John Birch Photography

Free Lightroom 4 Beta Video

2012-01-12T12:38:00.001Z

If you thought yesterdays post of Lightroom 4 beta resources wasn’t enough to get you started, well here’s another one for you. It’s another video, or rather a collection of videos over at the well known online training library at Lynda.com. I’m not a member or subscriber but this video is 1 hour 50 minutes of a Lightroom 4 Beta Overview from Chris Orwig and it’s free.

It’s split into many short segments each covering a specific top of LR4 beta so is a very useful resource. I haven't watched it all yet but found the section soft proofing and books very useful. You can find the videos listed here.

Free Lightroom 4 Beta Video

2012-01-12T12:37:00.001Z

If you thought yesterdays post of Lightroom 4 beta resources wasn’t enough to get you started, well here’s another one for you. It’s another video, or rather a video collection of videos over at the well known online training library at Lynda.com. I’m not a member or subscriber to lynda.com but this video is 1 hour 50 minutes of a Lightroom 4 Beta Overview from Chris Orwig and it’s free.

Lightroom 4 Public Beta - Online Resources

2012-01-11T14:10:00.001Z

It’s been just over 24 hours since the release of Lightroom 4 Beta and already there are a multitude of reviews, resources, discussions, tips and video’s online already. If you are an existing Lightroom user and haven’t downloaded your FREE copy of LR4 beta, you can do so now from Adobe web site here. If you’ve never used Lightroom then this is a great opportunity to start right now and have of a free copy at your disposal for a few months.

But where do you start? If you’ve just downloaded and installed your LR4 beta copy you may be a tad confused on opening up the new version. New modules like Map and Book are pretty obvious, but what about the other, more subtle changes and how do you use them? You may be confused about how to use the new Develop module Basic panel, or like me you may be confused why the Basic panel looks exactly the same as it did before (tip: you need to update the Process to 2012 in the Calibration panel first)? Well don’t worry as there are already many good resources out there and many from the official Adobe testing fraternity who have been involved with the development and have had time to prepare their posts ready for yesterdays release day.

Adobe’s official release notes can be found here, but if you are looking for a really good explanation of the new features then excellent postings from the Computer Darkroom and dpreview are probably an ideal place to start. Personally I like video instruction as I find this the quickest and easiest way to get up to speed with new features, and in this Adobe have already provided a comprehensive online library of 8 videos on the Lightroom 4 beta at Adobe TV. If you can put up with the rather irritatingly squeaky voice from Adobe’s Evangelist Julieanne Kost who presents these videos, and don’t get fed up with the glaring abundant overuse of the word “Excellent” (sorry Julieanne!), then this is the best video resource for LR4 beta so far. And lastly don’t forget to check out Michael Reichmann’s 22 minute long video overview on the Luminous Landscape and the series of videos from Matt Kloskowski and Scott Kelby at their NAPP Lightroom 4 Beta Launch Centre. These together with a few other resources I’ve found useful I’ve listed below. Enjoy beta testing!

Reviews and New Features

Forums

Adobe Labs Forum of Lightroom 4 Beta

Resources

Julieanne Kost’s Blog - LR4 Beta New Shortcuts

Videos

Lightroom 4 Beta Available for Download.

2012-01-10T10:41:00.001Z

Well it’s here, Adobe have today released the beta version of Lightroom 4 and it’s available to download from their web site here. I haven’t had much of a chance to play with it so far, but the big new features seem to be Video support (which is not really of much interest to me, but no doubt very commercial), GPS support, new shadow and highlight controls, additional local adjustment controls and the much requested soft-proofing. Adobe’s summary of the new headline features is as follows:

Robust Video Support
Manage images by location with the Map Module
Simplified Basic Adjustments
Powerful new Shadow & Highlight controls
Additional local adjustments including Noise Reduction and White Balance
Soft Proofing Reinvented
Elegant Photo Book creation
Email from directly within Lightroom
Publish videos directly to Facebook or Flickr
Enhanced DNG workflows
Adobe Revel export workflow

The GPS support includes integration with Google maps. The Develop module has a new engine with a 2012 Process version, and the local adjustments now include noise reduction, temperature and tint, shadows, highlights and moiré. The clarity slider has been refined to help reduce artefacts and after such a long, long wait, soft-proof has finally been introduced to Lightroom including both paper and ink simulation. Soft-proofing has been a much requested feature and it was way up there on my list, so hopefully at long last I won’t have to waste so much expensive photo-paper trying to get my prints look like the screen version. There’s also book creation direct from Lightroom and tight integration with Blurb printing services. A full list of the changes, new functionality and enhancements can be found in Adobes release notes here. Some notable absentees are face recognition, and improved slide shows so lets hope Adobe are saving those the final release version. Face recognition is a much heralded feature of Aperture so I’d be surprised if Adobe didn’t match its functionality in LR4, and improved slide shows have been a very much requested feature on the forums.

As ever, don’t use this with your existing catalog as it is only a beta version and things could go wrong. Adobe list some know issues in the release notes. Back up your catalog first, and remember this is only to test drive the new functionality an not meant to be a perfect, fully working copy.

Star Rating your Photographs

2012-01-08T21:55:00.001Z

I recently returned from a once-in-a-lifetime photographic trip to the Antarctic Peninsular where I shot almost 7,500 frames in under 6 days. A phenomenal number of frames by anyone's standard, but as a member of a 73 strong group of photographers my frame count was probably on the low side, and probably very low compared to some I saw. At the end of our trip, during one of the lectures from one the lead photographers and organisers, we we asked to raise our hands if we had captured any 5-star images. The vast majority of the party raised their hands, but I did not. That got me thinking about what exactly constitutes a 5-star image and is what I consider a 5-star image similar to those other photographers? … apparently not so it would seem. Don’t get me wrong, I did acquire many good images that I’m perfectly happy with, but just not quite 5-star images in my book.

Assigning a Rating

Of course when I talk about star ratings I’m referring to the system of being able to assign a rating from zero to 5 stars to a digital image, usually in a DAM (Digital Asset Management) program such as Adobe Lightroom, Apple’s Aperture, or Adobe Bridge. It’s not just stars you can assign either, you can flag a photograph as a pick or reject and also assign colours, but for most the system of assigning stars seems to be the favoured method of rating their photographs. I’ll refer to Adobe Lightroom from now onwards, as this is my preferred DAM/RAW processor of choice, but it’s similar to the others mentioned above. In Lightroom you can assign star ratings in the Library or Develop modules simply by pressing the numeric keys from 0 to 5 to assign none to a maximum of 5 stars to an image, but if you prefer you can us the mouse to click on the star icons in the toolbox to achieve the same end (Tip: you can show or hide the Toolbar by using the T quick key). Rather interestingly, using keys 6 through to 9 will assign the colours red, yellow, green or blue to the images respectively, although there doesn’t appear to be a quick key to set the last colour purple. Thus it is possible to rate an image, albeit rather quirkily, from 0 to 9, although I don’t know any photographers that do this. Note that if you also hold the shift key down whilst pressing a numeric key, the image will be assigned the appropriate star or colour rating and then next image displayed, thus allowing you to move through your image collections whilst rating them. You can also use the right or left square-bracket keys to promote or demote the ranking of an image.

The Rating Process

For most photographers a simple system of assigning 1 to 5 stars seem to be the most common form of rating, with no stars left for unrated or un-judged photographs, 5 stars reserved for the very best or portfolio quality images, and ratings in-between for images of varying quality. But what actually constitutes a portfolio image, and what distinguishes a 3 star image from a 4 star image? Do photographers simply apply a varying degree of quality assignment from visual inspection on the computer monitor? Well talking to several, it would seem that’s exactly what they do. However when asked it seems very few could elaborate in any detail how a 2 star image would differ from a 3 star image, or a 3 star from a 4 star image. Poor images and the very best images are probably the easiest to rate, but those in-between are not quite so easy and it seems that most ratings rather depend on how the individual photographer assesses the image on screen at one particular moment in time and then simply prescribes an arbitrary value of 0 to 5. Of course there is nothing wrong with this type of assessment as this system obviously works and perhaps is all that is required for many photographers. Our poorest and very best images are usually the most obvious to us anyway, but how often have you revisited an image at a later date and changed the rating? I’m sure almost all of you have done that at some time, and perhaps down graded images and upgraded some images in a later reassessment. It’s clear that rating images can be a very subjective, emotional and perhaps an emotive process for photographers.

As digital photographers, let’s be honest, we all tend to shoot a vast amount of images, far more than were ever acquired when we shot film, so it’s no surprise that sometimes good images can be often overlooked or missed out on our initial assessments. A common process is to find the first good image in a sequence of similar images, and commence work on that one, without perhaps, fully inspecting the rest within the sequence. I know I’m frequently guilty of this myself. Time constraints, computer processing time, library size, the sheer abundance of similar images and good old human nature lead us to a propensity in selecting that first good image. Often that first good image tends to jump out at us on screen too, but it may not necessarily be the absolute best image in the sequence. I remember attending a talk once, from a well known British wildlife photographer, who stated that there will be only one 5-star image from each shoot, that his 5-star image he keeps and then he deletes the rest. I didn’t believe him for one minute and although he may be profoundly adept at selecting the one that sells, it’s only human nature for us to change our minds at some point, and surely there may be other images that suite other commercial purposes, even if not quite as good. Perhaps it was just his stage bravado and showmanship talking.

My Rating System

So if not a pure numeric quality rating of zero to 5, then what else? Well I like to rate pictures according to what their use may be together with the actual quality of the image, so my star ratings encompass a range of criteria. For instance I may have an image that I really like that is a great composition, with good light and mood, is well exposed, but perhaps not perfectly sharp or the focusing is slightly off. I know the image is not high enough quality to make a large print, but it may be perfectly suitable for or an A4 or 10 x 8-inch print, and if not good enough for that it may perhaps produce perfectly adequate 5 x7 or 6 x 4-inch prints. I wouldn’t want to delete the image just because it’s not of the absolute best quality. Some of my images I know are probably not good enough for printing at all, but they have a sentimental value or may perhaps be suitable for use in and AV presentation or video, where I don’t need anywhere near close to the capture dimensions as it will be only ever displayed on a computer monitor, or in a video at only 720 resolution or even on an iPhone. This then, is the rating system I now use that works for me:

No Star – Unrated: Images that have not yet been evaluated.
One Star – Neutral/Keepers: Images that are neither good enough for slideshows, or printing, nor flawed enough to be deleted. These may have sentimental or documentary value or snapshots I just whish to keep.
Two Star – Good: Images good enough for 6 x 4 or 5 x7 prints and slide shows at 100%, but perhaps not really good enough for full size prints at 300 dpi.
Three Star – Very Good: images I like that that are considered to be very good, are technically sharp at 100% and and can be printed at A4 or 10 x 8 in without loss of resolution.
Four Star – Excellent: Images I like, think are really good, are sharp at 100%, are technically and compositionally very good to excellent, and good enough for full size prints at 300 dpi.
Five Star – Portfolio: Portfolio quality images that I consider are my best photographically and technically and are suitable for extra large prints (24 x 30-inch) and of commercial or exhibition quality.

My rating system has evolved over several years using Lightroom but is now part of my regular workflow, however many (most in fact) of the images in my Library still have zero stars (as yet) and remain unrated. I tend to skip to my better images, rate those and process those images first. In an ideal world I’d return to evaluate, cull or rate all my zero star images, but in reality I know that’s a pipe dream as I know for me it will be impossible to ever achieve that. Hard drive space is relatively cheap these days and as long as my Library size doesn’t effect the performance of Lightroom then I won’t waste an excessive amount of time on trying to cull all the redundant images. Obvious inferior images, those out of focus, badly exposed, and those beyond redemption I may skip at import, or cull immediately after import, but I don’t worry about leaving a huge amount of unrated images within my library folders. I will however, generally try to apply some basic keywords to a shoot (folder), then even the zero-star images may have a chance appearing within a future subject search and may of course provide some pleasant surprises. I tend to use the pick and reject flags after an initial import to highlight the good and the bad, and then apply star ratings to the picks and delete rejects.

You’ll notice too that I don’t use colours for ratings either. I use colours to denote different file types, HDR and panoramic images, but that’s just me. I know some photographers use colours for portfolio shots, or for certain clients or commercial ventures, and to this effect, colour labels seem well suited. I do like the way you can specify your own colour label set in Lightroom and then when you hover your mouse pointer over the each colour in the toolbar, a description of your setting is given in the tooltip; I only wish you could do the same for your star ratings.

Differentiating my 3 star from 4 star images is probably the most subjective part of my system. I may have some images that (to me) possess a wow factor visually but are technically flawed which limits their usage, so they may get down graded to 3 stars, others may be technically perfect but lack a wow factor and but may still achieve 4 stars since they are capable of being printed at large sizes. Portfolio images are usually obvious, and for me they must have a wow factor. There are many times I've thought I have captured a wow image only to find image deficiencies prevent it being rated with five stars once assessed on a computer screen. Thus I have a limited number of what I consider true portfolio images. I’m probably a harsh critic of my own images and perhaps lack a bit of confidence in my own abilities but that’s just me. However I do re-visit library folders occasionally to review my 3 and 4 star images and I sometimes find the odd 3 star image I think now perhaps now worthy of 4 stars or vice versa.

Five Star Images

So that brings me back to my Antarctic shoot and why I haven't rated any of my images as 5-star (yet!). Well, I guess I addressed some of the reasons in the paragraph above. I did acquire many good images, and many that I like and that I’m quite pleased with, but for me none of them just quite possessed that wow factor and some fell short on image quality. As a collective I think they look good (you can judge for yourself by visiting a gallery of some of my favourites here), but to me there are no individuals that really stand out as 5 stars for me. It’s also incredibly easy to be wowed by such an amazing location as Antarctica as it is indeed one of the most impressive places on planet earth. I looked at many Antarctica images prior to my visit, many which then I really thought had that wow factor, but now some don’t seem quite as impressive since I’ve been there and attempted some myself, but I guess that can be said when you’ve photographed any iconic location. The old idiom, “familiarity breeds contempt” often springs to mind, but it’s often the place, not just photograph of the place that is the wow factor, and that certainly rings true for Antarctica.

That aside, I think perhaps many of my fellow shipmates perhaps rate their 5 star images more equivalent to how I rank my 4-star images. For me 5 stars must remain “the very best of my very best” and something I feel is quite special.

Summary

Rating your photographs is a very subjective and emotive process. There is no one correct system and what works for one person may not for another, so what ever you have developed may probably be the right system for you. Remember also that ratings don’t just have to be on photo quality or a “marks out of 10” system for an image, but can include other criteria such as how an image will be used. The key is to define a set of rating criteria and try to be consistent in your method. Occasionally think about revisiting and re-evaluating some of photographs from time to time, check to see if you missed some hidden gem, or been too harsh or lenient with others, you may just get some surprises.

If you have an interesting way of rating your pictures leave a comment and let me know.

Lightroom 4 Beta Soon ?

2012-01-01T11:44:00.000Z

Lightroom 4 Beta to be released soon?

I was recently on a Photo workshop with a well known Lightroom beta tester who also writes books on a particular aspect of Lightroom. He let slip his new revised book on Lightroom 4 is set to be delivered to his publisher in February 2012 and that we should seeing a Beta version of Lightroom 4 released very soon. He also intimated that there may be a few surprises in store especially with the Lightroom user interface, but he was pretty tight-lipped about exactly what those surprises would be. He had a beta version of LR4 on his laptop but of course we didn't get to see it! He indicated that the released beta version would probably only contain around 60% of the functionality of the final release version so we can expect additional functions to be included at release time.

The Evidence

Other glimpses of a beta version have been observed on the web also with Sean Reid’s review of the Fuji X10 on Luminous Landscape where the RAW files were apparently converted in a beta version of Lightroom. Also keen eyed followers of Matt Kloskowski’s Lightroom Killer Tips, have spotted a files called LR_4.0_796371_osx10_Release_Installer.zip and LR4R15ReleaseNotes.pdf" in his video release on December 12th 2011, so make of those what you will. Perhaps the final release is closer than we think although I somehow doubt that.

Of course, programming new features, and especially debugging and refining them even after beta testing can be a tricky and time consuming art, so don’t be surprised if the time fame gets extended, but it certainly looks also we should be getting a beta version sooner rather than later.

What New Features to Expect?

The question now of course is what big new features can we expect to see in LR4. Judging from comments made by Jeff Schewe in the recent video release "From Camera to Print & screen" from Luminous Landscape, soft proofing (much to Jeff’s seemingly apparent annoyance) was dropped from the LR3 release at the very last minute, so I’d fully expect it to play a significant role within LR4. Soft proofing was a pretty major part of my wish list for Lightroom 4 as I still have problems getting my prints to match the screen version and I know many other photographers still do too. My wish list (which can be seen here) also contained GPS support, a keyword manager, face recognition, and improved cloning and healing tools to name but a few. Certainly the later seems to have been a firm favourite around the forums together with improved local adjustment tools to include vibrance, white balance, fill light and individual HSL controls. There’s a multitude of GPS devices around now too so that may just have caught the LR boffin’s eyes, but it’s certainly not on everyone’s list. There have also been many requests to add Photo-stitching for panoramas and HDR blending for HDR, but these require computational intensive algorithms and personally I can’t see them being included in Lightroom as they seem more suited to Photoshop. Face recognition is popular in many other photo-packages now including Lightroom’s main rival Aperture; I’ve tried it and it’s a very useful too, so that would be a great addition to see.

Scott Kelby posted his wish list on his blog site in August which of course got a lot of attention and enough comments were left to justify another article on the most popular feature request for Lightroom 4. He also mentioned that the Lightroom developers were listening, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the most popular features request are included.

Let's hope there's not long too wait.

Why Aren't Extended Timer Facilities Built-in to my DSLR?

2011-10-19T10:33:00.001+01:00

On the weekend whilst photographing the limestone pavement on top of Malham cove in the Yorkshire Dales I lost my remote timer switch. It was dangling from my camera and got tangled up in my tripod legs as I was moving my tripod; one of the legs closed, snapped the timer cord out of the socket on the side of the camera which then disappeared down one of the deep grykes in the limestone pavement, never to be seen again. Thankfully it wasn't an original (and very expensive) Canon TC-80N3 remote timer; my original TC-80N3 bit the dust last year when I managed to dangle it in salt water on a Scottish beach, this latest disaster was a only a considerably cheaper eBay clone.

However, this recent disaster got me thinking, why am I using a remote timer like this in the first place? I know part of its use is to isolate camera shake, but my main reason is so I can take longer exposures than the maximum of 30 seconds using the settings in the camera alone. Like a whole host of other landscape photographers I enjoy taking pre-dawn and sunrise shots, where the light levels are low and exposures times are long, often well in excess of the limiting and punitive 30 seconds maximum allowed by the camera settings. As landscape photographers we are always being told that the best light to be had is within Golden Hours, that magical time around sunrise and sunset when the sun is below or only just above the horizon and suns light takes on a wonderful, golden, warm hue as it is filtered through the low atmosphere. Are there no landscape photographers at Canon? Does no one at Canon take exposures longer than 30 seconds?

My 5D Mark II is a sophisticated beast, with way more processing power than several of my early PC's no doubt (8086 processors .. remember them?), so why do I need a clumsy, dangly, plug-in wired contraption to take long exposures. Well I don't I hear several of you say; I can just put the camera in bulb mode and time my exposure; my 5D MII even has a second counter on the LCD display on the top, but that's if I could see the dam thing. Yes well, right, but that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that surely all the functionality of the TC-80N3 remote timer could (should) be added to the Camera by a simple firmware upgrade? The processing power is surely present in-camera already, probably the software functionality too, but I somehow doubt the if willingness is there for Canon to implement these features.

If you've never used a remote timer then perhaps you've missed out. Apart from being able to set exposure times from 1 second up to an incedible 99 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds, you can set similar values for the self timer (time before the shutter is activated), the interval timer (time between exposures) and exposure count from 1 to 99 exposures, although I'm not sure why the exposure count has been limited to just 99 exposures. Thus with the TC-80N3 you can takes exposure of almost any length which is ideal if you happen to be a fan of using a 10-stop ND such as the Lee Big Stopper, low light photography at sunrise or sunset, or even astrophotography. I particularly like the ability to set the self timer to any value since if you ever tried shooting landscape with a 70-200mm zoom or any other long lens, then tripod vibration can be a big problem, so allowing a long rest period before the shutter is activated can improve sharpness considerably. God knows why you can only choose 2 or 10 seconds for this in your camera; surely we should be able to set any value?

It's funny how when every new camera is released that the makers focus (no pun intended) largely on new features rather than improving existing ones, and much has done with movie features. We seldom see major changes in firmware to change old functions. Really we shouldn't need a device like the TC-80N3 remote timer, all that functionality should be in-camera, and the most required would be a simple cable release remote cable. All this functionality would be a doddle for Canon to implement in a firmware upgrade but I get the feeling they would much rather you buy their over priced accessory. Thankfully their are many remoter timer clones to be bought on eBay and Amazon nowadays at less than a quarter of the price of an original Canon. I've tried a few and they are just as good, if perhaps not quite as good in build quality, but at a 75% saving surely sales of the originals must have plummeted.

I'd love Canon to take note but won't hold out my hopes; they seem obsessed with making our DSLR's into movie cameras these days. Some of us continue to be stills photographers!

Digital Landscape Photography by John & Barbara Gerlach

2011-10-17T16:38:00.001+01:00

Book Review

I used to buy quite a lot of photography books, too many according to my wife, but not so many these days. My recent acquisitions are mostly coffee table books from photographers I really admire and aspire to. It’s been a while since I bought anything to do with technique. That’s not to say I think I have perfected my techniques, far from it indeed, it’s just that most books in this category are firmly pitched at the novice or endless photo manipulation in Photoshop. This one I’m pleased to say that Digital Landscape Photography is a little different from the ‘norm’ and focuses on good technique and capture process in the field.
John and Barbara Gerlach have been professional US photographers for over 25 years, so they bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to this book. They are unusual in that they are a photographing couple and their Wildlife, Nature and Landscape photographs have been widely published in Nature and Photographic journals in the USA since the 1990’s. Rather, strangely (and perhaps expensively), they both use different equipment, one favouring Canon whilst the other uses Nikon equipment (I guess it’s stops fighting over lenses!), so Camera references in the book usually cover both makes and thus will appeal to both Canon and Nikon users.

The book commences with an introduction and chapter stating that landscapes are all around us and if look hard enough we’ll find interesting landscapes near where we live. All well and good if you live in certain parts of the USA (they live in Yellowstone), as the photographs within the book display, but not always the case for UK residents, well not quite as spectacular perhaps. The Gerlach’s stress the importance of revisiting a scene through different seasons of the year and under different conditions, and present a mission statement for the book to enable the reader to learn how to capture high quality, exciting, ditgital landscape images in the field.

Cameras, Accessories and Lenses Choice

Chapters 2 and 3 deal with equipment, but I guess by far the majority of readers, if not all, will have already bought their equipment, so for them there is little new here. However, if your upgrading then there is some good advice here. There is one point on which I firmly agree with the Gerlach’s, if you are a landscape photographers and like to make large prints then megapixels do count. I get fed up of journals stating the pixel count is not important, it is. An 8 MP Cameral may produce excellent A4 prints, but if you want A3 or larger then 16 or 21 MP will capture more detail and give scope to crop. These chapters briefly cover functions you may need for your digital landscape photography, such as using RGB and luminance histograms, the LCD monitors, self timers, cable release, camera custom functions and memory cards.

Chapter 3 deals with lens choice and weighs the pros and cons of professional quality glass against consumer quality. Lens choice for most amateurs is typically related to budget and target output, but believe me, once you’ve purchased your first professional quality lens, you’ll never want to settle for less. There is no free lunch with lenses. Zooms versus Primes are discussed, and the Gerlach’s now favour modern zooms over primes. They state the additional quality gained from primes is now minimal compared to modern day professional zooms, and zooms provide so much more scope in creativity and framing your shot, so are in effect, of far more use. Filters and lens protection are also mentioned, as is caring for your lenses. Good stuff for the beginner but nothing new for a seasoned amateur.

Technique

Chapters 4 and 5 are all about technique and here the book really starts to shine. Chapter 4 provides over 20 pages on Mastering Exposure, and if there was anything you were perhaps unsure on, you’ll most probably find it explained here in truly practical fashion. It starts from the basics but is beautifully and concisely explained whilst still being exceptionally readable. It explains how to use your histogram and expose to the right. One point I gleaned from here was to always check your histogram in RGB mode and not just luminance mode as you may be clipping one of the individual channels which may not be visible in the luminance histogram. What I really like about this book is that there are practical examples given where the Gerlach’s show how they take their photographs. The Gerlach’s tend to shoot in manual mode, but other methods are covered fully too.

Chapter 5 is all about getting sharp images and covers lens use, lens selection, how and where to focus, apertures, ISO and shutters speeds. Hyperfocal focusing is explained too. They explain in detail how you can benefit from just selecting a single autofocus point to selectively focus on the right part of the scene, then recompose the scene to shoot. To avoid the camera re-focusing they use a method they call ‘back-button focusing’ whereby they have re-assigned (removed) the auto-focus capability from the shutter button to one of the buttons near the eye-piece. This can generally be achieved via one of the custom functions on Nikon and Canon cameras, but is something I’ve not come across before. Thus your shutter button just sets the exposure, and you use another to focus. Quite a novel method, but I achieve the same result by selectively focusing and then temporarily switching my lens to manual focus before recomposing the scene and shooting the frame.

Light & Composition

Chapters 6, 7 and 8 are about Light and Composition, with the former dealing with the qualities of light, when to shoot, polarizers, colour settings and white balance. Surprisingly the use of split neutral-density filters are only briefly touched upon and referred to as 'old-fashioned' with the Gerlach's firmly in favour of the use of HDR techniques rather than split grads. To me this is an oversight as a set of grads is still an important part of any landscape photographers tool kit. Chapter 8 deals with shooting more unusual landscape subject such as shooting from boats and contains a good section on shooting waterfalls, and covers Autumn colours and shooting in the snow.

HDR & Panoramas

Chapter 9 is devoted to HDR, something the Gerlachs's have embraced in their landscape photography, and it deals well with how to capture an array of images for HDR processing. For processing it only covers (the 2009 version) of Photomatix Pro, so if you use other software you are left feeling short. Some nice HDR landscapes accompany a written walk through of how to process your image but it is all pretty basic and most readers may be well advised to look elsewhere for in-depth HDR advice.

Likewise Chapter 9 touches on panoramas, with good basic advice on how to select, compose and shoot but only briefly mentions stitching software.

Summary

The Gerlach's possess some considerable photographic experience to pass on to the reader but this book is firmly pitched at the beginner/intermediate photographer who wants to take their photography onto the next level. All the best techniques are well explained and nicely presented and it would be hard not to benefit from reading this book. The emphasis is firmly on capturing good images in the field and in that it excels, but if it's post rocessing your looking for then look elsewhere.

