10. June 2010 by admin.

San City College is just putting the final finishing touches on the photographic instruction facility and as I went through the tour with instructor David King all I could do was drool over the amazing accomplishment. I sure hope the students understand what they have to work with.It should be open in a few weeks.

It will support analog and digital photography with the finest facility money can produce and the teachers are some of the best.

The filming studios all have cyc-walls and lighting equipment mounted on ceiling rails.  The equipment locker in the image above is not installed yet.

There are very roomy film loading rooms and this wet film lab with every thing temperature controlled and filtered to maintain optimum quality. All levels of analog photography is possible.

The wet print lab is awsome.

Shooting rooms can be divided with black curtains and for the video and special effects there are green screen sets. The computer and digital rooms are very spacious and loaded with all the latest software on maxed out computer stations. 96 inch Epson printer and small printers are also available in the digital printing room.

There is a gallery to show case students work and volumes of wall space else where other work can be displayed. The theater can seat over 150 people and the classrooms are large and quiet with ceiling mounted digital projectors. There is a photo finishing room fo mounting and matting prints. Lots of storage for student with their own large lockers and an over stocked equipment checkout room with  the latest cameras, lenses ,tripods and other necessary gear to get one of the finest photography educations in the USA.

Inside and outside this facility has everything as a foundation for any student. They will have to supply their own inspiration and energy beyond 100% to get everything out of this facility and the education that is being offered to them at the new San Diego City College Art Facility.

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8. June 2010 by admin.

The food shoot today was for a killer burger and chilli cheese fries for a concession at the Del mar Fair. Cass was a big help making the monster burger.

Cass wearing R.L.Peterson’s new T-shirt design.

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5. June 2010 by admin.

The gopher invasion has pushed me over the wall, so to speak. I finally got one of those little dirt rats who have been sucking on the fruit tree roots in my yard. One is only the indication that there are more of the little terriorists hiding in the ground. The dogs have made bomb craters everywhere trying catch the little buggers.  This one was laughing at me when I pulled him out of his burrow.

Yesterday I was helping Cass Greene clean up some of her hard drives and since that takes hours to do we used the spare time to shoot images in the studio. She was on the phone with her husband and I noticed that there was a glow from the iPhone in her face so we set up this shot.

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4. June 2010 by admin.

I have been going through the feature list on the Nauticam Canon 7D housing and there are are lot of significant items to cover. Some are standard and others are very unique. The engineering and design have overcome some of the difficult translations for camera operation underwater and made the functional ergonomics more than sufficient.

The quality and machining of the solid block of aluminum has been hard anodized looks and feels like a finely carved marble statue. When you place you hands on the rubber coated handles you find you fingers have easy access to all the important controls on the camera inside the housing without having to take your hand off the handle. There are even handle extensions to help custom fit to your hand size or if you are wearing gloves.  On top of the handles are threaded hole patterns to mount a variety of strobe arms or accessories.

The Nauticam 7D housing supports both optical sync connections where the camera on board flash can trigger two external flash units like the Inon Z240 or Sea & Sea DS 110a or you can connect through a standard Nikonos 5 pin sync port directly to the camera hot shoe with either a manual 2 pin or auto 5 pin configuration.

The housing is machined with a Drip Lip around the main O-ring to help prevent back splash of water drops when the housing is opened and it also serves to register the back half to the front when sealing the housing.

Installing the camera is very simple. Just mount the camera to the Nauticam grooved camera plate that has the lens release lever built into it and slid the camera into the housing using the eccentric locking lever to firmly secure it.

The port locking system is a red lever on the front of the housing that secures the port assemblies to the housing. With the built-in lens release lenses can be removed from the camera through the front port hole in the housing. The Nauticam ports and extension rings have their own special locking feature. The port adapters will allow many different brand ports to be used.  The lens zoom and focus gears are two part assemblies that easily secure the gear to the lens and prevent gear slippage during use.

The ports and housing are supplied with port covers to help get this clean from dirt and water.

With the camera fully installed in the front half of the housing there is ample room to access the compact flash card and remove it or install it. The camera has to be take off the mounting plate to change the camera battery.

The standard viewing lens is one of the best giving full view of the images and camera information. For those who would like a larger view there is the Nauticam 45 degree wide view finder that has its own adjustable diopter to suit your vision requirements.

The shutter release is engineered to translate your finger pressure so you can easily apply just enough presser to activate the camera for auto focus but not accidentally take a picture.

