Photo shopping

A week ago I bought my camera. I looked for a nice bag for the camera but I couldn't find anyone. Last week, here in Hsinchu, I went to Nova and there I found (and bought) a very nice bag. I also asked for close-up lens but they didn't know what I was talking about, that was kind of frustrating.

After coming back to home, I realized I forgot to ask for UV filters, but as in the weekend I was going to Taipei, I decided to take a look there.

Sunday afternoon in Taipei, I go to Nova. After asking in some photography stores about filters and close-up lens, I finally found one that sells the lens. They didn't have the original canon lens, but they had a japanese lens, pretty much cheaper than the original ones. So ok, I bought the lens, the filter, and as I spent considerably less money than I thought I'd spend, I also bought a tripod.

So far, my camera bag has:

Canon 500D

EF-S 18-55 IS

UV filter

Close-up lens x4

Tripod

The photographer

New camera, new skills to learn. After reading some material on internet and taking some pictures in my dorm, I decided to go outside to shoot some pics.

I thought sunrise would be a nice time to catch some interesting pics, but knowing that waking up early is really painful (for not saying impossible) I decided to stay awake all night and then go out.

I went out to take a walk with my camera at 6:30 in the morning. I could get some good shots but the light was really low, and with a maximum aperture f/5.6 the shutter speed was always too slow for taking the photos without a tripod. The only choice I had was to increase the ISO speed to 1600 or even 3200, getting steady shots but with the con of some noise and lesser color quality.

Some rocky mistakes I had were in general taking a picture without changing the settings from the last shot (for example, taking pictures in the lake, I realize after 10 shots that the ISO speed was fixed at 3200). But in general I think the quality and composition were good for the first time I shot the camera outside.

Back at home, I downloaded the pictures and made some tweaks with Photoshop. The results, on my facebook (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12975&id=1787400491&l=18aa9feefa)

A night in the hotel

De ahora en más voy a escribir la mayoría de las entradas en inglés, voy a tratar de traducir lo más posible a español.

Ok, now I have time to spend writting something in my blog. This week, a group of professors and engineers from latin america are in xinzhu; they came to NCTU for a workshop . ISC asked some spanish speaker students for help with the organization, including me. My jod consists of going to diner with the group, help them with food and that kind of stuffs, going to the hotel with them and make sure nobody gets lost (in few words, free food). So last night I stayed in Sol Hotel, an amazing hotel.

The room was really big, nice beds, a couch, big bathroom, tv, internet, a desk, tea and coffee, and a small frige. Inside the desk there were some draft paper, pencil, eraser, clipper. The room was really well equiped.

Last, a high-tec toilet. It's hot when you sit on it, and you can control the temperature. It has "cleaning facilities" controlled via the keyboard in the right side.

So, wednesday and thursday I will stay in the same hotel. I will make this sacrifice in order to help these poor people :p

See ya

Pizza Night

Two weeks ago I went to an italian restaurant in Zhubei (North of Xinzhu) with some friends. The place looked really good, inside the restaurant we felt like we really were in europe. We had some draft beer, salad, bread and pizza. The pizza was truly italian style, the salad was ok and the bread was nice, like the bread in our countries.

Draft beer, really good

Yeah, this is pizza

Midterm season's gone

After some weeks of hard study, i finally ended with all my midterms.

So far, the results are:

Mandarin 1: 99

Practical Chinese: 95

Sigma Delta Modulators: 100

Dos meses ya

Sin muchas celebraciones pasaron ya dos meses desde que llegue a Taiwan.

El resumen: va todo bien, mucho estudio por estos dias pero todo lindo.

En algun momento escribire algo mas extenso.

Saludos.

Revolviendo el arcón de los recuerdos

Revisando documentos viejos encontré un compilado de poemas que alguna vez supe escribir. Después de releerlos y recordar algunos parecen algo infantiles, otros no tantos. Sin embargo, hay uno que me gusta mucho (desde mi punto de vista como lector, puede que las cosas hechas por el yo-escritor me gusten). Lo dejo a continuación.

Pensamientos

Efímeros, tal vez,

Los suspiros de mi alma.

Desgarran el velo

De esta noche sin luna,

Caen desde el cielo

En llanto de mil estrellas formado.

Efímeros, tal vez,

O quizá no tanto.

Resonando en lo ecos

Más allá del tiempo,

Lindando los abismos de la eternidad.

Efímeros, tal vez,

Dibujando arco iris en tus ojos,

Durmiendo en tu sonrisa,

Jugando en tus cabellos

Efímeros, tal vez,

Pero nunca lejos tuyo

Alegría, miedo llanto.

Pensamientos pasajeros,

O efímeros, o eternos.