A friend of mine is selling his older Vivitar 285 Flash, 'Good Condition', slightly used, dropped only a few times, I swear ! He only wants $50.00 Dollars ( US ) to part with it forever, so I may have to help him out and add it to my camera bag. The 285 is a highly regarded portable flash, considered a dependable workhorse that has earned its place in photo equipment history. Cheap, tough and easy to use, with accuracy from its non E-TTL sensor that still outperforms some of those fancy newer $400.00 units. And all that for a fitty! That got me thinking about my Canon and the voltage sync compatibility problems with some of the newer Digital Cameras.
I believe it's safe to use the 285 HV unit on any Canon Digital Camera, but the older 285 ( Non HV ) may fry your DSLR. Checking the voltage sync will be the safest and easiest way to guarantee that I don't cook any of my camera's electronics. Head on over to the Kenrick Parish website for a tutorial on testing your flashes voltage sync.
Thanks to Jeff Geerling, a Photo Enthusiast ( quite talented! ) and Seminary Student at the Archdiocese of Saint Louis Missouri for the wonderful tutorial and photos.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Measuring The Voltage On A Vivitar 285 Flash
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
High Dynamic Range ... Sort of !
The Dynamic Range visible in your images is directly related to the various factors of Exposure, Lens Contrast, Film sensitivity and latitude, Color Bit Depth and most importantly the quality of the final Printed Output. Any of these choices can profoundly affect the way an image is perceived by the viewer. Master Photographer and Printer Ansel Adams used combinations of these factors to produce the richest and most luminous prints from each Photographic Situation. His work is widely known for the incredible Dynamic Range present in the Black and White Fiber Prints he made of Yosemite, Grand Tetons and other National Park Scenics. The beauty and luminosity of each Master Print dependent on all the factors of Lens Choice, Film Processing and Printing technique.
Those of us shooting Digital Cameras can benefit from his wisdom and technique by using our tools with the same care and forethought as Adams would on his treks to the wilderness with an 8X10 large format Camera. It only takes a slight revision of thinking.
- Adams chose his film for its ability to capture detail, shadow and highlight. The Digital Shooter can approximate those choices by choosing the best Sensor / Camera combination available within his budget.
- Adams chose his lens and exposure to best record the detail he needed to create the image he had in his mind of the final print. The Digital Shooter should also pre-visualize the final output to lead his / her decision making process. A little planning can make all the difference in your final output.
- Adams chose his film stock and processing to suit the subject and for maximum detail and luminosity. The Digital Shooter can carefully choose the capture settings, ISO, Color Bit Depth, Contrast etc...to produce the cleanest, noise free image with the most shadow and highlight detail possible, with the added benefit of Raw Format and Multiple Bracketed Exposures to capture the brightest highlights and darkest shadow within an image.
- Adams had Dektol ( and many others ) Print Developer, Cyanide Bleach and Toner to finesse each Master Print. The Digital Shooter has Photoshop!
Photoshop's Merge to HDR allows us to combine a series of Bracketed ( Static ) Images from each setup ( Tripod Only ) into a master file with the Dynamic Range of a Super Negative. The final printed piece should benefit from a much greater level of detail in shadows and highlights and possibly even a greater saturation of color in the final image. However, none of this extra Dynamic Range will mean squat if your final output is bad newsprint or a crappy color print on an average printer.
Down and Dirty Version:
Your camera should always be turned on and ready to go, loaded with an empty formatted CF / SD Card, fresh batteries and be pre-set for ISO, Color and other basic parameters before you arrive at the location. You can always change your camera settings if necessary once you have determined your shot, but if Alien Space-Ships land in front of you on the highway ( It could happen! ) on your way to the location, you're gonna be sick if you have an empty camera with no batteries. Be Prepared!
- Have your camera on a sturdy, weighted Tripod with the remote connected and ready. Don't spool out 10 feet of remote cord if your in a stiff breeze; It will swing with the wind and add unneeded vibration to your camera. Shorten the remote cord to a reasonable working length.
- Pre-set you camera to an appropriate auto bracket setting. My camera stays on a Normal first exposure, 2/3rds down (Under- exposure) second frame and 2/3rds up (over- exposure) third frame. AV mode ( Aperture Priority Auto ) is your best choice for quick multiple exposures from a static scene. You do not want the aperture to change, only the shutter speed!
- My Exposure compensation dial stays at 1/3 up on my Canon Camera because I have determined that it consistently underexposes by 1/3rd stop. This setting represents my normal first exposure in the bracket as determined by my in camera meter. If I find that the Histogram is over or under exposed in a test frame , I will change my Exposure Compensation to reflect the New Normal Exposure.
- I am now ready to fire 3 frames with the remote covering the Normal Exposure, 2/3rds down and final 2/3rds up exposure. This will cover my bracketing needs almost 90 percent of the time. When in doubt, increase and decrease your exposure compensation setting to change the base normal and cover a wider range of exposure. Using this method, I can knock out an incredible bracket of a Dozen Images or more in as little as 30 seconds, without hardly touching my camera during the process. The only contact required is a tiny rotation of the exposure Compensation Dial on top of my camera. Remember, If you have to fiddle with the camera after every frame, you are screwing up! The goal is to create seamless, identical files with no camera movement between exposures, the only difference being the highlight and shadow detail captured in each frame.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Ketchup Head Monster Terrorizes Teens!
