August 10, 2006
April 27, 2005
Lincoln Center Pano -- Dry Run
This is the result of a "rehearsal" tonight for a panoramic of Lincoln Center... with so much architecture, using a tripod is really probably a better idea. I need to try to go back during the early evening, when I can still get a blue sky. I'm not sure if they'll let me use the tripod, so I'm testing things out first in case I only get one chance.
Ideally, I'd like to do two exposures -- one for the buildings, and one for the sky -- and merge them. But that's probably hoping for too much. A decent substitute will be to take the shot during those few minutes at dusk when things balance naturally -- I'm pretty sure a morning shot would be stymied by them having the fountain off.
March 12, 2005
Shelter Set on Flickr
Not sure who said it, but there's a joke around that the real reason the web was developed was to give people a way to email and post photos of their cat. I'm not big on pet photos -- even ones of my family dog I usually put in the "snapshot" pile. But there's a really nice set of photos of cats and dogs taken by someone who works at a shelter on Flickr that's worth a look. It reminds me of some of the work of better photojournalists when shooting portraits.
March 9, 2005
The Filter Connection
Generally I don't tell folks where to buy camera equipment front. From B&H to KEH to Adorama, there are more than a enough large dealers out there who will have your item in stock and offer a decent price. (But beware of anyone who's way under the nearly equal prices the large dealers will offer.)
However, for certain more obscure items it's a big help to have a dealer who is knowledgable and will be patient with you in helping you choose the right items. I first found The Filter Connection, in Connecticut, while searching for a hard-to-find Kenko wideangle adapter for my Canon G5. Not only do they have a nearly unmatched selection of filters, and great prices, but these specialists are more than happy to help you out if you call -- during business hours, someone will answer and be immediately able to answer your questions, even if they're about some obscure $10 filter you need to find.
I just placed an order with them for a series of graduated neutral density filters (critical for good landscape shots with digital's reduced dynamic range) and they were proactive enough to call me and check on certain issues with my order to make sure I had what I needed, rather than just shipping it. And this isn't the first time they've taken that kind of care with my order. So as much as I like online shopping, I do appreciate the kind of personal service a small business can provide. It's a real joy when you find a place that does both.
March 6, 2005
Picasa and NEF Files
A minor note I feel obliged to post after previously recommending Picasa. If you're using it to handle Nikon NEF (RAW fomat) files, be aware that its handling of the files is seriously sub-par. The above is an example of using Picasa's internal NEF reader versus Adobe Photoshop CS. It seems that it's not always great at translating the NEF file into screen images in terms of color balance and contrast. Over the past two weeks I've felt like I'm doing a poor job with exposure, but today I realized it's the changeover to Picasa that's been messing me up. (I don't have end-to-end color management, yet.)
Note this will not be an issue if you shoot JPEGs, which most casual photographers will be doing. In that situation, your RAW file is being converted within the camera to the final JPEG.
February 23, 2005
Flickr Screensaver
Many of you already know I'm a huge proponent of Flickr as a way to share images. It's getting even more power as people make use of the API to access this immense tidal flow of images with meta data. Just one example: the
January 23, 2005
Picasa 2.0
For those of you with a digital camera, a pile of images and unhappiness over how you organize and process them, try Google's Picasa 2.0 software package. I've been playing around with this totally free download for about a week, and in my view it beats Adobe's Photoshop Album hands down, despite the latter costing $50 to download.
Not only does Picasa run faster and do a better job of fixing common photo problems (the "I'm feeling lucky" button does a great job 80% of the time) but it also supports Nikon RAW files, something that's been an enormous source of annoyance in the past with other organizing programs. Now I don't have to shoot seperate RAW and JPEG files -- I can just shoot raw, transfer into Picasa, and export nice JPEGs from there. Less memory used, more speed, less hassle.
Highly recommended. It's free -- how can you go wrong?
December 31, 2004
2005 Photography Resolutions
1. More people.
2. Fewer buildings.
3. Shoot more B&W.
4. Shoot less wide angle. Use a normal lens more often.
5. Use a tripod. Really.
6. When it comes to prints, think big. Stop shooting for 640x480.
That's as many as I can hope to remember. To give you an idea, I own a tripod but I've never posted a photo shot with a tripod to the photolog. And I think there's been maybe one, or two, black and white shots.
That said, it looks like I'll be totalling over 5000 photos taken this year. It's probably not my record (I suspect I shot more frames in film during college, but there was no count of them) but it's not a bad effort. Still, that's only about a half a roll a day.
December 25, 2004
Shooting with the SB-800
My family's Christmas present was a Nikon SB-800 Speedlight (flash) for my D70. I'd previously been shooting using a decade-old SB-28, which I rarely used due to the awkwardness of getting a satisfactory exposure (it's not 100% compatible with the D70.)
Not only is exposure great on the SB800, but it comes with a filter to tune its light color temperature to the same as tungsten bulbs, which helps eliminate that funny blue color cast that we all associate with flash photos. I used to do this with Roscoe lighting gels, but it's really even better when combined with perfect flash exposure.
Now that most SLRs come with a built-in flash, the external flash unit is a less common sight. But if you spend hundreds on lenses, you might want to consider dropping the dough on an external flash -- it really does make a huge difference when set up properly.
Coming soon: 2005 photography New Year's resolutions.
December 9, 2004
4 foot long prints
Thanks to the folks at EZ Prints, who coverted this 16 Mega-Pixel panorama into a beautiful 4 FOOT by 1 foot panoramic print. The detail and the impact of the print are really impressive; I've shown it here with a magazine so you can get a better sense of scale.
The success I've had with this print will definitely motivate me to shoot more large-sized panoramas; frankly, computer monitors just aren't capable of doing these kinds of pictures justice.
On a related note, there's a group of folks at NYU now working on a 1-gigapixel imaging system. Some of the past work done on this can be found at the R1 project web site.