The Nauticam housing is supplied with spare O-ring, Instruction in English, tool kit, O-Ring grease, and O-ring removal card, and Warranty card and water detector battery.

I hope to get in the water soon with this beautiful system.

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3. June 2010 by admin.

I have been going over all the details and features of the new Nauticam Canon 7D underwater housing. My simple conclusion is WOW!  The design, features, and extras are the answer to almost all the needs and wants for almost any serious underwater photographer.

The biggest feature is if you already own a Nexus, Subal, Sea & Sea, Aquatica, Ikelite and have an assortment of those lens ports the Nauticam system can easily mount our existing ports to the Nauticam housing with port adapters. You are no longer stranded with the same manufacture because your port collection keeps you married to that particular company where the expense of converting to another keeps you locked-in.

The list of well designed features on the Nauticam is long and the engineering employed is the best in the industry.

Here is a look at the outside of the Nauticam. I’ll post the inside details tomorrow. I easily mounted my Nexus 100mm port to the Nauticam as well as the 15mm fisheye in the Nexus super small optical dome port.

Nauticam with Nexus 100mm lens port.

This is the Nauticam port adapter.

Nauticam with nexus super optical coated 15mm glass dome port.

Nauticam special thumb locking release latch for extra safety.

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25. May 2010 by admin.

Driving back from Cayucos on Hwy 58 the wild flowers are still out.

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22. May 2010 by admin.

Traveling up to Cayucos via a back road on Highway 58 the wild flowers are still out. Then this morning up to Piedras Blancas light station on the central California coast with the wind blowing 30 knots there were some more wild flowers and Swallows gathering mud for their nests. Some nice waves at San Simeon to watch from the pier

.

They dropped their cigarette package on the sand and walked away.

That’s all for today.

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21. May 2010 by admin.

The new GATES POV video system for the Pansonic AG-HMR10
Handheld AVCCAM HD Recorder/Player

The AG-HMR10 handheld AVCCAM HD solid-state recorder puts the flexibility of recording and viewing high quality 1080 and 720 AVCHD content directly in the palm of your hand. AVCHD recording is superior to HDV, providing double the recording time and higher quality than older MPEG-2 compression used in HDV formats.

When teamed with the HCK10, the HMR10 is ideal for a wide range of applications fin nature observation, video production, news gathering, law enforcement, surveillance, sports, health care, education and much more.

The 20-pin cable connecting the HCK10 to the HMR10 is an option. Available optional cables include a 9-foot, 8-inch cable (model AG-C20003G), and the optional 65-foot cable (model AG-C20020G) for longer distances

The Camera is 1/4.1″ 3.05 megapixel  3-MOS  POVCAM Full HD Camera Head

The ultra-compact, mountable AG-HCK10 HD camera head (POVCAM) teams with the AG-HMR10 AVCCAM handheld recorder to offer a low-cost Full HD camera recording system for a wide range of applications. Connected to the HMR10 recorder with a detachable cable, the HCK10 captures 1920 x 1080 high definition video using three 1/4.1″ 3.05 megapixel 3-MOS imagers for recording by the HMR10 recorder in the AVCHD format, which provides double the recording time and higher quality than older MPEG-2 compression used in HDV formats.

The camera head features a 12X optical zoom lens with 10X digital zoom,(up to 120X), optical image stabilizer (O.I.S.), a built-in 2-channel microphone and a range of advanced tuning functions, including matrix, knee point, adjustable detail and chroma, white balance and zebra settings. Iris, focus and zoom are remotely controlled by the HMR10 recorder. It is powered by the HMR10 recorder.

The cable connecting the HCK10 to the HMR10 is required. Available optional cables include a 9-foot, 8-inch cable (model AG-C20003G), and the optional 65-foot cable (model AG-C20020G) for longer distances.

This is the wide dome for the Gates housing.

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6. May 2010 by admin.

Oil spill? I think the word “spill” doesn’t cover the enormity of the event in the Gulf. If I spill something I think of milk spilling out of a bottle or wine dripping out of my glass. But a hole in the bottom of the ocean spewing thousands of barrels of crude oil every day is not what I consider a “spill”.

But this is just one of the many disasters that we have given the Ocean or lakes or land on this watery dirt clod that orbits a star.  Listen to Jeremy Jackson explain how we wrecked the ocean and you will broaden your understanding of what is happening around you today.