The only way to make this a Digital related Post is to include the Meta-Data from the camera that took these pics! Here it is: Sony DSC p100 / f2.8 /100 ISO/ 7.9 mm focal length.
Last day of vacation :(
Click Pic for Larger Image!
Friday, August 10, 2007
Canon Responds to Mark III Autofocus Concerns
This will be the worlds shortest Vacation Post!
Head on over to Rob Galbraith's site to read the updated ( now infamous ) article on the Canon EOS 1D Mark III and it's AF problems. With the newly updated firmware ( Ver. 1.1.0 ) installed, the guys at DPI look for improvements / fixes for the problems experienced in their last round of tests. Also, the Engineers at Canon Inc. have responded to and promised an investigation into the problematic autofocus issues experienced by the testing team at Rob Galbraith DPI.
Check it out.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Eliminating Chromatic Aberration... The Easy Way
- Definition :
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"In optics, chromatic aberration is caused by a lens having a different refractive index for different wavelengths of light (the dispersion of the lens). The term "purple fringing" is commonly used in photography, although not all purple fringing can be attributed to chromatic aberration.
Longitudinal and lateral chromatic aberration of a lens is seen as "fringes" of color around the image, because each color in the optical spectrum cannot be focused at a single common point on the optical axis."
- Now a definition for the rest of us:
OK! The majority of you have probably paid for some fancy expensive software to help you wrangle all those Red, Green and Purple Fringies out of your pics; And that is just fine. But I personally have found that using one of these ' wonder - programs ' to completely remove Chromatic Aberration can sometimes damage the quality of an image. Usually the damage is seen in the smallest detail areas or highlights, and can be accompanied by an overall reduction in apparent sharpness. This is not always the case and depends greatly on how much C.A. you are trying to get rid of in each image. My preference is to bag the 3rd party software and the Adobe Raw slider game for a simpler 'Down and Dirty' method that works every time! Give this quick method a try.
Here we go :
- Convert your Raw File to the 16 Bit Tiff Format as you normally would, concentrating on overall image quality with no regard for the occasional offending Fringies. This should give you the best overall image quality and sharpness.
- Open the image in Photoshop and Create 2 new layers ( Command J, Command J on a PC ) above the Background ( original ) Layer.
- Click on the eye in the ( Top Layer ) Palette Box and remove the Top Layer from view.
- Highlight the middle layer and open the Saturation Command Box. You can do this from the Drop Down menu at the top of the page or create an Adjustment Layer from the Palette ( Proper Way ) Box.
- Completely de - saturate the middle layer. Your middle layer is now a grey scale image.
- Returning to the Top Layer, highlight the box and re - click the Eye Symbol to visualize the untouched, full color Top Layer.
- At the bottom of the Palette Box click the Layer Mask Symbol ( 2nd from the right ) and create a layer mask ( You are still on the Top Layer )
- Reset your Foreground / Background settings by clicking on the D key on your keyboard. You should now have the foreground as Black and the Background as White. If they are reversed, hit the X key on your keyboard and they will reverse. You are now ready to pull some colorless grey scale back thru the troubled areas with a med hard edged brush set to 60 - 100 percent opacity.
- To access the Brush tool, hit the B key and check the opacity and hardness settings.
- Make the brush as small as possible for the offending areas.
- Trace over the Chromatic Aberration and watch the grey scale blend away or completely cover the Fringies. It goes without saying that you should be doing all of this at 200 percent or greater.
- When you have blended or covered all the areas that you feel are necessary, you should reduce the image view to 100 percent and take a look at your work. You will be amazed at how well this method eliminates the C.A. without affecting any of the overall image.
- Save your image as a PSD ( Photoshop Document / with layers ) and make a duplicate. The duplicate copy can be flattened, renamed and saved as a final image. The PSD can be safely stored away, just in case you need to go back and remove any areas that you might have missed.
Yummy Coffee!
For those of you who don't already know, I am presently enjoying a blissful week of well deserved vacation down on the NC Coast. There are 7 of us, which also includes 5 teenage girls, in a 2 bedroom cottage with one bathroom and the world's smallest kitchen. This of course means that we will be eating out a lot this week and I have decided to eliminate shaving, showering and trips to the bathroom from my daily schedule. And could someone please explain to me why it is that a woman can leave every personal article of clothing hanging from every 3 dimensional surface in the bathroom, but if I leave the toilet seat up, they'll be hell to pay!
So that brings me to Yummy Coffee, my favorite daily beverage. It's not as good at the beach as it is back at my home in Cary. It might be the pre-purchased jug water from the local supermarket or maybe the generic paper towels that I have been using in place of real Coffee Filters! I kept forgetting that one item when I went to get groceries and I paid the price every morning when I brewed my first pot. However, Paper Towels as Coffee Filters do work a lot better than printer paper with really tiny holes poked thru with a push pin. You don't want to know some of the other emergency methods I have used in a pinch.
Tomorrow morning, I absolutely have to get started on the editing, processing and optimizing of 1000 + Raw files from last week's Job. Better take a trip to the Quickie Mart and get me some real Java Sifters!
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