AdobeRGB vs. sRGB

I used to think it didn't matter which mode I shoot my pictures in and to an extent it doesn't.  I have found recently though that after editing the pictures to look great on my laptop, they turned out looking a little green on the web.  Here is an example of that.

Its a good photo, but he looks a little sea sick, or a little green. So after some help from the internet and my friends at Digital-photography-school.com I was able to figure out why.  It turns out that the internet runs on sRGB color space, which is smaller than the AdobeRGB color space my photo, so that when I shoot in AdobeRGB and edit it in AdobeRGB then upload it to the internet it clips the colors that are outside the sRGB color space.  Its a simple fix, with photoshop I just have to save the image as an sRGB for it to make the conversion for me and it does a great job of keeping the color.  If you want to read more about it you can check out the forum post I made.

Here is the picture after I saved it in sRGB.

Auto Focusing my camera

When using my camera I like to have the auto focus use only one point (so I know where it will focus) and I compose my image around that point.  Normally I have been using points in the upper left or upper right (so that my picture uses the rule of thirds and is composed nicely.  I have felt for a while that my set up (canon t1i + 70-200mm F4 L lens) was having a hard time getting the focusing spot on.  I don't use a tripod as much as I should, but this week I was playing with my camera and moved the auto focus point to the center spot and I felt like a much larger percentage of my photos were tact sharp.  So I started looking online.  Sure enough, the center point is a much better auto focusing point.  In short it detects focus by using both horizontal and vertical information while the rest of the points on my camera use either horizontal or vertical, but not both.  The below information comes from http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/T1I/T1IA4.HTM.  This is a great website with lots of great information in their review.

"The Rebel T1i uses the same AF sensor as the previous XSi, which features enhanced precision at the center point. This AF sensor design achieves more precise focus when used with lenses with apertures of f/2.8 or larger.

SLR autofocus accuracy is governed in part by how far apart you can space the sensor elements for a single AF point from each other. The wider this "baseline," the more accurately the AF point can determine focus. What limits the AF baseline spacing in a camera system is the lens aperture. You can build sensors with wider baselines, but that also restricts the range of lenses they can be used with. By and large, camera manufacturers have set f/5.6 as the minimum aperture their AF systems will work with. Lenses with wide-open apertures smaller than f/5.6 just won't focus. But once the baseline spacing is set, using a faster lens doesn't improve focus accuracy any. That is, unless you add a larger baseline sensor, as is built into the Canon T1i's center AF point. (Note that only the center AF point shows this increased accuracy at f/2.8: The surrounding AF points are all conventional f/5.6 ones.)

The AF points on the Canon T1i cover about 60% of the frame width, and about 50% of the frame height. The illustration above shows the relative spacing between the various AF points, with the distances between them marked in millimeters, at the focal plane. (Illustration courtesy Canon USA.)

While the AF sensor used in the Canon T1i appears to be the same as in the XSi, Canon did tell us that the Rebel T1i's AF system is better at handling extreme out-of-focus conditions than was its predecessor. They didn't have (or couldn't share) details as to how this was accomplished, but there should be fewer situations in which the Canon T1i will have to rack the lens across its entire focus range to figure out where optimum focus is.

While the image sensor in the Canon T1i appears to be nearly identical to that in the 50D (the principle difference being fewer readout channels, yielding a lower continuous-mode frame rate), the AF system is one area where the 50D justifies its higher price. In the 50D, there's an additional cross-type (diagonal) f/2.8 AF sensor for the central point, and all points are cross-type, meaning they're sensitive to both horizontal and vertical detail. Other than its central point, all of the Canon T1i's AF points are line-type, with most being sensitive to horizontal detail, but the top-center and bottom-center ones being sensitive to vertical lines."

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/T1I/T1IA4.HTM

So know, I will almost always be shooting with the center point, and not the edge ones near as much. I will have to get better at composing my image from the center. 

