2010
Dolphins by Rob Sunday, 1 August 2010, 12:00 am
Dolphins by Rob
Bench Saturday, 31 July 2010, 9:09 pm
3 Things to Know about Working in Adobe Bridge Saturday, 31 July 2010, 7:58 pm
Do you open photos direct into Photoshop or do you use Adobe Bridge? If you don’t use Bridge, there are some good reasons for changing your habits.
You may not realize it but some of how Camera Raw behaves depends on whether you open an image from Bridge or from Photoshop. Here’s how:
Freeze Photoshop or not?
Open a Raw image in Photoshop and it opens, of course, in Camera Raw. But look at the screen – Photoshop is open but the window is frozen. You can’t minimize it and you can’t work in Photoshop at the same time as work in ACR.
Close the image and now do the same thing from Bridge – right click a Raw file and choose Open in Camera Raw. See the difference? When you open a Raw file from Bridge it opens in Camera Raw but without seizing the Photoshop window as well. You can still work in Photoshop at the same time as you work in Bridge.
In short, if you want the best of both worlds – Photoshop and Camera Raw then head to Bridge to open your images from there.
Bypass Camera Raw
If you’re in Bridge, you can bypass Camera Raw entirely and open a Raw file direct in Photoshop by holding the Shift key as you double click the image in Adobe Bridge. The image opens automatically in Photoshop. This is handy, for example, if you’ve already processed an image in Camera Raw in the past and if you now want to work on it in Photoshop.
JPGs to Camera Raw
In Camera Raw you can make adjustments and craft images often much more quickly and easily than you can in Photoshop. This being the case, you may want to use Camera Raw for your JPG files as well as your Raw files. In Photoshop CS3 and later versions, you can open any JPG in Camera Raw by right clicking the JPG in Bridge and select Open in Camera Raw. You can’t do the same thing from inside Photoshop.
As a bonus the changes you make to JPG images in Camera Raw are undoable. So, for example, if you convert a JPG to greyscale in Camera Raw and click Done, the photo will show as greyscale in your Bridge thumbnails. However, open the JPG in Camera Raw again and you’ll see the changes aren’t permanent – you can undo them and return the image to full color – don’t try that in Photoshop!
So, if you’re not using Bridge – there are three good reasons for considering changing your workflow habits.
Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips.
3 Things to Know about Working in Adobe Bridge
DIY Toy camera presets for Lightroom Saturday, 31 July 2010, 4:04 pm
Given the popularity of the Holga, Lomo, and the other toy cameras out there, I suppose it was only a question of time before some enterprising soul would release Hipstamatic, the app which lets you take cool, toy-camera like photos on your iPhone.
There’s something about that app which jars quite viciously with me, however: Unlike the ‘real’ toy cameras, this app doesn’t actually alter the iPhone camera at all. And despite getting pretty awesome results (if you like that style of photography, of course), it’s all post-processing.
That got me thinking… It has to be possible to make my own post-processing presets for Lightroom, to turn my carefully lit, exquisitely sharp and ridiculously high-resolution camera RAW images into blurry, colourful, vastly attractive garbage. So I created a couple of presets for Lightroom 3 – and I’ll walk you through the thinking behind one of them and I’ll show you how to make your own. How’s that for a double whammy of awesome?
Toy cameras tend to get their special look by being terrible cameras. Their light meters will be off by a quarter country mile (so we need to either over- or under-expose the images for a start). They are likely to have light leaks (so we ought to add streaks to the picture), and the hip and cool crowd is fond of cross-processing the film, so we need to make a couple of changes to the way the colours are being displayed.
Exposure and sharpness
So, I’m going to start messing about with the exposure in this photo. I’m being conservative by only over-exposing it by 0.75, but you can always change this later, if a photo suits a bigger mis-exposure. Next, I’m ramping up the blacks a little bit to get a feel of a smidge of extra contrast, and I’m whacking the contrast and brightness right up. Yes, this makes your photo look wrong. And no, there’s nothing wrong with that!
Finally on this screen, the clarity goes down a lot. This adds quite an appealing blur to the image, which is typical for the kind of Polaroid effect I’m going for here.
