Small gear thoughts (with lots of distracting photographs)

I made it a goal this year to purposefully try and think about different types gear.  I decided trying a small carry everywhere camera, and a large format pinhole camera.

This is about the small camera.  More specifically, this a bit of a retrospective of nearly a year with my X100s.

I have taken it Tennessee, and I have even written a bit about it before.  But, I have carried it with me nearly everywhere I went everyday since I bought it.

This had an immediate effect.  I stopped using my cell phone ( as much ) for taking pictures.  I started taking pictures of my kids in restaurants with it.  I used it to document such things as metro's incompetence, dinner, random things that caught my eye because of color or light, etc.  Yes, this was all stuff I had done before with the cell phone, but, at least from a technical quality point of view-- these are much better than if I had used a cell phone.

I can imagine some of you are thinking, yeah, but you own dSLRs you could carry one of those around and do the same thing.  Yes, I *could*, and I did carry an SLR around nearly every day for a year or two prior to picking up the small camera.  But, I didn't use it nearly as much.  In fact, I think the only good it did me was make my back stronger.  It certainly didn't help fill up my picture library with high quality images of everyday moments.  There are a lot of reasons for that, none particularly good.  It was effort to get an SLR out of a bag, my SLR attracts attention, its pretty loud, and did I mention it attracts attention?  In any event, none of those things matter to me if photographing is my primary focus, but for a quick shot it is paramount.

I have also used it for more staged and/or serious pictures too.  It works very well there too.  I tend to work pretty methodically and slowly making those kind of pictures, so the speed disadvantage an x100 has compared to a dSLR doesn't impact me.

This has made me consider picking up one of Fuji's interchangeable lens X-cameras and potentially selling all my SLR gear.  Unfortunately, there are a few things I do that would fall flat if I tried that, and I don't want to support two camera systems.  One is expensive enough.  But, the thought still lingers.

I doubt there are too many people out there that are still on the fence about buying one of these little cameras-- but if you are go try one.  It looks like a an updated model will be out soon so you have 3 generations to choose from!

Okay, this may have been written to give me a reason to put up a lot of different photographs from the year that don't really warrant their own post, and don't easily fit with anything else.

Another Doggy Picture

This is actually the first file out of the new camera (see last post). 

This is the first one I have presented that is finished in Lightroom 4.  I probably wouldn't have upgraded Lightroom for a while, except the the D800 raw files are not supported in version 3.  However, I was surprised to find version 4 is actually a pretty useful upgrade.  Most of the controls that work globally on an image can now work with most of the local adjustments too.  Adobe has given us access to the individual channels in the tone curve tool, and added a few new modules ( book maybe the most useful?).  It is worth the upgrade cost.  Heck, it is worth the $150 for the full version too (version 3 cost $300!!!).  I'm still debating on the Photoshop upgrade.  I think CS5 can read the D800 files, and even if it can't Lightroom render them prior to passing it off to Photoshop.  I rarely dump anything into Photoshop, so I may just leave it alone for now.  Anyone who uses CS6 care to comment?

Anyway, enjoy the doggy photo.  I promise this will be the last post for a while that deals with tools.

New Camera ( the latest in my not really a review set )

First I want to apologize, this is a gear post.  I try not to do much of that here, I don't think most of you are interested.  Pictures are more fun.  But, a few maybe interested, so here goes...  There are also some links to some other posts and pictures in here, so it might be worth scanning through for them. 

I haven't bought a new camera or lens in almost 2 years.  This is fine by me, buying stuff upsets my stomach.  A lot.  There is only one thing on my want list ( 35mm/1.4 ), but it is only a want, it can wait.  But, that changed this week.

For a long while I have found it important to have a set of backup gear with me for every photo outing.  If someone is paying me, it should clear why that is important.  If it is a personal project that I have invited someone to participate in it may be less clear.  But, I feel if someone is giving up their time for my photo project I should do everything within my control to actually bring home some useful and good images, even if I manage to drop a camera off a cliff, or in a river, or its shutter blows up, or.... .

For this reason I have been using a D200/D700 pair, before that it was my F100/D200 as a pair, and before that it was an N80/F100 pair.  This goes back about 15 years.

Those of you familiar with Nikon's cameras probably know a D200 isn't quite the same as a D700.  The biggest difference, for me at least, is sensors are different physical sizes. Also because of its (lack of?) light sensitivity it needs to be used more like film than a current digital camera.  That is okay if its role is purely backup.  I know how to use it for the images I want.  But about a year ago, I started trying to use both cameras in concert with one another.  This introduced complexity and problems, and I began thinking about using two cameras that were more similar in how they were used.

I had decided that I would probably add a second D700 to the mix.  Then the tsunami hit.  The camera became impossible to find, and if you could find one the cost was astronomical, especially for such an old design.  By the time things really calmed down the D4 had been announced, and I wanted to see what the "small" professional FX sensor-sized camera would like.  Nikon announced the D800 shortly after.

