[Book Review] Within the Frame - The Journey of Photographic Vision

[amazon ASIN=0321605020]Within the Frame - The Journey of Photographic Vision[/amazon] by David duChemin may easily be the most unusual - and best - book on photography that I have read this year. It is unusual in that it manages to bridge the gap between books about photography as art and photography as technique, delivering both. In my opinion, that is what photography is about.

The first chapter is devoted to vision - what it is that you see and want to communicate. The second chapter focuses on what feeling, idea, or impression you may want to capture and what subjects may show this to the viewer. The third chapter on gear and technique required to get the image you want. I think that the focus not on creating technically perfect pictures but on how to turn something you want to communicate into a picture is spot-on. The author really nails it here!

The fourth chapter is about storytelling in pictures - how to tell a story in a single frame or in a photo essay, how to create interest in the viewer. This chapter is a must if you want to go from mere visual candy to a four-course meal.

The next chapters are about photographing people, places, and culture. I really enjoyed the chapter about people (I love photographing people and got a number of useful tips and ideas from the chapter), but found that my attention flagged halfway through the places chapter, and did not pick up to the end of the book. It seems to me that the essential message of the previous chapters are repeated a bit too often.

The pictures in the book are compelling and beautiful, the printing is of high quality. You can find a number of them on his website at www.pixelatedimages.com if you are interested. Despite all of the pictures having been taken in what amounts to "exotic" locations for most people from Europe or North America, I would not say that it is about travel photography. Everything in the book applies to taking pictures of your home town. Maybe even more so than when you are abroad ...

I feel great respect for the way David duChemin approaches his subjects as human beings, not just props in his pictures. I feel the same way and I became aware of a lot of things that I have done without ever thinking about them. I have also learned a few very useful things about how to approach people.

The same applied for his treatment of technical aspects: he makes things that I have been doing intuitively become conscious decisions, giving me much more control. For example, I wish that I had read what he has to say about lens choices much earlier, it has taught me the value of wide-angle lenses, which I rarely use. This will definitely improve my ability to show my vision to the world. (Interestingly, he apparently went through a similar development, starting with telephoto lenses and only gradually learning to use wide lenses.)

Finally, I learned ever so much from his approach of treating photography as storytelling. If this is - as to me - a closed book (pun intended), you will benefit greatly from [amazon ASIN=0321605020]Within the Frame[/amazon].

As I mentioned before, my attention and interest flagged towards the last two chapters. Maybe it was just too much to absorb? Maybe the chapters are simply weaker than the previous ones? I do not know. But I do know that even without the last two chapters the book is definitely required reading for anyone interested in photographing people, so it gets five stars!

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Book Review: The Hot Shoe Diaries

Joe McNally's [amazon ASIN=0321580141]The Hot Shoe Diaries: Creative Applications of Small Flashes[/amazon] is about lighting using small flashes (strobes). If what you find on Strobist is not enough, this is the book to get.

Joe starts by describing his gear. He's a Nikon guy, clearly in love with his gear, and he clearly knows his stuff very well. I use Canon, so was there a problem? No. Most of what the Nikon strobes can do Canon can do too (and vice versa) so if you understand what he explains, it is quite simple to translate into the Canon world. Effectively you loose less than a dozen pages to "Nikonese".

Joe then presents a large number of his images, explaining how he lit each one of them. There is a lot of anecdotal background describing how he came to make each shot, which I found quite entertaining.

Speaking of which, Joe is very funny. I laughed out loud a number of times reading the book which is something that can not be said of many photography books. If photography and comedy turns you on, this may be the book for you ...

I found the description of how each image was created easy to understand and visualize (sketches are provided for the mor elaborate setups). Joe clearly is an experienced educator, I had no trouble following him and creating some of the effects.

The selection of images is quite useful as a number of concepts or different ways of lighting are explained which can then be combined for good effect in your own photos. While some pictures are way beyond my ambitions (I do not see myself rigging a dozen strobes to an airplane ... I do not have a dozen strobes :-)) most are directly applicable to situations and subjects that anyone might encounter. I learned a huge amount of practical knowledge.

To summarize: if you are interested in lighting using strobes, this is simply the book to get.

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Book Review: Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait

Michael Grecco's Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait starts of by discussing various camera systems (35 mm, medium format, and large format) and their particular characteristics.

Then a number of pictures are presented with diagrams and text describing exactly how the lighting was set up to achieve the desired result. This is extremely useful to help understand how the picture was made. Why on earth the client contact for the picture (usually art director so-and-so) is important in this context is beyond me, however ...

