TechDistortion

Travelling Overseas 18 Years Later

I left Canada in March of 2001 in the wake of the Nortel collapse and returned home to Australia. About a year later I met my future wife and now we’re happily married with four beautiful children. With children comes responsibility, expenses and consequently less travel: particularly overseas.

Today I’m flying back to the United States, returning to Houston, which I last visited in mid-2000 on a day trip from Dallas to visit the Johnson Space Center. This time I’m going to the Process Industry Conference PIC 2019 which is run by the International Society for Automation; which as an Electrical and Controls Systems Engineer, is just up my alley.

I did the sums and figured out it had been 18 years since I’d last travelled overseas, not withstanding a brief outing a few kilometres off shore into the Pacific a few years ago. What dawned on me today was how much had changed.

When I travelled as an early 20-something I relied of paper maps, the trustworthy “Lonely Planet” guide books, talking to locals, talking to fellow travellers and researching the hell out of every place I would visit and that meant lots of reading.

There were no Google Maps, no Satellite navigators, GPSs existed but they were rudimentary and flattened batteries within hours and had no road maps to speak of in them. EFTPOS was growing in popularity but you needed cash, and if you had a very early blackberry, 2G mobile coverage was terrible and there was practically no WiFi anywhere.

Today I don’t have to worry about forgetting my wallet since I have my Apple Watch and iPhone for payments. WiFi is everywhere, Smartphones are cheap and everyone has one (pretty much), and every smartphone has a free maps and navigation app built in to it. No paper maps, no cash and oh my god researching anything to go and see and do is a snap!

I realise I’m dating myself but I look back at the younger me, quite literally half my age, and shake my head at how I dealt with it all. It’s been quite a change in the world around us and one for the better I think.

CROPW Link Shortening

I’ve been chipping away slowly at various side projects, including pursing an interest in vocal acting but also updating some business cards for myself and the network. I’ve had cards in the past as part of a promotional thing from Moo and Klout that were a bit odd, and were more about advertising Klout and Moo than what I had intended.

Given that business cards remain the stock and trade at the increasing number of conferences and meet ups I’ve going to (and am planning to go to this week in Houston) I thought it was time to get some new ones. Whilst I remain somewhat ambivalent about 2D barcodes (QR codes) on the whole they remain popular with a lot of people and for those that don’t, I wanted some really short URLs on a system that I controlled. This way a very short URL would mean a very small and potentially unobtrusive 2D bar code OR at least a very short URL.

YourLS (Your Link-shortner) is an open source project that’s been around for many years and it’s a well trodden path to try. It presents a relatively low overhead on a VPS and I aleady had a few VPS’s lying around so threw it up on one. The installation and set up took an hour or so, and I actually spent far more time picking a domain name than I did actually setting up YourLS.

So far as the domain went, the goal of choosing had to fit two criteria: 1) must be less than $10AUD for 2 years, and 2) must be no longer than a public alternative like bit.ly (5 characters excluding the dot). This proved to be a somewhat problematic set of criteria to simultaneously achieve but after considerable digging I found the affordable ‘cro.pw’ which is short (in my head at least) for “Crop(ed) W(ebsite)” which to be honest is unlikely to make sense to anyone other than me but oh well. It works.

To pick the domain I tried several websites but landed using TLD List and NameMesh in conjunction with some Scrabble word list sites to help with ideas. There are a lot of domain-search sites to pick from but the usefulness of the ones I used after much trial and error was in the bulk search and refineable search criteria they afforded.

The domain cost me $8.88AUD total for 2 years and my time to set it up. Of course hosting your own thing always comes with all the same caveats:

• Once you start using or linking to that domain or system, you’re on the hook to maintain it or it will die a digital death
• You will need to update the OS, the Application and ALL of the frameworks from time to time as necessary or risk it falling over
• You’re in control! Yes, but now YOU’RE ON THE HOOK

Irrespective the Yourls system can link to third party apps to create links like ShortFox for iOS, or you can just log in to the web interface and create your own. It’s also supported in Tweetbot, using the “Custom” Link Shortener using these instructions. There’s WordPress plugins and a bunch of other frameworks for Python and PHP and more too.

