Show notes for the Billy Newman Photo Podcast.
Communicate directly with Billy Newman at the link below.
Make a sustaining financial donation, Visit the Support Page here.
If you’re looking to discuss photography assignment work or a podcast interview, please drop me an email.
Send Billy Newman an email here.
If you want to see my photography,
my current photo portfolio is here.
If you want to read a free PDF eBook written by Billy Newman about film photography:
you can download Working With Film here.
If you get value out of the content I produce, consider making a sustainable value-for-value financial contribution,
Visit the Support Page here.
You can find my latest photo books on Amazon here.
View links at wnp.app
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/billynewman/
Website Billy Newman Photo https://billynewmanphoto.com/
About https://billynewmanphoto.com/about/
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/billynewmanphoto
Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/billynewmanphotos/
Twitter https://twitter.com/billynewman
Communicate directly with Billy Newman at the link below.
Make a sustaining financial donation, Visit the Support Page here.
If you’re looking to discuss photography assignment work or a podcast interview, please drop me an email.
Send Billy Newman an email here.
If you want to see my photography,
my current photo portfolio is here.
If you want to read a free PDF eBook written by Billy Newman about film photography:
you can download Working With Film here.
If you get value out of the content I produce, consider making a sustainable value-for-value financial contribution,
Visit the Support Page here.
You can find my latest photo books on Amazon here.
View links at wnp.app
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/billynewman/
Website Billy Newman Photo https://billynewmanphoto.com/
About https://billynewmanphoto.com/about/
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/billynewmanphoto
Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/billynewmanphotos/
Twitter https://twitter.com/billynewman
0:14
Hello, and thank you very much for listening to this episode of The Billy Newman photo podcast. Today I was going to be talking about some of the ideas around VR rendering, I’ve been just getting into that after recording a ton of 4k, I think 5.2k video with the GoPro fusion I’ve just talked about a lot of that stuff on the last flash briefing, but today, I’ve been bringing it over onto my MacBook Pro, which is quite a modern version of the computer. I think many of the pros commented recently, it’s probably the better iteration of the MacBook Pro for the last number of years. I’ll get into that and some of the apple WWDC news just in a few seconds, but for some of the VR rendering that I’m doing on it without maybe a dedicated graphics card to push through it as you know, the fast clip, it takes a long time so I’m trying to export 360-degree equo rectilinear video footage in 4k mp4 file format with an H dot 264 to throw in some other term that this someone might not understand. But I’ve been trying to do that overnight. So I’ve been using, I’ve been using that command if you have a Macintosh, this is a good one to learn. If you go into your terminal, I think you can use the command caffeinate just the word caffeinate and then space dash D and that will force your MacBook or your iMac or you know you’re your Apple computer to remain on and to not go to sleep under the normal circumstances that your settings would have precluded it to do. So it’s a really cool, cool little bit, if you’re just trying to make your computer stay on or force it to stay on for a longer amount of time, it leaves the screen on to you gotta you gotta do your little f one f two thing or something to turn that down but it works really well that I’ve been using that to leave the computer on and have it running so that it can be churning through some of these 4k rendering jobs that I have the computer set to do overnight while I’m sleeping so I put the computer out in another room and then I have you know like a queue of video set up for it to stitch together this GoPro stitching stuff for the GoPro fusion software is really intensive I know that Oh man, I get into that some of the time but man the stitching software is just I mean can you imagine what it has to do to stitch hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of frames all in like 5k or something to make it almost like you know a seamless you know make a look good and so just don’t get a blurry line. So I’m amazed that it can do any of that sort of stuff at all. But it’s you know, it’s fascinating as it is but it takes a long time and it’s interesting to get to the point where you’re like Oh man, this computer can’t do like a professional job like this and that’s where you think you think you think You almost hit the limit of the need for computing or you know the need for a lot of the processor speed or the I don’t know what it would be the specs of a computer and you think that for a lot of web-based desktop publishing stuff or phone-based mobile publishing stuff, we’ve really maxed out the need for the speed of a lot of the components but then you come into a position like this where you’re starting to do higher level compiling or the higher level rendering of either like you know, compiling like a code base or something or trying to render out some of these higher file formats. video files, you notice like how long it takes and how much you would really have an improved job by having an improved machine and so I think that’s where like a lot of stuff like the pro line of Apple hardware comes into play like the iMac pro that came out earlier this year and that’s I bad I guess it’s been semi well received by some of the pros there’s just not a huge part where you can’t upgrade it you know it’s an iMac computer so it’s going to be strong and
