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St. Patrick's Church, San Francisco, 2012. Nikon D7000.

Nikon D7000: Closer Look, and a Peek at the D800

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Doug Luberts

Time’s flown pretty fast since last March, when I wrote this post about first impressions of my new Nikon D7000. Seems like I really owe my readers an update on the camera, and my experiences with it since then.

I love the D7000. It creates amazing images, and finally gives me the level of camera that I need to create images that are as compelling, and reach the same kind of quality, that could be achieved with Nikon film bodies during the analog shooting days.

Not going to get into a big tech analysis on the camera features…Think I covered that in the previous post, linked above, and there’s also a lot of online coverage and fact sheets available.

The D7000 is a strong shooter, build-to-last, and with a control set that will be comfortable to all Nikon shooters as soon as they pick the camera up.

For stills, in conjunction with Adobe Lightroom, it’s a superstar.

St. Patrick's Church, San Francisco, 2012. Nikon D7000. Processed in Adobe Lightroom.

For Digital Cinema applications, the D7000 is a major leap forward for Nikon. The D90 was flawed, to the point of almost being useless for video, by a slow sensor and resulting digital artifacts.

Nikon still has a way to go, and I think they actually got there with the newly-announced D800, which is a superb cinema camera with updated features and ergonomics not found in the D7000.

I’m including the Nikon “Joy Ride” video, shot with the D800, to give you an idea of what this new camera is capable of, and you can keep up to date on the D800, and all other Nikon news at NikonRumors.com, which is my go-to news source for all things Nikon.

While I’m still shooting all of my web video with the D7000, and the video is gorgeous, the biggest issues with the camera revolve around the need to set exposure outside of live view mode, and then go back into live view to capture your video…It’s a pain in the butt. Nothing more than an annoyance that doesn’t affect the quality of the work, but the shooting experience suffers for it.

Changes made to camera settings while in live view aren’t reflected in exposure, and live view does not give you exposure information in the LCD.

Also, lack of a headphone jack on the camera was a huge mistake…One that I resolved by using a Juiced Link DSLR Pre-amp Adapter for $144, which you should just figure in as part of the cost of the camera if you’re going to be shooting video…It’s worth it, and an absolute necessity if you are doing single-system sound.

The audio quality out of the D7000 is not bad, and good enough for single-subject interviews, but you’ll likely want to go dual system for anything more elaborate than an interview setup. In that case the Zoom H4n is still the best, and most versatile option for web shooters.

This Juiced Link DSLR mic pre-amp includes the headphone jack that Nikon left off the camera, and is a must for video shooters.

Another great thing about the D7000 is that it works with all of the Nikon AF-S/AF-D line of lenses, which you can pick up on eBay for a song. The older lenses are a bit slower focusing than their newer counterparts, and don’t have the VR (vibration-reduction) features, but they do have an aperture ring, great glass, and create awesome images. One big advantage that you don’t find with the red-ring lenses so highly coveted by Canon shooters.

On the whole, the D7000 is an amazing camera, and the best ‘pro-sumer’ (emphasis on the pro) camera Nikon makes before you get into the D800 realm … Something I hope to do within the next year.

Ciji and Adrian, February 2012. Nikon D300. The older D300 produces great results, but its auto-focus system and sensor are no match for the D7000.

‘Nuff Said

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Doug Luberts

Occupy Oakland.

iPhone-tography: Putting the fun back into creating images

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Doug Luberts

Shooting pictures has been a way of life for me almost as long as I’ve been old enough to hold a camera. Well, for the most part. There have been stretches … Long stretches, where the need and desire to create images was short-circuited by whatever else was going on in life. Times when, after reaching a fairly high set of technical and aesthetic standards for my work, the planning and infrastructure (film, cameras, processing, darkroom) became too much of a burden to fit into the go-go, rush-rush, of life at the time.

Even now, with the transition to high-quality DSLRs and Adobe Lightroom-based workflow, hauling all of that Nikon gear around is just too much for most daily situations, but the iPhone is opening up a new set of opportunities for creating images in a fast, fun, and creatively fulfilling way.

Abandoned Building, Port Costa, CA. Processed with Camera+ and TiltShift Generator.