Product Details

Paperback: 216 pages
Publisher: Focal Press (1 Sep 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0240810937
ISBN-13: 978-0240810935
Dimensions: 27.9 x 21.3 x 1.3 cm

Putting in a little Effort

2011-10-12T09:45:00.001+01:00

I've just returned from an evening at my local photographic club where we were talking about various aspects of photography, noticeably new activities to get long term and new members to socialise more and activities to get us out doing more photography, which is after all what we are supposed to be doing. Unfortunately our club is a little too fixated with club competitions. At the beginning of each new season potential new recruits arrive hoping to learn more about photography, but sadly many are are scared off after a few meetings, probably by the lack of practical, hands-on advice and the heavy leaning towards these club competitions. It can all seem a little daunting to be honest and may appear rather cliquey to some new arrivals, as I remember when I joined some 5 years ago where I too had misgivings of lasting the course. Sadly, many new recruits disappear after a few meetings and are never to be seen again, but it shouldn't be that way.

Eventually our conversation arrived on the subject of getting out too take photographs and I was really surprised to learn how reluctant members were at the thought go getting up early to go out and shoot at sunrise, and their amazement at the few members that occasionally do. For me, a major part of landscape photography is all about catching a scene in the best light, so to not attempt any photography in those magic golden hours is surely sacrilege to our art?

I know that going out for a dawn shot is not always possible, practical or even perhaps the slightest bit desirable to some, but surely everyone interested in landscape photography should attempt 2 or 3 dawn shots a year. Is that too much to ask? I can almost guarantee it will pay dividends and you see an improvement in your photography. It can be inspirational, emotional and simply down right amazing, just to be in a location when the sun breaks the horizon and witness the dullest landscape transformed into something wonderful.

I've done reasonably well in my club competitions, but not because I'm particularly adept at my craft, there are other whom I deem are far better 'photographers' than I, but I do at least make an effort every once in a while to capture that magic light when it happens. I surprise to be asked if I colourise my photographs; I may boost vibrancy in my post processing, even push it a bit sometimes, but I can't add something that wasn't there already, that wasn't captured in the camera when that shutter clicked. You can accentuate something a little, as long as it's within reason, but try adding something that wasn't there to begin with and the results are never going to look truly natural, emotive or truthful to your art.

"No pain, No Gain"

I seldom go out specifically for a dawn shoot, so you may be surprised to find out that vast majority of my better landscape shots have been done whilst family holidays, typically our summer holiday in July or August which are not really considered the best time of year for landscape photography. It does results in me creeping out of our accommodation at some ungodly hour whilst the rest of my family slumbers on, blissfully unaware at what I'm up to. But you know, it pays rewards, it inspires me, gives me a sense of elation just to see nature in all it's glory in it's finest moment of the day, and if I get to capture that in my camera, then I return to the family at breakfast time with a huge grin on my face. The day has started well. It would be such a shame to travel to these lovely locations and not to make an effort to capture it in it’s best light.

We all take a holidays once in while, so why not plan to a dawn shoot on at least one occasion on your very next holiday. Make sure you know sunrise time and direction and have an up to date weather forecast, and if you are planning a coastal shoot, do find out the tide times. Check out the location the previous day if possible and note where you can park, the paths you your location, and lookout for potential tripod spots. Take your partner or a photographer buddy if possible, and make sure somebody else knows exactly where you are going. Make sure your batteries are charged, your filters cleaned, you have your mobile phone and a good flashlight with you. And last but not least get some great shots!

The autumn is here, the trees have turned, and although we get many wet, dreary, cloudy days, the autumn can also produce some of the most spectacular sunrises that we get here in the UK. What’s more, then dark mornings means that sunrise times have crept forward to more respectable times of the day, so the excuse of having to get out of bed at some ungodly hour no longer holds water. Half term is approaching and soon we’re off to the Lake District for a few days. I for one will be out early mornings to take advantage of the the sunrise, assuming of course the good old British weather is kind enough!

Go on give it a go, make the effort every once in a while.

Drobo Revisited

2011-10-07T17:31:00.001+01:00

Well it’s taken just over 2 years, 2 years 1 month to be precise, but a red light appeared on the front of my Drobo indicating that one of my hard drives had failed. In case you didn’t know the Drobo is an external storage device that houses a number of SATA hard drives sold by Data Robotics Inc. They promote the Drobo as a fail safe back-up device for your precious data, photographs,

music and videos and whatever else you may care to store. You can read my initial report when I acquired this device here if you want to find out more. I really liked the Drobo, especially as you can simply slide out a drive (hot-swap) and replace it with a larger one at any time with supposedly no loss of any data, and not even a screw driver or any fiddly screws are required. What could be simpler?

Personal Paranoia

After having several hard drives fail in a relatively short time period back then, I had become particularly paranoid about loosing some my precious data. I’d even had the RAID system on my desktop fail so after a fair bit of research had chosen a Drobo in preference to a RAID or NAS device. I furnished mine with 4 Samsung 1.5TB drives, which until now, had been pretty dam reliable. I’d never had one fail before and had chosen them for their good reputation and reliability.

Rather stupidly, I didn’t have any replacement drives on hand, and was kept reminded by the Drobo software (Drobo Dashbord) with a large red dialog box, that my data could no longer be protected until the failed drive was replaced. I rather hurriedly ordered two Seagate Barracuda 2TB drives from Amazon, which now remarkably are only about 60 quid a piece. I awaited their arrival, hoping of course that no further drive failures would occur in between. I wasn’t particularly worried though as after all my primary source of the data was spread across several HD’s within my desktop and the Drobo was, after all, used only for back-up. I did however, make a back-up of some important work and personal files onto some portable HD’s never-the-less.

Fitting the New Drive

My HD’s arrived from Amazon the next day (thank you Amazon prime!). I was a bit nervous pulling old the old drive but I shouldn’t have been. Once you’ve removed the magnetic front panel from the Drobo all you have to do is push the lever at the left and out it pops the drive then you just slide it out. You don’t even have to power down the Drobo or your PC. It’s just as simple inserting the new drive, although it’s wise to earth yourself by touching some of the metal housing on your desktop PC to discharge any static electricity before handling the new drive. You then just slot the drive in and push it firmly home. I was a little disconcerted at first as the light adjacent to the new drive turned red briefly, but soon afterwards the Drobo goes into it’s initialisation sequence and then presumably then commences spreading the data across from the remaining 3 drives. Whist all this is going on, all four lights blink alternatively amber then green and continue to do so until the drive is ready and the Drobo primed for use once again. This process is exceedingly long however, so be prepared for a very long wait. What’s more, whilst this process is on-going, the Drobo is essentially out of action and so is your back up strategy. If you think I’m exaggeration the Drobo dashboard initially came up with an estimated time of several hundred hours, although with time this decreased to more realistic values but these were days rather than weeks, but it took well over 2 days before all the lights on my Drobo turned green. I’m glad to say that despite the exceedingly long time, no ill effects were suffered and all my backed up data was intact.

Conclusion

I guess you could say “it did what it said on the tin”, in that the Drobo performed it’s task adequately and precisely when one of my drives failed and no data was lost. I guess what I just wasn’t prepared for was the time it took to get back up and running. Although to be fair, the chances of having another drive fail together with a desktop drive go down at the same time are exceeding small, there is after all that small chance. can I live with that? Absolutely. I now have more faith in the product I bought two years ago and I know it’s draw backs. Next time I’ll keep a spare hard in the cupboard.

Drobo products have moved on since my original purchase and they now offer 5-bay models which offer dual-drive failure capabilities, self-healing technologies, and much faster interfaces such as eSATA and USB 3.0. With this enhanced capability comes a significant price hike however. The basic 4-bay model like mine you can still purchase for just over £250, around what I paid 2 years ago, but for the 5-bay models with faster interfaces you are looking at £500-£600 and remember that’s without any of the hard drives. With comparable external RAID and NAS systems going from anywhere from £100-200, the Drobo still looks a tad expensive, although for me it’s ease of use and setting up far outweighs any cost discrepancies on the basic model. The software has moved on quite considerably too in the last two years. Drobo dashboard is now much easier to use, has a simpler and sleek interface and plus you can even set it up to copy files at certain times, although the latter functionality is still fairly basic. I prefer a program called SyncbackSE for that, which allows me to synchronise folders and drives based on a array user criteria, and my data gets backed up (synchronised) on a daily basis without me having to worry about it. Would I still recommend it the Drobo, absolutely yes, for me it’s still the easiest and best option out there.

Resources

Last Bite of the Apple - Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

2011-10-06T10:46:00.000+01:00

I wouldn’t normally write anything like an obituary on a photography blog but I must admit I was quite shocked to her that Steve Jobs had died during the night. I am a user Apple products however, I have a MacBook Pro (on which I’m wringing this now), an iPad and have recently acquired an iPhone, my kids have iPods and my my wife has become a bit of an iPad junky, being hooked on eBooks ever since I bought her an iPad for her birthday last year. We’re fairly recent converts to the Apple world but I wouldn’t say in any way are hard-core Apple aficionados, however it’s hard to imagine our lives without Apple now and if you don’t have an iPhone the chances are you do have a smart phone that no doubt has been modelled on what the iPhone first brought to the market.

The thing that really brought this sad event home for me was how young Jobs was. He was only 56, just two years older than me, but in his brief 56 years he’s managed to leave such a huge footprint on the modern world. He’s hailed as a visionary and he certainly had an amazing knack of knowing what would work and what wouldn’t. Take the iPad, tablets had been tried and tested before and failed miserably, but the way Apple did the tablet was just so different and so innovative it has totally changed the way we see portable computing. Now every major computer company around the globe is developing a tablet device, every major news paper, TV channel has an App, and the ‘App’ has entered our daily lexicon.

Jobs took medical leave from Apple three times, underwent surgery in 2004 and received a liver transplant in 2009, but it was only in August this year when he resigned as the Apple CEO and handed over the reins to Timothy Cook. We all knew about Jobs illness but I’m quite shocked at how little time he actually had left. Watching clips of his last Apple keynote speech on the TV this morning I realise just how thin and gaunt he looked then but he still possessed that charisma and enthusiasm in presenting the latest Apple innovations in a way in which nobody else can do. He will be a hard act to follow indeed.

Jobs certainly had his detractors and a reputation of being a real tough cookie at times. You did things the Jobs way or not at all, but with that went the Midas touch. Apple drive hard bargains too, 30% of all App purchases downloaded from the iTunes go to Apple, a big margin these days and one that the some of the newspaper publishers have found hard to swallow with several electing to go their own way. There is also that Apple arrogance too that many hate; it’s the Apple way or not at all. Look at their adamant refusal to incorporate Adobe Flash technology into iOS, their operation system on the iPhone and iPad, a technology that is already present on around 70% of the worlds website.

So what will happen to Apple now the have lost their visionary and creative leader? I can’t help but wonder. Is he irreplaceable? Undoubtedly so. Just take a look at Microsoft since Bill Gates stepped down; they have wandered aimlessly, rudderless and are now a long distant second to Apple and seemingly still in dependency. Can Apple survive? Certainly so, but can they continue to innovate and lead? I think they probably will for some time to come. Jobs legacy will continue for sometime yet.

I can still remember a day back in 1984, in an office in Sacramento, California, where I then worked as computer programmer. A large group of the company employees were all huddled around a small desk. Upon it sat one of the first Apple Macintosh computers. We’d seen nothing like it before, a windowed, graphics based, operating system, and this weird cursor-cum-pointing device … a mouse. We were all absolutely amazed at the time, now these devices are things we just take for granted and are apart of of our everyday lives.

Thank you Mr. Jobs. Rest in peace.

Mormon Row - When It All Comes Together

2011-09-05T18:22:00.001+01:00

Photo Location

You know the problem, as I’m sure I’m not the only one. You set out out on a photo-shoot to a great location, arrive in good time, get a great spot, set up you gear, and carefully compose your frame. Then by some magic of nature, that fantastic light you’d dreamed of suddenly appears and the scene before you is transformed. You snap away with merry abandon, filling up the memory card with an abundance of frames, not wanting to miss every subtle change in the light, thinking you’ve definitely bagged a winner since it looks great on the LCD. But then you get home and are hugely disappointed when you see them on your computer screen. With me it’s usually because I ’ve screwed up somehow, got something not quite right in camera, or more often than not, I didn’t get it focused sharp enough. Exposure problems can be usually recovered in RAW to some extent, but focussing errors, ugh .. you’re scuppered. Well enough of the bad tales, this is one location I didn’t screw up, and one I feel I got everything just right and at the right moment.

Mormon Row

The location, if you don’t know already is one of the Mouton Barns on Mormon Row, in Antelope Flats part of Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. It’s one of those iconic photo locations that has appeared on countless posters, books, postcards and in numerous magazines, and it's not surprising too as it really is just almost the most perfect landscape setting you can encounter. It has that amazing balance between the raw, impressive work of nature that has sculptured the jagged Teton Peaks and decaying touch of human intervention to the landscape that makes the scene so appealing.

The barns and several other buildings are all of what survives from a series of homesteads built by Mormon settlers who began to arrive from Idaho in the 1890’s. They now extrude that beautiful, natural, weathered finish on the road to decay, that now makes them seem a natural element within the landscape. Looking at the scene it’s hard to imagine that once hundreds of people lived here, as now just remnants five old homesteads remain.

There are in fact, two Moulton barns on Mormon Row, built by brothers John and Thomas Alma Moulton, but if it hadn’t been for the work of local journalist and family descendant Candy V. Moulton in the early 1990’s the barns may not have survived. Thankfully, due to her publicity bringing the plight of the barns to public attention, these iconic buildings will now be preserved by the National Park Service for future generations to see.

Getting There

Mormon Row is about 16 miles from Jackson Hole and can be easily reached driving northwards along US-191 (US-89, US-26). Allow about 25 minutes to get there. After around 14 miles turn right on to Antelope Flats Road, If your travelling out before sunrise you should just be able to make out the dark shadow of Blackrail Butte on your right, but don’t make the mistake of turning left down Blacktail Butte Road, as Antelope Flats Road is the next left after this just past the hill. Then follow Antelope Flats Road for Eastward's for 1.7 miles to the junction of Mormon Row. A link to a Google Map with directions can be found here.

There is a small gravel parking lot on the north side of the junction of Mormon Row and Antelope Flats Road, as you can’t drive along the northern stretch of Mormon Row, but from here it’s just 200 yards to John Moulton Barn along the track.

Composition & Technique

Most all of the ‘classic’ shots I’ve seen of this barn are typically taken much further back, using longer focal length lenses, probably from locations further down Antelope Flats Road. These compositions usually show very little foreground, typically placing the barn at the bottom of the photograph. They do however, have the advantage of showing much more of the mountains above the barn, and you can position your tripod so the apex of the barn roof aligns nicely under (or very slightly offset) Grand Teton peak, which at 13,770 ft is the highest peak in the Teton range. However, that was not the shot I was looking for as I prefer foreground interest, even at the risk of reducing the mountains prominence within the frame. I had visited the location the day before with my family, so had a chance to scout out a suitable spot and knew roughly where I wanted my tripod to be.

As I headed out the following morning the skies were rather cloudy, and by the time I drove past the Jackson Hole airport light rain had started to fall. Luckily, by the time I arrived in the gravel parking lot, the rain had ceased, and the dim early morning light seemed to show some nice cloud formations behind the mountains. After the rain the strong scent of sage filled the air. Thick cloud was on the eastern horizon however, which cast doubts the clouds would clear before sun up. I located a nice gravel area amongst the sage brush which formed a sort of pathway leading into into the frame. To get to this area I had to cross the stream which runs parallel to the eastern side of the track, and then walk about 10 yards further south east. By the time I’d set up another photographer arrived and began assembling a 8 x 10 large format camera nearby whilst we chatted and waited for the light. My fear was that other photographers arriving would tempted to set up right in front of the barn, spoiling our view, and it only took a few more minutes before one tried. However, after some gentle prompting we persuade him ours was the best vantage point. Several more photographers arrived soon after, but surprisingly few with tripods.

The time for sunrise came and past but the light remained flat. The clouds above the Teton’s briefly took on a slight pinkish hue, but I was beginning to think ‘golden hour’ light would not reach the barn. Slowly the tops of the Teton’s appeared in sunlight, but lacked warmth and colour. The light crept down the mountain sides, lighting the range from top to bottom but no decent light fell on the front of the barn. Then, if by magic, the clouds parted and golden, warm rays hit the face of the barn and the whole scene tool on an extra dimension. The barn glowed, almost orange in colour. It was an amazing scene which I watched and photographed till the light subsided. I was last to leave.

I used a 3 stop Lee ND hard grad (I seldom use soft grads) and found it worked best if I set the base of the grad where the top of the foreground shadow, just below the barn. When the intensity of the golden light began to fade I switched to a 2 stop. A polarizer did help a little too. My photographs were later processed in Adobe Lightroom where I further darkened the blues in the sky, lightened the foreground slightly, and made adjustments to the tone curve, contrast, and clarity. I was really pleased with the results.

Time & Season

I made my shot in late July, but I’ve read June is very good. Bear in mind this area spends a large part of the year under snow, and in the winter Antelope Flats Road is only ploughed for the first mile to a parking turnout, the rest being closed till May. I’ve also see some great Autumn shots, especially the southern barn which has a row of trees nearby where you can catch some of the fall colour. The barns face eastwards so both are great sunrise locations, the best time just when the sun clears the mountains behind and lights up the Teton’s and the face of the barns. Generally the closer to sunrise you capture these, the better that orange glow on the front of the barns is going to be. In my case I had to wait for the sun to break through, but I loved the shots where the sun just started to catch the tips of some of the foreground sagebrush, but that won’t last long. If you’re really lucky you may even get some Bison in your scene too as they roam freely around this area of the park.

Locations Nearby

Schwabacher Landing down by the Green River is not far away, where you can get some great reflections of the Tetons at the river bend and in the beaver ponds nearby. Oxbow Bend, another great sunrise spot is just 22 miles to the north on US-191.

Resources

Monkey in The Eye

2011-09-02T10:30:00.001+01:00

Published Photograph

It’s always nice to get some recognition when you are a photographer, especially as an amateur like myself, so it was with great pleasure that I found out that one of my pictures had been selected for the cover page of August-September edition of The Eye Magazine. The Eye is a free bi-monthly magazine published in Uganda where I have been working and is an insiders guide to touring and travel in Uganda. You can generally find free copies in all the major hotels and on the major airlines travelling there, so it has quite an extensive circulation within the country. The Eye Magazine contains directories, maps, reviews, tour and travel information and articles of interest about Uganda. In fact it is invaluable resource for any visitor travelling there as it contains an invaluable array of information on hospitals to hotels, shops to sporting events and from embassies to entertainment. If there’s anything happening or things you need to see in Uganda it’s most probably going to be in The Eye.

The picture used is that of a young Vervet monkey and above is a montage of the various colour schemes they tried before deciding on the purple in centre of the bottom row. To be honest they all look good to me, but darker border suite the picture well. I’ve yet to see the printed copy, but hopefully they will have kept a couple of issues for me. A copy of the original photo is below.

If you ever do get to Uganda (a fabulous place, especially for seeing wildlife) be sure to check your copy of The Eye Magazine in your hotel, it really is a good little magazine.

A Visit to the Rodney Lough Jr. Gallery in San Francisco

2011-08-19T15:20:00.001+01:00

Editorial

America loves photographers. They seem so much more appreciated than photographers within the UK and photography there is truly accepted as an art form and also one that is highly collectable too. I’m not talking about fashion or news photography here either, I’m referring to landscape photography. If you had to name a selection of so called big name landscape photographers from the UK, then I’m sure Joe Cornish, Charlie Waite, and people like David Noton may come to mind, but I bet none of them come anyway close to reaping the type of financial rewards that of some of the big name American landscape photographers are able to command. For a select few, landscape photography in the USA is big, big business. Sure it’s highly commercial, and the USA is a huge market compared to the UK, and lets face it, they have so many dramatic, spectacular landscapes to photograph too. It seems everything in America is bigger and that goes for the galleries too.

My first experience of one of these big name landscape photographers was when I visited the Peter Lik gallery in Las Vegas whilst on holiday there a couple of years ago. Surprisingly Lik is an Australian, although his main market for pictures is within US as is a large proportion of his subject matter. He comes across as a bit like the “Crocodile Dundee” of the photography world and video clips on his website portray him running around the wilderness in shirts with torn off sleeves. It’s all rather Hollywood, very commercial and a tad unbelievable but he reputedly sold one picture for a million dollars in 2010 so it certainly pays. Can you ever imagine a Joe Cornish image ever going for that?

San Francisco Gallery

Just recently I had the chance to visit the Rodney Lough Jr. Galley in San Francisco, which opened on August the 6th this year. Rodney Lough Jr.,is another big name, commercial, landscape photographer in the US who’s gallery presence is expanding. His pictures are stunning, if perhaps a tad over saturated to the English taste (a trait rather common amongst the American photographic fraternity). The gallery however, which is one of several now, is mightily impressive too and contains a vast array of beautifully presented, stunning photographs, some of which are presented as absolutely huge prints. Many are panoramas some of which must be 8 or 9 feet wide, and would make a commanding presence on any wall. I was informed that these are printed on Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper which, under the discrete overhead halogen lighting, makes the pictures positively glow set against the black gallery walls, so much in fact some you’d swear they were back lit. No matter what your taste in pictures you can't help be but impressed by some (if not most) of Mr. Lough’s collection of photographs.

Photographic Repertoire

His repertoire comprises the great American wilderness, and many of his shots are the classic scenes that adorn many books and walls of countless other galleries, and include images of Yellowstone’s Mammoth Hot Springs, Grand Tetons, Mesa Arch in Canyonlands, Antelope Canyon, the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and so on. However, what makes Rodney Lough just that little bit different, is that he does try to make his views unique and every one of his images are just about as perfectly composed as you can get. His panoramic shot of the Mesa Arch sunrise demonstrates this perfectly where he omits (crops?) the foreground cliff edge from the frame and creates a panoramic view of the arch that I’d not seen before and found most appealing. This perhaps, was my favourite of all his pictures, but I guess that may be because it’s one location I’m pretty familiar with and have shot myself. There are many other panoramas and one other shot that caught my eye was a foggy scene of an old weathered, leaning outhouse, taken amongst the grassland in Square Top Mountain National Forest, Montana, entitled “Can You Spare a Square”. It was so sharp you can literally see every blade of grass. He does profess to venture deeper into the wilderness than most other photographers do, and his YouTube video here portrays him as a “Modern day explorer and photographer”. While that moniker may be a leaf out the Peter Lik style of marketing, it would certainly seem that he works hard for his art. If you like the great American wilderness, which I do immensely, then you’ll enjoy his pictures.

Equipment & Print Quality

Rodney shoots large format using an 8 x 10 Arca-Swiss line camera, with either a 150mm f/5.6 Schneider or a Super-Symmar XL lens or a Fujinon 300mm F5.6 lens. The large format certainly captures an extraordinary amount of fine detail which can be seem in his photographs. In some cases the pictures were shot with a P65 Phase-One digital back, but I wasn’t able to find out how his panoramic shots were done, and whether they have been either cropped from 8 x 10’s or stitched. The gallery assistant told me that the pictures are largely untouched, and not ‘photoshopped’, but that was clearly not the case in some. As I mentioned above, many are over saturated to the point of looking slightly unnatural, but I guess at the end of the day this is just a matter of personal taste, and this look certainly seems to be the ‘norm’ and popular amongst USA landscape photographers, and something I have laso been quilty of doing myself. One or two of the pictures were a tad over sharpened too, and just look too detailed. On close inspection clear, fine, bright halo’s around some mountain skyline edges could be seen; his shot of Kings Canyon NP, California being one of them, or though to be perfectly honest you’d never ever notice this from any reasonable viewing distance, but you just know how we other photographers like to be pixel peepers. I just couldn’t resist looking real close.

To Buy or Not?

I was told by one of the gallery assistants that Rodney Lough is an old acquaintance of Peter Lik, and without doubt he has taken a page out of his book and is following similar footsteps with the big, expensive, high profile galleries. I can’t see that approach ever being successful within the UK and even in the US it must be a huge financial undertaking. That sort of real estate in prime tourist territory near the famous Pier 39 of the San Francisco wharf area and the gallery conversion must have cost millions. However, no doubt once you’ve made your name it can potentially reap a huge financial reward too. As you’d expect his pictures, which are generally limited editions of 500, don't come cheap either, starting at around $1000 for a small print, and going up to well over 8 or 9 times that amount for much larger framed prints. One wonders who just can afford these, certainly not the casual tourist like me of whom the majority of the visitors appeared to be. Then again, Americans, certainly wealthy ones (and of those no doubt there are quite a few), seem much more liable to invest large sums for what to they may deem highly collectable and desirable items than us frugal Brits. You’d also need a pretty big house or office with capacious wall space to be able to hang such prints, and most Brits do not posses such wall space, whereas the much bigger American properties are much more suited to large works of art. The prices were well out of my league, although several pictures I admired immensely, but I would perhaps would be tempted by a book; sadly there were none to buy.

If you have any interest in American landscape photography or even just photography and are visiting San Francisco, then the Rodney Lough Gallery is well worth a visit. For me it was one of the more interesting attractions near Pier 39, and one I found most inspiring, but then again I'm a photographer too.

Location

The Rodney Lough Gallery, One Jefferson Street, San Francisco, CA 94965.

Telephone: toll free at (877) 274-3739 or at (415) 399-9959.

Resources

When Lightning Strikes

2011-06-14T11:19:00.000+01:00

Equipment Review

I've often admired some amazing photographs of lightning and although I've read plenty on the technique of how to achieve such shots I've never had any success myself. All my attempts have been a complete disaster even when I've know the shutter was open when the lightning flashed.

It seems the generally accepted technique is to put the shutter speed on Bulb and leave it open for a certain length of time. Of course it goes without saying that you need to have your camera securely mounted on a sturdy tripod and use use a cable release too. However, even after that, picking the right exposure can be tricky depending whether your shooting in the day or night and knowing where to focus can be problematic too, especially if it's dusk or night and you have some foreground interest too. Many of the shots you see online are purely of the lightning, but as landscape photographers we wish to incorporate other aspects of the landscape within our composition, not just the lightning.

The Lightning Trigger

About a couple of years ago I became aware of a device called the 'Lightning Trigger' made by a company called Stepping Stone Products, LLC in Colorado. Thisfirst came to my attention while watching Steve Kossaks DVD on Death Valley. Steve also posted a review of the Lightning Trigger on the Luminous Landscape web site which can be viewed here. The Lightning Trigger is a small rectangular shaped device, rather similar in size to one of those portable 2-1/2" hard drives, that slots onto the hotshoe of your DSLR and has a cable that plugs into the remote cable socket. It comprises a sensitive optical flash sensor that responds to lightning flashes which it can supposedly detect at distances of up to 20 miles away in day light and 40 miles at night. Often our eyes and brain can only visualise a single flash of a lightning strike, but each strikes can last several hundred milliseconds and comprise multiple strikes occurring around 40 milliseconds apart. The Lightning Trigger depends on this and reacts to the first strike and opens the shutter enabling following strikes to be captured. All this depends on the reaction speed of the device and how quickly your camera responds, but most cameras react within 90 milliseconds and some are almost instantaneous.

I must admit I was sorely tempted by such a device as I have been travelling backwards and forwards to the Lake Albert region of Uganda for the last 4 years, and where we are often treated to spectacular storms during the rainy season. However at $329 and only available from the US, by the time I'd paid VAT and import tax this would be a very expensive purchase indeed. My desires to own such a device were therefore put on hold.

