Jennifer Wu is Coming Back to LIGHT!

I know I have been neglecting my blog again but I have been very busy as well as getting hooked on Facebook, which is a huge time sink. But I have great plans to discuss the tons of new equipment, studio upgrades and projects I'm into, as well as share about experiences.

However, this entry is to make sure you know about Jennifer Wu's upcoming workshop at Light Photographic Workshops in the middle of March. She's coming back, armed for bear, to show us her award winning techniques for doing macros and wildflowers! And in this neck of the woods there are going to be plenty of wildflowers in the Spring given all the rain we're having.

In preparation for this workshop I have acquired a 1DMIV (actually, I got to shoot concerts and boxing, but I'm bringing it), the new Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS macro, Canon MT-24 dual head macro flash, lightweight Gitzo tripod with cross bar (I can't remember the number but I'll post it in another entry), Singh-Ray Vari-ND neutral density filter, Cokin Z-pro filter holder and various size adapters, a Hoodman Hood Loupe (as a result of my last Wu class) and a 24mm f/3.5L TS-E lens (also as a result of my last Wu class.)

If you recall, Jennifer got me into shooting with Live View on a tripod for landscapes, using the Hood Loupe to fine tune focus using the 5x and 10x magnification options. I was really appreciative because I shoot bracketing and mirror lock-up which is a pain unless you do use Live View. So, now I'm ready for her.

"Flowers and Macro Field Photography" will be March 15-19th at the Light Photographic Workshops digital darkroom training facility in Los Osos, California, but I expect we will be off into the field a great deal of that time. I am hoping to remember to take BTS (behind the scenes) photos so you can see more of this superwoman in action.

LIGHT Photographic Workshops: Canon Field Photography with Jennifer Wu: HDR Follow Up

It's been a while since I wrote about the amazing three day weekend with Jennifer Wu in which I suggested that I might have some material for prints, so I thought I should get back over here and show a couple of examples. The two I have in hand are both HDR versions of images, one published previous as non-HDR and one not. They are both photographs taken at Midnight Cellars where Hal is a winemaker up in SLO county. The first is simply the HDR:

The second image I am going to show first the best single of the seven exposures in the series and then the HDR from the seven exposures combined in Photomatix Pro and touch a bit in Lightroom.


I'm impressed! I expect that I'll spend a bit of time determining how to print them when my new Epson 7900 and 4880 printers arrive.

Travel Safe,
Dwight

Getting the Horizon Level

A week ago on Monday Night Lights webinar by Hal Schmitt of LIGHT Photographic Workshops there was a sample image presented during a sharpening talk with a tilted horizon. I made a comment to Hal during the seminar, via the GoToMeeting interface from my computer at home, mentioning it. This week at the start of the Monday Night Lights webinar Hal explained how to correct a tilted horizon ... Hal always takes questions and comments seriously. After a detailed and oft repeated explanation, Hal noted that, "It is always better to get the horizon level in the camera than in post processing." I am a terrible offender with tilted horizons and recently learned that there are bubble levels that slide into the hotshoe. I realized this was a good time to check with Hal for recommendations for such a beast. Without missing a beat, Hal suggested checking with Really Right Stuff, a world famous but local (San Luis Obispo) manufacturer of heads and related devices. Actually, a bubble level won't help me much with my concert photography as I couldn't see it in the dark anyway. But when I'm using a tripod and ballhead I notice I can't always see the little tiny builtin bubble level so this sounds like a good accessory to have in my camera case.

I just went out to RRS, http://reallyrightstuff.com/index.html, and found their RRS-337 Dual Axis level, $33.00. I'll order a couple tonight.

Now I need to recommend MNL with Hal Schmitt at LPW (http://lightworkshops.com/), yet again. That's "Monday Night Lights" at LIGHT Photographic Workshops. Their blog with the links you need to attend the free weekly webinars is http://lightworkshops.blogspot.com/. They use GoToMeeting for their interface which doesn't require you to install horrid software like Silverlight that you just can't get rid of once installed and to which you agree to find no fault! The seminars are approximately one hour although Hal usually runs over five to ten minutes. You can also find short synopsis YouTube videos of the material presented on MNL with the links posted on the blog and/or Facebook and Twitter.

Disclaimer: I am not compensated by LIGHT Photographic Workshops or Really Right Stuff for mentioning or recommending them. I still have to pay for everything. It sucks. But I need to keep them in business because they provide me with two of the few totally reliable resources that I need to keep my own business running.

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

Light Photographic Workshops: Monday Night Lights

Last night, Monday, was the first of the Monday Night Lights (MNL) webinars that I have attended and it was well worth it ... well, yes, it was a free demo session, but I mean it was worth the effort to download and run the software which can be brutal for some applications and I won't put Silverlight on my system (it is a Microsoft product that apparently doesn't allow removal) which so many doing online classes want to use so I skip them. Anyway, GoToMeeting wasn't onerous at all and the software was flawless although it requires a little getting used to where things are, but no big deal.

The session was an introduction to PS "Curves", targeting mainly CS4 but with legacy discussion for previous versions, taught by Hal Schmitt, the soon to be legendary Digital Photography Instructor. Hal ran through most of the controls on the Curves Adjustment Panel using provided images (in case you wanted to do the exercises along with him.) He missed a couple on the bottom as we sorta ran out of time. But as always with Hal, he revealed two or three little tidbits that just wouldn't have occurred to me ... things as simple as dragging control points off the histogram to get rid of them, using the pencil, using the luminosity blending mode (which I should know but keep forgetting) when there is crossover coloring and a few others that I don't recall at the moment. This, of course, in addition to demonstrating the power of curves for adjusting contrast in images in RGB, explaining how the slope of the curve correlates to that contrast, how to use control points and how to mask when using the adjustments panel.