Once you have those links you can track them to see when they were opened with the extremely rudimentary traffic analytics, though admittedly that wasn’t what I was doing this exercise for. That said, I’d rather shorten URLs using my own shortener than let Twitter scrape more data from me than they already do if possible.

As with so many of these Open Source software tools they’re fun to play with, and serve a purpose for some of us. Not saying for one second that it will serve a purpose for you, also not saying I’m the first to use it (clearly not), but it might be of interest someday for you (who can say?)

Apple in Automation

Living in Australia and not being a journalist or renowned Apple blogger, I have never expected to attend an Apple presentation let alone be invited to one, let alone be invited to one that was specifically tailored to my line of work. A few months ago I attended a day-conference-like event hosted by Schneider Electric.

Apple opened with the requisite back-story of Apples goal, to create the best possible user experience through cohesive hardware and software development, and gave a comparison of their mobile devices, showing the largest to smallest from the iPad Pro 12.9" down to the iPod Touch: their focus being on how mobility solutions could be of great benefit in the automation space.

The often mentioned supportability over time was quelled somewhat with a list of the past five iOS versions and the age of hardware that each supported, with the value increasing from 4 years to 5 years for the past four releases.

A company that manufactured moving parts (being careful not to breach an NDA here) was provided as an example of an integrated manufacturing line application for an iOS app that leveraged the latest iOS APIs for barcode scanning, inventory control and full integration with SAP for inventory tracking at all stages of assembly.

In addition they mentioned Machine Learning using CoreML, which I knew plenty about because I’ve played with it (briefly) and have been follow Apple elsewhere for many years, but there were plenty of Automation engineers in the room that hadn’t. A few more examples of companies that had written apps that did on-device ML/pattern recognition of physical components to drive home that no other devices from competitors could do that, on-device.

Finally there was discussion about an Enterprise three-day Cupertino workshop that Apple would hold with your company to brainstorm ways in which applications could be developed to best suit your specific business needs.

In the Q&A segment there was a question about Intrinsically Safe requirements preventing Apple devices from being used in Oil & Gas plants, chemical plants and explosive facilities to name a few. The presenter suggested that there were several IS-rated protective/isolating cases for iPads and iPhones that are in use by many companies in those situations. Lacking details on the day I enquired afterwards and was provided Xciel as a suggestion from Apple.

They make an iPad Mini Zone 1 case at an ‘affordable’ $2,890 USD with an extra $100 USD for a correct iPad Mini 5 fitting. Ever so slightly cheaper for their iPhone Xr case at $2,500 USD. For those in the industry an IS-rated smart device is upwards of that price as an integrated unit so if you care about Intrinsically Safe equipment, you probably won’t mind spending upwards of three grand to protect yourself and your people from those risks.

My overall impression of the event was pretty positive, with both local and US Apple representatives at the event. It was well structured, well presented and overall was a nice reminder that Apple haven’t forgotten about the Automation Systems space - which is really great to hear. My thanks to Schneider Electric and Apple for inviting me to the event.

Shooting Indoor Sports

I’ve been going through the inter-school competition for Basketball photos for my eldest son and daughter for the schools photo collection. It started out being just me taking photos of my own children but when the coaches see you have a non-smartphone camera you’re labelled as the photo-guy. I was approached initially by some of the parents on our own teams, and then by the coaches, if I was already taking photos then would I mind taking a few photos of each of the players for the school? I didn’t mind helping out and so for the past two school seasons I was no longer just photos of my own kids, but effectively now everyone in the team.

I sift through the photos I’ve taken, try to find one of each kid doing something awesome during the game then put them in a shared NextCloud folder and share a link with the Coach for the team in question. For no real reason I’ve been systematically going backwards in time and watching my photography deteriorate as I experimented in reverse. It’s made me stop and think about my evolution as an indoor sports photographer (of a sort) over the past four months in particular of this season, and I thought I might share a few things I’ve learned. They might (or mightn’t) be useful or helpful for others.

