Flowers

Pansies photographed with the Lensbaby Composer, with a short extension tube.

Lily with the Lensbaby

And lastly the original Pansy with my 90 TS-E

Why So Many Pixels?

One reason for wanting to start with as many pixels as possible is that every time we manipulate the image, we lose a little quality - resize up or down, get rid of barrel or pin cushion distortion, blend images for depth of field, or stitching, or correct perspective distortion and each of those steps degrades the image a little. This all on top of the original raw file conversion and any manipulation the camera does to raw images - raw isn't always as virginal as one might think as the manufacturer does some noise reduction or some sharpening before you get to play with it.

All these changes do add up. If I sharpen an image, I'm playing with the data and losing just a tad of resolution to gain in sharpness. Run my image through Akvis Enhancer or any other programme that adds local contrast or helps shadows and highlights and even more loss.

Dodging and Burning further damage the image - which is why this is the last thing I do. Even all those fancy blending layers and adjustments distort the data even if they don't destroy it.

And all this doesn't even consider cropping. 

Personally, I'll be happy to be have a camera with 36 or more megapixels.

Nikon D800E

No sign of mine arriving yet. Have been studying the various sites and lens tests to see what lenses I should use. Am going to try some of my 645 lenses first to see if any of them hold up.

In the mean time, today DPReview published an update on the D800E. I didn't find anything all that radical, but in the sample pictures section on the 800E, there are a variety of images. I looked at several made with the 70-200 and thought them quite good and was reassured that the corners seemed adequate if not perfect.

I then checked out the image with the boilers on the left, the sea in the middle and a city in the background, with fence and grass in the foreground, shot with the 85 1.4 G, a lens everyone agrees is stellar. Image here.

Wow, now this is what I was hoping for. From 18 inches away, I can't tell this is 100% view, but unlike "sharp" images of the past, there is no evidence of sharpening, even when I move in close to the monitor. Incredible detail and resolution as well as sharpness. And remarkably little moire in all those buildings and roofs - the only sig. spot I saw was between two sections of boat shed.

Digilloyd (pay site) has some interesting comments on focus shift as you stop down with some fast wide angle lenses, and the 14-24 - enough to make focusing stopped down the preferred method - if you can do it.

The D800/E would appear to have some live view focusing issues so I won't know how practical this is until I try it for myself.

Last Iteration

Iterations

As you know from  yesterday's post, I was photographing a rose. A dead one at that. It had been handed out at Indigo, by the store?, for no obvious reason, no strings attached, and it sat on our dining room table until well past it's best before date.

I happened to be reading the Sunday paper and noticed that the nearby window light was falling nicely on the flower - soft but directional - and that the rose might be worth photographing despite it's dried up appearance.

I started with my 90 ts-e lens but couldn't get close enough. I pulled the extension tube off my Lensbaby but that wasn't enough, so went in search of a longer one, and made some images. I then added the smaller tube and moved in a little closer.

Throughout this experimentation I made shots, and every 4 - 8 shots, I'd whip out the card and load the images into the computer to see what could be done with them.

I played with the height of the tripod to look down on the flower more, I rotated the vase while checking live view for the best view. I fiddled with the tilt on both the 90 and the Lensbaby and even experimented with f-stops on the 90 (though wide was best). Four times I made the trip to the computer and each time I learned from my experience and went right back to the rose to have another go.

This business of reassessing the subject and refining the composition and technique was fun and useful, informative and inspiring (to try and improve on the current best shot).

We don't often get such an opportunity to refine a photograph. We are away from the computer, the light is changing too fast, the LCD too small, or we are simply too impatient to move on to the next possible subject matter.

In the real world we can't 'grab the vase and rotate', and we can't bring up the images on 20 - 30 inch monitors to see what really looks best.

That said, we can learn from this experience. How often do we quickly assess the best position to stand, let the tripod choose the height from which to photograph (or simply standing height if we aren't using one) . We take the light we have instead of considering whether it wouldn't be better at a different time, and we don't give enough thought to whether we should attempt sharpness throughout, or a limited focus plane.

I would guess I spend almost three hours with that rose, going back and forth. I have to wonder how many of the subjects I photograph would have made better images had I spent a similar amount of time, refining and considering;  reviewing and re-envisioning.

Dry Rose

To my surprise, these wouldn't print on enhanced matte - out of gamut - and confirmed by printspace proofing. I switched papers to Harman FBAL gloss and had no troubles. Camera was Canon 5D2, lens was lensbaby Composer, wide open, with about one inch of extension tube to get close.

Liveview was invaluable. However did I manage before it came along?

3D->2D->3D->2D

Photograph some bushes, make a print, tear the print and bend it, then lay it out, and photograph it again.


Goofy?

Sure!

Fun?

Darn Right!

The paper was Ultra Premium Epson Matte (ie. the old enhanced matte) and it tore beautifully.

Apples And Oranges

I have been following with great interest the differences between the Nikon D800 and 800e and every few days more information and or examples come out. There are some things that can be said about any comparison of photographic equipment:

1) it's never as easy as you think

and

2) there are many factors which will result in a less than helpful comparision - ie. apples and oranges.

For example:

Imaging Resource just posted the 800e studio image - so a chance to compare cameras with identical images, same lens, steady lighting, tripod etc. The 800e did not show a huge advantage.  Other 'identical' comparisons had shown a bigger difference. It's essential to consider whether the image is a jpeg straight from the camera or a jpeg that came from the raw file. We also need to consider the lens used. In the case of the Imaging resource comparison, it's the 24-70 mm. Nikon lens - good for a zoom but definitely not up to a good prime lens, even the relatively inexpensive nikon 1.4 G, and certainly not the chart leading Nikon 85 1.4 G.

Today, digilloyd (for a fee) has tested sharpening to see what level of sharpening could possibly result in an 800 image looking just like an 800e image.

at GetDPI.com the Nikon forum has a lively discussion going on whether with extra sharpening the 800 images will look (and especially print) just like the 800E images.

For what it's worth, here's my observations after looking at and printing images:

You can only see the difference between the 800 and 800E if you start with a really good lens, optimal aperture and perfect technique - once you have to sharpen the 800E image significantly, it's hard to differentiate from an even more sharpened 800 image.

In prints 20X30 from a top lens I can see a difference between the 800 and 800E - but I doubt that the public could. At prints 49 inches wide (200% or 150 dpi) I think anyone could see the difference, but it's not huge even then - just less sharpening artifact.

Bottom line - you have to look for the diff. in the E, but with good glass and big prints, it is there.

