Richard & Caroline's Blog – Page 136 – Family, Photography and other misc news

May 8, 2013May 8, 2013

Adobe Creative Cloud and No CS7

I don’t usually blog on Wednesdays but the garbage being written on the forums about Adobe’s creative cloud has driven me to my keyboard.

So the big announcement at Monday’s MAX Conference was that Adobe will not be releasing a CS7. Instead you will have to subscribe to Adobe’s Creative Cloud and their subscription based model. Basically instead of purchasing CS7 Photoshop or the the Suite you rent it, either by the month or year.

The internet forums, twitter and googleplus are full of outraged users. CS6 will still be available for many its a great choice but for the latest version you will have to subscribe.

Most users are complaining about a) The Price, & b) The Cloud aspect.

The headline figure is £50.00 a month, well actually its £46.88 if your not already a photoshop user. Thats pretty steep I would agree, but then again Photoshop costs £800 full retail and gets upgraded every twenty four months. Thats over £33 a month for just one package.

The problem with the rumours, half truths and rage about Adobe is just that, half truths. Yes the full plan is £46.88 but that gets you every single Adobe Suite Product. That is very good value. If you just want Photoshop then you go for the single app subscription, which is just £17.58.

There are also offers available for people who are already registered users. I contacted Adobe and they offered me a single app subscription for just £8.73 and for all apps £14.29. If you use two or more apps from the suite that is great value.

There is a problem for Photographers who just user Photoshop and Lightroom, the suite offering for those two is far to expensive, you are better off subscribing to just Photoshop and purchasing Lightroom as normal, and Adobe have confirmed it will still be sold retail.

The Adobe Photoshop Manager did recently admit in an interview that they are looking again at the offerings for Photographers so hopefully they can come up with something a little better.

Lets now address the second complaint, the cloud aspect. People are saying that the applications now run in a web browser and will only work on a fast internet connection. Well that is wrong. You download it from the cloud and install and use as normal so no change. The license checking is a little different. If you subscribe for a year then the software needs to check back to Adobe to see if your subscription is current every 99 days. If you subscribe by the month then I believe its 37 days.

With some of the tablet demos and syncing between Lightroom and iPad’s that Adobe have demonstrated then I think its not going to be long before people think the subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud is essential. Lets hope then can do a good deal for people who just want Lightroom and Photoshop.

Of course if Adobe ramps up the price too much next year my view on the price will be very different.

More details on the Cloud at ‘The Grid” of the Cloud syncing and iPad editing for Lightroom.

May 7, 2013May 7, 2013

HDR Editing in Adobe Lightroom

HDR – High Dynamic Range, is a useful technique when the dynamic range of the scene is beyond that of the sensor or film you are using.

Traditionally the one uses dedicated HDR like PhotomatrixPro, but recently I found a method of producing a more realistic method of producing a HDR image by doing the editing in Lightroom.

One can use HDR carefully and produce natural looking results like in the photograph at the top of this page. Often now you see HDR used to produce over the top cartoony images like in my shot of the University of Lincoln.

My workflow is generally as follows:

Image Capture
Initial import to Lightroom
Initial Edit
Export to HDR Program
Process in HDR Program
Export Back to Lightroom

I generally shoot a five stop bracket, using auto bracketing. These photographs are then imported into Lightroom and I do basic key wording, copyright information and correcting for lens issues and basic import sharpening.

The five shots are then selected and exported to TIFF into my HDR Program. I use PhotomatrixPro. The HDR processing is now done and the resulting single file exported back to Lightroom. I can then do my usual processing and cropping back in a program I am more familiar with.

Well I did not spot it until recently (thanks to Matt Kloskowski) but you can now export the shots to Photoshop combine them and then re-import and do the processing back in Lightroom. Now Photoshop can do HDR but until CS6 third party programs have been better. This technique though just uses Photoshop to combine the images, which are then exported back to Lightroom and you can do the processing back in the program I am mist familiar with.

So how do you do this? Well for a start you need Lightroom V4.1 at least, V4.0 and before could not do it.

Select all the photographs in the bracketing set in the Library module.

Then go to the Photo Menu, select Edit in, and then, Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop. This will cause Photoshop to Launch (you will need CS6).

Once all the images how loaded you need to change a setting in the right hand menu panel within Photoshop CS6. I recommend you click on the button Remove Ghosts and then change the Mode from the default of 16 Bit to 32 Bit. Then click OK.

It will now process the selected files into a single TIFF file (it must be saved as a TIFF). If you shoot with a 24 megapixel camera or more and have a older computer this could take some time!

Then close Photoshop and when prompted to save click Yes. Photoshop will save the file and Lightroom will import it. You can then edit the resulting file with a number of advantages.

When you now edit the image you will find that there is far more data available then if it was a single image.

With the five set bracket I took I have plus/minus 10 stops available in the exposure control. This gives you the advantages of HDR but not the cartoony look.

Here is the final image, turned into a Black & White with lot more detail available in the what was a blown out sky.