The remaining pictures are described without a diagram, but I had no trouble understanding the light after the previous chapter with diagrams.

I really like that Grecco not only explains the technical detail of the shot but also why he made it the way he did. Sometimes the reason is his creative vision, at other times it is a restraint that came up during the shoot (the subject objected, for  example) or the image evolved in the process of shooting, often in collaboration with the subject.

Grecco's method seems to involve a truckload of equipment and a horde of assistants and specialist. This should not intimidate the reader. Most of what Grecco describes can be achieved on a much lower budget using inexpensive speedlights and some tinkering (and gaffer tape ;-) - the same principles apply as with super-expensive studio lights.

The book is strongly recommended to anyone looking to improve their lighting skills, especially when photographing people.

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Book Review: Take Your Photography to the Next Level

George Barr Take Your Photography to the Next Level, From Inspiration to Image is a book about improving yourself as a photographer to create better images. Like Alain Briot's Mastering Landscape Photography is puts the photographer, the artist ahead of the equipment and the technique.

[Review] Unicomp Customizer 105 Keyboard

If you are old enough, you may remember the "original" IBM PC keyboard from the early 80s (yes, folks, that is 1980s!). The one memorable characteristic of that keyboard is probably the sheer noise of it. Every key press yields a loud, solid "thunk". I can not help but see a group of product designers before my mind's eye: "... we have got to make a keyboard that lets the boss know his secretary is working ... sounds like a real typewriter ... imagine an entire room full of these ..." and so on. :)

The real reason the keyboard was so loud is the switch technology employed. The bucking spring switch contains a spring that collapses (buckles) under pressure, giving tactile and audible feedback that the key press has been detected. More info in Wikipedia and Clickykeyboard.com.

A lot of people like the tactile feel of the keyboard as well as the ergonomics - apparently the fingers slow down less abruptly than with more modern (and cheaper) switches, so RSI is less of a risk. [I could not find a good source for this claim, so you may want to take it with a grain of salt.]

I happen to to be one of those people, so I went to the people who still make them, a small company called Unicomp, and bought a Customizer 105 with a USB interface and German keyboard layout.

The keyboard hooks up to any computer with a USB port and works like a ... keyboard. What did you expect? :-)

My office now sounds like I have my own secretary typing away at an ancient typewriter as I am writing this. My fingers are wonderful. I love the feel! It is way too early to comment on RSI ...

Apparently buckling spring switches last close to forever. My brother uses an original IBM PC model M keyboard to this day ... Which means that this keyboard should last me a decade or two. Then again, I have only had one keyboard malfunction mechanically in my entire life and if memory serves correctly, some object falling on it caused the damage. That, I guess, means that I can take mechanical robustness for granted.

Disadvantages? The price is stiff at $69 plus shipping. It is pretty loud. It is not exacly Apple design (it's apparently made on the very machines that made the original IBM model M). It lacks all of the fancy modern keys for volume control, iTunes playback, optical drive eject, etc. but the most important of the lot, optical drive eject, works by holding down F12.

Do I recommend it? Well, if you think about how much time your fingers spend on a keyboard every day, I would say that almost any amount of money is worth it if it makes your fingers happier. And you can always drown out the sound by turning up the volume in iTunes. :-)

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Microsoft Expression Media 2

It is probably not a good sign that about a week ago I noticed that Microsoft Expression Media has been updated to version 2. No, not the fact that a new version has been released is not a good sign - the new version was put into public beta in the first quarter of 2008 and the final version was released in the summer. So the product has managed to go completely unnoticed for at least half a year ... is that a sign that I am not paying attention to the usual news feeds and photography sites or that the product failed to generate any interest? I invite you read on and decide for yourself!

Rant: October 2008 Mac Book [Pro] Screen and Keyboard

Usually, I buy at least one Mac per year. Since my Mac Book Pro is about two years old, I was keen to upgrade to the new model. However, I will not be buying this generation (October 2008) of Mac Book Pro (or Mac Book, for that matter) for two simple reasons:

1. The glossy display is hard to see under the best of conditions. With only moderate levels of ambient light it turns into a mirror reflecting all kinds of things instead of showing what I want to see on screen. There is also the problem that glossy screens are much worse in a color calibrated environment due to color shifts with the viewing angle. Unfortunately, there is no option to select a non-glossy screen.

2. The keyboard is a piece of junk. Sorry for the blunt words, but fast touch typing is simply not possible on what feels like the cheapest and nastiest keyboard I have touched in years. A $5 keyboard bought at the supermarket is better than this.

