The Digital Photo Guy

Tonido Server – A Free, Private Personal Cloud

By now, anyone who can fog a mirror has heard about the “cloud.” Every company wants you to use their “cloud” so they can mine your data and lock you into their services. Before getting ahead of ourselves, let’s first define “cloud” for the Rip Van Winkles and Sleeping Beauties who slept through the past few years. “Cloud” is nothing more than remote access to your files. Many websites allow visitors to download/upload files, images, PDFs and other digital assets. A personal cloud allows you to do the same for files on your personal PC/Mac/Linux box.

You may ask, “What’s the purpose?” Let’s say you’re away from home and need a file on your home PC. Who’s going to find that file and e-mail it to you? Also, today’s dSLR RAW files range from 20MB to 60MB, a bit hefty to email. Enter the “cloud.” Files stored in a “cloud” can be accessed by anyone with the appropriate URL, user name and password. If you need a file while on the road, you can access it. If needed, you can download a file to your laptop, make edits and upload to a shared folder for others to retrieve. This can be invaluable for clubs and volunteer organizations where files need to be shared.

Tonido Server, the FREE solution. There are many ready made solutions but they all charge to use their software. I don’t begrudge anyone making money but I like doing it myself. However, free is awfully hard to pass up. I assumed it was some neutered demo product that would be more hassle than it was worth but I was wrong. After installing Tonido on my big, clunky home PC, I could immediately access folders I had designated as SHARED from my sleek, lightweight HP Spectre X360 travel laptop.

Using Tonido, I can access and retrieve image files for my blog posts. On the road, I log into Tonido, find the files I want to include in a post and download it to my travel laptop. I make necessary edits, save photos as JPEG and then import into the post. I don’t have to carry around a 2TB external hard drive (EHD,) taking the chance it may be damaged by all jostling and flaky power sources.

Why Not Use a Free Cloud Provider?

As we all know, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Regardless of claims, I suspect all cloud service providers mine your data to gleen information for resale. I’m not saying these companies view your photos or read your manuscripts but they know enough about you to qualify as stalkers. Add to that most “cloud” services charge for storage space big enough to be useful. My active image files take up about 1TB (1,000,000,000,000 bytes.) Dropbox charges $16.58 per month ($198.96/year) for 1TB, the same as Google Drive and Apple iCloud. Microsoft OneDrive is the least expensive at $69.99 per year which includes Office 365 Personal but it’s limited to 1 PC and 1 tablet. Between us, my wife and I use 8 devices, oops! Adobe is more opaque charging $19.99/month for Adobe CC plus 1TB of storage. Since Adobe charges $9.99 for for their Photography Plan, that 1TB costs $10/month. In reality, Adobe CC is more about selling their photo editing products than providing storage.

If you need help setting up your Tonido Server, leave a comment here and I’ll try to help.

The Camera Loves Emily (contains nudity)

I met Emily last summer and was impressed with her intelligence, drive and “girl next door” good looks. I felt she had the qualities of an excellent model. Our first shoot was themed “Monsoon” where I wanted photos of Emily in a monsoonal rain, drenched from head to toe. As you can see, that idea was a bust. Our shoot was on a beautiful day with nary a cloud in sight. I did, however, get a chance to see Emily’s cute, adventurous nature mixed with her quick mind.

Last week, I invited Emily to participate in a nude shoot at Red Bench Photography Studio in Jerome, AZ which is owned by one of my favorite models, Zushka Biros. Being so new to the world of modeling, I was expecting her to be shy, tentative and/or nervous about posing nude. To my surprise, Emily jumped in with both feet and an enthusiastic, “I’m in!“

Emily turned out to be fearless in following directions as well as contributing her own ideas. And, the camera loves her. With new models, I’m lucky to get 5% good images; with Emily, I’ve identified over 50 good images and 15 or more great images. I’m still working on the rest so stay tuned for more of Emily in the near future.

All the photos were made with a Pentax K-1 and Pentax D FA 24-70/2.8 and processed in Adobe Lightroom Classic.

Spring Fling Photo Extravaganza 2018

Speaking of the near future, Emily will be one of the models at Red Bench Photography’s Spring Fling Photo Extravaganza Workshop on April 27-29 at the Jerome studio. I can’t emphasize enough the studio’s beautiful light and artistic ambiance. I’ll be leading several sections on bodyscapes. You’ll have the opportunity to book time with the models to practice what you learn. Check it out and register soon because space is limited and there’s a huge discount for the first registrants.