The D800 wasn't exactly what I wanted, I don't need so many pixels.  But, I'm guessing that in the near future (or maybe ever), Nikon won't build exactly what I want.  After some thought I decided it was better to buy a camera of new design over a second D700 [which have gotten very easy to find again].

So I bought one as soon as I found it in stock. [ Nikon always has supply issues with new, relatively popular gear-- always, always, always... buy Canon stuff if you don't like the game of finding gear.  I don't buy enough stuff to worry about it, so I tolerate this. ].

So far, I think it will satisfy my purpose. The two cameras behave similarly enough I can use them side by side.  I'm pretty excited about that.

My first shots were of the dog-- I have a theory that most expensive cameras and lenses are sold to people who use them to only take pictures of dogs and cats.

I like to carry on traditions.

I haven't done much shooting with it yet.  But here is my "not a review" anyway.  I don't have to use it much more to know it feels almost exactly the same as my D700, and most of this review is a comparison to the D700.  I also doubt my first impressions will change very much.  I haven't installed  LR4 yet to use it's files in my "normal" workflow, but that will be in the near future, I want to make sure I can go back to LR3 and backups in case the switch makes some of my current projects go egg-shaped.


D800 (not a review)

Image Quality
Its good.  There isn't really much more to say.  It controls noise well at high enough ISO, the resolution is beyond ridiculous, and the colors and such are what I have learned to expect.  I also think its quite silly to worry about any of this with the modern crop of dSLRs.  They are all good from the very bottom of the ranges to the very top.  If you are looking at buying a camera and worry about this, stop, it's silly at this point.


The Physical (the important part to me)

The build is good.  I'd feel comfortable making this rainy-day picture with it, just like before (my camera, lens, and I got soaked).  Overall it feels a little lighter than my D700.  This is fine by me.

The buttons, for the most part, are layed out in exactly the same order as the D700.  This is good, my fingers know where to go, and I don't have to think to use this camera.  If I'm thinking about the camera, I am generally not thinking about the picture.  That would be a problem.

The default directions of the meter indicator, and exposure compensation controls are "backwards" from old school Nikon cameras-- but you can customize them back to "normal" if you prefer that way ( I do, remember I don't want to think about the camera and I learned the old way ... though its backwards from every other camera manufacturer! ).

Some things are improved from my D700.  The selector pad on the camera's back is much more solid.  It has a satisfying clunk to it.  From the day I unboxed my D700 I thought its selector was loose and squishy.  The frame rate selector dial is much nicer than the D700.  I also like the card door, and battery door better.  Small improvements to be sure, but noticeable.

The only thing I don't like about the layout is the position of the exposure compensation button and the mode button.  They are in the same general place as on earlier models, but a third button (for video) is near them.  With the new arrangement it is an awkward reach to hit the mode button with my index finger.

The autofocus feels a little faster than any camera I have used before.  For me to really know I will need to use it a bit more.

Finally the shutter feels a LOT quieter than the D700.  It sounds a little more like the D200.  I think this is a good thing.  Although, it might be a consequence of the the frame rate on the D800 is slower than the D700.

I haven't used the video mode yet, but I am looking forward to it.

Overall I am excited about the new toy.

But, now, please excuse me my stomach is still in turmoil from buying this, and I should attend to it.

Scripting Photoshop

A long, long while back I talked about scripting the Gimp.  At the time I knew Photoshop allowed the recording of Actions.  What I didn't know is that the Gimp script I wrote can basically be done in "real time" using Lightroom's Detail panel-- better, and faster, and with visual feedback.

I also I didn't know Photoshop has a full-blown scripting engine in it too.  The scripts open into an editor titled ExtendScript Toolkit CS5.  The language used is Javascript.  For me its a heckuva lot easier to read and code than the Gimp's Scheme.  To be fair, I think Gimp can use Javascript too.  I just didn't find too many examples of it.

Why am I writing about this?   I need to quickly piece together a book, and I ended up coding to make it happen.  I had each page of the book loaded as a layer, and I wanted each layer pasted over the background layer and saved to its own file.  Photoshop ships with a script called "Export Layers to Files".  I was so excited!  But, alas, it didn't quite do what I wanted.  It would not include the Background layer.  I did a small amount of digging and found out how to edit the script to force the Background layer to be present also.

However, this wasn't good enough for me in the long run.  I'd like to be able to toggle the ability to save the background layer or revert to the original functionality of script.  I spent a few moments tonight to tweak the user interface, and add ability to the script.  Here is a screen grab of my tweaked dialogue with my new option selected.