The AEO Lightning Strike

Just over a year ago I found a very similar device available on eBay called the AEO Lightning Strike. This was developed by a father and son team of the Adams Electo-Optics Photo Company and for all intents and purposes seemed almost identical to the Stepping Stone Lightning Trigger. Once more, it was considerable cheaper at only $100, which included shipping to the UK. At just over 60 quid at the time I thought this was worth a punt and duly clicked the buy-now button. It arrived reasonable well packaged several days later in a plain brown box containing just the Lightning Strike and one printed page of rather brief instructions. The device was rather plain simple looking affair, housed in a solid black plastic case, with a large on-off button in the centre of the top, with a small red LCD next to it. You have to order a device specific to your camera, so the 8-inch lead on mine had a canon fitting. I wouldn’t say the device looked crude, a little unrefined is perhaps a fairer description, as the remote socket plug doesn’t look the best quality, but with a bit of wiggling around it fits. It’s certainly a solid construction however. The underside has a plastic hotshoe fitting centrally mounted and a cover that houses a 9v rectangular battery compartment. The front a has red plastic screen housing the detector.

First Attempts

That was last May (2010) and sadly until then the Lightning Strike has sat in my Camera bag waiting for an opportunity to use it. Sadly no storms of note occurred around my home back in the UK, but last night in Uganda, the Lightning Strike was christened. A huge storm passed nearby the rig I have been working on and the distant lightning seemed too perfect to resist. The instructions included with my device suggested using shutter priority and exposure from 1/8 to 1/4 of a second, set to manual focus and focus at infinity. However, I had the rig in my foreground so focused on that, and set the speed to 1/4. However, that resulted in most of my shots being shot wide open at F2.8, which although resulted in the derrick being sharp, the lightning in the distances was rendered a little soft. However, the device worked pretty dam well and I have to say I’m impressed with my first attempts. Next time I’ll try aperture priority and use F8 or F11 if I have something in the foreground. You don’t really have to be worried how long your exposure is going to be as long as you don’t exceed the 30 second limit for Av and Tv modes.

New Models

The AEO Lightning Strike is now only available in version II, which has had a bit of a make-over since my version, and includes a battery and you can fit optional plug-in cables. Sadly with the improvements has come a price hike and it’s now $132; quite a bit more expensive but looking at the many videos on You Tube it’s certainly appears to be a more refined product. The company has obviously met with some success and they now offer 2 additional models, one which includes a pelican case and manual override of sensitivity (LS Trigger Plus), and a professional model (AEO Multi-Trigger Pro) which includes a 10m motion sensor. The aren’t cheap however, and currently retail for $232 and $360 respectively so are probably only for professional storm chasers!

Alternatives

A similar device called the Strike Finder can be purchased from here, which currently retails at around $125. The site also includes a nice video of you the trigger in action in a real storm and the results it produces. There is also the PatchMaster Lightning Trigger that can be obtained from a mere $107, and they also do a version which includes a sound trigger for $152. PatchMaster products seems to originate from Turkey and I did find a few negative reviews around where they have been dead-on-arrival, but at that price they certainly seem worth a try.

Summary

I’m very pleased with my AEO Lightning Strike trigger. It works well and my first attempts are quite pleasing. It’s opened up another area of photography for me to pursue and will hold a regular place in my camera backpack from now on. If I had anything to criticize or to say to the makers of these devices it’s the batteries, 9v batteries are an awkward size, and not one we photographers tend to carry around in out kit bags, 4 x AA would be a much better option, but I guess that would take some design changes. All in all there certainly appears to be more choice of lightning triggers around now, making this a more affordable option for the amateur photographer.

Resources

How to Remove Microsoft’s IE9

2011-05-21T12:00:00.001+01:00

Software Help

If like me you haven’t taken to Microsoft's latest incarnation (some may say abomination) of Windows Internet Explorer, the new Version 9 (IE9), then this is how I managed to remove it and restore Version 8 (IE8) to my system. Please bear in mind I’m using s Windows 7 64-bit system and what follows worked for me.

Most software is normally removed via the the Control Panel through Uninstall or Change a Program. However, Microsoft seldom seem to place their own software there now and it is often rather confusing to find out where to remove it. If like me you installed IE9 via a Windows Update then you have to access Windows Update to remove it. This will restore your previous version of IE that it replaced.

Selection the Windows Update icon from your control panel and then click on Installed Updates which will be displayed at the bottom of left-hand panel under See Also. If you have the category view enabled you’ll have to select System & Security first, then View System Updates under the Windows Update section.
Scroll down the list of Updates until you find the section entitled Microsoft Windows and you should see the Windows Internet Explorer 9 listed. Highlight this item and then click Uninstall in the header bar above the listings. This will initiate the removal procedure and restore your previously installed browser.
You will probably be required to re-boot and then hey presto, your friendly IE8 will be restored.

I’ve checked this a couple of times now and it’s worked OK both times. I hope it helps for you.

Yet Another Microsoft Blunder .. IE9

2011-05-18T10:50:00.001+01:00

Browser Upgrade?

I’ve vented my frustration at Microsoft’s upgrades in the past and I should have know better but a couple of days ago I fell into the “Critical Update” bucket and before I realised what I’d done Windows 7 had launched itself into an upgrade of Internet Explorer from version 8 to to 9. I did think about halting it in mid installation, but rather stupidly thought I could simply uninstall it later if I don’t like. What a fool!.

Yes, good old Microsoft have done it again, F****d with the user interface yet again. Pardon for the expletives, but I am really that angry, one for me being so stupid to think it might actually be better, and two, for Microsoft for being so bloody arrogant and changing the interface we’ve gotten used to yet again. I still can’t get over the dreadful ribbon interface implementation in office 2007 and not having the choice.

Microsoft say it’s been designed with a ‘clean’ interface to let the web shine, duh! Where have my bloody menu’s gone, why have they suddenly switched the favourites from the left to the right side, and putting the page tabs on the same line as the address bar is just plain ugly. What’s happen to those basic rules of a good GUI, that you keep things consistent for the user, not make every program look different. The tabs within the favourites folder still retain the nice rounded corners that reflect the Windows 7 look, yet the new page tabs next to the address bad are square and ugly and just don’t seem to fit. It makes you wonder just who at MS designs these; obviously a different bunch of Muppets from the last time..

Just Google and see how many hits you get of people trying to find out how to get their IE menu bar back and move the favourites folder back to the left side. And they have too, since you’ll not find it out from Microsoft or from within EI9. Sorry Microsoft but that’s diabolical. I had to download a registry patch to get my menu bar back.

However, the most frustrating thing so far of IE9 is when you down load a file. It has now copied the rather restrictive idea from Apple that everything is now downloaded to a ‘downloads’ folder by default. Gone is the standard download dialog box which has been a replaced by a more awkward-to-use notification bar which just doesn’t seem to fit with the normal windows GUI. Sorry MS but I want to specify where my files are saved at download time, not later. Sure you can ‘Save As’ to a folder of your choice, but that now takes several more mouse clicks, and then you don’t have the option to open up the folder or run the file when the download is completed, you’ll have to open up explorer and navigate to the file .. bonkers. If your download is an EXE file you have jump through several more hoops to be allowed to run it. Come on MS, why on earth make things more difficult?

No matter how many improvements may be built under the hood in the new IE9, altering the user interface without giving the user the option of retaining their old familiar interface is simply unforgivable.

Now if anybody knows where I can still get a copy of IE8 please, please. please, send me the link!

Update … Several days Later.

I have had a few more days to play around with EI9. The more I play with this incarnation of IE the more frustrating I find the interface changes. In IE8 there was a neat little drop down menu next to the home button, which when clicked presented the user with quick access to any of your home pages (tabs), and the ability to add, delete or modify your home pages easily. This is now gone. I really thought new versions were supposed to add MORE functionality not less, or have I missed something here? This function has now been moved to the home button on the Command bar toolbar, which by default is not displayed. The more I delve into this so called upgrade the more it seems like a downgrade to me. What on earth were MS thinking?

I’ve been a long time fan of MS IE browser, although I know many have migrated to Firefox. I guess it’s time to check out the competition.

Drilling Into Success by Robert Combden

2011-03-15T10:41:00.001Z

Book Publication

Many of you who read my blog may not know but I’ve been employed within the oil industry most of my life. This has included a substantial amount of time working on drilling rigs both offshore and onshore. Many of my photographic opportunities then, have been in and around the drilling locations where I have worked in, and through time I’ve amassed a fair collection of industrial related photographs too.

One of these pictures has been used for a book cover that has just been published. The book is entitled Drilling Into Success which is by Robert Combden. Robert hails from North-eastern, Newfoundland and who like me, has spent most of his life working on drilling rigs. The book details his life as a rig hand and contains anecdotal tales and stories of his life within the oil patch and is written to bring a fuller understanding of the processes of drilling a well and what life is really like on an oil rig.

Robert’s book is available in Chapters, Coles and Indigo stores in Edmonton, Alberta, and Costo, Chapters and Coles in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

As for the picture, well it’s quite an old one, being of late 2004 vintage and around the start of my rekindled interest in serious photography. It was taken with a Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2, which some may remember as an 8 megapixel, fixed lens, bridge camera. It had a 7 times optical zoom lens with the equivalent of a 28-200mm focal length, an electronic viewfinder and a fold-out rear 1.8-inch rear LCD screen. 8 megapixels was a pretty formidable specification back then, but these days you can get that on a phone. Never-the-less I got achieved some pleasing images with the A2 at the time, although the files were pretty noisy by today's standards. It wasn't long however, before I was smitten by the lure of a Canon 20D and even that seems somewhat old fashioned now.

Apple Announces the iPad 2

2011-03-03T09:37:00.001Z

New Product

Yesterday Apple announced the imminent arrival of the new iPad 2, scheduled to commence selling at 5.00pm on the 11th March in US Apple stores. A successor to the much hailed original iPad which, when released in April 2010, brought about a paradigm shift in the world of portable computing. Pad devices seem the de rigueur device at present, with seemingly almost every computer manufacturer and then some releasing iPad clones, albeit most running Google’s free and much heralded Android operating system.
It’s is with no doubt then, that the industry must have waited for yesterdays announcement with bated breath to see how far Apple has moved the goal posts. Well, if you listen hard, you can probably hear the Apple iPad competitors let out a huge sigh of relief, as the shift is not that far.

New Specifications

The new iPad is 33% thinner, 15% lighter, comes in a white version as well as the previous black, and has front and rear cameras for Apples FaceTime face to face video calling. Apart from being thinner, It’s the same dimensions however and features the same 9.7-inch LED display and bezel. It does feature a much faster, dual core A5 processor providing Apple say, 9 times faster graphics, and enhanced video processing but still allowing 10 hours battery time. Rather disappointingly it does not come with any increased RAM capacity, with the choice remaining at 16gb, 32gb and 64gb as before. Sadly their are no change to the ports either, still no USB connection or SD card slot. although it does appear the Screen Rotation lock button may be re-enabled after all the fuss when it’s functionality was changed to a mute switch as part of the iOS 4.2 software upgrade. Apple plan to release a rather nifty Smart Cover which attaches magnetically, wakes up your iPad when opened and even folds back to make a stand; it does however, cost $39, so you can guess it will be near £39 for us Brits. The price of the iPad 2 in the US will remain the same as the original iPad so hopefully the same will hold true when the iPad 2 goes on sale within the UK.

For Photographers

If you’d thought the iPad has no use for the budding photographer, then you’d be wrong. It makes an ideal back-up device in the field and is an ideal RAW file viewer, which clearly put devices like the now defunct Epson P-4000 Multimedia storage view and all alike to some considerable shame. If you’re in any doubt of this please read Doug Chimney's excellent article on The iPad for Photographers here. Doug uses his on all his workshops.
There are already many good photography Apps for the iPad, such as the Photographers Ephemeris, Golden Hour, and several Depth of Field calculators, and some great eBooks from Craft&Vision. However, the vast majority of so-called photography Apps currently available for download , have to be said, tend to be on the gimmicky side. Apple had pre-announced that they would be developing a high-end photography App for the iPad 2 and with the much faster graphics processor on-board this does give significant scope now for developers. Sadly, all Apple announced yesterday was an enhanced version of the fun, comic App, Photo Booth, so hopefully that wasn’t it and we can look forward to seeing some high-end RAW file processors making their way onto the iPad 2 in the near future.

Upgrade or Not?

I love my iPad. It’s a terrific little device, and one I use more than ever for internet browsing and reading, as well as music, movies and videos. It’s great for travel especially if you spend as much time on long haul flights as I do. I have all my PDF camera manuals and many photography eBooks on mine. I also use it for business and note taking.
Will I upgrade. I doubt it. FaceTime may be a big thing for many, but has no appeal for me, and it remains to be seen how good the camera is. More processing power is always welcome, but until I see some Apps using that, then I think many may wait. What I really was hankering after didn’t happen, increased RAM options, and the ability to add memory via an SD or micro SD card. I guess I’ll just have to see what the iPad 3 will bring?

Online Resources

UK Club Photography Circuit Judges

2011-02-24T10:05:00.001Z

Editorial

Several years ago I was persuaded to join a local photographic club. My interest in photography had been rekindled and with the spread of evermore competent digital SLR cameras and I was keen to learn and improve my photographic skills. This then, seemed like an ideal opportunity and a chance to meet some like minded souls and some highly experienced ones at that.

I was more than a smidgen dismayed however to find out that the whole UK camera club community is focused (no pun intended!) around seasonal photographic competitions between members, local clubs and other clubs within the region. In fact I found out that there was a whole plethora of awards a club photographers could attain from various photographic institutions such as the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain, Associate of British Professional Photographers, British Photographic Exhibitions and the International Federation of Photographic Art. If one becomes sufficiently proficient and gains a certain number of photographic acceptances to any of these institutions a photographer may become entitled to add letters after their name such as ABPPA, BPE1, AFIAP, CPAGP, which I must admit I still find more than a tad bizarre. I hold a B.Sc. but don’t think I’ve once ever written my name John Birch B.Sc. in over 34 years since I graduated.

Never the less, I too became engrossed within the club competition psyche, and have enjoyed a certain amount of success within my local club. The competitions certainly provided a good platform to see one’s work compared to others, and in particular provided inspiration from other members submissions. In that respect I have to say that I have learnt a great deal and that has been reflected in what I consider a to be a marked improvement in my personal photography.

The competitions are judged by a seemingly select number of club circuit judges who tour clubs within their region or other parts of the country and award marks out of 20 for each print, slide or digitally projected image. The general rule is that if your pictures regularly attain a mark of 15 or over your photography would be considered to be advanced, below that and you would be categorised as a beginner or of an intermediate stage. New members commence within the lover categories but may attain promotion to the advanced status if they average 15 or above. However, all the pictures are generally judged together by the visiting judge.

Now without sounding too ageist, it would be fair to say that the majority of circuit judges are of the ‘grey-haired’ variety. With that comes a substantial wealth of photographic experience of course, and through listening to their comments, both critical and complementary, I have gleaned a significant amount of information on the art of photographic composition. I would imagine that the vast majority, if not all of these judges, have grown up from the era of film, slide and dark room photography, and of which they possess invaluable knowledge. However, what has become increasingly apparent to me, and is of real concern, is that they are still somewhat naive in the art of digital photography. By this I specifically mean how image files are processed through software like Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture and the like.

I obviously don’t mean that this applies to all judges, as some are well versed in digital processing techniques. However, I have become increasing dismayed by the inability of some judges to recognise poorly processed images, vastly over-sharpened images, HDR images and composites. To me most of these images stick out like a sore thumb, and anybody who has a modicum of Photoshop ACR skills can spot many of these traits a mile off. Yet many judges are talking about these images as if they were take on film, had received no processing what-so-ever and had come straight from the camera. Before you criticise my comments I don’t have any problems with processed images, composites or HDR, it’s just the judges blatant inability to recognise these that I find most worrying.

This seasons judging I find has been particularly poor at my local camera club, so much in fact that I have become quite disillusioned with the competition ethic. I know judges have their favoured styles, locations and scenes, which will always gain advantageous scores. I can put up with a certain amount of that, but’s it’s when some exceptionally good photographs get marked down (and I don’t mean mine) and some poorly processed, over-process or technically poor photographs gain marks that they are not worthy of, that I sometimes find hard to fathom.

You may think there’s a touch of sour grapes about this, but I want to ensure that is not the case. Photography is evolving at a rate that has never been witnessed before with cameras, lenses and software all rapidly changing. Club photography needs to move and adapt with the times or it is very soon going to become out-dated. If club photographic competitions are to continue the world of judging very much needs to come of age too .. something I feel it is currently struggling to do.

Benro C-298 Carbon Fibre Tripod

2011-02-21T21:26:00.001Z

Equipment Review & Retrospective

Reviewing a tripod nearly 5 years old may seem that I’ve missed the boat somewhat, but there’s a message to this story …

Back in October 2006 I purchased what I thought was my first professional quality tripod. Up until then I’d survived using a Manfrotto (Bogen) 190 Pro B aluminium tripod which, although adequate, I’d found weighty and not particularly stable, with the metal centre column being quite prone to vibration and an elastic wobble. This hampered the use of a large or heavy lenses and was especially prevalent under windy conditions. I also wanted a lighter, more compact tripod I could take on my travels. Carbon fibre tripods were the current rage then and the monthly periodicals and photo journals were festooned with articles praising their virtues which seemed to offer increased stability at a significantly lower weight. They also looked real cool! Like everyone else I aspired to owning one and had thought my photography had become sufficiently proficient to warrant the acquisition of such as tripod. Unfortunately my pockets did not run deep enough to afford the Rolls-Royce of the tripod world, those exceedingly expensive Gitzo tripods. There is an old adage saying that “you get what you pay for” and I’ll return to this later, however with limited funds, and after much online research and price searching, I bought a Benro C-298 carbon fibre tripod for £228.99 on eBay.

Why Benro you may ask? Well, they had more than a striking resemblance to Gitzo range of tripods, had that classy, grey, gun-metal finish like the Gitzo’s, looked very professional in the online photographs, and hey, even the name even sounds similar. In fact I read they were practically identical and were actually made from the very same Gitzo blueprints. Rumour had it that Gitzo had been lining up to outsource some of its manufacturing and had agreed a deal with a Chinese manufacturer in Guangzhou. Whilst they were in the process of setting up the factory, unbeknownst to them, their so called partner was setting up their own factory behind their backs and producing almost exact Gitzo copies which soon started appearing on the Chinese market. Gitzo pulled out but Benro gradually crept onto the tripod scene. I don’t know how much truth is in this story, but China’s blatant disregard for intellectual copyright is well known, so who knows, and for quite some time Benro tripods were only available online and on action sites like eBay. Even now they won’t ship to France or Italy so perhaps the story holds some element of truth. So, worth a punt perhaps, a Gitzo at a Manfrotto price? Well that’s what I was hoping for.

First Impressions

First impressions were remarkably good. The Benro C-298 tripod was well packaged, appeared very professional and quite well equipped. The tripod has 4 section carbon fibre legs, is lightweight and compact. It also has a multi-function centre column which you can pull up and clamp at various angles without having to remove it. It seemed well constructed, reasonably well finished (although there was some roughness to the finish of the carbon fibre visible at the base of some leg sections), and it came with a good quality bag, extra spike feet and a comprehensive tool kit. It even had a compass and a bubble level. Good value then? It certainly seemed so.

Field Use

The Benro performed quite well in the field. It was reasonably sturdy, much more so than my previous Manfrotto. The legs work just like the Gitzo model, where pulling out the Angle Adjustment Sliding Lock (Benro terminology, Sliding Stops in Gitzo language) at the top of each leg section allows the leg to set in 3 different positions, and although these could be a bit fiddly, the widest setting does allow the tripod to get pretty low down if necessary. The rubber twist locks on the legs seemed to work quite well, although I soon found working on beaches that these began to grate with sand, especially the lower ones, and required regular cleaning. The multifunction centre column I found to have it’s drawbacks however. Whilst seemingly a great idea, the metal bracket that clamps the centre arm into different positions by it’s very nature provides some elasticity and I found that with the arm fully extended with a head and camera attached, it was exceptionally prone to vibration. You could just slightly knock your camera (even pressing the shutter would do this) and the centre column would vibrate providing a resonance that not even my IS lenses could cope with. The way around this of course, was to use a cable release, mirror lock up and allow a lengthy period of time to allow the vibrations to damp down, but even doing this still resulted ion a number of un-sharp image captures. I also found this procedure quite prohibitive to my style of photography and eventually seldom used the centre column extended at an angle. Likewise I also had slight vibration problems with the centre column extended in the fully vertical position, but this is well documented problem common to almost all tripods with centre columns and not something exclusive to this particular Benro. In most other aspects the the tripod performed admirably for quite some time, providing you took care of the caveats listed above. I used it some quite harsh environments too, most noticeably in the deserts in Oman and UAE of the Middle East and for a while it was a regular component of my travel bag.

Maintenance

As I mentioned above, sand posed a problem to the threads under the rubber twist locks. At first I was unsure how to clean these as I’d been advised that they just needed unscrewing, wiping and washing down with water. However, I also noticed the white nylon bushings were beginning to show signs of wear too. Luckily (and the only time I’ve know them to be there), Benro had a stand at the Focus on Imaging show at the Birmingham NEC in 2008 where I was able to ask one of their Chinese representatives how to clean the leg joints. He said just to grease them which is what I did and which seemed to improve things for a while. Apart from that just regular cleaning seemed to work and a good wash down if the tripod had been in salt water. I did notice the rubber feet have a tendency to become loose and gradually unscrew, so you have to keep an eye on those if you don’t want to loose one, but that’s common to many tripods.

Failure & Repair

In the summer of 2008 I began to have problems with one of the legs. The uppermost joint began to become stiff and didn’t slide in and out as easily as it had done before. When I took it apart I found the white nylon bushings to be heavily worn, the largest of which had split into two parts and had completely worn away around the edges, so much so in fact, that it hardly resembled the part from the manual. The largest bushing is the one that allows the legs section to move back and forth and stop the leg rotating. I cleaned this up as best as possibly but after a few days the leg became inoperable and the joint would not move in and out without force. In other words the tripod was rendered unusable. I inspected the other leg joints and all the uppermost sections revealed a high degree of wear/deterioration in the nylon bushings and this after only a couple of years of use. Now I was stuck, without a usable tripod, and regretting my decision to buy a cheap Chinese tripod. This time however, I bit the bullet and ordered a Gitzo.

The trouble was, having a Chinese tripod there was no way of getting this repaired in the UK or acquiring replacement parts. Plus I’d bought it on eBay so there wasn’t any prospect or returning it to the supplier. The Benro web site at that time too, was far from helpful, so I gave it up as a bad job and mothballed the Benro. Then early last year I read that Kenro (who had no prior connection to Benro what-so-ever despite the similar name) had become the UK distributor for Benro tripods. I called them but was told that parts and service had not been set up just yet but could I call back in a few months. It was not until September, 6 months later, before I managed to get a positive answer from Kenro that yes they could supply Benro parts. Several emails pursued before it was determined that I need to send the tripod in. Eventually I was informed that the damage to the anti-twist bushing was due to a split on the inside of the uppermost carbon fibre leg section and that this, and all the bushings would need to be replaced at a cost of £64.70 plus VAT. They didn’t stock these parts so would have to wait for spares from China. I paid up front and awaited their response.

About a month later I received my repaired tripod. All looked OK. There was a complete new top section to one leg (which included the bit where it attached to the tripod) and and the leg extended without problems. However when I put up the tripod it appeared to be leaning slightly off-vertical. At first I though I’d not extended one of the leg sections fully, but all were fully extended. Then I noticed the plastic sliding stop (that you pull to adjust the leg angle) on the replaced section was ever-so-slightly bigger than the remaining two, causing the new leg not to open as fully as the other two. I called Kenro to explain and then tripod was sent back only for me to be later informed Benro no longer had any spares to fit my particular model, thus this problem could not be fixed. Kenro refunded my money, but now I’m left with a rather odd tripod. One with a limp!

Ending Note

The C-298 tripod is still available from Benro, albeit under a slightly different guise. It’s now called the Benro C-2980F Vesatile Transformer tripod. It has a slightly different type of carbon fibre (apparently), has leg clamps instead of twist locks, gone is the gun-metal Gitzo-like finish in favour of a sleek, modern, black finish, but for all intents and purposes it’s the same beast. I wonder if the bushings are the same inside? These days Benro has almost acquired an air of respectability. You can but them on Amazon, eBay as always, and recently they have appeared at WarehouseExpress. They learn quick the Chinese. They may poach ideas, but boy are they a quick to adapt them and call them their own. There is also another make of Chinese tripod around now too. You may have come across them advertised in the American press, Induro. Sound familiar, well yes, they are Benro tripods with a different label.

Does this put me off Benro tripods, knowing that service, parts and repairs may be difficult to get? Well you may be just a tad surprised to hear I’ve bought another. But this one is a cheap tripod I’m using whilst working out in Africa. I bought it in Dubai for around £75. It’s nothing special, but adequate, but at that price I won’t care if it breaks, gets lost, or eventually drops to bits. I know it won’t last.

Nowadays I use a Gitzo GT-3541-LS systematic tripod for the majority of my photography/ It’s not been without it’s problems, however, whilst significantly more expensive, it is in a different league from the Benro, much more stable and is a joy to use. If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have saved up and bought a Gitzo first time around, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Just remember … “you get what you pay for”

Blogger Labels: Benro,Carbon Fibre,Tripod,Manfrotto,Bogen,Photography,Gitzo,Repair,Kenro,Repairs

New Look to my Photography Blog

2011-02-19T19:44:00.001Z

Time for a Change

If you’re reading this then you’ll notice a brand new look to my blog. Gone are the dark grey, almost black backgrounds from before in exchange for a much lighter, brighter, more readable, and more editorial style blog design. Although I have pretty much retained a similar layout, the new temple allows for multiple pages, which is something I’ve been wanting to include for ages.

I had contemplated moving my blog over to Wordpress who seem to have a vast array of quite stylish designs and offer far more customisation than Blogger. However Blogger has improved considerably of late and playing around with some of the Advanced customisation within their Template Designer I’ve chanced upon a style that appeals to me and looks a tad more professional. I hope it appeals to my readers too.

In addition I have added a more detailed About page, and another page listing the equipment I use. I hope to expand on this facility and add more pages in the near future. I’ve also added some new sidebars linking to articles on Equipment and Photographic locations as these seem to be the most popular postings.

I hope you like the new style.

New Prototype 200-400mm f/4.0 Zoom Lens goes on Show from Canon

2011-02-08T08:03:00.001Z

Equipment Announcement

“LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., February 7, 2011 – Canon Inc. today announced the development of a new super-telephoto lens, the EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM EXTENDER l.4x, for use with all EOS SLR cameras. A prototype of the new lens will be exhibited at the CP+ tradeshow, held in Pacifico Yokohama, from February 9 - 12, 2011.”

Much to everyone's surprise Canon announced a whole host of stuff yesterday including two new entry level DSLR’s, two new flash units, and upgrades to their wildlife long focal length specialist lenses. The latter comprise the EF 500mm f/4.0 MII and the EF 600mm f/4.0 MII, both of which are expected to be commercially available some time in March, but as you’d probably expect these are going to be very, very expensive and as such only available to serious pro’s and those blessed with wads of spare cash.

