Articles
March 31st, 2009 by D-Photo
Title: Lucy
Photographer: Charles Brittain
Location: The beach
Description: A day at the beach taking photos and was really happy with the way this photo of Lucy came out.
Camera: Canon EOS 450D
Settings: ISO 100, f10, 1/200 sec
Title: Temperamental Musician
Photographer: Heather Mickelson
Location: Mangakino
Camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC – FZ18
Settings: Focal Length 1.1, F/4.0, ISO 100
Title: Who’s there?
Photographer: Darren Patterson
Description: Our midwife was over for a check up and was listening to the baby’s heart. Jake our other son wanted to hear too. I love the look on his face trying to hear a heartbeat.
Camera: Canon 1000SD
Title: Shall I…
Photographer: Magaret Penney
Description: We came across this water feature while out walking and granddaughter could not resist the temptation to feel the water.
Camera: Canon 40D
Settings: F8, 1/500
Title: Fun hair day
Photographer: Norman Wallace
Location: Indoors
Description: I was lying on the floor taking photos of young grandchildren at their level when 8 year old Rachel started to bounce a soft inflatable ball off grandpa.
Camera: Panasonic DCN FZ18
Settings: Auto, 1/80 sec, F2.8, !SO 800
Title: How many teeth?
Photographer: Sara McIntyre
Location: Whakapapa River
Description: Capturing my grandchildren’s delight at watching, then inspecting the evening catch on the Whakapapa River.
Camera: Nikon D200
Settings: ISO 400, F/5.3, 1/45 sec
Title: Now where has the ball gone?
Photographer: Peter Ching
Description: Grandson playing first game of football
Camera: Canon G9
Settings: 250 sec/5.6
Title: What goes on in the heads of children learning to play?
Photographer: Eric Camplin
Description: Drawing on concrete little one thinks you did not draw this its yellow; or perhaps she is saying put it here lady!
Camera: Sony A100
Settings:F5.6 1/50 sec
March 30th, 2009 by D-Photo
Warmest greetings to all readers and a fervent wish the dreaded recession does not bite anyone too hard.
Spent Xmas at home but went south in December on a most enjoyable trip with friends from Malaysia. For much of the trip I relied on the Canon G7, a camera small enough to slip in the pocket and a relief from shouldering my camera bag with its heavy artillery inside.
For our visitors Glenys, Sham and their daughter Zalia, it was a dramatic change of climate and scenery and their main hope was to visit Aoraki Mt Cook. The fine bracing weather and the light traffic on the near deserted highways was, they told us, such a contrast to travel around tropical Kuala Lumpur.
Our first stop after leaving the early morning ferry at Picton was Saint Arnaud at Lake Rotoiti. Fine weather at the lake was a good start to the trip and the large motel was one of the best we stayed in on our trip. Taking an early morning walk to the lakefront I watched a happy young German couple set up their hefty tripod with Pentax on top, then lie down on the small jetty and let the self-timer capture the action. The only other movement on the flat calm lake was a couple of kayakers paddling in the distance.
We opted for the scenic route down the West Coast to Punakaiki, where the walk to the famed blowhole and Pancake Rocks has been upgraded, and there is no charge to visit the Blowhole Park with its graded paths that thread through a grove of nikau palms and skirt the clifftops.
Hokitika, and an early morning walk on the wide lonely beach with its backdrop of crashing surf was a good start to the day. Later we split up and I walked through the clean wide streets, and stopped at the war memorial clock tower in Weld Street with its numerous memorial plaques, one of which is a reminder of our imperial past. It reads ‘Commemorative of The Coronation of His Majesty Edward VII King Of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India and King Of The British Dominions Beyond The Seas – Crowned 9 August 1902’. Another plaque is to the troopers from “Westland” who sailed off to fight in far off South Africa during the Boer War.
Showery weather shadowed us to Haast. On the way we stopped at Lake Matheson, but thick cloud cover foiled any traditional pictures of the reflected images in the placid lake of Aoraki Mt Cook, Tasman or the other peaks. At Haast DoC has put up a most impressive building which boasts displays of the flora and fauna of the area, plus the courteous staff and excellent toilets make it worth a visit.
The highway to Lake Wanaka from Haast runs through stands of native bush, rimu, beech and totara and is never far from the Haast River. It is big country and way back in 1951, while working for the old Weekly News, I saw quite a bit of it when I linked up with a couple of Government deer shooters, Murray McDowell and Jack Wildermoth, at their camp in the Landsborough. Both men were bushman of the highest order, crack shots and fitter and harder than many SAS troopers I have mixed with. The gruelling and exhausting two weeks I spent with them while they hunted and shot deer are among my special memories. Camera I carried then was a 120 Rolleiflex plus a dozen rolls of film.