The iPhone has become my go-to camera for almost all daily situations and, with the help of a few apps, given me a creative outlet that offers quick image acquisition, fast processing, and almost instant access to an audience via social media apps such as flickr, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter.

On a recent day trip out to The Warehouse Café, a local legend of a biker bar in Port Costa, CA., I shot exclusively with the iPhone, using Lisa Bettany’s Camera+ app, and TiltShift Generator from Art and Mobile, to process the results.

Wheels, Port Costa, CA.

Camera+ offers a complete workflow for the iPhone, including everything from image stabilization to compositing FX (My favorite is the fake HDR effect, seen in many of these Port Costa photos.) Camera+ also integrates directly with a variety of social networking sites, including Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr.

My usual workflow, after processing the image within Camera+, is to upload the photo to my Flickr account and share it with other sites from there … This way all of my social networking sites link back to my main Flickr portfolio. Camera+ allows you to add image tags, captions, descriptions, and select a destination set in your Flickr gallery…The metadata tools are pretty powerful.

Fallen Angel, Port Costa, CA. Processed with Camera+ and TiltShift Generator.

TiltShift Generator is another useful app that simulates a parallax-correction, or Tilt-Shift lens (e.g., a PC-Nikkor, or a Lensbaby), and allows you to control color saturation, contrast, blur, and vignetting. It’s best feature is the Tilt-Shift effect, and really the only reason I would jump out of Camera+ to do additional processing.

The one downside of this workflow is that TiltShift Generator loses all of your location, and other, metadata during the round trip, which is not good if you like to geo-tag your photos in Flickr.

Abandoned Outhouse, Port Costa, CA. This shot uses multiple, cumulative, passes through Camera+ to build up the effects.

Quite often I’ll save out several different images out of Camera+ and re-import them, adding additional effects along the way. The results can be very surrealistic, and take on a painterly quality. Part of the fun for me is twisting the original, photorealistic images into stark, and often dramatic, forms. Some might call it abusing the images, but there is something I find gratifying about the results.

It’s not about necessarily the quality of the images, in normal technical, and aesthetic terms, but using the iPhone to create a form of expression that is both immediate and visually compelling.

Lost Souls Tavern Booth, The Warehouse, Port Costa, CA.

As a photographer who can’t always haul a lot of gear around, the iPhone allows you to both travel light and remain creative, and keep yourself in the game.

Nikon D7000 Video First Looks

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Doug Luberts

Last weekend at WonderCon, the opportunity finally presented itself to shoot some video with the D7000. I was really looking forward to that, because I’d heard that the D7000 finally gave Nikon shooters the video features the Canon crowd has been enjoying for years.

There was also a bit of trepidation, because we had heard the same thing about the D90 and video when, in fact, the D90 video capabilities pretty much sucked rocks (to use the technical term.)

This was far from Scientific. I didn’t have any nice Zacuto or Red Rock Micro gear for harnessing the camera, so it was pretty much run-and-gun with a Rhode Stereo mic mounted in the D7000′s hot shoe, and a StroboFrame bracket for a bit of weight and stability (the D7000 is a pretty compact camera, which makes it a bit dodgey for doing long, hand-held shots without extra bulk for support.)

A guy from a charity group called The California Browncoats, a bunch of fellow Joss Whedon fans, was nice enough to let me shoot a promo video about their organization, so here it is … Nothing fancy, or groundbreaking, just a test run of the camera.

The D7000 is miles ahead of where the D90 was, and I believe it’s out in front of everything in the Canon line except for the 5D Mk. II, and that’s only because of the 5D’s full-size sensor. The D7000 gives you full manual or automatic control, a selection of video formats up to 1080p (I shot 720p, since it was for the web, and uses less editing resources), and a healthy selection of frame rates from 24 to 60 fps.

Canon users didn’t even have this many choices, or variety of control options when the 5D first came out (and still don’t.)

The external audio jack is a huge help, although I haven’t figured out how to get audio to phones out of the A/V jack. I was hoping it would be like one of the Canon camcorders where you could switch between A/V and audio, but haven’t found a way to do it yet.

Video quality is excellent. Frankly, this shoot would have come out better if I had a zFinder or other magnifying eyepiece on the camera, but I was winging it with the LCD screen and a lot of ambient light.

