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April 30, 2009
[REVIEW—PHOTOACUTE STUDIO]
Price: US$119, from www.photoacute.com
Clever software
The low-down: This image manipulation program performs several specialised functions. It will merge a set of images into a single high dynamic range photograph, extending the detail visible in shadows and highlights; it will merge a set of photos taken at different focus points to produce one image that is sharp, front to back; and it will merge four or more identical images to produce one with double the resolution of the camera sensor.
Like: The high dynamic range (HDR) function works the same as it does in Photoshop or Photomatix. A bracket of three or more photos, identical except for exposures, is merged into one image with a wide tonal range. There is no tone mapping built into PhotoAcute, so tones must be adjusted in a program such as Photoshop. To increase the depth of field a set of photos is taken with the camera manually focused at different points in the subject. The camera is set to manual exposure and manual focus and not moved between exposures. The set is then merged and processed in the software. To double the camera's resolution a set of four photos, taken with the camera tripod mounted, is merged to produce one high resolution, noise-free image.
Verdict: You may wonder who this application is intended for. Well, anyone who regularly takes catalogue shots of small appliances, jewellery, flowers and so on will find the depth of field expander amazing. We were astonished by its ability to take a group of photos in which there is movement between individual shots and still merge them into a pin-sharp image. And the resolution doubling is a boon when enlarging digital images without introducing unwanted pixellation (the breakup of the image into small squares). The high resolution pictures are eye-popping. For HDR there are other programs that do the job, although we thought that PhotoAcute did a better job of lining up the composite images than some. There is a trial download.
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Posted by terry at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)
[GET 'EM WHILE THEY'RE HOT!]
A pal returning from Hong Kong recently was downcast. He couldn't find any bargains in the shoppers' paradise. He was looking for a good deal on a Canon G10 and got a shock – the prices in Australia are better.
Here we are in the midst of the worst global financial crisis since 1929, with the Australian dollar yo-yoing all over the place, and yet the land girt by sea has turned into a camera shoppers' paradise.
Recently at a Canon camera launch the company boasted of its best two quarters (last quarter 2008 and first of 2009) of sales ever. The sales people speculated that the GFC hasn't affected everyone equally, which means that there are still many people with money to spend on toys.
But we had a better explanation from the Nikon sales people earlier this month. Nikon has also had a couple of bumper quarters and the sales manager reckons that the reasons are a bit complicated.
First, the government's recession-averting handouts, like God's rain, have fallen on the just (the “dirt poor”) and the unjust (the “filthy rich”) alike, and what with mortgage interest rates coming down, people have a few spare dollars for indulgences.
Second, camera prices are amazingly low. The man from Nikon reckons that we are probably enjoying the best retail prices in the world at the moment. Just have a look at the cameras advertised here in Livewire to see what he means.
The excellent Pentax K-m is advertised at $800 with an 18-50mm lens – and that is the distributor's advertisement at full retail price. Main street retailers (not grey importers) are advertising the camera and lens for $740. The Canon 40D, body only, can be bought locally for $1130, and this is a camera that used to sell for about $2000. In theory it has been superseded by the 50D but it is still stocked by Canon and is an outstanding camera.
Nikon, Olympus and Sony all offer bargains throughout their DSLR ranges. The Olympus E420 is being advertised, with 14-42mm lens for $700 and the Nikon D90 with lens for $1675.
Nikon Australia (and presumably other companies) gave retailers a month or so of warning that their prices were going to go up by a considerable margin as the GFC started to bite. Retailers were able to stock up while the prices were still at good-old-days levels. The retail chains bought up big, but the stock is finite and no one knows what will happen to prices once the hedge stock is sold off. So now is probably as good a time as any to buy a camera.
To return to the beginning. The Canon G10 costs $675 locally. The RRP is $800. From a reputable Hong Kong dealer the price is $690. The moral of the story: if you must spend your Rudd-fall on imported toys then at least do it at a local shop.
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Posted by terry at 10:39 AM | Comments (2)
April 27, 2009
[DISPLAY YOUR PHOTOS WITH STYLE]
Forget Flickr! and Zenfolio and Facebook. If you are serious about photography you don't want your masterpieces mixing it with a rag-bag of picnic photos and pictures of somebody else's dog. You want your images to be exhibited as carefully as they would be in a bricks and mortar art gallery. You should take a look at www.photoartgallery.com, the Ph.Art gallery.
This elegant new on-line gallery is the work of Sydney man, Andrew Coppin, who gave up his job in financial services to pursue a dream of creating an on-line gallery for photographers, catering for serious amateurs and professionals. Andrew describes himself as a “passionate enthusiast photographer wondering where everyone was putting their better photos and why they were all stuck on the hard drive never to be seen by anyone in the world”. So he committed himself seriously to creating Ph.Art (and yes, you do pronounce it the rude way) four years ago.
