So what seems like forever ago, I was attending CEGEP (Quebec’s equivalent of college) where I learned what feels like too little for the amount of time and effort spent there. Maybe I just wasn’t motivated enough and didn’t grasp the full potential of what my program had to offer, but the truth is, time’s are changing, especially media-arts-wise and since my enrollment they’ve made many adjustments to the program.

Anyways it’s been a while since I made my last video, but I made a quick edit of the Kap Bambino show I went to last Friday at Foufounes Électriques. Martial Caroline, the singer, puts on a wicked show, and it made for a lot of sweet footage. Bouvier Orion is the DJ and with the way the show was set-up I couldn’t get any spectacular shots of him, but you can catch him at the end of the video as he walks off stage to call it a night. The track used for the video is Zero Life from their album Zero Life Night Vision.

I had to convert the original .avi to .mov and lost a bunch of quality in the process. I Didn’t notice ’til pretty much done the edit, but I won’t make another edit until I find a  solution. The next one will be better!

: )

www.myspace.com/kapbambino

Since finishing the Worldwide KAP Week 2009 Book, I’ve had more time to do photography, and to at least attempt to do KAP.  Last weekend I got out of the house for a few hours to do some KAP up on Mana Road, a dirt track that runs from Waimea to Mauna Kea’s Summit Road on the south side of the mountain.  The weather in Waimea was rainy, and my plan was to keep driving up Mana Road until I came out above the clouds.  This worked out better than I thought, and I eventually got to do some KAP at a large water shed.

The photo received some positive comments when I posted it on Flickr, including one from someone who said how much they enjoyed seeing pictures of Hawaii that don’t appear in the tourist literature.  In looking through the photography I’ve done, I realized a good percentage of it has been done at beaches, or in places that are stereotypically tropical Hawaii.  I hate getting stuck in a rut, so the comment on the water shed photo was timely.  Exactly the kind of direction I need!

Yesterday my wife took my daughters to dance, so my son and I threw our stuff in my Jeep and headed out.  My plan was to hike out to some remote kipukas on the slopes of Mauna Loa and try my hand at KAP there.  The wind was favorable, but as it turns out the weather wasn’t.

A kipuka is a forested cinder cone that has been surrounded by fresh lava.  This cuts off the kipuka from the surrounding area, making it a pocket ecology.  Kipukas are common wherever there are cinder cones out on a relatively flat area near an active volcano.  The saddle between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea has dozens of kipukas that host native Hawaiian flora, and numerous endemic Hawaiian birds.  My son packed binoculars to do some bird watching, and I packed my KAP gear.

By the time we got to the turn off to Mauna Kea Summit Road, it was obvious our plans had to change.  A line of clouds was blowing through the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, and already the area we were planning to hike was covered by clouds.  Rather than turn around and call it a loss, we pulled in at Puu Huluhulu, a large kipuka situated at the turn off to Summit Road.  My son and I have hiked this area frequently, and it’s a favorite of ours.  I had some level of hope that we could reach the top before the clouds rolled through, and that I could get a kite and camera airborne before things socked in.  But the clouds moved faster than we did.  By the time we got to the top everything was an opaque mass of white.  My kites stayed in my bag, but my camera didn’t.  A day that’s bad for kite aerial photography is often a good day for ground photography.  The most obvious subject to work with was the twisted trees that grow on Puu Huluhulu.  It’s trees like this that originally inspired the art of bonsai.

But there were a number of other subjects that also drew my eye.  Completely overcast skies often make for poor landscapes, but they make for great macro photography.  This plant is about as big as my palm, though the adult plants grow much larger.

When the clouds and the wet and the cold finally got to be too much, my son and I hiked back to my Jeep.  The misty photography and macro photography felt good, but I was still disappointed that we were packing it in and turning around.  But then I remembered just how close the far end of Mana Road was.  Even better, Mana Road does lead back to Waimea.  It’s not the smoothest ride home, but it was a chance to keep the day from ending before it had really started.  I asked, my son said yes, so we headed out Mana Road.

Not too far in we ran across a really picturesque stream bed.  The water wasn’t running, which was a little surprising given the amount of rain the area had received recently, but we were fairly high up so things had probably drained well before we got there.  The clouds that had made KAP at Puu Huluhulu impossible had cleared the air between Mauna Kea and Puu Oo, one of the two active vents on Kilauea.  The two steam plumes from Puu Oo and from the lava flow entering the sea near Kalapana were both clearly visible.  I set up my tripod and lined things up to make a panorama.  When I metered the sky and the ground, however, I found I couldn’t get both the foreground and the steam plumes in the same shot.  The sky was just too bright, and the overcast sky made the foreground too dark.  So I wound up shooting it as an HDR panorama.  It wasn’t quite the look I was after, but it served to balance the two strongest elements in the frame.

By the time I’d finished the panorama, my son had hiked up slope to a really pretty tree.  Rather than follow, I hiked down the stream bed until I reached the pools I’d spotted while photographing the panorama.  The overcast sky made for nice reflections, so I arranged things for a low angle shot that would pick that up.

The same soft light that made for good close-up photography on Puu Huluhulu also made for nice macro photography here.  Some recent experiments at work using CombineZP made me want to try the technique in the field.  The idea is to take pictures at a range of focuses, and use CombineZP to take the sharpest part of each shot and combine them into a single image with infinite apparent depth of field.  I don’t know how enamored I would be of this if I didn’t have CHDK running on my A650.  One of my favorite scripts is a bracketing script that will bracket whatever your last control setting was.  I use it to do HDR photography, but it can also be used for CombineZP.  The A650 can be set to do manual focus, so once MF is selected, the bracketing script can be set up to rack focus through a nice wide range, taking pictures along the way.  I set this to do 37 focus positions, shifting by 3 clicks in focus each time.  (The A650 has well over a hundred focus positions, so techniques like this are quite straightforward.)  When I got home I put the files into CombineZP, and got this in return.

A few miles down the road my son spotted nene off to one side.  I stopped and got out, with some faint hope of photographing them.  Unfortunately the A650 doesn’t have much in the way of long focal length in its zoom range.  I’ve tried several times to photograph nene with my 20D, but light, weather, or the patience of the birds has always thwarted my attempts.  I was overjoyed to find these geese to be very patient with me.  They let me get quite close without reacting much at all.  I was happy to walk away with a couple of good photographs of them.

Mana Road is miles and miles of beautiful scenery that changes every time you go around a bend.  I’ve been out on it several times, and each time there is something different to photograph.  I still haven’t figured out quite how I’d like to photograph the koa forest the road winds through, so that’s still one I have to return to once I have a clear idea in mind.  Just past the koa forest, though, the road became quite muddy.  At one point the road dropped away entirely, and I was looking out past my Jeep’s hood into space.

I’m sure there are those who would give a loud “WHOOP!” and hit the gas, but I’m not one of those.  I hit my brakes, turned off the engine, and got out to look.  I saw a muddy slope with about a 25% grade, maybe 40′ high, and covered in skid marks.  I wasn’t keen on the idea of driving it, but of course I had to photograph it!

The wind was too gusty to get a stable kite shot, so I opted for my 20′ carbon fiber pole.  This is a converted breem pole I picked up for $20 and stuck a ball head on for photographic work.  Setting up the shot took about as much time as setting up a tripod, and the CHDK intervalometer script meant I didn’t need to remotely trigger the camera.  All that was required was a little patience waiting for the “click!” sounds coming from the camera, and lining things up between shots.

