Geopic II, a GPS for my D300

This is the GeoPic II, a global positioning system (GPS) that works with my Nikon D300 and other Nikon camera bodies. You can't see the mount, but it fits in the flash shoe, and the cable that you see fits into the D300's 10-pin port.

It stores longitude and latitude data with the image's EXIF data -- cool, huh! If I store the pictures taken with this system using Google Picasa's gallery, double clicking an image will launch Google Earth and take me right to the location of the image on Google Earth's virtual globe.

I've been using Google Earth lately for trips taken, and this device will give me the exact location of each image. It's supposed to be easy on the battery -- we'll see.

Well, this is my last formal, official picture of the New Castle Camera Clubs November Challenge, but since I've been blogging before, I'll continue, but probably with less urgency.

I've enjoyed it though.

Nate's Place

This was the scene of our 2008 Thanksgiving gathering. Great food, fun, & fellowship. We are thankful!

The Girls -- Auntie and Niece

Here my morning star! Woke her up at ... ----- I won't say! BUT she was bright and shining!

I took this picture of my daughter and granddaughter -- two real beauties if I say so myself. I used software that I found on my son's computer: Microsoft Digital Image Standard 2006 Editor -- didn't know that it even existed. In any case, I blurred the shot (perhaps too much) and softened the border.

Shot the picture with the D300's pop-up flash, ISO-200, Nikkor 35-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 40mm, f3.5 for 1/60 sec.

Turkey Bowl Highlight

Macedon, NY is the venue. Annual Turkey Bowl is the event. I had my press pass, so I took a few (~200) shots. This shot was edited in-camera. The D300 has a number of editing capabilities in the camera -- Trimming or cropping is one I use a lot, as done in this one. Image data: Nikon D300, Nikkor 70-300mm AF-S-VR f/4.5-5.6 lens, aperature priority, 1/1250 sec @ f/5.6; image taken at 102mm on this lens, but as I said, cropped, but no other modifications.

He made the catch!

Through The Window

This morning, I wanted to post a shot before hitting the road for Thanksgiving travel. Since it's cold and snowy out, I decided to shoot through the screened window, a good task for a manual focus, longer lens. I chose my Nikkor 135mm f/3.5 MF prime lens, a $75 Ebay acquisition. It's tack sharp and reaches over 200mm perspective on my D300.

The shot was processed minimally in Adobe Camera Raw; altered the exposure (Exposure slider) by +0.6, a little more than half a stop. I still adjusted the Levels in PSE6, the dark and light ends, nothing on midtones. No sharpening was done.

"Saving for Web" in PSE6 deletes the EXIF data, I guess by design.

Data, however, is: ISO-1600 to get shutter speed 1/160 sec, hand-held, at f/3.5, thus wide open on this 135mm MF lens. If you look closely, you'll see an out-of-focus branch obscuring the view. The black window in the background is distracting. "Haste makes waste."

Route 8 Roadside

Driving down to Cabot, PA and back today, I decided to stop at an interesting building that I often see while traveling to Butler. So, I stopped on the way back and took four shots, three of which are posted here. If you look at the larger image (click on image), you can see that it was snowing. (#1: Auto White Balance, ISO-200, 1/160 sec. @ f/6.3 on Nikkor 24mm AF f/2.8 prime, hand-held, no flash)

It's nice to have a camera with decent weather seals, the Nikon D300 in my case. I took these shots without worrying about getting the camera wet -- and it did!

The building is abandoned. The window boards are obviously red, but the siding is a subtle green, not sure if you can see that in these pictures. They're straight from the camera, and although I shot them in Raw+BasicJpeg, I used the Jpegs here without modification. (#2: all the same setup except 1/125 sec @ f/5.6.)

(#3: 1/100 sec @ f/5.). I can see the green. The saturation was set to vivid, so the Red boards are a bit too much -- more than I remember.

Elements 6 Black and White Tool

Jogging past this corn field, I thought that I ought to come back and take a shot -- so I did. D300, Tokina 12-24mm AF-DX f/4 @ 12mm, 1/250sec @ f/4, ISO-200, hand-held.

Audrey had some great Black & Whites at the camera club the other night, so I asked her how she processed them. She told me about the B&W conversion tool in Photoshop CS3 with its R-G-B sliders and assorted filters.

As it turns out, I'm happy to report that Photoshop Elements 6 has a similar tool. AND the filters include infrared, which give you an pretty good result. I used the Scenic/Landscape filter above for the B& W. The tool is illustrated below:

Snowfield and Barn

This is the view of a barn as seen from my parking spot at church -- another good test for the metering capability of the Nikon D300. Snow often looks gray (less than white reality anyway) when metered by many cameras, especially when the metering system of the camera is influenced by a large field of it as in this image.

