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I was invited along to go on one of the East End Lighthouses Organization tours.  The tour was set to begin early 9 am out of the Orient Point docks, from the eastern most point on the north fork of Long Island.  It started out as a gloomy day and we had a quick 5 minute shower right before I got to the docks but it turned into absolutely a great day.   Now the weather obviously cooperated but what really make the day was the staff.  The East End Lighthouse staff did a great job, they also brought in the best staff for both the food and the ship.   I believe Cross Island Ferry company which I give you generously as a patron for my trips to Connecticut donated the boat, the food was also fantastic and plentiful.

Back to the trip.  The ride was taken to almost all of the lighthouses around the east end of Long Island.  They were great, good stories and lot of facts about each lighthouse.  If you ever do the trip pay attention though because there was an actual quiz at the end.

Long Beach Bar Lighthouse

Orient Point Lighthouse

Plum Island Lighthouse

Little Gul Ligthhouse

Race Rock Lighthouse

North Dumpling Ligthouse

Latimer Reef Ligthouse

New London Ledge Lighthouse

Five Mile Point (New Haven) Light

Gardiners Bay Location (lighthouse no more)

What is the flash sync speed?

The way the camera actually operates when doing an exposure is by pulling two curtains across the sensor. This is how an exposure is done in modern SLRs cameras. When the shutter opens the first curtain is pulled across, followed by the second curtain at the speed of the “Shutter”. At “sync” speed, the second curtain follows the first curtain exactly when the entire sensor is open. If your shutter is faster than your cameras sync speed, let’s say 1/500^th. The second curtain has started to close when the flash goes off. This usually results in some portion of the image being darker than it should be.

A quick example, let’s assume that the camera’s sync speed is 1/250^th. If you set your shutter speed to 1/60^th, the first curtain fully opens, 1/60^th of a second later the second curtain follows so that the entire sensor is fully exposed for 1/60^th of a second. Now let’s assume that you set your shutter speed to 1/8000^th. The first curtain opens, as soon as it does the second curtain starts to close as well since it to be able to keep the exposure on the sensor to 1/8000^th of a second. That means only a small sliver of the sensor is exposed at any point in time. If there was a “fast” bright source (like a flash) that was introduced only several small slivers portions of the sensor would record that light.

To summarize, the sync speed of any SLR is the fastest speed at which the entire sensor is exposed before the second curtain starts to close.

Most consumer DSLRs have a sync speed of 1/200^th, most professional cameras have a sync speed of 1/250^th or higher. Some of the really good exceptions are the original Canon 1D bodies which had a 1/500^th sync speed which is unheard of now days.

At times I want a color in Photoshop to match something else on my desktop.

An example:

In Lightroom 3 you can use a graphical identity place in place of the Adobe one.  But I wanted the gray of the lightroom to match my logo.

Yes, you can take a screen shot and cut-n-paste it into an image, than use the color picker to pick the image, but there is a much more accurate and fast way — although in Mac world this is automatically done you can do the same thing in window.

1. Open the application that the color you need, if you can move it to the left or right side of the image.
2. Open Photoshop, now exit the maximize view (The button next to the “X” on the top right).  It’s a window in window mode, denoting maximized window.  If you press this and nothing seems to happen (but the icon changes to a single window), you window is no longer maximized but it’s still set to the maximum size of the screen.   Just move your moues to the corner and you should get a handle.
3. Either have a image open, or just create an empty file.
4. Reduce the size of the Photoshop window so that the color in question is visible under your Photoshop window.
5. Click inside of the Image or file that you created (don’t let go of the button).
6. Drag the Eye Dropper in Photoshop, as you do the color will change in the color selection and your eye dropper remains working even if you move outside of the Photoshop window so you can pickup the color of the other application.

Kent Falls, was another meetup with the Suffolk Long Island Photographers group. Although I had a great day, I have to admit that for waterfalls aficionado’s the falls is facing a bad direction. At least end of winter/beginning of fall time frame. The falls direction makes it so that 50% of fall is cover in shadow all day long. I have to make another trip end of Summer/Fall time frame to see how much the seasonal change of the angle of the sun has changed that.

There is a ton of places to take photos and for those unable to walk too far, the falls is barely 200 feet from the parking lot. With a long enough lens you don’t even have to get out of the car.

Kent, CT – not to be confused with Kent, NY is a great little town with a lot of character as well. The local chocolate shop had some great mixes that we availed ourselves to as well.

Equipment used: 1Ds Mark II, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS, Sigma 14mm f/2.8, 2 * 3Stop ND filters (77mm) to stop the light and get some great flowing water shots at 1-30s (as the sun came up the times went down dramatically).

What is a Neutral Density filters?

• Like Graduated Neutral Density filters are used to reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor.

