By Betsy Finn, Cr.Photog., CPP

While already familiar with Photodex Proshow Gold, after getting to review Proshow Producer for Professional Photographer (review scheduled for April issue), I have to admit I felt a little out of my element. Creating slideshows is easy for me, but integrating still images with video? That’s another thing.

Fortunately, I was also able to get my hands on one of Photodex’s training videos: Photo Video Fusion. The DVD contains 1.5 hours of video tutorials (split into 11 chapters). The average video is about 15 minutes long, so you’ll be able to squeeze your learning sessions in when you have a spare moment.

The training sessions begin by explaining the concept of “fusion”—the blending of video and images to create a complete slideshow production. The DVD does a thorough job of explaining concepts, and I’m pretty sure you’ll find it easy to understand.

If you’re someone who learns best by doing, rather than just hearing or watching things, you will love this workshop DVD. Photodex has included video and image files so that you can follow along with the tutorial and actually do the exercises yourself.

After you learn about fusion, the DVD will help you get a good foundation in editing videos with Photodex. You’ll learn how to work with video, how to trim video files and create video clips, and most important—that videos behave pretty much like individual images (so far as layers, masks, and styles go).

Images ©Peter Atherton

By Curtis Joe Walker

The orbis ring flash from Enlight Photo is a modifier for hot shoe flashes that allows them to emulate the functionality of a studio ring flash. Fitting onto the end of a hot shoe flash, it takes the light and bounces it through a highly reflective inner chamber, outputting diffused, characteristic light through its ring.

The high-impact-plastic unit has been expertly designed for maximum efficiency, using the brightest chrome finished plastic available. By adding translucent material to the bottom of the ring and a series of baffles inside, the light output from the ring is evenly distributed and creates flawless specular highlights. Inside, a series of spring hinges ensure a snug fit on the end of your flash. It isn’t designed to permanently marry the two devices, though. In other words, take care to hold the device in a way that protects both units from an unintended free fall.

So, how does it hold up in use? Pretty good, within its limitations. For one thing, it’s limited by the output of the flash that’s going into it, and it loses about 4 stops of light in the translation. That means there’s no way this light is going to light a whole set, but for portraits and very carefully composed full body shots, it’ll work. The instructions suggest bumping the ISO setting to 400, so depending on the camera and lens, it could be possible to get more out of the flash. With the ring flash, portraits show the characteristic wraparound shadow and the highlights are perfect donut shapes. Despite the limited efficiency, it is possible to overpower daylight if you’re able to shoot your subject from a few inches away.

By Betsy Finn, Cr.Photog., CPP

If you’re looking for an album design solution that integrates with Photoshop, then you need to give Album DS Design Software a shot. Let’s just say there’s a reason that Professional Photographer's Hot One Award judges picked Album DS (version 6.1.1) as the winner for Album Design/Layout. Before trying out Album DS, I hadn’t found a program that would fit my needs. I tried various programs, but resorted to Photoshop since the programs couldn’t render my envisioned design properly. After giving Album DS a shot, I think I finally found a program with enough flexibility for me.

Image ©Betsy Finn

When you first install Album DS, the installer will ask you which of the templates (700+), masks (200), frames (570+), backgrounds (326) and clipart you want to install. You can install a sampling of the resources, or install everything at once. Despite the large resource library, you’re not limited to the included templates. Album DS lets you convert templates you already have, or even make your own on the fly.

By Don Chick, M.Photog.Cr., CPP

Canon’s new EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens (MSRP $1,049) is quite a lens! Even though it has a fixed focal length, the image stabilization, speed (f/2.8) and life-size close-up capabilities without an adapter, (1:1 maximum magnification) make it a very desirable lens to own. Quoting from Canon’s website, “the lens was developed to expand users' photographing range and allow a wider range of users to easily enjoy macro photography.” I recently had the opportunity to evaluate this new lens from  while photographing a wedding as well as creating macro images at my leisure.

Of all the features and capabilities, the feature that impressed me most is the life-size, 1:1 maximum magnification factor. With the 100mm mounted on a Canon EOS 40D, I borrowed the bride’s bouquet as well as the newlyweds’ rings. Using only afternoon window light and the bouquet, I proceeded to capture images to see just what this lens was capable of doing. The first few images were captured from a more “normal” distance (Figure 1).

My initial idea for the image was to incorporate flowers and rings into a “vignette” image. Images like these are important for recording wedding day details for the bride and groom, as well as to increase the variety of images in their final album. After several images at a lower magnification factor, I began to move closer and closer to the rings until I was at the lens’s minimum focusing distance and maximum magnification factor (Figure 2).

I was very impressed with the lens stabilization feature—none of these images were taken with a tripod-mounted camera. It is worth noting, however, that in order to minimize camera shake, I had my elbows propped on the table and held the camera tightly while releasing the shutter. Because I was using the camera’s TTL metering capability when photographing the subject from such a close distance, I didn’t have to make any exposure compensation.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Supplement

By Betsy Finn, Cr.Photog., CPP

In this month’s print edition of Professional Photographer magazine, I discussed my experiences with three web cart systems for photographers: RedCart, Photo Cart, and Lightbox Photo Gallery. While each cart system is different, they do all accomplish the same end goal—that is, to allow you to sell your images and products online.

To help you get an idea of what each cart will (and will not) do, I’ve compiled features into categories: investment, interface, pricing, products, and setup. With that being said, let’s take a closer look at the features these web carts have to offer.

Investment: With a one-time investment upfront for a single domain license, all three carts allow you to benefit from commission-free sales. Depending on which interface you choose, you’ll end up investing anywhere from $329 to $1,099 (see end of article). Photo Cart includes lifetime free upgrades, Lightbox includes free upgrades for one year, and RedCart includes minor upgrades unless you spring for their monthly investment … and then you’ll receive all upgrades.

Interface: All three carts have the capability to display public galleries (or keep them private), e-mail invoices, save client favorites, and even display images in a slideshow. RedCart is the only cart to operate on a Flash-based front end—the other two are HTML-based. Photo Cart and Lightbox both have integrated batch uploading, watermarking, and auto thumbnail generation; the upcoming version of RedCart (soon to be released) relies on a desktop application to accomplish these tasks. Since Lightbox is geared to commercial/stock photography, it has several unique features, including SEO URLs, a multi-photographer manager, and even a keyword search log. Both Photo Cart and Lightbox can display IPTC metadata if that information is present in your image files.

Above: Lightbox Photo Gallery configuration interface and the gallery view for clients. (Click for large view.)

Above: Photo Cart's client gallery. (Click for large view.)

Above: RedCart's client gallery. (Click for large view.)

By Curtis Joe Walker

Zenfolio has been offering easy, affordable, attractive online galleries for photographers for the last four years. Previously, photographers would have to build and host their own website elsewhere, linking externally to Zenfolio galleries to handle sales and client proofing. With their new release, to be launched at Imaging USA (Jan. 10-12), sites can be hosted entirely with Zenfolio. This eliminates the cost of two hosting accounts and greatly improves the visual presentation of the site thanks to comprehensive and customizable theme packages.

We recently had a chance to sit down with Zenfolio CEO Alex Peyzner to walk us through the upcoming features.

With the new release comes a whole new set of options for building pages. Foremost of these is theming. At launch, 10-15 themes will be available, but because the themes are customizable and downloadable, many more will quickly appear once the Zenfolio community gets their feet wet. Themes control the look and feel of the entire site from the main page to the individual galleries.The pages are Flash-free except for gallery slideshows. This move will satisfy mobile users, but at the cost of a completely designer-controlled viewing experience. Also included with Premium accounts is the ability to upload PDF files natively—a handy feature for publishing printable price/service menus.

By Thea Dodds, GreenerPhotography.org

“The Changing Range of Light: Portraits of the Sierra Nevada” combines art and science in a book of landscape photography, employing imagery to inspire action. It features gorgeous landscapes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range by Elizabeth Carmel, and text vignettes outlining the effect of global climate change in the Sierras by Robert Coats, PhD. and Geoffrey Schladow, PhD.

Carmel is an acclaimed landscape photographer based in Trukee, Calif. This volume is a follow-up to her book, “Brilliant Waters,” also featuring photographs from the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Contributing author Robert Coats has a B.S. and M.S. in Forestry and a PhD. in Wildland Resource Science from the University of California at Berkeley. Contributing author Geoffrey Schladow holds a B. Eng. and PhD. in civil engineering from the University of Western Australia, and a M. Eng. in hydraulic engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

The release of this 136 page, full color book was well timed with the December convening of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the largest conference of its kind in history. Carmel is courageous for publishing a book that combines grassroots education with contemporary landscape photography. She risks taking the reader away from her art with the addition of scientific commentary that is heavy both in content and technical in its language. It is striking how well the images lead the reader to the text, and the text takes the reader back to the images with additional information and appreciation. The climate change vignettes are interrupted by poetry at well-timed intervals to give the reader a needed breath of lighter content.

By Ellis Vener

What is better color worth to your photography business? That is the $99 question posed by the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport. But the underlying question is whether you can trust your camera, no matter which make or model you use, to automatically deliver its best possible color rendition. “Best” is obviously a subjective term. What most of us really want is what is known as “pleasing color”—blue skies rendered as a natural shade of blue without a magenta cast, grass that meets our perception of what grass should look like, skin tones that match the subjects’ complexion, and red hair that looks like red hair. (Sometimes we don’t want realistic color, but it is the best place to begin customizing from.)

Every camera model from every manufacturer interprets color differently due to differences in sensor technology, camera processor technology and programming. You may have even encountered slight color rendering differences between individual cameras of the same model. With little effort, profiling your cameras eliminates these color rendering differences.

To get there, we have to make all parts of the photographic process work harmoniously. That is the ultimate goal of color management. By now, most professionals and serious amateurs understand that calibrating and profiling our displays is essential, even if we aren’t working on high-end Eizo and NEC monitors. Those involved in making prints understand the necessity of using good profiles for printers, papers, and inks or lab-produced prints. Even if you choose to work only with JPEGs in the small sRGB color space, you are passively engaged in color management.

By Mark Levesque, CPP

The digital age has brought with it the benefits of rapidly improving technology that simultaneously becomes more capable and less costly. As a consequence of more and better megapixels, photographers are generating ever increasing quantities of data. The recent trend in DSLRs to add HD video capability compounds the problem: how to contend with all the data generated on a shoot. The solution has been to take advantage of a similar trend in the flash memory market: more memory for less money. Larger memory cards notwithstanding, photographers often find themselves on location and running out of memory, or simply looking to quickly create the peace of mind that having your data safely backed up can bring.

Enter the Nexto eXtreme ND-2700 from Nexto DI. Touting “on the go” backups, this device is the essence of simplicity. Plug in your card, and press the button. The embedded hard drive springs to life and the copying of your data commences. It’s that easy to create reliable backups. In short order you have a copy of your data, along with status indicating its integrity.

By Kim Larson

When Adobe Lightroom was formally introduced in 2006, it was applauded as a great tool for enhancing photographers’ workflows. Now there’s another tool on the market that can further speed your work in Lightroom: Kubota RPG Speedkeys for Lightroom 2.

Kubota RPG Speedkeys for Lightroom 2 was designed to help you work faster in Lightroom by combining the popular RPG Keys product with Kevin Kubota’s Lightroom workflow. It’s a small wireless keyboard that is pre-programmed to run time-saving adjustments in Lightroom, such as increasing or decreasing exposure, and shortcuts to perform popular  Kubota Lightroom Presets. (The product includes Kubota Lightroom Presets v3.) With just a press of the button, you can adjust things like the exposure and color temperature of an image—a great time savings over manually adjusting the Lightroom sliders with a mouse.

Installation of the Speedkeys goes quickly, but it is very important that you follow the instructions. Install the software before plugging the keyboard’s USB receiver into your computer, and when the software asks you to choose a directory for installation, make sure you choose the correct Adobe directory. It’s also important that you do not restart your computer with the USB Receiver connected, as it does affect how your computer starts if left plugged in.

To use the Speedkeys, you simply plug in the USB Receiver, start the Kubota RPG Speedkeys application, and open Lightroom. If you’re using a Macintosh, take you need to open all the little menus in the Quick Develop area of the Library module for the keys to work. Then you are ready to process away!

By Betsy Finn, CPP

I recently had the opportunity to try out Tenba’s Small Photo/Laptop Roadie. In addition to cramming it chock-full of equipment, I was curious to see if it would really fit under the seat on an airplane.

The Small Roadie has a lot of features and enough compartments to satisfy most pocket fanatics. According to Tenba, the Small Roadie holds 1 or 2 SLRs with 5 to 6 lenses (up to 300mm 2.8). Your mileage may vary, but here’s a list of the equipment I was able to cram (in an organized manner) into this functional studio on wheels (see photo below).

• 15-inch widescreen laptop, power cord, and travel surge protector
• Nikon D3 body with 70-200mm f2.8 VR lens
• Nikon D200 body
• Nikon 55mm f2.8 micro lens
• Nikon 50mm f1.4 lens
• Nikon 28-70mm f2.8 lens
• Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 lens
• Two Nikon SB-800 Speedlights
• Light meter
• Battery + CF card cases

By Adam Boozer

The latest version of Serif’s video editing tool, MoviePlus X3, is a solid evolution in this software’s almost 10 year history. Easily usable by both the novice video editor as well as the more seasoned professional, this application provides a wide range of tools that can enable almost anyone to deliver a high quality end product.

Full disclosure, I am a Final Cut Pro user and a Mac guy, so I approached the review of this application with the attitude of “how good could this little PC-only app really be?” I must admit I was pleasantly surprised. Not only was the application incredibly easy to use, I actually found it fun to import my video assets and play with the wide range of tools available to me.

The interface for MoviePlus X3 is well organized and is actually centered around an integrated “How To” system. This instructional system removes the barrier found in more complex video applications by approaching the user with a series of common tasks. I like the idea of asking the user what it is they want to do and then walking them through the necessary steps to accomplish the task. Of course, more sophisticated users can disable this function, or new users can simply wean themselves off of it over time.

The feature that most impressed me was the manner in which MoviePlus X3 handled the native video files from my Canon EOS 5D Mark II. The h.264 compressed files that the 5D Mark II creates are  processor-intensive to play back, and I find that most users transcode the video into other formats to edit. When I imported my clips into MoviePlus X3 to test, I was excited to see that it immediately made lower resolution proxy files for me to edit with. This allowed for very speedy playback within the application and gave me the flexibility to play with effects, titles, etc. without the lag time associated with the original h.264 files. The best part is that this is automatic. When I was ready to export my final project, the application referenced my original high resolution files.

By Don Chick

Every once in a while a product comes along that is easy to use and has tremendous features and potential. EzMats Designer is one such product. The software is Mac/PC compatible and is available to purchase and download off the Web. After watching a brief tutorial and downloading about 40MB with an easy installation, I was off on my own creating custom mats in about an hour.

EzMats Designer is not a plug-in or simply a bunch of templates, but rather a stand-alone program that works within Photoshop (CS3 & CS4) when Photoshop is running. Once the software is installed, you can launch the program via a desktop icon or shortcut (Windows). The tool palette is easy to use and the layout is well thought through with only 11 buttons. Figure 1 (below) shows the palette as well as a double mat created from one of the 149 Ready to Use Templates (Software Driven Digital Mat Layouts) and a texture overlay that comes with the EzMats software.

