Queen for a day

Queen for a day
Originally uploaded by DigitalHeMan.

Today (30th April) was Queen's Day. This is when the Dutch spend the day outside celebrating the (former) queen's birthday. This year we were blessed with good weather, so around 500000 people gathered in Amsterdam.

The day traditionally starts with the vrijmarkt, which is where anyone can set up a stand and sell whatever they feel like getting rid of. My friends Vincent and Tamara were there too, with Vincent professionally dealing with his customers and selling all sorts of quality items. Highlights included back issues of National Geographic circa 1994, a purple elephant with a leg missing, and a toy train....



After the vrijmarkt I went for a wander in the center and in the Jordaan, in search of photos, but was suprised how empty parts of the Jordaan were (and how unphotogenic the center was), so didn't come away with any shots. However on the way back to my bike, passed by the gay QDay festival on the Amstel, which as always was a great excuse for people to dress up as Queens for a Day..... came across many people dressed as Queen Beatrix, and others clothed as Dancing Girls/Guys....



Photographically, I decided to stick with a single prime for the day, and went with the 10,5mm Fisheye. When used close up this gives powerful images, and also includes a lot of the background to add to the atmosphere of the image. The images shot here were taken using fill in flash, since I find the fisheye accentuates areas in the shade, so a nice pop of flash does wonders.....

Dust Bunnies and Sensor Cleaning

Dust Bunnies
Originally uploaded by DigitalHeMan.

One of the negative sides of using a digital SLR for photography is the effect of dust bunnies. This is a condition that occurs when particles or specks of dust end up inside the camera body and on the sensor. Unfortunately it is very difficult to avoid getting dust on the sensor, since unless the lenses are changed in a class 10 clean station, dust is going to get inside the camera body, and ultimately on the sensor.

The effect of dust can be greatly magnified, depending on the aperture that is used to take the photo. With a very wide aperture (i.e. f/1.4 - f/4) the effects generally won't be noticable, but as soon as the aperture is changed to give greater depth of field, for example in landscape photography, the dust particles become more evident, and can often be seen in a light blue sky on a bright day.....

One area of digital photography that has a big problem with dust is macro photography. Since depth of field is greatly reduced the closer the focusing point is to the object, macro photography requires the use of a narrow aperture, often in the range of f/16 - f/22, in order to get enough of the image in focus, and then the dust bunnies start intruding into the image. This is evident in the first photo in this blog entry, which was shot at f/18, where each of the small black circles are caused by particles on the sensor (you might need to click the photo to see a larger version where the dust is more evident).

Now of course, a photo like this could be fixed in post processing (take for example the shot here, which was taken the same day, and had the same problems with the dust spots on the raw image, but was fixed by playing with levels and using the heal tool in Photoshop) but that takes time, so it is better to start off an important photo session with a clean sensor......

First to check if your sensor needs cleaning - find a white wall, set your camera to f/22, and take a photo of the wall in good light. Then look at the picture at 100% on the computer, and see if you have any dust bunnies as with the photo above. If you do, chances are cleaning the sensor will help you....

The first way to clean the sensor is to use a air blower, like the Giotto Pocket Rocket, which can get rid of many of the looser dust particles. Technique here is important though - if your camera has a mirror lock up function, use it, or otherwise use the bulb exposure setting, and make sure you hold your finger on the shutter button as you are cleaning to make sure the mirror is out of the way. Then hold the camera with the sensor pointing downwards, and squirt a few puffs of air into the chamber. It is important that your sensor is pointing down, as this will help any dust particles to fall out of the camera, as opposed to just being moved around inside the camera. ***NOTE*** Do NOT use canned air to clean the sensor - this is actually liquid air, and will cause more damage than good.....

Now take another test picture of the wall - if the dust bunny situation has improved, great, otherwise you might need to use a more intensive method to clean the sensor.

The way I do it is to use is Sensor Swabs/Pec Pads (see picture), with Eclipse optic solution, which is a methanol based solution.

(Edit 2008: Some newer cameras, for example the Nikon D300 and D3, now use Tin Oxide coatings on the sensor. You shouldn't use the standard Eclipse fluid for these cameras, instead use Eclipse E2)



If you buy the swabs, there are instructions on the packet, which I advise you to read, but in short the procedure is to put a few drops of the fluid on each side of the swab, then lift the mirror as before, and clean the sensor with a reasonable amount of pressure by moving from one side to the other of the sensor in one sweep, and then back again, using the other side of the swab. This should be enough to get the sensor clean, but remount your lens, take another test shot of the wall, and if that hasn't helped, clean the sensor again.