In low light conditions you need better gear to get better results

I’m sorry but it’s true and in my experimenting I’ve found that unless you want grainy photos, you need a sensor with excellent low light performance. Of course if you think grainy is a good look or if you’re not interested in colour reproduction then stick to black and white and a cheap body will do you just fine, but that’s not what most people want.

After lots of research I picked a Nikon D500 that I regularly push beyond ISO1600 without any visible grain, and it’s still pretty clean up to ISO6400. The issue with appreciating the difference between what they say a camera can do and what it can actually do in the real world is that too many digital camera manufacturers say they can support ISOs beyond 1600 easily and yes they take a photograph. The truth is you don’t want to be using them as high as they can go unless you like the look of grainy photos and if I wanted that look, I’d save myself a few thousand dollars and I’ll digitally zoom my iPhone instead.

As for lenses I’ve tried a lot of different ones and basically I’ve concluded go Prime or go home. The affordable zooms with the most reach won’t crack an aperture wider than f4 which kills the precious light you have to work with and with fast moving action, you need that light. I tried a 55mm-200mm f4.5-f5.6 with vibration reduction and I’ve also tried a 24mm-70mm Tamron f/2.8 constant aperture zoom and whilst the Tamron gets better results for light it really doesn’t have the right amount of reach I need. Compared to an f/1.8 prime, it still killing my precious light, and that isn’t ideal. I’ve tried an 18mm-55mm kit lens which is abysmal indoors so don’t bother unless it’s group portraits with no movement and a flash.

In primes I have three I’ve tried, all f/1.8 in a 35mm, 50mm and most recently 85mm. Because I have a cropped sensor that equates to a full frame equivalent of 52.5mm, 75mm and 127.5mm respectively. There’s no question that from the court sideline, 35mm is too wide for anything other than a full court shot, which I avoid since you’re too far away to capture any emotion. The 50mm is great for capturing more isolated groups of players in the frame and the 85mm is perfect for capturing the same from half-court or perfect for isolating a single player. The light available in these lenses is amazing meaning I can keep the ISO under grain-inducing levels.

The 35mm and 50mm primes also focus very quickly, and whilst the 85mm isn’t as quick it’s quick enough if you’re set in the right spot ahead of time and know the shot you’re waiting for. I also love on my camera that I have an AF-ON button that allows me to separate auto-focus from taking a shot with a completely different button (i.e. not the shutter). Pre-focussing can be very handy (more on that in a minute)

All that gear adds up. You can still get respectable photos (i.e. better than the best smartphone camera can take today) but if you want your best chance of success in the most challenging lighting conditions, get good prime lenses and a camera body with a good low light sensor. It lets you keep a fast shutter speed to make sure you don’t get motion blur and keep the best image quality: sharp and in focus action shots.

The only other thing I wish I had was in-body image sensor stabilisation, but for me I just couldn’t afford to cross that bridge too. Have to draw a line somewhere.

If you have good gear you can still easily get bad results if you don’t put some effort in

With everything I just said above, honestly, you can’t go wrong? Um, no. I discovered that even with pretty amazing gear, you can mess it up spectacularly. I’ve tried to “trust” the camera in Aperture priority or Shutter priority but no matter how many times I’ve tried it, I end up going back to manual. I do that because I want to make sure there’s no image blur if the camera tries to slow down the shutter speed too much - it can’t know if this is a fast or slow paced game! For example, I slow down my shutter when I’m taking photos of the girls basketball because they don’t run as hard or as fast as the boys team (sorry but I checked they actually don’t). Less speed means slower shutter before I get blur means lower ISO means less grain. Winning! The camera doesn’t know any of those details.

