Amusing
“Letterheady” – a collection of images of notable letterheads
Friday, July 9th, 2010
Where’s Chow? Aperture 3 facial recognition in action.
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
I thought this screenshot might amuse. Click the photo to see it at full-size. At the top of the image are photos that include Chow Yun Fat, cropped to just the automatically recognized face. Below a line are photos that Aperture 3 thinks may be the same person. To refine the computer’s idea of what his face looks like and tag more photos with the appropriate name I had to select all Chow Yun Fat photos from the bottom part of the screen and drag them to the top, above the line.
For more info on the facial recognition feature in Aperture 3, check here on Apple’s website.
I have about 16,000 photos in my archive, and though the process isn’t completely automatic, the facial recognition feature made it much more feasible to tag all the people in these photos. Even just the fact that the application can display an entire set of photos cropped and resized to only show faces alone would be a huge help, the fact that Aperture 3 makes decent guesses is a bonus.
Test of NeatVideo plugin; Noise removal from Canon T2i 6400 ISO clips
Friday, April 16th, 2010Test of NeatVideo plugin; Noise removal from Canon T2i 6400 ISO clips from ZachFine on Vimeo.
if you’re on a fast machine, I’d recommend watching this full-screen with HD set to “on” –if you’d like to download the original QuickTime file rather than watch it embedded in a web page, there’s a download link low on the right side of the movie’s Vimeo page.
I shot some 1080p video in low-light with my Canon Digital Rebel T2i set to its 6400ISO setting, which resulted in very noisy video.
I tested the demo version of the NeatVideo for FCP filter to see if it could remove or minimize the noise. The results were encouraging, so I bought the “Pro” version of the plugin for $99.
This clip shows the results of the application of this filter to a couple of my more dramatically noisy clips. The filter renders very slowly, compounded by the fact that I’ve set the temporal filtration to use 3 frames.
You’ll see portions of the clips both with and without the noise removal, and split-screened sections for comparison. I think the result is pretty remarkable and usable, though the noise is peeking through the darker areas of the frame in the first clip. I wonder if I can smooth that out if I build a better noise profile or if I increase the temporal filtration?
Music:
“Do The Global Twist” by “The Neatbeats”, from the awesome album “japanese groupsound”.
I had to chop the song in half. Go buy the song or album to hear the very enthusiastic jam session in the middle of the track. Fun stuff.
As if you don’t all have enough random stuff to read
Friday, April 9th, 2010I thought this was pretty amusing, maybe you will too.
Alien vs Pooh, a webcomic or book or site-specific installation or something, by C.H. Burger:
How to use an iPod. A demonstration by Ari and Mirra.
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
I don’t hear anything. Is this thing on?
Ahhhhh. I hear something. Prog rock?
my first online DSLR video
Friday, March 26th, 2010
I’m pleased with the look of the footage. The edit was just a quick bit of fun. Mostly this was about testing my DSLR video workflow, with a secondary goal of cracking my sister up.
If you set HD to ‘on’ and go fullscreen, or click through to the video’s vimeo.com page and find the download link low in the right column, you can see this one at 1080p resolution. If the embedded video doesn’t play smoothly, try pausing it and waiting for it to finish loading before hitting play, or toggle HD to off.
pizza and the dream of not being filmed from ZachFine on Vimeo.
A little video of an evening of pizza-making and camera-dodging.
Shot and uploaded at 1080p resolution, so feel free to toggle HD to on and play this one back fullscreen.
Video shot with Canon Digital REBEL T2i DSLR set to the “superflat” picture style. Canon 50mm f1.8 lens.
Converted to Apple Prores, edited in Final Cut Pro 7.0.2, graded in Apple Color.
Exported to the QuickTime H264 at 1080p24, restricted to 8000kbps, audio 44.1Khz 16-bit AAC 128kbps.
Music: the first third of “free space incesticide” by Eight Frozen Modules.
Amazon.com sells Books, Music, and now Uranium!
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
What do you get for the dictator who has everything? If Uranium Ore’s your game, Amazon’s got you covered.
I’m intrigued by the difference in price between a new can of Uranium at $29.95, and “1 used from $2,499.00″. Does “used” in Amazon-speak mean “enriched”?
In case you’re curious, yes that is an “Amazon associates” link at right. There’s undoubtedly a growing market for Uranium, and I want my cut.
The product’s page at Amazon is home to some very funny reviews. A sample:
Hat tip to the Fatwallet Hot Deals Forum for the original post.
Life lessons from Ernest Borgnine
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
Ernest Borgnine, the vivacious 92-year-old actor who stars in the film on which I’m working ( The Genesis Code), dropped some impressive words of wisdom on a Fox News reporter a while back when asked for his anti-aging secret.
What he said.
The crackdown on motor vehicle fuel theft begins
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
I guess Michigan must have a serious “motor vehicle fuel theft” problem. That and the most serious-looking police officer/models in the country.
If one photo is good, two is better.
If one photo is good, two is better.
