Behind the bank, Rhyolite ghost town — by Joe Reifer
Need a last minute gift idea for the photographer on your holiday shopping list? Below are a few ideas for you. Thanks for using these affiliate links to support this blog while you shop for your favorite photographer.
The recent reissue of John Gossage’s classic photo book, The Pond. Photo book expert Gerry Badger says: “Adams, Shore, Baltz – all the New Topographics photographers made great books, but none are better than The Pond.” ($40.95)
Quick Tip: If you’re ordering from Amazon.com, Sunday the 19th is the last day to take advantage of free super saver shipping for delivery by Christmas. However, you can sign up for a free one-month trial of Amazon Prime, and get free unlimited 2-day shipping, and $3.99 upgrades to overnight shipping.
Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 Distagon on a Canon 5D Mark II. (Click the image for a larger view).
Both images are 1/350 at f/11 ISO 200. Both are 100% crops (1:1 view) in Lightroom. The images have identical post-processing. So what’s the difference?
In the on the left the bridge is near the center of the frame, in the image on the right it’s along the right edge. After extensive focus testing, this copy of the Zeiss 21mm produced results that were consistently soft in the background about 10% of the way into the frame. Here’s the problem in a nutshell:
Camera and lens manufacturing tolerances may not be tight enough to produce consistently sharp results with wide angle lenses on high-resolution cameras like the Canon 5D Mark II.
I’ve now tested 3 copies of the Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 and 2 copies of the Canon 24mm TS-E II, and only 1 out of the 5 lenses was acceptably sharp across the frame. Unfortunately, the 1 lens that was sharp was a rental. Three of the lenses were soft on the left edge of the frame in the background at f/8-f/11, and the Zeiss above had the same issue but on the right side.
The Zeiss 21mm and Canon 24mm TS-E II are both extremely sharp lenses, which seems to exacerbate the problem. The mountains in some of the photos I took yesterday were very sharp everywhere except the right 10-15% of the frame. Because everything else is so sharp, this makes the out of focus area even more apparent.
If you enjoy shooting with wide angle lenses and make large prints, this may end up being a problem for you sooner or later with high resolution 35mm digital. If you’re thinking about upgrading to a 5D Mark II, or buying a new wide angle lens, here’s a very important article to read:
In addition to the excellent article above, Lloyd Chambers’ subscription site has some informative articles including Brand new blur and Testing Guidelines.
The bottom line: buy from a vendor with a good return / exchange policy, and carefully test any lenses after purchase to make sure they’re sharp on your camera body.
To celebrate their 5th anniversary, Think Tank has graciously provided an Airport AirStream rolling camera bag for me to give away to one lucky reader. Last week was part 1 of the contest, where you guessed how many PBRs I put in the bag. Here’s part 2:
What general direction is the camera facing in the photo above, North, South, East, or West.
If you win the bag, what cool photo location will you bring it to next year.
Are you willing to report back about your trip, and have an image featured on this blog [Hint: Yes is the right answer].
Please submit your answers in the comments field below.
Deadline: Thursday, 11/18 at midnight Pacific Time.
Comments are moderated, and may take a few hours to appear. No need to submit more than once.
The winner will be notified by Tuesday, 11/23 and the bag will ship out by the end of the month.
Update: And the winner is….
Jim Masse from Waterboro, Maine
Jim answered part 1 correctly — 25 cans of beer in the time-lapse video. He also had the most interesting answer to part 2, Kathmandu, Nepal. Plus when I looked Jim up online, he had a great bigfoot photo as his Facebook icon. Congratulations to Jim, your bag will be on the way soon!
How many cans of beer did I fit into the Think Tank Airport AirStream camera bag in the time-lapse video above?
Use the Contact link to email your answer by midnight on Thursday, November 11.
Guessing the number of beers is part 1 of a 2-part contest. Part 2 will appear on this blog on Friday November 12th.
To celebrate their 5th anniversary, Think Tank has graciously provided an Airport AirStream rolling camera bag for me to give away to one lucky reader — a $289 value. Includes shipping in the lower 48. Beer not included. Please pack your camera bag responsibly.
Waiting at the Crossing, Lincoln, NE 1993 — by Chris Faust
The January 30th deadline is fast approaching for the panoramic night photography contest hosted by The Nocturnes, dubbed The Panocturnists. [Entry form here] The entry fee is a reasonable $25 for up to three images. The juror will be none other than Chris Faust, whose wide format night photography book Nocturnes is highly recommended.
The only panoramic night photograph that I’ve produced as a print is the Mad Mouse Rollercoaster image from a year ago. The 4 shot rollercoaster image was shot from a tripod without a panoramic head, and stitched together in Photoshop CS3 using Photomerge. Photoshop’s panoramic stitching functionality took a quantum leap in CS3 and CS4. If you’re shooting with a medium focal length and don’t include foreground subjects, Photomerge will quite often work seamlessly within a few minutes. No more specialized panoramic tripod heads or difficult to learn panorama stitching software.
But Photomerge isn’t perfect. If you’re just delving into the world of digital panoramas, I recommend locating a copy of Harald Woeste’s book Mastering Digital Panoramic Photography. Woeste gives a logical introduction to the concepts behind digital panoramas, as well as an excellent overview of panoramic tripod heads and stitching software options. A couple of years ago I experimented with various software and equipment for panoramas, and spent weeks digging around online — this book would’ve saved me a lot of time.
The Star Trails Barrier
The reason I rarely shoot panoramas at night is gear related — shooting and stitching a scene with star trails is extremely difficult. Gaps between exposures longer than a second or two will cause your star trails not to line up. Those of you who’ve stitched a few panoramas know that the multiple images don’t stitch on a perfect vertical. Even using a panoramic head with detent stops and practicing to minimize the interval between exposures will yield star trails that are not accurate. If you’re a digital photographer with a solution to this problem, I’d love to hear about your technique.
The Mad Mouse panorama was easy to stitch because the fog provided a consistent sky tonality. Clouds are do-able — here’s a 10 shot hand-held sunset panorama that stitched together quite easily in Photomerge. Stitched city skylines are usually OK, but that’s not my bag. For star trail panoramas, you’re probably better off either cropping or using a medium format film camera.
. Woeste gives a logical introduction to the concepts behind digital panoramas, as well as an excellent overview of panoramic tripod heads and stitching software options. A couple of years ago I experimented with various software and equipment for panoramas, and spent weeks digging around online — this book would’ve saved me a lot of time.