Colours
It’s surprisingly difficult to get a realistic cross-processing look, but since I’m messing about with a polaroid-alike photo here, I’m on safer ground: adding some highlight and shadow toning gives that deliciously ‘not quite right’ polaroid look. To find the settings that work, keep experimenting – it’s not always easy to come up with the look you want.
Crop
Set the crop tool to 1:1 (that’s square), and crop your image. Then, it’s time for a spot of Vignetting – these are meant to be toy cameras after all…
Light leaks
The light leak effects are typical for toy cameras – and my little preset wouldn’t be complete without ‘em!
To get the proper feel of a toy camera, you’re going to have to try to add some light leaks. This is pretty easy, actually: Simply add a Graduated Filter across your image, with some interesting characteristics.
Personally, I decided to just brighten and then re-darken the image. I created one thin graduated filter with the settings shown below … And then another one just underneath it which had the opposite settings (approximately – it’s not as if toy cameras are an exact science). This creates quite a realistic bar of light leakage across your image.
Of course, light leaks are meant to be unpredictable and a bit random, but the great advantage of doing them in Lightroom is that you can take some of the guesswork out of them. Use the opportunity to move the light leaks around, and highlight the bits of the photo you would like – or hide the bits of the photo you’re not too fond of. There are no rules – make your own!
Finally, I saved all the above settings to a preset called “broken Polaroid”, and now I can go ahead and drastically reduce the quality (and improve the interestingness) of my photos!
Okay, then, let’s see some examples
A couple of guys on a motorcycle in India were a prime candidate for toy camera tasticness
This was the image I used when I first created the Lightroom preset, and I think it works quite well
A street photo from Oslo, Norway, took on a completely different flavour with my new toy camera filters
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Sony Question Saturday, 31 July 2010, 3:34 pm
Okay, I confess I know nothing. I am not a giant corporation that knows all, sees all, and tells little. I am not worth billions of dollars and I do not have minions strung around the globe doing my bidding every day. I am just one very little guy—that quaint thing, a photographer.
But Sony appears to have released three new primes while I was away. For me, a long-awaited and much hoped-for event, even though I have fallen away from actually shooting Sony. I have fallen away, but Sony is still an important "anchor" for me because my first DSLR was a Minolta, which became Sony, and I've used and loved the A900 and made the A850 my personal pick for Camera of the Year 2009 and have been waiting (albeit with fading hopes) for the A700 replacement, which would be (or would have been, as the case may be) the two-generations-on descendant of my old K-M 7D, and I still have some Minolta-now-Sony stuff kicking around the closet. Somehow I still regard my Sony apostasy as temporary.
Of the three new primes, one is a premium Zeiss (ZA) lens and the other two are consumer-grade (SAM) Sony lenses. The premium lens is a 24mm ƒ/2, and the other two, the SAM lenses, are a 35mm ƒ/1.8 and an 85mm ƒ/2.8.
So my initial thought was, well, fine, you can use a cheap 35mm on the A850. It's still fast. Even consumer lenses are pretty good in this day and age. I can deal.
But wait…oh, no…crap….
The Sony press release is not clear. Not clear at all. But I think that there is also a very strange mix with regard to formats. I think the beautiful, big, expensive 24mm is a full-frame lens, and the little slow consumer 85mm is a full-frame lens, but the lens in the middle is an APS-C-only lens.
Rub eyes with fists, do comical triple-take. Whaaaa?
Mind, I'm not saying the new lenses aren't useful, especially the 24mm. Many serious Sony shooters are going to love the 24mm. Well, at least, all those who use the two closely-related bodies Sony makes for serious shooters.
But if what you're after is a 35mm (like, well, um, me) you can use the big WA as a 35mm on a reduced-sensor camera, an application for which it will be massively too big and too heavy, and in which application you would be throwing away at least three quarters of the capability you had to pay for—namely, it applicability as an ultra-wide on full frame. Or, you're still SOL. You do not have either a medium-sized, medium-speed 35mm to use on a full-frame Alpha camera or a smallish, light, reasonably-priced 35mm-equivalent to use on a reduced-sensor camera. You do have the option of cobbling together a mismatch between the high-grade 24mm lens and a consumer body. Meanwhile, the prices for used samples of the old Maxxum 35mm ƒ/2 AF lens continue to climb into the stratosphere on Ebay. Not much demand, but even less supply.
