Do you feel inadequate because you have a puny Canon SD900 or Fuji F30 in your pocket while your friend is lugging around a digital SLR?
Don't.
You can get a better picture than he can, for the following reasons:
* Your camera is light and compact enough that you have it with you at all times.
* You have about as good a lens as he does; like most first-time SLR owners, he hasn't bothered to upgrade from the cheap low-contrast zoom lens that was included in a kit with his camera body.
* He is using the pop-up flash on his camera as his primary light. You would never be that uncreative (at least not after reading the rest of this article).
* Your camera has a better system for combining light from the flash with ambient light ("fill-flash").
MIT Graduation 1998 A professional photographer with a pile of $1500 lenses and a tripod is going to be able to do many things that you aren't. But rest assured that he carries a P&S camera in his pocket as well.
The photo at left shows Bill Clinton handing out a diploma at MIT's 1998 graduation ceremony. I was in the press box with a Canon EOS-5 (film!), 70-200/2.8L lens, and 1.4X teleconverter ($2500 total). In the upper right of the frame is a woman with a point and shoot camera. I would venture to guess that her pictures of Clinton are better than mine.
Think about Light
"He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it."
-- Joseph Romm
My personal definition of photography is "the recording of light rays." It is therefore difficult to take a decent picture if you have not chosen the lighting carefully. Read the photo.net tutorial chapter on light.
Just say no
Amy, Philip, Paula, at Aspects of Love in Minneapolis Just say "no" to on-camera flash. Your eye needs shadows to make out shapes. When the light is coming from the same position as the lens, there are no shadows to "model" faces. Light from a point source like the on-camera flash falls off as the square of the distance from the source. That means things close to the camera will be washed-out, the subject on which you focussed will be properly exposed, and the background will be nearly black.
We're at a theater. Can't you tell from the background? That's me in the middle. The guy with the flat face and big washed-out white areas of skin. Part of the problem here is that the camera was loaded with ISO 50 film and therefore doesn't capture much ambient light (i.e., the theater background).
Virtually all point and shoot cameras allow you to control the on-camera flash. What you want to do most of the time is press the tiny lightning bolt button until the "no flash" symbol is displayed. The "no flash" symbol is usually a lightning bolt with a circle around it and line through it. Now the camera will never strobe the flash and will leave the shutter open long enough to capture enough ambient light to make an exposure.
A good point and shoot camera will have a longest shutter speed of at least 1 second. You can probably only hold the camera steady for 1/30th of a second. Your subjects may not hold still for a full second either. So you must start looking for ways to keep the camera still and to complete the exposure in less time. You can:
* look for some light. Move your subjects underneath whatever light sources are handy and see how they look with your eyes.
* set a higher ISO sensitivity, e.g., ISO 400 or ISO 800 (currently only Fuji F30 and rather expensive compact digicams are designed to give good quality at higher ISO settings; the rest just give you a lot of digital "noise")
* steady the camera against a tree/rock/chair/whatever as you press the shutter release
* leave the camera on a tree/rock/chair/whatever and use the self-timer so that the jostling of pressing the shutter release isn't reflected on film. This works well for photographing decorated ceilings in Europe. Just leave the camera on the floor, self-timer on, flash off.
* use a little plastic tripod, monopod, or some other purpose-built camera support
Yes it was dark in Bar 89. But I steadied the camera against a stair railing and captured the scene with a Minolta Freedom Zoom 28-70 (current eBay value $5?). Note that not using flash preserves the lighting of the bar.
Just say yes
Just say "yes" to on-camera flash. Hey, "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" (Emerson; slightly out of context).
The on-camera flash on a compact digital camera is useful. It just isn't useful for what you'd think. As noted above, it is not useful for lighting up a dark room. However, it is useful outdoors when you have both shaded and sunlit objects in the same scene. A JPEG photo or a print cannot handle the same range of contrast as your eyes. A picture that is correctly exposed for the sunlight object will render the shaded portrait subject as solid black. A picture that is correctly exposed for the shaded portrait subject will render the sunlit background object as solid white.
Manhattan 1995. Here the chess players are being shaded by some overhead screens while the background foliage is not. The on-camera flash makes sure that the foreground players are bright. In fact they are a bit brighter than they probably should be and note the washed-out highlight on the leading edge of the table, which is close to the camera. This picture was taken by prefocusing on the shirtless player on the right, then moving the camera with the shutter release half-depressed to the final composition. Without the prefocusing the camera would have latched onto one of the chess tables in the center of the picture, quite far away. The foreground men would have been out of focus and also tremendously overexposed since an amount of flash adequate to illuminate a far away subject would have been used. [Note that many $1000 SLR cameras would not have been capable of making this picture except in a completely manual mode. Their flash metering systems look for light reaching the central area of the image rather than computing appropriate flash power from the focussed distance.]
Pressing the little buttons on a P&S camera until a single solid lightning bolt appears in the LCD display will keep the flash on at all times. Note that a side-effect of the "flash on" mode is that you also get the same long shutter speeds for capturing ambient light that you would with "flash off" mode. The standard illustrative picture for this has an illuminated building at night as the background with a group of people in the foreground who've been correctly exposed by the flash.
Sunglasses & ferris wheel. Coney Island. Sometimes it all comes together, as it did here in Coney Island. Without fill-flash, the ride operator would have been a silhouette. Prefocussed on the human subject's face. "Flash on" mode.
Prefocus
Market Street, San Francisco The best-composed photographs don't usually have their subject dead center. However, that's where the focusing sensor on a P&S camera is. Since the best photographs usually do have their subject in sharp focus, what you want to do is point the center sensor at your main subject, hold the shutter release halfway down, then move the camera until you like the composition.
