Applepie

Corporate Life

"A view from inside"

Canon EOS 5D, EF 24-105 F/4L, ISO 200, Aperture Priority, 4 sec at f/22, Tripod

Technorati Tags: Canon, Photography

Anakin Skywalker

Photo taken during Halloween 2006. I was carrying around my big EF 28-300 f3.5-5.6L lens that I had used at my son's soccer game earlier in the day, I had just taken a bunch of natural light indoor photos and had my ISO set to 3200.

I set out to capture the motion of the light-saber, so I set the camera to shutter priority at 0.5 sec. Unfortunately, I forgot to reset the ISO back to a lower range - I should have used an ISO between 100 to 400 ISO as the only light I was interested in capturing came from the very bright light-saber. Nonetheless I quite liked the results on the image below.

EOS-1Ds Mark II, EF 28-300 F3.5-5.6L, hand-held
Shutter priority at 0.5 sec, Aperture 5.6, ISO 3200

Technorati Tags: Canon, EOS-1Ds Mark II, Photography, Star Wars

Seattle Skyline

Seattle skyline as seen from Kerry Park in Queen Anne Hill, Seattle.

EOS 1DS II, 15 sec exposure at Aperture 13, ISO 100, EF 100-400mm

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: Kerry Park, Landscape, Moon, Photography, Seattle, Space Needle

Not your typical street sign

Photo taken around Mount Rainier

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: Photography, Volcano, Street sign

Rethinking email

I have to re-think what it means to me to email someone a photo. I don't send many photographs via email, certainly less than 2 per month. Most of the time the photos I send are related to a birthday or an event. The photos are always resized for quick access, they are always hand-selected and of high quality (no snapshots), and I only send a few photos at a time (less than 5 photographs per email).

The photos are sent to people with direct connection to the event or to the subject photographed. They often go to grandparents, uncles, ants, godparents, and the likes. Yet, without fail, 95% of the emails go unanswered - it is rare to get even a single reply. This really used to bother me, to the point that I started trimming down the email distribution to fewer and fewer recipients. If I keep this up, pretty soon I will be emailing these photos only to myself.

Maybe I am looking at this all wrong. I don't photograph because I expect others to comment. When I blog, I don't blog with any expectation that the entry will be read by anyone other than myself, and I don't blog with the expectation that it will be commented on or linked to. I blog because I like it, because it means something to me, because I think it will help someone. Maybe that's how I should look at the photo emails that I send - not expect a reply, not expect a comment, and certainly not expect a photo in return. Just send the email with a grandchild or a wildlife subject and hope that it will bring a smile to the recipient, that it will bring fond memories of the event, that it will bring a distant relative closer to our daily lives - no more, no less.

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: email, Photography, spam

Yahoo Photos

Yahoo recently launched their Yahoo Photos site with free unlimited photo storage - I couldn't wait to try it. Unfortunately, the upload wizard is not Mac compatible. You can still upload photos via your web browser, but you must select each photo individually with a maximum of 10 photos per transfer -- pretty much rendering it useless if you have a lot of photos to transfer.

Since I am playing around with Windows Vista Build 5536 (Pre-RC 1), I decided to give Yahoo Photos a try and see how well it help up.

Uploading photos is very easy with the Upload Wizard, just drag and drop a bunch of files and off it goes. The UI does not properly handle "spaces" in the file name while uploading, replacing it with an unfriendly %20. Luckily, the file name is stored properly once the upload is complete. The performance is sub-par - taking over 2 hours to upload 106 files (234 MB) (my home network is capable of handling 1.5GBper hour). I am also having problems with failed uploads (reason "unknown".) Out of the 106 files, over 30 of them failed to upload the first time around, the upload wizard automatically retried the failed files at the end, but still over 10 files failed to upload, and no further retries were performed.

Given this initial poor experience, I quickly abandoned any further tests. As it stands, while the unlimited storage is awesome, Yahoo Photos cannot handle my current digital photos needs for an online photo service.

