Enticing the Light

What I Think about the Pentax K-01

Miserere — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:28:42 +0000

by Miserere

I’ve written an opinion piece on Pentax’s first foray into the large sensor mirrorless market, published on Camera-Enthusiast.com. Read it to find out what I really think…and it ain’t pretty!

Form over Function, or Why the Pentax K-01 Was a Bad Idea

Good light and good luck,

—Miserere

Share with your friends! ⇒

Twitter | Facebook

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!


B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

Photographers Really Do Talk Like This.

Peter Zack — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:46:18 +0000

by Peter Zack

They forgot a few; “I love Bokeh”, “I only shoot RAW” and “Jpeg vs RAW.
My favourite? “Soft, Soft, Soft, Soft…”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a-dR2V1-0Y

Cheers and good shooting
-Peter Zack

Share with your friends! ⇒

Twitter | Facebook

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!


B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

Battle at F-Stop Ridge…The Carnage Continues!

Miserere — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:08:49 +0000

by Miserere

In May of last year the guys at The Camera Store in Calgary shot a funny war spoof short with an expensive bunch of camera gear. I think I wrote about it or tweeted it because it made me laugh a lot. Who says Canadians don’t have a sense of humour because it’s too cold up North?

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw they had just uploaded part 2 in the series earlier today. I’m including part 1 here for those that didn’t catch it the first time it hit theatres.

Battle at F-Stop Ridge

www.youtube.com/watch?v=awq90APEVgw

Battle at F-Stop Ridge 2

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PovspE6IVg

The Making of

For those that want a peak behind the scenes to see how the first production was shot, here it is:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU_unQxKrLU

These guys don’t just make funny videos, they also review photography equipment in a unique style that I find very enjoyable. Check out their YouTube channel.

Good light and good luck,

—Miserere

Share with your friends! ⇒

Twitter | Facebook

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!


B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

Fotoshop, by Adobé

Miserere — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:01:50 +0000

by Miserere

Find out the secret to a fantastic new body, the one you always dreamed of; look like the models and actresses you idolise on the covers of magazines and movie posters. Find the new you with Fotoshop, by Adobé (ah-doh-BEY):

I suspect we’ll never get sponsored by Adobe (ah-DOH-bee) now…

Credit for the video goes to Jesse Rosten.

Good light and good luck,

—Miserere

Share with your friends! ⇒

Twitter | Facebook

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!


B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

Lightroom Tip of the Day. Adjustment Brush Tools – Creating Bokeh. Part 4

Peter Zack — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 04:59:59 +0000

by Peter Zack

Photo provided by Dave Hollander*

We’ve decided to start a new series of Lightroom (LR) tips here on EtL. You will find all of these in our menu above. Look for “lessons” and find ‘Lightroom tip of the day’ in the scroll down menu.

So here’s tip #5 :

You will see from this section that the previous ones come into play here, namely using the hand tool to move around an image while zoomed in. Here we are going to take an image and create bokeh (out of focus area) in a selected region of a photo where little or none exists. This can be done in Photoshop using the Gaussian blur but then you have to save the shot and reopen it in PS to finish the editing. Where can this technique be used? You can soften skin or retouch features/blemishes or isolate the area you want to be in clear focus. You can also lighten or darken the selected area to make the subject pop. Inversely, you could lighten the subject. We’re going to show some of this in a video below to demonstrate how it works.

Tip 5: To see what you are doing, you need to use the mask. It’s a small check box (in develop module) in the lower part of the LR screen. If at first the auto mask doesn’t seem to show anything, you can change the colour by holding down the shift key and pressing the letter “O” where it will alternate through a few colours. Of course it won’t show anything until you start using the adjustment brush which activates a layer in LR.