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

Time, Effort and Practice Pay Off

The following hummingbird photos were sent by Butch, a former student. As you can imagine, out of every 100 students, probably no more than 1 or 2 stays with photography or advances beyond basic snapshots. Butch has far exceeded what most students ever attain. After about 5 years, out of the clear blue, Butch sent me these photos and added I was the first to advise him to use a flash and HSS to “freeze” hummingbirds in flight. He’s learned well and I applaud his persistence. I particularly like that he used a slow enough shutter speed to leave some blur in the wings.

Canon EF 135/2.0L USM

I recently bought this lens, one of Canon’s sharpest. I’d always wanted one but didn’t have a need for it. Now that I’m mainly shooting studio nudes, I can put it to good use. When I saw it on Canon’s Refurb shop for $799.99, I jumped since it retails for $999. But wait, it gets better. While waiting for the lens to arrive, I noticed Canon had further reduced the price to $679.99. Calling Canon, I was pleasantly surprised when the rep cheerfully adjusted my price and refunded the extra $120. In the end, I got a great lens for 32% ($320) off retail.

As I get older, I’m suppressing my measurbater tendencies. I considered doing a test shoot using various targets to measure and quantify its sharpness compared to other lenses in my bag but the idea was quickly dismissed. I’ll take some test shots and post them over the next few weeks. If you’re a measurbater at heart, read what Roger Cicala, Founder & CEO of LensRentals.com says about the EF 135/2.0.

Canon Refurbs are returns or overstocks. A defective or damaged lens goes through Canon’s repair facility where a Canon trained tech goes through each lens. Parts aren’t repaired but replaced and the product is tested. At the factory hundreds of lenses come off the line and each is given a cursory inspection but at the repair center, lenses are tested individually. In my experience, every refurb has always arrived in pristine condition and the only difference is that it may not come in an original retail box. This lens only came with a lens pouch, front & rear caps and paperwork.

In the case of overstocks, a dealer or distributor may have overestimated how many units they could sell or the company may have gone out of business or the product might have been superseded by a newer model or technology. In such cases, Canon sells them as Refurb in the original box, just like you find at a store.

Wishing Everyone a Merry, Merry & a Happy, Happy!

Keep It In Focus

There are many different levels and interests in photography but, sometimes, I’m a bit surprised by what passes for “good” photography, especially when photos are out of focus (OOF) and basics of depth of field (DoF) are overlooked.

Here are some photos that illustrate good focus vs soft focus. The first is the minimum of what I consider “in focus.” Both models are ever so slightly OOF. The actual focus point is about where the shoulder strap attaches to the dress of the brunette on the right. I know this because at 100% I can make out details on her gold chain in that area. It may be difficult to see in small web images so the next two photos are 100% crops.

The front of Vikki’s (left model) pompadour is OOF and her eyes are OOF. Eyes MUST be in focus. The eyes of the model on the right (camera left,) are barely in focus while the front of her bumper bangs are focused. The photo was made with my 5D MkII using a Canon 50/1.4 set to f/3.5 at a distance of ~5 feet. That gave me about 4 inches acceptable DoF. Since the image is focused on the brunette’s shoulder strap, we split ~4 inches (2″ in front and 2″ behind) and both models’ eyes are just beyond the 2″ back margin. The difference is more noticeable if you compare the models’ lips and teeth. The reason I selected f/3.5 and such a narrow DoF is simple, I screwed up. When you’re “running & gunning,” you’re prone to making mistakes, slow down, take a deep breath and make better photos.

All this may sound nit-picky but, if you’re into photography, it’s important to check focus before uploading photos to a public forum. Everyone screws up from time to time but it’s not necessary to show those to the world. More importantly, if you print OOF images, the softness will quickly become evident as the image is enlarged.

These last three show what good focus looks like. The eyes are clear, crisp and detailed. You can almost count the eyelashes. If your monitor is sharp enough, you should be able to see the fine “peach fuzz” around their mouths and skin pores will be quite evident. All these photos were made with a Canon 5D MkII and Canon 24-104/4L IS USM, my “go to” rig. All three photos were at 4-6 feet. Chandra (1st) and Jackie (2nd) were at f/4.5, 84mm with about 3.25″ DoF. Arya (3rd) was at f/4.5, 58mm resulting in ~7″ DoF.

A good online resource for learning and understanding DoF is www.dofmaster.com. If you’re confused by depth of field, search my site for “depth of field” for a dozen or more articles. Keep in mind that DoF is controlled by aperture,  focal length and distance to subject.

If You Need/Want a Website

My friend, Susan Gregory, is a website designer and SEO maven. Anyone looking for a new website or simply wanting to “freshen” their existing site would do well to ask Susan for an evaluation and quote. My long time readers know I hardly ever push my friends’ products or services so you can believe I trust her.