Discounted Rates from La Quinta Seaworld in San Diego

I spend a lot of time in San Diego, and I've been looking for a place where I can stay along with my two dogs -- 70-lb Labrador retrievers.  I am one of those dog-crazy people.

I like La Quinta hotels because when I am driving somewhere with my dogs, I can pretty much count on La Quinta hotels to allow me and my two dogs at no extra charge.  There's no fake "pet-friendly" policy where you make a reservation only to find upon reading the fine print that only dogs under 15 pounds named "Fluffy" are allowed.  There's no usurious pet cleaning fee of $150 that is applied and is nonrefundable.

The sales manager at the La Quinta Seaworld in San Diego reached out to me and offered me discounted rates at their hotel.  I stayed there for a few days this year.  It's not a five star luxury hotel, but the price was great for such a large room.  I stayed there during their summer season (without my dogs) in a king 2-room suite.  The room had two separate rooms, but no door between the rooms.  The toilet and bathtub were in the bedroom area, as was the sink (outside of the bathroom).  In the living room, separated by a wall but no door, was a sleeper sofa, a second TV, and a small breakfast nook area with microwave, fridge, and sink.  For $99 to $109 per night, for a 2-BR suite in San Diego during the summer season, this was a great deal.

Anyone who mentions my business name (Norbert Wu Productions) can get reduced rates on queen or king suites all this year and through 2016.  The rates and conditions are below. 

Some tips:
1.  My Garmin consistently gave me the wrong exit when trying to get to this hotel, from the west.  It would direct me to take the exit just before the correct one.  When you are going east on Highway 8, when you get near the hotel, you want to take the Mission Center Road exit to Auto Circle -- NOT the exit right before this, which is Hwy 163. 

Better yet, use Waze or Google Maps, which seem to give the correct directions.

2.  This is by no means a luxury hotel.  It's a motel.  It's fairly inexpensive, but it seemed relatively clean (no hotel rooms are really clean) and safe.

3. Get a room toward the back, which is quieter, except for noise from the pool in the back of the property.  There are two buildings surrounding a central outside parking lot.  There is also an underground parking lot.  I would try to get a room on the lowest floor, towards the back of the buildings.  Then use the outside parking lot.  The hotel property slopes UP to the back, so if you have a room near the front lobby, then you face a fairly long flight of stairs to get to rooms in the front.  If you have a room in the back, then you have to scale only a very short flight of stairs to get to the first floor of rooms.  This is always hugely important for me, since I have a great deal of gear.

The elevator is very slow and did not work the night that I checked in.  I had a room at the back of the building, which turned out to work out great.  I could go past the pool, around the back of the building, to my room, without having to wait for the elevator or lug my 12 cases up the long flight of stairs at the front.

The outside parking lot, between the two buildings, is far more convenient than parking in the underground parking lots.  There's only one elevator in each building -- at the front -- a long hike if you park underground and then have a room in the back of the building.

Resurrecting Faded, Old Faxes

Who would have thought that this would be so easy? 

I have folders of old faxes, which were printed on thermal fax paper over ten years ago.  I do need to keep some of these records, unfortunately. 

There's a couple of ways to resurrect faded old faxes. 

First, you can scan an old fax in a scanning machine.  I have a five-year-old Canon Pixma that does scans.  There's a setting where I can set the scanning settings myself.  By doing so, I can control the contrast, brightness, and most importantly -- the "levels" of the resulting scan. 

I show the settings that I used to resurrected some faded fax sheets a few days ago.  It simply involves moving the left slide for the levels (the black level) almost all the way to the right (white).  By doing this, you are bringing out any possible dark text on the white sheet of paper so that it appears even darker. 

You can see the resulting scan of the faded fax here.  It's amazing -- all the text is legible.

A second way to resurrect faded faxes is to simply photograph them with a digital camera.  I simply took a photo of the faded faxes  and opened it in Photoshop.  I then went to "Levels" and crushed the blacks again.  Voila!  The faxes are readable again.  This is amazing -- digital cameras are capable of seeing far more than the human eye.  It was impossible to read the most faded part of these faxes, and simply by taking a digital photograph and adjusting the black level of the image -- I can now read the faxes.