The luxurious beech forests of the Haast gave way to the drier tussock land of Otago as we drove along the shores of Lake Wanaka. Wildflowers, rosehip and others were in full bloom and the late afternoon sun backlit the mountains of the Mt Aspiring national park. It was a pleasure to click frame after frame, and amazing how short photo stops ate up the time.
Our stopover that night was at the Outlet Motor Camp at the neck of Lake Wanaka, an idyllic location sited where Lake Wanaka gives birth to the Clutha River.
A cool windy day and a quick visit to Queenstown found me walking down Beach Street in this now strange tourist town with its sprawling hotels and ceaseless traffic. But the view looking up Lake Wakatipu to Walter Peak and Mt Nicholas Station looked frozen in time and the SS Earnslaw conveniently sailed into the picture I was taking.
We drove south down the lake and found a picnic site complete with solid tables near the old Fairlight Railway Station. Fairlight is the end of the rail line for the Kingston Flyer, the train that became a NZ legend for many years due to the memorable advert featuring the Milky Bar Kid.
At Lake Te Anau I met an English tourist wearing his Canon G10 like a badge of office. Yes he bought it in Hong Kong for what he felt was a real bargain, £400, and the shop had thrown in a case, plus 2GB card. I did not like to tell him he could have bought the same camera from old mate Greg Bramwell at Photo & Video for quite a bit less, and the instruction book would have been in English, not Cantonese like his.
Heading back north again we made a quick detour to visit the lonely, haunting Bendigo goldfields, a side trip worth the effort and once again the cameras went into overdrive.
Back down the dusty road and on over the Lindis Pass, as empty and silent as the Sahara Desert, and then it was up that most incredible, beautiful of all valleys, the Ahuriri. Halfway up the wide valley is Ben Avon Station where our very good friends, Jim and Mary Anne Morris, live. They treated us to a huge country-style afternoon tea. Later we walked over the tussock paddocks to inspect a huge draught horse and her 3 day old foal.
Aoraki Mt Cook via an overnight stay in Twizel came with the hope of a fine day. Earlier the day was overcast but when brilliant sunshine broke for our visitors we felt great relief that they could spend a wondrous day walking the tracks and photographing around the Aoraki Mt Cook Village. Also enjoyed a visit to DoC’s extensive premises where there is even a replica of a back country hut.
Finally Christchurch and after an evening meal at a very upmarket fish and chip café, where the toilets were marked as ‘Dunnies’, it was time to bid farewell to our mates from Malaysia.
All photos Peter Bush
March 26th, 2009 by D-Photo
The 2008 Lennart Nilsson Award for scientific photography was presented to Swedish physician Anders Persson, MD, PhD, in recognition of his innovative techniques for capturing 3D images inside the human body. These new techniques have proven particularly useful for post-mortem imaging, providing invaluable information for forensic investigation. The prize, now celebrating its 10th anniversary, is considered by many to be the world’s most prestigious award in scientific and medical photography.
The Lennart Nilsson Award is presented annually in honour of the world-renowned Swedish photographer, who has been exploring imaging frontiers at the medical university Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm for decades. Like Nilsson, Dr Persson has developed methods for capturing images inside the body, revealing what was previously invisible to the human eye.
In selecting Anders Persson, the board of the Lennart Nilsson Award Foundation stated: “Persson’s imaging methods combine cutting-edge technology with great artistry and educational value. He reveals the hidden mysteries of the body with unique precision, producing images that can be understood and interpreted by the lay public and experts alike.”
Dr Persson is Director of the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV) at Linköping University and the University Hospital in Linköping, Sweden, where he has developed 3-D imaging technology with considerable success. Dr Persson and his colleagues produce their images of the inside of the human body using a combination of imaging techniques including magnetic resonance, ultrasound and positron emission tomography. After capturing these initial images, Persson compiles them into pictures of great clarity that are rich in data.
The Lennart Nilsson Award, started in 1998, is administered by Karolinska Institutet.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the prize, the Lennart Nilsson Award Foundation arranged a photography exhibition at Galleri Kontrast in Stockholm. To view go to www.gallerikontrast.se
All photos Anders Persson
March 24th, 2009 by D-Photo
Transform the mood of your landscape with a splash of colour. Mark Webster shows you how
With a focus on landscapes, I decided to explore the possibilities of manipulating colours and tones to change the seasonal aspect of my image. These techniques can be used artistically to create a different tonal mood, to mislead (‘crikey, it’s freezing here!’), or to improve your image if it fails to replicate the seasonal aspect of the landscape you took. You can also create a landscape image that looks old, perhaps for a newsletter.
Making an image look sunnier or colder is pretty elementary. Colours may be warm (oranges and yellows), cold (blues), or neutral. Greens can be made more verdant (spring), dusty (mid-summer), or dulled down for winter.
