Photo ABCs

Bank Swallow

Flying swallows are among the most difficult subjects to photograph, with their erratic flight.

I saw and photographed this bird in April of this year, over a marshy area near the Salton Sea.

After looking at the photo I realized it was a Bank Swallow, a life-bird for me! (at least it's the first time I'd successful photographed one) This species migrates through southern California, but is not resident here.

What's also interesting is that the original photo was very, very blurry (an average photo of a flying swallow, at least with my current camera, lens, and skill level). Ordinarily I would have immediately discarded the photo, but it was the best of two photos I had of this bird.

I recently purchased the Photoshop plug-in Topaz Sharpen AI (the AI meaning artificial intelligence). The program promises to use artificial intelligence to take even a blurry picture and make it sharper. I have used the program for about a month now. For most well-focused and exposed pictures it provides a small, but perceptible increase in quality and decrease in noise.

So, I thought I'd try it on the above picture. It was so blurry I ran the program twice.

My jaw dropped seeing the result!

Some of the detail and sharpness might not represent reality with 100% fidelity, but it certainly transformed the blurry blob of a bird into a recognizable one!

The program runs slowly. It takes from three to five minutes on my fairly fast computer to process a file from my Nikon D850. But for most photos I have found it well worth the extra time. I will often skip other sharpening and noise-reduction steps, knowing the results of the new Topaz program are so good, and in this case, amazing!

Day of the Dead: Oaxaca

Inside the corridor of tombs in Oaxaca City's Panteón General.

Volunteers placed a candle and a marigold by each tomb in the corridor, since many of the tombs are over 100 years old and have no living descendants to care for them.

I took this photo, and others to follow, with my new iPhone 11 Pro. I bought the camera (upgrading from the iPhone 7), specifically to have its low light (night-mode) and portrait-mode capabilities for this trip, both of which I used in this picture.

I'll have more to say about the phone's camera in a future post. While these modes are not perfect, I am very happy overall with the results. In fact, the photos I took of these candles and flowers turned out much better with my iPhone the my much more expensive camera... The white balance straight out of the phone was better than I could achieve with my other camera after a long effort in Photoshop!

 

 

 

Great Egret Silhouette

A Great Egret takes flight at the San Jacinto Wildlife Area. Photographed yesterday at sunset.

Though it appears to be just leaving the ground, the egret is actually circling in the air just a short distance from the camera, and the mountains are miles in the distance. 

Not that it matters, but I photographed this with my small Sony RX100 camera. Even when I have a large lens on my main camera, I now always have the Sony to capture wider angle shots like this one, without the bulk of a second large DSLR camera and lens. It has a sensor larger than most small cameras, an excellent lens, lots of megapixels, and I can instantly set the f-stop and exposure compensation for nearly full control of the image. I like it!

Firmware update!

I recently returned from a wonderful trip to the Yucatan. While there, my two D7000 bodies performed well, except for two problems. First, my four brand new Sandisk 32 gb memory cards could not be read! (Luckily I brought others). Second, my plan to use the second card slot as a jpeg backup went awry, as the camera kept resetting this function.

I discussed this with a friend of mine, whose first words were "Have you updated your firmware?"

I confessed that this was one task on my list of things to do before my trip which I did not get around to doing. We looked at the Nikon website for firmware upgrades, and these two issues were addressed with the firmware update of November 9, 2011.

I updated the firmware today (easy to do with instructions on the Nikon website), and the problems seemed to have resolved.

Lesson learned!

(Yucatan photos coming soon!)

Clean Slate: Cool App

I try to keep my computer's desktop relatively uncluttered. But as someone who frequently gives slide-show presentations, I don't really want to show my desktop to my audience. What's the solution?

There's a new computer app called Clean Slate. With one mouseclick, all of my desktop icons are hidden! One mouseclick brings them all back. Presto!

The controls can be easily placed on the control bar or in the dock.

Get yours now, it's free until May 8! (After that it will be $1.99, still a great bargain) Available at the Mac App Store.

CF Card Tests

 

Okay, now for a real exciting post, CF (Compact Flash) card test results!