Using manual focus is probably the best way to go as long as you do have a viewfinder … The auto focus options, particularly the continuous servo mode, will drive you nuts while you are shooting. Yes, you give up the auto-recognition and face tracking features of the camera, but for real filmmaking you’re pretty much going to want to put this on manual everything anyway.

Workflow was H.264 -> Apple ProRes 422 in FCP -> H.264 for upload. I didn’t do any color correction for this test. It looks remarkably good considering I had the ISO on the camera jacked to about 1600, and the lighting in the Moscone Center is pretty dungeon-esque.

As for the results, I’m a happy camper. The D7000 is the real deal for video.

Now us long-time Nikon shooters can keep our glass and have our videos too!

Photo of the Day: Balloon Race

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Doug Luberts

Balloon Race, Mission Valley, San Diego, CA. 1982.

I wouldn’t trade my digital camera for anything, but this is a reminder of how much I miss Kodachrome!

Photo of the Day: Harley Quinn

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Doug Luberts

There were many Harley Quinn cosplayers at WonderCon 2011 this past weekend. This is my favorite, by far.

Photo of the Day

Posted on April 2, 2011 by Doug Luberts

Saturday Afternoon Crowd at the Farmer’s Market in Lake Merritt.

Nikon D7000: First Looks

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Doug Luberts

I’ve been looking forward to un-boxing a the new Nikon D7000 ever since it was announced. This weekend I finally got the opportunity, and wanted to share a brief look at the newest model in the Nikon DSLR line.

The D7000 was initially positioned as an upgrade to the D90, which it unquestionably is. However, in terms of features and functionality it is a lot closer to the D300. The new model is aimed at the prosumer shooter, and is taking up a new position in the Nikon line between the two.

The first the you notice in picking up the camera is that, while it is very similar in feel to the D90, it has a much more substantial feel than its older sibling. This owing in large part to the new magnesium alloy body and rubber grips. The form factor is a little small and takes some getting used to, but the optional MB-D11 multi-power battery pack seems like a good option for increasing the overall size and handling stability.

Nikon D7000 w/Tokina 12-24 f4 AT-X DX Pro

The ergonomics of the camera have been improved tremendously … Not that the D90 is bad from an ergo perpective, but Nikon has made some small tweaks that have gone a long way.

For starters, the placement of a second dial below the exposure control for changing servo modes is pretty handy. They’ve removed the programmed mode settings for beginners from the exposure dial, and made selection a function of the sub-control wheels, and added an AF mode selector button to the AF control switch.

Small changes, like I said, but a help.

Rather that go into all the technical features, here’s a link to the Nikon D7000 site, and there will be a summary of key features at the end of this post.

The new 39-point autofocus system is a thing of beauty, with a big, bright, viewfinder display that gives you feedback on what the AF system is doing. Reading the manual, there is some nifty tech here for doing auto follow-focus using the multi-directional controller. It looks like it would take a fair bit of learning/coordination to work it and the shutter release at the same time. We’ll see.

This weekend was a train wreck weather-wise, so I didn’t have an opportunity to get out and do a lot of shooting, but I managed to get a few shots in. The camera delivers a 5K image in raw mode (12mb/each with lossless compression), and the images are stunning.

Nikon D7000 w/Tokina 12-24 f4 AT-X DX Pro

This camera is already proving to be quite popular, and has been in short supply since it was released in the U.S. Both B&H and Adorama have been back-ordered on the body (although some kits have been available), and the secondary market has been taking advantage of this by raising prices for the body by as much as $400 over list.

Nikon has reportedly taken a big step forward with video on the D7000, with an improved live view mode, H.264 recording at 1920×1080, a jack for an external microphone. You can shoot either NTSC or PAL, and there are a number of key features for reducing image flicker. At least that’s what they tell me … Testing the video capabilities of the D7000 is yet to come.

