Apparently, my respect for Nikon cameras is also shared by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  In December, they orderd eleven Nikon D3S digital SLR cameras and seven NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED lenses.

These new additions will join a growing array of Nikon equipment being used by NASA aboard the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS).  Since 1971, NASA has used  Nikon cameras to take more than 700,000 images.  (Information courtesy Nikon Press Release)

I don’t plan on taking any photos in a sub-zero vacuum anytime soon, but it’s nice to know my camera can take it!  :-)

So far, my favorite lenses, in order, are the:

1. AF NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8D – Small, fast, and sharp; and a great all round focal length for portraits.  This lens is on my camera more than all the rest put together.  :-)
2. AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED – This is a BIG piece of glass, but fast and very sharp.  It still amazes me what you can do at 14mm!
3. AF NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8D – Like the 85mm, this lens is also fast and sharp, but even smaller.  50mm is considered the focal length that most closely approximates the human eye’s perspective.

The D700 is truly “feature loaded”, but my favorite is the ability to customize the function button on the front of the camera.  I’ve set it up so that by a simple push of this button and a few clicks of the wheel by my thumb (Officially, the “Main Command Dial”), I’m set up to bracket any where from 3 to 9 images.  Very handy when doing a lot of bracketing for HDR work.

So, as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, what continues to impress me about Nikon DSLRs is their ease of use – especially when making the normal minute-by-minute changes that photographers must make to capture the moment.

A great photographer can capture excellent images with almost any camera.  That’s because they not only have a very high level of knowledge of photographic technique and highly tuned technical skills, but they think . . . they think about what they want that final image to show.  Then they consider what they must do to accomplish that goal.  Just a few things that must be considered (and mastered) are:

• lighting,
• focus point and DOF (depth of field),
• shutter speed (stop the action – or is blur desirable),
• composition,
• and much more.

So, the next time you’re getting ready to raise that viewfinder to your eye to take a photo – STOP – for just a second – and think about exactly what you’re wanting that next image to reveal, and what is needed to accomplish that goal.

For instance, for this shot I obviously had to be set up ahead of time, using a tripod and shutter priority at 1/30th of a second.  I also set the camera to continuous and started shooting as soon as it entered the frame so I would have some choices regarding the position of the train relative to the intersection.

Happy Shooting!

That’s how I saw it – Thru Mikes Viewfinder.

We set the camera at ISO 400 so we could get a fast shutter speed of 1/6,000th of a second at f/3.3 using a fast Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D lens on a Nikon D700.  Then while I did the shooting, my buddy took the photos.  Fortunately, I had Nikon’s MB-D10 Multi Power Battery Pack on my D700 so the burst rate was up to 8 fps.  The pistol was a Beretta Px4 Storm, shooting .40 S&W ammunition.

The highest priority in a situation like this is SAFETY! Everyone wore ear protectors and safety glasses and of course all of the other gun safety rules were strictly adhered to.

The photographer set up about 8 feet to my right and just slightly behind the direction I was shooting.  I highly recommend a couple of test shots, first, (with the gun) to see where the brass is going when it is ejected – - just to make sure a hot, hard piece of brass doesn’t hit and damage your valuable lens.

Once we were ready to go, the photographer would start shooting first and the shooter would start shooting as soon as he heard the camera start.  Then, typically, we would fire about 3 rounds (15 to 20 images) per sequence.

Overall, we shot about 120 images and I was only hoping to get some good photos of the brass being ejected from the pistol, but we got lucky! One image showed the bullet in flight about 6 inches in front of the gun’s muzzle.  With the bullet velocity of about 1200 ft./sec., and a shutter speed of 1/6000th of a sec., the bullet actually traveled about 2.5 inches while the shutter was open, resulting in the streak.

That’s how I saw it – Thru Mikes Viewfinder.

Last night, the “blue moon“ heralded what for me was a near perfect end to 2009 – delicious food, terrific wines, and the wonderful company of close friends.