To generalize to other comparisons:

minor change in the position of the sun (especially if it is glancing the subject) can affect apparent resolution and microcontrast and negate any camera differences. Less than stellar lenses won't show subtle differences in pixel count or presence/absence of an AA filter. Where the image is focusesd can make a giant difference - even minor variations can negate an otherwise useful comparison. Curvature of field can really screw up assessments. A number of lenses, many fast lenses and some others (like the 14-24 nikon) have sig. focus shift as you stop down. If focus was obtained wide open, even by live view magnified there can be errors creeping in.  As for auto focus - well there are complaints all over the net about difficulties focusing with the latest cameras. Those who shoot for pictures seem happy, those who shoot for tests not - which should tell us something. Again, focus curvature may have a lot to do with the apparent errors seen with lat. focus spots.

Mt. Kidd

Nothing original, I just like photographing this mountain any time I see it.

Rockface Kananaskis

Shot today in Kananaskis country, a 3 image stitch, made with the 5D2, 70-200 L IS f4 lens.

Website UP!

my new website is up and running, georgebarr.com and the photographs loaded. I note some duplications and I need to start working on image descriptions but you can inspect the site and let me know what you think. I have not yet moved the blog over yet(as you can see).

George

Website

You may notice that the website has changed drastically and isn't complete. I finally broke down and paid for a new website to be set up and only now are they loading all the images. I'll be moving my blog over to the new site too once all the bugs are worked out but the new site should be cleaner, the images bigger and hopefully I'll do a better job keeping the content current.

I'll post on the blog here once the new system is fully functional.

Focal Lengths I Use

As part of looking for suitable lenses for a D800e, I decided to do a little survey of my recent good images and what lens and focal length was used to make them.

35 were made with the 70-200, at all manner of focal lengths, though 11 were used for stitching purposes and might have been shot in a single image with a wider focal length and possibly a wider lens altogether (though I'd guess prob. still the 70-200 since much of the stitching is done at 150 mm +.

14 were done between 24 and 70 mm., most at the 24 or close, the longest at 58 mm. and the next longest 40 mm. - rather suggesting the top half of the lens is surplus to requirements.

7 were  made at 17-24 mm. with most at 17 mm. suggesting a fixed focal length lens would serve well here.

I would interpret this as suggesting:

1) I need a 70-200 - that using an 85, 100, 135 and 200 would be awkward, slow, and still have significant gaps (135-200). The Nikon 70-200 isn't as good as the new Canon 70-200 f2.8 L IS II, but is close, and as good as my 70-200 f4 L IS which serves me very well.

2) I probably don't need zooms at the wider end - something in the 15-18 mm. or the 14-24, then 35 mm. , 50 mm. Only three images were made at focal lengths > 24 mm. and less than or equal to 40 mm. which even sugg. I might reasonably skip the 35 mm. lens and go from 50 to 24 and onto 15 mm.

3) I'm surprised at how many images I'd hate to lose were made at 17 mm. and could probably have been made at even wider without difficulty - it may be the third most common focal length, but still definitely needs to be represented.

Your figures are almost certain to be different as this very much depends on the kind of photography you do, not just subject but the seeing and composing as well. None the less, you might find it helpful to do this analysis to see where you need to beef up your coverage, or how to plan for a new system, in whatever format.

Lenswork Monographs

I recently received my first Lenswork Monograph Made Of Steel. First let me comment on the idea and execution of monographs, and then this particular volume.

I had felt a larger size would be nice but in fact when the book arrived, I felt it was just the right size. Quality of the printing is as usual superb. The only thing missing is an option to subscribe to the whole series as I'm sure to want every one of them. I have some reservations about doing an entire book about a single project. My preference would be to lean towards retrospectives of a photographers best work which might well include several projects or genres. I guess it depends on whether you think the subject or the image is paramount. I'm quite sure that others won't feel the same and that's just fine.

That Brooks Jensen is able to produce these monographs as inexpensively by tagging them on to the print run for Lenswork itself is brilliant and Brooks is to be congratulated on a wonderful idea.

I have seen and enjoyed many of the images from Made Of Steel before, from Lenswork and especially from Brooks website but it is a delight to see this as a single publication. Many of the portraits are remarkable. Some of the tool photographs are fine artisitic images while others are more illustrative. That said, as a statement about a disappearing part of modern society, this is an important book and gives a great insight into the places and the people, fast fading from the modern landscape.

I`ll be signing up for the whole series.

Lens Tests

I have placed an order for a Nikon D800e and that raises the question of what lenses to use and where to go for information. I know the quality of what I have (17-40, 24-70, 50 macro, 90 tse, 70-200 and rarely used 300.

My go-to sites for information are:

1) the-digital-picture.com - i find the ISO target images the most useful in understanding about resolution, especially as he has retested most lenses with the Canon 1Ds3 and Nikon D3x so we can make some reasonable predictions about the D800(e).

2) SLRGear.com - I don't think we can say much about function on a 36 megapixel camera when testing with a 12 so some of the older tests are of less value (yet a bad lens will remain bad - only worse).

3) DPReview.com - good testing but very limited selection, and again consider the camera with which the testing was done.

4) photozone.de - helpful but they specifically say you can't compare diff. systems - even within one brand.

5) digilloyd.com - not formal lens testing with numbers and graphs but practical testing and comparisons. Yes, you have to pay for access, but paying $100 or so if you are purchasing a $3000 camera and perhaps as much as $7,000 in lenses, information well worth having.

What have my investigations so far shown me? The following are my impressions and remember I have not done any personal testing, not yet having the camera.

Well, the Zeiss 15 is stellar and significantly better in the far corners than the already very good Nikon 14-24 - but at $3000, and as I'm not your typical landscape photographer concentrating on near far compositions - it may not be sensible.

The Nikon 24-70 has a good rep but looking at the images I'm not overly impressed, especially at the 24 end. The Nikon 24 f1.4 G is terrific and as good or better than the Zeiss, and cheaper, faster, and auto focus.

The Nikon 35 1.4 is also terrific, and better than the f2 lens at the apertures I use - f8 and f11.

The Nikon 50 1.4 g tests very well but oddly doesn't seem to have a great reputation - barring evidence to the contrary, it will be part of my collection.

I wish there were more information on the 70-200 on either the D3x or the D800 but it looks to hold up well enough - near perfect at 70-100 and decent if not exceptional  in the corners the rest of the way. As this focal length is by far my most frequently used  lens, and as generally with longer lenses there is less opportunity to move forward or back to frame, I think I will have to at least give it a go. I wish Nikon made a high quality f4 lens for less weight ...

