Author Archives: Mark

Capitol Panorama

Austin Capitol Panorama

The capitol complex has a lot of visitors. Rather than waiting a really long time for people to clear from an individual frame, taking the shot, moving the camera, and then waiting some more, I decided to try a Photoshop technique. Which consists of taking a lot of pictures of the same frame. And then using an averaging algorithm on the series of pictures. It’s called “tourist removal.” Unfortunately, it was not perfect. The median value left visible artifacts. I had to take a more manual approach.

But that was not my biggest problem of the day. Oh, no. Instead of using a manual setting for the aperture, shutter, and ISO, I used the aperture priority mode. This caused color issues when stitched together. When Photoshop stitched the pictures and tried to automatically average the colors, something dramatic happened to the marble stonework. It gave the stone vitiligo. So sad.

Making butter

halogen blender
color corrected blender

My new camera, the 7D, can take HD videos. Since I like food photography, I wanted to see how food videography would work. And are there a whole new set of issues. While a flash works well for a picture, a video needs constant light. And a lot of it at that. Halogen lights are cheap, but they are hot and need color correction. The next problem is syncing an external audio recorder with the video footage. The onboard audio microphone is minimalistic and is not good enough for a clean source. I now understand why clapper-boards are used. You need a quick and clear sound pulse to match against an obvious video event. I had to make due with clapping my hands. I also had to learn Adobe Premiere CS5 and Adobe After Effects CS5. Which are really complicated programs.

Cooking Video first test from Mark Hamzy on Vimeo.

whipping cream

For my first video, I decided to make butter. Which turned out to be surprisingly easy! I was shocked how simple it is to turn cream into butter. Just pour whipping cream into a blender, and blend it until it breaks. The only difficult part is trying to squeeze out any remaining liquid from the clumps of butter. And the leftover water (containing whey and small clumps of cream), called buttermilk, tastes pretty good.

I really should have made this before.

Making Butter from Mark Hamzy on Vimeo.

Climbing Enchanted Rock


Enchanted Rock

I drove to Enchanted Rock today. It’s been quite sometime since I went there previously. It was a beautiful day out. We arrived at around 8:30 in the morning. And unfortunately people started arriving in droves. Including big groups of very loud people. I had wanted to enjoy a peaceful climb. But it was not meant to be. I guess that, for the next time, I need to camp there overnight and climb it at first light.


Warren and I

My next door neighbor was game to come along. And we posed for this picture at around 1/4th of the way up. There was a handy rock to set the camera on. Unfortunately, the facial recognition count-down feature did not work. But the standard 10-second count-down did.

Old Planes

As we were climbing, three old propeller-driven aircraft used the rock as a way-point and performed a turn for us.


cloud trail matched with plant

With three cloud trails forming a \ | /, I centered the picture on a bloom from some sort of yucca plant.



When I got to the top, I saw some beautiful islands of grass, moss, and cactus. They were very zen-like in a sea of pink granite.



I thought I was hallucinating that there was a dark streak in the sky. So I took a picture of it. At least the camera shared my hallucination.

Hole 3 tree


Hole 3 Tree

I tried a vertical panorama of a tree today and learned some things. Even turning the white balance to a specific setting, and turning the automatic focusing off, I still ran into problems. My dynamic range was blown in the last picture on the top. This caused the tree itself to go almost black. So when I tried to recover the bark, the picture turned very grainy and noisy.

So, for the next time, I will take a set of multiple exposures for each position in the range. And the aperture will be fixed so that the depth of field will not be compromised.

Cookbook Bookshelf shelf space

I have bought a number of cookbooks over the past year. They are:

Unfortunately, they have remained on my breakfast table instead of residing in the bookshelf. I am now motivated to place them where they belong. However, the bookshelf is already full. So books must be kicked out.


Cookbook Bookshelf shelf space

The cookbooks are (top shelf):

(middle shelf):

Swimming in Barton Springs


Swimming in Barton Springs

I went swimming today in Barton Springs. It was quite an experience! First of all it is really cold. You would think 68 degree water would not be that bad. After all, I wear shorts and short-sleeved shirts in that weather. But it took me a while to acclimate to it.

The next odd thing is there are plants living in this pool just below the surface. So when you swim, you are brushing against them and swimming through them. The pool is also quite deep so there is no standing around to rest.

It was certainly fun. I should try it in Winter when it is freezing out. I bet it would feel quite warm…

A bike ride

This is my first attempt at creating a video of my bike ride. The video is created from a series of 257 pictures taken with a Canon G10 at 30 second intervals and was attached to my handlebars.

The first problem with this video is the blurriness of some of the photos. There were a couple of reasons why. It was overcast so the shutter speed was not enough to compensate for the occasional bump. And my road bike has no shocks.

The second problem was that the camera mount was attached via velcro straps. These straps did not handle bumps too well. The camera would get jarred out of position. And a couple of times it spun completely around. Sigh.

It was also annoying that the camera took up my usual resting spot for my left hand. This made for an uncomfortable 29.48km trip.

Dead Vine Pattern


Climbing Vines pattern

They cut down the climbing vine again. Which should be no big deal. It seems to grow back in a year. Its a really fast growing vine.

It left an interesting pattern on the wall….