Photo via Photoclub Alpha
Would it be so hard to just reissue the old Maxxum lens? If I were a giant corporation worth billions of dollars with minions strung around the globe, I would throw that little batwing-sized bone to my poor, groveling, impecunious fans. They did it with a bunch of the other old Minolta primes. Why not this one? Which leads to my question.
Is the guy at Sony who is deciding what lenses to provide a) a super-smart but ruthless and heartless capitalist, who dresses like an evil Karl Lagerfeld and has a longhaired white cat in his lap which he strokes when he fires people, and knows what I need but just does not give a flying ninja kick; or b) the slightly cretinous nephew of the Vice-Chairman who falls asleep and drools during meetings and who has to work in someone's department and just please keep him the hell out of the PlayStation division, and never mind that he wouldn't know a camera from a 12-speed blender?
It's not going to help with my depression to know the answer; but I'm still curious, in a listless, crushed sort of way.
Mike
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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.
Featured Comment by amcananey: "Okay, I'll venture a guess. The A900 and A850 are, as you surmise, the cameras that the new 24mm is most likely to be used on. The A900 and A850 are high resolution cameras without video. They apparently are inferior to the Nikon and Canon equivalents when it comes to high ISO work. Accordingly, these cameras are most prized by landscape photographers, who are likely to be more interested in a 24mm lens than a 35mm lens. As much as you want a fast, reasonably light 35mm full-frame lens, I'm not sure there is as much demand for it as you seem to think. The trend recently has been decidedly in favor of people using ever-wider lenses (e.g., the Nikon 14–24mm ƒ/2.8 and 16–35mm ƒ/4 lenses and the Canon 17mm T/S lens). Many see 35mm as a boring, in-between focal length. They either go wide, or they go for a 'normal' lens that is slightly longer. Thirty-five millimeter is probably most likely to be used by photojournalists, who would also be more likely to use a Nikon D700/D3/D3s (and yes, I know that Nikon is missing a modern 35mm full-frame lens…one is 'supposedly' coming 'soon') or a Canon 5D Mark II.
"And the 35mm ƒ/1.8 actually makes a lot of sense on a cropped-sensor camera. It is a fast 50mm-e. I disagreed with you when you complained about the Nikon 35mm ƒ/1.8, and I disagree with you now. The more I use the Nikon lens, the more I think it is a brilliant lens, especially for the price. Fifty millimeter was my favorite focal length on film, and now I have a digital equivalent.
"So I actually think there are strong reasons and solid logic behind Sony's decision to release these lenses in the form it did.
"Not that that helps you at all…"
Mike replies: Just two cavils with your sensible analysis. "Many see 35mm as a boring, in-between focal length" …except for anyone who shoots an M6, M7, or M9 Leica (who are by necessity prime-lens shooters). For them it is the most popular normal lens. I'm just sayin'. Second, if the Maxxum 35mm ƒ/2 had been reissued, what would stop you from using that as your 50mm-e on your reduced-sized sensor camera? And why not kill two birds with one stone, instead of one bird with one stone?
Another solution to my dilemma would be for me to just not be so gol-darned cheap. I had an opportunity to buy a minty copy of the ideal iteration of the Maxxum 35/2 for I think $850, or just under 3X what it cost new. Many people could bring themselves to do that. Many perfectly sensible people. Me, on the other hand….
Featured Comment by jallu: "This was my reaction too upon finding that the 35mm is not a full frame. I would have bought an A850 a long time ago if the old Minolta 35mm ƒ/2 had been reissued at a reasonable price."
Featured [partial] Comment by Doroga: "They say that some glass types are not available now for 35/2, so it could not be reissued just like other Minolta lenses…."
Featured Comment by John Camp: "I've never understood this whole Sony/Minolta thing. It's like some sad cult based on the Yugo. Why would you even get involved? The Minoltas made my butt look handsome, and the Sonys managed to extend that aesthetic. The Sony cameras, I'm afraid, are like most other Sony products—a little tap-dancing, a big viewing screen on Times Square, and very little real interest in the product other than as something to peddle. I find it hard to scrape up any sympathy for Sony users; they should simply behave like adults, swallow their pride and move to Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, Leica, etc."
