I will not even try to behave like I understand the science of that thing’s inner workings, but here is what it turns into when the engineers took over: constant 2/f aperture across an 8x zoom range, no shutter, no autofocus, half-a-pound weight, instant-on, and, the best part, you can focus and refocus the pictures after you take them.

No, really, go check it out.

There are some downsides, though. Right now, the cameras are only Mac-compatible, though supposedly there is Windows software in the works. The file format is, of course, new and probably proprietary, and those files can only be viewed through the included desktop application or any web-capable machine (and, in the latter case, only if they are hosted by Lytro). The image quality is not exactly what I would consider "outstanding", especially for background objects. The lack of flash may be troubling (even my 1.4/f DSLR lens is unable to gather enough light in some settings). And the price tag definitely puts this Mark 1 Mod 0 version well outside the "toy" range.

But most of those problems can be overcome with time.

And wow. Focusing pictures after you take them? For someone who enjoys paper-thin depths of field and frequently screws up where his camera is focusing (namely: me), that would be about the awesomest thing ever. And just because Lytro wants you to use their software to be able to interact with the pictures does not mean you cannot export it as a JPG, or at least get a screenshot of the interface…

Things like this have a tendency of being able to change the world, especially since it can only improve from here…

(Courtesy of Uncrate.)

The new Nikon 1 System Cameras ($650-$900) mix ideas from Micro Four Thirds, DSLRs, and compact cameras together into an intriguing blend of technology and style. Both models — the J1 and V1 — sport 10.1 megapixel High-Speed AF CMOS sensors capable of ISO 3200 shooting, 1080 30p/60i video recording, and insane 1200fps slow-mo recording, 3-inch LCD monitors, 12-bit RAW capture, SDXC storage, and electronic shutter speeds of 1/16,000 of a second. The J1 also offers an advanced 73-point hybrid AF system for the world’s fastest autofocus and the world’s fastest continuous shooting speed at 60fps, while the V1 is the world’s smallest and lightest camera in the world with interchangeable lens versatility and an electronic viewfinder, and offers pro-oriented features like a mechanical shutter and compatibility with external flashes.

(Apologies to Uncrate for copying the majority of their article, but most of it was technical specs I would be repeating anywise…)

I have been idly watching the EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder with Interchangeable Lens) camera movement since its inception, but one thing has always bothered me – the lack of buy-in from one of the giants of the camera industry. Oh, sure, Panasonic and Olympus teamed up to create the “Micro Four Thirds” standard, and Sony chimed in with their NEX series, but the former standard only provides 30 lenses, and the latter offers a scant seven, and in comparison to the massive market of full-size DSLR lenses… well, that is just not cutting it. (Adapters do exist for both standards, but are… complicated.)

Well, this would be one of those giants, strolling on in.

Granted, they are only bringing a paltry four lenses to the party, but this is Nikon we are talking about – where they go, Tamron, Sigma, and all the rest will follow. The real catch, in this case, is that the 1-series sensor is only 13.2 x 8.8mm, versus the 17.3 x 12.98mm sensor in Micro Four Thirds cameras, and the monstrous full-APS-C 23.4 x 15.6mm sensor in the NEX line. Will Nikon be able to compete against sensors that have over three times as much area? Time will tell. But the reality is that Nikon stepping into this market demonstrates that it is here to stay, and will unquestionably increase the level of competition going on amongst the manufacturers – no more can they settle for making niche products for niche markets, at least not if they want to keep up.

As for why I have been eyeing up this technology, my big thing is space – DSLRs are clunky, massive, heavy, and cumbersome, and I would flat-out love the notion of a “compact”, interchangeable lens camera… possibly to the point I would be willing to sacrifice sensor size. Possibly. The Nikon 1 System offers all of the manual control I want out of a camera, it can take RAW imagery, and I am sure additional lenses will come, so maybe by Christmas of this year there will be some decent reviews out… and by Christmas of next year I might be able to afford one, if they are worth their salt. If I can last that long without a new lens.

There are, of course, trade-offs to be had for the smaller size, and a few folks examine the balances.

It probably goes without saying, but buying some of my art (or at least telling me what you want to buy) will accelerate any camera decision I may or may not make in the near future…

Yeah. I took that.

Crazier still? He paid me for it.

Please excuse me while I go do a happy dance.

