While watching the images at Unique Photo by the guest instructor, Moose Peterson, he stop at a slide of a multicolor feather critter and asked. “anyone know what this bird is named ?”…I didn’t know the name but I knew that there were some images stuck on my hard drive back home, so I made a point to look up this critter and find something out about it.

This little guy’s breeding ground is in the tundra of Northern Canada, I have a tough time believing that they migrate to Florida for the winter. Seems like a long hike for a four ounce bird with a wingspan of 17 inches.

These New Jersey seagulls marauding the Meadowlands must strike panic in the other critters when in their flight path. I have been working on an assignment with Gulls and these NJ birds seem meaner than their counterparts in Florida or Massachusetts.  This shallow muck revealed at low tide is full of blue crabs, eels and other small tidbits and the gulls certainly know how to exploit it for a meal.

Even though it was near mid day, it was bit over cast, so the white gulls on a dark background gave my Nikon D4 and the 200-400 w/tc2 a good focus point. I was handholding this setup to practice my panning technique.  The D4 shot buffer is much more advanced that the D3s plus I felt that the focus systems was a tad more improved in focusing.  The fierceness of the face and the focus of the eyes and the bent wings made me think of the star fighter that are in sci-fi movies.

After the location workshop sponsored by Lexar and Unique Photo at the Meadowlands, NJ, I was wondering where the rest of my afternoon and evening would take me.  The idea for a trip to Liberty Park was a tip from Moose Peterson as we drove back to NY.  I knew of the park ftom some images he had posted some time back and knew that a sunset skyline shot of Manhatten was where I was headed.

The location was simply fantastic, lots of opportunities for photography. The six hours that I was there was my own mini-workshop for different lenses, light, panning, and just looking for situations to make the Uncommon of the Common.

Just after dusk I moved down to the harbor walkway and saw a number of people starting to spill out from these two large stainless steel 208′ X 30″ monoliths. I soon found myself walking backaway from the harbor, the site of the old twin towers to my back, and the site of the new freedom tower construction, to the opening of this 911 memorial. I knew this was going to an Image that need an fish or wide angle. These are instances when the preparation of always carring my old school 16mm and now also my 24 paid of. I walked furhter up the memorial and looked for a good postion to see the freedom tower, I had to push myself and camera in the wall to compose the shot. After a few shots with the 16mm (to fishy for me) I tried the 24mm, and the D4 sort of burped at me. The camera had not been set up for this non non cpu lens, old school and D4 be damn, I took my chances and spent some time adjusting for white Balance and just took my shot at various heights and framing correctly for full names and perspective.

The last two nights in the digital darkroom, getting the image to reflect those moments that I was inside the memorial took a while. The neatest improvements in Photoshop CS6 got me there. It is a new filer call adaptive wide angle.  It allows you to position lines to adjust the perspective distortion to your liking. Wide Angles will distort parallel lines and you cannot correct the situation in camera.

The early evening in the memorial as I took images had an endearing story when I meet and began talking with a man who stood on the wall with his hand on a name for a few minutes.  He spoke to me in broken english that he was one of the last men out of building-one just as building-two was hit. He spoke of the courage of NYFD and his focus on his family to survive the disaster and knowing that coworkers were left dead behind him. This memorial ment quite a bit for him and he was still shaken as if the event had just happened yesterday.

As luck would have it he had just written an article on a new technology that OWC had released to the marketplace.  The Mercury Accelsior is a PCI card that mounts directly to one of your open pci slots and becomes essentially a Solid State Hard Drive embedded at the fastest point of your machine.  The card can also be set up as your bootable drive and it can be partition and you can buy two cards and create a Raid.  I opted for the 240GB card, installed it in the 2nd from top empty PCI slot and did a full clean install of Snow Leopard and then proceeded to spent the next 20 hours or so, deactivating my applications and reinstalling everything on this one card.

Image of 240GB OWC Mercury Accelsior By Lloyd Chambers

The next weak link was memory. The new minimum recommended amount to run PS and edit your images is 24GB. Since my machine had half that amount it was time to order 4x8GB modules.  Prices had plummeted since my prior upgrade. Here was an easy boost for performance.

The next last part in the upgrade department was my two trusty 2TB Hitachi hard drives configured as a Raid-0 two years ago and holding every Image I had taken.  The capacity left was only 1TB and besides being slow, (the fastest part of the drive is filled with the oldest info, think about a record spinning, the data on the inside cloest to the spindle wips around) my long term system needed more capacity.  As I checked around, the recommendation was a 4TB Hitachi at OWC, but the drives were the older 5400 rpm. I put my order in for two, but had second thoughts and later returned them unopened after I headed out to the web and found that Hitachi had a 4TB drive spinning at 7200rpm and the price (OEM Boxed) was $160 less than OWC.  So my order went to J&R, I’d like to have done OWC but that was too large of a difference for just a retail box.