I did not alter the exposure itself appreciably; shot in Raw, I used Adobe Camera Raw and the Recovery Slider to remove a few blowouts in the middle of the field. I also used the Vibrance Slider to enrich the colors. It deepened the red of the barn slightly, but made the sky a subtle amount bluer, making it more interesting without it looking fakey. Note the settings below.

I just noticed that the EXIF data from Camera Raw includes the lens (35-70 in this case) and the image focal length. Cool!

MacDonalds, Metering, Manual Mode

Sitting inside MacDonald's munching on a breakfast sandwich, I wondered again how well the D300 would deal with snow. The children's playground, seen here through my window, was a suitable test: snow on top lit up by the sun; bright red, yellow, and blue colors; snow on the ground in the shadow. I've just shown 3 images here although I took more.

In the first one I used the Color Zone System (adapted from Ansel Adam's Zone System). I used manual mode, spot metering; metered the bright snow on the top and opened up 1.5 stops. Here's what you get:




This one I used a similar setup: manual mode, spot metering, metered the yellow section, and according to the Color Zone System, I opened up 1 stop. Judge for yourself. All of these images are straight from the camera:

This one I used Matrix Metering (pattern). The D300 uses the D3's 1024-cell zone system to match the exposure against the system's 40,000 image database to arrive at the desired exposure. This is the only one, according to the D300's highlight LCD screen, did not have blowouts -- the dreaded blinkies -- indicating that areas of the image are devoid of image data.

So, I conclude that except for special cases, I may as well use matrix metering. It's very smart on the D300 and cameras that feature the same system.

Snow-Laden Pine Branch & Stream

Wanted to get a shot or two of snow. This was taken near the Leesburg Falls late afternoon, after 4 PM. What's the name of that stream?

Tough scene for the D300 to meter -- high contrast with the dark shadows of the stream bank and the snow-laden pine branch hanging over. Shooting Raw + Basic, which I like, because I still have the flexibility of processing the Raw yet the Jpeg Basic gives me a peek at the image.

I had the D300 set on Vivid+, which made the image cold, but adjusted temperature in Adobe Camera Raw. Also used the Vibrance slider -- it's great. It allows one to make colors richer without making colors already vivid too much so. Adobe Camera Raw's Recovery slider didn't seem to allow me to pull in texture of the snow on the branch, so in PSE6 I used Shadows/Highlights, zero (0) on the Shadows, and toned down the snow in Highlights.

Details on the shot: Nikon D300 on Gitzo CF tripod with Bogen ball-head, aperture priority, stopped all the way down to get a long exposure, ISO-200, Nikkor 35-70mm AF f/2.8 lens @ 40mm, 5 sec at f/22, exposure compensation -.7.

This camera seems to meter long exposures better than my D70 or D100 did. (Don't remember about my D200. Seth has that in Turkey!) I like the effect.

Not a Raw Deal Afterall

Hmmm! Talk about Adobe Raw Camera -- this software could convert me into a raw shooter! Look at the control it gives you, all without modifying the "digital negative!" You have the EXIF data right under the histogram. And as advertised concerning raw files, you may alter the white balance as desired, even if you didn't get it right during the shoot. OK, no big deal, although the auto is pretty smart. The tools (sliders) give you big-time control. They are dynamic, so you can watch the effect of each on the histogram & the image. Play with the Exposure slider and watch the histogram; adjust the "dark side of the force" without affecting the white side (Blacks slider.) The Fill Light slider is great -- so much more efficient that Shadow/Highlights -- at a glance, anyways. Recovery slider lets you adjust the white side without clipping the dark side -- excella-mundo (-- is that a word?)

Below is the original JPEG shot out the window of my office:



Here's a quick and dirty raw file, converted from NEF to DNG using Adobe Raw Converter (batches a whole folder, thank you!), and then massaged in Adobe Camera Raw:

I took this shot from my office window of the parking lot during a mild, snow whiteout. Shot raw+normal jpeg. These aren't winners at the Club, BUT, I'm learning and having fun!

The Homestead -- Raw Deal

It's been a long time since I've tried to do anything with a raw file, NEF for Nikon. But I shot a few shots of the old homestead using the D300's quality setting at Raw plus Fine, thus a NEF file and a large jpeg. Boy, will that chew up a memory card in a hurry. (I can take 32 images on a 1 GB card on that setting!) Here's the straight jpeg:
For the life of me, I could not get Photoshop CS or Photoshop Elements 6 to read the NEF format -- gave me a parsing file error. A search on the Web described fixes beyond my motivation level (I'm really content with jpegs -- life is too short) so I took the easy way out and downloaded Adobe DNG converter, the latest version. It allows one to convert a folder of NEF images, in my case, to DNG format, Adobe's digital negative format. That format enabled me to "Open as raw" in Elements and play with the "raw deal." Don't remember exactly what I did to the image, but here it is. I'll be more methodical next time.