However, what really caught my eye was the announcement of a prototype EF 200-400mm f/4.0 IS USM EXTENDER 1.4x lens. That’s some title! Nikon wildlife photographers have long since been extolling the virtues of the Nikon 200-400mm f/4 AF-S lens which also received an upgrade last year. This is a lens favoured by British wildlife photographer Andy Rouse and is generally accepted as just about the best multipurpose, wildlife zoom lenses around. It’s also a gap in the market place that Canon had failed (as yet) to match. Canon do of course have their EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6mm IS USM lens ( one of which which I own), but this design is getting quite long in the tooth and whilst it performs admirably on sensors sizes up to 12mp, todays 21mp plus sensors highlight it’s short comings in the digital age.

If you examine the press release picture above you can’t help but notice that peculir looking bulge on the left side rear of the lens. This houses the in-built 1.4x extender, and has a lever just above to engage or disengage the extender elements. The 1.4 extender can boost the zoom range from 200-400mm to 280-560mm. On an APS-C sized sensor then this would be the equivalent of a staggering 448-896mm! However, don’t get your hopes up as Canon failed to state whether this configuration will autofocus on the semi-pro and consumer bodies. The new lens will feature Canon’s high-performance Image Stabilizer technology and advanced optics materials such as fluorite crystal to provide top notch optical performance.

You may also notice the camera has a fixed tripod collar, 3 stabilization modes and also features a Focus Pre-set button. All new stuff.

A a wildlife photographer this sounds like a dream lens and one I’d truly love to own, however it is just a prototype and still obviously at the development stage. I just hope that when it does eventually hit the market it’s not going to be priced so ridiculously that photographers like myself will never be able to afford it. Maybe I am just dreaming though!

My First impressions - Mac OS X compared to Windows 7

2011-01-19T19:08:00.000Z

The Great OS debate

For quite some time now many of my friends and work associates have been telling me to get a Mac. It seems those who switch from Windows never look back. I’ve been a staunch user of Windows since version 3.1 however (I grew up with DOS … remember that?), but if you’ve read some of my earlier blogs you’ll know that I’ve often vented my frustration with the way Microsoft has been heading in recent times and the terrible debacle of Windows Vista still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Windows 7 is a vast improvement on the pitiful Vista but inherent Vista bugs still lurk behind the scenes in Windows 7. If you run a vast array of different software like me, then crashes, dead screens and locked keyboards are still a far too common an occurrence for an OS in it’s 7th generation. It’s precisely Windows poor performance at dealing with ‘rogue software’ and inability to provide the user a speedy recover that probably annoys me the most.
Well I’ve finally swayed to the dark side and have been in possession of a shiny new 15-inch, Core i7, MacBook Pro for several months now; probably just enough to get familiar with the new operation system and acquainted with the MAC world. There’s no doubting the MacBook Pro is a sleek, ultra attractive, and highly desirable piece of kit, which on looks alone beats the competition hands down. But what about under the hood, can the Mac OS X persuade me to leave the Windows camp?

These are some of my first impressions:

Boot-up Time

Well the Mac OS X wins hands down on this one and has a significantly speedier start than Windows 7, even when compared to a brand new Windows 7 install. This is how a PC should start up. The more software you have installed on a Windows PC, the longer the start up seems to take, to the point you may as well go and have a cup of tea. I know this is largely due to installed programs loading memory resident (and largely un-necessary) utilities, which often check-in with the mother ship online first, before releasing your PC back to you. If you have a lot of software installed, these really start to build up and slow your machine. You can of course turn them off, but this is cumbersome and a major flaw in Windows efficiency. One to Mac.

Looks and Appearance

I can’t really pick a winner here. If we went back a few OS generations then the Mac OS was clearly better looking than Windows, but now Windows 7 looks as sleek as anything that Mac has to offer, and to be honest I think I prefer it (slightly) too. The MAC certainly has a certain style, which MAC applications tend to follow, but it works for some but not others.

Taskbar & Start Menu versus the Dock

I’m sorry Mac fans, the Dock is just awful and my opinion the single most detrimental feature of the Mac OS X. I know some of you may love the Dock but to me it just looks plain childish. The Windows taskbar is just streets ahead and the single biggest function that missing on the Mac OS. If there were a taskbar application for the Mac OS that emulated the Windows one it would go a long way persuading me to jump for good, but as it’s stands no. The Dock is just about acceptable with a few icons, but once you start acquiring many more they soon gets too small to use. The Dock divider looks a tad naff, and the way your downloads folder arch's out into the screen is just plain odd. The Taskbar is neater, far more customizable, and just so much easier to use. Sorry MAC fans.

Explorer versus Finder

Another hands down win for Windows 7 here I’m afraid. I’m just not won over by Finder. The Explorer for me is far more functional and easier to use than Finder. Sure the fancy scroll view is nice and the link to Preview is very good, but copying, moving and transferring files is just so much easier within Explorer. The feature I really miss I really miss the folder tree view pane. I just can’t imagine why Apple didn’t include this. I also find files lists much easier to read in Explorer; the font combined with the alternated banding I just find harder to read, but that may just be me. I’m sure there’s a way to alter this, I just haven’t found it.

Aero Peek Versus Exposé

I’m not a huge fan of Windows 7 Aero Peek. This gives you a quick view of your desktop if you hover over the (unlabelled & un-iconized) Peek button at the far right of the taskbar (you can also achieve this by holding down the Windows key + spacebar). It leaves the outlines of any un-maximised windows on the desktop preview but quite why you would want to see these is is beyond me. If I want to see the desktop I’ll simple click the dam button and minimise everything. The Aero transparency I view as just a gimmick and turn it off as it needlessly uses up extra processing power. The old Alt+Tab key still allows you to cycle through the open windows (taskbar buttons), but the ‘procession’ graphics version via Windows Key + Tab, whilst looking flashy, I find I don’t use at all. Mac on the other hand has Exposé which performs a similar function but shrinks all the open windows on the desktop you you can see what’s running. Exposé is invoked by the F3 key. What’s nice about Exposé however is that you can assign different functions to hotspots at the four corners of the screen which are then invoke by simply hovering the mouse cursor over hotspots. These can be further enhanced by using Spaces which gives you several virtual desktops in which you can already have a number of programs open and ready to use. Mac defiantly has the edge here in usability and I gather in the next OS X upgrade the functionally of Spaces and Exposé are going to be combined into one.

Internet Explorer vs Safari

I guess it’s a little unfair to compare these as Safari is available to both platforms, although in browsers circles it doesn’t really get that many plaudits. However, I’m reasonably impressed with Safari. It’s responsive, displays the content well enough and I particularly like the way you can add bookmarks and favourites in horizontal menu fashion just below the URL bar which is pretty neat. However, whilst I tend to use Safari on my Mac, I find I still migrate back to Internet Explorer when on my windows desktop even though Safar is installed. A score draw here.

System Stability & Crash Recovery

So far the MacBook Pro has performed admirably, although I have manage to crash it several times, however on all these occasions it’s just a simple off, then back on and the system recovers very quickly without any adverse affects. How I wish I could say the same about windows 7 but sadly that’s not the case. I will admit, I use far more software on my Windows system than I do on my Mac, so it is a rather unfair comparison, but I get totally fed up of crashes and then being forced to boot up in safe mode, and then re-boot again. It can often take 20-30 minutes to get back to where you were.
Windows system updates drive me mad too, and many has been the time my system has crashed after a System update has been installed and I’ve been forced to go back and initiate a system restore point. With the Mac it’s never had a problem doing an update. A windows seem to issue huge quantities of updates, can’t they just get it right in the first place?
Sleep mode: on the MacBook pro this works flawlessly; I can even just close the lid and it will restart exactly where I left off when the lid is opened in just a few seconds. With windows it’s hit and miss whether your PC is going to restart at all. Most of the time the sleep mode works fine, but is slow to resume, but sometimes it just locks me out all together and only a hard re-boot can restart things but then it’s the whole rigmarole of going into safe-mode and a further reboot. Microsoft still haven’t cracked this one yet. A resounding win for the Mac on this front.

Operating system Cost

If it’s by Apple, it’s going to be expensive right? Well not in the operating system stakes apparently. I’m still smarting over the £170 I had to pay to get Windows 7 Professional 64-bit for my desktop, whereas those Apple uses who upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard only had to pay £25. Alright I know this is a tad unfair comparison, but even so you can buy a boxed set of Mac OS X Snow leopard complete with iLife and iWorks for £95 on Amazon. Who’d have ever though Apple would win on cost.

Bug BearS

My bug-bears with Windows are already well publicised but there are also e a few things with the MAC that drive me nuts too. The most annoying thing for me is not having proper functioning delete key on the MacBook Pro keyboard (well at least I haven’t found one yet). The DEL key operates like a Backspace key and deletes the character to the left of the cursor rather than the character at the cursor, duh! You can get it to function like a DEL key by holding down the Fn key first, but this is so annoying. Looking at the reams of stuff on this very topic online, I’m not the only one who finds this annoying. Another annoyance is that certain Windows do not maximise to full screen even when you click the green circle and I find I have to drag the margins manually. Why is this?
iTunes, Safari and Mail, all of which are Apple programs and probably some of the most frequently used by Mac OS X users. So why do they all looks so different? It would be nice to see some consistency of style adhered to.
And lastly, boy is it difficult to rename files. In Windows it’s a simple right-click and select Rename (or F2) and you’re in the edit mode, but in OS X you have to click with the mouse, very precisely in fact, otherwise you will end up opening the file … ugh!

The Round-up

Please remember that these are only MY opinions I have expressed as I know some of you may vehemently disagree with many of them (if not all?), but hey, debate is good isn’t it? It seems people who have grown up in the MAC camp will never like Windows, and many won’t even contemplate anything to do with Windows at all, whereas those who have lived with Windows, like me, in recent times have been tempted to switch due to Microsoft's well publicised short comings. What’s usually the consensus is that you are either fully for the Mac or a full Windows aficionado; seldom do people sit on the fence.

I must be a strange fish, but I can honestly say at the moment, I’m neither swayed one way or the other. Both current systems have their strong points, and both have their failures. In some respects I’m probably never going to escape Windows as it’s the system of choice for most of the large corporations, especially within my field of work. Windows software is more prevalent, more accessible, provides far more choice and is, in general, much cheaper than equivalent Mac software, although all these things may change with time and Apple’s increasing popularity.
One thing I will state though, if it hadn’t been for Apple switching to Intel processors and providing the ability to run Windows on a Mac, then I probably wouldn’t have even contemplated giving a Mac a go.

I have Parallels installed on my new MacBook Pro and I must admit it’s a pretty dam impressive piece of software. It allows me to run Windows quite seamlessly within Mac OS X and enjoy the best of both worlds. I think I remain, at the moment though, firmly having a boot in both camps. Whether I will begin to lean one way or the other only time can tell.

If you’re thinking of switching OS or have done so recently, I’d be most interested to hear your reasons why and what you thought of the switch?

Nik Software Announce Silver Efex Pro 2

2011-01-18T14:43:00.001Z

Software Release

Yesterday Nik Software, the makers of several well known Photoshop plug-ins announced the impending release of version 2 of their highly popular black & white conversion software Silver Efex Pro. For those of you who don’t know Silver Efex Pro offers an All-In-One workflow to convert your RAW images to monochrome. The program can be run from Adobe Photoshop or accessed from within Apple Aperture or Adobe Lightroom RAW images processors. Not only does it provide superb B&W conversion, but offers a multitude of accurate film emulations, toning, grain, vignettes, burning and the ability to add local adjustments via Nik’s rather clever U-point patented technology.

Version 2 promises to be just as popular, and whilst improving on many current features with new improved algorithms, many new features have been added such as a History Browser, new Fine Structure, Soft Contrast, Dynamic Brightness, and Selective Colour, and it can now add Natural Image Borders. There’s also support for full 64-bit processing.

You can pre-order Version 2 from the Nik Software website which is currently offering a 10% discount. Version 2 is to be released on the 11th February, but if you purchase version 1 now your upgrade is free.

The full price is to remain at $199, which is pretty expensive for just a plug-in. However, if you’re looking for a one-stop quick monochrome conversion facility with realist film emulation and more, you be hard pressed to better Nik’s offering. The u-point local adjustments work very well, but the interface in version one was a tad clunky in parts. You can download a 15 day trial of version one from here. Lets hope the version 2 delivers the refinements Nik promises.

Resources

An Overview of Lightroom 3 Video Tutorials

2011-01-07T10:54:00.000Z

Video Tutorials Review

With Adobe Lightroom 3 having been out on the market for a while now several of the big names have released commercial packages of Lightroom 3 Video tutorials. These range from view online flash videos, downloadable video files to DVD’s you can buy. So what is available and what do you get for your money?

The Luminous Landscape Guide to Lightroom 3

If you’ve never visited The Luminous Landscape web site then you’ve really missed out since it’s one of the premier photography sites on the net. It’s the brainchild of Canadian and Toronto based photographer Michael Reichmann but accommodates contributions from many other renowned photographers and contains a wealth of resources to interest any photographer. If you think I’m a fan then I have to say quite unashamedly that I am. I’m a frequent visitor to the Luminous Landscape web site and subscribe to Michaels' video journals which offer truly unique insight into many aspects of photography which you can’t really find elsewhere.
For this Guide to Lightroom R3 Michael once again teams up with Jeff Schewe, one of the co-founders of PixelGenius, and a chap who seems to hold significant influence with the Lightroom development team and whom certainly possesses a strong technically knowledge on the inner workings of Lightroom. Michael is a seasoned presenter, and guides the tutorials along and makes sure that all the typical user questions are addressed. Together they make a formidable team.

The tutorials comprise almost 9 hours of video split into 52 individual video files which can be purchased online for the sum of $49. These can be downloaded to your hard drive so are then available for you to view at your leisure and can of course, be watched time and time again without the need for an internet connection or a subscription. The files are in Quicktime (*.mov) format which unfortunately is not supported on the iPad (although you could convert the files in 3rd party software). If you purchased their Guide to LR2 they are still currently offering a 10% discount online. Michael and Jeff have produced similar tutorials for Lightroom 1 and 2, but this is by far the longest to date and just about covers every Lightroom topic imaginable. They work well together, and have a pleasant rapport with a rather relaxed and casual, style of presenting. This personal presentation style may not suite all viewers, and there is significantly more joviality than on previous LR tutorials, but I find it quite entertaining as well as being very informative. Michael and Jeff are just so familiar with the Lightroom product however, that in parts they do tend to make some assumptions that I thought may confuse the absolute beginner. If you possess some familiarity with Lightroom or are an intermediate user than these tutorials will be a excellent resource to improve your workflow, and even though I consider myself a competent and experienced Lightroom user I still found out many new things. You can test drive a sample video here. Highly recommended.
Pros:

Downloadable video files that you can take anywhere and watch at your leisure.
Huge content, 52 video files containing almost 9 hours of video.
In depth coverage of just about everything you need to know about LR3.
Detailed technical information of how many of the Lightroom processes work.
Good value compared to others available.

Cons:

There are a few parts that may confuse an absolute beginner.
The presentation style may not be to everyone’s liking.
No iPad support.

Adobe Lightroom 3 Video Workshop by George Jardine

George Jardine is name probably familiar to Lightroom users who have been using Lightroom from release 1. George was one of the original Adobe Lightroom team members and the former Adobe Pro Photography Evangelist. He produced several excellent online tutorials on the original Lightroom release for Adobe, a task which is currently fullfilled by Julieanne Kost. He continued with an excellent series of podcasts which many may remember, which were available for download on iTunes and via his blog. George left Adobe in 2008 go his own way and now, amongst other things, runs Lightroom Workshops. In July 2010 George announced a Lightroom 3 Video Workshop comprising 16 online video tutorials on Library Workflow and Digital Photo Library Management which can be viewed by purchased a subscription. The online videos are Flash driven so can’t be viewed on the iPhone or iPad, however George will provide a link to downloadable iPad versions once a subscription has been purchased. In October 2010 a further 15 videos which cover the Lightroom Develop Module, but as yet there are no plans to provide any other series to cover the Web, Print and Slideshow Modules.
George’s indomitable style of presentation is much to be admired. You find no face shots here, nor will you detected and ‘umms’, ‘errs’ or pauses in diction. With George it’s straight down to a very business like delivery, full of concise and detailed instructions and he succeeds including an extraordinary amount of information into each of these videos. Watch them over and over again and you notice more facts you failed to retain on earlier viewings; they are that good. These tutorials are excellent for users of all standards and ideal for the beginner too.
The first series of 16 videos can be accessed by purchasing a subscription for $29.95 via George’s Blog here and if you want to view a sample movie on Virtual Copies check out this link. The second series of videos on the Develop Module is also available as an online subscription for $24.95. No iPad/iPhone versions of the second series are available (yet?) for download but they can be acquired on DVD from Amazon.com for the sum of $34.95.

Pros:

High on content, yet concise, well produced and very informative.
Suitable for all levels from beginners to advanced.
Very professional and well presented.

Cons:

Not all is downloadable.
Requires a live web connection and subscription to view.
Doesn’t cover all aspects of Lightroom just yet.
Only the Develop Module videos are available on DVD and at $35.00 is expensive.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Power Session WITH Matt Kloskowski

I’m sure almost every Lightroom user must have come across the excellent Lightroom Killer Tips web site hosted by Matt Kloskowski. It’s just about top of every Lightroom search on Google and has been since Lightroom was released. Matt is part of Scott Kelby’s KelbyTraining.com team and has release at DVD entitled Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Power Session. It’s priced at $69.99 but if your a member of NAPP ( National Association of Photoshop Professionals) you can get get for $54.99. You can find out more information about Matt’s DVD here, but there is no sample video to watch or DVD contents listed.
A perhaps more preferable option to access the Matt’s Lightroom Power Session Tutorials may be to purchase a subscription to Kelby Training online. This gives you access to hundreds of online video tutorials, and not just Photoshop and Lightroom, but many other design, video and creative applications. It also contains a section on Photography which has something of interest for just about every type of photographic genre. Unfortunately you can only watch the videos online and can not download copies to watch later. Subscription is not cheap and currently runs at $24.96 per month. If you are a member of NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) your subscription is reduced to $19.99 a month, but as membership to NAPP costs $99 per year it’s not really a saving at all, although with NAPP membership you do get a years subscription to the Photoshop User Magazine. If you think this all smacks a wee bit of rather clever American marketing by the astute Mr. Kelby, then I’d have to agree, however much of the online content I’ve sampled thus so far has been extremely good. I just wish I could get the content on my iPad.
If you purchase the Lightroom 3 Power Session DVD you get access to 19 instructional video files ranging from 1:31 to 6:45 minutes in length, plus a brief introduction and conclusion, totalling just under 75 minutes. The videos are just as slick and informative as Matt’s online video’s and indeed Matt has a pleasant and relaxed style that is a joy to watch. The DVD videos are rather terse however, and lack the depth and detail of the Lumimous Landscape offerings. However, if you purchase a subscription to Kelbytraining.com you get access to 3 further courses of tutorials by Matt entitled Lightroom 3 In Depth, which cover the Library module (Part 1), Develop module (part 2) and Printing, Slideshow and Web modules (part 3) in some considerable depth. These cover aspects of Lightroom 3 such as integration with Photoshop, creating HDR and Panorama stitching, and 3rd party plug-ins. Currently there are also video course on Lightroom for the Web one of the other Kelby Instructors and video tutorials on culling and selecting photos from a fashion shoot and beauty retouching from Scott Kelby himself.

Pros:

Abundant online content.
Well produced and lots of choice.
Content for all levels from beginners to advanced.
Professional and well presented.

Cons:

DVD represent poor value compared the Luminous Landscape downloads.
Subscription content requires a live web connection for access.
Online subscription can work out to be quite expensive.
Unable to download subscription videos copies to your hard drive.
No support for the iPad unless you buy the DVD.

Photoshop Lightroom 3 Essential Training from Lynda.com

Lynda.com is a huge online resource that provides video tutorials for just about every graphics package, web design and photo-manipulation software you can think of, and many more to boot. It even contains tutorials on Home Computing, iPhones, Business packages, Animation, and has recently been adding videos on Photography. It boasts at having the largest access to online training courses available, and looking at the list they certainly seem to be the granddaddy of the online video tutorial world. It’s an odd name for a web site but that’s down to it’s founder Lynda Weinman. You can access just about anything, but it’s not cheap, ranging from $25.0 (basic) to $37.50 (premium) per month to $250-$375 for a full yearly subscription. The basic subscription covers access to all videos, the Premium subscription provides access to Instructor's exercise files. The courses however, can only be watched online and thus require a live internet connection, and can not be downloaded to your hard drive.

For LR3 users they have a course entitled Photoshop Lightroom 3 Essential Training presented by photographer and designer Chris Orwig. Comprehensive details, video transcripts, course contents and 24 sample videos can be viewed and accessed here. The course details are very comprehensive and list over 13 hours of videos in 30 sections and contain over 200 individual video files covering techniques such as importing, processing, and organizing images in the Library, correcting and adjusting images in the Develop module, creating slideshows, web galleries, and print picture packages. The course is rich with creative tips and expert advice on photographic workflow and also includes exercise files to accompany the course if you have plumbed for a premium subscription.

The whole course can also be purchased on DVD for $99.95 which you can then watch at your leisure. The online subscriptions however, give you access the a multitude of other courses, so if you additional Photoshop tuition is in your remit, this could be the way to go.
Pros:

High on content, thorough and very informative.
Very professional and well presented.
Covers all aspects of Lightroom.
Online subscription covers many other software packages

Cons:

Unable to download copies to your hard drive.
Requires a live web connection and subscription to view.
Could work out quite costly for a long subscription.
DVD price expensive compared to others.
No support for the iPad unless you buy the DVD’s

Free Lightroom 3 Video Resources

Of course you don’t have to part with good money to get Lightroom 3 video instruction as there are plenty of free resources on the web, many of which are linked in the side panels of this web page. I’ll try and cover some of those in another post.

Summary

It’s too difficult to select a clear winner here as each cater for slightly different audiences and provide differing levels of accessibility. If you’re experienced user, you may find Luminous Landscape Guide to Lightroom 3 more to your taste, whereas beginners may be best suited to Lynda.com’s offerings, Matt’s DVD or George Jardine’s videos. If you’re looking for wider base tuition then the online subscription offer much more. Personally I prefer to have downloadable content that I can watch at my own choosing, irrespective of whether you have an internet connection or where I am. If value for money is an issue then I’d have to say Luminous Landscape takes first prize. The good news is, no matter what you choose you won’t be disappointed; they are all very good. Do try out the sample videos first and see what appeals to you. The choice is yours.

Resources

2010 Gadget of Year – the Apple iPad

2011-01-04T19:51:00.001Z

Hardware Review

There’s no competition really, whether you love them or hate them, Apple have changed the face of personal computing yet again. I’ve never been a particular fan of Apple equipment and I’ve always thought them overpriced. I’ve admired the beauty of their designs for sure, but have never particularly bought in to that Apple ethic, until the iPad that is.

Some say the iPad is just a big iPhone without the phone bit (I don’t have an iPhone), true, perhaps it is, but who would have thought that simple change in size would provide the most unique and innovative device of 2010.

I discovered the iPad quite by accident when I was thinking of getting iPods for my kids. All their peers at school seemed to have iPods and the paltry, but functional, little Sansa clip, MP3 players (no offence SanDisk) that I had bought them a couple of years ago were beginning to look seriously un-cool in the face of the latest touch screen iPods. It was while visiting my local Apple store in Sheffield that I chanced upon a young assistant demonstrating the then brand new iPad to some potential customers. Bingo! That’s just the device for my wife I thought. She’s never been particularly interested in computers, doesn’t really understand the internet (bless her!), and no matter how many times I’ve showed her how to send email on a windows laptop, something has always gone amiss whilst I’m away. Whilst all my work mates receive regular emails from their spouses when working overseas, for me it was a 2 to 3 time a year affair.

It was a strange birthday present (she’s not into tech), but I can honestly say the iPad has been a huge hit with my other half. Now she’s browsing the net, shopping online, exchanging emails with her friends, downloading the kids homework and school schedules, and even checking out relatives abroad on Facebook. These things she could never manage on a PC without getting into a muddle. I can honestly say the iPad has changed her life. OK, I had to set it up for her, synchronise it with iTunes and set up an account for her, but this simple little device has been a huge, huge hit.

I too was impressed with the iPad so plundered the piggy bank and bought my own not so long ago. It connects to the home WiFi faster and easier than any of my numerous laptops and desktops we have around the house. It was easy to setup, recognised all our email accounts, and is just so easy to use. I’ve never been a fan of touch screens (I have 2 redundant mobile Windows devices sitting in the bottom of my desk drawer) but the touch sensitive screen and inertia scrolling on the iPad just work brilliantly and so responsively. So much now I want every screen to work like that. I never though I could do without a keyboard, but typing on the iPad is a dream. And for browsing the internet, I haven’t come across a better device yet. If you’ve ever sat in bed trying to use a laptop (go on admit it, I bet you have!), whether it be for emails, late night work or just watching movies, you know it'’s just not designed for that, but hey, the iPad is a dream (no pun intended) to use. Now I can download and watch movies, watch my DVD’s, email, browse, listen to music or audio-books, read my blogs, journals, newspapers, magazines, my photography books, novels and much, much more, all in comfort on my iPad. I find I use the iPad around the house more than my laptop now. It’s just plain and simple fun and I can even use it out in the field on photo-shoot to back-up and review my RAW files.

Sure, it has a few caveats. Mr. Jobs in his arrogance, refused to implement Adobe Flash into the Safari web browser, so many websites (and that’s about 70% of them)are not fully functional, and what’s worse, I can’t watch the replays of the goals on the BBC football pages! It has no USB port although you can be duly ripped off by paying another 25 quid to Apple for a little plastic plug-in one. You can’t upgrade the memory, it has no SD card slot, and you have to do everything through the rather prohibitive and cumbersome iTunes. However, I can can live with all that, because I just love my iPad.

When New is Not always Better - Windows Liver Writer 2011

2010-12-30T18:09:00.001Z

Software Review

Don’t you just hate it when you upgrade a piece of software only to find that it doesn’t work as it did before. It’s just so dam infuriating. I really don’t understand what goes through developers heads when they do this. They just don’t seem to realise just how pissed off it makes the users feel. Perhaps they just don’t care.

My rant this time is about Microsoft (yes, that company again!), and Windows Live Writer 2011. And before you get all picky with me for berating Microsoft, yes I do realise that this is free software, but that still doesn’t give them a reason to go and spoil it.

I’ve used Live Writer to write just about every blog I’ve written and until the 2011 version I’ve be pretty satisfied with it’s functionality and ability to do the job. It was just about the best blogging tool out there … until the 2011 version that is. Unfortunately I foolishly agreed to one of those persistent and most irritating messages from Microsoft instructing me to install an ‘important update’ and before I realised what I’d done, my Live Writer had been ‘updated’ (read destroyed).

