Category: Thoughts On Photography

Five Excuses

Five Excuses

Posted on by Jim Roberts

Everyone is talking about AI taking over photograph (along with illustration, coding, and just about every other creative endeavor). So I asked Google’s Bard to give me 5 excuses for not taking pictures today. The Bard not only gave me the excuses but also ways to get around the excuses.

Here are 5 excuses for not doing photography today:

  1. I don’t have the time.

Photography can be a time-consuming hobby or profession, and it’s easy to let other things take priority. But if you’re passionate about photography, it’s important to make time for it. Even if you can only spare a few minutes each day, you can still make progress and improve your skills.

  1. I don’t have the right gear.

It’s true that having good gear can make photography easier, but it’s not essential. You can take great photos with even the most basic equipment. If you’re serious about photography, investing in some good gear can be worthwhile, but don’t let the lack of gear stop you from getting started.

  1. I’m not good enough.

Everyone starts out as a beginner, and it takes time and practice to improve your photography skills. Don’t compare yourself to other photographers, and don’t be afraid to experiment. The more you shoot, the better you’ll become.

  1. I’m afraid of failure.

Everyone makes mistakes, and that’s okay. Failure is a part of the learning process. Don’t let the fear of failure stop you from taking risks and trying new things.

  1. I’m not inspired.

Sometimes it can be hard to find inspiration, but there are plenty of things you can do to get motivated. Look at other photographers’ work, read photography books and magazines, or take a class. The most important thing is to keep shooting, even when you’re not feeling inspired.

If you’re making excuses not to do photography, it’s time to face your fears and get out there and start shooting. You might be surprised at what you can create.

Same thing applies to writing blog posts. Something I’ve gotten away from for way too long.

The Friends You Make

The Friends You Make

Posted on by Jim Roberts

I really enjoyed going to PhotoshopWorld for quite a number of years. I think the grand total was 14 although it might have been 13. Does not matter. What matters as a photographer is that you connect with other photographers so that you can learn with them, learn from them, and become better at what you love to do.

Each time they had the event I would make sure that I helped any new attendees feel at home and to remind them to make sure they introduced themselves to the people that would be sitting next to them at any of the sessions. After all we were all attending the session because we had the same interests in learning and especially in learning specific processes to enhance our photography or graphic design or videography skills.

I made a lot of good friends over the years at each PSW conference. Always someone new to meet as well as to catch up with friends from previous PSW’s. I actually met John when I invited him to join me for a buffet breakfast at Mandalay Bay a number of years ago. The only thing we had in common at that point was we were both wearing our attendee badges. There after we would see each other before the opening ceremony. John was from Boston and soon I had met the intrepid photography group from Boston.

Thru John I met Deb, and John B, and Darren Clark (who wasn’t from Boston but somehow was adopted by the other three.) Each year and sometimes twice a year we would see each other. The last PhotoshopWorld was fall of 2019. I have not seen John since. Now I won’t anymore as he suddenly passes away a few days ago, way to early. So I am extremely sad to see that he is gone but glad that he and I made the effort to see our mutual interests and become friends.

Find people that are like you, they are out there. Make friends. You will be better off for it.

Darren, Deb, John and John

New and Improved?

New and Improved?

Posted on by Jim Roberts

Recently Adobe published some previews of new functionality coming to Photoshop and Lightroom. I expect these new features to be released at the end of the month at the Adobe Max Virtual Conference. Photoshop will soon have an AI enhanced sky replacement feature while Lightroom will have a new Advanced Color Grading tool.

It seems to me that while these are interesting updates the seem to be more towards add functionality to the Adobe apps that are already in other applications. Case in point take a look at the color balance tool in Capture One Pro:

Capture One Pro Color Balance

Seems fairly similar don’t you think? As of this date I believe that Luminar and ON1 both have “AI” driven sky replacement tools but since I don’t use those applications I will not comment on how similar they are to Adobes new features.

I’m getting the feeling that Adobe is now becoming a reactionary company. Instead of innovating they are just covering the features that are in other application. It would seem that Adobe with it’s resources and (a whole boatload of subscription payers) would be creating new stuff rather that duplicating what others have done with a lot less resources and a lot less money.

Over the years I’ve met quite a number of Adobe’s forward facing Evangelists and I quite like each and every one of them. Just not sure how excited they will be to now be able to say, “yes we can do that too”.

Pictures of Art

Pictures of Art

Posted on by Jim Roberts

I’m fascinated by making images of the art and craft of others. Every man made structure has a visual element to it. Something that should or could be pleasing to the eye. I don’t think of making these images as copying someone’s art. I think of it as celebrating their very real creativity. The Tree of Life at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom is that kind of object. The Tree of Life is the work of many artisans based on the imagination of those that make it special.

Contemporary at Sunset

Contemporary at Sunset

Posted on by Jim Roberts
Contemporary at Sunset : Fujifilm X-T2, F3.6 1/40s ISO 3200 18.8mm

Having raved on about color balance in the previous post, i’ve come full circle with this image. After the usual Florida afternoon storm the sunset the other day had plenty of clouds to reflect of off before getting to the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World. To pick up the warm tones on the building I let the fluorescent lights keep their green cast. The color cast may have been enhanced by shooting through a window .

