Destruction of the Empty Spaces

Last Post

2011-10-16T12:34:00.004-04:00

I won't be posting any more to this blog. I have a full-time job and a little daughter, so I think I'd rather spend what little time is left over taking pictures, cooking, playing music, and doing other things I enjoy. I write for a living, so prattling on about photo topics halfheartedly for nobody in particular gives me no real satisfaction.

This blogging platform doesn't offer much flexibility for posting photos, so I'll be presenting my work elsewhere.

I'll leave the blog up, though, in case you find any of its old posts to be of any use. Looking for a review of the Olympus XA2? How to develop photos using caffeine and vitamin C? Try the search bar.

Here's where you can see my work on the web:

Daily photoblog

B&W film shots

Project 365

My best work (my daughter's site)

Balloon landing

2011-07-05T22:37:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, a photo opportunity literally lands across the street. This big balloon touched down softly just as I was leaving for work this morning.

Classic car

2011-07-04T16:42:00.001-04:00

This is a (I think) '55 Chevy Bel Air that's parked outside of Paulie's Pig Out BBQ in Afton, VA.

Fuji X100: A few more shots

2011-05-29T21:06:00.000-04:00

The X100's growing on me. It's very quirky for sure, and even difficult to use at times, but the image quality's great. I wish I could screw some more lenses onto it.

I took these yesterday at a makeshift war memorial - the soldiers' boots represent Virginia soldiers killed in action. The X100's built-in ND filter let me shoot the shot with the flags at f/2...but auto ISO chose 3200. Huh?

Fuji X100: Leprechaun Sanctuary

2011-05-17T18:31:00.001-04:00

Fuji X100: Some rock and roll pics

2011-05-14T17:39:00.000-04:00

I've been diligently carrying the X100 around everywhere I go until I have to give it back. I'm learning to live with many of its quirks, and I'll publish a "tips" post once I'm done with it. Here are a couple things I've figured out lately:

There's a way around the "silent mode" flash dilemma - just turn off the operational volume and shutter sound. Voila, permanent silent mode, and you can just call up the flash whenever you want it. Who needs a fake shutter sound, anyway? (If you do, there are three to choose from.)
ISO is weird. You can set auto ISO parameters through the setup menu (not the ISO menu), but if you set a specific ISO in the main menu, auto ISO won't go any lower than that number. I had briefly turned off the auto ISO the other day and set the X100 to ISO 400 in order to meter a shot I was taking with a 1957 Ricoh 500, which has no meter...anyhow, I assumed that auto ISO would override the manual ISO setting, not so. No big deal, really, but good to know.

A couple co-workers play in a band that played an early evening show the other day, so I got right up on the stage and snapped a few shots.

Fuji X100: lovin' and hatin' it (updated)

2011-05-09T00:06:00.003-04:00

I jotted down my first impressions of the new Fuji X100 the other day - looking at the post now I can see it doesn't jive with most "first impressions" posts I've seen for this camera. I spent a lot of time pointing out the things the camera doesn't do well, at least in my eyes.

While I stand by all of those observations, I did figure one thing out - you can indeed wake up the camera from sleep mode, by holding down the shutter button for a second or so. Then a few seconds later, you're ready to shoot again. Everything the X100 does, it does deliberately.

However, the proof is in the pudding, and I'm loving the images I get out of this camera. It's just not snappy and responsive. Depending on what you're shooting, this is either no big deal, or a crying shame. That's what inspired the title of this post.

Here are a few more snaps - I'll keep jotting down notes as I go while I have an X100 to play with.

Update, 7/1/2011: Eolake raises a good point in his comment below. The X100 is actually plenty responsive, I was just trying to tweak too many things and dive into too many menus at the time I wrote this post. In the end, I just set the ISO, aperture, and shutter at auto and shot away most of the time. Don't make the mistake I did - just shoot away!

Repurposing gear

2011-03-28T21:24:00.000-04:00

I took these two today using the S95 and a Sony VCL-0630 S camcorder wide-angle conversion lens. I held it by hand against the end of the lens as I shot. The top one was taken at 28mm-e at 0.6x wide, which works out to about 17mm. The conversion lens performs well at center, but gets pretty fuzzy at the edges. It reminds me of the Lensbaby.

For the bottom shot, I flipped the conversion lens over, which had a magnification effect. What I learned was, never throw anything away if it seems useful. Its true purpose will reveal itself to you in due course.

Sharp enough for you?

2011-03-20T22:40:00.000-04:00

I was fooling around in the yard today using the T3i and my Russian Jupiter 37A 135mm f/3.5 lens. It's in Pentax Screwmount (M42), easily adapted to Canon SLRs. The Jupiter 37A was set at f/5.6. I used Live View and the T3i's sweet tiltable screen. Pretty sharp, yes? I will admit to some mild sharpening during processing, but believe me, it takes a sharp image to make a sharp image.

Shadows

2011-03-17T21:48:00.000-04:00

I like this one, it looks like the shadow's going for the steal. Taken with the S95 I have on loan.

Digital Holga

2011-02-10T20:50:00.000-05:00

credit: Saikat Biswas, via trendland.net

(Thanks to Martyn Kyle of Pernmoot Photography for passing this along)

Indian photo genius Saikat Biswas has mocked up a design for a truly digital Holga camera. As a Holga lover, I can say this design is truly inspired. I love the zone focus and lack of an LCD screen. In my humble opinion, it only falls short in the sensor department. It should use an inexpensive cameraphone sensor, not a full-frame DSLR sensor! No need for such a camera to be expensive. Anyway, it's just his idea for now. But if such a camera ever came to market and was priced properly, you can count on one sale from this photographer.

Sprocket holes

2011-01-27T21:49:00.000-05:00

Every now and then I like to load up the Holga with some 35mm film and shoot - since the image circle cast by the lens is meant for 120 film, it exposes all of the smaller film. The sprocket holes show. You either like it or hate it, I guess, and it's probably an effect best enjoyed in moderation.

You can buy a 35mm Holga, but if you buy the 120 version you get 35mm for free! Just follow the instructions at Squarefrog.

Inside Jinx's BBQ

2011-01-16T21:49:00.000-05:00

Have a look inside Jinx's Pit's Top in Charlottesville. The walls are covered with various things, from old soda signs to newspaper clippings. An interesting place, and good food, too.

Half staff

2011-01-12T22:47:00.000-05:00

Today's Project 365 pic is of flags flying at half staff in front of the Charlottesville airport. They're flying that way in the wake of the shootings in Tuscon. It's at 24mm with the fabulous Samsung TL350 (WB2000 elsewhere). It's an awesome little camera that shoots RAW, sports a 24-120mm lens which is f/2.4 at the wide end. It'll shoot 1080p movies, and it has a fun sweep panorama mode. I recommend it highly.

Project 365 gallery

2011-01-06T21:59:00.000-05:00

OK, it took me a week to realize it is a waste of time for me to double-post Project 365 photos every day, so I'm going to stick with the other site. You can see my daily snapshots here.

Project 365: Day 4

2011-01-04T21:21:00.000-05:00

Project 365: Day 3

2011-01-03T20:20:00.000-05:00

Beer! This is Harris Teeter's display rack.

Project 365: Day 2

2011-01-02T14:49:00.000-05:00

Today's picture is the interior of Bodo's Bagels in Charlottesville. We brought a dozen over to a friend's house his morning. It's usually a lot busier, but I think everyone was in church.

Project 365: Day 1

2011-01-01T15:32:00.001-05:00

The Yarmouth Photo Group is getting cranked up again, in form of the "one a day" Project 365. I've decided not to place any restrictions on myself, though I suspect I'll be getting to know my cell phone camera a little better. Here's entry number one, a familiar face you can all count on seeing much more of as the year progresses. Happy New Year!

Christmas lights

2010-12-15T00:03:00.000-05:00

Canon 40D, ISO 1600, 16-35mm @16mm, 1/15, f/2.8

Team photo

2010-11-17T21:53:00.002-05:00

A couple of years ago I bought a Ricoh 35 ZF camera to complement my Canon AE-1, with the plan of "shooting a roll of film now and then." Two years later I just developed my 150th roll, and I've acquired a small pile of cameras, either for free or on the super cheap. All of the cameras pictured here are in active rotation.

Clockwise, from lower left: Canon Elan IIe, Olympus XA2, Ricoh 35 ZF, Kodak VR35 K14, Olympus Stylus, Holga 120N, Slim Black Devil, Super Ricohflex, Yashica 35 GSN, Canon AE-1, Olympus Stylus Epic

Olympus XA2

2010-11-16T23:18:00.001-05:00

Since I started shooting film in earnest a couple years ago, I've acquired a small pile of inexpensive film cameras. The smallest of the lot just might be my favorite: the Olympus XA2.

I don't love it best just because it's small. I mostly love it because it's damn simple to use. It is a zone-focus model, meaning you guess the distance to your subject and move the slider to match. There are three positions:

White People: 1.2m to 1.8m
Orange People: 1.2m & up
Mountains: 6.3m to infinity

The focus resets to the middle (orange people) position whenever you close the clamshell. So when you open it, as long as you're 4-5 feet from your subject, there's no need to fiddle with it. When I'm taking a landscape shot I sometimes remember to flip the switch upward, but for 99% of my shots I just open, point, shoot.

The lens is a sharp, 35mm f/3.5 4-element Tessar type. It's not as fast as the one on my Stylus Epic, but this is really an outdoor camera anyway. Did I mention the lens is sharp?

You wind the film using the thumb wheel in the upper right. Takes a few swipes to advance it all the way. The shutter will not fire unless it's wound completely. The viewfinder has framelines built in, but they're not exact - there will be a little more in your shot than what you see in the rectangle. A green light goes off if the exposure will be 1/30 or slower.

