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Something That I Worked On Is Now Interstellar
September 12, 2013 The Atlantic reports on Voyager 1 reaching interstellar space. I wrote software for a very small part of this project -- but it is still one of the more long-term activities of my life.
UPDATE: A commenter asked for some detail on my involvement with this project. It is one of the weird little parts of my life. During my first year of college at USC, I was frantically looking for a part-time job so that I could stay in school. Tuition was not a problem: the combination of the California State Scholarship and financial assistance from USC covered the entire $2910 annual bill. (Yes, and pterodactyls still roamed the skies.) Books were not too bad -- typically about $300 a year.
The problem was that I needed enough money to cover my rent, groceries, utilities, and gasoline to drive my heap of a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu station wagon back and forth to USC. I received a modest $200 or so a month check from Social Security as a college student dependent on a disabled parent. That was not quite enough to cover the bills. It was close.
But unskilled jobs were in short supply. It was 1975, and the economy was in some respects as bad as it is today. I could not get a job flipping burgers, or any other unskilled job. Nothing was available in the Santa Monica/West Los Angeles area where I lived.
Suddenly, a full-time job opened up with the school district. They needed a computer geek, and I thought: Hey, the first semester was really easy: easy A in English, freshman chemistry, Introduction to Film, and a B in first semester calculus. (This was the hard calculus sequence for physical science majors.) So I took the full-time job...and attended school full-time second semester. And this was not easy. In fact, after two months of doing this, I concluded that it was not practical to define database requirements eight hours a day (and partly at night) and take classes mostly in the daytime at USC. So I quit the day job.
And I forgot that the Social Security check would be cut off as soon as they saw that I was earning a decent wage. But by the time that happened, it was June, and it was impossible to get it turned back on, now that I no longer had that full-time job, so the need to find some sort of job was that much more severe. And all summer long: Jack-in-the-Box? McDonalds? I even applied for a job as a projectionist at an adult movie theater. (No, I had not been in audio-visual club in high school, so I had no idea how to run a projector, but I was sure that I could learn.)
Time was getting short, but it turned out that while I lacked the skills and capabilities to flip burgers, there was one job that I could get at 18: Jet Propulsion Labs. On Monday, I saw a newspaper ad by Telos Computing, one of the companies with a contract to supply software engineers to JPL. I sent my resume. Wednesday they had me come into the office in Santa Monica. That afternoon, I drove out to JPL in my incredibly 1970s powder blue leisure suit, and Friday, they called me, and told me to start work at JPL on Monday. I was paid $1200 a month, mostly because that is what I asked for, and I was even then a pretty articulate if nerdy and introverted sort.
I wrote software for the near-real-time telemetry processing system for what was then called the Mariner Jupiter-Saturn project (MJS), but was later renamed to Voyager. It was a really cool experience. When they hired me, I do not think I was qualified to do the job; by the time they fired me, almost a year later, I actually was qualified to do the job -- and it certainly opened many doors for me in later years.
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UPDATE: A commenter asked for some detail on my involvement with this project. It is one of the weird little parts of my life. During my first year of college at USC, I was frantically looking for a part-time job so that I could stay in school. Tuition was not a problem: the combination of the California State Scholarship and financial assistance from USC covered the entire $2910 annual bill. (Yes, and pterodactyls still roamed the skies.) Books were not too bad -- typically about $300 a year.
The problem was that I needed enough money to cover my rent, groceries, utilities, and gasoline to drive my heap of a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu station wagon back and forth to USC. I received a modest $200 or so a month check from Social Security as a college student dependent on a disabled parent. That was not quite enough to cover the bills. It was close.
But unskilled jobs were in short supply. It was 1975, and the economy was in some respects as bad as it is today. I could not get a job flipping burgers, or any other unskilled job. Nothing was available in the Santa Monica/West Los Angeles area where I lived.
Suddenly, a full-time job opened up with the school district. They needed a computer geek, and I thought: Hey, the first semester was really easy: easy A in English, freshman chemistry, Introduction to Film, and a B in first semester calculus. (This was the hard calculus sequence for physical science majors.) So I took the full-time job...and attended school full-time second semester. And this was not easy. In fact, after two months of doing this, I concluded that it was not practical to define database requirements eight hours a day (and partly at night) and take classes mostly in the daytime at USC. So I quit the day job.
