G1X: Rainy Day

Although hoping for a beautiful sunset, water and beach scene, I was determined to take a picture of something and this was the best I could do.  Actually, I like it and have added it to my G1X collection at Smugmug.

This picture was taken at ISO 200, 1/15 second and f4.5 at a mid-zoom focal length.  The G1X was in manual focus mode at minimum focus distance – roughly 15 inches or so.  Although I could have elected to increase the ISO setting, I decided instead to brace the camera against the car seat and accept the 1/15 second shutter speed.

G1X: Gallery

I’ve set up a G1X gallery in my Smugmug account for showing my better G1X photos.  Not very many really good shots at this time but I’ll be adding to it – soon, I hope.

The shot above is a good one in my opinion.  It printed well at 12x18 inches and will soon be framed on hung on my wall.

G12 Gallery

I’ve added a Canon G12 portfolio to my SmugMug galleries to complement the existing G9 and G3 portfolios.  The G12 portfolio contains 20 pictures (so far).  Interestingly, 28 of the 52 pictures designated “Picture A Week” were made with the G12 and many of these also were selected for the G12 portfolio.

The G12 is a better and more versatile camera than the G9 just as the G9 is an improvement over the G3; however, little technical improvement can be noted by flipping through those portfolios – especially at the viewing resolution.  If anything, the G3, G9 and G12 portfolios are more of an indication of my own interests and skills than the particular camera that was used. 

PAW 2011

The “Picture a Week” (PAW) project began as a challenge to myself to get at least one picture every week that was worthy of publication in my LightDescription blog. My original intention was to minimize family photos; however, my granddaughter is so photogenic, so active and, well, so cute that she was still my main subject. In addition to this blog, my PAW photos are “published” in a SmugMug gallery.  This picture, PAW 6, was the most popular picture – by far -- in that gallery.

Of course, producing a picture a week would be much more difficult if film were used. With film, to keep on schedule, the photo would have to be taken early enough in the week so that it could be chemically processed, scanned and post processed for publication in the blog. Instead, all of my PAW were digital and post processed in Photoshop.

To determine popularity, I relied on SmugMug statistics. That is, the assumption was made that anyone sufficiently interested in my PAW would click through the current PAW to the SmugMug PAW gallery, see the thumbnails and look at an enlarged version of the picture. There is a major problem with this method for my PAW project because, naturally, the first images in the SmugMug portfolio tend to have more views than the images that were added later in the year.

The High Dynamic Range (HDR) PAW were always popular and PAW 25 was the most popular of the HDR images.

This “fog” picture – almost an afterthought—was popular, PAW 30.

I really liked this picture of kids playing in the fountains, PAW 15, and thought it to be one of my better efforts for the year.

Not as popular as I thought it would be, this Swiss Army Knife adventure, PAW 28, was a good one to add to my Swiss Army Knife collection of photos.

The third most popular picture was the first one posted, my granddaughter about this time last year, PAW 1a.

The second most popular picture was PAW 3.

 

Did any of the PAW replace one of my previous “Top Ten”? No and this was sort of frustrating as I really hoped that the PAW project would generate a Top Ten Photo.

The PAW project will end with PAW 52. Instead of PAW, in 2012 LightDescription will regularly feature a photo – could be recent or from the past – along with the processes and thoughts that went into it.

Have a Happy New Year with much good photography!

Gordon’s Top Ten

I have a gallery at SmugMug in which I maintain my ten best photographs.  I’ve not changed those top ten very often.  When I check the statistics developed by SmugMug, this picture, “Plantation Bedroom”, invariably gets the most views.  This is an HDR picture developed blending (as I recall) seven shots at varying exposures.  I like it a lot.

More Tweaks

It seems that, unlike the Blogger editor, images uploaded using Live Writer are viewable only at the display size.  For example, with Blogger I could upload a 1024x768 pixel image but display it at, say, 256x192.  If the reader “clicked” on the reduced size image, the original uploaded size image would show in a separate window.  This feature was not needed for all images but handy for a more critical view.  I want my PAW images to be viewable at 1024x768 pixels. 

I’d always intended to make a PAW section in my SmugMug gallery so I’ve done that.  I edited the PAW 5 post to link the image to the PAW section in SmugMug. 

Of course, the Blogger editor had reached the point to where it was not working for me so I still prefer Live Writer.

My Top 10 Pictures

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Inspired by this article at The Online Photographer, I set up my own Top 10 pictures as a SmugMug gallery. Many of the pictures are the same as in my Reify and Redact project and all are included in my Blurb book, "My Best and My Favorites".

The basis for selection is simply that this is my best work. That is, an editor – not myself – would make the same choices. If I take a better picture tomorrow, it will replace one of these selections.

Of these ten pictures, 3 are B/W and 2 are the polar opposite High Dynamic Range (HDR). Six pictures were taken with film cameras and four with digital cameras. All of the B/W pictures were taken on film. Of the film cameras, four were 35mm format and two were medium format. The four digital pictures were taken with a DSLR (Canon 20D). The film cameras were Konica T2 for 35mm and Yashica 12 for medium format.

A self editing project like this is a very useful exercise. Try it.
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High Dynamic Pumpkin

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I like High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography although I must admit that my results are still unpredictable. A new book, “Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Digital Photography” by Ferrell McCollough, is helping me to become more consistent in my HDR processing.