Cristiano Pierry

Technorati Tags: Photography, Technology

Mac Pro and Photoshop CS/2

Bare Feats has a new performance analyzes of the new Mac Pro machine, this time using the 3GHz model. When compared against a quad-G5, the Mac Pro did fairly well on the Photoshop CS/2 tests - the Mac Pro is 5% slower on the Photoshop test but 8% faster on the After Effects test - both running under Rosetta emulation. The Mac Pro 3.0GHz was as much as 85% faster when running native "universal" applications.

Keep in mind that you can always dual-boot a Mac Pro into Windows and run Photoshop natively (try to do the reverse on a Dell and see how far you will get).

A Windows user contemplating the switch to OS/X, the Mac Pro becomes a very easy decision - a killer machine, competitively priced, with two supper fast 3GHz dual-core Xeon Intel chips, and the ability to run natively OS/X and Windows applications. If you have already invested a lot of money on Windows applications, and Windows itself, you can continue to use them on your new Mac Pro as you slowly migrate your work-flow to Mac OS/X.

Cristiano Pierry

Epson P-4000 Storage Device

While in Africa I used an Epson P-4000 device to store photos while shooting on safari. This device was very popular with other photographers in the group, with over half of the participants having their own P-4000. With an MSRP of $699, this is not an inexpensive device.

I shoot only RAW images and I use a Canon 1DS mk II (16 mp) and a Canon 5D (12 mp). As a result, file sizes for my photos are large, averaging ~16MB.

Overall, I am not impressed with the performance of the P-4000. The P-4000 system performance was very sluggish, file navigation and opening images took way too long and made using the device inconvenient for anything other than simple file storage.

Battery performance was the worst part. I could only get about 10GB of data transferred to the P-4000 before I would run out of battery. This meant that I could only backup one cardfile before I need to recharge the P-4000. With such poor battery performance, the P-4000 cannot be your only storage source for an extended shooting trip - you are going to need to recharge it more often than you need to re-charge your camera. With that being the case, I much rather carry a laptop than a P-4000 device.

With the slow operating performance and the poor battery life, the P-4000 was relegated to a dumb storage device with nothing more than an 80GB HD for storage purposes.

Maybe the Epson does better when used with P&S digital cameras whose files are small in size and not in RAW format. But for the price, I can hardly see a casual P&S user purchasing a P-4000. As it stands, I would not recommend a P-4000 to anyone.

There is a newer Epson P-4500 available in Japan right now, it promises better battery performance and faster operation. Based on my current experience, I am not likely to give the P-4500 a chance.

Cristiano Pierry

What do Musicians and Photographers have in common?

Stumped? They are both severely affected by the new cabin baggage restrictions.

"A German musician flying from London told the BBC about the stress of having to put her cello in the hold". A group of Russian musicians in Lodon will have to return to Russia by land because "they are under contract to keep their instruments with them and cannot check them in as hold baggage."

See the BBC article for more details: Cabin baggage ban hits musicians.

Cristiano Pierry

Mac Pro - 50% slower than a Power-Mac

While the new Mac Pro systems are supper fast, pro photographers will still be disappointed with the system performance while running Adobe Photoshop CS 2 (due to Adobe's lack of a universal binary). Rosetta emulation is still slow no matter how fast your computer is. In the case of Photoshop CS/2, MacWorld has the new Mac Pro running at nearly half the speed of a Quad PowerMac.

Interestingly enough, Photoshop CS/2 performance numbers are not much different when comparing a quad-core G5 to a dual-core G5, hummmm.

In any case, the new Mac Pro is significantly faster than my existing crop of G5 and Intel based iMacs and MacBook Pros.

Cristiano Pierry

The new reality - the traveling photographer

With the latest terrorist treats and high security measures, carry-on luggage has been reduce to effectively nothing. That means that your laptop, your camera gear, and your 500mm lens, and your portable hard-drive must all be check in as cargo luggage. Ahh, the horror of imagining my 1DS mk II and my 500mm f/4L lens being thrown around the conveyer belt, the cargo hold, etc...

If you need to travel with your camera gear, now is the time to invest of a sturdy camera bag that can withstand the rigors of checked luggage.

See Lorelle VanFossen tips for traveling with camera gear.

Cristiano Pierry

Tutorial: Bringing back "lost" details in your photographs

Check out this 5 minutes video tutorial by Joshus Keay on how to use Photoshop to bring back details in your photographs in areas that were under or over exposed.