And I forgot that the Social Security check would be cut off as soon as they saw that I was earning a decent wage. But by the time that happened, it was June, and it was impossible to get it turned back on, now that I no longer had that full-time job, so the need to find some sort of job was that much more severe. And all summer long: Jack-in-the-Box? McDonalds? I even applied for a job as a projectionist at an adult movie theater. (No, I had not been in audio-visual club in high school, so I had no idea how to run a projector, but I was sure that I could learn.)
Time was getting short, but it turned out that while I lacked the skills and capabilities to flip burgers, there was one job that I could get at 18: Jet Propulsion Labs. On Monday, I saw a newspaper ad by Telos Computing, one of the companies with a contract to supply software engineers to JPL. I sent my resume. Wednesday they had me come into the office in Santa Monica. That afternoon, I drove out to JPL in my incredibly 1970s powder blue leisure suit, and Friday, they called me, and told me to start work at JPL on Monday. I was paid $1200 a month, mostly because that is what I asked for, and I was even then a pretty articulate if nerdy and introverted sort.
I wrote software for the near-real-time telemetry processing system for what was then called the Mariner Jupiter-Saturn project (MJS), but was later renamed to Voyager. It was a really cool experience. When they hired me, I do not think I was qualified to do the job; by the time they fired me, almost a year later, I actually was qualified to do the job -- and it certainly opened many doors for me in later years.
I ABSOLUTELY DARE YOU!
… to watch this video and not be deeply touched …
Spelling Father from stillmotion on Vimeo.
I Love Long Telephoto Zoom Lens !!
Every single lens is designed for intended specific purpose, some lenses may carry more than one purpose, but no one lens can do everything. Some lenses are preferred for certain photography shooting circumstances, some lenses are required to create the desired effect and outcome to match the photographers vision. It is true that choices of lenses and subsequent preferences are highly dependent on the photographers shooting style and needs. I particularly disagree with people having fixed guidelines, such as "this lens is a must have lens" or "to improve you must remove the zoom and shoot with prime". Whatever you choose to shoot with, you should know what you want and whether the choices of your gear is capable to deliver the end-results you look for. I think the main problem is many photographers (new-comers especially) do not really know what they want to accomplish in the first place, and hoping that whatever gear and equipment they have based on loose recommendations from peers can produce that miracle results. Miracles do happen, but unfortunately they do not happen frequent enough.
I have a soft spot for long telephoto zoom lenses. I think somewhere within everyone there is that yearning and lust for something bigger, longer, and more powerful. Pun intended, sorry. Male pride and ego came into the equation, and long lenses have somehow become the display of that ego, as much as many photographers choose to deny the fact. There is that certain prestige and status when you see the photographer whipped out that gigantic sized lens, and the ones with lesser and smaller lenses would automatically bow down and give way for the "large lens". Not exactly a good way to stereotype photographers in general, I admit. We should not encourage this kind of culture, sadly, it is happening everywhere.
All images in this entry were taken with Olympus DSLR E-5 and Zuiko Digital 50-200mm F2.8-3.5 ED (non-SWD).
Gaze into the big, long, telephoto lens.
182mm, ISO400, F3.4, 1/320sec
100% Crop from previous image.
Facial expression intensified with a long lens.
200mm, ISO400, F3.5, 1/1000sec
Street beggar.
117mm, ISO400, F3.0, 1/1600sec
Sleepy Sunday
117mm, ISO400, F3.0, 1/800sec, shot with live view, camera on the floor.
Hello from a long distance
200mm, ISO400, F3.5, 1/1250sec
Aged and still braving the streets
158mm, ISO400, F3.2, 1/1600sec
When I started DSLR photography, after purchasing the Olympus E-410, immediately a few weeks after that I bought the much raved about 40-150mm F3.5-4.5 mk1 which was quite a great tele-photo lens in its own category. The possibilities the lens generated for me was incredible, and the joy of my shutter therapy sessions have been amplified. It was my favourite lens for a long, long time, and I used both the kit lens and the zoom lens only with my E-410 and subsequently E-520 before adding any new lenses. They were sufficient to achieve what I wanted to do with my gear. Of course, time moves on, and the appetite for more power and flexibility grew over time, and I saw my camera bodies and lenses grew larger in size, and the need for larger camera bag has become an issue for more than one occasion.
