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This was an observation my daughter made about one of her toys. She was describing a creature’s make up in terms of the animals it resembled. At first her mom, (and I as well) thought she’d described this creature as more than a whole. Then we realized she was correct. She had not exceeded 100%.
I thought about renaming my site to ahalfasixthandathird, because I like how it forces one to realize the world’s a complicated place. That even as we try to understand an issue or event in simple terms, it’s really the sum of everyone’s understanding, that makes up the whole. What a first seems like different parts that don’t fit together are in fact a whole. The good, the bad, pretty and ugly. Cops and robbers, they all rely on each other to survive.

I’ve been using Lightroom 2.6 to do my conversions. It’s pretty quick, and I love the gradient filter tool. But, I have been experiencing less than desirable results lately, specifically with my LX3. The pictures had either a green or magenta cast to the shadows, and reds were very difficult to get right. I searched the internet for a camera calibration profile that matched my camera and came up empty. Adobe’s RAW conversion software recognizes the camera and corrects for lens distortion, but it misses the color.

I found someone sharing his camera calibration settings for the LX3.  They’re not for every situation, but they are a great starting place. The settings are:

RedHue -4
RedSaturation +21
GreenHue -14
GreenSaturation -20
BlueHue +3
BlueSaturation -6

I added -6 to the shadow tint setting.

Now I’m applying this to all my LX3 RAW conversions first before making individual adjustments in Lightroom.

But what about Lightroom? Is it still my first choice for quickly correcting a group of images?  I decided to compare it again to RAW Developer and to the new Lightroom 3 beta.

Armed with the camera’s Jpegs as an example of what the camera felt the pictures should look like, and my memories of the mornings visit to the car show, I set out to establish a RAW conversion work flow that would provide consistent, accurate results, that I could be happy with. I made 2 runs through my pictures with Lightroom 2, Then I did them all again with RAW Developer and then Lightroom 3.0 Beta. I also have the light version of Capture One but I didn’t include it in this test. Long story short I have found happiness in Lightroom 3.0. I was able to achieve pleasing color and sharpness from Lightroom 3. Lightroom 2.* gave me mixed results. I had a  lot difficulty with the shadows. They also lacked sharpness.  Raw Developer had excellent color at times and was sharper than the Lightroom 2.

All of the images in the carshow gallery that are effected such as this example, were done in Lightroom 2.0. That’s where my presets are and since effected shots aren’t so much about accuracy, they’re “good enough”.

Processed in Lightroom 2.*

Lightroom 3.0 beta was the only converter that made it easy to get the shadows correct. It’s as if Adobe has been sabotaging my Lightroom 2.0. to drum up new business for LR 3.0. This image sold me on Lightroom 3.0.

Converted in Lightroom 3.0 beta

The car is black. Yeah, there’s a hint of the blue sky in that black, as there should be. What Lightroom 2.0 and even Raw Developer (to a much lesser extent) did, was add either Magenta or green to those shadows. This shot rocks in comparison. I apologize for not saving all the examples for inclusion here. You’re just going to try LR 3.0 for yourself to see if it works for you.

Raw Developer created a finely detailed sharp image with excellent color. However, it doesn’t correct for distortion. I could do that correction in Photoshop, but that’s another step I don’t want to take. There is one image in the car show pictures that’s from RAW Developer. The color of the carpet was the most difficult to get right. I also really like how sharp the steering wheel is.

Developed with RAW Developer

Left the house early to check out the new home of the Supercar Sunday meet in Woodland Hills. It was a lot bigger than I’d expected. For a ridiculously cold morning there was quite a turn out.

There were three Mercedes 300 Gullwings, a Ferrari F40 and this Porsche Carrera GT. Tesla was there with 4 cars and a few salesmen. Lotus Elise/Exiges were everywhere. A great morning for motoring and sightseeing.

I think it’s great how guys with half million dollar cars will get out of the house early on Sunday to share their rides with the masses.

Click the photo for more pictures

Well, It’s officially a tradition. That is if doing something twice, and speaking of doing it again next year can be said to establish a tradition.
John, Rob, Ken, Brian and myself met up in Malibu for a day of canyon driving and some quality standing around visiting. After driving Yerba Buena road for the first time, we all agreed it was a must do on our next trip. Lunch was at the Reel Inn in Malibu and was delicious as usual.

Here’s a link to our route through the canyons. You can see from the data there, where we stopped and see our elevation as we traveled.

Ken's Cortina as a late 70's magazine ad.

Here’s a link to a gallery of the day. There are POV videos of driving up the canyon roads and shots of many of the sites we saw that day. It sure beat watching parades and football. And judging by all the other car affectionados on the road that day, we weren’t the only ones to feel that way.

What’s more fun than going shopping on Black Friday? Just about anything, but for myself and some old friends we took a leisurely drive in the Santa Monica mountains. My friends are all fortunate to have vintage rides from the 60’s and 70’s. I had to make due with my modern car.
We met up with a vintage car club in a parking lot in Malibu at 9:00 am, check out their rides and then headed out on our own.

