Bird Photography Part 3

(all pics are clickable)

Sunday morning, solid grey sky which is supposed to be good for bird photography since it provides a uniform diffuse light.

Now, my D300 tends to produce a fairly exact white balance in this kind of weather. That means that all the pics on automatic WB will get a rather blueish tint. I like to produce pictures that are a bit warmer in tone so I set it to 5880K. A value I know from experience will produce something I like. I gambled that it would work and save me time in processing.

There must be spring in the air, everything was rather restless. First thing I noticed were some very common mallards. Probably the most common waterfowl species here but good practice nonetheless.



Worked a bit on the exact crop and contrast. The result isn't too bad.

Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 270 mm
Focal Length: 269.1 mm
ISO Speed: 1600

So, autoiso worked this time. I'd set the camera for 1/500 in S mode and the camera put the lens wide open and upped the iso all the way. Not very much light then.

The egyptian geese were feeling the spring as well, chasing eachother, even landing in trees to make noise at eachother. Using the AF button still does the trick:



Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300 mm
Focal Length: 302.0 mm
ISO Speed: 1600

Good thing I raised the shutter speed I think. Still, wide open at 300mm and iso 1600, it's not going to get me the best of pics.

In a stream in the woods I noticed a grey heron. Rather small bird for a heron. Not entirely sure what caused the focus error here but I do like the lines and the reflection.



Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 250 mm
Focal Length: 254.0 mm
ISO Speed: 1600

Now, the first red squirrel of the season. Rather tricky animal to shoot, they don't sit still and if they do its often at the top of the tree. Up there the challenge is an often bright background and a very dark subject. That requires careful metering.

The unedited shot:




Click it and you will see a squirrel. Settings:
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 270 mm
Focal Length: 277.0 mm
ISO Speed: 1600

Ah, the camera did what I told it to do. Shutter speed is the speed I set, iso is at the limit I set in auto iso and the lens is as far open as it can go. That it's underexposed is not the cameras fault, there just wasn't any more light.

But, I'm shooting a D300 and that allows for some room in post processing. So, into capture NX and see what I can do with it.




By no means the best squirrel shot in the world but it's a lot nicer. I correct exposure here by almost 1.5 stops, played with the curves, cropped, adjust color balance somewhat, slapped on a contrast adjustment filter and this is the result.

Of course there is noise, there are limits to the D300 sensor and certainly to my processing skills. No matter how good your sensor is, when you underexpose and correct that you will get a load more noise than on a properly exposed picture.

Last shot, something you will encounter sometimes, the leftovers of a predator's meal. There's a big flock of pigeons in that area and occasionally the buzzards get lucky and catch one.



Gruesome perhaps but nature all the same.

So, lessons learned

• Auto ISO in S mode is good for birds in flight and rapidly changing light conditions
• If there isn't enough light your pictures won't come out as nice.
• Fieldcraft continues to be a challenge
• There is at least some truth to diffuse light being good for birds.
• Presetting white balance will save time in processing if you get it right.
  

Bird photography part 2

all pics are clickable

After blogging about my first problems here I decided to give it another try with the new settings in my camera.

First of all, using the AF button proved to be an interesting experience. It takes a bit of getting used to, at first you're jabbing the AE-L button by mistake but after that there's certainly a speed advantage there.

My first chance I got when an egyptian goose decided to fly around. Came almost directly over me to give me this shot:


Not bad at all but not quite the level of sharpness I am aiming for. Let's look at settings:

Exposure:	0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture:	f/13.0
Focal Length:	270 mm
Focal Length:	269.1 mm
ISO Speed:	640

Hmm... 1/800 and still movement? Why? According to a quick google the canadian goose can fly anywhere between 50 and 90 km/h. Let's assume this goose can do the same and let's assume it was doing 40 km/h. That's 11.1 meters/second which means still about 1.4 cm of movement in that 1/800. Of course part of it was compensated for by my panning movement but still... So shutter speed remains an issue there. Spot metering worked very well here.

Next I encountered a flock of great tits and blue tits in a pine grove. Even though these are about as common as muck they are still good practice. Working distance is a factor with these birds. If you can get as close as 5 meters it's already a lot and then it's still a tiny bird.

Exposure:	0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture:	f/5.6
Focal Length:	300 mm
Focal Length:	302.0 mm
ISO Speed:	640

The issue here is that my settings didn't do what I'd expect them to do. Despite auto iso I was shooting wide open here and the 70-300VR isn't at it's best wide open.

1/1250 is enough to freeze these birds if they are just sitting there. If they flutter from one branch to the next it doesn't do it.



OK, so shutter speed remains a focus.

Now, standing still about 5 meters from the trees did allow the birds to get used to me and ignore me which resulted in these two:




and



On this shot you can see a few ticks around the bird's eye.

Now, later in the day this setting came back to bite me in the behind.



Granted, it's a unique moment, pre-mating activities of Storks. And yes, I had about 30 seconds before she fled the nest. And 1530 is not a good time for black&white birds. But why is this pic unsharp?

Exposure:	0.003 sec (1/320)
Aperture:	f/20.0
Focal Length:	300 mm
Focal Length:	302.0 mm
ISO Speed:	640

There we go. At f20 most consumer zooms the diffraction spook rears it's ugly head. According to Thom Hogan the d300 itself shows diffraction from f11 onwards.
What happened is that my spot metering adjusted perfectly for the focus point on a white part of the stork And since I was at a relatively low shutterspeed the camera raised the aperture to prevent overexposure.

Next stork shot, a bit later.



A lot sharper and no wonder since I was at f9.

So... lessons learned?
- shutter speed is so important with birds
- watch your metering, you don't want to enter the diffraction zone
- Birds in flight depend at least as much on you and your reaction speed as they do on your gear
- A 70-300mm zoom is short but it's still possible to get some decent bird shots with it.

I'm already looking forward to my next experimental session.

Anyone familiar with me, this blog or my photostream on flickr knows that I try to go at least once a week for a walk in nature. Usually I visit the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen and usually I carry my camera.