AC3 ZoneController released; U.S. MiniTT1/FlexTT5 rebates announced Saturday, 31 July 2010, 3:00 pm
LPA Design has begun shipping the PocketWizard AC3 ZoneController for Canon to its distributors. This means it will arrive “in retail stores in many markets within a couple weeks,” says an LPA Design statement. In addition, MAC Group, the U.S. distributor of PocketWizard products, has announced a US$25 rebate on the MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 for Canon.
Photography: The Longest & the Largest Saturday, 31 July 2010, 2:32 pm
- Ghostly passage of time: Stefan Klenke shows The Longest Photographic Exposures in History. [Via Ben Jones]
- 70 Billion Pixels Budapest claims to be “the largest photo on Earth.” [Via Barry Young]
This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums (25-31 Jul ‘10) Saturday, 31 July 2010, 2:03 pm
Weekly Assignment
This week, we had another kitchen assignment and we wanted to know What’s in your Refrigerator? Sometimes it was scary, sometimes it was funny, but there were a lot of good shots this week. And if there’s one thing that always has the ability to make me smile when tallying up the assignments, it’s that we often get at least one new forum member in the top 3. But this week, all 3 of our winners had less than 30 posts! There are some very talented new forum members out there. So, without further delay, our winner this week was katot9’s “The Thing in the Refrigerator”. This shot really took some planning and effort. Not only was everything in the refrigerator well lit, but so was the person looking in. And to top it all off, the composition and details were excellent. This was a clear winner this week. Our first runner up was violett213’s “In the Fridge.” The composition of this shot was really nice, and the black and white suited it well. And you can’t help but think of midnight snacks when you see a shot like this. And last, but not least, was
JaiCatalano’s “Touch the Ice Cream and Die”. Oh, the humor of this one was great, as was the motion blur that was captured. It was definitely well done.
Whether it’s summer or winter, that shouldn’t stop you from participating in our latest assignment, Water in Motion. When water is moving, you have a few options for how to capture it. You might stop the motion and essentially freeze it, or you might show the motion through those soft silky streams of water that happen when you use a longer exposure. We want you to show us water in motion. Show us how it moves and how you capture that movement. But, before you post, just have a quick read of the rules. First, your photo must have been taken between 21 July – 4 August 2010. Second, your post must include the words “Assignment: Water in Motion” and the date that the photo was taken. Finally, your EXIF should be intact, and it’s useful if you can include some of the main information like camera, lens, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc. Next week’s assignment will be Motion Blur: People or Animals. So you’ll have to show either people or animals in motion, not the backgrounds. Good luck!
Hot Threads
- Photography Inside Flight: So, if you’ve been on a plane (especially around sunrise or sunset), you might have looked out the window and thought “gee, I wish I could capture that gorgeous view.” Well, how do you capture the view out the window? Come add your thoughts, suggestions, tips, and even share a photo or two and tell us how you took it, over in the forums.
- What Happens When / If I Die?: It might not be something you really want to think about, but consider how many photos you’re probably taking, and consider what would happen if you were to die? What happens to the copyright? Who is allowed to have access to them? Do you have a plan for your digital photos? How will people know where they’re stored even? It might not be happy, but it’s definitely something to consider, so come share your thoughts over in the forums.
- What to Look for in a PC: Ok, let’s cheer things up a bit, and think instead about how to make sure your computer can deal with all your photo editing needs. How do you decide how much RAM you need, what kind of processor to get, and what you need in a video card? Come share your suggestions for what’s needed in a photo editing machine over in the forums.
- What if I Fried my Memory Card?: One of the dangers of underwater cameras is the potential for water to leak into the memory card slot. But what happens if you experience that? Well, one forum member has. There are some great suggestions for what to do if you think your memory card has gotten wet and some suggestions for if you still need help. If you have any help or suggestions to add, why not chime in over in the forums as well.