Paste this in your browser and listen. http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_jackson.htm

Lovely La Jolla Shores

Expensive toys in our lovey bay.

Lake Tahoe–What turns the golf course green also turns the lake green.

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29. April 2010 by admin.

Here is the first look at the new Gates video housing for the Canon HFS-21 HD video camera. The housing will be available in a few weeks. We are already taking orders. This little camera is amazing and the recorded video rivals the professional cameras.

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26. April 2010 by admin.

My friend Marie Levine sent this article to me today.These are my images of whales.

Here is an article by Edward Dorson, SRI’s Director of Conservation Stratgies, that appears in today’s Huffington Post.
See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-muskedukes/a-sea-of-deceit-and-capit_b_551858.html

A Sea of Deceit and Capitulation
by Edward Dorson
April 25, 2010
The trajectory of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), meeting in Morocco this June, is on a disastrous course for the world’s whales. A new proposal to resume commercial whaling will be presented at the IWC summit. Simply put, it’s an awful deal. In order to foresee the fate of the whales with this proposal on the table, look no further than how all the marine species fared at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last month, where each and every proposed aquatic species was denied protection. This was a Japanese orchestrated “victory,” and the same bullying, vote swapping and “influencing” that Japan deployed at CITES to prevent marine protection is also entrenched to dictate the fate of the whales at the IWC.
The IWC proposal would actually reward the whaling abuses of Japan, Norway, and Iceland. This “compromise” deal allows whaling countries to continue killing for at least the next 10 years, with an unachievable requirement for reduced kill quotas. It offers no true enforcement, it can’t hold the whalers to any promises, and it obviously undoes all conservation measures made since the 1986 declaration of a whaling moratorium. Furthermore, it would legitimize Japan’s slaughter in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and promote a Japanese generated ploy wherein “Indigenous” whaling would apply to Japan’s coastal whalers, allowing more killing of whales in the North Pacific.
Japan has unfailingly undermined every marine regulatory convention that may affect its ability to plunder the world’s oceans — systematically rolling back years of international conventions and marine protections. Removing the moratorium on commercial whaling would also remove the most recognizable boundary to Japan’s hubris and greed, and would assist in the unrestrained taking of the less “cuddly” species such as the highly lucrative tunas and other fish species.
Japan wants a resumption of commercial whaling to divert the focus away from its unsustainable pillage of the seas. Whales are highly sentient beings, and, despite what Japan projects, they aren’t universally perceived as a “product.” From elaborate scientific study to casual observation, they’ve proven to be extremely social, communicative, highly intelligent, and able to feel intense emotion and pain. Japan realizes that if the killing of such iconic species is sanctioned, the remainder of what’s left of aquatic life will be theirs for the taking.

