Category: Technology

Views of science and technology from around the world

Tuesday (31-May-2011) — New Jersey

I am resisting NAS (Nikon Acquisition Syndrome) Today.

While reading the commentary on Thom Hogon’s site today, I saw that B&H (and other vendors) had received new Nikon 500 mm and 600 mm f/4 VRII Super Telephoto lenses and still have some available for sale. These have been in short supply for a long time, and may be in even shorter supply for an even longer time since the earthquake in Japan. I held out and did not place an order (and thus didn’t help the economy by spending nearly $20K). This was hard, since I missed many great photo opportunities while on the Semester at Sea, Spring Enrichment Voyage — Ultimate Travel Photography Workshop (UTPW-II) earlier this month. Several of the folks attending the workshop had the larger 500 mm and 600 mm lenses and were able to get some great images that made those of us with lighter kits (70-300 or 80-400) jealous.

Thursday (21-April-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Springtime Nature in New Jersey

Pink Flower — Macro and Wide Depth of Field. I used the pink flower from yesterday as an exercise to practice with a macro lens, flash, and Helicon Focus to get a macro image of a flower with an extreme depth of field in focus. Ten images of the flower were taken from rear focus to front focus by manually adjusting the focus distance on the lens. The raw images were processed with Capture One Pro, converted to 16 bit Tiff files, and then processed with Helicon Focus. Even though the lens was set at f/22, the actual focus plane was very narrow and thus needing several focus distances for Helicon Focus.

Pink Flower Macro and Helicon Focus Study. Image taken with a Nikon D3x, 200 mm f/4 macro lens, and SB-200R flash (ISO 100, 200 mm, f/22, 1/60 sec). Composite of 10 focus layers combined using Helicon Focus. (David J Mathre)
Pink Flower Macro and Helicon Focus Study. Image taken with a Nikon D3x, 200 mm f/4 macro lens, and SB-200R flash (ISO 100, 200 mm, f/22, 1/60 sec). Composite of 10 focus layers combined using Helicon Focus. (David J Mathre)

Sunday (10-April-2011) — New Jersey

Springtime in New Jersey.

Snapshot of the CSX 7683 engine at a rail road crossing near my home in New Jersey. Getting a “grab” shot with a point & shoot camera is a challenge. After coming to a stop at the RR crossing, I had to get the camera out of my pocket, remove the lens cover, turn the camera on, adjust the zoom, and try to compose the image through the front window of my car. This was the second shot, and I was lucky get the train in the center. I didn’t get the best composition with the full rail road crossing sign being clipped at the top. Composition with a point & shoot camera requires a lot of luck with the delay between hitting the shutter button and the actual shutter release, and trying to compose the image with the rear LCD display. The other problem I discovered after the fact, was the camera was in “manual focus” mode, so focus for this image was just lucky.

CSX 7683 Engine at Local Rail Road Crossing in Skillman, New Jersey. Snapshot taken with Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 14.9 mm, f/4.5, 1/800 sec). (David J Mathre)
CSX 7683 Engine at Local Rail Road Crossing in Skillman, New Jersey. Snapshot taken with Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 14.9 mm, f/4.5, 1/800 sec).

Saturday (12-March-2011) — New Jersey

Winter Nature in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Delaware River Flooding at Lambertville and New Hope.

When I checked the USGS website this morning I saw that the Delaware river was above flood stage at Lamberville/New Hope. I cross the Delaware River at the Lambertville/New Hope bridge when going to work in Pennsylvania. I went to take a look and took  a few images. The river level was high enough to start to flood the Lambertville Inn parking lot and deposit a lot of trash and debris. Every several minutes a tree floated down the river. The Lambertville Inn is built to allow flood water to flow through and not reach the main floors of the building, and have an image looking through this open space. I assume that the Inn was built this way to protect it because of a history of flooding at this location.

Delaware River -- Flood Stage. Lambertville and New Hope Bridge from the Lambertville Inn Parking Lot. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 5.1 mm, f/4, 1/1000 sec). (David J Mathre)
Delaware River — Flood Stage. Lambertville and New Hope Bridge from the Lambertville Inn Parking Lot. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 5.1 mm, f/4, 1/1000 sec).
Delaware River -- Flood Stage. Lambertville Inn. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 10.7 mm, f/4, 1/800 sec). (David J Mathre)
Delaware River — Flood Stage. Lambertville Inn. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 10.7 mm, f/4, 1/800 sec).
Delaware River -- Flood Stage. Looking under the Lambertville Inn. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 10.7 mm, f/2.8, 1/320 sec). (David J Mathre)
Delaware River — Flood Stage. Looking under the Lambertville Inn. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 10.7 mm, f/2.8, 1/320 sec).
Delaware River -- Flood Stage. Lambertville New Hope Bridge. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 7.5 mm, f/4, 1/800 sec). (David J Mathre)
Delaware River — Flood Stage. Lambertville New Hope Bridge. Image taken with a Leica D-Lux 5 (ISO 100, 7.5 mm, f/4, 1/800 sec).

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)