Today my mindset is on what the image looks like rather than what camera and lens was used. How the images was processes should not be an issue either. I present the image as it is. And it is an image I like more and more.

Still if you must know it was originally processed in Capture One Pro 20 then sent to Photoshop where I applied Nik 3.0 Color Efex Pro 4 Detail Extractor, Glamor Glow, and Pro Contrast. I also did some noise reduction with Nik 3.0 Define 2.

I shot the image with the Fujinon XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS kit lens. A really good lens for a “kit” lens.

Passageways

Passageways

Posted on by Jim Roberts

Discovering features of WordPress to display galleries. This is a work in progress called Passageways which is a series of 5 images taken about the same time. I’ve been working on these images for a few days. I may even have overworked one or two of them. Using Capture One Pro 20 you can crank in adjustments to a high level and use the opacity slider to reduce the adjustments to a level that meets your needs.

I’m still not 100% happy with this image. It looks good, then it doesn’t. I was trying to get a subtle gradation and a subdued pallet. So I would add and remove layers, try different things like adding hints of more clarity to edges to define the image. In the end it seems ok. Oh the same note I saw a YouTube video with Ansel Adams yesterday. Even years after printing an image he says he see areas that he could improve. So I guess the best is to just put it out and let it be. After all as Adams said, the image is just an equivalence of what was in the sky.

Fujifilm Telephoto Views on International Photography Day

Fujifilm Telephoto Views on International Photography Day

Posted on by Jim Roberts

Someone has declared today as International Photography Day. I’d like to celebrate using a couple of my telephoto lenses. Sometimes when the stars align and the wildlife cooperates you have some really nice subjects to photograph.

This Snowy Egret was fishing in the pond behind my house the other day. He was being quite cooperative so I was able to get off a number of exposures with my Fujifilm XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR which is a very nice lens. It has good color rendition and even extended to 400mm as in this shot is nice an sharp.

A few minutes later he/she fluffed up all her feathers for just a second and I was able to capture this on also at 400mm. The image stabilization help as it was a rather gray afternoon. This image ISO 500 1/124s f/10 400mm. This is really a nice lens and I’m glad I have it.

I also have the Fujinon XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR which is one of the first lenses I purchased and usually use when I’m heading for the golf course as it gives a nice range for a compact size. A little later on the same day I caught this Roseate Spoonbill in about the same location as the Snowy Egret. He/she was not too bothered by me. The sharpness and color rendition on this lens is also quite good.

Image shot at ISO 800 1/125s f/5.6 135mm.

So lets celebrate a couple of the wonderful Fujifilm telephoto lenses. They do good work.

What If We Lit The Moon With A Light Bulb

What If We Lit The Moon With A Light Bulb

Posted on by Jim Roberts

White balance is an interesting topic. How the colors of an image are represented are sometimes a subjective thing and sometimes not. Getting good skin colors on a portrait can make or break an image.

White balance is matching the color of your image to a known color temperature. For instance a standard incandescent light bulb has a color temperature somewhere around 2800 degrees kelvin while the sun has a color temperature between 5500 and 6000 degrees kelvin (k). These temperatures are not random numbers made up to confuse photographers. The Sun’s surface temperature is about 5773k so there is a correlation between its actual temperature and what we call daylight white balance in photography.

The lower the temperature given off by the source of the light the more orange it is. The higher the color temperature is the more blue the light is. If the light color is too low, as in infrared, the light will not be picked up by the photographic medium, as in film or a photo sensor. On the other end of the spectrum is light nearing ultra violet which is quite blue and again beyond the range of photography.

While the Sun is a main sequence star with, thankfully, a 10 billion year life cycle, most stars you can see in the sky are larger, faster burning, giant stars with surface temperatures up to 10,000k.

Our eyes and our brain do a pretty good job of correcting the white balance we see normally. Cameras can be way too literal it the way they process colors. Unless we get specific about the lighting conditions, colors in an image can be way different than what we see with our eyes.

Assuming that you have set your camera for the proper prevailing color temperature, daylight, cloudy, tungsten, etc. the colors should be pretty close to what your eyes see. If you are using an auto white balance mode on you camera the camera will take a best guess of what the colors should be.

In post processing we can adjust the color balance to what it should be or we can apply a color correction to give an image the impact that we perceived when we took the image. We use the white balance dropper in your choice of image processing software to choose an area meant to be white.

Beyond using an algorithmic method like the white balance tool, we can also adjust the white balance to suit our eyes. We can warm or cool the colors of an image by adjusting the white balance slider (and the tint slider see previous article) If an image is too warm with white things looking orange we can apply a blue cast to the image to bring it back to what we want the color to be. Alternately we can also apply an orange cast if the image is too cool.

So if we had lit the moon with an incandescent light when the color balance was set to daylight we would end up with a very orange moon like on the left side of the moons above.. To correct the color balance to get the moon back to the expected white moon we would move the color balance slider towards the 2800k side to correct the moon back to the middle ground.

And the opposite is also true, warming a color balance by introducing a lower temperature will turn the blue moon white then orange.

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