After photographing my Jeep and the slippery slope, I wound up backing out and going down the lower road.  This avoided the inevitable skid, and got us back on track.  A little further down the road we came across a water shed.  This is smaller than the water shed I’d photographed the previous week, but being closer to the road it offered more opportunities for close photography.  These water sheds are essentially large catchment systems used to collect rainwater for the cattle that graze in the surrounding fields.  The roof of the shed has gutters that are piped into the tanks.  When it rains (which it does quite frequently) the rainwater runs off the roof, through the pipes, and into the tanks.  The water in the tanks is then diverted to troughs for the cattle to use.

I’ve driven past this water shed several times, and have made numerous attempts to photograph it.  But I’ve been disappointed with the results.  I know the picture I’m after, but I just never managed to get it.  This time I got close.

Ideally I’d have liked to be about five to six feet to the right, and aimed the camera more to the left.  Unfortunately there’s a barbed wire fence in the way that makes that angle painful, if not impossible.  I’m still working out how to get the shot I’m after, but this one worked out better than the others I’ve tried.

I did finally get a kite airborne once.  I was on the leeward side of a stand of trees, so the air was minimal and tossy at the ground, and blowing like a freight train higher up.  Kite handling was rough, heavy, and not fun at all.  I clipped on my KAP rig and tried to do some photography of a water tank that’s managed by the water department.  With the wind through the trees and the altitude of the rig, I couldn’t hear the shutter whenever I told it to take a picture.  So it was no surprise when I got home and saw that the only picture I had from the one KAP session of the day was a picture of my feet when I tested the shutter on the ground.

Ah well…

So it was the KAP outing that wasn’t, but I still had a good time.

- Tom

I remember Billy when he began his foray into the world of graffiti in the streets of Jamaica, Queens, NY.

Cer TPA picked up the TPA torch in or about 1982-3 and along with Lady Heart’s brother Lust, friends Scop, and Kap, teamed up with one of TPA’s founder’s Demo and continued to carry The Public Animals along with Sye and Sloan into graffiti history.

His good friend was Kap TPA, another hitter of the day.

Cer’s throwups began to appear on all IND’s and eventually made their way to the IRT’s where he learned that in order to stay visible, that he would have to start burning. Burn he did and for a short but durable time, he rocked the Bronx entirely, making his name synonymous with what being A Public Animal was all about. His moniker was omnipresent in most boroughs and he was the first letter in “CDL” which during the middle 80’s appeared in all Cer, Demo and Lust productions.

Cer will be remembered by many but especially by his TPA family as a stout troop, a true graffiti soldier and as an outstanding member of The Public Animals. He was there through it all and wherever he is now, I’m sure he will be doing what he always did. Standing tall, taking no bull, and representing.

Thanks Billy, for all the memories and times, from all of us in the graffiti family and the TPA Crew.

Look out for those sweet palm strikes at the end.

An article on the new Spacing Ottawa Blog used a night aerial photo that I took last year.

The photo is an aerial view of the Ottawa SuperEx at night. The image was taken from a camera suspended below a kite (Kite Aerial Photography – KAP).

I finally broke down and got an iPhone.

To be fair this has been in the works for a while.  I’ve been following the development of the iPhone since the first one came out, and have a theory that it will play a fairly pivotal role in the future of personal computing and computing in general, but that’s a topic for another post.  Some time ago I made a deal with myself that if I could come up with five applications on the iPhone that would significantly change how I do KAP in the field, I would be in the market for one.  That happened a while ago, but I still held out.  When looking at something like this, it’s hard to know if the decision is being made for legitimate reasons, or simply because it’s a cool gadget.  I erred on the side of cool gadget, and waited.  It was finally a combination of three things that convinced me to get one:

1. I was due for an upgrade on my existing cell pone
2. The ATT website had refurbished 16GB 3G iPhones listed for $99
3. One of my co-workers let me play with her iPhone long enough to completely fall in love with it

Ok, so in the end it’s still probably the cool gadget factor that pushed me over the top, but I did have five applications that I will use when I’m out KAPing:

1. GPS – Prior to this, I was in the market for a small handheld GPS.  I was looking long and hard at the DeLorme PN-40 for some time, but the price tag kept me from taking that plunge.  That the iPhone comes with a GPS that applications can actually access went a long way toward convincing me that this was a viable route.  The performance of the DeLorme likely exceeds what the iPhone will do, but if I was after the ultimate in accuracy I would be looking at the higher end Trimble hardware, all of which is seriously out of my price range.  And from the testing I’ve done the iPhone GPS is plenty accurate for my needs.
2. Google Earth – When the iPhone first came out, a fellow KAPer named Cris Benton picked one up.  Shortly after, he described a particularly difficult session where he needed to fly over a rail yard in order to get his camera in position over a particular subject.  The rail yard was in use, so there was no way to walk through it.  Instead he pulled up his location on Google Earth, visually determined the direction of the wind, and given his kite’s line angle he calculated how much line he needed to let out to get his camera in the correct position.  It worked like a charm.  With the addition of the integrated GPS in the iPhone 3G, this becomes even easier.
3. Anemometer – Yes, there is an anemometer for the iPhone.  It’s a $0.99 application, and is limited to a 0-25mph wind range, but at the cost it’s well worth it as a backup for my Kestrel 2000 anemometer.  I have yet to test this in the field, but from what other people have said it’s typically good to +/- 1 knot, and switching units is trivial.  Before trusting it I plan to run it in side-by-side trials against my Kestrel.
4. Inclinometer – The iPhone 3G has a 3-axis accelerometer built into it.  This has set the stage for a number of apps that replicate the behavior of a carpenter’s bubble level.  But for kiting I was after an inclinometer that would tell me the angle of my kite line.  Turns out there are a whole host of these as well.  The one I got was free off the iPhone App site.
5. Safari Web Browser – The pre-paid data plan on the iPhone makes using the integrated web browser a real no-brainer.  You can’t rack up data charges by using it, so there’s no reason not to.  Also, since the Safari browser on the iPhone is a full-blown browser, you can hit practically any web site and view it the same way you would on a full-blown computer.  This lets me bring up the local wind forecast while I’m in the field, and to check current conditions at a number of weather stations to see if conditions are changing.  I can also use this to cruise Flickr when I fly at a new location to see if there are any interesting subjects nearby.

In addition, there are a number of non-KAP applications I’m using for other reasons.  The notepad and alarm clock are particularly nice.  The iPhone will also take voice memos, which is great for taking notes while KAPing since writing while managing a radio and kite winder is asking for trouble.  I also installed issh, which is an inexpensive combination ssh, telnet, and VNC client.  I’m no longer in the UNIX sysadmin line of work, but I still do run machines at home and at work.  Now I can get to them from practically anywhere.  I also find I’m using the iPod functionality more than I thought I would, since all my music will fit on my iPhone.  The photo gallery application also makes it easy to pack a large number of KAP images on my iPhone so I can show them to people when they ask what I’m doing. Oh, and it’s also a pretty good phone.

All in all I’m more than pleased with it.  I’ve already taken the small portfolio out of my KAP bag, which saves a fair bit of weight and space.  If the anemometer works out well, I may start keeping my Kestrel at home on longer KAP hikes.  The inclinometer, GPS, Google Earth, and readily available wind forecasts are all new, and I haven’t really had a chance to see how much I will use them, or what effect they will have on my work flow in the field.  But already it’s an improvement.  Can’t beat that.

