unintended consequences

It’s amazing, and always predictable. Great photo opportunities either find me without my camera, without the right lens, without my tripod, or unable to capture what I’m seeing.

 

This scene had some great haze and really cool colors, according to my eyes. The captured image is flat, slightly out of focus, and just doesn’t grab you like the real-life scene did.

On the flip side, I keep getting lucky when I’m just screwing around.

 

I was messing around with wide apertures and fast shutter speeds, indoors. This was a well-lit room, and the fan was at top speed. I’m very pleasantly surprised by the result. Originally I was using ISO 800 and 1/4000th sec. shutter speed. I decided to go for ISO 200 for richer color and less noise, but the 1/4000th sec. image was nice as well.

Workflow Issues

I have been using Aperture since the day I got my camera. I really like it for its organizational skills and its image editing. Version 2.1 really has almost everything I would want for photo editing. My problem with it is workflow and file management.

I like the DNG format. Aperture doesn’t use it, but Lightroom does. Lightroom is built for 64-bit support (my next computer will be 64-bit, I’m sure). Aperture creates tif and jpg files all over the place to manage its non-destructive workflow, but DNG allows Lightroom to do non-destructive edits in the same file. Aperture hides all your files in a special folder, but Lightroom just uses your files directly from the file system. I like the Lightroom file management much, much better, so I downloaded Lightroom.

I can’t figure out the image editing flow, and the organization is weaker. Although, I think my photo organization will be more file system folder based, rather than dependent upon a program, so Lightroom should do fine as my organization skills improve. My big issue is that Lightroom has curves, like Photoshop, but no levels. Aperture’s levels really fit my mental flow. Aperture also has better zoom options, a really cool loupe, and a more obvious layout. Aarrgh! I wish someone would show me how to use Lightroom to its full potential.

I know there are web resources, and I am checking them out, but a one-on-one person would be great here. Anyone care to do some pro bono tutoring on Lightroom?

First Macro Shots

I’m still just messing around with it, but my impulse shots seem to be turning out OK so far. Dealing with such a shallow depth of field is a bit strange, but the lens seems to do most of the magic for me.

 

 

 

Flickr Rant

I like Flickr. I like it better without video polluting it, but I like it.

However …. the Explore page, specifically the interestingness stuff, is total crap. How can some plumber’s butt crack be worthy of such notoriety and my images not be worthy of anything at all? My photos aren’t great, not by any means, but where’s the artistic value in the image I mentioned? It’s either black magic or politics, and neither are good excuses. Shame on you, Flickr.