Insuring Your Camera Gear: An Update

This is one of the most popular articles in my blog.  My blog has had over 134,000 pageviews in its  history, and this post has had numerous comments and over 3000 pageviews (hmmm, I am pretty sure that Blogger said this post had over 3800 pageviews back in June 2015!).  Thanks for reading my blog!

The original article can be seen at:
http://norbertwu.blogspot.com/2007/07/insuring-your-camera-gear.html


Insuring Your Camera Gear
A Partial Guide
by Norbert Wu

Second Update, August 23, 2015:
For the first time in ten years, I had to make a claim for flooded camera gear.  Short story: Rand Insurance, the agent for Chubb Insurance, came through for me big-time.  I've heard for years that Chubb Insurance was among the best insurance companies that anyone could hope for, particularly folks in my business of photography and filmmaking.  My experience with them has been nothing but great.

Here's a summary of what happened.  I was flying a DJI Phantom quadcopter, with a GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition camera mounted on it.  For some reason, the quadcopter lost power (or lost a propellor) and fell into Puget Sound, 20 feet away from me, in 12 feet of salt water.  It was not a good feeling.  I have not lost or flooded a camera in many years.

Like all accidents, a series of small mistakes led to a big one -- the drowning of my camera and quadcopter.  I was in a rush to film my nephews who were kayaking in Puget Sound, so even though the Phantom told me that it had not collected enough GPS satellites to return home if battery power became critically low, I ignored the warning.  I had flown this drone a few hours and was over my careful beginner stage of flying, and into the more dangerous zone where I actually felt more confident of my ability to steer the drone.  I had flown the drone earlier in the day with no problems.

I ended up having a great time flying the drone over my nephews.  The first-person-view (FPV) gear that I had installed on the drone was working OK, and so I let the drone get too high.  When a drone gets too far away, it is extremely difficult to see the direction it is going.  The only way to see is to delicately touch the controls and attempt to see how the drone responds.  I had a few adrenaline-releasing seconds where the drone got much too close to my neighbor's huge cedar trees.  I got the drone away from the trees, but as I brought it home, the drone suddenly vibrated a bit and then dropped straight into the water in front of me.  Ouch!  I either ran out of battery power (which I don't think was the reason) or a propellor fell off the drone.  When I recovered the drone the next day at low tide, one of the props was missing, which leads me to suspect the latter reason for the failure.

 I gave Rand Insurance a call.  Rand is the agent that issues the North America Nature Photographer's Association (NANPA) equipment insurance policy.  It's a great camera equipment insurance policy, and I've had it for perhaps 20 years.  My experience could not have been better, and the following describes some of the issues that I raise in my article on photography insurance of July 2007.

I periodically send Rand a list of my gear along with the value of that gear.  For instance, my DJI Phantom was listed at $600, which is the price that I purchased it for.  When the Chubb Insurance representative talked to me, she asked me to send in quotes for the equivalent gear.   My Phantom model was no longer made, so I sent in a quote for the model that was currently available.  This model sold for $900.  Because Rand/Chubb provides replacement value for listed gear, they paid me $900 to replace my $600 quadcopter.  This way I could buy the equivalent model of drone for my loss.

Needless to say, this is impressive -- and this is what you should look for in an insurance policy.  In other words, let's say this is a car insurance policy and you've insured your brand new 2015 Toyota Camry which you purchased  for $30,000.  The car is somehow damaged beyond repair.  You cannot find another 2015 Toyota Camry in the same condition, so you send your insurance agent a quote for the closest equivalent Toyota Camry that you can find -- a 2016 model that will cost $35,000.  Your insurance company does the right thing by you and sends you a check for $35,000 (minus the deductible) so you can replace your damaged vehicle with another vehicle that is the closest replacement that you can find.  I have to say that this is just superb, awesome service.  Thanks, NANPA, Rand, and Chubb. 