Photography in the Rain

I'm supposed to do a family photo session this weekend.  But living in Washington its supposed to rain.  I got this recommendation from Scott Kelby (http://www.scottkelby.com/ not a personal recommendation, just off of his podcast) for rainsleeves.  You can find them here.  I will let you know how they work or hopefully I won't have to use one.  They are really small and I plan on keeping one in my camera bag just in case I get caught in the rain and want to take some pictures.

HDR Fun

Here's the original

Here is the HDR Version

Here are 2 other HDR photos.

Portraits

Deb and I took these shots of her the other night, I think they turned out really well.  Hope you enjoy.

Two LumoPro160's with shoot through 32" umbrellas, one camera left, one camera right. Each at 1/4 power and 50mm.
One Old Vivitar flash pointed at the background.
All triggered with Cowboy Studio Radio Receivers.
Shot on a white sheet for a background.

Light Trails Ferry and the Train

The great thing about winter is being able to get night photos, sunrise photos and sunset photos without having to change my sleep schedule, as sunrise is about 8am, and sunset is like 4:30-5pm. 
This first photo is of the ferry coming in. I took a bulb exposure (where the shutter is open until I tell it to close, in this case 2 minutes) of the ferry docking, and then a 25 second exposure of the ferry in the dock (unfortunately, its a touch blurry I think because the boat was still moving and I was in a hurry to get the shot before the train came for the second picture). Then I superimposed the light trails on the stationary ferry picture with photoshop.



This second picture was a 20 second exposure with the kit lens of the train going by right in front of the ferry.



Because of the really long shutter, any movement by light becomes a light trail, which I think makes a pretty sweet photo.

Happy New Year

Near Focus

Here are some shots with the focus on the foreground and the background out of focus.


Love the bokah in the background.




Love how the water is soft and out of focus (OOF)

Reflection

Deb took this picture, i think it is a fabulous picture.

Spider

Took this photo with a the canon 100mm f2.8  Macro Lens, I was renting from the UW.  Pretty awesome how the focus comes and goes.  I really dig that.

First Snow

We got our first winter storm of the season And to think that winter doesn't really start for another month. Anyway, went out yesterday after the snow stopped falling and took some pictures. It was a stormy blustery day. More pictures to come.









I also learned how to add a border to the photos in HTML. Just add style="border:5px solid #000000;" to the code after the img src, and it will add a 5 pixel black border. You can change the color by using a different color code in place of 000000. Hope that makes sense.

All these pictures were taken with the 70-200mm F4L lens I am borrowing from my school.

Baby Collage

Here are the rest of the photos from the baby shoot. I hope you enjoy. It was so much fun.

Camera Resources

So, I had a friend ask me a lot of questions about DSLR cameras yesterday, so I put together some resources for him, and thought it would be worthwhile to share here...

Thought I'd throw together some information on SLR's and resources to learn about them that I have been using. 
Here is the review of the T1i that I have.  The guys at DPreview I really like.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos500d/
And here is the review of the T2i, which is a model newer, and compares itself with the T1i.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos550d/
You could obviously also look at the Nikon d5000 there as well. 
I Chose canon for several reasons over the Nikon.  First, I really didn't like how the Nikon felt.  Second, Nikon uses different lenses for their 'consumer' line than for their 'professional' line of cameras.  So if I were to step up later I would have to buy new lenses.  Canon has two lines of lens and one line (the higher end line denoted EF (the other line is EF-S)) works on both their consumer and professional cameras.  I also know some other people that have Canon cameras and lens, so I thought it would be better if we could share lenses, etc.  I don't know anyone with a Nikon, but I know of a lot of professionals that shoot with them. 
I don't use the camera to take movies, I've tried, but I've only really tried with a lens that doesn't have and zoom (prime lens of fixed) and so it was really hard to film the kids because they were always trying to get really close and I couldn't zoom out.  Also the movie mode was a little cumbersome and hard to get to a point where I'd be happy with the video. 
Anyway this is where I bought from. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/613613-REG/Canon_3818B002_EOS_Rebel_T1i_500D.html
And like I said the other night, you should get a good SDHC card to go with it, at least class 6, but I'd just go with class 10.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/524532-REG/SanDisk_SDSDRX3_8192_A21_8GB_Extreme_SDHC_Memory.html
or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220450&cm_re=patriot_sdhc_class_10-_-20-220-450-_-Product
I own the bottom link, I wish I could own the top link.