I didn’t realise the consequences of what I done until I next opened Live Writer only to be greeted with that Microsoft abomination, the dreaded Ribbon. Gone were my easy-to-use tool bars, icons and menu and suddenly I can’t use the program like I did before. Now I have to hunt to find where everything has gone. Thanks a lot Microsoft. Is there any option to restore the old interface (that err, worked rather well), nope, not a chance. But wait, how do I open an old blog to edit? You can’t, not unless it’s one of the last 9. Excuse me Mr. Microsoft, which one of your idiots thought of that idea? And how do I specify the size of a picture when opened up in a new window … this was easy in 2010, but I haven’t find out how just yet.

OK, OK, I hear you say, give it a chance. Well I have, I’ve tried for a while, I really have, but I still can’t do things I used to do so easily in the last version. It has genuinely hampered my productivity and I’m at the ‘grumpy old man’ stage in life where I’m just not prepared to accept change for change sake.

Now, does anyone know how to get the old version back, ‘cos I for the life of me can’t see how? If that’s not possible, can someone please recommend a some good blog writer software?

Recommendations, advice and assistance gratefully received.

(written begrudgingly in Liver Writer 2011)

Never Trust the Devil

2010-12-22T15:00:00.001Z

The Devils' Golf Corse, Death Valley

This is a place I won't forget too easily as it was 'nearly' the site of one of my photographic disasters. I'd been up since before 4:00 am that day and had driven down from our hotel at Furnace Creek for a dawn shoot at Badwater. Unfortunately the dawn sky colour failed to really materialise and the desired reflections in the sparse salt pools were a bit meek to say the least. Never-the-less I'd continued to shoot until the first of the early morning tourists turned up; then I hit the road. On the way back I saw the sign for the Devils Golf Course and seeing no one was around headed down to take a few pictures. The sun was just breaking over the eastern ridge and it was beginning to get quite bright. The contrast was high, but the side light made the salt mounds look great. I was trying different combinations and strengths of ND grads to hold back the sky and whilst doing so I plonked my wallet containing all my expensive grads down in-between some of the salt mounds. Soon after a few tourists started to appear in dribs and drabs so I packed up my gear and left, driving the 17 miles back to the hotel.

I was just about back to the room when a sudden ominous thought arose; I just couldn't remember packing my grads. A hasty inspection of my backpack revealed my fears to be true, I'd gone and left ALL my grads out in the desert in the middle of Death Valley! What the hell was I going to do! I was just 10 days into a 5 week trip touring the South West USA and would have absolutely no chance of replacing the grads anywhere on the way. Three and a half weeks of once-in-a-lifetime photo opportunities were just be about to go down the pan … the salt pan!

I jumped back into the 4x4 and immediately sped off down the road, all 17 miles back to the Devil's Golf Course. When I got to there the parking lot already contained several vehicles and a mini-bus and the place was littered with tourist posing for pictures and all armed with point-and-shoots. It was now over an hour since I’d been there, so it was pretty unlikely my grad wallet had not discovered by now. Things were looking grim.

I hastened over to where I thought my last shot was taken; several people were nearby. They must have thought me rather peculiar wandering around, eyes transfixed on the ground. l around, but there in amongst a couple of Asian tourists, almost by their feet, was my grad wallet, exactly where I left it .. phew! I grabbed it and left.

Resources

Adobe Release Lightroom 3.3

2010-12-07T13:13:00.001Z

Software

Today Adobe have finally released version 3.3 of Lightroom; this has been released in conjunction with version 6.3 of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) for Photoshop. The update has been available for some while as a beta version for filed testing, but is now in its commercial version for general consumption. This release contains the usual additional support for a bevy of new cameras and some bug fixes. Perhaps the most interesting addition for existing Lightroom user are the addition of many new lens profiles. This includes 15 additional Canon lenses, 26 Nikon lenses, 14 Pentax lenses as well as a few Sigma, Tamron, Ricoh and Samsung lenses.

Lens profiles were one of the great new features added in Lightroom 3.0 and it’s a feature that I find particularly useful. If you shoot a lot of seascapes and landscapes with wide-angle lenses then you’ll know unless your camera is perfectly vertical on your tripod and the horizon is smack bang in the middle of your frame, it’s going to appeared curved. I used to have to flip out to Photoshop and use PTlens to correct my shots but now this can be all handled within LR. It’s great for correcting verticals when shooting architecture too and can also be used as a creative tool.

You can download your copy of Photoshop Lightroom 3.3 Release Candidate from Adobe Labs here, find out full specifications of the Lightroom 3.3 release and a list of all the new lens profiles here.

Great British Landscapes – A New Magazine Website from Joe Cornish

2010-11-14T11:42:00.000Z

WebSite Review

Joe Cornish, the renowned, and probably the most famous contemporary British Landscape Photographer has, in conjunction with fellow photographer Tim Parkin, launched a new magazine style website entitled Great British Landscapes (LandscapesGB). The site is the brainchild of Tim Parkin, and in their own words they describe the partnership as Tim being the driver and Joe as the Navigator. The site seems aimed at show casing contemporary ‘great’ British photographers, not only their work, but their methods. However the sites mission statement quotes:

“We hope in time that LandscapeGB will develop its own momentum, with contributions from anyone and everyone from the British landscape photography community who wishes to participate.”

MAGAZINE Content

The magazine also includes guides to locations, photography techniques, book reviews and processing techniques. Issue one contains an excellent guide to Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire, an article from Joe on “Shooting into the Sun”, and a run down on some of the winning photographs this year's Landscape Photographer of the Year competition (LPOTY). It will also contain video content to download and the premier issue provides a screencast by Joe on his post processing of one of his older photographs that was recently rescanned on Tim Parkin’s drum scanner. This particular screen cast is over an hour long, and many readers will be no doubt surprised to find out just how far Joe has gone into the realms of digital processing within Photoshop.
On the About page the magazine lists the type of landscape photographers that they are going to look at. It’s no surprise classical photographers such as Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, David Muench and Edward Weston are listed but also contemporaries such as David Ward, Andrew Nadolski and Michael Kenna are also included. Local photographer (and rising star) Doug Chinnery is also listed.
Of particular note is the location guide with the one for Brimhan Rocks providing the precise locations for many of Joe’s classic shots, including his well know shot for the National Trust. This contains a precise location guide, details of where to park, how to get there, links to Google maps and panoramas and even some information on the geology. This is precisely the level of detail a photographer like myself likes to see and I’m sure this feature alone will prove to be very popular. We already have ‘JCB’ (Joe Cornish Boulder!) fully engraved into photography speak, so I can see bagging a JCL (Joe Cornish Location) becoming the next big thing from bagging a Scottish Munroe!
New issues of the magazine are to be released on a bi-monthly basis.

The Good and the Bad

The website is written in a blog style and very nicely presented and yes, like many blogs you can add comments and feedback. It is clearly still ‘work-in-progress’ but it’s good to see you can comment and add requests. The articles so far seem quite good and provide more depth and information than comparative magazine articles. The screencast of Joe is enlightening in seeing at ‘master at his work’, but at over an hour long, it is rather tedious to say the least. Joe will seem finicky beyond belief to most and only absolute Joe Cornish devotees and complete Photoshop anoraks would be able to watch this in it’s entirety in one session. It took me about 4 sittings to get through it all. As it’s Joe Cornish it will be watched; Joe’s pictures on a cover of a magazine increase circulation, and there are not many British photographers who can do that. However any similar video by A. N. Other on YouTube I feel would fade into obscurity. If this is to be part of a commercial venture I think the screencasts need to be much shorter, snappier and edited for content.
You’ll notice I stated ‘commercial venture’, yes I’m afraid the content is not free but can only be obtained on a subscription only basis. Currently you can acquire access to individual issues for £3 each or purchase a block subscription for 6 months or a year bringing the price down to £2.50 and £2.00 per issue respectively. The good news is that Issue one is free, all you have to do is register so you can test drive it yourself.

Summary and Comment

I can’t help but seem a little surprised that a photographer of Joe Cornish’s renown is entering into another commercial venture. I’ve already seen the proliferation of his elegant greeting cards and am left wondering whether he is exploiting his notoriety or this is a economic requirement. If Joe Cornish can’t make a dam good living out of selling his prints then I guess no landscape photographer within the UK can. If it’s the latter then it’s a real pity, since someone of Joe’s talent within the US would be up there with the millionaire photographers like Peter Lik.
The site content has the potential for it to be a real winner and we’ve longed for a UK site that can encompass British Photography in the same way the Luminous Landscape does for those elsewhere. If you compare Great British Landscapes (LandscapesGB) the the current, rather staid and repetitive UK photography magazine fodder, then it wins hands down. However it’s on the internet where most, if not all expect content to be free and it’s up against very stiff free completion. Will it succeed, well with name of Joe Cornish attached, I guess it probably will. I would like to see a downloadable PDF version included with the price however.
Will I subscribe? Well I’m not sure yet, but when I’m overseas it may just seem a too tempting a read. Go ahead and give Issue One it a try and see what you think.

Tripod Woes

2010-11-10T14:45:00.000Z

Equipment Failures

I have had my fair share of disasters in the past with photographic equipment. Usually it’s odd items like scratched or broken grads and lost lens caps but I also have had my tripod blown over at Robin Hood’s Bay damaging my EF 24-105mm lens and a fall in the field in Africa which required a new IS unit to my EF 100-400mm zoom lens. Fortunately in both cases I was insured and the bulk of the repairs were covered.

Recently however, I had a rather an odd mishap and lost (yes lost!) a leg from my tripod. This was from my much prized Gitzo GT-3541-LS carbon fibre tripod; not a cheap item either and a tripod you expect to be built to the highest of standards too. But I guess you’re wondering how on earth I could loose a leg. Well it’s not quite as difficult as you may think.

For quite some while now my backpack of choice has been the Lowepro Pro Trekker 400 AW which is an excellent backpack and I’ve sung it’s praises in the full review I did here. It features a tripod loops on the front and sides of the backpack which are really just large pockets without a bottom. The top (rim) of each is heavily reinforced so you can just slot two of your tripod legs inside and let third leg rest outside. The the main tripod holder in the centre of the pack also has a couple of straps to secure the tripod further, and has a fold down foot holder although neither of these two features I have thought necessary if you are just walking short distances. Unfortunately that has been to me detriment.

Whilst out with my family on a walk from our holiday cottage in Craster down to the coastal path towards Cullernose point we got caught in a downpour. Not just any old downpour mind you, a really hooly. The weather turned from blustery but sunny to wild wet and windy in a matter of minutes with the rain sheeting down and blowing almost horizontally. You know the sort. As prepared as we were, it was time for a mad dash back to the cottage where we headed with some urgency.

I had my Lowepro Pro Trekker 400 AW slung over my back with the tripod just sat in the central tripod pocket, not fastened in. It was really blowing and I was concentrating on getting back fast, keeping an eye on my daughter Sophie whilst keeping one hand on my rain hood to stop it being blown backwards. Unbeknownst to me, the action of my quick walking and the motion of my backpack was slowly but surely unscrewing the uppermost joint of my tripod. Until it fell out. You’d think I'd notice it fall, but I didn’t under the conditions and it didn’t hit my legs either. It was only the next morning on inspecting my pack I found I was missing the bottom 3 sections to one of the legs.

Of course I searched the path and rocks several times with my son, but no trace of the offending leg could be found. It had either ended up being washed out to sea or (probably more likely) been picked up by a later passer by. Either way I was left without a tripod.

The prospect of spending the rest of the holiday without the ability to take photographs was just too much and I contemplated driving all the way home to get my back-up. However, in the end a trip to Newcastle’s Metro centre and a purchase of a Manfrotto 055PROB proved the easiest option.

That all happen in August. Today my replacement leg finally arrived from Gitzo, a good 3 months after placing my order for replacement parts. I heard Gitzo could be slow so that was no surprise. A big thank you has to go to Ian Hemingway at
Manfrotto & Gitzo UK Service Centre for just managing to sort out the correct parts. As it turns out, just about every Gitzo tripod is unique and they seldom share common parts, and even though less than two years old my model had already been superseded.

Today my wallet is a further 142 quid lighter, not to mention the cost of the temporary replacement Manfrotto. It takes just 4 1/2 turns to completely unscrew one of the leg joints on my Gitzo. I can’t be sure, but I suspect I didn’t tighten it fully from the previous shoot, but I’m still amazed it managed to unscrew itself whilst on the back of my backpack.

And the moral to this tale … well make sure your tripod is tightened fully at each joint after every shoot, and secured properly to your backpack no matter how short the walk to the next location.

A Windy Day in Derbyshire

2010-10-01T12:02:00.000+01:00

Photographic Location & WORKSHOP

Last week I was a budding participant on one of Doug Chinnery’s landscape photographic workshops. Doug is a professional photographer that just so happens to live not far from where I live and whom I met at my local photographic club in Worksop last year. I was much impressed by Doug, not just his superb photography, but with his down-to-earth approach and willingness to share his knowledge with fellow photographers, something that many other expert photographers' seem almost reluctant to do.

Sadly for our foray into the Hathersage area of Derbyshire that day we weren’t blessed with good weather and my 5:00am pickup in the dark for sunrise seemed somewhat in vain. Our rendezvous with two other fellow photographers just below Higger Tor ended up in a rather hasty retreat to Grindleford station for some shelter from the rain and wind, and chat about photography and a welcome cup of coffee. With no abate in the weather one member decided to call it a day. However after fuelling up with a hearty, full English breakfast in Hathersage a second attempt was made at Higger Tor, but high winds prevented any photography on the top and grey skies and eventual rain brought that sessions to a close.

Doug then took us down to an area of birch trees above Lawrence Field well away from the windy tops and by now patches of dappled sunlight were starting to appear. This was quite different photography from what I’d normally attempt and to be honest I was well out of my comfort zone here. However Doug encouraged us to shoot tree trunks, grassy tussocks and I even and a few (albeit unsuccessful) attempts at some macro photography.

After a lengthy spell there it was off back down to the rather quirky, but excellent Grindleford Station Cafe for some hot chocolate and cake. Whilst gorging ourselves on some inordinately well proportioned slabs of date and walnut cake, Doug took the opportunity to download our CF cards direct to his iPad and proceeded to present us slideshows of our efforts. This was really useful as we got to see each others work and discussed what worked and what didn’t. The iPad is a really neat device, has a great screen and is ideally suited for viewing and backing up RAW files in the field. It beats devices like the Epson P-7000 viewer hands down in my opinion, and there are already RAW editing apps around too (that’s another gadget to add to my wish list). It’s a pity they don’t make one with more than 64Gb memory, but I guess that will come eventually.

By that time the weather was beginning to look quite sunny so we went to Padley Gorge and spent a couple of hours trying out all sorts of shots. What a great place it is and believe it or not it was the first time I’d been there. The leaves are just starting to turn, so it’s not quite the best time, yet but there’s not doubt I’ll be returning here soon. One of the classic shots is off a large old mill stone underneath an oak tree. I tried many compositions of but none that really worked when viewed on my monitor back home. The sunlight was quite strong and I ended up with many many shots with burned out highlights. I should have waited till the the sun was hidden by the clouds. If you want to see how it should be shot check out Doug’s version here. I did however get a rather nice but querky shot of a curtain of moss/weed behind a small water fall which made an almost abstract image.

We decided to set off for Stanage Edge for sunset, but spotted some fantastic light and sunbeams (Crepuscular rays as Dough pointed out!) over the hope Valley on our way. We stopped on Fiddlers Elbow road off the A6187 about 3/4 of the way up to Higger Tor but sadly the sunbeams and gorgeous light did not reappear.

My favourite image of the day is the one at the top of this blog of a small gap in the wall and out of focus trees behind. Nothing spectacular or compositionally great but juts one I like. Maybe I’ll attempt it again well the autumn leave are in full colour and use a slightly wider aperture blur the background even more.

View Derbyshire Photo Workshop in a larger map

I can’t say I came away with any memorable images, but I certainly came back with many new locations to try, an improved compositional knowledge and a list of new subjects to try. If you’re a budding photographer and want to take your skills to the next level and learn more then workshops are a great way forward, and fun too.

The Great Canon Rip-off – Sky High New Lens Prices!

2010-09-20T14:40:00.001+01:00

EDITORIAL

If you are a full frame Canon user like me I sure it won’t have escaped you that Canon have recently released a plethora of new highly desirable new L lenses. These include an EF 70-300 f/4.5-6.6 L IS zoom, an EF 8-15 mm f/4 L fisheye zoom lens, an EF 300mm f/2.8 IS Mark-II lens, and an EF 400 mm f/2.6 IS mark-II lens, not to mention version III of their 1.4x and 2x extenders. Plus new mark-II versions of the 500mm f/4 and 600 mm f/4 lenses are also in the pipeline. That’s quite a lot of new glass. But have you seen the prices!

I’m sure that a few of these lenses may have been on your wish list as well as mine, but when I saw the prices I must admit I was simply gob smacked!

Lets take the extenders for a start. The current version II of these sell at about £260-£270 within the UK, but the suggested retail prices of the new versions are £549.99. That’s a price increase of around 107%. Sure there may be some improved optics, but a price increase of that much…wow.! They are going to have to be really, really good.

Next I’d like to mention the EF 300 mm f/2.8 IS USM lens. This is a lens I’ve have coveted ever since I had the chance to borrow one for a brief time at one of my kids school sports days. It’s a simply fabulous lens, receives 10/10 reviews and is generally regarded as one of the best pieces of glass in Canon’s current line-up. One wonders just how this could be improved? It’s also a lens that really seems to perform with the 1.4x and 2.0x extenders so would be ideal for wildlife photography too. Ever since that sports day I’ve paid close attention to the price of this lens, which was around £2,500 and just too much to fork out back then. To my horror the price of this shot up to around £3500 plus in January 2010 with Canon citing falling exchange rates (more on that below) necessitating an across the board increase in lens prices. To be honest the lens then became just a pipe dream.

The new version II of this lens is priced at a staggering £7,499.99 which is a inordinately large sum for a 300 mm lens no matter how good it may be. This is an increase of over £4000 on the previous model. How on earth can Canon possibly justify such an increase no matter how good the lens performs?

According to Canon the new 300mm f/2.5 mark-II has a the new IS version II, is a lot lighter due to new titanium components, and has 16 lens elements with high performance fluorite elements. However, the current 300mm f/2.8 has 17 elements, weighs only 150 grams more, and is practically the same size at only 4mm shorter. They look practically identical. IS-II is supposed to give quicker stabilisation and a up to 4-stops, but on spec. the new lens is going to have to have some sort of mind boggling, blistering, optical performance to be able to justify such a hike in price.

It will be very interesting to see what happens to the price of the EF 300mm f/2.8 IS mark-I. Normally you’d expect a lens to come down in price when superseded, but version-I is so good you may see existing supplies being snapped up quickly as many will view the mark-II as simply unaffordable.

The Yen Exchange Rate debacle

At the end of January 2010 the retail price of Canon lenses increased by an average of 30-40% across the board within the UK, with Canon citing the strengthening Yen against the British pound necessitating the price hikes. Well lets just have a look at that shall we. At the beginning of 2009 you’d get around 130 Yen to your pound, but from January through till August the value of the Yen to the British pound actually fell reaching almost 157 yen to the pound. This meant Canon were actually earning more Yen for their British sales within that period. Were prices reduced in the UK? No they remained pretty much the same. During the later part of 2009 the exchange rate stabilised at around 147 yen to the pound which continued through to the start of 2010.

At the end of January 2010 the rate fell to from 147 to around 133 and Canon duly increase their prices. The pound has continued to fall steadily against the Yen throughout 2010 but even by September this year the average rate is 130 Yen to the pound. That’s exactly the same as it was in January 2009. Yet why are the same Canon lenses still 30-40% more dearer than 21 months ago?

Summary

I see little evidence from exchange rates for justification of such a huge increase in retail prices from Canon earlier this year and I also feel that the new lenses prices seem simply extortionate. To the serious amateur like myself, and no doubt millions others, Canon is simply pricing us out of the market and items such as these will be left merely for the super rich and high earning professionals. There’s no doubting Canons expertise, research and technology is absolutely top notch, but to see new models being priced at twice the price of the previous one smacks of greed and could alienate a large portion of it’s previously expanding customer base. It’s a real shame to see this happening as there is, without any doubt, a boom in photography and many more photographers are aspiring to acquire better quality glass. It seems to do this Canon will require a substantially larger slice of your hard earned dosh from now on.

I guess I for one, will have to keep buying the lottery tickets and hope!

Wish List for the Canon 5D Mark III

2010-09-14T11:10:00.000+01:00

Equipment Editorial

Now that I’ve proclaimed my top ten features I’d like to see in Lightroom 4. I thought I’d do the same for my other weapon of choice, my Canon 5D Mark II. The 5DMII was released back in September 2008, so has now surpassed that 18-24 month period in which camera models are typically superseded by newer and more feature packed versions. The annual Photokina show in Cologne is fast approaching too, which is normally the stage for the major manufacturers to announce their latest and greatest. Having said that, Canon have recently announced several new lenses, a new EOS 60D camera body, and probably stunned the Camera world by announcing the largest ever CMOS sensor at 120 MP. So can we expect anything new, well if you take heed of the latest internet rumours there will probably be no 5D Mark III till well into 2011?

The current 5D Mark II is a fine camera and for many has been proclaimed by many as just about the best camera out there for landscape photographers. There’s no denying it’s been a huge hit both with professionals and serious amateurs alike and in capable hands can produce superb images. It does have it’s ‘Canonesque’ quirks however, many which I highlighted in my article Canon 5D II – One Year On, and I doubt Canon would ever radically change or vary from their basic design, so I seriously doubt many of my wishes will be met. I’m not a huge fan of the video functions, which looking at the 7D and 60D seems to be the headline grabbing features. It’s not that I dislike video features, but just that being a still’s photographer, they are just not on my radar as priority items. Lets get back to basics please. Anyway here are my top ten, in no particular order:

Built in GPS: this must be a long overdue feature and probably an easy one to implement. There are many GPS tracker devices out there (I have an AMOD AGL 3080) and the prices have dropped significantly in the last year to where you can pick one up for not much over £60, so the hardware addition should not be that expensive. Currently however, getting GPS data back into your RAW file EXIF metadata is still a tad fiddly although can be achieved by free software. I certainly hope Canon don’t take the route of an add on GPS device that sits in the hot shoe, that would be disastrous and no doubt expensive to the consumer. If GPS were in-built this would be an upgrade deciding feature for me.
In-Built HDR processing: a complete wild card this one, but wouldn’t it be nice. If know the purists will always want total control on merging multiple exposures, but I’m sure Canon could come up with something pretty good.
Electronic Level: this feature is present in the new EOS 60D and has been a regular features on competitors cameras for a while, so a must for any new Canon Camera now. At last we’ll be able to ditch the hot-shoe bubble levels, but we need to be able to see this through the viewfinder not just on the rear screen.
Quicker and Better Focusing: an absolute no brainer here, the current 9-point focusing system is long overdue an update, and many had hoped would have been updated with the 5DMII. The 7D features a 19-point focus system and even the new 60D sports a 9-points system. Improved focusing in low light would be a big hit too.
Bigger, Better and Brighter Screen: the 5DMII screen was a big improvement over the 5DMI, but I think there is still room for a much, much bigger screen. Wouldn’t it be nice to have one where we can actually use to made subjective decisions on our photographs. Oh and please, please can we have a one-touch button to zoom straight in for a 100% preview!
3 Stop or greater Compensation: It’s present on the 1D’s and needed on the 5D Mark III. Many photographers are now experimenting with long exposures and filters such as the Lee Big stopper and B+W’s 10-stop filter have greatly extended the landscape photographers day. You can just about see through the 10 stop filters with Live-View in normal light, but forget it in low pre-dawn or evening light. Canon need to take heed of this expanding and popular aspect of photography and allow tLive-view screen compensation so we can compose, focus, and adjust grads even through a 10-stop filter.
User Configurable Auto-ISO: auto-iso is a great feature but it’s a poor implementation of this on the 5DMII. Currently Auto-Iso chooses ISO values between 100-3200. Please let the user specify the upper and lower limits. It seems Pentax can manage this, so why not Canon?
Proper Camera User Settings: again, a great idea but a totally useless implementation. User settings should be a useful starting point only. If you then adjust the aperture, ISO or shutter speed it should remain at those values. If you (like just about every other photographer I hasten to guess) have probably got got your auto-power off set for a short interval (as we all wish to preserve battery life), then as soon as your camera powers off, your User Settings are set back to their starting values. I don’t know any photographer uses the same settings for every photograph, so why on earth make them work that way? Make them work properly and give us several more!
Ergonomics – Tactile Buttons & Analogue Controls: I know making all buttons alike probably aids the visual appearance of a camera body, but when you are fiddling around in low light they all feel the same and it’s easy to press the wrong one. Tactile buttons would be nice; one’s that feel different and are readily identifiable by touch. They could be alternate sizes, have a textured or imprinted surface. A rubberised and larger DOF button would be a big improvement too; that tiny little button is just too slippery and awkward to locate. I also still have problems pushing down the joy-stick Multi-Control button to access the Quick Control screen, so much in fact I’ve mapped that to my Set button. I like analogue controls and the Control wheels are great. They just make more sense and are so much easier to operate than digital equivalents. The three principals settings for any photograph are, shutter speed, aperture and ISO. We have Control dials for the first two so why not for ISO? One the front of the thumb grip perhaps?
An Eyecup that doesn’t fall off: another one of my major gripes (that I know is an impossible request). For a camera that costs as much as the 5DMII, the crappy little plastic eyecup is truly awful. If you’ve never had reason to remove this it may have remained in place just fine. If you use an angle finder like me, you’ll know, sooner or later the eyecup it won’t grip anymore and will easily come off. Now I always travel with a spare.

You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned resolution in any of the above and that’s because I’ll take it as a given that resolution will be increased and I suspect, to around 24 mp or greater. An increase in resolution is sure welcome, but 21 mp is pretty good for me, so it’s just not on my list. Also my last few items are mainly issues I have with the current body style and operation, most which I’ve mentioned before, and which I hold little prospect of ever being addressed by Canon.

Well, those are my wishes, now let me hear yours. Comments welcome…

When All Else Fails – The Gold-N-Blue Polarizer

2010-09-08T13:51:00.001+01:00

Equipment & Techniques

As a amateur photographer and working man, achieving quality time for my hobby is more often than not quite difficult. For me, the main opportunity often turns out to be the family summer holiday. However, unless you’re off to sunnier climes and spectacular scenery overseas, here we have to put up with the unpredictability of the British climate. Many’s the time I’ve crawled out of bed at some ungodly hour, half asleep, and set off in the dark to some distant location only to be greeted with a sunrise that’s hidden behind a thick carpet of grey cloud. Welcome to the English summer! Once more, when I return, the rest of the family is just settling down to breakfast and I’m then expected to ferry them around and entertain them for the rest of the day and well into the evening. It makes for long tiring days, often without the reward of at least one good photograph.

But what to do when that sunrise doesn’t materialise? It’s disappointing to put it mildly, and after several days in a row it can be down right maddening. It’s easy just to give up, go back and may be even try and catch a little more sleep before the rabble awakes. But hey, us photographers have to make the most of things don’t we?

