Category Archives: Technique

Beating the burn

Canon 5D, Technique

In overexposed highlights, that is

I have written before of the tendency of digital sensors to burn out highlight details. While highlights can be recovered using the Highlights slider in the Aperture Adjustments HUD, this is limited to one stop using RAW, in my experience. Thereafter, not all highlight details can be recovered.

Accordingly, in high contrast situations like outdoor sun, it’s far better to underexpose and use the Shadows slider to bring up shadow detail, rather than trying to recover highlights. The technique is illustrated here. A low noise sensor, like in the 5D, can sustain a lot of shadow enhancement before noise rears its ugly head.

Strangely, I find the large sensor in the Canon 5D more susceptible to highlight burn than the miniscule one in the Lumix LX1. Tfhe 5D’s sensor is some 1/2 stop more sensitive than the indicated ISO, compared with the Lumix. Given that HDR cannot be used with dynamic subjects (the three or five images required dictate the use of a tripod on a stationary subject) I simply underexpose by 1-2 stops in high contrast situations. Single image tone mapping can help, but it adds maybe half a stop at best; any more and the effect is garish. Canon provides exposure compensation on the 5D but is is horribly documented in the miserable book with a miniscule typeface that passes for instructions that comes with this camera. For $3,000 for a body only, this has to be the height of cynicism. Canon, please exclude accountants from the design of your machines and instruction books.

The 5D has a two position power switch, illustrated above. (The peeling on the screen is my stick on protector, not delamination of the LCD!). Normally, the switch is clicked up one notch to ‘On’ when using aperture priority – Av on the top left dial. Click it up one more notch to the line and the rear wheel activates exposure compensation, visible on the bottom of the viewfinder. It’s also displayed on the top LCD screen which is much easier to see than the viewfinder readout. By the way, a Manfrotto QR tripod plate is visible in this snap, permanently attached to the 5D’s base. Highly recommended – this is the ‘Architectural’ version with an alignment lip to preserve its position on the relatively heavy 5D body.

Click the on-off switch to the line, take a first pressure on the shutter release button, and rotate the wheel while looking though the viewfinder or at the top LCD screen. You can elect 1/2 or 1/3 stop intervals using the custom functions in the camera’s software. 1/3 is confusing precision with accuracy in my book, so I have it set to 1/2 stop intervals. I dial in the camera to, say, -1.5 stops, then immediately move the switch back to the regular On position to preclude accidental adjustment – the compensation setting wheel is disabled in this way, although the setting you dialed in is preserved. Better still (or not, if you forget), the setting survives switching the camera off. Power up and there is your setting, preserved.

I prefer to use average exposure metering in fast paced outdoor settings (Canon’s matrix metering leave me unimpressed) as there’s rarely time to take a proper exposure reading in the interest of capturing the moment. With this approach, you gain a stop of highlight adjustment while preserving some three stops of shadow recovery. Now that’s what I call dynamic range.

Here’s an example taken in bright sun yesterday:


5D, 24-105mm at 70mm, ISO 250, 1/3000, f/5.6, one stop underexposed

Without the underexposure, the white sheet would have been comprehensively burned out. Here, detail is preserved.

More desaturation

Photographs, Technique

Old subjects dictate old methods

From today’s hot rod show in Paso Robles, CA:


5D, 24-105mm at 24mm, ISO 125, 1/750, f/4.5, processed in Aperture

The technique described here was used.

By the way, if you hit Option-Shift-H in Aperture, the screen will be colored red in areas of burned out highlights – a great tool for those digital sensors sensitive to highlight overload:


Red colored areas indicate burned-out highlights

I have left the exhaust pipe burned out as it heightens the impact of the image.

Shake a Leg

Technique

The monopod wins for cost-benefit every time

A recent discussion with a friend somehow made its way around to monopods.

“My dear chap”, quoth I, “the single greatest bargain in the photographic world is the Manfrotto/Bogen Monopod. $30 and it’s yours.”

My buddy, a technical sort, felt it necessary to check my ramblings, and came up with this on the estimable B&H web site:

OK, so the price has gone up since I bought mine 15 years ago (a modest annual inflation rate of 2.3%), but the device remains unchanged. It has only three sections, cam locks and a screw top head. You provide the ball and socket head of your choice. It always rides in the trunk of my car, outfitted with a Leitz head and a Manfrotto QR plate – the easier it is to use the more likely it is to be used. If the cam locks loosen, as happened with mine, a metric socket and a few seconds of work allows the lock nuts to be snugged up and function restored.

So does it make a difference?

Nothing like an academic test. Here’s the target I used – a charming book titled “Cakes and Ale – The Golden Age of English Feasting”; just the thing for one who denies the bad reputation of English cooking and likes nothing so much as a good Shepherd’s Pie. Or Fish and Chips.

To make things fair I used manual exposure – ISO 160 resulted in 1/8th (good for blur!) at f/5.6 (good for definition). The lens was a non-IS 50mm Canon EF f/1.4, which I know to be superb. In each case – hand held, monopod, tripod – I took three snaps.

