David's Blog

Quality issues

2008-07-14T16:49:29Z

Several recent experiences have caused me to have concerns about quality. Editing chapters for book to be published soon, smart clothes and wearable technology, a major difficulty has been image quality too much use of digital cameras without the users understanding that it is always best to use as higher quality as possible. This is inevitably against the background of manufacturers saying you can take 1,000s of pictures on a 1Mb card yet I would normally take about 39 on same sized card! The beauty of digital is that can use a card again and again so why take poor quality pictures? Leave your camera on high quality or better still RAW. It is always time consuming or occasionally impossible to reshoot so better to do it right first time, unfortunately this is something that atcaeologists seem unable to do if the recent database for bioarchaeology looking at bones is anything to go by. Even the simplest of proper photographic set-ups could have achieved good results instead of out of focus or images with knsufficient depth of field. Again another example of the need for photography to be a key skill addressed in science degrees.

Using movabletype with my iPod touch

2007-10-23T19:16:57Z

This is a test blog using my iPod touch. This is using the iMT plugin. What does take time are my big fingers being accurate enough to type quickly with one finger two doesn't work for me. Typing is faster than me trying to use my mobile Pebl. The keyboard reacts well especially the change to caps after a fullstop. The trick of checking spelling is to tap at the right place in a word but it prefers the end of a word for corrections. If you use a hypenated word like multi-professional, it still makes you go to the end of the word.

A nice thing I just noticed is the magnification circle visible by touching and holding with your finger. This also allows you to locate the middle of a word to change or correct spelling. Only thing is no link to an image unless you know a location and can type in a URL. Scrolling requires touch and hold to bring up the magnifier then move towards top or bottom line of a section. Two returns are needed to separate text into paragraphs that are visible but they do not show when the blog entry is published. All told is quite easy to blog with the iPod touch on the move or in a coffee shop.

Here be Dragons

2007-10-15T10:24:54Z

Dragons from the Catalonian street-arts company Sarruga invaded Derby streets on Saturday evening to celebrate the Westfield Shopping Centre opening. Thousands of people including many families turned out to see the parade of Dragons as they made their way down from 'The Spot', on London Road, down through the streets into the Market Square for a final fight between St George and the Dragon then a few fireworks.

More photographs from the Dragon parade are at http://www.cladonia.co.uk/derby

iPod touch with WiFi = Better learning experiences?

2007-09-06T15:16:21Z

Looking at today's e-mail although the ALT-C 2007 conference is finished, well I am home as only a short hop to Derby, I thought this product release could not go unmentioned. The new range of iPods includes the iPod touch which is WiFi enabled and in view of the interesting points that Dylan Wiliam made during his keynote address (Link to page for link to talk not the 75Mb download!) the feasibility of multiple question answers onto web pages then aggregated during a class session become an immediate possibility.
Like the iPhone it looks to be based on the use of the Mac OSX operating system which will enable developers to create small apps for in class question feedback at the touch of an iPod. Is this the tool that will take the iPod a stage further?
As the owner of an iPod Photo I couldn't see a reason to upgrade to the iPod video the iPod touch is a different animal and if I can surf the web why not web based telephony and no need for the iPhone which would solve the European mess of which mobile phone company to collaborate with? I am sure there are even more possibilities. PS Thanks for a great conference it was my first but definitely won't be my last with best wishes to all especially other bloggers.

A blog about bloggers blogging

2007-09-06T00:21:02Z

The blog feed from blogs is an interesting way of linking peoples thoughts and reflections. However wandering around it was interesting to see how glued or involved folks are when working with a computer the common phrase "Do you mind if I use my computer when you are at a table" which we can interpret as something along the lines of "I don't want to be rude but I am not going to talk to you but commune with my computer" or words to that effect. So I took a few photographs, no electronic flash, so as not to disturb of the intensity of involvement with screens and bloggers positions and postures, comfortable, laid back, standing, sitting, discussing even. OK not everyone is blogging b ut in terms of alliterative titles it sounds much better!

