Black and White Treatment

I've spent some portions of my time shooting limiting myself to black and white for sake of the effects.  One of the images from Getty really worked out well for a bit of levels enhancement and a black and white treatment:

Before

The image is low-contrast and relatively blurry in the original form—manually focusing at 400mm is tough given how thin the depth of field is.  The birds on the posts are generally sharp, and the ones flying aren't.

The levels enhancement helps the contrast some, but it makes the image a little over done.  Fortunately, a black and white treatment really helps:

After

All in all, I think it's quite an improvement—and the print of the black and white version was pretty terrific.  One of my recent favorites, to be sure.

Compositionally it could probably be better (the dark spot in the upper left is a small overhang from a tree a few feet away), but it does handle rule of thirds fairly nicely I suppose.  The blurriness of the image is actually somewhat attractive here, as it helps to distinguish the middle third from the bottom one.  I'm undecided about whether the top third is compositionally useful or not—if not, a crop might serve better to fill things more adequately.

Gettysburg

Shooting with the 400 f/5.6.

Took a trip to Gettysburg with friends this past weekend and really enjoyed a good shoot.  The weather wasn't too good, and my inexperience with shooting film really showed, as I was unable to overcome some minor issues with the film feeder and probably lost two and a half rolls of film on the day.

My favorite shot that I took was from inside of a church at a Lutheran seminary there:

85mm f/1.8 @ f/2, 1/100s, ISO 1600

The inside of the church was pretty dark but afforded some interesting views through the stained glass.  I'd like to do some distortion correction, but I liked this one also:

24mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8, 1/60s, ISO 800

The 400 did not see as much action, but I did take a few shots on the way to Spangler House:

400mm f/5.6 @ f/5.6, 1/3200s, ISO 1000

400mm f/5.6 @ f/5.6, 1/800s, ISO 1000

400mm f/5.6 @ 5.6, 1/1250s, ISO 1000

All in all, a fun trip with good company.  Hopefully there will be more.  Two trips a year is not enough!

More on Compression

To illustrate compression better, I've included the following pictures:

The one on the left is taken with the 85mm f/1.8.  The one on the right is taken with the 400mm f/5.6.  In this case, I tried pretty hard to keep them at the same size and fix the reference point (the brick column in the center of the background building).

The background in the second picture is much closer than it is in the first.  In a way this makes perfect sense.  What if we were going to focus on the background instead of the foreground?  It stands to reason that the background would "feel" closer with the longer focal length (greater zoom).

The important thing to realize is that when we keep the foreground elements the same size (roughly), the background will seem closer with a longer focal length.  In the first picture, I was perhaps six feet away from the subject.  In the second picture, it was closer to thirty or forty feet.  I would guess the background building is 500 feet or more away from the subject.

This, incidentally, is probably the way that we get some cool effects in Hollywood.  I'm thinking specifically of this shot from Lord of the Rings:

In particular, note in the beginning of the clip how the background changes compression.  What the filmmakers have done here is to rack the camera backward while zooming in.  A tree appears in the foreground while the background appears to get closer.  It creates just the sort of creepy experience you'd want when a Nazgul is about to appear.

Focal Length and Compression

It's been awhile since I've been writing here.  This isn't because I haven't taken any pictures—it's because I have little time in my personal life to write much of anything, to say nothing of a photography blog.

However, I recently acquired a Nikkor 400mm f/5.6 AI-S and 85mm f/1.8 (AI'd).  Manual focus isn't everyone's thing, but I have enjoyed it a fair amount, and these are focal lengths of some interest to me, and help to illustrate how the longer focal length tends to "compress" a scene.

Here's a picture from the 85:

Fire hydrant?  85mm f/2.8, 1/5000s @ ISO 400

While they're not super obvious, there are clearly buildings in the background some distance away.  A somewhat equivalent picture from the 400:

400mm f/5.6, 1/1600s @ ISO 800

I did not take the most extreme care to ensure that the scenes were identical, but hopefully the compression is fairly obvious.  The background "feels" so much closer in this image than it does in the previous.  This is due to the compression induced by the focal length.  What this means is that the longer focal length (i.e., telephoto lens) tends to bring the background closer while the shorter focal length (i.e., wider angle) will present a scene with greater depth.


And just to make you jealous, a moon shot from the 400; it's cropped, run through unsharp, and has been color corrected some:

400mm f/8, 1/1000s @ 800 ISO; hand-held

Glut of Iceland

I've uploaded a lot of pictures from Iceland, but I've not yet done any technical work on any of the ones of interest: check them out.

I'll hope to have some commentary here eventually. I will say that the d7000 earned its stripes here, and the 70-300 was a good tool to have for some of the wildlife shooting. Continuous AF and reasonably snappy AF-S motor did a good job on several different shots.

The 28mm was the most commonly used lens on the trip; I was repeatedly disappointed that I didn't have anything wider, but I made do well enough with what was there.

Upcoming trip

I'm going to be in Iceland soon, and hopefully once I return I can provide some interesting pictures and/or technique observations. The past months have been increasingly busy, and they don't show any signs of slowing down.

More Megapixels isn't always Better

Just like processor speeds were the catch-all number used to sell computers in the late 90s and early 2000s, megapixels are the hot number in many camera advertisements. This seems to have cooled down some recently with the gradual deceleration of sensor sizes; the lack of new gigantic sensors means that other distinguishing features need to be used to differentiate competition.

There are several practical consequences to more megapixels, and many of them are bad, at least if you're not making larger prints. (Six megapixels will get you very clean 8x10 prints.)

