May, 2009 | Photocrati

An Introduction to the North Coast Redwoods, Part I

The coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) of California’s north coast include the tallest trees on Earth, with several examples of individual trees over 370 feet tall and provide amazing photographic and sometimes challenging photographic opportunities. This weekend I’ll be travelling to the California’s north coast (roughly betwen the towns of Trinidad, California and Crescent City, California) to visit the constellation of four parks (Redwood National Park, Prarie Creek Redwoods State Park, Del Norte State Park, and Jedediah Smith State Park) that to my mind represent some of the finest redwoods photography opportunities available. In this article, I hope to give you a taste of those incredible areas and add a few words about the opportunities and challenges they present.

Starting from the south, Redwood National Park is the most natural place to begin our virtual tour, the National Park Service maintains a visitor center there (actually just south of Orick, CA) and in Crescent City which can provide excellent information and maps of both this park and the three state parks as well. A trip along the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway (which runs through Redwood NP and Prairie Creek SP) makes an excellent first introduction to the redwood environment, as the road wanders through enormous columns of tree creating a vast virtual room, carpeted with fern and trillium. The strangely-named Cal-Barrel Road (a quick turn off the parkway) offers an excellent introductory location to start your explorations. (more…)

Quick Update on the NexStar Hard Drive Dock Review

During my initial review of the NexStar Hard Drive Dock I said (and it’s true) that I tested the dock using Windows XP (32-bit) and Vista (64-bit). That’s absolutely the case, but as I’ve used the device I discovered a problem on the Vista system I hadn’t seen in previous testing, (more…)

Hey, photography is legal, how about that!

Anyone who’s ever tried to do some serious photography in public places has had to deal with curious, and on occasion, concerned people interested in what you’re doing. At times some of those interested parties have badges, whether official government badges, or private security badges. Sometimes those badges come with demands that you stop shooting, explain yourself, move on, hand over images, get on the ground, etc. (more…)

How to use Layer Masks and Adjustment Layers in Photoshop

If you are just learning Photoshop or if you have been avoiding using layers and layer masks, you are missing out on one of Photoshop's most powerful tools. This video…

Adobe’s Beta “DNG Profiles” for Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw

Before and After applying the "Camera Landscape" profile for the Canon 1Ds Mark III

Many photographers, myself included, are deeply attracted to the idea of getting great digital darkroom results from a single program. That idea is still a bit of a dream, the capabilities of the various programs out there vary far too greatly. Even when looking at the specific issue of raw camera file conversion, Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom will, by default, produce very different results than in-camera JPEGs or raw images converted by the manufacturer’s software, such as Nikon Capture NX or Canon’s Digital Photo Professional. While Lightroom, and it’s brother Adobe Camera Raw, offer nearly unmatched flexibility in raw conversion, Adobe’s conversions have been tailored towards producing (by default) a different consistent “look” across different camera bodies and different camera manufacturers. While an excellent goal, many photographers prefer the “secret sauce” looks provided by those manufacturers, and wish they could easily create those looks within a more general and more flexible program such as Lightroom.

To directly address this need, late last year Adobe Labs released a second beta of their DNG profiles for Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW. (Despite the name, if you wish to use these new profiles you do not need to use the DNG (Adobe’s Digital NeGative) format yourself. (You will need at least a few DNG images if you with to use Adobe Labs’ associated DNG Profile editor, though, more on that later.) These profiles attempt to match many of the facets of the “look” of a photograph to the look of that image as if it were processed by the camera or the manufacturer’s camera software. (more…)

Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di-II LD SP AF Aspherical [IF] Zoom Review: Field Test Report

Peter Burian tests this new lens with true ultra-wide angle capability when used on a DSLR with an APS-C size sensor

Since the vast majority of digital SLR cameras employ a relatively small sensor, there’s a definite need for very short lenses for an expansive angle of view. Hence, Tamron’s highly-rated 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 Di II zoom has been a best seller among serious photo enthusiasts who appreciate ultra wide angle images. In my tests, that zoom produced beautiful results, but the new 10-24mm model is even better in some respects.

