BenSpark Family Adventures

A month or so ago I had to make an extensive video for work. I jumped at the chance because I could learn Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 while at work. Hey I’m not dummy. I wanted to learn he ins and outs of the program before I started working on videos for my family, including the wedding video that I am going to put together for our wedding. Should be ready by the 2nd anniversary. I’m not using the program for another work related video and I am using the green screen functions to make something truly interesting. Wish me luck.

I have been going back and forth with a decision to buy a new digital camera. I think I want to get the Sanyo Xacti HD1A 5.1MP MPEG4 High-Definition Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom. For the past few years I have been carrying around a Sanyo Xacti VPC-C40 4MP MPEG4 Digital Camcorder with 5.8x Optical Zoom and it has been awesome. The camera fits int he palm of your hand and aims like a gun. You use your thumb for most of the actions. You can zoom in and out with it as well as decide if you are going to take a still or a video. I’ve taken many videos with this camera as well as over 7,000 pictures. The camera has stood a good test of time and some rough handling. But I want better resolution for my Photo-A-Day pictures and I can’t carry around my Nikon D80 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera on all my trips. I need a pocket sized camera and I think the Sanyo Xacti HD1A 5.1MP MPEG4 High-Definition Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom is the way to go for me.

I am looking at the possibility of attending this program. Has anyone ever gone to Nikon School? I would love to get the most out of my Nikon D80 DSLR camera and have benefited from programs like this in the past. I think it would really enhance my skills. I still have to send my camera back to take care of a burnt pixel or dirty sensor or something that keeps making a spot show up on the top of my pictures. It really shows up when I take a picture of a solid background. SO I think that I may make an appointment to go to Nikon School.

Photo-A-Day #579 11/08/06 So this is my display at the Staff Art show. It is not exactly set up the way I wanted it to be, and they stuck some photos below the pictures. So the strip below my pictures is some random shots of last year’s show. Today I was working on the Marketing Day video and I spoofed myself for an into PSA. Myself and the other director/cameraman/editor made a PSA like the ones before a movie. No smoking, no talking, no cell phones. But we start the video with me looking at the photos and then Ken comes up and says, hey what are you looking at. I say, oh just some guy who has way too much time on his hands. If you can’t laugh at yourself then who can you laugh at.

Here by popular demand (that’s you, Andy) is Allison’s photo-of-the-week. It took me an hour and forty minutes to get to work this morning. A good 20 minutes of that was rolling from the second I got on the ramp from Route 1 to 128 until I was able to get off the highway a mile and a half or so later onto 109. Seriously. Then another 25 minutes to get from 109 to Newton Centre. An hour and forty minutes.

I am in the market to purchase one of these ones. I know a friend who has the Sanyo Xacti C6 and he really likes it. It is about time to replace my Sanyo Xacti C4 with a better upgraded model. I’m pretty excited about finding one and getting it. Now that I know how to make videos with it and Adobe Premiere I’m all set.

Tonight Neil and Andrea came over and they brought some Wrentham House pizza with them. Wrentham House is like Paul’s Pizza but much bigger. It is some tasty stuff. We lost power today so when they arrived we had quite a few candles burning and they were greeted by flashlight. About 15 minutes after they arrived the power turned back on. Andrea was excited to check out my new Nikon D80 Digital SLR camera and she discovered something that I now have to get fixed. It seems that there is something on the Digital sensor that puts a ghost object into my pictures. I didn’t see it until she pointed it out and now I see it in every picture. Observe. Do you see the spot? Well there is a spot right in the middle of the top of the picture above the picture that is in the picture, got it. That is something on the senor. I can try and clean it but I have a year warranty so I can send it back to get cleaned. I will have to learn more about switching lenses to prevent dust and dirt from landing on ...

Since Drew is off on the road with no internet access, I thought I’d share my view as I left the house on Tuesday morning. Drew is having fun on his trip and will have lots of photos and posts when he gets back.

Photo-A-Day #557 10/17/06 Today I gave a presentation in Chicago for our customers. I showed some new software enhancements. It was a fun but very long day. After the presentations during the day I went with the folks who were here as demonstrators to a restaurant called Wild Fire. It was fantastic. I had a triple filet sampler, which included a mushroom crusted, blue cheese crusted and a Parmesan crusted filet medallion. A very tasty meal. And after dinner I shared a delicious pumpkin pie slice with Maureen, Erin and Sharon. I used my tripod and the timer to get this picture, which is actually a composite of two pictures. Each time I took a picture I only got one side of the table, so I used PhotoShop to place the two images together. Tomorrow we are off to Indianapolis.

As Drew has said, we went to Adam’s Farm this weekend to get some apples and take some photos. You can go here to see all of my Gallery from this weekend here.

I am proud to announce that I have set up a Kodak Marketplace and it has a few images that I am selling via that site. If it does any business at all I’m going to upgrade to another type of Marketplace account through Kodak. In the coming weeks I will be uploading many more of my best photos. Buy a print or two they make for great wall hangings. BenSpark Marketplace Why so much talk recently about Kodak and the Kodak website. Well, my company does a Staff Art Show each year and on my first year I entered 5 pieces. They were five of my favorite pictures, and they now hang in our room at the Cape. It is now my fifth year at work and I have been doing the Photo-a-Day thing for over a year. I came up with the idea of entering something to do with Photo-A-Day as my exhibit piece this year. What I decided was to take the first 500 photos and make five collages of 100 photos each. I am calling it “500 days…500 photos” and I am pretty excited about how the collages have come out. Here is what ...

