The Pixel Diarist

DIY Wireless Remote Control for DSLR: CamRanger functionality, 1/10 the price

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Sat, 17 May 2014 23:57:00 +0000

If you have a portable device running Android OS and have always wanted to do wireless remote control of your Canon or Nikon DSLR, but found the $300 cost of a CamRanger a bit too steep, well, have I got a solution for you! A $35 solution, in fact.

There are four components to this - an Android device, a supported DSLR, an app called DSLR Dashboard, and a portable, battery-powered TP Link. MR3040 mini router. If you want to hardwire this directly to the Android device, then you would need a USB OTG cable, which would add about $6 to the total price.

Many medium to high end Nikon and Canon cameras have the capability of connecting to a computer via USB cable for tethered operation. Some software, like Lightroom or Capture One, will allow the capturing of images and saving them to the hard drive. Other software like Nikon's Camera Control Pro 2 ($179) will allow full control of all camera functions, and you can download/upload different settings for specific shooting conditions. This is all very cool, but none of these address the wireless part, and none provide a touch-screen interface.

After looking at length at the Camranger solution, which is actually very good as it addresses full camera control, remote operation and works with iOS and Android, I seem to remember seeing their little wireless interface at some point in the past. After a little research I came up with what appeared to be a dead ringer for the CamRanger interface - the TP-Link MR3040 mini-router. http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?model=TL-MR3040. It even uses the same battery.

After a little more Googling for "diy wireless remote control of dslr" and scrolled through all of the CamRanger propaganda, I came across this wonderful YouTube video tutorial on how to make it all come together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Our-AxmrDJM&list=UUoLg5wzuPzmN4WigIFbvdfw

The tutorial is extremely detailed and easy to follow, and the entire process to set up the router for this takes but a few minutes.

DSLR Dashboard Main Remote Screen

The software is very well thought through. In addition to the camera functions, it also adds automatic focus stacking, automatic HDR, and using the Time Lapse control you can even have the software adjust exposure. This feature is great for time lapse sequences of sunsets, and day to night, where lighting changes dramatically.

Other features include:

burst mode - where you can specify how many images will be captured in sequence
expanded exposure delay - from 1 to 3 seconds in 1 second increments
finger tap focus - select focus point and acquire focus with a single touch
mike monitor - shows audio levels for microphone
multiple image review options - you can choose to review jpg and/or raw after capture, or disable review
built-in image browser - for viewing low-res previews of captured images
key camera/lens data reporting - shows focal length, aperture, shutter speed, remaining shots, which memory card is in use, which autofocus sensors are in use, flash mode, exp comp, focus mode, meter mode, metadata copyright info, etc
image comment function - it is easy to key in a comment about an image using the device's keyboard.

In the few short hours I have had with this it has been a total pleasure. It is very intuitive and all functions are readily available without having to page through menus or subpages. There is a simplified or "Lite" screen with only basic adjustments visible, as well as a full-screen view.

For space and performance issues, with a D800 or other similar camera that produces very large files it is best to not review images after capture, and not download the images to the tablet/phone.

There is always the option to use this with a cable. The D800 is a USB 3.0 device, as is the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2, which is what I have used for this review. File transfers are actually pretty quick, all things considered.

This is an excellent, low cost solution to remote camera operation. It has many applications, such as in studio, (though wired-tethered to a laptop or desktop machine will be a better option), closeup and macro photography (using the auto focus stacking control), real estate photography where you need to place the camera either on a pole or in a place where you cannot easily trigger the shutter, low angle shots, so you don't have to worry about getting your clothes dirty (using the touch focus mode), backyard bird feeder shots (where you can use a faster shorter focal length lens to get in really close - to mention just a few.

I hope you have as much fun with this as I have.

An Update! My experience with OnOne MUCH better than expected!

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 13:55:00 +0000

In my past post I described the soon to be released Perfect Photo Suite 8 from OnOne. It was released at the end of November, and it does not disappoint. For the majority of users, this software shortens photo editing time to minutes per image. It has become a permanent component of my editing workflow - which includes Lightroom and Photoshop.

I do like to push the envelope, however, and in the middle of processing a 1.3gb panorama, I ran into some performance issues. And this is where I am so glad I purchased this suite. I sent an email to OnOne's technical support people, and described in detail what I was experiencing. Within a day they responded that they would like to see the file, and invited me to share a Dropbox folder where I could place the file for their analysis. This all took place in less than 24 hours.

Their response is unusual in today's IT world - with most of the big companies outsourcing their tech support overseas. Try and get a meaningful response from Adobe, for instance. Not that I am bashing Adobe, mind you, but technical assistance is not one of their strong points.

Even if the issue is not immediately resolved, I am certain that I will be satisfied with the result, based on the manner in which their tech support and customer service departments have so far responded.

For those of you unfamiliar with Dropbox, it is a cloud-based data duplication and collaboration tool. When you sign up for the free account you get 2gb space. If you need more space you can purchase a paid account. Another way to increase beyond 2gb and remain free of charge is to recommend others. For each person that signs up for an account based on your recommendation you get an additional 500mb of space added to your account, for a total of up to 16 gb. There are other ways to increase the size of your free account that are fully described on their website, http://www.dropbox.com/getspace.

OnOne Software's Perfect Photo Suite 8 Public Beta Now Available

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 10:51:00 +0000

Every now and then a new software product emerges to fill a vacuum left by another one. I believe OnOne Software's Perfect Photo Suite 8 is that package.

Adobe's decision to refocus the target of it's entire product line on the needs of the "corporate graphics department" has left such a vaccum. All aspects of their product line - from product functionality and features right down to its delivery vehicle - has left a substantial number of photographers in a lurch. Unwilling to go along with Adobe's move to CC for political, philosophical or economic reasons, many smaller studios and freelancers, along with students and hobbyists have opted to stay with previous versions of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. While viable options exist in the form of GIMP, Photoline, and Corel's line of graphics and photo editing products, many have decided to stay with the devil they know, rather than switching to the devil they don't know and having to learn a whole new way of doing things.

Let's face it. Until now, Photoshop has enjoyed it's mostly unrivaled position as THE software choice to use to edit photographs - even though it is much more than that. And therein lies the catch. For the average photographer, Photoshop is way much more than you need with its 500-plus commands and intimidating and often unintuitive processes and cryptic terminology. Adobe's alternative, non-CC, entry-level Elements unfortunately is targeted at hobbyists and beginners, and often falls short of the needs of the professional. A;though the interface is familiar, there are many "photo-editing-oriented" tools and procedures that are missing from Elements. Adobe has clearly positioned it as a hook to get users involved in order to upgrade them to their industrial-strength product line.

That was the bad news. The good news is that Perfect Photo Suite 8 is positioned to fill in the gap between the two applications - offering a photographer-centric set of tools, streamlined procedures, module-based aggregation of commands and operations that deliver results as good as what can be achieved in Photoshop CS or CC, without all the clutter of 500 commands, and in a common sense, organized work environment. It is developed with the busy photographer in mind - one that has limited time to spend in front of a computer screen to either work in an application or learn one.

It's biggest benefit is it's ease of use and common-sense approach-ability. Challenging operations that often take considerable time on Photoshop to get right, such as masking, color balancing, portrait editing, local contrast, color, and tonal adjustments, hdr, and others - are reduced to a matter of minutes. Saving effects to be used in the future, creating favorites, browsing for files, adding borders and textural overlays, literally take seconds.

This is a professional quality product that provides the photographer with an extremely powerful set of tools to enable the realization of creative vision, without having to take hours of courses and seminars to learn. Mastery is finally at the photographer's fingertips.

The new version 8 offers content aware operations, a more streamlined Effects module, which now includes Focal Point, their lens effects module. A new Enhance module uses a combination of powerful filters and adjustment, masking, retouch and eraser brushes to easily make your images pop with eye-catching beauty. A redesigned Browser is now available to all the modules, making it easier than ever to find exactly what you are looking for. Batch processing further extends the feature set, automating operations that require multiple steps, without the need to record actions.

The only function that is missing is noise removal - as it stands, you will need to go to another application to do noise abatement, then open Perfect Photo Suite -

As in previous versions, Perfect Photo Suite 8, work either as a fully functional stand alone program, or as plug-ins for Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture. The target date for final release of version 8 is November 26, but you can download the public beta right now at http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/suite8/beta.html , or you can take advantage of the current special, where OnOne is making their current suite, v7.5 available for $180 for the full standalone/Lightroom/Aperture/Photoshop plugin, and $130 if you don't need Photoshop capability and only $80 if your needs are entirely served by OnOne, and you don't need any plugin capability. In any configuration, you will get a free training video and v8 on its release date.

Some thoughts on Street Photography . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 12:51:00 +0000

Winter scene on Bow Bridge, Central Park, NYC 2013

I am a member of the Westchester Photographic Society, a group of photographers ranging in skill level from beginner to seasoned professional. At a recent meeting the club announced it would be holding a themed competition. The subject matter? Street Photography. My first thought was “Wow! What a great topic for a blog post!” Memories of an earlier time in my life began to surface, when on a typical day I would grab my Leica M4, walk the streets of NYC, snapping pictures of random subjects along the way. I could remember the anticipation I felt as I rushed home as fast as I could to develop the film and print my pictures in my darkroom.

Back in 1969 I was just a novice. When I wasn't out taking pictures, I was devouring the photo magazines of the day - Modern Photography, Popular Photography, US Camera. All provided the latest tips and tricks from the experts. These publications also featured numerous in-depth articles that discussed the classic images shot by the current and earlier masters. Yet, as much as I enjoyed learning about the images of Weston, Adams, Steiglitz, Lartigue, Avedon and others, it was the work of French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson that attracted me the most.

The "Father of Street Photography"
Henri Cartier-Bresson and his Leica

Henri Cartier-Bresson's tool of choice was the 35mm Leica camera. His specialty was Candid Street Photography or, as he coined it, life reportage. Cartier-Bresson captured life in the streets as it was unfolding, as an observer. He took great pains to ensure that his presence with his camera did not exert any influence on the final image. He even covered his chrome-colored camera in black tape to disguise the fact it was a camera. Trained as an artist, he used his sense of composition and understanding of tonal values to bring form and balance to his images, yet he was able to capture, with great precision, the fleeting moments that make his work so unique. He was a master of capturing the "Decisive Moment." His images bore witness life as HE saw it, but not in the same fashion that a photojournalist might. Cartier-Bresson’s images reflected a highly personal point of view. Documentary or photojournalistic photography tends to be less about the point of view of the shooter and more about recording an image for an employer and a specific target audience. Understandably, either kind of image can sometimes straddle that often fuzzy line between the two disciplines.

The technical aspects of Henri Cartier-Bresson's images were secondary to the content. The images reflected a lot of rule breaking when it came to exposure, focus and framing. He was the master at combining a raw "feel" with a finished "look" in his images. His approach to photography was something both the amateur with a Kodak Brownie camera as well as the pro with the high end gear could embrace. His work became a source of inspiration to scores of photographers, photojournalists and just about anyone with a camera. One cannot talk about street photography without bringing up his name - clearly his ground-breaking work was the cutting edge at the time, and has earned him the reputation of "Father of Street Photography."

Henri Cartier-Bresson's Original Leica

Street photography as a discipline is as old as 35mm film itself. An optical engineer and designer at Ernst Leitz Microscope Company in Wetzlar, Germany named Oscar Bernack, really kicked things off when he invented the 35mm Leica camera and the film to go with it back in 1913. Up until then cameras were large, heavy and required a crew to set up, pose the subjects and shoot a picture. The media was typically glass plate or large piece of sheet film in a film holder. Shooting a picture was a painstakingly slow process. If an image had the appearance of a candid capture, more than likely it was staged to look that way.

Ad for Kodak's Folding Roll Film Camera c1910

Kodak had been toying with smaller roll film folding cameras, but you can see that they were large, and needed to be unfolded before use - hardly a quick grab and shoot situation. But once Bernack’s tiny Leica showed up it changed everything, "miniaturizing" both the equipment and the medium and eliminating the bulky tripod, camera and boxes of plates or film holders. Being able to reach in one’s pocket, whip out a camera, quickly snap a picture was ground-breaking. To be able to do so repeatedly 24 or 36 times before needing to reload the film was a wonderful thing. And being able to carry multiple rolls of film to capture hundreds of images really opened up a multitude of creative possibilities.

Street photography, unlike any other specialty, provides both the photographer and the viewer with an extraordinary window into the ordinary daily routine of average, and sometimes not so average subjects. When executed correctly, effective street photography draws the viewer into the image, allowing the viewer to experience something unusual and making a lasting visual impression.

Bookends Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC 2013

Shadows
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC 2013

One of the joys of this kind of photography was that one could never really be quite sure of what exactly was going to turn up on the roll of film. It was not uncommon for a photographer to concentrate on a particular element, often unaware of elements in the background or off to the sides. Sometimes a picture would end up being a combination of unexpected elements within that image; often times unnoticed and unplanned for.

The photo above and the one to the left were taken within seconds of one another, from the same vantage point. After looking at my captures, I realized that there were at least two images, each very different in feel. Totally unplanned, this was a pleasant surprise.

For almost the same reasons, computers and digital technology have done for street photography what Bernack’s little camera did 100 years ago. Digital technology has made possible instantly viewable results, providing high quality images, and comparatively more convenience. The Internet allows anyone who is interested the ability to view what other photographers have created, and an almost endless supply of articles and blog posts on the subject of taking pictures.

There are at least two popular schools of thought relating to street photos - hands off and hands on. The average street photographer will use mostly a hands-off, candid approach. However, many photographers are quite successful at creating wonderful portraits after a brief interaction with their subjects. People are the typical subject, but a good street photo can include an animal, vehicle, doorway, shadows, silhouettes, etc - and will often depict some type of involvement between the subject and his/her/it's environment. It is in the randomness of an event or juxtaposition of visual elements, or the unusual way in which the subject is reacting to or with the environment that can make a great street photograph.

Using Cartier-Bresson’s work as a prime example - you don't need a big, fancy, expensive camera to take great images. The Leica rangefinder camera was the camera of choice because it was light and very quiet - and due to its exceptionally good optics, it could record images of great quality on 35mm film. Yet it was tiny enough that could be carried in a pocket, and when used it was seldom noticed.

Today's equivalent would be a camera phone or a point and shoot camera. Small and inconspicuous and completely ubiquitous, one of these hardly raises an eyebrow when used. On the other hand, a digital SLR can be used but it is big and attracts far more attention. The better the lens and body quality, the bigger and more impressive they are to look at, and people do look. This is not to say that you cannot take good street photos with a big DSLR. But you should be aware that when you carry a professional quality camera it is harder to be “stealthy” and you will lose the element of surprise in some situations. Modern DSLRs are also quite loud, so you may only be able to get one or two pics before the subject is aware and moves on, especially if you are in a quiet venue. This “feature” will have a definite impact on how you will shoot your candids, not to mention how many images of a particular subject you will be able to get before you are “made.”

My personal preference is to simply observe the subject and capture purely candid shots, often with the camera at my hip or some other position where I am not bringing the camera to my eye and alerting subjects that their picture is about to be taken. This technique results in completely unposed, casual captures and many pleasant surprises. I seldom interact with the subject, ask their permission or create a “less than candid” situation. While I recognize that interaction permits you to get great shots of very interesting people up close and personal, along with a story to enhance the viewer's experience, I can also miss a totally candid moment or worse - my request to photograph a subject can be refused. A benefit of interaction, however, is that when you encounter a particularly interesting subject, you may get additional future opportunities to take their picture. Both approaches are perfectly valid and will provide wonderful images. In using the stealth mode I really enjoy finding the cool, unplanned "stuff" that shows up in my pictures.

Technique-wise, there are no big secrets.