Like the fancier XA, the XA2 features a hair-trigger of a shutter button. It feels strange at first, because it's a flush-mounted electromagnetic button that goes off with a slight touch. This is good because it helps you minimize camera shake, and there is no appreciable lag when you're ready to shoot.

Shutter speeds are 1 - 1/750 second.

The XA2 is a rugged little beast. It feels properly heavy in hand, and I prefer to carry it in a cargo shorts pocket or jacket pocket. It's a little too bulky for a pants pocket (remember, you have to fit a 35mm film cartridge inside). I don't like a strap because I am normally shooting from the hip or a low angle with it without even looking through the viewfinder.

There's a little self-timer/battery check switch on the bottom for long exposures and self portraits!

ASA speeds can be set manually from 25-800. You can fiddle with this to set exposure compensation, but more importantly it allows you to use a 2-bath developer like Diafine that tends to effectively boost the rated speed of your film. If your only option is DX coding, you must find another developer since you're stuck with the rated speed.

Sometimes simplicity is a fantastic thing. When you shoot with the XA2, there's little to worry about other than what's in the frame. And nobody on the street knows you're even shooting pictures. I've loved this spectacular little beauty since I bought it for a measly 20 bucks or so.

Eating dinner

2010-11-13T15:03:00.003-05:00

Super Ricohflex, Ilford Delta 3200, f/3.5, 1/50

I am new to medium format, but I love it. Other than the venerable Holga, I have a Super Ricohflex TLR I picked up for a song. It's pretty tough taking pictures of a child unless she's sitting down...or at least not moving for a few seconds (yeah, right!) This is a snap from dinner time, made with available light. I processed the film in D-76, 1:1 dilution.

In the yard

2010-11-05T21:58:00.002-04:00

Olympus Stylus Epic, Fuji Neopan 400. I replaced the Stylus Epic I used to have for just $20 on eBay, because it was the DLX model with a stuck panorama mask. Needle-nosed pliers fixed that! This is the 35/2.8 model with a spot meter, normally a little more expensive than I got it for. As you can see, the lens is sharp.

Now I have three clamshell Olympus cameras...the XA2, Stylus, and Stylus Epic. It's such a perfect camera design. I slightly favor the XA2 because I don't have to focus and it has no shutter lag, but I find all three useful. Indeed, they are all currently loaded with film.

JC's Playground

2010-11-04T21:54:00.002-04:00

5D Mark II and 28/1.8 lens @ f/16...7-bladed aperture yields the cool 14-point sunstar. I metered on the bright point of light to create the silhouette. The cross is atop a church across the street from the playground.

Roof and clouds

2010-08-15T09:31:00.003-04:00

Olympus Stylus, 35mm, Legacy Pro 100

More angles and shadows

2010-06-05T20:44:00.001-04:00

Omni Hotel parking lot, Charlottesville, VA...same staircase as in previous post.

Angles and shadows

2010-03-29T23:56:00.002-04:00

Omni hotel parking lot, Charlottesville, VA

Arlington, VA

2010-03-22T22:46:00.003-04:00

Olympus XA2, Legacy Pro 400 (rebranded Fuji Neopan)

I've heard people say that winter's a bad time for photography. Oh, please! The shadows, naked trees, and low-angle light create wonderful opportunities. Don't make excuses — make pictures.

Film rules for B&W, I'm convinced. I'm scanning for now, but one day I'll build a proper darkroom and do some real prints. And my B&W negatives will last longer than me.

The Olympus XA2 is a wonderful pocket camera. It's tiny, built to last, and simple to use. Three-zone focus and an ASA dial are your controls. The clamshell design is pure genius, and the wide-normal 35mm focal length is sublime. In fact, it's becoming my favorite focal length. Plus, it's "full frame!"

Tracks

2010-02-07T21:55:00.001-05:00

Self portrait

2010-01-24T10:39:00.001-05:00

Megapixel insanity

2010-01-20T20:50:00.002-05:00

Great post on Petavoxel. It's the first in what's grown into a short series of posts in reaction to all the 14-megapixel small-sensor compacts announced at CES. It's well-written, concise, and should be read by anyone shopping for a camera if you ask me.

Serious photographers have known this for years, that packing more and more megapixels into the same small space was detrimental to image quality. But no matter how loud the plea to the general public, it has fallen on mostly deaf ears. Let's hope the tide is starting to turn.

Footsteps in the snow

2010-01-07T20:48:00.005-05:00

Made with the Ricoh 35 ZF and Arista Premium 400 (actually Kodak Tri-X). "Sunny 16" exposure of 1/500 at f/16. The light meter is not functioning, but these old cameras are great because I can simply remove the batteries and do everything manually. I taped a cheat sheet to the back but I am using it less and less as I get a better sense of exposure. It's a great way to learn, actually.

Graveyard

2009-12-30T21:48:00.003-05:00

Medium format magic

2009-11-30T20:27:00.004-05:00

I can't put my finger on it, but there's a look to medium format that's different that 35mm or digital. I'm sure it has to do with the size of the format, but since my experience is limited on the subject I cannot put it into words. All I know is, I like it.

These shots were made with my Super Ricohflex TLR of 1950s vintage, metered with a 1940s GE selenium light meter. Both shots are wide open at f/3.5, hence the vignetting. The film is Arista EDU 100 from Freestyle photo (widely rumored to be Fomapan). It's not my favorite film, but the price is right and I really dig these photos.

Frame 37

2009-11-27T21:15:00.003-05:00

I like this one the more I look at it. It's frame 37, and since my Printfile negative sleeves hold only 36 frames, it's just part of a two-frame strip that I store behind the sixth full strip. Just goes to show, you can never have enough film. This one was shot with my Ricoh 35 ZF camera.

Any camera you have that winds manually should yield you 37-40 frames. You get the extra frames at the beginning of the roll, not the end — in fact, the last frame is pretty damn close to the spool (when you're loading in the dark, you need to cut right up against the tape that holds the film on the reel). Load the film carefully, shut the back of the camera, wind one frame, and blast away. What's labeled 36 on the film will be 37, 38, 39...even 40 if you're real lucky.

Fall colors

2009-11-22T10:30:00.002-05:00

Filmtagger

2009-11-18T23:13:00.002-05:00

I've been doing a lot of scanning this year, and I have found it frustrating that I couldn't add camera, lens, and other shooting info to the resulting jpegs (Lightroom lets you add all kinds of metadata, but no meat-and-potatoes EXIF data). After much digging I discovered Filmtagger, a free program for Mac and Windows that lets you do just that. Cool.

Street scenes

2009-11-15T09:46:00.006-05:00

Canon Elan IIe, Arista 400 at 28mm.

A couple of painters were set up in an alley recently. Seemed like a lovely scene, and for some reason I like the way bricks look in B&W.

Canon Elan IIe, Arista 400 at 135mm.

In the one above, I like that the little girl appears to be holding a camera. Good for her! The farmers' market is a great place to snap photos.

I've never done a lot of "street photography," but I am starting to understand the appeal. You look at some pictures a second, third time...you start to see all kinds of new details.

Children's shoes

2009-11-14T08:26:00.002-05:00

Canon Elan IIe, Arista 400 film, Canon 28-135mm lens.

Caveat emptor

2009-06-29T20:08:00.002-04:00

Buying camera gear can be a dicey proposition if you're not careful. Just realize one thing: retailers do not mark up cameras, bodies, or lenses very much. They make their money selling you memory cards, filters, batteries, straps, etc. So if you see a price on a new camera or lens that's significantly lower than you see it on Amazon, Adorama, or B&H, it's probably a bait-and-switch scam.

Say you buy a camera from one of these shady outfits, like Broadway Photo, Foto Connection, etc. About a day after you place your order, you'll get a "confirmation" phone call. During this call, the belligerent caller will try and "sell" you a whole bunch of items that should already come with your camera, like battery chargers, software, etc. They'll be pushy and mean, and you're probably not getting what you ordered in the mail. When you call them to complain, they basically tell you to piss off.

Most of these scammers have Brooklyn addresses, but they're not what you think — most are actually empty warehouses, shipping centers, or private residences. To his credit, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has begun cracking down on these unsavory business practices, but you still have to be careful.

If you're buying new camera gear, and you have any question about who you're dealing with, check one of these two sites before placing an order:

1. www.resellerratings.com — you can see customer reviews of the stores themselves. Look for comments detailing bait-and-switch tactics.

2. Don Wiss' pictures of Brooklyn Camera Store storefronts. Some results may surprise you.

I have always received outstanding service from these retailers:
1. Crutchfield
2. B&H
3. Adorama
4. Freestyle Photo
5. Collectible Cameras
6. Beach Camera

Blackrapid does it right

2009-05-27T22:17:00.003-04:00

I have to hand it to Blackrapid. I ordered their R-Strap (love it) last October, and when I did I also ordered their replacement swivel hook they call the ConnectR-2. According to them, it was far superior to the swivel connector on the existing R-Strap, only they were still negotiating with manufacturers, etc., and didn't have the replacement available yet. When we have it, we'll ship it to you and charge your card. Incidentally, they offered it up at $0.01 — though with $4.99 shipping. But what's $5 if it'll help protect your valuable gear?

Months passed, and I forgot all about the ConnectR-2. Then an email came from Blackrapid, apologizing for and explaining the delay. And about a month ago, the replacement finally came. It was a vast improvement, as promised — a spring-loaded clasp was replaced with a locking caribiner-style connector that seems quite a bit sturdier than before.

Today brought a surprise in the mail: Blackrapid discovered a small amount of the new connectors had failed, and since they couldn't identify the lot they simply mailed a new one, along with a letter containing instructions on how to swap out the connectors. And since the connectors appear identical, they wrapped a piece of black tape around the new one to avoid confusion.