Kevin Truax, the genius behind EzMats Designer, has created several online videos that take you step-by-step through the very quick learning curve. I found it worth the time investment to watch the video and simultaneously create mats as Kevin talked me through the process. Soon after watching the tutorial videos I was making the more advanced multi-opening mats. My mind was buzzing with ideas for new products that I could offer my clients as well as using these as upgrade options for existing products.

By Andrew Darlow

As digital photography and printer technologies evolve, so the development of new and innovative matte/watercolor papers for inkjet printing moves forward. And there is certainly no shortage of these papers. Over the last 12-18 months, more than 20 new fine-art matte/watercolor inkjet papers have been released. And unlike digital cameras and printers, many matte/watercolor inkjet papers introduced five or even 10 years ago stay on the market, just as useful as the day they were introduced. What makes these papers special is that even though they are coated with an inkjet-receptive layer, they retain an organic look similar to a watercolor painting or fine print made on hand-made Japanese paper. The coating improves the density, sharpness, and in many cases, the longevity of the paper and ink combination.

Many photographers choose inkjet matte/watercolor papers for fine-art gallery prints, client portrait prints, wedding albums, commercial portfolios, cards and promotional pieces. In this article, I give an overview of six companies whose matte/watercolor papers have impressed me, with some specs to help you determine if their offerings might be right for you. At the end of the article is a list of companies that produce and/or distribute matte/watercolor papers under their brand name.

Prices vary considerably from vendor to vendor, so I recommend using search engines to find retailers for specific products (always consider shipping costs, as well as a vendor’s reputation and return policy). Also, virtually all the papers described here are available in sample packs, which can save you money in the long run by allowing you to experiment with several different papers before purchasing larger amounts of one or two favorites. Often, papers are available in both rolls and sheets. My preference for most uses is sheets, primarily because the papers are fragile and sheets generally stay flat and need far less handling or cutting.

Also, the number that follows most paper names stands for its basis weight in grams per square meter (gsm). Most matte/watercolor inkjet papers are between 190-350gsm. Keep this in mind because every printer has a maximum paper thickness that it will accept.

Among the new matte and watercolor papers are Hahnemühle Sugar Cane (far left), Pictorico ART Kenaf Paper UNRYU (68) (top, center), Epson Signature Worthy Cold Press Bright (far right), and Canson Rag Photographique 210 (bottom). Photo ©Andrew Darlow. Click image for larger view.

By Ellis Vener

In the gallery linked below you will find full resolution 1,000 x 1,000-pixel crops shot at the Nikon D3S Big Apple Circus event on October 20, 2009. The gallery shows images at all full-stop ISO settings from ISO 100 to 102,400. The final image is an uncropped view.

Exposure and processing information is included with the images. The camera was set for lossless 14-bit NEF mode and High ISO noise reduction was set to Low.

I viewed the files in Nikon ViewNX and then used Photoshop for cropping, captioning, conversion to the sRGB color space and saved at level 12 (minimal) compression.

There is no sharpening applied in the NEF processing or in post processing. Active D-lighting was turned off in the camera, and D-Lighting was turned off in Nikon ViewNX. Beyond what is described above, no other processing was done. The HTML Web gallery was created in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.5

View Nikon D3S images.

By Zack Davis

Like many photography studios, I get my share of calls and requests each year about restoring an old or damaged family photograph. That’s where Onlinephotofix.com comes in. Offering a range of services geared toward image restoration for consumers and professionals. Professional Photographer magazine sent me to see if this service could be valuable to studios as a cost-effective alternative to keeping the work in house.

I wanted to challenge Onlinephotofix.com in several ways, as they are a restoration service and not a retouching firm. Though for this review I did use images from sessions that had real-world exposure and composition issues to get a better idea of the quality of their work.

With wholesale account discounts of 50% off their retail service, the Onlinephotofix.com restoration service is priced quite reasonably. Taking the cost of time into consideration, this service could open up a new revenue stream for your studio or free up your time for additional appointments.

Since the goal of using a service like this is to lighten your workload, the amount of time it takes to prepare and send the files is important. For this review I had one very important question, “Can I submit an image to them in less than 15 minutes?”

On my first visit to the image submission portion of the site, my total time investment to send in an image for a quote was 9 minutes, and I was pleased. A client could come in with an image, and in less than 15 minutes I could have it scanned, saved and uploaded for a free quote.

There are no strict size requirements. The full-size file goes directly to the server without any need for manipulation on your part. This immediately removes 90 percent of the work you have to do. As far as fee structure goes, it’s simple.

By Andrew Rodney

I am the first to admit I’m paranoid about my data, especially digital captures I shoot on location. I strive to keep at least two copies of all my raw files at any one time. When shooting on location for extended periods, that means having a hefty supply of flash cards and a means of copying them to an external hard drive, and only reformatting the cards when I have two backups. Usually that means taking a laptop, card reader and an external hard drive with me on location. There is another solution that I recently investigated—the HyperDrive Colorspace UDMA photo backup device.

The HyperDrive Colorspace is essentially a self-contained, battery powered storage device that quickly copies contents of my flash cards directly to a huge hard drive, and has a large 3.2-inch external LCD display to view and edit (if I choose) the images. Measuring 5.25 x 2.95 x 1 inches and weighing only 10.5 ounces, this is a lightweight, portable solution that at the very least, allows me to quickly download contents of my flash cards in the field without the need of a laptop. With its fast USB 2.0 connectivity, I can copy the contents of the Colorspace to my laptop’s external drive each evening if I decide it’s worth taking all that extra equipment with me on a shoot. Now I have two copies of my images and can safely reformat the flash cards and continue to shoot. There are a number of advantages to taking such a device on location such as:

Data verification: As data from a flash card is copied to the internal drive inside the Colorspace, it uses what is called CRC copy verification. I’d be very hard pressed to format a flash card on location, at least until I know the one backup I’ve made has been verified. The product provides three differing verification schemes. Real Time Verify is the default and does not affect copy speed. If an error in the camera file is detected when it copies to the hard drive, I’m alerted immediately. Verify HDD and Verify Card use a slower checksum verification scheme that compares each file copied to the data on the card or drive. Knowing that the image data on the Colorspace is readable and has been copied from the flash card with data integrity provides a lot of peace of mind.

By Betsy Finn, CPP

Sanyo’s Eneloop batteries are a new twist on the traditional rechargeable battery; they can retain 85 percent of their capacity over a year’s time. Because of this unique characteristic, Sanyo is able to package Eneloop batteries so they’re ready to use when you need them. The question is: Does this convenience factor come at a cost in performance? Can professional photographers really rely on a battery that is only rated at 2,000 mAH (compared to the more typical 2650 mAh or 2900 mAh)?

I was curious to see how Eneloop batteries compared to standard Ni-MH rechargeable batteries. To compare their performance, I used three Nikon Speedlights with four batteries each, set on manual flash power (one as the on-camera master, the other two as remotes). One of the remote Speedlights would be powered by Eneloop batteries, the other by standard Ni-MH batteries. After doing some research online, I discovered that my Nikon SB-800 Speedlights, at full manual power, should have a recycle time of four seconds when using Ni-MH batteries, and allow for 150 shots to be fired (Source: KenRockwell.com). With that in mind as a guideline, I set out to test the 150-shot theory and see how the Eneloop batteries compared to the standard Ni-MH batteries.

Image ©Betsy Finn

Big leg support with a small footprint

By Michael J. McNamara

A tripod is either a must-have accessory or a necessary evil, depending on what you’re shooting and how far you have to carry one. For travel and location shoots, a sturdy tripod gives you the support needed to maintain low-noise ISO settings, creatively blur motion with slower shutter speeds, or maximize depth-of-field with smaller apertures. If you’re on a tight budget, “sturdy” usually equates to heavy, and the benefits you get from a heavy tripod must be weighed against the hassle of carrying it, the space it takes up and the extra price you may incur for shipping it to various locations. On the other hand, smaller, lightweight tripods made of carbon fiber offer a superior weight-to-support ratio than metal models, but a decent one can cost you an arm and three legs.

A more affordable, compact and sturdy alternative is the Benro Travel Angel. This innovative aluminum model folds down to a mere 14.9-inch length, yet can be extended up to 59.6 inches tall. It’s also rated to hold a typical medium-sized DSLR with a zoom lens up to 8.8 pounds. For a recent overseas assignment, I paired the aluminum version with a Benro B-series Ballhead B-0 (this combo available as kit TRAB169 for  $231, and holds up to 17.6 pounds) as the support system for a new Panasonic DMC-GH1 camera system. Since the GH1 is one of the lightest interchangeable-lens cameras on the market (and one of the best dual-media cameras with full 1080P HD recording), I didn’t need the extra weight capacity of a larger tripod or the carbon fiber version of the Travel Angel (model TRCB169, $440 street, folds to 14.1 inches, extends to 58 inches high, and can support up to 17.6 pounds).

All Images ©Michael J. McNamara 2009

By Kim Larson

PhotoTools 2 is a Photoshop plug-in from onOne Software that allows you to quickly apply a variety of Photoshop effects to your photos and video clips. PhotoTools 2 provides an extensive library featuring multiple effects created by onOne and Photoshop Gurus Kevin Kubota and Jack Davis.

I was concerned that PhotoTools 2 would not compare to my own vast library of Photoshop Actions (My name is Kim, and I am a Photoshop Action-holic). But after using PhotoTools 2 for one month, I realized that the power of PhotoTools is not the effects themselves, but really the way the effects are organized and applied.

Finding the Right Effect

With PhotoTools 2, finding the effect you want to apply to your photo is extremely simple because you can search for it in multiple ways. I am very impressed with how well-organized the effects library is. If you’re looking for an effect that applies specifically to eyes, simply do a search for “eyes” and you’ll see a list of effects meant to enhance eyes. If you’re looking to apply a moody effect to your photo, you can select “moody” from the keywords list. A good description and sample before-after photo is provided with each effect, so it is easy to pick out the one you want!

The PhotoTools 2 Library provides a very organized and keyword-searchable set of effects, making it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for. (Click image for larger view.)

Stack, Unstack, Modify, Repeat

PhotoTools 2 allows you to apply effects in a stack. You can take up to 16 effects and apply them to your image at once, and you can go back to modify, hide, or remove individual effects at any time. This is a great advantage over using multiple Photoshop actions because typically when you apply multiple actions to an image, you cannot go back and modify the first actions. With PhotoTools 2, you’re free to go back and edit the first effect without destroying the effects you applied after it.

You can modify any layer of the stack without changing the other layers.

When you find a combination of effects you like, you can save them as a preset, and can then apply them to other photos with one click. You can import and export presets from PhotoTools to share them with friends. You can even post them on the onOne Exchange site, where many people have already shared their favorite presets.

PhotoTools 2 also lets you apply the effects to multiple photos in a batch from Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom and Apple Aperture.

By Don Chick, M.Photog.Cr., CPP

As a passionate portrait photographer, I prefer to use a zoom during a session for the flexibility and range that a zoom lens has to offer. In order to minimize distortion, much of my portrait work is done in the 85mm or greater range. So when given a chance to evaluate the Sigma APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX II DC HSM I jumped at the opportunity. This lens seemed to combine the ideal features that any portrait photographer could ask for, i.e., range, speed and price.

©Don Chick

The 50-150mm has a fast fixed f/2.8 aperture, which comes in handy when you’re working in low-light conditions or looking to capture images with a very shallow depth of field. I believe the look of a shallow depth of field is essential for the professional today as a way to differentiate your work from the plethora of non-professionals. And while I don’t often work wide open at f/2.8 due to the extremely shallow depth-of-field at that aperture, being able to stop the lens down to f/3.5 or f/4.0 is an advantage.

This lens does not have built in image stabilization, which may be a deal breaker for some photographers at this price (current street price, $775). But because this lens doesn’t incorporate image stabilization, it weighs in at only 27.5 ounces, making it a relative lightweight compared to other f/2.8 lenses with image stabilization. The Canon and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses each weigh in at 51.8 ounces, nearly double the weight of the Sigma. The lighter weight makes it easier to hand-hold the lens and is less likely to cause fatigue when you carry it around for long periods of time.

By Stan Sholik

The Quantum Instruments Trio QF8/Pilot QF9/Qflash T5d-R equipment forms a powerful and versatile wireless system that can handle many of the tasks that up until now have required larger, less portable lighting equipment. I found that the system will perform extremely well when it has been set up properly. But I also encountered a fairly steep learning curve in setting the units up to perform the way I wanted.

For others who may be trying to work out settings for some common photographic situations, here is what I have found.

1) How to set up a Trio on the camera hot shoe and a T5d-R as a remote to use the camera’s built-in TTL system to determine the exposure.

The T5d-R remote flash must be set to the same Wireless Group and Channel as the Trio, in this case Wireless Group R1 and Channel 1. The remote flash must ALWAYS be set up before the on-camera Trio is turned on.

On the Trio, you set the mode to QTTL, the first setting in the menu bar at the top of the LCD.

[Editor's Note: Because studio management software serves many purposes and performs dozens of functions, this article provides an overview of StudioPlus Software in advance of a review of its accounting-specific function and integration with QuickBooks, which will appear in a forthcoming issue of Professional Photographer magazine.]

By Betsy Finn, CPP

Managing day-to-day operations can be a complicated task, and finding the right piece of software to manage your studio’s data can be equally challenging. StudioPlus has been around for 11 years and was developed specifically for photographers. The company emphasizes that StudioPlus is more than just a piece of software, it’s a studio management system to help photographers efficiently manage clients from the first phone call, to image capture, and to order pickup. While StudioPlus has too many features to review in a single article, this overview should give you an idea of its capabilities and how it might help your studio.

StudioPlus provides customer support during the setup phase so that you can learn how to use the software most efficiently—and I made sure to take advantage of this offer. After familiarizing myself with the software’s default settings, and changing the preferences to fit my studio’s operation, I began to explore the main areas of StudioPlus. Each section of StudioPlus is optimized for a specific function. For example, the Home Page gives you a snapshot of studio activities, including upcoming appointments/sessions, to dos, phone calls, financial figures, and even the weather.

[Click on interface images for a larger view.]

Animoto productions aren't really slideshows; they're professional looking music videos created with your images.

By Betsy Finn, CPP

SPECIAL OFFER EXTENDED: Purchase a three-month Professional pass using Coupon Code: PPAnov09 and get an extra month free. Offer ends Nov. 30, 2009.

Animoto blends video and music with still images to create a dynamic, interactive video. A relative newcomer to the photographic industry, Animoto has only been around since 2006. If you’re curious to find out why Animoto has been hailed as the “end of slideshows,” keep reading as I examine the movie-making process.

When creating a new video, Animoto prompts you to choose short or full-length video options, if you’re a paid user (a basic account is free, but you’re limited to creating 30-second videos). After you select video type, you tell Animoto where to get your images. You can upload from your computer, or retrieve from sites like Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, etc.

Animoto will then begin uploading your images. While movie length will ultimately depend on the tempo of your music selection, Animoto recommends 12-15 images for a 30 second video. You can rearrange the image order by clicking and dragging on an image (or set of images). The spotlight button lets you choose images you want to feature, and the text button lets you add a slide with two lines of text.