I'm taking a trip soon, and wanted some extra CF capacity, as newer cards are out with higher speeds and capacities and lower prices.

I wanted to know if there was a significant difference in performance in the cards I already owned. 

I now own SanDisk Extreme III 8 gb cards , and Lexar 300x 8gb cards , and one Kingston 133x card 4 gb card.

As the Kingston 133x cards are very inexpensive now, I wanted to know if it made sense to buy more.

I devised a very simple test, which reflected to some degree real world conditions. All tests were with my Nikon D300 camera with a battery pack, with newly charged batteries. (If you have a different camera your results may vary!)

I formatted each card before each test. I then shot the same nearby target (something across the room) until the buffer filled. (ten shots in raw at 8 frames/second, in each test). I then used a stopwatch to record how long it took for the buffer to clear (for the green light to go out), so high-speed shooting could resume. I repeated the test three times and averaged the results.

Here are the results:

Kingston 133x 4gb card: 21 seconds.

SanDisk Extreme III 8 gb card: 7.7 seconds.

Lexar 300x 8gb card: 7.7 seconds.

I then formatted the cards, and simply held the shutter down for thirty seconds, to see how many shots I could shoot. (raw) The results:

Kingston 133x 4 gb card: 32 frames.

SanDisk Extreme III 8gb card: 56 frames.

Lexar 300x 8gb card: 56 frames.

Interestingly, I tried the same test using jpeg-high, and got these results:

Kingston: 55 frames

SanDisk Extreme III: 56 frames

Lexar 300x: 56 frames

The buffer, though, took 28 seconds to clear with the Kingston, and approximately 7 seconds to clear with the Lexar and SanDisk.

I then tested download speeds onto my computer using a Lexar FireWire 800 card reader, timing how fast 56 raw images (733 mb) were downloaded. 

Kingston 133x 4 gb: 38 seconds  (19.3 mb/sec)

SanDisk Extreme III 8 gb: 33.3 seconds  (22 mb/sec)

Lexar 300x 8 gb: 28.5 seconds (26 mb/sec)

These are the only cards I currently use, so these are the only cards I tested.

What do the results mean?

If you shoot sports, and frequently fill your buffer, then you want a fast card. The Extreme III and the Lexar 300x were essentially identical in in-camera performance, in my D300. The Kingston 133x was much, much slower.

If you do not shoot sports, the camera performance of any of these cards is more than adequate and would make no difference whatsoever.

Downloading speeds were not as different as I suspected they might be. The 300x was only 35% faster than the 133x, and only 18% faster than the Extreme III. These results assume a firewire 800 connection. When downloading 8 or 16 gb of data, though, that will mean minutes of extra time waiting with the slower cards.

These tests do not in any way test card reliability!

What do I recommend? If your livelihood depends on getting the shot in sports, then get the fastest card you can afford. 

I plan to try the new Lexar 233X , since Ken Rockwell reports that their performance is nearly indistinguishable from the 300x cards, but the cost is much less. Since my livelihood does not depend on these cards, I will wait for the price to come down before buying SanDisk Extreme IV or Lexar 600x cards.

If you shoot landscapes and never fill your buffer, get the best price for whatever card you think is reliable enough for you. (you rarely hear of a Lexar or SanDisk card failing). But buy from a reputable dealer, counterfeit cards exist, and it would be a shame to lose valuable pictures because you bought a counterfeit card from someone on ebay!

I just discovered that Adorama (see link at left) is offering the Sandisk cards with an increasing rebate; the more cards you buy (up to three), the bigger the rebate. So, the Extreme III and IV cards become a much better buy.

For more cf card testing, see Rob Galbraith's site.

 

B is for Blurb

I'll be teaching a class on self-publishing with Blurb books at the upcoming Sierra Club Photography Section's annual Laguna Mountain Lodge Weekend (September 26-27).

There is still time to sign up for the weekend. These weekends are an inexpensive way to rekindle your photographic inspiration. There will be classes for beginners and experts alike, and lots of time to share ideas and images with enthusiastic photographers. Other instructors will include Steve Cirone, Ken Rockwell, Stephen Burns, Donna Cosentino, and others.

