Most of my imagery is iPhone captured. If I do use one of my DSLRs I will usually do much, or at least some image processing on the iPad. It's funny then that I still wonder about RAW files. I suspect it's one of the mental exercises used to occupy the time spent alone in freezing early morning fog or some such, waiting to see how the lighting changes. We all know that place.
The accepted "truth" has been that RAW is the only good way to shoot. After all, keep as much control as possible. In-camera processing uses someone else's opinions about what's important. JPEG shooting relinquishes creative decision making.
Experiences with RAW capable cameras over the last year or so have caused me to dispute that "Truth" however. I'm thinking that in-camera processing is the way to go. Providing of course that some attention is paid to White Balance.
I know from experience that technology producers have their own proprietary systems. Some of this is for competitive reasons but some is because they really do understand their equipment best. This is very much true of chip manufacturers and camera manufacturers.
Software attempts to "crack the code" and does so quite well, ACR, Aperture, and others. It's interesting though that different types of software will interpret the same RAW file differently. This makes me wonder just how much of the "goodness" is a 3rd party software vendor capable of delivering. 90% ? More/less?
Over the last few iterations camera manufacturers have quietly and significantly improved their internal software "engines." They are more than likely getting more of the "goodness" from their proprietary files than other's are getting...and they are doing it very very quickly and for free. (I believe that new camera decisions are made for many reasons but that a new engine isn't on the list.) Oh. The file sizes are smaller also making management easier and less expensive.
There's always the argument that future advances in software will allow re works of RAW files. While true I do wonder about the practicality. How many of the (tens?) of thousands of images you took last year, or the year before, or in 1995 will you rework with the newest iteration of Photoshop? Assuming that new software still reads the old files, and of course that your DAM system allows you to find the file. I'm guessing the number will rhyme with Nero.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
"Sometimes we Differ"
Mike Johnston writes TOP The Online Photographer an excellent blog I'm certain many of us are familiar with. (yes I know but "with which many of us are familiar" sounds pretentious now doesn't it.)
Discussing the subject of photography as art, or different from art, he touches on an area I know I've wrestled with, do words enhance photographs? If a picture is worth a thousand words then how many more could it need? Yet, how many of us appreciate a caption? I know personally I like having a bit of the photographer's personal voice added to an image...I always look for a caption. Or is the mystery worth something more?
It would be interesting to hear other's opinions.
Speaking of opinions, I have followed TOP for years and enjoy it very much. I do recognize that some of my "life" opinions are rather different from Mike's. Comments in the past have started a stream of personal e-mails between us voicing that disagreement. Regardless I value his opinions and expect that if we ever did meet I would like him very much.
Discussing the subject of photography as art, or different from art, he touches on an area I know I've wrestled with, do words enhance photographs? If a picture is worth a thousand words then how many more could it need? Yet, how many of us appreciate a caption? I know personally I like having a bit of the photographer's personal voice added to an image...I always look for a caption. Or is the mystery worth something more?
It would be interesting to hear other's opinions.
Speaking of opinions, I have followed TOP for years and enjoy it very much. I do recognize that some of my "life" opinions are rather different from Mike's. Comments in the past have started a stream of personal e-mails between us voicing that disagreement. Regardless I value his opinions and expect that if we ever did meet I would like him very much.
Monday, January 16, 2012
...but do you love it?
A friend and fellow blogger posted about his recent experience with a smartphone here. Now many things are interesting in this post as evidenced by the responses he continues to receive, but I think the bottom line is: " ...but do you love it?".
For me, with the majority of my working life spend designing and selling very large voice / data systems to very large customers the advent of the cell phone was a way to help break the tether. I could be almost anywhere and still be in communication. Whooo Hooo!! My first cell phone (and every subsequent one) was Nokia. Their command of the electro-mechanical made them perfect for me. I would burn through one in about 14 months.
At the same time I had a great camera which I loved. A Nikon F purchased new in late 1970 and used 'till my grand daughter was born 9 years ago. In the last 9 years I have owned a series of very good digital cameras which were proficient way beyond my abilities. I used them but never loved them...disliked most of them.
