I must have 20 something revisions on this post and I am still not fully satisfied with it. Not because of some poetic reason like the words being used to describe the photos, but because I am fully realizing how much I dislike the block editor that is now the default in WordPress.
While admiring this processed black and white drone shot of New York City by way of New Jersey, know that I have never liked the built-in Media Library of WordPress. For a platform that seems to market itself towards media-centric projects, the built in asset management of the WordPress Media Library seems to have not changed one bit since the original release of the platform. The only search and organization is a tag based search system. What I wouldn’t give for a built in folder system to organize media with.
Yes I know that like any other open platform, there are a series of plugins that could potentially make my life easier. And to that I say, if you look up there is a nice drone shot of a small Jersey town festival over Labor Day weekend. It was taken with automatic exposure bracketing and I processed it afterwards in AfterShot Pro. Along with that I’ll say that I already have my share of WordPress plugins running that manage to make my shared hosting slow to a crawl.
What a nice panorama of the Catskill mountains, if only there was some way to pan through it and really take a look at it closer. Well there are various WordPress plugin subscription services I can use for the ++checks count++ one panorama I post each year. Even opening it up to a lightbox does nothing.
The final count was 25 revisions of this post as I tried to figure out how WordPress and images are handled with the block editor.
During the Pandemic, I have tried out all different types of hobbies and wore many different hats to prevent myself from going completely stir crazy while indoors and outdoors avoiding any interaction with other people. Probably one of the best sanity-maintaining purchases I made was that of the prosumer drone.
I have flown my share of those $30 – $50 drones you get off of Amazon that really go all over the place outside and last about two hours indoors before you hit a wall and shatter a few propellers in one go.
The Mini 2 from DJI is a whole different beast and it is priced accordingly for what you get with it. It is one of the few pieces of technology that I have used in recent years that actually felt like some kind of futuristic device for me as an average person to have. The range, the control at higher (safe and legal) altitudes, and the picture quality in both the live feed and the video and photos it takes and holds onboard.
There will be plenty of other posts with the video and other photos captured from it, including some really great built in panorama features. But I wanted to put something up about the HDR mode built into the device. Mostly because I wanted to use one of those nifty before and after scrolling things for the pictures.
The Mini 2 does not automatically create HDR photos like how the iPhone does. Instead, it takes 3 different pictures – one at normal exposure based on the sensor light reading, then one underexposed, and one overexposed, in rapid succession so that there is minimal drift. The feature is a common one on DSLR cameras – Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB) and can be enabled from the standard photo settings in the DJI app.
From there, you can drop your 3 photos into software that supports the merging of AEB style photos. Personally, I used Corel AfterShot Pro 3, because I have been a registered user for a bit, it’s a non-subscription license, and it has been helpful for managing my DSLR photos which I keep separate from my built in macOS/iOS Photos.app. AEB merging is also supported in Affinity Photo, Adobe Lightroom, and there are some other open source tools and freeware/shareware options available too.
The HDR photos are on the left of both of these pictures and the photos on the right are considered the normal exposure shot taken with the camera during the process.
I have no plans of taking every single photo as AEB, but it can definitely be the sazón for any good set of shots when I am out flying the thing around.
Carrion (Mac) 12-5-20 The Pedestrian (PC) 12-6-20 Untitled Goose Game (Switch) 12-12-20
The Superlatives…
Game of the Year and Generation – The Last of Us Part 2 – PS4: I say it with nothing but extreme compliments when I call this the most miserable game I have played. Every step along the way of the story had me filled with regret and dread. By what appears to be the end of the game, I was yelling at my TV for the main character to just give up their quest. Story ✅ Graphics ✅ Sound ✅ Control ✅. All aspects of TLoU2 are top tier. Releasing it with a pandemic happening in real life only added to the mystique. I am looking forward to clearing out my game backlog so I can hopefully revisit the game.
Honorable Mentions:Ghost of Tsushima was terrific and I even got the platinium trophy for it which I almost never do for open world games. Control was great but a little weird at times. Seems to be cut from the same cloth as Kojima games in regards to how bizarre it got. I played through all of Carrion on my Mac Mini and it was just as good as the demo I got to play many month ago.
The Blu-Ray drive on my Playstation 4 Pro, under the stress of the last eight months of pandemic induced heavy usage, started showing signs of failing. Namely I had to hit the top of my PS4 multiple times after putting in a disk in before it would “catch” and start spinning up.
The thrilling sounds of my PS4 Pro rejecting a disc that put into it.The sounds of me not-so-gently tapping the top of my PS4 Pro to read a disc.