As to the D800 itself and the whole business of switching cameras - I was prepared to spend the money on the Pentax 645D - here I can spend about the same for camera and lenses and gain live view, image stabilization, and more flexibility.  If I find that Canon releases an even better camera within the year, I'm sure my D800e will not depreciate too badly and the lenses can be sold, or adapted for use on the Canon if need be.

Some argue that 36 megapixels isn't really a lot more than 21 since the linear increase in print size possible is the square root of the increase in pixels (about 31%) but that's the difference between 20X30 and 30X40 and for me that's important and may even pay for itself.

Quick Visit To Vancouver

From Stanley Park, Vancouver, B.C. Three images, blended, shot with the 70-200 f4 IS L lens on my 5D2, images blended in Helicon Focus. I'd found the tree the previous morning but despite waiting for clouds, never did get the really soft lighting I wanted, so came back at sunset and now the only problem was the light was failing fast. The tree is an ancient cedar, about 10 feet across at the base and this bole reached about 10 feet high.

And since I literally had to walk across the bridge over the road to get back to my car, it just seemed sensible to stop and photograph the Lions Gate Bridge. F16 @30 seconds.

Pixel Peeping and Hammer Hammering

O.K., I admit it, I've been checking out all the stuff on the new Nikon D800, and in perusing lots of user forums, mostly getting pretty useless information, I came across the following.  If you have peeked at camera forums, you have to check this out.

Hammerforum at Lensrental.com

Priceless. Wicked. Accurate.

More With Lensbaby and Extension Tube

The out of focus chraracteristics of this combination are wonderful, definitely something I'm going to keep working with.

Plane Of Focus

I really haven't made much use of my Lensbaby Composer, but did wonder what it would be like for close up work. I do have a set of the close up lenses they sell. These sit in front of the lens and basically act as a magnifying glass which does two things - it shortens the focal length and allows you to focus closer.

I wasn't entirely happy with the results so I dug out my cheapy third party extension tubes and with the shortest on the camera and the Lensbaby mounted to that, and no close up filter, I narrowed the angle of view while allowing closer focusing.

The net difference is less depth of field with any lens, but what's more important - the Lensbaby no longer has the look of a centrally sharp image with vaseline smeared on glass set in front of the lens - the shift from sharp to blurred (and stretched) with the Lensbaby at normal distances doesn't usually work for me, but here, with the tilting plane of focus and extremely limited depth of field (as opposed to lens blurring, the result is very pleasing to me.

It's possible I could achieve the same thing with a fast lens and extension tube, but it happens I don't own any fast lenses at all. I did think to use the 70-200 because it has IS, but it's big and awkward to hold, and you can't shift the plane of focus. I think this might turn out to be an interesting combination, Lensbaby Composer and extension tube.

Brooks Jensen

I discovered a wonderful image today, by Brooks Jensen, editor of Lenswork and  serious photographer.

This photograph is the first of 10 images of a new folio of prints Brooks has created. Do check out the whole folio and see The Medusa in a larger size, in isolation. It is this image in particular that has me enthralled. The sense of space, the sense of a third dimension is remarkable, the faint markings on the ice looking like distant nebulae. To appreciate its beauty, click on the link above to see it larger and in isolation.

Oops:  This from Brooks: One minor correction that I really hope doesn’t diminish your enjoyment of the image, but it’s not actually ice. It’s a tidal slough down on the Long Beach Peninsula near the mouth of the Columbia. I was mesmerized by the slow rising tide bringing in floating debris and surface guck. Fascinating patterns and surface reflections.



On the contrary, given its mundane source all the more amazing what it can turn into and all the more power for Brooks realizing the potential.



Clearly time to add another folio to my collection, or do I arrange to purchase a larger print to be framed - I don't do that often, partly because of the cost of framing, and considering lack of wall space, but this time...

It's been a while since I have been this excited about an image.

Lenswork Monograph

I see that Lenswork has pre-announced a new programme - that of printing an entire paperback book, like the regular Lenswork magazine, but containing the work of a single photographer. The first is Brooks Jensen himself, editor of Lenswork, from his Made of Steel Series. I have seen some of these images and I think this will be a very nice monograph to have, and will report on it when I get it.

I really enjoyed the Paul Caponigro issue of View Camera magazine and given the printing quality of Lenswork - this promises to be even better. I`m hoping that once the series starts, there will be a way to sign up for all the monographs as they come out.

Brooks indicates he`s going to work with photographers who have already been in Lenswork. This gives him plenty of scope.

Ideally it would be great to see some of the top photographers who haven`t got a  series of books out there.Even some famous photographers haven`t got round to making a book in a long time. A monograph gives us a chance to see more than one project or even style of work by a single photographer. We could also possibly see how someone`s style changes over time or to see consistencies in approach to widely varying subjects - from viewpoint to printing style, from lighting to tonality.

I`m as geeky as the next fellow, but I make far more use of my Lenswork magazines than I ever do of Lenswork Extended - I like having a book in hand.

It would be wonderful if these could be a bit larger than the standard Lenswork magazine, but perhaps that`s impractical. I don`t see a size mentioned on the website.

I`m really looking forward to this Lenswork effort.

How Much Is An E-book Worth?

Until now, only a handful of e-books have been made available, and no one has burdened me with their sales information. So, anyone actually know the answer? Is there a 'price point' that makes e-books tempting? How would an e-book differ (offer additional value) compared to a free website? Is there money to be made?

Here's some thoughts though. When one of my books sells, I get about $3 royalty. If I sold an e-book for $5 and it cost me $2 to host the book (that's what Blurb is charging), I could make the same amount of money, and at $5, it could easily be an impulse purchase. Currently there doesn't seem to be a way to find e-books on Blurb and of course the vast majority of the books won't be of 'publishable' quality, but let's say that Ansel were still alive, kicking and photographing, and that for the heck of it, he did an e-book.

Now, lest my publisher read this and have a fit, yes, I know my contract with the publisher gives them the electronic rights to publish, not me, but were I to do a new book..., one of my images (which they have said isn't practical in paper - and I agree)...

How many people would rush out, and how much would they pay, to get hold of an Ansel Adams book on their iPad? After all, Ansel did calendars and posters and Yosemite sold and continues to sell prints of his images, so pretty good chance he'd be up for it.

What if someone were becoming a serious fine art photographer, and for $5 each, they could pick up some 50 images, with some interesting text, by a well respected photographer, and further more, could do so from dozens of famous photographers. $100 would see you well on the way to making a wonderful library of images, all happily fitting on your iPad, and ready to learn from.

