13. November 2008 by Gene.

Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro is the most exciting Photoshop plugin I’ve used in a long time.  I first heard about it on the Image Doctors Nikonians podcast and later looked up some reviews via Google. Although I’d become relatively proficient at doing my own B&W conversions and enhancements using straight Photoshop CS3, I decided to download the fifteen-day trial version of the software to see what it could do that I couldn’t already do myself.

It blew me away. Sure, what it does you can do in Photoshop if you have enough skill and enough time, but you’d have to be very skilled indeed to match the results. Not to mention having a lot of time on your hands. With Silver Efex Pro things that could take hours of laborious work in Photoshop happen with a single click.

Single click? The magic here is the fantastic set of presets the plugin provides. The presets on the left side of the plugin take a colour image and present it in a variety of ready-made templates that are very familiar to someone with a B&W film background: Neutral, Underexposure EV-1, Overexposure EV+1, High Structure, Pull Process N -1, Push Process N +1 (+2, +3), High Contrast Red Filter (and Orange, Yellow, Green), Dark Sepia, Soft Sepia, Ambrotype, Cyanotype, Tin Type, Infrared Film Normal (and Soft), and some fun ones such as Soft Skin, Wet Rocks, Darken Contrast Vignette, Antique Plate I & II, Holga and Pinhole.

Whew. And that’s just the left hand side. On the right are things like simulated B&W film types such as Panatomic X, Pan F, ACROS 100, Delta 100, Plus X, FP4, HP5, Tri-X, TMax 3200, to name just some of them. These create a tonal response and grain structure similar to the films.

On the right as well are the tools of the plugin. You can create any kind of B&W look you want with these tools — in fact all the presets are simply templates made from the tools. You can add your own styles to the mix if you like, and increase or decrease any of the preset effects, from vignetting and toning to grain structure and contrast.  The plugin contains Nik’s well-known Control Point for making local changes in brightness and contrast, the same as in its Nikon Capture NX2 product.

I use the plugin from within Photoshop CS3. I first bring in an image and do any cropping and adjusting I would do for a colour image, such as straightening a horizon, then call up the plugin. The part that makes Silver Efex Pro so creative is that while I go in thinking in terms of how I might want an image to look in B&W, working through the presets gives me the chance to view the image in ways that hadn’t occured to me. The surprise factor is part of what makes the plugin fun to use.

One part of the plugin that I really like using is the vignetting tool. Giving B&W images artistic B&W corners and edges can be a pain in Photoshop. It’s hard to create any vignettes that are irregular. Silver Efex Pro makes it easy. It offers circular or rectangular vignetting, or a setting in between, and you have full control over the amount, intensity, and amount of transition in the vignettes. Of course you can do white vignettes too, for high-key effects. There is a separate tool that allows you to work on any of the four edges of an image for extra control.

Once I’ve created a B&W look for the image I like, I click OK and the plugin chugs through its processing and puts the results on a new Photoshop layer. Oh my. That can lead to all kinds of fun, which I’ll discuss more next time.

Everything has to have a downside though, right? The Yin-Yangy thing? Silver Efex Pro has one big downside: cost. This lovely product will set you back $200 USD.

Because of the price (I’m not a professional making a living from my photography) I tried to resist buying Silver Efex Pro when my trial expired, but I couldn’t do it. I’d come to love the results too much. Now when I’m out shooting, I look for scenes that I know will be stunning after a session in the plugin. Like the first snowclouds of the season over the Port Credit harbour, rendered with the high-contrast orange filter, then tweaked in Photoshop.

Next time I’ll discuss how I combine images produced with Silver Efex Pro with the underlying colour layer beneath in experimental ways.

Posted in Photography | 3 Comments »

21. October 2008 by Gene.

As you know from my previous posting I am one of Flickr’s dissatisfied customers. Their homepage redesign has left many of us howling. It’s not change we abhor, it’s incompetent change. The Flickr changes were not merely cosmetic (and cluttered), they decreased the usability of the site by screwing up the way most of us checked on comments on our photos, and comments we left on the photos of others.

I was nearly ready to pull the plug on Fickr, which caused me pain because I have many friends and contacts there. But the new interface made me not want to be there.