Well exactly that happened to me whilst up in Northumberland last week. For several mornings in a row I ventured out from our holiday cottage in Craster to the fabulous Dunstanburgh castle, only to be faced with dull lifeless skies. At least some mornings there was a bit of a breeze and then my Lee Big Stopper (10-stop ND) filter could be put to use. Then I remembered my little used, Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue polariser.

Like most photographers, I’ve been through the coloured filter phase, and have sunset and tobacco grads and a whole host of other enhancing filters that reside within a CD wallet somewhere. But they seldom see the light of day and these days and seem considered almost bad form by some. I’m not knocking them though; they do have their place, but I just don’t seem to use them anymore. I’m certainly not adverse to adjusting my pictures in Photoshop or Lightroom however, and firmly believe that I want to produce a picture that is pleasing to me, not just a photographic representation of the scene at the time. I certainly don’t like over cooked images, if you know what I mean, but see nothing wrong with adding a bit more colour, vibrance and contrast.

During my ‘Cokin Filter phase’ I also acquired, at some not inconsiderable cost, a Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue Polarizer, but initial experiments with it’s use seemed, to my eye, a tad unpleasing. It too remained at the bottom of my filter wallet.

Well, if there was ever a day for experimentation this was it. I was at a great location but with lifeless skies and poor light. Out came the Gold-N-Blue.

The Gold-N-Blue filter works like a normal polarizer excepts that it enhances blues or yellows as it’s rotated, and both to a lesser degree somewhere in-between. I found it possible to add some yellow to the skies and blues to the water which I though helped the scene tremendously. The gold certainly brought out the barnacles, shells and seaweed on the rocks, and added interest to the sky. The blue extreme enhanced the blue in the seas and when dull adds magenta.

Lastly I added the Lee Big Stopper 10-stop ND filter and took some long exposures of some rocks. Both these are exposed for 100 seconds with the above picture taken at the blue end of the polarizer at F/1,1 and the one below at the gold end at F/11. Both have enhanced vibrancy, clarity and contrast within Lightroom 3.

I hope you’ll agree, both are far more interesting than dull grey skies. The Gold-N-Blue polarizer should now remain a regular in my Camera bag.

Resources

Lightroom 4 Wish List

2010-08-24T21:21:00.001+01:00

Software EDITORIAL

Now that Lightroom 3 has been out for a while and is already in it’s second iteration (the current version being 6.2) it would seem that some of the regular pundits have been turning their thoughts towards what may be included with Lightroom 4. Scott Kelby recently posted a rather interesting blog on features he would like to see in version 4 and that got me thinking what would be in my top ten wish list. Scott’s article was pretty thorough and I thought and covered most of the bases. Plus, being in a position he is within the industry, it would seem that Adobe are already taking note. His article also provoked quite a response. You can read the original here and the follow up Wish List Comments here.

I of course, have absolutely no clout with Adobe what-so-ever. So apart from posting my wishes here in the vain hope that someone from Adobe may, by complete chance, happen to stumble upon them, I think getting my wishes fulfilled are pretty dam remote! Nevertheless, here are my top ten in order of preference:

Soft Proofing: if it’s one thing I still have major difficulty with it’s getting my prints ‘just right’. If you read the web posts I’m not the only one, there are thousands of others out there who, even after profiling monitors and papers, still find achieving the perfect print a bit of a dark art. This one’s a no-brainer and way out in front for me.
GPS Support: as a landscape photographer I’d love this feature. Pretty soon all DSLR’s will have GPS built-in. I currently use Jeffrey Friedl’s Geoencoding Plug-in for Lightroom which, even by his own admission, is a tad clumsy due to the current LR plug-in architecture, but does work quite well. This enables locations to be imported from a GPS device or simply tag locations from Google Earth, but requires a bit of juggling to get this data back into the LR catalog.
Key Word Manager: I haven’t seen many requests for this and I don’t really know why. Key-wording is one of those necessary evils. We all know it should be done, but managing long lists and hierarchical keywords in a little side panel is a clumsy affair. They made the new import dialog into a huge pop-out module (which wasn’t really a critical feature in my opinion), so why can’t we have something similar for managing key words?
Improved Local Adjustment Tools: these currently contain Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Clarity, Sharpness and Colour. But why not Fill Light, Recovery and Vibrance, or even go the whole hog and give us a local Tone Curve adjustment too.
Improved Slide Show: I currently use a third party product (ProShow Director) for my AV requirements, and whilst I don’t expect Lightroom to provide that level of sophistication, the Slide Show module as it stands is a little basic. More layout capability, with multiple pictures per slides, different backgrounds, more text features, Ken Burns zooming and panning and a few different transitions are an absolute must. Syncing to music would be nice too plus the ability to use several music tracks in sequence.
Photo Book Services: Scott Kelby mentions this is the sole feature he uses Aperture 3. But I certainly don’t want to be tied to a photo book publishing feature that ties the user to one service like Apple does. To me this is an ideal feature to be added to the Publish Services feature, so hopefully we’ll see services like Blurb, fotobook and many others added here.
Face Recognition: enough said, it’s already in Aperture and we’d all use this for sure. Surely adobe couldn’t afford to leave this out...could they?
Improved Spot Removal Tool & Clone Stamp: these are some of the few features that still require me to leave Lightroom. I’d really like to see the Spot Removal tool developed into a proper healing brush, so annoying wires and TV aerials can be cloned out without a round trip to Photoshop.
Photo Stitching: the ability to make panoramas and stitch photographs within Lightroom.
Improved Interface: I like the Lightroom interface very much, but it needs to be a little more adaptable. Some of the side panel features are too small when restricted to a narrow panel. A pop-out/expand mode feature may suffice. And please, please, Mr Adobe, do something about the dreaded little triangle in the far left and right margins. I’m forever clicking in there by mistake thinking it’s the scroll bar and hiding my panel. Scroll bars should be on the Outside!

Well that’s my wish list for now. Now tell me yours!

Uganda Wildlife – Monkey Business

2010-08-18T10:31:00.001+01:00

Latest Picture

Since I haven’t posted much the last few months I thought I’d take the easy way out and post some pictures. This was taken in Entebbe, Uganda, not far the hotel I was staying in before travelling out to Lake Albert and my work on the oil rig. There’s a few troops of Vervet monkeys that hang around the wooded areas near the hotels, especially the Botanical Gardens and the Wildlife Centre. They are habituated so you can get quite close. Being monkeys however they don’t stay still for long and most of my shots were blurred. This one of a youngster astride it’s mothers head turned out quite nice. The late afternoon light helped. The one below of the inquisitive youngster was taken a while back. Both shot with my Canon 5D Mark-II with the EF-100-400 zoom.

I hope you enjoy them!

A Non Mac-Man’s View of the iPAD (and loss of faith in Microsoft?)

2010-08-15T12:13:00.001+01:00

Editorial

You’ll probably wondering what an article an about the Apple iPad is doing in my photography blog. Well, so am I, really. But hey it’s my blog and it may just have some relevance in a rather convoluted way. You’ll notice I’ve stated View and not Review as I don’t intend to review the capabilities and functionality of the iPad. There are far too many reviews out there already from better qualified people, so I couldn't really do it justice in that department. But I will however, present some of my opinions on why I may just be heading down Apple Way.

I’ve been contemplating trying (buying) a Macbook pro for quite some time now (thus comes the relevance). If you have ever read my review of Windows 7, you’ll know why, but to put it in a nutshell I’m pissed off with Microsoft. For years I was a huge devotee and happily enjoyed each stage of Windows evolution, and by Windows XP SP2 felt pretty comfortable with a then stable OS system. Through work requirements, although never a huge fan, I grew to become a competent user of Microsoft Office, particularly Word and Excel, although Outlook has always left a sour taste in my mouth. Like similar persons of ‘my age’, my first serious foray into word processing was via the text-based WordPerfect and later the windows version, which at the time, was light years ahead of any thing Word could produce.

For spreadsheets it was Lotus 1-2-3, and then the fabulous Quattro from Borland, but eventually, by a process of attrition, Microsoft's world dominance and client demands, I found myself having to use MS Word. Word is quirky, a tad clunky, and sometimes not the most intuitive program to use, however, through some not inconsiderable time, I’ve become accustomed to all it’s quirkiness and would happily describe myself as a competent and experienced user. That was until, the dreadful Office 2007 and the hideous Ribbon!

Having spent a considerable number of years using Microsoft products and so many hours of my life invested in becoming an experienced user, Microsoft, in it’s infinite wisdom, suddenly decided that the toolbar style and menu style interface that we all were perfectly at home with was no longer valid, and turned to some school teacher to design the ‘Ribbon’ interface. This, I’m afraid, simply awful implementation of a UI is so obviously designed for school children. But can we have our grown-up toolbars and menus back? No way! Microsoft has decided we can’t. I’m afraid this is where MS have simply become far too big for their boots. I’ve tried Office 2007, several times, but have simply given up since I just don’t have the time nor inclination to relearn what I know works in Office 2003. For Microsoft to not give users a choice of UI is absolutely unforgivable and a monumental mistake. Nobody likes being imposed upon.

And now we come to Vista. A defining moment in Microsoft's history without doubt. Quite simply the biggest OS flop, period, and the best bit of advertising that Apple has ever had..and for free too! Vista looked flash for sure, when it worked that is. But was (still is?) the most unstable, and certainly the most annoying modern OS ever released. Unfortunately for me, a defunct desktop, meant a replacement with Vista. I also plumbed for a system supposedly tailor-made for photo-processing comprising an over-clocked quad core processor, 8GB ram and wait for it…..Vista 64 bit OS. Huge mistake!

Not only did half my hardware not work because there were no 64 bit drivers around, you also had to get used to daily crashes, the green line of death (a change from the BOD but just as deadly), and the incredibly pedantic and most annoying implementation of UAC (User Account Control) there ever could be. Vista just wasn’t stable, and would drive me up the wall.

Herald the arrival of Windows 7. It got great reviews, and I had just about reached a point where I was sorely tempted to remove Vista and down grade (or perhaps that should be upgrade) to Windows XP 64 bit. More fool me… I waited and eventually decided to give MS just one more chance. I’ll say it again, one more chance!

Windows 7 is certainly more stable for sure, it’s workable, but it still crashes, and it’s 95% Vista code with the same Vista bugs. But hey, haven’t I already paid for Vista? Yes. Then 95% of what I’ve paid for I already have? Yes. And that didn’t work too well either? No. And you paid how much? 175 quid! Boy have I been ripped off. Yes the great MS rip-off has conned millions, myself included, big time. Windows 7 is really only a Vista Service Pack in disguise, putting right the things that didn’t work. But SP upgrades were free in the past weren’t they? Yes. But not this one.

When first installed Windows 7 uses a default task bar designed with huge icons for a touch screen PC. Who the hell has one of those? I think the first thing everyone does, is re-configure the taskbar back to the previous incarnation.

What I find so annoying with Microsoft is that they are imposing things upon us and not giving their seasoned users the choice anymore. I know many people love the Office 2007 ribbon, I don’t, I hate it. I want the choice to choose which interface I use. Will they listen? I don’t think so.

And so at last to the iPad. When they first came out I just couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. A large iPhone duh! But whilst eyeing up a 15-inch MacBook Pro at my local Apple store in Sheffield, I and my two kids listened in on a quite knowledgeable young sales girl demoing the iPad to a potential customer. Well I was quite taken, so were the kids. This I thought, was the ideal device form my wife and what with her birthday coming up, and having no idea what to buy the woman who already has everything (sorry darling). How about an iPad?

My wife (I hope she won’t mind me saying), is a complete computer numpty. She has many talents, but operating a simple PC is just not her thing. Other guys in my industry who work away from home like me, receive regular emails, pictures, skypes and videos from their other halves. Me, well I’m lucky if I get 2 or 3 in a year. However, with an iPad maybe there’s hope. It’s so beautifully simple.

That was a couple of months ago and I judge the iPads success by how many emails I have received from my wife whilst I’ve been away overseas. In that case it’s a barnstorming success. I’ve had more emails in the last month than the previous 3 years put together. And guess what, she’s even using Skype now too. The iPad has been great for that and the kids can join in too since the built-in microphone is good enough for conference calls. It works a treat. I know for many of you this is pretty basic fodder, but for us it’s a huge leap forward.

My wife now happy browses the internet, buys stuff on Amazon, checks out the school site, communicates with her friends and many more things. She’s using the scheduler, notebook and contacts list, and playing Sudoku and the kids have been downloading games.

One thing Apple have really cracked is the touch screen keyboard. I’ve always hated such things but this one just works perfectly. The iPad is elegant, simplistic and a joy to use and probably the most convenient tool I’ve seen to browse the web with to date.

It’s been a huge hit in our house all round. The kids are now fighting over it and Dad has had to say it’s Mum’s device hands off.

I’ve enjoyed using it too. It’s great for browsing whilst sat in bed so I can envisage a ‘his’ and ‘hers’ iPad in the not too distant future.

Apple have a real hit here, and once again have set a new standard in the computer industry. I had though at one stage of buying the wife a netbook. The netbook is dead.

One the down side, there are some limitations, and things I miss. Having to do every thing through iTunes is a real pain. Not having the ability to connect an external USB HD or memory stick to download all your favourite photos, documents, music or videos directly is a huge oversight as is not having a USB port. And Apple still insist in not supporting flash, a technology embedded in over 70% of all websites. I really don’t understand that one.

I used to thing Apple goods were for snobs. Not not any more. Microsoft has had enough of my money. My next laptop is going to be an Apple, but that will be another story…

Lowepro Pro Trekker 400 AW Backpack Review

2010-06-10T05:16:00.005+01:00

Equipment Review

I must confess to being bit of a camera bag junky. I’ve tried loads of bags and have so far failed in my quest to find THE prefect camera backpack. I guess the perfect backpack simply doesn’t exist as there is always something that could be improved, and personal tastes vary too. However, the Lowepro Pro Trekker 400 AW for me, comes seriously close.
By far the majority of my previous purchases have been bags by Lowepro as I've found them particularly well constructed, but I have also sampled bags from Kata, Crumpler and Tamrac. I’ve read countless reviews of bags too numerous to mention, and have scoured the net for useful user feedback, so with this particular purchase I took my time and did my research before I was ready to part with my hard earned cash.
The Lowepro Pro Trekker series comprises the 300, 400 and the 600 with numeric designation being related to the maximum size lens the bag can accommodate whilst attached to a camera body, thus you can fit a camera with a 400mm lens within the Pro Trekker 400 AW. It will fit the larger bodies too or those with battery grips attached.
The Lowepro Pro Trekker 400 AW is listed as a rugged, light weight expedition camera backpack. My (somewhat brief) mountaineering days have long since fading into a far distant memory so I can't profess to talk about this bag on long treks out in the wilderness for several days, but can however comment on it's day-to-day use. My needs are predominantly short walks of generally no more than a few miles from my car to photographic locations, and to have a bag that is suitable as hand luggage when I fly overseas. I also require a bag that will carry a tripod easily and that has additional storage for other items, not just photographic gear.

Initial Impressions

The Pro Trekker 400 AW has a more traditional rucksack-like appearance compared to other camera backpacks' and only comes in an outdoor kakhi colour (called ‘Mica’ by Lowepro). Both the colour and looks I find appealing to the eye and it doesn’t cry out ‘Camera Bag’ like so many others do, although the Lowepro logo is clearly visible. My previous backpack was the Lowepro Vertex 200, which similar in size to the Pro Trekker 400 AW and a very good bag, just lacked that little extra adaptable space for those non-photographic extras, such as your packed lunch and a flask! The Pro Trekker 400 AW just provides that bit more usable space that renders the bag a much more practical prospect for a photographer like me. Don't let that traditional rucksack-like appearance mislead you though, the Pro trekker 400 AW has just the same, adaptable, camera compartment underneath, and although it is listed with exactly the same internal dimensions of the Vertex 200 it is actually 1/2" deeper and very slightly larger. That extra depth is ideal for packing slightly larger lenses in a vertical position and peripherals such portable, external, 2-1/2" hard drives which now fit with ease.
The rucksack-like appearance is achieved by providing two large tapered side pockets, one which can be adapted to take a hydration system, and a waist-pack pouch (referred to as the backpack lid by Lowepro) which attaches to the top of the bag. The latter can be removed and a hidden belt revealed enabling it to be used as a separate waste-pack. Three, integrated, reinforced tripod sleeves are provided, situated on the front and sides of the backpack. The central sleeve is the larger of the three and has two retaining straps and can easily accommodate a large tripod such as my Gitzo GT-3541 SL, whereas the side sleeves can accommodate a smaller tripod, monopod, or trekking poles.

The reverse side of the pack contains a 10-point adaptable harness system which is considerably more comfortable than the one on my old Vertex 200, and by the use of what Lowepro term the Pack-jack system, the wearer can shorten or lengthen the distance between shoulders and hips. The pack-jack is a thin plastic/nylon card which resides hidden between the padded mesh on the back of the pack and base of the main compartment. When pulled up it breaks the Velcro seal which holds the straps in place enabling them to be repositioned to suite. The mesh-covered, padded waistband (not show in the photographs) is removable (at long last), which is a real boon when taking the bag onboard as cabin baggage. The whole bag is fabricated in the usual heavy duty ballistic nylon and strengthened with hypalon (a synthetic rubber noted for its resistance to chemicals, extreme temperatures, and UV light) at strategic points, and seems extremely well constructed.
The main compartment is practically identical to the Vertex 200, and sealed by similar water-resistant, heavy-duty YKK splashguard dual zip fasteners. One problem with the Vertex which I found infuriating was that these zips were very tight and even after a couple of years use were still awkward to undo and fasten. Lowepro have addressed this problem in the Pro Trekker 400 AW by providing large zip loops enforced with hypalon which make it much easier to pull the zippers. All the zippers on the 400 have these. The layout of the main compartment is similar to most bags and constructed of the usual grey Velex, brushed Nylon, foam padded, dividers which can be easy arranged to suite your equipment. The Lowepro dividers I always find work particularly well and have good quality Velcro attachments which really do hold. I also much prefer the subdued grey colour of these to the rather garish yellow used by Kata. There are also two elasticated Velcro ties that can be used to hold longer lenses or other long objects and a small zippered mesh bag is provided for small loose accessories.
The pockets inside the top cover are of a different layout to my old Vertex 200 and contain 4 dedicated CF memory card pockets with tabs on the front which can be set to show whether the card is empty or has been used. The card slots are rather a tight for a CF flash card within it's plastic case and I found it a struggle to get them in, although I presume this will become easier with frequent use. There are 4 clear mesh zipped pockets. The zip pulls fit under small flaps when closed so that no metal will extrude and mark your precious camera gear when the lid is closed. The layout of the main mesh pockets I found to be rather odd however, and certainly not as versatile as those within the Vertex. There is only one long, narrow pocket suitable for brushes, pens and torches and such, and I really miss a dedicated pen/brush holder. All the pockets bar one are in the vertical orientation too (not horizontal like the Vertex) which makes getting things in and out more difficult, and objects prone to falling out when the bag is laid down flat. I think a little more thought could have been put into the layout of the pockets and this area lags behind the Vertex design. that aside there’s still plenty of room for instruction books, cleaning materials and other items.

With the 400 you get two large sized, long, outside pockets, the one on the right contains a drawstring liner suitable for a 2-Litre (70 fluid oz.) hydration pack (which I don’t plan to fit) and the other contains a couple of passport sized slip-in open pockets and a couple more CF memory card pockets. The hydration side I find ideal for a flask or water bottle but it's just about long enough to fit a small flask with small water bottle on top with still extra lateral space for other stuff too. You could put a rolled up waterproof in either of these pockets. The pockets are slightly tapered so are a little wider at the base and get narrower towards the top. The zips go from the top rear to bottom front so open like a flap; this works well however. The slip-in pockets in the right hand side are idea for filters, small filter wallets and other accessories as well as a waterproof. Although relatively simple, these outside pockets are really useful, easily accessible and provide the bag with much more versatility.

You loose the dedicated, zip-sealed, laptop pocket with the Pro trekker 400 AW which I miss. All you get now is just an open slip-in pocket on the outside of the bag. This comes with a rather tight fitting, colour matched, zipped, laptop cover, supposedly suitable for a 15.4-inch laptop. Be aware however, that the outside pocket in which the laptop cover is supposed to fit is very tight. There are two straps on the bottom front of the bag on the outside of this pocket which can be loosened, but if you have anything but a slim, modern, 15-inch laptop or smaller it still may not fit. This seems like a major faux pas on behalf of Lowepro and you really need to check if you laptop can fit before buying. I've knocked a star off for this alone. It wouldn't have taken much to make this a tad bigger to cope with the majority of 15-inch laptops. The included laptop sleeve is also rather an odd shape, being long and narrow and I don't know of any laptop that would fit these dimensions. I have included a picture below that compares a normal laptop cover to the Lowepro design so you can see what I mean. My 15-inch Sony Vaio is a struggle to fit width-wise, but a good couple of inches shorter than the cover (see picture above). When the laptop cover is inserted in the pocket it also protrudes slightly out the top, but can be prevented from slipping out by a central quick clasp (show above). I seldom trek with a laptop so this outside pocket is currently used to hold a rolled Linpix groundsheet and my Lee filter wallet, both of which fit quite tightly so I know they won’t fall out. The lack of a zip to close this compartment however, severely restricts what you can use it for and in my view is detrimental to the overall design of the bag.

On top of the bag, and what gives the 400 that rucksack-like appearance is a small removable waist-pack. It has it's own belt tucked away underneath but I've not tried wearing it as a waist-pack alone. Contrary to appearance it is quite small however, unpadded on the top and sides and probably not recommended to house any delicate camera gear or optics. It’s connected to the backpack via 4 quick connect snap clips, two at the rear and two at the front. The front fasteners are connected by longish straps which are anchored halfway up each side pocket. To gain access to the main compartment you’re going to have to undo the front straps to get to the main zip. Personally I’ve found it's no big deal to do this, so I've chosen to leave the waist-pack attached and just undo the clips as necessary, although I assume some people may find this practice a little restrictive. In that case you have the option to leave the waist pack off. You may think the straps will then dangle free and get in the way, but Lowepro have thought of almost everything and there are two recessed female clip receptors to neatly fasten the straps out of the way. The waist pack has two small zipped pockets, large enough to contain a small packed lunch perhaps and few accessories, but rather disappointingly, not large enough for a decent waterproof jacket. I tend to keep an Op-tech rain hood, spare batteries and my GPS in here.

In Use

I’ve owned and used the Pro Trekker 400 AW for just over 6 months now so its been out on several field trips and in some inclement weather too. On the whole it’s performed admirably and is very well constructed with the usual Lowepro rugged fabrics. It has the AW waterproof cover but I've been out in some heavy down pours without the AW cover and everything was kept totally dry. In places it’s got quite muddy but was easily cleaned with a damp cloth, water or a sponge even when dried on. The bags adjustable-torso harness system is very good and although it can be adjusted with the Pack Jack tool, you’re probably only going to have to do this once. I have found the straps to be comfortable even with a tripod attached and fully loaded. Most importantly for me, the waist belt can be removed also, which I seldom need.
I’ve used only the front tripod holder so far, where you can simply slide in two of the tripod legs. The tops of each loop are significantly reinforced I have to say these work really well and it's now a doddle to carry your tripod. No more silly attachments to add. There also a hidden fold-down pocket on the front to hold the tripod feet of a (long) tripod if necessary, but I’ve found 2 legs of my Gitzo GT-3541 LS just slotted in easily and I’ve had no need to do anything else. The bag has additional straps to fasten the tripod securely but I seldom needed to use these unless going longer distances. This is the first bag I’ve found that carries a tripod well and so easily and Lowepro have a winning design with this feature and yet it’s so simple.

Undoing the front two straps to the waist-pack first before you can access to the main compartment zips takes a little getting used to, but now it’s second nature. I really like the additional space and the side pockets are great. Now lunch, snacks, a flask and drinks are all within easy reach and away from precious camera equipment. Plus easy access to additional CF cards from a side pocket, and frequently used filters and attachments , without having to open the main compartment is a much welcome feature.
On the downside I miss having a closed, zipped laptop compartment. I seldom carried a laptop in my Vertex 200 backpack whilst in the field, but would utilise this compartment for any other items knowing that they were secure and none would fall out. The laptop pocket on the front of the Pro Trekker 400 AW is a poor implementation of this feature and would have been vastly improved if given a tad more space for thicker laptops and closed by a flap or zip to prevent items falling out.

Air Travel

Lowepro state the bag is within the size limits for cabin baggage for the airlines, but different companies have different limits so its best to check beforehand. British Airways current hand baggage dimensions have to fit within 56 x 45 x 25 cm (22 x 18 x 10 in), Emirates with whom I fly most frequently allow 55 x 38 x 20 cm (22 x 15 x 8 in), KLM allow 55 x 25 x 35 cm (21.5 x 10 x 13.5 in) and American Airlines 22 x 14 x 9 in (56 x 35 x 23 cm). Many use a system where the you add the dimensions (W+H+D) and this has to fall under a certain number. Domestic and short hall flights are often more restrictive on size, especially if it’s a small plane.
In theory at 15.4 x 14.2 x 21.3 in (39 X 36 X 54 cm) the Pro Trekker 400 AW should be OK for cabin baggage on most international airlines, however if you have your side pockets and the waist-pack full, this backpack is going to look huge, attract unwanted attention from check-in staff, and will probably exceed the allowed dimensions. When I travel I leave the side pockets empty, make sure they are held flat with the side straps and remove the waist-pack too. So far in doing this I’ve had no problems.
The other problem your are likely to encounter at check-in desks these days is with weight. Many airlines now weigh your hand baggage and limits can vary from 8 to 20 kg. If you think you bag is over the limit (which if fully loaded with camera gear it is most likely will be) remove some lenses and other heavy items and put them in your jacket pockets. You can always return them to the bag once you’ve checked in, but items in your pockets will not be included as hand luggage. For this reason it’s a good idea to have a jacket or waterproof with you that has large deep pockets!

CONCLUSION

The Lowepro Pro Trekker 400 AW is very smart looking camera backpack and all-in-all this is one of Lowepro's superior designs and in my opinion one of the best backpacks available at present. It's not perfect and at around £225 is considerably more expensive than many other bags which will hold the same amount of equipment. It is constructed to expedition standards though, which probably account for a significant portion of the high cost. It is exceptionally well built however, adaptable, and significantly more versatile than any previous backpack designs.
If you have invested a great deal in your camera equipment and need a sturdy, sensible and versatile backpack then the Lowepro Pro Trekker 400 AW should meet your needs and protect your camera equipment for many years to come.
Highly recommended.