4:04
capable at video are capable at Thunderbolt expansion to whatever that would mean for you. But it doesn’t have expandable slots or you know expandability within the frame of the computer. Then even really the cylinder Mac Pro didn’t have the expandability that they thought it would have and I think that was also part of the graphics card architecture that they use don’t end up getting updated there’s a whole kind of snafu around stuff around that where that’s why that computer didn’t get updated in the fashion that they maybe thought it would have and that’s I think why like a lot of the more modern 5k monitor IMAX are faster computers are higher spec computers have, I guess a newer generation architecture for their, their core processor than even the highest SPECT cylinder MacBook Pro At this point, I guess, given that it came out what 2013 and hasn’t seen a whole update yet since then. So, or I don’t know, minor update, you know, like, kind of, you know, just simple component stuff. But not it was just kind of internally within the spec, but I don’t think there’s been an actual rendition that’s been new from that. Yep. So that kind of brings me I guess, to the last point, which is, Apple’s WWDC is supposed to be coming up here real soon in just the beginning part of June. And that’s when we’re supposed to get some information about it, I guess it would be the developer preview for iOS 12. And some of the news a rumor oil, I guess rumors would be currently what they are, after WWDC is when we’re going to get confirmation from Apple about the direction in design and feature choice, it’s going to be going into iOS 12. And maybe we’ll get some hints on the types of devices or the I don’t know, maybe it’s going to lean heavily toward the AR, maybe it’s gonna lean heavily to the gesture format that we’ve started seeing in the iPhone x, kind of versioning of iOS 11. I don’t know yet. But hopefully, we’ll see some Siri improvements. Seems like that’s gotten long in the tooth after a little while, especially kind of starting to see now given you know, like this, and what the echo is capable of. And well, I guess some of those Google demos that we saw a few weeks ago about artificial intelligence, parsing the verbal cues of what people are saying and trying to have that fill out a form of data. It’s interesting stuff.
6:33
You can see more of my work at Billy Newman photo Comm. You can check out some of my photo books on Amazon. I think if you look at Billy Newman under the author’s section there and see some of the photo books on film on the desert, on surrealism on camping, cool stuff over there.
6:56
I saw what we’ve been seeing I saw a helicopter, there’s a thunderstorm. That was like when I was last doing a podcast right so there’s like a big-time thunderstorm that was rolling through that last camp that I was at when I was podcasting and then rained a bunch after that. That was nice. stay nice and dry and pretty warm and tracking the truck canopy and stuff waited out the rain then it cleared off just like a couple of hours later is that that thunderstorm system move past us. And then yeah, cleared off and got cold. got pretty cold. I layered up and I walked out into that field now with a ton of wet grass and stuff. walked out there brought the heater like I was talking about and posted up out in that motto. To check out the stars and stuff from that you can see Scorpio almost all Scorpio it’s cool when you got a strong Southern view of the sky. And from this area and Oregon, you can’t quite see the dip in the tail of Scorpio as it kind of scoops down and comes back up with the stinger at the end. You just barely or you get out you can imagine how it kind of skips around but yeah, at where it is now at this time in August. I think it’s it’s kind of tipping over and gone. not visible in that spot. But I think I see. Was it Jupiter? You see just past Sagittarius as you’re looking to the south. Then near that just a little bit further over to the east on that same ecliptic line you see Saturn. I think they are both near the position where they are in opposition. They’re not as bright as they were a few years ago, you notice, but there’s still really bright, really cool to see. And then if you stay up late enough, maybe around midnight or so. You’ll see Mars rise over on the eastern horizon. And it looks coppery red and noticeably cool. But I think it came up right about the same or about an hour or so after the moon rose last night. So tonight it would probably rise along the same location as Mars. That’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Would those be cool? Check out that stuff. And