Calibrating your camera’s autofocus system for best performance with individual lenses

By Ellis Vener

Every now and then a specific autofocus lens and body combination just do not work perfectly. You may not even be aware that one or more of your lens/body combinations do not perform as well as it might if it were properly tuned, or maybe you require above average performance and want assurance that is what you are getting for your money. Several manufacturers now include a function for fine-tuning autofocus performance in their newest top-of-the-line bodies. (As of early August 2009 these include: Canon EOS-50D, 5D Mark II, 1D Mark III, and 1Ds Mark III models; Nikon D300, D300s, D700, D3, and D3X; Olympus E-30 and E-620; Pentax K20D; and Sony A900.) If your camera has that option, we now have a good reliable tool from rawworkflow.com for finding out exactly how out of whack a lens /body combo might be and what AF micro-adjustment setting is needed to maximize performance.

The LensAlign PRO kit consists of three pieces: a target to focus on, a steel Depth of Field Display Ruler, and a settings Enumerator to keep track of your settings in the photo. There are two other versions available as well; a Lite version, which is less fully featured, and the PRO PLUS, which features a larger target and a 47-inch long ruler.

Image ©Ellis Vener

Two (or three) bags to get you there

By Curtis Joe Walker

8 Million Dollar Home

Crumpler’s $170 8 Million Dollar Home is a handy, versatile shoulder bag for photographers on the go. With a bevy of inserts included, the bag can handle anything from two pro DSLRs with long lenses, or a DSLR, laptop and accessories. As tested, a DSLR body with lens, two medium-sized lenses, three hotshoe flashes, 15-inch laptop and miscellaneous accessories fit in perfectly.

The interior is all Velcro compatible, so the guts can be customized as desired. As with most Crumpler bags, there will be leftover inserts once the inside is customized. The bright green interior helps make loose items stand out. A mesh pocket in the top flap is great for batteries and small items, while a pair of pockets on the front of the bag provide a total of three slim compartments for organizing gear and paperwork.

On each side of the bag are a pair of loops through which you can slip tripod legs. That can be easier said than done, depending on the size of the legs and the material they’re covered with. Rubberized legs are particularly tough to deal with. In any case, the loops hold securely enough, but require two hands to insert and remove the tripod in most cases.

By Kim Larson

I had been struggling for a while to find unique ways to set me apart from my local competition, so when PPA gave me the opportunity to try out the Canon Selphy ES3 printer at a wedding reception I jumped at the opportunity—could this be exactly what I was looking for?

SETUP

Although I could have just used the Selphy printer to print off a few photos from the day’s wedding ceremony to display at the reception for guests to enjoy, I decided to do something different. With just about everyone owning point-and-shoot digital cameras now, I decided to put the printer on display at the reception so people could print off their own photos. I allowed everyone free access to the printer, with the ability to print photos for the bride and groom, or even themselves if they desired.

To set up the table for the printer, I used a small 24x48-inch folding table and a white floor-length tablecloth. I arranged scrapbook photo corners on white posterboard to display some of the printed photos and left room for simple instructions on how to re-fill the printer should it run out of paper. I also put up a sign in an 8x10 photo frame that announced the bride and groom’s “photobooth,” and a box where people could put the printed photos to give to the bride and groom.

Supplies

Canon Selphy ES3 Printer: $199 (MSRP)
Printer Ink/Paper Refill Cartridges (100 prints): $30
24x48 Folding Table: $49
Tablecloth: $10
Posterboard and Scrapbooking supplies: $15
Box to hold bride and groom’s photos: $5
8x10 frame: $5

Photo table images ©Kim Larson

THE PRINTER

The Canon Selphy ES3 printer is the perfect printer for this kind of work. It is not heavy, so it is easy to transport to the reception with its built-in handle. You do not need a computer to use it, and it will accept most digital camera cards. My favorite feature of this printer is the lack of ink cartridges. Because the ink is actually built into the paper cartridge, you never have to worry about replacing ink. This makes it incredibly easy for guests at the wedding reception to manage the printer themselves. The instructions are simple: When the printer is out of paper, you just open the paper door, slide out the used paper cartridge and slide in a new one!

It’s a photographer’s dream to be able to create art day in and day out. Only problem? As professionals, we have to do more than photograph; the books need balancing, and finances need tracking. Since its inception, my studio management software has been Intuit QuickBooks. QuickBooks is a versatile tool, adaptable to any industry, yet it’s just not made for photographers. 

So, for the past year, I’ve been on the lookout for a good solution to my studio management needs.  StudioPlus Software is designed specifically for the photographic industry and includes a range of features that aim to satisfy the needs of both the small boutique studio and the multi-location megastudio. The best part? I’ve been told it integrates with QuickBooks, so I should be able to enhance my current system, instead of starting over.

If you’re considering switching software, but are worried about getting overwhelmed, the staff at StudioPlus seems to understand it’s a big task to implement their software. Customers typically receive one-on-one support and training during the StudioPlus installation process. These training sessions are completed on a timeframe that allows you to learn at your own pace. I recently completed my first training session, which consisted of installation of the software, an overview of its features, and a step-by-step walk-through of real-life use. I asked a lot of questions, but left the training session feeling very optimistic about integrating StudioPlus into a typical studio workflow.

—Betsy Finn, CPP
Learnwithbetsy.com

Finn will report on her experience in implementing and working with StudioPlus Software an upcoming issue of Professional Photographer magazine and in PPmag.com Web Exclusives.

By Curtis Joe Walker

Roller bags are all about maximum capacity, since there’s no concern about breaking the user’s back. The primary design challenge is making the bag small enough to use as a carry-on, yet large enough to hold everything while maintaining enough padding to keep things secure while traveling. The Lowepro Pro Roller x200 manages to meet every requirment. The new Pro Roller x-Series features x100, x200 and x300 sizes, with the x100 and x200 being small enough to meet carry-on restrictions.

This bag sports a number of innovative features, but the most interesting is the ability to zip out the entire camera organization compartment for use as a backpack. The Reserve Pack is convenient not only for lugging gear on location, but also for making the outer case available to use as a normal piece of luggage. Of course, the backpack is only a backpack in the barest sense of the word. Ergonomics are limited, and the straps are quite thin. It’s not meant to replace a dedicated backpack, but to add some functionality in a pinch or for hiking to a location where a roller bag would be inconvenient or impossible to use. It also allows for a second suitcase to magically appear should souvenirs unexpectedly overwhelm the rest of your luggage.

A TSA-approved Lock & Go System combination cable lock ensures that the contents of the bag won’t be swiped by a quick-fingered zipper maestro, but doesn’t have enough slack to chain the bag to a luggage cart or other suitcase.

On the extending handle grip, there’s a set of hidden threads for the impromptu tripod mount to attach to. Using the handle as a tripod isn’t ideal, but it’s a nice touch that might save the day. It also has potential for use as a light stand.

By Corey Shelton

Before adding the 0.42x Super Wide Angle Angle Conversion Lens to your camera bag, let me first suggest that you purchase a large bib to catch your own drool as you shoot with this new Lensbaby family addition.

When I was first handed the lens, I knew nothing of its specs, so abiding by man-law, I immediately regressed into my “I don’t read manuals” self and began to play, easily screwing the adapter into the 50mm Composer via its 37mm metal thread.

After a quick view of how wide the now 21mm Composer seemed, I was then taken aback by the discovery of the lens’ macro capability, which Lensbaby claims to be up to 2.75 (7cm) inches. So, with the ability to now go wider and closer, along with Lensbaby’s inherent sweet spot and blurring features, it was fairly easy to get the creative juices flowing with thoughts of using the accessory for both product and food photography. Hence, the drool.

One noticeable contrasting element of this lens is its construction. Compared to the Composer, which is made of plastic and aluminum components, the 0.42x Super Wide Angle is a compact metal accessory with a nice weighty feel (nearly two-thirds the weight of the Composer).

A line that complements your best professional attire and even fits a petite body size

By Cheryl Pearson

Tenba has a new Black Label line of premium camera bags that consists of two handcrafted shoulder bags and three photo satchels, all representing Tenba’s innovative design and constructed with the highest quality materials.

I tested the Medium Photo Satchel, the mid-size bag in the collection, intended to fit a medium-size DSLR body and 2-3 lenses with a flash. With an interior that’s 13.5W x 9.5H x 6D inches, the medium satchel was able to perfectly fit my Canon EOS 5D camera body, 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses, as well as flash. Although it was a tighter fit, there was even room for a third small lens. To adequately fit three lenses in the bag comfortably, however, they would need to be small to medium focal length.

The movable padded dividers make custom configuration easier, allowing you to arrange the camera and lenses the way you would prefer. To test if a larger DSLR would fit in the bag, I attached the battery grip to my Canon 5D. After rearranging the equipment I found I could comfortably fit the camera body with grip, flash and either two smaller lenses or one larger focal length lens if needed. While the items fit in the satchel, it is probably best to pack what Tenba recommends for the bag’s design, as it seemed to provide the most optimal fit.

By Curtis Joe Walker

Gitzo's new Traveler Series 2 tripod kit (GK2580TQR) aims to please shooters who weren't satisfied with the stability of the original Traveler series. Though undoubtedly rigid, the original had limited capacity, a modest ball head and relatively skinny legs.

This new model aims to accommodate larger cameras, while remaining exceptionally portable and light. When folded, the 4-pound tripod with head measure just under 17 inches, but opens to 60 inches and is built to support DSLRs with up to 300mm lenses. The sturdiness lends itself well to medium-format cameras as well.

The tripod has four section legs that lock solidly with Gitzo's twisting G-Lock joints. Unlike the previous design, this improved engineering actually makes the legs lock firmer when weight is applied, eliminating the need for a herculean grip to open and close the locks. They require only about 1/4 turn to open and close and are designed to resist the elements. When closed, all three of the locks fall within a one-handed grip and you can unlock them simultaneously with a single motion. The tripod can go from fully closed to fully set up in about 2 seconds with practice. At the end of each leg is a removable rubber foot. These can be replaced with spikes or snowshoes if desired.

By Curtis Joe Walker

As choices for film dwindle, especially in medium format, any new entrant to the market is greeted with open arms. Kodak Professional has introduced a medium-format version of their new Ektar 100 film, and it’s pretty great. Like the 35mm version, this film is exceptionally fine grained and colorful in an attempt to bridge the gap between analog and digital photography. While the priciest DSLRs are now shooting full-frame 35mm photos, full-frame medium-format sensors are still out of reach. The exceptional depth of field of pro cameras is still a film-only feature. Some pros are even using film with toy cameras to give a vintage imperfection to their images.

For this round of testing, I used a Mamiya RB67 with 50mm and 150mm lenses and a Holga 120S with open sunglight, overcast sunlight and studio lghting as the main sources of light. The film was lab scanned.

In the Mamiya, Ektar performed flawlessly and maintained detail in the highlights and shadow areas. It is hard to imagine a film better suited to a sunny day at the car show. This shot was taken at the Viva Las Vegas car show in Las Vegas, Nev.

©Curtis Joe Walker (Click for larger view. The full-frame image scans have been downsized for web viewing.)

Closeup of fender detail from same image. ©Curtis Joe Walker

By Don Chick, M.Photog.Cr., CPP

“You get what you pay for” is an adage you’ll often hear amongst any group of photographers. They’ll discuss quality, service and price and how it pertains to either their business or that of a competitor. High quality products and great service don’t typically accompany a low price; you can have two of the three factors but not all three. Creative Light (www.creativelight.com), distributed by the MAC Group in the U.S., has a new line of lighting accessories that are definitely worth taking a second look. They have done a great job providing a quality product at a very fair price.

I recently had the opportunity to review their new 90x120 (3’x4’) soft box in both the flat front (FF) and recessed front (RF) models. I must say that I am impressed. The soft box I got for review is well made. Not only does the fabric have a quality feel to it, but the actual stitching and construction of the soft box do too. Combine a well made product with very competitive pricing and I think you’ll find many satisfied customers. I’ll have more to say in an upcoming review for Professional Photographer magazine.

Image ©Don Chick

In the July issue of Professional Photographer, information in the Phase One P65+ review (p. 48) regarding Sensor+ technology should have read:

"Sensor+ technology was developed under the guidance of Phase One—holder of the proprietary rights to its use—by Dalsa, one of the two companies producing sensors for use in medium-format backs."

For a detailed explanation of Sensor+ technology, download "Phase One Patent Pending Sensor+ Explained."

The incorrect information was inadvertantly introduced in editing and should not be attributed to the reviewer. We regret the error.

By Stan Sholik

I’m sure most professional photographers have some device in their camera bag to white balance their digital captures by now. The majority of these devices, ranging from an ExpoDisc to a coffee filter, provide a white balance by correcting the color temperature of the light before you begin shooting, saving it as a preset for the session.

While this approach yields excellent results for white balance, these devices do nothing to assist us in adjusting midtone brightness, shadow density and contrast to ensure we are taking full advantage of the dynamic range of the capture.

Datacolor, with the introduction of the $59 SpyderCube, takes a different approach to white balance and in doing so provides a device that addresses all of the visual elements we need to extract the maximum tonality from our images. Standing only a little over three inches tall, the SpyderCube is the Mighty Mouse of color balance.

Also included in the SpyderCube box is a cloth carrying bag, not shown.
©Stan Sholik

By Cheryl Pearson

Many photographers spend countless hours learning the latest tricks and techniques for retouching images using Photoshop. Accomplishing the desired effect can be tedious and time consuming. Then we work to perfect the techniques so that retouching won't slow down our workflow.

But what if you didn’t have to work so hard? What if one application did all this retouching for us with just a few simple steps? Anthropics Technology’s Portrait Professional v9.0 software attempts to create what we need, and even goes one step further. Not only does this program retouch the photograph, it slightly restructures the face giving it a more pleasing appearance. While most of us would need an array of tools, filters and adjustments to accomplish all this in Photoshop, Portrait Professional v9.0 can do this extremely complex task with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Portrait Professional v9.0 seems too good to be true, but it’s actually extremely easy to use and streamlines workflow in a way that saves a tremendous amount of time. So how does it work? The software was developed through analysis of hundreds of faces and the creation of a knowledge base of appearance and aspects of attractiveness so that the software could be programmed to essentially  know the changes needed to make a portrait more appealing without altering the facial features too drastically.

Images ©Cheryl Pearson.

By Diane Berkenfeld

Sometimes though, you have to push the ISO capability of the camera or shoot with less light than you’d like. That’s where noise reduction software comes in. Adobe Photoshop has a noise reduction feature, but it's not as robust as the plug-ins and standalone applications whose primary function is to reduce noise. Most raw conversion software also incorporates noise reduction, which works well for raw file shooters.

These comparison examples from Nik Software Dfine 2.0, Imagenomic Noiseware 4.0, and Picture Code Noise Ninja supplement that article from the July issue of Professional Photographer magazine. All images ©Diane Berkenfeld.

This original (left) was captured with an Olympus E-20 at ISO 160. Click for larger view.

Click through for 100% detail image comparisons.

By Betsy Finn

Alien Skin’s Snap Art 2 is a natural artistic plug-in for Adobe Photoshop that allows you to choose from different media and to perform limitless combinations and adjustments.

My college art training regimen included painting, drawing, and art history, so I was excited to see how closely Snap Art 2 could approximate different visual media techniques. Snap Art 2 offers a number of basic starting points: color pencil, comics, impasto, oil paint, pastel, pen + ink, pencil sketch, pointillism, stylize, and watercolor.

The Snap Art 2 interface includes options containing a variety of Abstract (low realism), Landscape (moderate realism), and Portrait (most realism) settings. I selected the “Color Comics – Large Feature Size” and added a focus region to retain detail in the cat’s face. Before applying the filter, I made sure to save my modifications as a new custom setting.