D7000 Key Features

Magnesium Alloy Body
16.2MP DX format CMOS sensor
1080p HD video recording with mic jack for external microphone
ISO 100-6400 (plus H1 and H2 equivalent to ISO 12,800/25,600)
39-point AF system with 3D tracking
2016 pixel RGB (3D Color Matrix) sensor
Scene Recognition System aids metering + focus accuracy
EXPEED 2 image processing and 14-bit A/D Conversion
Twin SD card slots
3.0 inch 921k dot LCD screen
New Live View/movie shooting switch
Full-time AF in Live View/movie modes
Up to 6fps continuous shooting
Lockable shooting mode dial
Built-in intervalometer
Electronic virtual horizon
Shutter tested to 150K actuations

Nikon’s D7000 Sync Dial Goes to Eleven – strobist.com

Japan Earthquake: Impact for Photographers

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Doug Luberts

Even while the human impact of the devastating Earthquake and Tsunami that hit Japan last week is still being fully assessed, the tragedy is already having an immediate effect on business and industry, with feared shortages driving up prices of everything from car parts to hybrid automobiles.

Nikon, whose main assembly plant for their high-end cameras, such as the Nikon D700, is in hard-hit Sendai, was forced to shut down all of it’s operations in Japan, as was Canon.

While Canon seems to have suffered the least damage, the main impact being a temporary suspension in operations of the plant that manufactures their lenses, closure of Nikon’s Sendai plant has already sent prices on their high end models skyrocketing, with some dealers raising the price of the D700 as much as $300 in the past week.

Is such an increase warranted, and what does it mean for photographer?

Well, the answers are probably no, and not much.

Nikon has already announced that they will be moving their Sendai operations to their factory in Malaysia with in a month. Nikon has already got substantial operations in Malaysia as well as China. While the supply chain will be limited for a brief period, the likely impact is that this temporary shutdown will delay shipping of the D800 until some time in the May-June timeframe.

Canon has also stated that they will re-shuffle manufacturing operations to other facilities World-wide if they are forced to suspend operations for more than a month.

For photographers looking to purchase, the best advice is not to make an impulse buy for fear that cameras might not be available later on during the year … In fact, now isn’t the time to plunk down the coin for a new Nikon D700, since the model is a few years old, and the D800 promises to be a substantial upgrade, and the same could be said for the Canon 5D

For shooters who have been thinking about picking up the new Nikon DX model, the D7000, it’s also a good time for wait for a bit. The camera has been back-ordered at most of the big dealers for some time, with gray and secondary market vendors selling the D7000 at a premium, which will likely increase in the short term. The D7000s are being manufactured in Thailand, and supply should not be affected by the crisis in Japan. It is just a matter of creating enough inventory to satisfy demand.

If you do need a D7000, and can’t wait, Adorama has a few factory refurbished models for about $100 off list. Not a bad price on a camera that is probably better than “new”. The D7000 is the model to buy right now if you’re in the market for a DX sensor camera.

The best advice right now is to save your money, and send some of it over to Japan to help in the disaster recovery effort, where it will do some real good.

More than Photo Supply Chain Shaken by Japan Earthquake – Adorama Learning Center Blog

Saturdays in the Park

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Doug Luberts

Spring has officially sprung, and if you’re wondering why everything on your Sunday morning TV slate seems to be running off-schedule, it’s because you forgot that Daylight Savings Time starts today.

One favorite thing to do on a nice Saturday is to head on over to the The Old Place Seafood Teahouse, over on Grand, for a dim sum breakfast, before taking a walk over to the Grand Lake Farmer’s Market in Splash Pad Park near Lake Merritt.

The Grand Lake Farmer’s Market is an institution in the Adam’s Point/Cleveland Heights section of Oakland. Every Saturday the place is crammed with everyone from Farmers to folks hawking trinkets and jewelry, to various ethnic food vendors. There’s usually some kind of musical entertainment, and on a good day you’ll find hordes of people spilling in from the adjacent Grand Lake shopping district, just to get something to eat and chill out for a while.

This Saturday we had a day of tee-shirt weather and lots of sun, so the crowd was pretty large, with people camping out on the grassy knoll to listen to this week’s musical guests, the Sadza Marimba Band from Santa Cruz.

The Market itself has is an okay place to buy stuff, but it’s the people there that are always the main attraction. Oakland is a pretty diverse neighborhood, and that diversity represents itself well here, often providing some pretty interesting contrasts in the social fabric making up the crowd.

I grabbed the D90 before heading out, throwing on a 50mm/f1.8 prime that I was going to try and make my main lens for the day, with a 24-120mm/f 3.5-5.6D Nikkor as a backup.

Well that was the plan.

