K&F Concept Variable ND Filter Review

I have been looking at variable Neutral Density filters for a while. I use ND filters when shooting flowing water and occasionally for other shots where I want to reduce the DOF and the light is too bright to open up all the way. I have a set of 3" square resin ND filters that I bought about a decade ago but they are cumbersome to carry around and use. I also find that the higher density ones impart a significant brownish color cast to my images. No biggy when working in B&W but a nuisance with color images.

Enter the K&F Concept Variable ND filter that combines a whole range of ND filters into one. Most of the ones I looked at were rather expensive (as in three figures) which is a bit much for a retired guy who isn't making money from his photography and has only occasional use for an ND anyway so the $19.99 price of the K&F filter on Amazon looked like a real deal especially since I could return it if it was a bust. It isn't. I'm sure that in lab testing a $100+ filter might prove to be somewhat better but for my limited needs, the K&F will do just fine.

My test was pretty simple. I mounted my EOS M3 with the 18-55mm on a tripod and shot a photo of my barn and tractor (nothing artistic or even pretty, it is just a test). The ISO was set at 100 and the mode was aperture priority. I then mounted the filter and set it on the "MIN" mark and shot another. I took a series of photos moving the filter setting 2 dots toward the "MAX" mark between each except for the next to the last when I moved it all the way to MAX. As you can see I had a problem there. It shut down the light unevenly and so severely that the exposure went all the way to 25 sec. Finally, recognizing that was a problem, I set it back to the dot just before MAX and shot one more. The results are below.

If you click on the image above, you can see it full sized as it appeared on my screen.

Thoughts on the results: I was concerned that like my square resin filters I might get a color cast. I didn't. That is the first plus. The filter appears to be very well made, is small and convenient compared to the square resin filter set and the associated holders. Another big plus. Those two things mean I will actually carry and use this more than I ever did the set of square filters. The difference in exposure times from 1/25th second unfiltered to two and a half seconds is more than adequate for my needs. I just have to remember to use the dots and not set it on MAX itself. Examining the images at 100% I saw no degradation of the autofocus between the unfiltered image and the others. When I first mounted the filter the setting marks were on the bottom but because the front turns 360° freely (it is truly variable, not click stops or detents) I was able to turn it so they were on the top and because of the way VNDs work it was fine. I will add my own little white indicator mark to the opposite side of the back ring.

Variable ND filters work by crossing the planes of two polarizers. The nearer the planes get to 90° to one another, the less light gets through. Theoretically, if the light was perfectly polarized and the planes were at precisely 90°, no light would get through. I expect that the X on the MAX setting is the result of small imperfections in the filtration and/or the planes of polarization being slightly off. I'm not going to spend hundreds on some of the more expensive VND filters to find out whether they do the same.

If you are in the market for a variable ND filter and don't have big bucks to throw at it, the K&F Concepts filter is a winner for the photographer on a budget IMO.

No one has offered me anything for doing this review. The Amazon seller did ask that I review my purchase on that site. This is my honest assessment of the product.

Book Review - Zen Camera

Zen Camera by David Ulrich is a series of six lessons for finding your own personal visual expression. David is a photography professor in Hawaii and a Zen practitioner. His lessons are derived from both. He explores six aspects of photographic expression in individual chapters with exercises at the end of each. The intent is for the reader to treat the book as a semester's course spending 12-13 weeks going through the lessons and exercises as if you were in one of his classes.

I will confess that I did not do all the exercises, in part because I am already an experienced photographer (not that I didn't learn from him, I did) and I find that my approach is already very similar to his. A number of his comments really struck a chord with me, particularly those concerning connecting with the essence of your subject matter.

There are no discussions of technique in the book but he does recommend shooting RAW (as do I) and learning to use editing software such as Lightroom and/or Photoshop. If you are looking for technical instruction, this is not a book for you but if you are concerned with finding your photographic voice, I highly recommend Zen Camera.

The photo above is mine, it is not in the book and is not related in any way to the book. It existed before reading the book. It heads the page because I like it a lot. It was made while walking the River Walk in Saranac Lake last year. A large print of it is currently in the Northwind Gallery's juried show (Woodruff St., Saranac Lake, NY) through this coming Friday, May 25th. If you dash over there before the show closes, the framed print is for sale or I can make you a print if you prefer to frame it yourself. Just post a comment to that effect and I will reply by email with the particulars.

Disclaimer: I was not asked to review the book, I bought the book from Amazon, David Ulrich is totally unaware of me or the review. I get nothing for writing the review. I only review and recommend things I truly believe have value to my readers. Please respect my copyright and do not repost any portion of this post without my consent.

Off Topic - Kickstarter Project I have supported

A while back (2013) I did a review of "Small Island, Big Pictures" by Alexandra de Steiguer. She is now doing a new Kickstarter project, a CD of her music. Based on the samples on the Kickstarter site this promises to be as wonderful as her photos. Here is a link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/islandmusic/habitual-hermit-ensemble-songs-from-across-a-seven/posts/1843526. Check it out.

BTW The last time I saw a copy of "Small Island, Big Pictures" on Amazon the price was $320. There are none available now.