In between jobs he took a sabbatical and travelled around the world looking at photographic art galleries. He found that he wasn't alone in having good photos but only being able to “bug my immediate family with them, who said 'yes, Andrew, that's very nice, but we don't really want to see them any more.'”
He couldn't find a place where an enthusiast could put his best photos on display “amongst equals”.
“Flickr! Is a great company, but it's become a junkyard. Unfortunately my great photo of Sydney Harbour Bridge, that I worked on for three hours, can sit alongside someone else's photo of Sydney, their snotty nosed kid, or my friend's photo of Sydney the dog. It's not respectful.”
Ph.Art gallery is the classiest implementation of an on-line display for photographs that we have seen. And access at its lowest level, the private gallery, is free. You get 2 gigabytes of free wall space to create a private exhibition. If you want to share your work with the world you move up into a public gallery.
At the highest level is the Collectors' Gallery from which Ph.Art sells limited edition prints of subscribers' pictures. Entry into this space is by selection by Ph.Art curators. Ph.Art derives part of its revenue from commission on the sales of prints from the Collectors' Gallery. And Ph.Art goes out and sells to potential buyers.
Photos uploaded must be of a minimum size and resolution and not over-compressed. This makes sure that the images will display well at large sizes in a browser. The automatic slide show displays pictures larger than on any comparable on-line gallery. We had to keep reminding ourselves: This astonishing browser performance is free!
Ph.Art already has about 25,000 photos on the server and growing by hundreds a day. Word is getting around that this is something special.
While Andrew Coppin is the driving force from Sydney the technical and aesthetic construction of the web site itself is done in Port Melbourne by Fabric. Outstanding!
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Posted by terry at 03:22 PM | Comments (3)
April 16, 2009
[REVIEW—FUJIFILM F200EXR compact camera]
Price: $550
Different and better
The low-down: This 12 megapixel camera uses Fuji's own SuperCCD sensor, designated EXR in this camera, presumably meaning “extended range”. By using a novel technique for coupling photosites on the sensor it offers extended dynamic range and lower image noise. For instance the EXR low noise setting couples adjacent photosites to produce 6 million large pixels with an excellent signal to noise ratio. While this reduces the sensor resolution to 6 megapixels that is about right for a compact. In dynamic range extender mode the camera takes two 6 megapixel photos simultaneously at different exposures and then merges them into a single image. Everything else about the F200EXR is standard fare: five times zoom with 28mm wide angle; face recognition; CCD shift anti-shake, plus ISO boost when in dual anti-blur mode; both Program and Manual over- rides; movie mode and selectable aspect ratios. Construction quality is good. The 75mm LCD is low resolution and just adequate.
Like: The novel approach to fixing the two problems that bedevil compacts – image noise and poor dynamic range (the ability to capture detail in both shadows and highlights) – really works. As long as the camera is used intelligently, limiting ISO speeds to no more than 400, the results are exceptional. Exposure, focus and colour are excellent. We found that choosing the film type Astia lowered contrast and saturation, producing better results than the default setting.
Dislike: The LCD is totally black in bright sunlight, making it useless as a viewfinder. The full user's manual is on disc, which for a camera with such complex innovations is inexcusable.
Verdict: This is a wonderful little camera. Subjectively we feel that we had a much higher ratio of successful photos to duds than we usually expect in compact photographic testing. The F200EXR is different, but not in a gimmicky way. It is different and better. It sets new standards of image quality by employing clever technology. We hated to send it back.
There is a gallery of photos from the Fujifilm F200EXR here >>
Posted by terry at 10:01 AM | Comments (2)
[SHOWING OFF FOR FREE]
OK. So, you've read the little rave above about the Fujifilm F200EXR. What do the Fuji's pictures really look like? Point your web browser at Fujifilm F200EXR samples and see for yourself. Make sure that you right click on the blank space and select “Enter full screen” to get the full effect.
Now that you've done that we can talk about the service used to create the web gallery and to publish it, making it available to any browser.
The web gallery itself was created with Jalbum. (jalbum.net) This is a donationware download, which means it is free unless you are overcome with gratitude to the Swedish geniuses who have laboured over its code, in which case you can make a donation.
In installing the program you are invited to join the Jalbum web hosting service, which is also free for space up to 30MB. 30MB is exactly three times as much free space as BigPond gives its internet customers who pay hundreds of dollars a year. Jalbum reckons that 30MB is enough space to show about 200 pictures at standard screen resolution. According to the Jalbum web site the free service should display advertisements but so far we haven't seen any.
