Bianca wanted a photo of us printed at 8×10 for a frame. I decided to take it to Kinko’s which was a mistake. They charged $4 and the photo had a slight purple/pink tint to it even though this a black and white picture. Normally, I wouldn’t complain about it on here, but they refused to pay my $4 back saying my jpeg file is probably not good. I’m 100% sure the jpeg file contains no color at all.
Since I wasn’t happy with the print, I took that same jpeg file to a local camera store called Precision Camera. They did an excellent job for just $2. Their print turned out better than what it looks like on any computer monitor.
Local camera shops actually care about the products they sell, and they pay attention to details. If you ever need any photo printed in Austin, I highly recommend Precision Camera. There is no reason to ever go to Walmart, Target, or Kinko’s to have your photos printed. These large retail stores hire idiots that don’t care about the quality of their work, and you just end up paying more for a crappy print.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
I normally just blog about photography or programming, but this is too funny not to write about. I guess it’s somewhat programming related. I usually pay all my bills on the Internet because mailing out checks is a pain. When I got my last month’s bill from the Texas Gas Service, I tried to log in to the website to pay it, and I received a strange error message. It told me to use their new system for which I’m already signed up.
I don’t remember signing up for a new system, but I had a lot going on lately so anything is possible. According to the new bill I received in the mail, the URL I went to is correct. If there is a new system, the paper I got in the mail should point to it. So maybe it’s done by a separate system, and the physical paper bill is out of date, but at the very least the old website should have a link to the new website. If they had time to add this new helpful error message to the old system, they should have had time to add a link to the new system. The error itself could have had a link to the new system. How hard is that?Now I have to either call them up tomorrow or pay by mail.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
A few people asked me how I made the “Driving at Night” photo. I used my 10 mm fisheye lens to get as much of the interior in the shot as possible, and I had the shutter open for 20 seconds. I was not even breathing to minimize my movement. Of course I still paid attention not to run into anything, so I’m sure my eyes moved. I had the camera mounted on a tripod right above the center console, and I used a wireless remote to operate the shutter.
Tonight, I decided I just had to try the same thing in Bianca’s accord, which has a prettier interior than my truck. This time I was sitting in the back while Bianca was driving.
At a car wash:
Bianca going back to the future:
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Last Sunday, I went to take a few photos of downtown Austin around sunset. I was facing towards east, away from the sunset, which sometimes results in an extremely pink sky. Unfortunately, I was a little late, and I missed the most colorful moment. I kept taking photos non-stop for around 15 minutes, and the colors were different every minute. Here are 3 photos a few minutes apart:
6:00 PM
6:03 PM
6:09 PM
