I was using a digital camera and I’m ashamed of it

This is a post I wrote in February 2009. It still makes me laugh.

Funny thing but every time I clear off the dust of my digital and take it to the streets I feel awkward. What is it about digital cameras that make them feel like a casual thingamajig, not to be taken seriously? (it’s a rhetorical question) Sometimes I feel that my Holga is a more sincere camera than my DSLR.
Maybe it’s just me. I’m the weirdo.
On Saturday the sky over Los Angeles was amazing. I had to go out and do some magic. So I grabbed my Holga but noticed it has only 4 pictures left. Hmmm.. my Polaroid was nowhere to be found and none of the 35 mm film I have in stock seemed appropriate for the occasion.
OK, then the digital it is.

I just hope I don’t meet anybody I know.

It was a nice day in Venice Beach, and I made sure to look around before revealing my camera every time I was taking pictures. But I have to say it’s not easy to hide a nice size DSLR under my shirt. And while I was taking the last images in Venice a man on a bicycle stopped by, looked at my camera and asked: “so how do you like your Nikon?” “It’s alright” I said, recognizing I was not as invisible as I wanted to be.
To make things worse he said “I have a Nikon too but mine is a film camera, Nikon N70”
“Hey that’s cool, I have the N75” I said, so happy to find a friend in this digitized world.
But he just looked at me and it was quite obvious he did not believe me at all. ‘You’re just another typical digital user’ he probably thought to himself.

Well, at least I got a few good pixels, ah I mean, pictures.

Exposure techniques

1. Long Exposure. Try capturing light trails by shooting long exposure in low light conditions.  If, like me, you don’t have a tripod you can open a larger aperture (at about f/2.8). This will allow you to adjust the shutter speed to something more reasonable, at around 5 seconds

2. To Flash or Not to Flash? As I mentioned before, the flash in quite useless when shooting street photos at night. However, sometimes it can be fun to use the built in flash to create special effects.
Here are a couple of pictures I took at Blue Heights Drive overlooking Los Angeles, The top one was taken without a flash and for the bottom one I used the camera’s built in flash. I like both. The results are obviously very different, but I like both.   If you have a manual camera you might also like to try shooting with slow sync flash for some really cool results.

3. Motion Panning. Panning is a technique of photographing moving subjects with a slow shutter speed while moving or “panning” the camera with or against the subject. With some practice you will be able to get some cool results. There are mainly two ways to photograph with panning:
1) Pan your camera along with your subject when you make the exposure. This method keeps the subject sharp while the background is blurred.
2) If you move your camera against the direction of your subject the result will
be a sharp background and a blurry subject.

4. Zoom lens effect. To make this effect you need a camera with a manual zoom lens and long exposure. Now, zoom your lens in or out while the shutter is open and the exposure is made.

Subscribe to this blog

sky photography

Since I began taking pictures I developed a curious habit of looking out the window first thing when I wake up in order to inspect the state of the sky for the day.
Obviously, the more clouds and depth of colors the higher it is ranked in my
personal “sky scale” ™.
Here are a few occasions when nature took care of the beauty and marvel of a scene and all is left for us to do is get the camera out and capture the wonder.

Road trip 2009:
Top row from left to right: Roadside Pennsylvania 2009, East Los Angeles 2009. | Middle row: Countryside Virginia 2009. Alexandria, Virginia 2009. | Bottom row: sunset in Pennsylvania 2009. Geese over Virginia Fall 2009.

Virtual Photographer

Recently someone recommended I try out a Photoshop plug-in called Virtual Photographer. I know, I know, every photographer out there is already familiar with this plugin and probably has been using it forever. But me, I somehow missed this great plugin, maybe because I usually prefer the “hands on” method when it comes to working on my photos. But never mind me, back to Virtual Photographer: I downloaded the plug-in, which is free and can be found here and took it for a test.
Well, OK, its really easy to use, not too much brain power needed, obviously the perfect software for me!
So you pretty much open your photo in Virtual Photographer’s preview window and play around with the large number of available photographic styles. (You can also manually control the styles but I really couldn’t find any benefit in doing so). When you find the style you like you simply apply it to your picture.
And there you go, your plain picture is now amazing.
And if it sounds like I’m patronizing this plug-in, I’m not, really.
I actually like this little thing and I will probably use it every now and then.

