Author: Kevin

Photography Portfolio – part 1

Kevin

If you have a set of images, is that a gallery or a portfolio?  To my thinking a gallery can be any set of images, they need not even be related in any strong way.  In contrast, a portfolio is a very closely edited collection of 20-30 images, your very best.

A portfolio can be presented in many ways, but foremost in my mind are these four: contained in a book, individual prints, digitally on a web site, or digitally on a tablet computer.  Today, a professional photographer probably needs at least two of these four.  Most recently, I have been working on a print portfolio.  The last time I did this was years ago.  (I should probably burn those old prints because they cannot hold a candle to my recent work.)

The last time I created a print portfolio, the prints were all made on chromogenic paper … chemically treated paper that is light-sensitive and processed with chemicals to permanently fix the image onto the paper.  These types of prints are still very common, can be very inexpensive, and can create stunning images.   The image can be projected onto the paper either using traditional film enlargers or digital enlargers, such as a LightJet.  Chromogenic prints are continuous tone, unlike inkjet/giclée prints.

Bicycle race
Bicycle race

For my new portfolio, I am employing only giclée (a.k.a. inkjet) prints. These types of prints offer far more options with regard to the paper.  There are dozens of paper manufactures, each offering a variety of surfaces, textures, and contrast characteristics.  It’s all very confusing.  Photographers, who print often, have experience with several papers and have learned a few favorites for different types of images.  But that’s not me.

After a ton of research, I selected a specific paper and a lab that offered this paper at a reasonable price.  But before uploading my images to a print lab,  I thought to check the image via soft proofing.  Because printed images are dramatically different than images displayed on a computer monitor, soft proofing is a software feature that compensates for paper and ink, then shows on a computer monitor an approximation of what the print will look like.  I downloaded a color profile specifically for the paper I had intended to use, then displayed the soft proof using Adobe Lightroom.  The result was absolutely awful.  My best efforts were not enough to make the image look good, and I ultimately abandoned the paper, did more research, and selected a different paper.

Very briefly, let me say that a single print 11×14” or 8×12” can cost anywhere from $13 to $60, depending upon the particular lab, how much personalized care they give to each print, and the particular paper you choose.  (If you buy multiples of the same print, the additional copies typically cost less than the price for the first one.)  Compare this to a print on chromogenic photo paper, which might cost only $4 to $15.

When I began to place my order for prints, they informed me that my preferred paper was no longer available. Again, I returned to research and selected a third paper.  Because the lab offered a specific set of papers, I limited myself to just those papers that this lab supported.  Having already uploaded my images to the lab, I spoke directly with someone at the lab, to confirm that my paper choice was right for these particular images.  (Specifically, I did not want glossy or matte, but rather something in between that would provide very good color saturation and contrast.)   Unfortunately, the lab also informed me that the prices advertised on their web site had all been changed recently (they had neglected to update the web site).  Despite the paper changes and price increases, I chose to stick with this particular lab rather than go back to research and look for another lab that might possibly be less expensive.

More to come . . . .

Photographing Freestyle Ski Jumping

Kevin

Very excited to photograph freestyle ski jumping this week!
For photography, winter can be dull, particularly if there is no snow … the grey season, the season of sticks without leaves. But NOT this week. This is an international event sponsored by FIS, the international skiing authority. The ORDA has authorized official Press credentials, which allows me a bit more freedom of movement than regular spectators, to achieve shooting angles I need to create good images.

Because the freestyle ski jump competition is preceded by a mogul competition, I will arrive a day early in order to catch the mogul competition.  Although I don’t “need” this shoot, I’m going to be right there and it could be fun (I simply haven’t thought about it much).  One extra night’s lodging is all it takes … and maybe rent a pair of skis so I can reach the top & middle of the slope.

Logistical arrangements have required a significant investment of time.

  • Lens selection & rent
  • A  couple of (smaller) equipment purchases
  • Contact ORDA for official Press credentials
  • Find a place to stay (difficult because I made a reservation only 1wk prior to the event)
  • Couple minor things regarding my car (before driving 500 miles)

(The weather forecast for Friday is *COLD*.)

I have selected a 70-200mm f4 zoom lens and the Canon EF 400mm f4 DO lens.  Having never used the DO lens before, this is a bit of a gamble.  However, at 4.27 lbs, the DO is significantly less weight than the 400mm f2.8 or even the 300mm f2.8.