If you want to try this for yourself, below are my tweaks to the code... I included some of the original lines of the file so you can find the place in the script to make the changes.  I don't think I can distribute Adobe's code, and I don't have diff installed on this computer, so hopefully this will help :

This is found under the global variable section (note, these are getting split into two lines, they are 1 line each, be careful of linebreaks through these snippets -- cutting and pasting them into the editor seems to do the "right" thing.)

var strCheckboxVisibleOnly = localize("$$$/JavaScripts/ExportLayersToFiles/VisibleOnly=&Visible Layers Only");
// KT alterations
var strCheckboxIncludeBackgroundLayer= localize("$$$/JavaScripts/ExportLayersToFiles/IncludeBackgroundLayer=&Include Background Layer");


This is in the function settingDialog

// -- the fifth line in the dialog
dlgMain.cbVisible = dlgMain.grpTopLeft.add("checkbox", undefined, strCheckboxVisibleOnly);
dlgMain.cbVisible.value = exportInfo.visibleOnly;

// -- adding my include background layer checkbox KT
dlgMain.cbIncludeBackground = dlgMain.grpTopLeft.add("checkbox", undefined, strCheckboxIncludeBackgroundLayer);
dlgMain.cbIncludeBackground.value = exportInfo.includeBackground;


This is in the same function, my code is the second line, remember the first is to help you locate it.

exportInfo.visibleOnly = dlgMain.cbVisible.value;
exportInfo.includeBackground = dlgMain.cbIncludeBackground.value;


In the function initExportInfo I set the variable to false

exportInfo.includeBackground = false;


And finally in the function "main" right before the call for exportChildren I inserted this block of code:


if (exportInfo.includeBackground == true){
try { duppedDocument.backgroundLayer.visible = true; }
catch (e) {} // Background layer is kept. In future add this as a dialogue?
}


You can see my comment is a remnant of my first pass at making this work. Programmers leave comments in code long after they are useful, so I felt no need to clean it up.

The original Adobe script is in the CS5 install directory:

\Path\To\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5 (64 Bit)\Presets\Scripts


I bet you can see the moon with that lens!

Why, yes, yes I can.  If I try really hard I can see it without the lens too.

Tonight the moon passed by at the closest distance it will be all year.  It also happened to be a full moon.  I thought I'd give photographing it a go.  I am never really happy any time I make a picture of the moon.  Its a purely equipment driven kind of picture, and well, I'm sorely lacking in moon picturing equipment ( getting longer a lens to take pictures of the kids playing ball may help ... hint, hint Carly [she doesn't read these anyway]).  But, this one turned out okay.

The rest of this post is purely about the technical side of this picture, so most of you probably want to go web surf elsewhere...

This was taken with my D200, with a 2x teleconverter mounted on my 80-200 lens.  My tripod is up to the task, but the tripod mount on the lens really isn't.  Stacking a 2x on a zoom lens hurts quite a bit too.  I chose an exposure of f/11 at 1/30th of a second.  Because the shutter was so slow, I used the mirror lock up function on the camera.  It makes a noticeable difference.  I have some frames where I didn't wait long enough from the initial mirror movement to make the picture.  They look like mush.

Anyway, fun exercise-- and I have a picture of the moon.

My kids playing tough

I got a new toy today, a new lens!  Its been a really long time since I (willingly) bought a new lens.  The last lens I got came bundled with a camera.  I had no choice, unless I didn't want to wait another handful of months for Nikon to clear up supply issues. I had to buy the kit.  I didn't want to wait because my local lab had stopped doing E6 film.  But the next youngest lens in my bag is older than Kathryn.

But, getting back to the present.  I bought a new lens.  For the curious it is Nikon's new 85/1.4G.  Yeah, I convinced myself I wanted it so much I pre-ordered it. There are many reasons I wanted it.  Most of them aren't rational.  Some are, but they stem from wants not real needs.  I really wanted a short telephoto for portraits.  My 80-200 doesn't focus close enough for me to use like I want for portraits at the shortest end-- and my 28-105 is a little too slow at 85mm for the look I wanted.  I also wanted a really fast lens.  Why didn't I go with the older 85/1.4D then?  After all it has been available forever, and is a lot cheaper.  I'm not sure I have a good answer for that.  But I'm happy with my choice.  I probably would be happy either way, so I wouldn't read much into that.

Of course, I needed to test it out.  Since I don't have any test charts or cats handy,  I employed the help of my kids.  You can see they are overcome with joy at the prospect.  I guess I could have tried to photograph the dog, but she wasn't in a cooperative mood either.

The little bit I got to play with it tonight I think it will help me do what I want.  I'll need some more time before I am completely comfortable with it.

But when I am, I will be using this one a lot.  I may write up one of my "reviews" some time.  I didn't really want to do that after only having it a few hours.

[ Note: That is chocolate on Tobias' face, not cuts -- but he thinks its cooler if you call em cuts. ]

Ghetto Processing No More

I did it.  I couldn't take it any more.

I broke down and bought some real software to work with my images.  I had been avoiding it for a very long time.  It was one of things I knew I would do when I absolutely had to, but its an expensive endeavor.

I reached the point I had to.

My previous workflow of Nikon Capture -> ViewNX (white balance, camera mode) [to jpg] -> Gimp ( sharpening, any fixing [ not much ], any cropping ) -> [final jpg] worked fine when my projects required only 10-12 finished images.

