JulioD

A photographer

JulioD is a guy that lived in a very big, noisy and contaminated city for over 30 years. As destiny will have it, he then moved to Davis. This a photographic chronicle of his live in Davis, Ca. I will also try to start a night photography section.

Day job

Stand back, I am doing science here.

Currently, I am doing my last postdoc at UC Davis. My area of research is structural biology with a lot of electron microscopy and 2d crystallography. This means that I spent a good part of my day taking pictures (or rather "projections") of things with sizes of about 1 billionth of a meter. But it is fun. Althought, the microscopes are noisy but with a good set of earphones that is no problem at all.

Previously, I worked doing "wet" biochemistry and some theoretical stuff, mostly molecular dynamics simulations and docking predictions. I actually created a few videos (examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5-a39tbT9w or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0VEbNaCP-M).

Speaking about noise, it is rather unusual for me to be seen without earphones (or headphones). I usually wear set Bose Q3s http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Bost-QuietComfort3-Headphones-Review.htm which are awesome for noise environments (chatting people, rotary pumps, A/C, airplane travel). Downside of such headphones is they run on a proprietary battery. That's why I got a pair Shure SE-530 http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Shure-SE530-Headphones-Review-825.htm. No, I am not trying to sell earphones (or iPods, for that matter). And no, I am no audiophile. It is just that after a certain level (~100 bucks) good (not audiophile "good" but good enough for my purposes) options are limited. But enough about that.

I used to have a Cybershot (up until december 2009). Then, I moved to a beautiful DSLR. So, if you see any shots taken before december 2009, the Cybershot did it. Afterwards, it is all Nikon's fault.

What I like about Davis is...

The night sky is beautiful. For example, last night (06/27/2010) the moon looked like this:

Info: ISO 640, 170 mm, f/5.6 at 1/1250 sec.

The photographer production

Fireworks and a patriotic cow? (07/04/2010)

Moooo.

ISO 200, 35 mm, f/22 and 3.2 seconds. Manual exposure and focus

This is the first picture I shot in Davis, Ca on 12/29/2007:

This was taken from a window of the now closed Davis Inn.

Night photography

Last night (06-28-2010) Scorpio was above the horizont and I capture a fairly recognizable part of it:

Scorpio. The rest of the tail was hiding behind the trees. ISO 200, 55 mm, f/5.0 and 10.0 seconds. Manual focus.

This month Ursa Major has been high in the sky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major This is a failed attempt to capture it (06/16/2010):

ISO 200, 55 mm, f/5.6 and 10.0 seconds

If you care about photographic info this pic was taken with ISO 200, 200 mm, f/5.6 at 1/30 sec (corrected, thanks for pointing out the mistake wl).

The night of june 28th 2010 I shot this:

Here we go, the brightest part of Ursa Major. ISO 200, 18 mm, f/4.5 and 15 seconds. Manual focus.

You don't have any shots of the pleiades do you? Daubert

Looking through my library it seems that back in april 16th 2010 I shot this:

The moon and the seven sisters (the pleiades). ISO 200, 200 mm, f/5.6 and 2.5 seconds. Auto focus, I think.

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2010-06-29 13:50:56   I love that last photo of the crescent moon. I am anxiously awaiting more night photo shots. A great place for night photography in Davis is the Davis cemetery. Very little light pollution, few people, and a very peaceful place to be. —DagonJones