The slideshow below is the photographs together with music using Soundslides http://soundslides.com see earlier blog. For bigger version go to http://www.cladonia.co.uk/soundslides/bloggers

Blogging for research at ALT-C 2007

2007-09-04T17:50:41Z

A good day of presentations and workshops and good food an essential conference criteria. After trying to focus from the number of threads you are sure you have missed a lot of good sessions but you have to go with what you have chosen. Highlights for me was the last session about Postgraduate Blogs which was a neat piece of reflective research from a reduction, in sauce sense, of examining themes and ideas from categories of blogs to what they can do to support and enable research collaboration. Cancel idea of using mobile phone for photography!

http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/timetable/abstract.php?abstract_id=1150

Seeing in close-up

2007-08-15T22:12:07Z

Having recently had cataract operations on both eyes this has led a number of losses and gains. This is from the perspective of someone who has worn glasses since the age of 5 except for a 17 year period wearing soft contact lenses soon after they first cames out.

On the plus side I don't have to wear glasses anymore (Big cheer) except for reading, and yes I can see one of everything rather than multiple versions of text and objects (This made watching snooker especially odd!). The cost of glasses is less my normal glasses cost upwards of £300 plus reading glasses £250! Now two reading pairs with new frames £200 a massive difference.

On the negative side I have lost my close-up vision, for someone who was very shortsighted (-10 and -11 dioptres for those in the know e.g. free eye test territory!) this is useful without glasses is like using a hand lens threading needles was always a doddle. This is probably also where my interest in close-up photography came from as in many ways it is this ability to see what the naked eye can't normally see that has always fascinated me. Whether it is the structure of a moth's eye (see photograph to left) or poppy seeds (see earlier post) whenever you examine something that close there is always something new and unexpected to be found.

Oh by the way my next purchase is in optics is going to be a hand lens.

pbwiki

2007-04-20T18:52:11Z

OK so I don't personally like peanut butter but cheese and marmalade wouldn't go down well as a name. Although I have Mediawiki on my website pbwiki for educational use is very easy to set up and use. We are currently using it as part of the Postgraduate Programme for Learning and Teaching at the University of Derby, more feedback on how it works in a later blog. Check out the PBwiki tour! Create your own wiki at http://www.pbwiki.com or Link to http://educators.pbwiki.com/PBwiki-educator-videos

Soundslides

2006-11-16T22:34:22Z

Along with programmes like FotoMagico from Boinx Soundslides is a great little programme for creating audiovisual materials. For a simple AV presentation just click to upload a sequence of images (jpgs) then click to upload a sound track (mp3, aiff, wav) which could be music or description of images for a lecture and it is ready. The final presentation can be fine tuned very easily changing the synchronization of images with the presentation, skin for the presentation, titles and any other text. The real advantage of this programme is that it is available for Mac and Windows and appeals very strongly to students. They can create AV presentations very quickly from their photographs and control how they run then show them online or in class sessions. For sessions where you want students to show there work whether images of illustrations or photographs it adds something more than images on their own. The programme can be run free with soundslides logo dropping down in first frame and a link or buy for $39.99 only other need is Flash 7. Examples of presentations are available from the soundslides forum. It was designed for journalists to combine pictures with reports but works well for other markets. The forum includes some interesting soundslide presentations:

Poppy seeds and hexagons

2006-11-16T18:08:11Z

I thought it was about time I got back to writing and looking at scientific photography on my blog so I here is a recent photograph of poppy seeds. Yes well exciting! Actually poppy seeds I realized after taking photographs of bread with ultraviolet fluorescence looked interesting so I used photomacrography to get closer and the shapes on the surface are hexagonal. Heaxgons are not uncommon in nature from the shells of some prehistoric creatures, to eyes of moths and other insects, shapes of honeycomb and wasps nests and inside our eyes with the corneal endothelium. More on hexagons to follow this piece. For information on the mathematics of hexagons go to http://www.mathopenref.com/hexagon.html

Drag and drop

2006-06-06T23:11:17Z

One of the most useful of interactions to involve students is drag and drop. I have written a work in progress paper ion this for the University of Derby's online Learning Journal Response. The paper "Learning objects - drop and drag interactions" demonstrates a number of ways that I have used drag and drop to develop learning materials. An example I have online is the use of drag and drop to demonstrate additive colour mixing. Another one demonstrated here with a movie file is the use of drag and drop to show support learning of photographic composition. composition_lo-small.mov

