Random Ruminations: Photography

Glass

Posted Sun Aug 17, 2008 in Photography

I alluded to the fact I bought a Canon Powershot G9 a few days ago to be my carry camera. While there are many things about the Nikon S10 I bought a couple of years ago that I really like, working outside in bright light was nearly impossible because of glare on the viewscreen. My most frustrating experience came a couple of weeks ago when Wife and I spent the afternoon driving out in the boonies. I wanted to make several images, but just couldn’t’ get the composition right.

My other issue with the Coolpix S10 was the difficult I found in getting the horizon level. In landscape work, this is a critical issue and I was dissatisfied with many of my grab shots because they just weren’t level.

My frustration grew to the point that I decided to give up on the S10 and try something else. I did a bit of research and find the reviews at Steve’s Digicams very helpful. I went there after a trip to Best Buy where I almost bought a Nikon P80. But, after reading the reviews, I’m pleased I waited. The G9 appears to be a much better camera for about $100 more. In fact, I had a 10% coupon and $40 in Rewards Bucks, so I saved enough that I almost got to the original price point of the Nikon. (I know I’m rationalizing — shut up!)

So, research done I tried to get hands-on a G9. However, the local Best Buy didn’t have one in stock. The Reno store had one, but I didn’t feel like driving up there just to look and hadn’t committed to buying. A few days later I checked the availability again, but neither the Carson City nor the Reno stores had a unit in stock. On a lark, Wife and I drove to the local store (after grabbing a bite one evening after work) and they did have one in stock. So, I bought it, brought it home, and then put the battery on to charge.

I made the image above the next morning while Wife and I shared breakfast. I like shots of glass — the highlights do something for me.

I’m inspired, so my big camera is out of the closet again and the batteries are charged. I see an upgrade in my future because the technology changed so much over the last four years. I don’t need more resolution, but I would like the improved sensitivity, better internal software, and mostly a larger viewscreen for preview of images than the 1-inch screen of my D100. Fortunately, if I stay with the Nikon system all of my lenses will work.

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Lightroom

Posted Sat Feb 24, 2007 in Photography

I didn’t write this at 0800 this morning. No, it’s 0500 now and I’ve been up for an hour. I woke early, was intellectually active, so I rose, at least for awhile. We’ll see whether I return to my mat or not.

Adobe just released Lightroom. I’ve been watching development of the beta for the last year. I confess, though, that I didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to really learn how the program works. Nonetheless, I believe I’m approaching the limits of what I can expect from Apple’s consumer product, iPhoto. I have about 10,000 images in my digital collection and iPhoto is beginning to flag with so many images in its database.

A partial solution was iPhoto Library Manager, which I bought a couple of years ago. It’s a small tool (I like small tools) that allows multiple iPhoto libraries to exist and provides an interface for the user to switch between libraries.

It does not, however, provide quick access to an album stored in a library not currently loaded. The process requires a switch of library and an iPhoto restart. It’s not really bad, but interrupts workflow.

So, last night I downloaded a evaluation version of Lightroom and I’m in the process of migrating some of my images to that tool. Unlike Photoshop, Lightroom is targeted specifically at photographers and provides, at least to my amateur eyes, a suite of tools that are less complex to bring to bear.

So, I’m going to use my 30-day evaluation period to see what the program can do. If it’s better than iPhoto for my needs, then I’ll pop for a copy. If not, then I’ll continue to use Photoshop for serious editing and iPhoto as a database.

I made the image above a few years ago. We were with friends at the old Whistling Dixie BBQ joint. After a pleasant evening with friends and good food, I noticed the strong backlight on our way out. I had my carry-camera with me (at the time an Olympus consumer unit), so I found an angle I liked and made the image. I used Lightroom to convert to grayscale and resize the image. I also adjusted the contrast slightly. I like the result.

I’ll report back with my opinions in a couple of weeks.

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Nikon Coolpix S10

Posted Fri Dec 8, 2006 in Photography

Yesterday I bought myself a new carry-camera — a Nikon Coolpix S10 digital camera. It’s a nice little 6MP camera with the tilt-head I think makes a great form factor because it allows plenty of optical zoom without the big sticky-out™ part in the front of the unit. When idle, the optical housing turns parallel to the body to form a nice flat package. It will slip into a coat pocket or lay flat.