Then, TA DA! Open-source programming to the rescue. A clever programmer and photographer, Steffen J, wrote a Greasemonkey hack that restored Flickr to the way we we wanted to use it:

If you’re a Flickr member and want this functionality, there are three things you must do:

1. Use Firefox

2. Install Greasemonkey

3. Install Steffen’s Greasemonkey script:

The instructions are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/steffenj/2951364296/

Posted in Photography | 5 Comments »

19. October 2008 by Gene.

It’s sad when web-based entities, especially the ones you like, betray you so fundamentally that you can never recover the warm feeling you might once have had for them. The two most flagrant examples of this recently are Facebook and Flickr.

In both cases these F-sites forced a new homepage interface on their members. In both cases they first offered a preview of the coming new design and supposedly were open to feedback. And in both cases, from what I can judge reading the comments, the majority of members hated the new design. This appeared not to have been the kind of feedback that the F-sites wanted or paid any attention to.

Not all members of course. Some liked the new design, or said they’d got used to it, but however you cut it, loyal users have been subjected to one of the worst sins a website can commit: forcing regulars to change how they use the site, with no recourse and no option to bring back the old look or use it as an alternative.

Facebook always baffled me anyway. A lot of it never made sense but I learned how to quickly get to what I wanted to see and I wasn’t forced to look at all the stuff that held no interest for me. After the ‘Facelift’ nothing made sense. And a whole bunch of stuff that didn’t interest me was all over my home page. Perhaps it could be customized away, I don’t know, because I made a decision to leave. I had some acquaintances I really like on Facebook, but no close friends so it was easy for me to pull the plug and lose a time-sucking site in the bargain. I deactivated my account.

The Flickr change bothered me far more. In fact, the Flickr change incensed me. The overwhelming consensus of the comments I’ve read — and I’ve read many — is that the new homepage sucks. And there’s no customizing it to work like the old page. The biggest source of grief was the decision made by someone to combine comments on your photos with the comments you made on the photos of others. Previously these were two independent functions.

Flickr did add a lot of filter options that you can tweak to regain somewhat the previous functionality, but it’s not a toggle. You have to select a bunch of things each time you want to do look at comments one way or the other.

The homepage, like that of Facebook, is now cluttered. The net result, as I said on Flickr, is that it makes me no longer want to visit the site. And I was a seriously active Flickr user — posting frequently on groups (some of which I created), adding photos almost daily, and commenting on those of my friends and contacts almost daily. I loved the exchange and sense of community.

So, what do I do? Acquiesce? Accept the new interface and simply get over it? Indeed that’s what Flickr management counts on — your friends are there, your photos are there, a large part of your Internet social dynamic is there. You won’t leave. They count on it. They’ve got you by the proverbials. I don’t want to leave my friends and contacts, but damned if I’ll just acquiesce.

Not that Flickr is going to care, but my decision, for now, is that I will participate far less frequently. I will post the occasional photo, but I’ve just taken out a Smugmug account and will post most of my new work there, with a link to Smugmug on each of my occasional Flickr postings. I will comment very little on the work of others because following the comment stream has become too painful. And I will no longer reward Flickr financially. I intend to delete most of my Flickr photos, move them to Smugmug, then revert to a free account, rather than the paid Pro account I currently have.

This is what a badly designed, forced new interface can do to a loyal user. How do these interfaces come about? We will never know for sure. There are some expensive and persuasive industry consultants who are skilled at convincing the brass that unless their site now has x, y, and z Web 2.0 features (which they can help with), they will fall hopeless behind and will lose membership. I suspect there is some of that going on. Have you noticed how much the new interfaces of the social networks have started to resemble one another? I think it’s more than coincidence at work.

Another possible scenario that pains me to think about, at least at Flickr, is sheer design incompetence. I’ve read that the lead programmers and founders of the site have moved on. Perhaps their former juniors are now in charge and have been itching for a long time to put their stamp on things. Except, if this is what happened, they don’t fully understand the original vision or how the site should work.

Whatever the reason, we’ll never know. One thing is certain though. I will hit on them for this change at every opportunity and to any ear willing to listen. It will have no effect on them, but it will make me feel better. I hate corporate stupidity and I’ll go down fighting and resisting it to the best of my ability. I refuse to reward them with sheep-like acquiescence.

Posted in Technology, Photography | 5 Comments »

7. October 2008 by Gene.

I enjoy technology as much as the next techie, but there are times when it can conspire against all known logic.