A note of precaution - cleaning the sensor using a liquid sounds risky, and of course it can be - a single scratch on the sensor is going to make the camera pretty much unusable, so it is important to take care when cleaning it. Only use sensor swabs once - they come in sterile packages, and should only be opened when they are about to be used. Also make sure you buy the correct size sensor swab for your model camera (for Nikon D series this is Sensor Swab size 2), as using a swab that is too large could damage other parts of the camera, and using one that is too small won't do the job properly....

But realistically the hot mirror filter that is in front of the sensor is pretty rugged, and it would take quite some effort to be able to scratch it. Give it a go - you will be impressed how easy it can be to get your sensor back in tip top clean condition.......

Spring time

Muscari
Originally uploaded by DigitalHeMan.

So, Easter has been and gone, but in Holland the last weeks signalled a change in the weather and we are now experiencing bright spring days, just the right weather for flowers to spring into bloom. Of course the Netherlands is well known for having the right weather for cultivating flower blooms, and the world famous tourist attraction, Keukenhof, is only testament to that, attracting thousands of tourists every day.

One of our friends gave us a muscari plant recently, and it also burst into bloom this weekend. Whilst it hasn't produced the deep blue blooms that are often associated with this particular flower, it nevertheless has given me a perfect subject to play around with my camera, and some of the results can be seen in my flickr photostream.

I am lucky to have managed to obtain a good secondhand copy of the Nikon 70-180mm F/4.5-5.6 Micro zoom before they either disappear from the face of the earth, or begin to command insane prices on ebay (Nikon recently discontinued this, their only Micro zoom, leaving only fixed focal length macros in their collection) and the flexibility of the zoom makes this an ideal lens for flower photography, and allows the photographer to get in much closer than just a bloom or a petal.

There are a number of choices to make with macro photography. Firstly the light source - should it be artificial, or available light? When shooting in the great outdoors, the subject and it's surroundings often dictate this, since any subject movement close up is greatly amplified, and needs a high shutter speed in order to freeze it, which is not always possible, so flash gives a number of advantages.

When using flash for macro, a close up flash kit such as the Nikon SB-R1(C1) is ideal. The top shot accompanying this blog was taken with the SB-R1, and two SB-R200 light sources either side of the lens. Due to the size of the muscari blooms, I was also shooting with the PK-13 (27,5mm) extension tube, and the Nikon 6T close up lens, and I wanted to get the in focus blooms to stand out a bit from the background. Now one of the nice things with the SB-R1 kit is that light fall off is pretty quick, so you end up with a nice black background, but in this case it wasn't happening initially, as the ambient light was too high, so I stepped the shutter speed up to 1/250s to aid the separation. (this also works inversely - by using slow shutter sync you can also balance the ambient light to give the background detail as well)

However, such a close up flash kit isn't always necessary. Today I was at Keukenhof, where wielding the Sb-R1 around would have been impractical, so instead I worked with the SB-800, but took it off camera and used the SC-17 connecting cable so that I could control where the light was falling on the subject. Works just as well, and with Nikon's advanced TTL flash, exposures were spot on.



The second shot was taken with ambient light. This required a longer exposure to balance the exposure, and I ended up shooting at 1/3s. This gave the nice effect that the background (a white wall) was also exposed well, and I felt this gave the photo a dreamy quality. Of course outside this shot wouldn't have been possible, as even the slightest breeze would have left the picture unsharp, but there is nothing wrong with shooting specimens in a controlled environment inside (assuming of course you haven't taken the flowers from the wild with the sole intention of photographing them ;)

Another choice to be made with macro photography is the aperture to be used. This will have a dramatic effect on how much of the picture will end up being in focus, since the depth of field in macro photography is greatly reduced. Take for example the two shots accompagnying this blog - the first was shot at f/16, leaving a fair amount of the bloom in focus, whereas the second one was shot at f/5.6, leaving very few of the blooms sharp. In my experience, the more 'artistic' shots will use a lower aperture, whereas the 'documentary' shots will be shot at higher apertures.

In the age of digital SLR photography, shooting higher apertures brings its own challenges in the form of dust bunnies. It is an unfortunate fact that sensors do collect dust over time, due to their static charge, and regardless of how carefully lenses are changed, dust will end up on the sensor. You can check for dust on your sensor by shooting a white wall at f/16 or higher, and you will probably be suprised by the results. During 'normal' photography, you are less likely to notice the dust since (at least in my case) you don't use the higher apertures so often, but since macro photography means you are more likely to, this either means cleaning the sensor before a macro session, or using spot removal in Photoshop or Lightroom to try and remove the spots in post processing.