Pros

Attractive traditional rucksack-like appearance
High-tech hard wearing fabrics and rugged construction
Most comfortable harness system yet on a photo backpack
Additional room for those non-photographic items
Ability to add a hydration system
Versatile and adaptable
Easy accessible CF memory card pockets

Cons

Poor and insecure laptop pocket implementation (no zip)
Odd sized laptop cover
Vertical orientated inside mesh pockets
No dedicated pen / lens brush pocket
Expensive

Makers Specifications

Interior dimensions:
11.4 x 6.5 x 17.3 in (29 x 16.5 x 44 cm)
Exterior dimensions:
15.4 x 14.2 x 21.3 in (39 x 36 x 54 cm)
Notebook Compartment Inner Dimensions:
10.2 x 1.0 15.2 in (26 x 2.5 x 38.5 cm)
Weight:
7.2 lbs / 3.3 kg

Resources

Pro Trekker Series at Lowepro

Amazon.co.uk Widgets

Lightroom 3 Released

2010-06-09T15:03:00.001+01:00

Software UPDATE

Well if you don’t know already, Abode finally released their long awaited upgrade to Lightroom with Version 3 going live yesterday. The good news for UK residents is that it’s probably a tad cheaper than most of us were expecting, this time costing £76.88 (£63.54 ex VAT) to upgrade direct from the Adobe web site. The full version is priced at £232.65 (£198.00 ex VAT), but if you qualify for the Student/Teacher edition you can obtain the full version for a mere £64.39. Mind these prices look set to rise as a VAT hike looks imminent for the budget due on the 22nd June so if you’re planning to upgrade or buy do it before then. Rather surprisingly the beta 2 version will still work till the 30th June. You can download a trial version, upgrade or buy from here.

The (slightly) disappointing news is that there are no big surprises, so pretty much what was available in the Beta 2 release is what you get, albeit in it it’s final polished state. The new features added since version 2 are:

Accelerated with a new processing engine
Lens Correction
Support for DSLR video files
Flexible publishing to sites like Flickr
Image Watermarking
Exportable slideshow with music (to MP4 video files)
Easier Importing
Tethered Shooting
Perspective Control
Film Grain Simulation
Flexible Print Packaging

There are some minor changes since the Beta 2 version however, and these are detailed by Tom Hogarty on his Lightroom Journal Blog.

As usual there are several sites already listing the new features in greater detail. Check out the Lightroom Queen Victoria Brampton’s blog for a full listing of all the new features and changes and there’s an excellent summary by Ian Lyons at the Computer-Darkroom. Videos of several of the new features are provided at the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Learning Center, courtesy of Matt Kloskowski (of Lightroom Killer Tips) and Scott Kelby of NAPP. There’s also an introduction to what’s new by Julieanne Kost on Adobe TV here. Also look out for the forthcoming Lightroom 3 Video Tutorial by Jeff Schewe and Michael Reichmann which will be soon available from the Luminous Landscape site. I purchased and downloaded their tutorial on Lightroom 2 when that was released which was good value and the easiest way to learn all the new features. I can thoroughly recommend any of their videos.

Upgrading

I upgraded my Lightroom last night which installed easily and with the new version 3 seeming more responsive than the Beta 2 version. When installing, Version 3 will automatically ask if you want to upgrade your existing catalogue to version 3, which went ahead quite seamlessly but takes a while to complete depending on the size of your catalogue. I left my running overnight. Lightroom 3 will not however, change your existing picture modifications to the use latest LR3 de-mosaic RAW processing engine (now called Process 2010, with the prior version now Process 2003). In the Develop module you may see a little exclamation icon in the lower left of your picture in Loupe mode.

This means that picture is still using the old 2003 Process engine. To upgrade simply click the icon and you are given the choice to upgrade just that photo, all selected photographs or all in the Filmstrip to the new 2010 Process. This can also be achieved through the Settings | Process menu in Develop mode.

Initial Thoughts

The lens correction and noise removal features of Lightroom 3 alone, certainly make this upgrade a thoroughly worthwhile purchase for me and probably many other photographers. Both perform very well in comparison to the stand-alone packages I use (PT-lens & Noise Ninja Pro). The processing engine (Process 2010) will cause some of your pictures to look quite different so some tweaking may be needed in places, but from what I’ve seen in the Beta 2 version, the end result is much improved. I’ll reserve comment on the accelerated processing until I’ve had more time .

It’s clear that with Lightroom 3.0, Adobe have a mature, very capable and competent product and I would have no hesitation in recommending this upgrade.

Lightroom 3 Resources

Lens Correction for Lightroom 3

2010-04-29T22:05:00.000+01:00

LIGHTROOM News

Having watched Terry White’s excellent video of some of the new headline features in Adobe Photoshop CS5, one of the functions I really hoped that would be included in the release of Lightroom 3 was lens correction. Well now it’s official, lens correction will be included. Yesterday Adobe released a You Tube video from Production Manager Tom Hogarty who presents a walk through of the Lens Correction Features within CS5 and states that these features and more will also be included within the final release of Lightroom 3.0.

In addition to manual controls to correct for geometric distortion, vignetting and chromatic aberration the lens correction in LR3 will include profiles for many Canon, Nikon and Sigma lenses. The video features one of Canon’s most popular lenses the 24-105m f4.0 L lens, which is good news for me as it’s on my 5D mark II most of the time. The profiles will also be included in Adobe Camera Raw 6 (ACR) Photoshop plug-in which presumably will be released around the same time as LR3. Adobe will also be providing a free Lens Profile Creator Tool, which will include a number of test charts for you to photograph so you can create profiles for any lens.

This is great news for Lightroom photographers and at last we will no longer have to create an intermediate file to straighten those horizons and bowed verticals and correct for perspective. I must admit being to having been a tad disappointed with the new features in the original release of LR3 beta One, and not quite overwhelmed by Beta Two either. However, lens correction is one of those features that was pretty high up on my wish list and I’m sure there’s lots more surprises to come. Now I can’t wait till the the official release. let’s hope it’s not too long!

Resources

A Snapshot of Uganda

2010-04-05T12:59:00.000+01:00

Field Location Article

I’ve not done this before so don’t expect too much, but all of my photographic location articles been penned post event, back at home in front of my desktop computer, complied at leisure. This one however, is from the field. As I write I’m at a camp based in North West Uganda along the Eastern shores of Lake Albert. I’m sat in my cabin looking out over thatched mud huts of the local village, situated on a grassy flood plane, about 600 yards inland of the shoreline, with the blue mountains of the Congo in the distance on the western shore shrouded in early morning mist. The morning sunlight is golden, the frogs are still croaking in the ponds from last nights downpour, the village is quiet and the scene is tranquil. It’s just before eight in the morning.

Actually I’m at work, my day job so to speak, employed as a geologist during the drilling of an exploration well looking for oil. The well is nearing completion, my tasks are almost done and I’m winding down, getting things in order before my departure and a well earned rest in a few days time. I’ve done this sort of thing most of my working life, spending several weeks at a time away from my family and home, followed by several weeks at home. It may seem odd to some, but to me and my family this is our normal life.

I digress however. The reason I write is that this location is quite beautiful and I thought I’d like to share a few pictures with you. This is not because they are of any particular photographic merit, but just to render a brief snapshot of this small part of Africa and let you see why I’m so lucky to be able to work in a place like this. A glimpse into an area where the tourist will never see; a glimpse into the lives of real Africans.

It’s been a rather busy trip for me this time and the long hours had taken their toll. Although I always tend to bring a bag of camera gear along, for the first 3 weeks or so I was unable to find time nor the energy to even leave the compound never mind get my camera out. It remained firmly in the bag. The locations I’d worked on my last few trips had been in thick bush and forest and none had provided anything of significant photographic interest from a landscape and wildlife point of view. I had expected this location, which not far from the last one, to be the same. I was wrong, and sadly I didn’t bring a tripod nor any ND grads this time, something I now regret. It’s very easy to get blasé, just do your job, and want to get on that plane home sometimes. So, photography here was going to be very much of the tourist kind, just snapshots.

Over the last 2 or 3 days, my workload has reduced somewhat and I have had time for several walks through the village and down to the lake and to explored the shorelines and small lagoons in between. At the moment most of the small lagoons and ponds are full of water hyacinth and each one is a resplendent carpet of pink blooms. In places the blooms skirt the shoreline too. Heron, Egret, Open-billed Stork and Cormorant occupy the braches of one of the sparse trees in the late afternoon sunlight by the ponds. Marabou stalks and Squacco Herons are often to be seen wading the ponds hunting for frogs, and African Jacana can be seen flitting flimsily across the waters vegetation. On one occasion a couple of resplendent Grey-crowned Cranes were spotted dancing a courtship ritual in the late evening light. The mornings and evenings bring squadrons of birds travelling to and from their perch to the Victoria Nile delta just a few miles north of our location, a place of plenty and a haven for wildlife.

The beach is narrow and none existent in places, but still provides a place of fun for the local boys, a party of which decided to follow me and a co-worker on one of my walks. My camera provoked interest and a source of great amusement especially when shown their pictures on the display. The villagers here are predominantly fisherman, as there is little sign of cultivation and small wooden fishing boats are scattered here and there, in twos and threes along the sandier sections of the shoreline. Some fishermen can be seen at work in the late afternoon, not far from the shore, but by far the greatest activity happens at night, especially around the new moon, when the black of night is littered by polka dots of yellow oil lamps on hundreds of fishing boats scattered across the lake. The fish is good too, as it often ends up on our plates.

Village life is very simple here, and to be honest the villagers have quite a meagre existence. There is no running water or electricity, no modern luxuries, and every morning and evening we see the women and children carrying huge plastic jerry cans of water on their heads from the nearby well. One evening a child, a young girl who couldn’t have been more than about five years old, and particularly small, dropped her jerry can. She was all alone. It was so heavy she couldn’t even lift it off the ground. I watched from a distance as she struggled several times trying before she ran off leaving the jerry can on the ground. She returned a few minutes later with an older girl, who was probably only two or three years older, and not much taller. But between the two of them they lifted the heavy, water laden, jerry can back on to the little girls head and off she waddled as best she could. No western child could do this, but here it’s part of life.

Home for the locals is a simple one room mud hut with a thatch roof, dirt floor and a small mud shed or outhouse which serves as the toilet. Food is cooked on a small clay oven or an open fire. Some I believe may have gas stoves but I see little evidence of that in the village nearby. Most of the children run around in ragged clothes, the very young ones are often naked, and some unfortunately display distended stomachs, a sign of malnourishment. Many infants seem very small , especially short and under developed for their age, although the older children seem happy and much healthier than the young ones. There’s obviously no nutritious baby food available here. Compared to western standards of any order this is a harsh existence, yet the people seem happy, good mannered and only inquisitive of their new temporary neighbours. We have experienced only happy smiles and no animosity; something I doubt would happen in our world should you find a drilling rig at the end of your garden!

On Sundays the women and children (didn’t see any of the men) can be seen wearing their finest walking off to church in an adjacent village. The majority of children are barefoot even then and I guess for many (if not all) they probably only have one Sunday outfit. The women are colourful, with brightly coloured wraps and dresses, some adorned with bangles and beads, one with a blue and white checked hat. Sometimes the women can be seen washing clothes in a large metal basin, others go down to the lake. The clothes are then scattered on the thatch roof or bushes to dry. A few of the huts are adorned with some simple wall paintings, one which caught my eye, with two white hearts. A love nest for someone perhaps?

It’s the rainy season here and nothing provides more drama than stormy skies in Africa, especially at sunrise, just after a night storm. We have experienced some incredible sunrises here on this trip. Unfortunately, I’m often very busy at that time of the morning as the oil industry has a peculiar habit of having to produce daily reports at six am. Bonkers I know, but that’s how it’s always been done and it doesn’t look set to ever change. Consequently, although I get to see the sunrise, I seldom get photograph it. On top of top that we also have a daily meeting at 7:30am too.

The storms, which can occur at any time of the day, most frequently seem occur in late afternoon or evening, and can bring torrential downpours. They don’t last long but in that brief time the ground rapidly becomes water logged and floods, leaving a muddy mess. It at this time I’m pretty glad I’m not in a mud hut.

In other places I been in Uganda you’re often asked for water bottles or quite often money, but there’s little evidence I see of that here. All the boys asked of us was a football. I so wish I had one to give to them.

Adobe Release Lightroom 3 Beta 2

2010-03-23T10:08:00.000Z

Lightroom News

Adobe today have surprised everybody today by releasing a Beta 2 version of their forthcoming Lightroom 3 software. The first beta version was released in October 2009, but I doubt anybody expected a further version before the final release. You can download the new Lightroom 3 Beta 2 version here.

Almost simultaneously with the Beta-2 release the usual first-looks, video clips, reviews and resources have appeared on the web from those in-the-know and the regular Adobe insiders.

Adobe have stated:

“We're offering a second public beta of the next release of Lightroom to give you a chance to preview the progress we’ve made on the new features and enhancements in the upcoming version. It's an opportunity for you to evaluate a select portion of the new features planned for Lightroom 3, to help the team discover and address issues if any, and to send feedback that the Lightroom team can use to make Lightroom 3 an even better digital darkroom and more efficient assistant for you”

However if you’ve had cause to visit the Adobe Lightroom 3 forums recently and viewed some of the criticism there, perhaps that, and I suspect the release of Aperture 3 by Apple may have played a part in this unexpected release. It may be that Adobe are buying some time due to Aperture 3 and I would hazard that an anticipated June release of the full LR3 probably looks unlikely now.

That asides there are a few new exciting features on offer that I’m sure will keep the bulletin boards and forum contributors buzzing for a while. Probably the most headline grabbing of these is functionality for tethered shooting; however it’s only for a limited set of the upper market professional Nikon and Canon models; Sony and others will presumably have to wait, but I can see this being a controversial point for starter. One other much requested feature now included is support for Video files, which can be added to your library, rated, filtered, and even made into collections. Some of the other improvements include:

Improved performance and faster importing and loading of images.
Full implementation of Luminance noise reduction.
Further improvement of Colour noise reduction.
Additional functionality to Watermarking.
Improved folder browsing with the ability to dock folders to make it easier with long file hierarchies.
Ability to use point curve editing in the tones curves like Photoshop
Additional criteria in smart collections
Sharpen brush can be set to blur

These are just a few of the enhancements in LR3B2 with much attention paid to the engine under the hood, with a lot of the bugs ironed out focus placed on improving performance and speed.

SOME First IMPRESSIONS

One of the much requested features on the Adobe forum was the ability to edit the Tone curve in the same manor as Photoshop. Well now it’s included, and by simply clicking on the Point Curve icon at the bottom left of the Tone panel, editing is switched to Point mode. Photoshop fans will be in familiar territory, but I for one for one, found Lightroom’s Tone sliders far more intuitive and easier to control.

I’ve only briefly toyed with LR3B2, however, as PC user (not MAC) I’ve really noticed a significant improvement in performance. LR3B1 I found prohibitively slow, so much in fact I seldom used it for anything but trying out the new functionality. This was a common theme amongst PC users reporting to the Adobe forum; it was almost if LR3B1 release was aimed specifically at MAC users, where it’s performance seem admirable. LR3B2 is really quite lively on a PC, rendering is much faster, so is zooming, and even switching between modules seem much more responsive. Mind I’ve yet to test this on my large desktop library back home.

Resources

If you want a quick run down of the new features and functionality of LR3B2 a good starting point would be to checkout the Adobe TV video walk-through by Julieanne Kost Julieanne Kost here, which as she so often reiterates, is excellent! If you want an more information check out the one by Ian Lyons at Computer Darkroom. Other resources can be found listed on Tom Hogarty’s Blog, and there’s another video from Terry White here.

Go ahead and download your free copy now!

Snow, Fog an Accident and a New Lens

2010-02-05T10:05:00.001Z

Latest Picture

It’s funny how things come about. Last week I was out with a group of photographers down on the rocks at Robin Hoods Bay on the Yorkshire coast. It was an awful day, extremely blustery, with rain, hail sleet and snow. Unfortunately for me, whilst briefly turning to get something out of my camera bag a huge gust of wind blew my tripod over and my Canon 5D Mark-II complete with my 24-105 f/4.0 lens ended up face down in a rock pool. Luckily neither got fully submerged as the kit was covered with an Op/tech rain sleeve (highly recommended at 2 for just over a fiver!) which probably saved my bacon. I retrieved the equipment in a flash (well as fast as this old frame can move in a blizzard) and dried everything off the best I could. Thank god for weather sealing on the 5D MII, I think my old 5D M-I would have been done-for had the same happened to that.

The camera seem to work OK but the LCD didn’t come back on for a few minutes. A small amount of water seemed to have got in past the rubber stop on the Extension System terminal on the base of the camera, but after cleaning and drying this out all seemed OK. However, I had been about to attach my Hitech filter holder adapter ring to the lens, which I continued to try to do but it wouldn’t attach. On close inspection I saw the outer threaded rim of the lens was cracked in two places. Dam, that was a blow (or words to that effect!).

Alright accidents happen, I’m insured, I can get it repaired I thought. But I’ve booked a holiday at Staithes in a couple of weeks, and have a photo trip down to Dorset at the end of the month. This is my work-horse lens...what I’m going do if it’s not repaired on time?

Well I guess you know the answer, yep I bought a new lens. I'd always fancied trying one of those cheap Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 primes that get pretty good reviews. They used to be really really cheap but now have crept up to eighty odd quid. Still worth as punt perhaps at that price. However, after several hours reading many online reviews I decided that forking out an extra couple of hundred for the EF 50mm f/1.4 was perhaps a better investment and Amazon duly got some more of my money.

The lens arrived yesterday just after I’d taken the kids to school, complete with UV filter and lens hood (all extras of course). It had snowed the night before and was really foggy, but I had to go out and try it. Above is one of my first efforts (converted to monochrome), rather minimalist I know, but I thought the tree, especially with the broken branch made a good subject against an almost totally white background. As for sharpness, it seems ok, a little too early to tell, but not bad. Contrast, well not the best subject to tell with either. But you can be sure I’ll let you know how this lens performs real soon.

Resources

Canon EF 50mm f/1.5 USM Les Review
Op/tech Rain Sleeve
Op/tech Rain Sleve from Crooked Imaging

Lightroom 3 to be released in May 2010?

2010-02-02T13:50:00.000Z

Software

If you mosey on down to Michael Reichmann's excellent Luminous Landscape web site you’ll see he has announced a Winter Cheer-up competition. He’s giving away 10 copies of the full version of Lightroom 3 when it is to be released. Actually he’s not giving it away, nor is it much of a competition, you simply have to buy and download one of his video tutorials between now and May 1st to stand a chance of winning.

Michael is an Alpha tester for Lightroom so you can bet your bottom dollar he is one of those “in-the-know” as to when LR3 will be released. If his competition finishes 1st May, my guess that will be the intended release date for LR3 or very soon after.

Canon 5D Mark II – One Year On

2010-01-30T21:47:00.000Z

A year living with the EOS 5D Mark II Camera

It’s just over a year since the arrival of my Canon 5D mark II, which for me was an upgrade from my original mark-I. Since then I’ve taken just over 12,000 frames in locations varying from a very cold minus 13 degrees Celsius in Glencoe, to a very hot and blowy 52 degrees Celsius in Death Valley, California. I don’t intend to present a review of the camera here as there are far better qualified people than I whom have already published their findings online. I will however, tell you how I’ve got on with the Canon 5D mark-II, my thoughts and opinions and the problems and idiosyncrasies I’ve encountered.

First and foremost, the 5D MII is a very good camera indeed and in the right hands is capable of producing top notch photographs. If you have used a Canon 5D (mark-I) you’ll feel instantly at home with the mark-II. My 5D mark-II has performed well and I have encountered no major problems over the year. It feels much better built than the mark-I and with the improved weather sealing I’ve been perhaps a little more adventurous, taking it out in some inclement weather, where perhaps I wouldn’t have risked the mark-I.

Resolution

When I upgraded I must admit one of the most desirable features was the greatly increased resolution, which at 21mp is a huge step up from 12.8mp of the original 5D. Although it’s almost considered bad form to desire more pixels these days, the additional size lends much more scope to crop your pictures and still be able to generate a good size print. I regularly print A3-plus, and here the 5D MII does not disappoint.I have even had some 24 x 30-inch prints made and they absolutely stunning and tack sharp even at nose distance. The increased resolution has also allowed me to make larger wildlife prints where shots are often heavily cropped. Cropped shots that were only good enough for the computer screen with the 5D mark-I, I can now make reasonable sized prints. Compositions that were only good enough for A4 prints with a 5D, are now good enough for A3 prints if taken with the mark-II. The step up in resolution is a huge benefit to my photography.

There has been one drawback however. I use a Canon EF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 L IS lens for my wildlife photography and had always been amazed at how sharp this lens appeared using my 5D mark-I. Shots taken with this lens on the 5D mark-II however, did not appear as sharp at 1:1 (100%) as they did on the mark-I. At first I was a bit miffed and began to think I’d got a bad camera, but my other lenses were tack sharp. I did quite a few test shots and there definitely was, a albeit very slight, an apparent loss in sharpness. I had my focusing re-calibrated but the results were the same. Then I realised why this lens never received great review from owners of 1Ds III’s or any camera with 21mp resolution or above; 21 mp is simply above the resolving power of this lens. Now I hear rumours that this lens is to be withdrawn and perhaps replaced. So if you go for a high resolution sensor, bear in mind your current lenses and their ability to perform.

Live View

I didn’t buy the camera for live-view, nor did I think i would have any use for it. Boy have I changed my mind. What a brilliant tool. Yes it does run your battery down quicker...just buy another battery. For someone like me who wears specs and not in possession of the greatest eyesight, manual focusing was always a bit of a nightmare. In fact it was so hit and miss with me that I generally never bothered and just had to rely getting a focus point on something of contrast no matter what the light or else. But sometimes not even that works. Using live view however, makes focusing so simple. You can zoom up to x10 anywhere in your frame to check for sharpness, and you can open up your aperture or adjust compensation to check even the darkest areas, and simply stop back down to take your shot. It’s great too for checking your hyper-focal focusing.

QUICK CONTROL Screen

Pressing the joy-stick (Multi-Selector) button on the back of the camera brings up the Quick Control Screen. However I found that if you don’t quite press this straight down it doesn’t work and sometimes takes a few presses. This may be my poor (and sloppy) technique but I find it irritating and wish Canon had a dedicated menu button instead. You can change the SET button in the centre of the Quick Control Dial to activate the Quick Control Screen via a Custom Control Function, but this effects other operations and so I have gone down this route.

The Quick Control Screen allows the user to adjust just about any of the cameras settings and is navigated by using the Multi-selector. Now I find I rarely use the buttons on the top of the camera next to the LCD status panel, in fact I rarely ever look at the LCD panel now at all.

Setting bracketed exposure is so much easier now too. You just select the exposure screen from the Quick Control Screen and use the thumbwheels to set the Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) amount and Compensation.

The Quick Control Panel is a huge leap forward in usability but I still find it a tad clumsy to use. It’s good, but I still feel this could be refined. I’m not sure how, but scrolling around the page could be improved I’m sure. I’m also not a fan of digital controls and still would like to see more analogue style controls on the camera. We have thumbwheels to adjust the aperture and shutter speed, so why can’t we have another for ISO? These are so much easier and quicker to use.

No Mirror Lock-up Button

There’s still no dedicated Mirror Lock-up button, despite the zillion and one requests on the internet. None has appeared on any other Canon camera that has appeared since the release of Canon 5D Mark-II, so it seems canon will never pay attention to the general public no matter how vociferous the strength of opinion. You can however, add this function to a user menu, so at least it’s not so hidden as before, but it still makes it a pain to set and unset.

No Tactile Buttons

One of my major gripes with the original Canon 5D was that the buttons are all the same. Sure this makes for smart ergonomics and neat looks but when you are fumbling around in the night or low light it would be great if they felt different, making then easily distinguishable from one another and not all identical. I guess the Quick Control Screen goes somewhat to overcoming the problem. but I’d still like to see (or should that be feel?) buttons that are different.

Expanded and Auto ISO

The expanded ISO range is great, but to put it simply, ISO 800 is the same as ISO 400 in the original 5D. You have about one stop extra. Photographs at ISO 800 are perfectly usable, beyond that it depends on the light and the subject matter.

Canon have also implemented an Auto-ISO mode, which allows the camera to adjust the ISO speed if necessary. A great idea you may think, but this a very poor implementation of this function by Canon, and in effect making it practicably unusable. You can select Auto-ISO in Automatic, Program, Aperture priority or Shutter priority mode, but the camera then sets ISO values ranging from 100 up to 3200 ISO. Canon may think 1600 or 3200 ISO are fine but I can guarantee most decent photographers won’t go there. Canon need to take a leaf out of the Pentax book where on their cameras the user can specify the upper and lower ISO range, say 100-800 ISO, which would be usable. I’m sure this could be implement by a simple firmware fix, so this has to go down as a blunder by Canon. A case of lets get the function in, but with little thought of how the user would want it implemented.

Camera User Settings

Listed in the pre-release press for the 5D Mark-II, one the new functions that really appealed to me was the ability to have 3 Camera User Settings. These can be selected by choosing either C1, C2 or C3 on the Mode Dial. Great I thought, I can one have with all the settings for my wildlife photography, one for landscapes and one for portraits. Err..nope, I found out that they are totally useless. I can not understand Canon’s implementation of these buttons and how they work, it’s completely backwards. These only work if you take every photograph on exactly the same settings and I don’t think there is a photographer in the world who does that?

Let me explain, say I set C3 to my wildlife settings. I use my 100-400mm, so I’ll have my aperture set to f/5.6, ISO to 200, spot metering, and only the centre focus point selected and the camera in aperture priority mode. When I’m ready to shoot some wildlife, I simply rotate the Mode Selector dial to C3 and I’m ready to shoot. I take several frames but then find some animals in the shade and I need to bump up the ISO to 800, I adjust the ISO take a few frames then move on to another subject. I raise my camera to shoot, thinking it’s still at ISO 800, shoot and my picture is strangely underexposed, but wait, my ISO has been set back to ISO 200! Every time your camera auto-powers off (remember the Canon default is after 1 minute) your settings are re-set back to their starting point. This is absolutely infuriating and can not be avoided unless you disable the auto power off feature and that of course will run your batteries down super quick.

Canon have really got this one backwards. The user settings should be your starting point and should never reset when the camera powers down, but only when you the user chooses to do so. The way Camera User Settings operate should be set using a custom function. Come on Canon this ones a no-brainer surely!

Battery Compartment

Still plastic, still not weather sealed and rather flimsy and cheap compared to the rest of the camera. Again, frequently mentioned on the web and still never altered by Canon.

Eyecup

The eyecup is a little like the battery compartment door, it’s plastic, rather cheap and flimsy and seems out of place on camera of this quality. However they are pretty much the same design and quality on all Canon cameras and are very much in need of a serious redesign. These are probably fine if you never have to remove them and leave the original one on your camera for all it’s life. However if you use the Angle Finder eyepiece and even just occasionally swap between that and the standard Eb eyecup, you soon find the original one becomes loose and won’t stay on very well, and sooner or later you find it’s gone! I’ve gone through 3 or 4 of these. They gradually become so loose that just taking them out of your camera bag can cause them to come off and it’s generally too late when you notice it’s gone.

Minor Improvements and Changes

You can now see the ISO speed in the readout in your view finder; something I really missed in the original 5D. The rear 3-inch screen is a lot better, and displays more detail, but I still find I need to see pictures on a monitor before I can tell whether they are any good or not. It’s still hard to see in bright sun light but they are all like that. The screen zoom still functions oddly and there is still no way of telling when you are at 100%. It would be nice to have a percentage zoom readout on the display at least, but what we really need is a 100% zoom button. I’d also like to have a way of overlaying the histogram (in RGB too) on top of the picture rather than by it’s side, where the picture is so small it’s of no use. An old Minolta bridge camera I once possessed could do this and I found it very useful.

