Photo of the Week 2017-02-27

I'm eager to get out and shooting with my recently converted EOS M camera body. Winter conditions are not ideal for IR, so I spent some time this weekend looking through the limited number of shots made with a Canon G6 Point & Shoot that was converted a few years back.

Not only was it fun to be reminded of my initial exploits into IR, but also of a visit to one of the favourite places I have visited. Killarney ON is a place that found it's way into my heart and spirit, thankfully refusing to let go. The beauty of Killarney needs no enhancement ... but that's not to say one can't portray different interpretations through a variety of media and techniques. 

Chikanishing Trail, Killarney - An Infrared Interpretation

I feel the gentle pull of Killarney ...

DJE

Photo of the Week 2017-02-20

This week's photos are more about the experience around the photo rather than showcasing a single image that I'm pleased with ... quite the opposite actually. I wish I'd been able to get a lot closer to capture a stunning image of the activity I experienced on a gorgeous sunny winter afternoon.

The background ... it begins with me heading into the cottage after a short walk with Lynn  and Murphy. I'd been fighting a cruddy cold, coughing, sputtering, wheezing, sniffing and generally feeling crappy since Thursday. Tired out from the walk, I decided to go in and rest for a bit, while Lynn headed down to sit in the chairs at the shoreline and take in the sunshine.

She had taken the binoculars with her, as she often does now, and soon there was a knock at the picture window and some words that were just mumbles through the glass. But she turned and seemed to hurry back down to the shoreline so I figured there was something to see. I grabbed my 7DII with the 100-400mm and went down to see what was up.

It turns out she had spotted a Bald Eagle flying along the far side of the bay and by the time I managed to get out there I figured it was long gone on it's search for a meal ... not so. Lynn managed to spot it again perched in a tree along the far shore and directed me to the spot.

Even with the longest lens I had, there would be no close ups given the distance so I settled into a chair and we watched the eagle for well over an hour. We saw it fly from the tree to the ice, where it caught something (fish likely) and had a meal before flying to perch on top of an ice mound. As it sat there we scanned around and we both noticed some other activity that turned out to be a family of three otters bobbing in and out of the open water. Apparently there was a meal in the area and eventually I was able to capture a scene with with all the payers in one frame.

3 Otters and an Eagle

Yes there's actually and eagle out there ...

an Eagle ... crop

 Yes there is actually a family of 3 otters out there ...

3 Otters ... crop

 ... and yes I'm wishing I had a longer lens but even 600mm @ $10,000 wouldn't have gotten the image that I wanted in this case so I'll save my money.

One final image as I followed the eagle over onto the ice flow where it had another meal and then flew back to perch on the ice mound for a while before taking off for who knows where.

touchdown

... what a memorable experience.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2017-02-13

With a camera newly converted for infrared photography, I set out in the freshly fallen snow on a favourite trail ...

winter wonderland

Back at the cottage after a refreshing hike with 30cm of snow blanketing everything around, I sat down at the computer to process some very red & white exposures and this was one result. 

I was uncertain of exactly what to expect when shooting infrared (IR) for colour images in winter, even more so with the conversion I had selected for this particular camera (more on that in a moment). In the past when I've shot IR it was with the intention of creating final B&W images during spring and summer where the result renders greenery (trees & grass) as white, producing a very surreal look.

For this outing, my goal was to shoot and process for false colour images knowing that there would be a learning curve with post processing. Kolari Vision made getting started easy thanks to their free false colour actions for Photoshop. Fast forward a couple of hours, some red & blue channel swapping, a little NIK Color Efex Pro 4 and you have the surreal image above where the evergreens are turned a light red.

Background (a bit of the geek stuff, for those interested and wit a little understanding of IR photography):

I had a couple of EOS M mirrorless bodies that I've been wanting to convert to IR. Their compact size makes them ideal to take along in addition to my regular gear. They allow me to use the native EOS EF-M lenses, 11-22, 22 & 18-55 or I can pack the EF - EF-M adapter (also compact) and use any of my regular Canon and Sigma glass. Either way, there won't be a lot of extra weight or volume to pack and carry along.

There are benefits to converting mirrorless cameras over DSLRs for IR. Mirrorless cameras that focus directly off the sensor eliminate the need to have a DSLR camera's separate auto-focus system calibrated to IR wavelength and ... since mirrorless cameras use either live view or electronic viewfinders reading right from the sensor, you see exactly the exposure and colour rendition that will be recorded, rather than having to look through a darkened viewfinder and guess at the result.

