To that end I’ve started to invest is some fantastic ‘vintage’ gear. When shooting video, and to a lesser extent stills, on these new hybrid HDSLRs the need for good manual focus lenses becomes paramount. Modern stills lenses just don’t have the control surface that the older lenses do, the manufacturer assuming that you’d use autofocus instead. Well, in video mode we’re currently out of luck in the AF corner. However, older Olympus, Nikon, and a few other brands can easily be converted to work with modern Canon cameras by using a relatively cheap adapter. And hooray for that adapter.

So, I’ve been eBay stalking a few vintage lenses from the 70s, if for no other reason that they can be had for cheap. I’ve had my eye on an Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm f/2.8 forever, and I finally snagged one that is in mint condition. I’ve been needing a wider lens for a while and the Zuiko 28mm is the perfect fit.

I finally got out last week with the intent of testing it for timelapse photography out at the Baker Wetlands south of Lawrence on 31st. It this gorgeous little patch of land that has been embroiled in a battle over highway access for decades. After that evening I think I’m firmly in the camp of keeping it. Forever. Here is the painfully short timelapse I was able to capture of a spring sunset in KS. I was fighting with my equipment for too long before being able to get things going, so I didn’t get enough frames shot to capture more of the moment. Regardless, I’m very happy with how it turned out overall and can’t wait to continue using my TI-83 calculator as my intervalometer. I suppose this is the reason I took Calc in school?

While getting everything setup and properly exposed I snapped this sunset which I’ve fallen in love with. I’m still kicking myself for not starting the timelapse sooner. I could have gotten even more of this!

I’ve also needed to invest in a telephoto lens. Wanting to get into more wildlife photography, I’ve realized I’m never going to get close enough with my nifty 50mm, and my 80s era 28-70mm wasn’t long enough either. So, I looked into some of the 70s era Nikkor (Nikon) glass and came around to this gorgeous Nikkor-Q.C Auto 135mm f/2.8 (second one down). It is one serious lens, and I’ll admit it, just looks cool attached to my camera. The 135mm was what I used to take the shot below of my Dad. As I said these lenses are completely manual, including focus, so I was thrilled that my first time out with it I was able to grab a semi-decent sports/action shot. There is hope for being able to use it as a long portrait or action lens yet. It felt really good to be manually controlling all aspects of the shot; everything from aperture, shutter speed, iso to focus – it was my capture. No computers doing the work!

I’ve never decided if this here blog is supposed to be a personal or professional space? It’s definitely flirted with both, but somehow it seems that I’m in a place where those two things seem to be constantly mixing and collapsing in on themselves. One of my oldest friends lost his Father in the past couple of weeks. It was a tough loss, not only for him and his family, but for just about every life he touched. And in relating it to this post, I was very happy to have snagged a shot like this of my own Dad. He’s been a runner forever, pushing 100 miles a week in College, and while I’ve never been much of an athlete I was very pleased to be able bond with him over taking photos out at his latest race. Doing so really made the whole weekend heading back for the funeral come full circle for me.

Anyway, the last few months have been incredibly busy around here between the day job ramping up into another round of research/product testing, to lots of freelance rotoscoping work. It’s been hard to step back and have a lot of time for the Lady and family. These past two weeks have been really nice as things have slowed down a little and allowed for a little bit of reflection. Being able to capture a moment out in the relatively solitude of the wetlands, along with a bonding moment with my father has made all the difference for me and I’m glad I got off my duff and made it happen.

Growing up three blocks away from one of the premiere space museums in the world, also smithsonian affiliated by the way, I feel a serious bond with the museum. Not only did it seem like we took a field trip every year in elementary school, and we always took family members when they came to town, but back when my Dad ran the food service for the local community college we were there every week catering one meal or another. That was one place were helping my Dad never got old. This wasn’t some silly college-board-of-what-ever-meal, this was where they had stuff from SPACE!

We were even allowed “backstage” for lack of a better term, and my Dad always made sure to point out the new exhibits in progress and the pieces/parts of how things went together. On one trip we even got to play with the simulators as my Dad arranged a special tour for my Aunt Char who worked in the simulator industry at the time. It is/was a special place and I feel like most people from Hutchinson don’t appreciate what a truly amazing resource and experience the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center holds.

I feel about this place the way people feel about baseball, the Lincoln Memorial, or St. Peter’s. This is a museum that existed throughout my entire childhood and is an amazing place to go home too and kind of reset the internal life barometer. I know, cheesy right? But I’ve been fighting to put my feelings into words the past couple of days and this is the best I could do.