Cristiano Pierry

Photographing Brown Bears

Andy Biggs recently returned from his Alaska workshop and has posted some of his photos online - check it out.

Here are some of Andy's tips on photographing brown bears:

Exposures are actually very very difficult for most, so here is how I approach shooting the bears.

Always shoot on manual if you have slow changing light. Especially overcast light.
Watch out for highlights on their backs, as their hair gets lighter the farther away from their body. So you will see the lightness more on their backs than anywhere else.

Take a shot. Check your histogram!!!! Everything else can be perfect, but you will get specular highlights blowing out. This is a major pain.

I tend to underexpose a little bit to keep the highlights in check, but the overall scene is slightly under exposed. This doesn't happen in overcast situations, though, and you will have to use positive exposure compensation as a result.

Be sure to check with your tour leader to see how he specifically deals with exposures. I rarely use anything other than evaluative metering in situations such as this.

Most everything in the scene in middle toned, at least when they are grazing, so I just start from there.

If you are looking to improve your photography, make sure to check out one of Andy's awesome photography workshops.

Cristiano Pierry

Brown Bears

National Geographic online has a great section on Brown Bears in the Alaska Peninsula. They even have a live web cam (note: it requires Real Player for access).

Check out some photos from John Tangney from his recent trip to Brooks Lodge, in Katmai National Park, Alaska, USA.

Cristiano Pierry

Black Rhino

The BBC is reporting that "The West African black rhino appears to have become extinct, according to the World Conservation Union"

Burke Museum: Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Exhibit

The Burke Museum at the University of Washington is Seattle is now hosting an exhibition with 92 photographs from the "Wildlife Photographer of the Year" - this annual international wildlife photography competition is sponsored by BBC Wildlife Magazine and the Natural History Museum of London and features nearly 100 prize-winning photographs in a broad range of wildlife categories.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit runs through September 4th, 2006.

The Burke Museum is Open daily, 10 am – 5 pm. General Admission is $8, $6.50 seniors, $5 students and youth (5 & up w/ID), FREE to Burke Members, children 4 and under, and UW staff/faculty/students

On the first Thursday of each month, the museum stays open until 8 pm—and admission is free.

Photograph by Cris Pierry
Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

Butterfly

Woodland Park Zoo

EOS 5D, EF-24-104 f/4L at 105mm,
ISO 400, Aperture Priority, f4, 1/1600 sec

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Images

NatureScapes.net has a tutorial on HDR images: "High dynamic range (HDR) in photography means representing the full range of tonality present in the scene with high perceptual faithfulness. Most HDR techniques currently use software to combine several different exposures of a scene into a single file that maps the full range of luminance at every pixel."

Mahesh Thapa has some of the best examples of HDR photography that I have seen -- he mastered the technique as is able to create fantastic landscape shots. Check out some of his recent pictures here they all use the HDR technique. While you are at it, visit his gallery web site for even more great photography and great examples of HDR at work.

Adjusting Capture Date/Time

Until now, I haven't found a Mac tool that enabled me to batch correct the capture date/time for when I forget to reset the camera clock to the correct time zone. On Windows, I always used Breeze Browser to correct the date/time, but this feature was lacking on every Mac photo tool that I had tried.

Of course, I forgot to reset the clock on my cameras since my return from Tanzania. I finally realized that the clock was wrong when I was reviewing some of my firework shots, and noticed the July 5th date. It looked like that I was going to have to dig out a Windows PC from the garage to correct my exposure date/time. Before heading to the garage, I took one final look on my Mac tools to see if anyone had added this functionality.

To my delight, Photo Mechanic now offers a method to adjust the capture date/time metadata -- this feature was not available in October when I last looked for it.

If you know your camera clock was off by some time delta (e.g. 3 hours since you changed 3 time zones), simply dial in the delta time in the Adjust Relative section.

To precisely adjust the capture times, use the Adjust Absolute controls to set the absolute time a photo was taken.

The only problem is that the Photo Mechanic software is not smart enough to realize when the date needs to be adjusted if a relative time adjustment crosses the midnight mark. For example, if I took a photo at 10PM on July 4th, but later realized that my camera was still set to EST time zone, the camera recorded the capture date/time as July 5th, 1am. Doing a -3h Adjust Relative operation should automatically cause the capture date to change to July 4th.