Last week my Palm TX decided to call it quits, just after its warranty expired. These things happen so I wasn’t too upset. I suspected the problem was nothing more than a dead battery. I’ll get a new one from eBay or an online battery store, I thought, until I read up on what replacing the battery entailed.

The TX battery is soldered onto the TX system board. I could get a replacement battery from eBay for $15, but I’m not very good with small objects and I was nervous about the task of taking the TX apart. But soldering on top of it? I’m an absolute klutz with a soldering iron. When I was a boy scout I attempted to put together a small shortwave receiver from a kit. When I plugged it in, it spit, sparked, and splatted before imploding. The smell of charred, melted resistors and capacitors permeated my bedroom for days. I’ve experienced soldering-iron avoidance ever since.

Okay, says I, I’ll maybe send it to Palm and let them fix it. A little research showed that they would indeed fix it, for $150. Hmmm, that’s halfway to the price of one of the new ultracompact portables running Linux or XP. It didn’t seem like a winning strategy.

Keeping my equanimity very nicely, I decided to relegate the TX to my ‘history’ bin, and start using the Dell Axim X50v I used before I had the TX. It had much better battery life, the battery was user replaceable from the outside, and it had some nice features, such as Word and Excel built in. I wasn’t as fond of the ThinkOutside Stowaway BlueTooth portable keyboard though, mainly because it only has three rows of typing keys. To type numbers and symbols requires holding a blue or  green function key down first.

I’d used it before and assumed I could get used to it again so I charged the unit, reconnected the Windows cradle and attempted to install the  required driver for the keyboard. Every time I tried to install it, the keyboard control program would install but the critical driver itself would not. The error message said try again, so I did, about a dozen times, with no joy.

Because the unit had lost all its loaded software when the battery died from non-use, I thought maybe I’d applied an upgrade patch at some point. I roamed the Dell site and found two upgrades I duly installed. Then experienced another half dozen failed attempts to install the keyboard driver.

ThinkOutside, the company that made the Stowaway keyboard had in the intervening time been bought by another company, and that company no longer lists either ThinkOutside products or support. No knowledgebase to tap into. The keyboard has been orphaned.

At this point I actually thought about purchasing one of those nifty ultracompacts, like the Acer Aspire One, but I already have a 2-lb Neo that is fine for writing. Its only drawback, which is shared by ultracompacts, is that toting it around requires either a shoulder bag or backpack. In order to keep my photo walks light on weight, I prefer using a PDA with keyboard that will slip easily into a belt pack.

Unwilling to admit defeat, I dug deeper into my history bin, where I pitch bits of electronics and other things I can’t quite bear to throw away. There in the drawer was my old Palm IIIc with original Palm Portable Keyboard. The cradle was there too. I looked in my software archive CD folder and found the keyboard driver. I even had a copy of Palm Desktop 4.1, the version that always worked flawlessly with the IIIc.

Okay, I knew I was retrogressing but I needed a portable writing machine and didn’t want to buy a new one if I could get by with an old one. Besides, I recalled the Palm IIIc as not being all that bad.

I deleted the more recent Palm Desktop that came with the TX and installed the old 4.1. No problem. Then I installed the keyboard driver. No problem. It went right into the Palm Desktop which said it would stuff it into the Palm IIIc next time I synchronized.

The IIIc was finally charged and ready to go so I pushed it onto its cradle and looked for the serial port on my Dell portable. Right. No serial port. Old technology I guess. I looked at my Dell desktop. No serial port there either — just a honeycomb of USB ports. That rang a bell, so I went back to the history bin and found it: a USB-to-Serial converter. By gum, the driver for this was in my CD archives.

It worked. Everything sync’d and I had a working Palm IIIc with folding keyboard. Looking through my software archives I found the PalmOS text editor I once bought, called QED. Then I found the  registration key. It registered and I had an excellent little editor ready to use.

I grabbed a copy of eReader for the Palm and downloaded a few interesting eBook titles from ManyBooks.net — a great site for reformatted Gutenberg Project texts. I was feeling grumpy so I downloaded some H.L. Mencken.

Yesterday I used the combo for the first time and at first I thought I wasn’t going to be able to see the screen. To call it as dim as George Bush might be an understatement. Then I remembered to set the default font to bold. Voila! Suddenly I could see it as well as I see my Neo. And the keyboard? Mon ami, le keyboard, c’est douce. It’s the best full-size keyboard of any folding keyboard I’ve used. I’d forgot how fine it was.