Why would someone want to reduce the light hitting the sensor?

• By reducing the amount of light hitting the sensor you can increase your shutter speed.   This allows you to do relatively long exposures without having to do so very early or very late into the night.
• A by product of long exposure is that by increasing the shutter speed you also get a little bit more of color and contrast into your image.  Longer exposure shots will contain more detail in the colors than if you had shot them properly.

An example? The same exact shot within minutes of each other:

• With 6 stops of light (2 – 3 stop ND filters): 30″ exposure @ f/22, ISO 50 — the water turns into a milky liquid, shows motion, turns the image into a dream like state.   It’s something different.
• Without any filter: 1/20th @ f/22, ISO 50. freezes just about all of the water, some movement visible although you have to look for it.   IMHO, boring!

Recently I visited the Wildlife Rescue Center Of The Hamptons Inc. The rescue center is a great non-profit organization that is helping various wild animals and birds in Eastern Long Island.

They have both “show and tell” sessions for general public (up to 20 people) and photographers. They also have a dedicated photographers (4-5 photographers only) session that sounds like a great option. They will use natural perches and allow you up to 2 hours of photography with their owls.

I wish I had brought my 70-200mm or more extension tubes. From the front row, the 300mm was a bit too long (or rather my minimum focusing distance was too large).

Recently I did a photography job at the Stony Brook Staller center.  It was my first time doing a concert — along with the limitations and restrictions that you get along with doing a live event.   With not being able to move around too much I decided to do some creative shots.  Here is the end result:

This is a combination of two separate images, one done with a relatively slow shutter speed and one done normally.

Image #1: Canon EOS 50D, 100mm f/2.8 Macro – 0.5 second @ f/32, ISO 3200, + 1/3 EV

Image #1 - Master Layer

Image #2: EOS 50D, 100mm f/2.8 Macro – 1/400th second @ f/2.8, ISO 3200, + 1/3 EV

Now, to combine the two images, we’ll take them both into photoshop. There are a million ways of doing this, but this is how I usually do it:

1. The “master” is the image that more than 50% of we’ll keep. In this case, image #1 since we’ll keep everything but the violinist.
2. Duplicate the background layer, so that we have a duplicate copy of the background in the master. This is more of a precaution so that we always have an original layer that we can go back to.
3. Click on Image #2, double click on the “Background” layer so that it turns into a regular layer. Drag the layer across to on top of Image #1.
4. I renamed the new layer “Violinist”, and attach a mask to that layer.
5. I tried to use the “Auto-Align” feature of Photoshop at this point, but it didn’t work (and I really had no hope that it worked, just wanted to see if it could).
6. So I used the eraser tool and erased as much as I could on the layer. I really should have done this with a second mask but there was absolutely no information that I wanted to keep.
7. Now that I could see the layer underneath, I reduced the opacity of the layer to 30% and moved it so it roughly matched the original layer. The parquet floor pattern was very helpful in this case. (Zoom in as much as you can, it makes life easier).
8. Increase the opacity back to 100% on the “Violinist”. Now use the mask that we attached earlier with a very soft brush and erase the outline.
9. I also added a Levels adjustment to the “Violinist” layer (clipped it in fact) so that I could lighten up the floor a bit to match the “master”. This way I didn’t have to hide all of the floor.
10. Final result is posted above.

    

    Image #2 – Violinist

I’ve now lived on Long Island for 24 years.  When in High School, my friends and I used to go driving around just to get lost — yes, we had nothing better to do and because we had just gotten our license.   I thought I knew Suffolk Country, most of it anyway.  As I have gotten older I still seem to find new places that I have never been before.

Blydenburgh County Park is one of those places.  I knew of only one side of the Park, although admittedly I had never gone inside even that one entrance.  An entire section with an the old Blydenburgh home and walking area had been not known to me.  Well I have now visited the park twice in the winter, and I can’t wait for fall to come.  It will be an amazing scene with the colors and shapes, a large lake to get reflections, a high perch to be able to get the nice reflection, and I’m sure even more little treasures to find.

A update to Lightroom v2 is available from Adobe.

This is specifically a release to deal with:

• Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
• Canon EOS 7D
• Canon PowerShot G11
• Canon PowerShot S90
• Nikon D3s

RAW files, but Adobe also included some fixes for a greenish tint issues as well.

You can read and download the full install package from adobe.

Smart Objects was introduced back in CS2.  At the time, I did not find much use for it, but recognized that it can come in handy in some occasions.  They do make certain types of changes harder, some functions are not available when using Smart Objects, but they are an excellent tool for non-destructive changes.  Here is a case where they came in extremely handy:

I have started doing a lot more with Photobooks lately.  The first “real” wedding book that I did, took about 12 hours total from scratch (no templates).  If I had not started with objects that time would have been doubled or even tripled.  The time savings comes from being able to move images around, resize, and reposition them easily and without having to go back to the source.

