freshimport

Backlit Bottles

Bottles
Nikon FA, Nikkor Ai-S 50/1.8, Kodak Portra 400

Christmas preparations are well underway in our house.

As my Dear Sweet Wife points out, we have plenty of wrapping left to do.  There are also some last minute packages still on the way.

But at least we have ordered and shipped everything, that is when I feel like we are closer to being ready than not.

The above shot was taken while waiting three hours (yes, three!) to ride the Radiator Springs Racers at Disney California Adventure over Thanksgiving.

They had one room you walked through in the labyrinthine line which had vintage oil botttles embedded in its wall with both sides exposed.  From the inside of the building the bottles literally glowed from the outside light passing through them.

While it was a great ride (coming from a Dad of 7- and 4-year-old boys), I think next time we will plan a visit during a less busy day…

I have two Voigtländer rental lenses on the way to me from LensRentals for use with my Nikon SLRs over the holiday.  They seem to design nice, compact, metal manual focus lenses and I have read good things about their build quality and results.

I will shoot my Christmas and New Years activities with them and then report back on my impressions.

Adobe Lightroom Folders

Folders

The second topic I will touch on for using Adobe Lightroom 4 is the use of Folders.

Last time I introduced Catalogs, the database files which store everything that you do in Lightroom.  The foundation for the Catalog and your editing is the set of Folders and the images held within them.

When you import images into Lightroom you are essentially bringing their parent Folders with them.  You can choose to import one, some, or all images in a folder, but in any case the folder itself comes with them into the Catalog database.

Pretty much everything else that you do in Lightroom is "virtual" in the sense that it only exists within the realm of the Catalog database.  But the Folders you have are your true links to the physical (which drive) and logical (where on that drive) location of your base image files.

My Lightroom Folder strategy is very simple:

  1. Create new folders for each roll of film I scan or digital series of images (ex. one day or event of shooting)
  2. Name the folder on the disk in the format "yyyy mm dd topic camera film" where the day and film are optional (see above screenshot)
  3. Keep the folders in one of two places: initially a local drive Library location, and then once my edits and online publishing are done I move it to a Library location on my network storage drive

You can freely move your Folders around on the drives of your computer, network storage, etc.  However, when you do so Lightroom indicates via greying out the folder name that it has lost track of where it is.

When that happens simply right click on the folder in Lightroom, select "Find missing folder…" and the browse to and select its new location.  This will update the Folder and all images within it to its new location and is pretty painless.

I keep my Folder strategy to essentially a linear timeline of rolls/shoots, even if the images in those folders are split into multiple purposes.  My next topic will be Collections which is really where all the magic happens in organizing your images inside Lightroom.

Spaced Out Toes

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Mamiya RB67 Pro-S, Mamiya-Sekor C 90mm/3.8, Ilford XP2 400 Super

Here is another image taken with my "new" Mamiya RB67 medium format film camera.

The level of detail captured in a 6×7 negative is absolutely astounding. You can't tell from this scaled image, but looking at the full resolution version you can actually see the individual rows of "toe prints"!

(I better not post the full image as it could be used as evidence against my son!)

There is something really special about looking through a large waist level viewfinder. I really feel more like I am seeing the image as it will be captured on the film for some reason.

That being said, it is pretty slow going using the RB67 due to its size, weight and bellows focusing. It's large negatives (with fewer frames per roll) are also overkill for family shots or just playing around.

While I could see myself trying more portrait and macro work, I don't think I am going to be running around with this as my day-to-day camera.

 

Beauty And The Beast

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taken with Mamiya RB67 Pro-S, Mamiya-Sekor C 90mm/3.8, Ilford XP2 400 Super

My last post contained a clue hidden within the negative I was examining: I received two additions to my camera collection for a recent birthday and both were involved in that shot.

One new camera was in the picture, and the other was used to take the picture.  Despite both being vintage film cameras, these two could not be any more different.

The "Beauty" is the above Rollei 35 S, one of the most compact 35mm film cameras ever.  There are others that may be a hair smaller, but none with the same kind of classic styling.

The "Beast" is a Mamiya RB67 Pro-S 6x7cm medium format camera.  This is about as large and heavy as a medium format camera gets, clocking in at over 5 lbs for a standard lens setup.