An aside:
A friend recently recommended Divers' Alert Network EQUIPMENT INSURANCE PLAN to me.  I decided to give this insurance a pass.  Among the things that I found objectionable with this plan were the following clauses:

First, the rate for this insurance, from my calculations, is about 3.5%.  In other words, if you insure $10,000 worth of gear, then the premium will cost $350 per year.  There is a minimum but it is difficult to ascertain from their website, which simply asks you to enter the value of your gear and then comes back with their premium cost. 

(Rand/Chubb's insurance is lower, at 2.45% annually on the value of the gear insured.  )


This clause is a bit unfair: "The premiums are fully earned, meaning there will be NO REFUNDS if the policy is cancelled before the Insurance Certificate expires or if there is a reduction in coverage due to sale or loss of an item."  In other words, if you insure an item and then sell it, you get nothing back if you remove that item from the list of insured gear before the year ends.  

(Rand/Chubb's policy allows me to remove or add items to my insured list at any time.  They will even send a refund check if my total after removing items results in a lower total amount being insured.  )

And beware of this clause from Divers' Alert Network EQUIPMENT INSURANCE PLAN: 
We DO NOT provide coverage for items that are lost underwater while you are diving, that fall off the back of the boat, or are swept overboard. 

OK, I can live with this, and I am glad that this omission is clearly stated.


I found this last clause to be very objectionable, and to be hidden in the fine print:
$100 unless claim is for water damage. In the case of a water damage claim, the deductible will be the greater of 10% of the claim or $250.
 

 This clause, frankly, stinks.  Let's say you flood a camera housing with a $3000 Canon or Nikon camera in it, and a $1000 lens.  You are able to save the camera housing, but the $4000 in camera gear is a loss.  If you have this insurance policy, you will get back (hopefully) $4000 minus the deductible, which will be the greater of $250 or 10% of the value of the loss, which in this case will be $400.  Therefore, you will get back $3600 from this insurance company at most -- and I bet you will get far less.
(I don't want to repeat myself, but the NANPA/Rand/Chubb policy will send you a check so that you can truly replace your camera gear -- even if that amount is MORE than declared on your policy.  They do have a $250 deductible). 

I'd like to say that I am just a "regular" customer of Rand Insurance.  I have not been paid in any way, shape, or form for the above recommendations. 

Reef Photo Comes Through Again -- These Guys are Good!

The emails below are self-explanatory.  I was stumped.  Hours of research.  Nothing.  Reef Photo came through yet again!

Me:
Dear (guys at Reef Photo): 

OK, just spent 2-3 hours trying to figure out if this is possible, and I give up.  I don't know if it's me, but this camera is difficult to learn -- and confusing if one does not use it all the time.  

I am trying to use a SmallHD DP-4 monitor with the GH4.  I can see the same image on the DP-4 as on the camera screen.  But I am unable to figure out how to get the on-screen displays onto the DP-4.  Can you help?  

I tried this briefly underwater.  It was great to see the image on the DP-4, but I was unable to see information like aperture, time, shutter speed -- and most importantly -- if I was recording or not.  

Thanks as always.  
Norb Wu

Reply from Reef Photo:
I'm very familiar with the GH4 and DP4 monitor so I thought I'd step in to help you out with this.

In order to get your DP4 monitor to display the camera setting just follow these steps:
Turn the top camera dial to the M movie mode( looks like a video camera on the dial)
Select the "Menu" button
Scroll and select the "Motion Picture" on the available side menus(it's at the top)
In the Motion Picture Menu scroll and select "HDMI Rec Output"
In the HDMI Rec output menu select"Info Display"
In the the Info Display menu select "On"
Than power up your DP4 monitor and you should see all of your camera setting displayed on the monitor.  Hope all of that help and if you have any trouble or any other questions just let us know.

All the best:

Lee Burghard
Reef Photo & Video
2303 N Andrews Ave
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311
877-453-8927

Scotland Trip: Basking Sharks and Puffins

I just returned from a trip to the Island of Mull, part of the Inner Hebrides Islands of Scotland.  I was very pleasantly surprised by the the wildlife that I encountered.

