haven't done one of these for a while, guess i've just been really lazy, and it seems, the site has fallen apart due to that. alf notified me of an xml error with my rss (which i had noticed but assumed was just a network issue), white space was being inserted at the start of the documents for some reason, while i don't know why, i just moved the documents into the web directory, so they should be working now (we'll see after i post this). the other update i made cos i couldn't sleep this morning was fixing the search index for gallery items. it had been an issue for a while, some items gotten corrupted, and it was not possible to search properly, and rebuilding the whole index was not possible due to memory issues. so i just made an admin page to work around the memory issues by setting a limit to the number of items to re-index. any way, that's sorted, even though i most likely won't be adding to the gallery, at least you can search through what's there now. also, this gives me a chance to link to my player dunking on dwight howard haha. seems to be some javascript issues on my site now as well, so maybe i'll have to fix those up as well, don't expect another site update post for a very long time though.

decided to get pes over fifa, not really sure why, read a few reviews and they said it was pretty close, and being somewhat used to pes, and having some friends that are most likely going to get pes based on past allegiances, i decided that it was the way to go. it is certainly a step up from the demo, i only played it a few times this morning against alf, but it was pretty fun, tried barcelona (easily the best), real madrid, and arsenal, managed to score a few goals, won one lost two (the third on penalties). i probably won't be playing it much for the time being, preferring nba 2k10 for now (until i max out my player at least). the only reason i got it already, was because game had a pretty good trade value for batman ($58), so i wanted to take advantage of that with something that i was likely to buy later down the track anyway. from early impressions, it looks like messi is basically unstoppable, crazy fast and skillful. any way, i'll probably play it a bit more next year.

pic taken from the eu playstation forums.

and the shopping spree continues, though i may have sold off that old spare k100d super (for a bargain might i add). my brother has his canon, and has a circular polarizer, so in a rage of envy i decided i would get me a circular polariser as well, more or less top of the line with this one. basically it is meant to remove reflections from windows, water, etc, and i believe can also see through haze (somewhat). the good thing about my lens collection is that (excluding the zooms which i don't use anyway), they all have 49mm threads, so this filter is also an all-purpose filter. anyway, check out the two pics, okay so i didn't quite have the camera on a tripod, and i didn't pick the most interesting subject, i'm pretty sure you can guess which one has the polariser on it, it also acts a little bit like a nd filter, check the exif data on the full size pics to see what i mean. just had another look, and it fits in front of my hoya 2 stop nd filter, so i can get up to 3.5 stops of light filtering if i so choose, though whether i actually want to stack the filters and deal with the extra issues that entails is another question.

news pic taken from amazon and not of my actual filter as i can't seem to find a picture of it anywhere.

i found out about these shoes after i got back from south america, but they didn't have any colour schemes that i liked or availability at the time. they've since been updating the colour schemes, and finally a pair that i thought were worth buying, plus the strength of the aussie dollar made it a no brainer haha. these are definitely the lightest shoes i've ever handled (lighter than hyperdunks cos they're not as big obviously), even though i've been rolling my ankles a lot lately, i'm still not willing to bump up to mid or high cuts, so let's hope that i can actually manage to play in these without injuring myself. the look of them isn't anything to write home about as far as i'm concerned, the old tmac 2's and the tmac teams (which i really like) were/are much better looking, too bad they don't make them any more, also they're not as light. let's hope the material that makes them so light, isn't really weak and fragile.

ha, so my third copy finally arrived from blurb today (15th of the 11-15 day shipping schedule ), and i was pleased with the way it was packaged, sealed tight, no creases this time. i updated several photos (making them lighter/brighter and more contrasty), changed the design a bit (no more full bleed pages), and replaced several pictures (that didn't work well) as well as adding some more different designs in. well, i was a little surprised to open the book up and notice that some pictures seemed to be darker than the previous book which was quite alarming considering they were already quite dark. so even after brightening pictures, somehow the prints came out darker this time, i wonder if they use several different printers that all have different profiles or something. funny thing is, the cover actually seems to be lighter, one thing that i did notice, when looking at the pages in bright light (like sunlight) they aren't as dark any more, so that's probably the secret, just look at the book in bright sunlight. let's also mention the poor alignment of the pictures, they also managed to cut the pages unevenly in a few places, lol, every time i do this, it seems that i'm really disappointed with the book. i'm only slightly disappointed (admittedly, i think some of the pictures actually came out really well), the fact that the same pictures are darker on a second print out is something that is a little puzzling. if anyone is interested, check the south america book out at blurb (full preview). at least this book was cheaper thanks to the strong aussie dollar. anyway, enjoy a couple of pictures i took with my fa43 lens.

oh, the new book if you didn't guess is the one on the right, no creases, i might scan some obvious different pages later and upload but unlikely.

