alt-digital

Landscapes with the Sigma 24-70mm zoom and A900

2010-06-02T20:32:00.002+01:00

Manipulated in Photoshop CS5.

Mixing carbon inks in the UK

2010-03-26T16:48:00.000Z

It has transpired that the Kodak Photo Flo wetting agent used in the Paul Roark Eboni ink sets that I use is not the same in the UK as that supplied in the US where Paul Roark is based. In the US it is Photo-Flo 200 while in the UK and Europe it is Photo-Flo 600. These products have different concentrations of surfactants. I have been using the UK version in my inksets when with no adverse effects. However, I now have a supply of the US version for comparison.

Printing monochrome using Roark's Eboni-6 inkset from Lightroom

2009-12-20T14:57:00.005Z

I have been using Paul Roark's Eboni-6 inkset in my Epson 2100/2200 printer and printing from Bowhaus Open Printmaker using profiles made by myself in IJC. It is a pain to have to transfer a file from Lightroom to a TIFF or PSD file and then go through another package to get the print - I am also finding that Bowhaus cannot handle big TIFF files from my Sony A900. Surprisingly I found that a print sent straight from Lightroom to the printer (via the Epson driver) worked reasonably well and even better when 'linearised' using an ICC profile created from Create-ICC-RGB.exe from the Quadtone RIP website.

Here are some examples of graphed Lab readings from the pre- and post- ICC versions of a 21 step wedge printed using Lightroom. I used a Spyder3print spectrophotometer to measure the patches. The inks I have mixed myself are as follows:

K 100% Eboni black
LK 18% Eboni
C 30% Eboni
M 18% Eboni
LC 9% Eboni
LM 6% Eboni
Y 2% Eboni

These inks can be mixed yourself with a bottle of Eboni from MIS or they can be purchased ready mixed. A pint bottle of Eboni will last a long time and is extremely cost-effective. Note that this inkset only works on matte papers.

I use an ink base using the following mixture (based on the open source formula used by Paul Roark):

Glycerol 225ml
Purified water 500ml
Kodak Photoflo 80ml

Example 1 - Papermill Direct Soft Textured Art paper (similar to Innova Soft textured Natural White):

Lab (luminance) values are shown on the y-axis and expected black density on the x-axis.

Example 2 - Papermill Matte Photo (similar to Epson Enhanced Matte):

In both cases the blue curved line represents the straight print from Lightroom with a Gamma of 2.2 set in the Epson printer driver. The pink line represents the same after an ICC profile has been created using Roy Harrington's Create-ICC-RGB program. I have superimposed a black straight line from paper white to DMax so the ideal can be seen. In both cases the ICC version is much closer to a linear black to white print than the non-ICC version. Other papers work as well. For instance, Papermill Direct Smooth Cotton High White is almost perfect without the ICC profile apart from slightly blocked up shadows which the ICC profile fixes.

All that is required to create the profiles is a text file of lab values which are simply dragged onto the icon of the Create-ICC-RGB.exe file. The programme then creates the profile which can be installed into the Windows system by right clicking it (on Windows XP systems). In Lightroom's printing module the profile is selected before printing and the same Gamma 2.2 setting left in the printer driver.

More studio lighting shots

2009-12-08T12:37:00.001Z

A couple more studio lighting shots using a different setup with a hairlight to the back and camera right.

Taken with Sony A900, Tamron 90mm lens and processed in Lightroom 3 Beta.

Experimenting with studio lighting

2009-11-15T15:48:00.004Z

I recently acquired a set of studio strobes - the Elinchrom D-Lite 4 kit. This contains two 400Ws heads, 2 stands, and 2 softboxes. I also added a snoot and grid, and a white translucent umbrella, plus some reflectors and background materials.

It is amazing what a difference it can make to a portrait. I have been mainly using window lighting for portraits, which has its own charm and look. But the control allowed by studio strobes is something else entirely. It's also great not to have to rely on the English weather to take photos.

Some of my first samples (all processed in Lightroom 3 Beta and taken with a Sony A900 and Minolta 70-210mm ' Beercan' lens).

This is one light with translucent umbrella at 45 degrees (to camera left) and a reflector on the right:

A softbox high and in front of the model, a reflector under the models face and a hairlight behind the model and to the right of the camera:

Some examples with Rembrandt lighting (a softbox high and to 45 degrees of the model on the camera's left and a reflector on the other side of the camera):

Finally the same setup, but with a softbox placed behind the model to camera right to highlight the other side of the face:

Monochrome inkjet printing: The carbon on cotton principle

2009-10-21T16:00:00.000+01:00

Printing monochrome images with inkjet printers has always been problematic. Mainly this is because mixing colour inks commonly found in inkjet printers rarely produces neutral monotone images. Prints made with colour ink often have ugly colour casts that are hard to get rid of or that exhibit severe metamerism (i.e. they look different under different lighting conditions). Also as colour inks fade at different rates these prints often exhibit unacceptable shifts in tone over time. The human eye is very susceptible to subtle changes in near neutral print tones.

However, recent developments in inkjet printing technology have begun to overcome some of the problems. For example, Epson's Advanced Black and White (ABW) system allows several different shades of grey inks to be used to produce nice black and white prints with varying tones. Prior to this a dedicated band of printers converted their Epson printers to accept monochrome inksets based on highly stable carbon pigments and printed on fine art papers that were supposed to be of archival quality. Carbon pigments are known to outlast most colour pigments by a wide margin.

Problems still remain with systems such as the Epson ABW system though. It has been shown that the Epson driver incorporates coloured inks to varying degrees in the ABW prints. For example, yellow, which is notorious for fading can clearly be seen in enlarged print scans (see, for example, http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/R1800-Lightfastness.pdf). Thus we don't really know how long these prints will look acceptable. A further problem is that longevity ratings for printer and paper combinations (such as those published by Wilhelm Imaging Research) are based on a 35% fade test which is a hangover from the days of traditional colour photography. In other words lightfastness ratings are based on a fade margin that many black and white darkroom workers would find unacceptable. According to Jon Cone (originator of the Piezography monochrome inksets) the human eye can perceive a 5% deterioration in density and therefore this is the figure he uses in his lightfastness tests. A good discussion of this can be found in a post by Jon Cone here.

Paul Roark (who designs monochromatic inksets for MIS Associates and has been a long time pioneer of monochrome inkjet printing techniques) argues that the best way to be sure we have the best archivally stable black and white inkjet prints is to use the 'carbon on cotton' principle. He has designed an inkset that is based purely on several dilutions of carbon pigment (known as Eboni-6) and he prints mainly on cotton based rag papers (which are known to museums to be the most stable and durable paper media that exist). These papers such as Arches Hot Press are reknowned for their archival stability.

So how does one go about it? I recently mixed my own carbon-based inkset for my old Epson 2100 printer based on Paul Roark's formulae. It was surprisingly easy to do and the chemistry required is readily available. I ordered a large bottle of the Eboni black ink from the USA which will last a long time and is used to create the various shades of grey ink. These were injected into a set of refillable cartridges (from Marrutt in the UK). By using a black and white RIP such as Bowhaus Inkjet Control or the inexpensive Quadtone RIP it is fairly straightforward to profile various papers to produce nice images (although a densitometer or spectrophotometer is recommended, but you can use a scanner). It is also incredibly cheap to mix your own inks.

Useful links:
http://www.paulroark.com/
http://www.inkjetmall.com/
http://www.inksupply.com/
http://www.marrutt.com/ (UK)
http://www.bowhaus.com/
http://www.quadtonerip.com/

Digital black and white group
Piezography group

The 'Beercan' and the Sony A900

2009-10-10T21:21:00.000+01:00

After reading a lot about the old line of Minolta autofocus lenses I decided to pick up a 'Beercan'. This is a 70-210mm f4 lens that was introduced in 1985. It has a great reputation as being a solid, sharp lens with nice bokeh. They are pretty cheap too. I gave it a try this afternoon in low light and high ISO on the Sony A900. I am pretty impressed with it (and the camera so far). The lens is big and heavy (hence the nickname, I presume).

This shot is with the A900 set at ISO 1600 with the beercan at f4.5 and 75mm. Shot cRAW with no noise reduction, just Lightroom for the conversion:

Bigger versions are here.

Some shots with the Sony A900 and 50mm f1.4 lens

2009-10-04T16:16:00.001+01:00

First shots with the 50m lens and a Cokin close up filter. All cRAW files edited in Lightroom 2.5.

