I own a couple of Canon 1D MIII bodies and a couple of Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lenses. Back in May I sent the bodies to Canon for a hardware "fix" for certain autofocus issues. Then, near the end of July I shot Jewel in concert and noticed a definite autofocus issue that couldn't be corrected with microadjustment ... I did several microadjustment tests with both the failing lens and my backup lens on the body that I normally shoot with using that lens. I sent the lens back to Canon for repair. $180. Seems OK now but they made a note about sending the body with it if there were more problems.
Last week I shot Toby Keith with the same body but using the backup lens ... note that the backup lens is actually newer and is not a backup in the sense that it isn't as good ... I normally keep it on my 1Ds MIII body in my studio. The images were very soft even though when I did my tests earlier it was fine! So, I thought maybe it was the body after all, although that seemed odd since it was just at Canon. What to do? A series of tests. I blocked out an Excel spreadsheet where I would shoot both lenses at small and large focal length on both bodies. Coincidentally, I started with the body that I don't usually use this lens on. All tests on both lenses were good. I thought, "Aha, it is a bad body!" So, I mounted up the "bad' body on the tripod with the "bad" lens and started through the microadjustment process. "Oh, Crap!" There was the problem ... I had left the microadjustment set to +20 for that model of lens. Although I had used the body for another project, I had used a different lens, which had not used the MA, so it worked fine!
So, I corrected the microadjustment for the lens, which turned out to be +4 and will try it out on the Reverand Al Green on Thursday night. Next time, when the facts don't fit I will try to think outside the box. So, I am embarrassed and relieved!
Travel Safely,
Dwight
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
HDR: High Dynamic Range: Architecture
I am in the middle of my first HDR (High Dynamic Range) project at the Casa Cassara Winery & Vineyard Estate ranch-house located just to the west of Buellton, California, north of the Santa Ynez River and Santa Rosa Road and south of Hwy 246 that runs to Lompoc. I expect that anyone who reads this blog is familiar, at least in concept, with HDR. Quickly, it is a technique in which several (generally three to nine) exposure variations are taken of the same frame and then combined into a pseudo image with a huge dynamic range, as much as 18 stops of luminance. This requires special software as the numeric values required to represent this range exceed the standard fixed point arithmetic of most image editing software. In my case, I am using Photomatix Pro 3.2.1 that assembles the base HDR image using floating point numbers.
What is the goal of all this extra effort and fancy software? To produce an image that has detail in both the very dark and very light portions of a photograph. I find this most easily conceived by thinking of taking a photograph in a room with the lights on but no flash. Under normal circumstances this would result in an image with localized pools of light around the light fixtures and very dark elsewhere and perhaps with pretty harsh shadows along with burned out areas very close to the lights themselves. With HDR, both the dark and light areas are generally preserved and have good detail.
I'm not going into much of any detail with this blog entry beyond posting a couple of images taken at the estate using a Canon 1Ds Mark III 21MP body, Canon 14mm f/2.8L lens on a Gitzo tripod with Really Right Stuff ball head and Canon shutter release. The exposures were ISO 100, Av priority, evaluative metering, five brackets 1-1/3 stops apart and mirror lockup for all images.
The first image was shot just as the sun was about to set behind the far ridge. The sky is actually very smokey as a result of the ongoing Le Brea Fire in northern Santa Barbara County. The direction where the sun is setting is toward Lompoc and the Pacific Ocean, about 20 miles distant. To the right of the house is the estate Pinot Noir vineyard, currently netted to protect the grapes from birds. Click on the image to see a larger version stored at blogspot.com.
The second image is the entryway to the house, showing detail in the bricks, the statue in the fountain, nice lighting on the windows and a pretty sky.
The final image of the Great Room shows detail in the wood of the vaulted ceiling, near the lighting fixtures and outside the windows, which is very blue due to the color dominance of the incandescent lighting inside.
In the next installment on this project I will show some comparison images using the "as metered" frames compared to the HDR assemblies.
In the meantime, travel safe!
Dwight
What is the goal of all this extra effort and fancy software? To produce an image that has detail in both the very dark and very light portions of a photograph. I find this most easily conceived by thinking of taking a photograph in a room with the lights on but no flash. Under normal circumstances this would result in an image with localized pools of light around the light fixtures and very dark elsewhere and perhaps with pretty harsh shadows along with burned out areas very close to the lights themselves. With HDR, both the dark and light areas are generally preserved and have good detail.
I'm not going into much of any detail with this blog entry beyond posting a couple of images taken at the estate using a Canon 1Ds Mark III 21MP body, Canon 14mm f/2.8L lens on a Gitzo tripod with Really Right Stuff ball head and Canon shutter release. The exposures were ISO 100, Av priority, evaluative metering, five brackets 1-1/3 stops apart and mirror lockup for all images.