If you were on holiday at a perfect location, but you only photographed it on the last day when it happened to be cloudy, this would not accurately reflect your experience, so you may wish to manipulate the image to suit.
Whatever the reason, let’s see what we can do. (Please note: this tutorial assumes you’re using an RGB colour image.)
In The Shadows
The fundamentals of these tips will work in Photoshop Elements 2, but I’m now using Version 3, in which you can hit the Quick Fix button and get a handy before and after view above (or beside) each other on the monitor – this is great for seeing how far you’ve deviated from the original as you go.
The subject I’m starting with was shot in the Kauaeranga Valley near Thames on a pretty flawless day this January.
There is a lot of shadow detail because I shot the original on a Canon G5 5-megapixel digital – the CMOS sensors read amazing amounts in the shadows compared to some other digitals.
Add Some Warmth
I can easily make this scene look ‘hotter’: harsh sunlight picks out highlights and throws them into stark relief against the deep shadows, so I just need to make the light harsher and the shadows deeper by boosting contrast a little, then increase warmth by adding some yellow light across the spectrum. In Quick Fix, I boosted the contrast by 50 per cent, comparing it to the image above and then eased the colour temperature slider to the right into the warmer range. Not bad…
To do a perfect job, I should put a little blue back into the sky, as now it looks artificial. Hit the Standard Edit button to exit out of Quick Fix, ‘Save As’ the image to preserve the original, giving it a new name, and now I can select the sky area. In this image I can do it quickly, holding down the Shift key and multiple clicking with the Magic Wand – if I ever hit the wrong area and select too much, I just choose Undo in the Edit menu.
Because the water reflects the sky, that should be changed too. So where it’s clearly reflecting the sky, I have also added that to the selection.
Once happy, go to the Select menu and choose Feather, typing in ‘3’ so the edges of the selection blend three pixels into their surroundings. This ensures you don’t get any harsh edges.
Hit Quick Fix again, back the tint left into the blue range until happy, and there we are.
The only thing I’m not happy with is that the rocks look a little too yellow in relation to that blue sky. I desaturated them using the Sponge tool with a brush of 300 pixels and flow set to 25 per cent. A few sweeps later, I’m satisfied.
I could have made the sky completely blue, getting rid of the clouds by using a gradient tool set with a lighter and slightly darker blue selected from the original sky (no sky is uniform blue), then clicking and dragging over the selection, but it was too hard getting an accurate selection around the edges of the foliage. This would be a definite possibility with other subjects that have harder boundaries, eg between sky and buildings.
Anyway, that does the trick for this image.
Winter Blues
Now for a bit of fun, lets make a winter scene. We won’t go as crazy as making icicles, but let’s see how far we can go.
Open the original image again and Save As with a different name, again to preserve the original untouched.
It pays to think about what lighting conditions apply in real winter scenes. A grey sky means diffuse light, so shadows aren’t as deep and highlights are subdued. (In fact, after a fall of rain and an overcast sky, details are picked out very sharply – my favourite conditions for shooting landscapes, especially when there’s lots of foliage).
The Final Touches
Quick Fix provides ample tools to create our wintry scene. First, the two-up view is again handy to compare. Backing Temperature about a quarter of the way into the blue (left) instantly creates a chill.
However, it’s not that true-to-life until I also desaturate it by dragging the Saturation slider into desaturate – about a 1/4 to the left (the same as for temperature).
This convincingly mutes the colour spectrum (too far and the image becomes completely grey, black and white).
The shadows are still too deep though, belying the fact we’re trying to replicate diffuse light that bounces off water vapour in the atmosphere to filter into shadow areas. Again, this is really easy in Elements – using Lighten Shadows and Darken Highlights to the desired degree gives exactly the right effect – in fact, the scene’s actually starting to look icy.
Final touches include, using the desaturation Sponge tool set to a big (300-pixel) brush and 25 per cent flow to bump some of that blue out of the sky with commensurate reflection at bottom right in the water, and we’re almost there. A little Dodge (300-pixel brush, flow 24 per cent) lightens the sky up too, as cameras often overexpose winter skies.
But the very last touch is the masterstroke. In true wintry weather, the moisture in the air causes focus to fall off further away from the lens. Zoom out until your image only takes up a small area on your screen and drag the window it resides in bigger.
Now click on the square Marquee selection tool and drag over the selection, leaving the foreground unselected.
From the Selection menu, choose Feather and set it to a big number above 60 (I ended up with a feather of 200, as the image was big for reproduction in this magazine. Now in the Filter menu choose Blur>Gaussian Blur and set it to about 0.7, as this filter is easy to overdo. Now everything at the top of your image will have a full 0.7 blur, but this will diminish to the selection line you drew. The foreground is convincingly sharp; the rest has a gentle softening (Gaussian Blur is a lovely effect when used carefully).
