Category Archives: Technique

The Race Track improved

Panoramas, Photographers

Dykinga was good. Edwards is better

There’s a magical place in Death Valley, Arizona and it’s called the Race Track playa.

Jack Dykinga illustrated it in his magnificent book which I reviewed a couple of years ago. Simply stated, stones of substantial mass move, magically, yet no one has ever seen this occur. I choose not to dwell on the reasons. Some things are simply magic. The Race Track is one of those.

Why not leave it there?

Well, because a fine photographer whose work I have been privileged to mention here on occasion, has done it better.

Rod Edwards, a UK professional, is that photographer and he has taken Dykinga’s work to a higher level in his rendition of that phenomenal place in Death Valley.

I have been unsuccessful in monetizing my QTVRs, much as I have tried. I would take my iBook around various wineries in central California and show them to proprietors, only to be met with blank stares. Indeed, when I had my one man show I considered including a couple of big screen TVs to better show them off, sound effects and all, but gave up on the idea based on those self same stares.

However, to Edwards’s credit, he has persevered and has been justly rewarded with a commission from Britain’s National Trust – an institution which you can best learn about from the wonderful writings of James Lees-Milne, a magnificent conservator and writer about the early years of the NT. Simply stated, the National Trust is charged with the preservation of the UK’s architectural and cultural heritage – a rare good use of taxpayer monies.

No need to dwell further on the subject – just click on the picture below.


Rod Edwards’s Race Track

Update August 27, 2014: The mystery of the moving stones has finally been solved and you can read all about it here.

Going glossy

Printing

Just doing what it takes

I have been unsparing in my criticism of Apple’s cynical move to producing only glossy screens on its displays. The thinking is identical to that of the jeweler who installs strong quartz iodine spotlights in his store. That 1 carat bauble that so impressed in the store, thanks to the Hollywood lighting, leads to a sense of dismay when viewed at home. It’s no different for Apple’s glossy screens.

So what on earth was I doing ordering glossy printing paper for my HP DJ90 the other day?


An engineering company. Note the micrometer and the Swiss manufacturer!

Well, I may dislike glossy when it comes to making and printing my photographs, but I am not beyond learning from the ace salesmen at Apple, Inc.

Simply stated, I have not submitted a photo for publication since 1977 when I left England and started getting paid for my labors in America. So great was the increase in income and reduction in tax (the top income tax rate when I left the UK in 1977 was 83% ….) that the modest amounts that publication brought no longer made sense. I could earn more the easy way and use the money to take the pictures I wanted to take, not the ones some editor preferred to see.

But the bug bit again recently and while I have no intent to make any money from getting my stuff in print (and the odds of doing so are, let’s face it, pretty remote in an internet world), my ego can now afford it. And as first impressions are 100% of the battle with photographs, when that editor opens my envelope of snaps I want them to say ‘wow’. Glossy paper does that.

So the medium, not the content, may be the message, but if it ghastly glossy paper helps get me into print, so be it. Just don’t expect these prints to be gracing the walls at home any time soon.

This is my first experience of using HP Premium Glossy. The inked areas are matte whereas highlights where no ink was deposited retain the original high gloss of the paper. However, after drying for a couple of hours the inked areas take on a good gloss, although not as high gloss as virgin paper. So it may explain why some later printers now use a glossing agent to restore high gloss to a print – the DJ90 does not have this technology.

Picture Packages

Printing

A useful Lightroom technique

When I make large prints on the HP DJ90 dye printer, it’s usually strictly a ‘one at a time’ sort of thing. The prints are 18″ x 24″ (‘Super A4’ is the uninformative European description), which is as large as my HP will go and, after an obligatory 24 hour ‘drying’ period to let the ink dyes set, they are dry mounted and framed.

However, with my new found determination to get some work published again, smaller prints were called for – 9″ x 12″- and these just happen to divide an 18″ x 24″ sheet into four equal parts.

Rather than cut up the paper first and then do four print runs, it proved just as easy to make one combined print job and do the cutting last.

First I went into the Library module of LR2 then clicked on Library->New Collection. I dragged the candidates into this new collection and oriented them all vertically (Photo->Rotate Left/Right). These candidates had been processed and cropped just so, so that no further adjustments would be required.

Into the Print module of LR2, where I clicked on Tempate Browser->Lightroom Templates->2×2 Cells. Lightroom comes with this template installed. Moving the mouse cursor to the base of the screen to disclose the filmstrip – which I have set to hiding mode so it is ordinarily invisible – I simply highlighted four contiguous images, which then appear on the print ‘canvas’.

The screen now looked like this:

Then it’s off to the races, printing in the usual way. It takes a lot less time to do than to explain and you have the benefit of applying the same print settings to all pictures on the ‘canvas’. Of course if you process the originals poorly, then you may end up with four clunkers, but I seem to have lucked out.

Note the personalized nameplate at the top left of the Lightroom pane in the last picture above. You can do this by going to Lightroom->Identity Plate Setup.

At the grocer’s

Photographs, Technique

Amazing what you can find when you try seeing

I really do not like pineapple. Too tart and acidic for my constitution, yet I was struck by the incredible complexity and beauty of the fruit at the local grocery store.


5D, 100mm Macro, ring flash at f/8, 4 images, Helicon Focus Pro

So I picked one up (carefully!) and took four differentially focused snaps, stitching them in Helicon Focus.

The ring flash head was half covered with black tape to add some modeling.

Sound recording

Sound

It’s a lot easier now.

When the hero of Jean-Jacques Beineix’s 1981 movie, Diva, sets to making his bootleg recording of the operatic soprano who never records, he is hiding the best portable analog tape recorder ever made, under his coat. Simply stated, the Nagra was the Leica of its time.


Actor Frédéric Andréi starts the Nagra

Seconds later, soprano Wilhelmina Wiggins Fernandez lights into Ebben ne andro lontana from Alfredo Catalani’s opera La Wally – you know the tune even if you have never heard of Catalani.


Wilhelmina Wiggins Fernandez – mediocre voice, non-mediocre looks

The movie is a splendid example of the very best in French film, which means it’s awfully good. Quirky, avant garde, beautifully filmed and a great plot.

I was reminded of the movie when asked for a recommendation for a really good digital voice recorder the other day. Naturally, I mentioned the Edirol R-09 which I am delighted to see Edirol has improved, enhancing the finish and redesigning the fragile battery door. We have been using ours for more than two years – with external microphones to mostly record my son’s piano playing – and remain delighted with the fine sound quality this device offers. Unlike our protagonist’s beautiful Nagra, it can fit in any pocket.

For anyone interested in just how good French movie making can be, Diva is highly recommended. For anyone liking great photography, it’s a must have movie.

Here’s a track of a friend playing Misty Blues, recorded on the Edirol, using nothing but its internal microphones. Editing was done using Audacity with the LAME MP3 plug-in to permit MP3 output generation. This is a wonderful, and free, sound editor which I recommend for easy editing of sound tracks.


Misty Blues – recorded on the Edirol R-09