David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Image of a Green Gecko taken during the Thom Hogan photography workshop on the Big Island in Hawaii I attended four years ago.
It was just four years ago that I arrived in Hawaii to attend a photography workshop with Thom Hogan. The day before I was in Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge in northern Colorado. I had only been shooting with Nikon DSLR cameras for a year at that time. Soon after getting the first DSLR camera — a Nikon D200, I found Thom’s web site which became a very helpful resource. There was much I needed to learn about using a DSLR camera. I purchased Thom’s guides for the D200 (and subsequently the guides for the D2xs, D300, D700, D3, D3x, D3s). These guides are by far the best resource for understanding the capabilities of the Nikon digital cameras. Then one day in October 2007, I saw a note on Thom’s web site that there was a late opening for his Hawaii workshop over Thanksgiving week. I signed up right away since I knew that there was a lot more that I needed to learn to become a better photographer. I was working in Boulder Colorado at that time (which was closer than New Jersey) and a great way to use some of my vacation time.
I was reading Jeff Revell’s Blog yesterday “Google Image Search Helps Me Track Down Abuse” and decided to try it out on one of my images. Surfer Girl is one of the most viewed images I have on my sister’s ShepArt Studio SmugMug site. I found four instances of the image in locations that I didn’t know about or authorize. Two were in a Maui Surf Report blog where someone was trying to help me identify the surfer so I could send her a print. Unfortunately, there is no copyright notice or identification of me as the photographer on the image that they posted. The image then showed up in a “Quit-Your_DayJob-16-pics” blog at UberGnome.com. I reported this to the webmaster at the site, and he removed the image within 10 minutes. The fourth location was on the home page for Home Management Services in Maui. I have not received response yet to have the image removed. Alternatively, I will be sending them an invoice or a free rental in Maui.
Sunset over Haleakala Satellite Tracking Station: Comparison of HDR Image Processing Programs. I used images taken at sunset last year to do a comparison of HDR (high dynamic range) processing programs. The first image is the original image taken with a Nikon D3x and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 100, f/16, 1/10 sec). The next three images are HDR composites from 5 exposures (+2, +1, 0, -1, -2 EV) using Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro, Photomatix Pro, and Nik HDR Efex Pro. The final image was processed using DxO Optics Pro 6 using a “single-shot” HDR technique. All of the new HDR programs have multiple, if not many presets as well as many controls to optimize the image. The HDR programs have come a long way over the last 3-4 years, where the HDR effects were often overboard. But then again, HDR can recover an uninteresting image i.e. “A derelict fishing boat along the Alaska Canada Highway”
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Comparison of RAW image converters. Waipi’o Valley is located along the Hamakua Coast on the northeastern coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. The image was taken with a Nikon D2xs camera and 12-24 mm f/4 lens (ISO 100, 17 mm, f/11, 1/200 sec). Four different programs were used to render the RAW image: 1) Capture NX2, 2) Photoshop CS5 with Camera Raw 6.2, 3) Capture One Pro 5, 4) DxO 6.5. The images were rotated 2.6° to level the horizon, sharpened with Focus Magic, and then converted to jpg and sRGB with Photoshop CS5. I am interested in feedback regarding the different renderings.
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