A recent document by Professor Shohei Yonemoto, titled “Useless Research Whaling Should Be Abolished,” gives his pragmatic perspective on Japan’s ambitions of dominance of the dwindling life in the oceans. He speaks of trading off “research” whaling only to go unhampered in the whaling closer to Japan. In the last two paragraphs, Dr. Yonemoto reveals Japan’s ultimate objective in relentlessly exploiting the more valuable tunas, sharks and other fish:
“It is said that eating whales is Japan’s traditional culture. But this is a myth that was started through a PR company during the mid-1970s. Actually, whale meat does not sell well and there is surplus stock. If Japan proposes to the IWC to allow it to engage in coastal whaling in exchange for giving up research whaling, I expect the long-standing opposition to be immediately settled.
Currently, there is a growing trend for strengthening control over marine resources such as tuna on a global scale. Also in order not to raise questions over Japan’s scientific data in international forums to discuss regulations on fishing of tuna and other fish, Japan should abolish research whaling as a government project.”
Japan now has a formidable ally in its quest to lift the ban on commercial whaling: President Barack Obama. In the March intersessional IWC meeting, the Obama Administration was the chief proponent in advancing the plan to resume commercial whaling and is currently urging other nations to follow. This is clearly based on geopolitical maneuvering and Japan’s leverage with our debt obligation; devoid of scientific or ethical consideration.
The U.S. position is a drastic departure from then-Senator Obama’s campaign promise made on March 16, 2008, when he stated: “As president, I will ensure that the U.S. provides leadership in enforcing international wildlife protection agreements, including strengthening the international moratorium on commercial whaling. Allowing Japan to continue commercial whaling is unacceptable.”
As the current proposal is written, pro-whaling countries will directly benefit with a return to what was described by the president as “unacceptable” commercial whaling. Nearly 25 years of conservation efforts may be swept aside if former staunch allies of the whales, the U.S. and other nations following our lead, capitulate to Japan as they have indicated.
The president’s unfulfilled pledge to “ensure that the US provides leadership in enforcing international wildlife protection agreements” could be achieved by compelling Japan to honor all the agreements it has broken with impunity. Japan has violated the Law of the Sea Convention, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Until you have seen a big blue whale up close underwater you will not understand the value of sharing this planet with them.
If the president truly wanted to see these agreements upheld, he could seek redress from the rogue whaling nations by using the sanctioning powers available under the Pelly Amendment against Japan, Norway, and Iceland until they stop whaling completely.
The president should be urged to be true to his word and protect the whales — and not to insure their demise. Over 75% of Americans oppose the barbaric practice of whaling, and the U.S. government should mirror their demands. In order to fulfill his promise of “strengthening the international moratorium on commercial whaling,” President Obama should be lending his full support towards the rapid passage of the International Whale Conservation and Protection Act of 2010, sponsored by Senator John Kerry.
Of critical importance: there’s absolutely no method to kill a whale “humanely.” An explosive harpoon is shot into them, they’re then electrocuted through an attached cable, repeatedly shot by high caliber rifles, and drowned by being dragged through the water. Even with this torture, which wouldn’t be tolerated in the most hellish slaughterhouse, it’s not unusual for a whale to take over an hour to finally die. With a fiendish abuse of language, this atrocity has been labeled by pro-whaling states as “harvest” or “culling,” and any dissent is dismissed as “emotional.”
It’s high time to make all whale species off-limits to slaughter and to acknowledge them as unique beings that are fully deserving of inherent rights. It’s now been empirically shown that the cetaceans (whales and dolphins) possess such a high order of sentience that they can’t rationally be designated as some “product” to be butchered, bartered, or compromised.
If mankind is going to continue in benefiting from the gifts that the ocean offers, we must recognize that no nation or cartel of nations should be allowed to dominate the seas and deplete its bounty at the expense of the future. Experience and knowledge are there to reveal the boundaries of not only sustainability, but of sentience and sanity as well. We must now realize that this threshold has been breached by Japan with its continuing assault upon the world’s whales and its accompanying lust to eliminate what’s left of the oceans. This must be stopped, not revived.
Edward Dorson is Director of Conservation Strategies for the Shark Research Institute

Now you know what you need to do.

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25. April 2010 by admin.

Here is a detail crop from the flower field panorama. It is taken from the upper left corner.

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25. April 2010 by admin.

These are panoramas of the Carlsbad Flower Field I took today with the Canon 7D at ISO 160 hand held using the Canon 400 f4.0 DO lens. The long one of the flag pattern is made up of 7 images.

Here is my new blog fan-Topper Spudly.

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24. April 2010 by admin.

Kingston’s eye has the best pattern. Cool kid!

Kingston’s mom, Amy, and little sister Cassady, came by the office to say hello and I managed to talk them into sitting for a few family photos. I had just finished with another photo job for Gil Ortega who is an artist and I was documenting his art work for him.

AMY & CASSADY & Kingston

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22. April 2010 by admin.

Raleigh is Cass Green’s new Doberman puppy. He came into the studio today for a photo session. He is going to be a great dog model because he is very calm. Cass is a wonderful trainer for her pets.It is nice to work with an easy going animal. None of my dogs would ever be allowed in the studio, they ar totally nuts.

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15. April 2010 by admin.

I have been testing the Canon 7D and 5D Mark 2 sensor chips for resolution and in the process came across an interesting relationship between ISO setting and sensor noise nad resolution.

Here is how it works. As you increase the ISO in the camera the residual signal noise on the chip increases. It is like turning up the volume gain on a radio that is not tuned to any station. As the volume goes higher you begin to hear the amplifier “hiss” in the speaker. This is the same with sensor chips, increase the ISO gain an you get background noise in the image. This also affects the lens/chip relationship for resolution.

What I did not expect to find was that certain ISO settings show less noise than the others. I call these “Prime ISO” settings. They are in these particular cameras the ISO setting of:  ISO 160, 320, 640, 1200 and 2500.