However, lately the amount of finished pictures from a project was not stopping at only 10.  I was finishing, in some cases, over 100 images!  My workflow broke down.  ViewNX is slow, and will not show you changes in real time.  Gimp, is also pretty slow, even though I had a lot of items scripted and batch-scripted to work on complete sets of images, it was taking way too much time.

Lightroom fixes that issue.  I still use Nikon Capture to import images off my cards, but then I take them right into Lightroom.  I can do almost everything in Lightroom, very quickly.  For anything I need to do that Lightroom cannot, I now have Photoshop.   I am really surprised at how much nicer Photoshop is to use than Gimp.  I didn't expect that to be the case -- but, wow, it is a lot easier to work with.

I think my original workflow worked pretty well for a long time, but I resisted switching too long.  I burned up hours of my life.

There are a bunch of other benefits to using "industry" standard tools, but for me, the most important one is extra time.

(funny aside... my original intention here was to place a flash and radio trigger under the water and bubbles, but I chickened out.)

Upgrade time!

They are updating our mobiles at work.  This is interesting to me for a few reasons.  The main reason is my current one only works to talk on as a speaker phone.  This has obvious drawbacks.  It is also interesting because it means I have an upgraded "always with me" camera! 

I will have 2 full megapixels vs the measly 1.3 I have now!  I'm moving up in the world. 

I'm being a little silly.  It doesn't matter much which camera I use.  I have fun either way. True, I tend to make a different style of picture with my phone than I do with my SLRs.  And, true, I'd never do a set for someone else on a cell phone (unless someone wants to volunteer for an experiment!).  But, I think I get some visually interesting stuff out of that crappy little camera.  I have made prints, too, and the quality is reasonable.  The images have an aesthetic about them that is difficult to match with a "real" camera.

To celebrate, and prepare to turn the old one in I dumped the pictures I have been making over the last few months to my computer.  I opted to post a couple of the more detail oriented/abstract ones.

It was a good change of pace to work with these images tonight.

Feisol CT-3442 tripod and Photoclam PC-44NS ballhead: A Review (kind of) -- Or, how I bought a tripod

I decided to write a few "reviews" of some of my stuff a while back.  The first bit of "stuff" I wrote about were my lights.  I know these really aren't reviews.  These are my general feelings about the items that help me get my pictures made.

This time I should come clean up front, though.  For the vast majority of my shots I don't use a tripod.  I find them a general pain to carry and use.  Most of the time I'm throwing light about with a flash anyway, the tripod is almost superfluous in those situations.  However, not in all of them.

When you need a tripod, you really need one.  I bought my first tripod within a few months of deciding to pursue photography seriously.  I picked up a Slik 300DX.  It is solid.  The head is a pan-tilt style which is nice for very precise control, but lacks the speed of use of a ballhead.  This tripod is also very short without extending the center column, and it is heavy.  However, it is fairly inexpensive, and works very well for my light camera and lenses.

So, why did I pick up a nicer tripod when I already admitted I don't use one that often?  First, like I mentioned, when you need a tripod you REALLY NEED a tripod.  I wanted something I wouldn't mind carrying around "just in case" I needed it.  I also wanted a ballhead.  I am also trying to do more landscape/nature style photos.  Tripods are helpful there, if only for the "study the frame a while" aspect.  Finally, even though my Slik is in good shape it is starting to show its age.  I expect one of these days something bad will happen to it.

I actually started looking at better camera support a month or so after buying my Slik.  I am not sure if its unique to me, but it seems that when I start a hobby there used to be a continuous pressure to keep upgrading my stuff.   At the time I discovered that Gitzo tripods were the gold-standard.  I couldn't afford them. I still find them extremely expensive. Since it is an item I don't rely on  I needed to find a less expensive alternative, or simply continue to use my old tripod.

I accidentally tripped across the name Feisol on an online forum.  Mostly out of broken-foot-induced boredom I began to research it.  For my needs they seemed a good fit.  They are stable, well liked, and while the price stings it is a good bit cheaper than the alternative.

I chose a 4 section tournament class tripod.  It is light.  It is about as tall as my Slik if I extended the Slik's center column.  This is my favorite feature of the new tripod.  Height.  It is also light.  And it is stable.

After I chose the legs, I needed to find a head.  Forum reading let me know the Feisol's ballheads had an arca-swiss "like" quick release system.  But its plates and clamps were not compatible with other industry-standard plates and clamps.  This, of course, is unacceptable.   More reading led me to Photoclam heads.

I found a dealer that sold both named Really Big Cameras.  I asked some questions via email, and based on the answers decided what I needed.  Then I waited many, many months before placing an order.  Ordering was pretty painless, and it was shipped out extremely fast.  I was nervous about purchasing through such a small outfit, but I shouldn't have been.  It went perfectly.

I have had the tripod a month or so now, and I really really like it.  I have used it quite a bit already.  I used it for my tub picture.  I also used it for almost every exposure on the roll of Kodachrome I shot.  The film had been in the camera for ages, but I didn't make many shots until recently.  If you want to shoot film, I think a tripod is almost mandatory.  ISO 100 film still seems pretty fast to me!