As usual in fast-shooting outdoor situations, I wound up shooting about a half-dozen shots with the 50 before pulling out the 24-120mm. I call this lens my “street sweeper’, and it’s my go-to lens for photojournalism-type situations. It’s slow, has more than a little bit of barrel distortion depending, on the focal length that you’re at, but provides a lot of flexibility for nailing just about anything you need to shoot on the fly.

Quickie Book Review: Practical HDR by David Nightingale

Posted on February 7, 2010 by Doug Luberts

HDR, or high dynamic range, photography, is a technique that attempts to recreate the dynamic range of human vision (or at least a seemingly close approximation) by combining multiple, bracketed, exposures of a scene into a single image. It involves creating a 32bit HDR image and then using a technique called tone mapping, to fit the dynamic range of the image into a 16 or 8 bit space that can be interpreted by monitors and printers. Using HDR techniques it’s possible to create photo real images capturing detail from the lightest highlights of a scene to the darkest shadow details where traditional photographic techniques would not be able to handle the exposure latitude required to reproduce the entire range of values.

I started becoming fascinated with HDR photography a while ago, as an offshoot of seeing HDRI techniques used to create environment-based lighting for 3D scenes at work. It’s pretty cool stuff. So with newly-acquired advanced DSLR in-hand, I was eager to try some HDR techniques to see what kind of hyper-real imagery I might be able to create.

My first few attempts at creating HDR from bracketed sequences in Photoshop didn’t work out too well … and by that I mean they pretty much looked like ass. It was time to seek some advice from the pros, so I picked up a copy of Practical HDR: A complete guide to creating High Dynamic Range images with your Digital SLR, by David Nightingale.

This book is a great place to start … Short, to the point, and loaded with how-to’s that demonstrate techniques for creating both photo-real and hyper-real HDR images in a few of the most popular software packages available. The software and techniques discussed include Adobe Photoshop Extended CS4, Photomatix Pro, and FDR Tools.

The book also has a lot of high-quality photos of both the practical examples and other stunning images that illustrate the range of possibilities for using HDR in your own photography … Something that I find key in any “how-to” kind of book.

As previously mentioned, this book is a great place to start … It’s strength, in giving you a quick selection of how-to’s in specific software packages is also its weakness. You’ll get started quickly with a basic understanding of the mechanics of HDR, but there isn’t a broad foundation in theory or in-depth, general knowledge. For that you may (and I am) want to pickup a copy of Christian Bloch’s, The HDRI Handbook: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG Artists +DVD, a much broader treatment of the subject.

So what did I learn? Well, a lot … Basically I’m throwing in the towel on using Photoshop to generate the HDR image, and picking up a copy of Photomatix Pro instead. I can use the Photomatix Lightroom 2 plugin to create the HDR and tone-mapped images, then use Photoshop for post-processing. There’ll be a blog entry further down the road with some of my own images. Stay tuned.

DVD Review: The Nikon School Presents: A Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Doug Luberts

After a decision earlier this year to invest in some portable studio lighting, I decided to give the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS) a try … Lots of reasons for this, including being a long-time Nikon shooter. The CLS is compact, not overly expensive, and extremely smart. Much smarter, in fact, than the average photographer, (and that includes me.)

A while back I picked up Joe McNally’s book, The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes, and was sold on the power and flexibility of the Nikon CLS, as well as its portability … Not to mention the price, which is pretty damn reasonable for being Nikon gear.

Now, McNally’s book gives you a lot of great information (it’s a must-have if you’re serious about moving into photographic lighting from the existing light world) and practical setups, but it’s not really a manual for using the Nikon system components themselves … Neither are the Nikon System Manuals for that matter (I’m convinced the Nikon Manuals are written by the same guys who have been writing Japanese stereo instructions since the 1960s … Not Engrish, but not very readable either.)

I think I tweeted something about CLS being slightly less difficult to master than, say, quantum mechanics. After some reflection, not really. It was the manuals that were obtuse.

The Nikon School has enlisted both Joe McNally and Bob Krist, another venerable photog, and put together the Nikon School presents A Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting. An amazingly comprehensive DVD that covers all the basics of lighting, strobe lighting, working with Nikon CLS Speedlights, and a whole lot of advanced techniques. It focuses mostly on the newer SB-900 and SB-600 models, but provides reference for SB-800 users as well.

