Photo gallery: My nephew's 6th birthday

I thought I would take a break from going on about lens distortion or some other potentially dry topic and just share some photos.

I took photos at my nephew's birthday party at a place called Pump It Up that looked ridiculously fun for kids (and adults, if only we were allowed... if only). It's basically an indoor facility with a bunch of inflatable jumpy-type things.




Two main factors contributed to making this event a bit challenging from a photography perspective.

1. Bad/low light
2. Fast moving objects (i.e. kids)
   

Not really the greatest combination of factors. Additionally, the really high ceiling made bouncing flash off of it not a very viable solution, and I don't really like using direct flash because I don't like the harshness it adds to the photos. What did help was using a fast lens -- the fastest lens I have right now (on loan) is a Nikon 50mm 1.4, so I tried using that as much as possible. I also shot mostly in shutter priority mode to help reduce blurry shots by choosing a minimum shutter speed of about 1/125 of a second. 1/125 isn't nearly fast enough to freeze all kinds of action, but given the bad light situation I couldn't really go faster than that without having the photos come out too dark from lack of sufficient light. So it was a bit of a balancing act. The following photos are some of the more successful ones of the day.

Note: there are a couple of photos that use the mouse-over effect that won't work in your feed reader. Just click through to the post if you wish to see the before/after shots.



I decided the only way to get some good action shots was to join the kids in the jumpy-house. I survived despite many near misses.





I love this photo! Note: No children with pengiun stuffed animals were harmed during the taking of this photo.






Sometimes cropping helps you focus your intentions with the photo. By mousing over this photo you can see how I chose to remove everything that I felt was only serving to add eye-noise and distractions to the main focal point of the image -- which in this case is my nephew Drew.





I love the look of anticipation in my nephew's face as he nears the top of the obstacle.




Here's another cropped image -- mouse-over it and see what I chose to take out. Again, I felt like the focus of the image should be the boys in the chair/throne.



















Earlier in the day about 10 minutes into the festivities, Scott collided with another kid and got a fat lip. I think every six year old reserves the right to lick the frosted candle with their fat lip.













My sister's creation: A cupcake inside of an ice cream cone. I don't have to tell you that these went over really well with the gang.



Scott invited the other kids to help him open gifts, who were only too willing to join the fun.

For more, visit the full gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/antman/ScottS6thBirthday

DXO Optics Pro

When I first bought my DSLR and started gathering a little in-depth knowledge about photography, I quickly found myself overwhelmed by lots of buzzwords. "Chromatic aberration", "vignetting", "fringing", "lens flare", "distortion", "noise" -- just to name a few. These are all things I was never even aware of in the point & shoot camera world.

Luckily, there are some good pieces of software that can help you mitigate some of these problems without having to necessarily become an expert in each one. Why am I advocating that you not become an expert in each of these topics? Take a look at a snippet of an explanation of chromatic aberration by PA van Walree:

"When different colors of light propagate at different speeds in a medium, the refractive index is wavelength dependent. This phenomenon is known as dispersion. A well- known example is the glass prism that disperses an incident beam of white light into a rainbow of colors [1]. Photographic lenses comprise various dispersive, dielectric glasses. These glasses do not refract all constituent colors of incident light at equal angles, and great efforts may be required to design an overall well-corrected lens that brings all colors together in the same focus. Chromatic aberrations are those departures from perfect imaging that are due to dispersion. Whereas the Seidel aberrations are monochromatic, i.e. they occur also with light of a single color, chromatic aberrations are only noticed with polychromatic light."

Had enough? That's just the introductory paragraph of the document. It continues on in great technical detail. If you're fascinated by the nitty gritty and the paragraph I've quoted only intrigues you more, then I'd hate to be the one to dissuade you from learning more. But my point is that you don't have to be an expert in this stuff just to take a decent photograph. For most people, chromatic aberration can be distilled down to "some parts of your photos have purple colored edges."

Chromatic aberration is just one of the many optical irregularities that DXO Optics Pro addresses. It's the software I've chosen to use, and I'm extremely happy with the results it provides. I'll try to illustrate the benefits of the software by showing you some photos before and after being processed by DXO Optics Pro, and some of the optical issues that it resolved in the images.

Let's start with lens distortion. Here's what DXO has to say about it:

"A perfect lens would render straight lines as straight, no matter where they occur. Most practical lenses aren’t that good, though, and instead bend lines outwards (barrel distortion) or inwards (pincushion distortion). Wide-angle lenses and wide-range zoom lenses often suffer particularly badly from this."

I have some good examples of lens distortion in my photo collection, as I have primarily used a wide-angle zoom lens. Disclaimer: these pictures were chosen not because they are particularly good photos, but because they most succinctly illustrate the issues being discussed.

Initially the images you see are the unaltered images that came out of my camera. By moving your mouse over the image you'll be able to see the photo after it was corrected with DXO. Sometimes without having the photos side-by-side (or in this case, overlayed each other) it's difficult to notice the subtleties, but boy do they become apparent when you can flip your mouse over them and immediately see the before/after in full effect.

NOTE: If you mouse over the images and see no change in your feed reader, you may need to click-through to the full blog post.