Now, the lobby is dominated by a giant Blackbird (SR-71), which is possibly one of the most amazing vehicles ever designed by man. Seeing one up close is like stepping back in time to an age where American might was displayed via engineering prowess and this was one of our crowning achievements. The “Rescue” photo and this one above are just two of the fantastic looks at this beauty the Cos provides. Oh, and did I mention that we’re still just in the lobby?

Once down in the actual “Hall of Space” Museum, at least it was called that when I was kid, I’m instantly at peace. What can I say? It’s one of my favorite most relaxing places in the world. Eighty years of rocket and space exploration related history washes over you from the German V2, to Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo and the largest collection of Russian space artifacts outside of Moscow. Oh did I mention that most of what is exhibited are actual space artifacts? Real honest to goodness shit that flew in SPACE, including Gemini 7. That’s right, the one that sunk to the bottom of the ocean, lovingly restored with original parts by the Cosmosphere craftsmen.

However, the crown jewel in mind is the actual Command Module from Apollo 13. Not some lame movie prop, although the Cos did built the amazing props for Ron Howard’s Apollo 13, but the real honest to goodness Aquarius that got the Astronauts there and back again.

The Apollo era is what I ended up photographing for the majority of my three hour stint in the museum. I pretty much camped out and shot the Aquarius from very every angle possible. Unfortunately, the reflections from all the other exhibits make it next to impossible to snag a decent wide angel photograph of the actual Command Module, so I concentrated on shooting the interiors of both the LEM and Aquarius, however there is an exterior shot below just for reference.

Also, taking advantage of the fact that my little Canon, with a nifty-fifty, can shoot stunning HD video, I spent some time on my tippy toes shooting into the cockpits of the various exhibits attempting to simulate being in the real thing. Considering it is the real thing, the only challenges were avoiding reflections, no small task as you can see above, and keeping the camera steady. After a bit of rolling shutter correction via The Foundry I was able to get a decent 3D track of the camera in PFTrack. I still need to use this data to smooth out the camera to make it less spastic, but it should turn out as a really great mograph/vfx shot once I add some super-fantastic elements. The best part is that the lighting inside the Aquarius was perfect and once I grade it I’m expecting things to look fantastic.

I could probably sum this post up with some grand bit of writing about space exploration and the dreams of young kid who wanted to be an astronaut…and who realized that was never going to happen and instead focused on learning how to make movies pretending people were astronauts, but that might be a little ridiculous and over the top. Instead, I just wanted to share some thoughts about a place I hadn’t visited in a long time, much like this blog, and share some of the nerd-ery I’ve been into lately.

This weekend I tore the guts out an old radio cabinet in hopes of placing the home theatre gear that currently resides below the television inside. My Media Mini (Mac Mini) was a fairly easy fit along with the center channel speaker. However, the Xbox (otherwise known as the “hotbox”) didn’t have enough room to breath and not overheat…so that plan was nixed.

Hailing from an era when technology was also seen as furniture, I didn’t want to see the cabinet shell go to waste, so I stuck my office speakers inside and my turntable on top. So while the cabinet lives on I didn’t have room for all the glorious tubes and resisters inside. Before I completely dismantled the thing I took a couple of photographs of what I think is probably the coolest bit about analog technology. I’ve always loved the way tube guitar amps sound, and someday I’m going to either build or track down a functional tube stereo for my office. I know I could never convince the lady that a stereo needed to warm up for 10 minutes before it became audibly usable, but I sure don’t mind. In the mean time I’m thinking about making prints of these to hang above the cabinet. A fitting tribute to the beauty of old technology, both inside and out.

EVERYTHING else is older stuff that she’s found via antique dealers or auctions, so I can’t really complain when she’s going out sleuthing on a holiday morning.

Instead, I’m sitting in front of the computer, watching Nuke render out my latest daily, enjoying some alt/folk and sipping my coffee. I love iTunes’ ability to make up the ultimate morning/coffee playlist complete with Andrew Bird, the Decembrists, Rogue Wave, Bon Iver, Wilco, Eliott Smith, Death Cab and Bob. It turns into a crank every stereo in the house and knock some things out morning. Doing laundry while the computer churns, and I’m nodding along to my favorite contemplative tunes.

The reason I’m brain dumping now, is that I’ve realized I need to write and post more of my progress. If I force myself to post that means I have to a.) post more pics to go with it and b.) post my progress on my personal projects. Since I can’t link to most of the work stuff, I have to feel like I’m adding something out the interwebs.

Although, I did find the disney ad I worked on last winter on the youtubes the other day. It’s for EuroDisney (Disney Paris) and I worked on 2/3s of the roto you see in and around the cabin. Here’s the link.