The first image was shot just as the sun was about to set behind the far ridge. The sky is actually very smokey as a result of the ongoing Le Brea Fire in northern Santa Barbara County. The direction where the sun is setting is toward Lompoc and the Pacific Ocean, about 20 miles distant. To the right of the house is the estate Pinot Noir vineyard, currently netted to protect the grapes from birds. Click on the image to see a larger version stored at blogspot.com.
The second image is the entryway to the house, showing detail in the bricks, the statue in the fountain, nice lighting on the windows and a pretty sky.
The final image of the Great Room shows detail in the wood of the vaulted ceiling, near the lighting fixtures and outside the windows, which is very blue due to the color dominance of the incandescent lighting inside.
In the next installment on this project I will show some comparison images using the "as metered" frames compared to the HDR assemblies.
In the meantime, travel safe!
Dwight
Monday, August 03, 2009
Software: I Bought a Bunch of Photoshop Plugins
For those who have followed this blog, off and on, for the last couple of years, it is known that I have had a goal of moving from Corel's PhotoImpact, which I still recommend to amateurs, to Photoshop. I am finally moving right along with the help of LIGHT Photographic Workshops, National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), Photography-on-the.net (POTN), Kelby Online Training and general professional pressure. I thank and recommend each of the above.
While I still use PhotoImpact X3 (the current version) for my extant workflows such as concerts, boxing and poker tournaments, all new areas such as portrait and glamor are carefully guided into Photoshop. As a consequence, given the amount of time it takes to retouch skin, I finally gave in and bought some plugins: Imagenomic bundle that included Portraiture for skin smoothing. While it doesn't do exactly what I'd like all the time and now that I have used it a bit I need to go back and redo the tutorials, it does well that it saves me from getting overwhelmed. Anyway, I can see the value of plugins, both as time savers and to unleash the minuscule amount of talent I have.
So, yesterday I bought HDRSoft's Photomatix Pro, OnOne's suite and TopazLabs bundle. I know what each does. I don't know how to operate them, yet. Fortunately I am not a purist. In fact, I don't mind copying things that I see others do. To me, saying, "I did this without any Photoshop Plugins!" as a matter of pride is pretty silly! If you could say, "This is straight from the camera!" then I might be impressed. But once you're in Photoshop, all is fair and only the end result is of interest, even if it was done by an unlimited number of monkeys sitting in front of an unlimited number of keyboards.
I have an architectural project for which I wanted Photomatix. I am hoping to get into using textures and wanted OnOne Mask Pro to extract some models. And I like the effects I've seen with TopazLabs Adjust. I also like several of NIKs plugins so I'll likely snatch them up, too.
Anyway, my plan is to explore these different plugins with respect to my projects and share the results here. Sharing will help keep me more organized. As Marcie likes others to take point and start off on a project, I need help keeping organized. Besides, if I come up with something good I have place where I can sell prints! :-)
Travel safely,
Dwight
While I still use PhotoImpact X3 (the current version) for my extant workflows such as concerts, boxing and poker tournaments, all new areas such as portrait and glamor are carefully guided into Photoshop. As a consequence, given the amount of time it takes to retouch skin, I finally gave in and bought some plugins: Imagenomic bundle that included Portraiture for skin smoothing. While it doesn't do exactly what I'd like all the time and now that I have used it a bit I need to go back and redo the tutorials, it does well that it saves me from getting overwhelmed. Anyway, I can see the value of plugins, both as time savers and to unleash the minuscule amount of talent I have.
So, yesterday I bought HDRSoft's Photomatix Pro, OnOne's suite and TopazLabs bundle. I know what each does. I don't know how to operate them, yet. Fortunately I am not a purist. In fact, I don't mind copying things that I see others do. To me, saying, "I did this without any Photoshop Plugins!" as a matter of pride is pretty silly! If you could say, "This is straight from the camera!" then I might be impressed. But once you're in Photoshop, all is fair and only the end result is of interest, even if it was done by an unlimited number of monkeys sitting in front of an unlimited number of keyboards.
I have an architectural project for which I wanted Photomatix. I am hoping to get into using textures and wanted OnOne Mask Pro to extract some models. And I like the effects I've seen with TopazLabs Adjust. I also like several of NIKs plugins so I'll likely snatch them up, too.
Anyway, my plan is to explore these different plugins with respect to my projects and share the results here. Sharing will help keep me more organized. As Marcie likes others to take point and start off on a project, I need help keeping organized. Besides, if I come up with something good I have place where I can sell prints! :-)
Travel safely,
Dwight
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Model Mayhem: Don't Expect Much!