If you wish, pick a few details out with the Sharpen tool set to a brush size of about 65 and flow of 20 – I just used this sparingly on the whitened dead branches on the left. (Sharpen just increases contrast between adjacent pixels – overused, it looks terrible.)
That’ll do me.
Instant Aging
OK, now let’s make an old-fashioned landscape using a ‘grainy’ effect.
Again, open the original image, drop the Filter menu, select Noise, choose Add Noise and you can add grain to a photo.
Gaussian is best, either normal or Monochromatic, and about 5 per cent looks pretty convincing in my example.
However, experiment because it will depend on your image size, as it works as a ratio to pixel count. One step beyond, Desaturate the image 100 per cent in Quick Fix (or from the Enhance menu, select Adjust Colour>Remove Colour) and you now have a black and white grainy image.
Finally, let’s create a very old image. Again open the original file and Save As with a new name; we don’t want to use the grainy one because century-old films had very fine grain, so the original image needs to be sharp.
Choose Adjust Colour>Remove Colour in the Enhance menu (the image is still RGB and not greyscale, so we can add colour back in). Now choose Enhance>Adjust Colour>Colour Variations, make sure Midtones is checked at bottom left, and click the little pictures that say Increase Red and Decrease Blue. Viola!
Now, if you want to go the whole hog on this, click and hold over the Marquee tool and select the oval marquee. Click a little way on the top left corner and drag to a little way in from the bottom right. Now, this is important: choose Apple (or Alt)+Shift+i to invert the selection, choose Feather in the Select menu and enter a big value over 60. Then hit delete and you get a lovely vignette. If it’s not right, choose Undo from the Edit menu, change the feather and redo the delete. Have fun!
March 17th, 2009 by D-Photo
Christchurch professional photographer Tony Bridge talks about life with his Sony DSC-R1
I bought this in the hope it would stand in for a Leica M8. It doesn’t, but it comes as close as. Just the bees, when I can prise it off my son, who is not happy lending me “his’ camera. It’s been all over Aotearoa and the world. I broke it recently (Auckland airport baggage handlers!), and given the option to replace or repair, I had it repaired. Now my baby is home and all is well in my photographic world, gear-wise.
What’s hot?
What’s not to like? 10Mp, APS-C sensor, live histogram, silent shutter, RAW files, GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS Carl Zeiss 24-120 lens, smallish form factor, makes me look like a harmless tourist when I want to be Cartier-Bresson. And no need to clean the sensor. Woohoo!
What’s not?
The EVF (but I am getting used to it) and the buffer (what buffer?). They stopped making them so I can’t buy a second one. Or a third.
Would I buy one again?
Damn right. You know where I can get another one?
I’d really rather have a…
Leaf AFI or a Phase One. Oh well, when the Saturday night investment plan comes in…
Does it make the world a better place?
Absolutely. It keeps the Gnomes of Nagoya in gainful employment and off the streets.
Has it made me any money?
I would like to think that it has staved off world domination by the Illuminati, but I doubt it. Anyway, isn’t money the root of all evil?
March 6th, 2009 by D-Photo
Believe it or not, the tripod is the best image stabiliser on the market. So why haven’t you got one? They come in all shapes and sizes and you’ll easily find one that will suit your travel, studio or video needs.
Low light
A tripod will let you shoot in lower light without having to raise the ISO and compromise image quality. Being able to stop down the lens to increase depth of field is another advantage, one that results in slower shutter speeds, too – read Jackie Ranken’s informative article in issue 21 for more on this.
Slotting your camera onto a tripod will also let you keep the horizon level, and in some cases give you higher or lower camera angles than you are used to when shooting hand held.
Construction
Most tripods consist of a head, a centre pillar and three telescoping legs. The length of the legs varies from model to model, as does the height of the centre column.
Heads on budget models are mainly fixed to the column, but more expensive tripods have the ability to change heads for different purposes and more than likely have a quick release plate that locks to the bottom of your camera then slides onto the head.
Having a quick release will save you time if you use more than one camera. Instead of needing to transfer plates from one camera to the other you simply have one plate on each camera.
Most heads offer three-way pan tilt action with up to three levers for control. Each lever will twist to lock and unlock the function it is performing. Ball and socket heads are the exception as they generally have only two locking controls. The beauty of these heads is that they are usually compact and fast to use. The leg locks will vary from screw type to cam type locking clasps. If you work in a wet or gritty environment then the clasp type locks will work better than screw ones, which tend to trap tiny particles.
Carbon fibre
Rigid carbon fibre is a material that offers the best compromise between weight and strength – but at a price. They aren’t always the lightest tripods available but they are definitely the most durable. If you have ever experienced the ‘gentle’ breeze that wafts about the lower North Island then you’ll know a lightweight tripod can be easily blown over. If your kit has medium format cameras then the Velbon Sherpa Pro CF-830 and Slik Grand Pro CF-4 carbon fibre models that can hold cameras up to 10kg and 14kg respectively will be on your wish list.