Breeze Browser does this perfectly on Windows, but Photo Mechanic leaves the capture data unchanged.

Oh well, I can at least manually force a new capture date now.

Chimping? Whom, me?

Oh oh, caught red handed! Chimping on Safari? I was just copying the "teacher"...

Photo courtesy of Steve Valentine

Check out sportsshooter.com for a proper explanation on chimping.

Tanzania - What did I see?

One of the many surprises during my Safari to Tanzania was the vast variety of photographic opportunities and wide range of wildlife. There was something for everyone: great landscape, flowers, lots of birds, big cats, huge herds, etc

Below is an incomplete listing of all of the animals we saw during our 2 week safari. (Note: * denotes animals that I was not able to photograph)

African Mammals (38 species):

• Bush pig*
• Warthog
• Hippopotamus
• Giraffe, (Masai race)
• Dik-Dik
• Thompson Gazelle
• Grant's Gazelle
• Reedbuck
• Waterbuck
• Hartebeest
• Topi
• Wildebeest (herds of 200,000)
• Impala
• Bushbuck
• Cape Buffalo
• Black Rhinoceros
• Zebra, Boehm's Race
• African Wild Asses
• African Elephant
• Rock Hyrax
• Yellow Mongoose*
• Banded Mongoose
• Suricates
• Spotted Hyena
• Leopard
• Cheetah
• Lion
• Side-striped jackal
• African Wild Dog
• Bushbaby*
• Vervet Monkey
• Savanna Baboon, Olive Race
• Savanna Baboon, Yellow Race
• Eastern Black-and-white Colobuses
• Savanna Hare*
• Cape Ground Squirrel*
• Grass mouse*
• Camel

African Birds (note: this will be the most incomplete section, there were just too numerous bird species to remember them all) - (41 different species)

• Ostrich, Masai Race
• Pink-backed Pelicans
• Gray Heron
• Yellow-billed Egret
• Little Egret
• Yellow-Billed Stork
• Marabou Stork
• Ibis
• African Spoonbill
• Lesser Flamingos
• Greater Flamingos
• Egyptian Goose
• African Fish-Eagle
• Black Kite
• Lappet-faced Vultures
• White-headed Vultures
• Black-breated Snake-Eagle
• Tawny Eagle
• Secretarybird
• Gray Crowned Crane
• Kori Bistard
• Crabplovers
• Black-winged Stilt
• African Dove*
• Fischer's Lovebirds*
• Verreaux's Eagle-Owl
• Pied kingfisher
• Malachite Kingfisher
• African Pygmy Kingfisher
• Little Bee-eater
• Lilac-breated Roller
• Crowned Hornbill
• Ground-Hornbill
• Crested Barbet
• Grosbeak Weaver
• Spectacled Weaver
• Lesser masked Weaver
• Red Bishop
• Red-billed Oxpeckers
• Yellow-billed Oxpeckers
• Helmeted Guineafowl

African Reptiles (6 species)

• Tortoise*
• Nile Crocodile
• Red-headed Agama
• Tropical Gecko
• Monitor Lizard
• Green Mamba*

That's a total of 85 species, and I am sure I have left out various others.

Probably the most impressive sighting was the 200,000 strong heard of wildebeest and zebras.

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
May 31st, 2006 at 6:57am

EOS 1Ds II, EF 100-400 at 275mm,
ISO 800, Shutter Priority at 1/250 sec, A 5.6

Brazilian 2006 World Cup Soccer Team

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The picture below perfectly conveys my sentiments for the Brazilian 2006 World Cup team.

Yellow weaver bird

One of my favorite photos from my Tanzania Safari is a series I took of yellow weaver bird in the process of making its nest. I had about 60 seconds to photograph this bird. I plan on making a large print out of the collage below.

Serengeti National park, Tanzania
EOS 1DS II, 500 f/4L w/ 1.4x Tele
Shot at 700 mm, ISO 800, Aperture priority at F5.6, 1/80s

There is something about this photo...

I don't know what it is, but the photo below has a captivating effect on me.

The photo was taken in Tanzania, at the Selous Game Reserve on June 7th, 2006.