I see that William Neil now sells his e-books for $10. Landscapes Of The Spirit is a real book I own, and enjoy, and paid considerably more for. I note on his website that the price was $15, and I'm not sure that it wasn't more than that when he first made his publication available in electronic form. Keep in mind, this is a real book, of 120 pages and 79 images, not some hashed together portfolio with a few words that someone with delusions of grandeur decides to call a book.

Does that make the 'right price' $10, or does the price reflect the reputation of the photographer. Is Ansel's e-book worth more than that of one of his accolytes? Or does popularity and therefore number of sales determine success. After all, that's how it is in music. The price for a Feist song is the same as one by Fred Blogs, and only the number of sales determines the difference. Is that the way it should be?

Occasionally I splurge and pick up a Blurb book from someone I know or think might have interesting images - but by the time I pay frieght (it comes from downtown right here in Calgary), it adds $10 to the cost of a $37.00 book, which means I don't do it that often. Once Blurb starts promoting their e-books I might well pick up more, and if reasonably priced (ie. iTunes equivalent) for lots of famous photographers, well, I know I'd be buying left right and centre.

Since the publication of my first book, I have had a standing offer of any four prints, 8.5X11, $100 including shipping. I get a request every couple of months - hardly a money maker, and probably more trouble than it's worth. Perhaps and especially with the next generation high res iPad, purchasing small prints will be unnecessary and only large prints will be purchased, at prices that compensate the photographer for the shipping and handling, so that he or she can turn a reasonable profit margin. However, don't forget that all of this article is discussing electronic books, not portfolios - though the same arguments apply.

Will I give up the printed book, or the printed image for that matter? Very unlikely. But is the e-book in our future, as photographers as well as purchasers. Damn right!

Fish Creek

Finally, a chance to get out and photograph. Mostly I was working on the ice of the creek, while under an overpass. Late in the shoot the sun moved round far enough and low enough to strike this ice formation, warming the tones. This is mostly a colour image, though in a few places, the colour wasn't there for some reason. I sampled the colour from where it was present, then added a fill layer of that colour, then set layer blending to colour. Now the entire image was this colour, which hadn't been my intention, so Command I to invert the mask of this new fill layer, then painted in where I wanted this additional colour.

Focus blending was used, with the water as a single layer (Helicon Focus does odd things to running water that is focus blended). Shot with the 5d2, 70-200 mm. f4 L IS lens, a total of 10 images for the blend. It wasn't perfect and required a fair bit of manual editing to get right along the water edge and some of the openings in the ice.

I don't think I have the colour saturation quite right yet - but this is where it makes sense to stop for the evening and pick up another day, with a fresh eye.

Originality

None of us wants to be a copycat, or even worse, to be thought of as one, but how to avoid it. If it's true that by now everything has been done before, even the most original ideas are likely exist already, somewhere, sometime, even if you didn't know about it. Coming up with what is for you original because you didn't know of someone elses work does not relieve you of being seen as unoriginal - exactly what you strived to be.

So how do we say something interesting as photographers?

It is argued that no one else will bring to your subject your life experiences, your biases, and the accumulation of the things that interest you, catch your attention, or the way in which you like things arranged or presented. The problem with this is that unless all of what is unique to your viewpoint comes with a considerable dollop of skill (notice I didn't say talent), little is likely to come of it.

It doesn't take long to realize that as a novice photographer, your images are typically crap, either technically or aesthetically, and likely both. So you start reading, and you discover a photographer you like. For me it was Ansel Adams. I tried to emulate him, to near complete failure. I expanded my book collection to include other landscape photographers of the same ilk - Bruce Barnbaum, John Sexton, even Edward Weston, but because their approach to the landscape was similar, I didn't learn as much as I hoped.

Then I came across the work of David Plowden - medium format, not grand landscape, often industrial or small town America - and here was something different - the technical quality was there, but the subject, the closer presentation, and the introduction of a whole range of other subject matter really opened my eyes.

I went back to the work of Brett Weston and instead of concentrating on his landscape work this time round, studied his close work and especially his abstracts.

I acquired a book of Arnold Newman portraits and learned a lot about design.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. The path you take will almost certainly be different based on what you like and what motivates you, but the point is that by expanding your horizons, even if you do come across a style of photographs you like, say those of Michael Kenna, if you then see a scene that reminds you of his images and want to photograph it, you do so with the entire path of your experiences and image education behind you. If you then combine that with your own personality and experiences, there is a good chance of producing interesting original work.

When I wrote the third book, I included Michael Kenna and then Michael Levin. In the essay i wrote on Levin, I made a point of discussing the differences between the two Michaels. Not surprisingly, Leven had been through this all too many times and asked if I could eliminate the comparison and I could see his viewpoint and so respected his wishes.

In a way that was a pity, because I don't see Levin's images as copying Kenna - sure they pick some similar subjects, and photograph with long exposures and use the square format at times, but there are huge differences in the vast majority of their images. Kenna's images are dark. He favours burning in the edges, and isn't afraid of grain. This gives his images a dark moody atmosphere.

Levin comes from an 8X10 background and his huge prints are creamy smooth and speak of the infinite and are much more meditative than moody. I don't think Michael Levin should be in the least uncomfortable with comparisons.

The worst thing we can do as photographers is to wear blinders, to avoid anything unfamiliar, uncomfortable, different.

More On Meidum Format

OK, so perhaps this is a way to show the difference. Here are two huge enlargements of a tiny section of image. SO enlarged that virtually no detail is visible in either image, but what you are seeing is each square is a pixel, and look at the difference in tonal variation, even both images had similar overall contrast, highlights and shadows. This isn't noise you are looking at - it is genuine detail as confirmed by careful inspection of lower magnification views of the images show.

The first is the Canon 1Ds3

and the second is the Pentax 645D

This implies it isn't the number of pixels that counts, it is the quality of the pixels. Is it possible that removal of the fuzzy filter will so improve the quality of the dslr pixels as to make up the difference - I simply don't know. But what you are seeing here at 1500% magnfication is why you can see the difference in ordinary size prints.

This even has implications for stitching - I can easily equal the pixel count of the Pentax by stitching two or three overlapping Canon 5D2 images, but the inability to resolve low contrast areas will remain.

And I haven't even begun to look at shadow areas in which the differences between the two cameras is far greater. That Pentax, with all its limitations (no live view, shallow depth of field) may just be what I'm looking for.

Below are 100% crops of the same area, Canon first, Pentax second.

 

Medium Format Vs. 24X36

As you know, I have been struggling with whether to go to the Pentax 645D. There is a controversial article by Mark Dubovoy on Luminous Landscape at the moment - to the effect that 'real photographers shoot medium format'. Of course, that isn't what Mark said, but it is what he implied - that no matter what the print size, one could see the difference between medium format and smaller formats.