While the weight of the 400mm DO is hand-holdable, I want a monopod so that I do not have to hand-hold it. But my cheap old monopod (really cheap) is not enough for this task.  So I purchased a new monopod (Feisol).  With this particular item in mind, I went to my local photography shop (Hunt’s Photo & Video) and looked at the other options (Benro, Induro, etc).  Lucky for me they did stock the Feisol and that is ultimately the item I had in-hand when I left the store.

When used on snow, a monopod (or even a tripod) will punch a narrow hole in the snow and sink, because of the very narrow footprint. A few monopods do have an expanded “foot”, but the model I selected does not have this feature. So I cut up the plastic lid to a peanut butter jar and attached that to the bottom of the monopod.

Cost of Shooting Film

Kevin

Cleaning out my file cabinet, I found 15-yr-old receipts regarding film.  I discarded them today, but it is interesting to note how much it cost to shoot medium format film (120 and 220 rolls).  I did not look at current pricing for comparison.

Each frame cost about $0.30 plus another $0.38 for processing plus tax.
That was $0.72 each time I pressed the shutter button.

History of DSLR cameras

Kevin

Some photographers are very brand-loyal and biased, particularly regarding Nikon and Canon.  All I can say is … thank goodness for Canon AND Nikon, competetively driving each other to create excellent cameras.

Here are a few highlights from the history of DSLR cameras.
(intentionally ignoring digital backs for medium format cameras)

  • 1991 Kodak DCS-100  … first DSLR  (based on a modified Nikon body)
  • 1995 Canon/Kodak DCS 3 … Kodak digital camera back on a modified Canon body
  • 1999 Nikon D1  ………. first practical/affordable DSLR for mass market
  • 2001 Canon 1D  ……… landmark for sports photography; 8 fps and reduced shutter lag
  • 2002 Canon 1Ds …….. first DSLR with a full-frame sensor
  • 2004 Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro… first DSLR with live preview
  • 2007 Nikon D3 …………. Nikon’s first Fx (full-frame) DSLR
  • 2007 Canon 1DS mkIII .. 21 megapixels, first DSLR to exceed 18Mp
  • 2008 Nikon D90 ……….. first DSLR to shoot 720 HD video
  • 2008 Canon 5D mkII …. first DSLR to shoot 1080 HD video
  • 2012 Nikon D3200 ……. 24 megapixels, Nikon’s first DSLR to exceed 18Mp
  • 2012 Nikon D800 …….. 36 megapixels

References:
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/history-of-canon-dslr.html http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/dslr.htm

Giant Pumpkin Festival

Kevin

At the tail end of September this year, I photographed a couple of events where giant pumpkins were weighed in competition.  I overheard a fellow make a comment about one particular giant, “There’s something weird about that one.”  I leaned over and offered my own uninvited follow-up comment “There’s something weird about all of those pumpkins.”  The guy grinned and enthusiastically agreed, “Yeah, they’re all huge!”

Giant fruits and vegetables are generally peculiar.  But a crowd of a hundered people eagerly watching pumpkins get weighed on scales, that’s peculiar too.  Even more surprising is the uproar and applause when a new contender puts up a number (on the scale) bigger than any other.  Stranger still, some people carve out the giant pumpkins, float it in water, climb inside and paddle it as a boat.  I love New England!

(click on any image to see a larger view)

Damariscotta Pumpkin Festival

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Damariscotta Pumpkin Festival & Regatta

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motion Blur Sports Photography

Kevin

Most sports photography employs fast shutter speeds, to freeze the action.  But where there is motion, I want to show that.  A slow shutter speed allows movement to blur.  Here are a couple examples from a bicycle race last weekend in Boston.

(click on either image for a larger view)

While it is tempting to quote specific shutter speeds that I use, it really doesn’t work that way.  The shutter speed depends upon (1) the speed of the moving subject, (2) the angle at which the subject is approaching, and (3) how much blur I want.  So I might start out somewhere between 1/30 to 1/100 second and then chimp the back of the camera to see what it looks like.

(Chimping means frequently reviewing captured images on the camera display panel. If it looks really good, you scream like a chimp.)

To get basic motion blur, you lock down the camera such that the background is sharp and the moving subject shows blur.  Alternativley, you can pan the camera to follow the the subject, such that the subject does not blur but the background does. Another technique is to actively zoom the lens during the exposure, which you see in the first image here, using a shutter speed of 1/4 second.  A shutter speed of 1/4 is quite long, but the subject here is moving head-on towards me.  Compare that to the second image, the subject is moving side-to-side perpendicular to the camera and the shutter speed is 1/30 second.