I’m skilled enough to get decent fallow deer shots almost weekly and the occasional good bird shot. I’ve been doing that slightly over a year now and I was so overconfident that I thought I was pretty good at it.

Now this Wednesday I visited the Island of “Tiengemeten”. It’s a small island about 30km south of Rotterdam that is being returned to nature. Lovely oasis of piece and quiet that is so rare in this country. A dyke has been breached to create a wetland area and the island is populated by several hunderd very noisy Barnacle Geese.

But, let’s start with this shot, the common shellduck

Looks good this small, best of about half a dozen. Click trough to the big version and you see there’s a few problems with it.

Next shot:

Click on that and it will be sharper. Too far away but sharper.

Let’s look at settings. The first;

Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 300 mm
Focal Length: 302.0 mm
ISO Speed: 400

And the second pic:

Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 260 mm
Focal Length: 261.4 mm
ISO Speed: 400

Substantial difference in shutter speed.

Number three:

Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/2000)
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 260 mm
Focal Length: 261.4 mm
ISO Speed: 400

I got a few more but all in all perhaps 2 dozen keepers out of more than 200 pics. Not a good result. So I started looking for help.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=58615
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1039&message=34700638

Now it turns out my errors had a few causes.

1. Pretty lousy fieldcraft on my side. I’ve been spoiled by a landscape with loads of cover and animals and birds used to humans. On this island I encountered about a dozen other walkers the whole day. In my weekend walks I meet that many in 20 minutes.

2. Poor understanding of my camera. “automagic AF" just doesn’t hack it. I found this: http://johnfriend.blogspot.com/2009/10/nikon-d300-auto-focus-for-sports-i.html which explains a sports shooter’s setup for his D300. Most of that will be useable here.

3. No knowledge of my surroundings. Every encounter was a surprise, most flight paths were unexpected.

4. No knowledge of my models. I met at least 4 new species.

So, I now know more or less where it went wrong. I used my D300’s AF system ineffectively. I was overly optimistic on my shutter speeds and I was unrealistic in my expectations. A 370 euro zoom is no substitute for a 3000 euro zoom and a casual shot when walking is no substitute for spending 4 hours in a hide. Next step, go to a place with loads of seagulls and practice.

One final shot:

Rain

wet sheep
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Rain. And not even a downpour but one of those steady persistent types that can last hours and hours. Hardly any colour difference in the sky, mostly solid grey. Missed a herd of male deer by about 150 meters or 3 minutes..

Now...do sheep shrink when they get wet?

Borough Market black & white

DSC_2669_DXO_agfa_apx25
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Shot this at London's borough market. One of the few really nice spots I found in my weekend visit.
I tried to get something contrasty here and ended up with something I like but isn't likely to draw in the flickr crowds.

Synology DS110j review, part 2

Part 1 is here.
A little more than a month after I started using the Synology DS110j NAS I think it's time to share the experiences.

Web interface
It works, it works well. Only thing I had to get used to is that you need to grant access to the various applications on a different tab than where you create and manage user accounts. I do expect some changes in the 2.3 firmware which is in beta now.

Speed
A lot of question I see are things like "is 800mhz enough" and "is 128mb RAM enough?" My experience up until now is that yes it is. OK, granted, you can really stress that little box. I did so just last night by running a backup from an EXT3 volume to an NTFS volume, that conversion takes some power.

Downloading
What can I say. It works, it works ok out of the box and with SABNZBD on it it works like a dream!

Hooking up an additional drive
It works. On all three USB ports. A drive shows up in the file manager tree and you can use it, that's all there is to it. Speed is decent enough although copying 45 gb of DVD images took about 50 minutes.

What doesn't work?
Well, my main problems are with audio. OK, it can share my mp3 collection, that part works. There's a web player interface that works sort of but is cumbersome to create a playlist on the fly.
Squeezebox server is installable as a service on the device. And it may work if you have any squeezebox devices but it is not a viable solution as a web player. There are various other web solutions but most of them start the installation instructions by letting your PHP and webserver out of the webroot, not something that sounds very secure to me.
The web player is supposed to get a major overhaul in the 2.3 firmware and squeezebox server may work very well in conjunction with a Squeezebox touch which should be released this spring.

Should I buy this or a bigger unit?
Well, that really is up to you. I think 120 euros for what is basically a 800mhz miniature linux system is very reasonable. It does what I want it to do. Performance is OK for my needs. Yes you can have your backup disk in the same enclosure and if you don't already own a USB disk that would make sense. Yes you can buy a DS109+ and get more CPU power. But do you need that? With 3Tb disks scheduled to be released this year and 2Tb disks rapidly dropping in price ask yourself what you really need.

Any questions, feel free to contact me.

canonian in the snow

canonian in the snow
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

I wouldn't put such an expensive telezoom down without any tripods. Nice guy though, tipped me that he'd spotted a fox a bit further.

Alanis Morissette - Flavors of Entanglement

I remember the first time I head Alanis, back in 1995 with the monster hit "Ironic". At that time she was a very interesting new artist (good looking too!). After the first album "Jagged Little Pill" ,which I really liked, I also enjoyed her live album which she released late 1999. After that she got a bit soft and I more or less lost interest.

Yesterday I got my hands on her latest album, Flavors of Entanglement, and my first impression was "And she back, back with a vengeance!" This is the Alanis I've come to know and love, full of piss and vinager, anger and some things and saddned by others. She's grown up and found herself again.

The instrumentals have progressed with the years, there's very interesting sounds and effects going on on a lot of the tracks. The sound itself is typical Alanis with some influences that remind me of Madonna's ray of light period and even late Björk albums. It seems that she has avoided the current fashion of really heavy and "in your face" bass for which I'm grateful.

All in all an interesting album, highly recommend!

I'm not the only one that can kill a sonim. A british reporter killed one during a demo.
I've had two of these die on me in two years, then I gave up and bought a nokia.
Sonim, nice ideas if only they could get the quality control sorted out.

Synology DS110j review

Synology's latest 1 disk NAS, is it any good?

