On Deciding . . . Better 3.0

When I started photographic seriously in the early eighties, I used Ansel Adam’s books as a guide. While I wasn’t a large format photographer, I digested as much of the Zone System as I could use and worked to get full range, high contrast prints. I still use those black and white darkroom skills in my work as one my early steps for every image is to desaturate and create a curve that produces contrast and midrange placement where it looks the best in monochrome. When I drop the saturation back in, I get my typical look of high saturation and high contrast. The saturation isn’t really boosted above that from the converted RAW, It’s just that the contrast in those tonal regions are pretty high. While I often like the monochrome rendering, putting the color information back always surpises and generally pleases me.

Today I realized that one of my other influences from that time was Eliot Porter. He introduced color to photography and I think was a great influence on the landscape photographers active today. Porter’s images were generally subtle, gentle and often small scale. These qualities still resonate with me.

I realized that the reason I had forgotten about Porter’s influence is that he is so rarely talked about these days in spite of the continued recognition of his historical contribution to color landscape photography. My Suburban Landscape project is a clear reflection of his influence on how I approach landscape photography.

Technical note: This is one of the last images I shot last night when it looked mostly dark. It’s ASA 400 shot with the 24 mm f/2.8 prime wide open at 1/15th second, availble light, hand held. When you look at the full resolution print, it’s hard not to be amazed at the technology we now have available for color photography. It would simply have been impossible to get this image with film, at least without a tripod. However, the instant feedback of digital capture was vital here for me to know that I had correctly placed the value of the tree bark of the brightest tree where I wanted it in relation to the rest of the scene.

I captured this image of a tree down the block from my home just at sunset. I had a very nice image capture session, keeping the camera on manual and spot metering. I was metering to create contrast in the scene, usually by placing a bright object on Zone 7 with great success. I should be able to post a few more from tonight’s images if the forecast for rain turns out to be correct.Having shot this afternoon with the 10 megapixel Nikon P5000, I found this site to be rather silly. 

Best picture quality with 6 megapixels: The 8 megapixels devices released in 2005 showed extreme picture errors (so-called noise) under low light conditions and colour fringes in high contrast structures became visible. These problems have become even worse in today’s cameras with 10 and 12 megapixels. Manufacturers have attempted to repair these problems with software for noise suppression and picture editing.

To me, this is like saying that ASA 400 color print film provides best picture quality and no other film should be used. It may have been the best compromise at the time for color print film, with decent grain and high dynamic range. With sufficient light or a tripod, slower films, especially high saturation chromes like Velvia, could create images that no ISO 400 film could duplicate.What camera manufacturers are trying to do is to create cameras that degrade more gracefully and be all things to all people.

And diffraction limitation at f/8! Isn’t depth of field on a compact sensor enough at f/8? It’s like f/22 in 35mm film format. I could see slow shutter speeds as the complaint if you need to stop down to decrease light, but you can’t have infinite resolution on a camera through pinhole apertures.

The real problem is that internet testers analyze 100% crops rather than looking at reasonable size prints or on-screen images across light levels- which is what, I think, users really care about.

Some very nice tips on weblogging fromAndrew Hyde:

Here are a list of what I see as the biggest everyday mistakes of 07, taken from a list I jotted down at a coffeshop talking with some bloggers I really respect.

I first ran across Andrew when he was a doing an outdoor equipment podcast, “The Adventure Lifestyle”. I’ve been following his creation of the “Startup Weekend” with interest. While I miss the podcast, I’m happy about his current growing success as a catalyst for new ventures. He continues to be a man to watch.

It’s been 9 years of weblogging for the early “Edit This Page” group. As Garrett points out:

dangerousmeta!:What am I, nuts? I’m still doing this?! I neglected to notice that the 22nd was my ‘weblog anniversary.’ December 22, 1999 was when I began writing this weblog (called ‘array.editthispage.com’ back then) on the Edit This Page servers, via Userland Manila weblog software. Never saw any others in NM until 2000, and even then they were few and far between.

I remember that those early days were linked to the dawning of the 21st Century as we waited to see whether we would face complete technological failure due to the Y2K bug. We’ve survived and many of that group still have a strong online presence. The novelty has worn off and I’m mainly focused on posting images and writing about photography now. Some of the best writing I ever did was for the original On Deciding . . . Better. I have much of the text archived but never found an easy way to get it back on the web. On Deciding . . . Better 2.0 is still up and running on my home G4Cube, but I think it’s days are numbered as this site collects more current and useful information.

One of my favorite writers on photographic technique is Dante Stella. As I started back into photography a few years ago, his opinionated essays served as benchmarks for me as I explored cameras and materials. Dante has an extremely practical and grounded approach to photographic instruments.

Most of the essays on the site were written several years ago during the development stage of the digital photography revolution. While it was clear that he was using the best of the available digital SLRs (Kodak DCS 14n and a Nikon D2x), he was not accepting the supposed virtures of digital over film without question. It was interesting to me that his writing became more and more infrequent in the last couple of years as, in my opinion, digital equaled or surpassed film with regard to sensitivity, resolution and image quality. With the D300 perhaps even dynamic range. Then this year Dante wrote a full-on endorsement of the Leica M8. It almost moved me to take the leap and purchase one, but I decided that Nikon DSLRs are, for now, a more economical solution to the digital capture challenge and film was still working well in my Leica M6ttl.

But Dante has also been a fan of small 35 mm cameras like the Konica Hexar and Contax T. So it was with a sense of anticipation that I started reading his first published take on a compact digital camera, the Leica D-Lux 3. I bought a Nikon P5000 for my wife last spring and have been experimenting with it lately.

