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June 27,2008 (FotoFriday)
We had always wondered how they got this shot of the Porsche zooming into the future. Some here thought it was Photoshopped, but other thought it was done by zooming during the exposure. Tricky to do either way.
When we were at Tesla Motors last week, we thought we would take advantage of the opportunity and try to do something similar with the Tesla Roadster.
Any idea how we did it? If you do, drop us a note with the subject line "It's a Tesla, baby!" In the body of the email, tell us what we used to create the effect. The prize is a CD of high rez images from Porsche. Contest ends at the end of June. If you need a hint, you have not been reading RainyDayMagazine consistently this month... yes, that was a hint :-) [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
June 16,2008 (MoreLensbabyMonday)
One way we like to test gear is to see if we can set it up and use it without reading any directions. Well-designed gear is intuitive in their layout, interface, and usability. The Lensbaby is such a piece of gear.
In this FirstUse, we want to show some of the photos we took with the lens just after a few minutes of messing around. It is a tribute to how well thought out the knobs and controls are on this strange looking lens.
I went home for Father's Day this past weekend and took the lens with me. Remembering the discarded collection of old models collecting dust in the attic, I thought it would be interesting to see them through the Lensbaby. After seeing the results, everything (silk flowers, paintings) became possible subjects :-)
It was easy to see the effects of manipulating the focus plane because the results can be seen in the view finder. Estimating proper exposure took a little more trial and error. Being able to shoot digitally definitely made working this type of lens much easier. I now have much more appreciation of those who shoot with a field camera!
As with a field camera, with the Lensbaby, there is no autofocus. Apeture is controlled by physically changing discs with different size holes. Shutter speed is maually controlled via the camera. The Lensbaby mounts like any other lens, but the similarity to most modern lenses ends there. We'll have more comments about using the Lensbaby after some of the other folks here have had a chance to play with it...assuming they can convince me to hand it over. [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
June 13,2008 (FabulousBabyFriday)
Hey! Its's Friday the 13th! Suppositely it was not such a great day in history for the Knights Templar. However, for us here in the RainyDayMagazine office, it is a fabulous day. Why? The Lensbaby, baby!!! As always, click on any of the images to see a larger version.
Today, we will be taking a FirstLook a the Lensbaby 3G, the wide angle, telephoto, and macro accessory lenses. The Lensbaby and the various accessories are designed for photographers who want to explore and play with focus an depth of field in their photographs.
The macro, wide angle, and telephoto lenses are well constructed screw-on attachments for the Lensbaby. All are made with glass and metal. Each comes with its own pouch and lens cloth.
By altering the angle of the lens in relations to the image sensor, precise control of focus and depth of field is achieved. This will enable some very interesting effects. We will have first hand comments in our upcoming FirstUse review.
Lensbabies are available for most of the major camera mounts. The one we have is for Nikon. We will be testing it out with our D40. Obviously, this is not an autofocus lens. What it will be is a whole lot of fun!
Next part of this FirstLook series of the Lensbaby 3G and accessories will examine how all these pieces fit together and what they look like mounted on the Nikon D40. Those of you who look closely may even get a chance to win something (hint, hint). [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
BTW, the Lensbaby is the "mystery device" in the photo from Wednesday. Those of you who followed the instructions will have had your email filtered to the correct folder. We'll take a look at them this weekend. A winner will be picked from the ones with the correct answer at the end of June. Answers sent today will be filtered to the "other" place.
June 12,2008 (TechThursday)
Digital video editing used to take an entire studio. With the MacBook Pro, a large external drive, and iMovies software, one can turn any room into a digital video editing studio.
Recently, our copy editor Carolyn needed to edit a few hours of training footage for a client down to a something more coherent. With all of the photo shoots going on and gear strewn everywhere, she decide to claim the only unoccupied surface available, the table in the RainyDayKitchen.
Set up was easy: one USB cable from the laptop to the drive. Carolyn finds the Saitek mouse with a scroll wheel to be a good editing accessory. It is easier to scrub the frames back and forth using the scroll wheel then with the trackpad.