To create some order in the chaos of data scattered around my home I had to do something. On one PC there was my photo collection, 60gb and growing fast, on another was a large collection of mp3 files and everywhere where video files.
After a bit of market research I decided that the synology DS110j with a 1.5 Tb samsung disk was a good and affordable way to solve this problem.

I ordered it from mobile-harddisk.nl which, at no charge, installed the drive for me.

First impression
The unit arrives in a small, brown cardbord box with some black printing on it and a white sticker with key specs on the side. Bit understated when you compare it with the visual extravaganza some motherboard manufacturers use these days. Everything is well protected. The unit comes with a seperate power supply that uses the same kind of mains cable as your PC and monitor does. Also included is a short ethernet cable and the necessary screws to mount the harddisk.
The unit itself is white with a grey front and a bare metal back. On the front you will find three status indicator leds and a usb port. 2 more ports, a RJ45 gigabit port and the power connector are on the back. The unit stands on four black rubber suports.

First use
Connect power and network and press the button. While the disk station boots put the CD that you found in the package into your computer and fireup the installation software. This scans your local network and helps you connect to the web interface on port 5000 of your disk station. Logon (no password set on the admin account) and you will find a well thought out web interface where you can manage all aspects of your disk station. I would strongly advice you to set at least a password on the admin account and preferably a fixed ip address.
Basic functions such as creating shares and adding users are intuitive, quick and well documented. Some of the more advanced features are not documented extensively and will require some googling and/or some experience in handling servers. Despite writing that I think anyone who has some experience with computers and who can read a manual can setup basic functionality in 30 minutes.

In use
Both on my 100mb wired network and on my 54G network the network is clearly the limiting factor in read and write speed. I need to do some more detailed testing to determine exact speeds so I will update this information. Shares appear on your network moments after you have created them. The unit can be joined to a domain or you can make it the master browser for your home network. There doesn't (yet) seems to be windows homegroup support.

The built in fan works well, it keeps the unit at room temperature with slightly less noise than a modern desktop pc. I will keep this unit in the same closet that also houses my ADSL modem and some other utilities so noise won't be an issue. If you keep it in your bedroom you may want to use the unit's scheduled power down/up functionality.

This is a single disk unit so the single disk in there is a single point of failure. To work around that I intend to hookup a USB harddisk to it and use the built-in functionality to backup at least the essentials to that second drive.

Multimedia
The DS110j offers a lot of options here, most of them not very well documented in the manuals. It is supposed to be fully DLNA compliant something which I intend to test next week.

Downloading
If you are so inclined you can use the Disk Station to download from torrents, emule or newsgroups (using nzb files). This could very well be illegal where you live so be careful there. In the interest of this review I tested the NZB option and found it works well, it downloads and puts the material where you told it to. There is a ready made package available to install SABNZB on your diskstation which gives you options like par2 verification, automatic extraction of RAR files and bandwidth throttling.

Modification and further use.
Even though this Disk Station is marketed as an entry-level appliance you are buying a small computer running on an 800mhz ARM processor with Busybox linux as the operating system. Busybox is a basic linux version but it is linux enough that clever people have ported some interesting applications to it.
Synology itself delivers mail station which adds mail server functionality to your Disk station. It's based on postfix. Unfortunately the package installs a very basic postfix without the niceties like DNSBL spam filtering. It's there, it's possible but it does require some mucking on the command line.
Another option is to turn this Disk Station into a web server. There's apache and power enough to add PHP and Mysql so you can run any of the popular CMS packages. Synology has a list of tested applications but I'm sure any linux-savvy person can add to that list. As actual installation instructions Synology offers just this.

Conclusion
With the caveat that I have hardly touched the multimedia and streaming functionality this Disk Station does seem to be a very attractive product. It offers an impressive amount of bang for not that many bucks. The product is well thought out and there's an active community using Synology products, discovering new uses and adapting software to them. Synology keeps an eye on that community and occasionally adapts their work into supported addons and features.

So if you are looking for a simple home server or a simple but very good appliance to store your data in just one place the DS110j is a very interesting product that deserves your consideration.

I also wrote a part two to this review.

Incompetence = Air France?

Last week I was in France from wednesday afternoon until friday as a guest of IBM at their Product & Solutions Support Center in Montpellier. A day and a half to get me up to speed on Aix, Power and storage. Load of interesting information with the juicy bits under a NDA so don't ask me to blog about that.

I only mention this event because it explains what I was doing there and why I was flying back. I don't consider IBM responsible in any way. In fact I was impressed by the hospitality and knowledge of everyone involved. The only fault I could find there was that they expected the group to eat a mountain of delicious pastries with our morning coffee.

No, the interesting bit of this trip started when I entrusted Air France with my save return to Schiphol airport.

Friday morning: We'd all checked in via the Air France website and had our boarding cards printed out.

Friday 12.00: Bus left for the airport. Arrival at 12.15. Our return flight to Amsterdam, AF 7683, was shown as "delayed". The scheduled departure time of 13.30 came and went with no change in status. Now the airport has a PA system which warned us every 10 minutes not to leave our luggage unattended but apparantly was not suiteable for flight information.
At 13.15 I went to the Air France information counter where they assured me that the plane would arrive any minute and that, despite a slight delay, there would be no problem in getting onto the connection flight which would leave at 15.45.
14.00 The lady behind the Air France counter could tell me that the plane would land at around 1500 and would be serviced as soon as possible. I just might not make my flight but they could handle all that at Paris since the local facilities to change flights were a bit strained.
During this time the area behind the security check kept filling up and no flights left.

Friday 15.04: The plane had landed!! Soon it was at the gate (a different gate which we just happened to notice but hey, there was a plane and I wasn't complaining).
15.30 boarding started. Now Air France flies these routes with an Airbus A319 in an all economy configuration which is really a cattle car. Loads of hand luggage, a seat pitch so small that I was litteraly jammed between seats. Boarding one of these takes time so the 3/4 full flight left at 1600.