I have been lax about posting again. Sorry. Spring is finally arriving and hopefully, my inspiration for posting will be blooming along with the flowers.

Waterlogue for Windows 10 Again

I should call this Waterlogue Plus. I'm revisiting Waterlogue to correct a few things and to show how it can be integrated with other filters as in the image above.

In my previous review, I complained that I didn't get the controls other reviews mentioned (brush size and lightness). With further exploration, I find they are there. The problem is one of clear menus. Many years ago I took a course in web design. One of the things that stuck in my mind was the admonition to avoid "mystery meat" menus. Mystery meat is the meat you get in a high school cafeteria line that is drowned in gravy so that you can't tell what it is. The authors used that as a metaphor for 'clever' menus that require the user to figure the menu out in order to do something. There was a trend toward image mapping on websites at the time and on some sites it was necessary to  move the cursor around an image to find the mapped parts for navigating the site. Waterlogue's menus aren't that vague, but the sideways scrolling of the bottom eluded me until I accidentally discovered that rotating the mouse wheel up and down moved the panel left or right. I have a mouse that I can scroll sideways with by pressing the wheel left or right and that didn't work so I had missed the scrolling before.

Aside from that I have to say the brush size control really makes only a minor difference anyway. For example here are two conversions of the same image, the first at the Giant setting (which should be more detailed) and the other at the Small setting (supposed to be less detailed) (the border effect is turned off in the Small version and the lightness had reset to medium).

I don't see much difference. Of course, I'm accustomed to Photoshop controls that have a huge range and this in only a 4 step scale, but I expected to see a bigger difference between the extremes.

Remember that the Small vs Giant does not refer to overall image size. Rather, it refers to the "brush" size with Small being more generalized and Giant being more detailed. As painting term however, they have them reversed. A painter uses bigger brushes for broad generalized areas and small brushes for details.

There are several image size settings, small, medium, large and original, but original will be the same size as the original only if the original is no larger than 3584 pixels on the long side. That makes it awkward to integrate Waterlogue filtered images with images processed in other filters. It becomes necessary to resize the other images from the real original size to the Waterlogue "original" size before layering them The image at the top is such a layered image. I really like the way that Waterlogue imitates watercolor but the detail part (underdrawing) leaves a lot to be desired so I created a new layer using Topaz Detail 2 (lithography) and layered it over the Waterlogue image with Luminosity blending mode and slid the transparency back to 60% in order to add back in a bit more detail. This layered filter effects technique is something I use fairly frequently. I think it adds significantly to this image.

The Waterlogue App was originally designed for iPhones and iPads so I understand that the developers are designing for devices of somewhat limited memory and processing power compared to PCs but when they jumped to the PC version they missed an opportunity to increase the usability to match the new platform. I'm hoping they upgrade it to a real filter, perhaps even a Photoshop plugin.

P.S. 12/14/15: The diagonal white line problem seems to have resolved itself. I didn't do anything to fix it, but they aren't appearing on any of the new images I've made. How, why, what fixed it? Your guess is as good as mine.

Waterlogue App Review

This will be a short review because the Waterlogue App is pretty small. There is not a lot to it, so there's not a lot to say about it. It runs on PCs under Windows 10. I don't know if it will work with Windows 8. What it does is turn photos into pseudo watercolors. There are 12 presets and there isn't much you can do to alter them. Actually I haven't found any way to modify a preset. The "It's Technical" preset adds a grid to the image so it looks as if it was painted on graph paper. They need to lose that feature IMO. The pseudo graph paper adds nothing to the image. Also (at random,) diagonal white lines appear onsome images as if they are trying to emulate some kind of paper texture. They appear randomly on different presets. Some time it shows up on a preset, sometimes it doesn't. The effect doesn't seem to be tied to any particular preset so maybe it's a bug. Also the App tends to crash fairly easily In the time I played with it this evening it crashed 4-5 times while processing 18-20 images.

Points in the Apps favor are that it is easy to use. You can set the output size to one of several settings including original. The results with some photos are quite interesting. I'd prefer a little more control (along with ditching the grid & diagonal line effects) but for $2.99 you can have a lot of fun with it. There's a basis here for a really good little program if they work on it a bit more.

The annoying diagonal lines.

More annoying diagonal white lines.

Annoying white lines plus annoying pseudo graph paper grid.

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Topaz Impression Review

A while back Topaz ran a drawing for a free copy of their new Impression software on Facebook. To enter you only had to comment on the post. I did and I won. I didn't get to use it right away because it requires a graphics adapter with Open GL 3.2 or newer. My computer was too old. I had already upgraded the graphics board once (to Open GL 2.1) and wasn't about to put more money into such an out-of-date machine. Then Adobe came out with Lightroom CC and that wouldn't run on my computer either, again because of the old graphics board which was the newest part of my computer. Since LR is the software I use most I was forced to bite the bullet and buy a new computer.

