ben lowery

Mandy and I did some geocaching yesterday around Tarrytown and ended up in Rockwood Hall, a great park of the Rockefeller State Park Preserve that runs along the Hudson. After finding the cache, we wandered around a bit exploring the rest of the trails.

Along the way, I snapped a few photos of this amazing tree that grew up out a large trunk and threw branches back down into the ground. Those branches then grew back up into the what looked like more trees, but were in fact part of the same original tree. The tree is covered in carvings (and a couple burns and spray paint). I was both impressed with it and saddended by all the people carving into the tree.

In the normal course of a day, I usually take quite a few photos. Back when I first started playing with photos on my computer, I was in college and I would spend quite a bit of time making sure the names on the files matched up with the contents of the photo, and that all the files were organized in folders by the date on which they were shot. This was all before EXIF data (I was working with scans) and fancy cameras that embeded that stuff for you. I used something like YYYMMDD-OverallSubject-SpecificSubject.jpg for my files. Now that I have less copius free time, I tend to let something else manage these things for me.

Currently, I use the Canon ZoomBrowser EX that came with my Canon cameras (I have a 10D and an s110 from a while back). However, today I stumbled upon a program call DIM and it looks quite promising. One thing I never liked about ZoomBrowser is that lack of control over the directory naming format. It appears that DIM would give me that level of control, so I’m going to try it out with my next batch of photos.

Speaking of photos, more coming soon. Starting Monday, I’m going to post a picture every day. I’m not saying I’ll have taken the photo that day, but I’m going to start posting more regularly. Promise.

As an engineer, I’m a bit of a number junkie. I recently picked up a 1G Compact Flash card for my Canon 10D, and I was curious how it stacked up for transfer speed. I intially checked out the reviews on DP Review, but they didn’t include the card I picked up, and the tests were primarily for transfers between PC and card. Today I stumbled upon this great test of a number of CF cards, actually inside the 10D. Additionally, they test with a bunch of other cameras, so you can see if changing cards will matter for transfer speed in your camera.

Turns out, my card is pretty low in the list, but it doesn’t really matter. The camera has a 9 shot buffer, and I rarely, if ever, run through it. Maybe if I pick up a 400mm lens and start doing sports photos, I’ll need it, but the chances of that happening are pretty low.

Yeah, yeah, so I’m watching golf on TV again. :) The torture that Mandy faces is no small thing, but she’s bearing with me.

Anyway, this is the first time I’ve gotten to watch golf in HD on my fancy HD set, and I’m split on it. It seems like CBS is using really good cameras for the stable locations and the crane-mounted cameras, but something odd for the on-course handhelds. Consequently, the picture quality is going from near-real to really quite bad. Hopefully in the future, they’ll get better cameras for the handhelds.

Oh, right, the tournament. The course looks great; I’ll have to go play it sometime. Good things happen on the shores of Lake Michigan.

On the night of August 4, 2004, Amanda Leins accepted my proposal of marriage.

More soon, and no, no date just yet, but we’re 99.9% sure it’s happening in Nashville.