A blog mostly about photography and related stuff: DIY, techniques, and product reviews. Make sure to check out the image gallery.

Installing Android 2.3 Gingerbread on SonyEricsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro

If it ain't broke, tweak it

September 29th, 2012

I have had the SonyEricsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro for about two years, and its age is really starting to show. One weakness is the fact that it's still stuck with Android 2.1 (Eclair) with no update in sight. But before ponying up for a new phone, I wanted to see if there was any way to remedy this. And luckily, there is! This may be old news to some, but the nice people over at CyanogenMod have found ways to install custom Android firmwares, often including newer versions than your manufacturer offers. Read on for a short how-to on how to root and flash your phone with such a firmware.

Making light visible in the air

Some cooking skills required

September 18th, 2012

I wanted to make a picture on the theme "private", and experimented with light coming through a keyhole. I started by placing a fairly strong lamp on the other side of the hole. Unfortunately, the effect was not very dramatic since the light travelling through the hole was not visible in the air - this usually only happens if the air is dusty or foggy. I was considering opening the vacuum cleaner bag to fill the air with dust, but tried a cleaner method: Steam! I simply boiled a pot of water and put it under the keyhole. The light shining through the steam became visible and made for a much better shot.

Shooting burgers

You want lies with that?

September 01st, 2012

We all know that when at fast food restaurants, what you see is not what you get. I recently saw a YouTube video from McDonald's on how they make their burgers look so great (and not flat) on the photos. You can actually achieve a lot but simply pushing the contents of the burger (lettuce, gherkin slices) closer to the edge to make it visible to the camera. The image shows my (mixed) results. Clearly, making a "stock" burger perfect requires a bit more than that.

Too busy with real life

And I thought the Interwebs was my real life

August 18th, 2012

Getting married is serious business! It kept me busy the last few months, a reason why I haven't added any new content for a while. But the Big Day was super successful and a lot of fun. Big thanks to all who helped, and all guests who shared the day with us!

Our friendly photographer shares a few of the pictures on his site, be sure to take a look.

New Toy: Olympus Tough TG-310

No cameras were harmed during the making of this video

May 28th, 2012

Since my Ricoh died, it has been exclusively DSLR for me. Image quality is great, but carrying 1kg+ of plastic and glass around gets tiresome. The Olympus Tough TG-310 looked like an attractive alternative: sized like a regular compact, priced nicely, and with the benefit of being shock resistant and waterproof. I will write a short review of it soon. Until then, check out this little underwater video. Update: Review is up.

Frankfurt Luminale 2012

Short but sweet

May 11th, 2012

Frankfurt Luminale is an event based around light that takes place every two years. I went there and brought my Canon 600D to capture some of the atmosphere and to see how its video mode fared under low-light conditions. It cannot compete with a 5D, but the results came out quite well. Check out the short Youtube video.

Canon 600D and memory cards

Don't skimp on the media

May 06th, 2012

Since the Canon EOS 600D supports HD video, I went out and picked up a new SD card (full HD often uses around 300 MB for one minute of video). For more flexibility, I got a SanDisk Mobile Ultra micro-SD 16GB card with an SD adapter, so that I could use it in my cell phone or tablet. However, while recording was fine mostly, it would sometimes stop, the camera displaying the message "recording has been stopped automatically". Despite being a class 6 card, it seemed too slow. I picked up a SanDisk Extreme class 10 card instead, and I have had no problems since.

Gemei G9 Android Tablet Hands-on

Leave it to the chinese

April 06th, 2012

I got the ASK 731SP SmartPad about a year ago, and a recent trip to Hong Kong enabled me to get my paws on a more recent device. The Gemei G9 show just how much has happened on the Android tablet market the last year - for about the same price, you now get a much faster and cooler-looking unit. Read on for more.

Suspended droplets

Don't forget to bring a towel

March 17th, 2012

This one was quite fun to shoot. The setup is similar to a typical "splash shot" - that is, you fill a small bag with water (I used a juice carton with screw cap) which gives you a stream of drops at a steady rate. With the camera mounted on a tripod and using an external flash with reflector card, I regulated the flow of water so that it was nearly pouring, but still dripping, making perfect timing less of an issue. The lens was a vintage 55mm Pentax with a 25mm extension tube. Aperture f/8 and shutter speed 1/200th and some of trial and error gave nice results.

Sweet Dreams

This makes my head spin

March 11th, 2012

Topic of the week was "dream", so I figured I could try out something I saw Bryan Peterson do here, namely spinning while shooting up, creating a weird, dream-like effect. Without a filter, I could not go slower that around 1/25 shutter speed, but the effect is still obvious. My hand, of course, spun along with the rest of me and stayed unblurred. Desaturated, bumped the contrast and voila! In-camera effects are the best. :)