, particularly the +2 curve, lose detail in the highlights, so it’s not a completely free adjustment, however I find the difference between some loss of detail and a nuked flash exposure or missed shot is worth the compromise.
The final stage of the Hickman technique is to apply noise reduction (NR) to the brightened image. Noise reduction usually costs some detail, but if you’re using a powerful noise reduction tool like Noise Ninja, the dramatic reduction in noise is usually worth the nominal loss of detail.
I’ve been playing around with this technique alot, and I’m pretty pleased. I get fast shutter speeds without a flash, and the adjustment in saturation coupled with the NR post-processing keeps noise in check. Thanks Bart!
I’ve also resolved to keep an eye on the dpreview forums for further nuggets of wisdom.
WTF Are 'Port Huron Labs'?
Today I happened to be tailing my httpd-access.log on bonzo, and noticed several requests from 85.64.146.188 for various top-level pages on apocryph.org, with a user agent value of Port Huron Labs. A bit of googling leads me to believe that Port Huron Labs is an email harvester.
The IP address is registered to an ISP in the Netherlands, according to ARIN. That ISP’s internal WHOIS server reports the IP is assigned to an Israeli company. I suspect they are innocent in all this; they have an entire Class B subnet, so I suspect one of their machines has been compromised and used to crawl the web for email addresses.
At any rate, there are no email addresses on my site, so harvesters will be sorely disappointed.
Casio Exilim EX-Z750 Conclusion
I’ve been talking about my initial impressions on the Casio Exilim EX-Z750, and have since had an opportunity to undertake a few shooting experiments.
The conclusion: I want my PowerShot S60, but in the Exilim’s package, with 7.2 MP of resolution. Of course, this doesn’t exist; the PowerShot SD550 is in no way the S60 (it lacks manual controls, has a 37mm wide angle, etc). So, I won’t be getting what I want.
Pros
- The Z750 has a great case; it’s small and feels solid.
- The boot and shutter lag times are amazing. Makes my S60 feel even slower than it used to
- Resolution is very high; 7.2MP gives you lots of room to work with, though some of my shots feel fuzzy nonetheless
- Controls are definitely different from my S60′s, but I was able to get used to them very quickly
Cons
- Zoom range is limited to 37mm-111mm. My S60 went all the way back to 28mm, which was great for wide angle shots
- Flash is for shit. It’s range is limited, as other reviews have noted, but it’s also somewhat cataclysmic at the default settings. All of my early flash shots were nuclear.
- Doesn’t have an accellerometer to detect camera orientation, so when I take portrait shots I have to manually rotate the resulting images. Sounds like a small complaint, but it adds up.
- You have to use the stupid dock to charge the camera or download pictures. I have an SD drive, and bought an aftermarket charger to avoid these hassles, but out of the box it sucks
- Noise at ISO 200 and ISO 400 make these modes nearly useless, therefore I have to be more careful with shutter speed and flash settings than I was with my S60. As a result, alot of my pictures are underexposed.
- Auto white balance is easily fooled by incandescent light. I have to remember to switch to Tungsten to avoid a yellow cast.
If the Z750 took great low-light shots automatically, like my S60 did, I’d be in love with it. However, it does not, and I’m not yet very good at tweaking the shutter priority mode manually to make up the difference. I’m going to keep it (the alternative is the SD550, which doesn’t even have manual controls), but only because I have no choice.
My shots from Christmas Eve are up on my gallery. They give some sense as to what I’m capable of doing with a Z750 (hint: not much right now). Note the underexposure and yellow casting due to the lame auto white balance.
Final Decisions on Charitable Donations FY 05
A while back I posted my list of potential charitable donations for FY 05. I’ve not finished my selections yet (I’ve still got three days after all!) but I’m in the process of making them now. Noon on 31-December is actually early as these things go for me.