For this first camera conversion I used Kolari Vision because they offer a "two-spectrum" conversion, leaving the image sensor sensitive to both infrared & visible light. This allows for shooting handheld with a variety of IR filters to achieve different results. Along with the conversion, I ordered 590nm & 850nm filters for false colour and high contrast B&W images respectively. This will give me a good start and I can always get additional filters and/or convert the second body once I have more experience working in IR.

For those who need to know more about IR photography and camera comversions, you can read about the "two-spectrum" conversion on Kolari Vision's website here or delve more deeply into the realm if IR photography from their main page.

I can see that this is going to be fun ...

DJE

Photo of the Week 2017-02-06

Following on the heels of my mid-week post (rant actually) about a favourite piece of digital image processing software not getting any attention from now parent company Google, I wanted to share some images processed in another software product, OnOne Photo Raw. I've owned OnOne Photo through versions 7, 8, 9, 10 and now RAW and have used it infrequently. As powerful an image editing suite OnOne is, I'd previously defaulted to my go-to software, Nik  plugins because I like them so much.

Given that an update to those favoured plugins seems very unlikely, I've begun to familiarize myself with some other choices like Topaz and OnOne in case I'm forced to make a switch at some point. Learning new software can be both interesting and frustrating at the same time. 

While working on some recent images in OnOne Photo Raw to create a dim, gritty feel, I was frequently taken down a dead-end path but found new looks and subtleties along the way. These images were shot while on a break from work, in an area of a facility that has been dormant for several years. I had been meaning to do this for a while and now that it's undergoing some work to bring a portion back to life, I though I better get it done while the dim, dormant atmosphere was still there.

slumbering beast

DJE

The Darker Side of Google ... at least for Photographers who use Nik products

WARNING!
This is a "Rant"

I've been a fan of Nik plugins for Adobe Photoshop for some time, a long time actually. So long in fact that I remember actually paying for the first module Silver Efex and lamenting the fact that Nikon owners got a Nik product Capture NX as their Raw conversion software for Nikon NEF files while I had to suffer with Canon's DPP as their option.

Fast forward a few years and Nik had released a number of modules, Color Efex, Viveza, Define, all of which I purchased and continue to use. This was before the company was swallowed up by Google in 2012. Initially I applauded the move, thinking there would be financial resources for new Nik products to be developed (stand alone image editing app anyone?) and the existing line to be advanced. Along the way, Google bundled the complete collection of plugins, offered it at a discounted price and again I bought in. Well it's now 2017 and Google has done nothing to update or advance the product in far too long (in software terms). Could it be that the great minds at Google have no ideas how to improve it? Are they stumped? Do they care? Another great idea and product set stifled by corporate blunder? Hello Google (Nik). Knock, knock. Are you there? Do you have anything for us loyal Nik users? Is Nik alive or are you just waiting for the day to finally pull the plug?

Here's an interesting excerpt from Ron Martinsen's Blog from 2015  "What Plug-ins should I buy?" 

What Happened to the Nik Collection by Google?
For as long as this blog has existed, I’ve been singing the praises of what used to be called the Nik Software Collection. They were the defacto standard by which all others were judged, and myself and so many others couldn’t live without it. However, my personal opinion of Google’s purchase of Nik Software, is that it seemed to be more of a patent grab than anything else as the innovation that Team Nik brought vanished after the acquisition (as well as many of the Nik employees).

If my calculations are correct, we are approaching 4 years since the last update of Color Efex and 2 years since the last update of anything (Analog Efex). As a result, it’s appears that these products are in sustained engineering mode. Given Google’s history of cutting products and services that aren’t part of their core business, I can’t escape the fear that one day an operating system change will come and we’ll hear that the Nik Collection will not be updated to support it.

With this in mind, I’ve been trying hard to wean myself off my favorite products like Color Efex, Silver Efex Pro, and Viveza for fear that I’d be up a creek without a paddle if I had an important job and they stopped working – with no plans to fix them.

I’ll be clear and state that these are still phenomenally good products, but if I’m going to advise my readers to spend their hard earned money then I want to point them to software solutions built by people with a ton of passion to make their products better (i.e., companies like Topaz Labs with their Complete Collection and MacPhun with their beautifully designed Creative Kit). Sure, if you have bought the other recommended products and have an extra $149 to spare, then by all means pick these up as they are still quite good. However, I don’t recommend that people with limited funds make this their first purchase for the aforementioned reasons.

I have to agree with Ron. I don't trust that Google will provide continued support for Nik products over time and will start my search for an alternative product. To me, the writing's been on the wall for a while, it's a sign when a company buys a great product that is not in there core business line, then let's it stagnate and does absolutely nothing with it for years. Giving it away for free a few years back may have seemed altruistic ... but I think Google is just slowing letting the life bleed out of what was a great product. Loyal NIK users deserved more. Shame on you Google.

DJE