The Digital Photo Guy

Honest, Yongnuo Doesn’t Pay Me!

To date, I’ve written about the Yongnuo YN-622C-TX TTL flash controller, YN685 Canon TTL flash, YN560 manual flash and YN14-EX-C ring light for Canon TTL. Now, I want to tell you about the Yongnuo YN300-III from B&H.

I wanted a set of continuous lights to make it faster and easier to light art for reproduction. Based on my previous experience with Yongnuo products, I decided to try these and YN didn’t disappoint. First, the price can’t be beat – $63 for a light with accessories including 4 gels/diffusers and multiple mounting options. Next, it offers both 3200K and 5500K lights. I can have all 5500K or all 3200K or a mix of both. Third, this light can be controlled with a remote as well as an Android app. Finally, it can be powered by either 120v or LiON battery. Sadly neither the 120v power brick nor a battery are included but both are relatively inexpensive.

The integrated barn doors are very effective and the whole unit looks and feels well made. It’s not a pro grade light but, for projects around a home studio, it’s an outstanding value. Another cool features is the ability to control the lights in either 10% or 1% increments. So, if the light is set to 100% (full power) and you want 10%, it’s 9 clicks of the remote instead of 80. Conversely, if you decide you want 19%, 9 clicks of the 1% button gets you there. Last, if you use multiple lights, the controller can be set to different channels so they aren’t all adjusted each time you adjust one.

I haven’t done any stringent testing but they’re certainly well within the limits of my needs as measured with my Sekonic LiteMaster Pro L-478D-U Light Meter.  I can usually get within 1/10 stop with just a few adjustments. White Balance also appears very close when checked in Lightroom. If you need/want continuous lights, this is the best value.

A Pet Peeve (rant)

I’ve been noticing more and more “wanna be Rambos” in the news. These are people, usually men, who wear unauthorized military regalia and medals and spin fantastic yarns about secret missions behind enemy lines or some such baloney. There’s a whole network of real special operators whose personal mission is to uncover these fakes and expose them for what they are – cowards, liars & thieves, stealing the honor and valor of real heroes.

If you meet someone claiming to be a Vietnam-era Navy SEAL who partook of secret missions they can’t talk about but happily blabber on, you can bet your paycheck that they’re full of it. One of the biggest tells is if they claim their service records were lost in the 1973 National Archives fire. Given that only about 2-3 dozen Navy and Marine Corps records (out of approximately 18 million Army and Air Force records,) were lost in that fire, the chances of them being affected are between zero and nil.

There are many sites dedicated to unmasking these phonies. A quick Google search can help you find them. However, be aware that, unless they’re using their baloney for financial gain (fraud,) it’s not illegal to wear undeserved medals and tell lies. Just know that they’re cowards, liars and thieves.

In Vietnam, 80% of the personnel were support. I was an elite Remington Raider in a REMF unit. If you know what that means, you’re a real vet. If you don’t know, buy me a beer sometime and I’ll regale you with hair-raising stories about my 364 days “in-country.”

On the Road – Christmas 2016

After some last minute delays, we finally got on the road on Sunday, December 25, Christmas Day. It was actually a good move because the traffic was calm and weather was pretty sketchy until Saturday. We made it to Benson, AZ where we laid over at a RV campground right off I-10. The next morning, we backtracked a mile and headed to Bisbee via AZ Highway 90 and 92 through Sierra Vista. It’s a a few miles longer but an easier route for a motorhome towing a Jeep.

I decided not to take my photography too seriously so all my photos were simple touristy snapshots. I also tested the new Canon EF 135/2.0L USM lens on a few opportunities.

These first 6 were made with a Canon EOS-M with the EF-M 22mm STM lens, my favorite walking around kit. The Great Dane in the first photo is Sunday. He weighs as much as me and he travels with his staff in a truck camper. He’s apparently a pretty mellow traveler and sleeps most of the time. The next 3 were along a dirt road back to a wildlife preserve. There wasn’t anything out there except cattle, a purple outhouse and a pony ride. There was actually money in the bucket so I threw in some change. The last is Mary with Reed, the owner of Killer Bee Honey. He’s a character and his mesquite honey is great.

The next 10 were with a Canon 5D Mk II with the new Canon EF 135/2.0L USM. The first two were made at Oh-Dark-Thirty with the temperature around 30F. In other words, it was way too cold for me to spend a lot of time composing and checking focus. The mid-range and background are sharply in focus but DoF wasn’t deep enough to get the near objects in focus. It’s impossible to evaluate lens sharpness in small web-size images that have been sharpened but, trust me, the 135/2.0 is sharp. The rest are basic funky, weird art (?) found all over Bisbee. The bumper sticker really captures the Bisbee “vibe.” As you can see, I call Bisbee “an island of blue surrounded by a sea of Arizona red.” The whole town is filled with “long-haired, hippie-type, commie, junkie, pink-o sympathizing liberals” and I really like it. I’d move there except it’s in the middle of nowhere.

This last shot was made at Whitewater Draw to show the low water level. Normally, this whole area is filled with water with the exception of the tiny island in the foreground with green growth. There should be ducks, avocets and other shallow water birds within 10-20 feet.

New Laptop for Travel

For this trip, in the spirit of not taking my photography too seriously, I ditched my humongous HP laptop with a gazillion gigabytes of RAM and many terabytes of HDD space for an HP Stream 11 laptop. The Stream is just above “toy” level but works great for checking e-mail and light photo editing. It has an 11.6″ screen, 4GB of RAM, a 32GB SSD (solid state drive) and runs Windows 10. Weighing just 2.6 lbs, it runs about 10 hours on a single charge. Best of all, it only cost $199. I deleted the included subscription for MS Office 365 in favor of MS Office 2007 because I didn’t want the whole suite hogging the limited disk space. With MSO 2007, I just loaded the products I use most.