Needless to say, the use of a sturdy tripod and a cable release are imperative in order to get sharp results, but I'll leave that for another day.......

Going Retro

Tim, Bromheads Jacket
Originally uploaded by DigitalHeMan.

Started this week off on a training course in the UK, and whilst using the frequent breaks to do a bit of browsing, realised that the price of medium format camera systems has dropped significantly since the last time I took a look. Of course this is primarily driven by the introduction of digital, not only in the consumer and pro segment, but also in the medium format/studio segment of the market. Although the cost of going digital in combination with brands such as Hasselblad or Mamiya is still way beyond the means of most photographers, it has made for a steady flow of bargain priced analog medium format kits making their way to eBay.

So I bought one.

The package arrived this Saturday, and I was amazed at what I had obtained with my meager outlay of less than 500 Euros. This got me a Mamiya 645 Pro body, an 80mm F/2.8 lens, and a 150mm F/3.5 lens, together with a waist level finder and a prism finder.

The kit can still be bought in the shops today, albeit an updated model, and would cost 6 or 7 times what I paid for it. And in it's heyday would have cost double that again.

From first inspections it seems an incredibly well made system, totally interchangeable, and pro build quality. But compared to my Nikon Digital SLR system, it requires a completely different way of thinking.

It's manual. Manual focus, manual film drive, manual exposure. And it doesn't even have an exposure meter.

It's big. Although fairly ergonomic (it fits into my left palm, and I can use the left index finger to focus the lens, which occurs oh so smoothly, and use the right hand for the shutter release and film advancement crank), it won't be winning any prizes for portability.

It's cumbersome. For example, loading a 120 film (remember that stuff?!) requires taking out the insert, manually winding a film onto the spool, putting it all back together, and then advancing to frame one by turning the crank 4 or 5 times. Then the opposite to unload the film again at the end.

Compare this to the fast focusing, fast shooting, and high picture taking rate of the digital world, and you have yourself a completely different kettle of fish. But although I have no intention of replacing any of my digital gear with this beast, I hope that it will find a place in my photography. I see the larger frame size as being an ideal camera for portraiture, studio, and landscape, and the deliberate slow down in taking pictures, and higher cost per shot, will hopefully teach me to think a lot more before I shoot.

I've shot a few test rolls, and it is a joy to use. Keep an eye out here and at Flickr for some of my first shots......

Now there are certain situations where I see no place for the Mamiya.....

The shot accompanying this blog entry was taken at a concert I visited last week by Bromheads Jacket, who were playing at Paradiso, Amsterdam. It was the second time I had seen them at this venue, the previous time being at London Calling, late last year, and this time they played in the 'small room', which benefits from, in my opinion, much better lighting than the main hall.

Bromheads are known to incite their crowds into fairly lively behaviour, and this concert was no exception. It was a pretty tough job keeping the camera steady whilst being pushed from side to side by the people in the mosh pit, but I was pleased with the results I achieved, which can be seen in the following section of my Flickr photostream.

At one point the lead singer, Tim, decided to go crowd surfing, and I was able to pop up the built in flash on the D200 (I normally never use flash at concerts, instead relying on available light) and chase him round with the rest of the fans, ending up with a shot that conveyed the mood quite well. Of course I would never have risked my camera in this situation when I only had the one, but now I have my second d200, plus a decent insurance policy, it doesn't take a second thought ;)

Imagine doing that with a medium format system.......

Software Review: Adobe Lightroom

Up until now my post processing workflow has been relatively disorganised - I shoot everything in RAW to give me the most flexibility when back behind the computer, but how I process the NEFs has really depended on my mood. Typically I would use Adobe Bridge as my 'organiser', then tag the photos with red if I decide after looking at the preview that I would like to do some more work on the image. Once I have done a quick review of the images, I would open up each red tagged shot individually and use Adobe ACR to make fine adjustments to the exposure, and then open the shot in Photoshop to do the real hard work, using layers to play with hue, saturation, levels, curves, and sharpening until I have the end result I am happy with.

However, for 95% of the images, Photoshop has really been a bit of overkill, since I am only using the basic functionalities, and basically just an expensive memory hog.....

Enter Adobe Lightroom......

Lightroom has been designed from the ground up by Adobe as a photographer's workflow replacement, and has been labelled by many as being Adobe's response to Apple's Aperture tool, which has a very similar set of functionalities.

I downloaded an early beta copy of LR when it was first released and only available for the Mac, and quickly dismissed it - it didn't seem logical, and forced me to import all my photos to a separate library before I could work on them (which effectively doubled the storage space I needed for image storage). After playing with it for 30 minutes or so it found its way to my dustbin.