Compact
Now that most of us are using smaller cameras a large tripod isn’t all that necessary, so a more compact portable model will suit better. Manfrotto makes a delicious little unit with the catchy ‘Modo’ moniker.
The Modo 785B has a fantastic pistol grip control with quick release that is ideal for any digital compact or small SLR. The grip has a thumb-activated lock that lets you release and twist the head to the position you want then press the lock closed for your shot. It’s like a video game controller to use.
The Manfrotto Super Clamp is one device that may help you when space is at a premium. It lets you screw a mini ball and socket head to it and then you can clamp it to any pipe or post. This includes turning everyday items like the tubes on your mountain bike or the tow ball on your car into a tripod.
Travel tripods are big at the moment. They are little compacts with flexi legs or short telescoping ones that give you a little elevation above the barbeque table you are using and afford you some extra height. The Gorilla Pod is in this category and comes in different sizes for bigger or smaller cameras. The larger models let you attach a separate head for more adjustment and will happily hold a small SLR. The Gorilla is designed to be wrapped around a branch or fence post to allow you to take your shot.
Specialist
Photographic projects such copying old photos or macro photography – where you have to be as close to your subject as possible – means tripods can be of real benefit, even if your prey is on the ground.
For this you’ll need a tripod with a head that can be inverted or moved as close to the subject as possible. Some centre columns come out of the middle of the tripod and then flip over and can be inserted from the bottom, allowing the head and camera to be slung underneath. Manfrotto makes self-levelling models such as the 058B Triaut that releases the legs and can be quickly levelled (thanks to the inbuilt bubble level) with just one locking mechanism.
Alternatives
You’ve gone to the beach and left the tripod by the door of the garage, so how do you shoot that sunset? Think outside the square. If it’s warm enough, ball up your jersey and cradle your camera in the middle of it then trip the shutter by using your self-timer. This ensures your hands are free of the camera to reduce camera movement. If you have a car, make use of the windows by putting the camera on the outside of the vehicle with the strap through the window. Wind the window up so the camera strap is firmly stuck – hey presto, instant tripod. It is a little hit and miss and it might take two people to operate, but it’s better than having no tripod at all. You could even use a garden fork. Thrust the fork into firm ground, tie the strap to the handle and then make your shots using the self-timer.
What if I own a video camera?
The thread is the same on all tripods, but video tripods have a shorter screw and usually a locating pin so the camera won’t spin when you pan. A surprising number of tripods cater for both types of camera with a three-way head that pans and tilts, as well as a spring-loaded retracting pin that ducks back into the head when a still camera is fastened to it. Sony has some cool models with remote controls built into the handle, which allows you to zoom and, in some cases, pan without having to fiddle with locks. Take a look at the Sony VTC870RM remote control tripod.
Mono el Mono
The monopod is a lightweight tool that shouldn’t be confused as an alternative to the tripod. Rather, a monopod works alongside the tripod, acting as a support when a tripod would be too cumbersome. They’re great for sports photography when using large lenses for extended periods of time.
Should I own one?
Yes. True, a tripod is yet another piece of kit to lug around, so if you spend hours tramping to your shoot location then a heavy tripod is the last thing you will want to carry unless you’ve enlisted a Sherpa as a porter. However, everyone should own this essential photographic tool, you just have to determine what will best suit your needs. I’d advise you to get the best you can afford, but if you only use a tripod occasionally then a budget model may well fit the bill.
It may be that boring bit of kit that you only use every once in a while, but a tripod of some sort is the best image stabilizer on the market. Don’t forget to turn off your electronic image stabilizer when you mount your camera to a tripod, and if you don’t have a remote or cable release then make use of your self-timer for good and steady shooting.
March 4th, 2009 by D-Photo
Colin and I chatted over coffee in his studio in the most recent addition to his home in Ngaio. It was added in 1908 to the original cottage, built in 1895. “The back of the house is to the road as it was built originally facing the railway station.” An ideal studio with large spaces and very tall ceilings.
Colin is now mostly a people photographer – in all aspects from weddings and families to corporate and government events. The previous night he had covered the 40th celebration event for architect Ian Athfield, “… a big lighting challenge that required subtle additional lighting and utilised the low light capability of my Nikon D3.”
Colin relishes situations that call for lighting control that lifts results from the adequate to the amazing. Mixing creative flair with a deep understanding of photo technology helps him get results and fast. His background experience gives him a unique perspective.
