Ann Coulter's "Today Show" Interview and religion

I must respond to Ann Coulter's interview on The Today Show this morning.

Ann Coulter does NOT represent the views of all conservatives or Christians. As a politically-conservative Christian, I very much resented how she represented those two groups of which I am a member.

Ms. Coulter's book (which I have not read, though I intend to) appears to be wrong even from the title. From what she said in the interview, how she said it, and how she named her book, she appears to be a political conservative (though NOT a Christian) trying to incite the large Christian base of the Republican party into a frenzy over whatever claims she makes in her book. What's sad is that she either doesn't know or doesn't care how much her own desperation is hurting her cause and that of those she claims to represent.

There IS a religion for Christians to be aware of, however, though Ms. Coulter misses it completely. I am sure that there are many well-meaning, sincere, and faithful Christians who vote on the left side of the aisle. I harbor them no grudge. I am also CERTAIN that there are many political conservatives who are as godless as can be.

And this brings me to the religion that Christians need to be aware of. Philosophers would (these days) call it "scientific naturalism". Preachers would call it "godlessness" (as I will in this post).

Godlessness is every bit as much a religion as Christianity. But to back that statement up, I'd better define the term "religion." A religion starts from a fundamental assumption. Someone who adheres to a particular religion makes at some point a decision to believe or accept the religion's fundamental assumption. This decision is made apart from any evidence pro or con. Those who believe in a religion will often expend considerable time, money, and effort to convert others to their religion. Most of these resources are spent trying to "prove" the fundamental assumption of the religion. But for some people (regardless of religion), the effort to "convert" is more of a jihad than anything else. These extremists consider as enemies those who do not accept their religion.

Now let's compare Christianity and Godlessness. The fundamental assumption for Christianity is that the Bible is true, and that God created everything we see and set it in order. The fundamental assumption for Godlessness is that God does not really exist, and that everything we see can be explained by the interaction of time, laws of nature, and random chance.

The Intelligent Design "movement" seeks to prove the fundamental assumption of Christianity. However their approach has two fatal flaws. First, they're trying to prove a decidedly metaphysical statement through physical evidence. Second, they're trying to prove something (the existence of God) while vigorously disclaiming any knowledge of the implications (the rest of Christianity).

The scientific community at large has the same fundamental flaws, however. They're trying to prove through physical evidence that God does NOT exist, which suffers the additional logical problem of proving a negative. They're also trying to support through evidence, research, and experiments a decidedly religious statement ("God does not exist") while emphatically denying that they support any religion at all.

I do not appreciate Ms. Coulter's representation of Christian conservatives. And I believe that she is wrong on several of her main points. But I appreciate her raising awareness that there IS a religion that's permeating the courts and lecture halls without acknowledging itself as a religion. I just wish she had correctly identified it, and been more tactful in drawing attention to it.

Mixing Flash and Ambient Light

I've been playing a bit lately with using flash in combination with available light for various purposes.

A lot of what I've done has been testing. For example, the following pictures I took in my car.

The first picture shows the scene as metered by the camera. The speedometer is washed-out, almost to the point of losing detail due to lack of contrast. And the sky is completely blown out.

The second picture shows the scene severely underexposed for ambient light, but I had my flash set to use high-speed sync. The shutter speed was 1/8000 of a second, forcing the flash to fire multiple times to illuminate the entire frame. Here you can see the speedometer is properly exposed, but the sky is quite dark.

In this next pair of images I illustrate the effectiveness of using bounced flash for fill. My daughter was looking out our front door while holding on to the gate (eating it, actually).

In this first picture you can see how the scene would be if it were lit only by available light. With the image properly exposed for the trees in the background, only a small sliver of Emily's face retains detail.

In the second picture, you can clearly see the effect of the bounced flash. While it's obvious that the picture is better-lit, it would be difficult to tell why without knowing. And someone who hadn't seen the first picture might not realize that any light had been added to the scene. (The same technique was used for the pictures at the top and bottom of this post.)

These last two images were taken at our church's annual Easter egg hunt. Both pictures would have had extremes of contrast, since the sunlight was very harsh. However, I had my flash on the camera for use as fill, and it saved most of the pictures I took that day.
The first picture shows how fill flash can be used to subtly reduce contrast in shadow areas. My daughter would have been recognizable, but the picture would have required extensive curves processing to get a similar result without flash.

The second picture would have left you wondering who the picture was taken of. As it turned out, my mother's smile shows up great despite her being strongly back-lit.

Sorry if this one post bored you, but it's exciting to me to see the possibilities opened - and the shots saved - by techniques like this.

MY D200

New class of camera, new class of photos.

I must say, I'm amazed. If you'll remember, I spent a week at my Dad's house playing with his D200 over Christmas vacation. I was impressed then.

I'm AMAZED now.

The D200 is SUCH a wonderful camera! It begs you to carry it in your hands all the time, despite the weight. Enough features to make you feel like you've got a pro camera, enough options to convince you it was tailor-made to your specifications. Yes, it's got banding, so it might go back to have the A/D converters replaced and calibrated at some point. But I've run into banding in perhaps 5 shots out of around 1000 I've taken in the month or so that I've had it.

And that lens! The 17-55/2.8 DX is worth every cent you pay for it. Like the D200, it makes your hand more comfortable to be holding it. Truly a luxurious lens, it's obviously designed for professional photojournalists who would have to live with it day-in and day-out. It can out-resolve my D200's 10MP sensor, even wide-open at f/2.8. And the contrast is like nothing I've seen (and I've played with some of Canon's L lenses from time-to-time). Truly an optical marvel.

The combination of D200 + 17-55/2.8 just can't seem to go wrong. Focusing is ALWAYS fast and ALWAYS accurate. Any focusing errors can always be attributed to user mistakes. And with the SB600 - on OR OFF the camera - the pictures almost make you cry. They're just that good.

Anyway, enough talk. Here's the pictures!


ISO 1600, WB set to Incandescent+3, lit by the chandelier over our kitchen table

Lit by SB600 on-camera, bounced off the ceiling. Yes, the ball hit the lens hood just a split second later. My daughter's face is in PERFECT focus.

Her Papa was throwing her onto the couch cushions when I decided to try for the mid-air shot. It took me four tries, and he had already been throwing her a while. But the camera did its job, and I love the results. SB600 bounced off the ceiling, after pre-focusing on my father-in-law.

I was playing with the SB600 on its stand bouncing through Carrie's sewing machine to get a good shot of her. While I still haven't gotten exactly the shot I want (will probably require multiple lights), this shot turned out great.

I really like this one. AS you can tell, it was almost bedtime, Carrie was holding Emily (our youngest). Then Mara got jealous and crawled up into her lap, too. SB600 on-camera bounced off the ceiling.

I'M GOING TO BE A DAD (again) !!!

OK. It's been a while since I've posted. Fine. I make the same money whether I blog once a day or once a quarter.

Carrie and I have found out we're having another baby! Currently due the first week of October. We won't know what "kind" it is until we get back from our Florida vacation, though. That means another blog post mid-May with the news. We might not have a name at that time. However, we'll DEFINITELY do better than some friends we have at church - they'd had two names competing for their child for months, but the hospital staff had to force the decision before releasing the child. !!!

Anyway, I had to post about that. EXCITING!

Later!