- Powerful Portraits: One forum member is looking for help with determining how to shoot a powerful portrait? Just what is it that makes a powerful portrait? Is it the pose, the lighting, the angle? Come share your thoughts and suggestions and help out another forum member.
Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips.
This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums (25-31 Jul ‘10)
Forum Flashback Series – 31 July 2010 Saturday, 31 July 2010, 8:57 am
Photo © HCJames with permission to About.com, Inc.
Each Saturday, an image will be posted here that was originally posted somewhere in our forum roughly one year prior. Be sure to check back each Saturday for our blasts from the past!
July 31, 2010 Saturday, 31 July 2010, 7:49 am
Untitled (From Interiors Series), 1995-2005Photo © Zwelethu Mthethwa
firetruck and the dancer Saturday, 31 July 2010, 6:09 am
Queen Street West.
The Long Road Home Saturday, 31 July 2010, 5:47 am
London Workshop Registration in a few days!
Be sure to go to the HDR Workshop page on Monday, Aug. 2, at 10 AM London Time.
If you live somewhere else and are going to London for the big event, be sure to figure out your own local time for the big registration event!
We will also have a free photowalk in London the on Friday night before the workshop. Everyone is invited. Details to come soon!
HDR DVD – Out in the Wild
We have a few testers out there that have the HDR DVD. There have even been a few leaked tweets out there. We expect it to go on sale pretty soon. Of course, since we know many people will be ordering it, we want to make sure we do some good Quality Assurance on it to ensure we’re in good shape. Sorry for the delays… but this is important and we want to make sure it is as perfect as possible.
Because the premium package is 4 DVDs (!!!), it takes a long time to stamp them out, put in cases, ship, etc etc. It’s a big production! So, be sure to get on the list so you can order right away before we hit a supply logjam.
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The Long Road Home
I took this on perhaps one of my best days in Iceland.
I woke up around 5 PM at Hotel Edda Laugar in Saelingsdal. Many of you already know I was sleeping days and staying up all night to take photos. This was my last day/night cycle in Iceland, so I wanted to make the most of it.
Anyway, after waking up, I went out to the natural hot springs for a dip. It was a perfect little rocky spring filled with steaming-hot sulfur-smelling water. As usual, I was totally alone and didn’t see another soul. I stayed there, looking at the afternoon mountains for about 30 minutes until I reached a dangerous dream-state. And then dragged myself out and walked back to the hotel. I had one of those post-hot-tub shells of heat around me to protect from the cold. I didn’t even feel it.
I got back inside, put on some warm clothes, and then went down to get dinner (breakfast). Actually, I got two of them. The second one was to-go because I would eat it around 1 or 2 AM, when there is absolutely nothing open. Besides, I knew I would be way out in the boonies where there was not even an option for anything to be open!
Around 3 AM, I started driving back to Reykjavik. As I was going down one of the fjords in the northwest, the sign lined up in my view, so I pulled over to take a shot to share with you.
Time-lapse video of an ant colony inside of a scanner Saturday, 31 July 2010, 4:00 am
Time-lapse video of an ant colony inside of a scanner via LS.
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Graceful Tree Frog by Nicolas Rakotopare Saturday, 31 July 2010, 12:00 am
Graceful Tree Frog by Nicolas Rakotopare
Canon now shipping EOS 7D kit with barcode reader support Friday, 30 July 2010, 9:30 pm
Canon has quietly begun shipping a special EOS 7D kit aimed at high volume shooters that includes support for barcode scanners and has the ability to embed barcode data directly into the picture’s metadata. The camera also includes a menu and setting lockout feature not currently found in stock 7D bodies. The kit, comprised of an EOS 7D body and Wireless File Transmitter WFT-E5A, is arriving at dealers now in the U.S.
Reminder: Last chance to order Einstein 640 at US$440 price Friday, 30 July 2010, 8:30 pm
On August 1, the price of an Einstein 640 monolight will rise to US$499.95 when ordered from Paul C. Buff in Nashville, Tennessee. If you want to make a purchase at the current price of US$439.95, now is the time.
Close to Home: Weekly Photography Challenge Friday, 30 July 2010, 7:36 pm
This week your challenge is to take and share an image on the theme of ‘close to home’.