Virtually all P&S cameras work this way but not everyone knows it because not everyone is willing to read the owner's manual.
A side effect of prefocusing is that most P&S cameras will preset exposure as well. Ideal exposure with a reflected light meter is obtained when the subject reflectance is 18% gray (a medium gray). If you don't want to wade into the exposure compensation menus, try to prefocus on something that is the correct distance from the camera and a reasonable mid-tone. I.e., avoid focusing on something that is pure white or black.
Burn Memory
Stockholm airport, hopskotch If a memory card is lasting for months, something is wrong. You aren't experimenting enough. An ideal memory card for has 50 pictures of the same subject, all of them bad. These prove that you're not afraid to experiment. And then one good picture. This proves that you're not completely incompetent.
It takes at least 10 frames to get one good picture of one person. To have everyone in a group photo looking good requires holding down that shutter release button. You should have pictures from different angles, different heights, flash on, flash off, etc.
Buy a stack of 2 GB SD cards and challenge yourself to fill them up!
http://www.photo.net/photo/point-and-shoot-tips
Monday, June 4, 2007
Fujifilm F40fd Digital Camera Review
The newest model in Fujifilm’s F-series includes all the bells and whistles from the older cameras and adds a few cool features too. The Fujifilm FinePix F40fd has face detection and high ISO sensitivity like its predecessors. It adds 8.3 megapixel resolution and accepts both xD-Picture and SD memory cards. The F40fd was announced in January 2007 and now sells for $299.
Front (7.75)
The F40fd is one of the most simply-styled FinePix models on the market, and that is a good thing. Its front conveys more elegance than most FinePix digital cameras. The left side of the front has a finger grip that curves inward toward the top of the camera where a Fujifilm logo is placed. The black line that runs up the left side is somewhat transparent and shows up red when the IrSimple technology is activated. A FinePix logo graces the center of the left side. The 3x zoom lens is placed near the right side, with specs rounding the end of the barrel: "Fujinon Zoom Lens, 3x, f=8-24mm, 1:2.8-5.1." To the upper right of the lens is the rectangular built-in flash, with the circular auto focus assist lamp below it. In the bottom right corner is the microphone and a few labels to flaunt the Super CCD and its 8.3 megapixels.
Back (7.5)
This side looks very similar to other Fujifilm digital cameras with the 2.5-inch LCD screen on the left side and the buttons crunched to the right. The LCD screen is framed in black with a silver Fujifilm logo at the bottom. On the right side of the back, in a vertical strip of space less than an inch wide, are a bunch of controls. At the top is a mode dial that has a ribbed edge which protrudes from the top. An LED to the left of the dial indicates which mode is activated. Two buttons sit directly below the mode dial: playback on the left and "F" on the right ("F" calls up the menu of frequently used settings). There is a larger, round navigational control below these buttons with a central Menu/OK button. All of the directions on the control have a second function. The top of the multiselector brightens the LCD screen when shooting and deletes photos in playback. The right side chooses a flash mode, the bottom activates the self-timer, and the left side turns on the macro mode. Below the control are two more buttons that are identical in size to the upper buttons. The left button changes the display information on the LCD screen, and the button on the right activates the face detection system.
Left Side (7.5)
A chrome band wraps around the top and left sides of the camera. At the lower back of this side is a rubber cover that shields the USB and AV cable jacks, and a small black transparent window that lights up when the IrSimple technology is enabled.
Right Side (7.75)
The right side of the camera isn’t very interesting. It has only a few screws and a chrome wrist strap eyelet at the top.
Top (7.25)
The top is where the seams of the camera’s housing gather. A shiny chrome band runs down the middle with the FinePix F40fd logo on the left side and some buttons on the right side. On the far right side is the shutter release button surrounded by the tiny zoom ring. This zoom ring has a tiny knob on the front that is similar to those on the Canon SD-series cameras. Just left of the shutter release button is the smaller, oval-shaped power button.
Bottom (4.5)
The left side of the bottom has a friction grip battery compartment that users can push inward to open. Just right of the center are nine holes that make up the in-camera speaker, and the plastic tripod socket is located to the far right.
http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Fujifilm-F40fd-Digital-Camera-Review-13027.htm
Front (7.75)
The F40fd is one of the most simply-styled FinePix models on the market, and that is a good thing. Its front conveys more elegance than most FinePix digital cameras. The left side of the front has a finger grip that curves inward toward the top of the camera where a Fujifilm logo is placed. The black line that runs up the left side is somewhat transparent and shows up red when the IrSimple technology is activated. A FinePix logo graces the center of the left side. The 3x zoom lens is placed near the right side, with specs rounding the end of the barrel: "Fujinon Zoom Lens, 3x, f=8-24mm, 1:2.8-5.1." To the upper right of the lens is the rectangular built-in flash, with the circular auto focus assist lamp below it. In the bottom right corner is the microphone and a few labels to flaunt the Super CCD and its 8.3 megapixels.
Back (7.5)
This side looks very similar to other Fujifilm digital cameras with the 2.5-inch LCD screen on the left side and the buttons crunched to the right. The LCD screen is framed in black with a silver Fujifilm logo at the bottom. On the right side of the back, in a vertical strip of space less than an inch wide, are a bunch of controls. At the top is a mode dial that has a ribbed edge which protrudes from the top. An LED to the left of the dial indicates which mode is activated. Two buttons sit directly below the mode dial: playback on the left and "F" on the right ("F" calls up the menu of frequently used settings). There is a larger, round navigational control below these buttons with a central Menu/OK button. All of the directions on the control have a second function. The top of the multiselector brightens the LCD screen when shooting and deletes photos in playback. The right side chooses a flash mode, the bottom activates the self-timer, and the left side turns on the macro mode. Below the control are two more buttons that are identical in size to the upper buttons. The left button changes the display information on the LCD screen, and the button on the right activates the face detection system.