However, on Patrick's recommendation I took another look at the final release version, and was pleasantly suprised. In between the previous release I had tried, and this release, Adobe had acquired Pixmantec, the makers of RawShooter, a very flexible RAW workflow tool for the PC, and have integrated many of the features into Lightroom, making it a very flexible tool.

There are five main parts to the product: Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web. The idea behind this is first of all the user 'imports' his newly uploaded files into LR's Library (in this release however this is virtual - the images remain in their intial location, and information about the images is loaded into LR's database), then the user organises them, tags them, labels them, etc, and moves onto the next stage, Develop.

There are a number of ways an image can be developed - firstly, using the 'Quick Develop', LR will assign what it feels are the best automatic exposure settings to the image, and although this is still using Adobe Camera RAW, I have to say these settings are much more accurate than what I have experienced previously with ACR. You can either leave it at that (which I doubt I would do much), or you can fine tune the development stages, by altering contrast, saturation, hue, exposure, curves, and a number of other settings. The curve alterations has changed from Photoshop, and instead of working directly on the curve, you adjust the settings by using a number of slide bars below the graphical curve, and although this takes a bit of getting used to, in my opinion it is a lot easier to work with it like this.

One welcome addition to the develop stage are a number of presets, including various toning options (cyanotype, sepia), b+w conversions, and something called 'direct positive'. From what I can work out, this adds around +1.15EV to the exposure, and plays around with the contrast to give a very striking image which works especially well for fashion type images. Of course one can take this preset effect and adjust it to one's own preference. See the attached photo of Heleen for an example of how this can work



Within the Develop stage you also have the ability to do split toning, which basically gives the possibility of making toned images to your own preferences, and not just relying on the preconfigured Sepia and Cyanotype examples. Again some examples of these split tones can be seen in my Flickr photostream. Develop also supports the export of your images, and these can be automatically converted to jpg (or another format) images, assigned a colour profile, and then opened up in Photoshop or saved to disk. It is also possible to associate the export action with a Photoshop droplet, which could then, for example, add a custom frame around the edge of each image (the ability to add borders is something I feel is sadly missing from the product).

Once the developing has taken place, the next step is to display the images, and LR supports this with the Slideshow function, which allows you to show selected images as an onscreen slideshow. I really like this function, as you are not restricted to a single directory as the source for the slide show, but can instead set up a slide show based upon tags or labels, and add music (from directly within an iTunes playlist for example) and custom fade/slide progressions to the show. Ideal to show to a prospective client. The slideshow can also be exported as a pdf document, although of course the music does not get exported along with the pdf.

The Print stage allows you to set up an image for printing, and is something that I doubt I will do, since I still send away all my images to a pro lab for printing, but it seems a fairly flexible way of sending the image to a local printer.

The final stage is Web, and here Adobe has expanded the web templates from within Photoshop to give around 20 html and flash based web site designs. These can be customised to show your name, exposure details, and the colour schemes etc can be adjusted to your own personal tastes. It is definitely a very easy way to publish the images to the web, and can even upload to an ftp site automatically.

Overall, for a v1.0 Adobe has done a very good job in creating a market ready product, and I feel they have learnt from some of the weaknesses that Apple Aperture has. It uses many of the good Photographer's features from Photoshop, and expands on them to make them more friendly to the image maker. I am still discovering much of the product, but can already see that it will have a place in my workflow from now on. I will still use Photoshop from time to time, for example if I need to do cloning in an image, or play with some of the more advanced filters available, but for most of my standard stuff Lightroom will do the job.

It is available as a free 30 day trial from Adobe, and I would encourage you all to give it a go and let me know how you feel about it.....

Trip Report: Bavarian National Park (continued)

Bavarian Water Landscape
Originally uploaded by DigitalHeMan.

One of the afternoons on the trip had been set aside for a walk to one edge of the forest to have a go at some landscapes. However this plan was quickly changed as it appeared that the recent high winds in the area had led to a number of trees falling, and blocking the pathways that we needed to use. There was a note from the forester warning of the danger, and since the fallen trees were covered with quite deep snow, we decided it wasn't worth starting the hike, especially since we were not sure how far we would be able to get.

So instead we decided to concentrate on the stream and treescapes around the car park area that we had parked in. I found it a perfect opportunity to use my recently purchased Neutral Density filters to play around with some long exposure times to get the water in the stream to blur out. The first example shown here was exposed for 30 seconds using the 12-24mm wide angle (at 24mm), and the second one for 25 seconds, using the 70-180mm Micro lens at 90mm.