Unlike Topaz's earlier filters, Impression is designed as a stand-alone program rather than a plugin for Photoshop.*** It will open JPG, TIFF, PNG and RAW files but it seems to generate previews in the File>Open window only of JPGs. I also find that the first time I choose File>Open after starting the program I don't get any previews at all, just a blank window. If I close it and retry it works normally and will work normally to open subsequent images until I exit the program and restart it. That brings me to the other oddity, there is no "File>Close" option. You can Open, Save, Save As, or Exit. If you try to open another file (or exit) without first saving the current one you are asked if you want to save it and can choose not to.

The program is designed to make your photos mimic traditional art media and the styles of a limited number of artists. Some are fairly successful like the one above which is one of the Impressionistic presets. Others, not so much, like the image below which is supposed to mimic Van Gogh.

To be fair I don't see how one could write software to render like Vincent Van Gogh, particularly in large areas like the sky. Vincent would have made the sky with a number of colors in large, bold strokes. The software doesn't have the variance of color he would have used as a resource to interpret. It can only work with what is already in the image.

The program works through groups of presets classed under the titles Ancient, Impressionistic, Modern, Painting (styles and media), Pencil, (color/liquid/graphite). Pictorial, Charcoal & Pastel with a variety of presets in each. There are previews of each showing how your image will be changed before clicking on one. You can modify any of the presets by clicking on the arrows symbol displayed on the current active preset or on the tab at the top of the presets with the same arrows symbol and you can revert to the original at any time before saving.

The program will allow you to modify or create your own presets by changing the stroke (brush size, opacity, and other qualities). In the Color section there are color swatches which, when you click on one, shows where that color is present in the image and allow you to modify just that hue. In the Lighting section, you can modify the light brightness, contrast, vignette, and direction. These are set to mimic light falling on the surface of whatever media you are mimicking. Last is the texture control that allows you to choose the surface, paper, canvas, stone, etc. and the characteristics of that surface including color.

The set of images below show an original image and two drawing variations, the first with the unaltered preset and the second with the paper color changed. The choice of color is  a standard color picker. You can choose any color your computer can produce for the background surface.

Although Impression isn't  capable of full layer processing (you can't stack several effects) the preset is applied over the original image which remains unchanged until you save it. This means that you can vary the opacity of the effect to allow the original to show through as in the following pair of images.

The upper image is at 50% opacity so that you are seeing part of the original image through the effect. The lower one is just the effect at 100% with none of the underlying image visible. There are also a limited number of Blend Modes for altering the combination of original and effect. I suppose it would be possible to layer multiple effects by saving after creating each one then adding the next but I haven't tried that and I suspect that subsequent effects would be based on the saved version rather than the original. Additionally because you couldn't create multiple layers that you could switch between, you couldn't modify the lower (already saved) layer(s). You could create multiple versions, import them to Photoshop as layers and play with them there. The image below is an example of one that was layered with the original in Photoshop and the flower portion was partially masked out to reduce the effect on that part of the photo thus revealing more more of the original.

Topaz Impression is an interesting addition to the available digital imaging toolbox and I suspect it will see many improvements in future releases just as the Topaz plugin filters have. I am particularly impressed with the pencil effects. I have done a lot of pencil drawing myself and the effect is pretty convincing. I also like some of the other effects. Below are several examples from an afternoon of playing around. The first has a border that I added in Photoshop based on the background color. The border lacks the texture because it was added after. Had I added a white border to the original before processing it in Impression it would have the texture to match the rest of the image.

*** Jun 29 2015 Correction: Although Impression does not appear in my Photoshop CC 2015 filters I discover that is a problem with the latest version of PS, not Topaz Impression. When trying to use my other Topaz filters I noted that they are all missing from the PS CC 2015 program. I thought perhaps they had simply failed to migrate when Adobe auto updated PS CC 2014. I checked the CC 2014 Plugins folder and they were there so I copied the folder to the PS CC 2015 Plugins folder. When I restarted PS CC 2015 I got a message that not all my plugins might work and sure enough, they didn't. I reverted to PS 6 (the update apparently overwrote my previous PS CC versions, they're gone) and opened a file to edit it I found that Impressions was listed in the filters and indeed it does function as a plugin, in PS 6 at least. This leads me to believe that if yo are using another editor that uses PS style plugins, Impressions will likely work as a plugin in your software.

Disclaimer: Although I did get the program for free it was an open competition that was available to anyone who follows Topaz on Facebook and there was no requirement to write this review nor did I discuss writing it with Topaz. I do like and use a number of their filters and recommend them. All the images are clickable to see them larger if you want a closer look.

All images are copyrighted. Please respect my copyright. Do not repost anywhere without permission. It's called stealing, like in the Ten Commandments. It's not nice to steal. Thank you for being nice.

Petzval!

This past winter I bought a Petzval lens reproduction from Lomography through a crowdsource project they ran. There were some delays and when the lens came it came minus several of the bonuses Lomography promised. Two of the missing bonuses were of no consequence to me (a camera strap and a canvas bag) but I also did not receive the special shape Waterhouse Stop set that was promised and that I did care about. Despite writing to Lomography, both through the crowdsource site and directly however have produced no result. I still do not have the promised special shaped stops. I would think twice before dealing with Lomography again.