Normally, this hour long session, as part of a weekly series, would cost a whopping $5 (paid monthly ... ). What is it that you can get for $5/hour these days? And watch in the comfort of your own home while sipping on a gin and tonic and maybe a fancy chip or two? [I know Hal and Victoria would probably sip wine, but my wife hordes Hal's wine.]

So, a couple of other little items: MNL (this series) doesn't have an itinerary ... you can't really know what's coming! I thought this was bad. Now I see the added power ... if something really striking comes along there is no more than a week wait before Hal can share it. I mean there's a ton of stuff in the waiting queue, some of which I have requested, so it's not like there's nothing to talk about, but if there is a new update to Lightroom, new NIK filter, some cleverness with Imagenomic Portraiture or a hot new feature of Photomatix, it doesn't have to wait three months to get onto the end of the schedule!

Also, for those who prefer more structure in their lives, even in the online world, there is a schedule of more conventional webinars at LIGHT here. I'm considering Wednesday's Retouching People if I can get through some paying work tonight to clear the decks. I am hopeful that this schedule will be expanded significantly.

So, if you are feeling like you've lost the muse, are bored with your work, need to find some zippy energy by learning something new but don't have time to take a class or pore over a magazine article, then I'm suggesting MNL.

Usual Disclaimer: I am not compensated by LIGHT for these reviews (except by Victoria's gorgeous smile.)

Travel Safe!

Dwight

Light Photographic Workshops: More on Canon Presentation

Well, I bashed Canon's presentation last weekend at LIGHT pretty thoroughly: I was not impressed by the Rep's or their seminars. So now I want to offer a few suggestions on what they should have presented.

(1) Flash: most of the attendees were primarily interested in learning to use their Canon flashes better. Rather than demonstrating only with one flash in an expensive softbox ($500) which none of the students owned (to my knowledge), the Reps should have polled the students about what they needed to know. In addition they should have explained in as much detail as possible how E-TTL works (which by my reckoning is, "Not very well!") and worked with students to explain how to overcome the deficiencies. And rather than make disparaging comments about the diffusers students did own, such as Sto-fen, Demb and Fong, they should have done clear demonstrations showing the effects of each and allowing the students to experiment under their tutelage. And how about showing the off-camera-cord and how to use it to the best advantage? And there should have been a fair amount of time devoted to using two flash units in various scenarios. What was needed was an opportunity for the students to learn how to get the most out of the Canon gear they owned and were used to. The way to brand loyalty is through photographers who feel they are getting great value for their money.

One of the more unintuitive flash subjects that deserved much more/better attention (although it was approached by the Rep) was using and controlling ambient versus flash lighting. It was demonstrated. But in order to take something home in this area, each student probably needed ten minutes one-on-one and then group experimentation in the field. As it was, the Rep spent all his time shooting the professional model with his own camera (and the expensive softbox and unused on-camera flash) and telling the students to wait.

(2) Cameras: nothing was said about the various features of the various DSLRs that Canon sells. It would have benefited many there to understand the limits and advantages of several Canon lines: Rebels, x0D line (20D, 30D, 40D, 50D), 5D (original and Mk II) and not least, the 1DMIII and 1DsMIII. About the only comparative remarks made were, "You can't do this with 5D. It's only available on the 5D Mark II."

(3) Printers: most of the second day, until I left at noon being pretty disgusted, was devoted to Photoshop retouching techniques. The morning should have been devoted to printing images, student and instructor, and explaining what makes a good print, what kinds of things go wrong, how to work with the Canon software/drivers to overcome these issues and making the same print on numerous different kinds of media. Before I left the Rep did say he was going to go over the Canon printer driver plugin for Photoshop so I hope that happened in a way to help students use it effectively back home.

(4) Miscellaneous: Most of the prosumer level bodies now support Wifi. I have a WFT-E2A and wanted to learn to connect it to my laptop. I asked about this early the first day. It was never acknowledged after that. I expect this is a feature very few of the other students know about.

Most of the newer prosumer bodies support lens microadjustments. This was a procedure I wanted to see demonstrated. I asked about this early the first day. It was never acknowledged after that. This is a feature that has been known to cure a lot of frustration and a process that used to require a trip of both camera and lens to Canon repair for several hundred dollars. Probably a 30 minute demonstration would have handled it.

Live View is a new and very popular feature. Live View tethered to a laptop would have been interesting. In fact, hands on use and demonstrations of DPP and EOS Utilities would have been excellent rather than just having one of the Reps run it for the other, as they did, and blaming it's failures on Apple. Knowing how to review your images while shooting using a laptop is very useful but few amateurs I've met have a clue how it is done, they just see it in all of the professional lighting tutorials.

Disclaimer: I am obviously not paid by Canon to review their seminar (although it would probably be a good idea!) I am not paid by LIGHT to review or promote their facility nor do I get any special treatment. I simply think that it is the premier facility in the country with the best instructors, particularly including Hal, and it is in my own best interests to promote it.

Second disclaimer: I own LOTS of Canon equipment including 580EX II flashes, 5D Mark II, 1DMIIIs, 1DsMIII and lots of "L" lenses from 400mm f/2.8L IS down to 14mm f/2.8L II and I am fairly familiar with it. I have been photographing for over 40 years.

Travel Safe!

Dwight