A Photographic Thought

February 14, 2008 · Filed Under Digital photography · 14 Comments

Don’t you just love that ‘bokeh’ blurry background effect that photographers get? I do, not all the time, but used appropriately, it can create really memorable images.

How do photographers create this blurred background thing? Quite simple really - it’s all down to having a very shallow depth of field, which is probably easier to understand if you call it ‘depth of focus’. For example, not using real figures: with a certain lens at a certain focal length - that’s the millimetres thing, you know, 28mm, and with a big hole, better known as an ‘aperture’ or ‘f-stop’, say f2.8, only the thing you focus on is in focus, plus a very shallow area behind the thing you focus on. Say, 1.5 metres. This means that anything beyond 1.5 metres, is not in focus. Hey presto! Bokeh!

The trouble is that this depth of focus changes in relation to the length of a lens and the size of the aperture. Smaller apertures, that’s with bigger f numbers (f10, f18, f32 etc) have much deeper focus areas.

This depth of field or focus thing, as you prefer, can be calculated - just search Google for ‘DOF calculators’, and there are even charts to help you. But we live in the digital age now, so why can’t the manufacturers build a DOF display into their cameras? Much better than that silly ‘direct print’ button thing on Canon dSLRs, or so I think.

Just a photographic thought for the day, inspired by this photo, and, if you click, you will see a comment of mine on this very subject.

Tags: camera, cameras, canon, capture, DOF, Google, images, number, photo, photographer, Photography, shot, technology

800 Posts!

January 28, 2008 · Filed Under This blog · 5 Comments

I started off this blog back in January 2005 - this is the first ever post, and I’ve just noticed that my previous post was the eight hundredth. Sounds quite a large number.

I’m quite surprised that I’ve managed to keep this thing going for so long! Who knows when I will run out of steam.

Oh well, here’s to the future. And thanks to one and all for reading and commenting - these things have undoubtedly encouraged me to keep chuntering on.

Have a virtual one on me! - Alex, the guy who writes all this stuff.

Tags: blog, comment, Italy, Me, number, readers, thanks, This blog

Gastronomic weekend

October 15, 2007 · Filed Under Italian Food · Comment

I kissed goodbye to my diet last weekend. The temptations of interesting Italian food just proved too darn strong. It all started on Saturday with a trip to our local rosticceria. There I found that they were doing wild boar cooked in a Barolo sauce. I simply could not resist the temptation and ended up with it and some polenta. It was delicious. The Wild Boar was tender and the sauce was exquisite. My other half and son, who are not partial to wild boar, had to make do with some ‘polpette’ - meatballs, and a courgette flower frittata - a type of thick omelette. I wanted to get them some lasagne and gnocchi alla Romana, but both dishes had sold out. And I managed to get to the rosticceria well before midday. Well, that was Saturday. The best was yet to come.

On Sunday we went to the Paolo Sarpi street fair here in Milan. I will admit to having been a little worried about the size of this fair in view of the ever diminishing number of Italian shops in Via P Sarpi, but luckily, although numbers were down slightly on last year, there were plenty of stands. This is just as well because this annual fair is very well patronized. At 11 on Sunday morning the narrowish street was packed, and I hate the think just how many people would have invaded during the afternoon. Seeing as the weather was fine, I imagine that the crowds would have been on the wrong side of acceptable.

Anyway, we managed to get there early enough to grab one to two goodies. My other half got some wonderful truffle salami and some equally yummy Barolo salami. Then there were the porcini mushrooms, which were immediately turned into a risotto or fried. I ignored the risotto in favour of the fried porcini, which I love. Although I will cook them next time, because I would like these mushrooms to be fried just a little more and with less oil. Then they would be absolutely perfect!

In addition to the salami and mushrooms, we also picked up some Fontina, which is rich and creamy, some delicious long stalked capers, olives and some wine. I picked up some of my favourite honey grappa and a bottle of woodland fruits grappa, which I shall leave until Christmas, by which time it should be perfect. Next we have the Cunesi chocolates which are the most diet ruiningly scrumptious chocolates available in Italy, or so I think.

And finally there was this cheese I had never tried before, but I’m going to devote a whole post to this delicacy because it deserves much more attention.

Yes, I did put on a bit of the weight I had managed to lose, but, what the heck. A little bit of what you feel like does you good. And it did!

Tags: Cheese, delicious, eat, good, interesting, Italia, Italian, Italian food, Italy, Me, Milan, mushrooms, number, Paolo Sarpi, porcini mushrooms, rosticceria, street fair, wonderful

I called the fire brigade today

October 2, 2007 · Filed Under Me · Comment

It’s true. Don’t worry though, it was an accident.

I’ll explain. I was listening to some messages on my mobile, as you do, and at one point I tried to delete a message but, seeing as this was the first time I had used the service on my new phone, I pressed five. Before pressing 5, I had pressed 1, then, before that 1, which equals 115, if you are still with me. Now, 115 is the emergency number for the fire service here in Italy, and my phone cleverly, not, looked up the number and dialled it for me automatically. Some kind of auto number look up function - which I shall switch off, if I can.

Anyway, I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I heard the man on the end of the line say ‘Pompieri’ (Firemen). I sort of blurted out an apology, and explained that I thought my phone was to blame (at that moment, I had not understood what had happened). Instead of being cross, the man told me that it had happened to him too!

The moral of the story: When in Italy and navigating a voice menu system on your mobile, watch out for the auto number search function!

PS I wonder just how much emergency services’ time is being wasted by this mobile ‘function’?

Tags: 115, be careful, call, cell phone, cellulare, emergency services, error, fire brigade, fire service, Information, Italy, Milan, mistake, mobile, mobile phone, number, phone, Useful, watch out