Friday 17.15: Flight landed at Charles de Gaulle terminal 2D. By now we'd realized we needed to be transfered to another flights. The terminal was a bit busy and we noticed some flights had been cancelled. But hey, there's a transfer desk with only about 15 people queing, they should be able to help us since they were working the counter with 4 people.
What exactly those 4 were doing I don't know but it envolved staring at their screen intently, ocassionaly typing something and very rarely printing something out and tearing up the printout immediately.

Friday 19.50: Hey, it's our turn. By now we'd grown into a loose group of 9 dutchmen stranded by the same problem. So we more or less mobbed the guy behind the counter who quickly admitted that we could forget getting home tonight but that Air France would get us into hotels. Only he couldn't get us all into the same hotel. For 7 of us there was a place in a hotel near Disneyland (33km away!). Air France would arrange for bus transportation and would get us vouchers for the hotel and meals. 2 of us couldn't be fitted there anymore and would get a hotel elsewhere. By then we'd been standing for almost 3 hours, were thirsty and hungry so we quickly accepted.

Friday 20.30: Found the bus at another part of Terminal 2.

Friday 20.53: the bus was full with stranded passangers and would go to the Dream Castle hotel and the Magic Circle, 2 hotels near Disneyland.

All this time I'd seen snow on the ground but nothing coming down, in fact it had been clear from at least 17.00.

Friday 21.20 the bus driver gets on the PA system to announce that he's a bit lost.

Friday 21.40 The bus driver almost manages to get himself stuck on a very snowed under part of the Disneyland parking lot. I suggest to the belgian sitting next to me that he's the right guy to introduce the concept of asking for directions to the bus driver since he speaks french and I don't.

Friday 21.58: Checked in at the hotel. The very nice lady at the front desk informs me that the restaurant closes in 2 minutes. We run down to the restaurant and wolf down some leftovers.

No firm information on coaches to the airport back the next morning in order to make our 0715 flight so with 4 guys together we order a taxi for 0515 next morning and we quickly head to our beds. We did notice yet another coach loaded of stranded Air France victims being unloaded and feel sorry for them.

Saturday 0515: In the lobby there's a hand written sign announcing that there will be several coaches to the airport this morning. Our taxi driver is waiting for us, so are 90 passengers hoping to get onto a half full coach.

Saturday 0540: Turns out we are not in a metered taxi but some shuttle service that charges 20 euros/person. Feels like easy money with 6 people in his fan but he's gotten us to the airport in plenty of time trough the snow and I don't want to miss my flight.

Saturday 0610: We clear security and go hunting for some coffee since breakfast at the hotel didn't start until 0700 we were hungry. There's a shop selling fresh pastry and for a mere 6 euros I get two remarkably good pieces of pastry and some really strong coffee.

Saturday 0646: Boarding starts at the announced time and continues at a glacial pace until 0720. We should have left by now. The plane taxis and taxis.

Saturday 0750: The captain announces that we are number 2 in line for decing.

Saturday 0850: After an uneventful flight we manage to reach Schiphol airport.

Now I know I've said some unkind things about KLM in the past but I take those all back. Air France is were the real evil is. I am seriously considering filing for the 250 euros damages that EU law grants passangers. Yes the weather couldn't be helped but the incredible lack of information could have as could the piss poor treatment at CDG.

christmas deer

christmas deer
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Last sunday. It was snowing quite heavily which had disrupted most normal deer patterns. I found this flock late and incomplete and 50 meters west of where they'd normally be.

This one turned out nice, quite a bit of work on the curves to get anything approaching what I'd seen.

Sharpness isn't great, this was trough 20 meters of snow filled air in very marginal lighting conditions. And the framing could have been way better. Still... I like it, as a pic it's not bad and it reminds me of a magical sunday morning.

seagull in lowlevel flight

seagull in lowlevel flight
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

This is a shot I would have liked to have made much earlier. With my Sigma 70-300 I tried and tried but it was just too slow to focus. With the Nikon 70-300 VR it's just a matter of getting the framing right.

I like this, especially with the wings down you can see how close they fly to the ground.

here's something you don't see every day

here's something you don't see every day
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

I noticed this fallow deer buck and a magpie sitting next to it staring intently at the deer's penis. I tried to move into a better position, figuring I'd get a funny shot out of it when I noticed the magpie jumping on the deers back. It moved a few steps forward. Right after this shot I spooked the deer.

Strange behaviour, I've never seen this before. Reminds me of those birds that feed of the insects of african buffalo.

Nokia 3720 classic

Or should I title this post “from one ruggedized phone to the next”? Ruggedized means more or less that it’s designed for use in harsh environments.

I don’t consider myself hard on my phones. My first few cell phones were all Nokia. I started on a 8110 and have used the 5110, 6110, 6150 and all of these spend a lot of time in my pocket or on my belt. They all suffered the occasional drop and handled it well. In the early years of this decade I switched to Siemens for an S55, lovely little phone but after a year or so it distinctly showed signs of wear and tear. The Motorola V3 I bought after that died a little under two years.

So, when I was due for a new phone in early 2008 I decided to buy something that was durable and loud enough to use in the noisy server rooms where I spent some of my time. At that time there wasn’t much to choose from on the European market. Nokia had withdrawn the 5210 years ago and had not released anything else. Siemens had tried a few models such as the M65 but Siemens sold the GSM division and that died soon after.

The only serious player at that time was Sonim. A company almost unknown in Europe if you didn’t work in the building industry. In early 2008 they had just introduced their first cell phone, the XP1 and the Xp1BT (With bluetooth). My review of the XP1BT is still the most popular page on my website.

After a little over a year I got tired of the constant echo of the phone and the fact that it couldn’t be without battery power for a second without losing it’s internal clock settings so I mailed sonim support and after some weeks they send me a replacement. That developed some sort of phone altzheimer’s in september. It would miss calls without letting me know. By then I was thoroughly sick of the 1990s user interface, the short battery life and the call quality which could range from abysmal to ok in 5 minutes. So I started looking for a replacement.  Of course the new sonim xp3 came up but I found it a bit expensive and I didn’t have much faith left in the Sonim designers. Unlike the american market where several companies offer ruggedized and mil-spec phones there is not that much on the European market. Samsung has the B2100 and B2700. And then came nokia with it’s 3720 classic. Now my wife had bought a 2330 a few weeks early and I was impressed with the Series 40 user interface and the call quality. So I ordered a 3720.