Today, revealed a beginning to 2010 that was just as good – more great food and time spent with family and friends – all in the context of a truly beautiful day.  It really doesn’t get any better!

Resolutions? For me – not really.  Just the determination to make the coming year better as I hope we all strive to make each new day a little bit better than the last one.

“Once in a blue moon” – There are several definitions.  They vary from the 3rd full moon in a season that will have 4 full moons, to the 13th full moon in a calendar year, to the most accepted which is a 2nd full moon in a given month.

Last night, we were treated to a blue moon that was the 2nd one in December and the 13th one in 2009 – a double bonus!

Merry Christmas to you and your family and best wishes for the new year!

Mike & Bren Hendren

It was founded by Andy Beal who picks the images for the site from those put in his group on Flickr, “Photogler”. It’s only been going for a couple of months now, but every couple of days, Andy adds an image with descriptions of techniques used by the photographer. It’s a great place to go to learn new techniques and also to get ideas for your next photo shoot!

Who knows – you just might see something there from someone you know.

I took this photo just over 5 years ago and was never very happy with it. The building and foreground were too dark and the canyon in the background was washed out.  So, I’ve just ignored it for 5 years.

Then, today, I was going through my old images and came across this one and started “playing” with it.  Photo software has improved immensely in the last few years and Adobe Lightroom wasn’t even available at that time.  Of course Adobe Photoshop had the capability to improve this image – I just never took the time to jump through all of the Photoshop hoops it would have taken to make these improvements.

One of the things Lightroom does for you, is give you an easy to use panel where you make all of the adjustments while viewing the changes as they occur.

Since part of the exposure was too bright and part too dark, I decided to leave exposure alone and make my corrections using “Recovery” and “Fill Light.  Moving the Recovery slider all the way to the right restored some of the detail to the canyon.  Then I added Fill Light which brightens the shadows.

To begin improving contrast, I moved the “Blacks” slider just slightly right and moved on to “Contrast” to finish.

I then moved “Clarity” all the way to the right for maximum effect.  What this slider does is increase the local contrast, mostly in the mid-tones, resulting in an appearance of better overall sharpness and giving more punch to the image.

“Vibrance” got bumped right a little bit – the most noticeable effect of this control (for me) is a deepening of the blues, especially in the sky, but it also sometimes can over saturate some colors.

Then, I used the individual color sliders to brighten the building a bit more (Orange Luminance), and make the greens just a bit brighter and more green.

The final color adjustment was with the Blue Luminance, just to darken that little bit of sky a tad more.

Finally, there are Sharpening and Noise Reduction sliders which I almost always use – normally with a little bit of sharpening and a lot of noise reduction.

With these tweaks, which really took just a few minutes, I was able to improve the image considerably.  Still not a contest winner, but I think it’s a much better representation of what I wanted when I took the photo back in 2004.

Photo © Mike Hendren, 2009

One morning in November, I looked out the window to see what promised to be a gorgeous sunrise.  Fortunately, my Nikkor 14-24mm lens was already on my camera, a Nikon D700, so all I had to do was grab the tripod and run out the door.  I set up just behind the house and saw the bright clouds reflected in the windows of the house and giving a warm golden glow to the stone work.

One of the primary requirements for good HDR (High Dynamic Range) images is a tripod.  Even if the normal exposure could be hand held, you still need to be sure that every image in the bracketed series will line up perfectly.  Photomatix Pro, the software I use to process HDR images, can do a decent job of lining up images, but the result is often less than desirable if a tripod was not used – resulting in what appear to be out of focus images.

Other important considerations are:

• aperture priority (to have a consistent depth of field),
• auto-ISO off (set the lowest ISO possible to reduce noise in the images),
• and manual focus (to make sure the focal point doesn’t change from one image to the next).
• Some also recommend setting the white balance to something other than Auto.  I always shoot in RAW, and this has not been an issue.  If it were, the white balance of RAW images can always be changed with software.