The blur effects shown here is achieved entirely in the camera.  As the subject does not stay in one spot, the light reflecting off the subject is diminished.  In post-processing (e.g. Photoshop or Lightroom), it is typically necessary to selectively restore brightness, contrast, and color saturation.  In the second image here, I have intentionally over-stated the contrast and color saturation.

With a bit of experimenting, you can get some interesting abstract results.  Motion blur photography is not new, but it is a bit unusual.  It has been said, if you want to excel, if you want to stand out in a crowd of talented people, don’t simply mimic what everyone else is doing.

 

 

Custom Photo Wallpaper

Kevin

The image of the Boston skyline was created with a full-frame DSLR, a 400mm lens, and a tripod.  Twelve separate frames were stitched together (using Adobe Photoshop) into a single image.

The final result was a single image 16,000 x 8600 pixels (137 megapixels).   Cropping this to fit my wall, the JPEG that I submitted for wallpaper was 12,320 x 8726 pixels.  When printed to a size of 119.5” x 86.5”, that implies a resolution just above 100 dpi.  But the wallpaper vendor will interpolate this higher, to the native resolution of the printer.

The wallpaper

After a bit of research on the internet, I selected three possible vendors to print my wallpaper.  My first vendor choice ended in a confusing experience with their website.  I abandoned that vendor and then selected Blue River Digital (www.blueriverdigital.com).  BRD offers several substrate choices; the choice depends largely upon two factors, (1) exposure to direct sunlight and (2) longevity of the intended display.  I chose premium vinyl wallpaper and the cost was about $400.  (This was a year ago; today’s options and prices have surely changed.)  Depending upon the vendor and the material you choose, the cast generally ranges from $3 to $9 per square foot.

Sharpness, color, … the image quality of the final printed wallpaper is excellent.

In terms commonly used to describe photographic paper, this wallpaper has surface that is perhaps between matt and satin.  Side light from a window causes a glare on the surface of the wallpaper.

For my wallpaper, the side-to-side ordering was obvious.  However, depending upon the particular image, maybe with a repeating pattern, the sequence of the separate panels might not be obvious.  Because of this, Blue River Digital includes a number on the back side of each panel.

The installation

You can hire a professional wallpaper installer or do it yourself.  I have hung wallpaper myself on a few occasions (not recently), so opted to install the photo mural myself.  A professional could have installed it in far less time than I … and with less cursing.  (To install any wallpaper yourself and avoid the cursing, it’s a good idea to have help from a second person.)

As with any wallpaper installation, the wall does need to be properly prepared before installing the wallpaper.

After applying paste the back of a panel, the panel is folded in half and allowed to sit for a bit.  (This is called Booking and is standard practice for wallpaper.)  Blue River Digital provides a list of name brand wallpaper pastes that they have actually tested.  I took that list to my local hardware store and found that they did carry one of those paste products.  My local big-box home improvement warehouse stocked only a generic brand; I expect that would suffice, but I chose to use a paste that was Blue-River-tested.

My print consists of four panels, each 30” wide.  At the edge of a panel, the image on a panel overlaps with the image on the adjacent panel, by about one inch.  So, when applying each panel to the wall, the panels overlap by one inch.

Because my particular image has some strong vertical and horizontal lines, I was very particular about getting that first piece level and plumb.  I removed that first panel from the wall and re-applied it probably three times before I was satisfied.  Then I applied the remaining panels, which were easier to install than the first, but still can be difficult to get the two panels exactly aligned.

Pixel RW-221 wireless remote camera trigger

Kevin

Some situations require remotely triggering a camera.  The RW-221 is an inexpensive remote trigger.  It looks well made and worked well in my initial testing, however … the first time I ever used the RW-221 for a real shoot, it broke.

There was a dense crowd of people in Boston that day and someone tried to squeeze between me and the shrubbery … I lost balance and pushed hard on the button of the RW-221.  The button slid into the plastic case such that it could not pop-up (the normal un-pressed state).  I was on location and had no backup for this tool.

Upon taking it apart, I found that the plastic button is supported by a very small plastic pin, which easily snapped under pressure.   Although I repaired it with a bit of glue, I have to conclude the following:
1) due to a design flaw, the RW-221 is not robust/reliable; be gentle.
2) always have a backup for your equipment
2) anyone who has this device or is purchasing it new, take it apart and re-inforce the pin with a bit of epoxy

 

Novoflex Super-Telephoto Lens

Kevin

Recently, my friend Tom loaned me a vintage Novoflex super-telephoto lens.  Since he already had adaptors for both Nikon and Canon EOS, we had no trouble fitting it to my full-frame Canon DSLR.

