Category: Color

Velvia @ ISO 1600

Posted by Chris Klug – September 3, 2010

So the last two days I’ve been at Photoshop World in Vegas. A number of the classes have been wonderful, but none more so than Jay Maisel’s class this afternoon. Jay was, as you might expect, a bit of a rebel, in that he didn’t discuss process or software but just images. He showed a portfolio of images he’s shot over the last six months, images he says have never been seen by anyone before today. To say they were inspirational would be an understatement. In the portfolio of work he displayed he clearly demonstrated his early training as a painter studying at Yale under Josef Albers (if you don’t know who he is, look here). Over the two hours of the class, Jay paraded image after image, much akin to someone showing off their vacation pics (“the first hour is the same shit I showed in March; the second hour is new shit”). But these images were clearly art, not just snapshots. The composition, the color, the choice of image, all were wonderful. There were images captured in Paris and Rome and, of course, New York. Images of his daughter and of a project he’s putting together related to 9/11.

He would pepper the slide show with quips like ‘you gotta get out and off your ass’ and ‘always take the damn camera with you’ and ‘to hell with everything else but the gesture; if you can capture the gesture it doesn’t matter if the frame is technically imperfect.’

Then, at the very end, he took a couple questions. One of the questions had to do with his brand (‘Nikon, of course, Canon is junk’) and his walk-around lens (“70-300; with high ISO I can use slower lenses on the street and still get high enough shutter speeds.”) Then he talked a little about his workflow. That’s where the quote emerged that inspired the title of this post. He said that he always shoots in ‘Vivid’ mode and sets his sharpness to ‘Extreme.’ I realized what that implied, that he doesn’t shoot RAW! (This at a conference where at least two of the instructors I heard have stated that if you don’t shoot in RAW you’re a fool!) “Anyone who doesn’t set their sharpeness to extreme is wasting their time,” he continued. I then realized that all of the images he’d showed looked full-frame, that he might not crop.

Someone jumped up at that point: “Don’t you shoot RAW?’ they asked. “Well, yeah, I shoot RAW+JPEG but, honestly, I never look at the RAW file.” And then: “NONE OF THE IMAGES YOU’VE SEEN TODAY WENT THROUGH PHOTOSHOP” (upper case letters mine). “I don’t edit images in Photoshop, really.”

So, essentially, what Maisel is doing is shooting an old-school film-like digital-Velvia equivalent workflow (setting at “Vivid” color) at high ISO (800 or 1600). And that’s exactly what the 300+ images he showed today looked like: Vividly-colored street photography with many compressed-perspective telephoto images which isolated their subjects in dim or fading light. He’s still using a ‘light table and slide film’ aesthetic; if the image works out of the camera, it’s a keeper; otherwise, it’s “junk.”

I’m still kinda stunned at his process.

The Danger

Posted by Chris Klug – August 6, 2010

This is not a photograph

The image above is something I was playing around with last night, it is a riff on an image I grabbed the morning I stood outside the Disney. I post it today as a lead-in to the discussion topic. For me, it has strayed beyond photography into something else. Just so you know.

  • I don’t have the ready cash or the reputation to test gear. Nikon doesn’t send me their new DSLR to see what I think . . .
  • Adobe doesn’t run their latest RAW converter by me to see whether I like it better than their last beta version, or care about whether my work flow is better or worse . . .
  • I have applied for Beta test status at smaller software companies, so I can play around and also so that I can write about it . . . the crickets chirping loudly, and it is the only sound I hear in response
  • All I’ve got are my experiences and what I am doing today. What’s on my mind, as it were.
  • So, the issue for me is: what should I write about, long-term?

Paul’s post of the other day about blogging was, I speculate, a riff on a discussion he and I were having off-line about why we write about photography. I had mentioned to him about how, when I write about the art of it (which is really what I care about) I do not generate as much of a response (read: blog hits) as when I veer off into some tech-related issue (read: for example, calculating noise in your sensor).