This HDR image was made using four shots from my Canon G9. The G9 was in Av mode, ISO 400, manual focus. ISO 400 helped to avoid some very long exposures and also to dodge the Av “bug” that limits shutter speeds to 1 second. The four shots were combined in Photomatix and also tone mapped in Photomatix before final touchups, including noise reduction with Noiseware, in Photoshop CS4.

As an 12x18 inch on canvas, I like it a lot. A screen sized version is in my G9 gallery on SmugMug.

Why Av mode? A neat trick is to use Av mode and also set auto exposure bracketing. This produces three shots. Next, dial in some negative exposure compensation and fire again to get three more shots. Finally, dial in some positive exposure compensation and get three more shots. Depending on the settings for exposure bracketing and exposure compensation, some of the shots may be at the same exposure but you’ll only touch the camera twice during the process.

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G9: Large, comparative samples

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There are many and fierce debates about the relative merits and faults of cameras and processing. Although the debate rages on, I've almost given up because the basis of the debates is so subjective. On the other hand, there is a real difficulty in making comparisons. What is the final output of the "photograph"? A snapshot sized print? An enlargement -- 8x10? Larger? Will the photo only be seen from a computer screen? How large is that screen? Is the screen calibrated for proper color, brightness and contrast? No wonder so many people have such diverging views -- not to mention justification of their expense in obtaining that camera!

For the G9 and many other small sensor digicams, one of the major issues is noise at high ISO. The G9 applies its own noise reduction algorithm to its in-camera JPEG but other noise reduction software is readily available. In particular, some G9'ers, myself included, usually shoot in raw mode and apply noise reduction afterward. Which method is best? Does it matter? Can a G9 high ISO be saved?

To systematically investigate the various high ISO and processing options, I thought to post some full size images for comparison. These will be posted on a special SmugMug gallery. The first set of images is a simple set of shots at the sky. These images were taken at ISO 100, 400 and 800. The G9 was set for raw+jpeg so the images are in pairs. When the G9 is set for raw+jpeg, the jpeg is full size but a little more compression is used. I know this confuses the issue somewhat but I made additional comparisons (unposted) and the differences between the G9 "fine" and "superfine" images are small. As it is, this set of comparisons includes eight images and there's no real point to adding more.

My intent was to simply point the G9 at the sky and fire away on Av mode. Then I decided to throw in exposure bracketing so I added a polarizing filter to keep exposures within range. Even so, the G9 neutral density filter was necessary for the ISO 400 and 800 shots. So the first two shots (ISO 100) are without the ND filter, the ISO 400 and 800 are with the ND filter. All of these shots are slightly underexposed.

The exposure was increased by +2/3 stop for a final set of shots. Of course, I forgot to remove the ND filter for these so the exposure is much longer than expected.

The in-camera jpegs were all done at "normal" settings. The raw files were converted in ACR and followed with noise reduction using Noiseware. Noiseware was used at its default settings. The raw files were all done semi-automatically using the ACR auto toning (exposure) and a Photoshop Action.

In comparing these samples, the general idea is not so much which exposure, contrast, saturation, etc is preferable to you personally as it is to see that there are, or can be, differences. Don't even bother to tell me that you can process the in-camera jpeg to have the same saturation and contrast as the processed raw image. Also, don't bother to tell me that the in-camera settings can be adjusted for more or less saturation, sharpness and contrast. But do notice that the first three conversions from raw have quite different look from the first three jpegs. This difference is largely due to the initial underexposure. These are comparisons of the in-camera auto processing of underexposure to the ACR auto processing of underexposure.

In the last two images, the G9 exposure setting was 'corrected' by adding 2/3 stop compensation. The in-camera jpeg and the auto process raw are much more similar.

Examine the files, pixel peek, print your own, order from SmugMug -- whatever you prefer. There's something or other to be learned here and it is different for all of us.
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My G3 Gallery

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Since I've owned and used a Canon G3 for many years, I have quite a few pictures taken with the G3. I’ve posted a G3 gallery alongside my existing G9 gallery on SmugMug.

For both galleries, the images have been resized to display full screen at 1024x768. The G9 gallery is more representation of where I am at the moment whereas the G3 shows my learning curve over the past several years. In assembling and posting these galleries, there was no conscious effort to compare cameras, styles or techniques – just some photos that I like.

I stand by my previous statement that, for purposes of full screen viewing, it would be difficult to choose one G series camera over another – for that matter, many cameras produce similar screen images. (But I’ll grant that pixel peeping, cropping and print making are a different subject!)
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G9 on SmugMug

I've set up a special album on SmugMug for my better G9 photos.

Doesn't it seem strange to group your work by the tool that was used? Even so, a G9 album is probably useful for the time being.

A word about selecting and showing your best photos: Once I attended a photo workshop in which the instructor was asking everyone "Why are you here?" My response was that I wanted to increase my "yield" of good photos. The instructor asked how many good photos I got per roll (right, this was in the days of film). I was embarrassed to say that I got about 3 good shots per roll of 36 exposures. The instructor then said, "I wish I could get three good shots per roll!" Later, during his slide show, I realized that I was not getting any good shots per roll!

So don't take my G9 album as an indication of what the G9 can do -- it's what *I* can do at this time. I hope your shots are better and that my own get better.