The adventure of getting a PDA with keyboard working for me again generated enough tension and swearing for one week, I thought. I wasn’t prepared for the boomerang headed my way from HP.

We bought one of those little HP PhotoSmart inkjet printers. A wireless one that connects to my wireless router and can be parked anywhere in the house. Nice little unit. I installed the HP software on my Dell Portable. It seemed sluggish but not bad — providing a kind of photo kiosk experience. Useful, I thought, for those times I don’t want to do serious editing before generating a print.

When I rebooted my laptop it took so long to boot up and connect I thought my wireless connection had failed. I rebooted again before waiting more patiently. Eventually it connected and I was back on the net. Neat. I tested the printer using the HP software and got a nice 4×6 colour print.

Then I tried Photoshop CS3. I have Photoshop set so that in addition to RAW files, ACR opens jpegs as well. I find it a nice front end for making basic editing adjustments before the image goes to Photoshop for fine tuning. Every time I was done with ACR and clicked Open, Photoshop would hang. Totally unresponsive to clicks or profanity. Crikey. I live in Photoshop — this was seriously discomforting.

I next tried Photoshop Elements 6 so I could edit an image and send it to the new printer. Same thing. When it went from ACR to Elements, it hung as utterly as Tom Dooley. I suspected the HP software. The time-honoured First Rule of Troubleshooting says “what was the last thing that was changed? Look there first.”

I opened the HP software again and saw it was now sucking copies of all the images from my hard disk into its internal database. Without my asking it to. Well shit. Last night I deinstalled all the HP software. As soon as it was gone and I rebooted, both versions of Photoshop worked again. Nice work, HP.

Today I re-installed the print driver only, despite the installation software’s insistence that I needed the other packages to get the most from it.  I rebooted and the startup times were normal again. Best of all, Photoshop worked.

It could have been worse. Instead of XP I could have been using VISTA.

Posted in Technology, Writing | 2 Comments »

26. September 2008 by Gene.

No stranger to film, I’ve continued to use film cameras alongside my digital cameras for several years. Since 2002, specifically, when I purchased a Canon G2 digicam — a purchase that changed my views of photography as profoundly as Galileo’s telescope altered mankind’s view of the heavens. There has never been as fundamental shift in the technology of photography since the invention of the craft. Even so, I didn’t entirely abandon the old ways.

Digital, for all its convenience and WOW! factor, has some drawbacks. Its ability to record images with a large dynamic range is limited compared to C-41 films, and not even close to the range B&W film can capture. Until very recently even DSLR’s suffered from excessive noise at higher ISO settings. This is still a serious problem for small-sensor digicams. Films have a grain structure that gets more pronounced in higher-ISO films, but grain is aesthetically prettier than digital noise.

These are known facts endlessly debated on Internet forums so I’ll not pursue them here except to say I love digital photography despite its costs and its problems. And I continued to love film, despite its inefficiencies, lack of convenience, and the often annoying physicalness of the medium. But my love of film has been waning.

The main factor pulling me back from film is my health. Cardiac problems have left me with less stamina and energy. This, in turn, limits the amount of time I have to devote to photography if I want to balance out photography with my other interests.

Less time to spend means more of that time gets spent on digital. There’s a big difference between going for a photo walk, coming home and transferring the results directly into my computer than in coming home and popping a roll or two of film into a drawer until I have time to develop it, scan it, or take it to a store to be developed and scanned, then getting it into my computer.

Another factor drawing me away from film is that since 2002 digital cameras have improved dramatically, with great improvements still to come. When faced with choosing a B&W or colour film for my Nikon F3HP, then deciding which ISO film is best for the day, or simply grabbing my Nikon D300 that can shoot colour and B&W, automatically set a good white balance and even automatically change ISO values based on ambient lighting, there’s not much incentive to take the F3HP.

When I do take the F3HP it’s simply because I enjoy using classic film camera bodies. I grew up with them, love their heft and feel, and enjoy their comfortable old-school aesthetic. The shots I get with B&W film can, at times, be better than the B&W’s I can get with digital. But not better 100% of the time and not better by a quantum leap. Increasingly B&W film is only marginally better than digital B&W and is often inferior.