This is what you get when you deal with a small, homegrown company that cares about what it does: good customer service and support after the sale. And in return I have no problem recommending their products to other photographers — and other photographers notice and ask about this strap pretty often.

Another 35mm roll from the Holga

2009-05-25T22:25:00.004-04:00

Again following the excellent instructions at Squarefrog, I shot a roll of 35mm film through the Holga. This time, I loaded Arista Premium 100, since the day I did it was sunny and I figured the Holga's 1/125 (or so) shutter at f/11ish might overexpose every shot at ASA 400. One key difference between this time and last: I taped the hell out of the camera with electrical tape to block light leaks.

Squarefrog also gives you a handy chart showing how many clicks to wind the wheel between shots. Turns out some enterprising nerd figured out exactly how many clicks you need to wind the film as the spool takes on film (and therefore changes size). It works perfectly to give you 24 frames per roll. Sweet!

Yep, that's the General Lee, parked outside Monticello.

35mm film in a medium format camera

2009-04-19T19:30:00.005-04:00

If you shoot 35mm film in a medium format camera, you're using film that's smaller than the image circle cast by the lens. Therefore, every bit of film is exposed, and the sprocket holes show up after processing. The problem is, using the film holder for my Canoscan 8400F scanner is no good, because it blocks the sprocket holes. Where's the fun in that?

I just placed the negative directly on the scanner's glass under the transparency backlight to get these scans. I didn't care if it wasn't perfectly flat on there because I shot it through a Holga to begin with. I've heard of folks flattening it on the platen using a piece of glass, too, to varying degrees of success.

As for modifying a camera to perform this experiment, nothing beats the flexibility of a Holga. Many others have done this before me, and I more or less followed the instructions at Squarefrog. An unused kitchen sponge worked great to keep the 35mm canister in place, and I did opt for the rubber bands on the 120 takeup reel to keep the 35mm film from straying to the edges.

So I have to wonder why anyone would buy a 35mm Holga...just buy the normal one and you get the 35mm version free.

Wind a few less clicks on the film reel, and the frames overlap, giving you a panorama, Holga-style.

I imagine this could work in many medium-format cameras, and I like the effect, so if I get my hands on one I'll be sure to try it.

Push processing

2009-04-08T22:25:00.004-04:00

When I ordered my photo chemicals from Freestyle, I threw in a few rolls of their house brand Arista Premium film. It comes in ASA 100 & 400, and I chose 400. Rumor has it the film is really re-branded Tri-X, but I don't have enough experience with film to verify this. The reason to try it out is that it's only $2 a roll, while Tri-X is $3.75 or so.

I do know that people love Tri-X because it's very "pushable," meaning you can underexpose by a couple of stops, then develop it longer to make up the difference. The result? You can shoot your 400 film at ASA 1600. The difference in developing times is about 3-1/2 minutes.

Being new to the film developing game, I had never actually tried this, and I assumed the grain would be plentiful and possibly annoying. Boy was I ever pleasantly surprised!

Good enough for me.

Adventures in Caffenol-C

2009-04-06T23:48:00.005-04:00

It's been documented elsewhere, but once I found out about it I just had to try this — developing B&W film in a mixture of instant coffee, vitamin C, and washing soda. How cool is that? Here's what you need:

I used the Photojojo recipe:
12 oz. water
5 t. instant coffee
3-1/2 t. washing soda
1/2 t. vitamin C powder

I divided the water in half and dissolved the washing soda in one part and the coffee & vitamin C in the other. Let it sit until all bubbles were gone, then combined. I put the mixture in the fridge for a few minutes until it read 20° C.

How long to develop was a crapshoot. I've seen starting times on the web anywhere from 12 to 30 minutes. And to top it off I was developing a roll of Arista Premium 400 film I had exposed at ASA 800. I decided upon 30 minutes. I also didn't agitate as much as I would using regular developer. Just didn't seem necessary with such a long developing time.

It's funny how bad this stuff smells — you'd think it would result in pleasant-smelling coffee-tinged negatives, right? Well, to me it smelled like the air you let out of an old tire. Weird!

Anyhow, after 30 minutes I used a Kodak fixer and then washed using the Ilford method. Went to hang up the negatives, and...they looked black! Oh, crap, did they need more time since they were underexposed to begin with?

After holding them up to a light I was relieved to find they had indeed been developed — but a combination of underexposure and a coffee stain made them look different from the other negatives I've developed. The pictures are there, sure as hell.

Problem is, I couldn't scan them. They were too dark, which in most cases would indicate the photos were overexposed — except that in this case, the whole roll was deliberately underexposed by one stop. So I conclude that I let them soak too long...30 minutes was too much time. I'll try again soon, with a shorter soak time (and maybe a slightly higher temperature). Clearly, though, this developer is viable.

Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro

2009-03-27T08:07:00.001-04:00

I got a chance to play around with the Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens recently, and came to the realization that macro photography is tougher than it looks. With no depth of field at such close distances, it's imperative that you stop down...which in turn slows your shutter speed. A tripod is needed at the very least, and manual focus is advisable. Macro shooters know this, of course, but I'm usually late to any party.

It was the first time I've used "live view" on the 40D. Other than macro, I can't imagine using it again, really. Maybe for a portrait. To me it's a vestigial feature meant for marketing bullet points. Shooting macro on a tripod, however, it did come in handy.

Colonnade

2009-03-25T22:12:00.004-04:00

I'm getting ready for some fun with film. My dad generously lent me his Paterson Super System 4 developing tank and Western Model 100 bulk loader. I've got 7 or 8 rolls of film ready to develop, though I'll probably burn through a new roll to use as a tester since I've never actually developed film before. It seems like it'll be easy, but still...

I ordered the chemicals from Freestyle Photo in Hollywood. I've never ordered from them before, but after poking around on film forums the last couple of weeks I figured I'd check them out. They have a much more extensive collection of B&W film than the big NY stores. I added 5 rolls of Arista 400 B&W film ($1.99 a roll!) just for the hell of it — I really need to settle on one or two films I like, or I'll be developing one roll every time. The Paterson tank can hold 3. A lot of the forum jockeys are convinced that Arista 400 is really re-branded Tri-X. We'll see. If I like it, I'll buy 100 feet of it and fire up the bulk loader.

Sunset

2009-03-14T22:33:00.002-04:00

Canon's 10-22mm lens is a great option for APS-C cameras. I've got one for a few weeks and am having a great time with it. Naturally, 99% of my shots are at the wide end, like this one.

Film school

2009-03-10T19:04:00.004-04:00

I've had a real bug lately to shoot black & white film. I plan to develop it myself & scan it. I've even gone so far as to purchase a vintage film camera and a scanner that can handle transparencies. I'm not abandoning digital, but film is really tugging at me lately. How can this be?

I already spent a lot of my time taking/processing/sharing photographs. I found a way to take a time-consuming hobby and make it even more time-consuming.

Part of the pull of film is the DIY aspect — I love that. Deconstructing the photograph is another thing to love. There's a real sense of satisfaction that comes from taking a decent photograph with a toy Holga camera or a pinhole lens I made out of tinfoil.

My wife & I just had a baby, so I'm taking tons of pictures — but now I'm spreading it around. I keep the AE-1 loaded with ASA 1600 film and leave it upstairs for indoor baby shots. The Ricoh 35 ZF has ASA 400 film in it for casual outdoor snapshots. The Holga stays loaded with ASA 100 film just so it's at the ready. My 40D still does most of the work, but I carry the Ricoh around now as my point-and-shoot.

There's a look and feel to film that cannot be recreated in digital. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but it's true. I'm not saying it's always better, just different.

Is the pull of film becoming a trend? I read Ken Rockwell's site regularly, and he's been on a Leica M7 trip all this year. David duChemin published a post recently on the topic. Is it a strange lunar year or something?

Snow day

2009-03-02T21:54:00.003-05:00

Virginia gets very little snow, so when some does come it's quite an event. Last night we got about 5 inches.

Here's Charlotte checking it out:

Later in the day, the sheet of snow starting melting on the metal roof at work:

40D at ISO 6400

2009-02-24T20:41:00.005-05:00

ISO 6400 is achieved in the 40D by choosing ISO 3200 and -1 EV of exposure compensation, then pushing it a stop during RAW processing. Actually, ISO 3200 in the 40D is really ISO 1600 and -1 EV manipulated in firmware — it's why it says "H" instead of 3200. Anyhow, it worked out okay.

You can see some banding in the shadow areas in the shot above. Shadow areas were rendered poorly using this digital push process. I came away from this experiment believing that black-and-white conversion was the way to go.

The shot above shows banding, too, but it's sorta kinda useable. If you printed it fairly small it wouldn't be as noticeable. And as long as you stay away from the shadows, the 40D does pretty well considering it's being pushed two stops past its limit.

Juggling cameras

2009-02-19T19:44:00.006-05:00

Sorry, it's not a funny clip like when Father Carlos Las Vegas de Cordoba shows Navin Johnson underground footage of cat juggling in Mexico (thanks, paranoid losers at NBC Universal for removing the clip from YouTube).

Nope, it's how I shoot my pictures lately. I've had this urge to shoot film recently, and I've been doing so with three cameras: a Holga 120N, Ricoh 35 ZF, and Canon AE-1. And, of course, the Canon 40D still does most of the work. But I carry the Ricoh around with me during the day in case anything interesting reveals itself. And I'll see something that screams "Holga shot" and go out the next day to shoot it. The AE-1 has a roll of ASA 1600 Fujipan B&W film in it now for indoor use.

