Archive for category Photography
Aperture vs Lightroom
Posted by therider in Photography on April 23, 2010
I have been a lightroom user for over an year and just wanted to try out the new Aperture v3. What got me excited about Aperture are the two cool features – making books with professional templates and slideshows with stills, videos and audios.
I tried to evaluate Aperture for my day to day editing which I am pretty fast in LR with the keyboard shortcuts. The feature that makes my workflow fastest is how the arrow keys work with LR. The left and right keys always browse through the photos. The up and down keys modify values whenever focus is on a adjustment slider like exposure, white balance, etc. This makes editing much faster than with wacom tablet and pen, since the increments are spaced apart thereby needing less computations. However, in Aperture, both left/right and up/down movement of arrow keys browse through the photos and I need to use mouse on the sliders – a big disappointment.
I might check out the book and slideshow features, but for the time being LR will remain my workhorse editing tool. Unless someone can show me that Aperture can be configured to be as fast as LR in the editing department.
Using color blend mode in Photoshop
Posted by therider in Photography, Software on March 13, 2010
Over the years, I have been processing thousands of images in photoshop, but the various layer blending modes don’t get used much. Except for overlay and soft light for when I do high pass output sharpening.
Very recently, I came across a specific requirement. A favorite photo had abrupt vignetting and the color of the sky in the upper corners were different in hue from the rest. I would normally use the clone stamp tool with low opacity, but I had one problem, there were some power lines that went right through the corner. Then I tried using clone stamping in a new transparent layer with blending mode set to color instead of normal. That gave me exactly what I needed, the color mismatch was fixed without doing anything funky with the power lines. The photos below illustrate this technique.
Original with color shift in corner
Problem with clone stamp tool using normal blend mode
Clone stamp tool using color blend mode
Using color blend mode in photoshop
Epson 2200 in Snow Leopard
Posted by therider in Mac, Photography, Software on January 27, 2010
The upgrade to Snow Leopard a few months back was smooth, except for one fatal thing. The colors from my Epson 2200 went from awesome in Leopard to downright awful, thanks to the third party Gutenprint driver. I only realized this mess today since I had been printing black and whites using the Quad Tone Rip (QTR) driver which kept producing neutral prints.
So I hit google and there it was, a pretty long forum thread on the very same issue. To my surprise I found that Epson indeed released Snow Leopard driver for the 2200 printer sometime in Nov 2009. I installed it, then removed and re-added the printer and voila, the colors are almost back to normal. The interface is actually much better than what I expected, and the advanced color setting panel actually worked (it was mangled up in the Gutenprint driver).
Now that I still had a little magenta cast (as opposed to horrible), I tweaked with the advanced color settings panel. Took down magenta to -9 and suddenly the grays started to look like gray. There is just one thing to be done in photoshop prior to printing. The brightness of the image has to be increased a little bit. A foolproof way to do this is to have a curves layer, with no adjustment, then setting the blending mode to screen with 50% opacity. That makes my color prints about same as what I see on my monitor. For black and white prints using QTR, the last step is not necessary, or maybe about 20% opacity will do.
Looking forward to some print sessions in the coming days.
Update: Magenta -12 works even better.
Epson V500 and coming back to film
Posted by therider in Photography on October 27, 2009
I used 35mm film extensively since 2003 till about 2005 when I bought my first digital SLR, a Nikon D70. In those days I was pretty much brainwashed with all the digital hype like everybody else. The film workflow was lengthy. Mail order slides and B/W took about 2 weeks to arrive. Good film scanners were expensive and did not seem worth more than a DSLR. I had to retire film for a while. Back in those days I was doing event and sports photography for the graduate school newspaper and digital was just the right tool for the task.
Fast forward 3 years. I live in the bay area, close to San Francisco and many scenic places. I occasionally photograph events and portraits but other than that I am mostly drawn to making fine art images. Not that digital can’t do it, but film imparts a special character to the process. Anyone who has seen glowing color slides on a light table or made black and white silver gelatin prints in the chemical darkroom, can immediately understand my point. Film is tangible, unlike digital files. You don’t need a computer to have fun with film. To enjoy the photography even more, I picked up a battered Mamiya RB67 medium format film SLR. I like it so much I am going to shoot medium format film for as long as it is available and affordable.