Left Side (7.5)
A chrome band wraps around the top and left sides of the camera. At the lower back of this side is a rubber cover that shields the USB and AV cable jacks, and a small black transparent window that lights up when the IrSimple technology is enabled.
Right Side (7.75)
The right side of the camera isn’t very interesting. It has only a few screws and a chrome wrist strap eyelet at the top.
Top (7.25)
The top is where the seams of the camera’s housing gather. A shiny chrome band runs down the middle with the FinePix F40fd logo on the left side and some buttons on the right side. On the far right side is the shutter release button surrounded by the tiny zoom ring. This zoom ring has a tiny knob on the front that is similar to those on the Canon SD-series cameras. Just left of the shutter release button is the smaller, oval-shaped power button.
Bottom (4.5)
The left side of the bottom has a friction grip battery compartment that users can push inward to open. Just right of the center are nine holes that make up the in-camera speaker, and the plastic tripod socket is located to the far right.
http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Fujifilm-F40fd-Digital-Camera-Review-13027.htm
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Which Card Reader Should I Buy?
If each of your cameras take different kinds of memory cards, here's the reader for you.
Q: I have a DSLR that uses CF cards, a point-and-shoot that takes SD cards, and a camera phone that uses MicroSD cards. My laptop has FireWire and USB 2.0 connectors, but I don't want to attach my cameras directly and waste their batteries. What's the best card reader for me?
A: If you also have cameras that use xD Picture Cards or older SmartMedia cards, our answer would be the Zio Dazzle Hi-Speed 10-in-1 USB 2.0 reader ($30, street). It handles most cards (including your MicroSD, using an SD adapter), but it's not the fastest reader on the block, especially when fed the latest high-speed memory cards from Kingston, Lexar, SanDisk, and others.
Do you use Lexar Professional 80X CF cards with the LockTight feature? Then you'll have to use a Lexar Professional card reader for them to work properly. Available in USB 2.0 or FireWire versions ($70, street), it's stackable and works with most other CF cards.
For high-speed CF cards and nearly all SD, SDHC, MicroSD, MiniSD, and Memory Stick (including PRO Duo) cards, we recommend SanDisk's Extreme USB 2.0 reader ($25, street). It supports the full read and write speeds of SanDisk's Extreme III CF cards (up to 20MB/sec) and it will also read Extreme IV cards, albeit at Extreme III speeds. This reader is the fastest one we've found for Kingston's 8GB 133X Ultimate CF card. And it ships with RescuePro software (for Windows XP), which recovers images from corrupt or erased cards. While it doesn't accept xD Picture or older SmartMedia cards, it's priced right for everything else.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3627
Q: I have a DSLR that uses CF cards, a point-and-shoot that takes SD cards, and a camera phone that uses MicroSD cards. My laptop has FireWire and USB 2.0 connectors, but I don't want to attach my cameras directly and waste their batteries. What's the best card reader for me?
A: If you also have cameras that use xD Picture Cards or older SmartMedia cards, our answer would be the Zio Dazzle Hi-Speed 10-in-1 USB 2.0 reader ($30, street). It handles most cards (including your MicroSD, using an SD adapter), but it's not the fastest reader on the block, especially when fed the latest high-speed memory cards from Kingston, Lexar, SanDisk, and others.
Do you use Lexar Professional 80X CF cards with the LockTight feature? Then you'll have to use a Lexar Professional card reader for them to work properly. Available in USB 2.0 or FireWire versions ($70, street), it's stackable and works with most other CF cards.
For high-speed CF cards and nearly all SD, SDHC, MicroSD, MiniSD, and Memory Stick (including PRO Duo) cards, we recommend SanDisk's Extreme USB 2.0 reader ($25, street). It supports the full read and write speeds of SanDisk's Extreme III CF cards (up to 20MB/sec) and it will also read Extreme IV cards, albeit at Extreme III speeds. This reader is the fastest one we've found for Kingston's 8GB 133X Ultimate CF card. And it ships with RescuePro software (for Windows XP), which recovers images from corrupt or erased cards. While it doesn't accept xD Picture or older SmartMedia cards, it's priced right for everything else.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3627
Four Light Portrait How To
Four strobes, plus fire, make for a magical portrait set-up.
When a magician friend called recently to ask if I would shoot a promotional image for his marketing efforts, I quickly researched other shots of magicians and found the majority to be poorly lit and frankly a little boring. So to set ourselves apart from the rest, we decided to do something a little different.
Our first idea was to incorporate one of any magician's best tools, fire. My friend wanted a casual look for his show, so he dressed down in his on-stage attire and I set up my lights.
I used a four light setup -- all AlienBee's. I used an AlienBee B800wattsecond (ws) for the softbox (3x4 foot box), a B400ws for the umbrella fill light, a B400ws for the background light and an additional B400ws on a boom stand for the hair light.
The graphic to the right is a setup of the studio.
Doing the setup was actually the easy part; the tough part was figuring out how to measure a flame that's only there for an instant. Another concern was figuring out how to measure it while ensuring that the lighting in the studio wouldn't overpower it. Too much strobe and the flame looks weak. Too little strobe and the flame overpowers the scene.
I finally decided to use a flashmeter to measure the intensity of the flame. After all, the duration wasn't much longer than some strobes, so it "should" work, right?
