Pen Tablets - Stop using the mouse!

Here is a Post Production secret: a lot of photographers use Pen Tablets instead of a mouse with PhotoShop. Graphic Artists, Illustrators and Digital Artists also use them, and you can use one with more then just PhotoShop. I personally find it easier to draw on an image with a Pen Tablet, a mouse is just not as accurate and "real". For artistic use it works on everything you would use a mouse for.



Here is the lowdown: As you can see from the photo above of my tablet, this Wacom Intuos tablet comes with a pen, pen holder and mouse. It connects to your computer via a USB cable or BlueTooth. The buttons on either side can be customized through the included software. There are also two zoom sliders as well.

The coolest part? It's pressure sensitive! The harder you press, the more of an effect it has on your image. For example, if I set the Healing Brush in PhotoShop to 100 and then start to correct an image, the brush size is small with less pressure, and larger, up to 100, when I press harder. How sweet is that! The ability to change brush size with pressure is a great time saver.

Looking to bring your post-processing workflow a boost? Give a Pen Tablet a try. Check our wacom.com for a good fit, they are available in many sizes. They even have a version that is an LCD monitor and tablet in one!

Canon 500D Close Up Lens: The Un-Macro

I wanted to take detailed shots at weddings of the small things, like the rings and such. Macro images have a place in the album along side the regular shots. But I was missing an important piece of equipment; a Macro lens.

The best choice for me seemed to be the Canon 100mm Macro. It has great image quality and people were also using it for portraits. The two downsides with the 100mm Macro are slow focus and price. Seemed to be a great studio lens but not so great for on-location shooting where the focus may change for every shot. So I kept looking, trying to find the right fit for me.

Reading a lot of forums pointed me in the right direction. Somebody suggested to try out the Canon 500D close up lens. It is a lens that attaches to your regular lens just like a filter. It does have its own limitations like it will only work with lenses in the 70 - 300mm range, and it cannot focus farther then 4 feet. On the positive side it was less expensive then the 100mm Macro, it was small and easy to carry in my bag and it worked with my 24-70 and 70-200 lenses!

Here are some images taken both with the 500D and without. All shots were taken on white seamless paper, Alien Bees with umbrella and a Canon 580 EX in a small softbox.

Canon 500D Close Up Lens

This is an oil lamp, taken with the Canon 24-70 f2.8 L.

Taken with the 24-70 f2.8 L and 500D.
Taken with the Canon 70-200 f2.8 L IS.
Taken with the Canon 70-200 f2.8 L IS with the 500D.
As you can see, the 70-200 really delivered with the 500D attached. I would use a tripod with it since the 500D adds a bit of heft to the end of the lens.

Want to go even cheaper? How about using your Point and Shoot? Depending on the assignment, you may not need 12 Megapixels to capture a great image! Here is an example from my 6 year old Canon G3, a great 4 Megapixel camera. A lot of Point and Shoot digital cameras can also take great macro shots. They benefit from really small sensors that deliver awesome depth of field. Here is an example.

Canon G3, set to Macro

The old Point and Shoot didn't do too bad, huh? I think a Point and Shoot can be a great choice over a Macro or Close Up Lens depending on the subject and output quality.

Kodak Tri-X 400 35mm in D76 and Diafine

I have read a lot of information on the developers used with Kodak Tri-X 400 on the photo.net B&W Photo - Film & Processing Forum. Two of the most popular are D76 and Diafine. To see just what each can do I decided to test for myself.

All shots were from a Canon Elan 7ne with a 70-200 2.8 L IS. The lighting was from an Alien Bees 800 monolight. Exposure was at f9.5, 1/100 for a given ISO rating, the lens was set to 135mm. All film was from the same 35 mm 100 foot roll. For comparison, I am including some shots from my Canon 5D to see what a Full Frame digital camera can deliver.

Please note: Even though I loaded no more then 15 frames per roll for this test, the D76 1 to 1 development included 8 fluid ounces of D76 Full Strength and 8 fluid ounces of water. This is importand on full rolls to ensure that you don't exhaust the developer. I followed this practice here to ensure proper development.

All times were sourced from the Massive Dev Chart on digitaltruth.com.

Scanning was done with a Nikon Coolscan V ED. Settings were 4000 dpi, 16 bit gray, to a .tiff file.

Here is the full scene


Here are the crops

D76, Full Strength @ 400


D76, Diluted 1 to 1 @ 400


D76, Full Strength @ 1600


Diafine @ 1600


5D @ 1600


Conclusion:

If you are going to shoot Tri-X at ISO 400, then D76 1 to 1 is great. I think the image has more clarity then at full strength. If you want to shoot Tri-X at 1600, although the D76 negative looks pretty good, to me the Diafine image has a more gritty, B&W look.

It is interesting to see that the 5D can pull such detail out of a 1600 ISO image. Although a great camera, it does lack the dynamic range that film can deliver. Hopefully they will start looking to improve DR in the future instead of more megapixels.

And don't forget! If you want to have great film like this available 20 years from now buy some today and create some art!

Film is Dead. Long Live Film!!!

Sadly, Polaroid has decided to stop production of its instant film. Edwin Land must be turning in his grave. First patented in 1929, it appears that 2009 will be its last year in production. I doubt that the consumer market was buying all that much, and that most was used by professional photographers who used it as a preview of their exposure before exposing their normal film.

I wonder what this means for portrait photographers such as Elsa Dorfman?

But all is not so bleak for those of us who shoot film (now known as Analog Photography!). Kodak's Chief Executive Antonio Perez had some good things to say about the future of Film still photography, stating film was on their road map for the next 4 years since it still generates good revenue, article can be found here.

Additionally, Kodak has not only released new, improved emulsions for some of its Portra professional negative film, but they have also released a new emulsion for their T-Max 400 black and white negative print film as well! Who would have thought they would still be looking at black and white film!

Fuji is not standing still, either! They have recently released a new version of their iconic transparency Velvia 50. They also released new Pro films in 2005.

Even more impressive is Fuji's release of the Fuji GF670, a new 120 film, 6x7 folding rangefinder with a bellows!

Now if there was only some way to convince Kodak to make a new master roll of Kodachrome when the current batch runs out...

Well, there is one sure way to ensure that Kodak, Fuji, Ilford and all of the other film manufactures still make film 50 years from now - Buy it, shoot it, love it. Digital capture is awesome, but film is forever (especially if it is Kodachrome!).