By the way, Nikon D300, Nikon 24mm f/2.8 lens, ISO-200, 125 sec. @ f/5.6. Love that lens!

Low Light Rapid Fire!

It was 6:32 AM; light snow had fallen, so I wanted to capture a shot that included the snow and the antique tiller that my wife had purchased. I goosed up the ISO to 1600 and even though using a fast lens, the Nikon 50mm AF f/1.8 at f/1.8, my shutter speed was only 1/10 sec. That's too slow for hand-held; this is not a vibration reduction (VR) lens.
So, I put the Nikon D300 on high speed, and fired off four (4) shots, realizing that your body "settles down" and typically one of the shots will be sufficiently sharp. The sharpest is above, actually the third taken. Numbers 1 and 4 here were about the same.

This one I adjusted with levels a bit. I thought these were a bit too light compared to what I saw.

This one was the softest, actually shot second.

Try it out sometime. Of course, your chances are improved if your camera is quick, or you have a VR lens; the D300 is rated to do 6 frames/sec.

Snow, D300, Color Correction

Snowed a bit last night, so for the camera club November challenge, I wanted to get a couple of snow shots. I drove through Memorial Park near the ball fields and shot these images. The first two I shot through the front windshield of my truck (lazy, huh!), Nikon D300, matrix metering, Program mode, Nikon 35-70mm AF f/2.8 lens at 35mm. EXIF: f/5, 1/100 sec, ISO-200. I still have the high saturation turned on in the D300 and the first image looks a bit cold (blueish tint.)

The second image was altered using the Auto Color Correction in Photoshop Elements 6.

The third picture here, I took the time to run down the window, even backed up the truck a bit, to get this image. Straight out of the camera. Matrix metering on the D300 does pretty well. Histograms in all three images were solid. With the high contrast of these scenes (snow and dark trees), it does well.

I need to experiment with snow, spot metering, and manual mode some time.

GCC Volleyball Video

Photography is mine; a student of mine, Chris, created the video using Microsoft Photo Story 3.

Black & White Sunday in Pittsburgh

Drove to Pittsburgh today to go to church in Oakland with my daughter. See below!
Afterwards, Joy wanted to try this restaurant that she had heard of called the Quiet Storm. My picture of it was soft -- shouldn't have hand-held with ISO-64 on clouded day. So, I removed the color and used the Fresco filter in PSE6:

Inside I used the 2 sec. self-timer, flash off, Landscape mode for greater depth of field, to take the last couple of shots in the restaurant.

Vegetarian food -- I had the original Burrito -- was excellent.

Great day with Joy!!!

Rainy Race

Used my D300, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 DX lens, and my Nikon 70-200mm F/2.8-VR lens to cover GCC at the NCAA Division III MidEast Region Cross Country Men's and Women's races. Tried out the wide angle and I'm not too happy with what I did. Use it on the men's race. I used the long lens on the women's race.

Very rainy, 80% all day and the forecast was correct. I was happy with the D300 performance -- it got wet! Cloudy white balance, aperture priority, wide open at 12mm, ISO-320, f/5 @ 1/1000 second. High speed mode; put the camera low to ground and fired away.

Effect of Shadows/Highlights Tool

The image at below is tough for a camera to meter -- high contrast. (Pentax Optio shot.) So, I took the shot and adjusted it in Photoshop Elements 6, using the Shadows/Hightlights Tool.

Midtones were not adjusted, only the Shadows and Highlights: Lighten Shadows, 35%; Darken Highlights, 40%.

Still some disparity between top and bottom of the image, inside, but lightening the shadows more is too much of a departure from I saw with my eyes at the top of the image.

Our eyes can easlily handle more contrast than the camera!

Fresco Filter

Image taken with Pentax Optio W10, hand-held, on the Isherwood Wolverine Terrace on the 3rd floor of Hall of Arts and Letters.

I adjusted the Levels slightly in Photoshop Elements6, and applied the Fresco filter, Filters > Artistic.

NCCC November Entries

Here's a video hightlighting my entries for the "Open" classification; created with the free download Microsoft Photo Story 3:

Diner White Balance

At the Diner this morning, I took a couple of pictures of the view from my booth. The first picture, taken with Tungsten white balance, no flash, gives a better rendition of the color.
The picture here below was set to Auto White Balance and the image has a reddish color tinge. The lesson is to set the white balance when you can.

