Recent Posts - Page 11 - Eric Cheng
Eric Cheng

TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it’s gone

I lost my $2,800 Apple MacBook Pro by following standard TSA security protocols at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). I look back on the series of events that led to the lost computer with incredulity...

Getting into (underwater) photography

From a natural history perspective, the underwater ecosystem is very accessible. You can have close encounters with wildlife, even with big animals...

Deep Dream / Caffe speed comps: Mac Pro vs AWS EC2 G2.2XLarge CUDA

My good friend, Dan Kitchens (of kozyndan), recently suggested that I should run Google's Deep Dream on some of my underwater video, which I thought was a fantastic idea

Interview: DJI Phantom 4 on TWiP Talks 37

This Week in Photo TWiP Talk 37: Frederick Van Johnson and I chat for 15 minutes about the new DJI Phantom 4 and what it means for consumer drones.

Thoughts about the new DJI Phantom 4 from a former DJI employee

This morning, DJI announced the Phantom 4 [pre-order from DJI], the latest in its line of best-of-breed consumer drones. The new Phantom 4 is the first shipping consumer drone to feature obstacle avoidance and subject tracking using its front-facing vision cameras. I was hoping that DJI would shake things up with a completely new design to make the Phantom easier to ...

Synchronized Sony a7r / a7s cameras

I'm cobbling together a synchronized shutter-release / timelapse controller for triggering Sony a7 series cameras, and it seems to work!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTrgoedkyqc?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=250&h=141] DJI has released a teaser video for the new product that will be announced on March 1, 2016.  I’m excited because the video suggests a change in form from the venerable Phantom. Not much is revealed, but does tease at least one additional lens-based sensor, so we can expect more sophisticated object avoidance ...

3D aerial mapping of Cosson Hall, Treasure Island (Pix4D & DroneDeploy)

I processed 3D models / maps using Pix4DMapper Pro and DroneDeploy using the 569 aerial images I took at Cosson Hall on Treasure Island the other day, and the results are pretty spectacular

Aerial view of Cosson Hall Naval Barracks, Treasure Island

The two, six-arm Cosson Hall BEQ housing buildings on Treasure Island, San Francisco, are abandoned and scheduled to be demolished. The field on front of Cosson Hall is a common drone flight area...