Monday I got my new camera. Let’s call it Bill. It’s a Nikon D700. It’s more camera than a hobbyist deserves, but it’s sweet. You hear about the middle-age guy, going through a life crisis, purchasing a Porsche. This is my Porsche.

I’ve only made it halfway through the manual. There are still buttons that I do not know how to use. But my initial impression, using only a 50mm prime lens, is that this camera is amazing. The pics look great, right out of the camera.

Here are a few samples:

Had the pleasure of helping Amy horsesit Dr. Suzanne Duncan’s two horses, the mare Grace, and her new foal Liberty Belle. I took a few pictures of them, but I wasn’t satisfied with how they came out. Enter Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, and Photomatix Pro.

Here is the final product (click to see it bigger):

But this is what it looked like straight out of the camera:

I used Lightroom and Photoshop to convert the Raw file to a 16-bit TIFF file, sharpen it slightly, and adjust the contrast. This represents my usual workflow with a Raw file out of the camera. This made it look like this:

I then used Lightroom to create five separate versions of the picture, adjusting the exposure up and down 2 stops:

I exported these five files into Photomatix Pro and used this to tonemap the picture into an high dynamic range or HDR image:

This looked interesting, but I wasn’t satisfied with how the sky looked. So I open this back up in Photoshop, applied a gradual mask to the background and used a Color EFx Pro filter to add the illusion of fog to the sky, resulting in the final picture you see above.

Sounds like a lot of work to salvage what is still a mediocre image, but it was a fun exercise in creativity.

I am judging a monthly photo contest on an online photography forum. The theme is Summertime. I have to pick the winners from the following photos, according to the technical and creative aspects of the photographs, in accordance with the theme. Anyone want to help? Tell me in the comments section which ones work for you:

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Playing around with Photoshop to see if I can create a faked Tilt-Shift miniature.

Here’s the before:

Here’s the after:

I need some practice, but it’s a fun effect.

Back in May, for Jack’s birthday, we got him a Panasonic DMC-TS1 compact digital camera. Any excuse to get a new camera in the house is good for me. I chose this camera because it is supposed to be tough. Impact resistant. And water resistant to 10 feet. This afternoon we took it to the beach, and I put it to test.

Diving in to the waves, snapping pictures while body surfing, not worrying about the water…made me realize that Panasonic has produced a real winner with the Lumix TS1. Mistreat it and it’ll still turn in better photos than many other digital cameras on the market. 12 MP. Movies. Great 28-120 mm lens. Sharp images without worry about beach abuse. Love it!

As the boats were all leaving the harbor, a raincloud came overhead and temporarily tried to block the sun. As a spritz of raindrops fell, it was the perfect setup for a rainbow.

This picture, however, is totally faked. (Sorry.)

I missed all of the fun, but apparently there are numerous activities after school this week, to try to help the week pass with the television sets off. One of these activities yesterday included Claudia Kronenberg giving the NES kids a photo workshop. I’m a little jealous!

Here are some pics from the event:

I want to learn to do tilt-shift photography. I love the toy effect. It involves using tilt-shift, perspective control lenses, to take a wide angle picture and make it look like a miniature scene.

The photographs are strange and inviting when done correctly.

However, on the video sharing site Vimeo, there is a Sydney photography (Keith Loutit) that combines tilt-shift techniques with time-lapse videography. The effect is mesmerizing.

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Here’s the problem. Perspective control lenses are expensive and hard to use! Maybe one day…

Let’s try a photo post to see how it looks.

This is meant to show a photo SOOC (straight out of camera) and what it looks like when I am done processing it using Photoshop and/or Lightroom.

Here is the before:

And here is the after:

In this particular case, I did not need to change the exposure, but I added some “Vibrance” and “Clarity” in Lightroom.

I’m also posting this to see how it will work to use the Smugmug site to host the pics for the blog, and how the two will integrate.