Part of the reason for this is the improved sensor technology in today’s digital SLR’s. My D300 at ISO 1600 is smoother, with better resolution, than any ISO 1600 film I’ve tried. There is no 35mm ISO 400 film I’ve tried that produces images as clean as the ISO 400 images from my D300, and my D300 is not even state of the art when it comes to sensors.

Another key factor is that six years of Photoshop experience and learning have taught me how to make very good B&W images. Good enough to please me at least, and I’m the one paying my bills.

You can no doubt see where this is headed. The bottom line is that I’ve now shifted to digital for 90% or more of my picture taking. My film cameras have become little more than nostalgia toys to play with the odd time I want a change of pace from digital.

So with a considerable amount of psychic pain I’ve decided to sell most of my film gear, including my wonderful Bessa R3A rangefinder and lenses. As much as I admire them, they no longer serve a meaningful purpose in my work.

I won’t, however, sell all of it. I’ll probably keep my Nikon EM, Nikon FM2n, and a set of lightweight E series prime lenses. And a Minolta Autocord TLR. I started photography with a TLR and want to keep one around to use occasionally to revisit my roots. Hopefully the rest of my gear will go to younger, or at least fitter, photographers who will enjoy it as much as I once did.

Phew! I’m glad to have finally got that off my chest. Now I’ll grab one of my digital cameras and head out for a pleasant photo walk. See ya later!

Posted in Technology, Photography | 13 Comments »

10. September 2008 by Gene.

Simplicity.  An alluring concept — easy to grasp, easy to understand, yet as difficult to achieve as your ideal waist size, an undeviating heart-friendly diet, or world peace. If Thoreau thought simplicity difficult to achieve in the 19th century when he took to the woods in a log cabin at Walden Pond, how can any of us achieve simplicity while being bombarded by one hundred trillion cell phone emissions per minute? Besides, after two years of chopping wood, snorting nature, and filling several notebooks with philosophical scrivenings, Thoreau chucked it and moved back to town.

When I was young, with a mind as pliable as potter’s clay, I thought Thoreau was onto something. Doesn’t everyone wish life were a little simpler? Simple as in less complex, not simple as in the mindedness of the Republican election platform.

Take photography for instance. Why do enthusiastic photographers acquire so much gear? The other day I went on a photo walk with just my Canon S3 IS digicam, a lightweight point-and-shoot with a lens range equivalent to 36-432mm — what is sometimes referred to as a superzoom model, as opposed to all the other models which the manufacturers assure us are all super, at least until they are replaced by newer, superer ones.

In addition to its zoom versatility, the S3 has good macro capabilities, and a surprisingly good movie mode that, I must confess, I usually forget is there. I’ll not be providing competition to Michael Moore any time soon. The S3 is a comfortable camera, so I ask myself why do I bother with bulkier, heavier SLR and DSLR cameras with their various lenses when I could shoot 90% or more of my images with the S3?

The lure of this logic, with its overtones of monogamous virtue, has caused me, twice, to sell off DSLR cameras in a quest for simplicity. I essentially divorced two nice DSLRs: a Canon 300D Digital Rebel and then a Pentax *istD2. My newly-resolved relationship with a single, worthy P&S digicam lasted for perhaps six months, but in the end it was doomed to failure because while the lure of simplicity pulls me one way, I must confess to a problem that pulls me in another: lust for lenses. For me the online KEH used camera and lens store in Atlanta is a camera porn site to which I may be as addicted as David Duchovny is to the human variety.

Not only do I fancy lenses, I often fancy the older ones, as perhaps befits my age. I won’t state my age, but if you guessed 63 you’d be exactly close.

So, we come to the nub of it: lust leads to complexity. You acquire lenses, then you need a new body. Soon you have so many lenses it’s no longer possible to maintain a discrete relationship with each one. Your lens drawer becomes a sultan’s harem of complexity.

Perhaps Sarah Palin would counsel abstinence, but when you’re already pregnant with an expanding lens collection, it’s a little late, though I agree it would be morally reprehensible to suddenly abort. If I’d had lens education early enough I might have taken precautions, but as it is I’m a fallen photographer.

So, at last I face the varnished truth: I am a photographer with lens issues. For me simplicity is no more attainable than is a profound appreciation and understanding of punctuated equilibrium by George W. We all have our limitations.

Thus, after a lifetime of longing for simplicity, I bid adieu to Henry David Thoreau and his clever Walden memes. There is more than one kind of addiction, and an addiction to the idea of simplicity leads not to the promised land, but to the sorrow of yet another unobtainable dream (YAUD, in geek terminology). Besides, my cell phone is chirping, and I have to take this call.