I was checking it out the other night after that thunderstorm out in that field. So it’s kind of fun, kind of staying up and check it out some stuff but then I went to bed. And then I got up the next morning and this was what was cool. As I looked out the field I hadn’t seen any animals out there. I heard a few birds like a raven and a couple of other things. I think I heard a turkey gobble. I’m not sure that but I looked out looked across the field and I saw two of the biggest birds I have ever seen. There. They are the biggest birds I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure what it is it looks similar to a blue herring. So I figured some kind of herring maybe it was a crane. But I would guess if it was standing up it would be almost fourth tall. It looked like a small deer or a dog in mass and size as you know kind of like the feathery body of it wasn’t popped up in a big way but there are two of them. And yeah, it looked like dinosaurs out there in the middle of this field. I’ve never seen a bird like that it looked like a blue herring goes about twice a day I see a buck it’s at two o’clock and walk into my three o’clock. 1.2 point 3.4 points it’s a two or three-point buck doesn’t see me That’s cool. Little back cruising through. I think it’s a mule deer out here. I saw a group of mule deer down in the lake bed this morning. And when I started wrestling around they all kind of started running or one of them kind of got excited and then ran off there they’re probably like two or 300 yards for me. And I pulled up the binoculars as scouting and yeah, they were just bugging it across this open lake bed and then they got tired and stopped and started eating grass like almost right away so it’s kind of funny how they kind of move around but yet this guy’s like
11:21
I don’t know what 200 feet walking around can’t cool dude. These are camping with me. What was this in two giant birds? I saw these two giant birds Thunderbirds they were awesome. They were brown kind of Sandy tan colored. And they had like a beaked face like a real pointy beak face similar to blue hair and it looked like an emu or an ostrich or something out in this field. It was diet. But it looked I’d say like I’ve seen a lot of blue herrings they’re way more slender than this had that kind of big kind of round full bodied thing and then had that cranes neck that kind of the s curved crane neck and it was just kind of on the ground walking with its buddy and they were cruising around poking at the ground trying to get grubs or whatever but yeah really cool to see him and then so I was watching them for a bit I had him the binoculars I think I got a couple of pictures but like I was explaining that last podcast smartly I have a wide-angle lens with me which is you 17 to 40 millimeter so as a way out super wide so you just so you know no telephoto my back. So didn’t get the wildlife shot that would have been cool which is fine and I accept but I did get a couple of pictures of it that probably poorly show two big things out in the distance and I mean it looks like it could be dogs could be deer, or it could be birds so it was pretty awesome to see but as I walked out a little bit I exposed myself into the sunlight they got they got a side of me and then they both let out these for like maybe 30 seconds to a minute or so they both just kind of stood around and made these sort of warning or territorial. croaks these like three beat croaks that would just echo across this whole valley that or this whole metro area that I was in just carried on for acres they’re probably like an acre or two away from me at that time. And yeah, they just set out these loud croaks kind of morning that these up, standing dude predator out in the distance, but yeah, then they kind of sorted it into the flight, but they just kind of wanted to back off up into the hill up into the tree line. And then I tucked back myself back up into the tree line by my truck, made another cup of coffee that morning, and then I saw the kind of popping out again and poking around that. That Meadow again, but it was cool giant birds I really would say they’re like four feet tall. Body Mass section, it seemed like about two feet or so. You know, like kind of on their leg? Maybe 24 inches off the ground. Yeah, it just seemed like a really big bird. If I was standing right next to it, I’d be like, Whoa, man, this is a real critter. So it was fun. I’d never seen a bird like that out there before I heard about it. Some of those are birds like that before I remember hearing like, is like a colloquial family story. That I think a great uncle of mine had had probably similar to this area too, which is interesting. I like that. But he said that he had woken up one morning and looked out and saw these prehistoric-looking Thunderbirds he called them and I think I had an experience like a two. I think it was fun. I’m sure it’s a normal animal. It probably used to be around a lake or something. You know, that’s sort of what it seemed like is just like a giant Pelican or crane or something that you would see how by the ocean, but to see out here just walking around sagebrush in a field in a meadow at 730 in the morning, it’s just like Wow, look at that. I thought I’d see a deer out there, but No giant birds.
