Things I Wished I Brought To Japan as an ALT (or any English Teacher)

Stubby holders from Australia

Approaching the 1 year mark of living in Japan and working as an Assistant Language Teacher in 2 Junior High Schools in Toyota city, Aichi prefecture, I’ve started remembering the months leading up to departure from Australia last year. What stuff do I need that I might not be able to find easily in Japan? … Read more

WordPress, Travelling, Blogging and Product Promotion: An Interview With Me

One of the great things about WordPress is the community… the people are passionate and have a great attribute of sharing freely.

Jean from WP Mayor contacted me a while ago after I left a comment on one of his blog posts. It ended up in this interview… enjoy my WordPress super-expert-knowledge and self-promotion abilities!

Dean Wormald: Meet a Travelling WordPress Freelancer & Entprepreneur

The ALT experience and living in Japan – my first 6 months

Last month marked my first 6 months of working and living in Japan. Since I arrived in Japan, I’ve been living in Toyota city (Aichi prefecture, near Nagoya), working as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) at 2 local junior high schools. This post has been in the works for a few weeks now, whenever I … Read more

How to make websites: a guide for Australians

Finally, I’ve done it. From the initial thoughts years ago, to the start of methodical work on it, my venture into selling in the online space has commenced. After a degree in Mutlimedia (marketing major) and 5 years working in some of Australia’s leading interactive agencies and businesses, I wanted to share my knowledge of … Read more

WordBeach, Nagoya 2011

I’m posting this to my WordPress blog via the iPhone app, from WordBeach near Nagoya. WordBeach homepage: http://wordbeach.org/ (Japanese). Yokoso News page, including details on the live video cast I was a guest on: http://yokosonews.com/matsuri/wordbeach2011/ (English). Struggling with understanding the language, but it’s interesting to see the WordPress community in Japan. It was a pleasure … Read more

More awards for Hidden Pizza (Yellow Pages integrated campaign)

The Yellow Pages Hidden Pizza campaign keeps on picking up awards… Adding to the long list of awards already won! This time at the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards the campaign won: Platinum Award – Best of Show Best integrated marketing campaign – Gold Most effective use of advertising – Silver Most effective use of interactive … Read more

Weet-Bix in Japan

Finally I have acquired one of my favourite staples for breakfast… Weet-Bix! A typical breakfast in Japan would be rice, grilled fish, raw egg, pickled vegies and natto. As this is almost exactly what I have for lunch, I need my cereal! There aren’t many cereals to choose from here, there are a few Kellogs … Read more

HDR photography with Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3

This article shows you how to make High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos, and shows 6 HDR photos I made in minutes with my Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3. Includes a guide on how to make HDR photos with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 digital camera.

This article will not give advice on the setting to use for your shots, this is something I always struggled with.

(Update 8 months after this original post: I’m not struggling with getting good shots anymore, after continually experimentation and keeping an eye out for good scenes, the HDR shots are getting better. Take a look at my HDR set on Flickr, all taken with my DMC-LX3).

What I find works best is if there is a large amount of contrast. For example, in the the photo by the river below, the sky was bright but the trees were not. Taking an ordinary photo of this meant that the sky was blown out (too bright) as the auto-focus would meter on the trees. Best way to discover this is just to experiment lots. That being said, I’ve found my most successful photos were those taken at dawn or dusk.

HDR photos taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3

First, let’s start with some examples of HDR photos taken with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3. There are a lot of awesome HDR photos to be found on the net. I like to use the HDR method on my favourite personal photos to bring them to life. My HDR photos below have not been Photoshopped, I don’t like the over-saturated look, it stands out too much, so I’m not interested in spot blending or anything similar. My method is to get the photo as good as possible in-camera, take the series of photos and then compose them with HDR software.

HDR photo of St Pauls cathedral in Melbourne
This HDR photo of St Pauls cathedral in Melbourne was the first one I made.
HDR photo of the river at dawn
The river at dawn near the Gordonvale rest area in Far North Queensland.
HDR photo of campfire
The lads around the fire on the Australia van road trip.
HDR photo of the street at night
From the front verandah, a night shot of the street.
HDR photo of a vineyard in the Hunter Valley of NSW.
The vineyard at dusk.
HDR photo of a barn in the Hunter Valley of NSW.
The setting sun shining on a barn at the vineyard.

That’s it for the photos, I have taken 2 or 3 other attempts which totally failed (the setting was all wrong). For higher resolution photos, take a look at my Flickr gallery of HDR photos.

(Update 8 months after this original post: I’ve been living in Japan for a year and taken a lot of great HDR photos of some amazing places in Japan. For 20+ more HDR photos, take a look at my HDR set on Flickr, all taken with my DMC-LX3).

Instructions on how to take a HDR photo with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3

Here is my method, it is quite simple yet works time and time again for me.

Part 1: Taking the photo in-camera.

  1. Set your camera on a tripod or somewhere very sturdy, this is a must and you will discover why later. You cannot just hold the camera with your hands. Most software will have auto-align functionality, but it is always best to get it right in-camera first.
  2. Once you have your scene ready, set your camera to iA mode and half press the shutter button. Take note of the F number that will appear at the bottom of the screen.
  3. Switch the setting dial to A for Aperture Priority mode. Then, use the tiny joystick (the Q. MENU control) to set the F number to what you noted in step 1.
  4. Then press the exposure/up button twice (it is the up arrow, above the MENU/SET button with +/- on it.), until you see AUTO BRACKET along the top of the screen.
  5. Then press the right arrow button, and set the exposure to somewhere between ± 1 to ± 2.
  6. Half press the shutter button, this will confirm your settings. You will notice that a new symbol has appear on the right side of the screen with a ± symbol.
  7. Auto bracket takes 3 photos, one at 0 exposure, one at -1 exposure and one at +1 exposure (if your setting is ± 1). Now this is why you need a tripod, as later you will be merging these photos together, so they need to be the same.
  8. Press the left button, which has the time symbol on it. This will set the self timer, choose 2 or 10 seconds, it doesn’t really matter. The reason for doing this, is to make sure there is no movement from when you press the shutter release.
  9. Finally, press the shutter release and 3 photos will be taken.

Part 2: Using HDR software on your computer to merge the photos and produce the final image.

From here, I use a Mac application called Hydra. I’ve tried Photoshop but never with good results, I’ve heard you can use Lightroom, Aperture and more but Hydra is the one that works for me.

(Update 8 months after this original post: When I originally posted this I was using Adobe Photoshop CS3 and the Automate HDR function was poor. Now in Photoshop CS5 the Automate HDR function is very impressive – I don’t use Hydra anymore, but it’s still a great option!).

Response to Media; Death of Osama bin Laden

On May 1, 2011 Pres. Barack Obama appeared on national television with the spontaneous announcement that Osama bin Laden, the purported organizer of the tragic events of September 11th 2001, was killed by military forces in Pakistan. Within moments, a media blitz ran across virtually all television networks in what could only be described as a grotesque celebratory display, reflective … Read more

Driving from Suenohara to Toyota City, then Toyota Stadium… vending machine spotting

Here is a video I took, driving from my house to Toyota city. Originally the video was supposed to help me remember a new route to drive to work, but found it interesting at how many vending machines there were, and where they were. Vending machines in Japan are known as 自販機 (jihanki, which is … Read more

My new 1LDK apartment in Toyota City, Japan

So after training in Nagoya, I finally settled into my apartment in Toyota City. Here is a walk-through video of my empty place… 1LDK means 1 bed, a living room and a kitchen and dining room. It really is not that small, and in comparison to Australia, it is actually quite cheap to rent. My … Read more