I have right now about 30 boxes of 35mm color slides, countless 35mm color and b/w negatives, and more than a dozen medium format slides and b/w negatives. And this collection is going to grow.
Glad I waited all these years for a good affordable scanner, and the Epson V500 can be considered the home run. Short of 4×5 scanning (I don’t think I have enough patience to go up to 4×5) this one has everything I need. I just did my first few scans and for the first time I was able to appreciate 16 bit black and white images. The tonal gradations are very tolerant of drastic adjustments unlike 8 bit where it would lose detail pretty quickly.
I guess it will be interesting to dig through my old films. Lots of memories from Long Island, and maybe a few surprise images. I will see.
P.S. I can’t deny the evil influence of my coworker Ken (@wirehead) in making me a medium format fanatic, not to mention his showing off velvia 6×7 slides of women in fishnets doing light painting in the middle of nowhere 
Photography Equipment
Posted by therider in Photography on August 17, 2009
As the saying goes, gear does not matter in good photography. I would agree that any consumer grade DSLR of today pushed to its limits can produce stunning results. However, pro gear has some intangible benefits. They are a pleasure to use and can comfortably cover many corner cases. Besides, I have a lust for tools, and I like to use good equipment for photography as well.
I started photography with a Nikon FM10 film SLR in 2003. I went through several more Nikons before switching to Canon but for a short while. I am back to Nikon again. My equipment list shows both current and past gear.
Camera Bodies
Nikon D700, Nikon F100
Previous Canon Bodies: EOS 5D, Rebel XTi, EOS A2
Previous Nikon Bodies: F3HP, D70, F80, FM3a, FM10
Lenses
Nikon AF-D Zoom Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 IF-ED
Nikon AF-D Zoom Nikkor 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 IF-ED
Nikon AF-D Nikkor 50mm f/1.4
Previous Canon Lenses: EF 50mm f/1.4 USM, EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro, EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM
Previous Nikon Lenses: AF-D 50mm f/1.8, AF-D 85mm f/1.8, AF 70-210mm f/4-5.6, AF-D 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5, MF 100mm f/2.8 Series E, Nikon MF 50mm f/1.8 Series E
Flashes
2x Vivitar 285HV
Accessories
Phottix Cleon N8 wireless remote
Lighting Equipment
3x Pocketwizard Plus-II transceiver
Strobist SO2 kit from mpex.com (lightstand, reflective umbrella, peanut slave)
White shoot through umbrella
Westcott 30″ reflector kit
Various gels
Camera Bags
Lowepro Nova 4 AW
Lowepro Computrekker plus AW
Medium Format System
Mamiya RB67 Pro-S with 120 back
Mamiya Sekor 50mm f/4.5 C
Mamiya Sekor 90mm f/3.8
Mamiya Sekor 250mm f/4.5
Nikon F3HP
Posted by therider in Photography on April 18, 2009
Picked up a mint Nikon F3HP with a Nikon 50mm/1.8 Series E for a song, thanks to craigslist. This is a legendary 35mm film SLR with everything manual except a battery dependent shutter. Not that I had to have a 35mm film SLR again, but with the throwaway prices of these beautiful instruments in this digital age I figured maybe it won’t hurt to keep one.
I am pleasantly surprised with this camera, especially after going through the manual. To discover the removable prism was fun, now I can use it like the mamiya on the streets and can get some pleasing candids. The mirror vibration and shutter noise is much smoother than the FM3a I had, so my days of regret are over. Moreover, the 50mm lens is thin like a pancake which is cool as well.
Looking forward to using up the Ilford hp5+ bw films I have lying around since last year.