I’ll list the lucky winners, and their normalized contributions. The normalized contribution value is the gift amount, divided by the largest single give amount given this year. Thus, a contribution of 1.0 is the largest single contribution I made; 0.5 is half that, 0.25 one quarter, and so on. This value serves as a reasonable indication of the extent to which I value the objectives of the organization and my level of confidence in the organization’s ability to efficiently further those objectives.
The final list:
- Institute for Justice – 1.0
- EFF – 0.83
- Reason Foundation – 0.83
- Federalist Patriot – 0.67
- NRA Life Membership – 0.50
- FIRE – 0.50
- Second Amendment Foundation – 0.33
- CATO – 0.33
- Heritage Foundation – 0.33
- VCDL – 0.07
Of these, the NRA, Patriot, and VCDL contributions aren’t tax-deductible, which is unfortunate, but their causes are just enough to merit the foregone tax deduction.
A few final comments:
Dear Charitable Organizations: Get with the program and go to the trouble of implementing a decent donation system. 2AF, I’m talking to you! I don’t care how strapped you are for cash; any teenage child of one of your staffers should have the HTML wherewithall to come up with a donation form that doesn’t look like something I might’ve used in 1995. If you want my money, you should make it easy and pleasant for me to give it to you. Witness, for example, the Institute for Justice or EFF donation sites; consistent UI, and after you make your donation they give you a receipt complete with their TID.
I would also note that I considered a donation to Catholic Charities, which does alot of the more traditional ‘charity’ work. However, Catholic social thought is somewhat inconsistent with my free market, limited government philosophy, which makes it hard for me to support these otherwise worthwhile programs.
This is an interesting dichotomy; my professed religion (or organs thereof) pursue political ends which I cannot agree with. I noted this most acutely in my study of the Jesuits, who are such militant activists that the Church has disbanded them a couple times over the centuries. While this is unfortunate, it doesn’t detract from the legitimacy of the Catholic faith imho; for example, opposition to immigration enforcement may be an activity funded by Catholic Charities, but it’s a long way from that to an ex cathedra proclamation from the Pope that illegal immigrants must be given amnesty.
And finally, I lament that, while BearingPoint has a 100% matching program for charitable donations, one of the restrictions is that organizations whose primary activity consists of ‘advocacy or litigation’ are not eligible. To my mind this elimates the entire spectrum of activist organizations, from MoveOn to Sierra Club to NRA.
How big is too big for upload_max_filesize?
I recently kicked up the upload_max_filesize parameter to 16MB so I could upload big 7MP images. However, now I’ve taken to shooting incriminating video with my Z750, which gets into the hundreds of megabytes. So, how big is too big? I’m going to try 500MB.
In /usr/local/etc/php.ini:
; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
upload_max_filesize = 512M
Let’s see what happens…
UPDATE: Nothing happened. The latest beta of Gallery Remote seems to not care for enormous video files; it just hangs at ‘Preparing to upload…’ indefinitely. I’ll have to FTP my videos up for the time being.
Shipping APO is a PAIN
I recently wrote of my experiences packing for Iraq. Today I had the pleasure of actually hauling my personal effects to the post office for shipment.
I had a total of roughly 60 pounds of stuff in four boxes, which all shipped priority mail for roughly $70. A few observations:
- You use the big white form, PS 2976-A. You don’t need to fill out PS 2976 at all.
- The customs form is affixed to the outside of the package by the postal clerk. Thus, you can seal your packages before you bring them to the post office
- I checked ‘gift’ as the type, and entered the ‘Certified to be bona fide gift…’ text from my previous post in the Description of Contents. Whether this will pass customs muster or not remains to be seen.
- You can’t use the shipping kiosk to send stuff APO.
- Know the weight and value of each package before you show up; you’ll need both bits of information for the customs forms.
What will be even more fun is sending all this stuff back to the US once I complete my deployment. Oh well; if it wasn’t a hardship, everyone would do it.
