Exciting New Toys

I'm afraid I've gone and done something that may make me less relatable.

For quite a while now, Jess and I have been using the desktop PC that we built for her in college six years ago. Because we built it ourselves, it's a bit of a Frankenstein, with different parts swapped out over the years. Anyway, it's time for a new one.

We wanted something with a more coherent look, so we were thinking about getting a Dell rather than building another PC. Jess was pushing for an iMac, though.

Here's how it broke down. The iMac is super compact, with no tower taking up floor space, and only one cord to plug in. It's also of course very elegant, which is really nice when you're doing artistic or design work--you want your "workspace" to inspire you.

Just weighing price and functionality, though, Macs don't make much sense. They are more expensive than an equivalent PC, while at the same they are less flexible, far more difficult and expensive to repair, and you can't carry components like the monitor forward to future computers. They also seem to be less efficient; compare the system requirements for a video game between a Mac and a PC--the Mac requires twice the horsepower.

In the end, though, I was won over by the elegance and form factor. Jess does a lot of design work, and we both do a lot of photography. We both wanted the work station to be gorgeous and exciting to work at, so we decided the price was worth it.


So we got the bottom-end 24" iMac. The main difference with the more expensive models seems to be the graphics card, which I've learned is not important for design work or photo editing. The most important factor is the amount of RAM, and all the iMacs come with 4GB.

We bought it refurbished, which cut $200 off the price and brought it down to $1299. The refurbished iMac is indistinguishable from the new one, the only drawback is you don't get the beautiful Apple packaging. I hear un-boxing a new Mac is something everyone should experience at least once.

The 24" screen is amazing. If you've used an editor like Photoshop, you know it covers your screen (and often the picture you're trying to work on) with a bunch of palettes. The wide screen is awesome because it affords plenty of room around the photo for all those sidebars.

So now I've estranged myself from my readers because I have a beautiful, fancy new computer that's inspiring to work at, and you're probably back where I was last month, editing on your 14" laptop. But wait, it gets worse.

Jess and I have made due without Photoshop for about four years now, since we started getting serious about photography. As Jess has started to do more design work and photography as well, we've gradually learned more about what we can do in Photoshop and the advantages it has over the GIMP. So... we decided to spring for it.

As you might imagine, I'm feeling mad with power at this point. The universe is pretty much mine to control. Who can stop me now that I wield Photoshop on a brand new iMac?

But have you looked at Photoshop CS4 on Amazon? It's a $700 program! It's an incredible tool, though, and if you know how to use it, it can be almost as crucial to your photography as your $1200 camera. So maybe that puts it more into perspective.

We've also heard people rant and rave about another Adobe program, which works in conjunction with Photoshop, called Adobe Lightroom 2. People will tell you this program revolutionizes photography, and we ended up throwing it in as well. I'm really excited to tell you about Lightroom, though I think it had better wait for another post.


So I feel that I've betrayed you all a bit. Up till now I've been, like many of us, relying on a smattering of free programs for editing, and jumping through hoops to accomplish things that can be done much more smoothly in Adobe's fine tools. Now, I'm sitting on some $2,500 worth of editing hardware and software, which makes more of what I do and share potentially inaccessible. I don't want that to be the case; it always frustrates me when other people share photography lessons with an attitude of "you're interested in photography, so of course you have Photoshop". Hopefully you won't find that here.

The reality is it's a lot to invest for someone still learning, and it makes sense to hold off on it for as long as you reasonably can. But don't let that stop you from taking great photos!

Santa Barbara Fair

Back in April the Santa Barbara Fair was in town. I've seen a lot of cool photos of ferris wheels at night, so I was eager to go give it a try.

My family was also in town so we went and I brought my bag and tripod along. I was worried it would be pretty awkward walking around the fair with my camera bag and tripod, but you see, what I didn't realize, is that while I know that I'm just a floundering amature, no one at the fair knows that. In general people didn't seem to notice me, and if they did they probably just assumed I was super artsy and cool. I had a tripod and a shutter release, how could I not be?


A couple interesting things about shooting fairs at night.

I was happy to find that there's plenty of space around the rides to setup and photograph them. People are either in line, or walking through one of the main walkways, and there ends up being plenty of unused room for you to work in.

I was unhappy to find, though, that the lights on the rides are definitely not the only lights at a fair. The ferris wheel, in fact, was ruined by these big bright light poles surrounding and iluminating it. You couldn't take a shot of the wheel without getting one of those blinding white lights in it.


The photos were looking great on the back of the camera. Back on the computer, though, almost all of the photos were sadly out of focus (you can see this clearly in the first photo). I'm not sure what happened. My first thought was that I used too large of an aperture (f/3.5), resulting in too shallow of a depth of field. I probably should have tried a smaller aperture with a higher ISO to compensate; if nothing else, this would have given me more wiggle room in the focusing. The only problem with this theory, though, is that the above photo was taken at f/3.5 and came out just fine (it was the one exception). So it may have just been me failing to focus the lens properly, which is lame.

Better luck next time, I guess!

