TECHNIQUE

Phase One recently acquired Microsoft Expression Media, an enhanced build of iView Media Pro, a photo database competing with the likes of Lightroom and Aperture. Many predicted the eventual merging of Phase One’s Capture One software, a leading RAW file converter with a host of image editing capablilities. With the announcement of Capture One 5.1.2, that integration has begun. It is now easy to send a selection of Capture One images to an Expression Media catalog, including ratings, to preview images in Expression using the Capture One rendering, and to create a Capture One album from an Expression Media search of the database.

Registered Capture One users are eligible for a free copy of Expression Media while Expression Media owners can acquire a free copy of Capture One. This offer expires at the end of June, 2010.

Phase One has also increased support for Leaf digital backs and files, which makes sense given that they bought Leaf a year ago.

For more information, see the Phase One press release at:

http://www.phaseone.com/en/News/Press-Room/Press-Releases.aspx

todd Burleson, the President of Alpine Ascents, called from out of the blue asking if I would like to fly around Mt. Rainier in his light plane to photograph with the Phase One camera. It was a perfect day so Leah Courage and I decided to go. We met Todd and his friend at the Renton, WA airport, boarded his classic bush plane and took off.

When not monitoring Alpine Ascents from it’s Seattle headquarters, one of the few permitted to guide on Mount Rainier, Todd lives south of the Alaska Range in Talkeetna. From Talkeetna he flies to a lakeside cabin abutting the range and enjoys landing on the high glaciers for a spectacular camping experience minus the effort and tedium of a long climb.

We made a beeline for the north side of Rainer. The Willis Wall and Liberty Ridge rose above low clouds. I opened the window to shoot. We had smooth air and the wind didn’t buffet my lens if it protruded only a few inches so I could get a sharp shot with a shutter speed of a thousandth of a second. The contrast was ferocious, though, especially when we flew to the backlit east side where most of the mountain was in shadow. The shadows picked up the blue of the sky, which would give the impression of a blue cast to the images.

Todd made a few passes by Little Tahoma. At over 11,000 feet it’s the second highest mountain in the Cascades, but against the hulk of Rainier it looked like a dark thorn. The plane flew past the summit. As it did so, I fired several verticals intending to stitch them together as a panorama. They resulted in a half gigabyte 16 bit file with enough resolution to pick out climbers’ footprints on the summit dome.

I had wondered if mirror and shutter slap would affect the hand held Phase in a moving plane, but it acquitted itself well. When I got home, I had to decide whether to mask out the blue cast on the snow or let well enough alone. I tried it both ways and decided I liked the look of the blue cast.

Tags: Aerial landscape Mountain Rainier

“Art is like a greased pig – it’s hard to hold onto.” It was the first minute into day one of a three-day workshop on the elements of photographic composition, taught by world-renowned photographer Art Wolfe, and he already had the room engaged and laughing. “If you’re looking to learn how to take the perfect shot of the Snake River with perfect light and exposure, then you’re in the wrong place. I’m going to attempt to teach you the value of taking photos that aren’t cliché and haven’t been taken before.” I instantly knew I was in for a real treat in taking this course, but it took a few weeks for his teachings to sink in for me to realize just how profound the experience actually was.

Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Art Wolfe is an internationally acclaimed photographer, best known for his nature and wildlife images. Since he was a young boy, Wolfe has consistently drawn inspiration from his surroundings. “I was in nature non-stop from a very young age,” he said, speaking of the countless hours he spent exploring the woods and wildlife of Schmitz Park in West Seattle. “I was in love with the forest, the animals, the natural world around me – and I still am.” Wolfe lives in West Seattle in a home with a view overlooking Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains, a self-designed Japanese garden surrounding the house. “You have to surround yourself with the elements that inspire you. I wake up every day and look out my bedroom window to see water, mountains and sky, and it gets me excited to shoot,” he said.

Wolfe doesn’t confine his shooting to nature and culture, however. He’s currently working on a series of black and white abstracts and symbolic compositions shot on Phase One P45+ digital medium format camera system in the studio.

Early in the workshop I discovered that Wolfe was not only a phenomenal photographer, but also a gifted teacher. At one point he displayed an image of a brightly lit zebra on the African savannah backed by dark, billowing clouds to illustrate how he’ll use positive and negative space to draw one’s eye to his chosen subject. He showed another photo of water pockets on a sheet of ice to demonstrate the power of patterns and repetition. “It’s all about perspective. You’ve got to analyze what’s going on to determine the best angle to capture your shot. Look for an unusual viewpoint.”