Using fill flash quickly
Posted by therider in Photography on March 29, 2009
I keep bumping on this issue often in certain shooting conditions. Yesterday under a rush of shooting from a Cessna Skyhawk 3,500 feet in the air, I made a couple mistakes when quickly taking cockpit pictures using the pop-up flash. I kept my D700 in aperture priority (A) mode. I forgot to make the flash mode to “slow”, otherwise it sticks to 1/60 shutter speed no matter what. This blew away the blue of the sky. Ideally what I should be doing is:
1. Always keep the flash mode to “slow” and dial in flash exposure compensation to -0.7.
2. When popup flash is needed, switch to shutter priority (S) mode and select any speed upto 1/250. If there is too much light, lower the ISO. If the situation is very urgent, just use program (P) mode and shift if necessary.
Many photographers scoff at the P mode since it makes a $$$ DSLR work like a point and shoot. I am guilty of being such a snob until yesterday. A camera is a tool and every feature can be used to the benefit of making an image as best as possible. Time to grow up.
The great inkjet rip-off
Posted by therider in Photography, Technology on February 23, 2009
I am tired of how fast my Epson 2200 printer guzzles the color inks. Not only the color cartridges hold a measly 18ml ink, their “intelligent” chips overestimate the ink usage and makes me replace them even when there is a decent amount of ink left in them. And at the price of $11 a cartridge before tax, it is the biggest ripoff ever. Some people have tried to refill the original epson cartridges and a very good writeup is here: http://www.bobpowell.net/refill.htm
I took interest on a Continuous Ink System (CIS) that many reported as fantastic savings without much loss in quality. I found this site http://www.efillink.com/ with pretty good reviews and videos. By the specifications, CIS seems to be suitable only for volume printing, so I decided to go with the refillable cartridge system. A 4oz kit for $208 can refill each of the 8 inks about 10 times, which would otherwise cost me $880 before tax.
I will report back with my findings.
First encounter with a patrol officer
Posted by therider in Photography on January 17, 2009
I scouted a specific location on interstate 280 to photograph a special tree at dusk. I pull over beside freeways all the time when riding my motorcycle, for one or other reason, including a quick snapshot. But with a car I did not feel that comfortable. Somehow I managed to pull out my Mamiya RB67 and click through a couple frames.
And then I saw yellow lights.
I just stood there, about to wrap up and go, when the officer approached me. Strangely I did not feel anything, just smiled and said I saw a beautiful tree and had to photograph it. He just warned to never pull over beside the freeway unless for emergency. I said a polite thanks and went back on the road in a hurry.
Turned out that both the digital frames I captured besides the Mamiya are keepers.
My first photoblog
Posted by therider in Photography on January 13, 2009
I have started a photoblog and set my main website url to redirect to it. It had a fancy static page so the decision was not hard. I already have this blog and a huge photo repository on flickr, plus a dedicated portfolio website, then why this ? I can show my ongoing best work in bigger size in this photoblog and it is worth all the trouble.
So, here is how I arrived at this decision:
1. My main website http://joydutta.com had a static page with a bunch of links, not doing anything useful.
2. The regular blog (this one) is mostly for writing articles, and not for displaying pictures in large sizes.
3. While flickr is a great tool, it shows images in a tiny size by default. It can be my regular image repository.
4. My dedicated portfolio site http://joyduttaphoto.com is a static collection of best images of specific categories and it will stay that way.
With all the web based tools, I was lacking a way to showcase my ongoing favorite images in big size in a clean, easy-to-manage site. A pixelpost based photoblog filled that need just perfectly. The install involved downloading the pixelpost framework from and the install was a breeze. Then I downloaded the template the-world-in-35mm and tweaked it to make it fit images at most 900px wide.
Please visit http://joydutta.com which will take you to the photoblog. If you like it then it would be nice if I get a positive vote about it on my coolphotoblogs profile.
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Hi, I'm Joy. I am a developer at Yahoo! Finance. Besides having fun with software design, hacking and programming, I enjoy photography, woodworking and touring on a motorcycle. Read on, and welcome to my blog.
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