It’s a basic candy bar with a charger port at the bottom. Nice, big 2.2” TFT with 320x240 resolution which makes for a nice crispy image. Comes complete with charger, 1gb memory card, earbuds and a 25 euros coupon for the german nokia music store. All that for 136 euros including shipping.

First impressions: nice screen, fits the hand well, easy buttons. It does not come across as a very sturdy phone unlike the Sonim which felt like you could use it to drive nails with. Well, that’s not all you could do with it, there’s a load of clips on youtube of people trying to kill a sonim, This one is my favorite:

Now breaking stuff is fun to the people doing gadget

tests for a living and so the guys from phonearena tried to break a 3720:

and it can also swim.

So, despite it’s elegance I should be ok. For the moment I’m enjoying that wonderful screen, nice call quality and the fact that I can have it talk to my pc quick and easy with the standard Nokia tools.

I’ll let you know first time it needs charging.

Technorati Tags: nokia 3720 classic,nokia,3720,classic,review,sonim xp1,sonim xp1bt,sonim,xp1,ruggedized phone

I think I'm in love!

Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8 AT-X 535 PRO DX
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

And no, not with this lady but with the lens I used for this shot. The Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8 AT-X 535 PRO DX. Very, very nice piece of glass. Handles fine, built quality is on par with what you'd expect from a Tokina AT-X pro lens. Focussing is very fast and very quiet. The colors are very neutral with a tiny amount of cool.

My compliments to the model as well, don't know her name but there she was on the tokina stand continuously striking nice poses!

Beware of photography competitions!

I was just reading on dpreview about the lumix awards (http://www.lumixaward.com/). Nice website, nice theme, I'd expected to have some chance with this picture.






But then I read the terms and conditions.

16. Entrants agree that, in relation to any photographs selected as winning photographs, they grant Panasonic Marketing Europe GmbH and Panasonic Corporation companies and other members of the Panasonic Group an exclusive licence to use images for 5 years at no charge for their marketing and promotional activities. Winners will be given an authorship credit in respect of any published reproductions of their photographs made by Panasonic or its agents.

Come on! 5 years exclusive license? Get real!

buzzard in flight

buzzard in flight
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Quite proud of this one actually. A slight crop from the original. With the 70-300VR this is relatively easy to do. Of course you still have to be close enough to the flight path. Nonentheless, I am quite pleased with this shot.

Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor ED 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF

I bought this gem friday. It's replacing the weakest lens in my bag, a Sigma 70-300 APO. Haven't had the chance to test it properly yet but the first impressions are good. It looks bigger but is almost the same size as the sigma. It feels heavier and sturdier. AF is very quiet, quick and spot on. VR seems to do what it should do and quite discretely.

First test results:

And a crop:

Best airline safety briefing ever

Found this via an article in "El Reg" about IBM failing quite miserably as an outsourcing partner. It gets the message across in the right tempo with attention to details. The fact that the whole "crew" only wears body paint is to me secondary.

There I was, approaching a small herd of fallow deer which included, by the sound of it, 2 males disagreeing. Almost found a good spot and noone had noticed me. Then, suddenly, a big truck loaded with empty containers thunders by. The herd was spooked and all I got was this shot.

Esther in the woods

Esther in the woods
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Just a portrait. Shot in the dark under the trees so I used a sb-600 on camera for a bit of extra light.

how did a deer cross the stream?

how did a deer cross the stream?
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Or why do I always carry my camera setup for a snapshot?

It's mating season now, all the fallow deer act weird. Normally this guy would have discretely disappeard. Now he heard another male burling and decided to go and take a look.

I was at Technet Live last thursday. Microsoft introduced Windows 7, Server 2008 R2 and, a day later, Exchange 2010.

Steve Balmer's keynote was impressive, shame there were a bunch of journalists asking really stupid questions.

After a good lunch I spend the afternoon with:

Brandon Hoff telling us about all the new features in Exchange 2010. I found the 90% reduction in IOPS very impressive. I failed to be baffled about the option to move user mailboxes during the day, something I already had in Lotus Notes 4 in the mid-1990s.

Next up was Don Schmid and Martin Vliem about security, identity and things like that. Very technical, I was dozing off due to the big lunch and lack of coffee.
I did remember an excellent quote from Don, "cloud is the new outsourcing"

Last up, Martin Sih on system center. A rather weak speaker compared ot the rest and extra handicapped by a lack of the internet connection he needed to do his demo. Apparantly System Center allows the Schiphol group to manage a varied server collection.

All in all a nice day, shame about the distinct lack of goodies, all we got was a t-shirt (xl the largest, how many sysadmins do you know that wear an XL?!) and a Windows 7 ultimate DVD.

After events like this the hangover always sets in. You realize that the change that you actually get your hands on a 2008 server running exchange 2010 is very slim. It's a reason I don't attend events all that much anymore, you see all sorts of nice goodies that you'll never work with. Same goes for booth babes, nice to look at but that's all.

Something to look forward to on TV

Recently I’ve caught some of the reruns of Victorian Farm on BBC2. Interesting show that follows a historian and two archeologists spending a year on a farm trying to imitate the late Victorian way of farming.

After the last episode it was announced that they have commisioned a special christmas episode. Since a lot of current British christmas traditions originate in this period it will be something to look forward to.

Now I’ve found out, via wikipedia, that there’s another series scheduled as well, Edwardian Farm.

According to the press release:

Following the huge success of the Victorian Farm series, BBC Two is presenting the same intrepid team with a brand new set of challenges as they are forced to get to grips with the trials and tribulations of life on an Edwardian Farm.

Archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn and domestic historian Ruth Goodman will return to front Edwardian Farm, spending a full year delving into Britain's rural heritage.