The Quad at Sunrise

Rode the bike to campus via the main entrance and noticed the Chapel. So here's a shot with the Pentax Optio W10, PSE6 Shadow/Highlights used. Put the camera on a wall, 2 second timer, Landscape mode, flash off.

ISO-200, 1/10th second at f/3.3.

It's a picture -- about all one can say...

Crow Fair Rodeo Video

Wanted to try a video in my blog, so here goes. This is a quick video of some shots taken at the Crow Fair, August, 2008, Crow Agency, Montana. 640x480 using PhotoStory 3 for Windows -- canned music. Images taken with Nikon D300 and 70-300mm AF-D VR lens.

Church Parking Lot Tree

Cool tonight, about 7 PM. Mounted the Nikon D300 on the Gitzo carbon fiber tripod for a night shot. My lens was my Nikon MF 200mm f/4 prime lens. I used it wide open at f/4 for a 0.77 second exposure of the parking lot tree, lit by the lights in the lot. Manual mode, manual focus, of course. Use the 2 second self-timer with the long exposure processing turned on. Took three shots of the tree, two of which showed the lights that help illuminate the tree, but I liked this one better. Should have included the other for your comparison.

I really like the fact that the Nikon D300 meters manual focus lenses. I have three: the one mentioned above, the Nikon 135mm f/3.5, and a Tokina 300mm f/2.8. All three are configured to use as "non-cpu" lenses with the D300. All three are sharp -- fun to use. The range-finder still tells me when the shot is in focus. Paid approximately $100 each for the 2 Nikons. What a deal!

Speed Photography

10:00 PM. Didn't take a picture today. Had to go out and take one to post! Hate it when that happens.

SO, grabbed the Pentax P&S, and got into my F250 in the garage. I rested the camera on the steering wheel center and took this picture of the speedometer & tach. Manual focus -- first time ever for MF on this camera, program mode -- night mode was too long an exposure even in this low light. Flash was off. ISO-400 chosen by the camera, F/3.6 for 1/4 second, hand-held, bracing on wheel column.

Ferns

It was raining lightly this Sunday afternoon. I took my Pentax p&s mounted on my Gitzo carbon fiber tripod, and headed for a circular walk in Memorial Park. I set the ISO to 64, turned off flash, landscape mode, and 2-second timer. Using the tripod and these settings, I thought that I'd get decent depth of field and a good exposure even in lower light in the overcast woods. Took several shots but posted this one of ferns:

Exposure was 1/4 sec at f/4.

At Leaf Level

I took this image with my D300 on a backpacker's mini-tripod; placed the camera on the deck in the back of the house, auto-focus, aperture priority mode, 2 sec exposure @ f/22.

Falls -- Get Closer

Sunday, November 2, I took this shot at Cooper's Falls, top of the mountain above Kennerdell. Use my Nikon 105mm AF-D lens, 12 seconds @ f/32 with a ND filter and polarizer to get that smooth flow. (Only adjusted Levels slightly; also used Unsharp mask, 300-1-3.)

The water level was low, so I had to get close to a little falls to get something more interesting. The Vivid +3 of the D300 rendered the water a bit cold -- blue -- but I like it.

Pinchalong Road Fog

Arriving at school today, I noticed the interesting layers of fog down Pinchalong Road. Took several shots, but here's the one that I preferred in spite of the wires, which I normally try to avoid. Here I think that they guide the viewer's eye down the road to the fog.

Pentax Option W10, ISO-200, 1/100 sec @ f/4, 19mm (114mm 35mm equiv.), hand-held.

Turned off the flash, used Landscape mode, and forced focus at infinity because I expected that the camera might have trouble with focus.

Blanket of Leaves

Felt the need to take a picture with my Nikon D300, so here it is. Use my 50mm Nikon AF, non-D, F/1.8 lens, hand-held shot. Saturation is Vivid +3. 1/60 sec at F/10, ISO-200, about 8:00 AM this morning.

Foggy Morn'

It was foggy this morning for my bike ride to school. Snapped this shot from my front driveway, flash off, 6:45 AM. Camera set the ISO at 250, f/3.3 @ 1/4 second -- hand-held -- it came out OK. BUT, with the viewfinder as such for the Pentax Optio W10, I ended up with the wire even though I did not see it while composing the shot. Makes me appreciate the 100% viewfinder of my D300! The image also shows the distortion of the lens at this focal length -- wires strung between poles rarely sag UP! Compressed in MS Office Picture Manager and used Auto-Correct.

Below, I tried another hand-held shot, not so fortunate as you can see. Camera chosen ISO-400, f/4 @ 1/4 second but no steady hand here. I could have manually chosen a higher ISO (camera will do up to 800), or use a tripod, OR put the camera on a solid object and use the 2-second self-timer.