Lessons from the field…
Having recently traveled to Santa Fe, NM – Here are a few things on what worked and what could have been done better.
- I had borrowed a Nikon 25mm PC-E lens for this trip. My intention was to capture those adobe buildings (Architecture) with least distortion. I also wanted to take panoramic shots with the special horizontal panning option available with these lenses. I am happy to say that both of these worked well. Some of my early shots suffered due to my in-experience with using the lens and proper use of tilt adjustments.
- New Mexico (NM) is pretty much a dry state. It was quite windy and dusty all over the scenic locations. A few time when I did change lenses, dust crept into the camera (I found out about these later in the evening). The built-in dust removal option (D700) and the rocket blower did not help much. I wish I had brought along a wet cleaning kit for the road.
- NM being quite sunny most of the year, The one thing I was not used to was the glare. I have some pretty bad glare in a few photos, and could gladly live without them. I found out about these sadly in post processing later in the evening after a days’s worth of shooting. One can do little to fix them in post processing. While glare is not very visible from the viewfinder – it is always a good idea to shade the lens (Yes, you can get glare despite a lens hood) either with your hand or a hat/cap.
- While my style normally is not to use a tripod, and the fact that NM had plenty of sun shine, I still used the tripod quite a bit. More than what I normally do. I found that this helped me a bit more in terms of taking the time to compose the images, and slowing down the process of shooting.
- Did I say that NM had plenty of sun? On most days, it was quite difficult to judge the image on the camera LCD. Shading the LCD with your hands was no good either. I eventually went down to a local camera store and got myself a Hoodman Loupe. This turned to be a great investment – and I found myself using this almost religiously for every shot.
- When I got back home, I found the 2000+ images a bit over-whelming to process. Especially with my ancient G5 computer running OSX Tiger. I found that the HDR panoramic shots i wanted to process almost always killed the computer (often found out the next morning from an overnight batch process).
So, I got myself a new iMac Core i7 27″ computer with 8GB RAM. My initial impressions are “Wow!”.
- The monitor calibration went smooth with ColorMunki, and I was able to calibrate and reduce the luminosity down to 110cd/m2. I had to use a small freeware product called “Shades” in order to fine tune for this value (Read my update in the bottom of the post).
- The Migration Assistant tool worked perfectly in moving my settings and junk from the old computer. I used SuperDuper! on the old computer to clone the hard disk on to a firewire disk, then mounted the disk via USB on the new iMac. It worked flawlessly. It appears that the new iMacs only come with one Firewire 800 port, and the external disk I have uses a Firewire 400 port. Luckily, USB port worked just well.
- Most of my applications worked great right after its first reboot. Some needed upgrading – and a few of my photoshop plugins have failed to work after migration. I had to fix these manually.
- Finally, I have a computer that can process the HDR panoramic shots I have been waiting to process for a long time. My first 360 degree little planet photographs are out here - The actual files are ~10GB and i think they print 8×10 feet!
One of the advantages of my new computer had been the option to try out the new Lightroom 3 beta software. Here are my first impressions:
- I moved in a sample set of images from my recent NM trip to the new catalog in LR3. The images normally retain the same look and processing capabilities if they have been processed with an earlier version of LR (2.6). I saw no differences.
- When in Library mode, You can select all images, and batch upgrade their “Process versions”. This lets one use the latest algorithms implemented in LR3. The results are simply amazing. I am quite impressed with the ability of the LR to pull out details. This software is now in the same league as that of Capture One and possibly PerfectRAW (although I have not done any real comparisons).
- I am quite happy with what I am seeing already. Although I recreated a new profile to use, it was unnecessary, since I was already happy with the skin tones from my earlier version of the profiles. As before, the new profiles has linear curve and adjusted mid tones.
One new addition to my collection is the Canon G11 camera. Ever since I sold off my Canon G9, I had been wanting to fill its space with a new one. I had contemplated with a Panasonic LX3, Canon S90 or a G11. I had not considered the Micro 4/3 cameras only because I am not looking for an another DSLR.
Based on my recent trip to the NYC, and my few days of use with the camera, here are my thoughts:
- LR3 already recognizes the RAW format for this camera. The built in camera profiles available in LR3 are pretty good – as good as the custom profile for color accuracy (I have created a custom profile as well, but have found no need for it).
- Despite a lot of talk about how good the Noise control is – I have found it excessive beyond ISO 400. Maybe I am spoiled by D700.
- The Sharpness in JPEG mode is not sufficient. I found the need to bump it by one more notch for it to be good.
- The camera feels more responsive – quicker menus, faster shutter button compared to my G9 camera. My old G3 had a swivel LCD, and I liked it.
- The jog wheel is very sensitive and I have thus far accidentally triggered the Flash, Manual Focus and Macro modes several times. This is one area that the Canon folks screwed up- They should have let the special custom button activate and lock the jog wheel. Ergonomically speaking – It is no different from the G9, but the G9 never had this issue.
- I noticed a bit of barrel distortion at its widest end (Which i found i use more than the tele end).
- In all – I am quite happy with the camera’s results.
Update:
Based on advice from experts – I have stopped using Shades. Read this post on how to fine tune the built-in sliders to reduce luminosity.
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By N2H
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