Five of us (Howard and Michele Hall, Marty Snyderman, and Steve Ando) traveled to Tobermory, on the Island of Mull, and stayed there for six nights.  Tobermory is a charming small town, and it is the gateway to the wildlife and scenery of the Hebrides Islands of Scotland.  It is about a 2.5 hour drive from Glasgow and involves a ferry ride from Oban on the mainland to the island of Mull.

We traveled to these islands hoping to see and photograph basking sharks -- the second largest fish in the ocean.  Nearly all of us had seen and filmed basking sharks off the California coast, 25 years ago.  However, since then, no one had seen any basking sharks off California.  The popular belief is that these magnificent animals had been fished to death, caught by open ocean driftnets off the California coast.  Basking sharks are, however, a known and relatively common sight off the coast of Scotland and Cornwall.  (True to form, while we were sitting out bad weather in our cottage in Tobermory, we heard that a group of 50 basking sharks had been sighted off the Big Sur coast -- in my backyard!). 

Our first four days were blown out due to bad weather and winds.  We were able to spend two afternoons on the Island of Lunga, where there is a wonderful puffin colony.  One morning, thanks to our friend Leigh Cobb, who saw and dove with 3-4 basking sharks the day before, we spent a windy morning with a few basking sharks.

The last day of our trip was the best -- as often happens.  We had encounters with several sharks, which were intent on feeding on swarms of reddish copepods.  You can see those small copepods in my photograph. 

Thanks to Henderson Aquatics, yet again, for making their Aqua Lock line of wetsuits.  I own a 3mm Henderson Aqua Lock wetsuit, and it is the warmest wetsuit that I have ever had.  It's thin, warm, light, and flexible -- all good.  I wore this wetsuit and an old hood instead of bringing a drysuit.  The water there was a cold 55 degrees F, but I was just fine in the water.  I was in a group of four other professional divers and underwater photographers - - all of whom wore drysuits.  I was just as warm as these folks for a good three hours in the water, on the one day that we had so much time with the sharks.  I did give myself a good wash of hot water that was on the boat, and I was able to swim much faster than the others on the group since I was not encumbered by a drysuit (as always, I must add the caveat that Howard Hall swam and free dove better than me, even though he was in a drysuit).  That guy is too much -- a true underwater filmmaking artist, and a superb free diver and diver.

I came home to Monterey, and the surf off Asilomar Beach was going off pretty well.  I jumped in, the water is 60 degrees, and once again -- I have to thank my Henderson Aqua Lock suit for making this morning's boogie boarding session enjoyable and fun rather than cold and miserable.

We used a boat run by Sea Life Surveys.  The captain, and the force behind Sea Life Surveys, James Fairbairns, runs a great operation. The crew was splendid.  I really enjoyed my time with these folks.  James actually liked my sense of humor and suggested that he keep me on as a mascot.  

Thanks to my diving friends for hanging out and making this trip so enjoyable: Howard and Michele Hall, Marty Snyderman, Steve Ando, and Leigh Cobb.  Thanks to James Fairbairns and Rona of the Hebridean Sea School and Sea Life Surveys for letting us get close to both the puffins and the basking sharks.  Thanks to Andy Murch for serving as a trip leader (well, for a few days at least).  Thanks to Henderson Wetsuits for making their truly awesome Aqua Lock line of wetsuits.  And hey, thanks to United Airlines for actually providing comfortable travel to and from London Heathrow Airport from San Francisco.

Solution: My MacBook Laptop Charger Won't Charge on on a Plane

I recently flew in a business class seat from  San Francisco to London and back, on United Airlines.  On the way over, I could not get my MacBook charger to charge my laptop.  United's new lie-flat business class seats have standard US 110V power outlets under the seats. 

