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September 27, 2007
[ REVIEW—SNAPFISH PHOTO BOOK ]
Price: $40 for 20 pages and a hardcover
Gorgeous
The low-down: Hewlett Packard’s curiously named on-line photo printing service Snapfish now includes photo books. Books come in different sizes and with either hard or soft covers. Creating a book is done by logging in to the site and completing the sign-up procedure, then going to the gifts page and choosing photobook. Specify the size and number of pages and have photos ready for uploading. Photos should be in reasonably high resolution form – at least 240dpi – and they can be sized before uploading. There are choices of different coloured backgrounds and layouts. It is all easy enough to understand and master. Think carefully about selecting the photo to go on page one, because it also appears on the cover – well, not exactly on the cover. There is a square cut-out through which the first picture can be seen. When the layout is finished and the pictures uploaded the order is completed with credit card payment and delivery address. Delivery normally takes 10 days from placing the order, using standard Australia Post mailing.
Like: The reproduction quality is excellent, fine grained laser printing on good quality paper. The paper is not as heavy as that used in shops that have installed the HP Photosmart photo book making service, but it is akin to really good magazine stock and picture quality.
Dislike: You are buying a pig in a poke, because you can’t see the immediate results of reproduction. We found that the pictures were slightly darker than we had intended, but there is no way of trying one and making an adjustment. Perhaps the first book has to be regarded as a trial run.
Verdict: The Snapfish photo book is a classy way to present photos of an occasion like a wedding or birthday. Our advice is that you don’t crowd the pages. One photo per page looks good – three or more looks fussy. 20 of the best photos beats 60 so-so pictures any day.
Posted by terry at 02:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[ PHOTOGRAPHING COLLECTABLES ]
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? A daggy little television program from Tasmania, put up on ABC TV as an off-season filler, has become the biggest hit since Gardening Australia. One refers, of course, to The Collectors.
This little charmer has brought the most astonishing range of collectors and collections out of their back rooms and sheds to show off everything from Royal Doulton Chamber Pots to Early Fake Rolex Watches.
The Collectors has a web site with a “show and tell” gallery for anyone to put up pictures of their precious objets d’art. The idea is that you take pictures of your collection and upload them to the site, and it’s a pity that the quality of the photography is pretty ordinary.
Another collectors’ web site, collectZing has been started up by Melbourne web designers David and Fiona Eedle, with international aspirations. The site is very new and so far the quality of the pictures is on a par with the ABC gallery.
It occurs to us that it is timely to give some advice on how best to photograph small three dimensional objects. It is so easy to do well that it is hardly worth the effort of doing it badly. Anyone with a decent digital camera and time to spare can take pictures of evenly lit objects that seem to float in space, free of nasty hot spots and inky shadows and sharp as a tack from front to back. All you need is a camera, a tripod and a light tent.
The light tent in the picture above is a product available from shops that supply equipment to professionals. It is called an Interfit Light Tent and costs $100.
But look at it! It’s only a cube frame with some translucent material draped over it. The same effect can be achieved with a cardboard box big enough to hold the collectables to be photographed, with big holes in three sides and covered with tracing paper or plain sheeting material. Then cut a piece of stiff card to form a platform inside the box that curves from the front edge to the top back corner.
Put the tent in the sunlight – shade or overcast is best – place the object on the platform and you’ve got a perfect, diffused lighting environment in which the toy train will throw only the softest of shadows onto the white card and all its fine details will stand out.
Set up the camera on the tripod, select Aperture Priority mode (if you are able) and set the aperture to the smallest opening, to achieve the greatest depth of field and keep the entire object in focus.
The camera automatically adjusts the shutter speed, and it will be slow. So to avoid camera shake either use a remote shutter release (generally only available on digital SLRs and some top compacts) or put the camera on self timer so that you are not touching it when the shutter releases. Take three shots – one at the settings calculated by the camera, one one stop under exposed and one at one stop over. Voila! A product shot as good as the pros can make in the studio.
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September 20, 2007
[ REVIEW—MANFROTTO 055XPRO tripod ]
Price: $308
The Ferrari of tripods
The low-down: This is an aluminium tripod with a closed length of 65.5cm and a maximum height of 178.5cm. The tripod legs can also be splayed out at 90 degrees to the centre column so that it sits rigid and spider-like on the ground. The centre column can be set at a right angle to the vertical with the column fully extended so that the camera faces directly downwards, clear of the legs. With the legs splayed and the column horizontal the camera can be set up a few centimetres from the ground, handy for macros of flowers or small creatures. The finish on the unit is matte black and the top sections of the legs are enclosed in a rubberised sleeve. There is a spirit level. Weight is 2.4 kilograms.
