Merry Christmas to all my followers that celebrate this event. I’m already late for some holidays Hanukkah and Festivus. I’m also a tad early for Kwanza. Whatever holiday you celebrate in your house have a good rest of the year and a Happy Holiday Season.
I always am forgetting how to fold my backgrounds. This will help me remember and I figure others might find it helpful as well.
Will LensAlign Pro offer a simpler and more efficient product against others that are available for lens alignment?
Recently I rented a lens from LensRentals.com. I wanted to try out the Nikon 14-24 against the wide angle I already own the Sigma 12-24 to see if there was a significant difference in quality between the two lenses. Though this review won’t be about the above comparison, I can say that the 14-24 is a much better lens; I did not find it to be 3x better than the Sigma. If you just look at cost that is what you would expect. Of course that doesn’t mean I won’t purchase it at some point in the future.
I have looked on and off at doing lens to body calibrations. I have tried multiple different sites to see how each method would perform. Each time I came away disappointed in the reproducibility of each of these techniques. Despite many glowing comments, I never was overly pleased with the results enough to keep the calibration data active in each of my DSLRs. I always turned it off after a period of usage and comparing images and not being satisfied that the level of sharpness was what I demanded.
This might change.
When the LensAlign Pro was announced I was quick to be interested in such a device that seemingly could take a lot of the guesswork out of the lens/body calibration voodoo. With a positive review from Michael Reichmann at Luminous Landscape and listening to the Image Doctors also have success using this device I was all set to purchase it some months ago. Then I saw the price. At $139 it is quite pricey for something that won’t be used more than twice a year so I held off. There is a lower priced model, but I had not read as much positive press about this model. I would want a device that was easy to use and accurate. The LensAlign Lite I read was accurate, but not as easy to use.
In browsing the LensRental.com site I was able to discover that I could rent a LensAlign Pro for one week for $15. The shipping from LensRental.com is the same regardless of how many items you rent. So it was a no-brainer to just add this to my cart.
I have spent the last week checking and re-checking each of the settings on my digital cameras. Since I have 3 of them this can take some time. One thing I have learned is that I really need to trim the number of lenses that I do have down to a manageable number. Well, maybe later. After all of this testing here are my impressions.
The unit works and does the job very well. I consistently was able to re-calibrate with each of my lenses and received for my efforts a result that was within 1 or 2 of what I originally calibrated it at. I don’t believe there are any units associated with the numbers under AF Fine Tune so there isn’t any way to know how far your focus was off.
In my testing I didn’t see any consistent results between camera and lens combinations. Each changed with each separate camera/lens combination. An 85 f/1.8 on my D3 had different settings on my D700 and D300. Sometimes there was positive change needed an on another lens/camera combination there might be negative. After my testing I did some comparisons and it did seem in every case that there was improvement in the lens. The LensAlign Pro did it’s job and seemingly very well.
The downside of this product is the lack of instructions. There was a brief one-page document included with the set-up. I can only say that some trees were wasted for that brief of an instruction manual. There also were some videos that helped me to get started. A little trial and error later and I felt I had a streamlined system. Once I got that, the testing went very fast. For the price of this product I would have expected an instruction manual either online or enclosed in a CD-ROM. 
Another important part of this process was also neglected by the lack of a instruction manual. There wasn’t any idea on how close to the LensAlign Pro should I try to focus the lens? From reading other sites there seemed to a contentious of 2.5 to 3x the focal length of the lens. Upon searching the website discussion group that was also the common thought here as well. I will say that though I did not ask a question it appears that the manufacturer is quite active in the forums. My suggestion if you don’t naturally figure things out quickly, I would ask your questions there and I suspect you will get help pretty quickly.
I have included some before and after pictures of a calibration that I did with my 70-200 on my Nikon D3. The AF Fine Tune used in this case was +5. As can be seen from the 100% crops of these photos there is a difference in how “sharp” the photo is with even this small of a change. You also will see included some photos of the LensAlign Pro properly set-up and one not. Though this may sound a little difficult, the nice feature of the LensAlign Pro is the ability to get behind the unit and center the camera in the center hole to help in the alignment. After I figured this little detail out the alignment went much faster.