Also, here are a couple of nature photos. One is of this amazing spider web I caught in our backyard, and the other is from the Fieldstone Orchard from last fall. This past week it’s been feeling like fall is just around the corner, which means picking our own apples and Teressa’s amazing apple pies.

Last but not least here is the latest daily in my super project. I’ve done a lot of roto (cutting people out of the frame) over the years, and while it’s an incredibly manual process, I challenged myself to key and roto this shot without a single keyframe of animation. Instead I used the 3d track from before, projected my rotoshapes onto 3D cards and ran it through the 3D camera solve. Turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. Just needs a little touch up where the street lights pop and a railing, but way easier than rotoing 1600+ frames of buildings. You may be asking what in the world does this accomplish? Well, two things really. One, I can perform a sky replacement now and punch up what was a pretty blah sky. Second, I can now animate objects so they look like they are passing between the buildings. Exciting stuff I know. Next up, I promise something a little more thrilling than red outlined building, but this is just another step in creating something good.

First up…WE MOVED!!!

Two blocks.  Down the street.

Teressa found this adorable rental house that just so happened to open up when we needed it. Fate really. That was back in February, and we moved in late April.  We’ve been spending most all of our free time painting, gardening, settling in and building furniture (more on that in a later post).  Oh, and obsessively catching up on This Old House. Tom Silva is turning into my personal hero.

It’s a great house, and we’ve just about got all of our stuff where it needs to go. Best part of the house?  Teressa and I both have our own workspaces, so now we can both burn the midnight oil on projects and not annoy each other.  Although, I do kind of miss being able to spin around in my chair and annoy her with some thing on the internet…but now I can just yell it out around the corner.

A Trip

In early July we both made a trek up north to Chicago for a joint, but separate, bachelor/bachelorette party for our good friends Zach & Cortney. Since we were already booking flights we decided to stick around for a few days and check out the Chicago scenery and finally drop in on Ben & Martha.  As per usual I forgot to take pictures of the people we went to visit and got hung up taking pictures of the environment.  Here are a few photos from the fabulous architecture boat tour, couldn’t recommend it enough.  I ended up spending most of my time focusing on the gorgeous bridges and towers that line the Chicago river, and pushing them a little further than normal, but Teressa is already planning on framing a few…so mission accomplished.  What can I say, I’m really just trying to impress her.

A Camera

Which brings me to my new favorite gadget.  While Teressa probably wouldn’t admit it my gadget lust has subsided over the years. I’ve been more interested in what I can do with the things I have (ala Merlin and John), and not so much on the latest and greatest.  However, Canon has been introducing stills cameras that have a built in HD video mode…and I finally had to break down and buy one.  The t2i to be exact. It’s fantastic.  I’ve been shooting video personally/professionally since I was about 10 years old but I’ve never owned my own video camera.  One word; revelation. I can get up a 6am and run around town shooting magic hour sunrises and I have zero permissions to obtain to do it.  Well, except for Teressa’s…but I tend to make up for that by bringing back bagels.

If you can’t tell I’m super excited to be able to scratch this itch again, and I can’t wait to show you some of the actual results.  But patients…video/mograph is a dish best served slowly in this regard.  To tide you over dear reader, here is a daily from my matchmove test on some footage I shot from the river.  Now I just need to roto, animate, composite and color correct it.  Who said technology was making things easier again?  Freelancing/Day job tend to get in the way of me making pretty short films for fun..but trust me they are coming.

There’s an update on what’s going on around here.  I’m going to quite promising to post more work/freelance related stuff on here until I’m ready to post it.  Creating impressive demo reels is hard, and I keep getting distracted by actual work (thanks boundaryvfx guys), but I promise it’s coming soon…if for no other reason than my mother might finally be able to understand what it is I do for a living.  It’s something with computers and cameras I think….

Anyway, just thought I throw up some photos and post an update around here to make sure all my switcheroos are working properly.

I love Ben’s art. There, I said it.

Yesterday we had a lovely coffee date with Ben and his blushing bride to be, Martha (see bennyandmartha). Martha and Teressa were there for wedding planing business, more specifically the pastries and cakes for the reception. I couldn’t be more excited that Teressa is helping out, as I get to be the official cake-taste-tester while she figures out exactly which recipes are working and which ones are not.

While the ladies discussed all things bakery, Ben and I sat on the other end of the table and nerded out about TVs, movies, video games, and most of all his latest artwork. Ben hooked me up with four of his latest Moo cards to promote his awesome etsy store and blog. Check out the store to get full sized prints, and more importantly check a few of my favorites including “Watcher,” “Super Dee” and “The Start of Something Big.”