They will make their home in a stunning new location, exploring the challenges posed by the British countryside at a time of great change and tumult; a time when farming was becoming increasingly mechanised at home, and abroad the world was moving gradually towards war.

As in the first series, the action will be based primarily on the farm, but the new setting will also allow the team to explore wider aspects of the working countryside, including rivers and coasts, boat-building, mining, fishing and market gardening.

Now, for us foreigners, the previous series was set around 1870, the new one will be around 1900-1910.

I’m now wishing I could lay my hands on “Tales from the green valley” which is made by some of the same people and deals with farming in the 1620s in Wales.

Technorati Tags: TV,BBC,experimental archeology,edwardian farm,victorian farm,history,farming

traffic accident
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

On the crossing near the office. The guard tipped me of. It was also listed on the emergency services paging system. (http://monitor.livep2000.nl/) as

29-09-09 16:23:41
LIFELINER 1 / MMT INZET VOOR MKA :KENNEMERLAND, HOOFDDORP, VAN HEUVEN GOEDHARTLAAN # KRUISWEG, COORD I-14-D


0120988 Life Line 1
29-09-09 16:23:26
12804 [A1] VAN HEUVEN GOEDHARTLAAN/KRUISWEG - N201 HOOFDDORP VKO MET LETSEL RITNR 39797


0126804 brandweer / OvD-G 804 - GHOR VZA Hoofddorp / Kennemerland
29-09-09 16:18:16
12183 [A1] KRUISWEG/VAN HEUVEN GOEDHARTLAAN HOOFDDORP VKO MET LETSEL RITNR 39795


0126999 ambulance / Monitorcode / Kennemerland
29-09-09 16:18:16
12183 [A1] KRUISWEG/VAN HEUVEN GOEDHARTLAAN HOOFDDORP VKO MET LETSEL RITNR 39795


0126183 regio 12 Kennemerland AMBULANCE 83
29-09-09 16:17:18
12186 [A1] VAN HEUVEN GOEDHARTLAAN/KRUISWEG - N201 HOOFDDORP VKO MET LETSEL RITNR 39794


0126999 ambulance / Monitorcode / Kennemerland
29-09-09 16:17:18
12186 [A1] VAN HEUVEN GOEDHARTLAAN/KRUISWEG - N201 HOOFDDORP VKO MET LETSEL RITNR 39794


0126186 regio 12 Kennemerland AMBULANCE 86
29-09-09 16:17:16
PRIO 1 UGS A PELIKAANWEG LUCHTHAVEN SCHIPHOL LUCHTVAART INCIDENT SCHIPHOL (VOS: 1) [ 597 ]

The guy driving the bike didn't make it.

Facepaint: Finished lion

Facepaint: Finished lion
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Our local shopping center had organised a theater theme sunday. Facepainting was part of it. I really like this one, expressions, lines, colors it works for me.

fighting horses in the mist

fighting horses in the mist
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Was up early this morning. Mist was still on the fields and when I drove up I noticed the horses being restless. I missed 20 horses breaking into a gallop. I did manage to capture these two having a discussion.

Tricky shot, way at the edge of my Sigma's 70-300 range, low light so high iso and fog is tricky to meter, the line between losing the mood and getting horrible noise is rather fine.

Despite all that and despite the obvious shortcommings I really like this shot.

Here's me trying to be clever

DSC_7724
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

I noticed this nice scene on my way to work this morning. I love moody cloudy skies especially at sunrise.

Anyway, as we all know metering this requires care, the contrast between the ground and the lighter parts of the clouds is big so you'll either underexpose or blow highlights.

I figured I'd be clever and HDR it. What I forgot for a moment is that even with shutter speeds above 1/200 and my camera set to continuous high the tractor would still travel some distance. I discovered this when I plunked my 3 bracketed frames into photomatix. Load of ghosting on the wheels. So I tried another apporach, took a frame I liked, hit it with 20% d-lighting and a neutral grad.

Not a massive crowd pleaser

Mouflon
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Shot this this morning. Very grey and blue light. First time in ages I encountered mouflon.

One of these shots that won't draw massive crowds, mainly because the small version isn't that interesting.

RFC 1149 alive and well after 19 years!

As a recent experiment in South Africa proved the old RFC 1149, transmission of IP over avian carriers. I think the ISP involved, Telkom, should be very, very ashamed of itself! My sympathies go out to the sysadmins who need to work which such slow lines.

Windows 7 and Diana Krall

Now I can hear you wonder, what on earth is the relation between those two? Has the best jazz singer of the last two decades signed a deal with Microsoft?
Not that I know of.

Early last week I got a chance to trade in my aging Lenovo T60 laptop for a slightly newer T61. And I also got invited to participate in my employer's Windows 7 beta program.

So I've been running Windows 7 for about a week now and I love it! It's robust, quick to start and I like the interface. I also, and I never thought I'd write this, the Mediaplayer that came bundled with it. It plays xvid without an extra codec (although you do need a codec for the common AC3 sound, I use Shark's Windows 7 codec pack) and it also seems like the audio playback is way better than my old T60 with Windows XP. So I'm listening to a high-bitrate version of Diana Krall's Departure bay. Excellent song, love the lyrics!


The fading scent of summertime
Arbutus trees and firs
The glistening of rain-soaked moss
Going to the dairy queen at dusk
Down narrow roads
In autumn light

The salt air and the sawmills
And the bars are full of songs and tears
To the passing of the tugboats
And people with their big ideas

Last portrait for a while

Last portrait for a while
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Soon after I shot this I bumped into my lightstand and discovered the flash wasn't properly secured. So it took a fall to the ground and now it will not turn on.

I am quite upset by this.

Introduction

It’s been quite a while since I wrote anything about Windows. The reason for that is quite simple, I haven’t had any real technical challenges up until now.

Situation: A medium sized windows domain with a time synchronization issue. It had gotten so bad that clients were experiencing Kerberos issues and some applications were displaying irrational behavior.

