Gian Pablo Villamil

Gian Pablo Villamil

Solving new problems in video, electronics and strategy

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Archive for June, 2006

Getting started with tilt/shift photography.

I received a lens I had ordered, a Ukrainian Hartblei 35mm f2.8 Super Rotator. This is an unusual lens in, in addition to focus and aperture controls, it also supports shift and tilt movements. There are other tilt and shift lens, but the Hartblei is unique in allowing the tilt and shift axes to move freely and independently.

So what’s it for?

A typical use is to take pictures of buildings where the sides don’t converge towards the top. For this application, it is described as a perspective correction lens.

Toy truck

The tilt function allows the plane of focus to be tilted, away from parallel to the lens. This allows either extreme depth of field along a plane, or radically shortened DOF when the lens is tilted the opposite way. This has been used to generate the strange effect in the picture.

It makes big things look like toys!

More of my tilt/shift pictures here.

Mind reading

I was booking some travel today.

The United voice recognition system is really spooky.

UA: What city would you like to travel to?
Me: Chitose
UA: I think you said Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. Is that correct?
Me: Uh, OK.

(Chitose is the name of the airport for Sapporo)

The gods of football

Great quote by imomus here:

“Instead, the football zone represented some kind of religious festival, in which brands were gods. Not the cheerful gods of a matsuri or some Hindu celebration, with their human faces, but the weirdly abstract and faceless gods represented by logos and money: T Mobile, Coca Cola, Adidas, Budweiser, Gillette, Mastercard, Toshiba, Hyundai…”

I am struck by how the forms of religion reappear over and over again.

Adventures in Saitama…

I went to a friend’s premiere showing of his video from Soulclipse, held at Arcus Cafe in Saitama, 45 minutes by road outside Tokyo. Like so many places in Japan, initially an anonymous looking place, but full of surprises!

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A rocket ship with a kindergarten!

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A very cute standing bar, specialized in sake. Tasty grilled duck as a snack, also the owner had just brought back some fresh tofu and pork meat miso paste.

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Happy people at Arcus Cafe!