Here we’ll take a photo of yours truly and blur the background further than it already is. You could also use these techniques to completely black out or darken the background if that’s what you want the end result to be. Open the Adjustment brush tool drawer and reset the controls (see tip 2). We only want to use the Clarity slider in this adjustment (you can also use the Sharpening slider as well but it will have less effect). Move the slider to -100. Adjust the Flow to get the opacity you need to see the background and how much the effect adjusts the selected portion of the photo. For this example, I’m putting the flow at 75%. If it’s 100%, your going to have a difficult time erasing the sections you used the tool on the subject because you can’t see them.

First you want to mask the background from the sharper subject. Select the size you need the tool to be and reduce the feather enough that you can tightly use the tool around the edge of the subject. If you make a mistake and mask part of the subject, just later go back and use the erase tool to remove that part of the mask. If you really mess it up or are just learning to do this, you can erase the entire mask by simply selecting the Pin and hitting delete on the keyboard.

Once the entire region to be blurred is selected, then adjust the clarity to your liking. In the video clip below, I’ll adjust the exposure just to show you the effect a bit more dramatically.

Etl LR Video. LR tip Part 4
Click on the video link to download the clip to your computer.
Cheers and good shooting
-Peter Zack

*Title photo provided by Dave Hollander

Share with your friends! ⇒

Twitter | Facebook

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!


B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

How to Photograph a Monkey in Space

Miserere — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:05:14 +0000

by Miserere

Baker the Monkey in space, aboard Horus 19. ©Baker.

This isn’t a photoshopped image, that really is a monkey…in space. Baker the monkey flew up to an altitude of about 35 km and withstood temperatures down to -55°C, and all in an effort to promote Australian band Skipping Girl Vinegar. Not that is a committed pet.

Want to know how this happened? Then check out this behind-the-scenes video made by Grant Willis, who shot it with a Panasonic GH2 + 14-140mm f/4.0-5.8 lens.

Want more info about this particular flight? Then read this blog entry. To find out about Project Horus, follow the link.

Here’s some more monkey business in case you need even more info:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMMFXNkiSJs

Good light and good luck,

—Miserere

Share with your friends! ⇒

Twitter | Facebook

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!


B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

Lytro Camera Is Now Here and Not What I Expected.

Peter Zack — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:59:42 +0000

by Peter Zack

The 3 new Lytro Cameras.

Some time ago, I posted about this new technology. The Lytro Camera. It certainly seemed very interesting and I posted some conjecture that it was a trick of software. Well now we can see for ourselves. It’s now available to buy and shipping in January 2012. See company web site below.

First impression is, wow this thing is small. How they pack this interesting evolution in cameras in such a small unit is impressive. Second thought was, I do hope this is available in some sort of SLR. They are clearly directing this toward the P&S shooter at this time. They comment a few times, about “Shutter Lag” claiming that it’s an issue of auto focus lag, which of course it isn’t. Focus lag (or focus time) certainly can slow your ability to get the shot you want but shutter lag is a P&S issue with the sensor turning on and off to capture the photo. Shutter lag isn’t an issue with a DSLR. Focus speed can be at times of course and add to the time it takes to capture the image.

On thing I very curious about is how do I create a shot that has a large DOF (depth of field)? It’s great that the user can choose what’s in focus but all the samples demonstrate this limited focus feature. Narrow DOF shoots are great but if I want to print the family shot taken at the annual summer gathering and I can only focus on one person, then the shot is pretty much useless for prints. We can only assume that multiple focus points can be combined in the software to create the large DOF shot where everything (near and far) is in focus.

If this is available as a “DSLR styled” camera, with interchangeable lenses and the ability to add a flash, remote wireless triggers and other add-on accessories at some point, this will be the end on DSLR’s as we know them. A big consideration for putting this camera engine in a DSLR would be the ability to use removable storage media. I feel a big limit with this camera is it only has internal storage and you have to download the photos off the camera once it’s full via USB to your computer. So are you going to carry a netbook or other computer with you on vacation to keep the memory available for more photos? Most won’t like this limitation.