So, I shot 7 bracketed images with 1EV spacing between each one, at an aperture of f/5.6 and the lens at 14mm.

After importing the images into Adobe Lightroom, I immediately exported them to Photomatix Pro.  Photomatix default settings usually provide a very good starting point but optimum results will normally require tweaking some of the settings.  In this case, I left the strength at 100%, but reduced the Luminosity slightly because the default setting was too bright.

Next, I increased the Smoothing setting slightly to get rid of the halo around the house – this is sometimes introduced by HDR processing and can add impact to some images but often results in an unnatural looking effect.

Finally, I reduced the Micro-smoothing to zero to keep texture in the clouds and stone work on the house and then saved the image back in to Lightroom for some minor tweaks.

The highlights were still a little too bright so I used Lightroom’s Highlight Recovery slider to reduce those slightly.  I almost always add some Contrast and Clarity – it seems to add a bit of a sharpening effect.  Then I normally increase the Vibrance, especially if there is some blue sky, to deepen and darken that sky.  Finally, I’ll sharpen slightly and do some noise reduction to make sure the image is as smooth and noise free as possible.

Producing HDR images is a lot of fun and can give some added dimension to your portfolio – so give it a try!

That’s how I saw it – Thru Mikes Viewfinder.

One of the resources they offer is the ability to easily create an “Embeddable Slideshow”. You get many options including:

• Size and aspect ratio
• Background color
• Amount of time to display each image
• Kind of transition
• Plus several more

Photo © Mike Hendren, 2009

We had a few inches of fresh snow just a few days ago.  The morning brought us clear skies and sunshine, and as I walked around the end of my garage, I was treated to this beautiful sight!

This mule deer buck was just meandering along, looking for food (or maybe love – it is the season), and of course my sudden arrival definitely got his attention.  But he didn’t run – he just stood there like a majestic statue studying my every move.

I quickly went back in the house, got my camera, and was fortunate enough to get off a few shots before he finally walked away.

I did discover a little trick with Adobe Lightroom on this image – I desaturated the blue channel to get rid of the blue colored snow back in the shadows without affecting any of the other colors!

Important:

• Put your camera on a tripod.  The software can help correct for slight misalignments in the photo series, but you’ll increase your chances of a nice sharp image if you’ll use that tripod.  However, if you don’t have the tripod, don’t miss the shot – brace yourself and your camera against something solid and fire away!
• Set your camera to “aperture priority“.  This causes your camera to just change the shutter speed, so that each image in the series has the same depth of field.  Also, pick a higher f-stop if it’s feasible, like f/8 or f/16 (something about getting a slightly higher dynamic range in each image – technical stuff!).
• While you’re at it, set your camera to a low ISO and turn off the auto-ISO feature if it’s on, to reduce noise in the images.

Recommended:

• Instead of Auto White Balance (AWB), pick one like daylight or tungsten (depending on what your shooting).  Personally, I’ve always used AWB and haven’t noticed any problems.
• Shoot in RAW instead of JPG, if you can.  If you do shoot in JPG, turn off any in-camera processing that you may have set.  I prefer RAW because, for one thing, you can change the white balance after you get it into the computer.
• Use manual focus, if possible, so each image has a constant focal point.  Or you can let the camera focus and then turn it off.
• Use a cable release or a wireless remote release.  Again, this is just to help reduce camera movement during the series of shots.  (Also important for any photo with long exposure times.)

While none of these things are absolute requirements, each one can increase your odds of producing a quality HDR image.  The software is amazing, but it can only do so much so give it all the help you can. 

Also, take a look at my previous post about bracketing and HDR:  Bracketing Photos for HDR . . . what?

Meteor Crater by Mike Hendren

I was traveling through Arizona a few days ago – headed home after visiting my son and his wife in Phoenix. I took a little detour, just about 6 miles off I-40, near the eastern border of Arizona to visit the famous Meteor Crater.