The comparison below shows several of my favorite media selections. I’ve enlarged the comic version so you can see the shading detail. The watercolor media setting, when set to abstract (with a focus region), was one of my favorites in the series (also see detail comparisons).

Earlier this month, Kim Larson wrote about her wedding workflow and how she uses Nik Silver Efex Pro with Adobe Lightroom. Here she provides a screencast to demonstrate how the two applications work together.

The “all you can eat” lens!

By Don Chick, M.Photog.Cr., CPP

What kind of genie would you need to call if you wanted a lens that is reasonably priced, has fantastic zoom range, and is super fast? We’ll let you know when we find one, but in the meantime, if you’ll settle for two out of three, Sigma offers the new 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM lens for an MSRP of $800.

On my Canon DSLR (with a 1.6X lens factor) its 13.8X zoom ratio translates to a 29-400mm equivalent! Combine that zoom ratio with optical stabilization, macro capability, an MSRP of $800, and you have a lot of lens for the money.

I must admit that when first asked to do this review I was skeptical about a lens in which the manufacturer was trying to do so much in one package. There have to be compromises to balance zoom range, speed and cost, but Sigma has done a great job combining features in the 18-250mm.

The first thing that I noticed was the weight, which, at around 22 ounces, has a substantial feel and heft of quality to it. Even though the lens has that feel, the overall size is not that big. When set at 18mm, the overall size is 3.1x 4 inches long (excluding lens hood). When zoomed to 250mm, the overall length increases to about 7 inches. The markings are white against a black body, so they stand out and are easy to read. Sigma eliminates an additional expense for the user by including a lens hood designed specifically for this lens.

By Jack Reznicki, Cr.Photog.Hon.M.Photog., API

Don’t you just love it when software does what you want it to do, even goes beyond your expectations, and is relatively inexpensive? The new remote DSLR app by onOne Software for the iPhone and the iPod Touch is just that. A $19.99 app that lets you not only fire and control the settings on your Canon EOS camera (and very soon your Nikon) remotely but is also simple and elegant, with some neat surprises. Like an easy to use intervalometer. 

If you don’t want the extras, you can even get a simple version that fires your camera and reviews the images, for $1.99. Yes folks, no typo, just under 2 bucks.

You do need to have your camera tethered to a WiFi enabled laptop or even a small net top computer via USB cable for it to work. Once that’s done, you are set up on a private network connection directly to your camera. You pay for and download the app from the iTunes App Store, load it to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Then download and install the free DSLR Camera Remote Server software from the onOne website onto your computer, and off you go. Just remember to turn off your camera connection software, Canon Utility in my case, or the app will read “busy” when you go to connect. I was amazed and pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to install and have it running. None of the usual hair pulling.
 

On a recent shoot for the Toys R Us Special Needs Catalog, I set up a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at the ceiling of my studio to capture a bird’s eye view of my shoot. While the camera was tethered, I was not. I could go anywhere and either take a photo and see it come up on my handheld iPod Touch, or I could set it quickly to Live View and get a real time motion view of what the camera saw. I could watch from my office, which assistant was working and which was napping. At any point, I could hit the “fire” button and take a photo. Too dark? Wrong white balance setting? Well, at a touch on my iPod Touch I could change the exposure, the white balance, the shooting mode from manual to automatic, change the EV, the ISO, even the color space. No need to pull out a ladder and contort my head to look at the camera settings. Or worry about how it might look later, as I can see it as it captures. Think of the great possibilities of shooting from remote. Like photographing from a bird blind, self-portraits, interacting with a child on set or shooting from hard to be at places, like behind a basketball backboard.

By Theano Nikitas

Gallery wraps are gaining in popularity with the general public as evidenced by more than a few online sites offering wrap services for consumers. The do-it-yourself photo and canvas versions from Hahnemuhle were introduced last fall and offer a relatively simple and cost-effective method of wrapping photo canvas.

Hahnemuhle offers three options for gallery wraps: Gallerie Photo Wrap, a simple, all-in-one option, as well as Standard and Pro Gallerie Wrap systems. The former is available in two set sizes: 8 ½ x 11 and 13 x 19 inches, with finished sizes of 6 x 8 and 10 x 16, respectively. The latter two offer more versatility since wrap bars are available in boxes of 20 in lengths from 8-24 inches (Standard) and boxes of 8 at 8-60 inches (Pro). Each type requires corner positioners, corner braces, pins and archival glue. Center braces are available for the Pro versions.

As someone who always had problems stretching canvas for art class, I thought I would be the perfect test case to try out the Hahnemuhle Gallerie Wrap. Using the Standard sizes, I opted for an 8 x 12 set-up to wrap a vertical shot of a grey Heron printed on Hahnemuhle’s Monet canvas.

Click any image for larger view. Images ©Theano Nikitas

By Mark Levesque, CPP

Canon’s penchant for refining existing models rather than develop replacements from the ground up goes not only for their cameras, but also for their printers. The Canon PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II is one of the latest examples. This wide-format printer builds on the original Pro9500’s success, with a 10 cartridge LUCIA pigment ink set, and the ability to print borderless 13 x 19 prints on a variety of media. The Mark II utilizes the Canon Full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering (FINE) technology along with a sophisticated 7,680-nozzle print-head structure to output extraordinary detail and quality. New with the Mark II are features like the ability to print 16-bit files, and Ambient Light Correction featuring Kyuanos technology, which allows the user to specify the lighting situation a particular print will be subjected to prompting the printer to adjust colors accordingly to compensate.

The Canon PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II is designed to fulfill photographers’ demands and uses a multiplicity of ink colors to achieve wide-gamut color printing as well as smooth tonal gradations on black-and-white printing on both matte and glossy papers. Impressively, there is no need to swap ink tanks as required with some competitive printers aimed at the same market segment. The superiority of this arrangement is obvious, but as a practical matter, it saves both time and ink, especially if you frequently alternate between printing on matte and photo papers.

This is a serious desktop printer, and it requires a significant space commitment (7.5" H 26" W 14" D with trays up; 14" H 26" W 36" D with trays extended). In addition to the size of the printer itself, consideration must be given to the space requirements both in front of and behind the printer to accommodate art papers, which are fed in through the front and pulled through the back of the printer before printing starts. The benefit of feeding the paper through this way is that it does not get bent at all, which preserves the coating, but a 13x19-inch Super B sheet extends significantly out the back of the printer to accomplish this, requiring some careful consideration about printer placement.

By Kim Larson (Images ©Life Is Art Photography)

In April, Nik Software released an update to Silver Efex Pro, making it compatible with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.3 and higher. The update is available now as a free download to current owners of Silver Efex Pro. We asked photographer Kim Larson to incorporate Silver Efex Pro into her Lightroom workflow and share the details.

My wedding workflow starts the minute I arrive home from a wedding, when I start backing up all of the photographs. Usually backup will take an hour or two, but I cannot sleep peacefully until all the photos are safe! I immediately copy all photos to a drive on my computer that is set to automatically backup to an off-site location every morning at 7:00 a.m. I also burn DVDs of the photos and store them in a file.

As soon as I have all the photos copied, I open Adobe Lightroom 2.0 and begin importing the files. Usually I start this the night of the wedding as well, so the photos will import while I put away my equipment or get ready for bed. I have a default metadata profile set up in Lightroom that applies my copyright information to each imported photo, and I always make sure to apply the proper keywords with the bride and groom’s names and the location of the wedding.

Lightroom is my primary processing application. If I need to fix or enhance a photo, I will edit it in Photoshop while keeping a copy of the edited photo in Lightroom. Likewise, if I apply a black and white tone to the photo with the Nik Silver Efex Pro plug-in, I will keep both copies of the photo in Lightroom. The photos that I show my clients are the finals exported from Lightroom.

When I’m ready to start working on the wedding photos, I open them in Lightroom and first go through all of them with a simple Keep or Trash mentality. I’d love to think I don’t have any “bad” photos to throw away, but it happens. So while making sure my caps lock is on, I quickly go through each photo in Lightroom’s Library module, pressing X to flag the photo as a reject and P to flag as a pick and keep it. Having the caps lock on will make Lightroom automatically advance the photos for you, making this process very quick! When finished I will go to Photo > Delete Rejected Photos and actually delete all my rejected photos. I still have all originals stored with the first backup.

By Stan Sholik

With all of the excitement surrounding Nikon's FX (full-frame) digital cameras and associated lenses, new lenses for Nikon's DX (APS-C size) digital cameras can get lost in the mania. That would be unfortunate, because two newly released DX Nikkors deserve attention, not only for their relative affordability, but also for the quality they deliver at their price.

The lenses are the AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G and the AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED. Both are designated AF-S, signifying that they incorporate Nikon's Silent Wave Motor compatible with all Nikon digital cameras including the D40 and D60 series bodies. A focus mode switch is incorporated into both lenses, allowing you to touch up the focus manually using the rubberized ring at the front of the lens. The switch can also be set to 'M' for fully manual focusing.

Both are also G-series lenses, meaning they have no aperture ring and are intended for use on digital cameras where the aperture is controlled by the camera's command dial. They share the same type of nicely finished black plastic exterior and metal mount, both incorporate a rubber 'O' ring around the mount to aid in dust shielding, and both show China as their country of manufacture.

By Betsy Finn

Bokeh is a Photoshop plug-in by Alien Skin Software that allows photographers to manipulate focus and depth of field. The plug-in simulates the feel of specific lenses, and allows photographers to apply a range of creative focus options, post capture. Prior to experimenting with my own images, I was skeptical about Bokeh's ability to realistically alter depth of field and render creamy highlights. Based on my evaluation of Bokeh, I can say, I'm officially impressed.

While the Bokeh interface is very intuitive, Alien Skin has provided a detailed series of tutorials on how to utilize the plug-in to its fullest potential. After exploring the video tutorials and case studies online, I had a good understanding of how to use Bokeh.

One of the nice things about the Bokeh plug-in is that you can preview the effect in the plug-in's interface before performing the final render. As I previewed a number of Bokeh's Factory Settings, I was impressed at the variety of choices. Some presets were special effect oriented (e.g. Hollow Heart, Lens of Love), and others are meant to approximate a specific lens (e.g. Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, Nikkor 105mm f/2.5). In the example below, I chose the Diamond Delight setting, from the series Blur 20% - Bokeh With Highlight Boost.

By Ron Eggers

Innovative commercial light modifiers and huge technological advances have vastly improved on-camera flash. Ranging from simple reflectors to light channeling devices to sophisticated diffusers and mini soft boxes, these modifiers give you considerable control over the quality, temperature, direction and shape of light. Many of them can be used to simulate studio lighting techniques. Some modify light subtly, others dramatically.

Click through to view additional samples of light modification using the products mentioned in the June issue of Professional Photographer magazine: ExpoImaging Honl Photo Speed System, LumiQuest ProMax System, Sto-Fen Omni Bounce, Presslite VerteX, and Gary Fong's Lightsphere Universal.

In-Camera Effects in an Affordable, Compact Package

By Joe Farace

There is no doubt that the wonderfully versatile E-3 is Olympus’ professional standard-bearer, so where does the E-620 fit into their product line-up? The E-620 is a throwback to the glory days of Olympus film SLRs exhibiting the precision and jewel-like design of the legendary OM-series of cameras, wrapped up in a digital package that’s oh-so this millennium. For openers, the E-620 combines a 12.3-megapixel imaging chip with the Art Filters introduced with the semi-pro E-30. Like the Live View feature that was launched with the E-330 and continues with this new camera, I expect in-camera special effects filters to become standard on other manufacturers’ models (and that those mfgs will act as if they invented it).

Fun with Filters

The E-620 offers six in-camera Art Filters that are easily accessed by the nice analog knob on top the camera. When you spin it to ART/SCN, the 2.7-inch swivel-LCD screen displays a list of the filters. Using the other jewel-like analog control knob on top or the camera’s four-way control on the camera’s back, you can scroll down the list that also displays example photos.

Pop Art enhances colors, making them more vivid and deeply saturated and was one of my favorite filters to use when capturing images that needed a little extra impact.

Yes, you can use the Pop Art filter for portraits. I decided to take Mary to the source of all true Pop Art—a comic book store. While the filter can make skin tone look too saturated, I hedged my bets by simultaneously capturing both RAW+JPEG files. This gave me a (RAW) color photograph and a Pop Art image (JPEG) that I layered together in Adobe Photoshop, then used the Eraser tool (at 50% opacity) to lightly brush Mary’s face, allowing half of the normal skin tone to show through, while punching up her hair, clothes, and the comic books. ©2009 Joe Farace

Soft Focus creates the familiar soft focus effect that works with still life or portrait subjects. Since there is no way to control the degree of soft focus, one way to use this filter may be to simultaneously capture RAW+JPEG images and apply the soft focus JPEG file as a layer to the unaltered RAW file so you can control the amount of soft focus by changing that layer’s opacity or the area of soft focus with a mask.

Using the Soft Focus Art Filter has some advantages over softening in post production, mainly that you can see it now and show your subject the results. You have little control over how much soft focus is used, but the traditional methods such as aperture selection and focal length still apply, and I found the filter works great in strong light as with this portrait. Exposure was 1/640 second at f/11, ISO 200, and this is how the unmanipulated file looked directly off the memory card. ©2009 Joe Farace

Pale and Light Color uses muted color tonalities, and photographers who are fans of on-camera filters, who I suspect will be big fans of all of the Art Filters, might liken this to Cokin’s Pastel filter.

This photograph of balloons shows how the Pale and Light Color Art Filter works to create soft, pastel colors. When using Art Filters, you can adjust some aspects of the image’s exposure to enhance the filter effect, such as white balance, exposure compensation, ISO, flash intensity, and wireless flash control, but I found that exposure compensation was the most used control. ©2009 Mary Farace

Light Tone subdues highlights and shadows and both areas are rendered softly (but not soft focus) while maintaining detail. Users of Tiffen’s Contrast filters will like this filter’s ability to control contrast.

The Light Tone Art Filter is also a useful tool in macro photography when you don’t or can’t use flash to control contrast. Here the decidedly non-macro but eminently useful Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 lens was used with an exposure of 1/320 at f/7.1, ISO 200.

Grainy Film recreates the grainy look and high contrast tonality of black and white film and produces images with a decidedly dramatic feel. This is a great effect for studio and fashion photography as well as adding gritty reportage looks to street photography. It could even be used as a bold look for portraiture.

With contrasty subjects, the Grainy Film Art Filter, deliberately overexposed, can take on the look of a photograph made using Kodalith in the traditional darkroom. Exposure was 1/500 second at f/9, ISO 200 with a plus one-stop exposure compensation. Kevin Kubota’s (www.kubotaworkshops.com) sloppy borders effect was added to complete the analog darkroom look. ©2009 Joe Farace

Pin Hole Camera reproduces the color tone and the vignetting of photos made with a toy camera, so it’s more of a digital Holga effect than a true pinhole. The illustration, for example, was made at an aperture of f/9 while my Zero Image (www.zeroimage.com) pinhole camera has an aperture of f/256 or thereabouts.

The Pin Hole Camera Art Filter can add some drama to an otherwise normal-looking scene. Here it was used with an exposure of 1/400 second at f/9, ISO 200, to add some pizzazz to a photo of a sculpture of Chief Little Raven who was the principal chief of the Southern Arapaho tribe. ©2009 Joe Farace

In Live View mode you can see the effect of a filter before capturing an image, making it easy to apply the right Art Filter to the right subject, because only one can be applied to an image, and only at the time it’s captured. The examples you work for the kind of subject matter I photograph. You may find other subjects that will be enhanced with any one of the Art filters and when doing your own explorations, look beyond the obvious.
 