Posted in Humour, Philosophy, Photography | 5 Comments »

17. August 2008 by Gene.

There’s nothing like a bypass operation to put some perspective into your life. You taste mortality and realize the fragility of being alive. With it comes an appreciation of life and all living things. As I’ve recuperated over the summer, I’ve enjoyed the outdoors as never before. In addition it’s been an extraordinary summer.

Record amounts of rainfall have kept lawns green and blossoms in bloom longer than normal. By August our lawns are usually scorched and the late-blooming summer flowers pose against a dry backbround. Not this year. Everything is verdant.

I started the summer with very short walks that taxed the limit of my endurance. As my strength increased, I began carrying extremely lightweight cameras, gradually working up to the Nikon D40 that I bought especially for the rehab period. The length of my walks increased and as I developed more strength I bought a bicycle to add variety to my exercise regimen and to increase the radius of my travels. Both the D40 and the bicycle were great additions and I’ve developed a relatively safe method of packing the D40 into a padded bag that fits on the rack over the back wheel. With this I’ve been able to get shots of new places like the lakeshore view in front of the Adamson Estate and the mouth of the harbour where the Mississauga Sailing Club is located.

One side effect of my recovery surprised me a little. I find I have less interest in owning several types of camera than I did previously. My new impulse is to simplify and thin my gear collection. As a result I sold my Hasselblad kit — probably the nicest bit of gear I’ve ever owned, but gear I wasn’t using much. I used the proceeds to upgrade my Nikon D200 to a Nikon D300. I wasn’t able to carry around a heavy DSLR like the Nikon D300 until recently. Now it’s my main camera for walks on most days. I like using different lenses with it, mainly older Nikon AIS lenses that I also use on my Nikon film bodies. I particularly like using my Nikkor AF 24mm f/2.8 on the D300, as in this photo of early morning sunshine and haze outside our front door.

But most of all, I’m enjoying the summer itself — its sunny days and rainy days, hot days and cool days. And all the creatures, including humankind, enjoying the summer’s bounty.

I’m not a religious person, but I remain in awe of the evolution of life on this planet and I’m thankful to be a conscious being able to appreciate its beauty. A planet that can produce beings who can contemplate, and magnificent birds like ospreys to inspire those beings, is a very special place, and this summer has been a special chapter in its long story.

Posted in Philosophy, Health & Wellness, Photography | 8 Comments »

5. August 2008 by Gene.

Over on RFF (www.rangefinderforum.com) one of the perennial threads on film vs. digital has started up again. This one is titled “Why film?”. RFF is one of the bastions of film photography, which I like because I like film, but it also tends to have an anti-digital edge at times. Of course with the advent of two digital rangefinder cameras, the Epson R-D1 and the Leica M8, it’s a little more difficult for the film faithful there to take the high ground. And to be fair, an increasing number of RFF members admit to using both film and digital not to mention a few who have gone completely to digital. Nonetheless, anti-digital feeling still runs high among many of its members, though perhaps not as high as on the amazingly Luddite, and inaccurately named, APUG forum.

One comment in the “Why film” thread caught my eye: “Why I prefer film is because ‘digital’ looks plastic to me. Not perfect or precise just ‘all spruced up’”. Plastic? I’ve seen this objection to digital imaging made over and over by film evangelists and I’ve yet to figure out what it’s supposed to mean. It’s also obvious to me that it was a deprecating comment made at some time by one person somewhere and that it has been picked up an parroted by film’s true believers in the way that erroneous objections to evolution are parroted by right-wing fundamentalist Christians.

What is meant by “plastic”? “All spruced up”? What in the world does this mean and how is a digital image any more “spruced up” than a Kodachrome slide? Does it mean that the colours are vibrant? Say like Kodachrome or Velvia? Does it mean that the rendering of the subject is very smooth, in the way of medium format film or 4×5? If by “plastic” it’s meant that digital images don’t look like grainy 35mm images, then I can perhaps see the connection, but I’m not certain that “plastic” is an accurate description.

As I’ve said many times, I use film and digital and enjoy both formats. I agree that they look a little different and that they’re in some ways distinct artistic media, but I cannot agree that digital images are, as often described by film fanatics, “plastic” or “soulless” — another description often parroted by the faithful. I’ve seen too many superb, soulful digital images to think soul can only be defined by a spool of plastic base coated with a suspension of light sensitive emulsion.

