Why coffeeshops just work.

it’s not so much about the expensive coffee but how it makes itself conducive for work. A cafe is a good balance between a prude office environment and your home that’s too comfortable for real work to get done. It can be surprising what you can accomplish in just 30 minutes to an hour. As I said above, while coffeeshops are technically more distracting than the confines of offices, the change in environment is what we’re really after. Simply put, it’s peace among strangers.

But for me, it can’t be just any coffeeshop. I still do have my preferences as far as choosing which coffeeshop to lay a nest on. Here are some tips you might want to consider in your own pilgrimage.

1. First, leave your AC charger behind.

   While current laptops’ battery performance have greatly improved, somehow, without it, you’ll be “encouraged” to get your stuff done right away and get back to the office soonest. Besides, you won’t be staying there the whole day, or are you?

2. Do, however, leave with a fully-charged mobile phone.

   This needs no explanation. If Houston needs you back, they need to be able to reach you even if you’re behind the moon.

3. Get a good pair of headphones.

   While cafes usually feature relaxing house or chill-out music, sometimes, it’s just not enough to drown out the noise the other customers make, although sometimes the whitenoise is something that turns me into an energizer bunny. Music with words in it can really grab attention so stay away from it, unless it’s in a language you cannot understand, process, or sing along to. As soon as you can establish your OWN world, the sooner you can get to work, or at the least, catch up on your reading/research.

4. Choose a dead hour so you can have the place to yourself.

   That means several minutes after lunch or after office hours is a no-no. I find that one of the most ideal windows to go there is in the early morning and in the mid-afternoon. Perfect for coffee! Weekends are great too as most people will just be lazily hanging out recovering from a hangover the previous night.

5. Find a cafe on a not-so-busy street.

   The passing of vehicles and the noise they make can be very distracting. I’m also more particular for cafes with roadside parking in front of it. The sooner I get my coffee after getting off the car, the better. Be mindful of parking schedules though or else you may find yourself chasing after tow trucks. So, no, I’m not going to drive into mall parking and walk hundreds of meters just to get to a coffeeshop. That’d be a total time-waster.

6. Stay away from cafes with groups of friends in it.

   if you really want some peace and quiet, you’d want to be with loners people who are busy themselves. A cafe frequented by serious post-grad students is best. Those with high school and college students tend to be noisier. Let’s see you go through that chatter and I’m sure you’ll be heading back to the office in less than 10 minutes.

7. Stay off the grid.

   WiFI and 3G is a near-must and very reliable but sometimes, it’s good to be just offline. The less distractions you have, the better.

8. Keep your NDA in mind always.

   You don’t want to be broadcasting your killer idea on public. So to be sure everything’s safe from prying eyes, adjust the size of your screen font so it can be less readable by that guy sneaking a peek over your shoulder.

9. Stay focused.

   Lastly, I would suggest that before you leave your office, plan well what needs to be done so your new-found freedom is not wasted. Forget multitasking. Just concentrate on just one task and get it over with. The objective is to get to work. And when i say work, it’s not about FB’ing or chatting with friends on YM. :)

Are you a coffeeshop junkie or are considering taking your work there? How did your experience go? Can you say it’s for you or would you still rather be elsewhere? And is the price of designer coffee really worth it? Of course, not, unless the time used to sip it was used really wisely.

There has been significant advances in harddisk technology especially as far as their robustness and reliability are concerned. So, what’s there to worry about, right? Murphy’s Law. :)

Based on my own and others’ experience, these would just be some of the reasons why you would want to have a really good and reliable backup:

1. These robust, reliable, and nearly-shockproof harddisks still do fail.

   While these disks may be covered by warranty and easily replaced, once they conk out on you, your data may be gone forever. What warranty can cover that? Sometimes all it takes to make a man cry is an accidental but jarring drop on the floor resulting to a catastrophic hard disk crash.

2. Your laptop may be stolen.

   Laptops can be replaced as disks above but not your data, your precious data. A friend of mine got her Mac stolen from a half-open car window. Nothing stopped the thief from doing so despite the car being in motion. If she had a Time Machine backup, I wouldn’t have felt sorry for her. After all, she can always get a new Mac and restore her backup there. But she didn’t and now, she’s practically redoing everything. Has she learned something from that lesson? I hope so! :)

3. Merciless Acts of God.

   Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and tsunamis. Yeah, this world is nearing its doom. But if you can have your data secure somewhere, you’ll have one less problem in your hands. :)

A Paranoid Advise

Disks are getting cheaper already. For general use, the more portable 2.5″ drives which just requires a single USB or FireWire port is always a good choice. While it may be pricey for some of us, just consider the peace of mind it’ll give you and that’ll be your ROI already. Some companies provide for their employees’ backup requirements but most likely than not, you’re on your own. Either way, it’s in your best interest to make sure that your data is well secure.

1. Use tools like Time Machine, Super Duper, or Carbon Copy Cloner.

   These tools are so advanced (actually, the tech is quite old, they just made the process simpler) that after making a full backup of your system, they are able to track the tiniest change (a new or recently editted file, etc) and back that up. They also allow you to back track on a timeline so you can easily restore that file or folder that you accidently deleted.

