Every once in a while comes an image that invokes a particular scent, a distant memory or a person from the past. A feeling that is stronger than the rest. The final piece can be influenced by unknown factors which in turns shapes and moulds the final art piece. As I worked on this, my vision, my senses and techniques are in a rhythmic procession, each move inching closer to the end.

Artsy Thoughts:

I frequent this location many times in a year. This study involves waiting for the light to fall till dusk, and as the sun disappears from the horizon, it opened up a a slither of light for the roof of the pump house which created some contrast between the sky. The strong remaining light was reflected by the water near the horizon line. This was a perfect moment and in synchronicity with what I had in mind – which is to make sure the highest contrast (the water) fell somewhere between Zone 8 & 9. I processed this image with Lightroom, Silver Efex Pro 2 (Nik Collection by Google) and CS6.

 

Beacon One

I’ve had my camera for 2 years now. Truth be told, I’ve never had it professionally cleaned even once. Other than setting the sensor to clean itself when on and off, and the occassional rocket blower method, I have not tried to touch or clean the sensor by myself. I’ve read from numerous forums on sensor damaged from self-cleaning and that’s not a step I wish to take.

Accumulation of dust

It was about a year ago, dust have been slowy building up on my sensor and become visible in my photos. Among all the smaller dust particles, there will be a few “Mega” dust, which are big and darker than the rest. I think I collected more and more dust from lens changes and using the blower to clean dust from my sensor (I tell you why later).

Sure, if it’s one or two dust spots, you can easily “clean” it up using the spot healing brush in Photoshop or Lightroom. But when its hundreds of dust spots, you’re going to trade your time to get those cleaned up. In all honesty, you’re going to feel unmotivated and depressed because it’s no fun cleaning those nasty spots. Try cleaning up a spot near the edges of something in your image and you know its not just a clean stroke of the healing brush.

How do I see the spots?

To see how many dust spots you have, you can set your aperture to the highest number, f16 or higher. Aim at the sky and take a shot. If you have a serious dust problem, you can see it on the LCD or the computer. However, for my case, I can see it on every shot I took. It was that serious.

Can using the blower help?

After my experience, I don’t think it can a 100%. After sending my camera for servicing, the technician told me that because of static, sometimes it’s just impossible to blow the dust off. I used to lock up the mirror for cleaning, turn the camera face down and blow the dust out. After a while, this method doesn’t yield any results. In fact, it can be worst if you don’t do it properly.

Tip: have you ever tried locking your mirror for cleaning but you can’t? That’s probably because you don’t have your battery fully charged. The battery indicator must show full, only then will the camera allow you to lock the mirror for cleaning.

Here’s a photo of my Giotto rocket blower. After locking the mirror, I would face the camera down and insert the blower. The problem here is after some time of using the blower and if you ever tried removing the nozzle from the pump, you might find deposits of dust especially at the threads of the nozzle. After all, air gets sucked in from the inlet behind along with whatever particles in the air. So these dusts after some time, stick to one another and gel up. One fine day, with a few strong pumps, it’s going to travel up the nozzle and stick to your lens glass (which it did with mine). So my general rule now is, if I want to blow dust of my sensor, I make sure I check and clean out my blower first. Also when I’m blowing lenses, I don’t blow direct onto the glass but usually at an angle, hoping that whatever comes out from the nozzle is just air and if there are sediments or dust, it’s just going to skim off the surface.

At the service center

I took a queue number and there’s only one person before me. So that was a breeze. I told the counter staff my problem. Before that, I took a photo and showed it to him my “dirty” photo with all the dust. He acknowledged the problem. I also asked him about a worn out rubber beside the multi-selector button (it’s where your thumb always rub against). I was quite surprised that, that piece of rubber cost only $5. Another tip, the labour charge cost $25 so if you want to get any parts changed even though it cost $5, you have to pay $25 labour charge. Since I had my sensor cleaned, the labour charge is already inclusive and I paid an additional $5 for the rubber. So people, if you’re changing any parts on your camera, I suggest you get your sensor cleaned as well. You won’t be charged the labour charge twice. The service itself might take 30 to 45 minutes.

In the meantime while I was waiting, I was entertained by this person over at the Nikon gear corner. There’s a corner there with a big showcase where they keep the top of line stuff in show cabinets. By top of the line, I mean the D4s and expensive lenses. I’m not sure who this person really was. Is he a salesman? Why would anyone buy anything at a service center. Anyway, I don’t know but there he was. I was just looking when he approached. I told him I was just looking. I couldn’t be more surprised when this bubbly person told me, “No, you should touch and have a feel”. I was like what? In my mind, I was like, sure, great, I would like this and this and that. But I politely declined. By then, he already opened the showcase and brought out the D4 and passed it to me. Then he asked me what lens to do want with that. I mean WTH right! This is poison LOL! Now I can’t sleep at night. I pointed the 85mm and he brought out the 85mm 1.8G. I told him, I think I like the 1.4G more and he told me, “Well, you have expensive taste my friend”. I grinned with evil eyes, I mean what the heck right! Nonetheless, he let me try both and I’m utterly impressed. “The D4 would be great at the airshow”, I told him. He replied sure, “How about the latest 80mm – 400mm to go with that”, he said. Did I tell you this guy could be my best friend? So he put it on, switch to continous, passed it to me and I let it rip, 10 frames per second (yummy!). By that time, I was already attracting a “couple” of people looking at me. Which is a great thing considering I have this all to myself.