High ISO settings will provide fast shutter speeds and smaller lens openings for greater depth of field. If you are using a camera capable of full manual operation, set the ISO as high as possible and still be able to produce a decent quality image. On my D700 that would be an ISO 1600 in average, not too-contrasty light, or as high as ISO 3200 in flat light. This will enable you to set a shutter speed to minimize camera and or subject movement, and a small enough f/stop so that you have enough depth of field for just about any shot.

Hyper-focal distance, wide angle lenses and pre-focusing will eliminate the need to focus at the time of capture. You can use a wide-angle-capable point and shoot, or a larger DSLR with a lens that ideally offers a 75 degree or greater angle of view. This would mean a 28mm lens on a full frame camera or a 18 mm lens on an APS-C cropped sensor camera. A small advanced point and shoot like the Fujifilm F600EXR has a 4.4mm lens, which is equivalent to 24 mm, while the Nikon P7100 and Canon G12 have a zoom lens that can get you to 75 degree angle of view as well.

For those of you unfamiliar with these terms I will explain them one at a time.

Depth of Field is the front to back distance in which the subject you are focusing on will be in reasonably sharp focus. This is determined by the focal length of the lens, the lens f/stop, and the distant between you and the subject, (image magnification on the sensor). The closer you are (bigger the image is on the sensor) the shorter the depth of field and vice versa. Using a smaller lens opening will increase the depth of field. Using a shorter (wider angle) lens will also increase depth of field at a given distance. One of the best resources I have found is Don Fleming's wonderful website DOF Master. Here you will find the answers to all of your focus and depth of field questions, as well as an online calculator with an up-to-date camera database, purchasable phone apps, a printable rotary calculator, and tons of useful information and links to other sites. I use the iPhone app all the time. Cambridge in Colour also has a wonderful, easy to understand discussion on depth of field that is worth a read.

Hyper-focal Distance is defined as the distance that you would set your focus to in order to achieve the greatest depth of field. At this setting, the distant objects (infinity distance away) would be in focus, as well as objects at the shortest distance (half the camera to subject distance). In the example above, a 4.4 mm lens on the Fuji F600EXR would have a hyper-focal distance of 12 inches, which results in a near limit of 6 inches and a far limit of infinity.

On a D700 with its much larger sensor, you would need a 24 mm lens in order to provide the same angle of view. However, at 24mm there would be less depth of field compared to the Fuji with its 4.4mm lens. The hyper-focal distance would also be greater. At F11, the 24mm lens would have a hyper-focal distance of 67.8 inches, and total maximum depth of field would be from 33.9 inches to infinity. If it weren’t for image quality considerations, the ideal camera would be that one in your telephone, with its tiny sensor, since just about everything would be in focus all the time. But 33.9 inches to infinity is still very easy to work with.

There is some confusion about sensor cropping and how it affects depth of field. The short answer is that it doesn't. The long answer has to do with circles of confusion, airy disk, the printed image size, viewing distance etc. and is beyond the scope of this blogpost.

Logically, when you use a cropped sensor camera, all you are doing is using less than the full sensor on a 35mm camera. The depth of field that existed before you "masked off" part of the sensor remains, just as if you enlarged the center 5x7 section of an 8x10 print to 8x10. What you do affect is the angle of view, which will give you more "reach" in telephoto situations, and less "wide" when using wide angle lenses. Cropping a sensor will diminish sharpness and expose the "granular" quality (pixels) of an image. Here is something to keep in mind that illustrates the above points. Take two images, at the same sensor resolution, lets say a 12 mp image taken with a full sized sensor (D700) and a 150mm lens, and the equivalent image taken with a cropped sensor (D300) and a 100mm lens (the equivalent focal length), keeping the same ISO, lens opening shutter speed, etc. The image taken with the D700 will show less granularity (pixelation), better pixel-level detail (assuming similar lens quality), and less depth of field - after all, you are using a longer focal length. When printed, this will apparent loss of sharpness and increase in granularity on the image taken with the cropped sensor will diminish as you increase the viewing distance.

Reading the Morning Paper
Bethesda Underpass, Central Park NYC 2013

Focusing. You have some choices here. The hyper-focal distance is the one-size-fits-all approach to focusing in street photographs. Images will have a similar look, with just about everything in the frame in reasonable focus. Those objects/subjects closest to the hyper-focal distance will be sharpest, and those that are up to half the camera-subject distance to infinity will look pretty good. One tends to see the world this way. But with a camera you have the option to direct the viewer's attention to a particular element in the image using focus to separate what is important from what isn't. Here is where you might want to set your camera at a different focus point, maybe open the lens up a stop or two, and try to keep your camera to subject distance within the depth of field determined by your camera settings.

Here is an example of how you might approach all of this. Let's say you are using a D700 with a 28mm lens. At F11 the hyper-focal distance would be 7.67 ft, the near focus point would be 3.8 ft and the far point would be infinity. However, if you open the lens to f8, the hyperfocal becomes 10.8 ft, and the near limit is 5.2 ft. If you want to blur the background to provide some separation, you will need to do two things - open the lens further and shorten the focusing distance. Opening the lens to F5.6 will move the hyper-focal to 15.2 ft and the near limit to 7.1 ft, but the backgound will appear fairly sharp. If your subject is more than 7.5 ft away, everything in the frame starting at the subject's position on backward will be pretty sharp. Moving the focus point closer you will be selecting a narrower zone of focus. If your subject is going to be around 8 ft away, and you set your focus to 8 ft, then your depth of field becomes 11.5 ft. so that anything closer than 5.3 ft or further away than 16.7 ft will be soft - but within that zone things will have good detail and sharpness. You can more or less gauge how far 8 ft is and try to ensure that what is important in the image stays within that zone.

One way you can be precise about all of this is to station yourself somewhere, measure up your distances and focus points, and just wait for people to come by as you surreptitiously snap their pictures.

Framing your shot. It is unlikely that you will have the opportunity to bring the camera to your eye. If you are fortunate enough you might have a camera with an articulated preview screen, allowing you to tilt it up for a waist-level view through the camera. However, looking down at a camera's preview screen is only slightly less obvious than holding it to your eye. If the element of surprise is important, it's best to learn how to shoot from the hip. Not only will you be stealthier, but your point of view will be lower, providing a more natural perspective.

Black Rapid RS-7

I use a Black Rapid brand strap which slings the camera across your shoulder to the opposite hip. The strap attaches to the tripod mounting socket on the camera, allowing the camera to hang upside down. Tilting the camera up for a picture is easy to do and the strap will offer a little extra stability when you pull the camera tight against it. I use a wide angle lens so that I can crop a bit later. The image below is an example where I used this technique.

A Private Moment in a Public Place
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC 2013

Legal and Safety Considerations. It is hard to imagine someone can make a case for invasion of privacy in a public setting, but it can happen. There are other reasons why you might want to think about the subjects you will be shooting. The list below is far from exhaustive, but it should give you a good sense of what constitutes a good idea vs a bad idea. It’s always best to use good judgment and common sense – if there is any doubt, don’t take the picture. Be smart and stay safe.

Color vs Black and White. Black and white is the traditional medium for street photographs. This is not to say that you can’t use color. I have seen some excellent images in color. However,monochrome images tend to have a more contemplative feel to them and less distraction from the color factor. Below is an example of an image I took that I feel is more effective in color than B&W.

Waiting
Lobby of Metropolitan Museum of Art,
NYC 2013

1. Children. You can take pics of kids, but it would appear very creepy if you sat on a playground park bench day after day
shooting images of children. Bad Idea.

2. Bridges and other points of interest. In today’s times in the United States, the taking
of pictures or videos of bridges and tunnels
can get you arrested. You could be a terrorist, and photographs would provide what you would need to commit an act of terrorism.
Bad idea if you are shooting the bridge, not
as much if it is being incidentally included
in the image.

3. Illegal activities. Unless you are a private investigator or working for one, stay away
from photographing this stuff. The criminal element will see you long before you take that picture. Just walking through certain areas will get you noticed. Carry a camera and more will notice. The camera can be stolen, or worse, you could end up in an altercation or at the wrong end of a gun. Bad idea.

4. Law enforcement actions. You are legally permitted to take pictures, from a distance of a cop doing his job. However, not every policeman knows this, and you open yourself to a confrontation with the officer if you do. Use your judgement. If you are across the street and up the block with a long telephoto lens, I suppose you can get away with it. If you are close and looking to get an up close look of the action, you are going to be noticed. If an officer approaches you and demands your camera, be polite and do whatever the officer wants you to do. It will not end well if the cop feels his authority is being undermined. Somewhat ok idea if done with care.

5. Embarrassing moments. Pictures taken at the beach where nudity is permitted, pictures taken in toilet stalls, changing rooms, cameras looking up women’s skirts or down their blouses – strictly verboten! People do have a reasonable expectation of privacy here. I know it sounds silly, but if it was your picture, you would not want it to go viral on the Internet. Bad idea.

6. Subways and buses. Nothing wrong with taking pictures in these places. You would be doing nothing illegal. Ok idea.

7. Museums, restaurants, parks where you pay admission, ski areas, and other paid public venues. Technically you are no longer in public, and the price of admission makes you subject to the property owner’s terms and conditions. It’s always best to check to be sure. Ok idea, with conditions.

8. Pics taken of buildings where people can be plainly seen through windows. Technically ok if it is a wide angle shot and the view is incidental – this would be considered an urban landscape. It would be considered an invasion of privacy if you are using a 600mm lens with a 2x extender – this would classify you as a peeping tom. The former is an ok idea as long as you use your head.

Here is a blog post by James Estrin entitled Criminalizing Photography that dicusses, in Q&A format, a disturbing trend in the area of street photography vs law enforcement.

Creative considerations: What makes a great street shot? Like any great picture, it’s an image that will slowly reveal itself to you, like a page in a book. It invites more than a casual glance. The viewer may end up imagining a story about it, or simply admiring its visual organization, odd juxtapositions, color or lack thereof - but regardless – a good image is more likely to have an impact and be remembered than one of lesser quality.

If you click on this link, you can view a video where Dr. Shana Gallagher-Lindsay, Dr. Beth Harristhat discuss Henri Cartier-Bresson and the the technological and artistic considerations of his work, in particular as it pertains to his most iconic image. Probably more than any other of his images, this one embodies the concept of the Decisive Moment, a central theme in is work.

Derrière la Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris 1932

Yeah, I know – this has been a long post with a lot of information, and I have used a very broad paintbrush to describe the essence of a good street photograph. Such is the nature of the beast. Hopefully I have demystified some of the technical aspects of street photography, clarified some misconceptions about how and where you can take pictures, and provided some inspiration to you. So now all that is left is to grab your camera, go out and start taking pictures and start enjoying your results.

FastStone Image Viewer and EXIFTool Mini Reviews

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 01:45:00 +0000

Several months ago purchased a Fuji Finepix 600EXR on the strength of several online reviews I had read. For $250 I got a camera that had a sharp 15X wide angle zoom, built in GPS with Landmark Navigation, 16 megapixel resolution, a larger sensor with better high ISO performance, full HD video at 30 fps, Fuji’s proprietary EXR dynamic range enhancement technology and RAW file output capability – all in a shirt-pocket sized package. For me, the last feature was most important as I shoot RAW 99% of the time.

And therein was the rub. When I purchased the camera last December, Adobe Camera Raw had just added support for the Fuji RAW file format used in this camera. But unlike NEF – Nikon’s format – I could no longer view thumbnails in Windows Explorer. There was no CODEC available. A CODEC is a software program that "codes/decodes" image and video files - compresses them to store on a drive then decompresses then to view. Without an appropriate CODEC, Windows cannot dislpay thumbnails or open the files in any of the Windows image viewing utilities.

I like to view thumbnails in Explorer, and sometimes use software other than Photoshop, using a right click and “open with” to edit images. In my search for a folder-style, Windows Explorer-like quick and easy file viewer I stumbled upon the FastStone Image Viewer. This tight little application offers a veritable cornucopia of useful features that I think many of you will be able to make use of, and it can display RAF files – and just about any other graphic image format I can throw at it.

FastStone Image Viewer Main Screen

I have incorporated it into my workflow, using it to view and cull bad images after importing the contents of my memory card to my computer. It has a very convenient folder/thumbnail/preview screen that resembles Windows Explorer and lets you find things very quickly using the thumbnail view, or in the folder list.

A single click on the preview will show you a magnified view in the preview.

With a double click on the preview you can see a full screen image,

then another click brings you to a 100% view of the image.

As you can see, it can quickly display four different image magifications about as fast as your finger can click the mouse buttons.

Panning and zooming is instant – you only need to left click and drag. The application loads quickly and has an extremely intuitive interface with extensive use of the right click on an image to access key features, making it a very snappy application.

FastStone Image Viewer can read most raw file formats - CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF, ARW, SR2, RW2 and DNG, as well as graphic file formats – JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIFF, PCX, TGA JPG2000, PSD, EPS, WMF, CUR, ICO. It can take any of the above formats and convert them to JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF PCX, TGA, JPEG2000 and PDF.

Image manipulation tools include lossless rotation/flip, resize/resample, crop, sharpen/blur, adjust lighting/curves/levels/colors,red eye removal, clone stamp, healing brush, etc.

FastStone offers powerful batch processing for renaming, resizing and image format conversion. When resizing for web, the algorithms are so good that it is almost impossible to tell between the low and high res image at screen resolution.

Right Click on Image Flyout Menu

Right clicking on an image reveals a flyout menu that allows you to launch the image editor(s) of your choice, view a full screen image, start a slide show, open the containing folder, delete/copy/move/email/print the image, create a new folder and view file properties.

Tool Flyout Menu

The Tools selection has its own flyout that allows you to access batch convert/rename, change timestamp, jpg lossless rotate, remove jpg metadata, compare images and create a wallpaper image.

The main menu offers a number of timesaving features – image capture from scanner, screen capture, image import, create/edit a slide show or contact sheet, view histogram and file properties, configure and launch the image magnifier, tag images, and a range of useful quick editing tools. You can also annotate and add special effects/watermark/border/frame mask.

This application has become an integral part of my workflow – from importing images from my memory cards, to resizing images for posting on Facebook or on my website. The best part is that is costs nothing for non-commercial use.

EXIFTool by Phil Harvey is another application that serves a unique function that I have come to rely on. When I need to see details about an image, ExifTool offers the complete list, and serves it up quickly. All the particulars of the camera and lens combination that was used to record the image, the metadata, can be viewed for every image that has it attached. It can read, write and edit the metadata, including almost all image tags found in EXIF, GPS, IPTC, XMP, JFIF, MakerNotes, GeoTIFF, ICC Profile, Photoshop IRB, FlashPix, AFCP, ID3 and others from a wide variety of image formats. Data can be output in various formats. You can fix timestamps, rename files, extract saved thumbnails, previews and large JPEGs from RAW files. It has many, many more features that you can read about on Phil Harvey’s site.

For those who are comfortable with DOS-level command line operation, the basic EXE file might be all you need. You can download it here. Instructions for opening and installing the Windows executable file can be found here. For those of you who prefer a more familiar graphic interface and are using Windows 7, the author has provided a Windows-friendly shell that offers a few more bells and whistles that you can download here.

How to "Miniaturize" A Photo

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:48:00 +0000

Is this real or a scale model? Fooled ya, didn't I? No, this is not a scale model you are looking at, but a real-life scene taken at an upstate apple farm a couple of years ago. Using some image manipulations in Photoshop it is possible to create the impression that something is very small using something that is very big.

When looking at a photo, the visual cortex interprets various cues in the image to give the viewer a sense of scale, proximity and space, as well as a sense of live reality. Among them are depth of field, color saturation, the rate of sharpness falloff from front to back, lighting intensity and direction, contrast , point of view - to mention a few.