Photography of ultraviolet fluorescence

2006-01-09T22:31:28Z

The lights I use are standard Blacklight fluorescent tubes I (the University anyway) have a Kaiser copy stand with 2 foot tubes which can be replaced with Blacklight ones. Philips produce these blacklight tubes and also screw fitting bulbs. They are used in Discos and other places so should be readily available. The lights are set at 45° to the subject with a 2B filter in front of the camera so only the fluorescence, light emitted, is recorded. As most of my are subjects are still I have used Fuji Velvia which gives greater colour saturation but a faster film can be used or a digital camera. Exposure at 100 ASA, f/5.6 - f/8 is of the order of a second can be longer or shorter. The exposure is dependent on the light source as usual but of more significance is the amount of light emitted by the subject a dyed fluorescent object e.g. paper, pencils and bought items are strong emitters, some rocks are very strong others weak, lichens are weak, eggs are in the middle. Testing and adjusting exposure is necessary. Can also use a flash with a UV filter over the flash for example an 18B or 18A glass filter. For further information download my 'Guide to infrared and ultraviolet photography' (750Kb Mb pdf file) from my Publications page more about principles than a simple how to do it. Weblink - Medical and Scientific Photography Online resource http://msp.rmit.edu.au/

Seeing

2005-11-27T01:25:52Z

When we take photographs are we changing what we see to suit our view or extraction of reality? A photograph is capturing what we see we capture not the reality but the reality as we see or interpret it the photographer is both observer and interpreter. Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle could equally be applied to photography. We also can photograph what we cannot see with the naked eye to capture in our memory photography is beyond that as we can capture different chunks of time that we see in continuous motion. We capture with infrared and ultraviolet and the light emissions of subjects due to light or other radiation. As we use more and more digital capture devices so the time has shortened between the moment of capture and seeing what we have captured. We like video cameramen before us have become slaves not to our viewfinder and imagination but to our LCD screens. Photographers had to wait for gratification till after processing and printing. We waited in anticipation or dread to see the final result; now we can see it as soon as the file has saved onto disk and know we have what we want or not and either keep it or delete it. The negative does not reach the neg sleeve or the cutting room floor instead it is deleted or downloaded then awaits its fate in hard drive failure or some eventual digital graveyard along with betamax and laser disks. Going closer to a subject we see what we would otherwise never see unless extremely shortsighted the unseen made visible has been an enduring chase for photographers looking at things through different lenses. This is still the goal of photographers whatever they photograph to reveal their personal vision of the world to the world. In many ways the only need is for capture and print to reveal all the use of further editing might be seen as superfluous or the task undertaken to reveal even more from the perfect print in the darkroom to the PhotoShop editors mouse but at what point does that artistic or scientific extraction or abstraction become the reality or further and further removed from "reality". If proof were ever needed, we are in danger of editing out the truth behind the natural beauty of the photographic image. But, how much alteration is too much? How much reinterpretation can we undertake before we are distorting through the unreality of our personal perceptions.

This new blog was created using Flock

2005-11-21T00:04:51Z

There is a lot of talk about the possibilities for what is termed Web 2.0 as if it is a new reality as if something is going to change and we will all have to upgrade. It is more a matter of greater flexibility and personalisation and accessing materials and posting them via existing and improved tools. If you are already using blogs, rss feeds, uploading photographs and using wikis and other tools you are nigh on Web 2.0 enabled. The problem in the long term will be what people do with the ability to integrate and access more easily. We should be creating more useful content and content will be less reliant (sorry for certain folks) on designers and probably less reliant (sorry to another crew) on IT services. Even now you could probably do everything you need through a web browser. As a lecturer I could create web pages through a browser and display them in class, type up notes through a browser. I already find I am using browsers more and more to integrate what I do on the internet from uploading onto a moodle, using a weblog such as this, putting material that needs regularly revising onto a wiki. I will add more to this but am publishing now via Flock.

The spiral of learning?

2005-10-27T23:03:43Z

I like creating photographs for their own sakes but they are very useful to communicate learning principles as they can remind students of concepts and ideas, i.e. they can act as memory triggers. The spiral, see image of a gourd tendril, can be used in support of the learning achieved through reflection and improving practice being a spiral rather than a circle which implies you end back where you started, not ideal if want to develop as a professional or student.