The example he used showed distortion with the dslr image, and greater contrast and thus less well controlled highlights, and better shadows.

Of course, much of this is a function of the particular lens and f stop he chose to use, and I dare say the two images could have been made to look MUCH closer to each other with a bit of care.

My immediate reaction was 'what a load of bull', but then I calmed down and decided to look at far better comparisons made in some of the reviews of the Pentax 645D, in which images are compared to the  Canon 1Ds3.

I made prints of reasonable size, 24 inches in the long dimension - something that both cameras should be capable of making. I then looked at the images at 100%.

I have poured over the images, and here is what I have found. If one looks at the finest details, branches on the horizon miles away, there is nothing to separate the Pentax from the Canon at this size of print.  The same applies to railings and bricks and anywhere the contrast in tones is significant. Where I can see a difference between prints is in the low contrast areas, branches against bushes or downed leaves. Here there is a noticeable difference in the Pentax images - it's as if large areas (up to 1/4 inch of the print) were smeared, the colour blended, a complete absense of texture and detail and even simple variation in tone, on the Canon image. it isn't about greater resolution (which doesn't really show up until you make very large prints), but if the Canon can smear details over 1/4 inch at this size, it can still do that over 1/8 of an inch in a 12 inch print - that is definitely visible.

I don't know what the difference is - whether there is a lot more manipulation of data to squeeze every bit of accutance (edge sharpness) and low noise out of the Canon at base ISO, or whether this loss is the fuzzy filter, or due to the number of bits per pixel in the pipeline, or what - all I know is that for all I think Mark picked a poor example, he is fundamentally right that there is something different about medium format.

Whether this will still be true when there are 36 megapixel full frame dslrs without fuzzy filters remains to be seen.

It reminds me though of the days of film when people using Technical Pan and special compensating developers could show extremely sharp prints, albeit terrible ones, lacking in the tonalities that were readily visible in an 8 inch print when comparing 6X6 with 35 mm.

Careful examination of the two digital images at 200% clearly shows that no amount of sharpening or local contrast enhancement is going to bring back the missing texture in the smaller camera images - for whatever reason.

I wish I knew the reason. It would help me decide whether to fork out $10,000 for the Pentax, or spend almost 2/3 less for the next generation Canon or Nikon with 36 megapixels. Those cameras will have sensors 3 years newer than the Pentax, but their pixels will be considerably smaller than the Canon 1Ds3 has now - does this mean even more loss of subtle contrast detail?

Electronic Viewfinders

Someone showed my their new Canon ?5100 dslr and I couldn't believe how small the image was in the viewfinder - having been used to a 1ds2, 5d2 and recently trying the pentax645D.

Last weekend a friend let me play with his new Nex 7. The sun was low and bright, snow on the ground, and I could look at the viewfinder and see the image just fine, with the sun visible off to the left side - utterly amazing, and far better than my own Panasonic GH2. I much prefer the controls on the GH2 (exc. for the fact that I always press the menu when I grip the camera), but the viewfinder on the sony really was excellent.
The image was smooth and seemed to refresh a lot faster than my GH2.

I think the time of the slr with electronic viewfinger, a la the Sony A series cameras, has arrived, and it is only time before Canon and Nikon abandon bouncing mirrors.

Whether mirrors will be needed at all (as per the A series for focusing) or will focusing on the sensor become faster as processors get more powerful, I suspect the latter and we will have rapid focus, live view, tilting viewfinders etc..

Bow River

As usual, if you click on the image, you can see this larger. This is a 7 image stitch with the 5D2. One of the few times I have used the 1.4 teleconverter to get in close. The end is a 97 megapixel image, 21X51 inches at 300 dpi.

The ice is covered in needles, sticks, and unspecified black spots, which are taking some considerable time to remove.

I used the magic brush to select the white areas that weren't completed by the stitch, deleting and filling with content aware fill, but I should have expanded the selected area by at least a pixel to avoid lines not filled - easily fixed but only if you look at the image very large on screen.

Three image stitch, some desaturation of colour all over - the branches were already almost monochrome.

A Second Chance

A couple of years ago I attempted to photograph this cattle feeder, sitting lonely and decaying in a field, and came away with nothing - the shapes were interesting but the holes in the side exposed bright snow, and I just couldn't come up with anything.

Today, I decided to look up, and with a wide angle lens, was able to make an interesting composition. Not a really good photograph, simply a competent one.

An Image From A Collection Is Not Made

Sometimes a group of image elements simply does not come together to make an image. As a postage stamp this looks quite nice but once seen at any reasonable size, there is too much clutter, too much distraction, and too much rust all roughly the same brightness for the image to work.

Various attempts at cropping this conglomeration just make the situation worse. Just possibly it might come together in better lighting, though I wouldn't count on it. Every attempt to simplify  the composition also weakens it.

I spent a couple of hours working on this, as the light was failing and in which by the end I could not keep the exposure to 30 seconds without increasing the iso.

The shapes and textures were so intriguing I was determined to find a away to make a successful image, but in the end failed.

The angled shot below, combined with some dodging and burning, and some local contrast enhancement, was the best I could come up with but I'm not satisfied.

Realistically, not every setup is going to work, and it is well worth trying a few setups in any single shoot, so that you have a reasonable chance of coming home with something pleasing, if not actually wonderful.

Too many unpleasing shoots in the past have made me give up photography for as many at 15 years at a time. Of course, this was in the days of film, and many times a single setup, albeit with several framings and positionings, was about all one could achieve. Some find the change to be outside and puttering or hiking a reward in itself but I confess, for me, that was never enough - I wanted decent images to make the effort wortwhile, and I'm sure a lot happier photographer since switching to digital specifically for the ability to cover a few scenes in an afternoon.

If you are shooting digitally but continue to put all your eggs in one basket ...

Image Quality

Recently Luminous Landscape published a comparison of the IQ180 top of the line digital back from PhaseOne with 8X10 colour film. It seemed odd at the time that the fellow setting this up reasoned that one could scan 8X10 film at 750 pixels per inch and get all the information that was available in the film.

It seemed odd, because if one uses the same emulsion in 35 mm. film, scanning a slide or colour negative at only 750 pixels per inch would be a disaster, showing only a small fraction of the information in the original.

Tim Parker and friends have taken on the daunting task of doing a repeat and extension of this comparison, adding 4X5 film, and the older P45 back (?39 megapixels vs. 80 for the newest), as well as Canon 5D2 (of great interest to me) and the Sony 900.

