Robert's Ramblings

366 Days of 2012, Day 139 - St Peter's Cathedral

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Thu, 17 May 2012 23:30:19 +0900

Adelaide is known for being the 'City of Churches'.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 139 - St Peter's Cathedral'. 2.5 secs at f/16 ISO 2000 20mm

366 Days of 2012, Day 138 - Autumn Crimson

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:30:05 +0900

It's funny how when things change slowly you can miss the obvious. All around me trees had been changing their colours from greens to yellow and crimson right in front of me and I had scarcely noticed.

When Jennifer pointed out the colours of the liquidambar tree in my parent's front garden, suggesting how nice a photo it would be, it was like opening my eyes for the first time to the colours of autumn.

The moral of this story for me that all work and no plays makes ...

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 138 - Autumn Crimson'. 1/200 sec at f/4.0 ISO 400 105mm

366 Days of 2012, Day 137 - Ghostly Ivories

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:13 +0900

There is nothing supernatural about these hands by sight but over a long exposure they become but a ghostly apparition leaving behind haunting notes.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 137 - Ghostly Ivories'. 1/2 sec at f/4.0 ISO 2000 67mm

366 Days of 2012, Day 136 - Duck Conversation

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:42:55 +0900

There are plenty of stories about ducks. They feature in Aesops' famous fables, early 19th century US congress and of course our local Canberra. I am led to believe however that ducks are quite intelligent!

I'm sure these three little ducks in the Greenock Tavern are having quite a spirited debate about the state of affairs!

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 136 - Duck Conversation'. 1/13 sec at 85mm f/4.0, ISO 2000

366 Days of 2012, Day 135 - Tulips for Mum

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:14:26 +0900

This mother's day mum got something a little exotic, these beautiful pink tulips. Of course I had to photograph them first but I want to try something a little exotic as well!

I wanted to back light but I also wanted to show off the beautiful colour. I took many shots with strobe only with a mixed bag of results. Again this was a daylight shoot so I needed to swamp the image with light so keep the background black. In the end I got the effect I wanted by hand holding the strobe behind and using a soft reflector in front to through back a little light to bring out the colour

This image is also a little larger than before as I am experimenting with new sizes for web publishing.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 135 - Tulips for Mum'. 1/200 sec at 100mm f/22, ISO 400

366 Days of 2012, Day 134 - Beautiful Boats

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Sun, 13 May 2012 02:00:39 +0900

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 134 - Beautiful Boats'. 8 secs at 65mm f/4.0, ISO 1000

366 Days of 2012, Day 133 - Twinkly Adelaide

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Sat, 12 May 2012 01:06:43 +0900

Adelaide just sparkles when it's all lit up! Just pick anywhere along the Torrens in Elder Park, put your camera on a sturdy tripod and take a long exposure.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 132 - Twinkly Adelaide. 13 secs at 15mm f/13, ISO 400 crop

366 Days of 2012, Day 132 - Lamp Lit Fishers

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Thu, 10 May 2012 23:31:00 +0900

No matter how cold, or how late or how windy you will almost alway find fishers on our local jetties.

I once heard what I was told was an ancient Polynesian saying that 'the gods do not take from a man's life the time spent fishing'. It would seem this old couple might just know something.

I love natural light night photography because images taken this way really draw me to the place and the occasion. They are of course quite challenging however to do well. Working with low light, long exposures and moving images is simply is all part of the fun and sometime a little luck works its magic as well.

A very sturdy tripod is mandatory for long exposures and I cannot stress how important this really is. A flimsy tripod will wobble in the slightest breeze blurring long exposure images. I have even seen some enthusiasts use tripods made of steel and concrete for extreme telephoto astronomical photography where stability really matters.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 132 - Lamp Lit Fishers'. 5 secs at 17mm f/11, ISO 800 crop

366 Days of 2012, Day 131 - Iron Pickets

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Wed, 09 May 2012 23:31:00 +0900

I think it's amazing the variety of styles and materials and states of care that suburban front fences cover.

While out and about today I was noticing how there were fence themes in clusters as I made my way while out driving through the suburbs. There were brush themes, colourbond themes, wrought iron themes and stone pillar themes just to name a few. The clusters clearly showed how neighbors like to copy each other's ideas.

As I drove through down one particularly lovely and shady tree line street one fence really stood out. I guess it was quite an ordinary fence really but the combination of painted wrought iron, sandy stone pillars, immaculate garden and beautifully maintained old bungalow just worked!

I pulled over, jumped out of the my car and framed one image!! My fastest photo shoot ever!

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 131 - Iron Pickets'. 1/100 sec at 40mm f/4.0, ISO 160

366 Days of 2012, Day 130 - Leaky Boat

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:55:05 +0900

If you spent six months in this leaky boat you'd be be well fed, have a fantastic water view but the rest of the experience would deteriorate rapidly from there!

The challenge is to work out where it is!

This is my third HDR image and I must admit that it is a lot of fun with endless possibilities for artistic input. This is however my first image with my image workflow under control. It goes something like this.

1. Capture the raw frames and store in my primary workspace.
2. Edit the render settings for the raw images and export them as temporary 16bit tiff input files (discarded later).
3. Process the HDR image and then export both the XMP settings file with the tone mapping details and the HDR output file as a 16bit TIFF back to be stored with the original raw files.
4. Complete any post processing treating the HDR output files as a new raw file.