Canon 5D, Shutter Priority, 1/250 sec, F/10, ISO 200, at 400mm

Photographing Fireworks

The Digital Photography School web-site has a list of helpful entries on photographing fireworks.

I plan on having a go at it this 4th of July, if the Seattle weather cooperates.

Tanzania Gallery Posted

I finally got around to posting some safari photos on my photo web site - check it out.

Tanzania - By The Numbers: Updated

Originally, I had selected 1142 images from my African Safari (out of 8412 photographs taken). The initial selection was done the day after my return from Tanzania. 2 weeks later, I took another pass over my 1142 selected photographs and trimmed them further. I now have 858 photographs, with 152 of them being of people, lodges, and stores. Leaving me with 706 wildlife photographs.

The 284 photos cut from the original selection were mostly repeats from other photos, very few were cut from a technical or photographic reason.

Overall, I am very happy with the outcome of the trip. My original goal was to have 12 great photographs, and I feel that I got at least 50 awesome shots - enough even for an iPhoto book!

Tanzania - By The Numbers

My safari lasted 15 days, 12 of which were dedicated to photography.

Below is a breakdown of the photos I took, and which cameras and focal lens I used.

Number of photographs taken:

8412 photos, an average of 701 photos per day.

An average of 14.82mb per photo, and a total of 121.76 gb of storage used.

1149 photos made my selection for family members (13.66% of all photos taken)*

300 photos made my selection for friends.

100 photos will make it into my web gallery.

5 photos are good enough to be made into large prints (20"x30").

Cameras used (excluding purged photos):

618 taken w/ EOS 1DS II

531 taken w/ Canon 5D

Focal length used (excluding purged photos):

1000 mm: 17 photos (500 f/4L w/ 2.0x tele)
0700 mm: 223 photos (500 f/4L w/ 1.4x tele)
0500 mm: 199 photos
0400 mm: 208 photos

350-399 mm: 14 photos
300-349 mm: 34 photos
200-299 mm: 78 photos
100-199 mm: 144 photos
050-099 mm: 85 photos
024:049 mm: 147 photos

439 photos used the 500 f/4L lens (plus tele-converters)

A total of 647 photos were taken at 400mm or above.

Note: during 3 days in Selous, I was not able to use the 500 f/4 as all photo opportunities were hand-held. If it weren't for this case, there would have been even more shots done with the 500 f/4L.

The 13.66% keep rate is accentuated by multiple shots taken of the same animal looking for the right tail flick, eye expression, etc...

Tanzania - Fantastic!

I just returned from a 2 weeks photography safari to Tanzania. The trip was fantastic! I will blog about my experience over the next few weeks. In short, we woke up on average at 5 am and went on a daily ~12h photography drive, taking on average 700 photographs a day.

The one tip I have for anyone planning a similar trip is to take at least 3 times the amount of disk storage that you think you will need. It is amazing who much disk space a couple of Canon 5Ds and one EOS 1DS II can consume in a single day. I kept having a recurring dream of finding an Apple store in Tanzania to purchase additional HD space - not good.

For anyone who loves wild life photography this was a dream trip - we did nothing but photograph every thing day, all day, for 14 days. We were completely unplugged from the world, no internet, no newspapers, no radio, no TV. Our whole focus was on photography.

We visited 5 major Tanzania National Parks, and in the end I had captured "The Big Five".

I will post some additional photos to my web gallery in the next few days.

Photoshop for Digital Photographers Course

Scott Kelly has a 21 days, 5 minutes a day, online Photoshop course offered through Photoshoptraining.com. The cost for the Photoshop for Digital Photographers course is 69.99 for 21 lessons.

Might be something fun to do for when I return from Safari is early June with GB needing processing.

National Geographic Magazine - 50% Digital Photos

"More than half of the photographs in the past 12 issues of National Geographic were made with digital cameras." Chris Johns, editor National Geographic Guide to Digital Photography.

Blog - Digital Photography School

Digital Photography School -- interesting blog with common sense tips and suggestions for improving your photography.

Tanzania - What's in the bag: Photo Equipment

After much deliberation here is the final list of photo equipment that I will be taking on Safari in 3 weeks. This equipment will be shared with my father, so it is not as bad as it looks.