The enlargement is 15.8x, meaning a (rounded) 120″ x 80″ (yes, you read that right) print from a 1″ x 1.5″ original.

Here’s an enlargement of the hand held one, best of three:

Not so good, and really not usable.

Here’s the best of three on the monopod:

A whole lot better – marginaly usable in an 18″ x 24″ big print – one sixth the size of what you see here for the full frame.

Now here’s the tripod version – any one of three is the same:

So I learned a couple of lessons from this quick experiment:

  • A monopod makes a huge difference (though I already knew that)
  • A tripod – a really good one with a braced column – is the only way to go (I got my dream Linhof 20 years ago)
  • You can’t hold a 50mm lens steady at 1/8 second
  • Taking three pictures with a monopod rather than one makes a significant difference to your chances of success – the best was way better than the worst. Now that was a real surprise.

The tripod used was a braced center column, alloy Linhof model from the 1970s going by the moniker of S168 (the maximum height, column retracted, in centimetres, or 5′ 6″). I used a Novoflex magic ball head with a Manfrotto QR plate and released the shutter by hand. Delayed action, mirror lock-up and a cable release would all likely help matters.

Those lusting after a Canon 5D should note the absence of grain above ….

And here’s what that Manfrotto monopod delivers in the real world:


Hearst Castle from one mile away, Canon 5D, Leitz Telyt 400 mm, Manfrotto 3016 monopod and QR plate, Leitz B&S head

Mounting hell

Technique

Will this ever end?

Having made the thirty framed prints for my one man show in April, it remained to make another twenty or so for unmounted display in the saw horses provided by the gallery.

A day of cranking away on the Hewlett Packard DesignJet printer and the content was ready.

So, yet another big box of mounts and mats arrives from the fine folks at Documounts, and out comes the sharp knife for trimming the mounting tissue to size, the press for mounting the prints, the glassine bags for storing the completed ‘sandwich’ and before you know it the place looks pretty much shot:

I had the idea of attaching a Certificate of Authenticity to each print as these are limited to 25 each, and it looks like this:

So that means messing about with spray-on glue and the attendant isssues that poses – mostly trying not to pass out from the awful smell of the stuff.

I mention all of this because if you think making a Book is tough, you should try having your own show of Really Large Prints. And yes, ever willing to participate in the pretentiousness of others, all my prints are dutifully described as Giclée in the accompanying brochure.

HP DesignJet 90 ink use

Printing

Frugality is thy name.

I did some arithmetic to show just how inexpensive ink and paper are when it comes to a large exhibition print using the DJ90 here.

Well, it’s coming up on my first anniversary of ownership of the HP DesignJet 90 printer and it finally came time to replace one of the ink cartridges as the Light Magenta indicator started blinking, showing the ink was about to run out. Replacement is literally a 10 second afffair – pull the old, plug in the new.

An appropriate time to point out that the DesignJet should never be unplugged from the mains; even when switched off with the front panel push-button, the DJ keeps the ink cartridges warm to prevent clogging. The front panel light attests to the fact the printer is getting power and the warmth of the ink cartridge area confirms the clever warming feature, something sorely needed on my older Epson 1270 which would clog up if not used for a month or so. I just came back to the DJ after six weeks of not using it and the first print was as perfect as any other. Why HP doesn’t shout about this feature from the rooftops beats me, but then it’s always been a company more about engineering than marketing.

Here are the ink meters right after replacing that Light Magenta cartridge:

My best estimate is that over the past year I have made twenty 18″ x 24″ prints and fifty 13″ x 19″ ones, before that first cartridge gave up the ghost. As the picture shows, the other cartridges are between 1/2 and completely full. Do the math and that works out at less per square inch than those great instant 6″ x 4″ prints from the local drug store at 19 cents each. And you get fade resistant inks into the bargain – suffice it to say that Wilhelm’s test say 82 years or something silly, meaning I won’t care when these start fading! Wilhelm Research is the leader in testing ink longevity.

HP seems to be continuing with the dye ink based DJ series, even though the new pigment ink based DesignJet Z series with built-in colorimeters would appear to be their latest thing. The Z series uses pigment inks. Pigments rest on the surface of the paper like paint on a wall, whereas dyes need a porous medium as they are absorbed, like stain on wood, meaning that the paper you use with the DJ90 has to be suitable for dye based inks – not all papers are absorbent.

I have read tests on the Z series which suggest that there is nothing to choose between dyes and pigments (heretofore dyes were generally regarded as superior for color fidelity) though I have not seen Z prints for myself. Given the target user market for the new Z printers – professionals – I doubt that HP would supercede the DJ dye printers with something inferior. These are very costly printers and not something you would really want to use for small prints.

Anyway, after almost a year the honeymoon with the Hewlett Packard DesignJet 90 printer continues untroubled – no breakdowns, no lockups, no cryptic messages. Should these ever get remaindered and you like big prints, do consider one if you can make the space for it at home. That’s with a Mac, of course. I can’t see how any Windows user could write objectively about up time given that he or she is busy rebooting most of the time….