Here we go with some barrel distortion examples:








Take a look at the balcony before you mouse over the image below. Once you mouse over it, you should see the balcony straighten up into a horizontal line.




Now take a look at pincushion distortion.

Pay close attention to the lines on the doors and the piping to the left of the doors.







Next, there's vignetting. Here's a quick note from DXO to keep in mind as you look at the images:

"Most lenses are brighter in the center than at the edges, especially when wide open. This is especially pronounced with wide-angles and some long telephoto lenses. This phenomenon is known as light fall-off or vignetting."

Moving on to lighting:

Sometimes DXO can turn what seems like a lost cause into a usable image.







Link: http://dxo.com/intl/photo/dxo_optics_pro

Getting married?

Then you might be looking for wedding photographers, right? It just so happens that I have a recommendation.

Nate & Jaclyn are a husband & wife team working out of San Diego that do some of the most impressive wedding photography I've seen to date. These people rock. It won't take you long to realize how strong their foto-fu is after spending 10-15 minutes browsing through some of the work they showcase on their blog. Really -- it's worth it. I have a lot of "How Do They Do That?" moments as I look through their stuff. It's pure photogasmic joy. They also have a couple of separate sites set up to showcase their wedding photography and portrait work. I enjoy their blog more though because it's a combination of their professional wedding work as well as their recreational & family photography. Some weeks ago I wrote a post about photoshop textures by Jesh De Rox -- I think they frequently use his textures in their photos for some pretty dramatic effects.

One of the reasons I enjoy their blog so much is because it's obvious that they love what they do. Their attitudes and their photos are dripping with enthusiasm, and I have a lot of respect for anyone who attacks their job with that kind of zeal. I would hire these guys in a second and fly them out for my wedding -- if only I had found them sooner.

Link: http://www.theblogisfound.com/
Link: http://www.theimageisfound.com/

They also have what they call "shootshops", which are basically workshops that they give to share some of their knowledge with the hoi polloi. I missed the last one that took place in San Francisco, but I plan to make it to the next one.

Lens rentals... by mail!

I just found about this place, www.borrowlenses.com. It's a great idea -- you can rent lenses without leaving your house, and just wait for them to arrive in the mail. No driving to the local camera shop, and no dealing with the snobby holier-than-thou camera shop guy. They offer lots of good Canon and Nikon options. It's like Netflix for lenses!

Best of all, their prices are really reasonable. And for those who are local to the SF bay area, they offer local pickups for shorter rental periods if you wish.

They also offer a consignment program. If you have any extra camera bodies, lenses, or other equipment that you aren't using very much, you can make money from them by letting borrowlenses.com rent them out on your behalf.

I haven't tried it yet, but it's got the makings of being a great service.

Link: http://www.borrowlenses.com/

Where to go for lens reviews

Here's where I like to go when I'm researching new lenses:

http://www.photodo.com
http://www.fredmiranda.com/
http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/index.html
http://www.the-digital-picture.com
http://www.dpreview.com/

This isn't a comprehensive list, so if you know any others please feel free to leave a comment.

Taking photos through windows

Sometimes you don't really have a choice -- either take the suboptimal shot through a window (whether it be from a car, plane, or tall office building) or don't get a shot at all. Most people will at least try to get the shot through a window and maybe with some luck it'll turn out well. You typically want to have nothing between the lens and your subject -- extra glass means more possible reflections. That said, there are some things you can do to increase your chances of getting a decent shot.

Quoting from "Through a glass lightly":

1: Some of the best city views are from the windows of tall buildings or tourist attractions. Trouble is most people end up with photos of the window and not the view, so the first trick is to position your camera right against the window itself; the outer lens barrel should protect the actual optics from any scratches.

2: Reflections from interior lighting can ruin photos taken through windows, so even when holding your camera close to the glass, try and shield any gaps between the lens barrel and the window itself with your hands or a piece of clothing. By moving the camera you should be able to see any reflections.

3: Your built-in flash is no good to you in this situation, and if it goes off, it’ll just cause more reflections to worry about. So when taking photos through windows, always turn the flash off.

4: Photographing through a sheet of glass or plastic can fool many cameras’ focusing systems. So if your camera is struggling to autofocus simply manually set the focus to infinity – this is indicated on most compact cameras by a figure 8 on its side.

5: Ultimately the best quality photos are when there’s nothing between you and the view. So before following the tips above, see if there’s an outdoor viewing area or some way to open a window and poke your lens out. Obviously this won’t be possible in some places, such as the London Eye, but it’s worth checking for others.

Using tip #1 in the list above (keeping the lens held flat against the window), here's a shot I took through a window of our hotel room in San Diego:

18mm, F/16, ISO 100

It's nothing groundbreaking, but I think it looks pretty good for being taken through a reasonably thick window.

Photography and real estate

I like this article from the New York Times that talks about the importance of high quality photos for the purposes of selling real estate. They have some before and after shots that nicely illustrate how photos taken with good lighting and thoughtful composition can dramatically affect people's perceptions and first impressions of houses while house hunting.