My daughter talked me into trying an iPhone (giant 2 MP camera) which I expected to discard as quickly as possible without hurting her feelings. Turns out I disliked the phone even more than I expected to (c'mon folks,,,it's a pain in the ass voice communication tool). However I absolutely love the camera / App combination it offers. Along with what I came to think of as a camera it also gave me quite sophisticated access to the internet and a whole bunch of "social" networks. As telephone voice communication has become a minuscule part of my life, and textual / visual communication fills the void the iPhone becomes even more indispensable.
I now have dozens of cameras, mostly film, ranging in formats from 35mm to 4x5. I also have 2 very good digital imagers with similar sized sensors, Sigma DP1 and Panasonic G2. With any of these cameras I make images I like...some are even quite good I think but I work hard to do it. They're a chore. With the iPhone I do the same but love it.
I often find myself switching the iPhone into Airplane Mode which disables all but the camera. It's been suggested that I buy another cheap cell phone for voice but why? For the few voice calls I make this iCamera works well enough.
I'm thinking the reduction in voice calling is societal. If that's true then although we may continue to call them cell phones the phone part of the device will become of minor importance...it certainly has for me.
Bottom line...if you have the choice, use what you love, your results (and you) will be better for it.
ps I use the term smartphone as I understand there are other devices beside the iPhone...and for those of you using them I think you couldn't be cuter if you were in lederhosen and a bow tie. ;-)
For me, with the majority of my working life spend designing and selling very large voice / data systems to very large customers the advent of the cell phone was a way to help break the tether. I could be almost anywhere and still be in communication. Whooo Hooo!! My first cell phone (and every subsequent one) was Nokia. Their command of the electro-mechanical made them perfect for me. I would burn through one in about 14 months.
At the same time I had a great camera which I loved. A Nikon F purchased new in late 1970 and used 'till my grand daughter was born 9 years ago. In the last 9 years I have owned a series of very good digital cameras which were proficient way beyond my abilities. I used them but never loved them...disliked most of them.
My daughter talked me into trying an iPhone (giant 2 MP camera) which I expected to discard as quickly as possible without hurting her feelings. Turns out I disliked the phone even more than I expected to (c'mon folks,,,it's a pain in the ass voice communication tool). However I absolutely love the camera / App combination it offers. Along with what I came to think of as a camera it also gave me quite sophisticated access to the internet and a whole bunch of "social" networks. As telephone voice communication has become a minuscule part of my life, and textual / visual communication fills the void the iPhone becomes even more indispensable.
I now have dozens of cameras, mostly film, ranging in formats from 35mm to 4x5. I also have 2 very good digital imagers with similar sized sensors, Sigma DP1 and Panasonic G2. With any of these cameras I make images I like...some are even quite good I think but I work hard to do it. They're a chore. With the iPhone I do the same but love it.
I often find myself switching the iPhone into Airplane Mode which disables all but the camera. It's been suggested that I buy another cheap cell phone for voice but why? For the few voice calls I make this iCamera works well enough.
I'm thinking the reduction in voice calling is societal. If that's true then although we may continue to call them cell phones the phone part of the device will become of minor importance...it certainly has for me.
Bottom line...if you have the choice, use what you love, your results (and you) will be better for it.
ps I use the term smartphone as I understand there are other devices beside the iPhone...and for those of you using them I think you couldn't be cuter if you were in lederhosen and a bow tie. ;-)
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Image Backup
As the iPhone represents an ever increasing part of my photography I am interested in alternative ways to backup images while on the road. Carrying a laptop for image backup is cumbersome. I have a connector which allows wired (fast) backup to the iPad and I use it but I'm always a bit nervous and as I manipulate some of the images on the iPad keeping them straight becomes a chore.
I was initially excited about the Photo Stream feature of Apple's new iCloud service. Built into iOS 5 (and the 4S iPhone) this service automatically uploads images to "The Cloud." This works as a behind the scenes automatic image backup, which is giant. The "Devil in the Details" is that it works perfectly for 1,000 images in each 30 day period, after that it's full 'till the 30 day timer expires and then we get another 1,000 image capability. It's really quite easy to fill this buffer on any decent shoot. So now I'm once again looking for a practical backup workflow for images when I'm on the road. If Apple allows us access to our image section of iCloud this will be true best solution I think.
It appears that there are presently some solutions. I've found 4 - 2 are hardware based and 2 are cloud based. Each have advantages and disadvantages.