The cameras tend to collect on my mantle, mostly out of convenience so I can grab whatever camera strikes my fancy (I often grab two). But today has proved to be a tipping point — I scored three EOS lenses to test out over the next month. So now the mantle looks like this:

Even I can't live amongst such clutter. It shall be cleaned up this evening.

I've been testing out various films lately, and I plan to do a post about their pros and cons as I see them sometime in the future — I need to acquire a scanner that can handle transparencies first.

I got the first few B&W rolls developed at Stubblefield's Photo Lab here in Charlottesville. They do great work, and I really thought their scans were great. Then I had a roll of Fuji Superia and Kodak 400CN (the C41 B&W film) developed at CVS 1-hour photo and scanned to a CD. Not so good. It looked like they had Mr. Magoo hammering on the sharpening control in the scanning software. They weren't even email-worthy, but at least I have the negatives. And sorry, Stubblefield's, I'll never stray again.

Ricoh 35 ZF

2009-02-12T19:23:00.009-05:00

I got my first roll back that I shot through the Ricoh 35 ZF. Let's just say that sucker's sharp when you guess the focus right.

It's a zone-focus, shutter priority point-and-shoot camera. A distance scale is printed on the 40mm f/2.8 lens, starting at 0.9 meters/3 feet and ending just after 5 meters/15 feet. Since 1 meter is roughly 39", or 3-1/4 feet, the distance scale is an approximation. Landscapes are easy, you just twist the lens to the "mountain" setting. That's helpful, because I live in a mountain town.

In the shot above, I'm probably 3 feet away and have it set on the "torso" setting. Look how sharp it is! That's Tri-X film, probably 1/500 (the maximum) shutter speed, maybe f/11 or so.

Since the lens can open to f/2.8, it's usable indoors under good lighting conditions. Take, for example, the following shot. My daughter's room has a double window off to the right, and it's covered by a set of wooden blinds. You aim the louvers just right and it directs the light where you want it to.

At ISO 400, I'll guess it's 1/30 exposure at f/2.8. My hand is pretty steady, so I feel good about shooting at 1/30 all day long. I'm guessing around f/2.8 here because of the vignetting (which I love, anyway).

I really like this little camera. It's so simple to use. The toughest thing I've encountered so far is remembering to set the distance scale. But if you're thinking just a little, it'll give you razor-sharp images. It also makes almost no noise at all when the shutter clicks — street photographers will have a field day. Get it or any other old camera from Collectible Cameras in Phoenix, AZ — nice folks, great selection.

Holga shot

2009-02-11T21:53:00.004-05:00

Point and shoot

2009-02-05T22:20:00.006-05:00

I'm always halfheartedly shopping around for a point-and-shoot camera. I never pull the trigger, though, because (a) my wife has a perfectly good one, (b) we have an old one that still works fine, and (c) I want a bunch of features (RAW capture, wide angle, low pixel count, etc.) but don't want to spend any money. It's really more of an exercise in impulse control.

Well, until my recent film shooting bug hit me, anyway. I started looking around at old rangefinders, folding 6x6, and other old cameras, thinking it was a way to get what I wanted in a point-and-shoot: quality images, manual control, low low price. So here's what I got:

The Ricoh 35 ZF is a 1970s point-and-shoot camera that takes ASA 25-800 film. It's extremely easy to use and has a 40mm f/2.8 lens. This one came from Collectible Cameras in Phoenix, AZ. Check them out if you're looking for a used camera of any kind. Their selection is amazing, and they're very nice to deal with.

The little lever to the right of the lens is the self-timer.

The "ZF" stands for "zone focus," I think. You focus this thing by guessing the distance from your subject, and the distances are divided into three zones: torso (1 meter), person with legs (2.5 meters), and mountain (infinity). You just twist the dial to one of those settings and fire away. It does have a distance scale with intermediate values, however, so I'll have to test that out as I go.

Like my Canon AE-1, this is a shutter-priority camera. You choose a shutter speed (1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, or bulb) and its light meter determines the aperture. Manual override is also possible (f/2.8-16). The light meter originally ran on a 1.3v mercury battery, but it works fine on a 675-type hearing aid battery (1.4v — we'll see if that affects metering at all).

It has a viewfinder, but it's just a hole on the side of the camera. The lens is visible when you look through it. A needle shows the chosen aperture if you're in automatic mode.

The manual proudly boasts that this camera is "small enough to carry in your pocket." Maybe if you're wearing a jacket or cargo shorts. It's bigger than the Canon G10, and would be best suited to wearing around your neck. This was definitely a no-nonsense tourist's camera in its day.

So why did I bother dusting off my AE-1 and acquire this old, featureless clunker? It's because I want to force myself to think about photography in different ways from time to time. I still shoot 99% of my photos with my 40D. But every now and then I plan to rip through a roll of film on these two cameras, both of which take away most of the features I take for granted when I use a digital body.

In theory, this should get me thinking more about composition and pay off down the road. We shall see!

Dusting off an old friend

2009-01-27T17:56:00.001-05:00

Pursuant of my stated goal in my last post, I got out my Canon AE-1 outfit out of the closet yesterday. I have three lenses for it, a 28/2.8 Albinar, Canon 50/1.8 and a Vivitar 80-200/4.5. Here it is with the Albinar mounted.

I haven't used the AE-1 in a while, so I spent a few minutes wondering why I couldn't see the aperture blades on the lenses move when I twisted the aperture rings. I thought they were all stuck, and was feeling a bit bummed out about it, but as it turns out FD-mount lenses don't function until they're screwed on a camera.

The AE-1 is basically a shutter-priority camera. You twist the aperture dial until it locks in the "AE" or "A" position. Then you twist the shutter dial, and the camera chooses the aperture setting. A needle points to the chosen setting, which you see through the viewfinder. Simple as that. No wonder there was an old Saturday Night Live sketch that said "The AE-1 is so easy to use, even Stevie Wonder can use it." Sorry, Stevie.

The first roll is Tri-X 400. I'm 3/4 of the way through it. And to my embarassment, I found myself glancing at the back of the camera after squeezing off a shot.

One of my goals for 2009

2009-01-24T10:14:00.006-05:00

One of my goals as a photographer in 2009 is to shoot an occasional roll of film, and have it developed & scanned. I've got a manual-focus Canon AE-1 and a few FD lenses (my electronic Canon lenses won't work with it) that I'll dust off. But I've also been shopping around for an old camera.

I've started looking at rangefinders because I think they're cool, they're small, and they're easy to operate. They're cheap, too, so long as you stay away from popular brands like Leica. In the past, I stumbled upon the Collectible Cameras site while searching for Pentax screwmount lenses. It's a treasure trove, with anything from the simplest Brownie camera to Hasselblad outfits.

I don't know what most of their cameras are, and luckily I found the Camerapedia, a great resource that has some info on most of the cameras in CC's inventory.

Since I probably won't use it all that often, I'm going to settle for something cheap and working. I don't care at all what it looks like. As long as it works and can run a roll of readily-available film through it, I'm there. I am a believer that forcing yourself to think differently about your craft from time to time yields better results later.

Cold snap

2009-01-18T09:54:00.005-05:00

The recent cold snap has hit Virginia, though not in quite the same manner as some other places. Still, it's been cold. I figured the stream nearby would be at least partially iced over. Here's what I found.

I didn't have a tripod with me (or a neutral density filter, for that matter), so I flicked the dial to shutter priority and dialed in a 1/10-second exposure. I know I can hold still enough with the 28-235mm IS lens to get a sharp shot at 1/10 or so.

The 28-235mm IS lens is, I believe, Canon's first IS lens. Or at least their first consumer-grade IS lens. The point it, it's an older design, and the IS is supposedly "primitive" compared to today's models. Whatever the case may be, I find that it works really well for impromptu silky water shots. Panning a bird? Not so much.

Canon must have a warehouse full of those lenses, because they show up as part of a kit on cameras that don't make sense — like my crop-sensor 40D and the newer 50D. That's a field of view of about 45-216mm, not nearly wide enough for a "walk-around" lens. I thought it worked great on the 5D Mark II, though. I really like the lens, and you can find one used for around $300.

Root system, streamside.

Tiny grip

2009-01-15T22:45:00.002-05:00

I like these shots, and not just because of the super-cute baby. As much as anything, it's because the blurry parts of the photo are distinguishable, adding some detail to the composition.

Of course, I am a bit biased.

Retouching baby photos

2009-01-10T22:38:00.004-05:00

Now I know why people always brought their kids to Sears for their "official" portraits, even though they had working cameras at home: babies have skin worse than teenagers. I was getting some closeups ready for my little girl's blog when I saw it up close and personal.

I don't love spending all kinds of time playing with my photos. But this is my little girl we're talking about — I wouldn't be much of a daddy if I didn't make her look her best, right? I was looking for a quick and easy solution, so I went looking for "portrait" plugins for Photoshop.

I knew anything I found, no matter how fancy, would smooth out skin tones while sacrificing detail. But I was willing to compromise a little detail if it saved me a lot of time. I settled on Portraiture 2 from Imagenomic, which is available as a trial download. It's a pretty complex plugin, and does its job well, I think.

Before applying Portraiture 2 plugin.

After applying Portraiture 2 plugin.

I call the above shot the "Olan Mills effect." It's smooth as a baby's bottom, but missing a lot of detail, like skin texture and wrinkles, little hairs, etc. But on the other hand, it's quick and easy to apply.

The shot below uses filtered daylight from a window blind, and really accentuates the baby's dry skin and acne. I couldn't leave it that way. But I like the way the light and contrast of the shot looked, so I didn't want to just smear away all the imperfections. I chose a more labor-intensive approach, using the healing brush and blur tool.