Twenty years as a photographer with the RNZAF, covering the ceremonial events, the remote peace-keeping locations, civil emergencies, air-force life and technical. It covered almost every form of photography known, every format, every process. Colin’s assignments took him to the extremes of climate and activity. “I spent almost 4 months on the ice in Antarctica and a little later was in Cambodia covering army engineers on landmine clearance, then on the Mekong River with the navy in their inflatables. At that time there were always bodies floating down.” He remembers clambering into an Iriquois helicopter that was heading out on patrol over Cambodia. “I began putting on a flak jacket but was quickly instructed to take it off and sit on it because any bullets will be coming up through the floor!”
Colin’s start in the airforce was a life-defining experience too. At 16 he left the family farm in Southland to train in avionics at RNZAF Woodbourne near Blenheim. “Within 3 weeks I had a massive stroke that resulted in airlift to Wellington hospital with the expectation I wouldn’t survive. I slowly regained everything and on light duties returned to Woodbourne where I continued with avionics until the end of the following year when I transferred to Photography at Ohakea.” In the early recovery period Colin had difficulty walking in a straight line “… so they didn’t want me on parades – which was a bonus.”
RNZAF photography training had a depth not equalled in the theoretical and practical application of the science and craft. Signing on for his 20 year tour of duty equipped Colin with a rich experience and along with many of his compatriots, a springboard into civilian careers. Over the years I have worked alongside and known many of them now active in the wider industry.
The RNZAF tools of trade began with Speed Graphic – a 5X4 camera system – and included over the years Ricoh rangefinder 35mm, Mamiya C330s, Mamiya RB 67s, Hasselblad 503s and Nikon 35mm.
“The most difficult thing to do was photography air-to-air during aerobatics – it was extremely physically demanding and draining. Fighting G forces, everything becomes heavy, holding up the camera – in those days an RB, the weight of your helmet, your arms, concentrating on the task as well as trying to remain conscious as your blood goes to your feet.”
Helicopters feature too while doing vertical shots over Great Barrier Island with a Hasselblad 503. “I was leaning out holding the camera which had a bar with two handles. I was so far out to clear the skids that another photographer had to sit on my legs. I did have a safety harness thankfully. I exposed a frame each time someone slapped my back. At 10,000 feet it was very cold and combined with the forward motion by the end of the job the lefthand side of my face was battered and bruised. The next day I drove to Palmerston North to photograph fellow photographer Mike Provost’s wedding looking like I had been in a fight.”
The last phase of Colin’s RNZAF career was in PR and publicity, based initially in Auckland then Wellington. “Still a wide range of tasks, travel to places such as London for ceremonial events and many hours in the back of Hercs to places such as Somalia to cover UN Peacekeeping activities, and into the Pacific after cyclones. Then Government House for investitures.”
When he left at the end of his contract in 1992, Colin had laid the groundwork for his own business. He had qualified and joined the NZIPP, bought his own kit including lights, a Bronica ETRs system for 120 and remained on Nikons for 35mm as he had used them for most of the last few years in the RNZAF.
The Nikon F90 became the film workhorse and as digital began to arrive he started with the Fujifilm S1 as it took the Nikkor lenses and then moved through a series of Nikon digital bodies – D70, D70s, D200 and more recently the full frame D3, “… that returns all my lenses back to their original values, as I know them.”
With his wife Elena and two children, Colin has found the perfect haven to practise his craft and live a much quieter life within a full family environment.
www.colin.co.nz
This article is from The Photographer’s Mail issue #182.
March 1st, 2009 by D-Photo
Cow with right-of-way
It has not been a great month, what with my very close friend Brian Curtis, editor and founder of this paper, dying, and then having surgery myself that made me very conscious of my age. There have been better days.
One of the best days was when I interviewed Wellington based photographer Rob Suisted at his Johnsonville home. Sited high on the Wellington skyline it has sweeping panoramic views of the blue waters of the harbour below and the Rimutuka Ranges on the far horizon.
While standing with Rob admiring the view on a serene warm morning I asked the inevitable question, “What’s it like in the high winds?” Rob said a few years back in a typical storm, with roof flapping, power lines down and the cabbage tress bent in half, he received a request from a US magazine, ‘Weather-wise’ for pictures to illustrate an article, ‘The Wellington Winds’.
“No problem, I leaned out the window, fired off a few frames, shot some more up the street of the trees dancing and sent them off.” The cheque he received was just about equal to the insurance bill for the storm repairs.
While the coffee brewed we sat in his sunny kitchen, ignoring my list of prepared questions, and treated ourselves to looking through the great pile of prints covering his recent three-week trip to India. This was no carefully escorted journey through the amazing sub continent but a mainly solo motorbike ride of over 2000kms.
After arriving in Mumbai (old Bombay) Rob travelled south to Goa, that ex-Portuguese enclave that is renowned for its stunning beaches and ship-breaking industry. After catching up with his brother Phil and hiring a Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle from a local policeman, he underwent a crash course on the reverse gearing on the bike, local route finding and learning the ropes on communicating Indian style.