The results of the studio shots showed a huge advantage to the 8X10 film, and even to 4X5 and the Mamiya 7. A shot out in the wild however tended to even things out. Despite very windy conditions, they continued to show a huge resolution advantage to the 8X10 transparency film, but when it came to looking at the darker areas of the image, a whole other story came out.

 

You must click on the image above to see it at proper size. As you can see, the amount of detail in the IQ180 on the right is huge, however if one is honest, there is over sharpening and in the areas of the left that are adequately exposed and standing still, there is a lot of detail.

This example above was deliberately selected to show the film results at their worst - in shadowed areas and dealing with more wind than most of us are willing to put up with.

Again, click to see at original size - and the sharpening is the same as in the shadow image. There is a tremendous amount of information in the distant trees and buildings and bridges beyond that is simply gone in the digital image.

A different image of the skyline shows more detail in the film image no matter what sharpening is applied to the digital image, though with a huge amount of sharpening (6 pixels worth) you can see at least some of what the film saw, but that amount of sharpening destroys the rest of the image).

Bottom line is under ideal circumstances, optimal  stop, no wind, rock steady tripod and great lenses, 8X10 still very nicely remains King Of The Hill.

Under real circumstances, it isn't nearly as clear - more of a matter of losing on the straightaways and winning on the corners. This would explain Hans Strand's comment that since switching to a Hasselblad 50 MP camera, he has seen a significant increase in quality of his images - real images in real situations.

For those who carefully select their situations, use a massive tripod and a low contrast lighting situation, and who then use careful unsharp masking in their printing, 8X10 is still capable of the ultimate in quality in 2011. This explains why people like Christopher Burkett are still willing to lug around his 15 lb. Calumet view camera. For those who climb active volcanoes, or fly over river deltas or climb into caves, like Hans, he is simply more successful with digital.

The original Tim Parkin study is available free at On Landscape and I encourage you to read it carefully, and possibly play with the images there for yourself. Although this online magazine leans towards British Landscape Photography, I note the inclusion of more international work since its inception and I'm going to subscribe.

And So It Begins - New Cameras

I'm not surprised to read this morning that a rumoured D800 is coming and the predictions are for a 36 mp sensor, with or without low pass filter. Once an official announcement is made, we can anticipate that Canon won't be far behind with something.

The 5D2 has been notoriously "un" waterproof though I must say I have had no diff. using it in the rain and snow. If Canon is to no longer make a high megapixel 1Ds series camera for the most demanding landscape shooters, one would hope they'd do something to toughen the 5D series.

Of course, there were lots of rumours the 1Dx was going to be 40+ megapixels so who really knows. I'm a little relieved I didn't get the 645D - for a functional lifetime of only a year or so (until a 5D2 replacement not only is announced but released and reviewed and found to be suitable).

So:

a wish list for the 5D2 replacement (this is my list, yours might be different for totally valid reasons).

1) lots of pixels - given that doubling the pixels only increases linear print size by 1.41, at least double is what I'd want.
2) no fuzzy (low pass) filter - I can deal with moire as needed. Interestingly, the colour image I showed in the last blog entry, of Horton Cantracting shows sig. moire in the print but not on screen, due to the lines in the asphalt siding. I once before had this problem photographing some lathed metal objects in which the lines from the cutting tool drove the print driver crazy. A slight blurring of the image solved he problem nicely and didn't affect print quality. Again, there was nothing wrong with the image at 100% mag. on screen.
3) tilting LCD screen - to enable high shots and make low shots more comfortable (no more belly to the ground).

Now, if I really had carte blanche for the design, how about a focus blending  routine that could move focus between two predetermined points, amount a function of the lens and distance and f stop, with enough time between exposures to settle any shutter shake - ok, I know, not likely any time soon, but a guy can dream, can`t he.

Which reminds me. A long time user of Helicon Focus, it hasn`t been working for me for about three months - resulting in double and tripple images in places as it struggles to resize the image properly.

Unfortunately, at the same time, since switching to Photoshop CS5, I keep getting ``can`t find the javascript`` errors for many of my automate routines, and since going to cs5, I have also lost the ability in Bridge to access photomerge etc. - probably the same problem.

I was however able to use the auto align and auto blend features under edit in photoshop to properly focus blend the images. I don`t know why Helicon isn`t working for me any more - presumably one of the many updates has somehow changed things or lost a setting. Im using the default settings and the Lanczos 3X3 processing method as before.

If anyone has any brilliant suggestsions for these three problems, I`m listening.

George

Well, I Didn't Get the 645D

I was still uncertain as I drove to the store to return the loaned 645D and decided that I needed more certainty.


The issues were the money ($10,000), the lack of live view (I do a lot of focus blending), that with only the eyepiece I compromised flexibility at a time when I could really use a tilting LCD and live view to further flexibility, and a careful analysis of my own images with the camera and those available on the net to compare. I made prints and found I couldn't see a difference until I got up over 20X30 inches.

Today, I went out with the 5D2, and as dusk fell and I couldn't see through the viewfinder and as exposures moved towards 30 seconds and still live view worked well, I realized another advantage of live view.

Below are the images from this afternoon. The first had my 70-200 almost touching a chain link fence and there was a bit of fiddling to remove the hazy image of the wire. This was part of the demolished grain terminal in Calgary I had photographed before as it was being demolished.

Decision Day

I have to finally decide - do I get the Pentax 645D now, or wait for an unknown unannounced camera which may or may not be made, and may or may not be suitable for my needs, and may or may not require a whole new set of higher quality lenses than I currently use on the Canon 5D2.

There have been comments from Canon that with the 1DX only being 18 mp, they are in no rush to produce a higher resolution camera, but it may all come down to what Nikon does. If they do produce the rumoured 36 MP camera, this will push Canon to do something similar.

It occurred to me that Canon may well have a 5D3 or equivalent in the wings, with more than one possible sensor, to be switched in shortly before mass production as needed depending on which way Nikon goes.

Manufacturers never put all their cards into one basket - it doesn't make economic sense, they need to have something in hand to justify the next model round the corner.

Adobe have been leading us on with hints of camera movement removal software in the next or next after Photoshop - just the same. Lightroom 3 doesn't have proofing, even though it's in Photoshop, so it isn't about can't, it's about when, and what will it take to persuade us to fork out money for the next iteration of camera or software.

So, what am I going to do?

Go with the Pentax. I have already ordered the used lenses, and a bird in the hand... and if in a year, or two, there are better cameras than the Pentax and I can't sell the used Pentax and lenses for more than $5000 total, well I will still hopefully have some great images that can make large prints without excuses. if the camera pays for itself in that time (in terms of sales of large images), well so much the better.