The available space can be increased and advertising removed by paying for an upgrade. $36 will get you a gigabyte of space and $180 buys 10 gig. Absolute bargains. And you get your own simple, short URL, to email to pals inviting them to come and look at your masterpieces.
Creating a web gallery in Jalbum is a doddle. When the program opens you see a message telling you to drag a folder of photos or individual pictures into the assembly space. Then comes the interesting bit.
There is a community of Jalbum users working away to create “skins” (graphical interfaces) for the galleries. New skins are being posted all the time, so the first thing to do after loading the photos is to browse through the different looks and make a selection. The one we have used for the Fuji F200EXR gallery is BananAlbum which appealed to us for its simplicity.
BananAlbum, like most of the skins, is itself customisable. There are different layouts and different formats for including information text and different sizes for image displays. And BanaAlbum has the neat trick of being able to enter full screen mode, getting rid of all the menu bars and so on, at a single click.
Once the gallery has been created and previewed click on the Publish button and it is uploaded to your assigned web space and your gallery URL is displayed.
There are alternatives to Jalbum, also free, such as Picasa and the gallery makers built into software like Photoshop and PaintShop Pro. Or you can surrender control to Flickr. However, for sheer ease of use and elegance of output we prefer Jalbum. It is well worth a donation.
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Posted by terry at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)
April 09, 2009
[REVIEW—RICOH CX1 compact camera]
Price: $600
Clever
The low-down: This 9 megapixel CMOS camera has a 28–200mm [film equivalent zoom. Image stabilisation is by sensor shift. The LCD is a high resolution 75mm screen. On-screen graphics are elegant. There is a visible and audible level indicator for keeping the camera horizontal. A square aspect ratio can be selected. Why? Apparently to give Hasselblad users a quick Polaroid-like check. Burst speed is up to 4fps. Dynamic range can be extended by using the DR mode which takes two shots in quick succession at different exposures and then merges them. Depth of field can also be extended by using the camera’s ability to take up to seven shots with the camera automatically adjusting the point of focus behind and in front of the selected point. The idea is to scrutinise the group of photos and choose the sharpest.
Like: The DR function works reasonably well. There are settings from Weak to Strong. For best results use Strong. However it is useless for moving subjects. The depth of field extender is moderately useful, although again this needs a tripod and stationary subject. We found that combining the five or seven photos in PhotoAcute’s (www.photoacute.com) depth of field extender program gave excellent results. The level indicator is brilliant.
Dislike: The LCD is totally black in bright sunlight, making it useless as a viewfinder. Frustrating.
Verdict: This is a pleasure to use, although we wished for more manual controls. The concepts of extended dynamic range and depth of field are concerns of the serious photographer. No point-and-shooter is going to care about these refinements. Yet the camera is set up as though the p-and-s brigade are the intended customers. We look forward to seeing these useful innovations applied to Ricoh’s better class of camera. That will be a winner. As it is we have no hesitation in recommending the CX1.
Posted by terry at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
[KEEPING IN TOUCH]
Imaging’s five year old grand daughter had a big triumph last week. She won a Little Athletics trophy for Most Improved in her class. And a very impressive object it is. We know that, even though she lives in a Land Far Far Away, because her proud mother sent a photo of the champion and her trophy to all the recipients in our family and friends Yahoo Mail Group.
What’s more the photo was sent as a 10cm by 15cm 200dpi, moderately compressed JPEG, so we were able to print it out and take it straight to the pool room! Well, the fridge door, actually.
Yahoo! Group Mail is an excellent service for keeping in touch with your nearest and dearest. We even get automated reminders of birthday dates on our family group.
First you need a Yahoo! ID and password. Just go to yahoo.com to sign up. Then you create a mail group at tinyurl.com/2auxnn, and you’re away. The recipients on the list first receive a notice from Yahoo! that they have been invited to join the group. They click on the Join Group button and they’re in.
With Yahoo! Group Mail no one except the initiator is forced to join anything or go looking for anybody. The message, with attachments, just turns up in your email inbox like any other electronic billet-doux.
The Yahoo! service has only one small imperfection – it is in a fixed Yahoo corporate style. It lacks the personal touch. For that you need to create your own HTML email – that is, an email that looks like a web page. And that is easy enough.
You will be familiar with those corporate emails we all get from time to time with pictures and neat layout that rise above the normal text-only communications. They are a doddle to make, and once you’ve made one you have a personalised template for all future HTML mails.