Using my old Minolta Flashmeter III, I got a measurement of f/8 at 100 ISO for the flame, so I set up the rest of the lights to balance around that, taking individual readings from each strobe and adjusting the power output of the unit accordingly. Since Kurt is a pretty rugged-looking fellow, I decided to use a stronger lighting ratio of 5:1 to give the shadows some depth and sculpt his face a little more. I matched the hair light to f/8 simply because I wanted to show detail in his hair but not blow it out. Stronger lighting would have given him a more dramatic backlighting that, in my opinion, would compete with his face and the flame. The background is slightly overexposed at about f/8.5. This was done to give the dark cloth some added detail in the final image.
4 Light Tutorial
I shot this image in RAW with a Nikon D200 and a 105mm Micro lens, which is an awesome portrait lens as well. The most difficult part about this shoot was timing the flame correctly. To my surprise, it only took us six shots to get the image that we wanted, where his "look" was good and the flame was in a pleasing position. The final image is to the right.
Overall I was pleased with the image, particularly the one part that I had no control over -- the flame. I like the lighting on his hair. It's not too much or too little, and it had the added bonus of giving his shoulders a nice rim light as well, which gave them some definition in a similarly colored background. I also like the light on his face. To me, it's sculpted to define his features and is pleasing.
My one dislike is that I cut his elbows off. But this image is intended for use in newspapers and magazines, so if I had left them in, they more than likely would have been cropped out anyway. We also cropped the image to be a 4:5 ratio, so it makes a perfect 8X10 inch print.
Other articles from PopPhoto.com
* Olympus SP-510UZ
* Canon PowerShot A710 IS
* Kid Tested, Mother Approved
* Econocam Shootout!
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3707
When a magician friend called recently to ask if I would shoot a promotional image for his marketing efforts, I quickly researched other shots of magicians and found the majority to be poorly lit and frankly a little boring. So to set ourselves apart from the rest, we decided to do something a little different.
Our first idea was to incorporate one of any magician's best tools, fire. My friend wanted a casual look for his show, so he dressed down in his on-stage attire and I set up my lights.
I used a four light setup -- all AlienBee's. I used an AlienBee B800wattsecond (ws) for the softbox (3x4 foot box), a B400ws for the umbrella fill light, a B400ws for the background light and an additional B400ws on a boom stand for the hair light.
The graphic to the right is a setup of the studio.
Doing the setup was actually the easy part; the tough part was figuring out how to measure a flame that's only there for an instant. Another concern was figuring out how to measure it while ensuring that the lighting in the studio wouldn't overpower it. Too much strobe and the flame looks weak. Too little strobe and the flame overpowers the scene.
I finally decided to use a flashmeter to measure the intensity of the flame. After all, the duration wasn't much longer than some strobes, so it "should" work, right?
Using my old Minolta Flashmeter III, I got a measurement of f/8 at 100 ISO for the flame, so I set up the rest of the lights to balance around that, taking individual readings from each strobe and adjusting the power output of the unit accordingly. Since Kurt is a pretty rugged-looking fellow, I decided to use a stronger lighting ratio of 5:1 to give the shadows some depth and sculpt his face a little more. I matched the hair light to f/8 simply because I wanted to show detail in his hair but not blow it out. Stronger lighting would have given him a more dramatic backlighting that, in my opinion, would compete with his face and the flame. The background is slightly overexposed at about f/8.5. This was done to give the dark cloth some added detail in the final image.
4 Light Tutorial
I shot this image in RAW with a Nikon D200 and a 105mm Micro lens, which is an awesome portrait lens as well. The most difficult part about this shoot was timing the flame correctly. To my surprise, it only took us six shots to get the image that we wanted, where his "look" was good and the flame was in a pleasing position. The final image is to the right.
Overall I was pleased with the image, particularly the one part that I had no control over -- the flame. I like the lighting on his hair. It's not too much or too little, and it had the added bonus of giving his shoulders a nice rim light as well, which gave them some definition in a similarly colored background. I also like the light on his face. To me, it's sculpted to define his features and is pleasing.
My one dislike is that I cut his elbows off. But this image is intended for use in newspapers and magazines, so if I had left them in, they more than likely would have been cropped out anyway. We also cropped the image to be a 4:5 ratio, so it makes a perfect 8X10 inch print.
Other articles from PopPhoto.com
* Olympus SP-510UZ
* Canon PowerShot A710 IS
* Kid Tested, Mother Approved
* Econocam Shootout!
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3707
Hands On: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0
Adobe's next generation photo software is a full-featured, all-in-one imaging solution for serious shooters.
by Jonathan BarkeyClick photo to see what's new with version 1.0.Lucky us -- we got to try Lightroom 1.0 just before its official debut. This milestone for Adobe radically rearranges key Photoshop functions within a super-streamlined virtual workspace designed for organizing and processing large groups of images. Lightroom 1.0 should be familiar to the many people who've been using the free Public Beta. The commercial version has been further augmented and refined, and it's available for both Windows and Mac OS (available for purchase February 19 for $199). The new program combines a broad range of functions -- viewing, cataloguing, image editing, multimedia output and advanced printing -- in a single package.
Although it's called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, the software diverges from Photoshop in three important respects: features, interface and image processing. For starters, Lightroom dispenses with most of Photoshop's graphic-arts features and concentrates on essential organizing, post-production, display and output tools for digital photographers. Also, unlike Photoshop's deep layers of menus and dialogs, Lightroom's simpler interface keeps most functions immediately at hand or easily accessible.
What's Hot
• Non-destructive editing preserves original picture data.
• Works with RAW, TIFF, JPEG and PSD files.
• Supports both Windows and Mac OS.