Coming from an academic background in theatrical lighting, as well as photography, this DVD brought me up to speed quickly, and planted a lot of ideas for how to translate key lighting techniques from the hot light world into the realm of flash photography. McNally demonstrates some amazing techniques using simple changes in white balance and color filters to produce, dramatic, mind-blowing results using Nikon speedlights.

For a beginner, this DVD, repeated viewings, and working along with some of the techniques used in the DVD will make mastering flash photography much easier, and your results more professional looking, in short order.

Subjects covered range from dance photography to portraiture and weddings. It’s pretty comprehensive.

Now make no mistake, this is not an unbiased presentation … Joe and Bob are both Nikon-sponsored photographers who teach for (among other people) the Nikon School, and this is a Nikon School production. They have drunk the Kool-Aid, and shamelessly selling you a cup, but that’s okay. You’ll have a glass in hand before long … The Nikon CLS is a great lighting system, and, if you’re a Nikon shooter, your work will benefit from it.

Nikon School presents A Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting is available for about $25 on Amazon, and will save you at least that much (and probably a lot more) on lost opportunities for lighting your photos.

Alcatraz for Christmas

Posted on December 27, 2009 by Doug Luberts

One of the great things about being relatively new to the San Francisco Bay Area (3 years, 3 months, and counting …) is that I can be a tourist in my home area and venture out on any number of photo adventures all within a 2-hour drive from my apartment.

I’ve been wanting to visit Alcatraz since I first moved up here … It is part of my work landscape every day, and seemed like the perfect subject for a photographer obsessed with architectural details and crumbling ruins … but I just never got around to doing it for no good reason other than just not heading over there. So this winter break I booked a passage on an Alcatraz Cruises boat for the day after Christmas, and was on my way …

The sun broke through long enough to get this shot of the ruined warden's house and light house.

It was a gray, cold, morning with a promise of rain in forecast, as we took off for Alcatraz Island, and those seemed like outstanding conditions to shoot such an ominous subject. As luck would have it, the sun came out for just a bit, and I was able to get some stunning color shots. The entire island is a symphony of color and texture, and I would easily go back there on another day just to shoot the exteriors in bright sunlight.

There's only one official way on, or off, the island.

I’ll save all the official history stuff for your Googling pleasure, but there are a lot of stories on this island, spanning from the creation of Fort Alcatraz as part of the San Francisco Bay fortifications during the Civil War, through the island’s years as the most infamous jail in the Federal Prison System, to the occupation by Native Americans in the 1960′s.

Walking around the island, you can tell where the Civil War structures end and the modern construction begins. The older construction being of the same type of brick-and-mortar construction you’ll see over at Fort Point by the Bridge and other local structures from that era.

A passage in the welcome center at Alcatraz

Some of the structural underpinnings of Fort Alcatraz

I could spend days shooting the details of the broken brick and moss-covered hallways, but found myself wishing for an opportunity to shoot the space without other tourists, or the modern signage and barriers that bring the ancient buildings into the modern day. Since that wasn’t to be, I settled on the idea of incorporating the human element into the photographs to give scale and context to the physical structures.

Each docent at the Welcome Center has their own perspective and favorite stories about the island.

One of the highlights of the island is an audio guided tour of the Cellhouse that is provided free-of-charge to visitors. It includes audio commentaries from former employees, prisoners, and children of prison employees who grew up on the island. Apparently Alcatraz was a great place to grow up … As long as you weren’t doing it “on the inside.”

A row in the Alcatraz main cell block called "Broadway"

Visitors dwarfed by the enormity of the cell block

A special part of the facility is known as “D Block”. If Alcatraz was a prison built to house the worst of the worst, D Block was where they sent the prisoners who couldn’t live peaceably within the general population. Felons like Robert “The Birdman” Stroud, “Machine Gun” Kelly, and Al Capone all did time on D Block.

Only the worst offenders spent time in D Block.

This part of the facility faces San Francisco, and it is said that prisoners could here the sounds of laughter and music coming from the yacht club across the bay … So close to all the freedoms they had lost, this reminder must have been no small source of anguish for those interred here.