The lens is well made with a nice brass finish, modified from the original design to fit directly on modern Canon or Nikon cameras (mine is the Canon version) and produces images with pleasant depth of field as well as fall off of sharpness toward the corners which gives a vintage look to the images. It is quite sharp in the center and overall sharpness increases with smaller stops since you are only using the center of the lens. Operation is strictly manual. The Waterhouse Stops simply drop into a slot in the lens barrel. Since the opening is perfectly round, unlike a variable diaphragm which works on movable leaves, the out of focus areas are pleasantly blurred. The camera controls the shutter speed and focusing is achieved via a rack and pinion on the bottom of the lens. The lens was promoted as a portrait lens and it is undoubtedly good for that but I bought it primarily to use for flower photos. Photographing individual or small groups or flowers shares a lot in common with portraiture as this group of images demonstrates

I wish the Waterhouse Stops fit a touch more snuggly or had some mechanism to hold them in place other than just gravity. Working in the field I'm concerned about dropping and losing one of them. I've tried using a hair band to hold the stop in the slot when I turn the camera on its side but I'm not entirely happy with that solution. Also the suede case Lomography  provided for the lens and set of stops is virtually useless. It is awkward to get the lens into the case which is a poor fit. The case is a flat rectangle that opens via an overlap down the middle of one side and the stops are simply put into a pocket on the inside of the case. I can see that I will have to make my own case for the stops, something with slots for each stop rather than dumping them together in one too large pocket. I'd prefer that they be sorted by f/stop for ease of selection. I'll probably end up buying a Neoprene pouch, a round one, like the lens, to store the lens in.

This group was shot in the field behind my house, Spotted Knapweed above and below are two images of Yellow Daisies, a cluster of Butter and Eggs, a Rough Fruited Cinquefoil and a Plantation Lily that is in one of our flower beds. I converted the last to B&W because I thought that suited it best.

As always, please respect  my copyrights. Share by referring to the URL of this page, not by reposting elsewhere without my permission.

Digital Magazines

A review (sort of) that is photography related (again, sort of) but not about photography. After getting a Kindle Fire I decided to try subscribing to a couple of digital magazines, National Geographic and Outdoor Photographer. Both feature very nice photographs and it seems a shame to throw away/recycle print copies after reading them but what do you do with them? Enter digital subscriptions.

I really like the National Geographic digital presentation. They reformat the articles for digital presentation, text is separated and scrolls vertically, moving from section to section is done with horizontal scrolls. Photos are organized in albums for viewing with only captions. They even include interactive maps and audio/video clips. Very cool stuff, very well done, it takes good advantage of the touch screen. I haven't done a side-by-side check of the digital version against the print version but I think the articles are condensed from the print version. They don't seem as long as I remember from when I had a print subscription in the past but they are long enough to convey the stories. I don't finish one wishing they had included more and I read almost all of them. The one niggle I have is their app/delivery system. Perhaps the digital format they have chosen dictates it but I have to guess when an issue is available, open the app, log in and manually download the new issues. Maybe if they sent an automated email to let me know when a new issue was available it would annoy me less but aside from checking, there seems to be no way to know for sure when the latest issue is available. Never the less I give them 4½ stars out of 5 for the great presentation of great content.

Outdoor Photographer got the delivery right. When a new issue comes out it automatically downloads to my Kindle and pops up - BAM! as Emeril would say. No effort on my part. That's the last cool thing about the digital version of Outdoor Photographer. All they do is digitize the print version as whole pages, like a pdf file. Perhaps that would work fine on a desktop computer with a large screen but on a Kindle sized tablet it is a navigation nightmare. If you view the whole page, the print is far to small to read. If you enlarge it enough to be legible you are looking at only a section of page and spend all your time scrolling both sideways and up/down trying to read it. And because OP has a nasty habit of spanning photos across pages you see only a portion of the photo at a time or turn the Kindle sideways for a full two page view which is very small. Consequently I find myself reading very little of OP, a quick scan of each issue and perhaps one article, that's it. Add this to the editor's apparent notion that the only good landscapes are west of Denver (an annoyance I've noted in the past) and I will pass on renewing that subscription.

I've tried other digital subscriptions (news media) and noticed the same issue. They either scan and dump the print version as whole pages, sometimes in a proprietary format like Zinio, or they reformat the content to fit the constraints & advantages of digital presentation. IMO the latter is superior and the former is a poor substitute for print which isn't dead yet and won't be until publishers wise up to the differences or perhaps those who don't will simply cease publishing altogether.

The photo above has nothing to do with the post. It is just there for your viewing pleasure. It is from the canoe trip in the prior post. Like the others it was made from the canoe. Please respect my copyright and do not repost either the photos or the text without permission. Share by referring to this URL of this page.

Karsh & Heisler - A Review

I bought two books on portrait photographers recently and because of the similarity I decided to review them together. Although the Karsh book is sub-titled "A Biography in Images" that could describe both books although the Heisler book would more aptly be called a retrospective. The format is similar in both, a series of photos with text about the image, the person photographed and the making of the photograph although not technical information (Camera used, f/stops,film, etc.). There is some casual mention about lighting or other aspects of the shoot for the photos but if you are looking for a "how I shot this" book you will be disappointed. I wasn't looking for that and wasn't disappointed in either book.

