sara has a blog! eep.

New digs.

Final Scratch (shot by Jeff Croft)

Perhaps Tuesdays and Thursdays will be photos that have caught my eye. Hmm.

Two great tastes that taste great together!

I speak, of course, of transparency and clipping!

Weeks ago it seems, I promised a CSS-focused entry. I may be tardy (or anyway, slow to deliver), but here we are! What we have here is some relatively simple transparency-making and image clipping achieved via CSS, although without using the actual clipping attribute (mostly because it was a right pain to do, very confusing).

What you see here is: the same image & text with two executions using the same code with just 1 difference for the 2nd execution.

Seeing right through you
First, the transparency. Sure, you could use an image — say a PNG — but I like this method with the background colour. If I’m feeling frisky at a later date: I can change the colour or shape or size only using Terminal, without having to upload new images, etc.

I’m using browser-specific properties (noted in “Easy cross-browser transparency”) for the effect. The way I got around child elements inheriting the opacity of my see-thru block was to make the see-thru block an empty div. Not everyone is down with empty elements and generally speaking: I’m not. However, this seems to be such a specific application as to be an unobtrusive amount of extra code.

Just a bit off the sides, please
And on to clipping. There is, of course, the actual clipping property. I don’t happen to like it, with all its having to find coordinates from the upper left corner and blah blah. No, thanks.

Instead: pick the size (300 x 300px, for example), off-set the image inside of it with negative margins. Done and done.

I mentioned earlier that the clipped version only has (or needs) 1 difference and for this method, that difference is in the parent container (I called it "clipped-photo"). From the parent container, you cascade your clipped updates downward with nested styles.

What’s that you say?
Finally, the text! In this method, I place the empty transparent div and the content/message div via absolute positioning (inside the relatively positioned parent container). The 2 divs are the same size and in the same position.

That’s pretty much it! Have another look at the final results. (:

That's a keeper.

I didn’t forget! I just got distracted with the KU vs. Memphis game and then with Wii bowling (and tennis and golf). There’s a CSS technique post coming your way, but tonight, here are a few recent favourite photos from a few friends.

Friendly Robot Camera by Jeff Croft

Life is Beautiful by Lori

Salt by Tom Watson

Renting lenses

I’m a big fan of the lens rental. My local shops (Samy’s, Calumet) have rental departments, of course, but I steer clear because they are way out of my budget. So where do I rent? Online!

There are 3 places I’ve rented from online and they’ve all been great (twice leading to a purchase because I loved the lens so much). If you’re interested in new gear, I highly recommend renting first; it’s so worth it to shell out a little bit of money to be able to try the equipment the way you’ll actually be using it, instead of at the counter in a shop where it’s a few minutes tops.

Lens Pro to Go
http://www.lensprotogo.com

Justin recommended LPtG to me early last year, he’d rented a 70-200 f/2.8 and had only good things to say about the experience top to bottom. I’m always down for good customer service, so when it came time to go to Washington, D.C. last year, I turned to LPtG to rent a 17-55 f/2.8.

Paul, the owner and responder of almost all the emails into LPtG, is friendly and helpful and he stocks what I like to call The Big Guns. The 2.8 zooms and 1.4 primes for Nikon, and the L Series lenses for Canon. He ships in Pelican cases, too, so you need not worry about the safety of your rental (in either direction).

The 2 lenses that I’ve rented from LPtG are the:

• 17-55 f/2.8G (DX) (Nikon specs)
  I rented it to have a zoom that’s good in low light for shooting Honor by August at IOTA in Arlington, VA. It was, in a word, perfect for it. I was able to get nice wide shots when I wanted to (even from right in front of the stage) and still get in closer for portraits when the mood struck.
  
  
  
• 10.5mm f/2.8G Fisheye (Nikon Specs)
  The fisheye just sounded like a lot of fun and it was great out in Death Valley. I don’t think it’s a lens I would use very often, the fisheye can be disorienting, but for certain applications, it’s fantastic. There’s one photo I got with it that made the rental and the trip to DV totally worth it:
  
  

ZipLens
http://www.ziplens.com

I stumbled on to ZipLens through a Flickr friend (although I don’t remember who exactly) a little more than a year ago and I’ve rented a handful of lenses from them. ZipLens has good prices, comparable to LPtG, and a really nice selection.

So far, I’ve rented 2 lenses from ZipLens:

• 60mm f/2.8D Micro (Nikon specs)
  I have great affection for macro photography (Nikon calls it “micro”) and while my own macro photos tend to revolve around flowers (I can see you’re shocked), shooting anything macro is totally fun. The 60 is also a nice portrait lens, although not so different from a 50mm that you’d notice.
  
  Additionally, the short-ish focal length means you have to/can get right up on what you’re shooting. While this is fun, it can be inhibiting if you’re trying to get a close-up of a bug. For that, you might want to jump to the longer macros (Nikon also makes a 105mm f/2.8 Micro and Tamron makes a 90mm macro that I hear wonderful things about).
  
  
• Sigma 30mm f/1.4 (Sigma specs)
  My friend Cindy has a 30mm and the fact that it opens up so very wide caught my attention quite early. The 30mm exploits the crop factor on digital SLRs nicely, so you end up with a great lens for portraits, landscapes, etc.
  
  I wasn’t taken with it immediately for 1 reason: its auto focus is a bit slow on my camera. In the end, though, it turns out I really really enjoy the 30mm. It’s a solid lens, definitely not what you want if you’re looking for a “light” lens. But it performs excellently in low light and produces really smooth out-of-focus areas (bokeh).
  
  
  

Rent Glass
http://www.rentglass.com/

My friend Ingrid pointed me toward Rent Glass; they’ve got a good selection and really prices. And they ship quite quickly. I’ve only rented one lens from them so far, but after I returned it, I turned around and bought my own. (Yay for renting!)

• 20mm f/2.8D (Nikon specs)
  I don’t know about you, but I love wide angle lenses: getting so much in the frame without having to cross the street or leave the room is almost endlessly useful. Getting up close to your subject with a wide angle is just as fun; what’s more with its 2.8 maximum aperture, the depth of field out of this lens is wonderful.
  
  If you’re thinking about a wide angle lens, but you don’t want a heavy zoom (my Tokina 12-24mm is not something you can just throw around), I highly recommend the 20mm (Canon makes one, too).
  
  
  

So there you have it. This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of places to rent from, but they’re the ones I know and trust.

Happy renting!

Starting at the beginning.