NEWS
If you want to spend three times the normal price for an obsolete camera, the Hasselblad Stellar II would be a good option. The Sony RX100 Mk II has been replaced by the Mk III but is still available for £400. However the camera now has been re-badged by Hasselblad at £1200!
There is an interesting slo-mo video of a SLR shutter here. This nicely illustrates how a large mechanical shutter achieves an incredible 1/8000th of a second and also why the flash sync speed needs to be quite slow to capture the moment when both shutter curtains are open. In this case, the duration of the flash and not the duration of the shutter determine the exposure time.
HARDWARE
My sit-stand desk continues to be very successful and beneficial to my dodgy back.
My two NEC Multisync PA242W 24” 16:10 monitors are excellent but I have found that side-by side in landscape mode they are very wide and require a lot of head movement. Consequently I have experimented with changing one to portrait mode. The landscape+portrait combination is actually working surprisingly well and there is always an appropriate screen area for a landscape images, portrait images, email, web browsing etc.
These monitors are individually calibrated in the factory but I also purchased an X-Rite i1 Display Pro screen calibrator. When I ran this on both monitors I found that the factory calibration was only minimally improved. However, over time, this situation may change. Windows only supports one monitor profile but dual profiles may also be stored within professional monitors and in the graphics card. My cheap (£625 each!) monitors do not support on-board profiles but my twin-head graphics card does, and the i1 Display Pro was able to automatically create two profiles and store them in the graphic card.
I learned to touch-type at work in the 1980’s but was never very accurate. When my curved keyboard died recently I did some research and came across the Microsoft Sculp Ergonomic Desktop (£67) which has many fans. The quality and look of the keyboard and also the key action are excellent and the separate number pad means that the mouse can be closer. However, my fingers really struggled with the gap in the middle of the keys so I also ordered the Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Desktop (£44) but didn’t like the key action. I have decided to persist with the former and am now part-way through an online touch-typing course. My accuracy is improving and I am approaching 30 words per min. The keyboard certainly feels very comfortable and natural but the accompanying ergonomic mouse is proving to be more problematic. The whole-hand movement makes fine positioning of the cursor difficult and I'm not sure if it will be a keeper.
ONLINE PRINTING COLOUR MANAGEMENT
A member approached me with an issue concerning colour balance of prints from online printing services such as DS Colour Labs and Pro Am Imaging. Firstly, magenta casts on the ProAm Fuji Silver Halide paper were a problem for mono prints under tungsten lighting. Their response was that this was a known issue. My response was to go somewhere else! Secondly, both companies offered colour profiles to ensure correct colour balance but it was unclear how to use these with Photoshop Elements. After investigation it was apparent that both the ‘soft-proofing’ and the ‘converting to profile’ involved, cannot be done in Elements. Nevertheless a profile should not be necessary IF AND ONLY IF your screen at home is calibrated (eg by the club’s ColorMunki). Once you are happy with your image on that screen and assuming that it is in the RGB colour space, the results from online printers should be very close to your expectation.
THRESHOLD FILTER
After receiving some positive comments about old lith film separations that I did in the 1980’s I wondered how easily these could be reproduced in Photoshop. Very easily – it turns out. Both Photoshop and Elements have a filter (and better still, an adjustment layer) called Threshold. A single slider enables you to choose the exact tone at which lighter pixels turn white and darker pixels turn black. You can thus, in a couple of seconds, produce the equivalent of a lith film separation that could take hours in the darkroom. A further option could be to fill-in areas with flat colour using the Paint Bucket tool. This tool fills contiguous areas and these can be difficult to control so it is easier to define the required area with a selection before using the Paint Bucket.
(If you are logged-in, you will be able to see an example of this technique below...)
- f6 Fairground Original 600.jpg (95.05 KiB) Viewed 7047 times
- f7 Fairground Painted 600.jpg (103.08 KiB) Viewed 7047 times
The Nikon D7100 has been perhaps the most acclaimed sub full-frame DSLR for the last couple of years. A new model, the D7200, has now been released and the reviews are claiming that it features minor improvements throughout, but most importantly “doesn’t display the banding problems of the D7100”. This was a surprise to me as I have a D7100 and have never had banding problems – so I went looking for them. Finding a grossly underexposed raw image (part of a HDR bracketed set) I made a major exposure correction to lighten the almost-black shadows and sure enough – banding appeared! However – this has hardly been a problem. Shadows that are so dark should never need to be so dramatically lightened and the ‘problem’ appears to be a minor one. Apparently the effect can also be reduced by setting the camera to take 14 bit raws instead of 12 bit raws. I won’t be upgrading!
3M POSITIONABLE ADHESIVE
I have always mounted prints on the face of the mounting board and not behind a windowed mount. This simplifies the use of a printed border of any colour. I use the permanent (red) 3M Photo Mount spray but it’s rather messy and potentially unhealthy. This season I have been trying the 3M Scotch 358 Positionable Mounting Adhesive which comes on a roll in various sizes. It is re-positionable until pressed strongly with the supplied tool after which it is permanent and the backing paper peels off to leave only a glue layer on the print. My experience is positive – it makes a very tidy job – but takes some care to apply cleanly as it tends to get on your fingers and onto the face of the print unless you employ very careful working practices. NB if you are going to try mounting onto the surface of the mounting board like me, you must stick an identically sized scrap print (preferably face down) on the back of the mount board to prevent warping. I have plenty of scrap prints!
Cheers, Steve.