By Cheryl Pearson
PPA Members receive 25% off of Software Cinema titles. See the end of this article for details.

Staying abreast of the latest trends and techniques in photography is imperative, and Software Cinema DVDs provide training for photographers of all skill levels, from novices to well-established photographers looking to boost their skills to the next level. Software Cinemas also has training DVDs on practically any photo-related topic you may be looking for. From “The Best of Dean Collins on Lighting,” a classic that leads you through the basic principles of understanding and controlling light, to Tony Corbell’s “Portrait Lighting on Location” and Clay Blackmore’s “Senior Portraits Made Simple,” which highlight more specific aspects of photography, to Julieanne Kost’s truly comprehensive “Comprehensive Photoshop Training,” there is an instructional guide to address your needs, presented by qualified instructors considered to be the best in their field.

Tony Corbell—Portrait Lighting on Location

Tony Corbell’s “Portrait Lighting on Location” has six well-organized segments, including photographing in the home, controlling the sun, and using ambient light and flash. Each tutorial does a spectacular job of demonstrating ideas for understanding and controlling light as well as working with your subject and background, whether in a home, outside, or in a public venue.

Corbell gives step-by-step instruction with concise and detailed explanations, making this DVD ideal for photographers new to location lighting and those with intermediate experience. Each segment moves along quickly, keeping you engaged while providing simple and efficient techniques for setting up in each location.

Throughout the training, Corbell also provides helpful tips, such as how to utilize your camera’s histogram, using a reflector, and shooting with flash. His presentation method is key in helping viewers understand the full process. He begins by showing examples of the light quality while shooting, then the images after the session, and finally ties it all together with post-capture image enhancement at the end.

Overall, the material on this DVD flowed smoothly and was easy to follow. If you’re looking to enhance your foundation skills in location shooting while gathering invaluable tips for controlling light, this video is ideal.

"Portrait Lighting On Location" by Tony Corbell

By Kim Larson

Professional Photographer magazine asked Kim Larson to try MOO products and report on her customer experience.

Special offer: MOO will give Web Exclusives readers a free acrylic Business Card holder with every order of a 200 Business Cards pack. Offer expires June 19, 2009 (Expiration date extended!). Use promo code MOOPPA.

I had wanted to try out some products from MOO, makers of custom business cards, MiniCards, notecards and such, and this was my first time ordering from them. Their website is simple and easy to follow, and so is the ordering process.

I decided to try both the 28x70mm MiniCards and the 16-pack of Notecards*. Since Moo has a relatively small selection of products, it was easy to find the products I needed to order, and even easier to upload the photos for the cards. Although the site allows you to choose photos from a flickr account, I opted to upload the files from my own computer. The uploading went really fast, especially considering that I uploaded a total of about 70 medium-resolution photos.

What I really like about the Moo products is that you can have a different photo on each one, meaning that when I ordered 100 Mini Cards, I could have selected 100 different photos to print. If you don’t submit 100 photos, it will duplicate photos that you’ve already uploaded. Since I only uploaded 70 photos, it duplicated the first 30 photos I uploaded so I’d have a total of 100 cards. I selected 16 different photos for the 16-pack of Notecards. After uploading, you are given the option to move and crop your photos, and it will give you a warning if your photos are too low-res (format guidelines).

All images ©Kim Larson
 

By Don Chick, M.Photog.Cr., CPP

Does your camera strap simply hold your camera around your neck and advertise for the company that manufactured your camera? There is an alternative to the generic strap, an alternative to looking like everyone else who owns your camera brand, there is a way to make a personal statement with your strap.

I met Aaron Willcox of RileyG Strapworks during my travels back in February. I could tell that he was a photographer so I asked him about what he did for work. We chatted a bit about his photography then he mentioned that he also creates custom-made camera straps. 

Photo ©Don Chick

Willcox, a stay-at-home dad, takes his young son, Riley, out seeking materials to turn into what his website advertises as “eco-friendly and stylish camera straps.” Some of these materials (leather and fabric) while still in excellent condition, are “extra pieces” that would otherwise be headed for the landfill. With a little effort, Aaron and Riley are able to retrieve and reuse these perfectly good materials and create something that is both functional and beautiful. Some of the materials going into the straps are even a bit exotic, like leather from an old Porsche. What a cool idea!

Ellis Vener reviewed the Nikon D3X for the April issue of Professional Photographer magazine. He took this 30-second exposure in San Antonio using the D3X with no tripod, braced by hand against a stair landing, aperture at f/10, ISO 100, camera long exposure noise reduction on, Active D-lighting set to extra-high. NEF to DNG processing in Adobe Lightroom v2.3. Click image to see a 900x600-pixel view.

Click here for complete Nikon D3X features and specifications.

By Stan Sholik

Nikon photographers rejoice! With the release of Capture One 4.6 PRO, we can now shoot NEF raw files directly into Phase One’s software. Currently supported Nikon digital SLRs include the D3, D700, D300, D200, D80, D60, D40x and D40.  Best of all, if you already own Capture One 4 PRO or a v3.x version (even if you have no activations left on Capture One 3), the 4.6 update is free of charge!

While this is a major addition for some of us, it is only one of the new features and updates incorporated into v4.6. The others are primarily concerned with further improving your productivity when using the software.

Tethered shooting has always been the ideal way to work in the studio. It allows you and your clients to see and evaluate the evolution of an image’s creation on a large, color-corrected monitor. Photographers using Phase One digital backs and Canon digital SLRs have long enjoyed this privilege with Phase One PRO software. Now Nikon users can do the same.

Capture One software automates your setting up the tethered capture process. Selecting New Session from the File menu opens a set of folders to hold captures, deleted files, output files and a folder into which you can move your best images rather than rating them, although ratings and color tags are also available. You are given the option of naming these folders to your liking and storing them wherever you want on your local computer or on your network. This is all done in the Library module.

By Curtis Joe Walker

Kodak has reintroduced its Ektar film after an 11-year hiatus. The new film is rated at ISO 100 and sets out to be the finest grained color negative film on the market while complementing their existing Portra line. Film has become a specialty area for professional photographers, causing the arguably untimely demise of many popular emulsions. With this film, Kodak is striving to bridge the gap between analog and digital by creating a film ideal for scanning. In addition to the fine grain, Kodak has engineered the film to be more saturated while maintaining similar contrast and sharpness as their VC films. Kodak developed the film with nature, travel, fashion and product photographers in mind.

Any time a new film comes out, it's a good idea to test it under a variety of lighting conditions. For these tests, the film was run through a Lomo Fisheye and a Nikon F3 with  Lensbaby 3G and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lenses. Scanning was done with a Nikon Super CoolScan 5000ED film scanner with GEM and ROC (grain reduction and color enhancement) disabled to better illustrate the raw grain structure and color characteristics of the film. Some color correction was applied as needed as most of the images recorded slightly blue.

Click images for larger view. All photos ©Curtis Walker

Nikon F3, Lensbaby 3G, f/2
This first image was taken inside an atrium with mixed sunlight and tungsten lighting. The first thing to notice is the vivid color saturation without blocking up in the reds. At 100% zoom, grain is smooth and details are only as soft as they are because of the characteristics of the Lensbaby.

Nikon F3, Lensbaby 3G, f/8
Here we have a photo of Las Vegas's Fremont East district in the afternoon with mixed sunlight and shade. Dynamic range is pleasing and the colors are realistically vibrant, but not over the top. Grain is a bit more evident at 100%, but still incredibly smooth.

Sony joins the major leagues with 24.6-megapixel DSLR

By Ron Eggers

When the Sony (alpha) DSLR-A900 camera hit the market, it had the highest resolution available in a digital SLR. With a 24.6-megapixel Exmor CMOS sensor and maximum image resolution of 6,048x4,032 pixels, it has more than double the resolution of the previous model, the A700, and is the first Sony digital body with a full-frame (35mm-size) sensor. Aside from the A900’s much higher, the two models have similar shooting characteristics, ergonomics and menu structures.

My first experience with the A900 was with a prototype version during a Sony-sponsored shooting excursion in late summer 2008. I wasn't convinced that Sony’s target market, the serious photo enthusiast, really needed such high resolution, particularly if it came at the expense of image quality, color fidelity, shooting speed, and responsiveness. But after that first experience, followed by a couple of weeks working with a production model, any trade-off was obviously minimal. It’s not so much that the camera’s resolution is too high for its target market, it’s more like Sony undershot the target market.

Among the reasons Minolta equipment users cite for switching to Sony is that they can use the lenses and accessories they already have with the new bodies. That’s true, but with the quality of Sony’s latest equipment, it’s time to consider choosing Sony gear on its own merits. To get the most out of the new Sony bodies and the highest quality images, it’s best to pair them with the lenses and lighting units being developed specifically for these models.

Often, boosting a model’s resolution slows down its shooting speed, but not with the A900. It’s fast enough for just about any professional application, with a rated capture rate of 5 JPEG frames per second (fps). In my trials, using a SanDisk 4GB Extreme IV UDMA CompactFlash card, which supports transfer rates up to 45MB per second, the actual performance matched the specs. I could take 49 frames in 10 seconds. With two memory card slots, the camera accepts both CF cards and memory sticks.

Professional Photographer asked Ellis Vener to work with liveBooks to create a fresh redesign of his website and to report on the process and the results. This report covers the process from concept to design and going live. The next report will cover search engine optimization.

By Ellis Vener

Though it was still generating work and lots of inquiries from potential clients, I hadn't updated my website in any meaningful way since it was launched in January 2002. Since then a lot of things have changed: I moved from Houston to Atlanta, and I had lots of new work I wanted to showcase.

One of the hardest parts of designing or redesigning a website is figuring out exactly what you want. I knew what I didn't want in my website this time: a format and structure that required someone versed in website authoring software to make changes. I wanted flexibility and expandability.

Rebuilding a website from scratch is a huge investment in time and usually a significant amount of money as well. LiveBooks is a well established and highly respected company that specializes in designing and building websites for pro photographers with the features we need most, like easy gallery editing, automated metadata upload, visitor tracking and keywording for search engines. LiveBooks packages are priced with non-recurring, one-time fees plus a $90 annual hosting fee. The Basic plan starts at $800, the Select package is $1,700 and the Unlimited package is $3,200. Each package is organized to come with a certain level of design services and features and storage space.

The design services from liveBooks are the most easily demonstrated benefit. Visual acumen in photography does not translate into skill at Web design.

This was the opening page of my old website. Viewed today, it screams "I haven't bothered to update my website since 2002." That's not exactly the message you want to sent to potential clients.

Below is the page that liveBooks helped me design to make a much more positive first impression. 

Image ©Ellis Vener

It's elegant and professional, shows a single image to full advantage, and has easy-to-find links to the most critical  information a client would be interested in: galleries showing additional work, a client list showing other businesses that value my work, and a contact page.

In the February issue of Professional Photographer, in Lindsay Adler's article "Facebook: Network With Seniors," we inadvertently suggested readers create both individual and business profiles, which is a violation of Facebook terms of use. We regret the error.

Instead, a photographer can set up a business account or set up a personal profile and then create a Facebook Page for their business identity. Only the official representative of an artist, business, or brand may create a Facebook Page, though that person can choose to allow others to help administrate it. You may transform a business account into a personal account, but once you have created a personal account, you cannot revert back to a business account or create a business account.

The Facebook Help Center has a section that completely explains Pages and business accounts. 

This is the article republished with corrected text and clarifying information from Facebook's Help Center.

Facebook: network with seniors

Learning to take advantage of the No. 1 Web site among seniors can be a huge sales advantage.

By Lindsay Adler

Quoted text is information that comes directly from Facebook’s Help Center.

What’s the one place nearly every high school senior goes daily? Online, to Facebook.com. This center of mass communication has more than 36 million members. It’s the No. 1 social network for the modern high school student. Facebook users post profiles of themselves containing such information as their age, e-mail address and interests. They post photos and videos of themselves for e-friends the world over to view.

Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers
by Harold Davis
O'Reilly, 2008

By Ron Eggers

Harold Davis’ “Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers” blends the techniques of traditional photography with the tools of digital imaging. As Davis says, “In recent years, the art and craft of photography has changed beyond recognition. Today's photographer is one part digital artist and one part photographer. This book aims to present the best practices of the craft of photography in the context of the digital era.”

While there are numerous books on the market that cover the fundamentals of photography, most of them were written for analog photography. Davis explains what remains constant, and he covers what's changed with digital imaging.

One of his early points is that photographers don't concentrate on the fundamentals of light and exposure as strongly as they should. There's the misconception that, since it’s digital, exposure problems can be fixed in software. It is possible to correct some exposure problems with digital editing, but, he points out, imaging software is best used as a creative tool to improve already good photos rather than to try to save marginal ones.

This book is both helpful and an easy read. You’ll get the most out of it if you start at the beginning and work you way through. It's also educational just to leaf through the pages and read some of the extended captions that go along with full-page illustrations.

Minimalist Lighting, Professional Techniques for Location Photography
by Kirk Tuck
Amherst Media, 2008

Kirk Tuck is a long-time advertising and corporate photographer hailing from Austin, Texas. Around the time digital photography started changing all of our lives, he realized that, among other things, the new cameras meant he no longer needed to schlep hundreds of pounds of lighting and grip gear across town or around the world to get the high-quality photos his clients required. Matching means to ends, he started exploiting the power of small, sometimes intelligent, flash units combined with existing lighting and made his photography evolve in the process.

Mr. Tuck’s makes his philosophy plain early on:

“With each pound of gear I’ve jettisoned, I’ve found that I arrive on locations with more energy and a better ability to focus on creative problem solving. When I go home at the end of the day, I’m not worn out from dragging around a cart filled with hundreds of pounds of heavy equipment. And while I’m shooting, I’m able to do many of the adjustments to my lights from the camera position using a wireless controller. That helps overcome the attitude of ‘good enough’ that seeps into our creative work when we’re physically tired.”

Specific pieces of gear—not all of which need batteries, and many of which are ridiculously inexpensive—are covered as are the strategies and tactics needed to making small Strobist-type solutions work for the busy photographer.

Richly illuminated with location portraits and a few still lifes, and written in a clean down to earth style, what Mr. Tuck really shows in this book is that good photography is not about the gear, and that the most important thing about photographing people well is capturing the evanescent connection between a photographer and the subject as well as the visual representation.

—Ellis Vener

Light—Science and Magic, An introduction to Photographic Lighting
by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver and Paul Fuqua
3rd Edition, Focal Press, 2007

“What we do have to offer you is a set of tools. This book is about technology. Science … Learn about light and the science. The magic will happen.” —Hunter, Biver & Fuqua

This is the indispensable guide to photographic lighting for photographers at all stages of their craft.

My first impression had been, “Just great, exactly what I don’t need, one more lighting cookbook,” and I avoided reading it for years because of what I thought was a hokey title. Well, you know what they say about the fallacy of judging books by their cover.

“Light –Science and Magic” explains not so much where to put lights as how photographic light works the way it does, and how that determines what type of lighting modifier to use and where to put it. That knowledge in turn leads to an understanding of how to quickly and repeatedly create and use, or even just find, great lighting for studio and location work, from products to portraits, from architecture to events.