 

And there's lots of good food!

 

Hope to see you there!

 

The road to Foster Lodge:

 

 

 

 

C is for Canvas

I recently ordered three 24x36 inch canvas prints from Simply Canvas, for my bird photography show. It was my first time ordering canvas prints. When they arrived on my doorstep, it was with some trepidation that I opened the box. Even with the 50% off introductory offer, these canvases were a major investment! I wondered how good could a print look when printed at 100 dpi (Simply Canvas instructs users to upload files at 100 dpi).

 

How did they look? In a word, amazing! I stood gaping at the canvas prints for the next ten minutes, they looked so great! I had no idea that my images could have such a presence, but printing them on 24x36 inch canvas made them come alive.

 

The physical quality of the canvas prints is unmistakable. The stretcher bars are robust, reinforced, and looked indestructible. The canvas is stretched taut and uniformly, and the packaging provided excellent protection.

 

I then framed them in Nielsen 14-21 floater frames, for an even more elegant look. 

 

To say I am happy with these prints would be an understatement. I am simply thrilled! Thanks, Simply Canvas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the prints:

 

 

A small portion of the show at the Mission Trails Park Visitor Center gallery: 

 

F is for Frame Destination

Preparing for my next show, I have placed a number of very large orders with Frame Destination, an online framing store. Over the past two years I have placed over ten orders with them. Each order has been executed in a flawless manner, with all materials arriving in perfect shape, always to the exact measurements, on the exact day they were promised.

Frame Destination was started a few years ago by Mark Rogers, a photographer who wanted framing supplies which would cater to the unique needs of photographers. Many photographers (like myself) print almost exclusively in full-frame dimensions, so need mats with openings with a 2:3 aspect ratio (e.g. 6x9, 10x15, 16x24, etc.) These dimensions are not often found at traditional framing stores without a custom order. 

At Frame Destination, every mat and backing board is available in countless dimensions, including all of of the full-frame aspect ratios. For example, I just shopped for artcare foamcore backing boards. At the store I previously shopped at, they were available in five traditional sizes: 8x10, 11x14, 16x20 etc., with a minimum order of ten. At Frame Destination, they were available in over 50 sizes, with no minimum, all at a lower cost, with volume discounts starting at four boards.

For my most recent order, I discovered that they will custom cut mats, as well. For my upcoming show, I wanted a mat with three openings. All I had to do was email them a diagram of my mat dimensions, and for a very small set-up fee they took care of the rest. A few days later and the mat was on my doorstep, perfectly cut and packaged securely so that damage was not possible. No driving or traffic hassles for me, just great service!

Mark routinely participates in photography discussion forums, taking a personal interest in excellent service to fellow photographers. Their supply of mouldings is somewhat limited, I imagine this keeps prices low. I do wish they would supply white frames in the near future, and maybe a floater frame for canvas, but aside from that, they supply just about all of my framing needs at very low prices. Frame Destination gets my highest recommendation!

Meadowlark Trio, near the Salton Sea, California:

H is for Harman Baryta Settings

After testing most of the fairly new baryta papers, and a number of others, I decided to print my upcoming show on Harman Baryta gloss paper. It has wonderful detail and the gloss really doesn't get in the way of the image. It gives lovely prints on my Epson 3800 printer.

Aside from image quality, I chose this paper because it is one of the very few papers available in 17x25 inches, which is just right for a 16x24 inch image.

After printing the majority of my prints at 10x15 and 12x18 inches, today was time to print some 16x24 prints. I spent hours of frustration as I encountered head strikes, with vertical and horizontal scratches on the fragile paper. (not to mention lots of $ down the tubes). Adjusting the platen gap seemed to have no effect. It may be that because the large paper never lies completely flat, combined with a very hot day today, caused more head strikes than normal.

Well, after a number of internet searches, I finally found a review on Outback Photo with suggested paper settings which seem to have solved my problem. The key was to adjust the paper thickness from 3 to 4 and the platen gap from auto to wide. (These settings are found on "paper configuration" in the Epson printer driver.)

Thanks to Jack Flesher and Uwe Steinmuller for saving me more hours of grief!