That''s enough about equipment for now,
These guys put on a 20minute show every week about cameras and camera gear. http://kelbytv.com/dtowntv/ I really like watching, In the beginning they talk almost exclusively about Nikons, but in the more recent episodes they talk about Canon's as well.  Most anything they say or show (accessory wise) Canon makes as well as Nikon, so it still all applies. I would start by watching some of the early episodes, but the last two (58-59) have been about lenses for sports (mostly outdoor) and might be good to watch too, since that seems to be what you want it for the most. 
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/exposure-triangle-not-just-about-moreless-light
This website has also been a great resource for me to learn about how to take better pictures.  This article explains a lot about getting the lighting right, and at the bottom it has further articles to read to help understand more.  It also has some 'rules' (which can be broken, but are generally good to follow) for taking good pictures (http://www.digital-photography-school.com/4-digital-photography-tips-for-the-year-ahead).

Studio Lighting

This photo is of my wife and I taken in our apartment. The camera was against the other wall and we used a remote shutter release so we could both be in the picture. We had our two new umbrellas set up. I think the picture turned out quite well.

Wife's Birthday

Here are some pictures we got of the flowers Deb received for her Birthday. These were all taken with the 100mm Macro lens and ringlite flash. Some of them turned out looking a little fake for some reason.

Lighting Equipment

This weekend I got two stands and umbrellas from Amazon.com. Great purchase, we did our first newborn shoot this weekend with them and it was awesome and they worked so well. The far umbrella has a ringlight that I was borrowing from the UW, I have a flash coming soon, that should light up the whole umbrella better, I will post pictures taken with the set up in the coming days.

My main learning source was http://strobist.blogspot.com. They have a great website with all kinds of tips and ideas to get started with strobe lighting.  
The amazon.com links in this post are to the equipment I bought.  It's not the best stuff, but it is pretty sweet and does an awesome job, I've been very impressed so far with it.  We also took some self portraits of ourselves last night, just messing around, I will try to get those photos up this week, so you can see some examples of our work.  So we have 2 of the umbrella kits and 2 of the wireless triggers for the flashes.  It works, it simply just works, it is so great, and easy to set up.  I just need to get a bag to transport it.   If you buy through these links, Amazon gives us a kickback, so that would be great, but obviously you don't have to.  We also purchased a new flash from mpex, the flash comes highly recommended and I will have a separate post on that after we get it, it has adjustable flash power and as much power as Canon's 580 speedlite (which is like $500), but this one was much cheaper.  Check it out here.  http://www.mpex.com/browse.cfm/4,14648.html

Have a great day.

Rental Lens #2

This week I get to rent a Canon 100mm F2.8 usm macro lens and a ringlite flash.  In my quick time with it last night, the focusing was a little slow (compared to the 70-200mm F4L lens I rented last time).  But it still seems pretty good, I will be posting pictures from it in the coming days.  Super excited.

One more Spider Web

Took this picture the other morning with the Canon 70-200mm lens, I was renting, I really like the way this one turned out, much better than the other ones I posted earlier.

Took this picture earlier in summer, it was one of the first picture I took with my new camera. I really like how it turned out.  I just wish there was a way to get the cars out of the background. 

Canon 70-200mm Rental pt. 4

Sad sad day, I have to return this great lens to the School, until I can rent it again, wish I could keep it.  The bookah it produces is so amazing, here's a picture I took with it of some Snapdragons we have growing at work.  Enjoy.

Canon 70-200mm Pt. 3

So the moon picture, I probably could have stopped it down one more step of light.  I think I was at ISO 200, f/7.1 and 1/100, and that was a little too bright, but It still turned out really well. 
The Ferry picture, has a little bit of noise, but that was hand held in my car, I stopped quickly to take some pictures.  It is SOOC, so I probably could reduce the noise in Photoshop, I just haven't had a lot of time to play, I have had too much homework.