Sony Alpha A900

2009-09-29T16:47:00.004+01:00

I have succumbed and decided to sell my Mamiya 7ii and lenses to fund this 24 megapixel monster of a DSLR. It has just arrived and the battery is now charging.

I have 2 lenses on the way: 28mm and 50mm Sony primes. This is the camera with an old Minolta 35-70mm F4 zoom that I had lying around.

A bit of colour from the G1

2009-09-24T14:37:00.002+01:00

A shot from Tinos (Greece).

Street photography with the G10

2009-09-22T16:36:00.005+01:00

I used to like the Ricoh GR Digital for street shooting. it was so small and compact no-one ever noticed it and it was easy to take stealth shots like this one:

I gave up digital for a while and went with a Leica M6. Leicas being classic street cameras. Even though the Leica is small it is much more noticeable than a Ricoh GRD and I never got the same level of keepers out of it.

Recently I decided to go back to using a small digital. I pondered getting another Ricoh, but felt like a change. I wanted to try an LX3, but they were hard to get hold of. In the end I acquired a Canon G10 and have had some success with it so far. The zoom which I thought I wouldn't use all that much proved to be pretty useful for candid shots.

Here are some examples:

Shot for the day with the Panasonic G1 and 14-45mm kit lens

2009-09-19T11:43:00.005+01:00

Taken with the kit lens and processed in Lightroom.

Picture for the the day with the Panasonic G1

2009-09-18T20:51:00.002+01:00

Taken with the G1 and 45-200mm Lumix kit lens. Processed in Lightroom.

Macro shot with the Canon G10

2009-09-17T11:06:00.002+01:00

For a change a macro shot with the Canon G10. Processed in Lightroom.

A picture for the day with the Panasonic G1

2009-09-16T10:34:00.000+01:00

Taken on the Island of Tinos (Greece) in a village called Ktikados. G1 with 14-45mm zoom. Processed in Lightroom.

A picture for the day with the Panasonic G1

2009-09-15T09:07:00.000+01:00

This was taken with the G1 and 45-200 kit zoom. Processing in Lightroom.

Creating a nice photo website with Lightroom and The Turning Gate

2009-09-14T14:03:00.000+01:00

I have just set up a website using tools within Lightroom 2. These are available from The Turning Gate and comprise two separate plug-ins: TTG pages and TTG Highslide Gallery Pro (both available at low cost).

TTG Pages allows you to create a website (a home page, gallery index, about and contact page). TTG Highslide Gallery Pro allows you to set up galleries of pictures that are automatically referenced by the gallery index page created by TTG Pages and with similar styles.

So after you have set up the site with Pages all you have to do is upload a new gallery from Lightroom using the Gallery Pro plugin and a new gallery automatically appears complete with index on your website.

My first attempt at this is here.

TTG Highslide Gallery Pro also allows e-commerce to be implemented via Paypal and other agencies if you want to sell prints.

My Review of the MIS UT7 monochrome inkset from inksupply.com

2009-09-08T12:43:00.002+01:00

Inksupply.com

UT7 inkset in Epson 2100/2200

Pros: Nice pure carbon prints, Great smooth gradation, Excellent blacks

Cons: Sepia toner not archival

Best Uses: Monochrome prints on matte paper

I print using an Epson 2100 (2200 in the US) using refillable carts and the UT7 inks on matte papers (mainly Innova at present). I think the UT-3D might have been a better choice as I believe that the sepia toner is not as stable as the carbon pigments (3D does not have the sepia). I have found that prints can be made quite warm without the sepia (warm enough anyway). I use Bowhaus OPM/IJC to turn off the sepia toner. The prints do look better (smoother) to me than those made with Epson ultrachrome inks in a similar workflow.

45-200mm Lumix lens

2009-09-05T19:58:00.002+01:00

Just got the 45-200mm Lumix G lens to accompany the 14-45mm on the Panasonic G1. It is looking like a decent performer so far.

Nikon legacy lenses on the G1

2009-08-31T17:53:00.004+01:00

Did a quick test (not very scientific I admit, but I was curious).

I tried the 14-45mm Lumix kit lens against the Nikkor 35mm f2 (which is a great performer on 35mm and is one of my favourite lenses) and the 28mm E series which has a pretty poor reputation. All shots were taken at ISO 200 with focus on the face using the focus zoom function with the Nikons. I gave them identical RAW processing in Lightroom with some very minor adjustments to exposure to get the histogram to the edge:

G1 with kit lens at 25mm (f4.9):

The Nikon 35mm at f4:

The Nikon 28mm at f4 (had to back off a little due to minimum focus):

Crops of the head:

Kit lens:

Nikon 35mm:

Nikon 28mm:

To me there is not much in it although you can see the obvious advantages of the Nikons in terms of wider apertures - these were at f4 to get close to the kit lens, but you have a couple of extra stops to open up with the primes. The 35mm looks like it will make a nice portrait lens on the G1.

You can see bigger versions here:
http://altdigital.zenfolio.com/p82197203

Panasonic G1

2009-08-23T18:12:00.005+01:00

I got one of these last month with the kit lens. I also got a Nikon adapter so I can use my collection of Nikon lenses. For example (50mm Nikon E series):

I am quite impressed with the camera so far. The kit lens is actually very good. It is light, but not pocketable with the kit lens.

I am waiting for the Olympus 17mm pancake to become available in the UK (then it will be jacket pocketable I think). With the pancake lenses I think it will be a good substitute for a digital rangefinder, but there seem to be delays getting these lenses out. I thought about getting the EP-1, but I am glad that I got the G1.

I have found the EVF to be better than I was expecting (especially with the zoom focus aid) and having the articulated screen as well is nice sometimes.

Here are some shots with it (processed in Lightroom):

ISO 100 kit lens:

ISO 200 kit lens:

ISO 200 kit lens:

This is with the Nikon 50mm E at ISO 100:

At ISO 1600 it is still pretty good (kit lens - no noise reduction):

More images are here:
http://altdigital.zenfolio.com/p82197203

Back out of the darkroom

2009-08-22T16:17:00.004+01:00

Having spent the last two years without doing much digital, I have come back to it and hope to revive this blog after it has been dormant for a long time.

Although I have come back to digital due mainly to time constraints - at the moment I just don't have the time I used to have to play so much in the dark. I think there is a lot to be said for traditional analogue photography and I have learned a tremendous amount about photography in general by printing using an enlarger.

I will continue to use my darkroom - especially for lith printing which can't really be done digitally anyway - but I have now acquired a couple of new digital cameras: a Canon G10 and a Panasonic G1. I have retrieved my 2 digital printers from storage - my Epson 7800 and an Epson 2100 that I am fitting with MIS monochrome carbon inks.

Helping a friend choose a camera - Part 4

2007-06-28T17:03:00.000+01:00

My friend now hovers between the Canon 350D and 400D:

"Been alternatively working and researching on the net following your latest e-mail! This http://www.cameralabs.com/ in particular has been an excellent reference. These are my latest thoughts (which aren't that surprising, but the emphasis may have changed...)

1. To buy a EOS 400D for either £388 (body only) or for £449 (with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6II)

2. To buy the EOS 350 with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6II for £350

I'm increasingly swayed by option two in the sense that this will get my a v. good 'budget' camera with 'average' lens at a v. good price. The 400D has the 10 megapixels, but as you mention, the extra megapixels are not really relevant unless you want to do some seriously large prints etc. The other key disadvantage that has consistently come up about the 350 is that is has a measly sized viewfinder...is that something to discourage?

The question - possible the penultimate one is could you give a few (budget) examples of lenses you think would be worth considering investing in. You broadly - usefully - mentioned a few areas in the last e-mail without naming names.

A: PORTRAIT LENSES

B: PRIME LENSES

C: ???"

ps: in an earlier exchange, you mentioned investing in books... which book(s) would you recommend be useful?

My reply:

If the 350D fits the bill then I wouldn't worry about the viewfinder. The main thing is to get started with a body and build up a good collection of canon lenses. You can upgrade the body later and still use the lenses you invest in now. My Nikon D100 had a 'measly' viewfinder as well, but it wasn't that bad. They are just smaller than conventional 35mm SLRs (because the digital sensor is smaller than the traditional 35mm film frame). If you are worried about it go to Jessops and just ask to have a look.

