Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

Today I tried to photograph a perfect drop of water. This is not as easy a task as it may sound. Luckily, I’ve read few tips on how to do it some time ago. Interesting background is easy to make - just rip an advertising page out of some magazine (such as Cosmopolitan) - and you are done. Drops fall fast, so shutter priority mode is preferrable. I shot in Manual (1/200, f/5.6, ISO 100), since Rebel’s metering system was confused about what I wanted to do and overexposed everything way too much.

The only thing which I didn’t have with me was a tripod. Tripod is needed to prefocus camera, since it does a louzy job of finding focus points in the pool of water and some magazine page at the bottom. It always tried to focus on the magazine page. I’ll leave tripod for the next time.

Album location: /photos/2004/2004-10-31_POTD

I just watched “Lethal Weapon” on TV. I’ve seen plenty of times before, even had it on video. It’s been a while since I saw it last time though. This film is one of those actions which never get old. You can see that special effects and budget are not up to today’s levels, but it does still provide a lot of entertainment.

What I like about this film is that it is very thourough with details. All characters are well developed and individual. There are plenty of these tiny bits which are not important, but which add a lot to the quality of the movie. Like the bad cooking of Roger’s wife and singing cops in the station. All of these makes a movie so much more beleivable.

Since I haven’t voted for it at IMDB yet, I’ll go and give a 7 out of 10. Sequals rule too, but more on this later…

Usuall I hate it when they change time back and forward to save some daylight. Today though was the first time I was glad that they do it. I came home at 3:00am from yesterday’s festival. At 7:00am I had to go work (morning NOC shift). By coinsedence, daylight saving time change was at 4:00am and I had another hour to sleep through.

Most of today I spent at Amateur Song Festival in Kakomalis. It was the third one in the last two years. By the way, the official name is KSP, which should be written in Russian letters. It can be roughly translated as Kakomalis Song Phestival.

Anyway, there were lots and lots of people, nevermind the lack of advertising. Plenty of regulars, but few new faces too. Lots and lots of music, food, and drinks, and general fun. Those who didn’t go missed a lot!

I have made a few pictures, which are available here.

I’ve made a whole lot of pictures today at the festival. I’ll just select this one as a submission for the project.

Album location: /photos/2004/2004-10-30_POTD