- Tom

Miranda Torres, de futbolista a árbitro

            Dicen que muchos árbitros son “futbolistas frustrados”. Posiblemente la mayoría jugaron con una lata en el recreo e hicieron sus pinitos en el equipo de su barrio. También los habrá que no hayan dado una patada a un balón. Sí los hay que intentaron dedicarse a ello en plenitud, ganarse la vida peloteando, como es el caso de Miranda Torres.

          El árbitro catalán (Barcelona, 1972) a buen seguro que soñó con ser un referente en segunda división, pero no precisamente como colegiado. Miranda Torres llegó a jugar en segunda B, en equipos como el Barcelona B, Barcelona C o Sant Andreu. Seguramente en aquella época ya mostraba sus dotes de sargento. ¡Era portero! El puesto más individual dentro de un deporte colectivo.

          Tras varios años bajo la portería, el colegiado catalán cambió los guantes por el silbato. Su carrera fue meteórica pese al hándicap de entrar a la profesión con una edad ya avanzada (para ser árbitro). Su etapa como futbolista posiblemente le ayudó a crear un estilo personal, muy diferente al de otros árbitros, pero igual de eficaz para llegar a la categoría de plata del futbol español.

          Descubrí a Miranda Torres la temporada pasada, en un partido entre el Celta y el Hércules. Me sorprendió su manera de interpretar lo que es falta y lo que no. Es un árbitro que deja mucho jugar (a veces incluso hasta desesperar a la grada) y logra que no se le compliquen los partidos. Muchos colegiados llegan lejos utilizando el silbato y las tarjetas cuando encuentro da un giro peligroso. Miranda es diferente; logra reconducir la dirección de un duelo caliente con otros métodos, siempre fiel a su manera de ver el fútbol y el arbitraje, como buen conocedor de ambas perspectivas.

          No fue cosa de un partido. El año pasado le seguí en otras actuaciones. Es de esos árbitros que al verle comportarse sobre el césped, no hace falta saber su nombre para identificarle. Prueba de esta peculiar manera de dirigir los partidos fue su porcentaje de amarillas (menos de 4 por partido), bastante por debajo de la media.

          Su puesto en la clasificación final de colegiados la campaña pasada fue bastante modesto (15º), pero a mí me cautivó. Este año ya le he visto en algún partido, entre ellos el Gamper (Barça – Manchester City). Me alegro que alguien pensara que Miranda Torres merecía ese premio en su ciudad. Su actuación no defraudó. En los tres encuentros que ha dirigido durante la presente temporada ha aumentado su media de tarjetas de forma considerable (7), algo que ha ocurrido también con el resto de colegiados. No obstante, dudo que al final de temporada supere las 5 de media.

          No sé si es un futbolista frustrado, un árbitro tardío o un híbrido peculiar. Sólo espero que mantenga su estilo y llegue algún día a primera división, aunque parezca una utopía con 37 años. Le deseo suerte y le dedico estas líneas que había prometido y llegan con retraso.

Plumas con alevosía

          Para no perder la costumbre de los sábados, dejo un par de perlas que he encontrado leyendo la prensa. ¡Ni jugando la selección cesan las críticas a los árbitros! Extraño humor el de KAP (mundo deportivo)

A todos se nos atragantó la cena

          Anoche falleció Andrés Montes. El shock aun perdura en todos aquellos que cada madrugada le vimos sonreir, y sonreímos por verle. Descanse en paz, pequeño gran hombre, y periodista.

Un jugón que hizo de la NBA un deporte diferente

banda-de-ipanema-2008 (www.360cities.net)

Fungsi foto panorama sudah berkembang bukan lagi sebagai ilustrasi pendukung artikel saja. Panorama sekarang bisa menjadi sebuah situs web yang berdiri sendiri, ada link yang merujuk ke teks, panorama lain, situs lain, e-mail, sampai audio. Panorama lebih “hidup” dan bisa berinteraksi dengan kita. Dapat ditayangkan off-line, lagi. Lalu?

Mari berpikir keras, mencari manfaat apa yang bisa dipetik dengan kehadiran sensasi baru berupa kebebasan menampilkan informasi visual yang memiliki kedalaman emosional ini. Panorama tak sekedar foto “pan”, yang menampilkan gambar panjang membentang dari kiri ke kanan, tetapi juga dari atas ke bawah, dari segala arah pandang. Dalam bahasa bebas matematika, panorama = 360 x 180^o! Wow.

Pertama, tentu saja, panorama sebagai sebuah mahakarya seni foto meski ada yang masih keberatan karena sebagian besar hasil adalah berkat ketrampilan memanipulasi foto di atas komputer. (Ketrampilan manipulasi bukankah seni juga?) Ke dua, panorama dapat difungsikan sebagai alat bantu efektif menyajikan sebuah presentasi yang spektakuler! Ke tiga, efek 3D (3 dimensi) tambahan pada panorama dapat menjadi sarana komunikasi ampuh pemasaran!

Akhirnya semua berpulang kepada kita, apa yang hendak disampaikan ketika membuat panorama. Konten, sudah harus dipikirkan dan ditentukan sejak awal. Misi apa yang ingin disampaikan melalui unsur gabungan estetika dan emosi, memanfaatkan tebaran obyek dan warna yang terdapat di sekeliling kita. Komposisi menjadi rumit karena panorama dibangun oleh sejumlah foto, yang mau tidak mau menuntut kita menguasai pengoperasian kamera dan memotret, agar hasil berkualitas dan selaras sesuai misi.

Jangan berkecil hati kalau tidak bisa memotret, kita tidak sendirian. Mari belajar dimulai dengan memahami seluruh fitur kamera digital yang kita miliki. Baca manual dengan seksama, dan kutak-katik kamera. Uh, kuno sekali, ternyata baru tahu saya kalau ada fitur komposisi panorama di sana! Dulu juga ada cuma ‘ndak ‘ngerti. Kalau tidak ada, kita masih ditolong oleh software yang banyak tersedia bak jamur di musim hujan. Untuk penyajian, ada teknologi flash, Java, dan QTVR (QuickTime Virtual Reality). Lengkap sudah dari hulu sampai hilir. Semua ada, jadi?

Jadi, tidak ada alasan untuk tidak mencoba memotret panorama (dan lebih asyik, mulai berkompetisi).

Foto panorama membuka peluang yang tidak pernah terpikirkan sebelumnya. Lihatlah teknik yang dilakukan orang untuk menciptakan panorama. Pakai layang-layang (layangan)!

Jangan tanya hasilnya, luar biasa. Penasaran? Forum dalam bahasa Indonesia ada di sini, “Kite Aerial Photography” (atau Panorama?).

Kuncinya satu, …kreativitas!

Ayo ambil kameranya, segera buat panorama. Tampilkan di situs (ada banyak) antara lain di bawah.  Ini salahsatu aplikasi panorama, virtual tour, untuk budaya dan pariwisata? Indonesia masih kosong (ayo isi, jangan tunggu sampai diaku orang lain…).

Obyeknya apa, ya?

Posting berikut persiapan membuat panorama, dari awam, oleh awam, untuk awam. Ditunggu.

This paper was presented on Simposium Nasional Akuntansi (SNA) at Pontianak.

Language: Indonesia

Authors: Shulamite Damayanti and Made Sudarma

Abstract:

The need of auditing service has influenced the development of public accountant profession in Indonesia. The number of public accountant firms increasing may result in competition between public accountant firms.  In such condition, a corporation may change their auditor (auditor changes).