One problem with the 18-55 is that it has a small minimum aperture (f3.5). You could invest in a prime lens or two to go along with it that could be used in low light situations or for shallow focus/depth of field. The canon 50mm/f1.8 is only about £70 and is pretty good (I use one). On the 350D it would actually be the equivalent of about 80mm on a normal SLR (because the sensor is smaller you have to multiply the standard focal length by 1.6 to get the equivalent on the 350D). I use the Tamron 90mm macro as a portrait lens (but my sensor is the same size as normal film - so-called 'full frame'). That Tamron would be equivalent to about 140mm on the 350D (not so useful for portraits for some).

Thus the 50mm/1.8 would make an excellent portrait lens (with it wide open you could be a reasonable distance from the sitter and blur the background).

You could also get a set of extension tubes to do macro photography (Kenko do them for about £100). I use these myself sometimes with the 50mm and with a Lensbaby (but that's another story).

If you want a more 'normal' prime lens you could go for a 28mm or 35mm prime. The 35/f2 is £175 and the 28/f2.5 is £130. You will get better results with primes than with the zoom in terms of sharpness. It's just a question of what you get for the money. A prime can be built to better specifications than a zoom at the same price because the optics are more complex in a zoom and have more work to do.

I would hold off getting anything wider than 28mm until you have played around with the 18mm end of the zoom. See if you like wide angle stuff. Some people do and some don't.

Another option would be to go for a longer zoom to complement the 18-55. There is a 55-200 for £124 but I wouldn't bank on excellent quality at this price. You really have to spend the money to get quality in zooms.

Another nice lens is the canon 60mm macro which you could use for close-up work and portraits. Not available new any more (cost about 300 I think). The new 60mm macro EFS costs £255. EFS lenses cannot be used on full frame cameras so if in future you decided to go full frame you couldn't use this lens.

There's an EF 50mm macro though for £175 (don't know anything about it).

This is already getting complicated again...

As to books there are loads, but it depends on the software you use. Photoshop or Lightroom books are useful. There are also 2 common ways of shooting digital: jpeg and raw. Start off with jpeg as it is easier and quicker, but then experiment with raw mode. The camera comes with a raw image editor. Believe me it makes a huge difference in quality over jpeg and allows you to correct mistakes pretty easily. Raw files are bigger, but they contain all the information that was collected by the camera when the shot was taken rather than the processed version (jpeg).

Books not about software depend on what your subject matter is going to be.

Helping a friend choose a camera - Part 3

2007-05-11T16:32:00.001+01:00

The saga continued with my friend wondering about the differences between a 350D and 400D:

"As ever, thanks for this information - very helpful. As a quick response, I think given your suggestions, that a CANON camera would be the forward.

"I've read up a bit - and have been sold for the past few weeks on the idea of the 400D... Canon EOS-400D 18-55 Kit for £449 offered by warehouseexpress seems the most competitive. If I went for just the body then (£388)... what lens would you suggest thinking about? The plan would probably be to invest in an additional lense around Christmas, money permitting.

"Having said that, do you think that, all things considered, that the 350D would be the way forward, given the price? Is the money saved worth getting the 350D over the 400D in your opinion??"

My reply:

400 or 350D:

It depends on how big you would like to print. With a 6MP camera I used to get very good A4 size and OK A3 size prints. But it depends also on subject matter. For example I blew up a portrait of my daughter to 24" by 36" and it was great. That was taken with a Nikon D100 (a now relatively obsolete 6MP camera). However, if you like landscapes or nature photography detail is often more important and this would not be possible. You would start to see the cracks in the sensor technology at A3 size.

The newer 8MP cameras can more easily do A3 or Super A3 size (13" by 19") - and you can get printers of this size - for everyday subject matter. The 10MP 400D will give you a bit more. If you don't want to make prints bigger than super A3 then the 350D would probably be adequate. Of course the 400D is a better camera, but you would probably not notice the difference at these sizes. In this case it might be better to use the money saved to invest in other equipment. I have the near 13MP canon 5D and it can do 16X20" no problem.

How are you going to print the results? This is key to the decision.

In terms of lenses it depends on what you are going to use the camera for.

The 18-55mm zoom that comes with these cameras is an average all round lens for everyday shooting. Might be OK for a while, but the sensor is probably a lot better than the lens. A good lens makes a huge difference to the quality of the results especially if you print reasonably large (bigger than A4). If you like portraits you should invest in a portrait lens (longer focal length). Landscapes wide angles are often best. When I got the canon 5D I couldn't afford a 'good' lens so I just bought a cheap 50mm (£70). The Canon prime lenses (i.e. non-zoom) are all pretty good (much better than the cheap zooms), but then you lose some of the flexibility a zoom gives. My zoom (the canon 24-105mm L costs £700) but it isn't 'better' than the 50mm prime and it weighs a ton. That portrait I was talking about above was also taken with a cheap 50mm Nikon lens, but these prime lenses are actually excellent value for money.

Difficult isn't it?

Helping a friend choose a camera - Part 2

2007-04-18T16:28:00.000+01:00

Following up my earlier advice, my friend has now decided on a digital SLR:

"Also have managed to get up to £600 to invest in a camera. I believe that this was the camera you recommended: Canon 400D.

Do you think it's worth taking advantage of the packages that they are offering with the camera... or just to wait and save up for an additional lens at a later date?

Any advice - as always - would be well received!"

This is how the advice continued:

You certainly couldn't go wrong with this as a starting kit and at 10 megapixels you could blow up fairly large prints. A cheaper option would be the one below it at 8 megapixels (the canon 350D). You can get the same lens [18-55mm kit lens] with the 350D body for £350 at warehouseexpress.com (they are almost always a lot cheaper than Jessops - the 400D is only £438 without lens from them). That would leave you with £250 for other stuff that you will undoubtedly need or want later (such as a tripod, maybe another lens, filters, printer, memory cards, books etc...) Digital is a big investment and it doesn't stop with the camera.

You can pick up lenses and stuff on ebay and at various photo stores online that sell used goods. I can point you in the right direction. Used from photo stores is best as you get a warranty and you can send stuff back if you don't think it is up to scratch (not so on ebay).

Another DSLR system I would consider at the moment for a beginner on a budget would be to look at Pentax. They have a few nice cameras and the beauty of them is that all the old Pentax K Mount lenses will work with them. So you could build up a collection of good lenses (used/cheap). The Pentax prime lenses are excellent (although manual focus) and can be had very cheaply.

The camera is no slouch either.

The 6 megapixel Pentax K100D is £398 with 18-55 zoom lens.
The 10 megapixel K10D is £600 with the same lens.

It still depends on what you mainly want to do (or want to do in future). I think the best bet is still probably the 350D or 400D. If you get the 350D you get the zoom and camera for £350. Then you can try it out and decide whether you need something else. You will also need to buy a few memory cards (cheap online). Everything else comes with the camera. I also use Canon cameras so it might help later on if there is a problem as they have similar controls and so on.

Stay tuned for part 3.

Garry Winogrand video

2007-03-27T10:15:00.000+01:00

Here is an interesting 10 minute video showing master street photographer Garry Winogrand at work.

http://2point8.whileseated.org/?p=152

He has an interesting style and makes some interesting comments about his work and street photography in general.

More on street photography...

2007-03-14T14:52:00.000Z

Following the recent post on street photography there is a free online issue of JPG magazine dedicated to street photography here.

There were several comments on the Yahoo list on my previous street post (scroll down a little). You can read the thread here.

I have been using analogue rangefinders recently for street photography. Here are a couple of recent shots taken in Aalborg, Denmark (Leica M6, Voigtlander Color Skopar Classic 35mm lens).

Street musician

Delta 400 rated at 400 developed in Prescysol EF.

Lost something?

Neopan 400 rated at 400 developed in Prescysol EF.

These were scanned on a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400. The Delta shot had some Noise Ninja to reduce grain. I am finding that different films produce different levels of grain aliasing. Ilford HP5 and Delta 400 seem to be the worst with my scanner. Neopan 400 is fine as it is.

It is interesting to me that using the Ricoh GR Digital has led me in a round about way back to using film and rangefinders. Ever since I got the GR Digital I just cannot face lugging around the Canon 5D and all those heavy lenses. The Canon is now used more as a studio type camera.

Helping a friend choose a camera

2007-02-13T12:50:00.000Z

A friend of mine asked me recently what camera to buy on a very limited budget. He is thinking of getting into photography. At the moment he has a Minolta SLR and one lens. I found it surprisingly difficult to give him advice seeing as there are so many options available. He also wanted something versatile and something that would not be obsolete very quickly. A tall order these days.

Anyway here is the advice I gave him...

This is a tricky one and there isn't a straightforward answer. I can only give you hints as to different scenarios.