Depth of field is an important clue. Images of large areas with great depth that are sharp from foreground to background suggest a large space, and you are, in a sense, removed from the immediacy of the setting. Sort of like looking through a window onto the scene. A very shallow depth of field suggests intimacy and closeness where distances are measured in inches and fractions of inches.

Using a point of view that looks down enhances the impression of smallness, since scale models are rarely seen at what would be ground level (in scale, of course).

Color Saturation is another important cue. In scale models colors are highly saturated and vibrant. Model making materials and colorants usually come this way. But another contributing factor is the intense, directional light that models are often viewed under.

Models of exterior spaces in particular lack the diffuse skylight and "radiosity" that enriches illumination in real life. In simplest terms, radiosity is the diffuse light that is reflected from surfaces in a scene. And this light can be either direct or reflected as well. Think of sunlight coming through a window - there is a shaft of light falling on a wall or a floor, but the entire room is illuminated, even dark areas under tables and chairs, and shadows are very soft in areaas that are not directly lit. By increasing the contrast the impression is created that there is a single strong and directional light source. Here are a couple of illustrations that might help to explain this phenomenon. The first is an example of ray tracing vs radiosity in a computer generated image, the second is a series of examples when radiosity is progressively applied to a simply lit image.

borrowed from Wikipedia article on radiosity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosity_(computer_graphics)

I've created a simple tutorial that explains how to create a "miniaturized" scene in Photoshop. Load an image that has a high vantage point, some foreground and background, and a focal point in the middle. Here I will be creating a plane of focus that includes the two buildings in the middle left, and the orange tree in the middle right.

I Press Q or select Quick Mask Mode. I use this to define the areas that will receive a lens blur filter and those that won't.

I Select The Gradient tool, or press G. This will apply a graduated mask, with a maximum density that will hold back the blur effect which fades to clear, allowing the full effect to be applied to the image.

I pick the Mirrored Gradient tool option. This will create a blurred area above and below the center, with the effect fading to zero in the exact middle, much as how a lens with limited depth of field would record the image.

The kind of mask I will use will fade the foreground color, black to background color, white. Check to make sure these are correct at the bottom of the toolbar.

I left click in the center of the image, the area that I want to be in focus. Holding the mouse button I press Shift to restrict cursor movement to 90 deg vertical, and drag upwards. This will be mirrored, so the amount of movement up is duplicated below the starting point. When I release the cursor, I see a band of red, the default mask color, with the greatest density horizontally across the image at the starting point of the drag and click operation.

I press Q to remove the mask, revealing the "marching ants" designating the areas that will be blurred.

I use the lens blur filter to create a realistic blur in the image.Here its best to play with the settings in preview. A word of warning - the more realistic you want the blur effect you are looking for, the longer it will take to process. The preview really helps here.

When I get it the way I want, I click OK and take a break while Photoshops calculates and applies the effect.

Scale models use materials that have highly saturated colors, so I open the image adjustment Hue Saturation and Lightness command and kick up the saturation a bit. While I am here, I make a slight adjustment to the brightness level.

Last finishing touch is to apply a little vignette in the Lens Correction filter.

It's that easy! Except for the lens blur calculation, it doesn't take much time at all.

Here is another example.

This is a lot of fun, plus it gives you a chance to explore some features in Photoshop that you will be able to use in other situations. Enjoy!

Remove a Color Cast Part II (Threshold Layer)

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:25:00 +0000

In my January 27th post I described a way to remove a color cast by using Blur Average to establish an overall average color for a copy of the image, then switching to the original image and using a middle gray eyedropper in a Levels adjustment to sample the averaged image to reset middle gray in the original. This is a simple method that works in many but not all situations. There are times when a color cast is desirable. Sunsets/Sunrises, fireworks, night scenes, etc usually do not need or do not benefit from color balance correction.

Another method I often use actually does two things in one step. It balances the color to neutral and it also establishes a complete tonal range for the image, ensuring that there are black and white areas. The typical candidate for this image is one that has a color cast and is properly exposed, but has a histogram that is completely between and not touching the boundaries. By using a threshold adjustment layer it is easy to find pure black and pure white, then use the sampling eyedroppers in either Levels or Curve adjustment layer to set the corresponding black and white points. In the process of doing this any color cast will usually be removed. The resulting image will have a full tonal range, from pure black to pure white.

Here is a quick how to.

In this image of the Bow Bridge in Central Park, there is an overall warm cast, no black and no white in this image, making it appear dull and drab. In Photoshop, I start by creating an adjustment layer,

Select Threshold type,

giving me a layer that looks like this.

There is an adjustment slider that I will move left or right to find the threshold of black and white levels.

Next, I select the Color Sampler tool, and set the Tool Options to 11x11 average,

then I go back to the adjustment panel for the threshold layer and move the slider all the way to the left until the image turns completely white, then I move the slider slowly to the right until I start to see the first black areas,

sometimes it helps to zoom in so I can be sure to place my Color Sampler tool entirely in the black area,

it is important to reveal just the first area that shows up - the threshold of black - to ensure that I will get the smallest area of black. I use the Color Sampler eyedropper tool and click in the black area. This will leave a non-printing marker that will I will use later.

Now I repeat but this time moving the slider to the right to find the white point, dropping a marker on the white point. After selecting the two points I no longer need the threshold layer, so I can either turn it off or delete it.

Next I create another adjustment layer, either Curves or Levels. Either will provide eyedroppers that will be used to select the black and white points that I left reference markers on in the previous step. Using the black or topmost eyedropper to pick on the black point, and the bottom one to select the white point.

The image looks like this after setting the black and white points.

and for reference, this is the before view.

everything is more pleasing, there is a full range of tones, and the colors look better without the greenish/yellowish cast. Sometimes the effect is subtle, at other times it can be pretty dramatic. Hopefully you can use this technique to add a little more WOW! to your images.

Single Shot HDR - or How to Save Underexposed or Flat Images Using Tone Mapping

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:04:00 +0000

Went out this past Saturday and found myself at Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge at the end of the day. The weather had been threatening rain all afternoon, but I took the chance to go there anyway. Aside from a nesting pair of Osprey, and a flock of Brants feeding at the shoreline, there was the sky. That kind of sky that you see before or after a storm. Bits of blue in the cloudless areas, the warm color of a soon-to-set sun reflecting off the numerous clouds, and a totally clear view of the whole spectacle - but my sights were set on the Osprey couple.

So I snapped off a few pictures without thinking. When I viewed the images on my computer, they looked pretty sad. The sky was correctly exposed, but everything else was drab and dreary. This was not at all how I remembered the scene, so I started thinking about how I might restore the original "feel" in the image.

There are a number of tools that can help you recover an underexposed image - Lucis Art, Topaz Adjust, the built-in tone mapping available in Photoshop - but I decided to use Photomatix Pro - mainly because I like the quality of the output and the relative ease with which I can get those results.

For a full description on how to use Photomatix Pro, look at my blogpost here. The process with a single image is similar to the one you would follow for a multiple image HDR after you merged the images into a single image. Basically you have two main options - Tonemapping and Exposure Fusion. The Tonemapping selection has two choices - Details Enhancer and Tone Compressor. I find the following workflow useful:

After loading the image, select a preset that gets you closest to the "look" you are trying to achieve.
Use "Strength" at close to 100% to control how contrast will be affected by the subsequent adjustments.
Set white point, black point, saturation and gamma to please your eye.
Start making adjustments using smoothing, micro smoothing, contrast, microcontrast, luminosity etc - until you have gotten closer to your goal.
If you end up with halos, use highlight smoothing to remove them.
Save and open the image in Photoshop - make whatever cropping, tone, contrast, color balance, sharpening and noise reduction adjustments you typically make. At this point you should be done.

I have included several before and after examples below.

It's All About the Light . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 01:02:00 +0000

I was asked to shoot an event this past weekend at a local restaurant - a sweet 16 party which included 110 guests. My thoughts directly went to what gear I would use and how I would do the lighting.

Available light shooting was out of the question - I was informed that the restaurant's dining room lighting level would be held low. I would have to use a fast zoom lens in any case, because a slower lens would have difficulty acquiring focus in such low light. I decided on an 18-50 F2.8 zoom for my D300, which gave me the flexibility of very wide to moderate telephoto, and would still be sharp at F2.8. But it would still not be fast enough to shoot available light, unless I used an ISO of 6400 or higher. The D300 image begins to look pretty crappy at ISOs higher than 800, so speedlight(s) would be the only logical choice.

Among the choices for lighting were on camera flash, which could be bounced for more even lighting, but I had hoped that I could do something a little different. I don't care for camera-positioned lighting because no matter what portable modifier you use, the quality of the light is flat and unappealing, with no contour-shaping shadows, except for that shadow that ends up under the chin and nose when you use those tall swiveling flash brackets that all the paparazzi use. Another undesirable characteristic is flash shine - an area of perspiration-moistened or oily shiny skin that reflects more light, usually resulting in unflatteringly overexposed skin areas. With the expectation of shooting 100s of pictures there was no way I would spend days in Photoshop correcting shine.

I decided that the room was small enough to light the room with flash. It was time to mobilize the over half-dozen second-hand speedlights that I have collected over the years. All of them are made by Sunpak - 433D, 444D, 360D, and the venerable and highly sought after Auto 383. Each has a guide number of 120 making them as powerful as the best offered by Nikon or Canon these days. But more important - adjustable light output levels. I figured that with enough lights strategically placed I could illuminate the entire party room and keep the output levels low enough to be able to shoot the entire 4 hour event, take 400 images and not have to change the batteries.

I visited the restaurant the night before the event to check out possible locations for lighting. There were wall-mounted sconces that were large enough to conceal my lights, but they were too far from the ceilings. This distance is important since the light to subject is significantly greater when the light has the longer path to travel from the flash head to the ceiling then to the subjects. Also, there was a greater chance of getting the flash in the shot, which can work for dramatic effect if used judiciously, but definitely not ok for every other shot.This alternative was not going to work for me.

I decided to use super clamps to attach the speedlights and flash triggers to the chandeliers. With a little trial and error I was able to point the lights to cover the room with 7 speedlights, which left me one for the camera for low power fill. The ceiling-bounced flash was set to 1./4 power. This provided relatively short recycle times and low power consumption.

These were triggered with my favorite radio triggers, the Yongnuo RF602.

The quality of the indirect strobe lighting for all intents and purposes resembled available light -with some wonderful benefits. Speedlights bounced off the ceilings spread light in all directions - softening up the shadows and providing lovely flattering light without any sign of harshness.

They freeze action by virtue of their short but intense burst of light. There would be no risk of motion blur. People were captured sharp and clear. No "tunnel effect" where the subjects are brightly lit and everything else is in dark shadow.

I could use a lower ISO (800) and still shoot at F5.6 - F8, the "sweet spot" for my lens as far as sharpness is concerned. And finally, I could take a long shot of the room and show all the people in it - none of that "tunnel" effect that is so common when camera mounted flash is your only source of light.

Below are two images. The first taken with a flash used with a bounce card mounted on a rotating bracket attached to the camera as the primary (key) light. The second utilizes the chandelier mounted flash bounced off the ceiling with a tiny amount of fill light from a camera-mounted flash using a bounce card. The power level on the camera's flash was either 1/8 or 1/16.

You can see the difference - the girls in the lower image have softer features, you can see highlights in their hair, and the lighting is a bit more interesting. The upper image has harsh lighting, the hair gets absorbed by the dark background, and there is that deep dark shadow under the chin and in the eye sockets.

This lighting approach cannot be used in all situations - sometimes the room is just too large, or the ceilings are too high. This demands some other form of bounce lighting, perhaps with more powerful monolights with radio or optical triggers, umbrellas or softboxes, etc. But for this application, the little guys were perfect, and everything worked out just fine.

Dreaded Lens Flare? Here's How I Deal with It.

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:31:00 +0000

Ask any photographer about lens flare - you will probably get an ugly expression accompanied by some choice expletives that I will not print here. It's a law of photography (that probably needs repeal) that you should always keep the sun at your back or side. The reasons are to provide better lighting on your subject, and to avoid - DREADED LENS FLARE - from ruining your shot.

I like to break rules, especially one like this. The many photographs of the setting or rising sun is one example that shows that I am not alone here. Sunlight filtering through the trees will also wreak havoc on images that are made with lenses that are prone to flaring. Lots of times these images are taken just before sunrise or just after sunset to avoid flare. If I like the light and composition I will typically shoot right into the sun if necessary to get what I want, then fix it later. There is a mood, an element of "drama" that results when you shoot into the light in these conditions that is hard to capture if you simply follow the rules. You can fix certain "features" in postprocessing, but you can forget about a bad composition that results from trying to avoid shooting into the light.

Needless to say, there are some obvious challenges here. First is the amount of light coming from the sun. It will fool your meter and make everything go to silhouette if you are not careful. HDR (covered in my earlier post) will take care of extremely wide contrast range and you can work in Photoshop using a combination of tools to tame down the flare.

Flare has two components. A strong color cast and a change in luminance.Where the flare occurs will determine how I go about fixing it.

Flare in an evenly toned sky or detail-less surface is the easiest. Just create a duplicate background layer and use the patch tool to select an adjoining area of sky and move the patch over the area that needs to be fixed. Done!

Flare that shows up in detail areas is more difficult. Here I employ a two-step process. First I remove the color cast. I start by creating a duplicate layer and selecting it, then I select a brush from the tool palette,

change the brush's blend mode to color;

then I select the eyedropper tool;

and and its sample size to 11x11 pixels;

I then select the brush tool again, and using the right click to enable the eyedropper, I sample a similarly colored area to use as my brush color.

I then paint over the flared area until all the green, yellow or magenta (or other color) is "neutralized." By using the color blend mode on the brush, the detail and texture is left intact, and I am only replacing colors.

Now you see it,

and now you don't!

At this point I usually flatten the layers once I am satisfied with the color removal. My second step involves adjusting the difference in luminance and/or reconstruction of the brighter area.

I decide what tool to use - content aware fill, clone, patch, or burn-in based on the type of repair I intend to make. If there is detail and the difference in tone is not that bad, I will burn in the area, which is the way I went with on this image.

Photoshop provides a dodge and burn tool, which lets you limit its effective range to shadows, mid-tones or highlights. I usually bypass this and create a new "dodge and burn" layer, fill it with 50% gray, set the blend mode to overlay or soft light, and use a black brush set at 15% opacity and 15% flow. I paint directly on the 50% gray layer. This darkens the area smoothly with minimal effect on color saturation or hue. The reason this works so nicely is that both overlay and soft light are contrast enhancing, but the closer to middle gray the tone is the less the effect. Anything that is middle gray is completely transparent to the layer below it. It is easy to build up density with black or white and be very precise about where you are dodging and burning. If you want to check your progress, turn the gray layer' visibility on and off. If you have to back off on an adjustment, use the opposite color brush - white to fix black mistakes and vice versa. If you don't like at all what you have done, just delete the layer and start over again.

Here is the final image:

What You Saw is NOT What You Got?

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 01:47:00 +0000

Consider the following scenarios. You are careful to set a proper white balance when you take the picture, then you come home, load up Photoshop (or the image editing program of your choice), and you get it looking perfect. Then you pirnt and something goes wrong - it looks like someone switched your files between the moment you press Print and you see the printhead moving back and forth creating an image. The results are just WRONG. Colors are different, the orange shirt is now salmon-colored, people are red-faced, a white dog is orange, the purple flower is now a bright shade of magenta, etc.

The immediate response is to go back to your image editor, or your printer dialogue and based on what you see in the print you start making adjustments - a little less magenta, a little more cyan, add some yellow - wasting tons of ink and paper in the process - and when its over you are wondering if your printer is broken.