I also want to change my depth of field based on the type of shot I’m taking - is it one subject or many subjects? I’ll know that but the camera doesn’t. If I want to ensure my maximum ISO is set at a certain level, I’ve found the camera just dials it out to that maximum ISO when I’m indoors no matter the shot. The rationale is that if I’m setting my max ISO and my Aperture then I’m effectively in manual already, so what’s the point of an Automatic mode? To stay in complete control of the photo to get the best result that YOU want, not what the camera thinks you might want, you need to shoot in manual and that means you need to put some effort in.

Don’t just sit in the grand-stands, get out beside the court, down the ends, in the corners, behind the basket

But it’s not just about the effort of learning how to take photos in manual, it’s also about positioning. I started out sitting in the grandstands (if you can call them that - most of these stadiums they play in it’s a few chairs either just at ground level or a few rows tiered maybe four maximum) but that severely restricts what photos you can take not just because of reach but because the majority of emotion you won’t capture in the center, it’s near the ends where the goals are. So you need to put in some physical effort and set yourself up where the action is happening you want to capture.

Follow-along or set it up

I started essentially following my kids along, point the camera at them, continuously auto-focusing to keep them sharp and in the center of the image, no matter which way they ran, thinking I would pick the best shot out of those. Turns out that’s a bad strategy. I took so many pictures of their backs, when their heads were turned, while they were standing in one place, not moving and ultimately they were almost all very boring photos.

I’ve come to believe (I imagine this will continue to evolve the longer I take photos) that sports photography is about capturing the emotion of the players and for humans our expressions primarily come across through our faces - hence if it isn’t a front or slightly off-front face shot, it’s probably not a photo I’ll keep.

To really get the best results I’ve had to stop thinking about following along and rather to set myself in a position where I can capture the shot I want, from the angle I want, pre-focus the camera if I can (auto-focus slows down your FPS when shooting) and be patient and wait for the right shot. I’d rather sift through 50 great shots and pick a dozen than sift through 500 average follow-along shots and whittle that down to a dozen.

I can safely say that because I’ve literally just done exactly that for 6 hours today and it isn’t my idea of fun. Setting up the shot first and taking less photos during the game? Your future self with thank your present self for your restraint.

Subject or Subjects

It’s all well and good taking a photo of your child, a single “subject” they call it in the biz (apparently) but if a picture wants to convey more than just one persons emotion that’s fine if it’s a standalone emotion, but generally in a game of sports it’s in reaction to something else happening in the game, which means you need context or their reaction makes less sense. Again I started just focusing on a single subject, but then I learned to tell more of the context I’ve started including more context in each photo where I can.

Each Sport needs a different approach

This one I’ve only learned more recently and maybe it sounds obvious but I guess I’m a slow learner. If you’re trying to capture the expression on a basketball shooters face when they’re shooting at the hoop, the angle you need to be standing or crouching in, centre front on or to the side, needs to be considered when you’re positioning yourself ahead of time, otherwise their arms will get in the way, the ball will get in the way or other players will too. Soccer is different again where standing alongside the field aiming down towards the goalie as they’re lining up for a kick lets you capture that moment without obstruction. Cricket for batting and bowling are different yet again.

Take a few lenses but don’t swap them all the time

When you’re shooting a game the last thing you want to do is lose a minute of game time swapping lenses. I’ve found that it’s a good idea to keep a wider angle lens and flash for the first and last games of the season since group photos are typically taken then, but for all games I’ll take the 50mm and 85mm primes and that’s it. If I want to change the types of shots I’m taking then I’ll generally swap lenses during half-time so I don’t miss anything. Hard-core photographers would say “buy a second camera” but to that I say, “I’m staying paying off my current camera thank you…no”

Conclusion

Shooting indoor sports is the most challenging photography I’ve wanted to tackle. Fast speed action, low light, lots of energy and lots of asking for permission first. I’ve learned a lot about it in a few short years and I know I have a lot more to learn but hopefully the above thoughts might be useful to others that want to give it a try, or to help make their current endeavours more successful.

Good luck!