But then I was abruptly brought back down to earth. 15mins have passed and I have to return the D4 to collect my camera. How time really flies when you’re having fun. I collected my camera and I swear it felt “brand new”. I tested it with the lens I brought with me and viola! All the dust was gone. I got another tip from the service technician. He told me, select “when camera on” under the clean sensor mode. Before you turn the camera on, face it down and turn it on. I suppose this makes sense though I’m not sure the mechanics of the vibrating sensor cleaner.

Renewed vigour

I felt I did my camera justice by cleaning the sensor. I showered it with some TLC and I really love the results. I can’t imagine why I didn’t do it sooner. My images are so clean. I don’t have to spend a lot of time to do clean ups. Sensor cleaning is now part of my inventory and I’ll be sure to do it again. Thanks for reading my blog entry. Never in my life would I expect to have a story to tell from my visit to the service center. I was so happy that I didn’t waste any time to go out and get the photo above with my spanking clean sensor. Hah!

Tell you another thing, that photo got chosen on PhotoExtract for April 21, so woohoo! Here’s the link.

 

I’m super excited to bring to you 2 techniques that I use to create a 32-bit HDR. I’ll be using Lightroom as my editing software. Once you have created the 32-bit image, you’ll use Lightroom’s sliders (which is great!), to finish off the image to your liking.

Why a 32-bit HDR?

This is probably the most quickest and easiest way to create a HDR image. In my opinion, it is also the most natural looking HDR you can create. What’s cool is, after creating the 32-bit version, the file gets saved into Lightroom as another file. You can then work on the file and use Lightroom’s sliders to make final adjustments. With the added lighting information, you’ll be amazed at how much of the hightlights and shadows you are able to manipulate.

How’s it done?

We will use Lightroom as our editing software. The first method will involve a plugin provided by HDRsoft. Photomatix users get this plugin free. It’s called “Merge to 32-bit HDR Plug-in for Lightroom”. You can download it here. The other method will use Photoshop’s Merge to HDR Efex Pro 2. Let’s get into it.

What you will need.

1. Adobe Lightroom

2. Adobe Photoshop CS5 or CS6

3. Merge to 32-bit HDR Plug-in for Lightroom (by HDRsoft, Photomatix users get it free)

METHOD ONE – USING HDRsoft MERGE TO 32-BIT PLUG-IN FOR LIGHTROOM

Before you even get started, you need to download the plug-in and have it in Lightroom. You can download the plugin for Lightroom here. Follow the instructions to install the plugin. I’m going to skip that step since the instructions are very clear on the website. I’ll jump straight to the processing and creating the 32-bit HDR.

STEP ONE:

In Lightroom, select the bracketed photos. For this example, I’m using 7 bracketed photos I took, which is -3 to +3 EV. I usually take 7 bracketed shots if my composition involves the sun.

STEP TWO:

Click on Export and the following dialogue box appears. If you have installed the plug-in, you should be able to see the option on the left pane called Photomatix. Click on the drop down menu and you see Merge to 32-bit HDR.

This brings up the Merge to 32-bit HDR dialogue box. I choose the following settings. If you mouseover “Use Half floating Point format and Use Pixel Values in Fixed Range”, it tells you exactly what it’s doing. I choose to have both checked.

STEP THREE:

Click on Merge. In a few minutes, your image will be ready in Lightroom for editing.

 

 

 

What actually happened to the file?
The plug-in took all 7 exposures of the photo and combine it into one. This new image contains all the information from the other files and combine them into one super file. Sweet!

STEP FOUR:

Choose the image and click on the Develop module. You now have full control over the merged image with all the lighting information from the bracketed images. Isn’t that brilliant?

 

METHOD TWO – USING PHOTOSHOP ‘S MERGE TO HDR PRO

If you have Photoshop. You can skip the plug-in and try this method. The process is the same just using a different software.

STEP ONE:

Select the images as you would the first time. From the top menu select Photo and click on Edit In. From the drop-down menu choose, Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop.

This will launch Photoshop. It will go through the paces to create the image while you sit back and enjoy your coffee

STEP TWO:

The Merge to HDR pro dialogue box will appear. Now under Mode, select 32 bit and click OK

Photoshop will go ahead and merge the file to HDR. It’s exactly the same process except this is donw within Photoshop.

 

 

 

 

STEP THREE:

The already merged image will appear in Photoshop. Close it and select Save. There’s no need for you to do anything to the image (that we will do in Lightroom). All you need is for Photoshop to merge it to a 32-bit image. The tiff image will appear in Lightroom, same as the previous method. Now go ahead an adjust the sliders to your heart’s content.

Here I show you the same result I’m getting. This time using Photoshop CS 6.

So there you go, I hope you have fun trying this technique. It really is quick and simple. The rest as they say, is up your vision on the final outcome of your masterpiece