It is easy to extend and collapse the legs.

I like that it is so light.  I also like that it came with a carrying bag.  I have brought it with me on a few outings, that in the past I would have carried no tripod.  I didn't use it, but I didn't mind carrying it.

The ballhead is simply amazing.  It is crazy how much quicker it is to use than a pan-tilt head.  When its locked down it doesn't budge.  I feel confident I could stand on it.  Of course, I would probably end up with another broken foot pulling such a stunt, so I won't try that.  All the dials are extremely smooth.  It may be that I have no prior experience with this kind of support, so my infatuation might be a "class effect".  But, if you are looking for a ballhead, I recommend at least looking into this one.

What makes it really makes the setup worth the money to me, though, is how much Tobias loves it.  He has named it "Robo-tripod". Robo-tripod has already helped us avoid fits at bed time, wake time, bath time, and TV-off time.  Robo-tripod has also provided a few hours of entertainment.

I highly recommend the whole rig from the child-control aspect alone.  It is also a pretty decent bit of photo kit.

Alien Bees : A Review (kind of)

I decided I will do a few (very few, I'd rather be making a picture right now than editing this!) review-style posts.  These will be done for equipment I use quite a bit.  They will be written from my perspective as a user.  If you are looking for specs, comparisons, and things of that nature these are probably not for you.  If you are interested in how a hobbyist feels about gear that he uses often, then these reviews will probably be a good fit.

The first bit of kit I will be discussing is my Alien Bee lighting setup.  Currently it consists of 2 Alien Bee 800 (AB800) strobes, and 1 Alien Bee 1600 (AB1600) strobe.  The modifiers I have are some Westcott umbrellas, the Buff medium octabox, large softbox, grids, and high output beauty dish.  Chances are high that I will add a Vagabond to the mix.  It may even arrive before I finish writing this.

I built this kit slowly over time.  I started with just the AB800s a medium octabox, and some umbrellas.  The octabox I picked up for my own use.  However, the purpose of strobes was to photograph a school banquet that I have been doing for a very long while now.  It greatly simplified what I was doing for them.

My initial experience was good, and so the collection of stuff grew.

The lights are easy to use.  They plug into the wall with standard cables.  Power is controlled by a continuous slider marked off by the fraction of power used.  It is accurate, I've never had any trouble moving up or down any number of stops from my initial reading.   Installing modifiers is pretty straightforward.  The only real trick to that is making sure all the "grabby-bits" are seated inside the ring you are using.

The strobe can be sync'd in two ways.  It has a mono audio-style jack input.  A cable with a PC connector and audio jack is supplied with the unit.  To connect my Skyports to it I use a short audio/audio cable.  The units also have an optical slave built in.  The optical trigger is sensitive.  My  lights have fired, even when I am working in another room with the main light.

Here are things I like about the Alien Bee setup.

• Price.  Lets be clear, there are few other "real" studio type light setups that are this inexpensive.  Fewer still that are this inexpensive and this usable.  It is cheaper for me to add another Bee to my setup, than it is to buy Nikon's flagship shoe-mount flash.  If I were to ever get the "upgrade" bug, moving to Elinchrom or Profoto or another big-name light would cost me more than a nice used car.  Its unlikely I will ever find a reason to do that!
• Weight and Size.  Since I bought these to lug about, its nice that they are not monster big.
• Power.  Even the AB800s put out at least a stop, and probably more, than my shoe flashes.  This is useful.
• Rugged.  Mine have taken some hard knocks, and are still acting perfectly.
• Modifiers. The Bees can use almost any softbox, provided I use a speedring from Paul C. Buff.  I like the Beauty Dish.
• Color.  I admit, being able to buy these in BRIGHT FREAKING YELLOW was cool.  Maybe a professional would stick with boring black or white.  But, I don't have to worry about that.

Here are the things I don't like about the setup.

• Sync. When used with my Skyport system my sync speed on my full frame camera is only 1/200 of a second.  If I am firing my shoe flashes via Skyports I can sync at the camera's specc'd sync speed of of 1/250.
• Color Temp. Color of the light seems to change depending on power.  This has never been an overriding concern for me, but I can notice it.  It also sticks in the back of my mind.  Practically, its probably a non-issue for what I do, but it is there.
• Flash Duration. Flash duration also seems a bit longish.  Its the reason the pictures here have some motion blur I think, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Overall, I think they are a good compromise for us hobbyists.  They will not completely kill the credit card, and they are good tools that are fun to work with.  The advantages seem to outweigh the disadvantages to me.

Examples of what I've done with them can be found throughout the blog.  I tagged the posts that have pics I made with them as "alien bees".   I feel pretty odd posts pictures by gear used.

Christmas in March

We celebrate Christmas with a good friend of ours far removed from the actual holiday.  There is just too much going on.  Its so much more fun to do this way.

When we got together today it reminded me that I had some frames I made with the intention of making a garish HDR image of our Christmas tree.  When I tried to do that in December I found the software I was using, Qtpfsgui, was clipping highlights and filling them with black.  This was far from desirable.

