Blaring into the void

"Magnolia" (Nikon D700, 1/200s @ ISO280, 300mm, f/8)

Yesterday late in the evening, I submitted this photo to the Getty Images Artist Picks flickr group. Some 8-9 hours later, there are sixteen more pages (with 30 new photos each!) in that group. Well, I know that flickr groups are a waste of time... but in my opinion, that's more than ridiculous, that's insane.

That group has almost 12,000 members. But no one cares what's in the group pool! 8 hours after submitting the above photo, it still has 0 views. I don't care about that, but it shows one thing typical for the "social" web 2.0: people are blaring a plethora of information (here: photos) into the void of the internet. And no one really cares, because it's far too much to take notice, anyway. What a waste of time and resources.

Treat your audience right

With the introduction of the new Favorite recommendations in Picasa Web Albums, the number of people that have added me as a Favorite has quickly gone up to WAY over 1000. I'm very happy that I can reach so many people with my photography through my web albums and I feel honored that so many of you added me as a favorite. I mean... over 1000 fans?! WOW!!!

However, I could not keep the promise (that I gave myself) to follow everyone that added me as a favorite back to their albums and check out their photos - I'm sorry. It kinda defeats the "social" aspect of the Picasa Web Albums, where you connect and interact, but I just cannot keep up with that pace! :)


Black Forest Sunset (NIKON D700, 1/200s @ ISO 200; f/11, 90 mm (in 35mm)

With the increasing number of fans that follow my photography, I feel responsible to treat my audience right. I try to not upload to many photos at once, I try to make a really tight selection, I try to take my time for processing the pictures, I try to take a break instead of rushing the uploads in the first excitement after importing the pictures... (and yes, I wrote about all of that before, more or less.)

And I want to ask anyone who's serious about her or his photography to do your audience the same favor: do not overwhelm people that like your work with too much of it. I can only speak for myself, but there's one thing that turns me off pretty quick, and that is too much activity. I mean... macros are nice, sunsets are nice, HDR photos are nice (if they're not overcooked:-), landscapes are nice, flowers are nice... but all in tiny doses, please.

With digital cameras, it's so easy to make 15 nice macro shots of colorful bugs per day - but is it really good to show all of them? And is it really helpful to show 10 flower shots - per day? No matter how good the photos may be - if you show too much in a too short period of time, it quickly becomes boring.

Even when preparing a "documentary" series of photos, maybe from a vacation, which might in the end sum up to 100 or more photos... release them in small doses. Give your audience a chance to catch up. Personally, I will like to spend a reasonable amount of time browsing through 10 new photos - but most likely, I will just quickly browse the thumbnails and then click here and there for a batch of 100 new photos.

Thanks to everyone who's visiting my albums. I hope I do it right and do not overwhelm you with my activity. I try to play it nice and slow. :-)

PS: about the photo - it was taken in the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) region of Germany from the peak of the Kandel hill (something like 1400m high) above Waldkirch. I was visiting my mother there last weekend, and since the peak can be reached by car via a small road through the forest it didn't take much to get a nice sunset photo.

PS: I found my hiking lens

After my depressing experience with Nikon's 24-120mm VR zoom lens I was looking for a versatile walk-around lens for the "FX" sensor since my super lightweight 28-80mm left me desiring just a little more wide angle, and a little more tele, too.

Nikon has such a lens for their APS-C sized "DX" sensor - it's the 16-85mm VR lens which Shuwen is using on her D90, and the news that a 24-120mm VR lens with a constant aperture of f/4 will be released at this year's Photokina are out now (if by accident as it seems.) I just wonder how much it weighs. :-P


Shrouded Pines (NIKON D700, 1/125s @ ISO 200; f/8, 60 mm (in 35mm)

In the meantime, I have found a nice walkaround lens. It's the only lens I carried on my most recent hikes. After my hike to the Wimbachgries I swore to myself that I'll never again carry so much lenses and photo stuff with me. The lens that I found is a used (take a deep breath) "Tamron SP AF Aspherical AD (IF) 24-135mm 1:3.5-5.6 Macro" - it was released for the 50th anniversary of Tamron, which was almost 10 years ago, and it's not so easy to find nowadays as full frame sensor sized camera's are getting more common.

