There’s a very interesting discussion going on in the Strobist group over at Flickr. What it boils down to is that one of the members, Don Giannatti, was commenting on a certain trend he had noticed. The issue was group members who would ask vague broad questions without taking the time to do at least a cursory search to see if their question has already been asked (which considering the size of the group, it most likely has). And interesting discussion followed his comment .

On one hand, you have some members who say it’s to be expected and that expecting people with questions to search the forums and/or do some reading before posting is a big barrier and can be interpreted as hostility. On the other hand, you have group members who also say that it would be better if people made an effort to do some research on their own before they post questions. They would most likely find the answers they were looking for or, at the very least, be able to be more specific in their questions. And of course, you have a wide range of people who fall somewhere in between these two position.

Personally, I lean towards the second opinion. The Strobist group has over 43,000 discussion threads and I think I can safely say that pretty much any question a beginner like me would want to ask has been asked and discussed to death. While I can understand why someone would want to get an answer as quickly as they can, 5 minutes spent searching the discussions and just skimming through results sometimes makes the answer to your question clear or ,even better, leads you to ask the actual question you should have asked in the first place.

And it’s not just on Flickr that this problem exists, it’s something that affects all sizeable online forums and even happens in real life. Even though I’m just what I’ll generously call an enthusiast, I have people tell me, “Oh, I really want to get into photography.  Can you help?” And I tell them, “oh, that’s great. Ok, go read this article and try to see if you can figure this out. Then come back and let’s talk about what you’ve learned.” And in most cases, the reply is always, “Oh, but I don’t want to do any reading. I just want to learn what to do. Can’t you just show me?” How am I going to explain depth of field to someone who doesn’t want to take the effort to learn what aperture is?

I think this is the issue Don has a problem with. It’s a lot easier and more fulfilling the help someone who has a genuine desire to learn. To quote Don: “Structured busting of ass is required…”. Why should you expect someone to spend the time & effort trying to teach you something if you’re not also willing to expend time & effort in learning ?

I’m a bit of a gear-head. And photography gear is not exempt. One thing though, I don’t have that much discretionary income so my wants far far exceed my means. Which means I have to make do with what I do have, which is what this post is about.

Camera

I use a Canon EOS Rebel XS (also known as the 1000D) . It’s probably the  simplest unit in Canon’s DSLR lineup and the cheapest. I got mine about 9 months ago from Adorama Camera based in New York, since they came highly recommended (along with B&H Photo, also based in New York). This camera is not the latest & greatest by any stretch but so far  (19232 shots, actually) it has been able to keep up with me. It’s not a bad choice for a beginner like myself on a tight budget.

Lenses

Two. Yeah, two lenses. The kit lens that came with my Rebel XS, the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS. It works. Not the kind of lens people have flame wars over but not the kind people write angry blog posts about either. Like I said, it works. Then there’s the lens I usually have on most of the time, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II ($100). Very simple, very sharp and very affordable. Autofocus can be a bit of a pain in low light and it is very susceptible to flaring but it is still a good lens. Every one should have at a 50mm prime. There are more solidly built and slightly less annoying 50mm primes out there but nothing delivers a good mix of price and features for us bargain hunters. I would like a couple more lenses ( 85mm f/1.8 and 24-75mm f/2.8)  but for now all I got is the kit lens and the “nifty fifty”.

Lighting gear

I lean heavily towards the “Strobist” style of lighting which favours the use of small lightweight hotshoe flashes (speedlights) triggered off camera. This allows for a portable lighting setup that is also easier on my pocket, . For lights, I have a Yong Nuo YN-460II and YN-468. The YN-460II is a manual flash with two optical slave modes and has power settings that go down to 1/64 power.

The YN-468 is TTL compatible with Canon DSLRs and also supports manual mode, two optical slave modes as well as a multiflash(not high speed sync) mode. The YN-460II is my work horse and I estimate that I have done about 5000 shots with it. I’ll  do a more detailed review of both units in another post later. A word of caution: Yong Nuo’s quality control is a bit … erratic so you might have a problem with your flash. If that’s the situation, they will allow replacements. However, I’ve not run into any major problems with the units I’ve received but your mileage may vary. For me, the chance of dud gear is worth the savings I make on their gear compared to other brands so I’ll be ordering some more flashes real soon.

If I am going to be doing off-camera flash, I need a way to fire my flashes remotely. I could use optical slave mode, where I use the popup flash on my camera to trigger the other flashes but that won’t work outside during the day or in complicated setups. So that’s where radio triggers come in. You attach a transmitter to your camera’s hotshoe and the receivers to your flashes and viola! You can fire your flashes remotely.  So I use RF-602s also by Yong Nuo. These are have been solid in all the time that I’ve used them and I don’t have misfires (unless my batteries are running low).

Lights need power. I used Sanyo Eneloops, which are rechargeable and  slow to discharge.

I’ve gone through a wide range of lighting modifiers and still have a bit more to get through. Currently I have:

• Westcott Apollo 28″ softbox: When I want soft beautiful light that I can control, I get this baby. It’s kinda expensive ($110) but the light it produces is worth it and it folds down like an umbrella so transportation is not too big a headache.
• Impact 45″ convertible umbrella
• DIY 10″ beauty dish: Beauty dishes are expensive so I built my own. Was a great learning experience and I had a blast with them.
  

There are some other stuff as well: tripods, reflectors, gels etc but this constitutes the core of my kit. Not very impressive by most standards, but it’s what I got. And so far, its served very nicely.

