Someone Who Understands Latency
2008-08-29
In this presentation at the Northwest C++ User’s Group, Herb Sutter explains how your hardware and software jumps through perversely complicated hoops in order to prevent you, the programmer, having to deal with the chasm in performance between CPUs and memory. There are slides in PDF and a video.
The questions he asks are “what is the cost of this programming operation?” and “can I speed it up?”. The answers are much more complex that you think. He takes pains to explain the impact of memory latency on all aspects of programming.
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Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro
2008-08-23
Tabletop: 1/160s f/2.8 ISO1000 100mm, Canon 30D, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Another lens I rented recently was a 100mm macro. I got this for two reasons. I wanted to get some macro photos, of course, but I also needed a reasonably fast longer lens than the 50mm that was lighter and less obtrusive than the 70-200mm f/2.8. The 100 fits that bill nicely. Having played with an 85mm f/1.8 at WWDC, I knew it would be useful as a walk-around lens. The other week, I took 739 photos with this lens out of 2474 in total, about half macro, and about half not.
Sunflower Bees: 1/200s f/8.0 ISO400 100mm, Canon 30D, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Sheets In The Wind: 1/1250s f/8.0 ISO500 100mm, Canon 30D, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
It’s sharp and focusses quickly. The minimum focussing distance is just over a foot, giving about a 1:1 reproduction ratio if you can get close enough to the subject.
Daisy Spider: 1/250s f/10.0 ISO400 100mm, Canon 30D, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Here are a couple more macros:
Purple Flowers: 1/320s f/7.1 ISO400 100mm, Canon 30D, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Drops On A Leaf: 1/500s f/8.0 ISO800 100mm, Canon 30D, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Oktapodi
2008-08-18
Canon EF-S 10-22
2008-08-10
Porch: 1/20s f/8.0 ISO400 10mm 0ev, Canon 30D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm
A week and 2474 photos later, and I have some material to process. One of the lenses I rented was the Canon EF-S 10-22. It's an interesting lens, but takes some getting used to. You've got to have something to fill the expanse of space it can cram onto the sensor.
I used it for 288 of the 2474 photos I took, 146 at 10mm and 59 at 22mm. 196 were less than or equal to 17mm.
I rented from Borrow Lenses, taking advantage of pick up at a San Jose camera store.
Aperture: 2.1.1 Changes The Compare Key
2008-08-02
An odd change was included in Aperture 2.1.1. No longer does the Return key take you into Compare mode. Now it's Option O (that's letter O).
The Edit menu still says that it's Return. And once you're in Compare mode, Return does make the currently selected comparison the compared image. So I think this is a bug.
You can get the old behavior back by changing the mapping of the keys with Aperture > Commands > Customize...
The Edit menu still says that it's Return. And once you're in Compare mode, Return does make the currently selected comparison the compared image. So I think this is a bug.
You can get the old behavior back by changing the mapping of the keys with Aperture > Commands > Customize...
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