Before painstakingly removing skin blemishes manually.

After.

It took maybe 10 minutes to get rid of the skin blemishes manually. Not my favorite way to work, but we're talking about precious memories here!

My 5D Mark II impression

2009-01-06T20:03:00.001-05:00

I was lucky enough to get my hands on the Canon 5D Mark II for a few weeks recently. Toward the end of that time my daughter was born, so I've been pleasantly distracted from writing down my thoughts on this camera.

I am not a camera reviewer, I am an amateur photographer. You can read detailed reviews at dpreview that go into a lot of the technical stuff. I figure I was lucky enough to borrow one for a little while, so I'll just tell you what I thought about it.

Here are some basic stats, which you probably already know: 21.1 megapixel, full-frame sensor, ISO 100-6400 (expandable to 50-25,600), 3.9 fps, shoots 1080p movies in Live View mode. The latter has been made famous by commercial photographer Vincent Laforet's "Reverie" video. And while I couldn't resist playing with video a bit, this is a stills camera first and foremost, and that's how I was using it.

I'm no fan of posting "gear lists" whenever I prattle on about cameras and photography online, but in this case it's worth mentioning. I read a lot of articles about the 5D Mark II saying that the sensor would outresolve all but the best lenses, or that any inherent flaw in a lens would be exploited to the hilt. So here's what lenses I'm packing these days:

Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM
Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
Canon EF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8
SMC Takumar 55mm f/2 M42 lens
Jupiter 37A 135mm f/3.5 M42 lens
Tamron 28mm f/2.8 M42 lens

So as you can see, I have no professional lenses. Generally speaking, I use the 28/1.8 indoors and the 28-135mm outdoors. My primary camera is a Canon 40D. The M42 lenses are available cheap and are manual-focus only with an adapter.

The 28/1.8 was the first lens I screwed on the 5D Mark II. The first thing I noticed was a much brighter viewfinder than I'm used to on my 40D. It's nice! And the so-called "full frame" thing is really cool, because you're looking at the whole image circle, not just the center. I really like the 28mm focal length, I've decided (it looks like 45mm on the 40D). I've read that 28mm is the most common focal length for journalists. Journalists, is that true?

You mean 28mm is wide? Cool!

I really dig available-light photography and hate to use a flash, so naturally my first snaps with the 5D Mark II were indoors, wide open, at higher ISOs (alright, I'm starting to agree with Ken Rockwell here. Why couldn't Canon call it the 6D or something? It's a pain to write. From now on I'm calling it the 5Dmk2).

Moon shot taken with Canon 100-300mm USM lens and a
Quantaray 2x teleconverter. Total lens cost: $250. Live view
and the 5Dmk2's nice screen were a big help.

Noise alone shouldn't be your only criteria for a good low-light photo. Detail must be retained. Contrast needs to be sufficient. A little noise (formerly "grain") has always been fine with me...it even enhances some photos, in my opinion. I'm used to my 40D, which has very little noise until you get to ISO 1000, and ISO 1600 is very useable. ISO 3200 is ok in a pinch, but pushing it.

The 5Dmk2 supresses noise amazingly well. Eyeballing it, I'd say ISO 1600 shots on the 5Dmk2 look like ISO 400 on the 40D. That's a two-stop advantage, so on the 5Dmk2 ISO 6400 is very useable, and I wouldn't hesitate to shoot a wedding at ISO 3200. How incredible is that? Imagine, you can use your slow zooms indoors, sans flash, without any problem. Or, instead of missing focus at f/1.8 because you didn't want to push ISO past 800, you could stop down to f/4 at ISO 3200 and get the same shot. Wedding photographers, rejoice!

ISO 3200, f/4, 28mm

100% crop of above photo, ISO 3200.

According to spec-heads, the autofocus was unchanged from the 5D to the 5Dmk2. The stated number of autofocus points remained unchanged for sure. But let me say this: the autofocus on the 5Dmk2 is fine. And you know what else? Most of the time I only use the center point, anyway. I never felt, after hundreds and hundreds of frames shot with the 5Dmk2 and my non-professional lens arsenal, that I missed focus and it was the fault of the camera. Not once. It's a non-issue.

And the "black dots"...I never could reproduce that. I even tried a few times. Every time I've seen an example of that, it's been at least a 100% crop. Considering how far into your pictures you must delve to even see the alleged problem, I'd consider that a non-issue also. Especially considering Canon has promised a fix.

Backlit leaves, 300mm.

Tight crop of above photo. Shouldn't I see black dots?

My other 5Dmk2 posts cover my experience with the camera pretty well, so I may as well cut to the chase: the Canon 5Dmk2 is an outstanding photographic tool. Full-frame digital is really where it's at, and if you're a landscape, wedding, studio, parent of small children, motivated hobbyist, or fine art photographer, you'll never have a thing to complain about with this camera. It's a high-resolution beast with a sharp, accurate screen that can shoot in near darkness.

If you're a journalist or shoot sports, obviously it's going to fall short. One thing I love on my 40D is the machine-gun burst I can dial up on occasion. It's one thing the 5Dmk2 can't do.

But I really can't imagine anyone who has actually shot with this camera saying it's junk — that's best left up to those comparing spec sheets and lamenting that this thing lacks this or that feature they felt Canon owed to them. Get real, this is an amazing camera. Go get one today and don't look back.

Vivitar is back

2009-01-05T18:00:00.002-05:00

Thanks to the tireless bloggers at 1001 Noisy Cameras for bringing this to the fore — Vivitar is back in the lens game. I have an old 80-200mm f/4.5 push/pull manual focus Vivitar zoom for my old Canon AE-1 that brings back some good memories.

Rumor has it an 85mm f/1.4 is among the initial offerings — with prices on the new line of lenses being between $150 and $400. Yippee! You bet your ass I would buy a cheap 85/1.4.

Canon's 28mm f/1.8

2008-12-28T21:41:00.010-05:00

I got the Canon 28mm f/1.8 lens a few weeks back in anticipation of my daughter's birth. My thinking was, I'd need a fast lens that would give me a wide enough field of view on my APS-C 40D, but still be useful for full-frame work down the road. My only other fast lens is the Canon 50mm f/1.8, which has served its purpose but has survived a nasty fall in recent weeks and can no longer be trusted for serious work. Plus, on the crop sensor I simply had to step back too far to take a photo sometimes, not helpful when you're looking to take a lot of photos indoors.

In the meantime, I was also lucky enough to get in three weeks of time with the full-frame 5D Mark II, on which I had the 28mm lens most of the time. It's a vastly different lens on the two cameras. Not because the 40D's a dog compared to the shiny 5Dmk2...far from it. It's just that it's a wide-angle lens on the new camera, and a normal lens on the 40D.

Performance-wise, I noticed no difference in the 28mm on either camera. It uses Canon's ultrasonic focus, of which I am a huge fan, and locks focus almost instantly. I'd compare it to the 85mm f/1.8 and 50mm f/1.4 lenses.

I didn't do any pixel-peeping on the corners of 28mm files, nor did I conduct any tripod tests. I did notice some vignetting when I used it on the 5D Mark II, but it tended to be under extreme conditions (and is easily dealt with in Lightroom). All I know is this: it's my favorite lens in my collection, and I'd say that it's well worth its $420 price tag.

Here's why I like it:

build quality on par with Canon 85/1.8
super-fast focus
focuses really close
full-time manual focus override
very sharp starting at f/2.8 or so (not tested, just my impression)
nice bokeh
7 aperture blades make nice sunstars when stopped down
small and lightweight, makes a wonderful walk-around rig

Cons? There have to be some, right? Alright, here goes:

no hood included

Seriously, it's a nice little lens which is a step up from the more flimsy and slower-focusing f/2.8 Canon primes. I've heard some folks say the 28/2.8 or 35/2 primes are sharper than the 28/1.8, and I can't argue since I haven't (and won't) test this lens. Hell, its design is many years old at this point and any testing I do would be redundant, anyway. On my 40D it's a nice, fast, normal lens. Down the road it'll be a nice, fast, moderate wide-angle lens. How can I lose?

A similar lens is Sigma's 30mm f/1.4. A buddy of mine has that lens and loves it - it's on his camera most of the time, focuses fast, and is 2/3-stop faster than the 28/1.8. But it only covers crop sensors, so for me the choice was easy.

It fits all the criteria I set down for it: pictures look great wide open, it focuses faster than I can shoot, it's small and light. At f/1.8 pictures are slightly soft, but since when does a picture have to be sharp to be good?

Little baby hand

2008-12-25T11:45:00.003-05:00

High resolution

2008-12-21T19:21:00.002-05:00

As I shoot baby pictures, I'm noticing that the 5D Mark II shows pretty much every skin blemish you have, and a few you may not have known about. I guess that's life in the world of 21-plus megapixel cameras.

I'll spare you visual evidence, you just gotta trust me on this one.

Welcome to the world

2008-12-20T13:42:00.003-05:00

12/19/08 — Mila Quinn joins the real world.

Lightroom 2.2 and more

2008-12-17T18:02:00.004-05:00

In case you missed it, Lightroom 2.2 is here — it adds RAW support for the movers and shakers in the camera world, like the 5D Mark II, Powershot G10, Panasonic LX3, Leica D-Lux 4 (which is an LX3 with a Leica sticker on it for $400 more), etc.

David duChemin wrote a great post showing his "vision-oriented workflow" in Lightroom. It's a great read from an interesting photographer. His blog is always worth reading, because he goes to a lot of interesting places and emphasizes leaving a better world than he found, along with developing relationships with the indigenous peoples he photographs.

The Online photographer weighs in on perhaps the hottest topic in photography right now, the full-frame shootout between the Sony A900, Nikon D700 (and D3), and the Canon 5D Mark II. I like his perspective, too, because he's a photographer, not a spec-head punk.