Or, there is a different problem. Everything looks great on the screen, that cloudless blue sky is deeply saturated and perfectly smooth from edge to edge. You look at the print and it seems as if someone dropped coffee grounds during the print process. This is sensor dust. But there is a problem - you go back to the screen image and you can't see them. My guess is that you are using either a laptop or an inexpensive LCD/LED display with a limited bit depth. Without getting too technical, unless specifically noted in the specifications, all-purpose displays such as the sub $200 flat panels or those in laptops are not capable of displaying the more subtle gradations in tone and color. Sometimes his will come across as banding on a sky, where you have a very gentle shift in hue, saturation and luminosity from horizon to the top of the frame. Other times minute dust particles may have settled on your camera's sensor and blocking the light getting to the sensor directly beneath the particle, causing a "dust shadow" to appear. But in the bargain monitors, the bit depth is not enough to differentiate the subtle changes, making the dust spots invisible on the display. Most printers have a wider gamut, and are able to print this information, The better the printer, the better the ablilty to display everything that is in the image - including the dust spots. Here is an example of dust spots:

If you don't see the dust spots, then there is a good chance you have one of "those" monitors. If you are serious about image quality, either sending it to others electronically or making a print - then its probablay a good idea to put a replacement display into the budget.

Well, as far as the first situation is concerned, there's an app for that. More accurately, there is a combination of hardware and software that you can purchase to address the difference between displayed vs printed colors and tones. There are a class of products called monitor/printer profiling applications that will fix the majority of the issues. These consist of a either a colorimeter or spectrophotometer that measures your monitor's native colors and gray tones on a test pattern, then creates a table of values that correct the differences between what the monitor shows and what the neutral standard is, and then builds a monitor profile that loads when you start your computer, making all the necessary adjustments. this way a green on screen will look like the green that will be printed - more or less. It's hard to do any image editing and color correction without at least the display being calibrated.

With the color accuracy of your display now under control, you have to address the print. If you use a printer manufacturer's inks and paper (and printer profiles if provided), or if you use a printing service. you are likely to get decent results - not perfect by any means, but reasonable. Most inexpensive printing services will use a hybrid technique, employing a digital projection onto silver halide emulsion paper, then processed in conventional wet process chemistry. The more expensive houses will use high quality, color profiled and calibrated inkjet printers. Each paper type offered will have its own profile. the printers will use anywhere from 8 to 12 different pigmented inks - providing the widest color gamut and dynamic range possible. Very few affordable processes can even begin to approach the quality obtained from a properly processed inage printed on a 12 color image printed on rag paper in a color managed workflow.

Spyder Studio with monitor and printer profiling

Luckily the tools used to do this at the pro or commercial level are available in scaled down versions for the consumer. Datacolor and Xrite both offer affordable profiling solutions that work with most displays and printers as well as more expensive ones for professional printers and photographers. These create profiles for either printers or displays, or both.

The dust bunny situation involves being able to see the dust before you print. This requires using a display that is capable of showing dust. At the present there are only a handful of displays that can do this - those which use e-IPS, S-IPS, P-IPS, H-IPS, AS-IPS, H2-IPS and UH-IPS. IPS stands for In Plane Switching, a display technolgy developed by LG Philips in 1996. LG makes nearly all the IPS panels currently available in the marketplace. For all intents and purposes the S, H and P-IPS panels are the ones to look for. The e-IPS is an adaptation of the technology to lower the cost, and more often than not can only display a color depth of 6 bits per color, or 2^6 x 2^6 x 2^6 = 64 x 64 x 64 = 262,144 colors simultaneously. This is not good for photo editing applications. The way 6 bit panels create 16.2 million colors is by rapidly switching between 2 colors at each pixel, creating the illusion of greater color depth - but while they look good for general applications, not being able to see all the information without switching is going to present problems seeing subtle things like dust and other artifacts. Sometimes you will see a panel specification stated in terms of a percentage of a color space. You might see something like 72% of sRGB. Most printers can now print close to 100% of sRGB, which means that the prints will show more color and tonal variation than your display, whicn in simple terms explains why you won't be able to see the dust bunnies on a $200 LCD/LED panel. With the exception of some Apple products and the Lenovo Thinkpad X220, nearly all displays are 6 bit.

The image below is an exaggeration, but a good way to illustrate the difference between high and low bitrate displays. The dithering is the switching that takes place - this is a static image, but you should be able to still see the banding. The rightmost color is typical of what you will see on an 8 bit (x3 = 24 bit) per color display.

At the very minimum you should be looking for a panel that can display 8 bits, or 2^8 x 2^8 x 2^8 = 256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216 simultaneous colors. These typically can display a color space as large as sRGB, considered the minimum for photo editing, and the pricier versions can display up to Adobe RGB, a bigger color space. A rule of thumb is to get the largest color space you can afford., but not less than 98% sRGB. The specs that are meaningless to you are speed, brightness, contrast ratio, etc. These are all well-beyond what you need. In some cases flat panel displays can be too bright, making it difficult to profile.

There are a few very costly 10 bit panels, which if you do the math, 2^10 x 2^10 x 2^10 = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 1,073,741,824 simultaneous colors. These are absolutely breathtaking, but be prepared to spend more than $1100 for a 27"panel. The problem with these is that unless you can create a 10 bit workflow, such a display is overkill. Most cameras are 8 bit, as are printers. There are few photo editors that can work in 10 bits. It is easy to see that having a 10 bit panel would be unecessary.

You can find a list of popular IPS displays with street prices here . The ASUS PA238Q seems to be the least expensive 8 bit panel that offers full sRGB display at $300. I suggest that you look for reviews or a list of specifications for any display you are interested it to ensure that it is suitable for your purposes.

Once you are able to see stuff like dust spots, you need to be able to remove them, and there are two methods to accomplish this. Each has its good and bad points. The more conservatie but costlier approach is to send you camera in for a sensor cleaning. Give to someone else to do and if something gets messed up in the process, they will (hopefully) take care of things. This can cost from $50-$100 and you can be without your camera for several weeks.

dry and wet sensor cleanng system

You can always purchase a blower, dust brush and wet-cleaning swabs and solutions for around the lower price of sending the camera out. A blower and a brush,should be standard equipment, since the majority of sensor dust is removeable with these gentler tools. Use the mirror lock up function to expose the sensor, and using a light to see what you are doing, use a blower that is intended for this to gently blow the specs away. Sometimes you need to use a little "gentle persuasion" to get the more stubborn specs off. Under no circumstances should you use the compressed air products, which use unfiltered air, and can blast microgrit across your sensor, permanently etching it in the process. Actually, you would not etch the sensor itself, but the low-pass filter that is in front of it. In any case, you would be looking at a costly repair, typically in excess of $200.

If you are daring enough, you might try the wet method. This includes a swab of lint free material attached to a paddle that you dampen with a cleaning solution and wipe once across the sensor. Any time you touch the sensor you run the risk of scratching the filter, so you need to be super extra careful and resign yourself to the $200 or higher repair should things go wrong. I have done it 3x on my D200 with no damage, but everyone's mileage is different. If you at all nervous about this, just send it in.

Exposure - How to Get it Right Most of the Time

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:45:00 +0000

With automatic cameras and their wonderful exposure setting systems it is not hard to get a good picture under normal circumstances. The ease with which even the simplest, least expensive point and shoot cameras can take a reasonable picture is astonishing. These little cameras are amazingly sophisticated, especially when you consider the low prices.

But it is when the not so normal circumstance presents itself that many newer photographers are at a loss. Strong side light, backlight, very bright scenes, low light action shots, water reflecting bright highlights, sunrises/sunsets, stage performances - these are just a few scenarios that can be challenging for a photographer that does not have a firm grasp of how to interpret the conditions and set the camera exposure accordingly. Camera manuals are of little help, since they are written for the non-technical user and for "average" lighting situations. Unless you take the initiative to investigate how exposure works on your own, you are likely to be in the "dark" as far as how it all comes together.

Back in the day, before cameras had built in metering systems, a photographer would use a printed "exposure calculator" like one of ones shown in this link http://www.mathsinstruments.me.uk/page67.html or they would wing it, using a best guess estimate of how best to set the camera, using a printed guide that relied on "rules of thumb" to arrive at a close approximation of an exposure setting. Kodak used to include an exposure guide in the box with each roll of film that looked like this:

Believe it or not, following these guides resulted in pretty decent exposures. But for really accurate results in challenging light, pros and serious amateurs would turn to electronic light meters to measure light and translate the measurements into camera settings.

It was not until the early 60s (1960s, that is) that a Japanese camera manufacturer by the name of Topcon introduced a single lens reflex camera with a through the lens metering system. Up until then some of the fancier cameras were equipped with external light meters, some of which were mechanically coupled to the shutter speed and aperture setting mechanisms. But the meters were not very sensitive to the extremes of black and white - and it was difficult to measure reflected light accurately. Cameras with interchangeable lenses presented another challenge, since the reflected light measured from a wide angle was not necessarily the same as the light from a narrow telephoto shot given the meter's fixed angle of view.

At the time many light meters were like the one pictured at the right, set up to measure the light falling on a subject rather than the light reflected by it. This type of metering is called Incident Metering. The hemispherical piece on the top of the meter - the Lumisphere - would capture the light and present it to the meter sensor as having the same luminance as an 18% gray card. This was actually pretty clever, since the reflectances of the elements in the scene could not affect the reading. This is important as the meter and its scales were calibrated for 18% reflectance to render it as middle gray. So taking a reflected reading of an 18% gray card and an incident reading of the light falling on that card in the same setting would result in exactly the same exposure recommendations.

As the technology improved, reflected light meters became more accurate and sensitive. A German company named Gossen engineered a series of extremely sensitive reflective light meters, that had a little Lumisphere so that you could still take incident readings. They were somewhat modular, and had attachments that you could add to measure light in a narrower view, through a microscope, etc. Later models included a flash option.

Gossen Luna Pro Incident/Reflective Light Meter

Lumisphere in place for incident reading

Lumisphere moved aside, exposing sensor for reflected readings

Today, nearly all modern portable cameras use some form of reflected light metering system that measures the light coming through the lens and falling on the digital imaging sensor, or in the case of a film camera, the film plane. Professionals working in large format film photography using natural light often rely on a version of the above, or in the case of the Sekonic Digital Master L-758DR Light Meter pictured below, which can accurately pinpoint and measure a small specific element in a scene, using a very narrow angle of view, usually 1 degree, or it can function as an incident meter, and also has the ability to be triggered by a flash system, so it can perform incident readings of flash lighting. And it does this over a range of brightness that is far greater than what any digital camera can measure, with an accuracy of .1 fstop.

Using a light meter required a bit of thought in order ot get good results - and it didn't much matter whether you used incident or reflected in most situations. In the case of incident readings, you could take the reading from the meter 95% of the time without any exposure compensation and get a good image. You could also measure any part of the scene, and with your experience decide how birght you wanted the metered area to appear in your image, and compensate appropriately. The incident reading was more foolproof, while the reflected reading required more experience but gave you more control.

Consider the following example of a picture of a pair of cats, one white and one black.

If you were to measure the reflected light either using a camera or a light meter where you are able to isolate the entire cat, the black cat reading would tell you there is not a lot of light and suggest that you use a slower shutter speed or a wide lens opening or a high ISO (more sensitive to light) to allow more light to hit the film or camera sensor, and vice versa for the white cat. For argument's sake, a black cat might reflect 1 1/2 stops less light than middle gray, and the white cat 1 1/2 stops more. If you were to use the white cat's reading as a reference, you would have to add 1 1/2 stops more exposure - either by opening up the lens or lengthening the shutter speed. This would bring the tonal value of the cat from the middle gray the light meter assumes, to a brighter value - along with everything else in the scene. You could use the black cat as a reference and decrease the exposure - experience and sample measurements will help you to place the value of anything that you read with a reflectance meter in the right place.

In contrast, an incident meter would only read the amount of light hitting the subject, disregarding the brightness differences betweent the two subjects. So the setting for a picture of the black cat would be no different than for the white cat. The dark cat would reflect less light appear dark, the light cat would be light. Using the exact recommendation would result in a perfectly exposed image in most cases.

This is an important concept upon which all exposures are based on. You CAN use a reflected light meter to accurately expose an image, but this is where experience and common sense come into play. It helps to think of the world in terms of shades of gray. To be more specific - 11 patches of shades of gray - from complete black (Step 0) to complete white (Step 11), and nine more patches in between. These would be spaced "one f stop" apart, which simply means that moving from black to white, each step would reflect twice as much light as the previous. The table below shows typical picture elements and what their values might be:

The table works on the the premise that the average scene has a brightness range that generally does not exceed 11 f stops. This is a good thing, since most digital cameras have trouble recording an image when the brightness range goes over 10 stops. When encountering scenes with unusually wide brightness range the photographer must make a decision about what is more important - highlights or shadows - and adjusting exposure accordingly. Modern camera metering systems read entire viewfinders worth of tonal values, then do some very complex interpretations of what they read, taking an average of the entire scene, sometimes giving greater weight to the center area, or what the camera if focusing on, or taking into consideration the brightest areas and adjusting exposure to avoid overexposing these areas. But the one thing a meter cannot evaluate is what the subject matter is. A camera or handheld meter cannot tell that the light that it sees is coming from a black cat - and will suggest a camera setting that will result in a black cat being shown at value V on the chart, when in fact it is probably closer to III. It would do the same thing if it read a white wall. That decision is left to the photographer.

A very useful tool is an 18% Gray card - as long as you understand that it may give you an erronenous reading, but it will do this in a linear fashion. What I mean is that it could read 1/2 stop brighter, but it will affect all your settings by the same 1/2 f stop. The reason for this, according to Thom Hogan, is that meters are actually calibrated to 12% reflectance, not 18% thus making all readings go off by 1/2 stop. But, as always, your mileage can differ, so its always best to test your card under typical lighting situations and check the camera's histogram, (not the software's histogram) to see if the reading is dead center. If it is off to one side, you have to dial in enough exposure compensation to bring it back to center. You can visit http://www.bythom.com/graycards.htm to see a more detailed explanation.

I will use the next few lines to make some general statements about how shutter speed, lens opening and ISO interact, and how that affects your exposure setting, with the intent of following up with greater detail in future posts.

ISO + Shutter Speed + Fstop = Correct Exposure - they must always be in balance and this is ALWAYS true. If you use a lower ISO (less sensitive) you need to open the lens, or slow down the shutter speed. Remember, the Fstop number is the ratio of the opening of the lens to the focal length, so as you increase the F number the lens opening gets smaller. Just to totally confuse you, the shutter speed numbers on your camera represent the denominator of the fraction of a second that the shutter is open and admitting light to the film or sensor - so if the camera says 250, it assumes that you know that it means 1/250 of a sec, 4 would mean 1/4 second and so on.

Remember that fstop represents a doubling or halving of the light getting to the film or sensor. I'll start with ISO values, since these are a bit more intuitive. An ISO value of 200 is 2x as sensitive as 100. A value of 400 is 2x as sensitive as 200. To go from an ISO of 100 to 400 means that you are doubling twice - or 2 f stops.

Shutter speeds are similar. It's fairly straightforward to understand that if your shutter is set to 1000 (1/1000 sec) and you change it to 500 (1/500 sec) you will be letting in 2x as much light. If you slow it down to 1/250, you will be letting in 2x again more light - moving from 1/1000 to 1/250 you are adjusting the light by 2 f stops.