“All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare wrote, and that is doubly true in photography, a constructed word which made its first appearance in 1839 and has linguistic roots in the Greek words for light and writing, and is handy term to describe a theater of the frozen visual gesture. Your productions need a great lighting designer, and since lighting is a skill you can learn, this book is a fine place to start. Applying the principles in this book will definitely take your game up a couple of notches, no matter where you are in your career, and whatever tools you use to create light.

—Ellis Vener

If you can live with a few limitations, Tamron’s new 10-24mm can fulfill your wide-angle needs, big time.

Sometimes you find yourself in need of an ultra-wide zoom. The Tamron SP AF10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di-II LD Aspherical [IF] is a really good, not quite great lens that fits the bill for landscape, corporate and perhaps some architectural photography. Although designed for formats smaller than 24x36mm, from 13.75mm to 24mm, without the included lens hood, it covers the full 24x36mm (Nikon FX)—for a price around $499.

The optical path consists of 12 elements, three of them molded aspheric glass designs, two others hybrid aspheric designs. There are two LD elements, similar to Nikon’s ED elements. Internal flare and reflection are well controlled, even when there are light sources in the frame. I tested this lens with FX-format Nikon D3 and D700 camera bodies and a DX-format D300 body; with the exception of some slight purple fringes, or blooming, around light sources, chromatic aberrations are virtually non-existent.

©Ellis Vener

Size comparison: Left, AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED; center, AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 12-24mm f/4G IF-ED; right, Tamron SP AF10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di-II LD Aspherical [IF] lens.

By Don Chick, M.Photog.Cr., CPP, D.C.Ph.

Imagenomic Portraiture 2.0 has arrived, and with the new version comes some exciting improvements. For those who’ve been using v. 1 of  Portraiture, the upgrade will be exciting for at least two reasons. First, registered users of Portraiture 1 will receive a free upgrade to v. 2. Second, new enhancements to the software give the portrait photographer even greater control and creative possibilities. If you’re not a current user, now’s a good time to give the program an honest evaluation. Imagenomic extends a 15-day, fully functional trial use period. The final image will bear a watermark, but that won’t prevent you from seeing the results this software can achieve.

One nice feature of Portraiture 2 is the new history control. Users now have access to an unlimited number of history states, along with resizable thumbnails. Users will also appreciate the capabilities in the Enhancements section. Sharpness, softness, warmth, tint, brightness and contrast all have sliders for independent adjustments. Using theses controls enables you to enhance the look of an image beyond the initial capture.

Image ©Don Chick

In the example above, I have increased contrast and added a few points of brightness. The result is a much higher contrast image than the capture. When there’s a check in the Use Mask box, the enhancements are applied only to those areas selected by the skin tones mask. With this box unselected, the enhancements are applied to the entire image.

By Mark Levesque, CPP

Image sharpening is one of those things that can truly elevate an image, yet it remains a bit of a black art. Photographers who wish to enhance their ability to sharpen in an intuitive, powerful and controllable way should take a look at Nik Sharpener Pro 3.0, a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop or Apple Aperture.

This latest release of Nik Sharpener Pro improves on prior versions with a new interface (very familiar to those who own other current Nik plug-ins), as well as the incorporation of the powerful U Point Technology for selective application of sharpening. The ability to add presets means you get fast, one-click workflow options tailored to your own eye, and batch processing is a snap.

The consensus of those who study sharpening is that a two-step sharpening process with both input sharpening and device-specific output sharpening yields the optimally sharpened image. Digital capture inherently has softness due to the low-pass filter that’s typically used to fight moiré. Reversing this loss of sharpness in the capture process is one of the first tasks to perform in image processing, and Sharpener Pro 3.0 offers a RAW Presharpener to do just that. Note that this is intended for use on RAW images that have not been sharpened in-camera or with a RAW converter. JPEG images already have some sharpening applied, so they do not require this step. This input sharpening process is perfect for actions and/or batch processing, and can be easily incorporated into your workflow without adversely affecting processing time.

Nik's RAW Presharpener is designed to reverse the loss of sharpness at capture due to the low-pass filter that's typically used to fight moiré. (Click for larger view; image ©Mark Levesque)

Overcoming the drawbacks of infrared wireless systems, the new RadioPopper PX can be an extension of your wireless flash, and your creativity. Mike Fulton and the crew at TriCoast Photography provided great information about how they use the RadioPoppers and what a difference they make in our January issue of Professional Photographer magazine. Here are some more examples of behind-the-scenes and the final results.

Behind the scenes:

Cody Clinton is shooting and Cindy Williams acts as the lighting assistant at this "Day After" session on a Florida beach. The sun is coming in from the left to right across the subjects’ face, so the lightstick is being used as a fill light to even out the shadows. In the final result, the very shallow depth of field is thanks to the High Speed Sync settings—something you can only get using this method and part of what makes the TriCoast photographers prefer it to PocketWizards.

Final image ©TriCoast Photography:

By Stan Sholik

As professional photographers, we are justifiably concerned with the amount of time we must spend managing our image files. As the quantity and file size of our digital captures increase, the time spent importing, cataloging, browsing, editing, searching, publishing and archiving them is increasing even faster. This is time taken away from creating images and managing our businesses.

There exist a number of useful programs to handle different parts of the image management workflow from import to archive, but none that handle it as smoothly, completely and affordably as ACDSee Pro Photo Manager 2.5, the latest release from ACDSee Systems International, Inc.

When I last looked at ACDSee, it was Version 6 of Photo Manager several years ago. I thought it was well designed and a capable program for advanced amateurs, but lacking the range of tools and ease of use that professionals require. Working with ACDSee Pro 2.5 is like learning that your friend’s child, who you never thought would amount to much, just graduated from a top-ranked university. ACDSee Pro 2.5 is all grown up and ready to make a name for itself.

To categorize ACDSee Pro 2.5 as a digital asset management program is to ignore many of its strengths. In fact, it is difficult to fit it into any one category because it is capable of doing so much. It may be easiest to think of it as a program that will do virtually anything that a professional photographer would need to do with a large image library, from importing digital captures to exporting final files to the client. It even allows non-destructive pixel-level image editing and RAW file conversion, leaving only complex pixel editing, masking and layering tasks to Photoshop or similar software.

As with other photo management software, and new to this version of ACDSee Pro, you can import images directly from your camera or camera card, adding IPTC and EXIF metadata and keywords, and renaming files. Unlike with some, you can also back up your files to another hard drive while you are importing them and continue using the program while images import in the background.

By Stan Sholik

Digital SLR photographers have never had as many choices for RAW conversion software as they have today. Oddly enough, the best and most popular offerings come not from the camera manufacturers but from third party vendors. For some reason, these vendors seem to have a far better understanding of a professional photographer’s workflow, as important a consideration in choosing RAW conversion software as the overall quality of the file conversion.

An excellent example of this is Phase One’s new Capture One 4 PRO (C1-4 PRO) software. When Phase One released Capture One 4 last year, the interface was entirely different than in previous versions. C1-4 PRO keeps the look of Capture One 4, but adds considerable functionality that many commercial, portrait and wedding photographers will welcome.

The features added to Capture One 4 PRO that are not found in Capture One 4 cover a lot of ground. Most Canon digital SLR and all Phase One digital back photographers can shoot directly into C1-4 PRO. The program supports multiple monitors and the interface can be customized to an even greater extent than the non-PRO version, especially on a Mac.

Commercial photographers will particularly appreciate the ability to import a client’s layout and use it as a capture overlay. This should assure clients and art directors at the shoot that the capture fits the layout. They will also appreciate that C1-4 PRO supports the CMYK color space for color proofing and output.

C1-4 PRO Mac

C1-4 PRO Windows

The user interface of Capture One 4 Pro retains the look of Capture One 4. The default layout of the user-customizable interface is virtually identical on both Mac and Windows computers. The program opens with the Library tool active and the folder you were using when you closed the program active. Images ©Stan Sholik

These additional interface images supplement the December 2008 Web Exclusives review of Phase One Capture One 4 PRO by Stan Sholik.

Clicking the camera icon in the tool palette opens the Capture window. You can shoot directly into Capture One 4 PRO with Phase One digital backs and many Canon digital SLRs. It took a little doing to make a Canon EOS-1D Mark II N interface properly with the program, but once we figured it out, image capture was fast and seamless. Image ©Stan Sholik

The Quick icon opens a window with a basic set of tools for global corrections to the image, such as white balance and exposure. You will also find the Styles options on this screen. If all you need to do to the image is global changes, you can process the image directly from this screen. Image ©Stan Sholik

If you need to make changes to color balance either globally with white balance or to a targeted hue, you can skip the Quick tool and go directly to the Color tool. Image ©Stan Sholik

By Joan T. Sherwood, Senior Editor

The most exciting feature of the Nikon D90 DSLR is the movie capture. With two or three button presses, in D-movie mode, you can begin recording video of up to 1,280x720 pixels (16:9), at 24 frames per second.

The first day I had the D90 in my hands I couldn’t stop coming up with ideas for the clips I wanted to shoot. Setting out the next morning, I took a set of 36 clips at the 640x424 frame (3:2) setting, which I subsequently edited into a 4-minute movie in the iMovie HD program.

It took a little studying of the program at Lynda.com to learn how to do what I wanted, but after that, the editing went pretty quickly. After just a couple minutes of keyword searching at TripleScoopMusic.com, I found the perfect music to accompany the video. The most difficult part was figuring out the settings and format to use to export the video for Web sharing. Automated YouTube.com compression went too far and yielded unattractive results.

The version below as exported from iMovie HD, is optimized for QuickTime, broadband, high quality.

Click here for MP4 file version saved for broadband, high quality. 

Click through to see examples of 1,280x720 pixels (16:9) AVI files with no editing. Though none of these clips is more than 20 seconds, these are large files and will take to load before the play option is available. Right-click on the image and choose "Save link as..." to download to your desktop insted of viewing in your browser.

By Stan Sholik

If the number of products available to pre-capture white balance digital cameras is any indication, professional photographers’ interest in creating a neutral color balance must be very high. There is a good reason for this of course. While professional digital cameras do an excellent job autofocusing and autoexposing, auto white balance is not likely to give accurate, consistent color under many ambient lighting conditions.

White balance isn’t that much of an issue when making RAW captures as it is easy to adjust when processing the files, though it adds work time. When capturing in JPEG, or RAW + JPEG formats, it is important to have as accurate and consistent color as possible to reduce additional processing and saving of the compressed file.

With prices ranging from $8 to over $100, I thought it would be interesting to test a few of these white balance filters under actual ambient lighting conditions to see if they produced an accurate white balance and to examine the advantages or disadvantages to each. One of my photographer friends swears by Mr. Coffee filters for white balancing, and I was curious to see if he was really serious! My store was out of Mr. Coffee brand but had Melitta Junior Basket filters in stock, so I picked up a pack for testing.

Along with the Melitta, I tested five filters designed for professional photographers: the ClearWhite, ExpoDisc Neutral, Lally CAP, Mennon and Phoxle SpectraSnap. Designers of each of these photographic filters took a slightly different approach, and one approach or another might influence your decision as much as the accuracy of the white balance.

Top Row: ClearWhite, ExpoDisc, Lally CAP. Bottom Row: Melitta, Mennon, Phoxle SpectraSnap. Image ©Stan Sholik

Bags we love; One size doesn't fit all

By Curtis Joe Walker

There are many ways to securely and fashionably carry a camera and have fast access to both camera and accessories. Sling bags are arguably the all-round best for this purpose. Backpacks can be cumbersome and sweat inducing, wheelie bags can be bulky and unwieldy, and fanny packs just don't sit well with some folks. Let’s look at five sling bags we particularly like, in various situations and with various amounts of gear.

©Curtis Joe Walker

From left: Tamrac Velocity 8x, Lowepro Slingshot 350 AW, Crumpler Brazillion Dollar Home, Kata 3N1-20, Boda Dry

Essential information for the working photographer

By Ron Eggers

There are more than 100 graphic file formats, but none as important to professional photographers as the RAW format. It's in a class by itself. Unlike the other image file formats, RAW files comprise pure captured digital data that has not been manipulated, optimized, processed or modified. Almost all high-end commercial work is done in RAW format.

“Photoshop CS3 RAW” By Mikkel Aaland explains and simplifies working with the RAW file format. RAW captures are a combination of the camera’s sensor data and the camera settings data needed to decode the sensor data into actual color images. With RAW, most of the settings and adjustments that are essential—such as white balance, color space, contrast and sharpening—are applied after the image is captured.

As Aaland points out, "RAW is often described as a digital negative. The negative in traditional photography is considered the underlying source from which any number of prints (or interpretations) can be produced." All the optimization and modification options available in the darkroom are possible with most image file formats, but the optimization of a digital image for print is limited by the quality and characteristics of the JPEG or TIFF file, just as it would be with a poor quality negative.

More precisely, the RAW file format is comparable to a latent image captured on unprocessed film—the image is there on the film, but until the film is properly processed with chemicals, there's nothing you can do with the image. Likewise, with RAW the captured image is there, but there's not much you can do with it until you apply digital processing to it to bring it out.

“A Digital Photographer's Guide to Model Releases:
An Important Reference Book for Understanding the Legalities of Selling and Using Photographs,”
by Dan Heller (Wiley, $29.99)

By Ron Eggers

Successful professional photographers need to not only be good at photography and have business sense, they also need a basic understanding of the laws involved in using their pictures. Whether shooting editorial, commercial or stock photos, photographers should know the legalities concerning the people in their compositions, as well as recognizable property.

That’s what Dan Heller covers in his book, “A Digital Photographer's Guide to Model Releases: Making the Best Business Decisions with Your Photos of People, Places and Things” (Wiley, $29.99).

As he says, it's important to understand the rationale behind the model release requirements in order to protect yourself from potential litigation. It's also important to understand what you can and can't take pictures of, as well as where you can and can't use those pictures.

Most people think that releases are simply for the photographer’s protection. That's not how Heller sees it. "The main objective of getting a release is not to protect yourself; it's to make the image more marketable to a broader range of clients."

He makes a recommendation regarding your thinking about model releases: “Adjust your way of looking at legal matters. They are not a series of rules, but a series of concepts." And while there are laws dealing with photo usage and release requirements, he says, "The legal realm of when model releases are required is hazy at best, as the principles are based on the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which [itself] is the source of many disagreements."

By Joan T. Sherwood, Senior Editor

If you deliver CDs or DVDs as part of your product package, and you send them out the door labeled with a Sharpie or an adhesive paper label, you need to rethink what that’s doing to your professional image. The DYMO DiscPainter is an affordable option for imprinting CDs and DVDs in-house with your own design, even custom designs for individual clients and marketing materials geared to specific groups of prospects.

The DYMO DiscPainter is strictly a printer; it will not burn CDs or DVDs. The printer uses RadialPrint Technology, spinning the disc and moving it laterally under an inkjet print head that moves in one direction along the radius of the disk. It takes around 1 to 3 minutes to print a disc, depending on the complexity of the design.  

It comes with Discus for DYMO software, an extremely versatile and easy-to-use design application. It offers very smart automation features for design elements like arced text and photo windows. Most controls are simple sliders or drag-and-drop functions on the disc layout. You can choose colors from a palette, or opt/alt-click on a color in your photo to select the closest color from the palette.