I am too much of a theater dork not to care about the audience. Ove, Paul, to me, the effort and time required to simply write in my journal about my photographically related thoughts is a lot less than the time required to maintain this blog. So, while I can’t post stuff that isn’t me, the blog isn’t just FOR ME. If it was just FOR me, it would be easier on me to pull it down and be done. I’d still photograph and experiment and shoot; that’s not going to stop. The blog, for me, is a CONVERSATION. And it’s a little staggering that my biggest audience days are when I talk about tech instead of art. That may be simply a function of the internet and why people troll it, but still . . .

I have to say, up front, that the public nature of the blogging changes the contract between journal and magazine, and if I could wave my magic wand, I’d want to discussion here to be about the images (mine as well as others), not about the tech or the lenses or, well, customer service. I wrote the customer service article to be a little funny, to give kudos to Ilford for stepping up, and to tweak Topaz a little for losing a potential customer.

I like to write, don’t get me wrong.

But the image? I didn’t mean for it to be an afterthought. It isn’t an afterthought. For me, it should always be anchored in the image.

So, the danger about letting the conversation stray into a more technical discussion is that I will become lost in the process.

I’d love to hear what you think.

Dawn at Gehry’s Disney Hall

Posted by Chris Klug – July 29, 2010

A few days ago I had set up my tripod late in the evening and embraced the ‘one camera, one lens’ rule I was trying to live by so as to make my life easier. Concentrate on the shots, right? Not the gear, right?

So, two days later, I violate that rule by taking a film 35mm and my 5D, trying to get dawn images on both cameras. I also took a 17-40 zoom and my older 75-300 zoom. I regretted both decisions immediately. Too many choices, four combinations, complicated by one lens having a polarizer and the other not, and the film camera having Pan F (ISO 50) loaded while the 5D’s minimum ISO is 100.

Arrgh! I need to listen to my own advice. I got some nice images, but shoulda just brought the 5D and the 75-300. Wish I had my wife’s 70-200, I must admit, although the 75-300 acquitted itself nicely.

In these situations, where I’m juggling so many location variables (light changing minute by minute, people walking by, tripod needing to be manipulated, etc.) the variety of choices on the camera itself only complicates things. It was so much easier with the Mamiya 645 because all I did was take a shadow reading, take a highlight reading, place tones, change the shutter speed, focus, stop down, flip the mirror up, expose a frame, flip the mirror down, open the aperture, move the tripod, etc. So, the only thing I let the 5D do for me was focus, and then only some of the time.

SIGGRAPH

Posted by Chris Klug – July 26, 2010

Nik Silver Efex

I’m in Los Angeles to attend SIGGRAPH. Today I sat in on two photography lectures. One was given by Nik Software, and I got to play with Viveza II, which is an astounding piece of software. It was the first time I’ve been trained on their suite of tools, here are ways to use their tools that I hadn’t considered. We spent most of the day in Viveza II and Color Efex, and never even touched Silver Efex, my favorite. Among the things I learned in that lecture was:

  • Eliminate Noise first, even before you RAW sharpen, because if you sharpen first all you are doing is sharpening the noise
  • Using their tools as extensions of Photoshop (instead of just plug-ins for Lightroom) multiplicatively increases their power, because you can then leverage the power of Photoshop Smart Objects and Brushes. That alone is a game-changer.

I also got to use the software on a Wacom 21-inch Cintique, which is a seductive piece of hardware. Unfortunately, a $3200 piece of hardware. Beautiful way to work.

Lee Peterson

Then I went to a lecture by Lee Peterson, an expert on lens design and sensor design who works as a consultant to Phase One and Hasselblad. This was an amazing lecture. Among many things, I learned.