I bought the print versions. The Gregory Heisler book is also available for Kindle but in my humble opinion the photos need a large print book for their full impact. Both are printed well on high quality paper and nicely bound coffee table sized volumes.

I read one criticism on a forum that the Greg Heisler portraits were too editorial and not a personal expression or "art", an unfair criticism I think given that Gerg Heisler's portraits were in fact editorial assignments. He brings to them a degree of art but working within the constraints of a client always brings some level of expectation from the client as well as the constraints of the sitter. The story of the cover image (Muhammed Ali's masseur) in particular demonstrates Greg's ability to deal with such constraints and still get a powerful and revealing portrait.

Yousuf Karsh was a commercial photographer as well and many of the portraits in his book were also made for magazines although I personally see more of Karsh in his portraits than I see of Heisler in the Heisler book. It's a matter of degree and is subtle, varying from image to image but overall Karsh seemed to transcend the 'assignment' to a greater degree than Heisler. The Karsh book also includes a brief biography and some non-portrait photos at the beginning which helped give context to the portraits that followed. I came away from the Karsh book feeling like I had met the photographer rather than simply going to an exhibit of his work.

If you are interested in portraits of (mostly) famous people and learning a bit about what it was like to encounter each of their personalities as a photographer I highly recommend both books. I don't have links to Amazon and don't get any 'affiliate' fees from them if you buy either book. In fact, although I got them through Amazon, if you are fortunate enough to have a local bookseller who stocks them I encourage you to buy them there. As much as I like Amazon they have killed off many local bookstores to the point that there aren't any near me who carry this sort of book.

The Heart of Photography is Openness - A Book Review

I just bought a photo book that I love. It is "Small Island, Big Pictures" by Alexandra de Steiguer. Alex has spent sixteen winters as caretaker on a group of islands off the New England coast, alone. She thinks, explores, writes and photographs with a medium format camera. Her photographs are nothing short of wonderful. The written part is spare, like the winter islands she photographs, an appropriate compliment to the images without distracting from the visual experience. And that's what this book is, a visual experience of a place at a time that (mostly) only she sees.

Discussing her photography she says that even the making of the photographs can be an intrusion on the experience of being there and that "Without the camera, I loved being outside. It didn't matter that the light be 'just right', or the day dramatic. Only with the camera was there a certain expectation. I spent more time looking than appreciating, more time searching than seeing."  I know the feeling. Probably the most important 'trick' or technique a photographer can learn is to see through the camera as if it weren't there. To reach the point when the camera is merely a note taking tool, a means of saving a moment in time and space. That is the real craft of photography at its finest and Alex de Steiguer has mastered it in this fine collection of images.

The book is available through http://www.alexdesteiguer.com/portfolio/pages/her+new+book. Her website URL is http://alexdesteiguer.com/

The usual disclaimer: I do not know Alex de Steiguer. I requested and received her permission to use the photo above in this review which I chose to write wholly of my own accord after purchasing the book. The photograph is the property of Alex de Steiguer and the review is copyrighted by me. She may use it if and as she wishes, all others are prohibited from reposting without permission.

Lensbaby Composer Pro Review

I returned the Lensbaby today and as promised here is a review of my experience with it. I rented the lens, a Lensbaby Composer Pro with the Sweet 35mm optic, from LensRentals.com. This is not going to be a review of LensRentals but I want to make clear that my comments are not influenced by either Lensbaby or Lens Rentals. Neither knew I planned to write a blog post about it nor was I given any consideration by either. I used the lens on my Canon 7D. I have already posted a couple of images in the prior two posts. 

The Lensbaby is a fully manual lens. It is unique in that it has a ball mechanism between the body mount and the optic allowing you to tilt it up, down or at any angle. It focuses sharply in the center but blurs progressively away from the "sweet spot". As you stop down the blurring effect is decreased. The only auto feature on your camera that will work with it is the TTL light meter. You have to focus manually and adjust the aperture manually.When you change the f/stop you may have to change the shutter speed manually to get correct exposure. Using it in Av (aperture value) mode I found that the camera usually, but not always, compensated correctly for f/stop changes. You also have to position of the "sweet Spot" manually, the area of sharp focus. That's where I ran into problems. I could see that there was a sharper area when looking through the view finder but I found it difficult  to position it precisely where I wanted because the blurring around the sweet spot did not appear (to me) as pronounced in the viewfinder as it did in the final image. Unfortunately the focus indicators on the 7D did not flash when focus was achieved. That would have helped both with getting correct focus and in determining exactly where the center of the sweet spot was. Sometimes I nailed it but others I missed as in the case of the image below of Robert who works in the local Arts Council gallery.

I wanted the center of the sweet spot in the area of his right eye and nose but instead it is centered on his right temple. I did better with Suzy (below)...

and even got good focus on her eyes. I shot several of Beka (the Arts Council director, below) but had trouble getting good focus on her eyes. They look pretty good in this small image but if you look at the full sized file her eyes aren't as sharp as I'd like.The plane of focus is about a half inch to an inch back of where it should have been and like in the photo of Robert the sweet spot is centered too far to the left (her right).