In sum:

You need an all round camera as you want to use it for various things from macro/closeups to portraits and environmental/street etc.

(There isn't a single camera that does all these things well.)

(No digital camera has longevity. They are pretty obsolete within 6 months although digital slrs are a bit better.)

You need something with automatic controls, but that as you get better you can bypass these and be more creative. You need a system that will expand as you do if necessary.

You need something relatively cheap.

You have basically 3 simple options (in order of complexity). The first 2 are digital the last analogue:

1. Buy a digital compact like a Canon or Fuji. Canon are pretty much one of the best value/quality companies in the digital world at the moment or at least no-one can really beat them. Make sure it has a 'macro' facility to do close ups. It would probably be better with a zoom lens - most of them are. Make sure it is optical zoom rather than digital zoom (digital zoom is simply a trick using software, not real and images are degraded). I think these almost always have a built in flash.

You need to decide how big the prints will be and whether you will do the prints yourself. If you want to go large (say bigger than A4) you need at least 6 megapixels (MP). A4 and less and 5-6MP is OK. Most digitals are 6MP + anyhow nowadays.

You can get 8MP compacts but they suffer from other problems such as digital noise and sometimes there is a big trade-off between megapixels and image quality for a given sized print. These 8mp compacts also suffer in low light situations. 6MP is probably a safer bet and it will be cheaper.

2. If you want to grow as a photographer then you probably need a system. This means getting a digital SLR (DSLR), but I don't think this is within your budget. You will almost certainly be looking at second hand.

If you did go this route then 6-10MP is easily possible and the quality is head and shoulders above a compact digital.

I have used both Canon and Nikon systems and both are good. You could start with say a Canon digital rebel and a good zoom (like the Tamron 28-75mm). But I think you would be looking at >£400 (out of your budget).

Maybe something like this:

Canon 350D

But the lenses that come with these kits are usually awful. It's better to get just a (used) body and buy a used Tamron 28-75mm on ebay. The lenses make all the difference. If you have a bad lens it doesn't matter how good the camera is, the shots will never be that great.

The advantage of getting a DSLR is that you are buying into a system of lenses, bodies and software etc. So when you upgrade your body, you keep your lenses, flash and so on and put them on the new upgraded body. So you stick with one manufacturer (Canon/Nikon/Pentax) and invest in good lenses. When the body is obsolete the lenses will still be OK if they were good in the first place. You can also do macro with a special close-up filter costing about £20 or eventually invest in a macro lens (I have a Tamron 90mm macro - excellent but costs around £300).

DSLRs also hold their value a bit better than compacts which sink like a stone.

With option 1 or 2 you also need to buy some memory cards and possibly a card reader.

3. Stick with analogue. You could use your current camera (but bear in mind Minolta have stopped making cameras so it is hard to upgrade) or buy a pretty good used Canon/Nikon/Pentax SLR and a couple of good lenses for much less than £200. You could get say a Nikon F80 and a 50mm Nikon autofocus lens for about £150 tops. I used to have this and it is top quality in terms of output. You could still get a digital SLR later that uses the same lenses.

But then you would probably need a film scanner. You can get an Epson 4490 I think for £130 new. You would still have to process film (DIY or send it to a lab). This scanner is probably OK for A4 size prints. You could upgrade the scanner later.

(At the moment I am shooting B&W film and scanning. I haven't touched my 2 digitals for ages. Quality is on a par or even better. People just think you are strange or Luddite in some way.)

I am assuming that you will get an A4 photo printer (can be picked up pretty cheap - £50-100?) but the ink and paper is expensive. Alternatively you can use those booths at Jessops.

Let me know if any of this makes sense and I will try to elaborate on one or more of the options.

'Reading' Street Photography

2006-12-10T15:56:00.000Z

I run a digital print exchange in Europe (see here). A couple of people send street photographs, but comments are often of the form 'I don't get it', 'not my sort of thing', 'can't comment'. This got me to thinking what is it about street photography that makes it hard to understand or to read? I think it is partly because there is a lot of mediocre street photography out there (as there is in all photographic genres) and people get tired of looking at endless pictures on Flickr type sites of people's backs, pictures of the photographer's friends fooling around, or action that is so far away that one can hardly make out what is going on.

I am no expert on this, but from studying it lately I think there are five basic elements in street photography that considered together help to understand what it is about. These elements are combined in various ways and different photographers emphasise one or more elements over the others. Masters of the genre such as Cartier-Bresson often are adept at all five at once.

The five elements are:

1. Composition: that is the picture is made up of interesting compositional elements that strike the viewer from an aesthetic point of view.

2. Portraiture: the picture contains some interesting face(s) or personalities and would work on the level of a portrait. Sometimes these are candid, sometimes not.

3. Decisive moment: there is something going on in the picture that was captured the moment the shutter was fired. Or there is some kind of story or narrative that can be guessed at from the scene.

4. Documentary: The picture has some documentary quality about it.

5. Engagement: there is some engagement with the photographer. Either there is someone looking at the photographer or someone in the shot has noticed the photographer and this adds to the drama in some way.

The expert street photographer also imposes his or her style over the 5 elements to give the pictures a distinctive look.

Examples from Juan Buhler's Water Molotov site (this is one of my favourite street photographers on the web):

An example of 1, 2 and 3.
An example of 1, 2 and 5.
An example of 1,2 and 4.

Travis Ruse has an excellent set of images taken on the NY subway. These fall mainly in my 1, 2 and 4 category:

An example of 1, 2, 4 and 5.
An example of 1, 2, 3 and 4.
An example of 1 and 4.

John Beeching is an experienced UK street photographer who contributes to the print exchange.

A classic compositional shot.
An example of types 1-4 (and possibly 5).
Type 2, 4 and 5.

Finally, some rather less proficient examples from my own work:

A more compositional shot

A combination of documentary, portrait and engagement

More of a portrait/compositional shot

A portrait and documentary shot

A combination of portraiture, decisive moment and documentary

I tend to favour portraits and candid shots in my street photography.

Those were my thoughts on the matter. Please comment.

Some more references:

http://www.streetphotography.co.uk/
In Public
Wikipedia entry
Photo.net
Streetphoto list

I would also recommend reading Bystander: A History of Street Photography by Westerbeck and Meyerowiitz.

A couple from Stratford

2006-12-10T15:49:00.000Z

Just trying to get back into the swing of things with the Ricoh after a few weeks absence. Here are a couple of street shots from a recent trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon. My 'strike rate' is definitely down.

Street Entertainer

Man with Walking Stick

I have also recently purchased some old classic film rangefinders. A Yashica GS and a Canonet QL19. I am going to compare some film shots from these cameras with the GR Digital. I will post the results on the blog.

Finally got my Ricoh back

2006-11-24T22:13:00.000Z

I got my GR Digital back from Ricoh now after having the sensor cleaned. It is now perfectly fine. So Ricoh can clean up your GR-D of sensor dust in a couple of weeks under warranty. Wonder what happens when the warranty runs out...

Anyway, it's good to have it back and I hope to post more shots with it soon.

New Firmware for the Ricoh GR Digital

2006-11-21T13:47:00.000Z

New firmware is available for the Ricoh GR-D here.

It allows new sizes to be specified in jpeg and raw modes as well as allowing auto-bracketing in 0.3 step increments as well as 0.5.

Also added improved AF speed and macro mode focusing.

My GR-D is still with Ricoh services awaiting sensor cleaning. Hopefully I will get it back soon...

How to Holgarize an image in Photoshop CS

2006-11-04T13:49:00.000Z

Holga and other toy camera images such as those from the Diana have particular characteristics that have created a cult following among some film users. It is also possible to emulate the Holga effect from any digital camera. While it won't be quite the same as using the real thing this technique can sometimes turn a mundane image into something a little more interesting or give a nice sense of coherence to a set of related images.

The main features of these images is a sharp(ish) central focal point which gradually blurs towards the edge of the square frame. There is also significant darkening towards the edges of the image and especially in the corners (vignetting). I recently produced a series of portraits taken using a GR Digital camera which I then holgarized. You can see the series here.

Here is how I produced them using Photoshop:

1. Open the image

2. Select a square crop with the crop tool

3. Convert to monochrome and adjust contrast etc. using whichever method suits you best. I use Convert to Black and White Pro 3.

4. Select a small portion in the centre of the image using the lasso tool. This is going to represent the lens’s sweet spot. Holgas typically have a pretty small area where the image is in focus and the resolution of the lens deteriorates towards the corners of the frame.