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Treffen, is German for “to meet up” or “meet”. This VW meet in Anaheim, CA is in its 3rd year. Featuring cars from 1957 and prior, it’s a very nice collection of VWs, all over 50 years old. A couple of favorites were the original KDF-Wagons from the Hitler era.

And these very cool convertibles, VW Rometsch Beeskow Cabroilets. They were built on a VW Chassis by a German coach company headed by Rometsch. It’s an aluminum body with suicide doors. VW eventually prohibited the sale of chassis to Rometsch to eliminate the competition. VW then produced the Karmann Ghia.
The brow over the front wheel reminds me very much of the brow over the front wheels of my father’s 190SL Mercedes. Not too surprising since Beeskow designed the 300SL two years after this car.

Shows like this always get me motivated to acquire an old car.

Click on any of these pictures to see them more or less full screen. After the jump, use your arrow keys to advance to pictures from this event.

A road trip much better suited to younger folks. We left my house at 3:00 A.M. Sunday. We arrived in Monterey at 8:00 A.M. Had breakfast at a local diner and were in the raceway by 9:30. Walking though the paddock areas we were free to enjoy the cars close up. The crowds were not large and it was very easy to move about and enjoy the sights, sounds and even smells of all the old cars assembled there.
I’m very happy with the how my pictures came out. Pretty much every picture from the paddock area was taken with the Lumix LX3. This link will take you directly to my favorite view in my Vintage Races gallery. Use the arrow keys after following the link to advance the pictures.
We left Monterey at about 4 and traveled south on Carmel Valley road. It was about 50 miles of unspoiled California. The road narrowed in places and the center line wasn’t even there. Tight and twisty I’m sure we all wished we were behind the wheels of our own cars.

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This Rally was a nice mix of the hectic and a nice drive through the country.

The odometer check ended in Simi Valley, just below the 118 on East street. At the end of the odo check there’s always a short break. My rally partner took the opportunity to relieve himself. Then once we took off he’d apparently lost his phone, We paused for him to get out and look under the seat while other drivers passed us. We found the phone and drove like the wind actually completing the leg with a penalty for arriving early instead of late. Not sure how that happened. (more…)

While those visiting Tahquitz waiting in line for lunch. The Tribe guys entertained with many of their camp songs. Here’s a clip.

Driving up to Kevin’s camp I’m always impressed at what a smooth ascent it seems to be. Now I have proof. I had thought that immediately after the hairpin turn the road was much steeper, but apparently not. Check out the vertical profile of this 23 miles of driving.

Ascent to Tahquitz. (Kevin’s camp)

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Trail Maps

Here’s a better view of the elevation. Now I can see that at about 3000′ it does get steeper for a time.

Recently 3 of my friends came into the fold of fellow iPhone owners. Here’s a listing of what apps I currently have on my iphone and why I like then or why I never use them.

Screen one (the left side) has the apps I use most often. The Chronometer app is a collection of watch faces. They’re a mixture of fictional and actual watches. The best of them will tell you the phases of the moon, the time of the three stages of dusk and in what direction the sun is from you and how high it is off the horizon at any time or date. If you’re at all interested in Time and Solar astronomy this app is amazing.

NetNewsWire is an iphone version of an extremely popular RSS reader for the Mac.  This is the app I’m most likely looking at while out at lunch or waiting for a haircut or anytime I’m looking to discover something new. RSS feeds allow you to scan the articles from most any website very quickly and then clicking though to read the entire article if I’m interested.  I found my car via RSS feeds from Craig’s list.

Google app.  Love this one.  I use it  most often when I’m having touble spelling something or when I need to answer some kind of question quickly.  It allows me to say the search terms. It listens and returns the results. It also offers suggested searches as I type (when not using the voice feature) Basically if I’m going to the web in search of an answer, I start here. (more…)

While camping near the Santa Ynez river, we came across a baptism in the river. It’s a scene that’s no doubt occurred tens of thousands of times over hundreds of years. Below is a short clip I captured while watching. I’ve learned to really appreciate traditions and gatherings such as this for the continuity they bring to a culture. I see in them a timeless quality that can’t help but connect the viewer/participant to history and to those that have traveled this way before us. Imagine this occurring in this very spot a 150 years prior. The only difference might be the clothes and the digital cameras. Watch the video after the jump. (more…)

My third TSD rally and we came in first in our Class C division with 111 points. Wooo Hooo!
Plenty of planing and thought went into getting ready for this event. Most of that was lost after a few moments of juggling the stopwatch the instructions, worksheets and my laptop. We didn’t have a pen and I’d forgotten to bring a calculator. Still we managed to beat 8 or 9 other cars in our class. (more…)

From time to time I find myself involved with online retailers that just don’t get it. Companies that can’t follow a protocol of online transactions that I’ve come to expect as a customer. Perhaps I’m spoiled by organizations such as Amazon that seem to do everything right. It just seems to me that online sales can be so easy. Mostly automated the hardest part has to be finding someone to put the item in the box and print the label.  Wait, even that can be automated for a price. (more…)

These shots were all taken with my relatively new Lumix LX3 camera. They’re mostly all of the Santa Yanez Mission in Solvang, California. A couple towards the end are from the surrounding area.