The purpose of thus research is to know whether the change of management, accountant opinion, audit fee, financial distress, public accountant firm’s size, and the percentage of the change of Return on Assets may influence limited corporations in Indonesia to change their auditors. This research is hypothesis testing. Secondary data consists of financial statements and certified public accountant’s statement of limited corporations listed in Bursa Efek Jakarta (BEJ) from 2003 until 2005. The data is analyzed with logistic regression.

 This research results in audit fee and public accountant firm’s size as variables influencing auditor changes and the change of management, accountant opinion, financial distress, and the percentage of the change of Return on Assets as variables not influencing auditor changes. The most significant variable is public accountant firm’s size as the indication of audit quality. Thus, audit quality is an important factor influencing auditor changes. Besides, audit fee is also an important variable influencing auditor changes.

The need of auditing service has influenced the development of public accountant profession in Indonesia. The number of public accountant firms increasing may result in competition between public accountant firms.  In such condition, a corporation may change their auditor (auditor changes).

The purpose of thus research is to know whether the change of management, accountant opinion, audit fee, financial distress, public accountant firm’s size, and the percentage of the change of Return on Assets may influence limited corporations in Indonesia to change their auditors. This research is hypothesis testing. Secondary data consists of financial statements and certified public accountant’s statement of limited corporations listed in Bursa Efek Jakarta (BEJ) from 2003 until 2005. The data is analyzed with logistic regression.

This research results in audit fee and public accountant firm’s size as variables influencing auditor changes and the change of management, accountant opinion, financial distress, and the percentage of the change of Return on Assets as variables not influencing auditor changes. The most significant variable is public accountant firm’s size as the indication of audit quality. Thus, audit quality is an important factor influencing auditor changes. Besides, audit fee is also an important variable influencing auditor changes.

Full paper please download: Damayanti&Sudarma_Faktor-faktor yang Mempengaruhi Perusahaan Berpindah KAP (.pdf 116kb)

             El fútbol español se ha convertido en una guerra de guerrillas con los colegiados en tierra de nadie. La artillería merengue conspiratoria comandada por Relaño ataca desde la capital a la tropa catalana. Cerca de las montañas pirenaicas nace la respuesta de la doble guardia que conforman SPORT y Mundo Deportivo, rebosantes de resquemor, con un armamento en su poder repleto de resentimiento e ironía. Por si fuera poco, desde Sevilla, Valencia u otras partes de España, se suman pequeños guerrilleros a una refriega que cada jornada toma una dimensión más peliaguda. En terreno neutral, amenazado por  la arquería, la pólvora y la metralla, se encuentra el colectivo arbitral, víctima de una emboscada que nadie se atreve a denunciar.

             Esta semana el primer cañonazo es de Mundo Deportivo. El amigo KAP utiliza una viñeta irritante y malintencionada, además de inmoral y acusica…

             La tira cómica tiene un pase. Lo que no tiene perdón es el artículo de Luis Racionero. Un texto indigesto propio de un pendenciero del periodismo. Vergonzoso, rastreso, vil…

             Otra artimaña en la que insiste la prensa anti-árbitros es la de calentar los partidos. Cubrirse las espaldas es una táctica de cobardes como Tomás Roncero…

             En Sevilla (estadio deportivo) no van a ser menos.  Vaya papeleta para Iturralde…

             Una muestra de que los medios tienen entre ceja y ceja a los colegiados es el titular del jefazo de Marca para el análisis de la elección de Rio como sede Olímpica. Me parece bien que use un símil, pero resulta algo pedante y pomposo. ¿También los árbitros tienen culpa de que Madrid no se halla llevado los juegos?…

LA INTRAHISTORIA

             También he querido rescatar esta semana un análisis de Juanma Trueba, de los pocos perdiodistas de As no vendidos descaradamente al Villarato. Puede tener algo de razón en el fondo de la cuestión, pero las formas no son las correctas. Insiste en atentar contra la figura del cuarto árbitro (primo gorrón, estudiante acusador) y dejar un velo crítico sobre el “ensimismado colegiado” del Real Madrid - Tenerife (Muñiz Fernández). Que cada cual juzgue…

A few weeks ago, my wife and I took the kids to the county fair.  (Yes, even islands in the middle of the Pacific get to have county fairs!)  It was a great day, full of rides, surprisingly good food, and a stop at a booth where the Hilo Photography Club was showing some of their member photography.  Seeing other people’s prints on the wall got me to thinking about how isolated I am with the photography I do.  I trade notes with two of my co-workers who are into photography, but for the most part that’s it.  Every other interaction I have is online through Flickr, or through various forums for aerial and kite aerial photography. It’s strange, because for the most part I really am a loner.  But I found I really wanted to join a photography club.  Bad.

But driving to Hilo, especially on a weekday night, really didn’t hold much appeal.  I work during the week, and it’s an hour and a half to Hilo.  This would be like driving from Sealy, Texas, to the middle of Houston and back.  On a Wednesday.  So I looked around and found there is a second photography club on the island, based in Kona.   It’s not exactly in town, but forty-five minutes is still better than an hour and a half!  I liked the photography I saw on their web site, so I figured I should give it a try.

Still, things are never that easy.  The first person I had to convince was my wife.  It may be my idea to join the club, but our time belongs to the both of us.  Once I told her it was one night a month, though, she was ok with the idea.  As it turns out the club met the following evening, so with my camera bag in hand and an address written on a scrap of paper, I jumped in my Jeep after work and headed out.

One problem with addresses on this island is that they assume you know the roads.  Despite its being a fairly small island, there are still a lot of roads!  I didn’t exactly get lost, but I didn’t know where I was, either.  It took a while, but I finally got there.  The meeting was low-key, the folks were pretty friendly on the whole, but I was surprised how little interest there was in talking to a newcomer.  I literally sat in the corner, and despite working up the courage to speak up during the critique session, no one showed much interest in me, or even asked what kind of photography I was into.

Nonetheless, I liked what I saw.  The critiques were constructive, but they were also pretty direct.  No bubbles there!  If someone didn’t like a thing, they said so.  But they also said why, which is the real point of a critique.  At the end of the meeting I was determined to come to a second one, and to bring pictures to show and get feedback on.  The president of the club took down my name and email address, and invited me to the next meeting.

Choosing which pictures to bring took some work.  I didn’t necessarily want to show my flashiest images, but I did want a representative sample.  I also didn’t want to have to wade through the opinions that KAP was just a cheap alternative to helicopter aerial photography, so I tried to include images that showed things that helicopters can’t do.  I intend to bring my KAP bag to the next meeting as well, when I’ll be able to show these pictures, so I also tried to include images that demonstrate the portability of KAP.  This is the set I came up with:

Here There Be Dragons – I wanted to open with this one, mostly to show that KAP can be used around people, and at an altitude that could also be done using a ladder.  This is a common technique on the ground when a little more height is called for, so it’s a situation I hope enough of the photographers have found themselves in to have a feel for the angle I was after.  But a ladder would’ve cast a shadow here, whereas my KAP rig did not.  So even inside the scope of vantage points available to a photographer on the ground, KAP can offer possibilities.  (Plus making that dragon was fun!)

Flying in a Blue Dream – Most aerials I’ve seen are obliques, typically taken out of the side of a helicopter or airplane.  I wanted to include an ortho image, not as an example of remote sensing or mapping, but as an example of an artistic image.  I really liked the feel of this when it came off my camera.  It felt more like a 4×5 ground glass composition than a digital camera composition.  The honu in the upper center are almost secondary to the sweeps of color in other parts of the frame.