Basically this process ensures I can recreate verbatim the same processing from raw files to final rendered JPG again in the future so I never ever need to store a range of rendered JPG files. I simply render the JPG files I need when I need them and I can revisit the HDR process if I need using virtual copies of the original raw file in order to distinguish different HDR processing paths. This last point is imported as I may want to use multiple HDR images in a layer stack for more artistic control. Then again maybe I won't.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 130 - Leaky Boat'. 1/(125,640,2500) sec at 40mm f/11, ISO 500 hdr

366 Days of 2012, Day 129 - Grimy Graffiti

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:31:00 +0900

Adelaide has some wonderful graffiti artists whose talents are evident in any number of public places. This is not one of them!

Here this grotty opportunistic scrawl in the makeshift canvas of grime on steel has more to do with attitude than art. Strong words, names and filth marked this place.

I felt the need to capture this scene but not to linger any longer than I needed.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 129 - Grimy Graffiti'. 1/5 sec at 17mm f/22, ISO 200

366 Days of 2012, Day 128 - Incensity

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Sun, 06 May 2012 23:50:00 +0900

I've been imagining photographing candles for a while now. Thinking about the different aspects of flame and smoke.

While working today at my desk I became aware of a sweet cinnamon aroma permeating the house. I looked for the source of the smell and all of a sudden I realised the smoke from the incense my daughter was burning would make a very interesting subject.

So armed with a 100mm macro lens and strobe on a sync cord I caught four images before the burning ended and the smoke vanished.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 128 - Incensity'. 1/200 sec at 100mm f/25, ISO 100 + strobe

366 Days of 2012, Day 127 - Rotting Colour

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Sun, 06 May 2012 10:07:00 +0900

The problem with HDR is how to manage it!

This image taken here at West Beach, a clump of rotten seaweed is actually 3 images taken 2 stops apart. The role and legitimacy that HDR processing has in photography is beyond the scope of this post but once a digital image maker has chosen this path there is a very big workflow challenge immediately faced.

We now have very good image processing workflow tools such as Aperture and Lightroom which model workflow on non-destructive additive steps. Put simply, we start with our original and each step of process such as tonal, colour, sharpness or touch up is laid out in steps which define how the final image will look without ever changing the original.

With HDR we are in trouble unless care is taken to integrate your HDR tool such as Photoshop or Photomatix into your particular workflow such that the integrity and repeatability of the process can be managed from originals to final rendering.

A good process will achieve the following points:

1. The process should preserve all original images and clearly link them back to the final rendered HDR image.
2. The process should minimise any intermediate images that need to be kept. Preferably there should be none but mostly one intermediate can't be avoided.
3. The HDR process settings should be kept as in-image metadata if possible otherwise a setting file needs to be kept independently for each final.

So why does this matter? With the size of digital raw files now coming from recent 20-40 megapixel cameras it is quite easy to take up to 500MB or more per image in a HDR project. Any process which creates or needs multiple copies will not only burn your hard drive but also make managing your HDR project messy and unwieldy. The second issue is that more often than not you will want to come back to your originals and make a little tweak here or there or produce new rendered final images of different quality or sizes. A well constructed and disciplined workflow will make this easy and not the nightmare it otherwise could become.

Have a play with HDR for a little fun and something new but if you get the bug then get your workflow sorted out quickly or you risk being buried!

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 127 - Rotting Colour'. 0.5+2+8 sec at 17mm f/22, ISO 100 hdr

366 Days of 2012, Day 126 - Captive

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Sat, 05 May 2012 14:39:00 +0900

Where do you keep your prisoners? In your dungeon of course! Well nowadays we call it a cellar and our prisoners are wine, preserves, potatoes, onions and other goodies!

When I grew up our dungeon was this amazing room under the house, full of cobwebs, damp musty smells and produce long forgotten. My parents had stopped going down there due to the stooping required to navigate the awkward steps and so we were sent on occasional errands for one thing or another. If anything down there was forgotten, it stayed that way.

Where we now live we have no dungeon. I'm sure they must have gone out of fashion some time back in the 70s. I miss those musty smells and those cobwebs. The next home we buy will have a dungeon for sure!!

So how do we keep our prisoners captive with no dungeon? In string bags!

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 126 - Captive' 6 sec at 40mm f/16, ISO 100

366 Days of 2012, Day 125 - Norwood Rings

nospam@example.com (Robert) — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:01:00 +0900

I love some of the beautiful expressions of cultural and civic pride we have adorned our city with. This sculpture in particular caught my attention a couple of years back and I have only now made an effort to go out of my way to photograph it.

Here's just one of the many quotes that can be read from the rings.

'Going back 50 years ago I recall fond memories of walking down Margaret Street on warm summer evenings and taking in the festive atmosphere created by the Italian families who would sit on their front porches eating, drinking, laughing and talking to one another across the street.'

It was quite busy around 7pm and trying to get a nice long exposure without glaring white car headlights presented a bit of a challenge. In the end I compromised on a high ISO and decreased F-Stop to limit the exposure to 20 seconds.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 125 - Norwood Rings'. 20 sec at 17mm f/10, ISO 800