What is a smart object?

A smart object is a “copy” of an image, be it a photograph, vector art, or just about anything that can be its own file and layer.   The object is inserted, as is, into a layer which can be acted upon without modifying the source.

Why use Smart Objects?

The easiest way to tell you is to show you.

1. Find a small image that you would like to test with.  Create a file in Photoshop that is the same, or slightly larger.  Use “White” as your background.  Please note the size of the “test” image.  We’ll assume 400 px X 400px.
   1. Open your image, and Copy its content.  Select All (CTRL+A), Copy (CTRL+C).
   2. Switch to your newly created empty file, and Paste (CTRL+V)
   3. Notice the smoothness of the image.
2. Edit -> Free Transform or CTRL + T
3. In the toolbar for the Transform change, change W: 100px, and H: 100px (25% of the original), and Click the Check Mark.
4. Now increase the size of the layer back by reversing the process.
5. Edit-> Free Transform or CTRL+T
6. In the toolbar for the transform tool, change W: 400px and H: 400px back to the original size of the image.
7. Notice how badly the image is pixilated. This is because the act of reducing the image is destructive.  All extra data after the change is lost.  So if you try to increase the size or get a color or part of the image back – it’s gone.

Now repeat the process, except:

Instead of 1a, 1b, 1c … use File -> Place, and insert the “test” insert as a smart Object. Also instead of using “px” as the size you can use 10% as the scale option.  When you go back to try to increase the size of the layer again, it knows that it is at 10% and you can use 100% to go back to the original size.

If you have already a Canon camera registered, you can get $20 or $50 back on a second camera.

Download the rebate from Canon’s website.

Previous versions that MUST have been already registered with Canon are:

“This upgrade offer is for current registered owners of Canon EOS Digital Rebel, Digital Rebel XT, Digital Rebel XTi, Digital Rebel XSi, Digital Rebel XS, Digital Rebel T1i, 1D, 10D, 20D, 20DA, 30D, 40D, 50D, 7D, 5D Mark II, 5D, 1DS, 1D Mark II, 1DS Mark II, 1D Mark II N, 1D Mark III, 1DS Mark III, PowerShot PRO 90 IS , PRO 1, G11, G10, G9, G7, G6, G5, G3, G2, G1, TX1, SX1 IS, SX20 IS, SX10 IS, SX200 IS, SX120 IS, SX110 IS,
SX100 IS, S5 IS, S3 IS, S2 IS, S1 IS, S90, S80, S70, S60, S50, S45, S40, S30, S20, S10, D10, SD1200 IS, SD1100 IS, SD1000, SD990 IS, SD980 IS, SD970 IS, SD960 IS, SD950 IS, SD940 IS, SD900, SD890 IS, SD880 IS, SD870 IS, SD850 IS, SD800 IS, SD790 IS, SD780 IS, SD770 IS, SD750, SD700 IS, SD630, SD600, SD550, SD500, SD450, SD430, SD400, SD300, SD200, SD110, SD100, SD40, SD30, SD20, SD10, S500, S410, S400, S330, S300, S230, S200, S110, S100, E1, A2100 IS, A2000 IS, A1100 IS, A1000 IS, A720 IS, A710 IS, A700, A650 IS, A640, A630, A620, A610, A590 IS, A580, A570IS, A560, A550, A540, A530, A520, A510, A480, A470, A460, A430, A420, A410, A400, A310, A300, A200, A100, A95, A85, A80, A75, A70, A60, A50, A40, A20, and A10 cameras (“Qualified Product”) who have registered their product before October 12, 2009.”

The new models that you can get a rebate on, are:

“Purchase and register a new Canon EOS Rebel XS, Rebel XSi, Rebel T1i, 50D, 7D, 5D Mark II, PowerShot G11, G10, S90, SX1 IS, SX20 IS, SX200 IS, SX120 IS, D10, SD970 IS, SD980 IS, SD960 IS, SD940 IS, SD780 IS, SD1200 IS, A1100 IS, and A480 camera (“Qualified New Product”) anytime from October 12, 2009 through December 31, 2009. Must enter valid serial number at time of registration to qualify.”

I’ll take this opportunity to tell you about the Canon PowerShot S90 — the only powershot or G class camera with f/2 Lens.  I’m very surprised both at it’s lens, and it’s output.  I think the next open lens is a f/3.5.   Only if it could be easily converted to IR, it would have been the perfect camera for me.  I’m still keeping my eye on a used G10 or G11 to convert.   Well after ordering a Mark IV, it’s going to be a while before I can buy another body, but I’ll keep an eye open nonetheless.