D Block is also home to solitary confinement cells

There are a number of preservation and restoration efforts underway on the island … about half of which is not open to the public at the present time (which, quite naturally are parts of the island I’d most life to photograph. ) This is a very unique place with a long, and at times very dark, but uniquely American, history.

These are just a few of the shots from this trip, if you’d like to see more, check out the Alcatraz set on my Flickr page, as more will be added to the collection over time.

All of these photos were shot with a Nikon D90 using 28mm AF-S, 50mm f1.8 AF-D, or 24-120mm f3.5-5.6 AF-D Nikon Lenses. Most exteriors were shot at ISO 200-500, while some of the interiors were shot between 1600-3200 ISO. The photos were shot in camera raw and processed using Adobe Lightroom 2.

The rust, rot, moss and mold in this place is a textural dream ...

Product Photography on the Cheap

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Doug Luberts

With the addition of my almost-beloved Nikon D90 (okay, it’s not perfect, but … damn!), it’s time to part with my never-really-loved-it-too-much-until-camera-raw-became-friendly Nikon D70. It’s a wonderful camera. Look at some of the recent photos I’ve taken with it and you can see it does a great job, at 2005 megapixel rates (okay, cameras, like motorcycles, have become a metaphor for penis size for some [not me of course, but some people ]… I never thought I’d get caught up in megapixel envy until I saw some results from the D700. 2k good, 5k better.) It’s a great camera, but for someone else with a bit less than professional quality expectations for their work.

So what to do?

Well, eBay, of course!

Here’s a tip, for those of you who want to stay on the cutting-edge of imaging and video technology … Sell your stuff every 2 years. You’ll still have to pony-up some funds to stay on top of the game, but by not waiting for the bottom to drop out of the value on your current/old stuff, you can get peak trade-in value. Using eBay, that can take quite a bite out of upgrade costs. I find this particularly true of computer hardware … I sell my MacBooks about every two years, and upgrade. Not only do I get great return on the old model, but I can usually put those funds towards current models without a lot of additional out-of-pocket. I’m never totally state-of-the-art, but I’m close enough to stay competitive, which is what the game is all about.

There, that’s my secret. Everyone who reads this and cashes in on my my knowledge please send me five bucks. At the rate people read this blog, I will have at least $100 bucks within a year.

So … Anyway … One of the key things I’ve found out over the years about selling on eBay is that photos matter. Big time. Your photos look like crap, and, while your stuff might sell, you won’t get top dollar.

Right now I’m on the trading-up stage of building my equipment catalog … I don’t have much in the way of lighting equipment, but there’s still a lot I can do to make my eBay product look good.

I went to Home Depot a while back and purchased a bunch of clamp lights and shop lights, along with a bunch of daylight-balanced compact florescent bulbs. For my el-cheapo product setup, I threw these on a couple of Manfrotto stands that I had sitting around (you can’t have enough of these around the house, they come in handy for everything from photo lighting setups to impromptu coat racks, and only cost about $25 bucks a piece.) A quick trip over to the photo supply store, and I had a roll of seamless backdrop paper. At about $35, this was the most expensive part of this setup, but I’ll get a lot of use out of the roll.

Plug it all together with a $9.99 tray table from Bed, Bath & Beyond, and you’ve got something that looks like this:

My Ghetto Product Photography Setup

Oh, I probably forgot to mention the $5.00 Grey card that I bought … Even if your camera, like my D90, has great auto white-balance, buy one and use it. Your stuffs will be muchly more betterer (thank you, Ansel Adams … while I know you’re rolling in your grave after that statement, digital cameras have turned your lifetime of work in developing the zone system into a bullet point. Sorry, dude.)

The two, 100w, compact florescents do a decent job of providing some, more-or-less, flat side lighting. Throw in the built-in speedlight on the camera, and you’ve got about all that you will need (although I did have to shoot at an ISO of about 500 to work with decent shutter speeds.) Here’s the result:

Magazine quality, no. Will it look good to an eBay customer? I think so.

The results aren’t bad … Not as flat as I’d like, and I should have straightened my backdrop a bit, but it will get the job done on eBay. And by that, I mean my ad will probably get more attention from someone looking for used equipment than one from somebody who put a poorly-lit, existing light, shot in his ad. Of course, I’ll ad close-ups of the camera and a bunch of alternate angles as well … This also helps you sell your product.