HDR Photography

HDR stands for "High Dynamic Range". If you've spent some time looking at landscapes on Flickr, chances are you've come across some HDR photos, whether you realized it or not. Some are pretty overtly HDR, like the work of Stuck in Customs. Others are more subtle, and leave you wondering how on earth they managed to capture such stunning colors.

HDR is a technique which addresses the problem of a camera's limited dynamic range (refer back to this older post for an explanation of dynamic range). In an image with both very dark and very bright areas, the camera can't capture detail in both the dark and bright areas, it has to expose for one or the other.

To create an HDR image, you take multiple exposures of the same scene, each at a different exposure. Then, special HDR software combines the different exposures, pulling detail from each one. Finally, in a process called "tone mapping", the software compresses the dynamic range of the image so that it can be displayed on a screen (Not only do cameras have a limited dynamic range that they can capture, but screens have a limited range that they can display).

I'm still new to HDR, so I'm hesitant to explain in more detail until I understand it better myself. Here are some of my first experiments with the technique, though.

To take these three exposures, I used my camera's auto-bracketing feature to take exposures at -2, 0, and 2 stops. Since I'm just playing around, I made things simple and didn't use a tripod. Instead, I set the camera's drive to multi-shot, or whatever it's called. I framed the shot, then held the shutter release and it quickly fired off my three bracketed exposures before the camera moved too much.




There are two options for creating an HDR image. Photoshop includes an HDR tool, but the more popular program seems to be Photomatix. You can download a free, unlimited trial of Photomatix which places a watermark on your final image. This is perfect for playing around and learning the technique. If I decide later that some of the photos are worth having, I can plop down the $80 for the full version.

Here's the result from combining the above three exposures.


Pretty stunning for so little effort, eh?

The original images are all unedited, straight from the camera. And if you give Photomatix a try, I think you'll find that it's quite easy to use. You launch the program, press "Generate HDR Image", then select the exposures you want to combine. The initial image it shows looks pretty strange because it hasn't been tone mapped. The tone mapping screen gives you a handful of sliders and settings to play with. I think you'll find, though, that the settings aren't too overwhelming. You can reasonably just play around with them until you find what you like.

Stuck in Customs has a popular HDR tutorial at his website. There may be other better-written ones out there, though. I'll share what I find.

Here are some other HDR shots that I tried. This one was in the Alice Keck Park memorial gardens in downtown Santa Barbara (funny tidbit--Alice's last name was 'Park', so it's Alice Keck Park Park).







This is the Santa Barbara mission.





There was a small compositional trick I played in this Mission photo that I was proud of. The Mission actually has this big ugly asphalt parking lot in between it and the grass. By getting really low to the ground, I cut the parking lot out of the picture and added some foreground to the image (the grass).

The HDR technique seems to really exaggerate the dust on the lens in the photo of the mission. I need to look into that, I'm worried some of that dust may be on the camera sensor.

Anyway, I'm interested in learning and experimenting more with HDR, and I'm looking forward to sharing what I find!

Where'd you go?!?

A little bit about what I've been up to, since I've apparently been MIA for quite a while.

Life's been busy, both with deadlines at work and with all the new joys and trials that our little baby has brought. I've been doing less photography, and I had begun to wonder if I might be losing my interest in it. I find, though, that I still jump at any opportunity to take an interesting photo (and whine a whole lot when I feel like I've missed one), so I'm convinced that I still love it as much as ever.

So rest assured that I haven't given up on our favorite hobby, and I'm still committed to sharing what I learn.

Fortunately, I think the subject matter of this blog is such that it doesn't have to be updated constantly for it to be interesting. I think I should have more time in the coming months, though, since we have less going on in the evenings during the summer.

Enough about schedules. Back to photography!

Meeting Another Photographer

On Saturday, I got to talk with another photographer at a small party. He's my friend's sister's husband, and I knew that he was a fellow software engineer, so I'd have something in common to talk with him about. I ended up finding out, though, that he's an avid photographer and has taken some great pictures.

It's rather sad that this is the case, but this was the first time that I have actually had the opportunity to talk with an experienced photographer. He seemed willing to share, so I had fun picking his brain for a good hour. My wife was with me and joined in on the fun.

I thought I'd briefly share some of his pearls of wisdom.

On studying composition and the work of other photographers, he had some interesting insight. He actually advised against spending too much time on Flickr, saying that Flickr will "rot your brain". Why? Because the photographers you like may not really be that good, and you'll end up emulating their mistakes. Instead, he recommended studying the works of master photographers. Maybe that's a little harsh on Flickr, but I imagine you can't go wrong studying the work of really great photographers. By the way, I don't know who any of these legends are. I recognize Ansel Adams and Michael Kenna, and that's really it. Anyway, I'm planning a trip to the library sometime this week to pick up some books--I figure I'll just browse a bit and find someone who's work I like.

