Terrorism vs Vaccines (and GMO's?)

NOTE:  I've been writing more about photography recently as this is a photography blog; however, vaccines and GMO's are an extremely important topic, as they affect your health and your life.  Therefore, it is important to be aware of the dangers and spread the word and do your own research from independent sources.

From CNN:  "According to the US State Department, the number of US citizens killed overseas as a result of incidents of terrorism from 2001 to 2014 was 369.  In addition, we compiled all terrorism incidents inside the United States and found that between 2001 and 2014, there were 3,043 people killed in domestic acts of terrorism.* This brings the total to 3,412."  Keep in mind that these numbers include 9/11.

From VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System):  Deaths from vaccines from 2000 - 2015 that were reported to VAERS:  6,571.  Keep in mind that the CDC has said only 1 in 10 adverse events and injuries actually get reported to VAERS, and others have said it may be only 1 in 100 or less.  But let's say 1 in 10 - that would mean 65,710 deaths from vaccines.  To see the injuries found in VAERS, here is a Link to that information.  Don't forget to multiply all the totals by at least 10, or you could try different multiples of 10 which would probably be more accurate.

In the same time period, almost no one has died as a result of these diseases.  If I remember, it was between 1-3 that were attributed to measles, but it could have also been underlying factors (perhaps poor nutrition or weakened immune system, etc.?).  Note that all the information about vaccines is from the U.S.  In third world and other countries where poor nutrition, famine, poor or no sanitation, contaminated drinking water, etc. exist, these same diseases will kill exponentially more than in the U.S.  Almost forgot, there is a series going on right now called Vaccines Revealed (this is a link to it).

I added GMO's (and the link) because I have been watching the series, "The Truth About GMO's" and although it's too early to know what all the effects may be, they have the potential to be catastrophic.  There are nine episodes in all to the series, but only 5 left at this time, although they usually have a replay of all of the series at some point in time.  I hope you'll watch at least parts of it and draw your own conclusions.  Keep in mind that when we talk about GMO's, we need to include glyphosate and Roundup.  Unlike with drugs and vaccines, GMO's, once released, can't be recalled.

Why should you be concerned?  For starters, cancer is on the rise, diabetes is on the rise, autism has risen exponentially and is continuing on the rise, other neurological problems are on the rise, gut problems are on the rise, obesity is on the rise, and in the last 40 years, fertility rates have dropped 50%.  What has happened or changed in the last 40 years?  The amount of vaccines given has increased many times over, and GMO's have started being produced in what might be called Frankenstein methods.  Both of these events have happened with no long term studies.

You've probably heard of the Precautionary Principle - where actual long term studies are done before releasing the experiment on the population.  Hasn't happened with vaccines or GMO's.

In medicine, they say, "First, do no harm."  Yet doctors are aware that vaccines can kill and injure.  How are they allowed to give them?

And, of course, there's the Nuremberg Code - which basically said people cannot be experimented upon without their consent.  Vaccines and GMO's are an experiment.

Seems like when there is money involved, the wisdom of the ages goes out the window.  The only way to stop these things is to get educated, to boycott GMO's, demand safe and effective vaccines or refuse them if that doesn't happen, and to spread the word.

This may not be the most well-organized blog post, LOL, but wanted to get it out so you can catch the remaining episodes about GMO's.

Camera and Lens Sharpness

Do you Google lens and camera reviews before buying them?  Do you look at some sample photos from the camera and lens you are interested in buying?  There are many things to consider.  How will you use the camera and lens (portraits, family, travel, sports, etc.)?  Will you want the camera to have a fixed lens or interchangeable one?  Do you want a zoom or fixed focal length lens?  What's the smallest or largest f stop that you would want? How much do you want to spend (there can be a huge difference in price between "professional" and "consumer lenses, perhaps thousands of dollars)?  There are some of the questions you may have.

Showing the results with one lens and camera may help give some insight into some of the above questions.  I'll be using the Nikon 28-300 f3.5-5.6 VR (Vibration Reduction to reduce or eliminate camera shake) lens, which is rated as a consumer lens - as opposed to a "professional" lens.  It is meant for full frame Nikon cameras, such as the Nikon D600/610, which has a larger sensor than cropped frame sensor cameras.  A full frame sensor generally means that you'll be able to shoot in lower light levels (higher ISO's) for better results and less noise.

So, how good or bad is this lens?  It is a bit subjective.  According to one reviewer, "Contrast is quite poor wide open, but gets better at f/5.6 and beyond. During field tests, I shot over 1000 images at various apertures and shutter speeds and overall, the lens is not bad, but certainly nowhere close to the sharpness and contrast of pro-level lenses like Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G or Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II."  If you shoot in RAW and use editing software, contrast should be no problem.  How about sharpness?  This is why I said it depends on how you will use it.  As I am always available to pose for myself, ha ha, I shot the following using this lens.  The photo on the left is the full image from the camera, the one on the right is from that photo, cropped.  It was shot at f10 at 48mm, 1/3 second with the camera on a tripod with window light.  If there is any unsharpness, it's probably because of the slow shutter speed, although I think I stayed pretty motionless.  As always, if you click on a photo, you can see them all in a larger size.

