As we are planning the trip to Japan, I finally decided to upgrade the camera as well as the primary lens once for all. I will still keep my 10D as backup – in the field, sometimes it’s really cumbersome to switch between normal and telephoto lens. Not far from my home, there is an area that stores a lot of deserted industrial stuff, machines, trucks. It is a good subject and perfect chance to try out the new camera and lens.

But, just around the corner, where no one cares to notice, some withering leaves against the solid building foundations are also picturesque. In the Autumn, the green leaves start turning into red and eventually falling off the cane. A couple of leaves that are left are among the most saturated color. When the warm afternoon sun light them up, that maybe the last ray of sunshine they will see.

The following video was recorded when she was 15, playing the same piece.

At different overlook locations, I took a series of pictures with my PowerShot A590. Came back home, I stitched them together using PTGui. The result looks satisfactory to me. Creating a panorama is pretty easy actually. Just make sure to overlap every successive frame with the previous frame by 20~30% when taking pictures. Then all you need to do is to drop these pictures to PTGui. Software can automatically put them together in the correct order and adjust brightness and contrast for you to make the stitched image looks smooth. Besides the typical image processing functions, PTGui also supports HDR (High Dynamic Range). But, I didn’t take tripod with me so I was not able to take pictures with different exposure settings. I will try next time.

The following is a 360-degree panorama I took at the summit. More pictures can be found in my gallery.

The city of Dublin has a lot of new establishments. The view is open, the street is wide and clean, even the Chinese stores are more trendy than many other places. We waited about 20 mintues to get a table. It’s a little crowd inside. You’ll get food faster to order the Dim Sum instead of waiting for the waiters to bring them to you. We tried a couple of new dishes, besides traditional “凤爪 (chicken feet)” and “排骨 (ribs)”. The Dim Sum are fresh, hot, certainly among the best we have tasted. I am not sure if it is much better than the other new Cantonese restaurant, 顺峰渔港  (Asian Pearl), that we recently checked at Froment; or if it is not as good as the original restaurant. Only the food critics can tell, I guess.

My wife and I go to Farmer’s Market regularly during the weekend. Here are some photos we took in May this year when we went to Farmer’s Market in Mountain View and Santa Cruz. More pictures are posted in my gallery.

Flint Center

As a long time classic music lover, this is my first time to go to a concert. The concert was performed on 7/9 at Flint Center by San Francisco Symphony as part of 2008 “Summer in the City” events. Three programs were played,

Bach: Toccata and Fugue
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

The central piece, also the most popular one, is mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. It is played by Stefan Jackiw. At age 23, Mr. Jackiw is a young and charming presence, and he plays with a smooth yet sensitive style. The violin has the power to penetrate the indifference and cynicalness we put on, and touch the very weakness of our heart. Mr. Jackiw’s play just does that to me.