For photo editing, I loaded Canon Digital Photo Pro (DPP) because Adobe Photoshop Elements (PSE) has grown into a humongous porker that took up 1.9GB whereas DPP requires less than 120MB. I also added IrfanView, a cool little photo viewer/editor that takes another 2.5MB. For longer trips, I intend to haul along my fat laptop but only for specific requirements while on the road. The HP Stream 11 will meet 98% of my computing needs on the road.

Wishing Everyone a Great 2017

Why All the Leaning Buildings?

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of leaning buildings and I haven’t been in Pisa. When processing photos of buildings, take a minute to correct the perspective so it doesn’t appear as if the building is leaning back and away. Here’s a video I created a few years ago showing how to correct perspective in Photoshop Elements. Advanced PS or LR users will be able to figure out how to find and apply the Transform tool in those programs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKvrLrQM5wI

Sometimes, perspective distortion is useful in conveying a sense of height or grandeur. If that’s your intent, make it so the viewer “gets it.” In the photo below, I got as close to the building as possible to make the building seem taller than it really it. In the photo of Kayla, I got a little carried away emphasizing her long legs. In the last image, I took 10 seconds to readjust Kayla’s proportions. The point is, Perspective Control is a useful tool for many subjects. When applied judiciously, Perspective Control can even be used to “shave” off a few pounds off a subject, not that I would ever do such a thing!

CMS (Color Management System) Tips & Tricks

The above screen grabs are from a very powerful tool I bought while researching color management. Chromix ColorThink plots icc profiles as well as image colors in 2D and 3D. The “squiggly” orange area in the 2D chart (top left) represents all the colors in my friend’s photo (right) which appear to be fully contained within the printer gamut (multicolored outline) but when converted to a 3D graph, it’s easy to see that many colors are actually out of gamut meaning the printer can’t reproduce them. The second row shows a 2D graph of all the colors in the PDI test chart (right) versus a 3D graph (center) showing some colors are out of gamut. The main difference is that the colors in the PDI chart can be brought back into gamut without visibly affecting the print but the colors in my friend’s image are so far out that major compromises will be required.

Anyone who prints photos knows it can be tough getting just the right colors from either their own printers or from a service provider. If you’re just pumping out a few prints for Grandma & Grandpa, spot on color probably isn’t a big deal but if you’re printing an 8×10 to frame, getting the right color can be a pretty finicky process. If you’re producing a print for competition, spot on color can be the difference between winning and also ran.

Six months ago, the Sedona Camera Club invited me to present a program on CMS. Specifically, they wanted a program to help members who don’t own their own printers and aren’t interested in spending lots of money to implement a “proper” CMS. Of course, I said, “Sure, no problem” before thinking through what I was getting myself into.

In a flash of inspiration, I decided to break down the presentation into two distinct parts. First, I’ll explain how and why proper CMS is such a huge, complex and expensive endeavor. I’ll explain the science behind color from human eyesight to camera capture to editing and, finally, to print. This will be a 30,000 foot overview, so to speak.

The second half of the program will concentrate on an “old school” technique borrowed from the darkroom, test strips. I’ll demonstrate how to quickly and easily create digital test strips in both Photoshop/Elements as well as Lightroom to avoid multiple, costly bad prints. This isn’t a particularly innovative idea. I used to do this all the time in the old chemical darkroom days. I first read about the digital version in Rob Sheppard’s book, Epson Complete Guide to Digital Printing (Lark, 2005, out of print.) In fact, I posted an article about this technique back in 2011. The post was specific to Photoshop Elements and contains a minor difference from what I now recommend but produces nearly the same results.

It’s doubtful most people will spend $150 for a copy of ColorThink plus another $1000 to $3000 for a printer, suitable monitor and colorimeter. However, using test strips, you can get very close. Over the next few weeks, I’ll post step-by-step procedures for making test prints using Photoshop CS4, Lightroom 6 and Photoshop Elements 9 & 13. Stay tuned.

When a Re-Shoot Isn’t Feasible…

Which is most of the time, here’s a tip for cleaning up a dark, gray, unappetizing background that’s supposed to be pure white.

The photo on the left is before I cleaned it up. The photo on the right is after I cleaned up the b/g (background) to make it whiter. That was my original plan but, when you’re in a rush, stuff happens.

After I made all the usual corrections such as Crop, White Balance, Levels and Sharpen, I realized the b/g was still a dingy, off-white. For this photo, I wanted Alyssa to “pop” out of that b/g.

I originally did this in Lightroom 6 but thought it might be useful to show how to do it in Photoshop Elements 9. Besides, I haven’t used PSE9 is so long, I wanted to see if I could still get around inside it.

After opening the photo in PSE9, I selected the Dodge Tool (bottom of the Tool Bar assuming that’s where you keep your Tool Bar) and selected a Soft Round Brush. Next, I set Range to Highlights and Exposure to about 10-15%. For this image, I set my brush size to 150 pixels and just started brushing out the gray. As I got closer to Alyssa, especially her very fair skin, I had to be careful not to let the brush go too far into her skin. For more precision, I enlarge the photo to 300x-400x and reduced the size of my brush. This was particularly important for the area between her right arm and dress.

This isn’t something I’d want to do for lots of images and it’s not a fix for images that will be printed to anything over 4×6 but it’s fine for small web images. Of course, the best solution is to get it right in camera.