• Pace yourself. It’s deceptively easy to run yourself into the ground. Especially with us geeky types. We can be so obsessed with ‘doing something useful/cool/profitable’ that we forget to sometimes just slow down and enjoy life. It’s ok to take a things slow when you want to.
• Work hard. If you gonna do something, make sure it’s done right.
• Think things through. Don’t go rushing into anything.
• Don’t over think things. Thinking things through is all well and good but there are times when acting quickly will give you results or information much faster. Not to say you should think, but learn to recognize when you’re overanalysing things and you need to move your ass.
• Know what you want. Not what you think other people will like. Not what other people say will be good for you (more often than not, they are wrong). This one’s really important.
• Always shoot in RAW.
• Have a sense of wonder. The world is such a beautiful place. Don’t get so caught up with the daily grind of life that all the beauty and wonder just goes right over your head.
• Do the things you love. You’d think this one would be obvious but you’d be surprised how many excuses we give ourselves when it comes to doing the things that make us happy: “I’m too bsuy”, “Not enough money”, “It’s not appropriate”, “I’ll look funny” and so on.
• Always backup your files. Always.
• There’s always tomorrow. Shit happens: accidents happen, you don’t get the things you want, you fail at something, you do something embarrasing. Don’t sweat it (too much ) . So long as you will be around tomorrow, it’s not that bad. Life still goes on.
• Being alone is not a bad thing. Note I did not say lonely. Think of being alone as time you can spend working on yourself. Learn new stuff, kick a bad habit. Use that time to refresh yourself.
• Habits are annoyingly difficult things to get rid of. Don’t try to get rid of too many at a go or you might get overwhelmed. Give it time.
• We’re not here for that long, cherish every moment.
• Not all women are worth your time. And that’s perfectly ok.
• Anger is a dangerous thing. Left to run wild, it will destroy everything in it’s path. Hold it within and it will make you a charred, smoking husk of your former self. Much like fire. Learn to harness it, channel it, give it purpose. It can be a useful tool, if you can control it.
• Keep in shape. Your body & mind are your most prized possessions (at least, they’re mine). Take good care of them. Strong mind in a healthy body and all that.
• Learn to forgive yourself. Very hard thing to do but learn it anyway. You’ll thank yourself.
• When dealing with other people, learn how to look past the mask to the real person underneath.
• What people say they want and what they actually want are two completely different things. Especially women. Wait, on second thoughts, even a lot of men have this problem.

I could go on and on but that’s what pretty much sums it up.

Zain Ghana is currently running a promotion called Happy Day where for ¢2 per month, every other day sees you getting back credit for the calls you made the previous day.

Here’s the thing: although Zain charges 8Ghp per minute for calls (and that’s billed per second), they somehow forgot to mention that when using your bonus credit, you get charged 14Ghp/min and calls are billed per minute. You made a call for 13 seconds? 14GHp gone. Since most of us are unable to squeeze our conversations in nice round numbers, you’ll find that you run out of bonus credit rather quickly.

Sneaky bastards. I wish I had come up with it.

I’m a little hooked on photography. Have been ever since my mum came back from a trip to Spain in 2004 with a dinky little point and shoot. If I remember correctly, it was an Olympus C310Z . Since then I’ve abused a few more P&S cameras. Sometime this  year, I decided to take the plunge and get myself a DSLR. Of course, this being Ghana, there are no shops (at least not that I know of) that a person with my limited budget can get a DSLR at a good price. So, having no credit card or paypal account, I did the reasonable thing and asked a friend to order one online for me.  (more…)

Have been helping people out with their FreeRADIUS deployments (usually for hotspots). As a result, I’ve started a little collection of Freeradius packages that I’ve built for Ubuntu. FreeRadius is available from the repositories but what you get sometimes is not the latest and greatest. I’m putting my builds up for download so that someone else doesn’t have to go through the stress of compiling. 

These were compiled using version 2.1.6 of Freeradius.

Hardy amd64

• freeradius-dbg_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius-dialupadmin_2.1.6-0_all.deb
• freeradius-iodbc_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius-krb5_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius-ldap_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius-mysql_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius-postgresql_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb

I’m getting really sleepy so I’ll add some more builds tomorrow. Coming soon, instructions on how to build your own packages.

Update: i386 builds for Hardy are also up. i386 builds for Karmic
will follow shortly.

Over the holidays, I spend a few days in Accra. While I was there, one of the things at the top of my todo list was to go and watch James Cameron’s Avatar (which I hear is a fantastic movie, by the way). Only place to watch it of course, was the Silverbird Cinema at the Accra Mall. So, being the consummate geek that I am, I checked their Twitter feed for scheduling information. Turns out Avatar would be showing that evening at 9:30pm.  Alright then. Since I would be leaving for Kumasi the next day, that left me just about enough time for me to finish packing, take a nap and have supper first.

Only one tiny hitch; I wasn’t paying attention and misread the time. It was actually showing at 7:30pm. I’m sure you will be able to figure out how the rest of the evening played out. Anyways, fast foward two days later. I’m still grumpy and decided that I would have to do something, even  if it as completely useless. So I threw together a little php script that displays the Silverbird movie lineup in a somewhat more reasonable manner.

Much better

(more…)

If you happen to manage a hotspot that uses Freeradius with the sql module for authentication, you might want to pay attention. The default queries used by Freeradius sql module are case-insensitive. So if user “kwame” is successfully authenticated, another user “Kwame” can also successfully autheticate. And so can (more…)

I like Ubuntu. I like being able to tweak the bits off my desktop environment. However, I also happen to like the MintMenu, the menu applet that is set up as the default for Linux Mint, a linux distro based on Ubuntu. Of course, this being Linux and all, I just had to install it.

• First, you need to download it(~99kb).

(more…)

I finally got round to filling my National Service forms online and I just so happened to notice that their website sucked. A lot. What about it sucked? Well…

• First of all, clicking on the enrollment link causes two windows to pop up. One of the windows contains a form that accepts a PIN number and redirects you to your enrollment form, other is a “Highlights Page”. (more…)