It's a surprisingly compact lens for that zoom range, and unlike Nikon's unfortunate lens, the Tamron has usable corners even at 24mm. Just like many superzoom lenses, it has a rather close focus limit (that's why it has the "Macro" in it's name). The AF is not very fast (the lens needs a camera with AF motor) and it has chromatic aberrations (it always takes me three attempts to write that word!) that need fixing in post processing, but the only thing really missing is VR. :)

On the other hand... with the nice high ISO quality of the D700 and Auto-ISO in manual mode, I can always dial in a safe exposure time for my selected focal length (quite a challenge for a 24-135mm superzoom lens) and let the camera raise or lower the ISO to help me.

Art or Documentary? (consistent processing)

While processing the photos that I made on my hike to the Zwiesel peak yesterday, I stumble across a problem that I have for quite a while now if I work on pictures from a similar event: do I want to document the hike, or do I want to show photos that stand on their own? I don't have a solution for that problem (and it's not that it really bothers me either, because my focus usually is on the single photo), I'm just sharing my thoughts here... :-)

I think that the key to a successful series of documentary photos is a consistent look. Which means consistent post processing. However... the way I make photos is no good for consistent post processing. I try to expose to the right without blowing out the highlights... and the difference from one photo to the other in its un-processed form can be... quite big.

This is not a problem when I just stroll around with the camera and create unique photos of single scenes - I process each picture individually (and they usually end up collected in my monthly collected albums on Picasa Web), and it's not a problem when their appearance is different. But documenting an event or an activity that lasts for a couple of hours, like this hike... if the look of the photos is not consistent, it looks somewhat random and amateurish to me.


White Wash (NIKON D700, 1/400s @ ISO 200; f/8, 135 mm (in 35mm)

The hike itself was really great - I was sweating like a horse on the way to the first stop (Zwieselhaus) because the mountain forest was very damp and warm. Near the Zwieselhaus I reached the cloud cover and it became cooler with some nice wind (unfortunately, the Zwieselhaus' kitchen was closed, they only offered beverages and sweets - I was hoping to have a soup there...).

Ascending to the peak of the Zwiesel with it's two crosses was rather delightful because it wasn't so warm and damp anymore. At the peak a strong winds drove the clouds in and out, and when the clouds where gone for a minute or two, the view around was quite remarkable.

The problem with conditions changing so dramatically from one minute to the other is of course getting a consistent look (and using UniWB, I cannot really tell from the camera display what the photos will look like, I just check the histograms for clipping) - exposure times ranged from as low as 1/60s to 1/800s at ISO200 within minutes being trapped in foggy clouds vs the grand view of mountains peeking through the cloud cover...

A tip for the Lightroom and ACR users: create white balance presets for your camera (personally, I find that auto white balance is a pain in the b*tt - color temperatures could vary from one photo to the next even if you moved just a couple of meters/feet. That really defeats the goal of a consistent look.)

Here's how I did that for my cameras: set the camera to a fixed white balance mode (the Nikons usually have sunny, cloudy, shade and some more for artificial light; I only care about outdoor white balance). Make a photo with each of the camera's white balance modes (I'm only talking about raw data, of course!). In Lightroom/ACR, import those photos and create a preset from the white balance reading. For me, bright sun is 4650K, cloudy is 5000-5333K, and shade is 5600K. The individual adjustment of the green/magenta axis depends on the camera's sensor - or rather, the UV and IR filters that are in front of it.

Sometimes things just don't work

It's not hip to talk about failures, right? Everyone wants to hear about success, and not failures... but still, they happen all the time.