“Yes,” said Rob, “you might be talking with an English speaker but our logic is world’s apart. Once you have confused them you’re stuck.”
To record his whirlwind epic trip, Rob selected his trusty Canon 5D fitted with the sharp-as-a-cutthroat-razor 50mm f1.4, and for wideangle coverage he took a Zuiko 24mm f3.5.
Many of the pix were shot from his seat on the Enfield, some of the sleepy eyed cows taking a snooze in the middle of a busy highway were in stark contrast to the nightmare sight of 20-wheel freighters overtaking each other on blind corners; not quite what our NZ chaps in blue expect from the travelling public.
To quote from one of Rob’s emails: “The drivers drive well ahead of themselves and are totally focussed, even the cows know that standing in the middle of a blind corner is fine if you walk slowly in a constant direction. So it feels a bit like how Indiana Jones would ride. It’s a total blast, from some of the best riding to the worst.”
At one stage on his trip south mechanical problems sent Rob back to the small town of Sagar where he found an Enfield specialist mechanic, a very rare species, who, with the help from a couple of other workshop hotshots, discovered a faulty wiring system. Everything repaired after 4 hours work, for the sum total of 100 rupee (approx NZ$3.50). Could be worth shipping the old car over.
In between visiting a raft of temples Rob found himself at a village outside Shimoga, said village is the only place where Sanskrit is still spoken, and to make it all the more unique, no one spoke any English but not to worry, the villagers took this lone Kiwi to their hearts and the pix are there of him being shaved with many younger onlookers watching.
In reply to my question of did he ever feel threatened he said, “Never.” But he concedes he did wear a crash helmet most of his time on the road. And surprisingly he said many other motorbike and scooter riders also wore helmets.
Back at Goa and in memory of the legendary Bert Munro, who also rode a basic Enfield, he took his bike very early one morning down to the beach and opened the throttle. At the end of his run a kind local warned him the beach police liked fining tourists who gunned their bikes on the sand strip 2000 rupees. Enough said and off the beach.
Rob is an ardent enthusiast for India and hopes to return with other bikers next year, but before he experiences the heat of India again he is opting for a change of climate. A veteran of some eight trips to Antarctica working as a guide lecturer and photographer, Rob will shortly be on his way via the fiords of Chile to the Falkland Islands and on to South Georgia. He will fly to Chile and join the Prince Albert II, an American-owned ship specially strengthened for ice travel. The luxury ship will have just over a hundred passengers and a similar number of crew.
Rob, 38, has come from the world of film photography via Olympus, Pentax and Bronica. Now his flagship camera is the Canon 1DS Mark III, and among his new Canon lenses are the 14mm f2.8 (fantastic glass), a 14mm f3.5 tilt and shift, plus the usual range of mid level telephoto lenses, also the original workhorse Canon 5D. What impressed me with his kit, when considering some of the more extreme nature and scenic assignments he undertakes, is it was all in pristine condition with front and back caps in place! In his image library “Nature’s Pic Images” are over 50,000 images that range mainly across the NZ scenic, travel and nature spectrum. Besides having published several top selling pictorial books Rob has contributed to top publications worldwide plus he has had images on 9 NZ stamps as well as phone cards.
He could take the mantle as the Indiana Jones of NZ photography.
The hours had sped by and it was time to say goodbye to Rob and his able assistant Janette. What hurt the most was having to flag away his invitation to dine on tender venison back steaks topped by blueberry and horopito sauce and garnished with home grown salad greens.
All photos Rob Suisted
APOLOGIES
In my last column I committed the heinous crime of misspelling my good mate Dave Lintott’s name (the barefoot one).
This article is from The Photographer’s Mail issue #182.
February 26th, 2009 by D-Photo
Faces of two women — original photos at left, Beautified version at right
Ah, digital photography — so full of promise and so full of mischief! Now, in addition to software that slims us down to make us look more attractive and athletic in photos, there’s software that operates at a much more subtle level to “beautify” our faces, using mathematical formulas to morph the original face into a version that’s very similar but (theoretically) more attractive. At the same time, the inventors, Tommer Leyvand and three colleagues at universities in Tel Aviv, say the improved version always shows what they call an “unmistakable similarity” to the original.
The screenshot showing the Digital Face Beautification software in action has the original photo on the left and the beautified version in the center. At the right is the Image Warp, using “digital graph paper” to show how the program distorted — oops, beautified! — the subject’s features. The jawline has been broadened to make the face more rounded; the lips have been moved up a bit and the upper lip made fuller; and the nose has been moved up and shortened. The net result, to my eyes at least, is a picture that looks like the subject’s slightly more attractive sister.