It’s time to get past this immature and irrational digital bashing. Film is good, even though its market share is dropping out of sight. Digital is good, and will get even better. Practical photographers will use whichever medium helps them achieve the results they want and whatever makes them excited about the wonders of photography. Film. Digital. Take your pick. Or pick both.

In the end, what matters most are the images, not which mechanical, chemical, or electronic process was used to take them. So pick up your favourite camera, favourite lens(es), favourite recording medium and get out there and take some soulful photos!

Posted in Photography | 10 Comments »

28. July 2008 by Gene.

When I visited the library last Friday to pick up a novel, I had in mind genre fiction such as sci-fi or mystery. Or the closely aligned forensic detective fiction. I’d just finished reading Cormack McCarthy’s The Road, which was bleak, spare, and powerful and Asimov and Silverberg’s collaboration Nightfall, a novelized version of Isaac Asimov’s classic short story that I found interesting but that contained some rather bad writing and a weak plot.

I noticed a prominent display called Raves & Faves that contained multiple copies of some readers’ favourites. Intrigued, I browsed the shelf and was surprised at the mix of material, newer and older. Among the offerings was Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. As I looked at it, I decided I was finally ready to read it. I’ve been reading and watching darker things lately, like the often gory novels involving forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan, by Kathy Reichs, Season Six of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and Season One of Dexter. Not to mention a couple of decades of murder and crime fiction.

But of course In Cold Blood is not fiction, though it employs fictional techniques. It details the 1959 slaying of Herbert Clutter, a wealthy farmer from Holcomb, Kansas; his wife, and two children. The killers, Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Smith, were arrested not long after the murders, and Capote ultimately spent six years working on the book. It is considered the originator of the non-fiction novel and the forerunner of the New Journalism movement.¹

I’ve felt antipathy for this work since it was first released in 1965. At the time I was an undergraduate at Arizona State University, young, callow, naive. I was appalled by the subject matter and thought it disgusting that it should become a best seller. Worse, Capote became a frequent guest on late-night talk shows and I disliked him instantly. Flamboyantly homosexual and acerbic, he seemed full of venom and despite. Worse, he seemed so full of himself — not simply egoistic, but egomaniacal. I resolved that although I held what seemed a minority opinion about the work, I would never read In Cold Blood.

Of course that was foolish. To judge a person’s literary work by the person’s personality and a shallow understanding of the subject matter is downright irrational, not to mention immature. Mea culpa. Thank goodness we grow up.

As soon as I started reading In Cold Blood I was scarcely able to put it down. It is really well written, although a bit dated in style. Capote brings the stark Kansas landscape to life, and gets you into the head of the townspeople, the victims, and the two parole violators who committed the murders. Employing the techniques of fiction, Capote gives the work a story arc, a fleshing out of character, and a dark ambiguity that withholds judgement, although it is obvious from the writing that Capote abhorred capital punishment. Both of the accused were eventually hanged.

When I finished the work, I looked up some criticism to see what had been said about it. Undoubtedly Capote, along with Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe, changed journalism with their creative nonfiction styles. It’s been pointed out that they’re not the first to employ novelistic techniques in nonfiction, but they certainly moulded it and popularized it.

One part of the story I didn’t know is that when Capote went to Kansas to research the story, he brought along Harper Lee, soon to become famous for To Kill a Mockingbird, as a kind of research assistant. They had been friends since childhood. It was Harper Lee, evidently, who broke down barriers to communication with the locals who were highly suspicious of Capote himself.

Something that nagged me throughout the reading, though, was that I had no way of knowing if Capote was always accurate in the things he wrote. Evidently he never took notes while interviewing people, bragging on TV that he had a superb memory that allowed him to remember 95% of what people told him. There are no footnotes in the work, or end notes. Some of the locals depicted in the work have gone on record to say that they’d been misquoted, misrepresented, or that certain scenes, like the book’s finale in the graveyard, never actually took place.

Nonetheless, the book rings true. There may be discrepancies and a little fictionalizing, but I could imagine the final scene taking place, even if it didn’t. It was in character. I think creative journalism has tightened up since Capote’s time with more attention to accuracy and more focus on citations but for the first of its kind, the work is remarkable.