You can choose to start a disc design from scratch or from a set of readymade designs in the Canvas tab. Add photos, text, symbols, shapes, freehand painting, gradients, patterns. You really have a practically infinite  design options. The software can import logos saved as transparent PNG files to overlay images or other elements. DYMO has excellent video tutorials online that show how easy it is.

Image ©Cheryl Pearson

By Joan T. Sherwood, Senior Editor

The new Epson P-7000 Multimedia Photo Viewer takes the same basic package of the P-5000, puts in a new screen (Epson Photo Fine Premia Technology), adds 80 more gigabytes of storage (160GB total), and includes a travel pack (case, viewing stand, car adapter, dual battery charger, cleaning cloth and a bit of clear film to protect the LCD). A new jog dial under the four-way navigator also adds convenience in menu navigation and browsing through large sets of images.  This review is based on a pre-launch sample unit.

By far the biggest viewer assets are the 4-inch, 720x480-pixel screen, large storage capacity and the ability to backup direct from media cards. The viewer is compatible with UDMA CF cards and Secure Digital/SDHC cards. Epson boasts a 35-percent increase in transfer speed over previous models, but Epson doesn't provide any actual transfer rates based on card types. The new model also offers a wider viewing angle, and display color that covers 94 percent of Adobe RGB.

The colors are, indeed, beautiful on the display, and there’s even an Enhanced Photo Display Mode that is supposed to optimize color based on the image content, but it seems more trouble than it’s worth—I couldn’t really see a difference. It may be more obvious if you’ve got a set of images that aren’t popping the way you’d like.

For pro photographers, the slideshow capability may be the feature that could make the viewer pay for itself in terms of potential on-location marketing. At events, meetings or civic functions—wherever there may be a dull moment—you can take advantage of the opportunity to draw a crowd and show off some images.

To create a quick-pick slideshow, use the star button to rate your favorites, filter to show one star or more, and choose slideshow from the menu.

By Ron Eggers

Photodex ProShow Producer professional presentation software is easy to learn, simple to use, and contains an extensive feature set that's not readily available in other software packages. While Microsoft PowerPoint still leads the pack for creating business presentations, Producer has become a favorite among professional photographers for their needs. That's particularly the case since the company wisely dropped the necessity for a USB dongle to load and run the program.

To help users get the most out of the program, Course Technology just released “The Official Photodex Guide to ProShow.” Written by James Karney, the book aims to help users master the art of making great slide shows using ProShow Gold and ProShow Producer. This review covers both the performance of the software and the effectiveness of the book as a guide for users.

As Karney explains in Chapter 1, "The simple slide show is a thing of the past. Viewers expect sizzle. Movies, television and even our cell phones and MP3 players bring high-quality video and eye-catching special effects into every aspect of our lives." One of the things that makes Producer powerful is that it can produce output for almost every type of presentation and communications device. The book ships with an instructional CD that includes individual sections for each chapter, as well as trial versions of ProShow Gold and Producer, and the Photodex Presenter plug-in.

By Joe Farace

The PC-E Micro Nikkor 45mm f/2.8D ED lens was introduced along with the PC-E Micro Nikkor 85mm f/2.8D, bringing the total number of Nikon’s Perspective Control (PC) lenses up to four, the others being the PC-E Nikkor 24mm f/3.5D ED and the PC Micro Nikko 85mm f/2.8D. Perspective Control lenses correct linear distortion, reproducing images as they are seen by the human eye, straightening a building’s converging lines in architectural photography while giving the you more control over depth-of-field. PC lenses are useful for architecture, both exteriors and interiors, but are also handy for nature, still life, and product photography.

If you're photographing architecture with a conventional lens and you’re close to the subject, you have to tilt the camera to capture the major portion of the building. When that happens, especially with a wide-angle lens, it usually distorts lines that should be straight and parallel to others, and while this kind of distortion may be used to produce a dramatic composition it is not the kind of image beloved by architects and owners looking to sell or lease the property.

A perspective control lens, such as the 45mm PC-E Micro Nikkor PC-E, has shift controls that can correct this type of distortion. The 45mm PC-E Micro Nikkor PC-E’s tilt control also gives additional creative control over depth-of-field and lets you effectively change the camera’s apparent position to avoid unwanted reflections in an image.

A combination of both tilt and shift controls are part of all PC-E Nikkor lenses and let you isolate or emphasize a subject though selective focus. Both of these controls are well know to view camera photographers familiar with the Scheimpflug principle for depth-of-field that states the plane of focus will cover the entire subject from front to back (independent of the aperture) if the subject, lens and image planes intersect at one point. When these conditions are met, the position of the plane of focus corresponds to the object plane and everything appears in focus.

The Extra-low Dispersion (ED) glass element minimizes chromatic aberration, and three aspherical lens elements minimize other types of lens aberration. This photograph was made with the 45mm PC-E Micro Nikkor PC-E on a tripod mounted Nikon D3 in Live View mode. Exposure was 1/20 second at f/22, ISO 320, with a plus one and one third stop exposure compensation. Lens shift of 10mm was used. ©2008 Joe Farace

By Ron Eggers

Everybody has probably seen the Nikon commercials by now where Ashton Kutcher is fumbling around with a Nikon D60 taking candid shots at a friend's wedding. That implies that, if he can come up with great shots with the D60, anybody can. Judging by the ad, the D60 is being marketed as a camera that's idiot proof. It's true that it's an entry-level model, but marketing the D60 as a point-and-shoot is selling it a little short. While it is easy to use, it provides many of the controls and capabilities expected in a more sophisticated camera.

For example, it includes Nikon's sophisticated 3D Color Matrix Metering II for highly accurate exposure control, and features an active dust reduction system with airflow control to significantly reduce the problem of sensor spotting. Each time the camera is turned on or off, the sensor is cleared of dust.

It also includes another way of reducing dust imperfections on images. Like with some professional models, it's possible to take a dust reference image, which is then used by the camera to lift the dust spots off of captured images. It has a 10.2-megapixel DX-format CCD sensor with a maximum resolution of 3,872x2,592 pixels. Weighing only slightly more than a pound, it's an extremely compact camera. It is, in fact, the smallest DSLR that Nikon has released. Still, even though it is small, it has a good-sized 2.5" LCD with 170-degree viewability.

The D60 includes Nikon's advanced EXPEED image processing. EXPEED can be a little confusing. Even though both an introductory-level camera and a top-of-the-line camera incorporate EXPEED, image processing and handling are not the same for the two models. Rather than an image-processing engine, EXPEED is an image-processing concept that optimizes image processing for each of the cameras that it's incorporated into. Which means that, even though professional and consumer models incorporate EXPEED, the actual image-processing components can be quite different from one model to the next.

Responsive to action: This shot was taken at 1/1,600 second at f/10, ISO 800. ©Ron Eggers

By David Ziser, M.Photog.Cr., F-ASP

Editor’s note: In his new column in Professional Photographer magazine, renowned wedding photographer and popular instructor David Ziser shares his insights on the art and business of photography.

I have to tell you that I'm becoming a really big fan of Lightroom 2. There are a couple of features in the new version that simply make it one of the most remarkable pieces of software on the planet earth. Watch this video from my blog and see if you don't agree with me. 

The full release of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 is now available for purchase ($299, $99 upgrade), or you can download a free trial version.

By Joan Sherwood, Senior Editor

I wanted to try the Lowepro Inverse AW because it looked like it might finally be a beltpack that didn’t fit like a heavyweight obi, taking up all the space from waist to armpits on my short torso. To my pleasure, the Inverse AW100 proved a great fit with its adjustable compression pulls on the lumbar belt. These pulls allow you to adjust the belt comfortably wherever you want it to ride on your waist, and to different body types. For some it feels more comfortable higher up, others prefer a lower fit across the hips. The lumbar belt has ample padding, and didn’t feel hot or uncomfortable even when I took it on a summer shoot in the park.

The best thing about this bag is its light weight and versatility. With an interior that’s 9.2Wx5.6Dx8.3H inches, the 100 AW model that I tried is not big enough to comfortably hold one of the larger pro DSLRs, but it could certainly handle the mid-size range, like a Nikon D300 or D700 with attached lens. But you could also use it to carry two lenses. Or a lens and a couple speedlights. Or a long lens, water bottle, rain jacket and cell phone. By keeping the design simple and functional, Lowepro has made this a great all-around pack for any excursion when you want to keep your equipment to a small load.

I also loved being able to turn it into a shoulder bag. What Lowepro calls a 360-degree swivel padded shoulder harness is just a fancy term for shoulder strap with swivel clips. Fancy or not, it works. I tucked the belt straps into the bag’s back panel, put on the shoulder strap and used the Inverse as my carry-on bag for a trip to NYC. Buckling and unbuckling the beltpack in the airport would’ve been cumbersome, but in its shoulder bag capacity it was super. I wasn’t even packing a camera. I used it to hold my mini-laptop (an EeePC), cell phone, LARA bar, water bottle, and the other few necessities I want to keep with me on a plane. It fit under the seat with plenty of room left for my feet.

Sports and event photographers need fast, reliable printers with crowd-pleasing output. The HiTi P710L and Mitsubishi CP-3800DW fit the bill.

By Stan Sholik

Although photographers in general purchase far more inkjet printers than dye-sublimation (dye-sub) printers, it’s quite possible that they’re actually outputting more dye-sub prints. Event photographers, who might print an average of 500 prints during one event, are the largest market for dye-sub printers. They need reliable, easy-to-set-up printers that output photo-quality prints quickly, at a consistent cost per print—precisely the qualities of the new Hi-Touch Imaging Technology (HiTi) P710L and Mitsubishi Electric CP-3800DW dye-sub printers.

Dye-sub printing is radically different from inkjet printing. Rather than propelling droplets of opaque ink onto a paper surface, dye-sub printers use heat to transfer transparent dye from a ribbon onto paper. Having varying the temperatures across the printer head, dye-sub printers can produce 256 shades for each of its cyan, magenta and yellow ribbon, yielding a true 16.8-million color gamut. The transparent dye is laid down in layers, producing smooth color gradients and print quality that’s virtually indistinguishable from chemical photo lab prints.

Each color requires a separate pass through the printer, followed by a fourth pass to lay down a laminate layer, which protects the print from UV fading and water damage. When I splashed water on prints from each printer then wiped them dry, the prints were undamaged. HiTi estimates print life of 50 to 100 years, while Mitsubishi quotes 20-plus years in dark storage.

Despite the four-pass system, dye-sub printers also have an advantage over inkjet printers in speed. The HiTi P710L produces 4x6-inch prints in less than 7 seconds; the Mitsubishi CP-3800DW prints 8x10s in 30 seconds.

Another advantage is reliability. In dye-sub units, only the paper and the ribbon move during printing, not the whole print head, so there are fewer moving parts. Dye-sub printing is also very clean. The thermal head turns the dye embedded in the ribbon into a gas that’s immediately deposited onto the paper—no liquid cartridges to deal with—and the prints are completely dry when they exit the printer.

Finally, dye-sub printers produce a known number of prints per paper roll/ribbon, so you can calculate the per-print consumables cost exactly. This is a real competitive advantage in bidding on jobs.

By Joan Sherwood, Senior Editor

OnOne Software recently released FocalPoint, a new  plug-in for Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements that makes it quick and easy to add selective focus and vignetting effects to your images.

OnOne has done an outstanding job of giving new users plenty of help in understanding how to use their plug-ins. There are pages of video software tutorials, including an in-depth introduction to FocalPoint, and a page with a video demo of each Focal Point feature.

Launch includes a simple step-by-step how-to that walks you through the basic functions. You can turn that off when you don't need it any more. 

This is a great plug-in if you want to incorporate selective focus and vignetting effects. It's priced at $159.95, and you can try it out first with a free 30-day trial version.

Here I've created a QuickTime movie demonstration for you just to show FocalPoint in action and demonstrate how easy it is to use. I'm using a photo I took of my niece and her new husband last Thanksgiving. 

Click on the image below to play. (QuickTime, 02:57)

By Ron Eggers

So many new digital photography books reach the market that it's sometimes difficult to tell one from another. Every once in a while, though, a new title comes along that distinguishes itself, either by the author’s slant or how the subject matter is covered. Katrin Eismann and Seán Duggan's new book, “The Creative Digital Darkroom” (O’Reilly, $49.99) is one of those books. It’s a comprehensive how-to and reference guide that can help even experienced photographers work more effectively with digital images.

I don't know Seán Duggan, but for the sake of full disclosure, I've known Katrin for a number of years, and I’m always impressed with the quality of her writing. “Real World Digital Photography,” which she wrote with Duggan and Tim Grey, became a must-have guide for photographers.

The 400-some pages of “Creative Digital Darkroom” are loaded with useful information, creative techniques and interesting projects. To get the most out of a book like this requires a considerable investment of time. It's not something you read once and go on to the next section. The 10-chapter book includes a foreword by Stephen Johnson, the photographer, author and educator. He says of the edition, "It is a workbook for today's photographer, providing needed detail to process the image and the reasoning behind the procedure." You have to go over the techniques carefully and actually try the suggested approaches, on either the images featured in the book, which are available for download, or your images.

By Joe Farace

The Olympus E-420 claims to be “the world's smallest digital SLR with all the features you need to take great pictures … .”  With the rapidfire pace of DSLR introductions, that last caveat may be there so Big Oly can say, “Yours may be smaller, but is it as wonderful as ours?” So let’s get this out of the way first, the doggone thing is small and makes an ideal second camera for an Olympus-shooting pro or as an SLR for an assistant catching ceremony and candid shots during a wedding.

The E-420 has the Olympus Live View function that lets you use the large 2.7-inch LCD as a viewfinder to get color-balanced ceremony shots in church or synagogue, but there’s no image stabilization, so be sure to use a tripod. The camera’s Shadow Adjustment Technology and Face Detection make reception shots easy, ensuring that you can deliver sharper images to your clients.

How small is it? Measuring 5.1 x 3.6 x 2.1 inches and weighing just 13.4 ounces, the E-420 is small enough to fit into a purse or a jacket pocket and light enough to carry around and shoot comfortably all day. Face Detection is candid-photography friendly, distinguishes between people’s faces and the background, and will track up to eight faces within the image area while automatically focusing and optimizing exposure for portraits.

Dark sanctuaries? No problem. Shooting scenes with shadows can be tricky because of the extreme contrast between dark and bright areas but the E-420’s Shadow Adjustment Technology compensates for extreme contrast when shadow areas are underexposed and lack visible detail.

By Mark Levesque, CPP

Silkypix Developer Studio 3.0 is the latest release of raw converter software from Shortcut Software. Like competing raw image processing solutions, Silkypix can also process jpeg or tiff images, but it is really intended to be a raw processor.

Raw capture retains all of the image sensor data and allows the photographer to take advantage of the maximum tonality and detail when making adjustments to an image, which is particularly important if your artistic vision requires significant alteration. All of the decisions the camera makes to render an image are at your discretion with no loss of quality. Harnessing the control afforded by raw capture is what raw processing software is all about.

Silkypix allows you to open a single image or a folder of images in several preview layout options, including thumbnail, preview, and a split-screen that offers a little of both (Figure 1). You can delete, copy, move, batch process or color code the thumbnails. You can also add a comment that will be stored in the image’s EXIF data. For users accustomed to Adobe Lightroom’s intuitive and flexible interface, the Silkypix  image annotation options will seem relatively primitive and awkward, but at least there are options.