Gemini North – This is one of those “KAP is portable!” pictures.  It also indicates a place where doing the photography from a full sized helicopter would be difficult.  This is at 14,000′ above sea level.  There are only a handful of helicopters on the island that can hit this altitude, and none of them are available for photography.  It could’ve been done with an airplane, but not easily, and not without violating FAA airspace regulations.  As an added benefit, this also shows how RC helicopter photography and KAP don’t necessarily overlap, either.  I doubt many RC helicopters can fly at 14,000′ altitude, either.  For KAP, I just used a bigger kite to compensate for the thinner air.

Kauhola Pt. Lighthouse – I wanted at least one picture where the camera was suspended over the water.  This is that picture.  I don’t know of any vehicle-mounted mast photographers on the island, but I’ve run into enough online to know that there is a misconception with some of them that a mast answers all needs.  Many of the places I fly don’t have roads, much less solid ground directly underneath the camera, so shots like this really couldn’t be done with a mast.  An RC helicopter or RC airplane could’ve done it, but the air was pretty heavy that day, and unfortunately fairly rough as well.  Even with a kite it was a tough day.  With an RC helicopter or airplane it would’ve been pretty nasty.  My hope with sharing this photograph is that this is a lighthouse that the club has visited in the past.  I wanted a subject at least some of the people in the club were familiar with so they could contrast this one against pictures they had done and see some of the vantage point possibilities KAP can open up.

Green Sand Beach – I know the club did a trip to South Point.  I don’t know if they made it all the way out to Green Sand Beach, but most of the residents on the island have been there at one point or another.  It’s a fantastic place to do photography, but 99% of the photos are done to the left of where this one was made, so none of them show the backside of the cindercone that forms the beach.  Even when helicopters overfly the beach, they tend to come in from the same angle every time.  So far as I know this is the only photo of Green Sand taken from this location.  It’s well below 500′, so KAP or an RC aircraft are the only ways to get there.  Add to that, it’s pretty far off the beaten path.  A kite really is the easiest way to get this angle.

Kiholo Bay – I included this one for a couple of reasons:  It’s recent, so it’s more or less “what did you shoot in the last month?”  I’m not cheating here by going back to the archives.  It really is a recent photo.  It’s also a good poster shot for portability since there are no roads out here.  It’s a half hour walk across the lava, or you don’t get to see it at all.  This is also one of my more planned images, so it makes a good conversation starter for the idea of planning a KAP session, or any photography session for that matter.  KAP isn’t random by any stretch of the imagination, any more than any other form of photography is.  This photo does a good job of demonstrating it.

I cropped and sized the images to work with the 1920×1080 format of the projector the club uses, and packed them off in email to await the next meeting.  The date is set for October 15th, so I hope I have good things to write about afterward.

- Tom

Kathrine Klok Due

Der var en meget interessant artikel i Dagbladet Arbejderen her for et par dage siden (der er i øvrigt hver dag interessante artikler i Arbejderen  ):

Da PET ringede på

Kathrine Klok Due var i gang med at pakke sine flyttekasser ud, da telefonen pludselig ringede. Det var PET i den anden ende af røret. De ville vide, om hun var hjemme. Kort efter bankede to PET-folk på hendes dør. Læs mere…

Da jeg læste artiklen, kom jeg til at tænke på tiden i sidste halvdel af 1970-erne og første halvdel af 1980-erne, hvor jeg periodisk bevægede mig rundt i kredsene omkring først Kommunistisk Arbejderparti og senere Socialistisk Arbejderparti.

Der var nogle personer i disse kredse, som fortalte om, at de var så og så sikre på, at deres telefoner blev aflyttet. Der var også nogle, som følte sig helt overbeviste om, at de var blevet skygget på gaden…

Jeg sagde ikke så meget til det… – nå ja, lidt revolutionsromantik og paranoia hørte vel nærmest til. Hvis den slags indbildte episoder fik dem til at føle sig mere betydningsfulde, så fred da være med det

Jeg er blevet klogere. Efter PET-kommisionens rapport her tidligere på året blev offentliggjort, er det blevet helt klart, at de paranoide mennesker der for 25-35 år siden ikke var paranoide, men tværtimod blot refererede virkeligheden!

Selv folk, der kun havde en yderst perifer tilknytning til “mistænkelige” bevægelser på venstrefløjen, blev faktisk overvåget, og der blev skrevet lange rapporter…

PET's nuværende chef Jakob Scharf

PET betragtede enhver organisation til venstre for Venstre og de Konservative for at være “mistænkelige. Så jo, der var faktisk tale om paranoia, men det var vel at mærke paranoia fra PET’s side!

Men nu skal man passe på: Det er i 98% af artikler og indslag i pressen blevet fremstillet som om, vi her beskæftiger os med noget historisk: en efterretningstjeneste, som dengang under den kolde krig brugte ufine metoder.

Der er ingen grund overhovedet til at antage, at PET’s overgreb mod almindelige (men politisk eller fagligt aktive) mennesker er ophørt. Tværtimod er overvågningen intensiveret pga. af den såkaldte terrorpakke. Og – endnu værre:

• endnu mere kan i dag foregå inden for lovgivningens rammer, da lovene er ændrede (terrorlove m.v.)
• der er ingen mulighed længere for parlamentarisk kontrol, da vi i Danmark siden 2001 har haft et flertalsdiktatur
• PET’s metoder er i takt med den teknologiske udvikling blevet så forfinede, at de er blevet uendeligt meget sværere at afsløre
• PET har løbende fået tilført flere ressourcer og fået øgede beføjelser

Til slut: Du skal passe endnu mere på i dag end du skulle i går… dine emails og sms’er kan opsnappes… – og for at nævne yderligere et enkelt eksempel, IP-telefoni:

Nye muligheder for at tale i telefon via nettet betyder, at PET også vil være med på en lytter her. Derfor har regeringen og Dansk Folkeparti afsat 93,5 millioner kroner på finansloven for 2007 (jeg kender ikke senere tal), til at PET kan købe og udvikle topmoderne aflytningsudstyr og computere. (dok.: Millioner til PET`s it-overvågning)

Har du læst George Orwells roman 1984 for nylig?

Okej jag ska erkänna att jag har fastnat i den den rutiga skjorttrenden jag också. Som tur är så har jag några gamla i garderoben som jag kan damma av.

Har hittat en fantastiskt snygg GANT-skjorta med mockadetaljer men 1 699:- känns som lite i överkant. Jag har hittat några andra för runt tusenlappen men de känns ändå inte i närheten av ovannämnda GANT-skjorta så därför kör jag på en budgetvariant. Denna skjorta från H&M har en snygg “slim fit” och 249:- är ju perfekt. Om man man ska följa min arbetskollegas knep där man det ska få kosta 10:-/gång man använder ett plagg så måste man använda skjortan 25 ggr. Jag tror att jag kommer att göra det.

I’ve flown a camera at Kiholo Bay a number of times now, but for some reason I’ve never been all that overwhelmed by the sweeping landscape pictures I’ve come back with.  They’re either too long and narrow, or don’t really capture the sense of the place, or are just plain awkward.  In a way this may explain why I keep going back.  But when I do go back, I tend to photograph it the same way.  Photography is one of those things where living in a rut just doesn’t work out in the end.

Rather than repeat what I’d done before (ok, rather than repeat my mistakes) I decided to take a fresh look at the problem:

Kiholo Bay is a gorgeous stretch of water just south of Anaehoomalu Bay.  It’s got a fantastic reef, a really good view of Hualalai, and the inlet is one of the most striking features on that entire stretch of coast.  It’s one of the few spots along the Kona coast of the Big Island that has a scenic lookout.  So what was missing?  I realized I’d been focusing on the inlet at the expense of everything else!  Once I decided what I wanted to include in the frame, it was a matter of figuring out how to do it.