15:09
You can check out more information at Billy Newman photo comm you can go to Billy Newman photo comm forward slash support. If you want to help me out and participate in the value-for-value model that we’re running this podcast with. If you receive some value out of some of the stuff that I was talking about, you’re welcome to help me out and send some value my way through the portal at Billy Newman photo comm forward slash support, you can also find more information there about Patreon and the way that I use it if you’re interested or feel more comfortable using Patreon that’s patreon.com forward slash Billy Newman photo. I bought a domain name at night sky podcast calm and so I’m trying to build a pretty simple WordPress site that can host a lot of the information about that podcast about that project as a whole. So it’ll be pretty basic. And it’s not supposed to be something that’s, that’s usually complicated by any means. But I’m interested in you know, just trying to try to make some different graphics and make some explanation of the podcast is sort of how it works just to kind of differentiate it a little bit. And so it’s just like a side project and a hobby, I’m trying to put it together. But I’ve been trying to find out some ways to do that more easily. So I’ve already built about three or four pretty usable WordPress websites. And what I was hoping to do is try to try to take a lot of that, that work that I had already done, and then migrate that over to this new night sky podcast website that I’m trying to put together. Along with another site that I’m trying to put together, I’ll get together. I’ll probably talk about that in the next podcast. But through this nightscape podcast website, what I was hoping to do was take a lot of the way that I’ve customized the theme that I’m using and a lot of like the Page Layout stuff that I’ve already put together for let’s say my Billy Newman photo website. And I want to try and find a way to migrate that over to this night sky site, and then strip out the parts that won’t be the same, you know, I’ll replace the graphics replace a lot of the layout stuff in a way that would be unique and bespoke to the way that I want this nightscape podcast website to go. But it’s a little better than ours, it’s a lot less work, and it saved me a ton of time so that I don’t have to go back through and make customizations to each of the fields associated with the site in a way that would be like brand new to it. So so I’m trying to learn about that a little bit. What I’ve been trying to do is find out, I guess different ways to do that. And so one thing that I ran into, while I was trying to do a bunch of this troubleshooting on my site over the last couple of weeks was that I’m really in need of making backups of my WordPress sites. And so what I went through and did is a made, I’m sure there are ways within WordPress to do this, but I was using a plugin. That’s and you should let me know if anybody’s listening out there. And they’ve had experience doing backups at their WordPress site, you should let me know if it was the most effective there’s, there’s like the cPanel backup that I’ve made from the server side where I backed up the files that were associated with a website. And so hopefully that can be restored in a way that would be useful. But there are also some complications that I think I’ve run into with that. And it wasn’t as user-friendly as I wanted it to be. And the restore points, I don’t know, it didn’t feel like it worked for me as well as I had hoped it would. But it did come in use, it was very useful for me to do that
18:23
when I did run into problems, and I wasn’t able to access the site. So I’m glad I had those backups of the cPanel. But I do still have access to the WordPress dashboard of my website, what I’m hoping to do is use this plug-in system that I found. And I’m sure like a million other people according to what it said have found it also. But I’m using this plugin called Updraft Plus, to try and make to try and make backups of my WordPress pages. So I went through and made backups of each of the WordPress websites that I’ve created so far. And first, that was the Billy Newman photo.com website. And then in addition to that, there was golden hour wedding calm. So I made backups of both of those. And then there are another two websites that I’m still kind of working on. And I want to try and make those new. But I did make backups of those also. And I was able to save those on my server. But I was also able to download those to my local drive and put those on an external hard drive. And the great thing is, is that I conversion, those backups. So when I make adjustments, or when I make updates to my site, and I want to make another backup of it, it’ll make I can make a backup, and then I can download that. And that’ll be like the, you know, this was in January 2019. But with all these extra pieces of content and with