A week of rain

Photo processing in Paintshop Pro

When working on my photos I usually like to combine hands-on and PC methods but as my scanner is out of commission right now, I decided to settle on just PC processing for now.
I use Photoshop CS3 to “develop” RAW files but everything else I do in Paintshop Pro X2 (12). I’ve been using it since Painshop Pro 3 was around so I guess it’s true that old habits die hard.
As my first victim I chose a photo taken in Fredericksburg, Virginia which is a charming small town near George Washington’s childhood home.
This picture is a picture of an actual pharmacy and obviously I was quite impress with it since it looked just like pharmacies used to look like in the 50’s (so I’ve been told).
So pretty much I got my work cut out for me.
First I added a greenish tone by using the Red/Green/Blue filter under Adjust/Color (red=0 green=36 blue=12).
Next I added more Contrast and Brightness; there’s no formula here of course, I just play around with these settings until it looks right. Now, I added some Sharpness to the image. The sharpness helps the objects in the picture stand out and appear almost 3D (which obviously they are!). It also adds grain. I happen to love grain but if you don’t just skip the Sharpen adjustment tool.
Finally I applied a filter which is unique to Paintshop pro: Time Machine. It’s an excellent photo effect which can take an image and transform it to another era, complete with matching photo edges. And as this picture didn’t need much help, I used the Early Color to slightly defuse the original colors.

By the way, I always assume most of you use Photoshop for image processing but maybe like me you are only partially using it, so anyway, I’d love to know.

Last day

Driving south from Winchester we took small country roads in a hope to find the real Virginia.
We stopped by an enormous flea market with so many cool oddities and though I was unsuccessful bargaining down an old viewfinder camera I confess mostly I just enjoyed the southern accent.
Eventually after some driving through little towns, creeks and wineries we arrived to the Rappahannock river and to historic Fredericksburg on its banks.
Near by is Ferry Farm where George Washington spent his boyhood years. (you didn’t think it would be a day without GW, did you?)
And now I’m getting ready to go back.
To go back from home to L.A.

Great slow day

A slow day. We hiked along the Potomac (or the Patowmac as George Washington would say ).
The lovely hike took place along the river at Great Falls which is where the Potomac is shared between Maryland and Virginia.

… and don’t forget to bring your camera.

It is Friday night and we are dressed up and ready to go to dinner in a fancy schmancy restaurant in Malibu by the ocean. By the time we leave home it is getting dark and as I have no fast film at hand, I figure there is no point in taking any camera along with me.
Tonight, I’ll just be nice, sit through dinner, be polite and forget about photography.
But then, when I’m at the door, it hits me: hey, don’t I have a nice digital camera somewhere in the house which is perfectly capable of taking night photos?! And so, on my way out, I grab my Nikon D60 for our night on the town.
The opportunity to take a few wonderful and darn right exceptional pictures happens after dinner when we walk on the beach (yeah, yeah, so romantic! Nikon and me).
So here it is: a long exposure in Malibu.

And this is your lesson today, my dear two readers: Never leave home without a camera.

To flash or not to flash (photography)

I have to admit I’ve never used the flash up until a few days ago. I just don’t like this burst of light that changes the reality of the scene. Besides, for the type of photography I do there’s no real benefit for employing the limited range of a flash unit. I know there are situations when it’s a good idea to use flash, but I guess I don’t put myself in these situations.
Until we went to Blue Heights Drive over Sunset Plaza where we found an amazing view overlooking Los Angeles. The view was incredible but the place where we stood was too dark. Too dark to be able to set my camera in manual mode.
I almost decided not to shoot. Just enjoy the view and go home.
Eventually, after some encouragement, I took a few pictures. Some without and some with flash. I like both. The results were very different obviously, but I like both.

I haven’t changed my mind (yet) about using flash; I still think it’s quite ineffective and unnatural, but I hear there are some neat tricks using flash, so if you know of any and would like to share here, I’ll be glad to learn.

No flash :

Yes flash:

Silly black and white digital

One of the most ridiculous features of a digital camera is the black & white shooting mode.
What does it really mean? Isn’t a digital image, just a bunch of digits stored in a file?
So basically when you set your camera to b&w mode you tell it; oh, I don’t care about the color information, just get rid of it. and you let the camera think for you.
But when you capture your image in color and then convert it to black and white in your favorite photo editor (Ok, Photoshop) there are actually numerous ways of converting photos to black & white and so you have more control over the final image.
I don’t know; call me crazy, it just seems better this way instead of letting the camera wipe out all color information of your image.
The only reason I can imagine someone will want to shoot in black and white digital is when they want to actually see what the scene is going to look like in black and white and essentially it can help them “think” in black and white.
But not to worry, there’s a cure.
If you shoot your images in RAW, you can set your camera to black & white mode and enjoy thinking in b&w, because at the end the RAW file actually contains the color information which can be retrieved later on if so desired.
And the bottom line?
If you want fine black and white photos why not try a roll of Ilford film?