Now things get a little hairy. Lens fstop numbers are not intuitive, since they represent a numerical ratio of the effective diameter of the lens opening to the focal length. In the simplest of examples, a 200 mm lens with a maximum opening of 100 mm in diameter would be listed as F2. If the same focal length were an F4 lens, then it would be 25mm in diameter. The difficulty is introduced when you realize what your high school geometry teacher was trying to get you to learn - the AREA of a 100mm diameter circle is 4 times the area of a 25mm circle and would let in 4x more light - or 2 f stops. With lenses, the standard would be 2 - 2.8
- 4 - with each interval representing one fstop. So to change from a lens opening of F4 to
F2.8 you would double the light coming in, or one Fstop, and again going from F2.8 to F2. Because of these relationships, if you double the shutter speed but close the lens down by one Fstop, the image will have the same brightness. You could also slow the shutter speed by one stop and increase the sensitivity (ISO) by doubling it, and end up in the same place exposure-wise.

But what constitutes "correct" exposure? Typically that is where you are able to capture all the information possible in your image. Which begs the question - "How much is enough? Too much? Not enough? A better working version of correct exposure is the setting that will correctly capture the information the photographer wants to show.

This image of a Bufflehead was a particularly challenging exposure situation - a mostly dark bird, with bright white markings, bright sun that was low in the sky causing deep, long shadows, and water. It was shot with a 600 F4 and a 1.4x extender, which meant that the largest lens opening possible was effectively F5.6, but to provide better image quality I needed F8. So that set things up for a shutter speed that was short enough to stop the wave action and any random small movements from the bird. The end result was to adjust to a higher ISO - 1000 in this case - to ensure that all of the above conditions were satisfied.

Even with all of the above in place, there was still a looming challenge that I decided I would not try to solve in the field. The brightness range was greater than what my camera could record. The rule of thumb is if you want any detail in the white areas, take care not to overexpose them. But that meant that all of the dark areas would have been "lost in the mud." So I decided to compromise a bit of the highlight detail in order to get the subtle iridescence from the neck and sides of the head, and show the all important eye. The dark areas did in fact go to "mud" but I was able to selectively lighten, or "dodge"' the darker areas to reveal the texture and color of the plumage.

In the interest of keeping things a simple as possible - I will describe, in broad terms what happens when you tinker with the three elements of exposure.

ISO - the less sensitive (lower number) you use, the less noise/grain you will have in your final image. You will have greater detail and sharpness, and a broader "dynamic range" (more about this in a future post).

Shutter Speed - slower speeds let in more light but has less "motion-stopping" capability. This is not necessarily a bad thing - you want a longer exposure to show things like fireworks, headlights of cars in traffic at night, star trails - or a special technique where the photographer purposely uses a slow shutter speed and pans the camera with a moving subject, showing the subject relatively blur-free while totally blurring the background, thus giving the impression of extreme speed. On the other hand if you want to stop the beating wings of a hummingbird you'd better use as fast a shutter speed as possible.

Apeture/Lens Opening - big openings let in lots of light, however, all but the most specialized of lenses are sharpest at their widest opening. If you see a lens that is F2.8 or as big as f1.4 there is a good chance that the designer made that lens tack sharp at that opening. Many lenses have a sweet spot at F5.6-F11 where they are sharpest. Another phenomenon is depth of field - or moving away from the camera, and focusing at a specific point, at what distance do things begin to look sharp in front of the focal point, and at what distance do they become unacceptably out of focus. Smaller openings (larger number) give you the advantage of a deeper depth of field, while bigger openings (smaller numbers) will provide only a very shallow zone of sharpness. You have all seen pictures where the subject is nicely sharp and th backgrounds are all blurry and soft. That is a dead giveaway that the lens was pretty wide open. Telephoto or long focal length lenses have shallower depth of field than wide angle lenses do at the same distance. But at the same magnification (image size on the sensor) the depth of field is exactly the same.All this means is that at the same lens opening a 200 mm lens at 20 ft is going to have the same depth of field as a 100 mm lens at 10 ft.

As you can see, there are a lot of things that must come together in order to get consistent results, but the most important thing is to "own" the fundamentals. These building blocks to exposure, once grasped with confidence, will allow everything else to fall into place. You will be able to intrinsically know what is possible without giving it a second thought, and what you need to do to with your settings to get the finished product looking the way you want.

HDR - How to Expand the Dynamic Range of your DSLR

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

You've seen it on your smartphone, maybe you've seen it on your point and shoot camera - HDR. You may have even used it without knowing what it is or how it works. Hopefully this will help you gain a better understanding of HDR and it will open up some possibilities for seriously better pictures in certain situations.

In simple terms, HDR - or High Dynamic Range - is a way to capture a range of brightnesses that is beyond the cameras capacity to record in a single exposure.

In this first image you can see that the camera's exposure recommendation results in pasty-looking clouds lacking any tonality or detail, and image seems darker than it should be for a sunny day. The shadow areas lack yjr detail and "punch" that was present in the original scene. This is quite typical as the camera's metering system tries to cope with the super-bright sky elements - it tends to not want to overexpose the sky too badly so it gives precendence to the darker areas since you can always recover shadow information - sorta.

This is the middle image in the HDR sequence.

The next shot shows what happens when you underexpose the scene by 2 stops. The clouds look pretty good, but everything else has gone to pot.

This shot shows all the shadow areas with rich detail and nicely exposed, but everything else is washed out.

While I might be able to work with the image that is underexposed by only one stop, and possibly the one that is completely dark, I would need to take heroic steps to introduce fill light and highlight recovery and dial in large amounts of brightness. But the result will be noisy in the shadows, and it will lack the overall vibrance of the original scene. This scene probably had a brightness range of 13-14 fstops.

In practice, the very best professional digital cameras can faithfully record up to 10 fstops of dynamic range. What this means is that if you were to use a light meter to read the light coming from the darkest area of a scene in which you want to show some detail, then you read the light from the brightest area with detail, there would be no more than 10 fstops difference between the two readings.

Most of you won't have a light meter, but most cameras will give you a spot metering mode that will allow you narrowly and precisely select tiny areas for exposure evaluation. As the name implies, it measures light from just a small spot in the center of the image, rather than the entire screen. For the most part this is fairly accurate, and if you are familar with Zone System metering, it can help you nail the exposure - but this is a topic for a future post.

Another way to think about this is to look at your camera's histogram. If the histogram is all stretched and making full contact with both the left and right sides - there is a good likelihood that you are going to lose detail and texture in both the highlights and the shadows. To a small degree shadows can be "lifted" or lightened in Adobe Camera Raw or any reasonable raw converter using commands named "Fill" or" Shadow Recovery." To a lesser degree ACR can rebuild highlight detail information from highlights that are not severely blown. It does this by looking at each component of RGB (the red, green and blu channels) and copying the detail in the least blown out channel to add to the other two. But shadows will have noise and the highlights will look fairly pasty.

If you have one of those situations where you have to get both extremes, HDR will allow you to combine multiple exposures at different exposure settings, blending them into a single ultra-wide contrast 32 bit image. A typical HDR image will consist of two or more images - one or more that are underexposed to preserve the highlights and one or more that are overexposed to preserve the shadows.

There are some technical hurdles to be overcome, however. The resulting ultra-wide contrast image is a very large, 32 bit file, which can not be displayed on a conventional monitor or printed. Rather than going into a technical description here, an excellent description of bit depth, 32 bit files and how they relate to HDR photography can be found at http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/bit-depth.htm

So lets get on to the nitty gritty of HDR photography - from planning a shot to finished image.

If you think a scene is a candidate for HDR, take a test shot at the camera's recommended exposure settings and look at the histogram and the image in preview. If the image looks normal and the histogram does not touch the left and right sides, HDR is not going to make a difference. There are other software packages that can give you the HDR "Look" by manipulating local contrast and shifting and boosting colors to enhance detail and shadow rendition such has Lucis Art and Topaz Adjust.

The HDR candidate has a histogram that looks like this:

Clearly, a single image will not be able to capture all the data at either extreme of the tonal range. You can see how the camera tends to underexpose - most of the image's information is concentrated on the left side.

It's best to shoot your scene on a tripod, although I take many HDR scenes hand-held. I use RAW file format to ensure I record all that the camera can see. I set the camera to aperture priority, manual focus, and if your lens/camera has image stabilization or vibration reduction, I'd turn it off. This way the camera will not re-acquire focus or adjust the aperture or anything else that might affect image backgrounds by changing the depth of field.

The easiest way to take multiple exposures with most DSLRs is to use automatic bracketing. Many Nikons have the ability to bracket up to 9 exposures, up to one Fstop apart, in a rapid sequence by holding in the shutter for the entire series.

Most entry-level pro cameras allow you to do this with a single shutter press, automating the process. In a Nikon D200 there is a single button on the back that controls bracketing. The D300 requires you to assign the function to one of the assignable buttons. If you have a remote shutter release (wireless or tethered) use it, along with mirror lock up - this will minimize any human-based vibrations especially on night exposures.

Either camera will allow you to use an intervalometer, so that you can automatically record the exposure sequence in a "hands off" fashion. For those not familiar with this function, an intervalometer is a built-in function that allows you to record images on a predetermined schedule within either a given time frane or number of pictures taken. If youre camera does not offer the automation describe above, you can always take a shot and adjust the shutter speed manually.

If you are careful not to move, you can shoot a 3-5 shot HDR scene without using a tripod. I have even done HDR scenes at night, using 1 second exposures, braced against a solid surface, and breathing normally.

But planning and shooting the image is only half the fun. You get to "play" with it and turn it into something special and uniquely yours in the next part - the post processing.

There are several paths you can use to process your HDR images -

· Photoshop CS3 and above (Merge to HDR command, Tone Mapping command)

· Photomatix Pro (standalone and Photoshop plugin)

· Nik HDR Efex (Photoshop plugin)

· Enfuse (Lightroom plugin)

· Artizen HDR (standalone)

· DynamicPhoto HDR (standalone)

· EasyHDR (standalone, easy interface, entry level)

· Essential HDR (standalone, entry level)

· HDR Darkroom (standalone, easy interface)

· HDR Photo Studio (standalone)

· Luminance HDR (standalone, free, dfficult interface)

· HDR Pro

· Picturenaut (free, entry level, no frills) - and I am sure there are others.

The interpretation of an HDR image is very personal - each artist's eye is different, and most software packages give you a very broad set of adjustments to do just about anything you want.

Personally I use Photomatix Pro - it provides enough adjustments to render images that are realistically natural, yet enough adjustability to get really creative. I have tried Photoshop's merge to HDR and tone mapping - but I found that I am spoiled by the flexibility of Photomatix. Here is a workfow that I often use.

This is a set of 5 that I took for the bridge scene above.

In Photomatix, I browse for them - Photomatix will allow you do select multiple images.

After press OK, you will get a dialogue box that allows you to make some adjustments and determine how you want things like image ghosts (things that moved during the exposure sequence), noise reduction, alignment, color space, etc.

Pressing OK will merge the images into a single, 32 bit image and display it in the Image Editor.

It looks pretty awful - most displays cannot show an image with such color depth and range of brightness. Tone mapping will take all the information and do a decent job of assigning colors and values that are displayable/printable. I next save this intermediate image, in full 32 bit - as .HDR image. Next I select ToneMapping / Fusion to open up the Tone Mapping Editor.

You can see the image now looks a lot better. The histogram is looking pretty good too. Here you get to have fun - play with all of the adjustment sliders to familiarize yourself with what they do.

I usually start by adjusting the black, white, gamma, saturation and smoothing.

There is a small option panel called Lighting Adjustments that will take you through a series of 5 presets that I sometimes use.

You can also select from a set of presets by clicking on the strip of images at the bottom of the screen.

Next I scroll down the settings menu to display the Advanced Options and adjust the sliders to get things looking exactly the way I want them to.

When done, I save the image as a 16 bit TIFF file so I can edit and adjust things a bit more in Photoshop.

Photomatix will provide a default file name that is a combination of all the names of the component files.

I use the Open As option to open the image as a RAW file in ACR. I usually adjust perspective, brightness, sometimes tone down (reduce the saturation) the colors in both ACR and after opening it in Photoshop, then I peform final sharpening. At this point I either save as a 16 bit TIFF, or as a JPG, which is a lot smaller and can usually be sent as an email attachment or uploaded to a website.

Tip: You can create a pseudo HDR by saving three versions of a RAW image in ACR - each with a different exposure compensation value - -1, 0 and +1. Then you process normally in Photomatix. Also, you can open a single image in Photomatix and apply tonemapping adjustments. The results will not be as dramatic, but it can produce some pretty fine images.

Sunrise over Greenwich Point - HDR

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:40:00 +0000

Out of the house at 6:15 AM to catch a sunrise - and maybe some nice bird photographs this morning. Weather forecast called for calm winds, clear sky, and the Sun peeking out from below the horizon at 6:44.

I just barely made it in time to grab about 3 shots. I like to do sunrises/sunsets in HDR because the light of the sun is very intense and would provide an exposure setting that would skew everything to the dark side in an effort ot avoid overexposing the sun. The HDR above is a 7 exposure shot - 2 under, 1 under, a middle exposure 1 over and 2 over. If you are curious as to what the heck I am talking about, check in tomorrow when I post a how to tutorial on HDR photography.

Here are a few more HDR shots from this morning.

AF-On Button - A Better Way to Focus

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:53:00 +0000

Damn, my camera didn't focus where I wanted it to! Has this ever happen to you? Automatic focus, no matter how sophisticated it is, can be both a blessing and a curse. When it works, it does a great job - until it doesn't. Here is a quick tip to help you get more in-focus images. It involves re-thinking and retraining how you focus. Sounds a lot worse than it actually is.

By default, most DSLR cameras come set up so that a half press on the shutter will enable VR, set the exposure, and acquire focus. Generally, this is way cool, but sometimes you want make some of those decisions yourself.

Focus reliability is my big pet peeve with such an arrangement, particularly when shooting with a lens that is wide open in less than optimum light, or when you want to isolate the subject from its background - and you need to be very precise with your focus selection.

On the more advanced Nikon camera bodies you will find a menu selection that allows you to disable focus on shutter press,

and another selection that allows you to assign the focus activation to a different button - usually the AF-On button.

Why bother?

Let's consider what happens when you are shooing people at an event. You frame the face and you use the focus aids in the viewfinder to get the eyes in focus, then you reframe the image to make a reasonable composition, at which point you press the shutter - and you get a perfectly focused torso. This happens because the camera will re-acquire focus.

You could use single servo focus, so that once you acquire focus it remains until the picture is taken. But I can't tell you how many times I left the camera on that setting, then started to shoot a moving subject, and ended up with a whole series of images that were out of focus, simply because I forgot to set the camera back to continous focus.

When you disengage the focus from the shutter release and assign it to the AF-On button, you have the freedom of activating focus only when you need to. A single press of the button will allow the camera to behave as if it were in single servo mode - acquiring focus only when pressed, and not re-acquiring focus again as you release the shutter. Yet, if I want to follow a subject that is moving around, I can hold the button and "track" the subject, and still have the flexibility to use it in "single servo" mode with the button press - without ever having to change the camera from single to continous or vice versa.

Another benefit is battery life. If you use VR lenses, with the default setting, each time you half press you are focusing and activating the VR, which really chews through batteries. Separating the two functions only engages VR when you press the shutter. You will get anywhere from 25% to 50% more shots by using the AF-On button to focus.

It does feel very awkward at first, especially if you are one of those photographers that also set the audible "beep" to let you know you are in focus. In order to best take advantage of AF-On button, you will have to train your thumb to focus, use your eye in the viewfinder to check the dot that shows you have acquired focus, and use your index finger to just release the shutter. Trust me, once you learn this new way, you will never go back to the old. In a matter of a couple of outings, you will be comfortable with the new method and your percentage of "keepers" will improve. There is a reason why sports photographers almost universally prefer this method to focus with over the default one.

Panoramas in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:11:00 +0000

Panoramas are wonderful ways to repeal the laws of physics – at least when it comes to optical designs. Here is the issue. Your eyes can view around 180 degrees horizontally and about 135 degrees vertically. There is not a single camera/lens system that can do that in a single image without all sorts of distortion. Well, sorta.