And last but not least, check out Ken Rockwell's eBay tips.

Because I believe a blog post on a photo site should have a photograph.

I'm working on my general thoughts concerning the 5D Mark II, which unfortunately will be returned soon. Actually, it's a blessing in disguise because I like it better when only one camera is in play.

Kitty and Christmas tree

2008-12-16T18:59:00.002-05:00

Here's little Charlotte, posing in front of our Christmas tree.

She always wraps her tail around her paws like that. Is it for warmth?

Holiday self-portrait

2008-12-16T07:54:00.000-05:00

Canon 5D Mark II, 28mm, f/1.8, ISO 1600

Autofocus mirror telephoto

2008-12-15T19:33:00.003-05:00

The Luminous Landscape has posted a review of an intriguing lens — Sony's 500mm f/8 mirror telephoto. It differs from other mirror telephotos in that it can autofocus. And mounted on a Sony DSLR, it's image-stabilized.

I borrowed a Sigma 600mm f/8 mirror lens from my Dad a year or two ago (he has yet to ask for it back). It'll get you in close, but manual focus is a crapshoot. It requires at the least a monopod, preferably a tripod to get anything good. Last week I hauled it out to try and take a picture of the moon, and ended up getting much better results with my 100-300mm Canon lens at 300mm, f/5.6, and a 2x teleconverter.

I find it interesting that Sony would even attempt to make this lens. I guess it allows them to say "750mm equivalent" for hundreds or thousands of dollars less than major brand lenses of the same length, and it adds a lens to Sony's small (but growing) lens lineup. Just a guess, though. The problem with that line of thinking is that it's the kind of message aimed at less experienced amateurs, who may or may not possess the patience it requires to work with this type of lens.

The Luminous Landscape has fairly nice things to say about it, so it must be an improvement over the one I've used. It's an interesting product for sure.

Weekend 5D Mark II snapshots

2008-12-15T08:07:00.000-05:00

I went out looking for a Blue Heron again today, but there were none about. I didn't want to leave the woods completely empty-handed, so I snapped the shot below of some backlit leaves.

The sunlight is directly behind them, so it's quite a high-contrast edge...I peeped in at 300% but didn't see any black dots. I'm giving up on that.

I snapped the shot below near work, driving around at lunchtime.

And this one on my way home:

5D Mark II black dots

2008-12-13T11:09:00.003-05:00

I've been shooting with the 5D Mark II for a solid week now, and haven't seen any black dots. I even aimed it straight at the Moon last night, using Live View, and none came up. Could it be that my loaner is some magic version of the camera?

As I've been poking around the web reading up on the black dots "catastrophe" it seems to me that it's yet another problem caused by extreme pixel peeping, as much as anything. I certainly wouldn't be too worried about it, but most of the "sky is falling" comments are coming from those who are reacting to 200% crops from other people.

A lot of the more concerned people have yet to actually use the camera themselves. Some commenters are people who probably never had any intention of getting their own 5D Mark II to begin with. But that's life on the internet, right? I'm just saying, be careful what you read out there.

If this is indeed a huge problem — and I have to reiterate, that after a week of snapping frames, many at high ISOs, I have not seen this — then it'll be corrected by Canon. For some balance in your research, read this explanation by Ken Rockwell. Say what you will about him, Ken knows his stuff.

I guess I'm just lucky, or I haven't been trying hard enough to reproduce the problem. I've also been shooting in RAW, so perhaps that's the answer, though I took a few hundred jpeg shots one day without seeing it.

It'll blow over soon, so everyone can get back to arguing about high-ISO performance, lines of resolution, chromatic aberration statistics, and the usual.

Moon shots

2008-12-12T21:30:00.004-05:00

Tonight's a special night — the closest full moon since 1993. So I wandered outside to take the best shot I could. I shot the one below with my 100-300mm lens at 300mm, f/8, with a cheap-o Quantaray 2x teleconverter at ISO 200, 1/250.

I used Live View on the 5D Mark II — at 600mm, it was tough to focus, because on my crummy tripod the image was bouncing around like crazy. Sharpening was applied. I chose the 10-second timer because it took a good 7 seconds for the lens to stop bouncing.

On my way home from work I drove up an access road near the airport and snapped the one below, hand-held at 300mm, ISO 3200.

Low-light shooting

2008-12-11T20:23:00.010-05:00

The 5D Mark II is amazing in low light. I don't have a D700, or a D3, an A900, or a 1DS Mark III on hand to compare pixels to pixels. Nor do I care. I like experiential reviews that talk about actually using a camera, not comparing spec sheets, DxO rankings, MTF charts, or other quantifiable things which have nothing to do with taking photos.

I do have a 40D. And I'm very happy with the 40D. But the 5D Mark II is on another planet in low light.

I can shoot in ISO 6400 without batting an eye — it's like ISO 1600 in my 40D. It lets me shoot my slow 28-135mm IS lens around the house with no problem.

ISO 6400

I'm serious, it blows me away every time I look at the files — the ones I post are down-rezzed to 800 pixels, so take that as you will. But given what I'm used to, I am blown away.

ISO 6400

Zoomed in at 100%, there is noise present. But I'd be up on top of a 3-meter print with a loupe to see it in real life. Who cares? I'll bet at 11x14 I wouldn't notice it at all. And if these pictures aren't hanging on my wall, what are they, really?

I'm reading a lot of opinions lately about the 5D Mark II — most of them have been formed without having ever shot with it. Or even holding it in their hand. Trust me, as someone who has actually been using the camera lately, it'll help you make some amazing photos. With this camera in hand, your bad photos are your fault.

I plan to write up a detailed post after I have to bring it back. And I'm no Canon fanboy, despite the fact that I'm a Canon shooter; I could care less what sort of camera and lens collection everyone else has. All I can say right now, as a photographer, is that I feel lucky to live in a day and age where photos like the ones above are possible in such little light.

Oh, and the "black dots" controversy I'm seeing out there...haven't seen it in any of my shots after a week of shooting. I'll certainly address it if I actually see it. Take that problem with a grain of salt — if it's widespread, Canon will correct it. And lots of people seem to slag off the 5D Mark II's autofocus capability. I'd ask you all: have you tried it? Over the past week I've been using it, I feel like the AF works great. I think sometimes people get caught up in quantifiables, like that the 5D Mark II and original 5D both have the same number of autofocus points. It is what it is.

Playing with video

2008-12-10T21:48:00.008-05:00

Video in DSLRs has a lot of potential. Larger sensors, interchangeable lenses, and so on. To me, it's all about a couple of things: shallow depth-of-field, and the ability to pull focus. The little clip below shows off my burgeoning focus pulling skills:

I've always found that consumer-grade video cameras do for video what point-and-shoots do for still photography — everything's in focus. I like the ability to blur the background to draw the eye to my subject.

You can see the background flicker when the glass is pulled away — the light changed, and the 5D Mark II made an adjustment. I should have locked the exposure before shooting. The Nikon D90 doesn't let you do that, so its videos tend to flicker like crazy.

It's important to remember that being a good videographer is just as hard, and takes just as much practice, as being a good still photographer. Just because DSLRs will be able to shoot video doesn't mean everyone's videos of their kids, pets, and whatever else will get any better. They may look better in some ways, but we shouldn't fool ourselves.

And right now, these are hardly suitable replacements for camcorders. Without the ability to track focus quickly and accurately, it's little more than a novelty. Just to take those simple videos above, I had to put the camera on a tripod and lock focus before starting the shot.

Image stabilization works with the 5D Mark II's video mode, but the grinding noise IS makes in my 28-135mm is very audible. It would be wise to take advantage of the 3.5mm mic input if you wanted to record audio. A shotgun condenser mic mounted on the hotshoe would do wonders, and besides, the bulit-in mic only records in mono.

I'm obviously no videographer, but I must admit, it's fun to try.

Bye bye, Polaroid

2008-12-09T20:02:00.002-05:00

2008 is the last year Polaroid will keep making film. You should be able to get through early 2009 until the stock runs out, but there's likely to be a rush on what's left by instant photo enthusiasts.

I never was into Polaroids, but I think they're cool, and certainly they've become a part of pop culture. I've heard of fashion photographers using Polaroid backs on their Hasselblad cameras, checking exposure before a shoot.

Digital has killed any hopes Polaroid once had to continue as a viable film camera company; one instant medium has been supplanted by another. RIP, Polaroid pictures. Keep on refining your PoGo printer, it looks like a promising little niche product.

ISO 12800

2008-12-08T21:11:00.000-05:00

Not too shabby! I'm pretty happy with this one, considering I was shooting with my right hand while manipulating the cat toy with my left. And all I needed for lighting was the overhead.

In the woods

2008-12-07T11:06:00.001-05:00

I went for a walk in the woods yesterday with the 5D Mark II and my 28-135mm IS lens. It was a gray day, and all the plants are stripped bare now, so it wasn't the most colorful trip. I decided to shoot jpeg instead of RAW because the files are much more manageable — RAW files are 20-25MB, vs. 6-12MB for the jpegs. I have an older computer, so the RAW files really gum up the works.

The little stream near where I live.

I've always felt Canon threw a useless battery meter into the cameras I've had: it tells you that it's full, or that it's about to run out. The 5D Mark II has a nice battery meter. The icon you see in the viewfinder now has 4 different levels, so there's not so much guesswork involved.

There's also a "battery check" function, but it's buried in a menu somewhere. No problem, I just assigned it to "My Menu" for easy access. It tells you remaining capacity (in a percentage), shutter count (for the current battery charge — this is reset upon removal of the battery), and has a 3-bar "recharge performance" meter which indicates the overall health of the battery.