Despite the shortcomings of the instructions I did find this product to work and work well. It was much faster than any of the other utilities that I discovered on the web and I felt confident at the end that the information that was generated was accurate for that lens/camera body. For my taste it is still a tad high in price for what I would pay to own this type of device. I will however rent it again at an appropriate time from LensRental.com to calibrate my lenses again.
I had a pleasant surprise on my most recent trip out west. I happened to be near Bishop, CA and as many photographers know this is the location of the Mountain Light Gallery. I happened to have a few extra moments and fulfilled my long term desire to walk around and experience many of Galen’s great photos in person and how they were intended to be experienced. Hanging on a wall instead of in a magazine.
The great ones where all there. Clearing Strom over El Capitan, Last Light on Horsetail Falls and my favorite the Rainbow over Potala Palace. I spent well over an hour looking at all of his classics having seen many of them over the years. Enough can’t be said about his climbing skill as well as his skill behind the camera.
As I was looking closely at the pictures, most if not all shot on film over some 30 years of his career, I could see and make out many of the emulsions, from having shot them myself. What I found interesting was how “soft” the images were. Nowadays we are spoiled with our many different ways to sharpen an image. We can use multiple different techniques. Unsharp Mask, High Pass sharpening and even a Nik filter that does if all for you aptly named Nik Sharpener.
I couldn’t have been more surprised when I won a Drobo for linking to a website! Though I track a number of different blogs everyday, I don’t read each blog every day. I do look at the traffic on this site though most days. In the process of doing just that I noticed a large spike in site hits. Almost twice my normal hits that I get each day. As I was investigating why this might be so, I saw that almost all of the extra was driven by one site. MyDL.Me. I quickly jumped over there to see why. After some reading I discovered that I had won myself a Drobo!!
For those that don’t know what a Drobo is, it’s similar to a NAS, but can work like a giant hard drive when connected via a FireWire 800. You can also Daisy Chain 2 Drobos via a Firewire 800 which made me quite happy because I had already purchased one some months back. For those without a FireWire 800 connection you can also use a USB 2.0 connection or purchase the DroboShare to connect it to an ethernet cable.
My thanks to MyDL.Me, the folks at Drobo for getting this unit so quickly to me and picking my site as the winner!
I did want to add one configuration issue that I had that was handled in the Troubleshooting guide. I would not have had this issue had my drives not been already used by my other unit. When I put the drives in, the new Drobo unit must have somehow known they were from a previous unit so all of the Drobo’s lights were red. When I read up on this issue I discovered that I needed to do a reset by pushing the reset button with a paper clip located on the rear of the unit and then plug it in. After this was done I was up and going without any issues.
It’s nice to have a pro looking over your shoulder. Though I have done most of my learning on photography via book, video or magazine, I have recently found that I have probably taken that form as far as I possibly can and that I needed some actual “hands-on” time with a teacher. Being a faithful reader of The F Stops Here and it’s writer David Tejada, I was quick to jump when his workshop came anywhere near where I live in Chicago. In this case to a place I am quite familiar with, Detroit! Making the late-night drive with every conceivable piece of equipment I could put in the back of the van Kate and I arrived in Detroit. She was kind enough to go along for the drive, little did I know she would be part of the class!
David is one of the most personable people you might meet. He seemed very eager to get to know us and to also pass along his information. Erik Lawrence is the type of assistant that we would all want. I was envious when David would just motion with the fewest words and then Erik would move into action and have something all set-up while David continued his lecture. Though I’m sure some may debate this Erik however does not look as good as my wife. I have some advantages.
The morning session was the basics of lighting and how it affects your picture. The most telling of slides was how light falls off and it’s effect on F-stop. That slide alone showed how little light you might need to creatively light a scene. I believe this is the Inverse Square Rule. After looking through information on that, I liked David’s Slide better. I wished I had taken a picture of it to share.
I’ll get into a specific example and how it has recently helped me in a moment. David’s class was thorough and really showed how a working pro solves his problems and the equipment that he uses. A CD was provided with the list of equipment choices at the end of the class. The fun part of the class started in the afternoon. What we did as a class was work through a lighting of a scene to show how he develops what he sees and how to shoot it. He walked us through this in multiple areas, both inside and out. He highlighted the strengths of each scene and how you control the light that you not only have available, but also the light you bring. Nothing could be more telling than the following pictures below.