2. Backup periodically..

   At least, once when you get home from work, and once before you leave for work. That way, any work you do in and outside the office is safely backed up. If you’ve done a considerable amount of work in less time, feel free then to do a backup as necessary. Autosave sometimes just ain’t enough anymore.

3. Store your backup somewhere safe.

   I choose to keep my backup disk at home while it’s sometimes a better idea to store them in the office. If needed, keep multiple backups for paranoia’s sake and store them at a friend’s house across town. Just like your meds, these are better kept in a cool and dry place, away from rowdy children.

4. Keep your backup disk fresh

   Replace your backup disk every three to four years to ensure optimal disk health. These disks, like the ones you’re using on your laptop or workstation will die eventually. Make sure you have an alternative before that happens.

You see, I’m that type of person who carefully puts laptops on desks making sure there is no shock at all, and yet, I’ve had several close calls myself with disks being populated by bad blocks, and with disks which just died conveniently on me. There’s just too much to lose but doing backups definitely minimized the risks. For your sake, I hope you do, too. :)

If you’re someone who’d want more control over your photographs (may they be digital or film), I’m hoping that this attempt at simplifying photography (based on questions from friends who’re still starting in photography) will somehow give you an idea on how to take photographs, your way, and not just by relying solely on automagical and sophisticated camera presets.

For starters, it helps to understand that Photography = Exposure (the Science) + Composition (the Art). Composition, which is how we arrange and frame our subjects or scenes is a very broad topic on its own, and knowing how to visualize and execute a composition is only secondary compared to achieving the right exposure,  for if one cannot control or achieve correct exposure,  there won’t be any photograph at all. So, before we deal with artistic “rules” and how to break them, let us first tackle the more technical aspect of photography. In this topic, we’ll only be focusing on Exposure and how to achieve control over the different factors that can aid us in our Composition.

So what exactly is exposure? Exposure is what happens when a medium like film or a digital sensor is in the process of capturing the light emitted by a scene. In a nutshell, a Correct or Acceptable Exposure can be achieved using

1. a medium (film or digital sensor) with ample sensitivity (ISO Setting) plus
2. the appropriate lens aperture or opening (F-Stop, F/n) to allow just the right amount of light through, and
3. the right amount of time the medium is exposed to light (Shutter Speed).

And thanks to exposure meters that are built right into the camera and their many features (Center-weighted, Spot, or Matrix), finding the right combination to achieve acceptable exposure has never been easier. However, deviating from this meter reading (which will always attempt to come up with an average Middle Gray) can easily get you either Under-Exposed photos (picture is too dark) or Over-Exposed ones (too bright). So it’s key to pay attention to what the meter says until you’re comfortable enough to “disobey” it. And the only way you can know which is the acceptable exposure is with lots of practice and experimentation.

Factors affecting Exposure.

While different combinations of the control factors listed above will yield the same amount of exposure, you will soon find out that the pictures are really not the same. And understanding these idiosyncracies and knowing how and when to use them will spell the difference between a photo that is only documentary of a scene, or a photo that invites praise. If you have been playing around with your camera’s P Mode to shoot a scene with different combinations, you may already have noticed this. And these idiosyncracies almost always mean there will be compromises that need to be made.

And before we head on to the aspects which control exposure, it helps to know a basic concept which you will also come across a lot: amounts of light are usually referred to as Stops (in reference to how F-stops are related to each other) and each stop above the other is considered “doubling the amount of light.” Conversely, a stop below is considered as “halving.” While the scales/numbers you’ll see below are in 1-stop intervals, cameras/lenses do allow half-stop adjustments, and sometimes, third-stops. This feature allow us to further fine-tune our exposure levels more granularly.

A Fresh Batch of Medium Format Ilfords

ISO/ASA (Film Speed/Sensitivity). Even though digital cameras technically use sensors (not film), it also uses the same sensitivity rating system that was standardized for film decades ago.  The ISO (International Standards Organization) ratings is practically the same as the older ASA (American Standards Association) from which it was derived from, so an ISO 100 film is the same as an ASA 100. The Germans however have a different way of rating their film. They use the DIN (Deutsche Industrie Normen) degree (logarithmic) system. While we may not see any mention of DIN in digital cameras, they are still pretty much in use when it comes to film.

• Usual values: 100 200 400 800 1600 3200
• Each number in the scale above is twice as sensitive (1 stop) as the one before it.
  
• Lower Number (Slower) = Lesser Sensitivity, Finer Grain (Less Noise)
• Higher Number (Faster) = Higher Sensitivity, Coarser Grain (More Noise)

While it may seem convenient to stick to a faster film rating, it’s almost always best to stay as low as possible to get more detail because as you go up or faster, more noise (digital) or a coarser/grainier texture (film) is introduced into the photo. ISO 800 and up used to be exclusively used by photojournalists, as the main output medium is newsprint which is almost always composed of half-tones anyway. For portraits or scenes requiring recording of fine detail,  It’s always best to stay below ISO 400, if the light permits it. However, shooting with coarser grain film than expected can sometimes yield interesting results. But that may not necessarily be the same when it comes to digital as sensor noise is not really that appealing to look at.