I decided to look for some other software.  I found Luminance HDR, which is a successor to Qtpfsgui.  I was disappointed to find the bug I encountered earlier was still there.

I dug around a bit more on the net to see what I could find.  I came across Picturenaut.  I found this program to be quite fast at creating the HDR image.  It also was not clipping highlights!  However, I was disappointed in the tone mapping options and output.  Qtpfsgui really spoiled me with a great toolbox of over the top tone mapping options.

I wondered a bit about what to do.  I had a program that tone mapped the way I wanted, but couldn't create the initial HDR image properly.  I also had a program that created the HDR image correctly and quickly, but couldn't tone map the way I wanted*.  Fortunately they both supported OpenHDR file format!  I created my HDR file with Picturenaut and then imported it in Luminance HDR for final tone mapping.

The final image was made by creating a few different tone mapped jpeg files and importing them into Gimp as layers.  I simply changed the blend mode to "screen" and played with the opacity of each layer until I got a final look I liked.  It's just what a wanted, a slightly crazed "record" shot of our Christmas tree.

Now that I got my image out I will revisit Picturenaut a bit more.  There are plug-ins available for it that may give me the tone mapping options I want.  I also was very impatient with it today.  I knew what the algorithms did that are supplied in Luminance HDR.  I was less sure about where I wanted to go in Picturenaut.  But, it works SO quickly on my machine I'd like to make it my primary tool if possible.

If you are interested in HDR imaging take a look at the programs I listed above.  The commercial program Photomatix is the gold standard piece of software to perform this process.  If you wish to do a lot of tone mapped images it is probably the route to go.

*Or, more likely, I am not familiar enough with it yet.

Timelapse video experiments

I started this blog for a number of reasons, one of which was to encourage myself to experiment and try new things.  I have always been curious about lapse videos.  I really have no excuse for not trying to make one earlier.  My cameras are equipped with an intravalometer  which is the necessary bit of camera equipment to make them.
 



 I knew how to setup the camera, but I didn't know what to do with the frames once I captured them.  A bit of googling led me to this page.   This was all I really needed.  However, there are tons of more complete resources out there to help also.  Here is a good overview.

I set my camera up to make a frame every 3 seconds.  I let it make 150 frames or so.  I had my camera set to create small JPEGS at basic settings.  Even dropping down to the small setting creates frames with more resolution greater than HD video.  I used the gimp to resize the frames to 720P resolution.  I let it change the aspect ratio on one video, and let it pad the video in the other.  I'm not sure which way I like better.  In the future I should probably compose with the aspect ratio in mind, and crop it down in post.  I created the videos with the following command:

>ffmpeg.exe -r5 -i DSC_%4d.jpg -an -vcodec copy drip.avi

It makes the video at 5 frames per second, making it about 30 seconds in length.  I didn't add any audio.  I like seeing how the shadows and trees move about in the videos.



Feel free to watch the videos, but remember these are the efforts of a beginner testing the water.  You will never get that time back.  You have been warned.

(Note: If you are viewing this in Reader or Buzz, the embedded objects don't seem to show up)

Dead Point and Shoot

Our little point and shoot camera, a Canon A95 seems to have died tonight.  This makes me very sad.  None of the entry level point and shoot cameras can compare to it anymore.  It has a full set of shooting modes including Manual settings.  To get that level of control in today's point and shoots you have to spend a lot of coin.  The new cameras are all also on megapixel steroids.  I suppose that would be fine, except, well, why?

I may need to find a point and shoot this year.  I'm not sure what I will get.  All but higher end ones left me cold, or I would have replaced my cell phone camera with one a long time ago.  Last summer I looked seriously at the Canon 780 and the Fuji Z33WP.  I like the Canon because of its size.  I like the Fuji because it doesn't have a folding/protruding lens (a friend of mine as a more, uh, eloquent way of saying that.)   Since I last looked some other interesting ones have been introduced, like the Casio EX G1.  It, like the Fuji, also doesn't use a folding/protruding lens -- and is environment-proofed to some extent.

Here is the last real picture I made with the little guy.  It was taken new year's day.  My intention was to talk about composition with this picture, but at the moment when I look at it all I can think about is the broken camera.  And how maybe hot chocolate could be delicious right now.  

New Gear

Those who are "blessed" to hear me complain about gear-talk on forums know I feel it is mostly useless discussion.  It bothers me when people feel they "need" super-high end gear because its "great" in low light -- so they can make party snaps.  It also bugs me me when I see people think the best autofocus is needed -- to make snaps of their dog playing in the backyard.  Its not the end product these people want that bugs me, its the fact they aren't able to see they are just like me.  They just want fun toys.  I don't need half the stuff I have to make pictures I like.  But, I do use it all to make pictures, just maybe in a different way than I would if I limited my kit.  But I won't try to justify myself by making up lame rationalizations. Its okay to want something even if you don't "need" it.  Sometimes.