I’m glad I read In Cold Blood, and I’m embarrassed that it’s taken me so long to do so. I not only enjoyed the writing, I learned from it. Whatever else Capote was, he was a superb writer.

Posted in Reading | 2 Comments »

24. July 2008 by Gene.

I’ve just had my first week of Nikon D300 photography and so far I like it! I haven’t begun to explore all its features yet, but I’ve had a chance to shoot with it using both manual and auto lenses. So far there haven’t been too many surprises — the D300’s feel is very similar to the D200 I traded for it.

Heft it’s got. Fortunately now that I’m three months past my bypass operation, the heft no longer bothers me. For awhile I could only carry the lightest gear but lately I’ve been bearing up well under heavier loads. Not that I want to get ridiculous about it. The D300 body and up to three not-too-massive lenses is all I’d ever want to carry while walking.

Image quality is lovely. The main reason I upgraded was for the improved sensor in the D300 and I’ve not been disappointed. Images are still highly usable at ISO1600.  This allows me during most of my shooting to use the D300’s auto-iso feature, letting the camera bump up the ISO between 200 and 1600 depending on the amount of available light while I simply concentrate on composition and framing.

But as with all the digital cameras I’ve used, getting good images on bright, contrasty days is tricky. Sensor performance is still more like slide film than C-41 film. Highlights can easily be blown while detail disappears in the shadows. Like most photographers, I’m willing to live with this limitation. There are ways around it of course. Shooting in RAW allows more detail to be extracted while photo editing. HDR (High Dynamic Range) composite exposures can be sandwiched together either from a single image, or from several taken at bracketed exposures. For best results this requires a tripod. I’m not against tripods — I simply don’t use them. Not often anyway. I don’t like carrying the extra weight and an awkward piece of gear.

One aspect of the D300 I hadn’t anticipated is the very large size of its .NEF files (Nikon’s RAW format). They’re huge. Worse, my favourite image browser, Irfanview, chokes on them. I like shooting RAW but have confined most of this week’s shooting to .JPG so I can use my established workflow for now. JPEG quality is very good and by using the D300’s Active D-lighting set to Low, I preserve more shadow detail and have fewer clipped highlights. If I shoot RAW, or elect to shoot RAW+JPG, I’ll need to invest in a larger CF card. Sheesh, and not long ago I thought my 4GB card was a BIG one.

I own a lot of good, older Nikon lenses but I don’t have any fancy modern glass. Not yet anyway. I’m highly pleased to see that, like my D200 before it, the D300 plays well with my older manual-focus AIS Nikkors. The images I’ve taken with them have been very sharp (when I get the focus right). Metering works well with these lenses.

I own two AF primes: a Nikkor AF 24/2.8D and Nikkor AF 50/1.8D. Both are fast focusing and beautifully sharp on the D300. My Tamron AF 28-75/2.8 XR Di makes a good carryaround lens,  and my cheap, but decent AF 70-300G zoom focuses faster than I expected.

The biggest problem I had was trying to figure out how to use LiveView. I read the manual and kept trying to figure it out, but I couldn’t get the view to appear on my LCD screen. I may be a little slow, but in part I blame the manual. It says something to the effect of “now lock up the mirror”. Yes, but how? The photo shows pressing the shutter release. I’d push, halfway, and nothing would happen. It took the better part of an hour and much looking through shooting options that didn’t apply before I finally, in desperation, pushed the shutter button all the way down. Bingo! I can’t say it was intuitively obvious — I’ve never seen LiveView demonstrated. This section of the manual could use a little rewriting.

My biggest challenge all week was finding good times to get out to shoot. It wasn’t my schedule that was the culprit — it was nature’s schedule. We’ve had at least two weeks of highly unsettled weather with frequent rains and thunderstorms both day and night. The rainy periods have been so random it’s been hard to know when to venture forth. Fortunately I only got caught in the rain once. The D300 itself is weather sealed, but my clothing isn’t.

Although I have much yet to learn about this camera, the D300 is all I’d hoped it would be. If only digital could do B&W as well as film, I could see myself switching exclusively to digital, as many other photographers have already done. I can get good B&W’s if the lighting is just right, but B&W film still looks better overall and I find it more consistent. Nonetheless, I’ll conclude with the best B&W shot I took with the D300 this week: a female swan and her cygnet.

Posted in Photography | 2 Comments »