Special Install Note:  It took me 1 an hour of Google searching but I can confirm:. YOU CAN SWAP LOCATIONS OF YOUR RAID-O HDD from bays 2 and 3 to bays 1 and 2, without any problems. (please backup for prudence sake)

Finally I relocated my 120GB solid State Drive (SSD) from my Mac’s lower Bay 4 to my CD drive optical bay. I simply unplugged (which deactivated) my CD drive (I have external BlueRay) and plugged in the SSD drive into the CD drive connectors. There are two separate connectors in the optical bay, the other has my other 120 SSD drive, both are the 6G Pro version and later on I’ll Raid those two 120GB SSD and use as a scratch disk

So after all my MacPro innards are upgraded what’s the verdict ??

Freaking Fast !!!

You can head over to Lloyds site and he has defined some real world tests.  For me, pulling up my images from Photomechanic is 50% faster, from eight to four seconds,… Saving from Photoshop CS6 my post production Images with 2-3GB file size in PSB format is about 15-30 seconds faster. The weirdest thing is that some applications are instant on. No drives spinning, no fans running, just instant access. They simple POP up ready to go, especially programs written for Intel 64 bit.

All this new technology can spell disaster if it does not work its way thru a proper burn in period. My system redundancy is fairly well planned out and will work in parrell with all the new gear for about three months, then the next reconfiguration will happen and this will become the platform for the next few years.

Each of these pieces of tech are going to give you a performance boost. But if I had to select which one had the most out of the box benefit… it has to be this Accelsior card, it is a game changer, it is a bootable SSD drive, simple to install and you will have SPEED benefit right away. GREAT Stuff OWC !!!

Links:

• Diglloyd Blog re: Accelsior
• OWC Mercury Accelsior
• OWC Macpro Memory
• J&R Hithachi 4TB @ 7200RPM
• OWC Mercury Extreme SSD

My travels ended up beneath the labyrinth of roadways and skyways bridges at the base of Ming City. Part of my covert assignment was to take photographs of the city, for a Mr. F. Gordon,  in advance of the staging of  his multi-cosmic-coalition forces. I was shooting my Images with the new Nikon D4 and prepared the digital results using the just released features of Photoshop CS6 and the top secret ‘Topaz’ plugin.  Mr. F. Gordon, aka ‘Savior of the Universe’ had not been able to accurately photograph Ming City even though he had made numerous attempts since first reconnoitering the location in 1934.  My assignment over, I’ll return to my travels and lay low until this nasty Ming affair is over……

I write every-once in awhile how an Image finds you. That process starts by getting mobile and taking pictures. Here I returned to one of my favored shooting locations and the Imagery was different that before. The water table had dropped so there was a few extra feet of shoreline to work on. The image in front of me was going to break every rule in the book, but I tried to get around it but there was only one way to get this shot. That was center of frame, and I had to push the D4 in the shoreline grass to get low enough that I put the lone pine on a horizon line that didn’t split the frame.

How lucky our eyes are. When I first came upon this inlet bay in Scituate, my eyes could see the full dynamic range of the setting sun light, sparking water, reflecting silica in exposed warm sands, luminousness of cool dark grey seawater, and three distinct textures of beach sand, water ripples and eroded shore bank.  I was taken by the scene..but my D4 camera only records 18% grey. I shot a five image HDR and hoped to create what I saw back in the darkroom.

This is going to be a work-in-progress Image. The image doesn’t have all the elements of what I want to show but that’s the challenge of the medium…it does not always come with a simple click.  It is a complex landscape image, it has creative challenges, colors are monotone, shape is the enemy of color, and there is shape and texture everywhere, and finally time, water flowing and reflections are fleeting and move with time, so I end up talking to myself about needing to release the Image and move on ….the skills are not in my head yet to get the final look…

As a side note, this is my first posting with Photoshop CS6 Extended (beta)

Maddy invited me to her Suffolk University danse recital on the 24th. I was able to bring along my D4 and I was not sure what to expect so I took something that  could give me some extra reach, the Nikon 70-300 F/4.8mm. The 7o-300 is a VR lens and is very well respected by the pros from Versace to Maisel, It’s shorter and lighter than the 70-200 f/2.8 and works well with a Low Light FX sensor like the D3s or D4. I also wasn’t sure of the lighting, but I figured the D4′s low light sensor would be able to compensate for the lens and the room

So tech wise I was covered but I was a bit out of normal shooting element.  Here, Maddy’s classmate was the subject.  Figuring out how to capture the dancer in their few minutes of poetry and creative movement was a challenge.  Soon instinct rather than thought kicked in; look for peak of action, look for gesture, look for light,fill the frame, let the dancer come to you, keep shutter speed up, create depth….And on it goes….I set the camera for f/4.8 @ 1/400/sec, I was at 200mm and ISO 800.   I had worked with a few different AF settings, but the one which produced the best Images was the AF-C 51 point. The new D4 AF face detection sensor really did a great job in the low light and latched on to the eyes.

The lighting in the room was very hot and created harsh contrast. So I waited for a moment when I thought the shadows could work for accentuating the emotions of the dancer.  I broke the major rule of never shooting up on a woman, but shooting up also conveys strength and power and her gestures and position made this Image work for me.