For example, pixel density can be a barrier to relative sharpness. The resolution of a lens is finite, even though it's continuous, and when you exceed the limit of resolution on the glass, you'll find that the details get a little more muddy. (So for example, my 50mm f/1.8 AF-D still shines on the d7000, but the 28mm f/3.5 AI-S shows its age.)

Another issue with increased pixel density is that the camera is more sensitive to your body movement. While this is usually more obvious with longer focal lengths, I've noticed in my recent 10MP bump-up that it's harder to get equivalent sharpness with the same shutter speed. This makes sense, since more samples means a magnified view relative to a smaller pixel density. In essence it's like putting a magnifying glass on the image: you're bound to see things in higher magnification than you would see otherwise.

This sort of issue is made worse at longer focal lengths. I was pleasantly surprised by the sharpness of the AF-S f/4-5.6 55-200mm lens when I got it, and the 18-200 was pretty much the same. But the 70-300 at equivalent focal lengths is often blurry at the same shutter speeds.

This is one of the more immediate things I noticed when I started using the d7000: it takes a steadier hand than I'm used to, and I'm sure part of it has to do with those extra megapixels crowding that sensor. On the plus side, though, it definitely does allow for more spectacular shots when you need the center of frame just so.

Another View of Polaris

I meant to post this quite some time ago, but as it happens, my schedule and mind aren't always conducive:

This was my second effort at playing with the intervalometer. This time I didn't shoot RAW because of how long it took to do the batch conversion (nearly 8 hours on my netbook; and yes, I know I shouldn't use a netbook for that purpose).

This time it was the 50mm f/1.8 at f/3.5, ISO 1250, 15-second exposures. White balance was set at 3030K in camera to provide bluer affect and mitigate some of the warming tones from light pollution. One picture taken every 30s from midnight to 5 AM.

Again, I kept Polaris in view, but this time shifted down slightly. The more limited field of view is less satisfying than the wider angle, although the detail is sharper. I'll probably try another using the 28mm f/3.5 at 3.5 to see if it is any good.

I haven't had much time since then to work with the intervalometer, but I'm curious to see how a smaller field of view might work with a longer lens like the 70–300 VRII.

Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 AF-S VR

As I'm planning on traveling a fair amount this year, I leapt on the chance to get this lens at almost half off MSRP when I found a refurbished one available online.

If you've shot with me for any length of time, you know that I prefer prime lenses to zooms, mostly because it helps me think more about composition. Primes also have the advantage of being lighter, faster, and generally smaller than their zooming cousins.

That said, there are times when your feet won't get you there, and zooms are undeniably handy for their convenience. I had the DX 18-200mm VR super-zoom and rarely used it, and I gave my DX 55-200mm (part of a trade+cash sale of the 18-200) to my sister with the d40. I opted to get this FX monster as the replacement.

Testing the D7000's Intervalometer

Pardon the noise pollution:

Just a test of the d7000's intervalometer. Shot with a 28mm f3.5 AI-S at f5.6, ISO 1000. 30-second exposures at one-minute intervals beginning at midnight and ending around 5:30am.

Raw conversion was done using ucraw. Manual WB setting in camera was 3030K for a blue affect but automatically adjusted by UCRaw to somewhere north of 4000K. Exposure compensation was adjusted +1.5 stops during the batch process.

The light pollution is obviously pretty bad. I kept this because I accidentally pointed at Polaris. I'll try this again, but most likely with my 50mm f/1.8 and shoot a bit more wide-open (say f/2.8) with more frequent intervals and shorter exposure times.

Full video here (I notice the video is basically black on the blog).

Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 AI-S Review

My thoughts on the d7000 are still coming, but I wanted to share a few on a recent acquisition: the Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 AI-S. I got this for $50 (+$5 shipping) off of EBay, and it was well worth the price. The d7000 treats this just like any other lens thanks to its "non-CPU lens" data features.

If you've paid any attention to my previous posts, you'll know that I have a 24mm f/2.8 Non-AI lens as well, which isn't compatible with the d7000—it won't mount. I was pretty disappointed by this. The reason I got the 28mm f/3.5 was to replace the 24 in my line up. While I'm sorry to say that the 28 so far hasn't been quite as nice, I'm pretty pleased by its performance (especially for the price).

Most remarkable in my experience is the excellent ghost control (these are shot with a plain-jane $10 Tiffen UV filter):

Philadelphia

Some months ago, I got some friends and family together and recommended that we try to do some photography together. It sounded like a good time, and so we planned to hit Philadelphia in the first of a few trips this year.

It was good. Rey put up a gallery for us, and Dave also put up some shots. It was a group of about six of us. (Ed: Rey says Gallery is horrible, so we're probably going to skip it.)

I'll be posting my own shots as time and commentary permits, both here and in Rey's add on.

My Hot Little Hands

The d7000 has arrived. I'll be doing some testing with it (shooting around) and adding some review-style comments as time allows.

Initial impressions:

• my Non-AI lens does NOT fit; I had simply mistaken the marketing text. I'm debating about doing a DIY AI conversion, which will be less expensive than buying a new lens.
• The action button is a lot spongier than the d40's or even the d90.
• AF is fast and nice to have on the 50mm.
• The ability to change things with buttons instead of menus is nice, but maybe not $1200 nice.
• Silent mode really is pretty quiet.
• 6fps is pretty fast.
• That LCD is good!
• Dual card slots? Sweet.
• High ISO performance? Pretty performant.

I'll have more later, with some reference photos and thoughts.