So for my two most important applications, digital photo editing and typing text, the new Mac Book Pro is much worse than what I currently have, so I will refrain from updating and Apple looses the sale.

I hope that despite the strong words about the keyboard Apple take this as positive criticism and - perhaps - improve their product. I really would like to buy a new Mac Book Pro once I can justify the purchase. ;-)

Book Review: Mastering Landscape Photography

There are a few contemporary photographers who's work I find truly inspiring. Alain Briot is one of them. I know many of the places he photographs and his pictures capture their essence. I wish that I could transform what I see into a picture like he does.

So I was quite excited when I saw that Alain Briot has authored a book on his way of photographing landscapes.

Book Review: face to face

Rick Sammon's Complete Guide to Photographing People is just that: a comprehensive, in-depth look at how Rick Sammon takes pictures of human beings on his travels.

Rick starts by explaining that the camera looks both ways, which means that there is always an emotional connection (or lack thereof) between the photographer and his or her subject. This connection is at least as important as the technical aspects of taking the photo, since it determines the content. I believe that it is far too common for photographers to become far too focused on the technical aspects of photography instead of the content, so I like being reminded of this simple fact.

Book Review: Mastering Digital Black and White

In general, I dislike books that try to cover everything to do with digital photography because they are usually good on some subjects and poor on others. I feel that these books would benefit from a tighter focus on what the author is really good at.

Mastering Digital Black and White by Amadou Diallo covers a lot of ground, but it focusses completely on digital black and white photography. In fact, it is the most comprehensive book on the subject that I have found to date. What a pleasant surprise!

Book Review: Picture This - How Pictures Work

Picture This - How Pictures Work by Molly Bang

This is certainly the book that has surprised me most this year! Molly Bang uses four differently colored papers and cuts out shapes from them to make images. I was fascinated to see how simple shapes cut from paper can have such a powerful emotional impact. The woman is clearly a master.

Book Review: Digital Macro Photography by Ross Hoddinott

Digital Macro Photography by Ross Hoddinott starts by describing digital photography in general and the technology found in digital cameras. Various categories of digital cameras are discussed regarding their usefulness for closeup work.

The second chapter introduces various lenses, tripods, flash units, and other accessories useful for macro photography.

Canon G9 at 8 MP

A reader has an interesting question regarding the Canon G9 and Konica-Minolta A2 comparison:

If you were to switch G9 to a next-down image size (8MP, no?) would it improve a quality of an image?

(...)

Would this work in the same camera (the G9) if you merely changed the settings? Would ISO400 look more like ISO 200? Could ISO 800 be used at all? How does it all compare to A2?

Interesting question!

Comparing the 2004 Konica Minolta A2 with the 2007 Canon G9

I have used a Konica-Minolta DiMAGE A2, which was a fairly high-end super-zoom camera in 2004, for about 4 years. In the fall of 2007, I purchased a Canon G9. So how much progress has there been in the last 3+ years?

Measuring Konica-Minolta DiMAGE A2 Sensor Noise

My sensor measurement series (G9 and 5D) continues. This time, I measured a Konica-Minolta DiMAGE A2, a 8MP camera which was introduced in 2004. How does it compare to a modern 12MP Canon G9?

	Konica-Minolta DiMAGE A2	Canon G9
ISO 64 / 80
ISO 100
ISO 200
ISO 400
ISO 800
ISO 1600	N/A

Up to ISO 100 there is little difference between the cameras. At ISO 200 and above the 12MP sensor of the G9 shows more noise than the 3 year older 8MP sensor of the A2.

According to dpreview.com the DiMAGE A2 has a 2/3" (8.80 x 6.60 mm) sensor. The G9 sensor is a 1/1.7" (7.60 x 5.60 mm) unit. In other words: the pixel pitch is much smaller on the G9. Noise seems to be inversely proportional to the pixel pitch, so it is not surprising that the G9 does worse than the A2.

What happens when the images are run through Noise Ninja?

	Konica-Minolta DiMAGE A2 (Noise Ninja)	Canon G9 (Noise Ninja)
ISO 64 / 80
ISO 100
ISO 200
ISO 400
ISO 800
ISO 1600	N/A

Up to ISO 200, there is little difference between the cleaned up images. At ISO 400 there is slightly more noise in the G9 image, but the difference is very slight. At ISO 800 the A2 image seems definitely cleaner than the G9 image.

I am surprised that in three years there is no improvement in sensor noise. Well, there might have been if you where to create a 2/3" 8MP sensor with todays technology, but unfortunately there is no such product.