Post-processing does offer a solution - panoramic stitching. Yes, I know, many point and shoot cameras, smartphone cameras and other photographic devices offer a crude version of in-camera stitching. But creating a pano in a dedicated panorama application or using the Photomerge-Panorama process in Photoshop will yield much better results, with seamlessly smooth transitions between the component images. And, in the case of Photoshop, the process is straightforward and fairly easy. You don’t necessarily need any fancy camera, tripod, tripod head etc to do it, although I will admit that those accessories do make things easier and help improve your results.

Continue reading to see how I did the pano of the mouth of San Francisco Bay looking north towards the Marin Headlands.

I started by taking several test shots to check the histogram for exposure. I looked at both ends of the histogram to see if anything was touching either side which would have meant that I could have lost information in shadows or highlights. This would have been the time to make any exposure compensation adjustments. Happy with the results, I took my sequence of shots, being careful to overlap each image about 50% with the prior one. I also turned on the grid display to ensure that my horizon remained at more or less the same level in the viewfinder.

Once in front of the computer I open Adobe Bridge to identify and highlight the images. Using the right click on one of the images I open all of them in ACR.

In ACR I was able to look them over, pick a representative image, and apply the lens correction, clarity, sharpening black and white levels, exposure adjustment, etc to get it looking pretty good.

Then I used the Selected All button (top left) followed by the Synchronize Button to apply the adjustments to all of the images. With all images still selected, I pressed the Open Images button at the bottom right. This loaded the images into Photoshop as individual images.

The next step was to create individual layers of each image, and combine them in a single image. Photoshop provides the File-Automate-Photomerge command which brings up a dialogue where you can select the type of merge (Auto Panorama), the source of the files, which in this case I used the Add Open Files option, and checked off the Blend Images Together.

This results in the following screen - note the layers in the layer palette. They are masked to display only the part that each contributes to the entire image.

Using the Layer-Flatten Image command I merged all the layers into one file which Photoshop names Untitled_Panorama1 by default. At this point I no longer need the contributing files so I can remove them without saving them.

You can see that the horizon is pretty straight, but I did tilt the camera a bit as I changed my body position from right to left, leaving some croppable areas, and also some areas that can be augmented with Content Aware Fill.

Selecting the Crop Tool from the palette, I cropped the left and the right borders away to clean up the sides, but left a little white space above and below the image so that I could fill it and end up with a slightly taller image.

With the Magic Wand selection tool picked I clicked in the white space on the top left of the image to select it. Using Select-Modify-Expand,

I added an 8 pixel expansion to the border. This helps ensure a seamless fill.

Then I used Edit-Fill-Content aware to fill the white area. I repeated this on the other areas until done.

There were still a few areas that needed a little additional work - in particular the top edge and the top left corner. The Clone Brush came in handy as a way of removing the branches hanging in the air that were created during the Content Aware Fill procedure.

And this is the final product in Photoshop

That’s pretty much all there is to it. Once you get the hang of it, you can process a RAW-based pano comprised of 5-7 frames that require minimal adjustment in about 5 minutes.

Focus Stacking

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:58:00 +0000

When I am really close to a subject, depth of field is usually an issue. Under normal circumstances I need to make a choice as to what I need to have in focus. It has become customary to use this characteristic in a creative fashion - you will see images that have only a small portion in crisp focus, with the rest blurred. Back in the day if I wanted a subject in complete focus from front to back I could always use my Sinar F View Camera with it's tilting lens/film planes to increase depth of field, similar in function to the one below.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jacopo188

Nowadays I often use a technique that combines a series of images - or slices - of the subject, each one taken at a different point of focus, from front to back. Then I combine them in post processing to produce an image that is entirely razor sharp - with seemingly unlimited depth of field. This is known as Focus Stacking.

There are several third party applications that do this - CombineZP, Picolay, Tufuse (all free), Helicon Focus, Zerene Stacker, and Photoshop CS4 and CS5 - all commercial applications, some offering free trials.

I will go through a quick illustration in Photoshop CS5 to show how I did the Day Lily above.

When photographing a subject that you intend to apply focus stacking to, ideally you should be on a sturdy tripod, equipped with a horizontal arm that can get you close to subject, like this one from http://store.tabletopstudio-store.com/hoarmfortr.html

and use a rack and pinion macro focusing rail to allow you to precisely adjust the distance between the subject and the camera like this exquisitely crafted one from fellow photographer and master machinist Kyrstof Hejnar, which can be found at http://www.hejnarphotostore.com/:

It is possible to obtain reasonable results by simply adjusting the focus, but this approach does have it's downside. When you change focus, you change the optics, and as a result you may end up changing the out of focus background's (Bokeh) character. The perspective changes, and the magnification changes, since you are extending the lens to subject distance - those elements that are further away from the camera will diminish in size. Also, most modern lenses feature internal focus which adjusts the optical formula to change effective focal length to get you in closer without altering the external parts of the lens. As you close in, the lens will shorten the focal length.This will also affect image magnification. Moving the camera to change focus point eliminates all of this since the camera to subject's focus point never changes - subjects will be rendered more accurately. Luckily, adjustments for the variances in subject size/magnification are within the capabilities of the focus stacking applications, and some correct better than others.

Shoot the images in RAW format. If you are not familiar with RAW format, look at my earlier post on the subject and make use of all of the helpful information that is all over the Internet. Shooting RAW allows me to adjust a single image for balance, lighting, contrast, lens aberrations and distortions, white/black balance, sharpening, etc - and apply the adjustment made on the one image to the rest of the images - a real time saver.

I start by setting up my camera for the lowest ISO, my lens for its sharpest aperture and greatest depth of field, and since I am using a tripod, just allow the shutter speed to fall where it needs to be to give me a proper exposure - which in this particular case was ISO 200, F8 and 1/500 sec. I use aperture priority to let the camera determine the correct shutter speed, make a mental note, set the camera to manual exposure using the cameras suggestion, and turn off auto focus. Next I manually focus on the nearest point that I want to see sharp and take a shot. I advance the focus a little to the rear, making sure that I overlap the previous shot's focus. I take another shot. I continue to repeat this until I get just beyond the farthest area I want in focus.

When I get back to my computer I copy the contents of the memory card to my computer, open up Adobe Bridge and identify the images I want to stack. I hold the shift key as I highlight the images. When I have finished my selection, I right click inside any one of them, and right click and select Open in Camera Raw in the fly out menu.

All the images will be opened as a set in Adobe Camera Raw. After looking one of the images and making my adjustments, press Select All at the top left of the screen, then Synchronize, to apply any adjustments made to the entire set. I Press Ok in the next screen to apply changes. With all the images still selected, I press the Open Images button at the bottom to bring them into Photoshop.

All of the images are brought in as individual files. With the next step I combine all the images in one file as layers.

The Files-Photomerge command brings up the dialogue below, where you select Auto Layout, and Add Open Files, with no other boxes checked. If the Blend Images Together box is checked, uncheck it. Pressing OK will create the layers.

I highlight all the layers, then execute Edit-Autoblend Layers;

in the next dialogue, I pick Stack Images and check off Seamless Tones and Colors.

After a few seconds (longer if you are merging lots of layers) the final product emerges. I remove the contributing images without saving them, then I flatten the layers using Layers-Flatten Image.

I then apply the usual sharpening cropping and other adjustments just as if it were an ordinary single image.

Focus Stacking is a very useful technique that I use when shooting in close quarters, but it can be equally useful with larger static subjects over longer distances - like a large ship, freight train, landscapes, etc. It produces images that would otherwise be impossible, and as you can see, not very hard to accomplish. See you soon!

Indoor Flower Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:08:00 +0000

Our winter hasn't been much of a winter so far. Last year, there had been close to four feet of snow, with no end in sight. A couple of days ago the temperature hit 62 degrees. I am genuinely sadded that the winterscapes that I waited a year to take will have to wait another year.

Time to implement Plan B. About 20 minutes by car from my house, the New York Botanical Gardens offers a jump start on spring. This March the NYBG will kick off the Warm season with their 10th annual Orchid Show at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory - a gorgeous example of classical Victorian glasshouse. http://www.nybg.org/exhibitions/2012/orchid-show/

As far events go, this is a Big Deal that has thousands of orchids on display and will attract tens of thousands of visitors. There you can find a veritable kaleidoscope of colors, shapes and sizes of orchids. There is nothing quite like it in the NY Metro area and it is a wonderful way say goodbye to the Cold adn hello to the Warm.

Even though my camera has accompanied me to the Gardens for Orchid event each of the past 5 years, I never grow tired of taking pictures of these flowers. They are so beautifully intricate, with gorgeous colors and textures. And therein lies the rub - how to best capture their beauty in a photo for others to enjoy.

There are several challenges - some that have to do with photo technique, and then there are the NYBG safety rules. Under no circumstances will NYBG allow a tripod to be set up. You might think that your only option is to use a high ISO setting to allow a small enough aperture to maximize your depth of field.This is not optimal, as digital noise will increase dramatically as the ISO increases and you will lose image quality. But there are some simple alternatives.

The next challenge is how to best light the flowers. While many cameras have a weak, built-in pop-up speedlight option, its best to avoid it at all costs.I have never been happy with the results of on camera lighting. You will get a bright picture, but the flat (shadowless) lighting will fail to capture the textures and sensual shapes of these flowers. Instead, I prefer to use one more more off-camera speedlights - and not postioned anywhere near the camera.

When an unmodified speedlight (subject receives light without benefit of any softening) is place at or near the camera's point of view to illuminate a subject, the resulting image is characteristically flat and boring. This is ok for paparazzi grabbing shots of a celebrity, or for news and journalistic photography, but not what you want for flowers. It can also produce distractingly harsh shadows and hot-spots. You are likely to get pictures that look like this:

Photographers sometimes ask me about my lighting setups and why I don't use a flash bracket. I always remind them that light illuminates, shadows define. This axiom is as true with faces and bodies as it is with flowers. A light source at or near the camera's axis pointed at the subject result in pictures like the one above. In this case, the light was above the camera. I do own a flash bracket, but use it only in certain situations, usually indoors, and the light is nearly always bounced off a surface, or using a large bounce card that is attached to the light.

Flowers will take on a vivid three dimensionality when using diffused off-camera lighting. Given the constraints at the NYBG, this is the first challenge - how to best control the lighting on a flower. You will need the following "stuff" to get great, professional-looking flower pics.

A lens capable of sharp results, some image magnfication, and a focal length that gives you enough working room to get a nice-sized image on the sensor
A speedlight (or two)
A trigger mechanism
A light modifier
A friend to help you carry and hold the "stuff"

Lens. I alternate between a Sigma 18-50 F2.8, a Sigma 150 F2.8 Macro (above), and a Nikon 18-200 F3.5 - 5.6. These give my pictures excellent sharpness and the zooms offer flexibility with working distances. There is no right and wrong here, and there are many lenses to pick from. A good rule of thumb is to have more than one option available.

Speedlight. Ebay is a great place to find inexpensive Vivitar or Sunpak speedlights that offer outstanding power, manual controls, a thyristor to offer some degree of "auto" light level control and an exceptionally reasonable price. I personally own 7 Sunpak units, Auto 444D, 433D, 433AF, 383 Super - none of which cost me more than $30. In fact I don't think I paid more than $150 for all 7. These speedlights have a wonderful aged tube that gives an ever-so-slightly pleasingly warm tone - excellent for flowers and people, a output, and 5 stop adjustment in light output from full power to 1/16 power.

If you are uncomfortable with buying used stuff and don't want to spend tons of cash on Big Name Branded speedlights, you can always purchase one of these comparatively inexpensive manual speedlights like http://mpex.com/vivitar-285hv-flash.html for $110, or one of these http://mpex.com/lumopro-lp160-manual-flash.html for $160, or if you have a compatible camera with TTL capability, even one of these http://mpex.com/lumopro-lp160-world-record-edition.html for $230. The Lumopro LP160 is quite a unit, with all sorts of options, high output, an unusual 7 degree downward tilt for close up and macro work, and decent construction.

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to manually control my speedlights, instead of allowing the camera/meter system to adjust the lighting. This is the way I learned, and found it to be a versatile way to work - easy to set up and easy to adjust on the fly. Sorta like learning to drive a stick shift car - once you learn how it feels perfectly natural and you appreciate the greater control it offers. After a while you get a feel for distances and flash levels and things get even easier. When all is said and done, you will not be able to tell if you made your picture with a $500 Nikon SB900, a $1000 Quantum or a $10 used Sunpak Auto 444D. Really!

Avoid purchasing gear labeled as macro lights, ring lights and the much heralded Nikon R1C1 Closeup Speedlight system that will set you back $775. Unless you are doing really close up work or portrait photography and are looking for a particular look, you are likely to be disappointed and a whole lot poorer. The big issue with this when it comes to shooting flowers in a setting is that you will need some working distance, and the R1C1 is optimal for macro work when the front of the lens is less than one foot away - basically small subjects, up really close - insects, small flowers, etc. This is not possible in many situations.

Trigger. You can always purchase a cable and hotshoe to move your speedlight away from the camera, but you will be limited by the length of the cable. Wireless trggers are a welcome alternative that come in a wide variety of flavors and prices.

These will range from a $20 optical slave that will sense the light from a speedlight and fire at the same time (actually several microseconds after) the primary flash goes off, to infrared, which is available in external untis like these, or built into several camera manufacturers' systems and can fire multiple flash units with one as a commander, to radio controlled triggers that fire when the shutter is pressed on the camera. Some speedlights, like the LP 160, have a built-in optical slave.

The whole point of using a remote flash is to put the light precisely where you want it. The wireless option gives you total flexibility, while the tethered approach is less costly. Optical slaves may not work in brightly lit areas, and still require a speedlight to trigger them. Typically the trigger is a camera-mounted light set to a very low level, just barely enough light to offer some fill and trigger the slave. I find that infrared, which requires line of sight between the units, is also a bit to constraining for me.

Which is why I opted for radio wireless control. I looked at the industry standard Pocket Wizards and quickly came to the conclusion that with my old school ways I was less likely to use all of the automatic functionality, and decided to go with a well, reviewed Chinese-made, Ebay sourced, radio frequency trigger, and save the $100s I would have spent on the Pocket Wizards in my pocket to buy more "stuff." A set of one trasmitter and 4 receivers of the Chinese triggers will set you back $95 or so. A similar setup with the ability to control 4 speedlights using Pocket Wizard IIs would cost $850 before tax and shipping. For certain the Pocket Wizards offer some serious build quality and a very nice feature set - but for the money, the RF602 provides all that I need - a reliable means of triggering the flash without wires, optical or infrared. This was a no brainer!

I Purchased Yongnuo radio triggers on Ebay directly from http://myworld.ebay.com/hkyongnuophotoequipment/?_trksid=p4340.l2559

Yongnuo RF 602 - http://www.ebay.com/itm/RF-602-Flash-Trigger-Nikon-D700-D300-D200-D3-D3X-D2X-D1X-D1H-w-2-Receivers-/180758222521?pt=UK_Photography_StudioEquipment_RL&hash=item2a160796b9

Light Modifier. Simply put, the light coming from a speedlight is a point source - bright, harsh and unforgiving for most subjects. Which is why there are so many products out there that provide a way to modify or soften the light. For our purposes, the options are divided into two basic categories - things that you shoot through and things that you bounce light against.

The shoot through devices are semi-transparent or translucent materials that you place between the light and the subject. These can take the form of a small softbox, a light tent, or screen, that effectively diffuses and enlarges the light source, scattering the light as the it reaches the subject. I have even seen a photographer using a tiny umbrella like this one:

When I use any of my diffusers, shadows are soft and ill-defined - very easyon the eyes and not at all distracting - exactly what you want for flowers. Illumination is very even with no hot spots. This type of lighting is lower in contrast - a good thing. It's easy to add back some contrast in post processing, but it is much harder to fix an overly contrasty image.