HARDWARE SOLUTION:
Although there are a handful of hard drives presently available which are iOS compliant most of these are designed to download TO the iPhone or iPad but not upload FROM the iDevice. The advertising is catchy and exciting but reading carefully shows that they spend a lot of ink mentioning all of the types of information that can be transferred to the iPhone (movies, music, games), but are silent on uploads from the iDevice. I have e-mailed or called each manufacturer I found and all but 2 confirm that their product will not meet my needs.
Hitachi G-Connect hard drive. 500 GB, $200, needs to be plugged in for power. I have been assured 3 times by a Hitachi rep that this product is a good solution but I find myself waiting 'till a company with an iron clad no questions asked return policy decides to sell it (like Amazon or Costco). The connection is wireless and it can serve up to 5 devices. It's a smallish box with a power cord. This evidently also works as a wireless router or hot spot for up to 5 devices.
HyperDrive-iFlash Drive. This is a solid state device (flash drive) with a USB plug on one end and the iPhone plug on the other, quite small. I am assured by the manufacturer that the iPhone will read from this device and write to it. It appears to be an excellent solution but in my opinion is still quite expensive. 3 sizes, 8, 16 and 32 GB. Prices are from $100 to $200. ($10 off sale now for "cyber" whatever day it is).
The disadvantage here for me is that I can be assured I will lose it. For the past year or so I have lost just about everything small that I own. I am completely unable to find these items no matter how hard I look right up to the day I replace it and then it's right on my desk or some such place. So for me the price doubles.
CLOUD SOLUTION:
There are App based cloud solutions in addition to iCloud's Photo Stream. DROPBOX is one many of us are familiar with and with a WARNING perhaps the best solution so far. The warning is that although the upload is easy to set up, if WiFi is lost it will continue the transfer over the Cellular network. This could lead to a very nasty surprise when the Cell Bill arrives.
The images uploaded to dropbox are right on my desktop Dropbox Folder waiting for me when I get home and Aperture reads from this folder quite easily. It renames files with the date and time of transfer. I haven't yet checked to see I can change that or if it strips image information during transfer but as a backup it works.
I had initially rejected Dropbox because it dramatically reduces file size for transfers to iDevices and the developers have no particular desire to change this. BUT...transfers from the iPhone to the cloud are full resolution...cool.
There is another free cloud based service, www.Box.com. Box offers a range of services and it appears they also give 50GB storage for free. I am testing this service now but so far I am unable to upload multiple images at once. If this is a one at a time transfer it's unworkable. Their reps also tell me that this will search for a cellular connection if WiFi is interrupted so the same warning applies.
There are some other cloud based offerings, such as iDrive Photo Backup but I have had problems using them so I think they're not quite ready...yet.
I was initially excited about the Photo Stream feature of Apple's new iCloud service. Built into iOS 5 (and the 4S iPhone) this service automatically uploads images to "The Cloud." This works as a behind the scenes automatic image backup, which is giant. The "Devil in the Details" is that it works perfectly for 1,000 images in each 30 day period, after that it's full 'till the 30 day timer expires and then we get another 1,000 image capability. It's really quite easy to fill this buffer on any decent shoot. So now I'm once again looking for a practical backup workflow for images when I'm on the road. If Apple allows us access to our image section of iCloud this will be true best solution I think.
It appears that there are presently some solutions. I've found 4 - 2 are hardware based and 2 are cloud based. Each have advantages and disadvantages.
HARDWARE SOLUTION:
Although there are a handful of hard drives presently available which are iOS compliant most of these are designed to download TO the iPhone or iPad but not upload FROM the iDevice. The advertising is catchy and exciting but reading carefully shows that they spend a lot of ink mentioning all of the types of information that can be transferred to the iPhone (movies, music, games), but are silent on uploads from the iDevice. I have e-mailed or called each manufacturer I found and all but 2 confirm that their product will not meet my needs.
Hitachi G-Connect hard drive. 500 GB, $200, needs to be plugged in for power. I have been assured 3 times by a Hitachi rep that this product is a good solution but I find myself waiting 'till a company with an iron clad no questions asked return policy decides to sell it (like Amazon or Costco). The connection is wireless and it can serve up to 5 devices. It's a smallish box with a power cord. This evidently also works as a wireless router or hot spot for up to 5 devices.