Like: Manfrotto tripods are famous for their rigidity and this model is no exception. Ergonomics are generally good with the levered leg locks holding the extensions rigidly in place.
Dislike: The tripod is not supplied with a head, either ball and socket or pan and tilt, so this must be factored into the price.
Verdict: The engineering and design problem facing tripod makers is how to get the maximum rigidity with the minimum mass. For professional cameramen rigidity is more important than lightness, so it is not an issue. For amateurs, faced with lugging a camera and tripod up Kilimanjaro the trade off is important. If it is too heavy it will be left behind. If it is too light it will blow away in the wind. The Manfrotto is not light but the balance is just about perfect. After twenty years in the business the Italian made Manfrotto tripod has become one of those gadgets that has a special status and recognition, a bit like the Apple iPod. After all, there are plenty of portable music players but there is only one iPod. Just so, there are plenty of tripods to choose from but Manfrotto is special. It costs more, but then so does a Ferrari.
Posted by terry at 08:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[ 3 GADGETS & A DOODAD ]
RIGHT, YOU'VE BOUGHT THE DIGITAL CAMERA. That’s the good news. Just don’t put your credit card away – that’s the bad news.
After all, what is a camera without gadgets? Particularly a digital single lens reflex. You’ll need a tripod and they don’t come any better than the Manfrotto reviewed today, but for those of us not quite in the Ferrari customer class there are lesser tripods from Asian makers that will do the job. Just remember not to judge a tripod by its mass – open out its legs, crank up the centre column, put a camera on it and if it wobbles move on.
And with the tripod you need a remote release. Some cameras use infrared wireless remotes and some use wired connections and some use both. For Imaging’s Nikon D80 we chose the wired over the infrared because the wireless one has to be used by pointing it at the front of the camera where the receptor is located. The MC-DC1 wired remote costs about $50, depending on where you buy it.
Many digital SLRs are fitted with sensor auto-cleaning functions that reduce the dust problem, but there will be hard-to-shift dirt in the works from time to time. The dust settles on the low pass filter in front of the sensor and it is advisable not to attack it with a brush or wiper that touches the glass. Better to use a blower.
The crazy looking but aptly named Giotto’s Rocket is our blower of choice. The Rocket comes in three sizes and the large size – 190mm tall with a huge bulb -- is perfect for puffing the dust off the sensor filter. We got ours from Digital Camera Warehouse for $20 plus postage.
One of the first gadgets we bought for the Nikon is a circular polarising filter. Circular refers to the orientation of the polarising elements, not to the shape of the filter. It is important when buying a polariser for a digital camera to specify “circular” as the type. Digital sensors and film use different filters.
The polarising filter removes reflected glare. Its effect on the sky, for instance, is to render it a rich blue with clouds that stand out in strong relief. A polarising filter consists of two elements that are rotated in relation to each other, and you watch the effect in the viewfinder. Surface glare from water or shiny surfaces can be reduced, in effect changing the dynamic range of the sensor. The price of a polarising filter depends on the brand and the size.
We have just met the Camera Armour. This is a sort of thick rubber glove for a camera, designed to give it protection from drops and bumps. Camera Armour is made to fit specific models, including almost all Canon and Nikon DSLRs and the Sony Alpha and Fuji S5.
The armour fits snugly over the camera body but leaves all the essential buttons and covers accessible. It looks absurd but it feels surprisingly good in the hand. Anybody using a DSLR on a construction site might find Camera Armour a boon. (RRP $100)
We haven’t bought one yet, but if we are ever facing down charging bull elephants in Africa we will give it a try.
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Posted by terry at 08:22 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 13, 2007
[ WELCOME THE CANON EOS 40D ]
IN A FIT OF MAD EXTRAVAGANCE we have added a new camera to the dpexpert gadget bag – a Canon EOS 40D with the EF-S 17~85mm lens.
The Nikon D80 now has company and competition.
We had a hands-on preview of the Canon last month and we liked it, so we bought one. Over the next few weeks we will be able to do a decent comparison of the Nikon and the Canon.
Strictly speaking the 40D is a competitor for the Nikon D300, due to go on sale here in November. But as the D80 and the 40D are both 10 megapixel cameras comparisons are not entirely pointless.
When the D300 arrives we will have a choice between two cameras with auto dust removal and live view, although the Nikon will sport a 12 megapixel CMOS sensor against the 10mp CMOS in the Canon.