What's Not
• Version 1.0 lacks image layers, dodging and burning, filter effects, and other standard Photoshop features.
• No discounted bundling with Photoshop, but early adopters get a price break.
• Lightroom Beta users will finally have to pay up.
Bottom Line
• Amazingly full-featured, all-in-one imaging solution for serious shooters.
• "Virtual" processing technology points way toward further software advances.
Related
• Adobe press release.
• Apple Aperture Review
Most significantly, everything that happens inside Lightroom is virtual, not physical. That means that the photos you "import" into Lightroom's Library don't actually reside there but are represented by Lightroom-generated preview images and associated metadata. Since the software alters instruction sets instead of actual pixels, all visual edits (color, tone, cropping, sharpening, etc.) are non-destructive. So your actual images remain untouched, whether you're working with RAW, JPEG, TIFF or PSD files. This also means you can view changes in real time, batch-edit large groups of photos very quickly, maintain permanent edit histories, and create numerous virtual file versions instead of space-consuming physical duplicates. To share with others, you can export copies (never the originals) as single images or batches -- in whatever size, quality and file format they need.
Based on our experience with the Lightroom Beta, we're happy that Version 1.0 looks and feels remains pretty much the same. It's a single window (showing one or multiple images), with a Filmstrip on the bottom and info/tool Panels keyed to whichever processing Module you've selected: Library is for managing your image folders and collections, including compare/select, keywording, captioning, metadata searching and basic image adjustments. Develop has a full suite of color and tonal controls, as well as cropping, sharpening, noise reduction and other fine-tunable settings. Slideshow, Web and Print each has its own layout, text and design options, including preset templates.
Of the new features in Lightroom 1.0, two really useful ones provide different kinds of image versioning. With Snapshots, we were able to preserve multiple History states for a given file, which we could recall at any time. And, with Create Virtual Copy, we could save different edited versions of the same file, no extra disk space required. (The "copies" behave just like the "originals".) Also new are Stacks, which let us group similar images (including Virtual Copies and real copies edited in Photoshop) together as one, or Auto-stack a sequence based on capture time.
Next on our "Way Cool" list is the Targeted Adjustment feature, which acts as if Photoshop's Color Picker were connected to its Selective Color controls. With it, we could click on any area in our photo and then, by adjusting Tone Curve, Hue/Saturation/Luminance or Grayscale Mix, selectively affect just the chosen color. Two modest but very useful tools: Red Eye removal, whose natural-looking results easily best those of Lightroom's only competitor, Apple's Aperture ($270, street); and Spot Removal, equivalent to Photoshop's Clone Stamp and Healing Brush. We used it to erase a large dust spot on one image, and then batch-applied the same retouching to all similar shots. Of course, like everything else Lightroom does, these effects are non-destructive and always reversible.
Many of Lightroom's new assets are of the meat and potatoes variety: not flashy but valuable for serious work. Prime example: when importing your images from a memory card, you can specify primary and secondary download locations, as well as automatic developing presets. Others: batch export processing using Photoshop Actions, and the ability to create separate libraries. We were also impressed that Lightroom 1.0 let us create physical folders and move actual image files via drag-and-drop, just like a conventional picture browser.
Also new are preview image settings tailored to monitor size; image zoom up to 11x; a "pick or reject" flagging system; drag-and-drop Keyword Tags and a Keyword Stamp; metadata searches by camera and lens used; drag-and-drop Collections; Survey View, for comparing more than two images; and new file format options for editing images in Photoshop. Three features we would like to see Adobe add in subsequent versions: the ability to save Histories when swapping Lightroom-edited files with other Lightroom users; being able to FTP image files to another recipient from within Lightroom; and the ability to set sharpening based on output size. (Adobe says they're working on these.)
In discussions with Adobe this reviewer asked about Lightroom's compatibility with Photoshop and its integral Adobe Bridge media browser. First, they said that the next generation of Adobe Camera Raw would share the same tools as Lightroom and produce identical results. They noted that Lightroom borrows Bridge's five-color image tags and that Bridge can read Lightroom-generated XMP metadata, such as captions and keywords. They also said that, depending on settings, Lightroom could import images faster than Bridge can generate previews. Translation: the new way beats the old way.
Which leads us to our final thought: will Lightroom be a Photoshop competitor or companion, or a bit of both? Our guess it that it depends on who's using it and how. See for yourself starting February 19, when Lightroom 1.0 becomes available for purchase ($199 through April 30 and $299 thereafter) or as a free 30-day trial download.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3709
by Jonathan BarkeyClick photo to see what's new with version 1.0.Lucky us -- we got to try Lightroom 1.0 just before its official debut. This milestone for Adobe radically rearranges key Photoshop functions within a super-streamlined virtual workspace designed for organizing and processing large groups of images. Lightroom 1.0 should be familiar to the many people who've been using the free Public Beta. The commercial version has been further augmented and refined, and it's available for both Windows and Mac OS (available for purchase February 19 for $199). The new program combines a broad range of functions -- viewing, cataloguing, image editing, multimedia output and advanced printing -- in a single package.
Although it's called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, the software diverges from Photoshop in three important respects: features, interface and image processing. For starters, Lightroom dispenses with most of Photoshop's graphic-arts features and concentrates on essential organizing, post-production, display and output tools for digital photographers. Also, unlike Photoshop's deep layers of menus and dialogs, Lightroom's simpler interface keeps most functions immediately at hand or easily accessible.
What's Hot
• Non-destructive editing preserves original picture data.
• Works with RAW, TIFF, JPEG and PSD files.
• Supports both Windows and Mac OS.
What's Not
• Version 1.0 lacks image layers, dodging and burning, filter effects, and other standard Photoshop features.
