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May 31, 2007
[HEWLETT PACKARD Photosmart ProB9180]
HEWLETT PACKARD Photosmart Pro B9180 printer
Price: $1500
Highly Recommended
The low-down: This printer is HP’s large format (A3+) inkjet photo printer. It competes with the top Epson and Canon photo printers and, like the Epson, uses pigment inks to create long life prints. The printer uses eight cartridges of HP Vivera pigment inks ($52 each, which is very expensive and we have not been able to test their capacity to compare with Epson pigment inks) The Wilhelm Research Institute gives the HP print/paper combination a life rating of 102 years completely exposed and more than double that if framed or kept in the dark. The unit is very heavy and needs a lot of desk space because there has to be enough room behind the printer for an A3+ sheet of paper to hang out the back before printing starts. Specialty papers, of which there are several types, pass through the printer flat, hence the need for so much space, front and back. The bulk and mass are indicators of a rugged machine. Setting up the printer is a daunting and lengthy task. Print speed is good.
Like: The prints from the B9180 are simply superb. Resolution and colour fidelity are exemplary and black and white prints have a richness and lustre reminiscent of the very best silver halide papers. Surface appearance is flawless with no dot pattern or banding.
Dislike: It is very heavy!
Verdict: For anyone producing prints for display the HP B1980 must be a top consideration. However, we do have one big complaint – how can a printer that costs $700 (AUD $853) in the US sell here for $1500? Accustomed as we are to paying premiums for living in a big country with a small population we are dismayed by a difference of nearly 100 per cent in price. Canon is no better and Epson profits from a 27 per cent difference. Presumably we must look stupid. Still, setting aside that grumble, this is as good as it gets for inkjet printing. Highly recommended.
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Posted by terry at 06:55 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
[ FRAME UP! ]
FEELING STRONG? FEELING SECURE IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR PHOTOS ARE AS GOOD AS THE NEXT DIGITAL SNAPPER’S? SURE YOU’RE ON TOP OF THE TECHNOLOGY AND THE ART?
Take a look at the gallery of the late Francis Toussaint and either be inspired to try harder or to give up.
Francis had the advantage of being European and therefore a mere train trip away from Venice, Bruges or Mont St Michel. Not to mention majestic mountains and crystal lakes which are in short supply here in the wide, brown and sadly flat land.
Technically the photos are superb. Many of them get their kick from having been taken early in the morning or at dusk when the light is most magical. And we suspect that Francis was not averse to fiddling with reality in Photoshop, winding up colour saturation for effect and certainly sharpening images just a tad too much.
But never mind the pictures, look at the frames. Every image is set inside a simple frame to isolate it from the background clutter of the web page. The frames draw the eye instantly to the photograph and push the distractions on the screen to the edge of our perception.
When we first encountered the work of Francis on Fred Miranda’s gallery site we realised in an instant that the frame is the essential finishing touch to the picture, just as it would be if we were hanging it on the wall. And Francis’ frames are easy to make in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or PaintShop. Photoshop and PaintShop both provide for automation of frame insertion with Actions or Scripts.
There are three frames built in to the Special Effects set of Photoshop Elements, but they are boring. To create an elegant black frame like those that Francis uses it is simply a matter of opening the edited image, changing the size to about 600 pixels in its longest dimension and the resolution to 72dpi. Ctrl-Alt-I opens the image sizing dialogue in both versions of Photoshop. Then select the image (Ctrl-A) and under Edit select Stroke. Using this command an outline is put around the picture in any colour or size. Try a 4 pixel white outline to start with.
Next expand the size of the canvas (Image/Resize/Canvas Size) by 2cm in both dimensions (check the Relative box) and select black as Canvas Extension Colour. Select all (Ctrl-A) and use Edit/Stroke again to create a 1 pixel white border. Then increase the canvas size again by 2cm and the frame is made.
For more elaborate frames and mattes in Photoshop Elements there is a tutorial here and the instruction set here is worth a look.
For Photoshop CS2/3 there are many sources of ready-made frame actions. One place to start looking is in Adobe’s Studio Exchange where Photoshop users post Actions they have created – some useful and many weird!
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May 29, 2007
[ RUN, DON'T WALK! ]
ANYONE LOOKING FOR A GOOD DIGITAL SLR at an affordable price should get down to the nearest Big W to snap up this PENTAX offer. We reckoned it was a terrific buy at $999 — at $688 with the decent Sigma lens it is real value for money.
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May 28, 2007
[ IN THE WORKS]
WE'VE BEEN TRYING some of the new features in Photoshop CS3 and been pretty impressed.