In post, you always work in color before you work in B&W. I did an image map of how I wanted the light in the Image to flow. it took some time to get a workable white balance and thus skin tones, I tried first a grunge look but it didn’t work, then went back to a more classic look, The image was them moved out to the new PS6 beta and I used the new render lighting effect, went back to CS5 and for B&W it was finished with DxO Fuji film 400 plugin.

Originally Posted Jan 01,2012

I promised to provide a few tips this month on gear maintenance.  One small but Extremely important tool is the sensor brush which you use for cleaning the sensor inside your camera.

The only brush that is worth laying down any money for is the 1/2″ wide, synthetic filament, India made, static sensor brush that is made by Copper Hill called the SensorSweep.  At a price of ~$23 this is an absolute must for your gear kit.

There are two reasons for the high marks:

1. This brush filaments will NOT SPLAY over the edges. This is very important because your sensor (especially those ‘virgin’ sensors) has a slight filmy lubricant left over from the production process which you don’t want to get caught in the brush fibers.
2. You need to create a static charge on the brush (via Giottos Red Rocket air blaster) so when you put the brush on the sensor, it will ‘LIFT’ particles off the sensor and onto the brush.  This brush is made of  fibers which will hold that initial ‘air blast’ static charge.

Cleaning your sensor is a three step process with many sub steps.

1. Prep yourself and area for sensor cleaning
2. Pre Mirror Lockup camera box cleaning
3. Post Mirror Lockup sensor cleaning

I’ll provide here the workflow which utilizes the Copper Hill SensorSweep

Post Mirror LockUP sensor cleaning instructions:

1. Insure that your camera battery is fully charged.
2. Set your camera Mirror Lock for Sensor cleaning function to “on”.
3. Use a sensor light magnifier loop and look at your sensor for particles. Look for location, size and type.
   1. Your equipment choices here are:
      1. Visible Dust Brite Vue XL ($90)
4. There are only 2 types of particles on your sensor, after a while you’ll be able to notice :
   1. Inorganic – usually dry and reflective – typically easily removed
      1. dust,dirt
      2. minute metal fillings from lens/camera
      3. synthetic filaments
   2. Organic – usually ‘wet’ – typically require a wet chemical swab cleaning,
      1. oils,flux from sensor production process
      2. spores, pollen
      3. eyelashes & hair includes follicles
      4. bug parts
5. Removing Inorganic’s: THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT – DO THIS FIRST- to prevent possible sensor scratching
   1. Turn your camera body over so that sensor is facing upside down toward earth.
   2. Blast the sensor with non-static charged air. (ie do not use the Giotto Red Rocket)
      1. Your choices here are:
         1. Optex Hepa Jet II
         2. Visible Dust Zeeion Anti-Static Blower
         3. NRD FireFly Blower (my gear choice)
   3. Return your camera to your workspace with sensor facing up to the sky
      1. Use your sensor light loupe and recheck particles, location, size and type
         1. Anything which moved is a ‘good thing’ and is probably inorganic
         2. Return to 5.2 and loop thru the process to get rid of as much as possible.
      2. At this point you need to remove any remaining particles by targeted cleaning using a static charge.
         1. Be mindful of the reflective quality of the particle. 80% of particles come from metal against metal movement between lenses and body. These particles are very reflective and these microscopic shavings are easy to pick up with the statically charged SensorSweep brush.  Do not sweep out the particles without creating a charge. Thus is not a good practice and may create sensor scratches.
         2. Do this process at a point lower or away from your camera body. (Don’t blow air around the work area of your camera body, it may stir more dust up)
         3. To create the static charge, just aim the tip of the Giotto a few inches from the SensorSweep brush and squeeze the bulb four times or so.
         4. Move the SensorSweep down into the camera and onto the sensor and near the particle location.
         5. With a gentle sweeping pulling motion, move the brush a inch or so foward and then pull up and away and off the sensor
      3. Use your sensor light loupe and re-check for more particles, note their location, size and type.
         1. Anything which has moved is a ‘good thing’ and is probably inorganic.
         2. Anything which has smeared is a ‘more work thing’ and is going to have to be removed via chemical cleaning and swabs.
         3. Return to 5.2 and loop thru the process to remove remaining inorganic particles.
      4. If you have successfully removed particles, then you are finished and can lock down your camera mirror via turning off the camera. Typically this mirror slapping down process seems to loosen particles and therefore plan on having to loop back thru this dust cleaning process again.
      5. It is inevitable that you’ll have another particle on the sensor, but my experience is that 80% of the time it is inorganic and can be blown off using my NRD Fire blower,

The jest of this posting is that when dealing with cleaning your sensor, everything matters, which means something as simple as buying a brush will be the difference between minutes or hours on this important gear maintenance work flow.

The Copper Hill SensorSweep is highly recommend and an essential piece of gear

Equipment Links:

1. Copper hill SensorSweep
2. Giotto Red Rocket Blow
3. Visible Dust Zeeion Anti-Static Blower
4. Visible Dust Quasar Sensor Loupe 7X