A quick investigation revealed that due to a change a few weeks earlier the domain had no reliable time source. In addition to that the PDC emulator had been moved to VMware ESX, something my VMware expert tells me is not a good idea.

Further investigation told me that the problems started much earlier than this and that ESX was most likely not the culprit here.

Now, how does time synchronization work? Quite simple really, a client or a member server asks the domain controller serving the logon request. The domain controllers get their time from the PDC Emulator.The PDC emulator gets time either from it’s internal clock, a source on the internet or an external device such as a GPS clock. There’s a very good description of the whole process in KB 884776.

The problems start if your PDC emulator isn’t keeping good time or, and this happened to me, if it’s not advertising on the network as being a reliable time source.

Symptoms

Usually you’ll see things like these in the eventlog:

Date: 27-5-2009
Time: 20:46:32
User: N/A
Computer: DC02
Description:
The time provider NtpClient cannot reach or is currently receiving invalid time data from <ip address> (ntp.m|0x0|<ip address>:123-><ip address>:123).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: W32Time
Event Category: None
Event ID: 47
Date: 27-5-2009
Time: 20:48:08
User: N/A
Computer: DC02
Description:
Time Provider NtpClient: No valid response has been received from manually configured peer <ip address> after 8 attempts to contact it. This peer will be discarded as a time source and NtpClient will attempt to discover a new peer with this DNS name.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: W32Time
Event Category: None
Event ID: 29
Date: 27-5-2009
Time: 20:48:08
User: N/A
Computer: DC02
Description:
The time provider NtpClient is configured to acquire time from one or more time sources, however none of the sources are currently accessible. No attempt to contact a source will be made for 15 minutes. NtpClient has no source of accurate time.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: W32Time
Event Category: None
Event ID: 14
Date: 28-5-2009
Time: 1:46:47
User: N/A
Computer: DC02
Description:
The time provider NtpClient was unable to find a domain controller to use as a time source. NtpClient will try again in 15 minutes.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Quick fixes

Google for any of these event ids and you’ll find thousands of discussions. Common causes of this problem:

Windows time service (w32time) isn’t running.
Your system isn’t allowed to make a connection on port 123 UDP to your time source. So, check your service and firewall settings and restart the service (on the command prompt: net stop w32time && net start w32time).

If that doesn’t help…

Check if your domain controllers know and agree which server the PDC emulator is. On a command prompt:

Type ntdsutil, and then press ENTER.
1. Type domain management, and then press ENTER.
2. Type connections, and then press ENTER.
3. Type "connect to server ServerName", where ServerName is the Name of the Domain Controller you would like to view, and then press ENTER.
4. Type quit, and then press ENTER.
5. Type "select operation target", and then press ENTER.
6. Type "list roles for connected server", and then press ENTER.

Check this on at least two domain controllers. If they don’t agree you’ve got a real problem. If any of the roles are on a server that is offline you will need to seize the roles to a working server.

In my case the roles were properly distributed but on the PDC Emulator I still had the problems I mentioned earlier. In an hour I would have several Event ID 37 (currently receiving valid time) and Event ID 38 (ntp client cannot reach or is receiving invalid time data) messages. On the other DCs I had pretty much the same pattern.

So, next step was to make sure the other DCs and member servers were actually set to take their time from the domain. This is set in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters in the string Type. This string can have these values:

# NoSync. The time service does not synchronize with other sources.
# NTP. The time service synchronizes from the servers specified in the NtpServer registry entry.
# NT5DS. The time service synchronizes from the domain hierarchy.
# AllSync. The time service uses all the available synchronization mechanisms.

Now, all systems except my PDC Emulator were in fact set to NT5DS. And yet none were properly synchronizing time.

Hmmm….

Was my PDC emulator doing the proper advertising on the network? Let’s investigate.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>dcdiag

Doing primary tests

Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name\DC01
Starting test: Replications
......................... DC01 passed test Replications
Starting test: NCSecDesc
......................... DC01 passed test NCSecDesc
Starting test: NetLogons
......................... DC01 passed test NetLogons
Starting test: Advertising
Warning: DC01 is not advertising as a time server.
......................... DC01 failed test Advertising

<truncated>

Starting test: FsmoCheck
Warning: DcGetDcName(TIME_SERVER) call failed, error 1355
A Time Server could not be located.
The server holding the PDC role is down.
Warning: DcGetDcName(GOOD_TIME_SERVER_PREFERRED) call failed, error 1355
A Good Time Server could not be located.
......................... domainname.com failed test FsmoCheck

Now, that last sentence about the PDC role holder being down had me puzzled and send me chasing ghosts. Google it and you’ll find numerous discussions where this was true. But in my case it simply wasn’t. I double checked with NTDSutil and it simply was not down!

So… what was going wrong here? At this point I realized that the messages in the event log weren’t very helpful. They are too generic. I wanted to know what was really happening so I turned on debug logging on the Windows Time service. And that gives you information!

149258 09:35:51.3586829s - DomainHierarchy: we are now the domain root. Should be advertised as reliable
149258 09:35:51.3586829s - ClockDispln: we're a reliable time service with no time source: LS: 0, TN: 864000000000, WAIT: 86400000

Quickly followed by two successful synchronizations and a lot of failed ones after that.

At this point I was formulating the hypothesis that there’s some sort of successful/failed ratio that might influence whether or not windows considers itself a reliable source. I was also highly suspicious of my NTP source by now. I asked around and found I had a network connection to another domain that didn’t have this problem. So I decided to set the domain controller of that domain as my time source to see what would happen. I also decided to check my time settings agains the values outlined in KB 816042.

I changed:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpServer
with the proper IP address (don’t forget to put in a ,0x1 if you enter a name instead of IP address.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Config\AnnounceFlags
I set to 5

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient\SpecialPollInterval
I changed from 3600 to 900.

And I restarted the time service again. Went to grab a cup of coffee and typed in dcdiag /v /test:advertising

C:\WINDOWS\system32>dcdiag /v /test:advertising

Domain Controller Diagnosis

Performing initial setup:
* Verifying that the local machine DC01, is a DC.
* Connecting to directory service on server DC01.
* Collecting site info.
* Identifying all servers.
* Identifying all NC cross-refs.
* Found 4 DC(s). Testing 1 of them.
Done gathering initial info.