Based on seeing a few of my fellow photographers use models found on Model Mayhem, I created an account, added a profile and uploaded images. Then I started contacting models and MUAs. I checked their profiles. The number one thing these girls put on their profiles is that they don't do nudity. They really want you to get that. NO NUDITY! They aren't going to take their clothes off. I have never asked a model to take her clothes off. I don't need to be told over and over that a girl won't take her clothes off. But that seems to be their biggest issue and they are going to flog it until all us perverts get it. The only nudes I've ever shot were girlfriends and wives. It is hard. Why would I want to subject myself to that again? But, of course, I have also noticed nudes of these very same models show up. So, I guess they have the Sarah Palin Abstinence program for nudity: deny, deny, deny ... and then do exactly what you say you won't do!
Which leads right into the second Model Mayhem pronouncement: I AM NOT A FLAKE! This comes right after the "I won't take my clothes off. I won't even pretend to take my clothes off!" Yup, and not only are the models flakes, the MUAs are flakes, too. I have had nine Model Mayhem contacts, models and MUAs, in a row cancel or not show up. And that is 100% of my Model Mayhem transactions. I recently arranged for a model to do TFP for a photographic social gathering. She was absolutely committed. Was even going to bring her own MUA. And then she had a friend that was going to come and model also. I arranged this three months in advance. When I didn't hear from her after two months, I messaged her. That's when I found out her sister had to get married and had chosen the same day. Girls used to be able to plan for their weddings a year ahead, but under the Sarah Palin rules of abstinence the pregnancy will dictate the wedding date! But she arranged for another, "I AM NOT A FLAKE" girl to come instead. I exchanged messages with this girl and then didn't hear from her. So, I messaged her and got back, "I got laid off so I will only be doing paying work now!" Like I'm going to pay someone who just in the same breath demonstrated she operates on the Sarah Palin model .... oh, did I mention that she has a daughter but no mention of husband! Is that sexist? I thought it was just practical to have a partner before getting pregnant!
And this hasn't just happened for TFP gigs. Marcie and I had a paid agreement with an MUA who decided at two days before a shoot we put together that she'd make more money if she did a teaching seminar and could we move our shoot to some other time for her? Not a thought about the commitments the other three people had made!
So, I am ranting about it. It is stunning. I would never pay a model that I hadn't worked with or done a test with. And since these Model Mayhem girls don't ever get to me, I will never pay them! I will use an agency model ... which won't be these girls because agencies won't put up with flakes and that's all there is at Model Mayhem. Of course, I'm laughing as I say all this because after all, Model Mayhem is free and we all know what you get for free! NOTHING!
But I guess I am no better. I keep promising to blog something useful and I keep getting overtaken by events, too. But, the blog is free so I guess that's OK! :-)
Travel Safe!
Dwight
Which leads right into the second Model Mayhem pronouncement: I AM NOT A FLAKE! This comes right after the "I won't take my clothes off. I won't even pretend to take my clothes off!" Yup, and not only are the models flakes, the MUAs are flakes, too. I have had nine Model Mayhem contacts, models and MUAs, in a row cancel or not show up. And that is 100% of my Model Mayhem transactions. I recently arranged for a model to do TFP for a photographic social gathering. She was absolutely committed. Was even going to bring her own MUA. And then she had a friend that was going to come and model also. I arranged this three months in advance. When I didn't hear from her after two months, I messaged her. That's when I found out her sister had to get married and had chosen the same day. Girls used to be able to plan for their weddings a year ahead, but under the Sarah Palin rules of abstinence the pregnancy will dictate the wedding date! But she arranged for another, "I AM NOT A FLAKE" girl to come instead. I exchanged messages with this girl and then didn't hear from her. So, I messaged her and got back, "I got laid off so I will only be doing paying work now!" Like I'm going to pay someone who just in the same breath demonstrated she operates on the Sarah Palin model .... oh, did I mention that she has a daughter but no mention of husband! Is that sexist? I thought it was just practical to have a partner before getting pregnant!
And this hasn't just happened for TFP gigs. Marcie and I had a paid agreement with an MUA who decided at two days before a shoot we put together that she'd make more money if she did a teaching seminar and could we move our shoot to some other time for her? Not a thought about the commitments the other three people had made!
So, I am ranting about it. It is stunning. I would never pay a model that I hadn't worked with or done a test with. And since these Model Mayhem girls don't ever get to me, I will never pay them! I will use an agency model ... which won't be these girls because agencies won't put up with flakes and that's all there is at Model Mayhem. Of course, I'm laughing as I say all this because after all, Model Mayhem is free and we all know what you get for free! NOTHING!
But I guess I am no better. I keep promising to blog something useful and I keep getting overtaken by events, too. But, the blog is free so I guess that's OK! :-)
Travel Safe!
Dwight
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