As it stands now, the camera has very few controls, a slider zoom on the top, a shutter button, USB connection port and a power switch. The rear LCD is a touch screen that allows some viewing of images but due to the small size, won’t be something you would want to use to really see your shots. One missing feature for many P&S shooters is they do not mention video. Can this thing shoot video clips? Seems no at this point.

There’s a lot we don’t know. Can we stop the lens down somehow? What about close up (macro) shooting? How is this in low light is a big one. There are no specifications for ISO on their page. In fact if low light capture is processed in some new way or measured differently, they don’t mention a way to compare against today’s camera units. If you are taking pictures of the kids on Christmas morning with only the tree lights, will extra light be needed or a flash? It’s notable that no flash is built in. The web site is very sparse in details and that still makes me suspicious how good this camera is.

Another consideration is how these photos can be processed. Can Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom or the large number of Freeware programs edit these photos? They have a “3D” nature to them and I don’t know if it would be possible to edit them in conventional software. If all you can do is edit in their own software, then this camera will be fairly limited to the higher end user. The video above doesn’t tell us much about what the software does. It only mentions that you can choose the subject that will be in focus. Maybe you do that, then save the shot to be edited in other types of software. Also note that the images are square unlike the conventional 2:3 ratio of today’s cameras.

Will this replace today’s DSLR’s? No not yet by a long shot (pardon the pun). Will it draw in the P&S shooter, most certainly for some. If this gets broad acceptance and they develop or partner (I hope) with a DSLR/MILC maker who already has the accessories and lenses, then this could turn the camera market completely on it’s head. Imagine this in Fuji’s new X10? Now that would be a cool camera.

Oh and a note to the DSLR makers, if you are thinking of getting in a partnership with these guys, the one that does (all this assumes that this camera engine is everything they claim), will own the DSLR/MILC market. Until we understand the software and the other issues, much of where this will go is still speculation.

Visit the Lytro camera web site here
Cheers and good shooting
-Peter Zack

Share with your friends! ⇒

Twitter | Facebook

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!


B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

Lightroom Tip of the Day. Adjustment Brush Tools – Zooming. Part 3

Peter Zack — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 06:01:24 +0000

by Peter Zack

We’ve decided to start a new series of Lightroom tips here on EtL. You will find all of these in our menu above. Look for “lessons” and find ‘Lightroom tip of the day’ in the scroll down menu.

So here’s tip #3-4 :

Adjustment brush continued from Part 2

Tip 3: Ever zoom in on a particular section of a photo to make a fine adjustment and then need to make a similar adjustment to another part of the photo that is off screen while you are still zoomed in? If the Adjustment brush is open, it doesn’t seem possible and most people close the tool drawer, zoom in to the spot and use the hand tool to move to the new part of the image to be worked on. Here’s the easy way. The tool drawer is open, you are zoomed in, now hold down the space bar, click the Ctrl button and the hand tool will now be available to move around the image by simply holding down the left mouse button and dragging around the image in the preview window. Also, while the hand tool is active, a left mouse click will zoom in or out (alternatively) to the spot where the hand is. So if you are zoomed in to the upper left corner and the hand tool is active, then left click the image. It will now zoom out to see the full image. Move the hand tool to the new location you need to zoom in to and a single left click zooms you in to that new spot. This works in the Clone tool drawer as well and even more useful there.

Tip 4: Another way to zoom in. Just hit the letter “Z” and the image will zoom in to the ratio (example 1:1) you have selected in the upper left near the navigator window. You can change this ratio at any time even if the adjustment brush tool drawer is open. This method only zooms straight into the centre of the image. You will need to use the hand tool as described in Tip 3 to move to the spot you need to work on.

Cheers and good shooting
-Peter Zack

Share with your friends! ⇒

Twitter | Facebook

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!