Live view -- that is, being able to use the LCD screen as a viewfinder -- is accomplished in these two cameras by raising the mirror and taking a 100 per cent image from the sensor to the LCD. This is different from the Olympus/Panasonic approach where a second sensor is used to generate the LCD image.
The main benefit of live view on the Nikon and Canon will probably be with tripod mounted shots where the camera can operate like a small view camera.
There will be sample photos from the Canon 40D posted in the Gallery as we give it a workout in the real world.
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September 06, 2007
[ CANON M80 media storage device ]
Price: $1100
Good but expensive
The low-down: This is an image, movie and music portable storage device with an 80gb hard drive. It is compact – 140x80x33 – and solid, 370 grams. Construction is robust and emulates Canon EOS cameras in its appearance and the layout of controls. The 90mm LCD has very high resolution and can be viewed from wide angles. There are slots for CF and SD camera memory cards, but not for XD or Memory Stick. The battery has a claimed capacity between charges for 2.6 hours of movie playback and 4.8 hours of music (using earphones). Supported file types are JPEG, TIFF and Canon RAW for photographs, MPEG 1, 2 and 4 for movies and MP3 and WAV for audio. The battery is of the same type as that used in some EOS cameras.
Like: The LCD is brilliant, akin to the competing Epson storage device. Photos and movies show exceptional detail and saturated colour even when viewed from slightly off-centre. The M80 is easy to use and for a Canon EOS SLR owner every control will look immediately familiar. File transfer speed from memory card to hard drive is excellent*.
Dislike: The excellent LCD! The Canon shares a paradoxical problem with the Epson equivalent – the image on the LCD is so good that it makes decisions about what to delete and what to keep difficult. Because of the small size, exceptional sharpness and detail of the LCD image every photo, even an out of focus shot, looks a winner. This is a strange complaint, but take it as a word of advice.
Verdict: This is a nicely designed and made portable storage device, but it is expensive for a gadget that really only does one thing. A notebook computer is more versatile, providing not only storage on the move but internet connection and general computer processing. The M80 would make sense for a professional who uses it every day but it doesn’t represent value for money for the occasional tourist. On the other hand, if money were no object, we would buy one.
*This was written after downloading 30 images from an SD card. The experience was different when we later backed up 200 images from a CF card -- then the transfer rate was annoyingly slow.
Posted by terry at 02:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[ BEYOND REASONABLE DROUGHT ]
Whip out your copy of John Winston Howard–the biography and note the picture on the cover. Shot from below, it is a picture of a grave and wise prime minister. It is has been used as a Bulletin cover twice, once with the caption “Happy, John” and once “Not happy, John”.
The picture is the work of photographer Andrew Chapman and it appears again in his new book Campaign, a collection of images from political events over the past 36 years. The earliest photo in the book is from a Vietnam Moratorium rally in 1971 and the most recent was taken in July this year.
Campaign is Andrew Chapman’s second book. His first, The Shearers, is a collection of superbly rich black and white photographs taken in shearing sheds, also over a 30 year period.
The striking photo of the prime minister is reproduced in Campaign in monochrome because Chapman prefers black and white to colour. He says: “Black and white captures the essence of the photographic image. Colour is just photography with makeup on, most of the time.”
He says that he comes from the tradition of the darkroom where you get to know black and white materials and have only limited ability to “shape” colour. These days, using a Canon 5D digital camera, he shoots in colour but still prefers to convert the image to black and white in Photoshop, using the simplest of conversion methods – he desaturates the colour and then adjusts the tonality of the image. He prints on an Epson A3+ printer.
He says: “A black and white image tells you exactly what’s going on. It leaves no room for doubt.”
Right now Chapman is coordinating a nation-wide project, Beyond reasonable drought, involving about 80 professional photographers, to document the drought and the state of our water supplies. His group is called MAP – Many Australian Photographers – and the brief is to find and capture the images that don’t fit the prescription for a page one newspaper picture but are essential to documenting all aspects of the phenomenon of drought.
The paradox of making beautiful images from misery and death doesn’t worry him. “A couple of years back I was commissioned by Time to do a story on heroin dealers. I was in the back of a car with a couple of desperate addicts injecting into their necks. The light was right. Everything was perfect. I wasn’t forcing them. There was no ethical dilemma, it just happened and, for me, it’s a beautiful image. I guess it’s up to other people to judge.”
Chapman coordinated three previous group projects, The Ararat project, Making Hay (the town, not the straw) and Snapping St Arnaud. The photographers spent time in each town shooting whatever showed the essence of life in the place. He says: “The detail of day to day life needs recording so that people can look back and see what it was really like.” He credits the influence of the famous US Farm Security Administration photographic record of the dust bowl years of the 1930s on his early development as a photographer.
