PhotoSmith for Lightroom 1.05

Well the other day I installed the latest Photosmith the Adobe Lightroom companion for the iPad.  I also updated the Lightroom plug-in to 1.0.10.

Caroline had been shooting some macro shots of flowers and local wildlife (mainly Damsel Flies, and Toads), so I borrowed her compact flash card to test the update.

I am please to report that it worked perfectly.  I imported the photos, keyworded a few.  Added some location information to one, and rated them and colour rated them.

I then tested the sync, and wirelessly imported them back into Lightroom.  I then made a few changes, sync’ed common information across all the photos and resync’ed again.

This information was then transferred back to the iPad.  During the day in spare moments I continued to update the metadata and keyword information on the iPad, and at the end of the day sync’ed again.

I am pleased to report PhotoSmith worked perfectly and can be well recommended.  Now we are just waiting for the batch syncing of metadata, and for me the killer feature, two way sync of photos, so I can take a shoot from the Laptop to the iPad, do some work then sync back.

Exposure and Metering

I have been following a discusion on Frank Doorhof’s blog about metering in the studio, and whether a handheld meter is necessary, if we should just use the histogram, or even if there is a correct exposure and that it is subjective.

Here is my view, so feel free to disagree.

When in the studio using studio strobe, a hand held meter that can take an incident meter reading is essential.  Why?

Well for one thing, to produce an accurate, repeatable and true to life as possible rendering of the the final image.  If your employed to take photographs of some clothes, then the fashion designer would not be happy if you changed the look of his clothes to suit your own artistic designs.  What the customer would want is an accurate rendition of his clothes.

By metering accurately with a meter calibrated to your work flow you will get accurate results and it is repeatable.  If you asked to reshoot some parts, even if you tore your studio lighting setup down, you can quickly set it back up again and get it right with the meter.

When out shooting landscapes then I also often use a handheld meter, essential when I shoot medium format, as my medium format camera has no meter!

 

 

The Boat House

But when shooting landscape, I am less interested in an accurate exposure, more on an exposure that will give the picture the mood that I feel fits.  If the dynamic range of the view exceeds that of your camera then often its less about exposing correctly and more about choosing an exposure that will capture the detail you are most interested in.

Though here a neutral density filter or two can really help, or resort to HDR or digital blending by bracketing your shots.

More Nature – Insects, Grebes and Coots

A busy weekend indeed.

First up a trip to Hartsholme on the Saturday morning. Meeting Chris to see how the young baby Coots were getting on.

We found it interesting in the amount of effort the parents were putting into renovating the nest. Possible getting ready for a second brood?

We only spent a couple of hours there, things were pretty quiet but it was good to see how the baby Coots were progressing.

I spent Saturday afternoon in the studio. First doing some portraits and then some product shots. I’ll be processing these over the next couple of days and then passing the initial edits on to the customers. They will make their selections and i’ll then do the final editing of there chosen shots.

Sunday afternoon, we spent walking round Whisby Nature reserve. Caroline was shooting Macro and I was using a long telephoto zoom. Occasionally we would swap bodies when something caught our eyes that needed the others lens.

The bright brilliant blue of a Damsel fly caught my eye, so I took a few shots of those, using the macro lens and macro flash. Once at the lakes we managed to get few reasonable shots of a pair of Tufted Ducks and some Great Crested Grebes. Walking back we spotted several small toads crossing the path, then a family of ducks followed by a rabbit.

All in all a pleasing way to finish a very photogenic weekend.

Metering in the Studio

Sekonic L 758 Light Meter

I learnt some time ago not to trust the the histogram.  How you customise the camera affects the histogram, and in a studio, when using high key or low key lighting the background overpowers the rest of the scene affecting the histogram.

Recently I was watching a video on Kelby Training by Frank Doorhof called “Why Fake It When You Can Create It”.

In it the fashion photographer Frank Doorhof covered some aspects of metering in the studio using a flash meter.  Great stuff, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Gives me a few ideas to try out when I am in the studio tomorrow.

A bit of Shoot Prep

No Photography tomorrow but an outdoor shoot on Saturday morning subject to weather and a studio shoot in the afternoon.

I try to be as prepared as possible, and have prep lists for each kind of shoot, and regularly top up my batteries before hand and make sure my bag is packed ready to go.

Something that is easy to forget is to double check your memory cards. So tonight I am just checking whats on each card and ensuring I have two copies of that data on separate hard disks before giving them a quick format.

One important tip is to always format the card on the camera you intend to use it in. Never format your card on the computer.

Happy Shooting.

iBird UK: Now Universal

I have greatly enjoyed the iPhone App, iBird UK.  For someone like me who does not know their birds its an extremely useful tool.

I am growing increasingly found of  bird photography, thanks to the recent purchase of a Nikor TC17MkII which makes my 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto zoom a 119-340mm f4.8 telephoto zoom.

Needing a quick reference guide, I downloaded the demo version and soon purchased the paid version see https://brown-family.org.uk/?p=2177.

The one thing that was a shame, was how poor it looked on the iPad, it being a iPhone app and not built for the big screen.  While not a reference book it was a useful app and I hoped the developer would produce an iPad version for the UK.  I would have willingly paid for it.

Well this weekend an update came out.  iBird UK is now a Universal App and works and looks great on the iPad as well as the iPhone.

Highly searchable with photographs, drawings and links to flicker.  It can also can play you bird song to help in your identification as well as having a notes field which even allows you to add your gps co-ordinates from the phone.

So thanks guys, but how about a more in depth world version for the iPad?

Check out there website for more details – www.ibird.com

PhotoSmith Bug in 1.04

http://blog.photosmithapp.com/

After upgrading to PhotoSmith 1.04 for the iPad, it became unusable, not rendering a full screen image just a small thumbnail.

While waiting for the bug fix 1.05 that the developers have already released to Apple, I tried several things to fix it myself.

I managed to fix it by deleting the application, rebooting the iPad and re-installing the app to the iPad. Its now working again for me.

Already available is an updated Lightroom plug-in.  Keep up the good work guys.