I walked around for 2.5 hours in 35-degree weather yesterday, and the battery's sitting at 84% today. I was doing a lot of chimping as I went, played around with live view a bit, too. I've never had an issue with battery performance with any Canon DLSR I've had.

The 5D Mark II uses a new battery, so the BP-511 and BP-511A batteries are incompatible.

The reason you want a camera with a full-frame sensor is so you can shoot wide. The widest EF lenses I have are 28mm — which is a normal field of view on APS-C sensor cameras like the 40D. But on the 5D Mark II, they're moderate wide-angle lenses. Nice! I really like 28mm as a walk-around focal length.

Stepping stones

One thing I do miss from the 40D, however, is its fast burst mode. I encountered numerous deer on my walk, and would have liked to been able to shoot faster. The 5D Mark II's burst feels like the slow burst on the 40D (or, for that matter, the 300D). It's understandable, given the sheer volume of information accumulated with each shot.

I failed to photograph a deer, but I don't blame the camera for that. I just like how fast the 40D can shoot.

Foam swirling in the stream

5D Mark II

2008-12-05T22:15:00.001-05:00

Hey, that image quality sucks! Oh, wait, it's a 100% crop at ISO 1600, taken from the snapshot below.

The RAW files are incompatible with PS3/Lightroom 2 right now, so here's a workaround: download the latest DNG converter, convert your files to DNG, then import into Lightroom or open in PS3.

It looks and feels a lot like the 40D. The buttons on the back which are below the screen on the 40D have returned to the left-hand side. The vestigial print button now activates Live View, which as you all know shoots 1080p movies. The movie controls are miles ahead of the D90's (for one thing, autofocus and exposure lock are possible), but this is no camcorder: it will require some planning ahead to make a watchable video. More on that later as I fiddle around with it.

The shutter button feels slightly different than that of the 40D; it takes a little less pressure to press halfway, and a little more to press the shutter. the shutter makes slightly more noise, too.

Base ISO is 100-6400, expandable to 50-25600. Here's one at ISO 6400:

Down-rezzed for the web, but 6400 sure looks usable. I can't wait to take it outside tomorrow. More to come.

Christmas spirit

2008-12-04T20:47:00.000-05:00

My wife and I love "tacky light tours" at Christmastime. Charlottesville is a hilly little city, and now that the leaves are all gone it's easy to spot those "special" houses where people go completely overboard with their lights. This one is near our place:

I used a tripod, ISO 100 at f/8, 28mm. The long exposure revealed a pleasing characteristic of my new 28/1.8 lens: 14-point sunstars, thanks to a 7-blade aperture. Check out the tight crop below:

That house was a good start. But just around the corner, someone else was full of holiday cheer.

Up close, I could hear a whirring sound as various mechanical things swung left and right. Or was that the little arrows spinning that keep track of kilowatt hours?

I'll be tracking down more over-the-top homes all month long! Wait until you see the one near my work — I'm heading over there this weekend.

Final thoughts on the G10

2008-12-03T18:59:00.000-05:00

The borrowed G10 I've been playing around with the last two weeks is going back tomorrow. It's been a lot of fun to use — tons of manual controls, wide angle (for a compact), great macro mode. It's a well-designed camera that mostly just gets out of your way and lets you take nice photos.

I love the screen on the back. You can zoom way in your pictures and see nice, sharp details. But there were a few times I thought a picture looked amazing on the screen, then was less enthusiastic once I was looking at the 14.7-megapixel file on my computer. I suspect the screen is a little more contrasty than real life, and of course being so much smaller any flaws in the photo are hidden. This is a very minor quibble, obviously. The screen really is nice.

Charlotte looks so serious!

It has a "My Menu" setting that comes in really handy — you set the five functions you use most often so you don't have to dig around the menus so much. However, this isn't the first thing that comes up when you hit the menu button; it requires another click to the left to get to it. And you can't add "format memory card" to My Menu! Geez, that's the first thing I do after I download all my pictures.

Nor can you assign formatting the card to the little print/bonus button in the upper left-hand corner. You have to drill through the wrench menu every time to get there.

The viewfinder is a joke, it's like one you'd find on an old Polaroid Land Camera. You can even see the lens barrel when you're at 28mm! And obviously, there's no feedback visible. I'd have to be in some serious sunlight to even think about using it.

Those are minor flaws, though. The G10 is a powerful photographic tool. In nice light, it will surprise you with how much detail it records. The shot below is a pretty tight crop:

Not quite a 100% crop, but close.

In light that's not so nice, it reminds you that it's a point-and-shoot. The limitations of cramming 14.7 million pixels onto a 1/1.7" sensor really start to show at ISO 400.

Noise is pretty evident at ISO 400.

Since you can only stop down to F/8, there's a Neutral Density feature for slowing down your shutter speed in daylight. It works well! You can go for silky water shots.

You can read dpreview if you want to learn about all the available features; the sheer number of them boggles the mind. It's pretty amazing what cameras can do these days. The G10's not really for me, I like to shoot in available light and use shallow depth of field a lot. You can't do either of those things with the G10, or any other compact for that matter. It goes to show you that in the end, for all its bells and whistles, it's still a point-and-shoot camera.

That said, I could have a hell of a fun time with the G10 if I were trekking around Europe or something. It's a fabulous daylight landscape camera. And it's a lot of fun to play with, which has to count for something, right?

My pros:

lots of manual controls
exposure compensation has its own dial
wide angle (28mm equivalent)
IS works great
feels good in my hand
macro mode and virtual ND filter work great
wonderful screen
captures amazing detail in good light
hotshoe; works great with 430EX II flash

My cons:

noise is irritating starting at ISO 400
lens isn't fast enough
can't assign "format card" to a shortcut
useless viewfinder

I'll pass on the G10, but you could do a whole lot worse if it were your only camera. It's far and away the best compact I've ever used.

New toy

2008-12-02T17:31:00.000-05:00

My Canon 28/1.8 came today. I have been eying the lens for awhile now, since my wife and I are about to have a baby, and I knew I'd need a wider (and better) low-light lens for taking baby photos. I haven't even looked at any test shots yet, but I'll post a few soon.

One thing that's obvious right off the bat is that it's well-constructed, and the USM focus will be appreciated. But why does Canon insist on making those lens caps that pinch on the outside? How am I supposed to get the cap on and off with a hood attached? I ordered this little neoprene sock that fits over the end of the hood, so I'm going to give that a shot. I hope it works out, because I lost the cap to my 100-300mm lens trudging around in the woods last weekend. It has a 58mm front element, just like the 28/1.8.

The lens looks and feels a lot like the 85/1.8. If it performs like that lens, I'll be pretty happy.

Blue heron

2008-11-29T20:07:00.000-05:00

I went walking around in the woods near my apartment today, and came across a beautiful blue heron. They're abundant here in Charlottesville, but despite that fact I have yet to get a good picture of one. I fell short again today, but here he (she?) is:

I had the Canon 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 lens on my camera; it's a step above the various non-IS 75-300mm lenses, but nothing special.

Arisen

2008-11-28T23:55:00.000-05:00

Against all odds, I "fixed" my broken 50/1.8 tonight. Its wreckage was lying on the kitchen counter, and I picked it up to take a last look when started thinking, "Hey, this isn't as bad as it looks." I lined up the two pieces, and pop! It snapped back together. Hmmm, maybe I jumped the gun yesterday.

I flipped the manual focus switch, turned what passes for the plastic 50's focusing ring, and what do you know — it's working again. So I pulled it back apart, cleaned the front and rear elements on both sides, and popped it back on my camera for some test shots.

I thought it would go one of two ways. One, nothing happens, and since it doesn't have an aperture dial it would be stuck wide open. Or two, it works, but focus is slightly off.

You have probably guessed what happened — the lens works just like it always did. Pretty much. It's a little noisier when focusing now (apparently, that is possible). Plus, when it gets to either end of the focusing range, there's more of a clunk. I suspect it will be replaced for general use by the 28/1.8 once it arrives, but I can still use the 50 as a portrait lens on my 40D. And I'm happy to have my little friend back.

You know when you have one of those "yard sale" wrecks while skiing, and the little mechanism on the bindings causes your skis to fly off before your leg breaks? Maybe Canon has designed the plastic 50/1.8 to survive minor falls using the same principle. Yes, that must be exactly what they did.

Loss of a dear friend

2008-11-27T22:42:00.000-05:00

An old friend bit the dust today — my Canon 50/1.8. It was on my 40D with an old metal hood attached when I knocked it off the coffee table, and it tumbled about two feet to the wood floor. It hit hood first, and the lens snapped in half. As you can see, the damage was total and final.

The 50/1.8 is Canon's least expensive lens. It's obviously cheaply constructed. But it was the first fast autofocus lens I had, and it had some sentimental value. I remember when I first got it I never took it off for a few months. There's just something I like about walking around with a prime lens on my camera; it makes me notice more details and think more about framing and composition.

I'm replacing it with the much higher-quality 28/1.8 USM lens. But I'll miss my "plastic fantastic" 50.

G10 macro mode

2008-11-27T10:36:00.000-05:00

The G10's macro mode is fun to play with. You're not going to get results like you would with a Canon 100/2.8 macro lens, but on the G10 it's a good way to trick the camera into blurring the background a little. At least if you're close enough.

I used the self timer and set the camera on the counter to snap these pics. The G10 does (by far) its best work when left in ISO 80. So check it out, your batteries and cat food can look this good with the G10's macro mode.

G10 snaps

2008-11-25T21:34:00.000-05:00

Just took a couple quick shots today, but the G10 continues to be fun. The best way I can describe it is that it makes you want to take pictures — or just screw around and play with all the settings.