5. Select the inverse of this area

6. Now with the feather set to 150-200. Apply some Gaussian blur to taste (I usually use a strength of 2-4).

7. Going back to the lasso tool, make sure the ‘subtract from selection’ box is activated. This is the 3rd button along the lasso tools menu bar.

Then gradually widen the selection by drawing concentric rings around the original ‘sweet spot’ applying more Gaussian blur each time.

And so on…

8. ...until we reach the edges of the frame. I usually do about 3 blurs before I reach the edge. Now we can add the classic vignette characteristic of the Holga using levels as shown.

9. Now deselect and we are ready to apply a tone to the image if desired.

10. I apply toning curves from Paul Butzi’s website, but there are several ways you can accomplish this. You can read about and download these curves here.

And that’s it.

Dirty sensor. The saga continues.

2006-11-03T11:03:00.000Z

I received my GR Digital back from Ricoh yesterday. Unfortunately not only did they fail to clean up the dust, they actually made it far worse:

I called them in Germany where the technical team seems to be based and was told that they had not cleaned the sensor after all, but had replaced the menu buttons. There was nothing wrong with the menu buttons. It seems that while they were replacing the menu buttons they accidentally smudged the sensor making it more dirty than before.

They now wanted me to send some files showing them what the problem is. So this I have done (including the image above). Hopefully they will sort this out as the camera is now unusable with small apertures. I find on bright days that I need the small apertures to prevent blowing the highlights.

Dust on my GR-D sensor: Ricoh's response

2006-10-12T11:11:00.000+01:00

I came back from India and the dust spot is still there in exactly the same place. It is not going to dislodge itself. I called Ricoh's technical support and they said that there was no way you could clean the sensor yourself and if you tried it would invalidate your warranty.

However, they are going to fix it for me under warranty repair. I then had to go through a registration procedure on the web and print out a repair note. I am now sending the camera back to be serviced. I will keep you posted. It will be strange to be without the little beast for a while...

Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Fish drying in the sun

Fish seller

Fishing boats

Trip to India

2006-09-30T12:04:00.000+01:00

I am going to take the GR-D on a trip to India next week. We will see if the stubborn dust speck on the sensor gets dislodged during the journey. If it doesn't I am going to call Ricoh and see what they say about it.

One thing I found when I started using the GR Digital is that it opened up a whole new world of possibilities to me. As someone who had moved from an ETRS medium format system, through to MF rangefinders and then ending up with the Canon 5D, the GR-D is a joy to use as it can be taken anywhere and it allows you to shoot things that would actually be impossible with a bigger camera. The quality of the pictures is fine up to about 11x14 and even beyond. Some people are printing huge prints from the GR-D. For example see the discussion here.

Using the GR-D also opened up my eyes to doing other things with a camera than just trying to shoot fantastically sharp photos with no grain. In fact I have hardly used my Canon since. I have also begun to use toy cameras and old vintage folding medium format cameras that can be had off ebay for few dollars. I have started another blog about this experience here. If you are interested in toy cameras and vintage cameras check it out sometime.

These were taken with a plastic $20 modified Holga camera:

Potted Plant

Garden Hose

More dust on the GR-D?

2006-09-23T13:22:00.000+01:00

Image with large dust spot
Originally uploaded by beachedvinyl.

In response to a post I put on Flickr, someone else has a very similar issue to me with their GR-D. It is uncannily similar. It is even in an almost identical place. Click on the image for larger views.

At least this only seems to be a problem at very small apertures, and we all know that small apertures are not usually needed with a camera like this to get huge depth of field. The other thing to note is that beachedvinyl was the only other other person on the Flickr GR-D group to notice the problem. Hence it is either not very noticeable for most people or more likely not a very common problem. So it shouldn't really put people off buying this camera.

Dust on the GR Digital sensor

2006-09-16T11:43:00.000+01:00

As I said in my previous post I have occasionally seen dust specks on my GR-D sensor, but these tend to disappear after a while. I have a much more stubborn spot now which I began to notice on my recent photographs from my trip to Greece. It only shows up really noticeably at small apertures, but is a rather big spot of dirt/oil or whatever.

Here is a photo at f/9 showing the spot in the sky area. There is also a less noticeable, but similar, spot on the right of the one highlighted in the sky just above the houses (near the TV aerial). Click on the photo to go to bigger viewing options via Flickr (click on 'all sizes').

Here is a crop:

While this is easy enough to fix in Photoshop it is still annoying as there is no way to clean the sensor yourself. The camera seems to have rather poor weather sealing. Although thankfully the dust doesn't show up at wider apertures. f/4 if fine, but by f/5.6 you can see it.

Back from Greece with GR Digital

2006-09-02T09:11:00.000+01:00

I took the GR-D to Greece and it performed pretty well in very harsh contrasty conditions. I am now beginning to process the files. One problem that has arisen is that I am getting some dirt on the sensor and there is obviously no way you clean the sensor yourself.

Here are some examples of street photography from the trip (click on the picture for the full view).

Man outside a shop, Tinos Town

Man in Taverna, Tinos Town

Man selling religious wares, Tinos Town

Girl on scooter, Tinos Town

Priest, Pirgos

All these were taken in normal colour mode (jpeg), mostly ISO 64, and processed in Convert to Black and White Pro 3. These and more can be seen here.

Photo for the day and travelling woes

2006-08-12T20:32:00.000+01:00

Footscraper
Originally uploaded by m_r_tomlinson.

This is from a street in Oxford, UK. Taken with the Ricoh GR-D. This is an old Victorian footscraper.

I am off to Greece tomorrow for two weeks. I was going to take the Canon 5D, but do not want to risk sending it in with the main luggage which is all that is allowed after the terrorist scare a couple of days ago. No hand luggage allowed!

I am going to risk sending the GRD through and a 35mm film camera in a separate case. Fingers crossed it will be OK...

Picture for the day

2006-08-07T12:43:00.000+01:00

Boredom
Originally uploaded by m_r_tomlinson.

Taken with the Ricoh GR Digital at the Godiva festival in Coventry last month.

Ricoh's PR department

2006-08-05T13:27:00.000+01:00

One occasionally hears hints of the rather poor PR and marketing of Ricoh cameras and equipment. It is almost as if they don't care. It is certainly true that the GR Digital website has pretty poor images with which to judge the camera from what I recall.

Today the Financial Times 'How to spend it' magazine has a short review of the GR Digital by Jonathan Margolis. The interesting point raised by the reviewer (who loves the camera) were the incredible difficulties put in the way by Ricoh themselves. The reviewer states that Ricoh would not hand over a camera for review (and that this was the first time in twenty years that this has happened to the reviewer).

Apparently the Ricoh British office did everything they could to prevent the reviewer featuring the camera:

Quote: They refused to provide a sample and even had their PR lady make a phone call in which she said that I was "the kind of person who makes [her] life difficult." Asked to intervene, their UK sales manager, a Mr Wingent, backed her up.

Mr Margolis got hold of one anyway. He praises the camera as follows:

It's built for grown ups who love taking great photos
The controls are instinctive to the point of genius
The photos it produces are stunning
Its looks are defiantly understated

He urges readers to buy the camera and concludes: "And do enjoy the fact that your order will inconvenience the bizarre crew at Ricoh UK".

Picture for the day

2006-07-29T15:57:00.000+01:00

Here is an abstract shot I took today with the Ricoh GR Digital.

Details:
Macro mode
Black and white JPEG mode
ISO 64
f5 1/230s
Converted to sepia and contrast adjusted using Convert to Black and White Pro 3

In case you are wondering it is a car headlight.

Firmware update for the Ricoh GR digital now available

2006-07-28T11:23:00.000+01:00

The new firmware update v2.10 is now online for Windows and Mac.

It allows improved customisation of the ADJ button. You can now assign different functions to four ADJ settings among other things.

Cases for the Ricoh GR digital

2006-07-26T10:56:00.000+01:00

I recently started a thread on Flickr about cases for the GR-D. The Ricoh case does not hold the camera with anything else attached and I wanted a case that would hold the camera with viewfinder at least. I noticed some other threads on DPReview also asking the same question. I am summarising the responses and suggestions here.

If you just want a case that holds the camera with spare batteries and cards then the Crumpler John Thursday 80 is fine. I have this one and it is OK. It will not hold the viewfinder or lens attachments, but it fits on a belt and is padded and unobtrusive.

Recommendations from the threads are as follows:

The Crumpler Sporty Guy 1.0 allows the wide conversion lens and the external view finder attached. It is a tight fit.