The new version of Photoshop comes with a Camera RAW that will open JPEG and TIFF files in the RAW conversion dialogue, providing the same degree of fine tuning of photos post-camera that was previously only available for RAW files. In this respect the new Camera RAW is virtually an alternative to Lightroom.
Photoshop CS3 has an excellent colour to black and white converter that gives control over the individual CYMK and RGB channels for tweaking the tonal qualities of the output. It also has a set of filters familiar to users of panchromatic film — red, yellow, green and blue. It is simply a click of a button to apply the filter effect to a colour image.
The killer function in CS3 is the new Photomerge for making panoramas. This has to be seen to be believed. With no user input, beyond loading the image set, CS3 creates seamless panoramas. Once tried it is addictive. We have posted a few quick examples in the Gallery. [These are large files]
Watch this space for a longer report on the new features in Photoshop CS3.
Posted by terry at 06:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[ TELSTRA STRIKES AGAIN! ]
VISITORS TO DPEXPERT AND BLEEDINGEDGE who are Bigpond customers will have noticed that the sites were inaccessible from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon. The problem was a failed DNS server at Telstra that covered a range of addresses of US based web sites, as our are. DPREVIEW was also inaccessible to Bigpond customers for the same reason. Customers of other ISPs were not affected.
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Posted by terry at 06:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 24, 2007
[ REVIEW—TOKINA ATX124 12~24mm lens ]
Price: $850
Highly Recommended
The low-down: This wide angle lens has a zoom range that equates to 18–36mm film equivalent, with constant f4 aperture. It is made specifically for digital single lens reflex cameras and is not suitable for film cameras. It comes in either Nikon or Canon mounts. Its construction and finish are excellent. The lens barrel is metal with a crackle enamel finish and the zoom and focus rings are rubberised material. Zoom and focus mechanisms are smooth with just the right amount of resistance. Auto focus is fast and accurate, however prospective buyers should note that it doesn’t have an in-built focus motor so it will not autofocus with cameras like the Nikon D40/D40X which do not have in-camera focus motors. Manual and auto focus are easily selected by pulling the focus ring towards or away from the camera body. Zoom and focus movements are in the lens body and do not alter the overall length. The lens is supplied with a hood.
Like: The image sharpness and minimal distortion at the 12mm end of the zoom range are exceptionally good. The lens is colour-neutral with excellent contrast.
Dislike: Chromatic aberration (colour fringing on sharp edges in high contrast situations) is noticeable. However, keep in mind that as with barrel distortion this is a characteristic of wide angle zooms. The Tokina is no worse than the competition.
Verdict: This is a marvellous lens. There is a special joy to wide angle photography because of the great depth of field and peculiar perspective on subjects. The well-controlled barrel distortion (it’s there but in most photos it is not noticeable) means that it is ideal for photographing buildings and streetscapes. We would dearly love to take this lens to Venice! The fact that it is so competitively priced by comparison with the third party competition – and not even in the same ball park as Nikon or Canon equivalents – adds to its considerable attractions. We had a lot of fun using the Tokina and were sorry when we had to send it back. It is highly recommended without reservation.
[Sample images from the Tokina ATX 124 here]
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May 23, 2007
[ SHOWING OFF ]
IT NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE US how much free stuff there is on the internet to brighten the life of the digital photographer. Who are all these cyber philanthropists offering goodies gratis? What do they get out of it? And is there a catch?
Take the case of web photo galleries. Most photo editing programs have web gallery generators built in – well, they’re not free, just a bonus feature. If you have Photoshop Elements or PaintShop Pro you already have the gear needed to make your own gallery for posting on your personal web site. Picasa gives you the whole works free.
Yahoo’s Flickr! is probably the most popular free web gallery service where the user does nothing much other than upload photos, and the upload process is made easy by the Flickr Uploader Tool. Flickr’s attraction is that it is easy to use and immediately connects the user to an international community of digi snappers. You choose your Flickr pals and let them know that you are watching their photos – and you hope they will return the compliment – by designating them as a contact.
Flickr’s downside is that the interface is a little cluttered and, frankly, boring. The user doesn’t have much control over the way the pictures are displayed.
When it comes to aesthetics our favourite web gallery, Zenfolio is a winner. Like Flickr it has a simple upload tool, but it also has a suite of page layouts and colour schemes that enhance the photos. The bad news is that it is not free. The charge for a one year basic service with 1gb of storage space is U$25. There is a free trial, so you can try before you buy.
