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Natalie Norton, author of the widely popular mini-series of articles titled Moving Toward Manual Settings, has released another installment over at Digital Photography School.  The topic of this article:  ISO.  Many digital cameras have the ability to alter the ISO on the fly.  But many don’t fully understand its purpose.  Natalie does a great job of introducing young photographers to the concept of ISO and clearly outlines the trade-offs of using high and low ISO settings for your photos.

Read the Article:  Moving Toward Manual Settings:  Understanding ISO (A Beginner’s Guide)

In response to yesterday’s syndication of Wired’s article, Why the Megapixel Race Needs to End, I did a lot of thinking.  Subconsciously, the topic is a soft spot for me.  I really believe that many people don’t really know what they have in their hands.

Professionally, I am a Landscape Architect (there’s a point here, don’t worry).  Those who don’t really understand what I do like to sum it up as best as they can.  They’re almost never on the mark unless they, themselves, are Landscape Architects or are married to one.  But humans try to quantify everything in order to understand.  So their minds will affix to one specific detail:  How many clients do I have?  What’s my favorite tree?  Public sector or private sector?  It does not matter how you look at it, you can’t understand the big picture from any of those details.  As far as they’re concerned, I might as well mow lawns.  I have yet to meet a Landscape Architect who mows lawns.  Those guys are Landscape Contractors.  Without the education, training and experience to back them, they will not be able to do what I do.  I refer to those guys as “Guys with Trucks”.  They can do some of what I do, and they may even be able to do some of that well.  But they will always just be guys with trucks.

Okay, Travis…how does this relate to the photography world?  Well, consumers are very much like anyone trying to assess my job.  They don’t fully understand the big picture so they affix their minds to one specific detail that can be quantified and compared - in the digital camera world,  the megapixel reigns as king.  But it does not tell the whole story.

If you are not willing to learn every aspect of a camera, then you cannot make a true assessment of the product.  If you cannot tell me without hesitation the crop factor of your camera’s sensor, then you haven’t done your research.  You may as well be just another “Guy with a Camera”.

Now I’m not saying that in order to be a photographer, you need to know all this stuff.  That would be unfair.  And frankly, I would be a pot calling the kettle black as I still have a ton to learn about photography.  What’s important is that you know what you don’t know.  If you don’t know what you need to learn, you can’t learn.

So, my challenge to you is to stop being a consumer and start being a photographer.  Lets start by focusing on your equipment.  It’s a very important aspect of photography.  Know this - you can have the cost of your equipment does not compare to knowing its limitations.  So lets start there.  Go to a site like Digital Camera Review, or browse the web for technical reviews, and find your camera or a camera you’re considering.  Look at every statistic and every technical detail about the camera.  If you don’t understand a category, look it up.  Understanding these details is important to evaluating a camera.

For example, Imentioned the crop factor of the sensor.  On my camera, a Nikon D80, my sensor has a crop factor of 1.5 whereas a professional quality camera may have a sensor with a crop factor of 1.  What this really means is that the focal length of your lens is actually shooting longer with this camera.  On a full-sized professional camera, a 50mm lens shoots at 50mm.  But on my camera, it’s actually shooting at 75mm.  It’s not that big a deal, but it’s something that will affect my photography.  If I really need a lens shorter than 50mm, I need something less than 33mm (24mm, perhaps).

But that’s what I’m talking about.  Many people are comparing apples to oranges.  Without understanding all of these details, you can’t really evaluate which camera is better for your needs.  I may pass up a higher resolution camera if, perhaps, one camera had a better crop factor.  Or I may favor a camera over the other because of the lenses available for that camera.  Or maybe one of the cameras has an ultra-low ISO (50 ISO) that would be useful for the still-shots you may favor.

My point is that you need to look at all angles and every aspect of your equipment.  The megapixel vs. megapixel discussion is fine for talks with your friends or in passing.  But you better mentally know more about your camera than that.

Don’t just be a guy with a camera.  Be a Photographer.

Wired Gadget Lab has a really great post about the megapixel wars between camera manufacturers. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Megapixels, like megahertz before them, are the big consumer swindle of the camera world. The first thing anyone asks me when they see my Canon G9 is “How many megapixels does it have?” My answer, 12, causes a swoon. The trouble is, I neither want nor need that many. My Nikon D60, with just 10 megapixels, takes better pictures, especially in low light. In fact, when Nikon announced its new P6000 two weeks ago, I groaned when I read the sensor size: 13.5 megapixels. All those extra dots add up to one thing: noise. Here we take a look at the advantages of smaller pixel-counts, and what they mean for the future of photography.

Read the Article: Why the Megapixel Race Needs to End (blog.wired.com)

Unfortunately, megapixels are a bit of a bench mark that the consumers understand.  Key word:  consumers.  What separates consumers from the pros is that they don’t necessarily or always understand the big picture.  And the big picture is that the sensor’s size is only one aspect of the camera.  This article is one that really hits the nail on the head.

The team at Pro Photo Life created an awesome video tutorial having to do with outdoor portrait photography.  Portrait photography is a challenging discipline as it is, and outdoor sessions can be even more complicated.  But the end results are stunning.  The tutorial and video linked below is a really simple and easy to understand tutorial that will help you get started.  It will outline the equipment you will need and how to use it effectively during your session.