Now with the addition of the Olympus Zuiko 50-200mm F2.8-3.5 ED Mk1, it was a welcome, and I truly have fallen deeply in love with this lens. I have used it very extensively for my past few shooting sessions, covering live stage dance performances, musical theater show, and most recently, I went to the streets with this beautiful lens. Gosh, I miss using tele lens on the street !! I missed how far the tele-photo lens can reach, and how effortlessly it could isolate the subject from the background. I miss the working distance the longer lens provided, which helped in many areas of street photography. This surely clashes with many rules (who made them anyway?) such as you must shoot with primes on the streets, you must use wide angle lens and get as close as you can to your subjects, you should not use long zoom lenses because your subjects would look distant and disconnected in the end. Screw those rules. I love my tele lens and I want to use it. That is enough reason for me to lug around the over sized lens and camera body (E-5) around streets of Chow Kit earlier morning, today.
Loaded trishaw
69mm, ISO400, F2.8, 1/2000sec
Safe on Fathers arms
158mm, ISO400, F3.2, 1/500sec
Sunday morning folks
182mm, ISO400, F3.4, 1/500sec
Side profile
147mm, ISO400, F3.2, 1/1000sec
Deep excavation
200mm, ISO400, F3.5, 1/2000sec
A place to sit down.
200mm, ISO400, F3.5, 1/1600sec
Cheerful
117mm, ISO400, F3.0, 1/800sec
These are the characteristics of a long telephoto zoom lens that I really treasure:
1) Extra REACH
The 200mm (400mm equivalent on 35mm format, since Olympus equivalent field of view is 2x) telephoto-end is a great joy to have. I do admit I seldom need anything beyond 150mm, and on average, I shoot between 100-150mm long range only, which was sufficient to cover most of my needs on the street.
Nonetheless, the extra long reach does come in very, very handy when you want to attack subjects from a far distance. For example, shooting from across the 5 lanes road, or sniping away into the corridor of the building across the street. The ability to transport your view so much closer to you without the need to physically move the camera and yourself nearer can be quite an advantage in many shooting situations. There would always be the conflict of photographing specific sensitive subjects such as beggars and the homeless on the streets, where permission would most likely not be granted when you shoot them from a close range. I have the strong urge to shoot them regardless of the situation, because sometimes the scene is just so powerful and it called out to you to take action with your camera. In such situation, it is undeniable that the extra reach of the tele-photo lens will get the job done for you. Besides, shooting from a far distance will make you look less threatening, and allows you to blend into the background, because you can quickly disappear from the scene easily after getting your shot, without coming in too close in range with your subjects.
2) Perspective Compression Effect
If you have used long lenses a lot, you would know that the longer the zoom, the more compressed your image would be, having tight background, and seeing less items being covered in one single frame. I love tight framing. I do not really like that much empty or negative space in my photograph. I want as little things in my photograph as possible, only presenting one subject and one background, if possible. I would choose to minimize clutter, and only capture plain, simple background. The tele-photo lens seriously was breeze to use in accomplished the said objectives, only capturing a small portion of the background.
Furthermore, the said compressed perspective also works wonders for portrait photography. It creates a flattering look on the subjects facial and body profile, producing good proportions on the body and head size, with minimal if no barrel or perspective distortion at all. Since my street shooting deals a lot with people photography, the 50-200mm really shines. The people facial profile captured with this lens was incredibly pleasing, and the compression effect allowed me to isolate my subject so easily.
3) Bokeh bokeh bokeh
The longer the lens, the better the bokeh. A lot of people only thought of the aperture affecting the depth of field, that the lower the F-Number (larger aperture opening), the more bokeh (blur background) they can achieve. Besides aperture opening, there are two other factors that affect the field of view, namely the focal length and focusing distance (how far are you from your subject). The longer the focal length (say, 150mm vs 50mm), the closer you stand towards your subject, the less depth of field will be captured, hence producing great bokeh. In fact, the quality and characteristics of long lens bokeh appear rather different from the shorter prime lenses bokeh (50mm F1.4, 30mm F1.4, for example). The longer lens has the added "oomph" factor from the previous point, the compressed perspective effect, with less background, the blur becomes more pronounced and "cleaner". I love bokeh. I think many others who picked up DSLR has at least considered that they wanted that extra creamy bokeh in their shots, and I have a few friends who decided to get DSLR just purely for the bokeh alone. Long lenses can produce incredibly pleasing and creamy bokeh, and I am loving what it can do for me on the streets !!