I can only urge you to read his practical and grounded approach to a digital compact. For example, here’s his view on auto ISO.

Dante StellaThe camera has an auto ISO function (based on light level) and an “intelligent” ISO setting (based on, among other things, subject movement). These seem to push for high ISO, even in bright light, a practice that increases noise and decreases dynamic range. I would suggest forgetting about either of these two settings. It’s easy enough to change ISO via the main menu. Just remember this rule. Inside, ISO 400. Outside, ISO 100. See? There’s your intelligent ISO setting…

As to image quality, I think his view on compact cameras equals mine- at ISO 100 to 400, quality at the 10 megapixel level equals color film. You never wanted to enlarge ISO 400 color film to 8×10 because of grain and you don’t want to enlarge a compact sensor at ISO 400 to 8×10. My D300 can produce fine 8×10’s at ISO 800 and 1600 becomes dicey- two stops better than color film. Monochrome, digital or film, is more forgiving.

In the end, as a travel camera, he gives it a “Thumbs up”.

I see the end of the era here in 2007 where film is now to be used for it’s look- like choosing oils or pastels over photography. Photography is now dead as a recording medium and has become a fine art, joining painting and drawing. Digital Image Harvesting is now how we record the world.

Light Reveals the Moss, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

This image took some time to do and was probably one of the first in which I really needed to take advantage of non-destructive editing with layers.

I converted from RAW with Capture NX and then moved to Photoshop for selective processing. I ended up fighting with an area of white plastic at the very top of the mound of dirt. It was close to blown out and nearly posterized. I stripped away all of the work I had done in Photoshop simply by making all of the layers except for the background invisible and saw that there wasn’t enough depth in that area in the image that had been exported from Capture NX as a TIFF.

I reopened the RAW file in Capture NX and retraced my steps until I found where I had made that area a little to “hot”. It was easy since every change was adjustable and could be hidden or revealed.

After re-exporting as a TIFF, I copied the improved image into the Photoshop file, substituting the new version for the old. It was then easy to turn the adjustment layers back on and change whatever I needed due to any changes in the new background image.

I’m not completely happy with the image because of focus depth of field. I was shooting with the 24mm f2.8 at an aperture of f/6.7. I thought at the time of capture that both the moss and the lit area of shrub would both be in focus, but it turns out that the shrub is quite blurred. I applied selective unsharp mask to the shrub to make it more equal in sharpness to the moss/dirt pile. Close inspection reveals quickly that focus point is not optimal.

I’d try to catch the image again tomorrow morning, but it was an unusual lighting effect. The beam of light was actually created by the sun reflecting off of a window on the front of my house. The scene is in shadow with the sun actually in front and to the left of the scene. This accidental arrangement is one of the factors that makes it work- there’s not too much of a contrast range because the scene is generally in shadow except for a focused, reflected bit of sunshine from the early am sun. However, I’m thinking that one could easily recreate this with an off camera flash and some light restricting snoot on the flash. Possibly with an orange-yellow gel for the selective warmth.

Another issue that I’ve been struggling with and have improved somewhat is the value change that happens when I shrink the image for the web. Contrast goes up and shadows get blocked up. So I’m now adjusting at least levels on images after resizing to my standard 1000 pixel wide web jpegs. If I make those a bit on the light size, all of the Flickr sizes look like pretty good representations of the image.

Tonight’s sunset captured by the D300. I spent about 45 minutes about a half mile from my house at the Baltimore Beltway. There’s a road that fronts the Beltway that connects two exits with the fenced of beltway on one side and a barrier wall on the other. At this time of year the setting sun rakes down the road illuminating the brush between the road and the fence.

I’m pushing these color images beyond just the high saturation and high contrast I’ve been doing over the last year and trying to capture and emphasize light itself. I’m concerned more about atmospheric effect that beauty or accuracy. I think I’m joining the “Photography Is Dead” movement.

Wishful Thinking: Should Artists Give the Audience What They Want?Conventional marketing wisdom says you should be ‘customer focused’ and do your best to satisfy consumers’ wants and needs. But it’s a different story when it comes to creative work. Many of the most successful artists achieved fame by provoking and offending public taste.

Killing Photography in the digital age seems to be a good way to provoke the audience.

[Update: The Flickr photo has been replaced with another version. It’s a nice feature of Flickr that’s either relatively new or I never noticed before a few months ago. I’ve decided that while Capture NX is good for many things, Photoshop can be used for more subtle but no less effective manipulations. I’ll bet that both end up in the tool kit. Capture NX for RAW conversion and basic tonal changes and Photoshop for selective enhancements.]

How the Fog Obscures, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

Today it started out foggy and warming in Baltimore. Tonight we’ve got rain, wind and the chance of thunderstorms. I grabbed this image this morning as I returned to the D300 and 12-24mm lens as my working standard.

Over the past year I’ve found that posting images on Flickr and here, with my journal thoughts here, has been valuable in developing the work. At the same time, I realize that when I’m posting images nearly every day, there’s a dilution both of quality and stylistic integrity.Recently David Allen Harvey of Magnum put out a call for portfolios from his weblog’s readership. He received 250 portfolios and commented that “Most of you need a serious edit”. Similarly, Dave Beckerman gets inquiries from aspiring art photographers but when he looks at their online portfolios he finds the same lack of editing.Perhaps one needs to present work in progress as distinct from finished work. The idea of 6 to 10 strong, related images as a set appeals to me.