Reprocessing

Now that Lightroom 4.1 and Photoshop CS6 have a new HDR processing method, and Lightroom can read the raw files from my camera, I thought I would re-process the raw files for these shots using the LR 4.1 32-bit processor. The previous versions were processed with Photomatix from JPG files, which I found to result in final TIFF images with crunchy details and unrealistic colors.

New:

Image

Image

And now the old:

Image

Image

Is the new processing better?

Hall Ranch Trail

I went hiking with my film camera just before Thanksgiving. I was testing a new lens and looking to capture details that would tell the story of what Hall Ranch Trail is like.

I was very pleased with how the lens performed, and the slides came out great. I need a better scanner, though.

 

 

 

The full set is in my Snapshots area.

Panasonic Lumix GX-1 compared to my G3

I’m curious about the interest in the “premium” GX1 and how it compares to my G3.

As far as i can tell, the GX-1 is an update to the GF-1 / GF-2 body style, but with the G3 sensor and internals. That’s the 30,000 foot view of it, anyways.

So, what are the technical differences?

The GX-1 improves on the G3 with:

 

  • electronic level
  • a bit smarter button layout
  • tacky rubbery grip areas for better, um, grip
  • slightly faster autofocus (0.09 sec vs. 0.1 sec for my G3)
  • slightly faster frame rate and larger buffer – 4.2 fps vs. 4.0 fps, 9 frames vs. 7

 

The G3 boasts these features over the GX-1:

 

  • integrated EVF
  • articulating screen
  • longer battery life

 

For fans of the GF series, I suspect the GX-1 trumps them all and should be an obvious upgrade.

For me, I could use the level and the better button layout, and I’d love the better grip. I’m not sure it’s worth swapping for, though. I think I’ll try to add some grippy faux-leather stuff to my G3 and call it good.

You can get a great price on either the GX1 or the G3 at Adorama.

Ansel Adams on Visualization and Creative Photography

I think of Stieglitz’s definition of photography -a paraphrase of what I heard him say many times. In the earlier days, when people were very scornful of what he called “creative photography” or “photography as art,” they would ask: “Mr. Stieglitz, how do you go about making the creative photograph?” He would answer, “When I have a desire to photograph, I go out in the world with my camera. I come across something that excites me emotionally and esthetically. I’m creatively excited. I see the picture in my mind’s eye and I make the exposure and I give you the print as the equivalent of what I saw and felt.” The word “equivalent” is very important. It’s two things-what is seen and what is felt about it. That’s why the naturalistic element in photography is very important. When you intentionally depart from the natural situation you can get into trouble. Unless you depart far enough.

From his Last Interview.

Colorado Sunflowers

Even though I still can’t process the raw images from the G3, I decided to process the jpg as best I cound and see what I could come up with.

(There was a slideshow here on the old blog, not sure how I’ll do that now.)

Nemesis

I use multiple machines, and I use shared data and files (1Password database, Lightroom catalogs, tax returns, etc.) on those machines. Nothing has been as useful as Dropbox for making that a completely painless way to live.

Until Dropbox decided to suck.

 

  1. After claiming “no one can access your data, not even us!” and “all your data is encrypted” it was discovered that the data is only encrypted once it arrives on Dropbox servers and employees have access to the encryption key for your data – the only thing preventing them accessing your private data is an internal policy against that. After that cute little deception, I can’t trust a policy to protect my data.
  2. They made a coding mistake that allowed any password to work on any account, and left the mistake public for over four hours. Every account on the system was open to the world. When it was discovered, they fixed it but said nothing.
  3. Their idea of “press releases” for important news like the password debacle amounts to a blog post on their obscure blog that nobody reads.
  4. They changed their Terms to claim almost every legal right known to mankind on every file you put in Dropbox. That’s when I closed my account.

 

Dropbox can be used for:

 

  • Backup
  • Syncronizing files between multiple machines
  • Sharing files publicly

 

The Dropbox people (now filthy stinking rich bastards who will likely care even less about their customers thanks to huge VC funding they mostly pocketed rather than increasing the security of their product) seem to focus on the ‘sharing files publicly’ use case. This is reflected in their attitude in the forums, their product design of data de-duplication and no user-controlled encryption, and in their recent Terms changes. My use of Dropbox, sync’ing private files between machines, has nothing to do with sharing anything publicly and really needs more security.

Here’s the rub. Still, nothing works as well. I picked Wuala because it is more secure and I could get more storage space for free. But it’s slow as hell and I think it just corrupted my Lightroom catalog file. F*#K!! I can’t believe I’m considering using Dropbox again. I despise the Dropbox people don’t agree with how the people behind Dropbox run their company and their product, but I love the Dropbox product. It’s my nemesis. It could be so much better, too, but they don’t care.

I hope and pray that iCloud solves this before I cave in and go crawling back to Dropbox.

Star Trails

I tried shooting star trails during the Perseid Meteor Shower last night – my first star trails with a digital camera.

As I was finishing up processing, I was playing with color casts. I couldn’t decide which one I liked most, so I put them all in a single image and post it here. I’d love to hear what you think of it.