This bounces off our post earlier today – 5 Photo Ideas for Shooting Close to Home – but you could also interpret it any way that you want and do something a little more abstract on the theme of Home.
Once you’ve taken your “Close to Home” image, upload it to your favourite photo sharing site and either share a link to it below or embed it in the comments using the our new tool to do so. Please note it sometimes takes us a while to approve comments with images as there’s a moderation queue – particularly over the weekend.
If you tag your photo on Flickr, Twitter or other sites with Tagging tag it as #DPSPHOME to help others find it. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun.
PS: don’t forget to check out some of the great photos shared last week in the PHOTO WALK challenge.
Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips.
Close to Home: Weekly Photography Challenge
The “Make My Photo Good” button draws closer (?) Friday, 30 July 2010, 7:24 pm
Andrew Kupresanin’s Nadia project claims that ”The camera that thinks, so you don’t have to.” Instead of showing an image on its viewfinder, the camera leverages ACQUINE, the “Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine,” in order to display an aesthetic rating
As I’ve said previously, developments like this makes think of the Robin Williams character in Dead Poets Society excoriating a textbook that rated poetry along two axes:
Excrement! That’s what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard! We’re not laying pipe! We’re talking about poetry. How can you describe poetry like American Bandstand? “I like Byron, I give him a 42 but I can’t dance to it!”
Or, as The Online Photographer put it, “If You Think You Need This, Kill Yourself.”
I start wondering whether the art project here is a bit more “meta” than it appears: The point is to make photographers flip out–a sea of (largely) angry old white guys as the medium, unknowingly engaged in mass performance art. If so, touché! [Via Tobias Hoellrich]
Previously: “A computational model of aesthetics”
Save the Date: August 7th Hellfire Photowalk Friday, 30 July 2010, 7:17 pm
Saturday, August 7th, we’re heading out to the Salt Flats for Hellfire 15. This is an annual, multi-day event sponsored by the Utah Rocket Club where they fire off high-powered rockets. The first couple days are closed to spectators due to safety regulations working with experimental motors, but Saturday they use certified motors and open it up to the public. It’s a bit of a drive and can be hot, but there’s stuff here you won’t find anywhere else.
The range is open 8am to 4pm. I will get there about 8am to stake out an observation area and setup some shade. I’ll probably stay mid-afternoon. Feel free to show up anytime, but morning is better. People try to get the first firing of their rockets in before noon, both for temperature and wind reasons. So, the hours between 9am and 12noon have the most activity. After noon, things slow down a bit. We’ll probably take a group photo between 9:00 and 9:30.
Besides your normal photography gear, be sure to bring lots of fluids, sunscreen, lip balm, sunglasses and a hat. If you’re going to be staying for an extended time, you may want to bring snacks and/or lunch too. I’ll have an awning setup for shade, a cooler to store things in and a couple chairs. You may want to bring your own chairs, just in case.
To get there, head west on I-80 until exit 4 just before Wendover. Turn right off the freeway and then right again a little ways down the road. When the road ends, follow the cones on the salt leading to the firing range.
Plan on spending $10 and 30 minutes at the car wash when you get home. You don’t want to leave that salt on your vehicle.
Comments and discussion on this Flickr thread. If you want to meet others somewhere to carpool, post your interest on the thread and self-organize.
Update: I found an online ride sharing coordination site at RideShare.us. I’ve never used this site before but created an event for us to experiment with. The link just mentioned should take you to it. If you go in through their main page, you need to enter lookup code “pwuhellfire15″ (without the quotes). After registering, you can post ads to ride and/or drive and find others in your area. We’ll see how well this works.
Here are some more of my images from two years ago.
Painting in Photoshop? Check this out. Friday, 30 July 2010, 7:05 pm
Digital painting pioneer John Derry has just released a Lynda.com title, Photoshop CS5: Painting with the Mixer Brush, going into depth on how to wring the most out of this new tool. And building on the success of his Artists’ Brushes set for CS5, he’s previewing a set of Dry Media Brushes. Should be some powerful, interesting stuff. For more on John’s work and his take on CS5, check out this interview.