To put them more into perspective, the Mamiya weighs about 8 times as much as the Rollei, and you can virtually fit the whole Rollei inside of the Mamiya.

I have put several rolls of film through both cameras and they are in good shape.  I think the Mamiya needs some new light seals and perhaps a cleaning, but both cameras have taken up positions in my "active lineup" of shooting cameras.

A big thanks to both my DSW and my Father for the Rollei and Mamiya respectively.  Most of my cameras (whether in use or mothballed) have come from one of you!

iPhone Negative Loupe

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Nikon D300, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6

This is one of the most useful iPhone tricks I have latched on to.  It is so good it has made me skip getting contact sheets or prints on my last few rolls of negative film.

PetaPixel described how to use your iPhone as a quick and easy negative viewer.  It works like an absolute charm!

Simply enable the "invert colors" accessibility option and assign it to a triple-click of the home button.  Then while using any camera app you can triple-click the home button to magically turn any negative image into a positive.

It works well with both B&W and color negatives.  With color negatives the orange mask isn't perfectly translated but it is good enough to review the images.

This is both a time and cost saver if your workflow is oriented around digitally scanning your film.

Some Corny Roll In A Day Fun

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Lomography Sprocket Rocket, Kodak Porta 400

No, I have not been lost in a corn maze the last month or two…

I have simply been super busy, both at home and elsewhere.  Some of it has been good fun, but frankly a lot of it has simply been staying on top of parenting and life responsibilities.

Thank goodness the recent Roll In A Day was scheduled for a weekend.  The few before it were on a week day and I wasn't able to participate.

The theme was "toy camera" so I naturally reached for my Lomography Sprocket Rocket.  This camera shoots extra-wide frames on standard 35mm film and even exposes over the sprocket holes.

We visited our favorite pumpkin patch Uesugi Farms in San Martin, California.  I took a whole roll there full of corn, pumpkins, a train, and even artillery.

(Yes, it turns out that pumpkins can actually be shot a long distance with respectable accuracy!)

This camera is a blast, and while I don't take it out very often I always adore the results.  Good color negative film like Kodak Portra 400 is forgiving enough to get great shots in anything close to daylight even with the Sprocket Rocket's mere two exposure settings.

I hope next month's RIAD is also on the weekend and sticks to a simple theme or is even open ended like the first few were.

Adobe Lightroom Catalogs

Capture

This is the first in a series of posts about my experiences introducing Adobe Lightroom 4 to the core of my photographic workflow.

I used to have a very manual workflow based on an old version of Photoshop and absolutely no image management aside from moving files around folders on my computer and network storage.  It was tedious, I had trouble keeping things consistent, and when I wanted to find something I had to hunt around.

I heard good things about using Lightroom from film photographer Sean Galbraith.  I also occasionally shoot digital and was looking for a means to use RAW files without introducing a dedicated application such as Nikon Capture.

Lightroom is a parametric image editing application, which means that all of the edits that you make to your images are stored in a central database rather than applied directly to your original image file.  The Lightroom Catalog file is that database, so it contains any color balance changes, touch-ups, cropping, etc. as well as keywording, rating and other metadata changes you make to your images.

There are some photographers who use multiple catalogs, perhaps to separate personal work from their job or one client's images from another's.  But the key point is that when you use Lightroom you are only operating with one catalog at a time, they are completely separate databases.

I have decided for now to use only one catalog for all of my images.  I don't shoot a lot of images and I often mix different kinds of shots (family, landscape, cameras, etc.) together on the same roll of film.  Keeping everything together in one catalog lets me import everything into one database and then use collections and keywords to manage them as needed.

The last thing I will mention about catalogs is that you need to back them up regularly.  It is theoretically possible for them to get corrupted, and of course if your computer fails you could simply loose the file.

Treat your catalog(s) just like your images and implement a proper backup procedure.  If you lose your catalog you have also lost all your edits to your images!

Kyoto Three Sisters Inn Annex

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Nikon FA, Nikkor C 35/2 O.C, Kodak Porta 4000

We had the great pleasure of staying at the Three Sisters Inn Annex for our stay in Kyoto.  It is a traditional style Japanese ryokan inn, although it caters primarily to western visitors.