Lower ISO settings will be smaller files and higher ISO are larger files. As the sensor noise increases the “Hot” pixels add “1’s” to the binary file making the file total larger. In the case of these cameras the ISO 100 file is about 5MB smaller that the ISO 6400 setting do to the noise. The ISO 160 file is smaller than the ISO 100 which is unique and goes against our common logic where we would expect the lower ISO to have less noise but it is not true.

What is interesting is that the “Sweet” ISO setting are the ones you should be using most of the time to get the images with the best Lens/Chip resolution and the least noise in your image file.

I will besting other camera models in the near future to see how other sensors respond to ISO changes.

The Red Dot on the chart show the best ISO settings.

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11. April 2010 by admin.

The wild flowers on the Carrizo plains are very different this year. The color pallet is very yellow and orange. Last year there were a great deal of blue and red flowers mixed in the fields.

The Cayucos pier in the rain.

Herron bird

Big male Elephant seal.

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5. April 2010 by admin.

Here is the first look at the new small single LED light from Nocturnal. It uses only 3 AA batteries and is 5.5 inches long and 2 inches wide at the front. It weights 12oz dry and 6 oz in the water. A simple twist on-off on the rear cap and it has dual O-rings fro secure water protection. The light beam is a high intensity sharp center with soft but wide coverage. This is a great dive light because of it’s size and bright output. It is solid and very durable and machined out of aluminum and hard anodized. It could be used as a camera focus light with a diffuser to lower the intensity of the bright center spot. At ISO 100 at 1/60 of a second you will get an f-stop of f11.5 at 12 inches. If you are using an SLR camera with a good macro lens I would suggest a camera setting of F22 at 1/250 second to help keep the hot spot from showing up in the exposure. Better yet, a diffuser that would cut the light output in half would be even better. Still enough light to support auto focusing but not enough to show up in the exposure.

The Ultralight mount will work very well with the Nocturnal light.

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5. April 2010 by admin.

USGS map: http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/FaultMaps/115-33.htm

The first big one was up graded to a 7.2

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5. April 2010 by admin.

A strong earthquake occurred at 3:40:39 PM (PDT) on Sunday, April 4, 2010.
The magnitude 6.9 event occurred 26 km (16 miles) SSW of Guadalupe Victoria, Baja California, Mexico.
The hypocentral depth is 32 km (20 miles).

It lasted for about 20 seconds here in San Diego (Land of Shake and Bake)

USGS map: http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/FaultMaps/115-33.htm

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1. April 2010 by admin.

Here my 1st place winner in the ARTROM contest in Rome Italy.

http://www.artromgallery.com

You can go here and see their site.

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30. March 2010 by admin.

Here is a glimpse of the images at Delicias restaurant in Rancho Santa Fe.

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28. March 2010 by admin.

My images will be on display at the Delicias restaurant in Rancho Santa Fe beginning on Monday. There will be a lunchon Monday at 11:30 am to meet and discuss my new work and on Tuesday and evening brunch from 4 to6 pm.

They have special food prepared for both events. Linsay Duff will also be there with her fine art mixed media paintings.  Stop by and say hello and have a bit to eat with me.

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28. March 2010 by admin.

Water has not been my friend for the last three months. First the rains flooded the studio and many friends showed up to help, then the roof and skylights leaked and that had to be repaired and Fried Jackson came to the rescue again, the next day a hot water pipe burst at home in the wall next to kitchen and Fred and Mikey came to the rescue again. I cut out the bad drywall and the repaired the wall. Then the studio toilet and hot water plumbing went on the fritz. Finally today while I was checking the fruit trees at home I found the main irrigation pipe had broken underground and was flooding the yard This is a 1 1/4″ diameter pipe. Morgan and I dug down three feet to find the broken pipe. It was 88 degrees today and the I sweat more then the pipe was leaking. Fred Jackson came over with the right parts to repair the pipe and we will fill in the ground tomorrow. What next?

This is the broken pipe.

Fred had the best shove for getting around the pipe after we dug the hole.

This is Fred in the hole assembling the new pipe.

This the final repair job.

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26. March 2010 by admin.

Is it global warming or climate change?  I know the debate is on and there are those who cry warming as they watch the polar ice caps melt away while others point to the ever increasing ferocity of the storms. The other camp dispels any claim that the overall weather and climate are changing or that civilization is adding to it. This is my visualization of the issue.

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