He had some interesting things to say about maximizing the dynamic range of your camera. I don't fully understand what he told me yet, but he gave me enough to do my own research. He explained that digital cameras store much more detail in the highlights of the image than the shadows, and that RAW images have more detail in them (they distinguish between more shades), which is lost when converting to JPEG. So he always shoots in RAW, and when he really needs as much dynamic range as he can get (his example was photographing bright, snow-capped mountains in Alaska with dark forests at their feet) he plays a trick where he over-exposes the image by a stop and brings it back down when he processes it. Once I've understood this better, I'll post about it again with some links to articles and what not.

It was great talking to him, and I think it's motivated me more to get out and meet some other photographers. Maybe I'll try joining a photography club eventually here.

Spring Time

With my finger broken, and work and life feeling really busy, I haven't been going on any serious photo outings. I've mostly just been doing some photography reading, and looking forward to the day when I have the time and energy to plan out a fun shoot.

I have managed to snap a few pictures here and there, though.

A couple weeks ago, I went out at lunch for a walk along the bluffs in Isla Vista near UCSB. I brought my camera knowing that the conditions probably wouldn't be too great--I was out in the harsh midday sun, and it was a pretty hazy day--but it had been so long since I had photographed anything that I decided to go out anyway.


A couple thoughts on this shot. First, I worked way too hard for this composition. What you don't see in this photo is that in between that fence and the path is actually a four-foot-thick wall of bushes and shrubs. I was literally standing in a bush, holding branches out of the way to get this.

Something I'm learning, and this isn't a very profound insight, is that if you're uncomfortable when you're framing the shot, it's a lot harder to compose it well. One part of your brain is saying "I dunno... I'm not sure this composition is really doing it for me. I should keep looking," while the other part's saying "Just press the shutter release, dammit! I can't take anymore of this bent knee, twisted torso position, with one hand holding back a branch and the other trying to keep the camera steady." The second voice usually gets louder and eventually wins out.

I was thinking a tripod might be a partial solution to this, since it would allow me to take a break without losing the framing I was considering. It would slow things down, though, to be adjusting the tripod all the time.

I'm hoping the other solution is to simply get better at composition with practice, and be able to find a good one before my patience wears out.

The other point to make is that this photo really demonstrates why sunrise and sunset are much better times for these kinds of photos. The harsh light on the flowers and leaves really doesn't do the scene justice.

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I'm proud to say that the front of our little house is surrounded by a white picket fence, with rose bushes planted all around. My wife puts a ton of effort into pruning the bushes back throughout the year, but when spring finally comes, the bushes explode.


It's fun to watch people walk down the street and stop to smell them, then keep walking only to turn back and smell them some more.


A little technical tip I used on this second photo--on the front of your SLR near the base of the lens is a "Depth-of-field Preview" button. On our Canon 20D it's unlabeled, it's just a button near the lens base. Check your manual if you can't find it. This button stops down your aperture to the actual aperture you've set in your exposure settings. You'll notice when you do this the image gets darker, but more of the photo will be in focus.

Normally when you look through your viewfinder the lens is at maximum aperture in order to let in as much light as possible for you to see the image. This means that the image you see through the view finder is not exactly what you'll get, and depending on your aperture setting the viewfinder will usually have less in focus than the actual image you capture.

I don't hear this camera feature mentioned much, so it may be that professional photographers don't consider it that valuable. You're probably just expected to have a feel for the depth of field you're going to get at each aperture.

In this case, however, I took advantage of it to get the right level of blur on those palm trees in the background. At maximum aperture, they were so blurry they were indiscernible. At too small of an aperture, though, the background would have become more in-focus than I wanted and it would have distracted from the flower.

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My finger's pretty much healed now, and life seems to finally be slowing down a bit, so hopefully I'll be getting out for some more serious photography soon!

Other Blogs For Learning Photography

It occurred to me recently that I would really enjoy reading some other blogs similar to my own. Specifically, blogs that go into detail about the process of creating the images.

So, I did a quick Google search for "learning photography blog", and after perusing the results and subsequently following some more links, I've found a few that I think I really like.

Art Wolfe's Blog

It only took a handful of posts for me to fall in love with this blog. According to his site, Art Wolfe is an experienced professional photographer with over 30 years of experience photographing "wildlife, landscapes, and native cultures". Take a look at the photos on his homepage. Wow.

It looks like he's hosted a number of photography television shows, and is currently doing a high-def one called "Travels to the Edge" that sounds like it'd be fun to watch.

A lot of his posts include nice videos. In this one, he provides a video explaining how he took one of his favorite photographs, and what he was thinking as he took it. He even shows you the "failed" exposures that lead up to his favorite one.

This post provides a quick but very cool Photoshop tip. I'd love to see more of these!


Digital Photography School

This site is a little overwhelming when you first visit it, but it becomes much more manageable if you simply view it by subscribing to it with an RSS reader (I use Google Reader).

It looks like a lot of the posts are actually articles submitted by different photographers. I found this one about taking outdoor portraits pretty informative.


I added a few more to my reader and I'll share them with you later if they turn out to be good reads.

The above two blogs are great because they provide great insight and advice from experienced photographers, but it would also be fun to read about someone's experiences more at my skill level. I imagine I'd feel a stronger sense of community with a photographer as equally amateur as myself. I'll have to keep looking!