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How to shoot for an art director

… Or other commercial clients

There are many differences between shooting for yourself and shooting for others. Many of these are obvious, many are not. Of course the biggest change is that you’re shooting to please someone other than yourself. This in no way means you should subjugate your vision or visual style to fit the job, after all, it’s your vision and style that got you hired in the first place. But you do need to understand that the images you shoot may have great and varied lives after you’ve delivered them.

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Cairo Report: Zekr, or Soccer?

On my way to Cairo I developed a plan to photograph and document the zekr; a form of ritual performed by Sufis, a sect of Islam frequently considered as too liberal and too progressive by the more orthodox theological authorities in Egypt and the Islamic world. It was a tall order since I was after the authentic zekr, not some version diluted or prettified for the tourists and tour groups. It was therefore by pure luck that I discovered someone with strong connections to one of the Sufi tariqahs or sub-sects, and who promised me full access to a number of these rituals. The devotions of many Sufis center on the zekr, a ceremony at which music, body movements, and chants induce a state of ecstatic trance in the disciples. (more…)

Review: NexStar Hard Drive Dock

NexStar single-bay Hard Drive Dock, with a 3.5" disk inserted

One of the most important aspects of any backup system is having a process, doing something consistently and uniformly enough that it’s easy to make sense of what’s going on, where information is, and so on. My backup process, while complete, has been a little ad hoc at times, and so as part of a move to simplify and organize my backup strategies I’m moving to keeping most of my backups on bare “internal” hard disks. While there are several ways of hooking bare drives externally to systems, recently I’ve become aware of a couple products that allow hard disks to be used almost like video game cartridges, plug in the drive, and go. Excited by the fact that this would simplify working with bare drives, I recently purchased the Vantec NexStar NST-D100SU 2.5-Inch/3.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 and eSATA Hard Drive Dock (White) and wanted to share my initial impressions and experiences with the product, which I’ll be calling “the Dock”, with apologies to my Apple readers.

The Dock connects your internal disk drive using either a USB or eSATA connection. NexStar provides not only USB and eSATA connectors but also a desktop bracket and cable that hooks to an internal SATA connector and provides an eSATA connector, as well as the obligatory power cables (each are actually labeled on the cable noting which type of cable it is, not entirely necessary but a nice touch for those of us who occasionally seem to generate cable nests). A simple instruction book is provided as well as a driver mini-CD/installation guide, while drivers are provided on the disk the disk should only be necessary for users of Windows 98/SE, or MacOS 8.6 or earlier, Windows ME/2K/XP/Vista, MacOS 9 (or later) and Linux 2.4.18 (or later) users should be able to plug and play according to their documentation. I tested the unit on an XP-based laptop via USB, and on a 64-bit Windows Vista system using eSATA. Vantec also makes a Vantec NexStar NST-D200SU 2.5-Inch/3.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0/eSATA Dual Bay Hard Drive Dock (White) version of the Dock but I haven’t tested that myself. (more…)

A few words about postcard marketing

postcard_4x6_front — A simple show annoucement postcard

I’ve got a show coming up soon (a two-person show, I’ll be showing a new set of dune abstracts), so for the last week or so I’ve been spending a fair amount of time on marketing the show. I’ve sent out an email to my on-line mailing list, updated my web site and my Facebook fan page, and so on. It would be just so easy to stick with electronic marketing, but I think in this case that would be a mistake. Even in this modern age, there’s a place for the postcard.

Designing a simple postcard isn’t that difficult if you have moderate graphic design and Photoshop skills. For announcements of photographic exhibitions, the front of the card should contain one or two eye-catching images and your name, it should also suggest that the card is about an exhibition and not waste ink on a whole lot more. Save most of the time/place details for the back, the more “real estate” on a small card you give to your own work, the more it will attract the notice of your customers. What goes on the back of your card– which is heavily constrained by US postal regulations– all of the major postcard vendors provide templates so you know what areas you need to leave blank, and so on. (more…)