• No discounted bundling with Photoshop, but early adopters get a price break.
• Lightroom Beta users will finally have to pay up.
Bottom Line
• Amazingly full-featured, all-in-one imaging solution for serious shooters.
• "Virtual" processing technology points way toward further software advances.
Related
• Adobe press release.
• Apple Aperture Review
Most significantly, everything that happens inside Lightroom is virtual, not physical. That means that the photos you "import" into Lightroom's Library don't actually reside there but are represented by Lightroom-generated preview images and associated metadata. Since the software alters instruction sets instead of actual pixels, all visual edits (color, tone, cropping, sharpening, etc.) are non-destructive. So your actual images remain untouched, whether you're working with RAW, JPEG, TIFF or PSD files. This also means you can view changes in real time, batch-edit large groups of photos very quickly, maintain permanent edit histories, and create numerous virtual file versions instead of space-consuming physical duplicates. To share with others, you can export copies (never the originals) as single images or batches -- in whatever size, quality and file format they need.
Based on our experience with the Lightroom Beta, we're happy that Version 1.0 looks and feels remains pretty much the same. It's a single window (showing one or multiple images), with a Filmstrip on the bottom and info/tool Panels keyed to whichever processing Module you've selected: Library is for managing your image folders and collections, including compare/select, keywording, captioning, metadata searching and basic image adjustments. Develop has a full suite of color and tonal controls, as well as cropping, sharpening, noise reduction and other fine-tunable settings. Slideshow, Web and Print each has its own layout, text and design options, including preset templates.
Of the new features in Lightroom 1.0, two really useful ones provide different kinds of image versioning. With Snapshots, we were able to preserve multiple History states for a given file, which we could recall at any time. And, with Create Virtual Copy, we could save different edited versions of the same file, no extra disk space required. (The "copies" behave just like the "originals".) Also new are Stacks, which let us group similar images (including Virtual Copies and real copies edited in Photoshop) together as one, or Auto-stack a sequence based on capture time.
Next on our "Way Cool" list is the Targeted Adjustment feature, which acts as if Photoshop's Color Picker were connected to its Selective Color controls. With it, we could click on any area in our photo and then, by adjusting Tone Curve, Hue/Saturation/Luminance or Grayscale Mix, selectively affect just the chosen color. Two modest but very useful tools: Red Eye removal, whose natural-looking results easily best those of Lightroom's only competitor, Apple's Aperture ($270, street); and Spot Removal, equivalent to Photoshop's Clone Stamp and Healing Brush. We used it to erase a large dust spot on one image, and then batch-applied the same retouching to all similar shots. Of course, like everything else Lightroom does, these effects are non-destructive and always reversible.
Many of Lightroom's new assets are of the meat and potatoes variety: not flashy but valuable for serious work. Prime example: when importing your images from a memory card, you can specify primary and secondary download locations, as well as automatic developing presets. Others: batch export processing using Photoshop Actions, and the ability to create separate libraries. We were also impressed that Lightroom 1.0 let us create physical folders and move actual image files via drag-and-drop, just like a conventional picture browser.
Also new are preview image settings tailored to monitor size; image zoom up to 11x; a "pick or reject" flagging system; drag-and-drop Keyword Tags and a Keyword Stamp; metadata searches by camera and lens used; drag-and-drop Collections; Survey View, for comparing more than two images; and new file format options for editing images in Photoshop. Three features we would like to see Adobe add in subsequent versions: the ability to save Histories when swapping Lightroom-edited files with other Lightroom users; being able to FTP image files to another recipient from within Lightroom; and the ability to set sharpening based on output size. (Adobe says they're working on these.)
In discussions with Adobe this reviewer asked about Lightroom's compatibility with Photoshop and its integral Adobe Bridge media browser. First, they said that the next generation of Adobe Camera Raw would share the same tools as Lightroom and produce identical results. They noted that Lightroom borrows Bridge's five-color image tags and that Bridge can read Lightroom-generated XMP metadata, such as captions and keywords. They also said that, depending on settings, Lightroom could import images faster than Bridge can generate previews. Translation: the new way beats the old way.
Which leads us to our final thought: will Lightroom be a Photoshop competitor or companion, or a bit of both? Our guess it that it depends on who's using it and how. See for yourself starting February 19, when Lightroom 1.0 becomes available for purchase ($199 through April 30 and $299 thereafter) or as a free 30-day trial download.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3709
Software Hands On: In the Zone
LightZone software gives the old-school Zone System a totally modern twist.
for a slideshow with more details and images of the LightZone editing process.
Lots of photographers couldn't care less about removing their ex from a photo, adding text, or taking years off the life of a subject. What they really want to do is fix the things that they could always fix in the darkroom -- contrast, tone, and color. Light Crafts' Light-Zone 2.0 is a program for those who've gotten fed up with learning software that has far more tools than they could ever use, and who instead want more control over the way their pictures look.
The heart and soul of the program is the ZoneMapper. Based on Ansel Adams' Zone System, the ZoneMapper gives you exacting control over the amount and location of contrast in your photo. Represented by a black-to-white gradient, it works like this: Points on the gradient correspond to a smaller, grayscale representation of your image called the ZoneFinder, and when you mouse over the gradient, the corresponding zones in the ZoneFinder light up. To brighten or darken those tonal areas, simply click to create a handle, then drag it up or down on the grayscale to expand or contract the zones of the scale. Much more intuitive than Curves, you can make minute or grand adjustments very quickly.
The program treats RAW (almost all types), JPEG, and TIFF as equals, and saves your nondestructive edits as LZN files. If you like your adjustments and want to use them again, you can easily save them to drop on other images in a batch.