I decided I wanted the inlet as a diagonal slash across the bottom of the frame, with the reef getting plenty of space.  I wanted a horizon line that included Hualalai, the volcano above Kailua-Kona, a really clean sky, and the whole stretch of shoreline along Kiholo Bay.  With that in mind I pulled up Google Earth and started fishing.  In the end I also wound up going back to some of my earlier photography there, but in the form of a Photosynth.  This combination of tools and ideas gave me what I wanted: a vantage point.

There’s a spot about five hundred feet north of the inlet, about four hundred feet inland, and roughly three hundred and fifty feet above the ground that would give me the angle I wanted.  You could do it from a helicopter with FAA clearance to fly at that altitude over what is admittedly not a populous area, but it’s a lot easier to do this sort of thing from a kite.

The mornings have been sparklingly clear, but by mid afternoon the volcanic gases coming out of Kilauea creep north of Kailua-Kona and cover the Kona coast in a thick haze.  It can make going to the beach less than pleasant.  But it makes photography downright impossible.  The ideal time of day for the picture I wanted was about an hour before sunset.  But waiting for the light meant losing the atmosphere, so I opted to go early in the day.

Monday was a holiday, so I checked the local weather conditions.  By 10am the wind around Kiholo Bay was supposed to be four knots onshore with little to no turbulence.  Perfect for slack-line flying, and ideal for a picture of this kind.  I grabbed my gear and headed out.  It’s a half hour drive to Kiholo Bay, and another half hour hike across the lava.  By the time I reached the water I realized something was terribly wrong.  My four knot steady onshore wind was more like a two to ten knot gusty down-shore mess.  It was with some trepidation that I pulled out my rokkaku and got my camera airborne.

It wasn’t the steadiest flight in the world, and at one point my rig came down and landed hard on the lava.  Some recent modifications to my rig made for a safer landing, but my heart was still in my throat when I saw it sink behind a ridge and felt the line go slack.  But seconds later it was airborne again, and I was able to reel it back in and check it out.  Everything worked perfectly.  I didn’t even bend the leg brackets on my rig.  It’s a testament to the good design work and engineering Brooks Leffler puts into his KAP rig products.

I knew the field of view I needed for the picture, and knew my camera didn’t have a wide enough field to pull it off.  So I planned to use stitching software right from the start.  This was important to know, because the methodology is different when going for individual frames and composites.  This time I wanted a composite.  Rather than use the tried and true Gigapan style pattern that most KAP panoramas are made with, I used a modified version of one pioneered by Vertigo, one of the French KAPers: burst KAP.

In traditional KAP panorama work, the rig is pointed in one direction, stopped, and a picture is taken.  The rig is then tilted down slightly and a second picture is taken.  This process is repeated until the camera is pointed vertically.  At that point the rig pans to a new “slice” location and the process starts over.  With a good camera and rig, this takes roughly five seconds per shot.  For a ten shot composite, it’s almost a minute of photography.  A KAP rig can move a lot in a minute.

In burst KAP panorama work, the rig is set to spin on its pan axis, and frames are fired off as fast as the camera can take them.  A combination of high shutter speeds and carefully calculated pan speeds makes for very fast, but still quite sharp work.  In this case I needed more height than my camera could give me, so I did the burst in two passes.  To be more accurate I did it in four passes, starting with the camera horizontal and ending with it near vertical, making a single pass with the pan axis for each tilt angle.  In post-processing I only used the first two tilts, however.

Rather than waste a trip, I photographed Kiholo Bay this way over and over as the kite and camera moved around the sky because of the shifting wind.  The end result is that I made numerous burst KAP sets with the camera at a variety of altitudes.  When I got home it was a matter of choosing the set that gave me the angle I wanted.  Nine images, taken over roughly fifteen seconds, supplied the imagery necessary to build the composite I had imagined.

The final image came out at 9057×4800 pixels with no stitch errors during compositing.  This is sufficient to print it 60×32″ with no visible pixelation.

I truly enjoy the serendipitous moments that happen when doing photography in general, and KAP in particular.  There’s a particular smile I’m sure every photographer wears when they go through their pictures at the end of the day and find something they really weren’t expecting.  But there is a great deal of satisfaction to be had from thinking through a photograph, planning the composition, and then pulling it off despite not having things go quite as expected.

- Tom

Que ótima idéia! Fotos aéreas feitas com pipas, também conhecido como KAP (de Kite aerial photography). Para ver mais visite os álbuns KAP – Morro Branco, CE e KAP – Praia das Fontes, CE.

Fotos de Ric e Ette
Post orginal de Zack Sheppard

body and mouth.’ – az egyik legszebb ajandek amit alfahimunktol kaphatunk. Koszi A., nagyon jol esik es nagyon jol erzem magam tole.
Lecker!

Started th day with a bad morning, transport &attitude.
Back aching,its killing me. met up with Denise, Kokyong &Ys at Jp to get Cheryl Tay JingYing! HECTIC HECTIC &indeed tiring.
upload those photos ASAP!

A big card, DIY Cake! we spent nearly 3h?
Developing instant photos, used alot of efforts to deco &stuffs. ended up its chargeable -.- such a waste.
Got no chance to see Np score! D:
Suprise was a lil ruined, but well at least we got chance to smash her.
hungry babis decided to eat instead of wasting, we’re hungry like ghost.
KAP.
Me, Ys, Ky, Denise, Zixuan &Zuoting each drew a cow.
Jy have to guess who drew those respectively, or else she’ve to eat up some ?weird sauces made from bbq,chilli and moreeeeeeeeee! we’re trained to prank people.
BB came DDDDDDD
sent me home again,like finally? i m i m i m i m i m bb!

LONG POST UH?

Compatibility:
Your best match is with Pisces born between 1 March and 10 March. Their sensitive empathy will draw you closer over time, and even at the start you will feel a kinship with each other. This is an excellent love combination. These people have the strong influence of the Moon, which is your own planetary ruler. You see each other’s needs and can fulfil them far better than most other star signs.

Saturday &Sunday =SCHOOL WORK! &heroes (:

 

Jeg er på Århus Hovedbiblioteks arkiv stødt på en fremragende bog, nemlig Benito Scocozza: Socialismen mellem utopi og virkelighed, Forlaget KT, 1982.

Benito Scocozza har en fortid bl.a. som formand for det nu hedengangne Kommunistisk Arbejder Parti (KAP), men det skal pointeres, at den meget Kinavenlige politik, KAP stod for, allerede klart og utvetydigt var forladt, da denne bog blev skrevet.

Benito Scocozza er desuden en yderst velrenommeret faghistoriker med adskillige værker bag sig, bl.a. om Christian IV.

Bogen er holdt i et meget læsevenligt sprog, og med en behagelig typografi er bogen er ren fornøjelse. Dertil kan lægges, at Scocozza er den fødte pædagog: Man forstår faktisk, hvad han skriver!

Læs den – den er hermed anbefalet på det kraftigste

Et uddrag fra bagsiden:

Benito Scocozza

Hvem i vores dage tror på socialismen? Hvem tror på, at Danmark engang bliver socialistisk? [...] Benito Scocozza skriver i denne bog om socialismens skæbne. Ikke om socialismens hisorie, men om den lære, vi kan drage af udviklingen. Om de nye klasser, der er opstået i de “socialistiske lande”. Om de drømme, der har styrket troen på socialismen. Om den virkelighed, der har knust drømmene.