Analysis of Noise in Casio Exilim EX-Z750
I’ve conducted a more thorough analysis of noise phenomena in my Casio Exilim EX-Z750 ultracompact digital camera.
I’ve observed that noise at fast shutter speeds (1/8+) at ISO 50 or ISO 100 is minimal. Unfortunately, this leads to potentially underexposed images when shooting in low light indoor conditions.
As is typical with digital cameras, ISO 200 and 400 are rather noisy. I had previously thought that the ISO 400 mode on the Z750 was particularly bad, but empirical test shots don’t prove that out; it’s noisy, but no more so than my PowerShot S60.
The interesting observations came at slower speeds. I shot a few exposures with a 0.3 second shutter, running the ISO gamut from 50 to 400. I found that, even at ISO 50, I was seeing some noise artifacts! This makes sense to some extent, as the longer the shutter is open, the longer noise effects have to accumulate, however it is somewhat unfortunate for me, as I use slow shutters to expose portraits in low light.
I also played with the exposure compensation control. At 1/6s shutter, ISO 50, setting the exposure compensation to its max value of +2.0, I got an image that was actually somewhat overexposed compared to the 1/8s ISO 100 shot, and yet had less noise than the 0.3″ ISO 50 shot. Now, obviously, exposure compensation doesn’t help with blur the way a fast shutter does, but 1/8 is hardly fast enough to eliminate blur anyway.
More thoughts on Casio Exilim EX-Z750
I recently got the Casio Exilim EX-Z750. Over Christmas I shot about a thousand pictures with it, so I feel I have a pretty good sense of its capabilities.
My first impression is that the CCD is noisy at ISO levels above 50. Even 100 is visibly noisy, while 400 is appalling. This wouldn’t be a problem except that indoor low-light photos are my bread-and-butter, so to speak.
I hate the flash, but not for the same reason everyone else seems to. I hate it because it’s slow to charge, and even at low intensity washes out subjects alot of the time. I read elsewhere that the flash was underpowered; that may be, but it feels nuclear to me.
The video mode is pretty good. I didn’t do much video with my old PowerShot SD60, but I find myself dropping to video mode alot with the Z750.
The shutter priority mode is pretty useful. I can boost the exposure compensation (or back it off when I use the thermonuclear flash), and I find the controls pretty easy to aclimate to.
Battery life is definitely epic. I shot roughly 800 pictures on one full charge and one partial. This includes a good many flash shots and some video.
My one real complaint is that I can’t seem to get decent shots indoors in dim artificial light. I can crank ISO up and suffer noise, or I can dial the shutter speed down and suffer blur. The flash is seldom a help, as it is rather harsh. I also have alot of trouble with the white balance; ‘auto’ is for shit indoors under incandescent light. I have to switch to tungsten explicitly.
I feel like I need to work w/ it a bit more before I master the low-light picture-taking, but considering the microscopic size and epic battery life, I can put up with a few warts.
Got Casio Exilim EX-Z750 Digital Camera
My new Z750 arrived today from NewEgg, complete with 1GB 66x SD card.
First impressions:
- It’s tiny!
- It’s fast!
- Auto white balance sucks in incandescent light. Exposures had yellowed look about them. Switching to the Tungsten white balance setting fixed it
- Noise at ISO 400 is appalling.
- Shutter priority mode seems rather weak. Camera selects between one of two possible aperture values, and always chooses ISO 50. Forcing ISO 200 is an improvement, but still underexposed.
- When you power off, the previous manual settings are forgotten, which I hate. I often have to re-set shutter speed, exposure correction, and ISO mode with each power cycle.
- Movie mode is pretty good; video quality is decent, and audio is..well..audible.
That said, I was able to take some pretty decent flash pictures in a dimly lit room at night. I haven’t used it enough yet to determine if I’m happy with it or not. It’s certainly not worse than my SD60, and the runner up, the Canon PowerShot SD550, has no manual mode at all, so there really isn’t much alternative.