We use Flickr! and Zenfolio but our preferred web gallery is one we create ourselves and post to the web host provided by our internet service provider. Every ISP includes hosting space for personal web pages as part of the basic service included in the monthly charge, so you might as well use it. This is where you post the galleries that you create in Photoshop, Picasa or whatever.
We have a soft spot for the free gallery creator called JAlbum. There are dozens of different layouts and colour schemes for this program and they are being added to all the time by a community of users and developers. The “skins” range from cluttered and tizzy to simple and elegant and everything in between. If you don’t like any of them you can always make your own.
Generating an album is simply a matter of dragging a folder of images into the workspace and then experimenting with different skins, colour schemes, image sizes and layouts until you hit on the one you like. The order of images can be changed by dragging any picture into a new spot in the list. Then you save the album and use JAlbum’s “publish” command to upload the component files to your web space. JAlbum creates the necessary folder structure and index.html file. Strictly speaking the user shouldn’t need to know anything about html code, but it helps to know the basics.
There is a gallery of photos taken with the Tokina 12–24mm lens and created with JAlbum here.
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COMPARE THE SAME PICTURE SET ON
FLICKR!
ZENFOLIO
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May 17, 2007
[ REVIEW—NIKON D40X digital single lens reflex ]
NIKON D40X digital SLR camera
Price: $1400
Highly recommended
The low-down: This 10.2 megapixel camera is the same camera as the Nikon D40 except for the sensor. For the extra $500 the buyer gets 4 extra megapixels. Apart from that all that we said about the D40 applies to the D40X. It is lighter and smaller than any previous Nikon. Although at first the camera feels flimsy it is soon apparent that, although light, it is rigid and tightly made. The essential functions are generally good: fast and accurate auto-focus (but only with lenses that have an inbuilt focus motor); perfect exposure and wide dynamic range. The auto white balance leaves something to be desired and there is no dedicated white balance button on the camera body but the Function button can be programmed for white balance. The D40X feels as fast and responsive as the more expensive Nikons. Even the viewfinder, which uses mirrors rather than a prism, is large and bright. The LCD review screen is brilliant but it doesn’t come with Nikon’s customary clear plastic protector. The D40X shares its image processor with the D80 and D200. Image quality is excellent.
Like this: The D40X comes with the same kit lens as the D40 and it is pretty good. It a plastic rather than a metal mount, which suggests penny pinching and quality compromises. However Nikon have chosen to make it with a modest zoom range -- a mere 27 to 82mm in film terms -- and f3.5 to f5.6 aperture. By keeping the specs unexciting they have produced an inexpensive lens of good quality.
Dislike that: The D40X, like the D40, does not to have a camera status LCD on the body top. Camera status is now displayed ephemerally on the LCD review screen and some settings appear in the viewfinder. This no doubt keeps the price of the camera down but it is a retrograde step.
Parting shot: So the question for a would-be buyer is: Are those extra pixels worth the $400? 6 million pixels will produce A3 prints. 10 million give some room for cropping without loss of resolution. By comparison with the competition at this price the D40X offers a lot for the money.
Posted by terry at 06:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[MR WILHELM'S DURABLE PICTURES]
HENRY WILHELM, THE WORLD'S EXPERT on photographic print durability, was in town last week for the PMA show. He was a guest of Epson, although he takes no fee from the company for being here. Epson love him because he consistently rates inkjet prints made with their pigment inks near the top of the chart.
In his accelerated print deterioration tests Hewlett Packard and Lexmark do better than Epson in the standard 10 by 15cm part of the market, but the margins are small. Each company is now producing ink and paper combinations that will produce prints with a life expectancy of more than 200 years when kept in an album.
What sparked Imaging’s interest in Mr Wilhelm’s visit is his broadside attack on third party inks and papers. The accelerated deterioration tests at Wilhelm laboratories show that the differences between the consumables from the original equipment manufacturers and those from third party suppliers are extreme. Where a Hewlett Packard Photosmart printer with genuine paper and ink will produce prints that last 42 years, displayed without protection, the same printer with refilled cartridges and generic paper will make prints that fade in three months.
It is common sales talk in the shops to be told that all inks come from the one big vat and that the only difference between OEM and refills is the brand, for which you are paying a fortune.
Wilhelm says: “This is definitely not so. Why would you think it could be so?” Well, because we are canny customers and we just know that the manufacturers are cheating us, don’t we?
Wilhelm explains: “The problem is that it is very easy to make an ink that has bright colours so long as you ignore permanence. Putting those two things together is very difficult to do. The major manufacturers have devoted a tremendous amount of investment and research into doing what is difficult to do – which is to make an ink set that has a wide colour gamut, has bright colour and also permanence. So far there is no example of a third party ink that has managed to do that.”