This second version of the software ($250 download, www.lightcrafts.com), has a much-improved interface and browser. It always works in a wide-gamut color space and it automatically converts images in other color spaces to it. It also lets you color-manage your print process and tag and convert images to other color spaces on export.
With its browser and many great tools, LightZone 2.0 may not be your total solution -- there's no redeye removal tool or method for doing batch resizing, for example -- but it's an excellent RAW converter and imageeditor. With Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture, and Nikon Capture NX, there are many alternatives to Photoshop that are aimed squarely at dedicated photographers. This one's got a free trial, so it's well worth finding out if Light Crafts' modern Zone System will work for you.
The LightZone Top 5
1. Never Ruin a Picture
If you're sick of Saving As over and over, or if Photoshop's Layers have never made sense to you, LightZone's system of piling up your fixes and keeping them always-modifiable will be appealing. You'll never permanently mess up a picture again, and you can save your favorite sets of fixes to apply to other images.
2. Contrast Where You Want It
With this digital version of the Zone System, you can add contrast to your clouds without losing the shadows on the ground -- no masking required. Just tweak the tones you think need changing.
3. Select Like a Pro
One of the most taxing aspects of photo editing is selecting areas to be changed separately. Pick one of LightZone's three selection tools, then click points around what you want to select, and watch as the program builds the shape for you. Tug in or out on the automatically formed interior ring to modify the selection's feathering.
4. Edit All Files
Gone are the days when you need to convert and edit your RAW files in a separate workflow from your JPEGs. This program treats them all the same, letting you edit and adjust all your files using the same toolset.
5. It's All at Your Fingertips
Forget a thousand menus and keyboard shortcuts -- you can see everything you can do to your picture in LightZone's main window, thus making it much easier and faster to edit a photo and move on to the next.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3684
for a slideshow with more details and images of the LightZone editing process.
Lots of photographers couldn't care less about removing their ex from a photo, adding text, or taking years off the life of a subject. What they really want to do is fix the things that they could always fix in the darkroom -- contrast, tone, and color. Light Crafts' Light-Zone 2.0 is a program for those who've gotten fed up with learning software that has far more tools than they could ever use, and who instead want more control over the way their pictures look.
The heart and soul of the program is the ZoneMapper. Based on Ansel Adams' Zone System, the ZoneMapper gives you exacting control over the amount and location of contrast in your photo. Represented by a black-to-white gradient, it works like this: Points on the gradient correspond to a smaller, grayscale representation of your image called the ZoneFinder, and when you mouse over the gradient, the corresponding zones in the ZoneFinder light up. To brighten or darken those tonal areas, simply click to create a handle, then drag it up or down on the grayscale to expand or contract the zones of the scale. Much more intuitive than Curves, you can make minute or grand adjustments very quickly.
The program treats RAW (almost all types), JPEG, and TIFF as equals, and saves your nondestructive edits as LZN files. If you like your adjustments and want to use them again, you can easily save them to drop on other images in a batch.
This second version of the software ($250 download, www.lightcrafts.com), has a much-improved interface and browser. It always works in a wide-gamut color space and it automatically converts images in other color spaces to it. It also lets you color-manage your print process and tag and convert images to other color spaces on export.
With its browser and many great tools, LightZone 2.0 may not be your total solution -- there's no redeye removal tool or method for doing batch resizing, for example -- but it's an excellent RAW converter and imageeditor. With Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture, and Nikon Capture NX, there are many alternatives to Photoshop that are aimed squarely at dedicated photographers. This one's got a free trial, so it's well worth finding out if Light Crafts' modern Zone System will work for you.
The LightZone Top 5
1. Never Ruin a Picture
If you're sick of Saving As over and over, or if Photoshop's Layers have never made sense to you, LightZone's system of piling up your fixes and keeping them always-modifiable will be appealing. You'll never permanently mess up a picture again, and you can save your favorite sets of fixes to apply to other images.
2. Contrast Where You Want It
With this digital version of the Zone System, you can add contrast to your clouds without losing the shadows on the ground -- no masking required. Just tweak the tones you think need changing.
3. Select Like a Pro
One of the most taxing aspects of photo editing is selecting areas to be changed separately. Pick one of LightZone's three selection tools, then click points around what you want to select, and watch as the program builds the shape for you. Tug in or out on the automatically formed interior ring to modify the selection's feathering.
4. Edit All Files
Gone are the days when you need to convert and edit your RAW files in a separate workflow from your JPEGs. This program treats them all the same, letting you edit and adjust all your files using the same toolset.
5. It's All at Your Fingertips
Forget a thousand menus and keyboard shortcuts -- you can see everything you can do to your picture in LightZone's main window, thus making it much easier and faster to edit a photo and move on to the next.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3684
How to Pimp Your Flash
Three great ways to spark up your flash photography
Whether the flash for your SLR or DSLR is a built-in popgun or a fully tricked-out flagship, with the right add-ons, you can have more power, creative options, and fun. Here are two new shoe-mount flash accessories, and one old standby...
1 Quantum Turbo Slim Compact Battery
lighting_207_turbosc_200 For lightning-like recycle times and hundreds -- even thousands -- of pops per charge, dump the AAs and power your hot-shoe flash with a high-capacity battery pack such as Sunpak's TR2000 ($250, street) or Lumedyne's HV MicroCycler ($315, street). Cable-connected to high-voltage ports on sophisticated shoe-mount flashes, they're carried from a belt clip or shoulder strap, and are, alas, clumsy. Hence the bulk under the wedding photographer's jacket.