Wolfe has a die-hard attitude towards shooting a scene from as many different angles and perspectives as possible before he ends a session. “Stay with a subject and it will eventually reveal itself to you in unexpected ways,” he said, referencing a tight shot of a Mongolian father and son on a steppe, one of whom was propping up a golden eagle used for hunting on his arm. “I started shooting the men from far away, but the shot wasn’t working. I was frustrated, but I kept shooting until I eventually found an angle that worked for me, and it produced a strong image. Don’t give up; keep trying and sooner or later you’ll find some viewpoint that was hidden from you initially.”

Wolfe deliberately employs the compositional concepts originated by the impressionists and abstract expressionists in his work. He’ll literally sketch the images he wants to capture before he takes them. His acute eye for detail was apparent when he was able to completely transform a student’s image simply through cropping part of it, removing elements that distracted the eye and led it into blind alleys. The resulting image invited the eye to move across it. “The last thing you want is a static image. If the viewer sees everything in a picture in a glance, he moves on, bored.”

Even though Wolfe spoke at length about various elements he uses in his photography (light, lenses, gesture, pattern, etc.), I realized that two fundamental things set him apart from other photographers: his energetic, relentless attitude towards shooting (“Art is everywhere; I’m always looking at my surroundings as possible subjects to shoot…this keeps my creative juices flowing at all times”) and his devotion towards capturing his subjects from unusual and original perspectives. He sees the world as design elements that he’s constantly rearranging in his mind. Photography is a way of life for Wolfe; the camera is never turned “off,” so to speak. “Every photo’s got a story. How will you tell yours?”

Art Wolfe conducts workshops and seminars across the country. For more information, look at www.artwolfeworkshops.com.

Phase One added me to their roster of  PODAS (Phase One Digital Artists Series) instructors. http://www.phaseone.com/en/PODAS/Info/Intro.aspx

These workshops are designed to transform one’s photography, from visualization to composition to processing and output. Each participant is given a Phase One P65+ digital medium format system – the current high resolution champ- and access to all the Phase One lenses for use during the event.

I’m scheduled for the Glacier National Park trip June 8th through June 13^th with Jack Flesher and Tim Wolcott ($4995) and Iceland from August 29th through September 5^th with Jeff Schewe, Mark Dubovoy, and Daniel Bergmann ($6500). All expenses are covered from pick up at the airport to drop off at the end.

These are two of my favorite locations and both figured prominently in my book Planet Ice. I’m very pleased to be part of PODAS and look forward to a long and fruitful association.

Whenever I’m told I can’t do something, I instantly bristle. Sometimes it makes sense, and I let it go. If someone tells me I can’t survive jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, I’m likely to let it pass; however, if I can see a way and judge the benefit worth the risk, I’m likely to give it a shot.

When I started to investigate digital medium format systems, I heard that they were suited primarily for studio work. Since my first love were the high-resolution images produced by the f64 club as exemplified by Ansel Adams, I wanted to take whatever camera I into the field. The Phase One cameras and  backs had a reputation for surviving in wet and rugged conditions so that was my first choice.

I had shot film in medium format cameras for almost 20 years so I knew what I was in for. Operating the camera would slow me down, I would have to wait between shots, I wouldn’t have access to very long lenses, I would miss some great shots. I prefer to nail one fantastic image than bring home a hard drive full of the merely okay.

I decided to take my P45+, a 39 megapixel back, to Madagascar for its maiden trip. My longest lens was a 300 mm, equivalent to about 200 mm in 35mm world. It would work well in situations well-suited to the strengths of the Phase One, but much of the time would be spent trying to capture a skipping lemur, a restive frog, a grumpy chameleon, or a tiny insect with a comparatively balky camera. I packed a 35mm with one lens, a 500, as backup just in case something spectacular happened that the Phase couldn’t possibly photograph.

The camera did spectacularly well, but I started to break down under the weight and stress of trying to master the system in rough circumstances. As predicted, a lot of images got away, especially the moving lemurs. Even chameleons, a specialty of mine, had a chance to march out of view as I fiddled with the camera. But the good images were great. Everything I value technically in a photograph was present: sharpness, exposure latitude, and rich color.

I had to revert to some old techniques. The lenses couldn’t follow focus so I pre-focused on the spot I expected an animal to pass and tripped the shutter when the moment arrived. I got a few serviceable shots.

We found a giraffe beetle under a leaf in the eastern rainforest of Perinet. This exotic creature is about as long as my thumbnail and as strange as any creature in Avatar. The faintest breezes blew the leaf slightly, making it impossible for me to focus. I told the clamp out of my bag, attached one end to my tripod and the other to the leaf. Voila, immobile insect.

Our visit to Baobab Alley on the west coast of the island fit the strengths of the Phase One system perfectly. Nothing this side of a rock beats a tree if you want to take your time creating an image, and the “upside-down trees” both symbolize the island and offer strong graphic elements. The spiny forest of the south is like nowhere else on the planet, with twisting tendrils protected by natural needles. Near sunset their backlit leaves glow.