Cameras:

• 2 Canon 5D Bodies
• 1 Canon 1Ds MK II Body

Optics/Filters:

• 1 Canon EF 500mm L
• 2 Canon EF 100-400mm L
• 1 Canon EF 24-105mm L
• 1 Canon EF 24-70mm L
• 2 Canon EF 1.4x II extenders
• 1 Canon EF 2.0x II extender
• 1 EF 12 II Extension tub
• 1 EF 25 II Extension tub
• 77" Polarizer filter

Flash System:

• 1 Canon 580 EDX Speedlight
• 1 Better Beamer FX-2
• 1 RRS B-91B Flash Bracket
• 1 RSS LCF-50 Lens Plate
• 1 Canon Off Camera Shoe Cord 2

Batteries:

• 8 Canon BP 511A Batteries for 5D
• 3 Canon NP-E3 Batteries for 1DS
• 8 NIMH 2700mAh AA batteries

Film/CF Card:

• 6 4GB CF cards
• 2 8GB CF cards
• 1 Epson P-4000 Storage w/ 80GB HD

Miscellaneous:

• 1 TC-80N3 remote control
• Lens wipes
• Lens brush
• Sensor Brush
• Blower for CMOS

Chargers:

• 1 5D CA-PCS 400 Charger
• 1 Canon NC-E2 Battery charger
• 1 NIMH AA Charger
• 1 Charger for Epson P-4000
• 1 APC Travel Power Inverter - 75W

Backpacks:

• MP3 Backpack w/ Laptop attachment
• Lowepro Nature Trekker AW II
• Kinesis L511 Long Lens backpack

What's the drawback of all this gear? No, it is not the weight, the major drawback is that when I return from Tanzania with a bunch of ordinary photographs, I won't be able to blame my equipment.

Tanzania

National Geographic Magazine's wallpaper for May 2006 is a photo from Mount Ol Doinyo Lengai in Tanzania’s Rift Valley.

First, there was the severe draught, then there is this little volcano, and now my back surgery. This is sure shaping up to be a great trip ;-)

River of Fire
Photograph by Olivier Grunewald
From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, May 2006

10 Tips for the New Digital SLR Photographer

Thomas Hawk has posted his "10 Tips for the New Digital SLR Photographer". Great tips, the only one I don't follow is Flickr, I tried it before but didn't like it, so I don't use it all. I prefer instead to share my photos via iPhoto/iWeb.

B&H Photos Online Store Hours

B&H Photos is my preferred online camera store, the one where I place 95% of all of my photo equipment orders. Recently, as in maybe 6 month ago, B&H made a chance to their online store hours, they used to be closed on Friday and Saturday but you could order online and shipping would take place when they re-opened on Sundays.

Now, you cannot even place an order online during their holidays or weekends. This is the only online store I know that is not open 24x7.

I like their prices, selection, their return policies, and their reputation is second to none. You always know you are getting top quality product with no bait and switch schemes found elsewhere on the net. I respect their religious believes, but boy, this sure makes online shopping inconvenient when you can't even submit a purchase to be shipped when they re-open.

I wonder how much business they are loosing as a result of their new online store hour policy, certainly the impulse buyer will be shopping elsewhere.

Sony HDR-HC3

There is a good review on CarcorderInfo.com on Sony's latest consumer HD camcorder - the Sony HDR-HC3. This would be a great camera to bring along on Safari, especially with the addition of a High Grade 2.0X Telephoto Lens.

An HD camera would make a great companion for my father to bring along to the Safari, and a good way to slip our roles - I will take care of still pictures, and he can focus on videos!

Good thing that B&H is currently closed!

$200 from Apple

Apple is in a giving mood recently. Apple released Aperture 1.1 1 week ago - key feature for me is native Intel support! Not only is v1.1 a free upgrade for 1.0 users, but Apple is giving a $200 coupon for existing 1.0 customers! Go here to claim your Apple store coupon.

Nothing like free money! Thanks Apple!

African Safari - At Risk

I just found out today that I will have to undergo back surgery to repair a slipped disk. Surgery will occur on Monday, August 17th. This is just 5 weeks before I head off to Africa for a 3 week photo safari. This may not be enough time to recuperate from surgery and be able to track around Africa with 35 lbs worth of photo gear.