Thanks to the magic of parts on Amazon (always check your model this one only for PS4 Pro) and the great guides at iFixIt, I was able to swap out the drive with minimal fuss. As a precautionary measure, I set up my “Generic Extreme Sports Action Camera” over it and set to take pictures every 5 seconds in case I wound up with any extra parts.
Conveniently this made a great time-lapse video after stitching it together. I have been messing with Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve as my editor which provides a ridiculous amount of value in it’s free package. I am a big fan.
Anyway here is that time-lapse.
During re-assembly, you have to apply thermal paste again to the APU. The original paste that Sony puts on is sloppy as hell and I wonder if it had anything to do with my Pro sounding like a jet engine during later titles like God of War, Days Gone, and The Last of Us Part 2. I put on my trusty Arctic Silver 5 and right now I am playing through Ghost of Tsushima (great game) and have not heard any fan revving.
But on the other hand I have only played Ghost of Tsushima and Fall Guys (another great game) since putting everything back together. I’ll give it a stress test when I have a chance. But for now all is right with the world. If the world was just this drive problem with my Playstation.
I have recently reached a milestone in my game collection… Not too sure how proud I am about it though. Two games in my collection stand out above the rest. They are the only two games that I own four physical copies of for four different consoles.
The Quadruple Dip Tier is very rarified air.
First up is Night Trap from Digital Pictures. I picked up my first copy on Sega CD many moons ago. It was in the bargain bin of either an Electronics Boutique or Software Etc… at a New Jersey mall. When the game came out, it helped usher in a new era of what could be considered adult content in video games along with what should be allowed.
This all wasn’t done on purpose though. The game sorta sucked. It was a campy B-movie with vampires and Dana Plato from Diff’rent Strokes fits into the equation somewhere. You are part of the SCAT team which even as a kid I knew was a dumb name to give any group. Mortal Kombat did the heavy lifting with this new era ushering, but Night Trap sure was paraded around because it looked like a movie (in the 64 color palette of the Sega CD)
But because of all the controversy surrounding the game, it became a hot item for a bit. The beloved used video game chain Funcoland had the price for a used copy over $100 for a period of time. By 1997 – 1998 this was all forgotten as newer and grittier games were released. This was when I got the game for like $20 bucks new in box. That box has since gotten a lot of abuse because I didn’t have great storage options through the years. But other than some visual mileage, everything is still complete.
I could go on forever with the lore of Night Trap and how it has become one of those classic “B-movies” in game format where I just can’t say no to owning a copy of it. Around the time of the game’s 25th anniversary, it was re-released for PlayStation 4 in digital format. Not only a re-release but a remaster of the game as well using higher resolution video sourced from the original footage. It is definitely the best looking copy.
Limited Run Games, a company that specializes in releasing physical versions of digital games, worked out releasing real disc and cartridge versions of Night Trap. Over the past couple years of releases, I was able to get the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Nintendo Switch releases of the game. I decided not to get a PC version because I really don’t have a physical PC game collection outside of my 90’s Mac stuff.
I remember that Double Switch was originally hyped as a “spiritual successor” to Night Trap. Digital Pictures released the game about year later as people were still riding that brief wave of the Sega CD being relevant (I am guilty of this too). In terms of 1993 full motion video games, Double Switch was celebrity packed. It had Corey Haim, R. Lee Ermey, Debbie Harry, and a bunch of other people that don’t have as in-depth Wikipedia pages.
I picked up the game new at some point during the Sega CD lifecycle. It was much easier to get a copy of than Night Trap at the time most likely because of the “T” for teen rating it held. In terms of B-movie, Night Trap had it beat. It did have a fun trap system and the story was interesting enough for a teenage me to be entertained with.
The Sega Saturn version offered higher quality video and moved from 1 disc on Sega CD to 2 discs on Saturn. I picked my copy up only recently which brought Double Switch into the Quadruple Dip Tier.
Just like Night Trap, Double Switch got a digital re-release and remaster with higher resolution footage around the time of its 25th anniversary. Limited Run once again did physical releases only for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. I think they did a PC re-release as well, but I am not really collecting big box PC games.
Look, I know that both of these games are pretty horrible overall. They don’t move the needle very far in regards to gaming. Sure, Night Trap helped start the big conversation of censorship and regulation in video games, but look at games today. Anything released in the last two years with a Mature rating makes Night Trap look like a PG movie. These are just two titles that stood out for their campiness (is that a word) and their uniqueness at the time. A time where I was young and impressionable with full motion video and a Sega CD.
Shortly after Double Switch, I got out of console gaming and became more interested in computers and gaming on them.