In this first picture we were in the kitchen and David is showing how bright this scene is. This is a kitchen with stainless appliances and shelving, you can see at picture right the large diffused windows that are glowing with beautiful diffused light. 
The problem is capturing a picture that controls the light you have available. You can see in the next picture that using the diffused light from the windows without bringing any of your own light into the scene. This would be exposing for the ambient light.
In the last example you can see what is done when you creatively control the light. I know if I saw these I would have guessed that they were taken hours apart instead of just minutes!
This lesson alone made a trip I made to Zion later in the year all that much better. I knew from this class that if I supplied the light I should be able to capture this scene with 8 stops of contrast and compress them so you not only could have Kate and I lit in the front, but the rocks of Zion in the back perfectly exposed. I walked through all of the items from the above class, checking my ambient light and then figuring out how to manually bring my own light creatively to the scene. I was giddy after this shot because I had applied something I had learned and designed in my head and pulled it off on the screen. I know it doesn’t take much to amuse me.
I highly recommend a class with David, he also has a mentoring session out in Death Valley with Nikon in February. I also recommend both his and Erik’s blogs.
After the class we all got together for dinner at a local eating place. We shared alot of photography stories and had a chance to ask even more questions not only of the group, but of David as well.
After dinner Kate had never seen Detroit before and I with a little nudging, well alot set out to see it again. Detroit has been beaten up in the news lately, but it is a very scenic city. It rests along the Detroit river and if you didn’t have to go into another country to take shots there might be more of it. Belle Island Park sits in the middle of the Detroit River and allows you to bypass all of the customs officials to grab some sunset pictures from it’s shores.
A nice trip.
As always you can see a slide show of all of the pictures here.
If you would like to go through them at your own pace go here.
As always please comment.
DxO has come up with Camera Rankings for the most recent cameras and alot of old ones. I won’t get into how they compiled this data, I will let them do that, but for those that are interested you can look here.
As every Apple is reticent to any pertinent information.
About Digital Camera Raw Compatibility 2.3
This update extends RAW file compatibility for Aperture 2 and iPhoto ’08 for the following cameras:
Canon EOS 50D
Nikon D90
Sony DSLR-A900
Nikon Coolpix P6000
It also addresses issues related to specific cameras and overall stability.
The update can be installed via the software update on Leopard or can be find here.
Photography like so many things in life is constantly learning. I have been on my photographic journey for some time. Along the way I have met many helpful people. Many of the pictures in the enclosed album came about through conversation. I read blogs, subscribe to groups, and listen to podcasts. I also look at many pictures in magazines and online. The hand pictures wouldn’t be here without the comment in one of the groups I frequent. He said as a musician, I always look at the hands. The hand pictures wouldn’t be there without interfacing with other photographers and people. How does their activity make them feel, think and act. What’s important to them. I know the only picture I currently have printed from my recent 
wedding is our hands and the ring sliding on.
There are many ways to learn in photography and to take pictures. Sometimes being a casual observer helps and other times you have to jump in and be apart of what your seeing, learn more and get more ideas for what might be interesting when you capture it in your lens.
I love the Renaissance Faire. You can step back in time, be someone else, act differently and see so many different costumes and groups that one might not normally see. The care that some people put into costuming is remarkable. I’m also always surprised at the number of women who are able to defy gravity with their costuming! Truly a wonderful place to sight see meet people and to take people pictures.
I chose the S5 for these pictures because it allows me the most exposure latitude as well as
colors. I also chose to shoot Jpg. The S5 is a wonderful camera, but can be slow if shooting in RAW. There are ways to speed it up some. Using the correct CF cards is the best way, but regardless, there might still be delays as the buffer empties itself at times. The camera is great for contemplative photography, but if you need it for action, you might miss some shots. Since people are always changing their expressions and moving at the Faire, I opted for Jpg.
I also met another photographer doing a much more professional job. Mark Meier. He had is D3 with a 300 F/2.8 lens as well as a D2X with a WHITE 70-200 lens. The white 70-200 is the first one I had seen with my own eyes. His pictures can be viewed here. We could have had dueling 70-200s. One in black and one in white, but with be lowly S5 against the D3 I don’t know as I had a shot. Now in the color department that would be a different matter.
For the photographs, please visit here.