Start of the day for a Cobbler.
147mm, ISO400, F3.2, 1/800sec
At the roadside.
182mm, ISO400, F3.4, 1/1600sec
Unlock
200mm, ISO400, F3.5, 1/200sec
Hanging overhead
137mm, ISO400, F3.1, 1/640sec
Fighting with buses.
200mm, ISO400, F3.5, 1/800sec
By the door.
83mm, ISO400, F2.8, 1/1000sec
OMG you are on camera !!
200mm, ISO400, F3.5, 1/100sec
I totally understand that everyone has their own choice of weapon to use in their photography walk. I would choose to use something smaller, lighter, such as the 50mm F2 macro for my usual shutter therapy sessions. I also acknowledge the fact that wide angle lenses play an important role in all sorts of photography, including street photography, and I have shown the use of the wide angle lens (both 8mm fisheye and the super wide angle 11-22mm) in many blog entries previously. Nevertheless, the 50-200mm is still very new to me, and I am slowly discovering the lens bit by bit. For strange reasons, I did not feel strained in any way when I was walking on the streets with the E-5 and 50-200mm hanging on my neck. Perhaps that was because I was not holding the camera and lens combination all the time, I only stopped and shoot when photography opportunities popped out. It was a lot more torturing when I was shooting the dance performance in the previous entry, where I needed to hold the lens steady at all times.
I am learning more and more about the 50-200mm, and it is giving me very satisfactory results so far. I am rather impressed with the overall sharpness. Image quality is top notch, something I already expected from the beginning.
I love tele-lens. Do share your thoughts on the use of long lenses !!
Surprise News! I Have Joined Olympus Malaysia
This may come as a shock to many of you, but I strongly believe it is not entirely unforeseen or unpredicted that I have decided to join Olympus Malaysia in an official capacity. I am now an employee and surely, this will change things.
When I started this blog, I have no idea I would venture so deeply and passionately into the photography world. As I picked up my first DSLR Olympus E-410, I fell in love with the Olympus E-System, and have been a fan ever since. I have been blogging about my photography adventures and sharing my photographs week after week without fail, for the past 8 years. This was a personal blog, meant as place for me to post up personal photographs and share my almost too random thoughts, often even covering true events happening in my life. And then about 3 years ago Olympus Malaysia contacted me and asked me if I would like to do a review for the Olympus E-5. Of course I would say yes and I did it, and ever since, everything changed.
Since my first review of the Olympus E-5, and many other Olympus products after that, I have always served as an independent blogger reviewing the camera from a photography enthusiasts point of view. I never did anything too technical and all my reviews were strongly based on real life user experience and how I would use the camera or lens for my own shutter therapy sessions. I strongly believe that a photography review should be heavily photography based and that was the reason why I always prioritized in producing photographs that are of at least a certain standard to be used for my blog reviews. For some unexplainable reasons, I must have done something right because I have attracted so much attention and have accidentally built a growing audience, that many have returned for regular blog visits even when I am not doing reviews. The response to my review of Olympus gear has been overwhelmingly positive, and many have used them as an unofficial benchmark for photography related reviews. This certainly has become probably one of the largest accomplishments of my life, which I am truly proud of, and happy about.
Unfortunately, gaining readership and popularity also expectedly drew in some unwanted attention. I do get people who have been questioning the validity of my review work, whether if I am biased. Yes, my blog is a personal blog with very subjective opinion, and I lean toward Olympus because I am an Olympus fan and I never did anything to hide that fact. Some even went as far as stating that I was paid by Olympus and that I am one of their "marketing stunts". I have no other way to convince them otherwise but my connections with Olympus has been strictly limited to gear reviews only thus far. I never get any tips or insights about the latest camera news, nor was I told about any of the future plans and releases of Olympus products. Olympus came to me when it was very near to the launch of the new products, and I did my part in reviewing the products and after I returned the gear to them, that was the end of our engagement. Everyone was happy, I get to play with the latest gear (most were amazing and beautiful) and review them on my blog, while Olympus gets the exposure through my blog readership, which is quite sizeable during its peak with about 50,000 page views within 24 hours (highest during the OM-D E-M5 reviews). Considering all these facts, to say that Olympus bought me was false. I have never received anything from Olympus apart from the Olympus E-5, which was a payment for three photographs Olympus Japan bought from me to be used for advertising purposes in 2010.