George

Image Quality

In checking into the Pentax 645D, I paid for a subscription to Digilloyd's Advanced Photography and noted his other site on image sharpness.

Below is a list of topics covered. I'm showing you this, not to promote the site (I haven't paid for this section of his site) but simply to point out the many ways an image can be degraded.

1. Banish Blur, or Blur for Beauty?
2. Blur by Focus
3. Blur by Autofocus Error
4. Blur by Manual Focus Error
5. Blur by Manual Focus Inconsistency
6. Blur by Focus Shift
7. Blur by Focus Lock and Recompose (FLR)
8. Blur by Subject Movement
9. Blur by Camera Movement
10. Blur by Mirror Slap
11. Blur Caused by System Alignment
12. Blur Caused by Image Stabilization
13. Blur from Haze and Refraction
14. Blur Caused by Lens Optics
15. Blur and Haze from Spherical Aberration
16. Blur by Purple Fringing (Axial Chromatic Aberration)
17. Blur by Red/Cyan Fringes (Lateral Chromatic Aberration)
18. Blur Caused by the Laws of Optics (Diffraction)
19. Blur by Depth of Field
20. Blur from Field Curvature
21. Resolving to Sensor Resolution
22. Blur Caused by Anti-Aliasing Filter
23. Blur Caused by Digital Capture
24. Blur Caused by Demosaicing

No wonder so many people struggle to get high quality images, and sharpness is only one of several characteristics of a technically good image. Only when you are confident you have satisfactorily controlled every single one of the above issues can you start thinking you need better equipment.

On his site, Lloyd has several examples of commonly used top brand lenses hugely changing focus as one stops down, the difference between focussing on the eyelashes and the tip of the nose or the ears type of difference.

I couldn't get a sharp image with the Phase one camera and P65+ back I borrowed for a workshop - and finally got rid of my centre post, tall ball head and leveling base that stuck up another two inches, and now I get sharp pictures consistently - if there is no wind.

On the 5D2, I have been utterly amazed at how much image blur there is at full magnification live view when the wind is blowing.

Michael Reichmann found that tripods (the best tripods) don't stop shaking for 7 seconds - using mirror lock up and a two second delay doesn't cut it.

With medium format especially, focal plane shutters can add considerably to the instability and I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't a sig. part of my diff. with the phase one camera.

Camera straps blowing in the wind contribute to movement as do cable releases. Let's not even talk about people who press the shutter button and hope the camera stops shaking by the time the self timer activates.

I have been paying attention to what I stand on. Ground isn't ground - ground can be springy, it can be soggy or even squishy, it can be a connection between your feet and a tripod leg and there goes your image.

I`m amazed at how many people are still stopping down their camera to an f stop that is severely diffraction limited. With a full frame sensor (my 5D2) I usually use f11 and focus blend if I have to. Sometimes I will use f16. it isn`t as sharp, though I think I can pretty much compensate with local contrast enhancement.  At f22, I can`t compensate. With an APS-C sensor, I try to stick to f11 at worst, and with point and shoots, even f8 can be problematic.

Pentax 645D

Well, some print sales, some commercial photoshop work, an old inheritance that finally got sold (40 years later), and book sales, and I'm considering getting a Pentax 645D.

I have one on loan from The Camera Store for a couple of days, and will give it a bit of a workout. Have the 55 and 120 lenses on loan, have read the detailed review on digilloyd.com  (you have to pay but well worth it for pointing out what to watch for), and managed to make a few shots with it this afternoon.

It really is a photographers camera - with all the right controls. It did take a while to find the self timer (via the drive button - so very easily accessed) and I have yet to figure out how to switch from one card to the next (camera holds two SD cards).

The real issue is going to be living without live view, upon which I have come to rely so very much. On the other hand, the viewfinder is great and I had no difficulty using it with my glasses.

Neither is a great shot, but for the amount of time I put into it, about what you'd expect. Now, whether either is any better for being photographed with the 645D is a whole other matter.

Worst case scenario is Canon comes out with an equivalent camera, featuring a cmos sensor and live view, a tilting lcd (or wireless connection to either ipad or iphone) and that allows me to use my current lenses.

I doubt my current lenses (mostly zooms) are going to hold up at this pixel count. That would mean a new series of lenses - almost certainly thousands of dollars each. I'm planning to get some used pentax lenses - I can get a complete set for $2000 (35, 75, 120 macro, 200). Granted they aren't autofocus but I never use autofocus anyway.

Canon having disappointed many with the low pixel count of the 1dX, I figure I'll get a fair part of my money back if I sell within the next two years.

What I noticed photographing today was two things - in the past, if my camera was a bit low or a bit high, I could still easily use live view on the Canon 5D2 where today I had to stretch to reach up and look down through the Pentax. This might actually mean keeping a stool in the car. From prior experience, an angle finder doesn't solve the high camera problem.

Mind you, the two best shots I have made in the last couple of months were both within 100 yards of my car - so a step stool would be very practical (hell, I could even sit on it for low shots and give my old knees a rest).

Why "waste" $12,000 on better equipment when the 5D2 is already pretty damn fine?

Well, twice this year, selling images has been compromised by the limitation on print size. There really isn't any other reason to go to such expense, when even a Canon Rebel can make fantastic prints, albeit just not as large.

I still stitch with the 5D2, but stitching, focus blending and doing HDR all at the same time is just mind boggling.

Will I return the Pentax because of missing the live view? Not sure yet. Will head out tomorrow shooting and see if I can resolve the question.

One thing I have thought of to aid focus blending without having live view is to take a couple of small plastic clamps (hardware stores sell them in packs of 20) and modify it so it grips around the lens, and has a pointer on one of the two finger grips. I'll get the framing right (which means right tripod position) then focus the centre spot on the nearest part of the subject. Then I place the lens clamp/pointer so the pointer is aiming straight up. I then move the camera so the furthest position is in focus, and place a second pointer, or a second part of the first pointer vertically.

I reframe the subject, turn the lens so the first pointer is just past vertical (so I am sure I caught the whole range of focus), and shoot a series of images until the second pointer is just past vertical.

In practice, today I just used the bright viewfinder to focus on near and kept checking till the far was in focus I found the near easy to focus manually, the far a bit harder. In neither case did I use the Pentax's built in focus check for manual lenses, and I'll check that out tomorrow.