all these extra additions to the site, this will be the backup I’m making in February 2019, something like that. I’m trying to figure out those and I think what I’ve discovered is that what I want to do is take a backup of my WordPress site. Let’s see In this case, the Billy Newman photo comm backup. And I want to use that to clone and then migrate that over to the night sky podcast.com website. And so I think I found a way to do that even within Updraft Plus now, the Updraft Plus plugin offers a premium service where you can purchase the ability to do a database migration for I think, $30, it’s not $30 per site, but I think it’s $30 for the plugin, and then you get support from that plugin developer for some time, I think it’s like six months on the low end. And then and then if you need support for a longer amount of time, I think it’s more money than that. There are probably some caveats to it. But that is an option that I’m trying to explore right now as if I’d want to go through that process of using the Updraft Plus plugin to do a migration on my site where I can bring in a lot of the theme customization in the theme itself. And I guess the database with the updated database over to the night sky podcast website. And it could be an easy sort of one-click solution for it. But I’m also trying to look around and see if there are other ways for me to do an import for a clone of the website, and the website data so that I can bring in a lot of the information, but maybe leave out a lot of pieces that I won’t need because I’m not trying to make an exact duplicate or an exact copy, I’m just trying to bring over certain elements that would be that have already been adjusted in a way that I don’t want to do the work over for. So if I could just kind of bring in this draft of a website version, that’s almost everything complete in the way that I want. And then delete the content that was on the blog, delete the pieces that were you know, over in this section of the site, rewrite and about page and a couple of paragraphs over here, recreate some graphics, and then I would have what would seem like a familiar site would be on brand. But it would also be, you know, a new site that would have a lot of new content on it. And it would just kind of remain the way that I wanted it to. So that’s sort of the hope that I’m trying to go for. And I guess that the Updraft Plus plugin creates XML files for you to use. And
22:09
I don’t know how it works. But I think if you break open the file that you’ve downloaded, you can go through and then, and then there’s an alternate way of making an upload for that sort of stuff. But I guess the problem is, is like the database. So if you’re migrating a site, it’s expecting all those domain names to be what they had been in the past and not migrated or not a set of new links that have these new domain names, everything’s going to link back to another site, that it’s not, it’s not an ad. So the database, I was just not going to make sense. And I think that’s what this migration tool is supposed to help you do. So I’m looking into that. And I’m hopeful that I can kind of put that together pretty quickly. I’m also trying to be conscious of my time a little bit too so that I don’t spend a huge amount of time and development trying to figure out, you know how how to go through and fix a bunch of errors that might be created if I try and do a restore of a backup or a clone of my other site and try and migrate that over to this new domain. I’m trying to figure out a way where I don’t have to worry about that all that much. But I’m still going to do some more research. It’s going to be an ongoing project, an ongoing project, and I will update you in this podcast on my progress. That’s what I figured. So I’m going to do that with another site too. I think I mentioned yesterday that we’re starting the golden hour experience podcast. And we’ve also started the golden hour experience.com website. And so I’m going to try and go through the same process over on that site. So I can import a bunch of the settings that I have from golden hour wedding calm and try and put it together in a way so that I get to save a bunch of time and not have to redevelop a WordPress site from scratch again. So that’s it and it could work it seems like if I pay just a little bit of money, I can make it work, which might make it worth it. I figured the other news that I was gonna get to was some stuff about ebooks. I’m sure you’re excited now. Thanks for listening to all this. Thanks a lot for checking out this episode of The Billy Newman photo podcast. Hope you guys check out some stuff on Billy Newman photo.com a few new things up there some stuff on the homepage, some good links to other outbound sources, some links to books, and links to some podcasts like this blog posts are pretty cool. Yeah, check it out at Billy new minnesota.com. Thanks a lot for listening to this episode and the backend.