Alligevel er socialismen fremtidens samfund. [...] Hvordan kan vi forestille os dette samfund på godt og ondt? Hvordan skal det styres? Hvad er et socialistisk demokrati? Hvordan sikres arbejderklassens magt? Hvad med fagforeningerne? [...]

Kort sagt: Socialismens erfaringer – morgendagens muligheder.

Peter Alwin Hartz will endlich wieder die Arbeitslosen bekämpfen
Der alte Spruch:”Wir werden die Arbeitslosen mit aller Macht bekämpfen” ist angesichts von Wirtschaftskrise und Massenentlassungen aktueller denn je

Auch FDP für Arbeitsdienst
In Insiderkreise gibt es zu ALGII ja zwei Szenarios, entweder wird Angesichts des drohenden Absturzes des Mittelstandes in den ALGII Leistungsbezug das ganze entschärft oder massiv verschärft und die Ideologie der selbstverschuldeten Arbeitslosigkeit weiter vorangetrieben. Wie es aussieht, scheint letzteres einzutreten, zumal ja mit einem Sieg von schwarz-gelb bei der Bundestagswahl zu rechnen ist. Leute, geht wählen und verhindert das. Wie wäre es mit einer Piraten-Linken Mehrheit? Ja, ja ich weiß, Chaos, Anarchie usw. aber alles ist besser als das was uns blüht, wenn die tablierten weiter am Ruder bleiben.

Wenn ihr mal sehen wollt, wie furchtbar die Welt im Eimer ist, lest euch diesen Guardian-Artikel durch. Die …
Passt ja in den Kontext meines Beitrags zum deutschen Hühnerabfall in Afrika, dem Aufkauf von Trinkwasserquelle weltweit und hybridem Saatgutes.

Aufschwung ohne Ende oder Game over?
Wie lange wird es noch dauern, bis (endlich?) Aufstände ausbrechen?

Most of the time I’m doing kite aerial photography, it is to create a picture I like; that I would want to hang on my wall.  But on occasion I’ve done KAP strictly as a method of remote sensing.  The pictures are data rather than an attempt at art.  I’ve flown at Kiholo Bay several times now, usually in the former category of creating pleasing images.  This most recent trip was strictly in the latter sense: to take data.  But any time I’m out in the field doing KAP, I try to have fun and to stretch what I can do with what I’ve got.  This outing was no exception.

The requirements for the flight strictly called for oblique angles.  I settled on 45 degrees for most of them, though occasionally I used a steeper or a shallower angle as best suited the subject.  But I took some ortho images anyway.  It’s always fun to compare against what Google Earth shows for a particular region, and ortho can be useful when I’m going through the pictures later to judge distance and height.  The field of view of my camera is such that the horizontal width of the frame corresponds to the height of the camera to within 5%.  By taking the occasional orthogonal image, I can typically go back through the images with a map or Google Earth to figure out how high the camera was.  Besides, it’s always fun to compare the KAP image to the Google Earth image, if for no other reason than to point out that comparing satellite imagery and low altitude aerial imagery is seriously comparing apples and oranges.

Ever since doing some work for an archaeologist from Oahu, I’ve been trying various false color techniques to try to get information out of my images.  Most of the time this has been done with orthogonal pictures, though as you can see from my previous post, the same tricks can be used on practically any picture.  But it works well with the orthos:

There are a number of features in this picture that are worth trying to isolate.  There are kiawe trees, a patch of fountain grass, pahoehoe lava from a Mauna Loa lava flow, aa lava from a Hualalai lava flow, water, coral rock, and even a swimmer in the water.

The first approach I tried was to use ImageJ with the DStretch plug-in.  It’s a really good false color filter that can be used to boost any manner of color combinations in an image.  In this case I used the YDS setting with a 315 degree rotation in hue, and managed to isolate most of the features listed above:  Kiawe trees are rendered as a combination of yellowish green in the upper branches, and red for the dead undergrowth.  The fountain grass is rendered as a bright red.  Pahoehoe lava is rendered as a blackish purple, and the aa is rendered as a reddish purple, as are the cracks in the pahoehoe lava.  Coral shows up as  a very light blueish purple, almost white, and the water is rendered as antifreeze green.  Lurid though the colors may be, it makes picking out individal elements in the image quite easy.

Another approach that has worked well in the past is to separate the R, G, and B channels in the image, and treat them as components in a mathematical expression.  This is a tried and true technique that’s been used in astronomy for ages.  B-V (or in the RGB world, B-G) images can be used to judge the temperature of a star, for example.  I wasn’t taking pictures of stars, but there’s still validity in the idea.  Let’s say I want to find the redder aa lava, but don’t want to get a false positive from the coral rock in the frame.  Subtracting the blue channel from the red channel picks up primarily red objects, in this case aa lava and cracks in the darker pahoehoe lava, though this catches the green vegetation as well:

Similarly, green vegetation can be isolated by subtracting red or blue from the green component, and in this case it doesn’t do such a good job of picking up the rocks:

Slightly more complicated expressions can be used to isolate other colors in the image, or to further separate colors.  And likewise, this trick can be used on false color images that have been produced through some other tool, such as DStretch.

Despite having resources like Google Earth available to us, kite aerial photography still offers a great deal of utility as a remote sensing platform.  But I still like making pretty pictures best of all.  The next time I grab my bag and head out the door, it’ll be to go somewhere nice and take pictures I like: the kind I want to hang on my wall.

– Tom

Det er herlig og varmt ute, stokken viser 30, og vi koser oss med grillmat, is, og solståler. Ute skinner solen om kapp med ungene, som blir lysere og lysere i håret for hver dag de tilbringer ute, i lek og morro, med vannkrig og ballspill. Sommeren har endlig festet sitt grep om oss, og det endå før vi nesten var blitt klar over at sommeren var her. Ut med vintersko og frem med sommersko. Og Juniluen selvfølgelig. I dette herlige været, og i denne måneden er det jo ikke noe som passer bedre en å strikke med tykt ullgarn Hi hi! Neida! Det er fritt valg på øverste hylle, og jeg har valg sånn ca i midten. Ikke er jeg spesielt fornøyd med garnet, og ikke er jeg fornøyd med hvordan lua ble. Jeg ble veldig begeistret da bai la frem mønsteret for junlilua, for jeg syntes at Kap er en utrolig kul lue. Men mitt resultat derimot…. Ikke akkurat toppers nei….

Mønster: Kap fra Berroco

Garn: Vamsegarn

Pinner: 4

Nyt sommeren

LOWONGAN KERJA

1. Laki-laki
2. Pendidikan S1/D3 atau Mahasiswa tingkat akhir jurusan Akuntansi/Manajemen/ Perpajakan
3. IPK minimum 2,75
4. Usia maksimal 26 tahun
5. Tekun dan siap bekerja keras
6. Bersedia ditempatkan di luar kota Semarang

1. Fotocopy Ijazah yang dilegalisir (bagi yang telah lulus)
2. Fotocopy Transkrip Nilai yang dilegalisir
3. Fotocopy KTP
4. Pas Foto berwarna terbaru ukuran 4×6 sebanyak 2 (dua) lembar
5. Curriculum Vitae

It’s always fun to see what can be done with aerial photography: large stitched panoramas, Photosynths, 3D modeling, 2D maps.  One technique that KAP lends itself to particularly well is stereo aerial photography.