Measuring Canon EOS 5D Sensor Noise

I continued my sensor noise measurements, this time with a Canon EOD 5D. The setup was the same as previously, the only change being the exact location of the WhiBal card.

Surprisingly (at least to me) there is a little noise evident even at the very lowest ISO settings.

Measuring Canon G9 Sensor Noise

I recently decided that a new tool would be nice and that I needed a fairly compact camera that performs well under low light conditions. Both the Canon G9 and the Panasonic DMC-FZ18 seemed interesting from their specs. [I also looked at FujiFilms offering because in the past they performed very well at high ISO. Unfortunately, a camera with the SuperCCD and image stabilization is currently missing from their model lineup.]
Trawling the net for hard information on sensor noise for these fairly new cameras proved to be a frustrating experience. There seems to be very little information available that allows a good comparison of various cameras. Yes, I know there are many snapshots available, but the conditions under which they are taken varies greatly.
The big review sites (I personally prefer dpreview.com) are somewhat better, but none had a review of both cameras online. In fact, dpreview had published a review on neither camera.
So I decided to create my own test setup to determine how the cameras that I have access to perform and to allow a comparison. Because I just got it, I started with the Canon G9.

Skymaster DVR 7400

I purchased a Skymaster DVR 7400 digital satellite receiver with time-shift capability. In the box is the receiver itself and a plastic remote control plus the batteries for the remote as well as a user manual with instructions. The receiver appears well-built and sold from the outside. The remote is a bit on the light side of comfortable and doesn't feel pleasant in my hands. It is perfectly useable, however, so I won't complain.

Hooking the receiver up was a snap: connect the satellite feed to the satellite input and one of the two SCART outputs to the TV. There is also an S-Video output as well as an optical S/PDIF digital and RCA analog stereo audio outputs all of which I did not use.

Upon turning on the receiver it automatically found the Astra 19.2°E satellite that my dish is aligned to (this is a no-brainer since it is practically the default satellite here) and tuned in the channels. Wonderful!

The EPG (electronic program guide) implementation is strange: it seems to download all data in real-time, so that it often takes a while to actually get information. There is a hard drive in the device, so why isn't the information cached there? And while I am wondering: why is the program description slowly scrolled in a separate window automatically every 5 seconds or so instead of allowing me to scroll manually at my own pace?

The EPG is optimized to show what is on a single channel (or up to 4 different channels) for the next few hours. This works well and could be improved by a mode that shows what is on all the different channels at the same time.

It is fairly easy to program a show for recording: a simple button press and after that a confirmation is all that is required. It is less easy to see what was actually programmed afterwards, you have to scroll through pages of individual timer settings which do not seem to have the show title set reliably.

The recording seems to consistently start 2 minutes late. The only way to work around this that I could find was to manually set the start time earlier.

Playback works fine some of the time. I had one show which started skiping about 25 minutes into the recording. There where short (1-5s) pauses in playback every minute or so. After 30 minutes the receiver froze and had to be rebooted to accept any input at all from the remote. This behavior was consistently repeatable.

I had recorded the same show off the same satellite feed using the ElGato EyeTV and everything was fine. The problem was clearly not with the feed. I suspect a hardware or software bug in the receiver.

The manufacturers website did not offer any helpful advice. There was a kind offer to call a premium-rate number for support, an offer which I politely declined, as I always do. The receiver was bought as an entertainment device. I do not find bugs to be entertaining, quite on the contrary. So I gave the device back and will spend my money on something else.

2 stars out of 5.

Review: Elgato EyeTV 310

I purchased an Elgato EyeTV 310 which is a digital satellite tuner and personal video recorder for the Mac. It will decode DVB-S which is what most(*) digital TV and radio satellite feeds are. The feeds can be saved to the hard drive and time-shifted or edited and/or converted and burned to CD or DVD.

(*) Most are DVB-S. Most high-definition feeds are DVB-S2 (which uses MPEG-4 instead of MPEG-2 for compression) which the EyeTV 310 does not decode. If you want to receive HD satellite feeds, this is not the product for you.

The EyeTV 310 is a small box that has a connector for the satellite feed, power, and two Firewire 400 (IEEE-1394) ports. Plug it all in, install the software from CD, and get going ... Except that when I did, nothing happened. The EyeTV did not find any channels.

I knew the satellite feed was good because it worked with a stand-alone receiver. I tried various settings, but nothing helped. So I contacted Elgato tech support using the website. Within less than a day, I had a knowledgeable, friendly reply. No boilerplate, no automated junk, a real human tech-support contact. I was pleased.