Lovely. We are past the point of no return for a refund, but I did get insurance for just this type of situation. I need to see what options I have, I certainly don't want to delay the trip, but I need to be well enough to be able to enjoy it as well.

A call to the travel agency is in order - Thomson Safari. Let's see what my options are.

Photography Haiku

From a post on dpreview.com...

"It is all about the moment…

once passed…never retrieved…
once captured…never forgotten."

Tilt and Shift Lens

I am seriously considering adding a Tilt & Shift lens to my line up. T&S lenses enables one to optically correct the un-natural optical shift that occurs when you tilt the camera upwards to photograph an object/structure - see example:

You can correct this in photoshop, but it is just not the same as properly recording the imagine in the first place.

Tilt movements allow you to obtain a wide depth of field even at the maximum aperture and still keep the entire subject in focus. Shift movements correct the trapezoidal effect seen in pictures taken of tall objects, so as not to distort the subject.

The problem is that a T&S lens is not for the faint of heart, and it is most certainly not a lens for snap-shots, nor is it a lens that you can hand-hold. Canon has 3 lenses in their line-up - all are manual focus lens, and only one is wide angle; the price is not cheap, over $1k - ouch.

I can just see my wife patiently waiting for me to setup the tripod, frame, and focus as I photograph a building during a family trip :-)

Patent Idea! Flash Photography

Here is an idea that will improve people's snapshots ten fold - I should patent it! Camera manufacturers should program their flash systems to not fire if the focus subject is greater than 15' away.

How many times do you see people with all kinds of cameras (even D200 users) using their nice built-in flash to photograph objects standing 200 feet away? Countless people lined up near the Colosseum after sunset, standing at least 100' away, and happily snapped away w/ their flash turned on.

This problem is everywhere. It's common to see people at stadiums photographing with their flashes firing at players who are standing dozens of feet away. Why do you think the players in the field do no flinch at all with the flash photography? And why do you think that not a single pro photographer sitting at the field's edge uses a flash?

I can understand the urge to capture the beauty of the Colosseum after sunset; I dragged myself across Rome to be there just at the "magical hour", but using a P&S flash will not help you capture the Colosseum. It will, in fact, ensure the opposite - you will capture the grass in front of the Colosseum and nothing else.

Sure, turning off the flash will cause the shutter speed to slow down, way down, so much so that camera shake will be a real problem - but at least people will know that they must brace their camera before they snap the photograph.

People's faces were priceless after they looked at their digital display in dismay and disappointment that their photograph did not at all resemble the scene in front of them. I guess what frustrates people the most is that the image on the preview window on P&S cameras looks perfect before the photograph is taken, but the resulting photograph in no way resembles the preview window.

Maybe camera manufacturers can now address this issue instead of pursuing an ever bigger mega-pixel camera.

Sandisk Extreme III 4GB

I have recently had 2 Lexar 4GB 80x cards go bad on me after only 1 year of use. I don't want to run the risk of having a bad card while on my safari, so it is time to replace the Lexar with something else.

The Sandisk Extreme III 4GB cards have just come down in price to $239.95 (from over $400 not more than 1 month ago). That's a great deal for a high speed 4GB card - matches nicely with the high performance capabilities of a Canon EOS 1D MK II N

If high speed is not critical to you (not shooting to many 8 fps bursts), then you could get the Sandisk Ultra II for $179.95, or even the Sandisk 4 GB Compaq Flash Card for $149.95.

The Brown Bears of Katmai

Joseph van os Photo Safari has a photo safari to Katmai National Park in September to watch brown bears feeding on salmon as they get ready for their long winter hibernation.

Katmai National Park is located on the Alaska Peninsula, across from Kodiak Island. Park Headquarters is in King Salmon, about 290 air miles southwest of Anchorage. The park is open year-round, but the ideal time to visit is July and September.

The trip is scheduled from September 9th to 14, 2006.

3GSM World Congress

I am on my way to Barcelona, for the 3GSM World Congress.

I am taking along my "travel photography kit", hoping for some photographic opportunity while in Barcelona.