50mm Lens with Aperture Ring

F-Stop (Aperture/Lens Opening). When you look at someone looking out the window into bright sunshine, you will notice that the iris of their eyes suddenly contracts to reduce the light hitting the retina. Have the same person look within the relatively dim room and you’ll see that the iris suddenly dilates to compensate for the lack of light. This behavior or reaction to light is the same principle on how lens apertures work. In fact, the camera is actually an emulation of the eye (cornea = lens, iris = aperture,  retina = film/sensor), and the dilation of the opening allows more light in and the contraction reduces it. It continuously adjusts itself to ensure that a perfect picture is formed in the retina.

• Usual values: 1.4 2 2.8 4 5.6 8 11 16 22.
• The F in F/n stands for the lens focal length. Divide the lens focal length with the numbers above and you get the relative area of the opening, .e.g, 100mm/4 > 100mm/8, hence,
• Each number in the scale above allows half the amount of light (less 1 stop) as the one before it.
• Lower Number (Faster) = Higher Sensitivity, Shallower Depth of Field of Focus (DoF)
• Higher Number (Slower) = Lesser Sensitivity, Greater Depth of Field
• As the focal length of the lens extends, the DoF also becomes more shallow, i.e., the DoF of a 200mm lens at f/11 is much narrower than that of a 50mm at the same aperture.
• Lenses which allow very wide openings (2.8 or bigger) are usually more expensive due to more complicated optics.

F-stops are key to determining the depth of field (of focus) of a particular photograph. When, for example, photographing a row of trees that extend into the distance, using a narrower aperture ensures that most of these trees (relative to the specific tree in focus) are in better focus, while a wider aperture will restrict focus to that just one tree and throw everything else out of focus. This throwing out is especially useful when shooting a subject in an uninteresting background.

Some lenses (usually older), employ a DoF scale which will give you an estimate, relative to the subject in focus, how much of the foreground and background will be in focus. If this is not available, you can always use your camera body’s DoF preview button to better visualize the field of focus. For best results in getting a deeper DoF, use of the hyperfocal distance is imperative (this will be covered later).

Shutter Speed (Exposure Duration). The third factor to be considered (and usually, the last in priority) in coming up with an acceptable exposure is the Shutter Speed or the duration of time that the film is exposed to light. If a shutter is made open longer, it essentially allows in more light, and any motion that may occur during that period. Consequently, a shorter duration freezes motion and allows for probably more sharper pictures. You may think this boring, but used wisely, a play on slower shutter speeds can yield pretty interesting pictures, especially when done with water, clouds, light streaks on a highway, while faster speeds can be used to freeze subjects suspended in midair.

• Usual values: 2″ 1″ 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/15 1/30 1/60 1/125 1/250 (the numbers after the first two are fractions of a second)
• Each number in the scale above records half the amount of light (less 1 stop) as the one before it.
• To prevent camera-shake, the shutter speed shouldn’t be slower than 1/F where F is the focal length of the lens, but if you have nerves of steel, you can probably go slower than this. For best results, I’d recommend heavily the use of a tripod.

Still there? Okay, to give an example, let’s assume we’re using an ISO 100 film, then let’s frame an outdoor scene (a tree, with a kid a few meters behind it, and with mild wind blowing) in P mode. Assuming the meter is saying that we use a 1/125 shutter speed and an f/8 for the aperture, the following other P combinations will still yield the same amount of exposure:

• 1/250 & f/5.6 = more motion freezing (leaves will tend to be more static despite the wind), but with shallower depth of field, which will make the kid a bit blurred/out of focus.
• 1/60 & f/11 = less motion freezing (leaves will tend to blur because of the wind), but greater depth of field, which will make the kid to be in better focus.

Did you notice how either shutter speed and aperture compensated for the doubling and halving of the other? That’s how it’s supposed to work if we’re talking about exposure. But each combination yields different effects as mentioned above. And having control over these effects is you taking control of your photography.

Well, while all this may seem complicated and too technical, with practice and experimentation, you will soon find these as second nature, like riding a bike, driving a car, or using a mobile phone. We’ll just have to visualize the end result more and know which tool to use in the process of making that photograph. So the next time you bring out your camera, regardless whether you’re in P mode or in any of the other exposure modes (Manual, Aperture-Priority, or Shutter-Priority), try out the different combinations of ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speeds and see for yourself the different effects that you can get. I do hope you find this useful in your hobby, but I do intend to simplify this further, especially for newbies, by getting more inputs (questions and comments) from both intermediate and seasoned photographers. That will be very much appreciated.

Now, go out and shoot!

Paramita‘s album, Tala, where this photo was included in, won in the 19th Awit Awards (2006) for Best Album Packaging!

I shot this photo at the stairway headed towards 6 Underground at the Glass Tower in Palanca Street, Makati.

Album design was by Bernie Sim.
Lighting courtesy of a halogen lamppost.

Album available in Tower, M1, Oddyssey, etc.

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