Diffusing devices can also take on the form of tupperware-like attachments that you place over the light, behaving like a large bare tube light. These work best when the light is in very close proximity to the subject, and you have the ability to bounce light from adjacent walls and ceilings, making it a poor choice for shooting flowers in a greenhouse. Besides, beyond a certain distance the behave more like a point source with all of its hard shadows and hotspots. With a little ingenuity you can fashion one of these diffusers out of almost anything - a Chinese soup container, bubble wrap, yogurt cup, even a white paper bag!

You can see this idea in action at blog http://www.digital-photography-school.com/diy-flash-diffuser-airline-barf-bags

The bounce or reflector type of modifier can be a collapsible bounce reflector like these - http://normanlights.com/bounce_reflectors.asp. When folded up they are very small and easy to carry, and offer a nice variety of surfaces - white, gold, sliver, black and translucent shoot through. These come in a wide variety of sizes, and can be round or rectangular.

A smaller version of a bounce idea is a product made by Peter Gregg called The Better Bounce Card - http://www.petergregg.com/a-better-bounce-card-3-0-large/. It comes in three sizes and attaches easily to your speedlight with velcro. The bigger ones give you a softer light especially when used in close proximity to the subject. These can be made from craft foam or cardboard - and is the source of inspiration of many DIY projects like this http://mcgrawphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/1427850. These are my favorite, since you can conceiveably hand hold both a camera and a speedlight with a bounce attached (at arms length) and still get some credible off camera lighting - all by yourself. Another approach I have used is to mount the speedlight on a bracket or on the camera's hot shoe, and rotate the head of the bounce the light off a different surface. That surface can be a wall, ceiling or even a person dressed in light colored clothing. In a pnch I have even used the palm of my hand.

Bring a friend. Someone who is ok holding a speedlight/reflector in close proximity to the flower. The value of a friend must not be underestimated. There is a synergy that takes place when someone is there to help. It frees your mind to look at things you might otherwise miss - backgrounds, stray light, depth of field, different angles, and in the case of the NYBG Orchid Show, the best flower to shoot among the many on display. Not to mention the comments from the visitors - "Ooh, he must be a pro with his assistant" or "direct questions like "what magazine are you shooting for?" and so on. The preseence of a friend sometimes encourages visitors to give you a little extra space and time to take your shots.

Shooting Tips.When shooting with a flash, for the most part the lens aperture setting will control the exposure, with the shuuter speed controlling the amount of ambient lighting effect. There are times when I want to use the flash to isolate the flower from the background as much as possible. This requires light on the flower to be much brighter than the ambient light. I turn up the power on the flash and move it in as close as possible, then use the fastest shutter speed you camera will allow. This will effectively eliminate most of the ambient light, with the only light being that which is reflected by the subject.With careful placement of the speedlight and a little trial and error usually get good results.

Sometimes I want to see the background, but want it blurred so it is not distracting. Here is where I combine two techniques - open the lens as wide as possible to give you a short depth of field and a nicely blurred background, and a slow shutter speed that will introduce some ambient light. Using F2.8 or F4 I get good "focal" separation, and a shutter speed of 1/60 or so helps to add a good amount of ambient light. When possible I sometimes try to come in as close as possible with a wide lens opening, to further limit focusing on the background. Again, some trial and error works well for me in these situations.

All these words about getting geared up to take pics of flowers. I thought it best to show a few examples of my favorite flower pics - and just let them speak for themselves.

Buidling a Photoshop Workstation

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:38:00 +0000

At the end of last year, I began to grow tired of out of memory messages while trying to do anything in Photoshop CS5. Content Aware Fill, multiple layers, Photomerge, etc are all memory-intensive commands that can consume every last byte of memory and still scream for more. Photoshop began to remind me of this little guy:

I began my odyssey by googling for system recommendations for Photoshop-specific configurations. After a short time reading about others' computers, looking at advertisements and perusing forums - my head was spinning. Perhaps the hardest thing was weeding out the good information from the bad.

I had decided to avoid the Apple platform, purely on a cost/benefit. Apple makes fine systems, but they were just too expensive and not necessarily better for what I needed, so they were off the table. Similarly, I dismissed a Xeon based system. I did come across this useful link to Adobe's recommendations for hardware and system configuration - http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404439.html

The common theme was that the graphics adapter was less important and that overall Photoshop performance was tied to hard drive I/O speed, multiple scratch disks RAM and CPU cache size and clock speed. The current version of Photoshop does utilize dual core CPUs in some operations, but in the interest of "future proofing" I opted for a quad core. Hyperthreading, an Intel technology, will make a noticeable improvement, which ruled out using AMD CPUs (their CPUs do not offer hyperthreading). So, I put together a theoretical system that had the following features:

Windows 7 64bit OS.
Intel quad core CPU - 3.3 ghz cpu speed that supports hyperthreading
Support for 16 gb or more RAM
Solid State Drive (SSD), SATA3 (currently the fastest drive interface that is widely available)
RAID capability - for redundancy and performance, support for RAID 5
Nvidia Graphics adapter with at least 1gb DDR5 memory and dual display support
At least 4 SATA3 device support (boot drive and others)
A big case with lots of ventilation
And a power supply big enough to run all of this

First I looked for already built systems at the usual suspects - Dell, HP, Newegg, TigerDirect, Amazon, Buy and Nerds - and found that in order to get what I wanted I would either have to spend close to $2,000 and would still be short on certain specs - usually an anemic power supply or graphics card. Or I could build one.

I ended up selecting the following components based on a best-bang-for-the-buck criteria:

Intel i5 2500K (the K designates a cpu whose clock is "unlocked" allowing overclocking, or running faster than the rated frequency for the cpu, presumably with additional cpu cooling)
16 gb of RAM from Corsair -Vengeance DDR3 1600
Palit NVidia GeForce GTS 450 with 1024mb GDDR5 memory (intended for entry level gaming, but super duper performance for Photoshop)
OCZ Vertex 3 - 60gb SATA3 solid state drive -
Western Digital Caviar Black 1Tb SATA 3 hard drive with 64 mb cache
OCZ Mod Stream Pro- 600 w power supply with one 25amp 12v rail each for motherboard, cooling and graphics card.
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 Motherboard with support for all of the above, and 8 drive device ports - 4 SATA3 and 4 SATA2 and RAID support (SATA2) and overclocking capability
Diablotek EVO Mid Tower Case - with 4-120mm fans.

My total cost for all of this was under $1000 after rebates. Purchased at my local MicroCenter.
Next I would like to share some of my decision processing. I have never been an advocate of acquriing cutting edge (more like bleeding edge) technology. It is important to know where the state of the art is, and what the sweet spot is for compromise between benefit and cost. This is why I decided in favor of an Intel i5 2500k cpu. I could save almost 1/2 the cost of the i7, and still have 90% of the performance. And for my purposes, if I really needed more performance, I could always purchase a higher capacity cpu fan and overclock the cpu a bit to gain another 25% or more in performance without sacrificing system reliablity.

The motherboard choice comes from having a series of positive experiences over the past 20 years with ASUS, and not so positive with the competition. It offered an easy to manage mouse driven BIOS interface, and a simple overclocking scenario, with all of the bells and whistles if I needed to really tweak it. Plus it supported the drives and devices I wanted to connect to it. One of the nicer features was support for the use of a SSD (solid state drive) to cache the boot drive. With this arrangement I can use my 60 gb drive to augment the performance of my 1 tb boot drive, with both devices on a 500mb/sec SATA3 interface. That's pretty darn fast - almost as fast as running a SSD as a boot drive. As I was intended to migrate my 1.5tb RAID5 array from my old computer to the new one, I selected this motherboard since it had built in RAID support.. Photoshop will readily utilize as many hard drives as possible as scratch disks to improve performance, and this motherboard can accept a total of 8 devices, with 4 of them being the faster SATA3 interface.

A brief piece of wisdom I collected along the way on hard drives. There are many many options out there. It is not unusual for a company to offer a 2 TB hard drive a 1 TB hard drive and a 500 TB hard drive - and they will be priced similarly.Aside from performance, the big differnce among them is the duty cycle, orin layman's terms, how hard you can beat on them before they fail. In general the drives with the highest price per gb tend to be oriented towards read/write intensive environments such as file servers and engineering or 3D graphics workstations were there will be tons of reading and writing to the drive. The drives in this category are more robust and can tolerate such use much better than the consumer oriented products. Plus these drives tend to have longer warranties. The Western Digital Caviar Black series of drives are targeted at the advanced computer user, falling just short of what is known as "enterprise class" hardware. They come with an excellent 5 year warranty. Another good choice is the Samsung F3 1 TB drive which utilizes a 2 platter design compared to everyone elses 3 platter systems - the result is less wear and tear and faster throughput. Highly recommended for their reliabilty and performance, particularly in intensive read/write applications.

Graphics adapter was simple - I just looked for an Nvidia card that had the monitor connections I wanted, at least 1GB of DDR5 memory, and modest power supply requirements. The Palit GTS 450 fit the bill nicely. It is powerful enough to do video editing, but reasonable in cost. Certainly more than I need for Photoshop, but all in all a very nice, fast display adapter.

The power supply is a big deal. While many offer 600 plus watts of power, very few can do this under load. A motherboard will easily consume 25 amps @12 v when fully populated and running fan managenment, and a discrete graphics card will have similar power requirements. The power supply is the one place you do not want to skimp. An underpowered system is likely to fail due to voltage drops which result in higher current demand and heat generation. Better and safer to go overboard on the power supply.

Memory - select the fastest, motherboard-approved memory modules you can afford. Get them as a matched set. With Photoshop as the principal application, Putting in 16 gb of "overclockable" ram that cost only $100 was a no-brainer. The motherboard has four memory slots, and is designed to take up to 4 - 8 gb modules for a total of 32 gb, but currently they are prohibitive in price. In keeping with the bang for the buck theme, it made no sense to spend upwards of $350 for 32 gb of ram when 16 was more than sufficient.

The Diablotek is one of the best kept secrets in the industry - it is a roomy, airy case with cable management (most of the cabling is routed under the motherboard platform) with tons of airflow where it counts - around the CPU and the hard drives. It boasts a total of 4 120mm constant velocity fans, and can handle another 2 large fans.

On to the system build. Things went together quite easily - I would say that in less than 2 hours everything was completely assembled and ready to accept the operating system. There was a bit of confusion with the software and firmware listed on the ASUS website for this version of the motherboard, and some issues with Windows' deep sleep mode in the current version, but once I got the kinks worked out the system has certainly exceeded my expectations.

This is how it all came together:

One thing that I found to be indispensable was to create an image of the Windows 7 DVD and install it on a USB flash drive. Microsoft describes the process at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/burning-an-iso-image-onto-a-usb/3f656c95-ba75-4b85-8fca-68a12cf7f8a9

This will save you hours - you will be able to install Windows, start to finish in about 10 minutes.

So how does this thing perform you might ask? Well, once the power on self test is complete, it boots into Windows in about 12 seconds. Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook pop up in under a sccond. Photoshop CS5 64 bit takes about a second to load the first time, and less if it is cached. Right clicking on a jpg image and selecting open with Photoshop will take less than 2 seconds. The Intel Smart Response SSD hard drive cacheing provides near-SSD peformance on a 1 TB drive without the expense. Gone are the dreaded "out of memory" messages in Photoshop, thanks to the 16 gb of RAM. And this is running at the stock CPU frequency of 3.3ghz. This CPU can safely clock up to 4.5ghz with the addition of a modest third party cooler like the ever popular CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus cooler which has a street price of $30.

"But I am not handy with tools" you might be thinking. Putting together a computer these days is neither difficult nor time consuming. If you can turn a screwdriver you can assemble a computer. Everything is color coded, and set up so that it is difficult to make a mistake. Besides, if you purchase from a store like MicroCenter, they are pretty good about helping you configure a system and responding to your questions when they come up - and they have an almost "no questions asked" guarantee. They don't hassle you if you need to return something, they only ask why you are returning it for tracking purposes.

I couldn't be happier with the system - it met my criteria for a sub-$1000 system, it is more than fast enough, can be upgraded with inexpensive components to improve performance, and I can say "I built it myself." What more can you ask for?

Correcting a Color Cast in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:25:00 +0000

There are many ways to correct a color cast in Photoshop. Generally speaking they fall into three broad categories - automatic/preset, subjective and analytical. I will be describing some of the more popular methods and where they may be used to maximum benefit in this and future posts, .

The first and the easiest is Automatic method. In Photoshop there are several places you can peform an automatic color adjustment. From the top menu you can select Image-Auto Color to make a reasonable guess at what a neutral color balance looks like. In general, this works pretty well in many, but not all, circumstances.

You can always go to auto settings in either the Image-Adjustment-Curves or Levels. Each has an Auto button which will adjust color, contrast, black and white levels, and brightness - all at the same time. The results are often quite good in many situations, and if you are in a hurry this often works well enough.

The next method is a bit more accurate, and is one of my favorites. It starts by making a duplicate of the image by selecting Image-Duplicate from the menu.

This will create a duplicate of your background image, and both are "pinned" to the desktop area in Photoshop. In order to carry out the next step, you will have to unpin the copy you just made. With the copy selected, left click in the top information area for the copy and drag the image away from its "pinning,"

This will create a floating window for the copied image. With the copy still selected, apply Filter-Blur-Average.

The copy becomes an image that averages all of the color values in your image.

If the blurred image is anything but neutral gray, as in the frame above, you have a color cast in your original image. You have just created the reference layer that you will use in the next step.

Select the ORIGINAL image and create a duplicate Background Layer by right clicking on the Background Layer in the Layer palette, and selecting Duplicate Layer. With the Duplicate Layer selected use the menu to select Image-Adjustments-Levels. (you can also use Curves if you prefer). Click on the middle eyedropper, and use it to sample the BLURRED image.

The minute you click in the copied image the color balance in the original will automatically remove the cast.

At this point the blurred reference image is no longer needed and can be deleted. By making the adjustment on a copy of the Background Copy, you can vary the opacity of that layer to adjust the amount of correction. In this case, the original image had a warm cast. So adjusting the opacity slider of the Background Copy layer to reveal more of the underlying image and its color cast. To my eye, the neutral balance was a bit cold, so I adjusted the opacity to 62% to produce a slightly warmer image. This is an important benefit of working on a copied layer- the correction is non-destructive and easy to adjust and/or undo.

You can turn off layer visibility of the Background copy layer by clicking in the "eye" icon to the left of the layer's thumbnail in the Layers palette to compare to the original.

If all is good, you can right click on the Background layer and select Flatten to finish.

This seems like a lot of steps to follow, but in practice you can complete this correction about 90 seconds or less. I will be detailing other color correction methods in upcoming posts, so be sure to stop by.

Buying Used Gear

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:54:00 +0000

Buying used equipment is not for the faint of heart, especially when the stakes are high. My most recent foray in to the used market unfolded over the past 10 days. It began innocently enough, when I spotted an Ebay listing for this baby.

The price was awesome, and there was a little bit of wiggle room as it was listed with a buy-it-now or best offer. I took the opportunity to bypass the best offer feature and contact the seller directly, making my offer personally. I also took the precaution to ask if the lens had any obvious defects, and he responded that it didn't. He accepted my offer, took the listing down, and we scheduled a mutually agreeable time when he would relist with the agreed price as a buy it now. Deal was done, I used Paypal's Bill-Me-Later payment option which was running a 6 month no payment/no interest promotion.