I'm sure the problems are mine not the lens. For starters my eyes aren't what they once were (oh, to be 20 again). I have floaters and other minor impairments which aren't a serious visual problem but may be contributing to my difficulty getting precise manual focus. At least that's my excuse. Where the sweet spot is properly placed and focused the lens is very sharp in that central area. I just had difficulty controlling it. Probably with practice I could improve my 'good' frames ratio but in the short time I had the lens I probably got less than 1 in 5 frames on average where it was in focus on the spot I wanted. Stopping down improved the focus (blurred areas were blurred less and the sweet spot was relatively larger) but it was also harder to place because it was less distinct.

I shot a few macros in the studio and noticed an interesting phenomenon in the highlights, a haloing effect on the pin heads as the image became more blurred at the edges. It only happened on this shot of a novelty pin sculpture thing.

So does the 'thumbs up' mean I'm going to rush out and buy a Lensbaby? No. It's an interesting lens and I might buy (or rent again) one at some point in the future but it doesn't fit well into my usual landscape photography. I could use one for flower photos (see the 2 prior posts). I shoot quite a lot of those. It is interesting for portraits which I plan to start doing more but there are other lenses I'd like more so acquiring one of these will be somewhere down the list. If you are younger than I with excellent vision and you like the effect this can be a really fun lens though. It does get a thumbs up from me but with the caution that if you aren't practiced shooting in manual mode with manual focus or your vision makes manual focus a problem, you will have a learning curve with this lens. Even if you are the tilt feature will take some getting used to.

Please to not repost these photos or any portion of this review without my permission.

Rented Lens Pre-Review

Just a quick post to say I'm playing with a rented Lensbaby Composer Pro. I've been curious about the Lensbaby since they first came out but the need to manually hold the lens in focus while shooting with the early models nixed it for me. Then they came out with models that could hold focus (the Control Freak and the Composer) and I wondered if I'd use one enough to justify the cost. Time to rent one and see if it is really a useful tool for me. I have the lens for a week. Above is one of Diane's plants in bloom. Tomorrow I'll use it as part of a portrait session I'm doing. Later in the week I'll post a review and (maybe) my decision on whether I want to actually buy one.

Can You See the Forest Among the Trees?

The tree and rock just left of center have appeared here before. The tree is at the Northwest corner of a section of our small woodlot that extends into the corner of our back field. In case you haven't noticed, I fond of woods and trees. They appear frequently as subjects of my photography. I enjoy seeing other photographer's photographs of trees and forests, at least I usually do.

Yesterday I was in book store and they had a copy of Skogen by Robert Adams. I've read some of his books on photography and he has a very different view of the medium than I do. That said I wondered how he would do with woodlands as subject matter. The single review on Amazon was a rave and I had seen a couple of other favorable reviews but I wasn't about to order a copy sight unseen.

The reviews I've seen are uniform in their praise of the book, its layout, fine paper and printing, the quality of the binding and I have to agree that those things are very nice indeed. After thumbing through the book however it remains on the bookstore shelf nor will I be ordering a copy from Amazon at their 30% discount price. Suffice to say that had I made those photos they would all be in the reject bin.  A beautiful package that was a let down when opened.

I debated whether I should write my own Amazon review but since I didn't buy the book at all, much less from Amazon, it seemed churlish to write a "Customer Review" on their site. Instead I vent my disappointment here.

Woodlot, Northwest Corner was shot with my Canon SX50 and converted to B&W using NIK Silver Efex 2.0.

Software Trial by Photo Editing

In the past I have purchased several software packages from Serif.com and have been generally satisfied with the products. They have repeatedly tried to sell me their PhotoPlus software which I have never before bothered to look at because I have been using Photoshop since version 7 and since the introduction of Lightroom I use and recommend both Lightroom and Photoshop. All my initial processing is done in Lightroom and I use Photoshop for images that require the use of layers, advanced selections or photo-merging.

This morning however I got an email from Serif offering limited time free trial versions of their software so I thought it would be interesting to see how PhotoPlus X5 compared with other image editing software I have used. I undertook this as a matter of personal curiosity and a recognition that not everyone wants to or can pay the cost of Photoshop. I have no affiliation with Serif beyond having bought a couple of pieces their other software several years ago.

COMPATIBILITY

The first thing I discovered after installing Photo Plus was that it does not play well with Adobe DNG files. It will open them but with a wide black band on one side. You can't simply crop off the black band because it falls within the frame of the image, not covering but compressing and distorting the image into the remaining space.

Since my current standard practice is to convert all RAW images to DNG upon import, this problem alone is sufficient to remove it from consideration by me. Looking at older files however I note that PhotoPlus will properly open CRW and CR2 files. I'm guessing that the difference lies in the fact that most RAW files write the EXIF data to a sidecar XMP file whereas Adobe DNG incorporates the EXIF and IPTC data into the DNG file itself and PhotoPlus can't separate it from data describing pixels so it represents the EXIF & IPTC sector as a band on one of the long sides. Don't quote me on that though. I could be wrong.