"Eighty percent of people across the country who bought a new home last year used the Internet while house hunting, and they rated photographs as the most useful tool in their search, according to a survey of buyers and sellers by the National Association of Realtors. The survey also found that 24 percent of home buyers got their first glimpses of their new homes on the Web, up from a mere 2 percent in 1997."

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/realestate/11cov.html?_r=1&ex=1329109200

The virtues of the classic 50mm lens

Recently I've been giving my (borrowed) 50mm 1.4 lens heavy use. It's amazing in low-light situations and has really nice looking bokeh to name just a couple of things. I'm enjoying it much more than my 18-200mm zoom lens, actually. Fast prime lenses make you work a little harder to get your shot because you're zooming with your feet instead of with your hands, but you can get crazy with super shallow depth of field. I would never have been able to make this shot with my 18-200mm lens:



Coincidentally my friend Abe just sent me this article by Gary Voth called "The Forgotten Lens", that espouses the virtues of the 50mm prime lens. Gary does a nice job of laying out all the benefits of using fast prime lenses that are very good at what they do as opposed to some zoom lenses which are often more like jacks of all trades but masters of none.

"If you are considering a new camera purchase or already have a camera and would like to make pictures of your family that don't look like snapshots, consider buying a classic 50mm "normal" lens instead of (or in addition to) that "consumer" zoom. This 50mm lens will allow you to make pictures in natural light without flash that share at least some of the qualities of the very finest photographs ever made. As with any new equipment, you will have a learning curve as you figure out how to use the focal length compositionally and achieve good focus. But you may find that pictures of your friends and family begin to exhibit a much more natural and evocative quality."

Link: http://vothphoto.com/spotlight/articles/forgotten_lens/forgotten-lens.htm

Create a set of your flickr 'most interesting' photos

Cool Flickr mashup from dopiaza.org:

"Flickr Set Manager allows you to automatically create new sets on Flickr based on various criteria such as interestingness, date posted and tags, or even from a random set of photographs."

Link: http://www.dopiaza.org/flickr/setmgr/

If you don't know what Flickr's "interestingness" label means, here's their description.

How to watermark your images, and why

UPDATE:
Here is another article from the New York Times about people's photographs from Flickr being used without permission. I'm not saying that watermarking is a silver bullet, but I do think that it's a deterrent. Props to my friend Jamie for passing this article on to me.
---------

"Why should I watermark my images?", you ask?

Dan Heller, extremely knowledgeable on the topic, has this to say:

"The net-net is there's big money in copyright violations, especially if photos are registered with the copyright office and they are watermarked. What keeps this from becoming a more prominent figure in the industry itself is two-fold: the lack of awareness of how lucrative it can be, and the "resources" available for tracking the infringements in the first place. But, like anything that has the potential for money, there will be those who start down those paths to see where they lead. For those playing the home game, keep in mind that the issues faced by agencies are not shared by individual photographers. That is, while an agency may have business risk by being too aggressive in pursuing violators, individuals certainly do not. Even as I type this, yet another email has just trickled in from another concerned photographer, "I'm going to take my images off Flickr because I don't want them stolen." My response to him will be to read this article."

You really should read the entire post, it's long but very enlightening. I'm not saying that everyone should feel the need to watermark their images, but if you hope to one day make money from your work by selling it (to clients, stock photo agencies, etc.), then it's probably in your best interest to take some precautions to protect your hard work.

Here are some watermarking options. This is obviously not an exhaustive list -- it's just something to get you poking around.

Downloadable watermarking software

Mac

PicMark
http://www.digitalcalamity.org/lib/php/index.php?DC_item=picmark&DC_section=applications

Windows

Picture Shark
http://www.picture-shark.com/
It's free!

Photoshop watermarking tutorials

• http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Watermarking-your-photos-in-Photoshop-7-and-CS
• http://www.dpchallenge.com/tutorial.php?TUTORIAL_ID=64
• http://photoshop911.typepad.com/help/2004/04/watermarking_ph.html

Read the fine print

As you might expect, not all watermarking tutorials and software take the many factors into account. For instance, some of the tutorials only work on landscape photos of a certain size. Some are hard to use for batch processing of tens or hundreds of photos at once. It's best to find one that allows you to define some rules for how you want your watermark placed. Ideally the size/dimensions of the image shouldn't matter, and you should just be able to say "I want my watermark placed in the bottom right corner of the image, with a 20 pixel padding on the right and a 20 pixel padding on the bottom". Then you could batch process a whole directory of images with the peace of mind that your watermarking tool will just do the right thing, every time.


My Recommendation

I'm partial to this tutorial: you create an Adobe ImageReady droplet that you can just drag images onto for watermarking. A droplet is basically just an executable file that sits somewhere convenient (like your desktop, etc), and you can drag any files onto it that you want watermarked. Once you drag your photos onto the droplet, it processes your photos and creates a new copy of each one with a watermark added, and places them in a directory you have specified. I've found it very convenient to use. Of course, you need to have ImageReady installed to be able to use this, so it may not be the most convenient option for everyone.

The tutorial:
http://www.photosig.com/articles/1514/article

Here's an example that I've watermarked -- it's one of my favorite photos of my nephews.