Figure 1

In the July issue of Professional Photographer magazine, Ron Eggers assessed the current top models of pro DSLR cameras. Here you can see sample images from those cameras along with a 1:1 pixel selection (click for full view). Images were saved in Photoshop for Web viewing as JPEGs at Quality: 85 in sRGB.

All images ©Ron Eggers unless otherwise noted. Eggers was not given access to a review unit of the Leica Digilux 3 to create independent sample images.

Canon EOS 40D: 1/250 second at f/11 (+.67), ISO 200

By Shawn Soni

Periperhal devices based on solid state technologies are becoming more prevalent for use as both external devices and internal drives for both portable and desktop computers. The low power consumption of SSDs (solid state drives) is especially relevant when you have a laptop running solely on battery power and you're moving data off for storage.

Lexar’s Crucial line has an interesting entry into the market with 32- and 64GB drives that work even while being shaken up by a paint shaker (see the YouTube video here). Although that’s not a recommended way to treat a drive, it’s instructive to know that it “takes a licking…” and still functions at 110 percent. The practical application of a device like this is its usefulness for storing critical data (pictures), particularly in extreme situations, after transferring the images from a memory card to a computer.

The Lexar drive as tested arrived with some assembly required. The drive itself requires mounting in a case that has an external USB interface on it. The assembly process takes about 10 minutes and a small Phillips-head screwdriver (not included). A drive enclosure/bracket kit is included and can be added into an available drive bay on a desktop computer if desired, allowing you to insert the SSD device into the computer for use as a “removable” device.

I tested the drive on both a Windows XP desktop and a Macintosh computer and neither had any difficulty recognizing the drive or mounting it as a removable device.

File copy times were not noticeably better than other hard drive devices, but that is not due to the SSD technology, but rather the USB interface. The device is capable of using an e-SATA interface, which is faster than USB for data transfer, but not all users have an e-SATA interface card or native connection on their computer.

By Joe Farace

Fast powerful zoom for the Four-Thirds System

The Zuiko Digital ED 14-35mm f/2.0 SWD is part of Olympus’ new Super High Grade (SHG) lens system aimed at professional photographers and featuring advanced optical/precision technology and crisp, fast auto-focus. The family of Supersonic Wave Drive (SWD) lenses sport a “platinum” (blue) barrel stripe and are compatible with any Four Thirds System camera but are optimized and achieve highest autofocus speeds when used with the Olympus E-3 professional DSLR, which I used to test the lens. SWD lenses have large maximum apertures, making them ideal for available-light photography at weddings and other candid events and are splash proof if you get caught in an unexpected shower.

All Zuiko Digital lenses allow light to strike the image sensor at a near-perpendicular angle, minimizing degradation and light loss, even at the edge of the frame or when using a wide-angle lens. As befits its $2,299 price tag, the ED 14-35mm f/2.0 SWD features rugged, high-quality construction and is dust and drip-proof. The two ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass elements minimize chromatic aberration and contribute to the lens’ superb optical performance.

SWD is the proprietary name for Olympus’ in-lens motor technology, similar to Canon’s USM (Ultra Sonic Motor) designation for its lens autofocus drive, although Canon uses two different versions of USM depending on whether it’s in an inexpensive lens or the more costly L-series. Supersonic Wave Drive technology is used in the lens to move the focusing lens group and in the camera body to actuate the Image Stabilization unit. SWD motor lenses work on any Olympus Four Thirds System body and will allow an increase in autofocus speed over non-SWD lenses.

By Stan Sholik

This article provides additional information on the digital projector calibration and profiling function of Spyder3Elite and supplements the Spyder3Studio review in the May issue of Professional Photographer magazine. 

A color-managed workflow is important at all times to professional photographers, but especially when we are presenting work to our clients. The Datacolor Spyder3Studio includes tools to ensure that they will see accurate color on your monitor, on proof prints and also on a projection screen. The same Spyder3Elite colorimeter used for monitor profiling can also profile a digital projector for photographers who use front projection in their sales room.

Projector calibration is very straightforward since some of the adjustments necessary in monitor calibration are unnecessary or unavailable with projectors. For example, the human eye automatically adapts to brightness and whitepoint in a darkened room, making these hardware adjustments superfluous if they are even available for the projector. 

So it is simply a matter of connecting the Spyder3, following the on-screen directions, and running the software process. The result is a profile for that projector and screen. At the end of the profiling process there is an option for creating two other profiles. These include adjustments for use in less desirable situations with more ambient light in case your sales room cannot be darkened totally during the day.

After selecting the option to calibrate a digital projector, you must set the Target Gamma and Whitepoint from the default 2.2-6500 to 2.2-Native. (Click image for larger view)

By Shawn Soni

For Windows XP/Vista only

“Press Burn Go” clearly describes the capabilities of the Lite-On EZ-Dub Optical Drive DVD+RW burner.  This medium-sized appliance has an included “foot” to allow it to sit vertically on your desktop. Although loading and unloading it while vertical is a bit problematic, vertical positioning takes up very little real estate on your desktop—a definite advantage.

The drive is a USB 2.0 device and comes with a cable and power supply to facilitate a simple hook-up. Once plugged in and powered up, Windows will find your device and attempt to install generic Microsoft drivers for it. It appears to recognize the name of the device, and will do a basic installation of a DVD burner. But don’t be fooled, if you want to get the full functionality of the drive, you still need to use the included drivers to complete the install.  

To begin the setup, it is best to install the included Nero disk-burning software before the installation of the EZ-Dub software  If you try to install EZ-Dub first, it will prompt you to install Nero first, and then allow installation of EZ-Dub. A word of caution here, when installing Nero, a dialog box will open asking if you’d like Nero to be the default application that opens all your files (including JPEG, PSD, and TIFFs). It is probably not the best idea to select Nero as the default if you are installing this drive on the main workflow computer for your studio. That’s the only real “gotcha” that you need to look out for in the install process.

By Shawn Soni

The Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II is an attractive, burnished aluminum dual-drive storage system. It’s an appealing and truly functional addition to any studio computer setup. The unit is about the size of a boxed set of "Lord of the Rings" paperbacks and weighs just slightly more. The Studio Edition II will be one of the quietest items on your desk. Its WD GreenPower fanless design consumes less power than standard dual-drive storage systems, a welcome plus.

Adding the drive to your existing Apple computer is as simple as plugging it in and turning it on. The unit offers several ports for different connection media: a USB2.0 port, an eSATA port (which works for both Mac and PC) and two FireWire ports for FireWire 400 or 800 connections (the FireWire ports are for FireWire 800, but the included cable will allow a FireWire 400 device to be connected). Western Digital includes cables for these connection options, with the exception of eSATA, along with clear and simple directions. For the WD software to support an eSATA connection, the host computer must have either an eSATA PCI card or native connection on its motherboard.

Your Macintosh will immediately recognize and mount the volume as “MyBook” on your desktop, and, if you do not choose to reformat or repartition it is immediately ready to use.

The Studio Edition II drive comes pre-configured as a Macintosh HFS+ journaled drive set up as RAID 0 (a large, non-redundant disk set) and is easy to re-configure using the included Western Digital WD Drive Manager Software. Drive Manager driven reconfiguration options include a RAID 1 (a mirrored, redundant disk set) option for HFS+, and RAID 0 and RAID 1 options for Windows using FAT32 as the file system. Unfortunately, there isn’t an option to use NTFS for Windows, which, from a purely technical standpoint, is a disadvantage to Window users who want to utilize the file security and compression system advantages that are inherent in NTFS.

Image ©Shawn Soni 

By Stan Sholik

When a widely used software program rolls into a new version, it's a notable event. This time the software is Phase One Capture One 4 (C1-4). This is the successor to Capture One 3.x LE, not Capture One 3.x PRO. It does not support tethered shooting, IPTC metadata, CMYK output, simultaneous multiple file output and a few other PRO features. If these are important features in your workflow, stand by for the promised release of Capture One 4 PRO later this year.

In January, Phase One released Capture One PRO 3.7.8 for the Mac with 3.7.8 for Windows due soon. With the release of Windows Vista and Mac OS 10.5 and the constant influx of new digital SLRs, Phase One along with all hardware and software companies have to work diligently to keep up with the changes.

Lacking features aside, C1-4 is a major upgrade of LE. It probably has all the RAW processing power that the vast majority of digital SLR users will ever need. It should even appeal to Phase One digital back owners who also use DSLRs. The Phase One DB software bundled with the backs cannot process DSLR raw files. Unlike C1 LE, which doesn’t process raw files from Phase One backs, C1-4 can process raw files from every Phase One digital back, as well as raw files from nearly every DSLR, enabling a common workflow.  

The user interface of Capture One 4 is totally new. It now sports a charcoal gray background. This is the default layout of the user-customizable interface. Image ©Stan Sholik

By Ron Eggers

One difference between a serious photographer and a casual photographer is the level of expertise honed from years of shooting experience. A variety of tools are available to help you sharpen photographic skills and insights. The depth-of-field guide, which has been around for some 30 years, has been revised recently with the introduction of ExpoAperture2 Depth-of-Field Guides from ExpoImaging.

For too many photographers, depth of field is a relatively vague concept of what's in focus and what isn't. In fact, you can determine depth of field very precisely, mathematically. Many fixed-focus lenses and some zoom lenses have depth-of-field guides marked on their barrels. Some cameras also have depth-of-field preview capabilities. These work well enough while shooting. But they aren't much help in planning a shoot.

By Karen Linsley 

Advertised with the tag line “form meets function,” the Shootsac is not a camera bag, but more of a lightweight carry case for lenses and other accessories.  

At a recent wedding, I used it to carry a spare flash card holder, spare batteries for a flash unit, an extra lens, a light meter and a Quantum Battery Pack, plus some little extra odds and ends that I usually carry in a pocket or fanny pack. The battery pack didn’t stay in the bag long, as it gets attached to a Q-flash off camera, but I wanted to see how the bag felt with all that equipment in it. After a while it got heavy and put unwanted strain on my shoulders, which defeated the purpose of leaving the bigger, heavier camera bag at the DJ table to wander around freely. But after taking the battery pack out, the Shootsac worked quite nicely. I didn’t have all that stuff creating bulk in my pockets, nor did I have the extra bulk in my pockets or the fanny pack.

Sony Moves Up the Performance Ladder

By Ron Eggers

The The Sony Alpha DSLR-A700 is a solid piece of equipment that combines strong performance with affordability. I reviewed the Sony’s original DSLR, the A100, and liked it, and the A700 is a step up. It has a higher-resolution sensor, is more responsive and feels better built. The rugged magnesium alloy body is quite heavy for its size, yet its ergonomic grip and well-balanced proportions are comfortable for shooting.

Though it’s not marketed as a pro camera, the A700 is more of a professional model than a consumer DSLR. Take its responsiveness, for example. There's no focusing hesitation or shutter lag. It responds on demand. And the camera pretty much lives up to its 5-frames-per-second (fps) capture rating. Using a high-speed Extreme IV 2 GB CompactFlash card, shooting in the Hi continuous advance mode, and without repositioning or refocusing the camera during the burst, it was possible to capture 17 to 18 frames per 4-second burst. That's good performance.

The A700 is designed around a new APS-C size CMOS Exmor Sensor with effective resolution of 12.2 megapixels, and maximum capture resolution of 4,272x2,848 pixels. Captures are processed through the advanced Bionz image processor with hardware-based, large-scale integrated circuitry, which Sony has refined to increase performance, speed processing, optimize image quality, and significantly reduce electronic noise.

By Rick Ralston 

As part of a Photoshop actions tutorial I wrote for Professional Photographer Magazine (coming in the March 2008 issue) I did a speed test comparing Photoshop's actions, Adobe Lightroom and the manual process. I took 100 raw images and ran them through a series of tasks. The results are a little surprising.

Lightroom has taken some of the functionality of Photoshop, made it easy to apply settings to multiple images and added some other niceties such as building slideshows and advanced printing—all aimed at the professional photographer. But you still need Photoshop to edit images at the pixel level and for compositing. Lightroom works with raw files and only applies settings to the images upon export.

The Results:
Photoshop actions: 14 minutes, 32 seconds (including action creation time)
Adobe Lightroom: 25 minutes, 20 seconds (including droplet creation time)
Manually: 52 minutes, 10 seconds

By Ellis Vener

There are those who like to learn by reading, there are those who prefer classes, seminars and workshops, there are those who like video instruction, and there are those who’ll take it anyway they can get it. Each approach has its merits. Good DVDs in particular blend several of the strengths of other instruction forms: they are portable, and there’s a human leading you through the process, and best of all, you can go at your pace.

My first impression of the “RAW without FUD: How to Shoot RAW without Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt” DVD was amusement at the FUD acronym; I’d never heard it before. But according to the Wikipedia.com entry on FUD, it stands for  “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.” FUD has explicit roots as a way of describing political disinformation tactics—like those used by many politically oriented talk radio show hosts. But FUD-ing really gained traction in the corporate world in the early 1970s, and since “1991 the term has become generalized to refer to any kind of disinformation used as a competitive weapon" according to Eric S. Raymond’s “The Jargon File.”

Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment: who among us hasn’t felt fear, uncertainty and doubt when confronting digital processing? Like it or not we are now not only photographers but also the lab, and to large extent the equivalent of being film manufacturers as well as being photographers and business owners. It’s all on our (or our assistants') shoulders, folks. That can be scary, and many people still stick to a JPEG-based way of working to get around it. That’s not good because to do so means losing a competitive qualitative edge.

Michael Tapes’ educational goal with the “How to Shoot RAW without Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt” DVD of video tutorials is to dispel your phobias about raw processing, engender confidence in your raw workflow abilities, and thereby help you become a more confident photographer.

By Joan Sherwood

Lowepro brings simplicity to camera bags with its Cirrus TLZ line. These top-loading bags have a single compartment, two Velcro-attach supports, and a memory card pocket.

I tested the Cirrus TLZ 25 bag, largest of the line, initially intending to use it with the Nikon D200. The interior dimensions are listed as 6.1Wx4.1Dx8.3H, but the Nikon D200 body is just a little too chunky for it at 5.7x4.4 inches across the back. If you have a more compact DSLR, however, the size is optimal and can even handle a relatively long lens or leave room for cable storage at the bottom of the bag. My Nikon D40 fits perfectly at 5x3.7 inches across the body, with room to slip my fingers around the grip.

Image above ©Joan T. Sherwood 

So your pro DSLR won't fit, but it might be a good choice for your carry-around or backup camera. Lowepro announced new 110, 120 and 140 models for the Cirrus line at PMA this year that should be a better fit for bigger pro models. The new Cirrus bags are available now. (Right: Lowepro Cirrus 110)

In anticipation of our upcoming in-depth review, Professional Photographer provides you with notes from our Nikon D3 reviewer Ellis Vener on its most notable features and functions that made a big impression. 

IMPRESSIVE

This is Nikon’s first full frame (24x36mm format) D-SLR—no crop factor. Nikon calls this format FX. While the resolution is only 12.1 megapixels, roughly equal to the resolution of the Nikon D300, the larger physical area allows Nikon to employ a second layer of micro lenses to really focus the light down into the pixel wells resulting in:

• More clear resolution of fine detail than I’ve seen out of other 12 megapixel format cameras.

• Large dynamic range when using the 14-bit per channel NEF format, especially in the highlights, about one and a half stops over the D2X. (This is also a result of the EXPEED processor technology implemented  in the D3.)

• Very low noise at high ISO settings, about two to four times the quality of the D2Xs.

• Much greater resolution of shadow detail than many other similar cameras.