Total cost for for this? Probably about $75 bucks, but considering it’s all stuff that I’ll be reusing, and will probably result in uping my sale price for the equipment, I’d still say it meets my criteria for doing this on the cheap.

BTW, all this stuff will be on eBay tomorrow, and I’ll post the URL to the auctions. This D70 is in cherry shape, and I think I’ve only used it on about 10 occasions. Drop me an e if you’re interested.

P.S.: We’ll re-visit this topic, and may others, when I can get my order in for some Alien Bees studio lighting. And that, will be awesome!

New Adventures in Photography

Posted on May 22, 2009 by Doug Luberts

One of the side effects of working on my CS4 skills is delving into Lightroom 2. From getting a grip on Photoshop CS4, I started getting into Lightroom, which lead to picking up a scanner to work on my old negs and slides, which lead to a complete renewal of my interest into still photography, and the digital darkroom. Kind of strange for an Editor/VFX guy to admit, but my interests in still work waned years ago, after my initial 20-years or so of photography had lead to other avenues of interest … film, theater and video, directing, designing, editing, compositing, and all that jazz. But no longer.

I’ve been out shooting with my D70, and just ordered a Nikon D90 body to quell my raging megapixel envy (although I liked it when you could own a camera for 25 years, like my old Nikon FM, and still keep taking kick-ass photos without a biennial upgrade for new tech), and am going to start doing more work on a regular, if not daily, basis.

My results so far have been posted to flicker, and can be seen in the viewer below. I’ll keep adding to the collection.
I’ve had a funny relationship with photoshop over the last 10 years, or so. I’ve never really used it for photography. It’s mainly been a tool for creating graphics, and elements for motion composites or editing projects. Most of the work I’ve “Photoshopped” (I hate using Photoshop as a verb, no matter what Adobe says) has been done with Apple Shake. Yeah, it’s kind of overkill for compositing still images, like the one of ICM’s George Ruiz (see below) that I did for his Twitter avatar last Christmas. It’s just that I’ve been really comfortable with the tools Shake has to offer, especially the color correction set, which is the most important part of doing any convincing composite. This has been standing in the way of my broader artistic education and, more importantly, a deeper understanding of what Photoshop can do for me.

ICM Agent George Ruiz asked for someone on Twitter to "Santa Hat him" last Christmas. Using Shake I was able to do it in about 20 minutes ... Overkill? Yeah, but there is someting to be said with the comfort factor of using a tool you know well.

Well, that’s changing, as I upgrade my toolset … I’m working with Nuke more on the compositing side, as well as After Effects for Webisode-type work. Getting out there with my camera and using Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom to “develop” the work, will keep my skills growing in that area as well. I’m looking forward to also sharing a lot of work that I’ve done over the years that have been in my treasure boxes waiting to be seen.

Original photo of George

I’m really intrigued by HDR (High Dynamic Range) images … Taking a bracketed set of exposures, each capturing the correct exposure for a part of the image, and then combining them together into one photograph with the entire dynamic range of the scene correctly captured. What took Ansel Adams a lifetime of work to figure out in traditional photography, is becoming fairly easy in the digital darkroom. The above photo is a WIP that I’m working on with “Poor Man’s HDR”, a technique where you put different exposures of an image into Photoshop as layers (Lightroom does that automagically) and then use layer masks and paint techniques to develop the composite image. The results can be quite stunning. In this case, I’m using 3 different exposures for the foreground, the interior of the palace, and the sky and trees in the background. A bit more paint work and this will be done. The use of paint tools and brushes brings something painterly to photography that I rather enjoy.

I’ve played around a bit with Photoshop’s HDR assemble tool, which will put the exposures together for you … I’ve read some criticisms of the HDR tool, but I’m also not totally clear on how best to use it, so the layered technique is providing better results for me right now.

Palace of Fine Arts - Finished (for now)

Palace of Fine Arts - Final version

In the final shot I wound up dumping the paint work for a more procedural technique using Photoshop Layer blending options. The paint work was taking forever, and not looking as uniform, or real, as I’ve hoped. There’s still some subtle paint work in blending the foreground and background architecture, but this worked out to be easier and better looking.

Time to start coming up with a new web show, tentative title: “I don’t suck at Photoshop nearly as much as I used to.” :p

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