I felt that using the long exposure added a bit of interest to an otherwise uninteresting subject. The ND filter allowed me to extend the exposure time for long enough to get the water to blur the right amount.

Of course, both shots required the use of a tripod and a cable release ;)

Trip Report: Bavarian National Park

Lone Wolf
Originally uploaded by DigitalHeMan.

Spent the last five days in the Bavarian National Park with FotoCampus on an expedition to photograph the animals and landscapes around there.

The park itself, covering 200 hectares, is a "Tier-Freigelaende", meaning the animals housed there (over 45 species) are able to roam freely within their allotted enclosures, and care has been taken to simulate accurate living environments for each species.

The animals are enclosed within fenced areas, mainly to provide safety to the visitors, but also to protect the animals from the natural food chain that would otherwise be in place. Some of the animals represented include red deer, otters, wild pigs, wolves, bison, owls, lynx, beavers, wild cats, and brown bears. In terms of photographic opportunities, we concentrated on the brown bears, wolves, lynx, and wild cats.

The park is very popular with photographers, as it is one of the only places in central Europe where so many types of animals are accessible by visitors, whilst at the same time being able to roam freely. This of course creates many photographic opportunities, although this sometime is accompagnied by a long wait for some action.

We were lucky with the weather, as although there had been no recent snow fall, the temperatures were still around zero, and there had also been no rain, so there was still ample snow on the ground in many parts. This of course meant we needed to use some exposure compensation to avoid the snow influencing the scene, but the benefit of digital is that this is relatively simple to calculate by using the histogram on the back of the camera.

Since the park is spread over a large area, a lot of walking is necessary to reach the animals we were interested in. The wolf in the photo accompagnying this blog was at the top of a hill around 2km from the car park - and after pulling the beach rolly loaded with all my gear up quite steep inclines to get there, I was ready for a break before we had started.....

This shot was taken with my D200 and 200-400mm F/4G VR lens attached. Since the light forced me to use relatively long shutter speeds on occassions, the need for good technique was evident. It was difficult to get the nice sharp images one would expect from such a lens, and I really needed to work on my long lens technique in order to get good results. Still, after 4 days of trying, I think I am beginning to appreciate exactly when and how to use the lens.

More in a later blog......

Gone fishing

Self Portrait
Originally uploaded by DigitalHeMan.

Will be away for a week or so, off to the Bavarian Forest in Germany for some wildlife photography together with Claus Brandt of FotoCampus.

But I will return soon hopefully with some good shots to share with you all..... :)

Magic Eraser

Sigal 13
Originally uploaded by DigitalHeMan.

Sometimes a photo needs a little extra to really stand out. In 'real life' we have the advantage of being able to see things in 3d, which gives us the immediate benefit of being able to separate a person from the hustle and bustle of the background they are standing in front of, but with the photographic medium we only see in 2d, so a confusing or busy background can often do nothing other than spoil the picture.

One way I like to separate my subject from the background is by using the magic eraser and standard eraser tools in Photoshop. With Magic Eraser I am able to click on a single point in an image and remove that patch of colour from the image that I am working on, leaving a transparent layer in it's place. I can then fine tune the area that I have deleted using the standard eraser tool.

The way I like to use this with portrait photography, such as in the examples here, is to make a duplicate layer of the image, and then turn the background layer into a black and white image. Then as I erase the top layer, I am left with the black and white image showing through underneath.

It is important to have crisp, well defined edges between the black and white layer, and the colour layer, so I will normally get as close as possible with the eraser, and then zoom in on the image, and get really close, so that the only colour left in the image is the part that I wish to highlight. Toggling the background layer between visible and invisible can help to see parts that I have missed.

This can take some practice to get right, and an image created in this way will need a lot more time than a 'normal' image, but I think the results are worth the extra effort.

Jarvis Cocker

Some more shots from the recent Jarvis Cocker concert that I was happy with.

I liked the b+w conversion I made on the first one, and used a new method to achieve it. Instead of using a gradient map together with the channel mixer to find the appropriate levels of each of the three RGB colors in grayscale, I used a gradient map together with individual curves for R, G, and B to adjust the impact that each channel had on the shot. This also enabled me to bring Jarvis away from the background, and stand out a bit more (compare this to the unaltered shot here. Once I had done that, I used the color balance to give the picture the silver blue tone that it has.



The next one was achieved again by adjusting the individual channels. Red was pulled up, and green pulled down until the colors were as I liked them. I think the effect works, but would welcome your opinion as to whether you think the photoshopping is overdone.....




The final shot is pretty much 'as shot', with a standard S curve for improved contrast. I liked the color of the light and the sharpness in this shot.



More photos from this concert can be seen here