Luckily the seller was local, so we arranged a time to make the exchange, giving me an opportunity to assess the purchase in person. I met the seller and picked up my lens. I did a quick assessment of the condition of the lens. I looked for "brassing" or areas where the finish had worn off, typical of a heavily used lens. Presence of brassing is not a reason to reject unless you are looking for cosmetic as well as mechanical perfection, and are willing to pay for it. It was of little consequence to me.

Next I worked the buttons, checked the glass for marks, fungus, internal dust or haze, checked the diaphragm for oil seepage, the screws for any obvious signs that the lens had been opened by a DIYer. I loosened the tripod collar just enough to turn it with a little resistance - to see if there was any binding which would indicate that the lens barrel had sustained an impact. So far so good.

Even though this is an automatic focus lens, manual focus is important since it is common to fine tune the focus for some subjects. I turned the focusing ring. Uh-oh. It seemed a bit sloppy, and if I turned it too quickly, a chatter. Not necessarily a deal-breaker, but an area of concern that required a little research. I mentioned it to the seller, and his response was that he only used the lens in auto-focus mode. To me it seemed that it had not been properly maintained by it's previous owner in quite some time - not a good sign.

I made the decision to roll the dice and take it anyway. The seller seemed genuine and honest - a judgement call on my part - so I figured if there was a significant cost in servicing the lens, I was certain it could be worked out. I loaded the beast - its case it weighs 26 lbs - into my car and drove home.

First thing I did when I got home was to check the operation of the lens with my camera body. It focused perfectly and it was damned sharp. So I started making phone calls to various lens repair shops that had experience with this lens, and this is what I found out:

Nikon has a policy to manufacture parts for their lenses for only 10 years after they are discontinued, after which they either destroy or give away these parts to their authorized service network members. The stopped production on this lens around 11 years ago. Not happy. The repair, if no major parts were needed, was fairly involved - it had to be completely dismantled, which would cost $500.This was referred to as "standard maintenance" which included replacing minor parts, clean/lube, realigning and calibration. Less happy. It was becoming more and more evident that there could be other internal issues associated with the focus ring problems, and of particular concern was the serviceability of internal motor. The cost to replace this item would be $1200 - thus putting this out of the range of "we can work it out."

I contacted the seller, explained the situation, and gave him the option to work with me on its repair, or issue a refund. I was leaning towards the refund, and was happy when he took that option. He promptly issued the refund. I returned the lens to the seller this morning and all is good.

There are a few lessons to be learned here.

1. It pays to become intimately familiar with what you are buying. Scour the Internet forums for reviews and user experiences.

2. Get a sense of pricing. Avoid pricing that seems too good to be true, especially if it is on Craigslist - it could be stolen. Avoid pricing that is too high - the seller is having buyer's remorse or is clueless as to the market value of his offering and is trying to recover as much money on his equipment as possible.

3. Make sure you have some recourse in the event of a problem. I cannot stress this enough. No one wants to have an expensive paperweight - in this case, a $5,500 one - sitting on their desk, or add $1800 to the price of their good deal. Ebay is a wonderful marketplace, even though the prices you pay might be a little higher, you still have an ally and a mediator when a problem arises. With Craiglist and other classified sites, you are on your own. Some forums like fredmiranda.com, naturephotographers.net, nikonians.org have classified listings - again, there is some risk, but since these are a members-only classified listings, there is a bit more accountability.

4. Its good to have a network of repair people that you can rely upon to steer you in the right direction with clear and crisp advice.

5. Give preference to the seller that takes the time and care to post lots of pictures of the actual piece being offered. Avoid those that use stock photos. Give preference to offerings that include the box, original receipt, instruction manual, accessories, and a comprehensive description of the item - including its flaws, etc - this reveals that the seller was fastidious and cared for the gear. Unless properly reflected in the price, avoid listings that are missing parts. While looking for this lens I came across another that was missing a lens hood. A little research resulted in finding a $500 price tag for the hood. It's good to know something like this before you settle on a price.

6. f you are participating in an auction, don't get caught in a bidding war. Know what your top price is and stick to it.

7. Trust your instincts. If you have even the slightest sense that something isn't quite right - either with the product or the seller - bail. Your instincts are probably right on the money and can save you a headache.

Following these simple suggestions should help to save you lots of money in the future. Thanks for visiting!

Shooting in Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:05:00 +0000

Pine Brook Trail, Harriman Park, NY 11/30/11, Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20nn at 10mm, ISO200, 1/1250, F10

Boy, do I Love taking pictures in Winter!

Winter blues? Not me. Head south for warmer climes? No way! I live for Winter. But getting good pictures at this time of the year can be a bit of a challenge, unless you understand and approach it sensibly and prepare accordingly.

I will divide this post into three topics – personal prep, gear prep and actual shooting.

Being out in the cold for many hours taking pictures is quite different from just conducting your normal activities. As that mercury dips (as the cliché goes, but I think mercury thermometers for consumer use are all but gone) it becomes harder and harder to stay warm. Add to that a little precipitation and/or wind, and you have your first challenge - avoiding frostbite and hypothermia.

When preparing for a day out in the cold, the usual cautions apply. Minimize exposed flesh, dress in layers, avoid wearing cotton, use a polypropylene wicking layer next to the skin, use a windproof outer layer, and to help avoid cold hands and feet – wear a hat and neck gaiter or scarf. If it is really cold and you anticipate lots of time just standing around, then chemical hand and toe warmers will be your best friend. Your goal is to stay dry and warm, and if you plan on hiking where you will generate perspiration, that poly layer will help minimize that clammy feeling.

If you are going hiking into areas with fresh snow cover, you might want to consider a pair of snowshoes and ski poles. Otherwise, a set of MicroSpikes from Kahtoola http://www.kahtoola.com/microspikes.php are the order of the day. These traction devices are made of that really tough gummy elastomer and hardened steel, and are like four wheel drive on the trails. They are easy to slip on and off your shoes and are small enough to slip into your pocket.

Stores that cater to outdoor winter activities will probably be your best bet for finding the right gear and advice for your planned activities.

Bring a thermal bottle filled with a hot drink. When I go out on hiking trails, I usually bring a bottle full of tasty soup - it really does warm you up, and provides a bit of extra energy.

Camera gear. Generally your gear does not need any special preparation, other than the usual precautions to keep the gear dry while shooting. A weather cover, or in a pinch, a plastic garbage bag can help keep the snow off your gear. Cold does make batteries much less efficient, so it makes sense to bring an extra battery or two for each device.

One of the things that you should look out for is condensation. Bringing in a camera from the cold into a warm and moist environment is always a peril to be avoided. I will remove my memory cards in the car, then leave my camera and lenses zipped up in the bag so that it warms gradually, resulting in little to no condensation forming on glass or in the moisture-sensitive electronics. In fact, it’s a good practice to keep your camera cold. Avoid putting a camera under your jacket – it will just become wet with condensation when you remove it. Also, avoid breathing on the viewfinder or LCD – it will become glazed over with a layer of ice, rendering it useless.

Taking the picture. This can be very challenging, since the low angle of the sun will give you extremely bright areas and deep shadows. The wide brightness range is often beyond the capability of a modern digital camera to capture in a single exposure. This will force you to decide what is more important to you – the highlights or the shadows, and make the necessary compensation. Another complication are the broad areas of white or near white, which will totally confuse even the most sophisticated metering systems, resulting in somewhat underexposed images. With large expanses of deep blue sky, everything taken in open skylight will take on a cold, steely blue hue, so white balance needs to be monitored or custom adjusted if your camera has that capability.

This is my strategy when shooting snowy scenes. I shoot raw (see my 1/17/12 post). If your camera can shoot uncompressed raw, use it. I set my ISO to its lowest setting, providing me the widest dynamic range. I use exposure compensation to +.7 or +1. This will take the camera’s reading and add a bit of extra light, bringing the areas of snow out of a dingy grey tone and more towards white. I typically do not set a custom white balance, preferring to make that adjustment in post-processing. My camera has a blinking “Highlight Warning” mode in its display settings which I always keep set to on, so I can quickly see much overexposure, if any, my images will have.

I rely heavily on the camera's histogram tool during critical shots. It will instantly reveal loss of information in the shadows and the highlights, and can help you make appropriate adjustments.

here is an example of an underexposed image in Photoshop, with its histogram

See how the tonal values in the histogram are all bunched up to the left, and there is a significant amount of data is actually touching the left border, indicating a loss of detail in the shadows. Any time the histogram values touch a border - clipping - you begin to lose information. If it touches on the left you have pure black, and on the right you have pure white. Notice there is very little tonal information on the right, and the image has no pure white. In many (but not all) photographs the goal is to have some black and some white, and lots of middle tones.

This image is overexposed. Histogram shows significant detail loss on the right (highlight) side of the graph.

And finally this image shows better balance. The histogram barely touches left and right indicating no loss of detail due to clipping in either the highlights or the shadows.

And here is the final image, with some manipulation of the blue level, shadow recovery and sharpening adjustments applied.

Croton Reservoir Dam Spillway, 1/29/11, Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm, ISO 200, 1/320 F11

Most cameras can tolerate a bit of underexposure and shadow recovery, but overexposed highlight recovery is typically only minimally possible at best. When in doubt, use exposure bracketing, or better yet, take those multiple exposures and combine them as an HDR (High Dynamic Range) image (this technique will be explained in detail in a future post). I included this HDR shot for comparison. I took a series of 5 exposures, bracketed to -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, then combined these in Photomatix Pro, a popular HDR processing software tool.

The HDR image has greater saturation, balance and detail, particularly in the shadow areas. The sky and its depth of color is just amazing!

Hopefully some of this advice will help you to take better pictures this winter! As always, your comments and questions are welcomed!

Why Shoot Raw?

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:05:00 +0000

Short answer - because the quality of the resulting image is noticeably better than what the camera can produce with its limited preset values for sharpening, saturation, contrast, color temperature and noise reduction.

Longer answer. In order to produce a standard jpg image, the camera's sensor receives the image, then electronically applies adjustments according to the settings you have made in the camera. These are image manipulations that, while they produce pleasing images, remove data from the file. For ultimate image quality you don't want to remove data as a first step. Ever.

A raw file contains all the information captured by the sensor, with no adjustments. The camera's firmware allows for 2-3 levels of coarse adjustment in each category, while computer-based software, known as raw conversion software, generally has infinitely variable adjustments. In addition, raw conversion software typically provides all sorts of adjustments that are not possible in-camera. Exposure correction, hue saturation and luminance, highlight and shadow recovery, brightness, exposure, color temperature and tint, and local contrast. Some of the more powerful converters also enable to correct for lens deficiencies such as distortion, vignetting, perspective, chromatic aberrations and color fringing.

Here is an example of an image that has been just converted and not processed, essentially showing what the camera saw. Notice the curve of the lower step, graininess and lack of overall image "snap."

Taken 12/19/11 with Fuji Finepix F600EXR, ISO 400, 1/17 sec, F3.5 4.4mm (equivalent to 23.7mm), uncropped (click on images to see larger versions)

And this is what resulted from a quick pass through Adobe Raw Converter and Photoshop:

In Adobe Camera Raw I applied a Fuji-specific lens profile to handle the distortion and light drop-off in the corners. Next I used the sliders to adjust highlight recovery, reduce exposure raise black levels a bit, and added some vibrance. I then opened the image in Photoshop CS5, applied fairly aggressive noise reduction using Topaz DeNoise, did a local contrast adjustment using unsharp mask (55 pixels, 45%) followed by a sharpening 1.5 pixels and 60%. to come up with the second image. The most striking features are the straightening out of the steps, the highlight recovery revealing the words in the lights set into the step risers, and an overall "punchier" image as a result of the unsharp mask local contrast adjustment.

So where do you start? First you'll need a camera that is capable of shooting raw. Websites such as http://www.dpreview.com/ and http://www.steves-digicams.com/ have fairly up-to-date reviews and listings of digital cameras and include file format specs.

Raw conversion software comes in a wide varietly of flavors. The simplest are those which are bundled with the camera such as SilkyPix, Canon Digital Photo Professional, and software that should be bundled but is not from Nikon - Capture NX. These are usually pretty clunky and slow to use, but are free with the exception of Capture NX, so they make a good starting place.

The next category of Raw capable software are a bit more mainstream in nature - Adobe Camera Raw, Bibble Pro, Raw Shooter, etc. These are generally very powerful for single image editing, and in the case of Adobe's Camera Raw, somewhat integrated with an image editing program - in this case, Photoshop. Other packages include fully integrated image editors such as Picture Window Pro and DXO Optics Pro.

Finally there are the industry workhorses, also known as workflow software - Lightroom, Aperture, Capture One - which provide excellent raw conversion some image editing capability, and asset management capabilities. The primary value of these is the ease with which one can apply image adjustments to multiple images, making it possible to edit huge numbers of files in short order.

Here is a little trick in the event you already have a camera that does not shoot raw, or forgot to set the camera to raw format. Photoshop has a command in the file menu - Open As - that allows you to specify the file format you would like to open the file as. In the drop down list you can find "camera raw" which allows you to open a jpg file as a raw file in Adobe Camera Raw. This opens the file in the ACR editor, with nearly all the adjustments available to raw files. I once shot an entire set of outdoor images in jpg with the white balance set to tungsten. Under normal circumstances this would have resulted in a lost set of images. Since the lighting was consistent for all images in the set, I opened them all as raw, applied a white balance adjustment to one image, highlighted the entire set and used ACR's synchronize feature to apply the adjustment to all the highlighted images. Such is the power raw. The workflow packages offer similar capability.

I hope this helps to demystify the process of raw image processing for you. In 2007 I purchased my first raw-capable camera, a Nikon D200, and started shooting raw almost immediately. The only times I shoot jpg is either by accident or if I am a second shooter on an event where the primary does not shoot raw. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Hudson River Eagles

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Lugo) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:22:00 +0000

Mature eagle at Verplanck, NY. 1/29/11
Nikon D300, Sigma 50-500 @ 500mm. ISO 800, F8, 1/1000, cropped 59%

In just a few weeks, as the bodies of water up north freeze over for the winter, this scene will repeat itself over and over again on the Hudson River. Every year the arrival of flocks of common merganser, goldeneye and canvasback in November signals the start of the eagle migration. Unable to find open water to fish from, these waterfowl head south, stopping by any body of water that has food in it. Many come and just hang around the Hudson, enjoying the bounty made available by the river's tidal action.

Well, it should come as no surprise that aside from fish, these waterfowl are among the eagles favorite live snack. I make the distinction because Eagles are basically lazy, opportunistic feeders. They will eat anything, including food stolen from other critters. Sitting on an ice floe is a form of easy, energy-saving transportation, providing an up-close vantage point from which a hungry eagle can scout for their next meal.

So where can you see this in the New York Metro area? I have personally witnessed eagles in flight over the West Side Highway as far south as 96th St, where an adult flew about 20 ft over the hood of my car in the morning rush hour traffic one day. I received a picture, taken with a phone cam, of an eagle perched on a branch enjoying a fish. The shooter was sitting in an office at the cemetery at 155th St. and Riverside Drive. When there is a lot of ice, typical after an extended period of sub-30 degree weather, I have seen them floating by from Inwood Hill and Fort Tryon Parks in Manhattan.

For the most reliable locations for seeing/photographing these majestic birds I typically head north, generally starting at the Croton Reservoir, a favorite nighttime roosting area, and Croton Point Park and Train Station. On a good day it is not uncommon to see 5-10 eagles within an hour. Other favorite locations can be found along the east bank of the river all the way up to Peekskill. Montrose Point is another well-used roosting area, where one late February afternoon I counted 29 birds while standing next to the cove at George's Island.

Eagle watching season is short around these parts. They are all but gone by the end of February, save for a few that chose to start and raise a family and remain over the summer.

This is my first blog post and I hope you found it interesting. I will be adding content that will range from how tos to what happened when, links to photographic technique webpages, and my own pictures and website. Thank you for visiting!