With an airplane, stereo photography is typically done by pointing the camera 90 degrees to the direction of flight, and taking a succession of pictures as the airplane flies across the landscape.  Careful choice of frame rate, airspeed, and altitude yields good results.

With a kite, a similar technique can be used:  Point the camera 90 degrees to the kite line, start the shutter going, and carefully walk backwards.  The kite will quickly settle into a stable flight angle with the increased apparent wind speed from the walking, and a nice steady stream of pictures is the result.  This is an example from a recent flight over the contact between two lava flows on the Big Island of Hawaii:

The top two pictures are the natural color images as they came off the camera.  The bottom two require more explanation:

Another technique I’ve used with aerial photography is to apply false color techniques to boost certain details, certain colors, or to change the contrast of the image so that particular features will catch the eye.  Most of my experimentation along these lines has been done using an image manipulation program called ImageJ, and a plug-in called DStretch.  ImageJ is a general purpose image manipulation program written in Java.  DStretch is an implementation of the principal component algorithm for contrast stretching that was written by Jon Harman.  It was originally written for bringing up faint details in pictographs, but it has proven to be useful with aerial imagery as well.

In order to get a sense of scale of the image, the thin yellow line in the top pair is a three-section 25′ painter’s pole thath as been collapsed to its shortest length.  My flying partner and I were using it to lower a camera into one of the holes we found in the lava in order to explore the inside.

This probably isn’t the best example of either technique, but it’s the first time I used them in combination.  At some point I’ll write a more in-depth article about building stereo pairs, and a second article about the use of ImageJ and DStretch with aerial photography.  In the meanwhile, enjoy.

Tom

For a long time, it has been a dream of mine to do KAP at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii.  I’ve wanted to do this ever since I first suspended a camera from a kite line.  But when I first asked about the possibility of doing KAP in the park, the answer was a very definite no.  I’ve been trying to teach my kids to get permission first, and not have to ask for forgiveness later, so even though it hurt at the time, I followed my own advice and remained patient.  Apparently that approach worked, because I’ve now been invited to do KAP in the park.  Not only that, but the rangers who invited me would like me to fly over the active vent in Halemaumau Crater.

Gulp!

It’s one thing to have a dream, especially one that’s been filed in the pipe dream category for so long I never thought it would happen.  It’s quite another to have an invitation, and to need to set dates and times. In the hopes of getting some feedback from someone who had done similar work, I posted all this to the KAP Forums.  The responses I got were very helpful.  Aside from the obvious safety issues, there were a couple I hadn’t thought about:

• Because of the distance from the surface of the lava lake, heat damage isn’t likely.  Even with the kite line at zero degrees off the horizon, it’s several hundred feet down to the lava lake.  Not a problem.
• Chemical attack is an issue, but probably not a big one.  Nylon and polyester, the two materials present in my kite sails and my kite line, are prone to attack from sulfuric and hydrochloric acid, but only at concentrated levels.  One of the folks on the KAP Forums said that the UV damage from sunlight exposure would probably outweigh the chemical damage from exposure to acid gases.  Besides, the acid gases are concentrated in the plume.  Keep the kite and line out of the plume, and all’s good.
• The aluminum parts of the rig are anodized, and shouldn’t be prone to chemical attack.  The anodizing process uses sulfuric acid to grow the oxide layer on the aluminum, so further exposure shouldn’t cause issues.  Anodized aluminum is far more prone to chemical attack from caustics.
• The camera electronics may be damaged from even mild acidity, so I’m planning to bag the camera.  Optical coatings may also be prone to attack, so I plan to use a sacrificial UV filter over the lens.  If it looks like the coatings are being damaged, I’ll have to re-consider my approach.  But the camera should remain unharmed.

There were other safety issues raised about the actual kite flying.  This is one area that will take some direct experimentation since there’s no way to predict what any of these will mean:

• The Halemaumau crater is down inside the Kilauea crater.  The crater walls of the Kilauea crater are about 330′ high upwind of Halemaumau, and are about 10,000′ away from the launch site.  This presents about a 30:1 distance:height obstruction up-wind.  This is at the edge of what is acceptable for placement of meteorological equipment.  There shouldn’t be a significant wind shadow at that point, but there may be turbulence that will have to be taken into account.
• There are two ways that heat can be transported from the lava lake into the atmosphere.  The first is convective.  The second is radiative.  Both will be present.  Convective heating should be confined to the gas plume coming out of the vent.  So long as the kite isn’t in the plume, it should be ok.  Radiative heating may cause issues even with the kite well above the plume.  One KAPer who spent time flying a KAP rig over a volcano in Vanuatu said he experienced massive thermals that fell off as the kite slid sideways away from the vent.  In the end his kite inverted and flew into the ground, despite all his efforts to get it back under control.  This must be tested before a rig is hung from the line.

And finally there are the personal safety issues to be dealt with:

• Find out what personal protective equipment should be used (hard hat, steel toed boots, respirator, etc.)  Most of these I use regularly at work, so it will be a matter of finding out which PPEs are necessary, and under what conditions they’ll be needed.  If it’s necessary to use a respirator, I’ll need to shave.
• Do not clip my winder onto my person at any time.  This has come up on a number of flights I’ve done that involved flying out over cliffs.  So long as there’s a cliff, don’t clip on.  Period.  With a winder in-hand, it’s always possible to let go.  With the winder clipped on, a sudden gust and an over-sized kite could drag the kite flyer off the cliff.
• Find out how long I get before we have to head back.  This last one will determine what approaches I take, and whether I can get all the testing done up front before the photography begins.

All in all, it looks like I’ll need at least one dry-run test without a load, and then with an 860g water bottle dummy weight to match the weight of my rig.  If there are strong thermal effects, or if I can’t successfully keep the kite, line, and rig above the plume, I’ll have to pull the plug on the flight.

On a better note, the pictures themselves should be quite good.  I was concerned that the lava lake would be vanishingly small in the picture frame: a spot of orange.  But at a 40 degree angle between kite flyer and camera, the spot should be just under a thousand pixels wide.  At a 10 degree angle, it should be just under two thousand pixels wide.  Aiming will be critical, but the results should be worth it.  The lava lake should dominate the frame.

Which brings up the last point:  How to actually photograph the place?  I’m planning a couple of approaches:

• Open with ortho autoKAP using an intervalometer set to a five second interval.  I get roughly 400-600 images per chip.  This gives me between half an hour and 45 minutes to fly a camera over the crater and get orthogonal pictures.  During this flight all my attention will be on the kite and camera, without having to worry about a remote.
• Next do a second autoKAP flight, this time using the prototype controller a friend and I have under development.  This is where we’ve been putting the bulk of our efforts for how we like to capture a place with a camera, so it’s the best approach I could take for this part of the photography.  With the frame rates we’ve been getting, this is about a 30 minute flight before the chip fills up.
• Finally, if time allows I’d like to do remote controlled KAP.  I would only do this if time allowed, and if the flying conditions were such that I felt comfortable splitting my attention between the remote and the kite winder.  If in doubt, this part of the program would be cut.  But this is the one I’m most looking forward to.

But in a larger sense, what I’d like to do is demonstrate KAP for the folks at the park, and show that it can provide access to vantage points that aren’t otherwise available, that it can be done safely without significant risk to personal safety or to the safety of the park itself, and that it offers the park a very real, very available method for close distance remote sensing.  In a perfect world, my follow-up to this would be to build out a set of rigs for the park rangers, and to help them get started in the world of KAP.  I think it has a lot to offer.

And I can’t wait to see how the pictures turn out!

Tom

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