Now that I have learn’t this technique I’ll be re-visiting some of my older brackets and seeing if I can do a better job of post production. Here is a quick re-edit I did of a interior shot of the lovely and majestic Lincoln Cathedral.

May 6, 2013May 3, 2013

Has Spring Arrived – Motorcyclists leave hibernation

It seems like spring has finally arrived. While it may be tempting fate to mention the ‘S’ word, the weather is definitely warmer. The electric heated vest has been left at home for the last few weeks and for this last week I even left the thermals at home.

Its been a pleasure riding in these warm spring evenings. The number of other bikers on the road has exploded in the last week. Instead of just two or three bikes in the company car park, we have had nearly a dozen.

This sudden increase does cause problems, I have already seen my first crashed biker being picked up from the side of the road. I have also been helping other bikers start their bikes as they have dead batteries and have been unable to start their bikes in the car park.

This is rather a rambling post but I think the points are: If you have not ridden over the winter then you are very rusty. Take it slow and take it steady. Also get your bike booked in for at least a check over if not a service to take your through the biking season. We dropped the Honda off at the dealer just before our photography trip and collected it when we got back all, the GS which we have used all through winter is going to get a good clean this weekend then get a full service and new ‘boots’ (tires) next week.

May 3, 2013May 2, 2013

Spring Photo Trip – What worked.

So how did the trip go? Well as you have seen in my previous blog entries the main photographs I wanted was of Tintern Abbey and of Symonds Yat.

Tintern Abbey

The Tintern Abbey shoot was very challenging, getting a clear shot of the Abbey was difficult. For the Abbey shot I used the Ebony 45S large format camera. For the rest of the day I used the Leica M8, as its so small and light but performs extremely well.

Symonds Yat

The photographs I took from Symonds Yat Rock were all either with the Nikon DSLR’s or again the Ebony. The above shot was a HDR composite taken with the Nikon D200 and 24-70mm f/2.8. I bracketed widely because the light was very flat at the start of the day. I thought HDR might lift the shot and make it more interesting.

The bird photography was a little disappointing but you cannot make the birds perform as you want, only set yourself up in the best spot and wait. This time it did not work but maybe next time.

The shots in the garden of the bird feeder went well, but then using bait to bring the birds to the exact spot could be considered cheating.

Bird Life-2

Camera wise, I took quite a lot of equipment with me, the Ebony kit, the SLR kit, the Leica kit and the Nikon Series One kit. Of these I used them all except for the Nikon Series One.

With the exception of the bird photographs, all of my photographs could have been taken with small mirror-less or SLR camera. With the amount of walking we did a small camera outfit is possibly the way to go and while a camera like the Leica is idea if you can put up with manual focusl, the cost of such an outfit is outside the range of many photographers and many people today like autofocus. If I had to buy a single camera after this trip then something like the Fuji X100s or the Fuji X Pro1 would be top of my list. If you shoot wildlife then there really is no choice but an SLR.

So in my opinion for your next holiday pack a Fuji X100s but if your into your wildlife you will need your big heavy SLR.

May 2, 2013April 28, 2013

Wildlife in the Garden

After the previous days attempts at wildlife I gave myself an easier task today. If your after starting out then the biggest tip I can give you is to get the wildlife to come to you. The cottage in which we are staying for a few days in the South West has a lovely garden and lots of bird feeders scattered around. I filled up one of the feeders then sat myself down in a comfy chair with the camera setup on a tripod in front of me.

It was not long before the birds started to ignore me and came to feed on the freshly filled bird feeder. If you have a mirror-less camera or an SLR with a zoom lens that can reach to the equivalent of 300mm on a 35mm camera then on a bright and sunday you can get shots like these.

April 30, 2013May 31, 2013

Photo of the Month – April

Leica M8
Leica 24mm f/3.8 Elmar-M ASPH
24mm, 1/60 Sec at f/16, ISO160
Post Processed in Adobe Lightroom V4.4
On a Mac MacBook Pro, OS-X 10.8.3

April 29, 2013April 29, 2013

Yat Rock Symonds Yat

On this weeks Photographic trip there was two things I wanted to capture on film. A
picture of Tintern Abbey which hopefully I had achieved the other day and a photograph of the Wye valley from the view point known as Symonds Yat. This was the goal for today.

Symonds Yat is also well known for its nesting Peregrine falcons that nest in the cliff face. So today I would be packing both the large format camera equipment but also the the digital SLR’s with a selection of lens from the 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8 and finally the 300mm f/2.8. Just in case I also had a Nikkor TC17 which to the lay person is a converter which can magnify the effect of a lens by x1.7 but only lose a stop and a half of light.

When we arrived the light was quite poor so I left the large format equipment in the boot of the car and just went up to the view point with the 35mm SLR equipment. The Peregrine falcons were nesting in the cliff face opposite but proved to be far to quick on the wing to allow a mere amateur wildlife photographer such as me to get a clear shot. The buzzards in the area also made a brief appearance but they too kept their distance.