Ipad 3

There's little doubt that there will be an Ipad 3, and it MAY have 2048X1500 resolution. Even if it doesn't, there likely will be one of that resolution soon. That would put it almost on a par with the wonderful screen of the iphone. As photographers we are going to have to be ready for this. For showing portfolio images this is a non brainer, but it starts to become more of an issue when we need that resolution for ebooks and Ipad versions of Lenswork and optimum display of our images and dealing with people copying that "high res" file.

A little thought though shows that a 2048 pixel file will print optimally at around 7 inches. This barely makes a print (with a generous white border) on 8.5X11 paper. Anyone who would be satisfied with a file this size for printing large wasn't going to pay for a big print anyway.

I have just placed an order with John Wimberley for his new book and am really looking forward to having it. I'm getting the collectors edition which comes with a print (the least I could do after he contributed to my recent book). But what am I to do with the print?

I can certainly frame it and probably will, but wall space is limited, both at home and at work, half our art work isn't on the wall as it is.

If an iPad of this high resolution looks as good as I anticipate it will, we are soon going to see a fundamental change in how images are viewed. How should we charge for a digital file of this size so someone can enjoy our work on their new and improved iPad?

Imagine being able to afford hundreds of fine images and view them on your iPad, able to flag favourites, divide into categories, easily read the text or metadata, then hide it again?

The fundamental block to being published has been the cost of an initial run, and the difficulty in selling enough books to pay for that. Blurb has helped, but as a commercial proposition, the cost of the books with shipping is hardly efficient, and the printing quality not as good as would be seen on the iPad.

Now, anyone can make an e-book. It doesn't have to contain a hundred images. It might just have 15, and cover only a single subject, yet could be incredibly pleasing to the eye.

Even famous photographers often have difficulty getting new books out - and old books go out of print - or the printing isn't optimal - or the time to set up a book is prohibitive when you have to earn a living.

When the cost of a digital portfolio is measured in 10's of dollars almost anyone who enjoys photography can afford to gamble.

I get roughly $3 for each of my books sold. Given the publisher has to set up, print, and promote the book, I don't have issue with this, and there is still something very nice about holding a real book, but if the option is to not enjoy the images at all because the photographer didn't/couldn't make a book, well...

I wonder how much people would be willing to pay for an e-book or digital portfolio (really the same thing other than book implies more images).?

How much would you pay for a single image you especially like?


What if photographs were sold the same way music is. Itunes could sell Ansel Adams, 99 cents for one image. The concept sure has saved the music industry. Could this be the saviour of fine art photographers. In iTunes the price is fixed for a given resolution of sound. Doesn't matter whether you are U2 or Fred Bloggs, the customer pays the same. I have no idea how artists are paid and I dare say it's tiny, but what if there a way to distribute images so that the photographer got 25 cents for each image, and lets further say that there are millions of these high res iPads (or equivalent), and that people got used to buying images like they buy music, is it possible that a really nice image would sell multi thousands of copies and generate more than $100 a year, per great image, per photographer?

There are problems. The puppy images will continue to far outsell fine art work. The number of photographers is so large that there will be an enormous amount of 'ordinary' images, camouflaging the good work. But like with iTunes and Amazon, one will be able to look up recommendations and ratings and not just popularity. There will be even more opportunity to write about photography and blog about great images discovered.

As the music industry has discovered, make it easy enough to access the music you want (and only that music) and a viable market will exist.

Is it time for the 99 cent Edward Weston, or George Barr, or (place your name here)?

Hanna Roundhouse and Turntable

From the side of the turntable bridge. Shot with 90 mm. TS-E at its nearest focus - had diff. getting Helicon to blend for depth of field properly (those rivets are half round and so considerably closer to the camera. In the end I chose two of the images, one for the flat, the other for the tops of the rivets, and placed the rivet top image on top of the flat. I then used Transform - scale to adjust the size of the overlying image till they blended very closely. Then I masked the rivet top image black, and painted in white for the nearer parts of each rivet. No more ghosts and double images.

Not really sure what went wrong with Helicon. I had to scale the top image to 98.6% and I would have expected Helicon to handle that. In fact I went back and changed the preferences and retried the blend - even worse. Also tried the default settings - still not great. I'm sure there's a book out there that explains how to use Helicon to best advantage - time to do some reading.

The tilt and shift were irrelevant to the image - it's just a good 90 mm. lens close up - though hardly a macro lens.

 

And two other images showing the outside and inside - more record shots than fine art.

Another Late Image from Writing On Stone

I worked on the image for quite some time, increasing contrast, darkening the left side, darkening the shadowed areas further, adding more local contrast with Akvis Enhancer, but then reining in the saturation with a black and white layer mostly masked and a reduction in contrast to bring back some of the subtlety of the image.


As it stands, one can hardly see that there is a huge boulder on the right entirely separate from the cliff face on the rest of the image, with a gulch between. The image would have looked more realistic had I adjusted tones to separate them, but I quite like this ambiguity. Whether I'll like it in a week or two of viewing the print remains to be seen.

Cave Roof

Joakim Eskildsen

Was checking out some of the work at Photography Now and came across this photographer, Joakim Eskildsen, originally from Denmark. I found several wonderful images.

He also has a website.

I see some Paul Strand in some of his portraits, but his use of colour is magnificent.

Sunwapta Falls

Sunwapta Falls Wall

From Sunwapta Falls, Jasper National Park, wet rock just above the rapidly flowing water and spray. Two image stitch, 70-200 f4L IS at 200 mm.

Another Rockface

Jasper Continued

Interesting rock details from beside the road, a rockcut made by the construction.

More From Jasper

Jasper

Jasper is the lesser known sibling to Banff, further north, further from both Edmonton and Calgary, quieter, more open, a real town and not just a tourist destination.  I'm just back from 6 days in Jasper. Had a lot of fun photographing. Went for details and small scenes rather than the grand landscape (having done that on previous visits).

This image is from the lower part of Maligne Canyon. It works well in both black and white and colour, but I think it makes an especially effective black and white print.

5D2, 24-105 mm. lens, 32 mm., f11 - editing included a combination of various curves, including ones in which the straight line reaches the top (white) before the underlying image does, also about a 2/3 dose of Akvis Enhancer, with the image set to be darker than standard.

The speckles you see on the left side are yellow leaves and you can see they are leaves on a larger print. Try clicking on the image to see it bigger in its own window.

The jpeg above was 'toned' with my beige and then selenium colours, layer sliders adjusted to taste. Having darkened the rocks, I then lightened parts again to add a third dimension.

Maligne is hard to photograph. The dramatic narrow canyons can really only be seen well from the bridges and even there the views are limited. I understand coming up the canyon in winter is especially rewarding and one of these days...