  1. Every sensor has ‘prime’ ISOs, ISOs at which the noise is minimized. These primes are mathematically related to each other, such as 160, 320, 640, or 100, 200, 400 (etc). EVERY SENSOR IS DIFFERENT, and you need to test to find out what your sensor’s primes are. He said he had lunch today with representatives from Getty and Corbis, and they both told him that unless the images you submit to them have been captured with your sensor’s primes, they will reject the image out-of-hand. He taught us how to test, and I’ll relate that in another post.
  2. Sensors act as mirrors (while film does not). This means that light will hit the sensor and bounce back around in the lens, reducing contrast and resolution. He showed us images where this was evident. Thus, lenses needed to be re-designed to minimize this problem, which is why a modern wide-angle lens is longer than it used to be at the same f-stop. Which is why Leica builds in software adjustments for every old-design lens in its M9.
  3. If you have a DX crop camera, you should use lenses designed for that crop. Don’t swap DX and FX lenses back and forth. Your resolution will suffer.
  4. JPEGs generated in-camera have embedded in the file a line of data containing the white balance, f-stop, etc. Every camera does this. If you don’t want the data (which is a horizontal line of pixels containing no image data, by the way), shoot RAW instead.
  5. Sensors are notorious for being slightly inaccurate exposure wise (!!!). The sensor in the Nikon 300s can run as much as a stop and a third over exposed. You need to test and see where your meter/sensor is and build-in EV to compensate. Don’t assume your sensor is accurate.
  6. Sensors have color shifts, which can be identified and corrected for. Some bias towards red, some towards blue, etc.
  7. The amplifier for the sensor is in one corner of the frame. If the amplifier is running hot, the frame can ‘bloom’ in that corner. Again, he showed us examples.
  8. Every frame captured by every digital camera has noise. The question is how much.
  9. Foveon sensors were designed backwards, in that the red layer is at the rear of the sensors but older lenses were designed expecting the red layer to be at the front, so you can’t use older lenses on Foveon sensors because you’ll loose vibrancy in the reds.

Great lecture.

Can You Guess where I was today?

Posted by Chris Klug – July 25, 2010

Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles

I’ve wanted to capture this location since I first heard about it. I’m staying at a hotel for five days and I’m going to try to get as many views of this astounding structure as I can over the time.

This image was captured with my 5D and processed in Color Efex. But the majority of the work was done first by adjusting the white balance. There are many astounding things about the building as you walk around it. The surface is curved, of course, so the light plays all sorts of tricks. The image above was captured on the shade side as the sun was setting.

This processing yields a truer tone. The shade side of the building looked much like this.

My trip today was really a scouting trip. I took the 5D and a film camera, and I shot a roll of HP5 as well as a roll of Pan F. My plan is to go back at dawn at least one day, and perhaps at night another day. I have my Mamiya with me, and I’m really going to try and get some good b&w images on film. No color film this trip, all b&w.

When you have a polarizing filter on the camera, and you rotate it, the shadows and reflections run up and down the side of the building. It’s pretty astounding.

The building had many photographers around the outside. One guy had a tripod. I had heard that if you have a tripod and you’re on the property, they will ask you to move across the street. This guy . . .

Was shooting with a tripod, I saw him from across the street. I crossed to say ‘hi’ and swap stories, tips, whatever, figuring he was here for the same reasons (his camera was pointed right at the building). When I approached and said hello he just grunted, continued collapsing his tripod (he had started before I saw me) and crossed back over to the side of the street I had come from. I just was a little shocked, as most photographers I’ve met are nice and friendly people, and I wanted to know about whether he had gotten into any trouble with the tripod on the property. I guess I’ll never know.

I counted at least five Canon L 70-200 zooms on various cameras as I wandered around the building. It really would be an ideal focal length if you are on the same side of the street as the building itself. A couple other photogs (not this guy) came up and asked me if I’d gotten any decent images, we chatted about the contrast ratio of the highlight reflections, most were surprised I was shooting film as well as digital, etc.

Then I came around the side of the building and there had been a wedding inside and the bride and groom were coming out of the building and posing for some shots by their car.