Calidad markets a pigment ink for Epson printers in Australia that has been tested by Wilhelm laboratories. This ink promises “permanence” on the box. Wilhelm’s comparative tests show the Epson original unfaded after 50 years of exposure to light and ozone while the Calidad prints show deterioration after a year.
Henry Wilhelm became interested in photographic print durability when he was with the Peace Corps in Bolivia in the 1960s. He was taking photographs of people living in transition from traditional to more modern life styles and he knew he was capturing historic images on colour film that was inherently unstable.
A period working with Ansel Adams as his assistant also made him aware of the importance of print durability. As a result of that experience he invented and patented a multi-pass print washing machine, eventually adopted by Adams himself.
In 1993, together with his wife, Carol Brower, he wrote the text book on The permanence and care of colour photographs.
The good news from the Wilhelm Imaging Research laboratories is that prints produced on some inkjet printers, using the manufacturers’ paper and pigment inks or latest dye inks, will last longer than traditional silver halide prints.
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May 10, 2007
[ REVIEW—RICOH CAPLIO R6 ]
RICOH Caplio R6 camera
Price: $600
Perplexing
The low-down: This is a 7.2 megapixel compact camera with a 7.1x zoom lens – 28–200mm film equivalent focal length range. The lens is quick to focus, very sharp and has acceptable distortion at the ends of its exceptional range. The camera is well made and looks elegant. There is no optical viewfinder but the large 65mm LCD is surprisingly useable in bright sunlight, just about the best that we have seen. Controls and menus are well thought out and all functions are easily accessible.
Like: This camera can produce images of remarkable quality. Exposure, white balance and resolution are all in the top league and image noise at ISO200 is not objectionable. There is a 192 page printed instruction book.
Dislike: The R6 has a quirk. Used in the manner of most digital compact cameras, that is by half depressing the shutter button to set focus and exposure, there is shutter lag. It is impossible to photograph moving subjects. Even stationary subjects that blink are a problem – you will almost always get them with their eyes closed. The instruction manual says “make sure the subject is centred” and just press the button. But what if you don’t want the subject centred? Then, the manual concedes, you can use the half-depress and reframe mode. What it doesn’t tell you is that this will only work for statues and buildings.
Parting shot: Ricoh prides itself on being the company that removed the curse of shutter lag from digital photography. Other models we have tested have been almost as fast as SLRs in their responses. The R6 is a perplexing throw-back to a past era. So here we have a camera that has a brilliant lens and can produce beautifully exposed images with fine detail and accurate colour that is infuriating to use if you are trying to photograph children or animals. Try before you buy.
Posted by terry at 12:42 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
[ THE CURSE OF THE LAGGING SHUTTER ]
DPEXPERT'S EARLY EXPERIENCES with digital cameras did not inspire confidence in the new technology.
One of the first digicams to come our way for review was the Nikon Coolpix 5700, one of the early super zoom pseudo SLRs. This type of camera has an electronic viewfinder rather than the mirror and prism optics of a true single lens reflex. We took one look at the 5700 and wanted it. And then we used it.
We were perplexed. Why could we never capture in the photograph what we were seeing in the viewfinder? Why had the subject disappeared in the short time between pressing the button and capturing the image on the sensor? It was our introduction to shutter lag.
Canon had the same problem with their Powershot Pro 1. Fuji and Konica Minolta were not doing any better. What was going on?
There was a suggestion that the problem could be cured by using the technique of half-depressing the shutter release to lock focus and exposure and then, when the moment was right, pressing the button all the way. But on some cameras the image in the viewfinder froze for a fraction of a second and when it unfroze the subject had moved. That was no solution.
It was also suggested that pre-setting the focus, white balance and exposure manually and using the digicam as though it were an old film camera would do the trick. Why bother?
One chap with a Fuji pseudo SLR keeps the camera on burst mode, figuring that if he takes enough shots when he presses the button one will turn out well.
While shutter lag was once a particular problem on these long zoom cameras with electronic viewfinders – most recent models are more responsive – it has also plagued ordinary digital compacts. The delay – which is only a fraction of a second – is caused by the time that it takes for the camera to set focus, exposure and white balance and to send a corrected image to the LCD screen before switching the sensor off and on to capture the picture. True single lens reflex digital cameras (with a couple of exceptions) do not display the image on the LCD in preview mode and therefore do not need to pre-process the picture. They also do not use the sensor as a light meter and their autofocus lenses are faster, all of which reduces shutter lag. The mechanical shutter in an SLR may also be faster than the electronic shutter in a compact, although there is some argument about this.