Madagascar is one of my favorite places on Earth, full of marvels, a photographer’s dream. If I had just one chance to visit, I would probably go for a faster outfit, but given the chance to supplement a large collection or the time to fail several times between each success, I would go for digital medium format.

Since vibration degrades resolution, select gear and adopt practices that limit its impact on your images.

Cameras require a stable platform. At a high enough shutter speed, a human hand will do. You can enhance the performance of this basic implement by tucking your upper arm against your chest to ground it. As Joe McNally pointed out, wrapping a hand over the top of the camera at the same time further immobilizes it, but for most people this requires viewing with your left eye. Either way, take a deep breath, let it out, wait a moment and squeeze the shutter button. This sounds like Photo School, Day One, but I see experienced photographers hold their elbows out like chickens about to take flight all the time. When the decisive moment arrives, excitement overwhelms training so watching them squeezing the shutter evokes a concert pianist hitting a fortissimo high C.

If that sounds like you, or even if it doesn’t, relying on a tripod and a cable release will produce optimal results. All things equal, a heavier tripod and head will dampen vibration better than a lighter one so carry the heaviest kit possible. If your pocketbook or erector spinae limit you to lighter gear, hang your equipment bag off the tripod from a hook on the center post or with the strap wrapped around the legs. Mass equals stability, and the camera can’t tell if it comes from a bag of sand or pricy carbon fiber legs. Carbon fiber is reputed to be a superior material for absorbing vibration. I like it because it doesn’t transmit cold as well as aluminum and seems to work well even when a bit lighter.

Most vibration is generated by the camera itself, chiefly the moving mirror and shutter. The mirror on an SLR flips away from the sensor like a garage door. Focal plane shutters, found on SLRs, open and close like bear traps. Mirrors are more serious offenders because they possess more mass. The quick movements ring the camera like a bell. A shutter curtain generates less vibration.

If your camera has a focal plane shutter, there is no cure. Test to see which shutter speeds seem to result in slight blurs, likely the result of shutter slap, and avoid them.

Rangerfinder cameras dispense with both mirror and focal plane shutters. The tiny leaf shutter within the lens moves low mass over a very short distance, introducing negligible vibration. In some cases, cameras equipped with focal plane shutters will accept leaf shutter lenses. In these cases, the focal plane shutter is locked open along with the mirror, allowing the leaf shutter to work its magic.

Lenses on rangefinder cameras offer more advantages at the cost of speed of operation and convenience, which I will discuss in a subsequent post on lens quality.

Anti-aliasing filters are also known as optical low pass or blur filters. Camera designers employ anti-aliasing filters to suppress the rainbow moiré patterns generated when not all color sensors are triggered. This typically occurs when small points of light can’t cover all three color sensors, such as the threads of a complex fabric or the grid pattern of a screen door.

The anti-aliasing filter combats this by blurring the image slightly so the light spreads out to cover the sensors. Unfortunately, the blurring visibly reduces sharpness.

Resolution lost at capture is gone for good. The sharpening programs found in camera software, Photoshop, and various plug-in programs increase contrast to the edges and thus boost apparent sharpness to the eye, but in fact, the actual detail is lost. More advanced sharpening programs, such as the Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop, “guess” which pixels were lost and rebuild them using mathematical models. Still, what is lost is lost.

Not all cameras have anti-aliasing filters, including digital medium format systems and Leica rangefinders. Part of the higher resolution for a given pixel count these cameras enjoy derives from the absence of the filters.

The designers count on the fact that moiré patterns are not a common problem for most photographers. Why degrade quality for a rare occurrence? For some photographers, though, moiré patterns are the kiss of death and must be removed or dramatically reduced. Fortunately, there are software solutions found in RAW converters and plug-ins as well as home-brewed in Photoshop. These tend to have a softening effect analogous to noise reduction or anti-alias filters so use these tools with care.

We all want the highest resolution images possible, files that display grainless perfection, that blow up to incredible sizes without degradation, that take our breath away. It was the quest for resolution that drove the megapixel wars among camera manufactures and leads some to opt for medium format systems to achieve ultimate quality. The more light-recording photo sites, photodiodes, you pack on a sensor, the finer resolution, all things being equal.

But things are never equal. Megapixels matter but are far from the whole story. High-resolution files result from high megapixel sensors, good glass, immobile cameras, and state-of-the-art signal processing to suppress chroma and luminance noise. Eliminating the anti-alias filter from the sensor design more than doubles apparent sharpness.

If a camera moves even slightly during an exposure, assuming a relatively slow shutter speed, the image will be blurred. A strong tripod and head, eliminating mirror slap vibration, and using a cable release all contribute to sharper images.

In the following posts we will look at how to achieve maximum resolution in detail.