Doing initial required tests

Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name\DC01
Starting test: Connectivity
* Active Directory LDAP Services Check
* Active Directory RPC Services Check
......................... DC01 passed test Connectivity

Doing primary tests

Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name\DC01
Test omitted by user request: Replications
Test omitted by user request: Topology
Test omitted by user request: CutoffServers
Test omitted by user request: NCSecDesc
Test omitted by user request: NetLogons
Starting test: Advertising
The DC DC01 is advertising itself as a DC and having a DS.
The DC DC01 is advertising as an LDAP server
The DC DC01 is advertising as having a writeable directory
The DC DC01 is advertising as a Key Distribution Center
The DC DC01 is advertising as a time server
The DS DC01 is advertising as a GC.
......................... DC01 passed test Advertising

Yesss!!!

I restarted the time service on the secondary domain. It immediately confirmed it was synchronising by logging and event id 35.

Event Type: Information
Event Source: W32Time
Event Category: None
Event ID: 35
Date: 28-8-2009
Time: 12:33:06
User: N/A
Computer: DC02
Description:
The time service is now synchronizing the system time with the time source dc01.domain.com (ntp.d|<ip address>:123-><ip address>:123).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Lessons learned

• A lot of people experience time problems that are related to either the service not running or a firewall blocking UDP traffic on port 123.
• Don’t use net time anymore, use w32tm instead.
• Check if your servers are getting time from the domain (that NT5DS key)
• Troubleshooting starts at your PDC Emulator.
• If your PDC Emulator isn’t advertising properly your domain will not synchronize.
• Turn on debug logging on the Windows Time service if you’re into serious issues.
• You need a reliable time source that’s well connected to your network.
• You should monitor your event logs on warnings and errors generated by the w32time.

Well... I've put in a bit of practice. The set is portable, it straps to the outside of my lowepro flipside 300. I used it at my wife's brothers birthday for a few family snaps.

This one turned out nice but for the distraction in the background.



Nothing a crop couldn't fix.




Someone commented on one of my earlier shots at flickr. I tried to use my secondary flash, aSB-26, to provide light in the background to make it brighter and whiter. That failed rather spectacular.




Way too much light in the background. This is still a bit of a puzzler to me. There's loads of information out there that mentions how great two flashes in full manual are but very little on how exactly you set a manual flash.

I think I'll hit the SB-26 manual, see what that says.

Something that’s been on my list for a while now is to shoot portraits with an improvised “Strobist” style setup.

Tuesday I was in the Rotterdam area so I paid a visit to kamera-express. They did have umbrellas for a good price but to mount that on a tripod all they had was an expensive piece of manfrotto kit (the 026 lite tilt umbrealla adapter). So, I asked around and Camex in Amsterdam had a much cheaper Hama adapter (part nummer 6079).

Picked it up this morning. An SB-600 I already had and an old tripod which will do untill I can get a lightstand.

Mounted together it looks like this:

So I decided to give it a try. SInce I’m shooting a nikon D300 with a SB-600 I don’t need to use cactus triggers but can rely on Nikon’s CLS

With the first dozen of shots I found these two:

Now, I’m quite pleased with these. Not because they’re exceptional quality but because these were shot with no experience with a setup like this, with no special preparation except for getting my lighting equipment out. This was shot in my living room with nothing special, not even a backdrop.

Getting your whitebalance just right...

That's something often overlooked by the beginner and too many intermediate photographers. Get it just right and your pics will look that much better. Get it wrong and you'll get pics that just look "Wrong". Get it really wrong and you get nasty red or blue casts.
Many current DSLR cameras feature autowhitebalance which is mostly ok between 3500 and 6000 degrees kelvin. And they have presets which almost never match what you're doing. Get a bit of practice and you can guesstimate light color.
There's ways around this of course, the easiest is to shoot a custom whitebalance from a piece of plain white paper. Or buy a special test card. Or spend a lot of money on a special lenscap.

You can also really dive into the matter which is what Leon Goodman has done. I've not read the entire article with care yet but at a

Birthday present 2009

new toy
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

A redged MT-523 monopod with, for the next few months, a simple Calumet head. Combination feels very sturdy and I think it's a good compromise between stability and easy of use.

Windmill

Windmill
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Went for a drive in my lunchbreak. The south part of the Haarlemmermeer is a place that I seldom visit. I did today and found this windmill.

How far can you go as a nature photographer?

tiny toad
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Yesterday,I read something about a photographer who used a plant mister on a fly to get it to sit still long enough (Always a challenge with flies).

That reminded me of the, to me, despicable practice of some nature photographers. They catch an animal, freeze it to within an inch of it's live (or beyond) and then start photographing it.

This morning I found this little toad on a busy path playing death. Not a safe place to do that when a hord of joggers was about to stampede over that patch. So I picked him up and put him somewhere safe.

To me that's pretty much the limit of what I'll do to an animal to take a picture of it.

100mm tokina doubts resolved

Vanessa atalanta
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Recently I've had a very low keeper ratio with the tokina 100mm 2.8 macro. So low that I was wondering if I had to go trough the trouble of using the AF fine tune on the body.

Yesterday I noticed this butterfly, Vanessa Atalanta to be specific, on a bush in my garden. I shot about a dozen frames of it. 2 where not shapr because I focussed on the wrong spot. The rest turned out as this one did. Sharp where it counts.

Looking back I think the low keeper ratio was a combination of me getting used to my new camera, poor technique and wind moving the branches on which the insects sat.

Anyway, this shot proves again that the tokina with the D300 is as good a combination as the person using it.

Now all I have to learn is how to do shots like this from a tripod.

Exeter Cathedral 1

Exeter Cathedral 1
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Or how you can make AWB to your advantage. No, this isn't shopped, just converted from NEF to JPG. The color difference is purely from the camera's whitebalance.