…

So. Anywise. If you want a specific photo for your weblog header image, use on your site, or some other purpose, drop me a line at “linoge (at) wallsofthecity (dot) net”. Likewise, if you want a hardcopy of something I have taken before, check out the Walls of the City Photography store (Where I have already sold something… double-w00t!).

Not being a terribly creative person, this is my first experience with it, but I have to admit – this whole “people giving you money for something you made” thing is kind of cool.

So go, see what I have (not much, and, in fact, half as many as you think – I had to provide two dimension ratios, since Imagekind cannot internally crop, so far as I can tell).  If you know of a photo from my collection that you want a hardcopy of, drop me a line, and I will bump it up in the queue, though I do not promise any expediency – with the cooling weather, work around the house is picking up again… 

Suggestions are, as always, appreciated. 

My DSLR shoots pictures at 2592×3888 pixels, which works out to 1×1.5.  This is not equivalent to 5×7 (1×1.4), 8×10 (1×1.25), 11×14 (1×1.27bar), or 16×20 (1×1.25 again). 

In regards to that new shop I might or might not be working on, do you want me to (A) put the pictures up in their original dimension ratio and let you all do your cutting-and-snipping as you like, or (2) trim them down to just the latter two ratios (said cropping takes a non-trivial amount of time, and will reduce the number of pictures I am willing to put up). 

With the original ratio, Zazzle’s primary dimensions will be 11×16.5 (~$11), 15×22.5 (~$16), 23×34.5 (~$22), 25.89×38.84 (~$38… and as large as the picture would reasonably look good at 100dpi), and 52×78 (~$145… holy crap).  The thing is that none of those would fit in any normal frame without some snipping.  But, like I said, the more tweaking I have to do to the pictures, the fewer I will be able to put online, and I may not crop things quite the way you like. 

So sound off – if you are interested, what size do you want it? 

Apparently my pictures of the Knoxville Standard Knitting Mill were a hit.  Go me. 

So do you want an actual copy of one of those (or any of my other pictures) to hang on a wall of your own?  Zazzle seems capable of generating 8”x10” to 24”x35” photo prints for between $3ish and $40ish respectively, and posters for between $10ish and $25ish, and CafePress can do posters between 11”x17” and 23”x35” for between $8ish and $20ish,  (each of those would have to bump a little for a bit of profit), but is it worth the time necessary to set up the shop to sell to you all?  And if so, what would you want? 

Hey, it is worth asking – and you might get something cool to hang on your wall! 

What You Need:

- A camera capable of capturing images in RAW image format. Think of RAW as the "negative" your digital camera takes, and the JPG you are used to as the print Wal-Mart hands you back after you take in your film – the former generally has a lot more detail, clarity, and information on it, and that holds true in the digital world too.
- Image-editing software that can handle RAW files and adjust their exposures. I use Digital Photo Professional (DPP) because it came with my Canon.
- Alternatively, you can use a tripod and a camera capable of exposure bracketing. You can do this manually, of course, but unless your subject is sitting very still, it is generally better to have a camera that can take 3-5 shots as fast as its shutter can move. The tripod is necessary to keep the images perfectly aligned, though clouds will still probably shift. Just remember whether your camera starts at the top of the exposure scale or the bottom.
- Luminance, formerly known as "Qtpfsgui". There are other options out there, but this one is free, and constantly updated.

What You Need to Do:

1. Take some pictures. I am not going to help you with this part, as I have no formal training of any type, but one of the keys to making HDR really pop is finding scenes that have a high degree of contrast. Play with shadow and light, clouds, light sources, etc. But, whatever you do, make sure you either use your tripod or take the pictures in RAW.

2. Sort out the chaff. HDRing images is a time-consuming process, and you do not want to waste that time on an image that you do not like. Thankfully, Picasa can view RAW files straight, and that will give you some idea of what the end result will look like (its tonemapping is remarkably conservative, and understandably tends towards "realistic").

3. (This part is only applicable if you use RAW.) Load up your RAW image in whatever program you are using, and figure out how to push the exposure around. I have a screenshot of what it looks like in the Canon software to the right (you want the "Brightness adjustment" slider). In my experience, three images are usable, but five give a better output, so I drag that slider over to "-2", export the file (CTRL+D in DPP) to a 16-bit TIFF (a lossless image format), and save it as "filename-2.tif", then "-1", "0", "1", and "2".

