Monitor calibration is critical for photographers. There is no point in trying to do extensive post production on an image if you have no idea what your monitor is actually displaying.
To this end I use the X-Rite i-1 Display 2. This is a version of their profiler that is no longer available.
When OS X Lion was released many people were surprised that their Profilers no longer worked. Unfortunately the profiling software was written for Macs with PowerPC processors. Until Lion, all Macs came with translation software that enabled them to run software written for the older Macs.
Luckily X Rite have released a native Intel version for Modern Macs running OS X Lion and even for older versions like mine. If you are a registered user you can login and download the new version.
Well by now after the weekends leak and Mondays official announcement, Photoshop Touch for Tablets is finally out. One of the most hoped and wished for Applications for the iPad.
For people wanting to make a start on there images before they go to there office and power up there main computers it looks a good option.
For people like me who want to travel light, then with apps like this, PhotoSmith and Nik software’s SnapSeed, you can now go out on site for a few days, leave your laptop at home and just have your iPad tucked in your camera bag.
Our BMW R1200GS had to go into the garage this week to have the rear suspension looked at, its had some very hard use over some very poor quality roads recently.
While it was there I had a loan bike. Our local BMW Bike dealer is pretty good about loan bikes and over the years, while our bikes are being services we have tried out just about every bike BMW make.
Today I got to have a blast round Lincolnshire on the baby GS, the F650GS. The old model from a few years a go was a real blast, but not a bike I could ride for long. It was a single cylinder 650cc bike, and that big single thumper while fun made your bum go numb after about 100 miles.
When the F800ST was released it brought to BMW a whole new engine, the parallel twin 800cc. Parallel twins have a bad reputation, but this was a whole new design with a lot of cutting edge F1 technology incorporated into it; and it is a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde engine. At low rev’s a comfortable bike with amazing fuel consumption, but at high rev’s a real sporty and fun bike when the mood took you.
Versions of this engine have now been used across the range and confusingly now powers the F650GS, yep the 650 is actually an 800cc bike. The GS range now has the F650, F800, and R1200GS.
The F650 is the soft option. A fun bike easy to ride and not too threatening. The F800GS is a different beast, far more aggressive and a real off road tool.
The R1200GS needs no introduction. I have to say my R1200GS is the best motorcycle I have ever owned and is even the best bike I have ever ridden. There are other bikes that I would rate as just as good but different, but the R1200GS is unique.
First an apology, the idea behind this photo is a blatant rip off from one Chris Bennet took last year.
Often when out at a lake or river, people come along and start to feed the birds, the ensuring flock of birds wheeling around can be a great opportunity.
When you get home and review your shots you generally find a lot of blurred unsuitable photographs, but sometimes within that blurred set is something that does look interesting.
In the shot above it has a lot to recommend it. It was a shame that the main bird was not central and I just cut off its feet. I have added more blur in post production and some vignetting to draw the eye to the centre. Overall a nearly shot.
I found out from my good friend and fellow photographer Chris Bennett that Scott Kelby is coming back to the UK with his Light It! Shoot It! Retouch It! tour.
I have the book and its a great guide and useful for anyone who shoots people.
This weekend I made one of my occasional visits to Hartsholme Park.
The weather indicated that Sunday would be best, so on a bright but cold Sunday morning I headed off with my big Gizo tripod and an SLR with my longest/fastest lens. In this case a Nikon D200 and a 70-200mm f/2.8 with a TC14 teleconverter attached. This gave me a reach of up to 420mm.
Wildlife and Sports are two of the hardest photographic skills to master. Subjects often far away and fast moving. Its less how good your camera is but more how familiar you are with your subject and your camera.
I tend to customise my camera somewhat. I turn off the focus activation from the shutter button and have it set to the AF button of the back. I also reduce the number of active focus sensors available to the camera so that it will not get to confused and can concentrate its resources to a few key sensors.
Yesterday Apple surprised a few people with an unexpected announcement. The announcement of OS X 10.8 or Mountain Lion as it will be known. With lots of iCloud integration, iMessage which would be fun and useful (downloading it now to test).
There was also an unofficial leak of iOS5.1, its expected that this will be released with the iPad 3. Looks like another busy year for Apple.
While many of the new features announced in OS X 10.8 are added polish and tweaks, one of the features that could help project users from malware is Gatekeeper. This feature is also worrying many users.
Basically if your an Apple developer you can get a signature with which you sign your applications. By default Mountain Lion will only install applications that have been signed (you can over-ride this). If a developer is found guilty of publishing malware then the signature can be revoked disabling the software out there.
A useful feature to help project new and inexperienced users; or and example of Apple being big brother and controlling what you can do with your own computer?
It really depends on where they go with this. As its proposed it sounds like a good idea. New and inexperienced users are protected by default and advanced users can turn this default behaviour off.
Its great to see Fuji really making a comeback in the camera market. I was incredibly excited when the large sensor’ed compact X100 was announced. Having given it a try, its very close to a perfect small compact. For my large hands the aperture ring was a little difficult to operate, and a number of users have reported that its focus can be a little hit and miss, but it is a camera I love, though I do not own it.
They followed this with the X10, which in many ways I found most impressive. Unfortunately it suffers from the problem of most compacts. a tiny sensor that is prone to noise.
The X-Pro1 is what many people wanted the X100 to be, and really is aimed at the Sony NEX-7 and also the Leica M8/9 users.
At £1500 for the body and the lens coming in at about £500 each in the UK, its not a cheap system, but with Fuji’s history the lens are likely to be better then Sony’s.
Fuji’s Medium format and Large format lens are up there with the very best.
The concern is going to be the performance, the X100 was a little disappointing and Nikon has proven with the Nikon V1, that performance can be stella from a none SLR type camera.
If you love Black and White then Nik software’s Silver FXPro is the go to program. A lot of my favourite images have been edited in this software. Its a relatively easy way to produce great Black and Whites.
The Black and White snow scene I posted yesterday was just a straight Adobe Lightroom V3 conversion to Black & White from a Nikon V1 RAW file. The original intention was to get a sunset shot and have the windows of the buildings on the hill reflecting the brilliance of the sunset.
Unfortunately it just did not work, so I tried a quick Black & White, and this I feels works much better. Generally I try to decide if a shot is going to be colour or monochrome, before I shoot, but sometimes you don’t know what is going to work until you get back to the office and start processing your images.
The shot above is another image from the same day, again meant as a colour shot, and as a colour shot it works very well, but I wanted to do some testing of the Black & White conversion within Adobe Lightroom V4 Beta to see how it stacks up.
I am quite impressed and feel its done a great job. I’ll try a few more images and see how they work out, but if your into Black & White, Lightroom V4 maybe all you need.
As you can see above LR3 does not do a bad job either.
Nikon D200