That being said, what did I get?  I picked up a few light modifiers for my Alien Bees.  I got their large standard softbox.  Its on clearance!  If you want one go get it before they are gone.  I also picked up one of their new beauty dishes, a pair of grids, and a third Bee, an AB1600.  What does this do for me?  It gives me a few more choices for the look of my light.  The dish intrigues me the most, but I haven't played with it yet.  I did setup the large softbox to see how hard it was to build.  I then made a few pics with it. 

The new Bee gives me twice as much power as my older lights, and allows me to "count" on some 2 light setups.  I don't like needing equipment for a planned, involved picture that does not have a backup.  How much would it suck to rent a sports car, find a few willing models, travel 50 miles to a location you paid to use, and have gear you need (cause you don't have a backup!)  for your planned shot decide to stop working?

The grids should allow me to control where the light goes a little easier.  I've found its generally not hard to get light where I want, but its a royal pain to keep it off of areas I don't want lit.

Tobias and Kathryn helped me try out the softbox.  Tobias' reminded me a bit of Jill Greenberg's infamous kid pictures so I quickly processed it in tribute to those.  Some differences are my processing isn't as nice, my light setup isn't wrap around, I'm using a longer lens, and she just did an all around better job. But the main difference is Jill Greenberg got her models to cry by taking candy away from them, Tobias just realized I'm spending his college money on photo gear again!

No magic smoke

I  assembled the new PC and didn't release any magic smoke.  I'm not exactly sure what the magic smoke does inside of electronics, but I do know if it escapes the device doesn't work anymore.

Things have changed quite a lot since I built my first PC (note of interest my first computer was a Commodore Amiga, the first PC I had was based on a Pentium 90).  Some interesting examples: My new computer has 1000 times the RAM my first PC had.  The new computer has 2000 times more disk space.  Heck, the new video card probably has more computational power than that first computer.  At the very least it has over 100 times more RAM.

This computer impresses me quite a bit.  I can feel a big difference in the time it takes me to work through photos on it.  Processes like Selective Gaussian Blur are orders of magnitude faster.

My only real disappointment is the video card wasn't packaged with a random eye-candy game.  Every other card I've bought was shipped with about 6 million gaming titles.  This one has none.  Ironically, I didn't install any of those I got in the past -- but  after using this machine --I'm really curious what a "modern" game will look like.

No picture of it this time, one picture of computer junk maybe one picture too many!  Instead, check out the moon and clouds doing their best impression of magic smoke.

Tripods

I don't use a tripod that much, well, relative to how many pictures I make. About 15-20 of the ones I have posted here were done with a tripod.

I don't use one more often for a few reasons. First, I have been focusing a lot on trying to make pictures of people using strobes. Using a tripod under those circumstances doesn't make sense to me. Pictures are sharp enough. Another reason is my tripod is not the easiest to work with. I think its a great tripod for what I initially bought it for. It was inexpensive, heavy, and pretty stable. I've used it in rain, mud, cold, heat, etc. It does the job. The main drawback is it has a pan-tilt head, which are slow to work with for still photography. It also doesn't extend enough without the center column for me to use standing up. That isn't too much of a concern because I find standing up is rarely the best position to make a picture from.

Last year I looked into getting a second tripod to use for nature photography. I wanted a light tripod to carry, a decent ballhead for speed of use, and I wanted to be able to use it at standing height if needed. My quick research showed that to really improve upon what I already had would be prohibitively expensive. I just didn't care about nature photography that much, and my primary photographic objectives don't require a tripod beyond what I already own. A tripod of that quality and expense would be overkill, so I stopped thinking about it.

However, my research didn't go far enough. I recently stumbled across a tripod manufacturer named Feisol that may fit my wants at a cost I can stomach. I have been looking into ballheads to put on them if I decide to buy. Feisol makes one that seems decent, and I recently found another ballhead manufacturer named Photo Clam. The latter seem to cost more, but still much less than the "big boys" from Really Right Stuff, Markins, etc.

Don't get me wrong, if nature photography were my primary bent I'd pony up for a top-notch rig. But its not. For me even getting 80% of the performance of those high end setups is probably overkill, so saving 40-50% of the cost is a no-brainer, especially with the level of performance that is reported on the net. Although, Feisol has attracted fan-boys, so some of that maybe hyperbole.

However, I still need to decide to get one or not. It is still pricey enough to give me pause.

Available light -- again

Tobias at the Beach looking out our patio door. Roll in Bed used as a reflector behind him. D200/ISO 800

Lately I am using available light much more than flash. This is because of a few things. Part of this is I feel I need to revisit the fundamentals of exposure again. I need to keep my highlights under control, and other things. Plus its nice to just see the effects of light without having to imagine it ahead of time.

Kathryn at the beach, same "setup" as Tobias' picture above. Kathryn loves having pictures taken.

I didn't bring a flash to the beach. If we planned to stay longer, or if I planned to make photography a major part of the trip I probably would have brought one.