I thought it was odd that they were posing with the driver of the car. Not for all the shots, but for a bunch.

Two of the 70-200 L’s are in this shot, along with some small point-and shoot.

The building is seductive to shoot as you walk around it. Every few feet the composition changes, the reflections change, and the angle of the sun changes, and so you could walk around the building all day long and never see the same light and composition twice.

I honestly don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it. Walking around Sedona has the same effect, but here, because a different composition presents itself every few feet, it’s quite compelling. In places like Sedona, while everywhere you look beauty presents itself, the scale of the place is such that after a few moments, you sort of have to get in the car and move on. Not here.

Compositions like this and lighting conditions like this make this structure exciting and challenging all at the same time. This is the angle the gent with the tripod was shooting just before I wandered by.

Fallen Log

Posted by Chris Klug – July 4, 2010

Metering and Digital

Posted by Chris Klug – July 3, 2010

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this image, but there is a little story as well as a question.

As I was walking along a path in Muir, I saw this catch the light. I had the 5D mounted on the tripod, and for some crazy reason, I didn’t just put the tripod down, undo the camera, take the image, and put the camera back on the tripod. Instead I lifted the whole shebang in my left hand, supported the camera and tripod in that hand, and used my right to focus and shoot. Now, it took me three tries to get the image for a couple reasons. First, holding the assembly in one hand didn’t really give me the steadiest way to get the picture (I’m saying I don’t know why I did it this way, remember?) So the first two attempts were out of focus. But the second thing was the exposure. There is so little actual area of the lit plant that the camera, of course, kept overexposing it. But this image is very sharp (there is a spider web in the upper area between two of the branches, and the strands of the web are tack sharp). I don’t know how I managed that, and I have this image of what I must’ve looked like lifting up the tripod, exposing the frame, lowering the tripod to chimp, etc. I get into a very weird place when I’m shooting some times.

But the second issue is this: unless you know your EVs cold, how would you ever get this exposure correct on film? The only way I got it was to shoot, chimp, look for flashing highlights, adjust, shoot, chimp, etc. But without the ability to preview, you have to just look and make an educated guess and bracket.

BTW, it’s ISO 100, 1/125th, f/4.0. It’s even more amazing to me that at 1/125th I got the sharpness I did.

Muir Family Group

Posted by Chris Klug – July 3, 2010

Redwood Trees have an extensive root network, part of the reason why they grow so tall. It turns out that most Redwood Trees (90%+) do not grow from a single seed, but rather sprout up from the root network of another tree. These groups are called families. This is one such family.

Muir Woods yet again

Posted by Chris Klug – July 3, 2010

Soft Light in Muir

As I look over the images I captured in Muir, I’m leaning towards concluding that without the digital tools at my disposal (specifically HDR) I don’t think I can capture the spirit of the place. The forest is kept pristine by the Rangers (they make you keep to the path, in fact, I was admonished for placing one tripod leg over the fence) and it is truly a holy place. The desert SW is beautiful, and I really enjoyed living there, Sedona especially is haunting to me, but this place. wow. I exposed some rolls of Ektar and Velvia while there, but I just don’t think those images will evoke the same emotions in me when I get them back from the lab. We’ll see.

In terms of SOFOBOMO, I am really tempted to assemble the requisite number of images from this single day shot in Muir and just assemble the thing and call it done. I hadn’t really considered this an option, but now I really might. I just don’t know whether I have 35 images, though.

Muir Woods

Posted by Chris Klug – July 1, 2010

I had first visited Muir Woods north of SF when Peg and I lived there in 2003. MY attempts to capture the magnificence of that place failed utterly, mainly because of the dynamic range of the light (the shadow levels in there are very dark indeed, while the direct sunlight coming down through the redwoods is very bright).

Before I flew back to Pittsburgh yesterday, I spent time in that place and worked on getting some images that might communicate my feelings of awe in that special, holy place. In the next few days, I’ll be posting some of my attempts.