(Information about Campaign and The Shearers and other photographs is at www.bigcheez.com.au.)
Posted by terry at 02:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 02, 2007
[ REVIEW—PENTAX K100D SUPER DSLR ]
Price: $900 with Pentax 18–55mm lens
Highly recommended
The low-down: This is the highly regarded Pentax K100D with two additional features – in-camera vibration reduction and automatic dust removal from the sensor light path. This is a 6 megapixel single lens reflex camera with a robust body and good ergonomics. Image processing is outstanding, producing detailed and accurate photographs. The Pentax lens is as good as any kit lens, which means that it is optically and mechanically acceptable. The combination of camera and lens works quickly and focuses accurately. The vibration reduction is effective, and being in-camera means that it works with all lenses. This is important because it makes additional lenses much cheaper than those for Nikon or Canon where the image stabilisation is in the lens. The automatic dust removal is a desirable feature in a digital SLR. The camera uses AA batteries and uses rechargeable NiMH batteries frugally. Factor in the additional cost of a charger and four batteries because they are not supplied.
Like: The value-for-money of this camera makes the competition look either greedy or inefficient. There is nothing cut-down or under-done about the Pentax.
Dislike: This has the loudest mirror/shutter slap of any camera. This suggests that there might be some hidden parts where costs have been saved at the expense of ultimate refinement. Also, for some reason, Pentax set the default saturation and contrast absurdly high. It is easy enough to adjust but it would be better if the defaults were more realistic.
Verdict: This is a case of a good camera getting better. The vibration reduction and dust removal are worthwhile improvements to the K100D and well worth the little extra money. No compact or super-zoom pseudo SLR comes within cooee of the quality in this package. Some may fear that 6 megapixels are not enough but the fact is that 6 million well processed pixels will produce high quality A3+ prints – do you need more? Highly recommended.
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[ SNAPPING IN A TIME OF PARANOIA ]
Dr Mohamed Haneef found himself in trouble with the Australian Federal Police because he had taken photos around the Gold Coast that were considered far too nice to be ordinary tourist snaps. Were they too sharp? Too well exposed? What is a terrorist photo supposed to look like?
It set us thinking. When wandering around town with a camera what is permitted and what is forbidden?
You might think that the airport would be a total no-camera area but it turns out the policy is relaxed and realistic. Airport communications manager, Tom Perry, says: “When it comes to photography, it is our job to balance the security of operating an airport with the reality of airports being a place of fascination and high emotion. It is the nature of an airport that people will want to document the departure/arrival of a loved one – and there are hundreds of photos taken at Melbourne Airport each day.” Just avoid taking pictures of customs, immigration, baggage handling and security areas.
The airport has good relations with aeroplane enthusiasts and there is even a special plane spotter’s area at the Sunbury Road end of the main runway. At www.jetspotter.com you can find a map of popular spotting areas.
So what about the rail system? Connex acknowledges the existence of train tragics and caters for them with special permits for members of clubs, former railway employees, enthusiasts and amateur photographers. The Connex policy and permits are at www.connexmelbourne.com.au/help_film/ Generally speaking you can take photos anywhere on the system, including in stations, except in the Loop where all photography is forbidden. Fair enough, too.
There was some argy bargy at Southgate when heavy handed security guards stopped an amateur taking photographs, raising the issue of what is private and what is public space. Melbourne Central is an interesting merging of the two – it is a shopping centre but it also has the tourist attractions of the Shot Tower and the charming Aussie motif clock. Lisa Fleming, the general manager, says that we may photograph the tower and the clock but there are privacy and copyright issues involved in taking pictures of shops. You might be tapped on the shoulder and asked to desist.
St Paul’s Cathedral is photographer friendly, but don’t take pictures during services and don’t step over the barrier around the altar. Rev Rachel McDougall, the acting Precentor, says that there will be staff or volunteers in the Cathedral with whom to check if in doubt. Leave a donation for the building fund – it’s only fair.
Melbourne Museum has a general rule that photos may be taken of everything everywhere except where there is a sign of a camera with a slash through it. Some exhibits have copyright issues and some are of culturally sensitive material. If in doubt ask the staff.
The National Gallery of Victoria has dropped its no photos policy and now permits photography in both the St Kilda Road and Ian Potter galleries (in Federation Square). There are exceptions where the display is culturally sensitive or the works, as in the current Guggenheim exhibition, come with “no photography” conditions attached. In these places there will be warning signs, and there is always gallery staff on hand to advise. Flash is everywhere prohibited, so make sure it is turned off.
All in all Melbourne is a camera friendly place.
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