Month: February 2011

Four-Years Ago (24-February-2007) — New Jersey

Backyard Winter Nature in New Jersey: Turkey Vulture and Using Focus Magic to Remove Motion Blur.

I often use Focus Magic to sharpen images. I prefer using this program since it uses a deconvolution algorithm to sharpen the image, rather than unsharp mask (USM). Here is an example where I used Focus Magic to remove motion blur. On the down side, Focus Magic has not been updated for some time and only runs as a 32-bit application. I can only use it as a plugin in Photoshop CS5 when running the 32-bit version of CS5. For this example I am using an image of a Turkey Vulture in flight (from four-years ago). I tried to improve the sharpness of the head, eye, and beak. The 2nd and 3rd image are 1:1 zooms of the head — first without removing the motion blur, and the second with the motion blur removed (350°, 9 pixels). The results are not perfect, but better than the original image. One of the reasons I do not delete images — new software can sometimes be used to recover and image that previously would have been rejected.

Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. Motion blur reduced using Focus Magic. (David J Mathre)
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. Motion blur reduced using Focus Magic. (David J Mathre)
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. Motion blur reduced using Focus Magic. (David J Mathre)
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. Motion blur reduced using Focus Magic. (David J Mathre)

Monday (21-February-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Winter Nature in New Jersey. Rabbit Tracks on Presidents Day.

We had a light covering of fresh snow this morning. Based on the new trails several deer and a lone rabbit must have passed through my front yard.

Rabbit Tracks in Fresh Snow. Winter in New Jersey. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 camera (ISO 250, 13.9 mm, f/2.9, 1/100 sec) (David J Mathre)
Rabbit Tracks in Fresh Snow. Winter in New Jersey. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 camera (ISO 250, 13.9 mm, f/2.9, 1/100 sec)

Sunday (20-February-2011) — New Jersey

Technology Update: Digital Image Storage and  “Image of the Day” Photoblog Redesign.

Once home after the Patagonia Photography Workshop, my first priority was uploading and backing up images from the trip to my primary storage and backup hard drives. During this process, I discovered that one of my Western Digital My Book 2 TB disk arrays was having problems. Then when restoring images lost on the Western Digital My Book disk array, I found that my backup Western Digital My Book array was also having problems. I ended up restoring the images from a number of Western Digital Passport USB drives (tertiary backup). Even though the backup drives are USB 2.0, the transfer rate was slow and it took almost two weeks to completely restore the lost files. In the middle of this process I also lost a HP Pavillion HDX9200 laptop during the ice storm. I was surprised that the UPS power supply didn’t protect the laptop during the several power disruptions. I have used the time to rebuild and optimize my Lightroom Catalogs. This has significantly improved the performance to find images within Lightroom.

I have updated the layout of my WordPress “Image of the Day” Photoblog site. A thumbnail slider for the current month goes across the top of the display. Images from the most recent three posts, and slides on chronologically going back several years. This replaces thumbnails for the most recent 8 posts. Which allows the most recent post and image to be front and center. The calendar for the current month then moves to the top of the right hand sidebar column. Clicking on any of the dates highlighted in blue get to the post for that date. Below the calendar, is Tag Cloud. I’ve gone back and tagged all of the posts with keywords. The tag cloud shows the top ~50 tags, with the font size related to the number of times the tag shows up in all of my posts. (Thanks to Hans for using tags). Below the tag cloud is a Blog Search function that searches all of the posts and images. Thumbnail links to the Monthly “Images of the Day” Galleries in Photoshelter. PhotoShelter is where all of my posted images are stored, and is the online location where images can be purchased. At the very bottom on each of my pages there is a PhotoShelter Search app, where all images stored in the David Mathre Image Gallery  can be searched by keyword.

Comments regarding the Images of the Day Photoblog redesign are appreciated. The goal was to make the site easier to use and navigate.

Wednesday (02-February-2011) — New Jersey

Winter Nature in New Jersey: Freezing Rain.

The storm was forecasted. The township and the power company sent e-mail warnings for everyone to be prepared. When I woke up the power was going off and on, and finally at about 08:30 stayed off. I don’t know how long the power will be off and if I will be sleeping in the RV tonight where I have a propane heater. In the morning I  took a number of images with a Leica D-Lux 5 camera. Later as it warmed and turned to rain, ice and branches started falling. There will be a lot to clean up this spring.



Individual images from this slide-show can be viewed here.