The shot above is of a tree near where I work. The one below is from somewhere near work, too, at the top of a hill on the way to the grocery store. The shot is hand-held at ISO 400...I stabilized the camera against my car's window.

I hit the sky with Nik Dfine due to heavy noise. It was a 1-second exposure, so the noise in the sky wasn't a big surprise. The fact that I was able to get a sharp picture (no sharpening applied) without a tripod was pretty cool.

Badge of honor

2008-11-24T21:24:00.000-05:00

I was playing around with the G10's macro mode, and took a shot of my old Digital Rebel's worn grip. Looking at it made me kinda proud, really, it shows how much I used that camera over 4+ years before I got my 40D.

The 2003 Digital Rebel (300D) still works as new. The eyecup fell off at some point, and some paint has rubbed off here and there, but the guts are intact. After getting used to the smooth responsiveness of the 40D this year, I find it harder to use — but I had no problem using it for a long, long time.

It was the camera that I learned so many things on. And I'm proud of how the paint wore off where my middle finger spent so much time.

G10 First Impressions

2008-11-21T23:04:00.000-05:00

I've only had my hands on the G10 for a couple days, but I thought I'd share just a few first impressions.

First of all, the G10 has a LOT of features. The manual is longer and more complex than the one for the 50D.

It's covered in knobs and dials. The G10 is heavy and big for a compact. My wife noted that it looked like an old camera, and I agree — it has the look of an old rangefinder. I rather like the look of it, but at its size it needs a jacket pocket in transport, or to be worn around your neck.

You can see some barrel distortion at 28mm. The colors look
good straight from the camera, set at "Vivid.".

It's got a little grip on the right size which makes it very comfortable to hold. The outside of the camera is covered in covered in rubber where the grip is, makes it very easy to hold.

The screen is nice. Not at the level of the 50D's new screen, but definitely better than my 40D's screen.

The lens goes to 28mm wide, nice.

Exposure compensation has its own dial, pretty cool. I can program in my favorite 5 or 6 menu settings into "My Menu," for easy recall later. There's also C1 and C2 settings on the dial for complete camera setup memories; it's one of my favorite features on the 40D, too.

The macro function works great! Better than the automatic macro setting in any camera I've ever used.

Macro shots are fun with the G10.

The G10 goes all the way to ISO 3200, but it's a joke. So far, ISO 400 is the limit I'd recommend, but I'll reserve final judgment for when I've had more time to test.

The hotshoe on top lets you bounce a flash.

There's a hotshoe on top, so I attached my 430EX flash and was able to bounce it, like with the shot above.

The RAW files aren't compatible with anything other than Canon's DIgital Photo Professional software, which feels clunky to me. And I didn't like being knocked out of my workflow, so I'm switching to fine jpeg. I'll shoot some RAW frames later on and put them in the time capsule until Adobe updates their software.

I'm going to keep on shooting with this fun camera and report back later.

Prints made it

2008-11-20T22:52:00.000-05:00

I took advantage of Adorama's recent deal: $4.95 for 16x20 prints. I chose Kodak Endura metallic paper since I had no idea what it would be like. Well, I got my two prints back this week, and that metallic paper is sweet! It looks even better from a slight angle, with a silvery sheen over everything. The blues in the sky and orange in the autumn tree on my print really pop.

That deal has expired, but they've got a new one — $0.99 photo greeting cards, so long as you get 10 or more.

Here's the print, in an Ikea frame. This photo doesn't do it justice.

I took that snapshot using the Canon G10 I scored for a couple of weeks. I'll be sure to give my impressions of that camera as I go.

Canon 50D

2008-11-19T23:42:00.000-05:00

I had a 50D at home tonight — it goes back tomorrow, so there's no time to test everything. I decided to screw around and take a bunch of shots at ISO 6400. It actualy goes to ISO 12800, but those were useless. I was thinking maybe the 50D's ISO 6400 would look like my 40D's ISO 3200.

Well, not so much. I didn't see anything amazing. ISO 6400 isn't bad, though. The 40D's ISO 3200 edges it out, but not by much.

The 50D is nice, but not really worth an upgrade from the 40D. It has a very nice screen, good enough to actually determine if a shot is in focus or not. It has some new bells and whistles. Oh, and 15 megapixels. What that did for me was slow me down with huge files.

It feels and handles just like the 40D. One of my beloved user setup slots on the dial has been replaced with a new "Creative Auto" mode. Ugh. And the dial is a highly reflective aluminum color that I can see burning out someone's cornea on a sunny day.

I'd say go straight for the 50D if you're making the leap from 20D or 30D, but if you've got a 40D, keep it. Save up for the 5D markII or wait a year or two until the 60D comes out. The 50D is a wonderful camera, no doubt, but other than its great screen, there's nothing there tempting me to upgrade.

Here's one at ISO 6400 that came out better than most of the shots I snapped.

Mums

2008-11-18T10:36:00.000-05:00

Fashionable

2008-11-17T22:15:00.000-05:00

My friend Craig at MockProper and I shot a fashion show Saturday night, a benefit for domestic violence. It was pretty hectic. We got there early, scoped the place out, took a few practice shots. The guy in charge of the event told us the plan. "Scene one, they come down the stairs, pose here, pose there, walk off over there...scene two, they come in from the other side, pose there, then there, then again over there, walk off over there. Scene three, they come one at a time, meet in the middle..." Etc. It went on like that, seven scenes. I think. We took off for a while.

Then a phone call came in: we had to head back and brief the other photographers, since we were the only ones who had heard the whole plan. Hmmm. Other photographers? Brief them? Um, OK, be right there.

We get back, and it's in full swing. A couple hundred guests seated. People milling around, fiddling with lights, arranging merchandise. There are now another ten photographers, we tell them we have no idea what's going on. Which is true, I think hearing the description of the event actually made us more confused than if we had simply guessed what was going to happen.

Now we both were loaded for bear, with two bodies apiece, one fast prime, one image-stabilized zoom, speedlights, and 10GB of memory. Ready for a real gunfight.

But in the end, we each used our main body with the fast lens attached, that's it. I shot every frame at f/1.8. At first, I was out of position. The other photographers were all over the place, in the way. Eventually, though, I worked my way into a good spot and planted myself there. Got some good stuff, but I think I snapped 350 shots and kept 36. It was a real struggle.

But it was fun, I'm glad Craig asked me to help. Certainly I learned a lot and got some good experience. I'll post a link to our full gallery when I can.

Deep thoughts

2008-11-14T21:10:00.000-05:00

David Pogue wrote a great article yesterday. A reader had written to him in response to a review he wrote about the new MacBook, where he (like many others) decried the fact that Apple took away the firewire port. Why they did that is a topic for another day, but Pogue's reader ended up asking him, in so many words, why was it he shot home videos. Would anyone ever watch them?

Which led Pogue to question why he bothered documenting anything at all. Which, in turn, got me thinking about it. I mean, I take my camera with me when I go out to breakfast. Why? Why do I have stacks of DVDs and external hard drives full of my pictures? Even the ones that are not good or (worse) not interesting?

Pogue came up with 5 good reasons why he shoots home videos and takes pictures. I came up with one:

Because I love to shoot.

On another note, I'm helping my friend Craig at MockProper shoot a fashion show tomorrow night. After some careful deliberation, I've decided to bring just one body, my 40D, plus two lenses: the 28-135mm IS and the 50mm f/1.8. I'm bringing my Speedlite, too, but hoping I don't have to use it. I'll report on the experience later, should be a lot of fun.

Thom Hogan's 2009 predictions

2008-11-13T13:53:00.000-05:00

Nikon man Thom Hogan has published his predictions for 2009 — a must-read, as are his predictions from previous years. This year's edition is peppered with company-level predictions due to the current economic crisis. He's not affiliated with Nikon in any way, but is an astute observer. It's a dense read; block out 20 minutes or so.

Remember, these are opinions. But the man makes a lot of sense.

Selective color

2008-11-11T20:20:00.000-05:00

Selective color is one of my favorite projects. It's one of the joys of digital photography. I did this one by creating a duplicate layer, converting it to B&W, then erasing the tree to expose the color layer underneath. Simple as that.

16x20 prints only $4.95

2008-11-10T19:16:00.000-05:00

Adorama is offering $4.95 16x20 prints right now. You can get them on Kodak Endura Matte, Endura Lustre, and Metallic papers. That's at least 50% off - the Kodak Metallic prints are normally $14.95. I've never ordered prints from them before, and I know nothing about Kodak paper, but geez, it's Adorama. I'm sure they're great. I plan to try out the metallic paper; report forthcoming.

Plus, you get 25 free 4x6 prints and 3GB of storage when you sign up with them. Actually, pretty much every place gives you free 4x6s for signing up. I'll bet if you just kept on signing up for these places, you could get free 4x6 prints for life.

Serenity now

2008-11-10T18:48:00.000-05:00

I always figured that if reincarnation turned out to be true, that I'd want to come back to life as a dog in my mother's house. But just as good would be a cat in my house.

The shot above was made with the SMC Super Takumar 55mm f/2 at f/2, ISO 3200. The one below is with the Canon 28-135mm IS at f/3.5, ISO 3200.

A time-lapse camera for your pet

2008-11-07T22:54:00.000-05:00

Got an outdoor pet? Ever wonder where they go all day? Check out the Mr. Lee Catcam — it's a little camera that hangs from your kitty's collar, and you can configure it to take a picture at regular intervals throughout the day. What you end up with is a series of shots chronicling your cat's — or other roaming pet's — daily movements. Thanks to Eolake Stobblehouse for pointing this out in a recent entry.

The site has a great gallery of pics, following a day in the life of "Mr. Lee."