Happily, Quantum Instruments recently reduced the klutz factor with a high-capacity power pack slim enough to slip into a pocket. The 15-ounce Turbo SC stands a bit over 5 inches tall, and, at about 1 inch deep, is less than half the depth of Quantum's smallest Turbo (the Compact), while offering equal capacity (225 full-power pops for shoe mounts). The NiMH-powered SC also has rapid recycle (1.4 sec) and charging times (1.5 hours), and a $450 (street) price tag. Seem expensive? That's the price of elegance.
2 LumiQuest Soft Screen Diffuser
lighting_207_diffuser_200 Cameras with pop-up flashes are usually frozen out of the flash accessory action. With the LumiQuest Soft Screen diffuser, though, they can join in. It easily slips over most pop-up flashes to soften (and reduce) their output... somewhat. It's small, so don't expect the caressingly soft light of a 3-foot beauty dish. Instead, look for less facial sheen, softer shadow edges behind subjects, and better close-up lighting. Also, it can be adapted to accept 3x3-inch color-correcting gels to bring flash output into (or out of) line with background color temps. That alone is worth the $13 (street).
3 Wein Hot Shoe to Hot Shoe Safe Sync
The DSLR shooter who tries using an old, outdated hot-shoe flash may be pleasantly surprised to find that the flash still works and, thanks to histograms and LCD previews, it's very easy to get great flash exposures -- for a while. The unpleasant surprise comes a month into the shooting, when that flash, indeed any flash, refuses to work on the camera. The problem? A burned-out sync circuit.
lighting_207_hotshoe_200What caused it? Flash trigger voltage that was many times more powerful than the DSLR's circuitry could handle over time. Trigger voltage is stored in a flash's capacitor, and after being put through a step-up transformer, it ignites the xenon gas used in virtually all flash tubes. In many older hot-shoe and studio strobes, that voltage can, unfortunately, ricochet back through the flash foot (or PC terminal) into the camera. The most popular flash unit of all time, the Vivitar 283, for example, used a 20-volt flash trigger -- more than three times the amount some DSLRs were designed to accept.
Does that mean DSLR shooters can't experiment with older studio strobes or hot-shoe flashes? No. Get a Wein Hot Shoe to Hot Shoe Safe Sync ($50, street) to slide between flash and camera, and protect a sync circuit by stepping down trigger voltage to under 6 volts. Best thing? Its built-in PC terminal not only protects the camera's circuitry from studio strobe backfires, it also provides a PC terminal for the many DSLRs today that don't.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3603
Whether the flash for your SLR or DSLR is a built-in popgun or a fully tricked-out flagship, with the right add-ons, you can have more power, creative options, and fun. Here are two new shoe-mount flash accessories, and one old standby...
1 Quantum Turbo Slim Compact Battery
lighting_207_turbosc_200 For lightning-like recycle times and hundreds -- even thousands -- of pops per charge, dump the AAs and power your hot-shoe flash with a high-capacity battery pack such as Sunpak's TR2000 ($250, street) or Lumedyne's HV MicroCycler ($315, street). Cable-connected to high-voltage ports on sophisticated shoe-mount flashes, they're carried from a belt clip or shoulder strap, and are, alas, clumsy. Hence the bulk under the wedding photographer's jacket.
Happily, Quantum Instruments recently reduced the klutz factor with a high-capacity power pack slim enough to slip into a pocket. The 15-ounce Turbo SC stands a bit over 5 inches tall, and, at about 1 inch deep, is less than half the depth of Quantum's smallest Turbo (the Compact), while offering equal capacity (225 full-power pops for shoe mounts). The NiMH-powered SC also has rapid recycle (1.4 sec) and charging times (1.5 hours), and a $450 (street) price tag. Seem expensive? That's the price of elegance.
2 LumiQuest Soft Screen Diffuser
lighting_207_diffuser_200 Cameras with pop-up flashes are usually frozen out of the flash accessory action. With the LumiQuest Soft Screen diffuser, though, they can join in. It easily slips over most pop-up flashes to soften (and reduce) their output... somewhat. It's small, so don't expect the caressingly soft light of a 3-foot beauty dish. Instead, look for less facial sheen, softer shadow edges behind subjects, and better close-up lighting. Also, it can be adapted to accept 3x3-inch color-correcting gels to bring flash output into (or out of) line with background color temps. That alone is worth the $13 (street).
3 Wein Hot Shoe to Hot Shoe Safe Sync
The DSLR shooter who tries using an old, outdated hot-shoe flash may be pleasantly surprised to find that the flash still works and, thanks to histograms and LCD previews, it's very easy to get great flash exposures -- for a while. The unpleasant surprise comes a month into the shooting, when that flash, indeed any flash, refuses to work on the camera. The problem? A burned-out sync circuit.
lighting_207_hotshoe_200What caused it? Flash trigger voltage that was many times more powerful than the DSLR's circuitry could handle over time. Trigger voltage is stored in a flash's capacitor, and after being put through a step-up transformer, it ignites the xenon gas used in virtually all flash tubes. In many older hot-shoe and studio strobes, that voltage can, unfortunately, ricochet back through the flash foot (or PC terminal) into the camera. The most popular flash unit of all time, the Vivitar 283, for example, used a 20-volt flash trigger -- more than three times the amount some DSLRs were designed to accept.
Does that mean DSLR shooters can't experiment with older studio strobes or hot-shoe flashes? No. Get a Wein Hot Shoe to Hot Shoe Safe Sync ($50, street) to slide between flash and camera, and protect a sync circuit by stepping down trigger voltage to under 6 volts. Best thing? Its built-in PC terminal not only protects the camera's circuitry from studio strobe backfires, it also provides a PC terminal for the many DSLRs today that don't.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3603
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