The important thing about working with a lot of video is to have plenty of contiguous disk space. It speeds up the reads and writes to the drive. Ten minutes of DV footage takes up about 2GB. This external drive can store about 40 hours of video. With a MacBook Pro and the Iomega UltraMax 500GB drive, we can really have a video editing workstation anywhere! [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
June 11,2008 (WhatIsItWednesday)
A LOT of cool stuff shows up at the RainyDayMagazine office. Once in a while, something so different shows up that it has everyone asking... "Oooh, what IS that?" If you know, or think you know, what the item to the right of the Nikon is, drop us a note with the subject line "I know what landed on your desk!" In the email, provide a link to the product company's website.
The contest ends when we post the FirstLook review of the item. All correct answers will be tossed into a hat. At the end of the month, we'll select a winner and give him/her something fun from our pile of goodies. As always, if you were a past winner, you know what you need to do if you want to enter again. Good luck! [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
June 10,2008 (TTLFlashTuesday)
Light is a critical for photography. Getting enough of it is not always so easy. Our Nikon D40 has a built-in flash and it's suitable for a lot of situations. We added the SB400 flash module to our kit for when we need to paint a larger area. However, neither the built-in flash or the SB400 is strong enough to light up a room.
In order to get that kind of coverage, we looked to the Sunpak PZ42X. This unit is not as compact as the Speedlight SB400, but it is quite a bit more powerful and a lot more flexible.
The Sunpak unit has a head which may be rotated and angled for a wide variety of bounce options. The head of the SB400 can only be angled up, but it cannot be rotated.
Integrated into the top of the PZ42X is a diffusion lens for wider light dispersion and greater coverage. This is especially useful when shooting with wide-angle lenses.
The front of the unit has an AutoFocus assist lamp to help the camera focus in low light situation. The LCD panel and mode controls are in the rear. The large locking ring is easy to rotate even in tight quarters.
The flash takes 4AA batteries and has a recycle time of 3.5 seconds between flashes. Access to the compartment is from the side. This makes it easy to change batteries even when the unit is mounted.
We will, of course, use our favorite rechargeable batteries to power up this Sunpak flash. FirstUse reports of both the small Nikon SB400 and the larger Sunpak PZ42X will be posted later on this Summer. Look for it to see if bigger is better. [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
May 30,2008
Last week Improv Everywhere pulled off an impressive early "Happy Birthday" well-wishing event for the Brooklyn Bridge. 700 folks gathered, inspite of the rainy weather, and participated in a camera flash wave across the bridge.
There are a lot more photos on the Improv site of this and other "scenes of chaos and joy in public places." Enjoy and have a great weekend! [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
May 21,2008
Just when we had finally gotten rid of all of our Canon cameras we came upon this site...on how to hack tons (advance histograms, access raw formats, unlimited video, etc...) of Canon cameras!!!
Apparently, folks at CHDK (we are guessing it means Canon Hacker Developer's Kit) has pretty much figured out how to mess with firmware common to many of Canon's digital cameras.
The best part is the hack is loaded via the flash card and does not permanently override the on-camera firmware. So to back out, all you need to do is to remove the software from the SD card! If you have a Canon camera and want to access some of it's "hidden" capabilities, go check out the CHDK site and hack away! [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
May 13,2008
The pop-up flash on the Nikon D40 camera is suitable for a lot of low light situations, but sometimes a few more photons than what the built-in unit can supply are needed.
For those situations, the Nikon SB-400 Speedlight unit is the perfect solution. This flash module is compact, fast charging, and built specifically for the new Nikon digital cameras.
It uses two AA batteries. The head tilts up for bouncing off the ceiling. There is a locking pin for securing the unit to the camera body. The overall size and balance of the camera is preserved when the unit is mounted.
This is a quick FirstLook of the SB-400 module. We will have a lot more examples of this unit's capabilities when we have had more time playing with it. [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
May 11,2008
We reviewed the Trek-Tech VersaMount almost exactly a year ago. During that time the VersaMount has lived up to its name. Folks here use it all the time in combination with the TrekPod for both our studio and outdoor photo shoots.
The best part about the VersaMount is its ability to be placed anywhere along the length of the TrekPod. We got the rotating head (MagMount) to make the exact positioning of the camera faster and easier, even at odd angles.