The next 3 photos are full-size followed by two crops from that photo to show the sharpness.  These were shot at f5.6, 82mm, 1/60 second with flash on camera, just as a test.  Are these sharp enough?  Does it matter that with a zoom lens the corners will be a little less sharp?  Not at all - in fact, you would probably want the edges to be less sharp to focus on the subject more.

And now that you're tired of looking at me, here is a scene from the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook.

It was shot at f10, 100mm, 1/1600 second.  

One last photo at Ballona Creek of a Sea Lion, shot at f10, 300mm, 1/1250 second.  

And a crop of the above photo to show that it is sharp.

All things considered, I'm very happy with the sharpness of this lens and the quality of the photos.  In the lens reviews, they talk about distortion (can easily be fixed with post processing software), lack of sharpness (perhaps at some f stops), it's not a "professional" lens, it loses quality over 200mm (which is why I included the sea lion), etc.  The photos posted here show what this lens can do depending on what settings are used.  

I had been looking at two lenses.  After reading the reviews, I took a chance with this one.  I had a 24-85 Nikon lens that I wasn't happy with, so sold it on Amazon.  Normally I wouldn't buy a used lens from a private listing, but through Amazon or Ebay I've had good luck in the past.  When I saw the lens advertised for a lot less than all the other listings, ordered it immediately.  When I received it, it looked new, plus had a filter covering the lens.  It is a bit of a gamble to order this way, but it can save a lot of money.  It does exactly what I wanted it to do - better images than the 24-85 lens, and much better than my Panasonic FZ200, which I also sold on Amazon.

Does it have limitations?  Of course.  I wouldn't be able to get the below results (background out of focus by that much), which I had shot between f1.4 - 2.8.  For those, I shot with a prime lens, probably the Nikon 50mm f1.4 on my old Nikon FTn.

Hope you found something useful here.

Is It a Professional, Prosumer, or Consumer Camera?

Does it matter?  First, what is meant by those terms?  Generally, a professional camera would be used by photographers who are considered professional photographers - ones who earn their living by doing photography.  Those who use a prosumer camera would be for those who are more advanced than a beginner, but not yet a professional - they can be used in fully automatic to fully manual.  And a consumer camera (aka point and shoot) would be used by those who take photos just for fun and want the camera to do all the thinking as far as focus and exposure (fully automatic).

For now, we're just talking about cameras and not lenses.  There are a lot of gray areas and overlap between all three.  Cameras that several years ago were considered the top of the line professional cameras are now considered "prosumer."  But they still take the same quality photos they always did.  So does it matter?  A lot depends on what kind of photography you do as a professional as well as what kind of environments you might be shooting in (in harsh environments you would want a weather sealed camera).  Most important is whether your camera will give you the photos you want, and if you have clients,  will it give your clients the results they want.

Years ago I bought my first professional camera, the one that many other professional photographers were using - a Nikon FTn film camera, with built in light meter.  Everything was manual - no auto focus, no auto exposure.  People loved the results.  Today, using a prosumer camera, the results are better and more accurate.  Why is it called a prosumer camera?  Is it a marketing gimmick?  Cameras labeled as professional are a lot more expensive.  For fun, I did a comparison on Google for my camera and the one they label as a professional camera (Nikon D800) - mine scored 99 out of 100, the Nikon D800 scored 100.  The biggest differences were in megapixels (36 vs 24) and battery life (1200 exposures vs 900 exposures per charge).

Some sample photos from the Nikon D800 (I did not take the Nikon D800 photos) - the top photo was full size, the one underneath it is a crop of that photo.  As can be seen, because of the extra megapixels, it can be cropped a bit larger.

The next two photos were self portraits (aka selfies) shot with a Nikon D600.  First the full-size photo, and then the cropped one.

There are a few differences between the two sets of photos (besides the subjects, ha ha!) - the top one was shot with a 24-105 f4 Nikon lens and an umbrella flash off camera, and the bottom one with a 28-300 f3.5-5.6 lens with the on camera flash.  As far as the results with each one, I would think she would have been happy with her portrait, and same for me, although had I used different lighting the results would have been better (either outdoor natural light, professional indoor flash, or perhaps window light - always experiment).

The following photo was shot on Aug 6, 2017 at the Festival of Chariots at Venice Beach, California with the "prosumer" Nikon.  The one on top is the photo out of the camera, reduced in size for this article.  The cropped section is at about 100% of the original size.

The camera setting for this photo was 135mm, f10, ISO 1600, 1/800 second, hand held.  Would this have been better with what is considered a "professional" camera?

This article is only comparing camera bodies.  Lenses can be even more important, depending on the which camera they are on.  For portraits, prime lenses will usually give better results, although whether someone will notice the difference is something else to think about.  After all, all photos above were taken with zoom lenses, and not top of the line ones.