Summary

I don’t want to appear too negative here although reading some of my comments you’d think I don’t like the camera. You’re wrong, I do. It is a very capable camera, it’s just that I think Canon missed the boat a little with some of the features and have failed to address the wishes of a large part of their customer base. It could have been so much better and still be improved with some simple firmware updates.

I’ve not mentioned the movie capability. I didn’t buy it for that and I haven’t really used the movie feature that much. It’s obviously very capable at producing high quality video footage, but I doubt whether 1 in 10,000 have bought the camera for that feature alone. It’s nice to have but hardly a vote winner. At the end of the day the Canon 5D mark-II is a fine full-frame camera but still has the same old Canon quirks that they may never address no matter what is said. That aside I can easily live with it. I probably couldn’t live without it.

Full Reviews & More Details

If you are in need of a full technical review of the Canon EOS 5D Mark-II or more information then try these links below:

DP Review: In-depth Review of 5D Mark II, February 2009
The Digital Picture: EOS 5D Mark II Review
Luminous Landscape: Canon 5D MKII Field Review
Imaging Resource: Canon 5D Mark II Overview
Northlight Images: The EOS 5D Mark II

Shooting the Antelope

2010-01-02T23:21:00.001Z

Photographic Location

Despite the title this article has nothing to do with wildlife; quite the contrary in fact for this is about my visit to Upper Antelope Canyon, the beautiful, atmospheric and most famous slot canyon, situated near Page in Northern Arizona.

Antelope Canyon (Upper Antelope Canyon especially) is one of those classic photographic locations that has become extremely popular over the last 15 to 20 years or so, and to some almost a bit of a photo cliché, but there’s no denying that it produces some wonderful photographic opportunities. It’s also one of those rare locations for photographers where the best light is around the middle of the day and it doesn’t require a pre-dawn wake up call or a anxious wait for sunset. It’s perhaps most famous for the ghostly beams of sun light shining down on the canyon floor produced as the sun passes overhead around midday.
For those of you who don’t know, a slot canyon is rather like a meandering cave, with flat sandy base, and tapering walls that narrow upwards and reach the surface as a thin slot. They are formed by rapid erosion during flash floods, where water and sand rush through cracks in the rock and gradually, through time, excavate a sub-surface canyon. From the surface these may appear just as a narrow winding slot, but below often lies something truly amazing. What makes this region unique is that the slot canyons are formed in Navajo Sandstone, a distinctive pinkish to reddish, Aeolian (wind formed) sandstone, formed when this region was part of a huge sandy desert. The distinctive reddish colour comes from a coating of iron oxide on the sand grains which formed slowly after the sand had been deposited. The sandstone is also known for it’s visible cross-bedding which appear as banding and ripples within the sandstone, formed as the dunes moved with the wind. The darker the band, the higher the iron content and the harder the rock, which result in some quite amazing erosional patterns. Erosion still takes place today, especially during the summer monsoon season where flash floods are common. They can happen very quickly at immense pace and be be quite catastrophic. In August 1997 a party of 12 trekkers were photographing Lower Antelope Canyon when they were caught by a flash flood. Only one survived and Antelope Canyon suddenly became world news. Serious flooding still occurs often closing the canyon for several months.

Canyon Location

Antelope Canyon comprises two canyons, the more popular Upper Antelope Canyon (for the light beams) and Lower Antelope Canyon. The parking lots can be found either side of highway 98 just over 4 miles from downtown Page. To get there head out on highway 98 toward Kaibeto where you find the Upper Antelope Canyon turnout. For Lower Antelope Canyon travel another 1/4 mile, then turn left on Navajo Route N22B (Antelope Point Road) for about 1/4 mile where the entrance sign is on the left. Both canyons are on Navajo land and are only accessible by permit. Four families have concessions to provide organised tours and this is the most popular way to visit. You can however, just turn up at the parking lots and purchase permits and guided tours there, but this may be hit or miss during the peak tourist season. Lower Antelope Canyon is much closer to the highway, and the entrance just a short walk from the parking lot, but is narrower, deeper and longer, and does have some steep ladders and so is a more strenuous tour. Upper Antelope Canyon is the more popular and tours can get quite busy, so booking ahead is advised. It’s also farther from the main parking lot just off the highway, so the tours drive a further 3 miles down a sandy flood plain in huge 4x4’s to reach the canyon entrance.

View Upper Antelope Canyon in a larger map

Photographic Tours

If like me, your only opportunity to visit a location like this is restricted to school summer holidays, then you are going to be arriving in peak tourist season. Antelope Canyon is now a huge attraction and gets very busy during this period. The good news is that July and August are best for the light beams as the sun is directly overhead. The Navajo tour companies offer hour long scenic trips throughout the day and also offer specialist, longer trips for photographers. I had read mixed reports on the tours but after a little research decided to try Chief Tosie Photo Tours. I called about a week before hand and booked a place on the 10:30 am tour. All the tours commence from in-town locations so the advertised length includes travel time there and back. The pickup location was not far from our hotel, so easily reached, and easily identified by the huge 4x4’s parked outside. These have jacked-up suspension and large wheels necessary to negotiate the sandy flood plane should conditions get wet. The photo tours are generally restricted to 12 photographers so I was surprised to see quite a mixed bunch on my tour, even more surprised to find only 2 others had brought along tripods, and that many possessed only point & shoot cameras. Having a tripod proved to be a distinct advantage. Our guide was a young Navajo chap named Mylo, who turned out to be just perfect. I’d heard some photo-guides weren’t too knowledgeable but Mylo proved quite the contrary and not only a master at having you in the right place at precisely the right moment , but a wizard at seemingly everyone's camera, no matter of make and type. He was also a large-format camera enthusiast and an acquaintance of the renowned landscape photographer Michael Fatali.
The tour was quite chaotic in parts as there were many other tours visiting at the same time. In fact judging from the number of vehicles parked outside there were probably in excess of 300 people in the canyon. However Mylo’s intimate knowledge of where and when the light beams occur, his great skill at organising our party, and keeping other tour members out of our frames, more than made up for the $50 tour fee. The more serious photographers, typically those with in possession of a tripod, were generally placed in the forefront of each location and thus gained the best opportunity to take the best shots. However, what impressed me about Mylo was that he made a point of coming around each member and taking a look at their composition suggesting how to get a better shot or a more interesting variation, plus for those only with point & shoot cameras he advised and in many cases set up their cameras with the correct settings to get the best exposures. In this respect I was most impressed and there shouldn’t have been anyone from our particular party who didn’t leave without some good shots on their memory cards.
From taking my very first frame till my last was just over 1 hour 40 minutes and it seemed to go pretty quick, but was thoroughly enjoyable. I left feeling I’d bagged some good shots and later viewing them on my laptop I was not disappointed. Mylo really made the trip however, and apart from being a really pleasant guy his expert knowledge proved invaluable. I’d certainly recommend asking for him if you book.

Photographic TECHNIQUE

It’s not difficult to photograph the canyon, but you don’t get that much time to photograph the light beams, as they move across the canyon floor over several minutes and the guides have to repeatedly throw up large scoops of sand which fall through the sun light and generate the ghostly beams on the images. Plus you’re going to have several other tours walking back and forth in between frames. I used a full frame Canon 5D Mark II, a 16-35mm wide angle lens, a sturdy tripod and remote cable. I took most photographs at ISO 100, using exposures of 20-30 seconds at apertures generally ranging from F22 to F16, the majority at F18. I found most of my shots were between 22mm to 35mm focal length, so for cameras with smaller size sensors something like a 10-20mm is going to be your best bet. I shot, as I nearly always do, in aperture priority mode and I found the camera auto exposure was just about right most of the time. There is a huge contrast difference however, between the light beam and dark canyon walls, so it’s best to keep an eye on your histogram for over exposure. Where the light beam hits the canyon floor will burn out for sure, you simply can’t avoid that, and if you did try to compensate everything else would be far to dark if not black. The canyon walls will be underexposed but that produces the lovely familiar deep red or orange glow, and the really dark areas can often take on a purple hue.
Things to watch out for are the width of the beam and how soon you take your picture after the sand is first thrown up. The wider the beam, the more brighter it’s going to appear, the greater the contrast and the greater the chance of over exposing and burning out part of the beam in your image. In a few cases I compensated by –1ev. Also the beams are brightest when they catch the most sand, which is right after the initial throw when all the heavy larger sand particles fall, after that the glow grows fainter as the finer solids fall slower. I initially preferred the latter effect, which seemed to look good on the LCD at the time, producing a more streaky, flowing appearance, but when I saw them on my laptop it didn’t appear quite as effective as I thought. With the long exposures you’re probably only going to get one shot per sand throw, so you haven’t that much chance to experiment. I also found several of my early images (ones taken immediately after the sand throw) to be burnt out too much out at the top of the beam. Unfortunately I didn’t notice this at the time; an extra minus 1ev compensation (-2ev in total) would have probably been enough to reduce this and save the frame. Perhaps my best shots were taken a fraction after the initial sand throw.

Conversely some parts of the canyon are very dark and the beams very narrow and I found I needed to increase the exposure by around +1ev; this I had to do in Lightroom later as I found focusing very difficult in these dark regions. Shooting in RAW is a must.
Most areas of the canyon I found light enough to use autofocus. I simply selected a focus point on a near canyon wall and let the camera do it’s work. In some places I used live view and manually focussed making sure my hyperfocal depth of field was sufficient to get front to back sharpness. However there are a few really dark areas in the canyon where I struggled a little and unfortunately ended up with a few soft images.

Post Processing

As I mentioned above I shot entirely in RAW. Jpegs just wouldn’t provide a hope of any worth while post capture processing. Most images didn’t required significant processing other than than minor exposure tweaks and standard sharpening. However, lightning some of the shadows in the canyon walls and adjusting the recovery slider to pull back the highlights in the beams significantly improved the images in my opinion.

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Upper Antelope Canyon and despite the commercialism and crowds found in it a very rewarding photographic experience. I took the family back there later that afternoon, when it was far less crowded and they found it absolutely amazing too. It’s not cheap when you have a family of four, but it’s a very unique natural wonder which you don’t see anywhere else and still in my book a far more interesting prospect than any attraction in Las Vegas! I also ended up with some of what I considered to be my best photographs, one in particular which I now have enlarged to 24x30 inches, framed and have on the wall at home. If you ask me if I’d go again, the answer would be a resounding yes, anytime I can.

Resources

Antelope Canyon Tours by Chief Tosie (ask for Mylo)
Antelope Canyon Tours by Roger Ekis
Antelope Canyon Photo Tours – Carol Bigthumb
Overland Canyon Tours
Navajo Parks & Recreation Service
Reservation Services for Canyon Tours

Nearby Photographic Locations

Don’t forget to visit Horseshoe Bend just south of Page and a short distance from highway 89. Here you can photograph the Colorado from an overlook some 1500 feet above the river where it makes a complete 180 degree bend. It’s a breathtaking view. Alstrom Point is a location that’s not easy to find as it requires almost 30 miles of dirt road to get there, however the overlook of Padre Bay on Lake Powell is a popular sunset shoot. The Wave at Coyote Buttes (a permit is required in advance). This involves a 6 mile hike. There’s also another slot canyon called Canyon-X, only accessible via Overland Canyon Tours and 16 miles from Page, reputed to be much less crowded and limited to only 6 photographers per day.

Windows 7 – is it worth it?

2009-12-07T15:57:00.004Z

Software Review

I don’t know about you but I have found Vista to be the most frustrating Windows system I’ve used to date, and I’ve used almost all Windows versions since 3.1. I’ve had more crashes, BSOD’s (blue screen of death) and system hang-up’s whilst using Vista than I’d care to shake a stick at and at times I’ve sworn I’ll never touch another dam Microsoft product ever again. There’s no two ways about it, Microsoft well and truly lost the plot with Vista and have alienated more users than anyone thought possible. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’d recently invested quite substantially in a quad-core 64-bit photo-system complete with 8gb ram and twin monitors early last year, and that my entire software library is Windows based, I would have turned to the dark side by now and bought a Mac. I think Steve Jobs said Vista was the best bit of advertising Apple had ever had and he wasn’t wrong.

So why you may ask did I plumb for Windows 7. Well to try and get me out of a hole. Normally I’d give any new Windows system a wide berth for at least a year and not until the first Service Pack had been issued. But I just couldn’t face another year of constant, almost daily problems with Vista-64. I just had to do something, it was driving me mad. I, like many others, have come to loath Vista with a vengeance. I had two options, revert to XP-64 Professional or risk Windows 7.

Windows 7 certainly seems to have been well received by the press, it’s generally had great reviews, is reputed to relatively stable, and promises a quick boot up and a more responsive system. Well, lets face it, it wouldn’t take much to be a more responsive than Vista, a system which couldn’t hold a lick of paint to it’s predecessor, Windows XP.

But which version to buy, Home, Professional or Ultimate? Well one look at the fine print and I realised the much cheaper Home edition is of no use to me. I need the 64 bit version and I need XP backwards compatibility (as some of my older industry related software only runs with XP), so I had to fork out just under £150 for Windows 7 Professional ... what a rip-off Microsoft!

The Installation

I had a stroke of luck here. I downloaded and ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor program from the MS website and in doing that I came across the Windows Easy Transfer program. I’d already backed up all my data and user files to external (and internal) drives, but decided to run this and give it ago. It took a long time however, over 3 1/2 hours to create a 32.8 gb MIG file on an internal HD. By the way, I’d been told by my PC manufacturer to go for a clean install, so I did NOT buy the Windows 7 upgrade version. Reading the feedback on Amazon had already made me wary of that. I placed my 64-bit version in the DVD drive and crossed my fingers and prepared for a long wait.

Rather surprisingly the installation went very quickly, certainly a lot faster than other installs I’ve done in the past (which are too numerous to mention), so I was quite surprised to be staring at a clean desktop just over an hour later. First impressions were good, opening, closing menus and moving windows certainly seemed a lot more responsive, and boot up time was much much quicker than Vista, but far from being fast. I can’t say I liked the new large task bar which displays just Icons, but thankfully you can configure it to look like the far more sensible taskbar we’re all used (why do MS keep messing with things?). I also found many new drivers had been installed and my internet connect worked first time…things were looking promising. However, the new Nvidia control panel seemed to have rendered garish oversaturated colours to the desktop.

I then decided to try the Easy Transfer and double clicked my saved MIG file. I’d saved all my email, documents, pictures and UAC settings and it even allowed my to merge my previous user account with the new and different named account in Windows 7. Initial timings suggested this process was going to take forever, but that gradually decreased to somewhere in the region of 5 hours. I went to bed.

The next morning I was surprised to find my old desktop had been restored complete with icons (although some were empty), all my documents, pictures and music files were present and correct and even some software seemed to have been installed (VueScan). Other desktop folders were present too, my internet favourites and preferences for some other software reinstated too, even though the software hadn’t been re-installed.

I then had to go through the laborious procedure of re-installing all my software (in my case a hell of a lot), and I’m still doing that even now, a couple of days later.

First Impressions

To be honest it looks just like Vista. There appears to be very little difference. The taskbar as I mentioned is different, the notification area (those little icons at the bottom right) has had a makeover, and the start menu is pretty much the same. But gone are the quick launch icons to the right of the start button. I find this incredibly annoying. This is one of the features I used constantly in XP & Vista and now it’s gone. Well, actually it’s hidden and now almost impossible to find. Why Microsoft do this sort of thing is quite beyond belief. I had to search on the web to find out how to get the quick launch back and found good instructions here.

Items can now be pinned to the taskbar, but in reality is no different from the old quick launch menu which worked just fine. Gone also is the Show Desktop icon, it’s now a menu item when you right click the taskbar and also as a blank button at the far right of the taskbar after the time (which I found by accident). If you opt for items on the taskbar to display Icons and text you will now have the text ‘Quick Launch’ where before you had just icons. There is probably a way to get around this but I don’t want to waste another hour trawling the internet trying to find it. This is another retrograde step I’m afraid and just another reason why I hate Microsoft. It’s just SO annoying when you have got used to a process that works perfectly well and then the designers suddenly decide to do away with it for absolutely no good reason. It’s a sure fire way to piss-off your users. The very least Microsoft should do is have a one click button to gain access to your ‘classic’ interface.

You can now shake a Window title bar and it will close all other windows, drag it to the top of the screen and it will expand to full screen, features no doubt for the touch screen users in mind but only a minor cosmetic change for most.

After just a couple of days I’m still getting used to the new system but most things are familiar, however it definitely appears much more responsive. Copying files seems faster too, which is quite important for us digital photographers, although I’ve yet to do any timing tests. The dreaded UAC (user account control) has been toned down somewhat, so you are no longer pestered with so many confirmation dialogs when you want to copy or move files, although you still get them when installing software.

Potential Problems so far

It took less than 24 hours for my first crash and I have a few more since. Internet explorer keeps locking up every once in a while, which I suspect may be due to one of the add-ins, probably my Adobe Acrobat 8 standard, which I’ve had problems activating. My photos and screen colours seem much more saturated. I’ve downloaded the latest driver for my Nvidia 8800 GT card and have calibrated both monitors with my X-rite ColorMunki but they still appear more saturated than before. I still haven’t got to the bottom of this one yet. My Logitech VX Nano laser mouse failed to work, but a download of the most recent driver seems to have done the trick. As I mentioned earlier some of my old software is XP only and won’t install. I can set XP compatibility mode for a program that has already been installed, so no problem there, but have yet to find out how (or if) I can install a program in XP mode. I'm having exactly the same problems with sleep mode as I did with Vista. When the PC wakes more often than not my mouse won't work and I'm forced to do a hard boot. However most annoying of all, is that Microsoft still haven't fixed the bug in Explorer if you display files in details mode. The column width still truncates long file names forcing the user to right click the column header and select Size All Columns to Fit. There must be a million posts on the web regarding this problem just in Vista alone never mind Windows 7, so for Microsoft to retain the same bug is just so staggeringly mind blowing it makes you wonder whether those programmers at MS ever actually use the software themselves!

Missing Stuff and Downloads

There’s no Live Mail, no Instant Messenger, no Parental Controls, no Movie-Maker, and no photo Gallery included with Windows 7. Presumably victims of EC anticompetitive laws. You can however obtain these as free downloads from Microsoft where they have all had a makeover. One new addition is Windows Live Writer (which I’m using now) which allows bloggers to compile their blogs offline and upload when complete. It even offers integration with the most popular blogging sites, but although my theme was successfully downloaded, it failed to recognise any of my previous posts.

SO Is it Worth it THEM?

On cost no way, it is vastly over-priced, and to be honest after the Vista debacle Microsoft should have been giving this away as a free upgrade. Vista didn’t do what it said on the tin, so to charge this much money for what is really a Vista fix is robbery. Lets face it, most of Windows 7 is Vista code anyway, so we, the hapless consumer are largely paying for the same stuff twice. On ease of use, so far so good, a vast improvement over Vista; I’ll keep you posted on that one. For me I really didn’t have much option to upgrade or not, rather I had too. I still hate Microsoft for all the re-installs and troubleshooting I had to do, and all the countless hours I’ve wasted trying to fix Vista. My initial impressions is that Windows 7 is very much a Vista Service Pack in disguise. For people frustrated with Vista Home, then at least Windows 7 Home is a relatively cheap option and my advice (although some what begrudgingly) would be to bite the bullet and upgrade. For Professional and Ultimate users it may calm your Vista frustrations but offers very poor value for money. If you’re a happy XP user and don’t feel the need for a fancy looking interface I’d stay stick with it for the foreseeable future.

A Personal Opinion

It seems to me that Microsoft have lost their way somewhat since XP, roughly about the time Bill Gates relinquished control. Love him or hate him I think they have floundered since. I used to admire MS but not anymore. They don't appear to listen to their customers, and imposed what they think we should have, rather than listen to what we actually want. They remove features and change interfaces we have used for years and replace them with new ones forcing the user to waste time re-learning our day-to-day software with no options to revert back to the interface we're used to. Who the hell wanted ribbons for instance, why remove or hide menus. It's completely bonkers. I’m aware of several major companies within my occupational industry who refuse to upgrade to Office 2007 because nobody likes the new interface and they don't want their employees to waste further time being retrained even to be able to perform just the basics tasks. Microsoft have managed to piss-off so many of their core customers over the last few years, people who have grown up using Windows and liked the way it functioned. Forgetting them as Microsoft has done is nothing short of appalling. I think the time is ripe for other companies to challenge the Microsoft dominance.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Windows 7,Vista,Installation

False Kiva, Canyonlands

2009-11-20T12:27:00.006Z

Photographic Location

I first became aware of False Kiva location from the excellent Canyonlands and Arches DVD by photographer Steve Kossack from his series Photographing The Great American Landscape. My purchase at the time was more out of curiosity and to gain further insight to landscape photographic technique rather than a specific interest in the locations covered. At that time I only had dreams of visiting locations like these. However that changed in the summer of 2009 when the Birch family decided on a fly-drive holiday in the USA.

Whilst researching possible photographic locations for our trip I came across a picture of False Kiva by the photographer Stephen Oachs. His is entitled "The Tribunal" and to be quite honest I was simply blown away, not just by his stunning photograph, but by his capture of such a breathtaking location. I decided that this was a place just too good to miss. It is however, the photograph "Ruin in a Cave" by celebrated Moab based photographer Tom Till, that brought notoriety to this location more than any other photograph, so if you get to Moab don't forget to visit his gallery and see his version first hand too.

I soon found out that False Kiva is not the easiest place to find. It's situated in the Island In The Sky section of Canyonlands National Park, about 35 miles from the town of Moab. It's a category II listed archaeological site and is not marked on any maps or guides, nor will you find any signs for the trail. In fact it's almost a secret location. However, if you ask at the park visitor centre the rangers are obliged to give you directions. In my case a young female ranger presented me with a single page summary in a folder for a few minutes and I wasn't allowed to take notes. She didn't say directly but I was left in no doubt that she didn't approve of me visiting the site, especially when I mentioned photography. I was also requested not to divulge it's whereabouts to other people. The details presented were sketchy to say the least. Had I been familiar with the park and the terrain it may have meant more, but I was not, so I knew I wouldn't be able to recall enough detail to get me there. I left the visitor centre with the distinct feeling that the general public are totally discouraged from visiting this site. There is perhaps, good reason for the rangers attitude, as many of the archaeological sites over recent years have been vandalised and treated with disrespect. I was not one of those people however, and can't abide or comprehend what causes any person to commit such an act. It seems photographers around these parts don't always have a good name.

The following day I made an early morning trip to Mesa Arch to photograph the sunrise and had the good fortune to meet two fellow photographers, Jim and Tom. After the glorious red glow beneath the arch had faded our conversation turned to other locations and photography in general and I brought up the subject of False Kiva. Lucky for me (and Jim too), Tom, a Canyonlands regular, had visited the site a few times before. Jim and I were keen to go, and Tom kindly agreed to take us so we agreed to meet at 5pm later that day and hike out to try and catch the late afternoon sun.

You may be wondering why this location is called False Kiva. A kiva is a room used by Puebloan Indians, thought to be used for spiritual ceremonies and communal purposes. Many kivas comprise circular rooms which are often sunken into the ground, bearing a thatch roofs with a central opening and ladder for entry. The ruin at False Kiva simply comprises a low circular wall, so it is not know whether this was a true kiva or not.

The path to False Kiva commences just before the trail head to Aztec Butte on the road to Upheaval Dome and we all met up near the parking spot by the side of the road. The trail heads out across the mesa top and gradually descends over a dry waterfall and down a boulder and scree section which takes you well down below the mesa top where eventually it levels out and crosses directly below False Kiva, before ascending into the alcove from the far side. It's a bit of a scramble and you need to watch your footing, especially when loaded with photographic gear, but it's not as difficult as some web sites make out. Just take care and plenty of water if you go when it's hot. It probably took us the best part of an hour from the road.

When you arrive in the alcove the view (to coin an American phrase) is truly awesome. False Kiva is set in a huge half dome shape alcove set back into the mesa cliff face with stupendous views over the green river canyon and candlestick butte in the distance. You can see for over 50 miles. The stone circle is set in central position toward the front and there's plenty of room for tripods behind. There's an eerie cathedral like silence and presence within the alcove and you can see why the Pueploans thought this a spiritual place. It is indeed a very special place.

The afternoon storms had arrived during our hike and now the skies were dull, grey and full of cloud, and the canyon below overcast and devoid of contrast. Still, one could help shooting off several frames no matter what the weather. We chatted and waited and hoped for break in the weather, but still the clouds persisted. The company was good, lots of banter, both photographic and other topics, and time past. This was still and awesome place and it felt good to be there. Then just when we were beginning to discuss leaving, the clouds abated to the north and golden sunlight lit the canyon floor and walls and shutters snapped to and fro. Dramatic stormy skies, and sun, all we could have hope for.

Eventually the sun light faded and soon it would be getting dark. Time to pack up and head back. By now we could hear voices approaching as a party of 4 made their way across the scree. And guess who it was, no other than the young female ranger who had been so discouraging to me, and yet here she was bringing a party of her friends to the site. Just a tad hypocritical don't you think? We left leaving them in the alcove. The best light had long gone. After about 15 minutes walking, we observed the other party set off back too and to our surprise a couple of their members decide to try a short cut from the wrong side of the alcove down the steep boulders. Very ill advised. We turned out of sight as they struggled with their poor decision.

False Kiva is a fabulous photographic location and for me the high light of my US trip without doubt. Don't be put off by other parties, it's well worth the effort, but do respect the nature of the site, don't disturb anything and leave only footprints.

Photographic Information

The alcove is in shade in the afternoon. If the sun is bright there will be high contrast between the dark alcove, the sky and canyon floor. I found I needed to use ND grads to compensate. I tried from 2 to 5 stops (3+2), but settled on a 3 stop grad for most shots. Unfortunately this really darkens the roof at the right side alcove which appears in the frame, but is needed to hold back the sky (see Tom Till's photo). I did try bracketing in the hope to try some HDR but the clouds were moving too fast and this rendered an unsatisfactory and unnatural looking sky. You'll need a wide angle. I used my canon EF 16 35 mm F2.8 and shot most frames between 18-22mm on a full frame Canon 5D MII. I brightened some of the dark areas with the adjustment brush in Lightroom, and adjusted clarity, vibrance, some minor chromatic aberration and added some sharpening.

Photographic Locations Nearby

These are almost too numerous to mention. Mesa Arch, Green River Overlook, Deadhorse Point to mention but a few. Don't forget Arches National Park too.

Postscript

I stumbled upon this blog the other day, that of a ranger who obviously detests photographers. Our visit to False Kiva occurred around the same time although she certainly wasn't the ranger I talked to at the visitor centre that day and we certainly didn't stand within the Kiva circle. Maybe Tom or Jim can recall if she was one of the party. Not all rangers are like this however. On the whole I found them to be well informed, courteous and extremely helpful. Kicking over cairns seems a somewhat drastic, stupid and inordinately inane action to take as these provide guidance and safety for hikers. There is a trail to False Kiva there is no denying that, it's just not well marked and if rangers can visit with their entourage then why not anyone else. No doubt this particular ranger would be quite happy if a photographer got lost and walked off the edge of the mesa. What a hypocrite!

Thanks

And last but not least, a big thanks to Jim and Tom for such good company on an extremely enjoyable late afternoon.