HyperDrive-iFlash Drive. This is a solid state device (flash drive) with a USB plug on one end and the iPhone plug on the other, quite small. I am assured by the manufacturer that the iPhone will read from this device and write to it. It appears to be an excellent solution but in my opinion is still quite expensive. 3 sizes, 8, 16 and 32 GB. Prices are from $100 to $200. ($10 off sale now for "cyber" whatever day it is).
The disadvantage here for me is that I can be assured I will lose it. For the past year or so I have lost just about everything small that I own. I am completely unable to find these items no matter how hard I look right up to the day I replace it and then it's right on my desk or some such place. So for me the price doubles.
CLOUD SOLUTION:
There are App based cloud solutions in addition to iCloud's Photo Stream. DROPBOX is one many of us are familiar with and with a WARNING perhaps the best solution so far. The warning is that although the upload is easy to set up, if WiFi is lost it will continue the transfer over the Cellular network. This could lead to a very nasty surprise when the Cell Bill arrives.
The images uploaded to dropbox are right on my desktop Dropbox Folder waiting for me when I get home and Aperture reads from this folder quite easily. It renames files with the date and time of transfer. I haven't yet checked to see I can change that or if it strips image information during transfer but as a backup it works.
I had initially rejected Dropbox because it dramatically reduces file size for transfers to iDevices and the developers have no particular desire to change this. BUT...transfers from the iPhone to the cloud are full resolution...cool.
There is another free cloud based service, www.Box.com. Box offers a range of services and it appears they also give 50GB storage for free. I am testing this service now but so far I am unable to upload multiple images at once. If this is a one at a time transfer it's unworkable. Their reps also tell me that this will search for a cellular connection if WiFi is interrupted so the same warning applies.
There are some other cloud based offerings, such as iDrive Photo Backup but I have had problems using them so I think they're not quite ready...yet.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Meeting friends for the first time
An interesting experience when using the "Web" is getting to know people whom you've never met. I'm perhaps not alone in referring to people as friends even though having never actually seen them in "real life."
I've followed, admired and learned from the iPhone Photography of Harry Sandler for iPhone years. I recently met and photographed with him in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Thanks to fellow iPhone Photographer Teri Lou Dantzler for setting that up. It was a great 2 days and it was wonderful walking with someone who has as much trouble as I trying to keep up with TL when she's bounding up a mountain.
One very interesting use Harry makes of his iPhone is as a view finder for his 60 MP Swiss Arca.
I've followed, admired and learned from the iPhone Photography of Harry Sandler for iPhone years. I recently met and photographed with him in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Thanks to fellow iPhone Photographer Teri Lou Dantzler for setting that up. It was a great 2 days and it was wonderful walking with someone who has as much trouble as I trying to keep up with TL when she's bounding up a mountain.
One very interesting use Harry makes of his iPhone is as a view finder for his 60 MP Swiss Arca.
Friday, October 14, 2011
New Toy-First Images
My iPhone 4S arrived today. I was able to activate it right from iTunes...cool. My first impressions of the camera are quite favorable. It's clear and it's fast.
A favorite Camera App is ClearCam which takes 4 shots quickly, analyzes them and saves the sharpest. With the 4S, ClearCam takes and analyzes 6 shots in exactly the same amount of time. The images are larger, 8MB and they appear to be sharper as well. Not bad for a sensor which is probably about the size of a grain of rice.
A favorite Camera App is ClearCam which takes 4 shots quickly, analyzes them and saves the sharpest. With the 4S, ClearCam takes and analyzes 6 shots in exactly the same amount of time. The images are larger, 8MB and they appear to be sharper as well. Not bad for a sensor which is probably about the size of a grain of rice.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Mixing Processes
In the midst of an otherwise gloomy-stormy week we had a brief 10 minute blue sky window. The fact that it was sunset made for a dramatic sky. I took a handful of iPhone images which I am working now but also grabbed a shot with my new toy, the Lumix G2.
I processed the image with Film Lab, an Aperture plug-in made by DxO Labs. The resulting image, an Ektachrome simulation, I sent to my iPad and processed in the App PhotoForge 2. I like the results.
I processed the image with Film Lab, an Aperture plug-in made by DxO Labs. The resulting image, an Ektachrome simulation, I sent to my iPad and processed in the App PhotoForge 2. I like the results.
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