Tobias after putting himself to bed for a nap. D700/ISO 3200

A second reason is I have been able turn up my ISO rating to unreasonable levels and still get reasonable results. I mentioned before that I don't care that much about noise, but I do care about funky color shifts. My older camera starts shifting at ISO 800 in shadow and by 1600 it is shifting everywhere. ISO 1600 is also the top of its range, some of my recent shots have been done at ISO 3200 and beyond. True, I could have used a tripod, or a strobe, but, well, in the example I chose to post here I just know I would have woken Tobias up messing with extra gear.

Click on the images for a bigger look at the picture.

Phototip Quickie : Know your gear

Recently I got a new camera body.

For all intents and purposes it is exactly like my old camera body. Buttons are basically in the same place. It feels very similar. I can use either now without thinking about the camera.

This means it works exactly the same right?

Wrong.

I was playing around with headshots and a clamshell lighting setup at home, you know, before taking my new camera out on a "real" assignment.

Like normal, my lights were being fired with Skyport (I'd link to the product on the manufacturer's site, but the site seems designed to "encourage" only front page links) radio triggers. I had my shutter dialed to maximum sync speed (1/250), again this is normal procedure for me indoors. I noticed the pictures looked dark on the right side of the frame in portrait orientation, and dark on the bottom in landscape orientation. I didn't think much about this (I did think-- "oh, I am picking up the curio cabinet", or "oh, I must have aimed a little low and picked up the softbox material") . When I got to the computer I saw motion blur.

I then realized I was seeing the shutter, the camera wasn't syncing with the flash!

A quick Google search later my suspicion was confirmed. It is "well" known Skyports will not allow full frame cameras to use their maximum sync speeds with monoblocks.

I didn't know! Thankfully, I was doing "due-diligence" with a new camera. I didn't mess up something for others.

Choosing a camera

This post has no images. So, those of you who (rightly) expect images can find a nicer photo-blog post than this one. This is a completely gear centric post, designed to help me avoid ordering a camera right now. I will spend my time making this post instead.

I haven't talked much about why I choose certain cameras. Mostly, because I think its silly, but hey, maybe someone out there will find it interesting. I already know I will be benefit from this post.

Okay, first and foremost, the single most important thing to me about an SLR camera is : It must have a Nikon F-mount. If it doesn't, chances are good I will not be able to get my lenses to work on it. Thems the breaks. I'm sure there are other camera companies out there besides Nikon, Kodak, and Fuji. I imagine they probably make pretty decent cameras (and maybe even copiers and TVs too!) , but it doesn't matter Their camera bodies are useless for me! Its also helpful if the camera supports autofocus with Nikon's non-AFS lenses. I desire metering with non-CPU lenses, although that is not critical.

The camera must have a standard ISO hotshoe.

ISO, shutter speed, and aperture should be easily manipulated-- ideally shutter speed and aperture should have separate controls. I really hate when there is only a single dial, and you have to push and hold a button to switch between the two controls.

Even in this digital world, I use a depth of field preview button pretty regularly. For some reason I haven't quite got the knack of grabbing a shot, and blowing it up on the LCD.

I always set my cameras up to use the back-of-the-camera autofocus button. I remove autofocus completely from the shutter release. Therefore it is critical that a camera allow this.

I prefer my camera to be rugged. Mostly because I do dumb things like let my camera bump into trees, or sit on my car floor, or leave it out where my three year old can reach it.

I prefer CF cards over SD cards, but it really doesn't matter. The only reason I prefer them is because of their physical size. I find it much harder to misplace a CF card.

You may have noticed I left off things like resolution, ISO performance, frame-rate, etc. This is mostly because I find all current cameras meet or exceed my needs in any of these areas. I am interested in printing only up to 11x14 most of the time. I still find my D200 does amazing things up to ISO 800. This maybe because I come from film, and maybe because I usually don't find noise that big deal if the picture "works". If it "works" it "works", even if there is golf-ball sized film-grain (or digital noise). Sometimes, the noise maybe the only reason it DOES work.

Unfortunately, two of my wants on the list knock the mid-line Nikon cameras out of consideration. However, I can't complain too much as I still have 4 current cameras to choose from when the time comes to partner my D200- D300, D700, D3, and the D3x. I am heavily leaning towards the D700.

I realize what I want in a camera doesn't fit everyone. I don't expect it too. Afterall, we are making different photos, and we use our stuff in different ways. I also don't feel cameras that do not meet all of my criteria are junk. Almost anything out there now will help capture good images. The items I listed simply allow the camera to get the heck out of my way faster.

Awesome, I have wasted enough time, that I can't wander off to Amazon...

Phototip Quickie: First Post (Read your manual!)

This is the very first phototip post I will make. I feel a bit pretentious in handing out tips, but I have seen and heard enough questions in the real world to know these can help someone.

The first tip I have is extremely boring and fundamental, but very few people actually do this!

Read the owner's manual for your camera(s)!

One way to make getting good pictures easier is to know what your camera can help you do. It will give you confidence, prevent you from fumbling around while your picture goes away, and will help you enjoy use your camera to its fullest.