Read and view the tutorial:  Outdoor Portraits #1 (prophotolife.com)

Do you see that picture on the right? I bought Windows XP when it came out. An actual legitimate copy of Windows XP Home Edition. It promised a lot of things that it eventually pretty much delivered after a couple of service packs. It's moved from machine to machine as I've updated hardware. I've gotten rid of basically all of my old PC hardware and now it lives on my Macbook Pro. I've been reasonably happy with it. Except...

With such a long history, I've long-since passed the time when Microsoft accepted my key without question through internet activation. Do you know what happens when you pass that time? Painful crushing phone activation.

Observe:

First, you have to call a number, and enter 9 sets of 6 digits (they're kind enough to let you use the touch-tone phone to do it, instead of braving their voice recognition system). Then, on the 9th set, it always complains that it didn't understand the last set of digits, until you're forced to tell it to forward you to a human without finishing the automated input.

Then, since it didn't actually record all of those numbers you put in, you get to read them again to the call-center person.

Then, they read a string of numbers back to you, that you have to type in, and finally, in true Microsoft fashion, you hit "Next", followed by "Finish", because it wouldn't be Windows without a wizard with a few extra unnecessary clicks. ;)

Have you seen what you have to do to activate a pirated version of of Windows XP? I did a quick Google search out of curiosity. You use a pre-made serial number, and then run a command that will do the activation for you, and one more command to trick Windows Genuine Advantage(TM). Voila!

It's sad that I find it so tempting to pirate something I legally own just because it's so frustrating to activate the damn thing.

The best part is, the only reason I had to re-activate at all was because the logic board went bad in my MacBook Pro, and Windows no longer recognized it as the hardware it was installed on.

Even better, now that it's done, I have to re-activate every time I switch from booting in VMware to booting natively through Boot Camp, or vice-versa.

Alternatively, you know what I had to do to register my copy of Mac OS X when I installed it? Nothing. Imagine that.

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Also, a little late, but congratulations to D. Travis North (aka Coplan / Fulcrum) on the birth of his baby daughter on July 29th! His European compadres even made a demo in his honor for Buenzli.

If you see something about “RVScene“, it’s not a typo…

In addition to digital downloads through Amazon MP3, iTunes, and a host of other services, my first album, Finally, is now available on CD.

Order now!

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(from the Demoscene.us NVScene forum)

Okay, so - if you’re living in the US (or, should we say: within traveling distance from California you should seriously get yourself a ticket for NVScene - just check out who is on the speaker list:
http://www.nvision2008.com/Enthusiasts/nvscene_speakers.cfm

“Deconstructing Demos - From Conception to Performance”
Presented by Konstantinos Pataridis (Navis from ASD)

“Exploring Chunks of Time - Interactive Elements in ‘Linger In Shadows’”
Presented by: Michal Staniszewski (Bonzaj from Plastic)

“From .kkrieger to debris. - Procedural Content Generation Taken to Extremes”
Presented by Dierk Ohlerich (Chaos from Farbrausch)

“Rendering Worlds with Two Triangles - Raytracing on the GPU”
Presented by Iñigo Quilez (IQ from RGBA)

“Expanding the Limits of 4K - History and Evolution of TBC Intros and Tools”
Presented by Rune Stubbe (Mentor from TBC)

“Understanding Realtime as Design Potential”
Presented by Thomas Mann (Pixtur from Still)

“The Other Side of Demo Coding - Translating Concepts into Code”
Presented by Martti Nurmikari (Preacher from Traction)

“The History of the Demoscene”
Presented by Bent Stamnes (Gloom from Excess, Portal Process and scene.org), Gergely Szeley (Gargaj from Conspiracy), Ekkehard Brüggemann (steeler from digitalekulture.ev and Breakpoint)

Created by Scene.org:

And don’t forget to come to NVision ‘08/NVScene!

Capped.TV will have a presence there, in the form of Capped.TV Authorized Juice Kiosks™. Which will include HD captures of many of the demos featured in the reel above, plus many more.

Don’t forget to register.

Thanks to an awesome post at Pro Photo Life, I learned a really cool and interesting technique to do Extreme Macro Photography (you gotta watch the video on that post).  In short, if you have a telephoto or zoom lens and a shorter prime lens, you can place them face to face (zoom/telephoto mounted) and get really close-up.  You have to focus by moving the camera towards or away from the object, but it’s possible to do macro photography in this manner.  It’s very difficult to get used to and it’s hard to keep the camera steady, but the results are amazing.  Also, you have a very narrow depth of field (millimeters deep).

In my case, only the center of the image is often in focus because of the curvature of my prime lens (50mm).  And since my prime lens is significantly smaller than my zoom (the prime is a 52mm ring while the zoom is a 67mm ring), I get some really severe vignetting around the edge.  But I’m having a lot of fun with the technique.  One day, I’ll get a real macro lens…but for now, I just saved myself a couple of thousand dollars.

Here’s one of my first trials (I have more coming).

Philadelphia Zoo - Golden Tamarans are incredibly territorial creatures, and even at the zoo it’s not often you find them in a cage.  In fact, this is the first time tis summer I found one captive.  Even so, I’m not sure who’s watching who.  I spent a lot of time around this exhibit, and this Tamaran wouldn’t take her eyes off of me.