Shots of insects in flight are fairly difficult to get, but gear such as the VersaMount and TrekPod make them a lot easier to capture...the fast autofocus on the Nikon D40 didn't hurt neither :-) [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
May 10,2008
Mornings are the best time to be out photographing flowers. The air is stiller, the light is not too contrasty, and most biting insects are not yet feeding :-)
One thing to be careful of when shooting early in the morning is that dew and moisture are still everywhere. While droplets on the leaves and petals make the shots more interesting, all that wetness is not so great for the gear.
The Kata E-690 Element Cover was designed with such assignments in mind. With the cover on, the camera is protected and we can still freely manipulate all of the controls.
We were quite happy with how easy it was to set up, use, and get the E-690 cover on and off the camera/tripod rig. The drawstring in the front opening made it simple to get a good fit around the lens.
The sleeves on the sides are long enough so a good portion of the arm may be inserted and the drawstring pulled closed around it. Our question to you readers out there is...how would you cinch close BOTH ends? [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
May 9,2008
We have been reviewing a lot gear for the RainyDayPhotography folks lately. Many of you have been asking for more of the same. Well, get ready for a weekend full of photo gear and gadgets!
Since our weekend begins on Friday, we'll start with a look at an item (Element Cover E690) from Kata designed for those who won't let a little rainy weather get in the way of their photography.
Camera equipment and water never got along well. This is especially true for digital SLRs. Kata designed the E-690 Element Cover to be both compact and easy to use. The cover has openings on both end, a large zipper, and a clear top/rear panel. There are drawstrings at all opening for a snug fit and for keeping things out.
The cover will fold up flat for transport. It will fit easily in most camera bags. Next time the weather turn on us, this cover should be able to keep our camera well protected. [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
May 7,2008
It has been sunny these past few days. The irises and tulips are loving the rays. We thought it would be a great opportunity to take advantage of the light and see what the Nikon D40's kit lens can do on getting up close and personal, at least with the flowers blooming out in the RainyDayGarden :-)
We took most of these shots early in the morning using the 18-55mm lens with the camera on a tripod. Our first close-up test was not too structured. We just wanted to get a feel for what we can expect at different zooms. Click on any of the images to see the larger versions.
The three images of the purple tulip are all the same shot just cropped and saved at different resolutions in Photoshop. You can see the details at full resolution here.
The red tulips shots give an idea of the range of subtle shades which can be resolved with the D40/18-55mm lens combo. How to print these subtle shades is a problem we tackle another day!
Close-up photos are not difficult to take, but does require a sturdy tripod, good lighting, and a lot of patience. Some readers have asked about creative accessories (specialty lenses, close-up filters, etc...). Many of these will give the photographer additional creative control of the image capture process. We will be taking a look at some of them in a few weeks. [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
May 5,2008
Carolyn recently obtained access to a brand new Nikon D60 as part a consulting gig. The RainyDayPhotography folks here managed to convince her to let them play with it by promising that they would not take it apart :-) They did a quick look and found some obvious upgrades. Whether these changes are worth the extra money is not yet clear.
On the surface, the two cameras looked almost identical. Internally, the D60 has a larger sensor density (10MP vs 6MP). The camera software came with a few refinements: rotating LCD grapics, sensor cleaning on power-off.
There are probably other software upgrades, but they will have to look at the D60 more closely before they can comment on them. The D60 kit now comes with the newer 18-55mm AutoFocus lens. This version has the "vibration reduction" feature which we love in the 55-200 AF lens.
With access to all of the new gear and with more coming, we are looking forward to a very "photographically-active" Spring and Summer.
We want to remind readers that at the end of the May we'll be giving away two prizes. Read all about it here. Send your answers to us before the end of May. We'll pick the winners on June 1st. [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
Apr 30,2008
We were right about the weather yesterday. It rained all day and the plants in the RainyDayGarden loved it. We took advantage of a brief pause in the rain to do some more tests of the Nikon D40 and lenses.
May is just around the corner and we are all looking forward to the warmer weather. This Winter felt a lot longer because we skipped our annual Spring Break trip to South Beach. We won't make that mistake again! [Permalink]- Wan Chi Lau