We had a view visitors on some of the nearby trees but I did not manage to get a clear shot of any of them. The above shot was about the best it got.

After a few hours of perseverance we headed back to the cafe to partake of the local lamb pasty. We then decided to pack up and go for a walk in the hope that once the sun started to set the weather might improve to enable me to capture the valley on the large format equipment.

We left the bulk of the camera gear in the car and just took the Leica and headed out on a short four mile walk through the forest. Unlike yesterday where we were carrying the large format gear and the big tripod up some quite challenging slopes today was much easier.

I spotted a few views that might make possible photographs in the future and its definitely an area I would come back to.

With the walk finished we went back to the hut near the view point to enjoy an ice cream and while there the clouds started to break and a hint of blue was to be seen. It looked like the might be a small chance of getting the photograph I wanted, so Caroline kindly headed back to the car to collect the large format gear and tripod.

Did the light improve and did I get my shot? Well when I get my film back I’ll blog some more.

April 26, 2013April 25, 2013

Tintern Abbey

I have photographed Tintern Abbey on two previous occasions. The first was on a major motorcycle tour where we visited each of the major points of the Island that is Great Britain. The first time I took a few snaps on a dull day. The second time was bright midday sun. Neither was conductive to great photography but I managed some pleasing reference shots.

Today the goal was to try and a get a good shot with the large format Ebony. I thought the best option was from the English side of the river. Yesterday I had tried to find a spot with the car but that proved impossible.

Tintern Abbey

So today we had a long walk. We parked up at the Abbey and walked to the nearest bridge. On crossing I had hoped to be able to photograph the Abbey from the East bank but the bank was private property so the only option was to climb the tree lined valley side.

We kept on climbing but the trees kept obscuring the view back to the Abbey.

We knew from a previous visit and asking local people that some fine views could be had from a viewpoint called the Devils Pulpit but were unsure as to what it looked down on and exactly how far it was.

We kept on climbing and despite the difficult terrain and having to carry the large format camera equipment an a big heavy series five Gitzo tripod we eventual found ourselves at the viewpoint called the devils pulpit.

It did in deed have fine views of the river and of the Abbey so I set up to photograph it. It would have been better with a telephoto lens but the longest lens I current own for the Ebony is a standard 150mm. Still with the rocks that made up the Devils Pulpit I had a bit of foreground interest.

Once I get the film developed I’ll blog about this shoot some more but the climb was worth while.

April 25, 2013April 27, 2013

Enjoying Hay-on-Wye

Our first major trip out on our Photography tour of the South West saw us heading out to Hay-on-Wye. First stop was to the North East, English side of the River Wye. I was trying to find a clear view point towards Tintern Abbey. There was a road that according to the map had possibility. We eventually found it but the road quickly deteriorated to the point that only a four wheel drive vehicle could continue so we had too head back.

Once back on the main road we headed to Hay-on-Wye. A small town in Wales but quite a capital of books. We explored its streets where nearly every other shop sells books.

Books are quite a vice for the both of us and far to often indulge our passion. I managed to accomplish quite a coup and managed to purchase a first Edition 1935 Leica Manual. Not the typical manual but a hard back book nearly 500 pages detailing all aspects of the Leica system.

I also managed to find in one particular fine and beautiful book shop two books from a set of three I have been after for a long time.

The master of Black & White Ansel Adams wrote three books, one called ‘The Camera’, one called ‘The Negative’ and one called ‘The Print’. One of the shops had the first two. The staff in the shop were extremely knowledgable and one of them was also a Leica M user so we had a good talk about the Leica System. He had the M9 and was thinking about purchasing a M7.

Being the owner myself of a Leica M4 and a Leica M8 I find them quite complimentary. In fact I would love to add a film MP and. Leica Monochrom.

Walking the streets of Hay-on-Wye I enjoyed immensely exploring its shops and taking snaps of the scenes that emerged before me.

As a portable travel camera the Leica is ideal. If you like the range finder experience and manual focus the enjoyment if using such a precision instrument is truly a joy and makes photography a true artistic passion and pursuit.

April 23, 2013April 28, 2013

Spring Photo Trip – getting ready

It’s that time of the year again were we are going to spend a few days concentrating on photography. The intention is to take some landscape photographs but also a few wildlife shots. One of the locations was scouted out last year. I also used an iPad application called the Photographs Ephemeris, a mapping app which one can set a time and date and use to predict the location of the sun and moon.

Equipment wise, I wanted to limit what I took with me. For the Landscape I would be shooting large format using my Ebony 45S camera. For the wildlife then it had to be my Nikon SLR’s and the big heavy lens.

We would also be taking some time to visit a few antique shops and books shops, there might be an opportunity to grab a few nice shots of people and scenes, so I would need a small light easy to carry camera that would not be noticed.

I was torn between the Nikon V1 and the Leica M. In the end as they are both so small I will pack both.