Let’s assume that you have dabbled in web page authoring and you have an idea of how it works and perhaps have Microsoft Front Page or Macromedia Dreamweaver installed. There are free, simple HTML email templates on the web. Try these: www.campaignmonitor.com/templates/
Avoid any fancy coding because all email clients behave differently and the simpler you keep it the better the chance of universal readability. Keep all the image and the index files in one folder. Then download the program HTML Email Creator. (www.html-email.net) You can use it ten times without paying. After that it will cost about AUD$39 to register. It is real value for money.
Once the component photos and graphics and the index.html file are in place you run HTML Email Creator and browse to the index file. Setup the emailing service account in Options with the same user name, password and SMTP settings as your regular email client. Type in the addresses of recipients and click on Send Email. It’s a wonderful thing to behold in action.
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Posted by terry at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2009
[REVIEW—Digital Photographer’s Handbook]
Price: $70
Truly comprehensive
The low-down: This complete introduction to all aspects of digital photography, written by British photographer Tom Ang and published by Dorling Kindersley is in its fourth edition. Subjects covered include the technology of cameras and a how-to-choose guide. The essential physics of lenses and their behaviour is explained. All aspects of the art are covered, including framing, composition, lighting and subject selection. The post-camera chapters describe all common editing techniques, including cropping, exposure correction, black and white conversion, colour correction, spot removal and other computer manipulations of images. Some of his advice on achieving weird effects is a little esoteric. Scanning, printing, web-sharing and emailing, as well as file storage are covered.
Like: This is an ideal classroom-in-a-book for anyone who wants to progress beyond the point-and-shoot and print-at-Big W stage. Ang’s own photos illustrate the text well. The layout and the clarity of the text are excellent.
Dislike: The section on nude photography is a little twee. And Ang assumes that every reader is using a Mac. All his screenshots are from a Mac, which will make 90 per cent of his readers feel a little unwelcome. He has advice on choosing between Mac and PC which is a mix of truth and myth and misses out the real difference between the two systems – price!
Verdict: There are many books which purport to do what Ang has done but there are few that are so comprehensive. His chapter on camera selection is up to date with product images of cameras that have just come on the market. This book is ideal for anyone considering an upgrade from a compact to a DSLR with aspirations to do better than take the occasional snap. And compared with similar books from the US this British publication is good value for money.
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Posted by terry at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)
[ADVANCED FREELOADING]
A NICE CHAP INTRODUCED HIMSELF last week and showed us his new toy, a desirable Nikon DSLR. This camera has the works – excellent sensor, good kit lens, superb ergonomics, fine image processor, great high resolution LCD. You couldn’t ask for more as the basis of serious amateur photography.
But he tells us that he only takes snaps. He hasn’t got around to doing any post-camera processing because he’s not confident working on a computer. Which set us thinking, mainly about the economics of this man’s situation.
He has paid good money for his camera and he has got good value. He knows that. You might argue that the camera itself is such a joy to own and handle that it justifies itself in owner satisfaction, a bit like owning a Ferrari but not having anywhere to drive it flat out.
We couldn’t help thinking: What’s the point? On the other hand, we understand his reluctance to get into computer-based image editing, it is intimidating and it can be expensive. Who can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on Photoshop only to discover that one has neither the patience nor the inclination to come to grips with its cranky operating methods?
It so happens that there is a no-cost alternative to Photoshop that does just about everything the commercial product does and is an excellent way of learning the fundamentals of computer-based editing. It is called GimpShop.
The Gimp (www.gimp.org) has been around for years and is the product of that band of international altruists who beaver away at creating open source, completely free applications. The Gimp is good, but it is ugly. The geeks who have created it have made no concessions to those of us who like a pretty and intuitive interface. Now enter GimpShop.
GimpShop (www.gimpshop.com) tidies up the Gimp interface and makes it look more or less like Photoshop. And just about anything you can do in Photoshop you can do in GimpShop.
GimpShop is still pretty nerdy, but it’s an excellent, no cost, introduction to the basic concepts that underlie Photoshop. Look on it as a tutorial.
One of the fundamental concepts of Photoshop is the Layer. This can be a stumbling block until the penny drops and the idea of building up editing changes on a stack of layers, rather than as modifications direct to the original image, becomes clear. GimpShop uses Layers in the same way as Photoshop. The process of creating layers, merging, blending, moving and masking is the same in the two programs.
The most used tools in Photoshop are the exposure and tone adjustment functions called Curves and Levels. They work the same in GimpShop. As does cropping, cloning, selection, sharpening and so on.
There is a comprehensive help file that must be downloaded and installed after installing the Gimp, and it is also available as a printable manual. Just look on GimpShop as the version of Gimp for normal human beings and be grateful to the open source altruists.
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Posted by terry at 06:03 PM | Comments (1)