My kit consists of:

Canon EOS 5D
Canon EF 24-105 f/4L IS
Canon EF 85 /1.4L
Gitzo G1027 CF Tripod
RRS BH 25 Pro Ballhead

Should be fun.

OS X Utility: GL Image Browser

"With the GL Image Browser, you can open a folder on your computer and look for all the pictures that are inside, even in subdirectories if you want. It is no iPhoto or Picasa clone, GL Image Browser is a tool to quickly browse through thousands of pictures"

In some way, GL Image Browser enables me to do much of what I do with Photo Mechanic - not as complete, and not as fast, but still it is a better photo viewer than what you get from OS X Preview app.

Best of all - it is free! Get it from Geekologic.com.

Amazon's Price Shenanigans

I just noticed a "feature" of Amazon.com. It seems they are displaying different prices depending on where/how you look for an item.

Take the Canon EOS 1D Mark II N as an example. Go to amazon.com and search for it.

Here is the search result - EOS 1D Mk II N for $3,898.94 a savings of 34%.

Now go to any of the comparison shopping sites such as shopping.com and search for the same Canon camera. Here is the search result - EOS 1D mk II N on www.shopping.com

Notice that Amazon is listed as a retailer, and the price quoted for the same camera on Amazon is now $3,649.88 a savings of 44%.

This new Amazon price is $249.06 (10%) cheaper than searching directly via amazon.com.

It seems that if you go directly to Amazon and search for the item, you are charged a higher price than if you go to Amazon via a referral link.

I am wondering if I paying extra for all of the item I have been purchasing directly on Amazon.com. It really gives me a bad feeling about shopping at Amazon.com.

I wonder if this is a common practice in the industry. A quick search on B&H has showing their prices to be the same no matter where you look.

Canon EF 300 vs EF 500 vs EF 600

How big are these long lens anyhow? Here are their respective stats:

EF 300 f/2.8 IS USM
Weight: 5.6 lbs, 2,550 g
Diameter vs. Length: 5" x 9.9"
Closest Focusing distance: 2.5m / 8.2 ft

EF 500 f/4 IS USM
Weight: 8.5 lbs, 3,870 g
Diameter vs. Length: 5.8" x 15.2"
Closest Focusing distance: 4.5m / 14.8 ft

EF 600 f/4 IS USM
Weight: 11.8 lbs, 5,360 g
Diameter vs. Length: 6.6" x 18"
Closest Focusing distance: 5.5m / 18 ft

And now all together.

Trip to Skagit Valley

I went to Skagit Valley on Saturday morning to photograph bald eagles. We left at 6 am and got there just around 7:40 am. We saw 31 eagles altogether, 24 of them while heading east, and only 7 on our way back west (around 11:30 am) - if you plan to go, you definitely want to arrive early in the morning to increase your chances of seeing eagles.

The trip was a great practice session for my safari in late May. Lessons learned or reaffirmed.

• I need to practice more with my long lens - shooting at 600 mm with a 1.4x teleconverter requires careful planning.

• Less is more - I need to keep things simple and minimize the gear I take. The ES 300 f/2.8 is being removed from my safari camera bag. I will just use the 24-70 f/2.8, 100-400 f4.5-5.6, and 600 f/4.

• I need more than 1 camera, you loose too much time and shots switching lenses. Ideally I would have at least 2 cameras, one on the 100-400, and another on the 600. Using 2 Canon 5Ds would be ideal to simplify settings and share batteries, but I am tempted to try a Canon 1D MKII N for its auto-focus system and 8 fps.

After 4 hours in the field, my favorite shot from the whole Skagit Valley trip is the one below

Shot with a Canon 5D, ES 28-300 F 3.5-5.6L IS, Aperture priority, 300 mm, 5.6A at 1/100 sec, ISO 1600, hand held.

In all honesty, all Eagle shots were pretty ordinary, and many were not sharp enough.

I will try to go back again next Saturday if the weather cooperates.

FocalBlade - Photoshop sharpening plugin

FocalBlade lets you sharpen your photos for screen display and print as well as produce great looking blur, soft focus and glow effects. This is the best sharpening plug-in I’ve used. Its user-friendly interface and powerful sharpening algorithms make it a great addition to your digital workflow.

FocalBlade cost $49.95, a 30 day demo trial is available.