B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

Lightroom Tip of the Day. Adjustment Brush Tools – Reset Sliders and Pins. Part 2

Peter Zack — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:01:47 +0000

by Peter Zack

So here’s tip 2-3:

The adjustment brush is a very powerful tool and this section will contain multiple tips because when I started to consider writing this tip, I realized that in some future articles, we’ll have to get in greater detail of some Lightroom sections like the Adjustment brush. To begin with we’ll explain or define some of the terms Adobe uses to describe parts of the software. One such item, Adobe calls the section where the adjustments or set of controls for a tool the ‘tool drawer’. Often you will find sliders used to adjust parts of the tool you are going to use or adjust things like a colour, sharpness and so on.

So here’s a few things about using the adjustment brush (or local adjustments).
Pin’s (Pins are the white dots on the image where you’ve made an adjustment) can show you which is ‘active’ or selected. If the pin is white, then the pin isn’t selected, if it has a black dot, then it is selected and you can make adjustments to it. This is very handy to be able to adjust various parts of the same image. You might have a dark region you need to brighten or often called dodging. A bright area might be burned to darken it and balance the scene.

Assuming you’ve already made some adjustment brush changes to the image, if you want to hide the pins or make them visible, just hit the “H” key. So if the pins are hidden and the adjustment brush tool drawer is open, then hit “H” and the pins will become visible. Click the pin you want to adjust.

The Adjustment Brush tool drawer allows you to specify options for two brushes, A and B and within each you can select New or Edit. Select a brush by clicking the letter, or switch between brushes by pressing the slash key (/). Then if you have made different adjustments with each ‘A’ and ‘B’ you can make further changes to each without affecting the other. Brush options “stick” regardless of the effect you choose to apply until you change them.

Tip 1: You can click on the pin and select it, then to make a small adjustment you can put the mouse over the Pin and hold down the left mouse button, Drag the mouse left or right and you will see whatever sliders you’ve earlier adjusted, move and adjust further. I find this just an ‘OK’ feature but it does work and might be easier if you find, fine adjustments to the slider(s) a bit tough.

Tip 2: To reset the slider or any of the controls in the Tool Drawer to their default positions, just double click on the word of that item. So lets say you have changed the brightness and want to reset to the middle, double click the word ‘brightness’. This applies to most of the controls.

Cheers and good shooting
-Peter Zack

Share with your friends! ⇒

Twitter | Facebook

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!


B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy

Would You Please, PLEASE Stuff Your Flash Somewhere….

Peter Zack — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 06:01:09 +0000

by Peter Zack

If you’re at a concert in a big stadium or some other large event, your pop up flash can’t light the scene. It’s designed to light up about 12 feet and no more. I always laugh when I see some dark football stadium with a half-time concert happening and the flashes are firing all over the place. Put the camera in your pocket and enjoy the show.

What prompted this rant? Watch the YouTube video below for the first 20 or 30 seconds, and although it’s quite stunning, imagine how cool this would be if the cameras weren’t going off constantly. The second video below shows us the comparative difference. To see the entire show, view the second video after you finish reading my little rant.

Plus for those that don’t get it, look at the photo to the left taken from the video when a flash fired. If the flash could light up the clock (some were more powerful units and clearly could light the clock), they ruined the effect. The flash overpowered the lights and projector used to create the show. The resulting flash photo is a shot of the tower showing nothing special. Duh…..

Here’s the YouTube version. Like I said, just watch the first 30 seconds or so:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjWJHEmFfPA

Now this video below must have been shot on a different night (clearly a different videographer) and the crowd must have been instructed to turn their cameras off. Only a few flashes near the very beginning. This is how it should be seen. Enjoy the show, it’s well worth seeing.

Cheers and good shooting
-Peter Zack

No related posts.

Share with your friends! ⇒

Twitter | Facebook

Start a FREE trial at zenfolio or get up to $25 off your subscription by using discount coupon E6P-UJA-UCX

Please consider purchasing through our affiliate stores. If you visit one of the stores through the links below and place an order, EtL will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. We hope you don't mind these ads; revenue from commissions is how we keep EtL running. Thanks!


B&H	Adorama	Amazon	eBay	Best Buy