I was using a digital camera and I’m ashamed of it

Yeah, funny thing but every time I clear off the dust of my digital and take it to the streets I feel awkward. What is it about digital cameras that make them feel like a casual thingamajig, not to be taken seriously? (it’s a rhetorical question) Sometimes I feel that my Holga is a more sincere camera than my DSLR.
Maybe it’s just me. I’m the weirdo.
On Saturday the sky over Los Angeles was amazing. I had to go out and do some magic. So I grabbed my Holga but noticed it has only 4 pictures left. Hmmm.. my Polaroid was nowhere to be found and none of the 35 mm film I have in stock seemed appropriate for the occasion.
OK, then the digital it is.

I just hope I don’t meet anybody I know.

It was a nice day in Venice Beach, and I made sure to look around before revealing my camera every time I was taking pictures. But I have to say it’s not easy to hide a nice size DSLR under my shirt. And while I was taking the last images in Venice a man on a bicycle stopped by, looked at my camera and asked: “so how do you like your Nikon?” “It’s alright” I said, recognizing I was not as invisible as I wanted to be.
To make things worse he said “I have a Nikon too but mine is a film camera, Nikon N70”
“Hey that’s cool, I have the N75” I said, so happy to find a friend in this digitized world.
But he just looked at me and it was quite obvious he did not believe me at all. ‘You’re just another typical digital user’ he probably thought to himself.

Well, at least I got a few good pixels, ah I mean, pictures.

Long exposure with a digital camera

At last I found time to experiment long exposures with my digital camera (Nikon D60).
I took most of my long exposures in average lit streets of Hollywood.
Very quickly I became aware that since I don’t have a tripod I will have to adjust a larger aperture (about F/1.0) and quit breathing for a few seconds.
It worked out quite nicely, in fact, I thought it was pretty easy to do and I didn’t faint even once.

I guess I’ll have to find a new challenge now.

My neglected digital camera

Recently I’ve been feeling guilty neglecting my digital camera (Nikon D-60 which I purchased a few months ago with your generous help)
Its true I got it so I have a camera to use while I travel, but as my summer was quite low on traveling my poor camera is simply sitting quietly on the shelf, collecting dust.
So I grabbed my Nikon on the way out to Santa Monica to try some nightly images.
I was wondering how well this camera will handle the night. Especially since I read something somewhere about the Nikon D300 capable of taking better pictures at night.
But hey, the results were pretty good. Though to be honest, I took most of the night pictures at the 3rd street promenade where there was enough light to shoot f/3.5 at one second, so the challenge was not all that great. Still I love the results.
And again, I’m impressed with the noticeable lack of noise (please be aware of the obvious oxymoron).

Next, I’m going to try long exposures. And I do welcome any advice you might have for me. Well, anything other than suggesting I must use a tripod!

fake HDR

One day I’m going to learn how to do HDR photography. For now, I discovered, very much by accident, that I can adjust the depth and clarity of an image in a photo editor and so create something that looks somewhat similar to HDR photography. It is so simple to do that there’s practically no need to provide any specific instructions. All you need to do is play around and adjust the image’s sharpness, contrast and brightness to bring out the depth of the image. And it is of course always a good idea to begin with an image that already has some dramatic components; like deep winter sky.
All these images were taken on the way back from San Francisco to LA on one cold rainy day.

Digital photography and the lazy photographer

While taking photos with my new digital SLR, I’ve noticed a big change in the manner of which I take digital pictures now. I guess after shooting almost solely film in the last 2-3 years, my method of photographing had become more attentive, perhaps even more calculated. And I don’t mean that now I pay attention to any of the scientific calculations in photography, but actually, calculated as in conscious; taking pictures that matter which pretty much translates into taking less pictures.
In the past, when using a digital camera I would sometimes shoot 4-5 pictures of exactly the same thing, which to be honest, often translated into 4-5 useless pictures of the same thing. On the other hand, most of my more successful pictures (i.e. the ones I was happy with), like the one presented here, were unique images I took “on the move”.
This is, in my very humble opinion, a disservice done to us by digital photography – it made us lazy photographers. I know of some *photographers who shoot tens of mindless images of the same scene hoping that at least one of them is going to turn out a good one.
I’m not sure if this practice actually works, and if it does work for them, this is great, but for me, maybe I’m weird or something, but if I had tens of pictures of the same thing on my hard drive, I would rather have “no respect” to these pictures. And since for me, photography is not about turning out “good pictures” this method would never work out for me.
And more amazing to me is that many websites and books about digital photography encourage the photographer to do just that; take as many pictures of the same thing as your memory card will allow you, after all, digital is free and its always easy to delete the bad ones.
What do you think?

