Exposure Blending

Inside St. Nicolaaskerk, Amsterdam. Nikon D70s, 18-200VR @ 18mm/f8 • 3 exposures (1/500, 1/125/ 1/30s), freehand, ISO 400.

Timothy Arnes wrote an export plugin for Lightroom that uses Enfuse to blend multiple exposures.

Whats so interesting about it is (besides that its very easy to use, of course) the "auto align" feature that has been implemented with the plugin.

Taking multiple exposures free hand is a technique that is called "High Speed Bracketing" where the goal is "Capture More Light" - and I've learned about it on the "Digital Outback Photo" website (these guys are doing it on a much higher level, of course).

Nikon's Hoover

In the photography community, the Nikon 18-200VR (AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED) is discussed quite controversally all the time, its optical qualities, its mechanical qualities, and whatnot.

Well, its the lens that I'm using most of the time, simply because its so versatile. Its field of view corresponds to 27-300mm if you consider the crop, and the VR makes it possible to shoot freehand at the long end quite safely (while f/5.6 together with the crop of 1.5 is not exactly good to isolate a subject at the long end, indeed).

But what I haven't read about very often is the dust problem you're facing sooner or later when you're using this lens (or, most likely, any other superzoom lens). If you have dust on your sensor, its most likely NOT from exchanging lenses in a dusty environment - it CAN happen, but how likely is it? I dare say that, if you have dust on your sensor, its more likely the result of using a (super-)zoom lens.

The 11.1x zoom range of the 18-200VR moves a LOT of air in and out of the lens... and into the camera's mirror cabinet of course. When you zoom in & out all the way while looking through the viewfinder, you can even feel the air moving. And that air is unfiltered, of course...

So - is spring the most lovely time to get dust-freckles on your sensor? With all the pollen flying around, it wouldn't surprise me.

xpro :)

Nikon D70s, 18-200VR @ 32mm/f8, 1/400s ISO200

Quoting Wikipedia: Cross processing (sometimes abbreviated to xpro) is the procedure of deliberately processing photographic film in a chemical solution intended for a different type of film.

What attracted my attention in the shown image was how the little young leaves on the tree where sort of "glowing", but it wouldn't show. So I went nuts in Lightroom and this is the result. And it somewhat looks like cross processing. What it looks like can be seen with the help of Google Images for example.

Switching to Lightroom

I've been a Picasa user for a very long time, but in the long run, after I made the switch to shooting raw (not in the raw), its too bothersome to make the edits in a separate program (raw converter), export as JPEG, and then switch to Picasa for the organisation and publishing part.

Adobe's Lightroom is quite good because it combines a raw coverter with a good portion of Picasa's organising features. I'm still missing some Picasa features and will keep on using Picasa for blogging and things - but on the other hand, Lightroom has quite some features that I've been missing in Picasa: hierarchic keywords, and a keyword browser, for example.

Of course, Lightroom is simply damn expensive when compared to Picasa (especially for a hobby snapshooter - Adobe should really think about their prices for hobby photographers... I found the DxO approach quite nice: only if you're using a "pro" camera, you'll have to buy the "pro" version), but the completeness of "digital asset management", as it is called, is too good. I don't expect Picasa to become a full fledged raw converter anytime soon - it still doesn't support a lot of newer camera model's raw files, I guess this says something about the priorities in the development.

I'm going to continue supporting Picasa users in the german "Picasa Hilfe" Google group, of course. I froze my activities in the international/english "Picasa Help" group because it became too time consuming - I want to spend more time on photography and try new things! The regular posters in the english group are a great bunch of people - and they're all mentioned here. :-)

PS: thanks to Jeffrey Friedl, there's an export plugin for Lightroom that directly exports into Picasa Web Albums - and it may be subjective, but I do have the feeling that the LR exports to Picasa Web Album look better...

Nussbrot zum Frühstück

Nikon D70s, 2.8/28D @ f/2.8, 1/50s ISO500

Heute morgen gabs in Honig eingelegte Nüsse auf selbstgebackenem Brot mit Frischkäse. Und das sah einfach witzig aus. :-)

Putting things together

I already wrote about why you should shoot raw, and why you should calibrate your monitor (in two parts even!). Lets put these things together.

I read so very often about how people struggle with their white balance settings, and there's articles on the internet how to deal with it, and how some people prefer warmer colors anyway, etc. (a really helpful tutorial can be found here). And I remember how I did struggle, too, when I still shot JPEG. Setting WB to "cloudy" to get warmer color, but then adjusting it just a little bit so that it won't get too warm, and whatnot. What - a - nuisance!

When you're shooting raw, you can safely leave the white balance control of your camera set to auto. White balance is not applied to the raw sensor data, anyway. Its just saved as a "suggestion" into the file, and the raw converter software of your choice can extract the white balance the camera suggested and apply it. You're completely free to alter it to whatever setting you want (within certain limits, its possible to adjust the white balance in Picasa, too, of course - this nice blogpost shows you how).

The other observation is... when your monitor is calibrated, its quite surprising how often the auto white balance of the camera is right on, or at least very very close to what I saw. Which is not a miracle - 6500K is the white point of the camera, and its the calibrated white point of my monitor, two.

Photography can always be approached from two directions: a most accurate reproduction, or a most pleasing result (to you, at least). And shooting raw and using a calibrated displays makes sure you can have both without any hassle. And thats a good thing! :-)