Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM

The coveted ultra-wide zoom lens from Canon.

I have not had too much time to play around with this lens yet, but so far it seems promising. While I wish I could keep it forever, I only have it on rental for 1 week. This will be my main tool this week, when I travel up to Cape Cod. I'm also working on some shots of the interior of our house.

The day I stood in the middle of I-76

[Incident on 8/2/2009. Post started on 8/3. Finished on 8/10.]

The title of this post is by no means false, but if I did not preface the title of this post by saying that I was stuck in traffic on Interstate 76, then you'd probably think I was crazy. Not to worry. As far as "peer-pressure" goes, every one else was doing it too, but only because traffic was at a dead halt for about 3 hours.

Here's what happened. My dad and I were coming home from Philadelphia around 11:30 AM when the sky just opened up. Before we knew it, visibility was so severely limited by the sheets of rain that many cars were pulling over. The cars that still persisted drove on at a mere 10 MPH. We kept on going at this rate for about 20 minutes until the sun finally showed itself. Finally, we were on our way home, and I-76 proved to be an expressway once again.

Not for long. We only cruised for a few minutes before traffic hit again. This time, we seemed to crawl an inch every 5 minutes. Eventually 76 turned into a huge parking lot. That's when I took the following pictures, thanks to cell phone technology.

This man was kind enough to let me take his photograph as we were all hanging-out on the expressway.

This was the scene on I-76 W. We later learned that there had been a landslide on the eastbound side and that the westbound side had been shut down for safety reasons.

Testing Google Voice

(Note: This post is not even remotely photo-related)

This evening, my friend Ed and I tested Google Voice, Google's new free product which boasts voicemail transcription and call recording among other fancy features. You have a Google phone number which you can use to forward calls to your home phone or cell phone. There's even a "call screening" function which you can use to avoid telemarketers or the people you dislike most.

Ed and I decided to test the accuracy of Voice's voice transcription function. You can make your own conclusions from our little experiment. Here's how:

1. Download and listen to Ed's voice message at http://www.wikiupload.com/download_page.php?id=145841

2. Compare it to Google Voice's interpretation:

"john you seem to have dividend entirely you realize that with the additional google voice googlenow owns all forms of your communication think about it they can al easily intercept any anycommunications through email web browsing phone everything and see when they willunflavored to suneo use of the pop it's that they can do it thursday bring lot personal controlover your parade and have you rob banks or well that's good and really need you that but havethem destroyed microsoft family and no one will be able to compete with the new promo S whichis in and out yet or peremptory destroying start-ups or using your they had meant to basicallygo over and fashion start ups and we can give you at some sort of mindless dog or for any otherpurpose I D B dat so i'm also kind of wondering how to transfer this thing works so i'm going totest in the number of ways or else i'm gonna talk very quickly and see if to throw that all that i'mgoing to talk in russian and see if it get the right thing difference alright there is a test how youwant to know how are you i don't i don't know i don't know i don't i don't i don't have yes alright ijust number one yeah so i don't know how to goes and then russian so daniel this is john yesalmost 11 71 not but i just to but marshall and then i can bottom message total skits and wouldlove to chat you about elicited and we'll solicit visible someone belittle talk about some of thelisting one plus one so good okay alright brother myself alright bye"

Now, the transcription itself won't get you too far, but hey, we have to give Google credit for trying. I'm optimistic that this technology will improve over time, and when some years roll by, I'm sure Ed and I would be interested to try this test again.

Flashback: Vertigo

Taken on 15 January 2009.

This could happen when you're bored.

I had just received two lens rentals—a Canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS and a Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS with a 2x extender—in advance of Barack Obama's inauguration. After playing around with the 17-55, I decided to try the shot posted above.

I was shooting handheld, so I made sure that the shutter speed was slow enough to allow the whirl effect but fast enough so that image stability was not too compromised. After I depressed the shutter button, I rotated the camera about an imaginary axis centered at the tissue box. I tried to use a swift motion to start but towards the end of the rotation, I allowed the image to settle for a little bit so that it was not a total blur. You might notice that the tissue box (center), picture frame (top right), and part of the blue couch look more stationary than other parts of this picture. It took a couple of tries to make the whirl have a circular effect rather than a wavy effect (which often resulted when I did not turn the camera in a "perfect" circle). This image turned out at 17mm, f/7, ISO 400, 1/8 sec.

Flashback: EMS in Geneva

Taken on 22 June 2008

Last summer, I took my own Eurotrip. We toured London, Paris, Berlin, Genève, Zürich, Vienna, and Budapest. It was an incredible trip with incredible opportunities for photographs.

The above photo of the "cardiomobile" was taken in Geneva by a bridge near the Jet d'Eau (literally a "water jet"). For the whole trip, I had made it a goal to grab a shot of a cool-looking emergency vehicle. Most of these vehicles had caught me off guard, and so I was fortunate to have been able to catch this one. This paramedic's vehicle actually came through with flashing lights and sirens but I did not time the shot well enough to incorporate the bright blue flash.

To date, I think this is my only really acceptable panning shot (I've had many failed attempts). In the future, I would love to get a shot of a police car zipping by at night with all of its lights on. Maybe in Europe? Cops have nice rides in Europe.

Note: I used Photoshop to bring out the yellow and normalize some of the background colors.