Someone also suggested the Sporty Guy 1.2 if you need extra room.

The Lowepro Rezo 60 was also suggested. But this person has the Voigtlander viewfinder which I think is a little smaller than the Ricoh. I don't know if it is OK with the Ricoh 'finder.

The Lowepro D-Res 8 was described as a perfect fit for the camera and viewfinder.

The Lowepro Promaster D110 holds the camera and viewfinder.

The Lowepro D-Pods 30 (I don't think this handles the 'finder).

The Lightware P.H.D. pouch was recommended again by someone with a Voigtlander viewfinder.

LINKS:

The threads:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/grdigital/discuss/72157594194360637/
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1013&thread=19276197
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1013&message=18069862
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1013&thread=19277763

Manufacturers:
http://www.lowepro.com/
http://www.lightwareinc.com/

Crumpler have the most useless, unfriendly website on the planet. This link is easier to use:

http://we-sell-crumpler.co.uk/

Converting GR-D files to monochrome

2006-07-21T10:04:00.000+01:00

Is it worth shooting in colour?

Recent discussions about the Ricoh GR Digital have put the question forward as to whether there is anything to be gained from deliberately shooting images in colour and then converting to monochrome, or whether the monochrome mode in the camera does a good enough job by itself.

There may be reasons to shoot in colour in any case. This gives you the best of both worlds. That is you can have both a colour and mono image if you so desire. RAW files also preserve all the colour information so if you have the camera set in monochrome mode, but use the RAW quality setting, you get a 'colour' RAW file and a mono jpeg.

I use the Convert to Black and White Pro 3 Photoshop plugin (CBWPro) to do my conversions. The package also works on the monochrome jpegs the GR-D produces as they are still RGB files. I find it relatively easy to adjust contrast and exposure using the plugin and can tone my images at the same time even if I had the camera in monochrome mode to start with.

One major advantage of shooting colour and converting to black and white is that you have control of the individual RGB channels. So if you have a blue sky in colour this can be selected to produce different effects in monochrome using the channel mixer in Photoshop. For example, selecting the red channel will often make blue sky look dramatic and dark as if a red filter had been applied to the lens in traditional black and white photography. CBWPro also has filter options that are much easier to use than the channel mixer in Photoshop.

I decided to try a few tests using colour files from the GR-D and converting to monochrome using various methods. This is basically a quick and dirty tutorial. Here is an initial file to play with (colour jpeg):

It is a little dark in the foreground due to the very bright sky and the fact that I had some underexposure dialled in to the camera to prevent blowing highlights, but it will suffice for this experiment.

Here is a straight CBWPro conversion using the red filter to darken the blue of the sky:

The sky is still a little weak and undramatic. The easiest thing here is probably to just burn the sky in:

This looks more dramatic. Another way of achieving more drama from the original colour file would be to select the sky and saturate and darken the blues using the Hue/Saturate command. Then use CBWPro with the red filter:

This is better than the first attempt above, but a rather long-winded way of livening up the sky. My preferred solution is to use CBWPro on selected parts of the image. In this way we can apply separate settings to the sky and foreground.

Starting with the sky, select it using a feather of 100 pixels and launch CBWPro. Fix the sky to taste using the negative and paper sliders to darken the sky and the multigrade slider to increase the contrast of the clouds:

Then select the inverse and use different settings to sort out the foreground to taste. There will be a slight band of colour on the edges of the two selections. This is removed with the desaturate command. This is the result:

After a bit of touching up around the edges this will produce the desired image.

So is it necessary to have started from a colour file? I don't believe so. It is relatively straightforward to work on selections using CBWPro - and presumably other conversion tools. CBWPro also works on the monochrome jpegs out of the camera. There may be times when having access to the colours will be useful for making delicate selections, but I find on the whole that it makes little difference.

Here is another example:

The original monochrome jpeg out of the camera is about a stop underexposed...

Again here the image is roughly split into sky and then foreground using the lasso tool and a feather of 100 pixels. The following was achieved using CBWPro in less than one minute:

The sky is made more dramatic and the foreground exposure and contrast is improved in two separate stages.

So quite dramatic adjustments can be made to monochrome files straight out of the GR-D just as easily as using colour files. So if you don't need colour in the first place then there is not always much point in bothering with it. Shooting in monochrome mode gets you the monochrome preview on the LCD so you can get a better idea of what the mono image will look like while you are in the field.

Using Lightroom with GR-D RAW files

2006-07-20T15:57:00.000+01:00

I just downloaded the Windows Beta version of Adobe Lightroom. There have been some complaints about it on various forums, but it is after all only a free beta version.

I thought I would try some tests on a Ricoh RAW file just to see how quick it would be to get a RAW file up to scratch, and also to test the monochrome conversion mode.

I was pleasantly surprised how easy the program was to use after an initial hiatus. Lightroom has quite a strange interface to load files for viewing and editing. You basically have to import folders into a 'library' before you can start. It took a while to get this. The files in the library then show up as a film strip along the bottom of the screen.

Once in the library it is easy to edit RAW files (or any other type of image file). After editing these files can be exported to other formats.

This is an example of a raw file I loaded for the test:

It is underexposed and flat. Lightroom has several photo editing tools which appear as tabs along the right hand side of the image in develop mode. These include basic controls, tone curves, Hue/saturation (HSL), grayscale, split toning, detail and others.

I used the following to improve the image:

Increased exposure 1.33 stops, Blacks +10. This stretched out the histogram (which is always visible at the top of the editing tabs).

I increased the colour temperature to make the wood a more red/warm colour.

I applied a contrast increase using the shadow compression sliders.

In the HSL tab I increased reds and yellows, decreased blue and magenta to warm up the image even more.

Finally sharpenend (50) and denoised (20).

This is the result:

There are also some one-click presets such as cyanotype, antique, and sepia. Here is an example of antique:

The grayscale conversion was also OK. Here is a quick grayscale conversion starting with 'auto' with a little tweaking of the contrast sliders:

The other option that I quite like is the split toning (although this can also be used for simple straight toning). The program has two sliders each for highlights and shadows (each pair adjusts hue and level of saturation separately). An infinite combination of split tones is therefore possible. Here are some quick examples:

Slightly warm highlights/neutral shadows:

Very warm highlights/cool shadows:

These were extremely easy to do. All in all despite the complaints about the beta version, I am quite impressed with it. I will certainly be playing around with it for the foreseeable future.

Bigger versions of the examples can be found here.

Sample GR-D files from the 'grain' post

2006-07-20T10:46:00.000+01:00

Some people have asked to have access to the original files from the grain post below.

Here is the jpeg straight out of the camera.

And here is the original RAW file (DNG format).

What the heck is 'digitalness'? Grain revisited.

2006-07-19T06:35:00.000+01:00

The subject of grain has come up again. This time in an interesting thread that has started over on dpreview. HERE

Someone with a Canon 5D has had a picture rejected by a gallery because it looked 'too digital'. This has sparked off a debate about whether to add grain to the image (among other things) in order to fool the curator.

Another interesting issue that arose from my point of view is again that different sensors produce different kinds of image and that these are noticeable to a trained eye. For example, one commentator says he prefers the Kodak SLR/c files which apparently look more like medium format film than files from the Canon high megapixel cameras. Some people claim they can't tell the difference. I find that scans from negatives out of my 4x5 field camera look more like digital ;-)

Interesting reading after the debate below on the Ricoh GR-D's noise characteristics.

Noise or grain characteristics of different cameras

2006-07-17T10:21:00.000+01:00

Comparing the Nikon D100 NEF to the GR Digital DNG.

There has been some discussion recently about whether the digital noise produced by the Ricoh GR-D looks like film noise rather than digital noise. A lot of people seem to have the opinion that it does and this is one of the reasons they like the camera. Another school of thought states that there is no difference and we are all just saying this to make ourselves feel good about buying an expensive overpriced digicam with a small sensor. (See, for example, this thread on photo.net.)

I for one did not buy the GR-D because of its noisy characteristics. I generally prefer slow film monochrome images. However, I have become a little intrigued by the discussion and decided to run another test. I had not thought much before about the characteristics of different digital sensors with respect to noise. I just know that I don't generally like digital noise and usually try and hide it in some way. However, I would resort to using fast films and push processing HP5 if the need arose when I shot 35mm or 120 film. If a digital camera like the GR-D can produce HP5 like images at ISO 800 or 1600 I would be more than happy to use this when the need arose.