Ironically, though no doubt the underlying mathematics are sophisticated, the work to date is ultimately based on the opinions of only a few people, 68 men and women from Israel and Germany, aged 25 to 40, who picked the most attractive faces from a large number of “head shots” of white males and females. (The researchers have not yet created a program for nonwhite racial and ethnic faces.)
The programmers took the “most attractive faces” data and used an algorithm that related 234 measurements between key facial features — the distances between lips and chin, between the forehead and the eyes, and between the eyes themselves, for instance. This enabled them to program a computer to analyze these distances in any face photograph and to generate the “ideal” face most similar to the original face.
Leyvand et al presented their research at the annual SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference. Although they call their program Digital Face Beautification, it deals only with the shape of the face and its features — there’s no digital retouching to smooth out wrinkles and eliminate blemishes, nor to modify hair or eye color.
As The New York Times points out, psychologists, philosophers, and feminists say this program, like other attempts to use objective principles or mathematics to define beauty, raises many questions about what constitutes “ideal” beauty. “Does a supposedly scientific definition merely reflect the ideal of the moment, built from the images of pop culture and the news media? ‘How can they prove it?’ said Lois W Banner, a historian who has studied changing beauty standards, referring to scientific efforts to define attractiveness… ‘They are never going to get away from the cultural influence.’”
For the Times article, a 25-year-old woman agreed to be photographed and to have her image beautified by the computer program. “She said she was struck by how different she looked in the second shot. ‘I think the after picture looks great, but it doesn’t really look like me at all,’ she said in an e-mail message. ‘My entire bone structure, face shape and eye size is different, and my lip color looks changed as well.’ She added, ‘I would like to keep my original face.’”
Brigitte Bardot might agree. When a glamour photo of her as a young actress was run through the Digital Face Beautification program, “her full and puckered lips were deflated, and the world-famous beauty seemed less striking — less like herself,” said the Times.
Leyvand says there may be practical applications for his software in advertising, film-making and animation. And he has been contacted by interested plastic surgeons. But if Beautification gets built into digital cameras some day, the way Face Recognition and Smile Recognition already have been, it will mean digital photography is taking one more step away from reality.
February 16th, 2009 by D-Photo
Title: I love posing
Photographer: Vivek Sharma
Camera: Canon 30D
Settings: ISO 100, f4.0, 1/400 sec
Description: Rayn loves the camera and is always looking at pose for a good photo
Title: Pink in the City
Photographer: Stephanie Kuttner
Camera: Canon EOS40D
Settings: Shutter: 1/640, ISO: 125, Aperture 5.6
Description: My daughter Ava takes in Oriental Bay on a Sunday afternoon and savors every mouthful of her ice cream. She is currently obsessed with pink and Sesame St plasters, so this photo pretty much sums her up at her ripe age of 2.5yrs.
Title: Joe in Spring Grass
Photographer: Stephanie Kuttner
Camera: Canon EOS40D
Settings: Shutter 1/160, ISO: 125, Aperture: 5.6
Description: 7mth old Joe’s Dad is a landscaper and very proud of his lush, green grass. I love how it frames Joe face and contrasts well with the blue of his suit and eyes.
Title: See-saw girl
Photographer: Natalie Fox
Camera: Canon 400D
Description: I was on one end of the see-saw and this young lady was on the other. We had such fun at the park that day.
Title: Surprise
Photographer: E.C. Pollock
Camera: Canon 5s
Settings: Canon 5S at 250th sec F8 ISO 200
Description: My granddaughter at play in a tree at a child’s park.
Title: Jack Bedazzeled
Photographer: Imogen McCarthy
Camera: Olympus MU 770SW with focal length 6.69
Description: Jack spent several minutes working out just what was happening with the mirrors in this exhibition.
Title: Alaina’s carrot
Photographer: Alex McCarthy
Camera: Canon PowerShot S70 with focal length 5.8
Description: Alaina is delighted by her grandfather’s veggie garden and she loves carrots
Title: Cute flower girl
Photographer: Christabelle Rathe
Camera: Canon EOS 350
Settings: Auto
Description: Cute flower girl at Church Road Winery
Title: Baby Bull
Photographer: Matt Bull
Camera: Canon 20D
Settings: Focal length 35mm, shutter speed 1/60sec and aperture f4.0
Description: A picture of our baby daughter in her baby blanket. It was taken earlier this year when she was 1 month old. I edited it using Picasa, removing the colour, and adding additional blur.
Title: Butterfly Princess
Photographer: Steve Lloyd
Camera: Canon 40D
Settings: ISO 100, 40mm, f4.0, 1/125 sec, adjustments made in lightroom
Title: Blue Eyes
Photographer: Steve Lloyd
Camera: Canon 40D
Settings: ISO 100, 40mm (photo cropped), f6.3, 1/200 sec
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