* Excluding photographers who do HDR photography.

Nikon D60

As the title suggests the digital SLR I ended up getting is Nikon D60.
But before writing about it I wanted to thank everyone who shared their experience and knowledge to help me select the best digital SLR for me.
I have to say that there’s a lot of joy in sharing my thoughts, techniques and practices on this blog but also one of the best things about having this blog is the privilege of having the access to your knowledge. See, as I was searching for information about digital SLR I realized that I don’t really care (or even understand) all this technical blabber and what I really need is to hear from someone who know these cameras first hand.

The main reasons I decided the Nikon D60 is the best camera for me were its light weight, the fair price and because I already have two Nikon lenses.

The verdict: I already had the pleasure of taking this camera out for a test drive and it was a delight! Fast, easy, quiet, light and with some great results. What I really liked about this camera is that it feels just like my film SLR, and that’s a great bonus for me.
The quality of images took me by surprise: not only they are bright and vivid but also there is no visible noise. Wow.

Digital SLR question

I haven’t followed the digital marketplace for quite some time now and so I’m quite overwhelmed with the choice of cameras out there.
I read a few reviews but actually got even more confused.
Besides, I would rather hear from you; which DSLR do YOU prefer? Nikon D80 or Canon EOS-40D? or maybe another DSLR at this price range?

ACDSee Pro 2

I’m not going to write a review about ACDSee here, there’s no need to do such a thing as there are plenty of reviews all over the net written by experts who know much more than I do about photo editors.
But all I want to say is that if you have lots of photos to work with, and if you have thoughts about putting together a website or some sort of a catalog of your photos ACDSee can really make things faster for you.
I used to have an early version of ACDsee and I was definitely not impressed with it. It was merely an image viewer and I didn’t need one.
Recently I wanted to put together a website/catalog of my photos and was looking around for a tool which will help me working with the large number of images, organizing and displaying them. ACDSee turned out to be perfect for batch renaming images in a folder, tagging them and creating a PDF file or an html album which displays image information below each image. Perfect!

RAW update

Before shooting RAW again (and going through the wait-10-seconds-between-exposures routine) it crossed my mind that it might be a good idea to play around with my camera’s options beforehand.
Well, I’m not sure exactly what changes I’ve made to the settings on the camera (this thing has more menu options and buttons than a dashboard in an aircraft) but it turned out I did something right. I was then able to take 8 RAW images continuously while the camera was saving the images to the card in the background. So taking RAW images now was as fast and smooth as shooting jpgs if not in fact faster.
And another benefit to it all is that I’m now actually quite impressed with all the countless functions this old Minolta has to offer and I’m even considering to carefully check out its 180-pages user manual.
So thank you all for offering all kind of great suggestions, true, none of them worked out and I had to end up answering my question myself, but at least you gave it a shot.
Better luck next time

RAW question

So I ran out of film the other day and so I cleaned up the spider webs off my digital Minolta and took it along instead.
I read somewhere before that many photographers shoot only RAW because it’s an unprocessed format and so it gives the photographer the most control possible.
I must say I quite enjoyed processing the images myself instead of letting the camera making the choices for me.
The only problem I had with it, was the length of time it took the camera to store the image after the exposure was made. I’m not sure how long it was exactly but it felt something like 10 seconds which is awfully a long time to wait in between shots when we’re talking about street photography.
So I was wondering if anybody knows and has any advice on this issue…

By the way, Larry King said “good morning” to me shortly after this picture was taken… Can you imagine what a great honor it must have been for him.
I’m sure he told all his friends about seeing me walking by.

Noise Ninja

Typically I like images that have film grain; it accentuates a dark mood, a gritty feel and depth. But I don’t really care much for the digital noise – grain’s ugly cousin. Digital noise is the result of high ASA digital camera settings or scanner employment.
In the past, I used the Noise Removal filter provided in Paintshop Pro in order to eliminate noise in some images, but recently I needed something that works better and without any loss of detail.
This is when I decided to give Noise Ninja a try and was ever so impressed with the fact it is capable of effectively reducing the amount of noise but at the same time without losing detail.
Noise Ninja is available as a plug-in or stand alone software and the best way to learn using it is through their Five Minute Guide located under Help/User guide.
Basically there are 3 ways to use Noise Ninja: automatically generating noise profile from the image, creating an image profile manually or loading an existing profile. You can download a profile of your scanner or camera from Noise Ninja homepage.