While making a walk around Burghausen's Wöhrsee with my Fuji S5pro + 35mm lens (aka "normal" lens on the crop sensor) I stopped by "the" rock (a stone protruding into the lake, people sit on it sometimes or jump into the lake from it in summer) to finally make that photo which I had in mind for a while...


Tree at the lake (FinePix S5Pro, 1/60s @ ISO 800; f/4, 53 mm (in 35mm)

Of the several attempts that I made, this is the most successful composition (the opposite shoreline on top of the frame is hidden by the tree's leaves) but while it might not be that visible in the web version, I accidentally focussed at infinity and the tree trunk which should be in focus is out of focus - it was not a very bright day (but the light was really nice) and I didn't want to stop down farther than f/4 because I already was at ISO 800 (which is my personal "usable ISO limit" on the S5pro).

Oh well. I have to go back there another day and try again. Both the tree and the rock won't run away.

The innocent approach -vs- being in control

The other day I took part in a forum discussion where the exchange was about how comfortable and inspiring it is to have a compact camera with you "just like that". (and that it is desirable that this compact camera has a nice image quality, Leica X1, Olympus E-P and the like - the discussion was NOT about cameras with sensor that have the size of the head of a matchstick:-)

The interesting part for me is how people seem to lose the innocent approach to photography when they grab the "oversized" DSLR instead of the compact camera. I don't exclude myself from that (see previous post about Hipstamatic.) It seems that the professional image quality and full control over every aspect of making a photo is actually a hindrance to inspiration, creativity, fun (that's why I chose this old photo here - I was completely unaware of what I'm doing, using a compact camera in full auto mode, point and shoot, yes). Or is it?

Dreamscape (July 2006) (KODAK CX7530, 1/350s @ ISO 80; f/8, 82 mm (in 35mm)

I don't think that it requires an extra camera to get that innocent approach back, necessarily. What I usually do is limit myself to a prime lens (or two), just like I already described it in my previous post "Puritanism". You're giving up a little bit of control and find room (in your head) for a bit more fun, creativity... the "what the heck, let's just try this" attitude that seems to get somewhat lost otherwise.

A camera with a couple less parameters to tweak is simply easier to control: if you're not using a precision viewfinder but a rangefinder, you know that you don't have to bother with precise framing all that much. If you're using a normal lens you'll be limited to making photos of what is within "reach" of that lens (you don't have to think about making wide angle or tele photos, I mean). If you only have manual focus, you won't rely on some (stupid) autofocus and/or fiddle with autofocus points (but simply focus where you want), etc. etc.

And I also think that a good amount of the "lack of fun" when we grab a DSLR camera is because we wanted it that way... looking for ultimate sharpness in 100% view on the screen, expecting excellent lens performance at every aperture throughout the entire zoom range, lots of dynamic range, etc. etc. - DSLRs can do all this, and because of that, we expect it, and that expectation becomes a burden that limits our creativity.

But on the other hand... the fact that my Fuji S5pro has such a high dynamic range makes it more comfortable to use - I do not have to worry about blowing out the highlights that much and can concentrate on the framing and composition instead of worrying about the exposure.

It reminds me of making music: I always hated it to find the correct instrument or tweak a synth until it sounded the way I wanted, because during that searching and fiddling, I often forgot my original idea for a melody, or whatever.

So when I look further into this... technology enables us to make the best possible photos and because it does, it puts obstacles in our way. I think a good amount of these obstacles can be overcome when you know how to handle your gear. How much in control of your camera you are. The camera is like an instrument - only when you're in full control you can always play it virtuously.

Note that I'm not saying it's not possible to make virtuous photo unless you're in full control of your gear - I'm just saying... there's always a remainder of chance and luck, and the smaller it is, the more likely it is that you will get the photos the way you want them to be - and can concentrate on making the photo. The rational approach. The irrational approach is to add any amount of randomness. Like the Hipstamatic app does. :-D