The Novoflexar pistol-grip lens, originally made in Germany, is a bit obscure here in the USA.  There were a few different models; one version has a single pistol grip, while this one here has two pistol grips. Focus control is built in to the rear pistol grip and a shutter release button on the front pistol grip (requires a cable that connects to the camera).  Theoretically, this allows an agile “run and gun” type of photography, but I used it on a tripod.

The main body of the lens is simply hollow with no glass. The glass is fully contained in a front tube that threads on to the main body.  Tom’s kit included a 400mm and a 600mm (some models have a 640mm instead of 600). Because there is not a lot of glass, the total package is relatively lightweight compared to some other super-telephoto lenses.

Squeezing the focus trigger moves the front tube forward and back.  (Novoflex called this “Rapid Focus” or “Super Rapid Focus”.) There is no focus ring (typical on most lenses); the focus mechanism does not involve any rotation of anything.  There is a focus lock, to lock the focus in one spot, which I used frequently because the distance to my subject often was very far away and unchanging.  Constantly squeezing the trigger with your fingers can be quite tiring.

The focus trigger only covers part of the focus range.  The trigger will not get you from minimum focusing distance to infinity. You first have to adjust one other thing, to get the focus “in the ballpark”.  In some situations, perhaps this would be problematic.  But on the positive side, the focus trigger is close to the camera, so you don’t have to extend your arm in order to reach a focus ring (as is true with some big super-telephoto lenses).

(click on any image for a larger view)

400mm
Crop from previous image

I used this lens wide-open.  That means f\5.6 for the 400mm and f\8 for the 600mm. The 600mm showed some color fringing at hightlight edges, particularly where highlight directly overlapped a dark area. This chromatic aberation gets worse with use of the Novoflex 2x multiplier.

The lens accepts a drop-in polarizing filter.  Although I tried to exchange this with a Nikon lens, the Novoflex filter and the Nikon filter were different thicknesses, so are not interchangable.

600mm
Crop from previous image.
Note the color fringe on the white shirt sleeve.

 The Novoflex aperature uses 24 blades, more than double most lenses. This is probably not significant to most people.  If you do get into a situation with flare, the flare will look more round, compared to the pentagram shape that occurs with a 5-blade aperature.

Conclusions

Pro

  • The pistol grip design may be well-suited for a mobile/agile type of photography
  • Price. Potentially, you might find one for less than $700 (US), but they are rare.
    (If you can borrow one, as I did, then free is great.)
  • Weight. Not very heavy because it does not use much glass and because you get two lenses in one
  • Sharpness of the 400mm is good (not great)

Con

  • This lens dates back to the 1970s, so it is manual focus and has no image stabilization. (That’s OK when using a tripod and photographing subjects that are far away.  In these situations, the pistol grip design is mostly unnecessary.)
  • The squeeze focus is a bit odd; I never quite warmed up to that feature.
  • The 600mm shows chromatic aberation (that is amplified by a 2x multiplier)
  • Sharpness: the 600mm seemed a bit soft to me
  • The pistol grip design makes this lens look like a bazooka.  Particularly with the 600mm front tube, it will turn heads … possibly security or law enforcement.

If you’re looking for a super-telephoto for less than $1000.  I suspect there are better options available.  Specifically, the Tamron 200-500 SP AF Di LD and the Sigma 150-500 APO DG OS HSM.  Both Photozone.com and BobAtkins.com have published detailed reviews of the Tamron zoom.  Both Kenrockwell.com and CameraLabs.com have published detailed reviews of the Sigma zoom.  (Note that the Sigma includes optical image stabilization and the Tamron does not.)

 

Ultimate Lens for Sports & Wildlife

Kevin

There are telephoto lenses and there are telephoto zoom lenses.
Then there are tele-extenders which increase the magification of a lens.
And … then there is this; three telephoto zooms in one lens.

However, it is still not available today, though originally planned for release in mid-2011.
Price tag (yet to be announced) may cause shock or heart arythmia.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-200-400mm-f-4-L-IS-USM-Extender-1.4x-Lens-Review.aspx

http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/news/telephoto_zoom_lens.do

latest update:  http://www.canonrumors.com/tag/200-400/

 

(I would like to include the photo from Canon, but their website states: protected by copyright, kindly do not copy.)