got a game that i've been waiting for since i got the ps3, and i've pretty much been playing it since last night. the controls are a bit annoying (there's just so many of them, four or five pages (or more) in the manual devoted to that), and the menu navigation is a bit annoying how it always rolls back to the centre option rather than just staying on where you move the cursor to. the other annoying thing is that i haven't worked out how to make the camera angle for my player mode default to broadcast view, the default one is impossible to play in, rotating and with the backboard blocking the view half the time.

the playability is pretty good, though the computer does take over a bit too much (that's probably configurable). i started a my player mode, as well as a franchise (association) mode, and going from one game to the other is like light and day. the nba players hardly ever miss, while turnovers and missed layups are the norm in my player mode. i'm still finding it a little difficult to handle players using the stick, but i'm sure it'll get better by the time i have arthritis in my hands from playing too much.

still deciding whether to get fifa or pes (if either at all), maybe at some point when i get tired of 2k10. picture taken from wikipedia, shame about kobean being on the cover too.

that's right, after more than three months, the whole set is up, just finished uploading my photos from san pedro de atacama, and then a couple from salta and buenos aires in my last days, on flickr, and i'll just give the link to the all my pictures of panoramio. it's been a bit of a drawn out process, but with about 800 pictures online (plus all the ones from the news items), it was always going to be that. anyway, i'm kind of happy to have them all up now, though it means i need to go out and take more photos to give me something to do . well, enjoy!


i've posted some animated gifs of my photos in san pedro de atacama below, basically "the making of" animations of some cool photos i shot there, click the thumbnail links to see the animations.

i think i was meant to post a separate news item for each of these parts of the gallery, but since i forgot about them, i'll post them all together in this spot. basically, photos from huaraz, photos from ecuador, photos from colombia, and photos from the pampas in bolivia, are up and ready to be looked at. they are also up on flickr, links below. i've just started posting my pictures from san pedro in chile, so i will post another item when i finish those (which will pretty much be the end of my photos from south america).

anyway, photos from huaraz on flickr, photos from ecuador on flickr, photos from colombia on flickr, and photos from the pampas in bolivia on flickr. here are some pictures of the three locations that aren't in either gallery. also make sure to check out my photos on panoramio, a lot of them are in google earth now, but the more views and comments they get, the bigger they will show up, so don't hold back.



picture of a squirrel monkey in the pampas.

yeah, it's been about 18 months since my last lens purchase, i got itchy fingers, and decided to get a new lens, not really sure why i chose this one, but i've read some really good stuff about it so i don't think i'll have any complaints. i was just looking on the web, and even though only about ten percent of my photos in south america were taken with the 50mm lens (which this more or less replaces), i think this lens might increase that percentage a bit. it's an all metal limited lens, for what that's worth, i haven't actually got it with me yet, i've been at home with flu, and it's been waiting for me at work, so i'll give it a look in tomorrow. just thinking about it, if i do get another lens, sometime in the future, it'll probably be either the fa77mm f/1.8 or the da70mm f/2.4, i guess it'll come down to size vs weight, but price and iq are big factors as well (the 77mm is almost twice the price, i'd have to read up on the iq and speed differences). i'll post some pictures here after i've taken them with the new lens (not of it).
update
here are the first pictures i took with the new lens, nothing special, just took them to lunch today (light wasn't very helpful), and snapped whatever i could, one is at f/1.9, the other two are f/2.2.


news flash: in case you hadn't worked it out yet, or hadn't heard the rumours, i'll confirm them here, and they are true. i will soon be solely (more or less) using flickr for my photos, and leaving the gallery here to the moths. it's been a fun ride, but i don't think that i could be bothered developing the gallery any more (with geotagging being the main issue), so dtraCorp will return to solely being a blog (with photos still, just not as many), yes, it's a sad day, but the south america 2008/09 (projecting completion on the 4th of october) and mexico 2008 galleries will still be here.

picture taken from adorama where i bought the lens.

yeah, got the new ps3 slim last week, mainly cos i want to play nba2k10, but also pes (even though i hear fifa is on par or better nowadays), but also turns out that i must get gran turismo as well. well, i've at least got gran turismo 5 prologue, so that's a start, i'm pretty shit at it to be honest, but that's probably just an addiction away from being super awesome. have to wait a month for nba2k10 and pes to come out, but i think gt5 prologue will keep me occupied until then, also got batman with the console, it's pretty good (but not really my type of game), we'll see how long i hang onto that one. can't wait to get the hdmi cable so i can hook it up to my big tv and have a good play, i'll also be able to hook it up to my computer monitor then as well, won't even have to get out of bed to play, haha. for some reason i thought the ps3 could record stuff off the tv, that was a bit of a mistake, oh well.

pic taken from wikipedia.