I was a Civil Engineering graduate, and I have been working in a local Geotechnical Engineering consultant firm in Malaysia for the past nearly 5 years. I love my job as an engineer, and I love working with my colleagues in that company. I was exposed to many interesting projects with developments all around the city, and I have spent so much effort and time to build by career. However, I believe it is not too difficult to see that over the years, my passion and hunger for photography grew larger and larger. For every second that I did not spend working, my mind was occupied with photography world related thoughts. I would find every single opportunity to make some camera shooting happen, combining with my involvement in reviewing the camera gear, photography related activities have taken whatever that was left of my free time. I was drawn to photography and I even started taking paid assignment jobs that include actual day weddings and events coverage.
So why Olympus Malaysia?
I guess, the opportunity came and I have to decide if I were to go on with my mundane, not so exciting life of a Geotechnical Engineer, or take the chance and do something completely new, something completely different, and something that is completely related to what I love: photography and gear. I like shooting and I like to play with cameras and lenses. I thought this would be a way for me to make a difference in my life, to take what I do best, a step further and see how far I can go from here. I know I can contribute to the growth and advancement of the Olympus Brand. Lets give this a try and I do feel very positive about this!
I am not saying that I am leaving my engineering career behind and not to look back ever again. I have an engineering degree and I have some working experience. Being an engineer has taught and trained me well in many areas of life. I was shaped to see things logically and learned to formulate practical solutions to problems. I was brought up in an environment where technical accuracy is important and we have very low tolerance to error. These are the strong foundations that have always helped me in my photography technical background, and I have no issue controlling and using the camera efficiently. I have always stressed that my major problem with photography was not so much on the technical side of things, but the lack of artistic sense which most engineers do suffer. I dont think you can find many creative engineers around, no offence to engineer readers!
I guess, the biggest question here is how will this change of job affect my blog here?
I have always emphasized on honesty and transparency, hence the decision to announce my employment with Olympus Malaysia here, and now. What are the core reasons I have started this blog? To share my photography work, and voice up my random thoughts on photography and life in general, those core motivations to blog will remain and I see no reason why they cannot be done concurrently with me working in Olympus. I will continue on with my shutter therapy sessions and I am more than willing to share my photography adventures here. That will not change, and as usual whatever random thoughts and philosophical debates or ideas coming out from my mind during those shutter therapy sessions, I will do my best to pen them down right here.
The gear related reviews however, will probably face some consequences. Shall I stop all review related blogging considering the fact that everyone knows now I am on Olympus Malaysias payroll? Even if I did continue to blog on Olympus gear review, what is the point of doing so since there is conflict of interest?
I will still do my blog review as usual. And you know what? Some things can be even better.
I understand if I will not be as credible or believable as a reviewer as before, but if you look at it from another perspective, nothing has really changed that much. I have always, always been an admitted Olympus fanboy, and I took every opportunity to show that. What separated my blog review from many other bloggers is my casual approach to photography, being very user experience based driven and heavily relying on real life sample photographs to demonstrate my points. I may not be the most reliable source to trust when it comes to camera advice but my photographs do not lie, and I have been providing even full size image samples for downloads. I have always did my best to be as straightforward as possible in my reviews and I have been the first reviewer to highlight some of the issues of the previous Olympus gear, such as the less than stellar Continuous AF performance on the OM-D E-M5 as well as its lower than expected battery life. In addition to that my notion of not being too impressed with the 17mm F1.8, though personal has been reflected by a few other fellow photographer/blogger reviewers.
On another hand, I have not reviewed any other brands, but Olympus! If I did review Canon or Nikon gear, then by making comparisons and conclusions, I would be gravely misleading and biased. Looking at the history of my review, I have never said this camera is better than that camera or this lens is sharper than that lens. Whatever comparisons I have made was within Olympus own cameras and lenses family.
This time, I have FULL access to any gear and lenses, which mitigated one of the limitations from my previous review sessions. I believe that will make the review even more flexible and I can respond to requests for testing of certain features even better!
Nevertheless, I would leave this page open to you all beautiful readers. I would like to hear your thoughts of me joining Olympus Malaysia, and do share your opinion!
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