What the tech suggested did not work, so I made some screen shots and saved some log files, wrapped them up in a .zip archive and sent another email. Within a minute of sending the email, my message had been entered into the tracking system on the Elgato website. This time, I was amazed.

I though Elgato would fumble the ball on a same-day response, but I got an answer later that evening from my original support contact. No playing hot potato, the guy who knew the case kept it. The message was friendly and again very helpful. Someone clearly knows his stuff here!

The tech suggested that I try eliminating all the pieces of equipment starting at the LNB to find out what was causing the problem - he thought that despite the stand-alone receiver working the EyeTV was not getting a signal.

O.K., I will admit it: I was skeptical. After all, I had seen it work, right? But the next day, I sat down and did what I should have done from the start, I eliminated the possible causes for the error one by one.

Guess what? It turns out that I was using a bad cable. Swap the cable and the box works like a charm. At this point, I was ecstatic, and I let the tech know.

So how does the EyeTV perform? On a lowly Mac mini Core Duo with 1 GB RAM, the CPU utilization is just above idling when I watch a TV feed or listen to a radio feed. The picture quality is excellent, as you would expect from a digital feed. There is no discernible lag in frame rate, decompression artifacts, or other weirdness.

Most DVB-S feeds come with program information. In a view slightly resembling iCal, all the channels and programing are listed. A simple click on an entry brings up additional descriptions. To schedule a recording, a single button press is enough. There is nothing else to configure.

EyeTV also comes with a one year subscription to an EPG (electronic program guide) service which should list all feeds, even if they do not broadcast program information. I have not tried this because the Mac mini is offline.

Once a feed has been recorded, it becomes available for playback, editing, or archiving. If you happen to have Toast, EyeTV will pretty much automate burning a feed to DVD. That's a nice touch.

There are some things the EyeTV software could do better: there seems to be no way to show all program entries of a certain type (say all movies or all documentaries) in the EPG view, for example. I would also have liked the level indicator to correctly show that the EyeTV was not getting a signal when I was troubleshooting. It would be nice to have more options in organizing the channel list.

But by and large, this is not just a good product, it is excellent and though much more expensive than a Windows solution well worth the money. I was (and still am) impressed by the support I got. Good support is hard and not cheap, but Elgato seems to go the extra proverbial mile to deliver it.

Parallels Desktop for Mac and International Customers

In order to run Microsoft Windows software on my Intel Mac, I use the fine software Parallels Desktop for Mac (referred to as "Parallels" from now on). It runs everything I have thrown at it up to now and it is getting beter and faster with each new release.

The only annoying technical limitation is that Direct X does not work, so modern games are out of the question. But who needs games on a work machine, right? :D

There is a problem with Parallels, Inc. and the way they handle their overseas business, however: we are being treated as second rate, at best.

Let me explain: "Paralles" (the software) is not localized in a technical sense. Customers anywhere in the world get the same American English version of the software. This is no problem for me and it should not be for anyone because Parallels, Inc. makes no claim of language localization.

However, the activation key used to activate the software is different in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. I have no idea why this is so, but I assume that it is because of some business problem this approach fixes. Again, I have no issues with this.

What I object to is that beta versions of the software, which Paralles, Inc. makes available months before a new release (again, a move that I applaud) require an activation key which must be a U.S. activation key. International keys do not work. International users must request a new demo key every 30 days until the system locks them out for requesting too many keys.

Do international customers have less of a need for new features? Have international users paid less than U.S. users to justify this treatment? Are international users challenged in some way when dealing with beta software?

But wait, it gets better: you also can not upgrade to the latest final version of the software until several days after the U.S. customers get to do so. And (as opposed to the beta version) Parallels will not tell you that this is so.

I downloaded the newest version (1986) right after it was released on 27-FEB-2007 because an email message from Parallels, Inc. urged me to. The new software simply rejected my activation key. So I contacted Parallels,Inc. support using the form on their website. I made it clear that I am a paying customer (I gave them my key) and requested assistance. I am still waiting for a reply today (05-MAR-2007).

A few days later Parallels, Inc. quietly published a different version of the software that is called "Parallels-Desktop-3186-Mac-uk-AQ" and only available using the built-in update function, it seems. This version installs and activates without a hitch. Unfortunately, I was not told about it by Parallels, Inc. like I was with the U.S. version and I could not find this version on the website.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that for some unfathomable reason, international customers are only second rate customers in the way Parallels, Inc. treats us. I can only hope that this is due to a flaw in the way the company handles it's processes and not a deliberate decision.

I'd really like to hear from a representative of Parallels, Inc. on this issue, but - alas - I have not received a reply yet.