PhotoPlus does open JPG, PSD& TIFF which are the only other file types I use or have used and have to test with. I cannot vouch for its ability to work with any other proprietary camera RAW files or other image file types.

CONTROLS

The layout of controls closely follows Photoshop's interface including a lot of (if not all) of the same keyboard shortcuts, i.e. left & right bracket keys to change brush size and Control Z to undo the last command. The Tools (brush, cropping, clone, etc.) are on the left and the Studio Tabs (their equivalent of Photoshop's palettes) are on the right side. There are a good range of tools and controls including layers. I did not find any photo-merging capacity except for bracketed exposures to create HDR images and that is disabled in the trial version so I could not test it.

The Adjustments palette on the right includes Levels, Curves, Color Balance, Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation/Lightness, Colorize, Vibrance, Selective Color, Channel Mixer, Gradient map, Lens Filter, Black & White Film, Threshold filter, Posterize and Negative image. They appear to closely mirror Photoshop's set of Adjustment layer tools. The Warp, Line, Shape and Node tools on the left were shaded pink indicating that you'd have to buy the full version to get them. The same was true for the Organizer, Tablet controls, Photo Fix, Filter Gallery and Cutout Studio on the top menu.

Overall the interface is very similar to Photoshop. There are a few differences in layout but if someone wanted a less expensive software to begin photo editing they could go to Photoshop later if the need arose without suffering “interface shock”. In the past I have used Paint Shop Pro which I can't say the same for. I actually began image editing on PSP3 long before Corel bought it and continued to use it for a couple of iterations past when Corel changed the interface. PSP is a powerful program, Photoshop on a budget, but with a significantly different interface that I stopped using because I found it to be nearly the opposite of “intuitive”. That could be just me however.

I discovered while trying to save an image that I edited in PhotoPlus that you can only save layered images in PhotoPlus' proprietary .Spp format. Aside from .Spp the only other format offered to save in is JPG. I suppose you could save all your work files in .Spp and your output files in JPG but I frequently use TIFF for images that need to be saved in a non-lossy format. Whether any other editing software will recognize the .Spp files should you want to do further editing in other software or switch to another editor in the future is an open question.

My conclusion on Serif's PhotoPlus? As I said at the outset, it is not for me. The incompatibility with my preferred RAW format, inability to save to layered TIFF and the fact that I am already invested in Photoshop and Lightroom make this a non-starter for me. I am impressed by the clean interface and range of tools however and for those who shoot JPG or a RAW format that PhotoPlus is compatible with, at $89.99 this could be a real budget friendly alternative to Adobe's much more expensive software as long as you don't plan on stitching panoramas, merging photos for DOF or a handful of other advanced features from Photoshop.  

The top photo was shot with my Canon SX50 in JPG. I was able to do levels and vibrance adjustments to it in PhotoPlus but had to merge the layers to re-save it. I could not test the sharpening tools. They were one of the "pinked out" features in the trial software. The second picture is a screen capture of how a DNG file looks when opened in PhotoPlus. I tried several, all with the same result. The black band is always on a long side, on the left with a vertical image and on the bottom with a landscape format image. The image itself is always 'squished' on the right/top.

May 2, 2014 Upon receipt of the comment  thanking me for the review I revisited the Serif website thinking I should review the most recent version (#7) however it appears they no longer offer limited trial copies of their software. There is a free "basic" version but there is no indication of how it relates or compares to the current paid version in terms of features and capabilities. The only comparisons on the site are to Corel's Paint Shop Pro and Adobe's Photoshop.

New Camera - Canon SX50 HS

I haven't been watching new equipment announcements so I didn't know about the Canon SX50 HS until a friend told me. I was dismissive at first because it was so inexpensive I had a hard time seeing how it could generate high quality images at a 1200mm equivalent angle of view but it nagged at me because of the times I've had to pass on photos simply because my lens wouldn't pull in the subject. I had a chance to get one on sale and on an impulse I bought it. This is a mini-review which is to say I'm not going into the kind of detail that review sites like DP Review do. Just my impressions in my (so far) limited use of it.

The photos here come from an outing yesterday to a local trail along the Racquette River. I took the SX50 HS but not a tripod. I was on snowshoes and did have one hiking pole with a small ballhead on the camera screw under the knob. I shot 65 photos. I lost one series of 4 or 5 photos because some water drops got on the lens and I missed seeing that until I got home. My fault, not the camera's.

The photos below were shot with the lens at or nearly at full extension. I used the hiking pole and a convenient tree for stabilizing the camera. Both have been subjected to my 3 stage sharpening (Detail controls in Lightroom, export to Photoshop, apply USM 15/60/0 and Smart Sharpening 75% at 0.3 radius). The Smart Sharpening settings I use vary according to final image size and the type of output. These are settings I frequently use for an 800 pixel wide web image.

 For reference below is a broad view, although not the full width of the widest angle the camera can do, taken from exactly the same position as the two icicle shots. All were shot as RAW images. The icicle shots both come from the area outlined in red, they are left and right at the base of the rock. The water's edge on my side of the river was about 8-10 feet in front of me.