Photo-A-Day #535 09/25/06 Today was the first time I used a Kodak Digital Photo Kiosk. It was pretty neat, very easy to do. I was using for an upcoming project that I participating in. More about that at a later date as the event approaches. I joined a gym today, trying to get back into shape. The place is called Answer is Fitness. It is a new gym in our town and it has all new equipment. One really cool thing they have is a device that you can plug your headphones into and watch any of the dozens of TV’s that are hanging from the ceiling. I look forward to getting back into a routine. Watched the new show Heroes tonight. It was decent, looks like one you gotta follow, lots of twists and turns. Hiro is my favorite character at this time. You can view the whole premiere episode online at the NBC site. Check it out.

I have found a program called Andrea Mosaic. It is pretty interesting. You can take a regular image and recreate it with a ton of small images. The program does this for you automatically and the program is free. I used it to make the image above and then used photoshop to animate it. So it goes from the multiimage to the original.

Photo-A-Day #402 05/15/06 Don’t believe the hype. This camera is not worth the box it came in. That is why I am returning it. Sure it looks like t has some great stats but the reality is that Fisher Price can make a less toylike camera. Imagine trying to take a picture while looking through tomato soup and mud. That was what it was like to use this camera. Just about the worst pictures ever. Luckily I can return it for almost a full refund (restocking fee.) A lesson learned. So tonight we went to dinner with Andy and Rondi at Chilis. We had a very nice dinner and great fun conversing and laughing at some funny stories. Thanks for calling to see what we were up to tonight Rondi. These are just two of the 10 pictures I took with the camera. Pretty much the worst pictures ever.

Photo-A-Day #398 05/11/06 I doubt I have ever taken a picture of the camera that I use to take the daily photos. Well this is it, it is a Sanyo Xacti C4 straight from Japan. And it is dying. I have a replacement camera on the way. It is in Chelmsford now according to the UPS tracking number. It is a cheap interim camera until I get a digital SLR camera. I haven’t decided to get a Nikon or Canon or some other kind. I have used my sister’s camera often and it is a Nikon D70. If I get a Nikon as well then we can share lenses.

It has been one entire year of Photo-A-Day and today I will begin another. Yes, I am doing another full year of photos. Something that I realized while doing this project is that I enjoy having a photo each day from where I was around the country. Sometimes the images weren't very interesting or artistic. Some were just plain weird. But each one invokes a memory from the day I took the photo and that has been something important to me. I would like to thank Christopher Williams for his Photo-A-Day project that inspired me to do my own project. During this project I impressed certain rules upon myself. The image had to be taken that day. I broke this once for an important reason. The image had to be posted on the day it was taken. I had to take the image. During this next year I will try to adhere to these rules as well as I can but I may allow myself to be in more images so if someone else takes the image I may post that, I haven't decided if I will do that or not. I do have a ...

Another Year over? What am I talking about, New Year’s isn’t for another week. Another year over means that we have just completed Year #2 of the BenSpark. Yep this Blog has just Turned 2 Years old today and we head into Year #3. So what lies ahead in Year #3? Expect more Photos (of course, I now post them to Buzznet, Flicker and mySpace) as I complete year one of Photo-A-Day and start Year #2 (I think I am going to do it again, it has been so much fun). We should hit the 1000th post right after New Year’s. Expect more messages about music as mySpace has become a great place to find new musical talent. I’ll be keeping a running tally of the Books, CD’s and Movies I mention on the BenSpark (Look for a Year in Review of all the things multimedia I mentioned this past year around the 1st of the year). There will be new drop down menus on the right hand side that will list those items. I will continue to be on the look out for other Photo-A-Day friends, funny music and videos and generall...

You can now see our Wedding Pictures at Kodak Gallery. I uploaded all of the photos. There are over 1000 up now. So if there was anyone at the wedding who also took some pictures and would like to get them to me please send them along. Thank you.

Allison and I are on our honeymoon and I have not taken the laptop or the means to post images for Photo-A-Day (I am bringing the camera and will be taking tons of pictures.). But don’t fret I have taken steps to keep you visually and mentally stimulated for the days we are away. I have solicited the help of many talented individuals to help with the posting of images and content. From November 14-22, 2005 the BenSpark will be featuring a Guest Photo-A-Day and a guest blogger, Mo, of We’re in a Fight. Guest PADer #1 will be the one and only Christopher Williams. My inspiration behind Photo-A-Day. Back in 2002 Christopher took a Photo-A-Day and posted them to his website. Sounds like a simple concept, but some days it is much harder than you think. Christopher, however is an awesome folk singer and travels all over the country to play, so he has many great shots from all around the U.S. Allison and I love to go and hear Christopher sing. We had a few of his songs played at our wedding. ...

Okay so I didn’t take this actual picture but this morning as I was driving to work I went by a flock of wild turkeys and would have stopped to take the photo-a-day if I had the time. Maybe tomorrow or the next day if they were out again. There were about 15 of them all over this guys lawn. Wild Turkey Flock