In the tech press this week the world’s been all aflutter with stories about url shortening services shutting down and links to content being lost to the 404′d internet ether. After reading a few comments by Dave Winer, John Gruber, Matt Mullenweg and even the Buzz Out Loud Crew, I decided to look into how hard it would be to setup and configure my own custom url shortener. This is not because I think I’m operating at the same level as any of the above, but that I like to own my content. If this website is anything it’s an experiment for me to understand the inner workings of the web for users, content producers and media shops alike.

While I’m in no way a big name blogger, this site is a place for me to update friends, learn as well as promote myself and my work. If this website were to disappear tomorrow very few people would notice, and the web would just continue chugging along. This effect is multiplied even further when it comes to my use of short urls (like bit.ly, tinyurl.com or tr.im). No one cares if my short url links on twitter or facebook just stop working. But I care…and that’s what matters.

I can hear you saying Matt, you don’t have everything on this site under one roof, and that’s true. I used to locally host my own photos with open source software but I just gave up. The software wasn’t updated very consistently and there were many bugs. Eventually I just started using flickr.com full time…I even setup a paid account. I started embracing flickr with open arms due to the ability to upload and tweet photos to flickr from my iPhone with a combo of twitterrific and mobile fotos. I don’t own the urls where my photos live and any day Yahoo could just announce they are closing flickr and all my links and photos would go poof. The only solace I have that this won’t happen, like half the “free” web services out there, is that I’m paying for flickr. The chances of it disappearing, at least in my monkey brain, decrease dramatically when money changes hands.

So, after a little googling I came across an article by lifehacker discussing how to setup yourls.org on your own php server. Exactly what I was looking for. After only about 15-20 minutes of setup I was up and running. The bulk of the time was my hosting service updating the DNS records so that the mattkapp.net url was live and pointing at my server.

I’ve been testing this a little so you should be able to click this link (http://mattkapp.net/3) and it will take you to my flickr photos. Yourls will shorten any url I want and is protected behind a password so that spammers can’t take control of the url and blast out messages with my domain. Also it allows me to automatically tweet when I have updated a blog post to my twitter account. At first glance this feels a little spammy, however I don’t post all that often and I figure that if someone is following my tweets they’d be interested in my more long form ramblings.

So consider this post me planting my flag in the sand and controlling my content’s destiny; as well as a simple project to distract from all the 3D/Comp work I’ve been doing and a way to test out the shiny software I’ve discovered. Enjoy, and if anyone has trouble setting up thier own let me know and I’ll try to help.

Teressa and I spent most of our down time split between the fantastic Stephen F. Austin Hotel and checking out the historical and political sites of Austin…including the gorgeous State Capital and the LBJ presidential library and musuem. The latter being a very moving museum and display of his Presidential archive and artifacts. Both Teressa and I found ourselves wiping away tears while reading a passage from one of Johnson’s State of the Union speeches. As much as the country loved Kennedy, it was really clear that Johnson was the president who brought home the promises of JFK, including equal rights, the American dream (via his Great Society) and most of all the space program. I have to say that I really walked away with a much greater respect for the man. It also reminded me that we HAVE to stop by the Eisenhower museum in Abilene sometime. I’ve driven past it every time I visit my parent’s and have always been in too big of a hurry to stop. That changes next time.

All and all it was a fantastic and beautiful wedding, and Teressa looked like a million bucks on my arm. Also, it was really nice to take a vacation. We haven’t left town for a trip in over a year and it was really refreshing to spend 4 days with my lady…but it made going back to the ol’ grind more than a little tough. My only complaint was that we couldn’t seem to find any of the local flair that people equate with Austin. Everyone we talked to said Austin was like a big Lawrence, and in the sense that there is a College, lots of bars and restaurants they were spot on. But we couldn’t seem to find any kind of local, quirky shops that we’ve come to love about downtown Lawrence. Oh, well…maybe next time!?

Oh and Matt & Libby, thanks again for the sunglasses…I’ve never felt like such a hipster!

I shot this photo while out on a walk with Teressa right down the street from KU. I noticed it while walking home from work one day and crossed my fingers that no one had gotten up the gumption to paint over it. It’s one of those rare urban art projects that I think is actually fantastic. I printed a 16×20 via Aperture & Apple’s photo service and it looks so good. The version on flickr looks a little over sharpened, but the print is perfect.

Next week we are heading off to Austin, TX to attend my musical compatriot’s wedding and I’m excited to get together with everyone. I’m also pumped to take a lot of photos while in Austin. My photography tends to happen in peaks and valleys and I’m hoping to find some great Austin locals to itch my shutter finger.

I promise to post more on this here site. I’m working on a new demo reel and layout fix to showcase my work, and then we’ll have the site fully armed and operational.