 I'm still getting used to the controls which are significantly different from my other Canon cameras. The buttons on the back are too easily pressed, causing unintended changes in settings and the power button not easily enough. You have to press it with some deliberateness to turn the camera on or off. I lost 2 or 3 shots at the longest focal length due to camera movement, not surprising for such a long lens. A tripod would have been better than the pole and a cable release would help too. For the money though, and with care, the camera is quite a good performer.

 The closeups were 1/13th sec. @ f/6.3. The lens only stops down to f/8 and wide open is f/3.4. Neither closeup image was cropped, they are the full 3000x4000 pixels so at 240ppi I could print them 12'X16". At 300ppi they would be 10"x13".

This camera won't replace the 7D but  will be more like a supplement for when I need the kind of reach that I don't have and can't afford for the DSLR, not to mention that a DSLR lens of similar length could be a weight concern. The longest SLR lens Canon makes is 800mm. It weighs 9.9# and costs $14K. To get to approximately 1200mm you'd need a 1.4 Tel-extender which weighs only ½# but adds another $500. The SX50 HS cost me $400 on sale. Would the performance of the 7D with a tel-extender and 800mm lens be $14,100 better? I don't think so, at least not for me. I don't do that much telephoto shooting. The SX50 may replace the G11 for hiking when photography is not the object of the hike but I want a camera along.

New B&W eBook From Guy Tal

Guy Tal has come out with a new ebook on digital B&W. I was privileged to get a chance to review it before the release (today) and was impressed by its thoroughness. I have a lot of respect for Guy's vision and skill and in this 59 page ebook he lets us in on his working methods for B&W.

I should start by saying this is a book for those who are serious about B&W and their art. If you are looking for a guide with 10 quick and easy tips for better B&W, this book is not for you. If you are into using Lightroom and Photoshop to do conversions and want to step it up to the next level by studying how one of the best does it, you want this book. Although it is brief it isn't light reading and I'm sure you will learn something that benefits your work even if you are already an advanced digital photographer. The insight into his thought process and methods alone are worth studying. I recommend it highly.

The ebook can be purchased at http://guytalbooks.com/catalog_show_ebook.php?bid=4


or you can use the link in the left hand column to reach his ebook page.
The photo above is a page from the beginning of the book.

Postwork Shop Pro 2 Review

Back in December I wrote a post about PostworkShop basic in which I said that I would probably buy the Pro version. I finally did. The differences are in the amount of presets available and the size of the image you can process. The basic version would only work with images up to 800 pixels per side. They have an "Artist" version that will work on images up to 2000 pixels/side and the Pro version that is unlimited. They are about to upgrade the program to Ver. 3 however and when they do that the Basic and Artist versions will go away. If you are interested in either of them you'd best buy it now.

For my earlier post I had only done web sized images. Since buying the Pro version I've been playing with that and have made some new observations. The first is that when you are working on larger images it gets slower. A lot slower. When I tried working on full sized files from my Canon 7D (18MP) it came to a screeching halt, totally locked up when I attempted to use some presets. Now I should point out that I am working on an older computer (5-6 years old) and I will be moving the program to my new computer eventually, a fairly simple process of de-registering it from this one and registering it on the new one. OTOH I note that one of the improvements they list for Ver. 3 is that it will be faster, so apparently others had experienced slow processing too.

Now for the pluses. There are lots of presets in the Pro version. You can play with the settings on many (but not all) of the presets. It works in layers which gives you the option of several blending modes. There is a style editor, a bitmap editor and a batch processor which I presume can be used to process a series of images to an identical style. There is a lot to the program and I confess that I've only begun to scratch the surface. If they cure the speed problem with version 3 and my newer computer handles it better I can see this becoming a tool I use fairly frequently for "Fine Art" and illustrative images.

The photo at the top was made on a tall ship cruise on the St. Lawrence last September. It has two added layers, Antique Drawing 2 and Pencil Drawing 13. Both presets were modified from their defaults and the layers are set to different blending modes and levels of opacity. There are much more extreme possibilities including this Warholesque preset (which has very limited options).

Some of the presets give results that are barely or wholly unrecognizable as having been based on the image you started with as in the case of the following two using canned presets, both of which are variations of the same image as the one at the top.

The first of those two (Impressionism 1) had no user adjustable options the second (Cubism) did but I ran both presets straight to see the effect and both are at 100% opacity. Personally I don't see the second as "Cubist" but that's a semantic quibble. Where some of these more extreme presets may be useful is with different blending modes. I can't see myself finding a use for "Cubist" though nor any of the abstract presets.

I haven't even gotten into the style editor or bitmap editor. There are way too many possibilities in this software for me to go into them all and many are not the sort of thing that will appeal to those who only want to enhance the photographic qualities of their images but if you are inclined to walk a bit on the wild side there is plenty here to keep you occupied.

As with all my reviews this was not undertaken by a request or even with the knowledge of the publisher of PostworkShop, nor did I receive any consideration for it.