iPad for Photographers

February 1, 2010 By 1 Comment
Apple iPad

Apple iPad

Apple introduced with the usual fanfare its new entry to the market: iPad. Many have started test-drooling over the pictures and Job’s cool presentation. Others, like me, see it as a stretched iPod Touch, which it is. I have read on various blogs “imagine taking your photography portfolio to a gallery on an iPad” and similar comments. Frankly, I think that will emphasize the technology of the presentation rather than the art in the photographs. After all, iPad will not be hanging on the wall, a beautiful print will.

One potential use of iPad highly interests me and I believe it will be the killer app for iPad. Add two features for photographers and it will start selling like hot cakes. First, add a CompactFlash and an SD card reader. This will make it irresistible to photographers. Imagine being able to store and back up your photos in the field and see them on a 10″ screen for field proofing. Second, put an application on iPad that allows it to directly tether to the DSLRs which will make it indispensable to the same crowd. Think about it, you are looking at a 10″ screen to preview your photograph while controlling the camera features from the same screen. You can do the same now but you need a laptop for that which is larger and bulkier. Until then, iPad will remain an oversize iPod Touch.

Are you listening Acer, HP, Dell, Asus, …?

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Canon Flash Photography

December 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Vivitar 283

Vivitar 283

Portable flash units have come a very long way from the days of the ever popular Vivitar 283 and the potato-masher Honeywell and Metz units. Although the earlier units had some level of automation, it was limited to what the flash could do on its own.

Metz Mecablitz

Metz Mecablitz Courtesy Peter Wallage

The new generation of flash units from the camera manufacturers take the automation to the level of integration. The camera and the flash unit(s) work as one, freeing the photographer from much of the tedium of flash setup and synchronization. Both Nikon and Canon systems include several dedicated units that can function with amazing ease and capability. The down side of this super integration is the intimidation that may arise from reading the flash manuals. They are chuck-full of information, settings, capabilities and also written in a technical tone rather than what would be easy set of instructions to follow. [Read more...]

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Customer orientation

November 20, 2009 By 2 Comments

I have known Photodex since the early days of computer graphics. They had one of the best, and quickest image viewers going, Compupic. It was a mainstay of my tool box and I recommended that to my friends who adopted it as well. I no longer use Compupic but I have been using another great product they make, ProShow. It comes in Gold and Producer versions and I use them to create the slide shows like those of Hagia Sophia. As an active member of the Photographic Society of Rhode Island, I got many users there and have established good relations with Photodex. They support PSRI through discounts and door prizes and we list them as one of our sponsors and promote ProShow and train members on how to use the product. They are terrific products for this purpose, I heartily recommend them to anyone interested in creating highly polished presentations with animation, transitions, and sound.

All this well and good, but I want to narrate something else that is not easily visible unless you experience it. Last week, I created a screen saver using ProShow Producer which would not install into Windows XP. I called Photodex and the tech support person recommended a process by which I could provide information to help them trouble shoot the issue. I followed the instructions and added a little more of my empirical trouble shooting results. I downloaded the latest version of Producer and was able to create the screen saver with that which installed properly. The support person helped me try a few other things, including a screen saver he created for me to try. He then asked me to download the trial version of the latest release of Producer and try it. Since I had already tried it, I gave him the result which was positive and added I would probably eventually upgrade the software so that I could do this kind of work.

The next morning I received an e-mail from him with a license code that would activate the latest version of ProShow Producer. A totally unexpected surprise! My version was about two years old. He had no obligation to give me a free upgrade to the latest version, but realizing that there was an unexplained glitch in the software that prevented it from doing what it was supposed to do. Apparently that was unacceptable to him and to Photodex to offer that upgrade, which I consider to be very generous. He did not even know of my relationship with Photodex on behalf of PSRI.

Companies like Photodex, and the support people like the one I worked with often get unmentioned in the sea of support disasters; so, I thought it would be a refreshing change for many to hear an extremely positive experience.

Thank you Photodex, thank you Jeremy.

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HDR Imaging

October 19, 2009 By 1 Comment

HDR Imaging has become quite popular. For some, it represents a novelty; for others, creative process; and to me, “a sensor with a huge range”. The images you see on many HDR fora on various photography sharing sites mostly depict choked highlights and watered down shadows, most of the image information falling into the mid-range. I do not quite understand this sensibility with halos around transition, pastel colors, and mid-range tonality. To me, HDR is an opportunity to better represent reality, with detailed highlights and shadows.

I have been using a variant of this method for quite some time. Earlier, the process was manual involving two exposures for highlights and shadows that were blended in Photoshop through layer masks. The new tools made this process far more efficient and effective. To share my experiences with HDR imaging with my friends at PSRI, I made a presentation on October 20, 2009. I demonstrated the old methods and the new tools which make them far more convenient and powerful to use.

My main tool for HDRI is Photomatix Pro Plus from HDR Soft. The part that is missing from the slides below will be the actual step-by-step instructions of how to bring the properly exposed series of photographs into Photomatix, create an HDR file, and subsequent tone mapping. My approach to all this is one of realistic representation of the scene rather than a result that is more surrealistic effect.

Below is the presentation slides and a printable PDF file of them.

View the HDR Imaging presentation slides

PDF format presentation slides

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Extra Memory for my Desktop: Update

December 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment

In an earlier post I explained how I installed extra memory for better computer performance, that was last August. Since then my computer started acting strangely. Don’t get me wrong, the performance gains were real and when the computer was running it worked beautifully. The problem was with the cold boot in the morning, it would not start until it warmed up a little, taking upwards of five minutes of “hand cranking” to start. Once it started, there was no ill effects. When I had lots of work to do, I began leaving it on all the time to save the trouble of restarting in the morning. It ran for weeks without any problems. [Read more...]

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