All compact digital cameras have some shutter lag and it can be measured. The best objective reviews report lag in fractions of a second. There is a useful comparison table for a range of cameras at this British photo magazine site.
However, the testers typically measure the lag after the button has been half depressed. This is misleading. With the Ricoh, for instance, there is no lag after the button is half depressed, the problem occurs when the button is pressed to the detent. The image on the LCD freezes and when it unfreezes the child or bird has moved. When assessing a camera in the shop that is the phenomenon to look for.
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May 03, 2007
[ MUMS WITH CAMERAS ]
“Buying a Nikon does not make you a photographer. It makes you a Nikon owner.” Anon
And very wise, too.
Back in the early sixties our friend Keith was a commercial photographer. A substantial part of his income came from taking wedding photographs.
Keith was deeply troubled by the sudden ubiquity of the single lens reflex camera. He reckoned that all those Pentaxes and Nikons, and even the old-fashioned Contaflexes, bode ill for his profession. He feared that once the amateurs got their hands on some good gear they would be able to do it themselves and the profession of photography would be doomed. He needn’t have worried.
A photographer is not a person with some expensive gear. A photographer is part artist and part craftsperson plus experience. Photographers know things about light and composition that is either intuitive or the product of learning by doing.
We were reminded of Keith’s professional panic by a recent article in the New York Times about Mums with Cameras – a phenomenon so widespread that it is now an acronym, MWAC. (Needless to say they write Moms but we haven’t succumbed to that one yet.)
The Professional Photographers of America report that more and more women are buying top quality digital single lens reflex cameras to take snaps of their kids and find they are so good at it that they set up in business. As most of the photos of children are taken with available light there is no need to buy elaborate lighting systems. And where once the darkroom, or at least the professional photo laboratory, was an essential part of the professional’s gear these days a good quality inkjet printer hooked up to a computer is enough equipment for photo processing.
Perhaps this time around the professionals have good reason to be scared. The American pros don’t like the way the women undercut them on prices. It does seem to be unfair competition when the hobbyist undercuts the people who have to make a living from the job.
But the good news for pros making a living from weddings is that the Mums with Cameras give the nuptials a miss. They recognise that they lack the experience needed to get all those clichéd poses just right.
There have always been women experts at portrait photography. In the 1860s and 1870s Julia Margaret Cameron was taking portraits of her famous friends, Tennyson, Darwin, Browning, Carlyle and so on, and inventing the art of portrait photography. She used a cumbersome wet plate camera and had to handle all the technical work of preparing the plates and processing the images. Her subjects had to sit still in her chook house studio for long exposures and it seems she had some special rapport with them that makes their humanity and personality glow in these great photographs. She was an original artist. It’s hard these days to be anything but an imitator. Any MWAC should study Cameron’s portraits. No one has ever done it any better. Except perhaps Dorothea Lange or Margaret Burke White.
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[ REVIEW — CANON POWERSHOT A450 ]
Price: $200
Recommended
The low-down: This is Canon’s cheapest digital camera. It has a 5 megapixel sensor and a 38–122mm (film equivalent) zoom lens. It has a small (50mm) LCD screen and, surprisingly at this price, a useful optical viewfinder. The camera is chunky, a little larger than a credit card and 40mm thick so it is only for a bulky jacket pocket. The camera is well made and doesn’t look cheap. It tends to overexpose under even light but it has Canon’s wonderful Function set that makes exposure correction easy. It also puts other important controls such as ISO speed and image resolution within easy reach. You don’t have to dig in the menus. Focus is quick and accurate and white balance is good. Power is by two AA NiMH batteries which are not supplied. Canon claims 400 shots per charge
Like: This may be Canon’s least expensive camera but it comes with comprehensive, printed user manuals, one basic and the other detailed. We wish that all makers would follow the lead here instead of saving a few cents by providing the manual on disc.
Dislike: The A450 images are noisy. At ISO 200 it is bordering on unusable. ISO 80 and 100 are acceptable but we reckon that 200 ought to be usable on any camera. The images cleaned up well in a noise reduction program but we don’t think that anyone buying an entry camera is going to know about that sort of esoteric software.
Parting shot: This camera is hard to assess. 5 megapixels for $200 would have been unthinkable two years ago, so we have to take that into consideration. Used carefully the results are good but not brilliant. But if you want brilliant you buy a more expensive camera. The question to ask may be: How quickly will you grow out of the A450? If you are serious about photography then $200 could be money wasted because you will soon want to replace it. But if you are the occasional recorder of family picnics then this will do the job.
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