Here are 2 shots. The first done with a Nikon D100 at 1600 ISO/RAW mode and converted in Convert to Digital Black and White Pro 3 (CDBWPro). The second with a Ricoh GR Digital at 800 ISO RAW mode - again converted with CDBWPro (the Ricoh cannot shoot above 800 ISO in RAW mode). You can click on them to get a bigger view.

To me at a reasonable print size (say up to 8x10) both these images look 'grainy', but the 'grain' or noise has different characteristics. The GR-D grain looks like a different 'film' at least. But what about going a little bigger? Here are some crops about the same size from each image:

Again click on the crops to see the bigger view. I believe that the differences are apparent. It's not just noise, but different noise from the two cameras. I'm not saying that one is better than the other, either. Merely that these differences can be used to advantage in certain situations.

I find in printing larger images that the noise on the GR-D seems to remain more 'globular' up to about A3 size. In other words it looks like particles of grain rather than digital until the print gets too big to print. I find with the D100 image that the tell tale 'cross-hairs' begin to appear at A3 revealing the image as digital - but even here you would have to stick your nose up to the print. In fact when I last printed this D100 image I added some grain in Photoshop to make it look more like film. I don't do that with GR-D files. On the other hand the D100 takes much less noisy images than the GR-D. At ISO 800 the Nikon will probably blow away the GR-D at ISO 800 noise-wise. My Canon 5D is virtually noise free at high ISOs and the 5D files clean up pretty completely with Noise Ninja. So it's different strokes for different folks in the end. I find that I am using the GR-D a lot, because I can take it anywhere and take it to places I would not take the 5D. If I can get high ISO shots with nice film like characteristics then that is just a bonus sometimes.

What is interesting though is that images from different digital cameras have different characteristics at different speeds. And this can sometimes be used to the photographer's artistic advantage. It also makes a difference how the images are finally printed. I find that different printer driver settings can accentuate the noise in different ways, but that is another story.

Controlling grain on the Ricoh GR digital - first attempts

2006-07-16T18:52:00.000+01:00

I have been experimenting with grain in RAW and jpeg modes on the Ricoh GRD in monochrome. I have come to the conclusion that I can't clean up the noise on the RAW files as well as the in-camera processed jpeg that is produced by the camera (at 800 ISO). The camera in RAW mode produces a RAW and a jpeg file simultaneously. (I usually shoot black and white so I have the camera in black and white mode.)

This is not really a problem as such, as the 'RAW grain' is somewhat different in character to the 'jpeg grain' using the methods I use. The RAW grain I am getting reminds me of Tmax 3200 or Delta 3200 while the jpeg grain looks more like Ilford HP5. This is useful to know depending on the effect that one wants to achieve. I have been using Noise Ninja to filter the files.

I decided to do an experiment on a file yesterday just to see the different effects that were possible without spending an enormous amount of time. For example, is it worth shooting RAW and suffereing the write times of 10 seconds or more when an in-camera jpeg will do the job just as well (I'm only talking about black and white here)?

This is the file I started out with. Shot at ISO 800 in RAW mode with a simultaneous jpeg produced in monochrome.

This file was generated using Adobe Camera RAW on default settings and then running through Convert to Black and White Pro 3 (CBWPro) to arrive at an image I liked with a little warm toning applied. Click on the picture to get a bigger view and look at the grain. Unsharp masking has also been applied to this image as this tends to accentuate grain, but is a necessary step before printing.

The grain from the jpeg produced by the camera was much less pronounced as some sort of noise reduction is taking place in the camera. For a comparison I used Convert to Black and White Pro 3 again on the jpeg file and tried to get a similar picture in terms of tones and feel to the RAW effort. Again unsharp masking was applied. I find that it is easier to adjust monochrome (but still in RGB) files in CBWPro as it gives nice control using the 3 sliders even though the image is already monochrome. Here is the result:

I found it much easier to get this image than the RAW one. There is slightly more detail and the tones seem smoother. In fact seems quite a bit better than the RAW attempt and much less grainy. I probably could have got a better rendition of the RAW file if I spent a lot more time on it, but this experiment is partly about the relative convenience of shooting RAW versus jpeg on the GR Digital.

To cut a long story short I experimented with various combinations of Noise Ninja and came to the conclusion that the RAW image grain is nice, but difficult to reduce in coarseness. For some images this is useful. The in-camera jpeg was much smoother and difficult to replicate with Noise Ninja on the RAW version. Here are 6 crops of my experiments on the above images using various controls:

Again click on the image to see a bigger version.

The 1st image here is the crop from the original RAW file after using CBWPro. The 2nd is a crop from the unsharpened jpeg after CBWPro. 3rd is an example of default Noise Ninja on the 1st image (that is using a profile generated from the image, sliders on 10/10/10 but with USM off). I usually find the Noise Ninja does too much reduction for my tastes so I also halved the sliders to 5/5/5 and produced the 4th example. The last 2 examples show the effects of unsharp masking on the grain. The 5th image being the RAW conversion and Noise Ninja followed by USM (65/2.8/0 in Photoshop). The final image is a crop of the jpeg after the same USM settings.

My conclusion is that I will probably not bother with RAW monochrome on the GR Digital. The in-camera processing is hard to better and good enough for my purposes. I have printed images up to A3 size and the in-camera jpegs are slightly less grainy than I can easily achieve using RAW files and Noise Ninja without losing detail. Noise Ninja has a tendency to wipe out details that were in the RAW files if you are not very careful, but these details are still present in the in-camera jpeg. The character of the grain is different in the RAW files and maybe nicer for some images.

I am not saying this is a robust scientific test, and maybe my Noise Ninja skills are not up to scratch, but the jpeg mode seems to me to give the nicest results and much more quickly than fiddling around in RAW.

Incidentally I use exclusively RAW mode with my Canon 5D and wouldn't shoot any other way, but then I don't have to wait for the camera to slowly write the images to the card. I would probably sometimes stick with RAW for colour work on the GR Digital to have control over white balance and so on.

If anyone is interested I will post the original full size images from this post on my Flickr page.

Lightzone as a RAW editor for Ricoh GRD DNG files

2006-07-13T10:13:00.000+01:00

I just downloaded the demo of Lightzone and it lists the GRD as one of its supported cameras. It can browse and open the DNG files produced by the Ricoh. It takes a while to get used to the controls, but it does a fine job. This is one of those packages where you have to read the manual as it is quite unlike any other photo editor I have seen. It uses a kind of zone system methodology where you can expand or compress tonal ranges by simply moving some sliders around. It is a radical alternative to using the traditional levels and curves controls that we are used to. It also has all the usual photo editing features such as hue/saturation, unsharp mask, a channel mixer, blending modes etc.

If you are looking for a cheap way of using Raw other than Photoshop on the GRD the demo is worth checking out:

www.lightcrafts.com

I do mainly black and white so I compared it with some raw DNG shots done with Convert to B/W Pro 3 (my favourite converter) and the results were very similar to desaturated colour images edited with Lightzone. Although it took me longer to do the work in Lightzone (which may be because I am not used to it).

There is a good discussion of the software here:

http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/

Ricoh GR Digital

2006-07-11T11:55:00.000+01:00

RIMG0044 NN s
Originally uploaded by m_r_tomlinson.

I just got hold of a Ricoh GR D camera to complement my Canon 5D. It is a really nice well designed camera. Great for carrying around all the time and when the 5D would just be too heavy. I will post some shots using this periodically. They can also be viewed on my Flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alt-digital/

Digital asset management as part of a Raw workflow

2006-06-18T10:31:00.000+01:00

This is just a summary of my digital asset management (DAM) strategy with my current setup (a Canon 5D and Capture One raw processor). This also works with Rawshooter Premium. I don't know about other raw processors. I would recommend buying the DAM book by Peter Krogh. This workflow is based on my reading of that book and a lot of these ideas are not mine, but based on Krogh's scalable archiving techniques. First off you will need the following hardware in addition to your CF cards and digital wallet etc. for storage in the field:

External hard drive(s)
DVD burner (or CD burner)

You also need an image cataloguing system. I use iMatch software for this. This method is not 100% infallible, no method is, and also I have cut a few of the corners mentioned in the DAM book. I am not a professional photographer and don't necessarily need the same level of security as others might. If I were working on a professional level I would up the level of security outlined below. However, I feel that this workflow is enough for me at the present time.

1. Take the pictures and store in the field

It is best according to Krogh to set the camera to have consecutive file numbering turned on in the camera. This way it is easier to keep track of which order the pictures were taken in on any particular trip. I believe most digital cameras have an option to set this. So my 5D remembers the number of the last shot taken and increments by one every new shot rather than starting at 0001 again every time a new CF card is inserted.