4. Boot up Luminance, and start a new HDR. It asks you to open the files you will be using to generate the HDR, so feed all of the TIFs or JPGs or whatnot you are using for this image into the system, and then click through each one notating what its exposure setting is (this is why I save that number in their filename). If you used exposure bracketing, it might be worth using one of the alignment functions on the screen where you set exposures; my experience with a previous version of this software indicated the aligning did not work well, but I have not done bracketing in a while. Click "Next" and "Finish" until you get to the main window of the program (I have not messed with those settings much).

5. You are now faced with the "straight" form of your HDR – untonemapped, and while the data is technically what your eye saw when you took the picture, it probably does not look right (mostly because monitors suck at reproducing reality, but that is another post that I probably will not write). Now comes playtime. On the left of the screen, you will see a drop-down menu at the top with folks’ names being its options – those are the tonemap algorithms that you can apply to your image. Alternatively, on the right, you have mini-previews of what all of those functions will do to your image in their basic settings. However, each tonemap has anywhere between one and five slider bars that allow you to tweak the various aspects of what they do. So fool around and find out!

6. My "post-apocalyptic" imagery is generally created through the use of the Mantiuk ’06 algorithm, with contrast equalization on, contrast set to 0.1 or 0.001 (depending on how badly I want to push it), saturation at 0.75 (gives it that washed-out feeling), and detail at 1.0 to 5.0 depending on taste.

7. Render small to begin with – the processing takes time, and the smaller the file, the more options you can fool around with faster. To do a full 2592 x 3888 image takes about 30-120 seconds of background crunching on my three-year-old-but-cutting-edge-at-the-time box. However, some tonemaps do not scale up – what you see on the thumbnail may not be representative of what you get in the bigger image. No idea why.

8. Save your tonemap in your favorite low-definition range file format (probably JPG or PNG), and then save your HDR as a *.HDR (seems the most-widely accepted). Luminance uses tabs at the top of the main working window, and does not seem to overwrite itself… ever, so you do not need to worry about that. It does, however, hog RAM like a monster, and you should only do one image at a time, with reboots of the program periodically (again, it is free, and you get what you pay for).

9. Post-post-process as you see fit. I find that running the tonemapped HDRs through Picasa’s "I’m Feeling Lucky" makes the image pop even more, you might like Photoshop, or they might be fine as-is.

Addendum: Luminance’s onboard help file is actually rather comprehensive, it is just not reproduced online. Any questions I did not answer here are probably solved there.

And that is about it. I promise it is a lot easier than it looks – the only significant element is time. Well, apart from actually getting out there and finding some decent pictures to take, of course… Most of the "difficulty" just comes from figuring out what the sliders do for the tonemapping algorithms, and then finding a setting or group of settings that you like. Feel free to sound off with any questions you might have, and I will do what I can to answer them.

(Luminance screenshots borrowed from Luminance’s webpage.)

‘Course, it is a lot more interesting up close. 

As the page said, Standard transformed into the largest textile and knitting mill in Knoxville, with over 4000 employees and a production output of 1,000,000 garments a week… back in the 1940s.  Bit impressive, that.  Unfortunately, the mill is located in what I would consider to be a relatively rough area of town, trapped between light industry and remarkably run-down housing, and its future is yet to be determined… while entropy, Mother Nature, and vandals continue to have their way with its architecture.  Already a significant portion of its structure hanging over the Third Creek has collapsed, I can only imagine how the roof is not holding up, and while there is a nominal fence around the property, it is… shall we say “lacking”. 

In any case, I spent a couple of hours traipsing around the outside wishing I had remembered my camera’s backpack, my hat, and some water.  These were the end result: 

All but the last were HDR’d using varying settings and tonemaps, by way of Luminance, an increasingly impressive open-source high-definition range imaging program (and as the second-to-last image shows, HDR can be used for non-post-apocalyptic photography).  The last image was focally black-and-white’d by Tintii. 

[Update]  You should now be able to see full-size images when you click on the above thumbnails… [/Update]

At the newly-re-opened Tapoco Lodge: 

The Chilhowee Dam in HDR: 

… and controlled-black-and-white (courtesy of Tintii): 

And a small dock adjacent to it: