Cool Resource for Nikon/Mac users

Hey Folks

I am doing some research / prep work for an upcoming Night Photography workshop that I am planning to run.  I’m designing a very cool workshop that I think is going to be a lot of fun and during the workshop I have determined that I want to shoot tethered so that all the workshop participants can essentially view the shots being made instantly on a large monitor.   After a bit of research I came across a fantastic bit of software that allows Mac Users to fully control their camera from their Mac and see high resolution images on the Mac the second after you take the shot.  This is exactly what I want for my workshop.  The best thing about this is that the software is FREE!!!!

Yup, you heard it right.  Even though it’s free, if the sofware checks out OK I am going to make a donation to the college kid that wrote it via Paypal.

To find out more about this software click here.

Enjoy

Brent

Filters for Seascape Photography (Part 3 of 3) Which Filters Create Colour Casts?

Warning.. this post is very geeky and only for photography nerds.  If your not into techy geeky stuff, close the browser now!!!  As for you techy geeks… you’ll probably get a kick out of this

OK, this is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. I’ve always wondered whether Singh Ray and Lee filters are truly Neutral or whether they have a colour cast in them.   Some of you may have seen this interesting experiment with Cokin “Neutral Density” filters that displayed a terrible colour cast and forced me to take the filter back and replace it with Lee Filters.  So anyway I wanted to do some controlled test to see if I could measure any colour casts that filters introduce.  So here’s my geeky write-up of the experiment.

Aim: To determine whether Sing Ray and Lee filters introduce colour casts when used separately or together, and what sort of correction curves I need to apply in Photoshop to fix any colour casts.

Method: I photographed a Macbeth Colour checker under a controlled 5000K fluoro light with the following filter combinations

1. No filters (control image)
2. 3 stop Singh Ray GND filter
3. 3 stop Lee GND filter
4. 3 stop Singh Ray GND filter + 3 stop Lee ND filter
5. 3 stop Lee GND filter + 3 stop Lee ND filter

I used the control image to set my white balance settings in Light room and then copied these settings to the other images and opened them in Photoshop.

In Photoshop I applied a curve adjustment layer and  used the black, white and grey eye droppers to white balance the control image and then saved this curve adjustment and applied it to my other images to ensure consistency.

I then created a second curve adjustment on each image that was shot through ND filters and again created a curve that was auto-adjusted using black, white & grey eye droppers.  It was the result of this adjustment that showed me whether there was any colour cast.  These curves have been saved so that I can see the impact of applying them to real-world images.

Results:  When only one GND filter was used, The Lee filters were very neutral, however the Singh Ray filter had a definite bue cast (which surprised me a bit because they are significantly more expensive than the Lee filters).  However when I used a GND filter together with a straight ND filter I DID get some minor colour casts as shown below.

Lee 3 Stop GND filter on it’s own
This first adjustment layer is for the Lee 3 stop GND filter used by itself.   You can see that the RGB channels are pretty much right on top of eachother which means that besides the tonal adjustments, the curve didn’t need to adjust the colour mix.

Lee 3 stop GND filter - You can see that the RGB channels were all pretty much on top of eachother. No colour cast.

Singh Ray 3 Stop GND Filter
The curve below shows the correction required to fix the colour cast introduced by the Singh Ray filter.  There seems to be a blue / cyan cast added with Photoshop having to add more red and a touch of green to make the image neutral.

Lee 3 stop GND coupled with the Lee 3 Stop ND filter
You can see that there is a slight yellow cast here as Photoshop has had to add more blue in the mid-tones to correct it.

Singh Ray 3 Stop GND coupled with Lee 3 Stop ND Filter
This shows a blue cast introduced by the two filters.

If anybody would like copies of these adjustment curves, just drop me an email stating which filter combination you shoot with and I’ll send you back the saved curves file that you can apply in Photoshop.  I hope this gives the techy geeks their fix for the week.

Enjoy

Brent

Filters For Seascape Photography (Part 2 of 3)

Four Tips & Tricks When Using Creative Filters

This is the second article of three on using filters on your camera for seascape work.  Here’s a link to the first posting on which filters to buy for seascape work.  I thought it might be worth sharing 4 little Tips/tricks that I have found useful as I’ve been working with creative filters.

Tip # 1 – Carrying your filters

I spent about a year trying to find the best way to carry my filters.  At first I left them in my camera bag, but found it slightly cumbersome rummaging around for filters when you need to swap them quickly. I also lost one of my Singh Ray GND filters while on a dawn shoot at Turimetta (expensive loss). Anyway  I ended up going to an army disposal shop and purchasing an army hip belt.  This is absolutely perfect for carrying creative filters for a few reasons:

• The pouch holds all 7 of my filters as well as the creative filter holder
• The dimensions perfectly hold my grad ND filters inside their padded protection cases
• I know that my filters are always with me even if I put my camera bag down on a rock somewhere
• Now I grab the pouch and I know I have my entire filter kit with me (rather than spreading filters around pockets in a photo vest for example)

So if you are looking for a better way of carrying your filters you might want to consider a belt pouch like this one.

Tip # 2 – Remove one filter slot from your creative holder

If you enjoy shooting with ultra-wide lenses, then even with the ZPro holder (100mm) you will probably find that you get some vignetting when you are zoomed right out.  I reckon on my D700 I get a bit of vignetting if I am any wider than about 19mm.  One way you can cut down the vignetting slightly is to remove the third row from the filter holder.  This leaves you with two slots instead of three.   In this configuration I can still put my circular polariser in the holder, then add an ND filter as well as a graduated ND filter.  I have found that I never use the third slot.  So if you don’t need three…. simply unscrew the four screws and take the outer slot off.

Tip# 3 – If you do need to go ultra-wide, reverse your holder

Reversed holder gives one slot in front of lens and two slots now behind the lens

I’m not sure if you can do this with Lee holders, but you can definitely do it with Cokin filter holders.  If you are just using 1 filter (like a grad ND) and you really want to shoot as wide as possible,  you can reverse your creative filter holder and shoot ultra-wide without vignetting.

 

Tip # 4 – Keep two lens clothes to remove the salt.

If there is a lot of salt spray in the air, your filters will get coated fairly quickly.  You will need to clean them regularly.  Microfibre cloths can quickly become smeary if they get damp with seawater, so I keep two lens cleaning clothes in my pocket,  a chamois one that does a good job of absorbing all the moisture and drying my filter well, then I give it a final polish with a dry micro fibre cloth fora streak-free finish.

If anybody else has any tricks or tips for using creative filters, I’d love to hear about them.

In my final article, I’m going to try and do some experiments around understanding and quantifying the colour casts that various filters create on your images.

Brent

A Cool Trick for Nailing Colour Balance In RAW Conversion

Hey there folks

I just discovered what I think is a very useful little trick to help you nail your colour temperature settings when doing RAW conversions.  Not sure about you, but I find nailing colour correction a very challenging aspect of my post processing, so when I discovered this little trick by playing around I thought it was worth sharing with you.

It will definitely work with Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW, but I can’t see any reason why it won’t work with any Raw converter.

Normally I think that most people work down their RAW conversion process in order of the controls (ie. get colour balance right first, then exposure,  blacks etc.)

So here’s my trick…

Before  you start your colour balance adjustment, go down and crank your vibrance setting up to maximum.

This acts like an amplifier dramatically amplifying any colour cast in your image.  Now you can make colour balance adjustments which will also be amplified.  It is WAY WAY WAY simpler to optimise your colour balance adjustment.  Then when you have done your temperature and tint adjustments, reduced  your vibrance back to neutral and continue your raw conversion in your normal manner.

I’ve only tested this on a couple of images, but it seems to work like a treat.

Is this not a very cool little trick?

Enjoy your week

Brent