I have a few compact flash (CF) cards that I take with me when I go out shooting. I shoot all my pictures in RAW mode. If all the cards get full I download all of them onto a portable hard drive. In my case this is an XS 20MB drive. I then start to use the cards again, reformatting them in the camera as I go. If I have some shots that are particularly valuable on a card I might keep that card unused as a backup to the portable drive until I get home.

So the moral here is if you really want to be extra safe either get two portable drives and back up your cards twice in the field or get a lot of CF cards - I tend to prefer many smaller 512MB and 1G cards rather than a few huge capacity cards. I think this gives you more flexibility and also if a card fails you have not lost 4Gs worth of shots in one go. Of course it also depends on what type of things you shoot. If you get through lots of frames in a short time then you obviously might prefer bigger cards.

2. Downloading to the computer

Using Capture One (LE or Pro) when I attach the card reader with CF card into the USB it automatically detects and offers to download the files and rename them (Rawshooter Premium also does this). If I use the portable drive I have to copy manually. I download to a drive on the PC itself into a directory specifically for work in progress.

The files and directories should be renamed according to a formula where they will be listed in the order they were shot. The formula I use for directories is:

MRTOML_yymmdd_nnn

Where MRTOML is an abbreviation of my name (it can be anything really), yyddmm is the date of the download in year, month, day format, and nnn is the number of the directory downloaded on that day (e.g., 001, 002, 003... etc.)

So if I downloaded 2 cards on the 16th of July 2005 there will be two directories:

MRTOML_050716_001 and MRTOML_050716_002

I sometimes append a note to the end of the directory to remind me what is in there. So 'MRTOML_060606_001_family' refers to pictures I took of my family on the 6th of June 2006. Note that appending a name like this has no effect on the way the directories will be listed in date order by your operating system. In reality if you use a decent cataloguing system such as iMatch (see below), tagging your directories like this should become redundant because the catalogue will know where everything is based on keywords/categories. However, I find for work in progress it sometimes helps to locate stuff quickly if you have a shorthand tag at the end of the directory name telling you what is in there.

Within these directories the individual raw pictures will be given names according to the following formula:

MRTOML_yymmdd_nnnn.cr2

In this case MRTOML and yymmdd are the same as the directory name and nnnn is the number already assigned by the camera to each shot. Using this method it is easy to figure out when and what was shot in which order. cr2 is just the Canon raw extension. (Note: Freeware can be downloaded that renames files which is much better than Windows explorer - I use ExplorerXP freeware.)

3. Online storage?

At this point many people would burn a DVD or transfer to some external drive. I don't do this, because I am not a professional and if I lose a couple of directories of shots it is not the end of the world. If I have some stuff that I really feel is important I will upload it to a virtual online drive at this point. For example, streamloader. Then I can always get the files back in the event of catastrophe. I also don't wipe the cards/portable drive until my next outing. So I also have a temporary backup in any case.

4. Processing the shots

What I do now is work on the shots in my raw processor and, if needed, Photoshop. I set the raw processor to develop the pictures in a subdirectory of the original directory. In Camera One this is in a directory called 'develops' and in rawshooter 'converted'. Some software produces further directories to store the raw conversion settings - this is no problem if these directories are within the original folder. Again if the work is very important I might make an intermediate backup of the shots (to streamloader or whatever).

5. Transfer to archive

When I think I have probably finished all the editing I am going to do on a set (directory) of shots in my work in progress directory, I transfer them to an external hard drive. This external drive also forms the basis of my DVD archive. (A similar procedure can also be used for CDs or BluRay disks or whatever you use.)

On the external hard drive I have directories set up to match each DVD I will burn (this is again Krogh's method). I know a DVD can hold 4.38GB of data so I just copy the directories over from my PC (including all the subdirectories with the Raw settings and developed Raw files) into a directory on the external drive until the directory approaches 4.38GB in size. Then I create a new folder for the next DVD and so on.

So I have a set of directories on the external drive that looks like this:

DVD_001
DVD_002
DVD_003
etc...

And within each DVD directory there will be your image file directories copied from your work in progress on the PC so the final directory structure looks something like this:

DVD_001
- MRTOML_060606_001
- MRTOML_060606_002
- MRTOML_060609_001_family
- MRTOML_060611_001
DVD_002
- MRTOML_060613_001_macroflowers
- MRTOML_060614_001
...

and so on...

6. Burn the DVD (or a CD)

When a DVD directory gets close to the 4.38GB limit I burn the whole directory onto two DVDs. One DVD gets stored at home and the other at the office. Once the DVDs are burned (and verified) I delete the files from my main PC 'work in progress' drive leaving them on the external drive.

The advantage of this method is that it is scalable. If in the future I decide to switch my archive to BluRay disks or whatever I can create more directories the size of a BluRay disk and simply copy sufficient DVD directories into the BluRay directories and then burn a BluRay disk instead. If the external hard drive gets full I buy another drive, add it onto the existing setup, and simply carry on using the new drive in addition to the old one.

This is the great advantage of the method described by Peter Krogh in the DAM book. As technology marches on and storage media get bigger you can easily keep up if you have a directory structure on you hard drives that matches the media you use for archiving. So you have a working solution where your images are available all the time (via your external hard drives) and if a drive fails you can easily restore it from your DVD collection.

If you want to consolidate at some point and replace external smaller drives with one bigger one, say, again it is easy as you have the DVD backups. You simply take off the old drives and put on the new one. Then simply copy the DVDs back onto the new drive into their respective DVD directories.

If you want to reburn DVDs periodically for safety reasons then again it is simply a matter of burning each DVD directory again. I write on the case of the DVD when it was burned and aim to reburn every 2 or 3 years. Although next time there will probably be a better storage solution out there. Again this doesn't matter with a scalable solution based on directories like this.

Image cataloguing

The key to making this work though is your cataloguing software. At some point you have to catalogue your images and specify the location of the files in the image management database. I use iMatch to catalogue my work when it reaches the external hard drive stage at the latest. I have a field in my database that specifies which DVD directory (and hence also which DVD) the files are on. Thus I can find the file on the external hard drive to edit or print, and I know which DVD it is burned on in case of hard drive failure. If I can find the original raw file it follows that I can also find any processed versions of the file in the subdirectories of the raw directory (it will have the same name, but with a different extension).

Also don't forget you must back up your image database to DVD and external drive every so often as well.

5D dust issues

2006-06-13T16:18:00.000+01:00

There has been a lot of discussion on the dust issues with the Canon 5D camera.

E.g., : http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1032&thread=18708842

I noticed large specks of dust appearing on mine after a few weeks even without changing the lens (I put a 50mm lens on as soon as the camera arrived and didn't take it off). Presumably there is already dust in the chamber that gets moved around when the camera is used. I tried the 'rubber blower' method recommended by Canon and this definitely made matters worse. So I suspect that the dust was already in there and the blower actually made it worse.

I eventually plucked up the courage to try the 'Copperhill method'. This is based on using a plastic spatula with a pecpad (lint free swab) wrapped around it. The swab is soaked in Eclipse fluid which I believe is methanol. The methanol does not leave smears on the sensor as it evaporates extremely quickly. The swab is passed over the sensor once per side.

It took me seven or eight tries before I got the hang of it, but it did actually work. You have to keep taking pictures inbetween swabbings to see if and where the dust is going. You can quickly spot stubborn particles and whether you are getting into the corners, especially if you use software where you can enlarge and cycle through several images at once and compare the exact positioning of the frames in each shot (I used Rawshooter Essentials for this which allows you to magnify the frame and then use the mouse wheel to cycle through successive 'cleaning shots'). The spots that don't budge appear on the computer screen in exactly the same place.

There are also several other methods out there (I am intrigued by the sensorklear option which seems to be user friendly and portable). But I am going to persevere with this method for the time being and see how it goes.

There is also apparently some advantage to regularly cleaning your sensor even if it does not have a lot of dust. This helps prevent stubborn hard to clear spots from becoming stuck to the sensor. The notes on the Copperhill site at PBase are worth reading thoroughly on this. In Europe you can get the Copperhill kits from http://www.chili-pix.ch/ . It took about a week for mine to arrive in the UK.

Esteban

2006-06-05T13:44:00.000+01:00

DSC_0053
Originally uploaded by m_r_tomlinson.

Here is a test post of my nephew Esteban.