The zoom factor is 10x and it has Nikon’s Vibration Reduction (VR) system. It also has a maximum ISO rating of 800, up a stop from the Coolpix 8700 I was carrying.

In playing around with the S10 last night, I noticed it is quite a bit faster on focus and the lag between tripping the shutter and the actual image-making is much shorter than it used to be. No, it’s not as fast as my D100, but it’s better than the half-second I was used to.

We’ll see how this works out. I’m interested in playing with the S10 more to test its capabilities under my normal operating conditions. I’ll post some images when I capture some I’m happy with.

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Something New — My Photoblog

Posted Sat May 27, 2006 in Photography

Wow! It’s much later than I thought. Of course, we’ve been out and about much of the day. We had errands to run, of course, and then decided to do drive-by’s of a couple of houses Wife found in the paper. (Saturday morning is when the local newspaper runs a flyer of real estate.)

In the meantime, I downloaded and installed PixelPost, an open-source photo-blogging software. The difference between the usual content management system and photo-blogging software is that the latter specifically addresses the needs of photographers intent on publishing their images on the web; the former does not (necessarily).

I decided I want a place besides my galleries to post a few images. I’m going to use a slightly larger image and choose from new images and stock images some of those that I like the best, either because of content or because the image works for me.

So, I’ve added a link on the navigation menu to my photoblog. The images are copyrighted because I reserve the right to determine usage of my images. But, they’re there for all to enjoy.

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A Piece of Meat

Posted Fri May 26, 2006 in Photography

The Brookston.org photographic scavenger hunt for this week is entitled A Piece of Meat. I’ve been rather busy this week and haven’t really had a chance to explore what I might want to do with the topic. I’m also quite out of time. So, I went to the refrigerator a few minutes ago, found that we still had a few of the hamburgers I grilled the other night, pulled one out, stuck it under the light, and shot it with my Nikon 60/2.8 micro.

I processed the image with Photoshop to make it monochrome. Yeah, it’s not my best work. But, it is my entry for this week’s hunt. So, there you go.

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It Ain't Easy Being Green

Posted Wed May 17, 2006 in Photography

This week’s topic for the Brookston.org Photo Scavenger Hunt is It Ain’t Easy Being Green. Yeah, a thowback to The Muppets days. I have to say mea culpa because I was the one who came up with the name, although the assignment is all Brookston’s!

My image is from my archive so I’ll lose a point. I’m just not having much luck getting out and about this week and want to ensure I have an entry. How cheesy would it to be for me to have generated the topic and then not play?

My image is a self-portrait, my shadow cast on the emergent water foliage on the Lake Wallisville Bird Rookery. I spent a few minutes there on my way to Beaumont from Houston a couple of weeks ago. The air was cool over the lake and it was a peaceful place. I enjoyed the respite of a few moments away from I-10.

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A Bridge Too Far

Posted Sun May 7, 2006 in Photography

I’ve been thinking about an image for this week’s Photo Scavenger Hunt for several days. I really didn’t know what to do, but came up with a couple of ideas.

I kicked them around with Wife, but we never came to a consensus. Yesterday was rainy and cloudy and this morning wasn’t any better. Late this afternoon, though, while I was working in my study, I noticed that the light warmed and knew that the sun had broken through the clouds for at least a little while. I also knew that I’d be on the road again tomorrow and that I might not have a good opportunity to find something interesting to make an image.

I snagged Wife and we drove over to the Best Buy parking lot. I made a few images of the Loop 289 overpass over Spur 327. The light was not bad. This image is one I liked from that lot. I like the fact that there are several vehicles in the image.

I also decided to drive over to U.S. 84 south from town. I knew I could climb the abutment and make a diagonal image from that vantage point. The light wasn’t as good by the time we made it to the intersection of 114^th Street, but the graphic was still interesting, so I made a few images and chose one of them for this week’s entry in the scavenger hunt.

It wasn’t an easy choice for me to make. I really like the colors of the long view of the Loop 289 overpass better than the U.S. 84 overpass. But, the visual components of the U.S. 84 image seem a little stronger to me. The Loop 289 image looks a little flat because of the telephoto compression.

Still, it was a fun exercise and a good excuse to get out and make a few images. I put together an album of my scavenger hunt images and it’s posted on my gallery here.

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