The inn is located right in the middle of the scenic east side of Kyoto.  It is literally a next door neighbor to the Heian Shrine and served as an excellent base of operations for our stay.

Another plus of the Three Sisters was that Kyoto City buses going virtually anywhere stop within a few blocks.  I can think of only one time we had to perform a bus transfer during our whole stay, otherwise we made point-to-point trips every time.

The Inn and grounds are quite beautiful.  Above is a view directly out of our room, and the garden in the front was an excellent view during our morning breakfasts.

Speaking of breakfast they offer either western or Japanese style breakfasts.  They are both excellent, and at the moment I would gladly enjoy either!

The best thing about the Inn however is the staff.  They are very friendly and helpful and gave us many tips for getting around Kyoto, eating the food and seeing the sights.

When we were leaving I could not convince the sweet proprietor Kay-san to let us walk to the bus stop alone.  She insisted on helping us pull our luggage even though we had plenty of hands to spare.

One final tip about travelling within Japan: use the Ta-Q-Bin service to send your luggage from one inn or hotel to the next.  It is incredibly cheap (~$15 US per piece) for large luggage, arrives in less than 24 hours, and saves you the hassle of lugging it around on the trains.

Kyoto Ginkakuji Temple

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Nikon F6, Nikkor AF 35-105/3.5-4.5 D IF, Fuji Velvia 100

Our second major destination in Kyoto was the Ginkaku-ji Temple, also known as the Silver Pavilion.

The Ginkaku-ji Zen Temple is nestled in the foothills on the east side of Kyoto.  It includes a few historic buildings, a beautiful sand garden and sculpture, and several connected ponds and woods.

Its construction began in 1482 and it originally served as a retirement home for the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa.  After his death in 1490 it became a Buddhist temple according to his wishes.

Unlike at the Heian Shrine, tripod photography is not allowed at the Silver Pavilion.  While the overcast weather afforded some soft lighting, it also made handheld shots with Velvia 100 quiet challenging and I often had to resort to resting on a post or against a tree to stabilize myself.

You encounter the main temple to the right as soon as you have entered the main grounds.  You also see a finely sculpted Zen rock garden and sculpture in the shape of a cone.

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Walking around the main rock garden you start to enter the rest of the grounds.  There are several other buildings and side gardens along the way.

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There are a few paths which wind around ponds, a wishing well and small grassy areas.  The main path starts to wind up hill with a mixture of rock and bamboo steps along the way.

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And if you keep going to the top you are rewarded with a view back down towards the rock garden and temple.

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You can casually explore the whole grounds in half an hour or so, but if you want to linger at all (and I recommend that you do!) plan for an hour or more.

Even though they say the temple closes at 5:20 PM they actually mean they expect you to be completely off the grounds by then.  The caretakers start to politely but firmly usher you out shortly after they play a ritual drum cadence at 5 PM.

Note: If you find your 3-year old has fallen asleep on your shoulder or lap when you get there shortly before closing, you may not want to rest in the covered area near the rock garden.  The drum ceremony at closing is not conducive to nap taking!

Olympiholics Anonymous

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iPhone 4S

Does such an organization exist?  If so, tell me where to sign up…

Our family is consumed by an obsession every two years or so.  When the Olympics roll around we are glued to the TV/DVR in nearly every free moment.

Here are a few of my favorite photographic posts related to the Olympics.

It turns out that both professional photographers and professional athletes can suffer from lens cap dysfunction.

Sadly is doesn't take long for a modern Olympic site to become an ancient ruin.

Large format film photography has a place in today's Olympic coverage, both for portraiture as well as live action on the sideline.

If you noticed a particular style to shooting women's beach volleyball competitors you are not alone.

Photographers can be the most friendly lot, even helping a bunch of lost folks find their way.

It always rings true that you are what you eat, and these champion meals are no exception.

(And yes, it would appear the good folks at PetaPixel are just as obsessed as I am judging by all these Olympic-related posts coming from them…)

Truth be told, I have been consumed by more than one obsession lately.  Our pile of over 20 rolls of film from our Japan trip has encouraged me to further refine my batch scanning skills as well as fully embrace Adobe Lightroom into the core of my workflow.

I feel like I have been stuck in a cave for a month trying to figure this out.  But I think I am finally emerging and hope to share my experiences (and photos!) soon.