I thought that perhaps my 85W MacBook power adapter was drawing too much current.  However, after browsing some online forums like flyertalk, I decided to use an adapter.  Voila! with the proper adapter, my MacBook charger started working 

I bought an international travel adapter at Heathrow airport.  It has a "Euro" style plug that has round pins, but fits deeply into the power outlet beneath the seat.  I could tell that this adapter was getting power, because a light for the USB ports turns on when the adaptor has power.  This was very helpful.  I then  plugged my MacBook power brick into the international travel adapter. 

The item on the bottom right is the international travel adapter that solved the problem.  The "Euro" pins stick out a bit further than the flat blades of the MacBook charger, as you can see in this photo.  These pins make a connection to the airline power sockets in the seats.  I plugged in the MacBook charger on the opposite end of the adapter. 

Other suggestions from forums:

Bring an international travel adapter with you (e.g. use the 3 pin UK plug on the power brick, and attach it to an adapter for the US 2-pin style -- if your adapter is a standard size, it's likely to fit into the recessed socket).

I've had that poor charging issue since the lie flats were introduced; my solution is to use a cheap 3 prong to 2 prong adapter - it seems to ensure a good connection that the apple power bricks cannot achieve. Or, bring along the long AC cable that comes with the MacBook power adapters.





The below suggestions could still be an issue, but I can confirm that once I got my MacBook charger to work, it definitely charged my MacBook Pro laptop.  I had no cycling or shut-off problems. 

I have had one instance (on a 777) where the plug didnt work. It kept cycling on and off like every second.

I carry an Apple 45W MacBook Air charger specifically for aircraft.

The common MacBook Pro 85W charger seems to overwhelm in-seat power systems; I've seen it super flaky on older UA, CO, and AA aircraft.

Keeping Under Your Data Limit -- Finding My Data Hogs

I spent a couple of weeks at our vacation house in Washington State.  We don't have wired internet access there (Comcast kept raising the rates) so this time, I relied on a wifi hotspot.  I only had 2 Gb of data to use in the two weeks that I was going to be there.  I was there a few months ago with a friend for a few days, and we used up 1 Gb of data way too fast -- I had to buy more. 

We weren't streaming video or doing anything data-intensive, so I was surprised.  I did not have time to figure out which of my devices and applications were the data hogs, but this time I tried to figure out who was sucking up the data. 

Here are the programs on my MacBook that were using a lot of data.  I recommend turning off these applications -- or preventing them from uploading updates -- if you are in a similar situation, where your data usage is a concern. 

I am not an expert on how to gauge network traffic.  I browsed some tips on the web and used Mac's Activity Monitor to see what processes on my MacBook Pro were most active.  I wish that there were a tool for me to see exactly how much data my various applications are using.  

Disable all updates on the Mac in System Preferences.  Otherwise, your Mac will try to download the entire new operating system while you are asleep, and BAM! all your data will be used up. 

Dropbox: Dropbox is a huge user of data.  Just turn it off and don't use it.  I have Dropbox on my Mac, iPad, and my smartphone -- so it used data to sync across all these devices.  

Programs and applications:
Adobe Reader is a data hog.  It is constantly uploading updates and doing other stuff.  I recommend simply closing it down and not opening or using it.  Use Mac's Preview instead. 

Firefox and Chrome browsers, from what I read on the internet, can be data hogs. 
In Firefox for the Mac, one goes into Preferences to dis-allow updates. 
In Chrome for the Mac, I found that the easiest way to disable updates was to use Terminal.  There's a good article on the web about this:

https://support.google.com/installer/answer/147176?hl=en-GB

If this is a temporary change, make note of your current settings first by executing the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults read com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval

To change how frequently Google Software Update checks for updates, execute the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval

where  is the elapsed time in seconds between update checks.

To disable Google Software Update from checking for updates, execute the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0

To re-apply the current settings (after changing it to something else) execute the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval

where  is the value from the read command above.

So here's the short note I have for myself before and after a trip:

For Chrome: enter in Terminal:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0

Upon returning home to an unlimited data plan: 
enter in Terminal: 
 $ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval

 (my frequency was 18000)