Infrared Photography
A dear friend of mine has peaked my interested in digital infrared photography. Since none of my dSLR’s can be converted (they are Pentax, every place I have checked only does Canon and Nikon and a few other brands) I decided to buy a converted Fuji A900 point and shoot to start with. It should be here next week. In the mean time I have been looking around the photo sites at what other people are doing. One photographer that blows me away is Niek Haak of the Netherlands. You can view his infrared gallery at:
http://www.pbase.com/nh/infrared
His work is just amazing. I love black and white photography especially the high contrast images. That is probably the biggest thing that draws me to infrared photography the fact that the black and white images (you can do color infrared, but I am not a big fan of it) are very high contrast, moody and impactful.
If you don’t want to buy a converted digital camera for IR and provided that your camera is sensative to IR you can try something like a Hoya R72 Infrared filter that you screw on to the front of your camera or lens. Saddly the new Pentax dSLR’s like the K10D and K20D that I have are far to well sheilded from infrared light. While you can take infrared shots with them the exposure time is measured in minutes and if you have any movement of any kind you will get a blurred shot. Another drawback is the infrared filter is dark enough that you will not be able to see anything through your view finder, this makes framing and zooming a real problem.
A camera that has been converted for IR has had several protective layers/filters removed from the CCD and an IR filter added. You can then see what you are getting on the cameras LCD or through the view finder (dSLR) as well as zoom, etc. The Fuji that I bought was the least expensive IR only camera I could find that has a 4X optical zoom. Since I generally only like IR landscape shots more zoom isn’t really something I feel a need for. I bought the camera from http://www.maxmax.com for $375.00 plus shipping if your interested, it is the Fuji A900. I bought the IR-Only version so it can only be used for IR photography which is all I plan to use it for since I have two dSLR’s. However, you can also buy it as an IR+Visible which means you can put a filter on the front of the lens and use it for regular color photography as well. The IR+Visible model of the Fuji A900 is $300 plus shipping.
Once I get the camera I will be posting more on it and infrared photography.
Every Once in a While Something Just Tickles Your Funny Bone…
I was reading the Amazon.com blog the other day and came across several posts about the worst/ugliest cars produced and one of them was for the Yugo. Below is the post in its entirety. Please note the bolded quote from the young mans uncle. It is just so funny, I was rolling on the floor for an hour after that. It is even funnier if you picture the scene in your mind.
Amazon.com Blog Post Quote > Start “
by Amazon.com Automotive Editors at 2:52 PM PST, December 10, 2007
Yugo introduced its unreliable, underpowered, hopelessly antiquated GV hatchback in 1986 to worldwide jeering and derision, a level of scorn that only grew as people became more familiar with the intrinsic problems with an ancient Fiat design assembled with the meticulous disregard and thorough apathy of Yugoslavia’s Zastava auto group.
The GV’s carbureted, 61-horsepower four-cylinder engine, its antediluvian suspension design, and four-speed manual transmission were part of the problem. The remainder of the car constituted the rest of the problem.
In response to the deafening lack of demand for a performance variant of the GV came the GVX–a hot-rod Yugo that thoroughly failed to meet even the dimmest expectations.
The extensive revision and customization process added alloy wheels, a stripe of metallic paint along the bottom of the side rocker panels, a sport steering wheel, and a dizzying array of engine revisions that boosted available power from 61 horsepower to, well, 61 horsepower. These modifications had all the enhancing effect one would expect from spraying Lysol into a vat of raw sewage.
According to Kelly Blue Book, a 1987 Yugo GVX with 180,000 miles and in “Fair” condition (an iffy proposition considering most Yugos didn’t leave the factory in “Fair” condition and is completely unlikely to cover 180,000 miles under its own power) is now worth $400.
The Yugo, of course, has become known as a car symbolizing tremendous awfulness of an unprecedented degree. The existence of a “sport” edition that didn’t actually add any sport makes the car all the worse.
My uncle has a classic line–he says that the Yugo’s optional rear-window defroster is useful mostly to keep your hands warm when you’re pushing it.
What has been so far left unsaid in this sordid tale is that part of me–and not a small part–thinks the Yugo is actually not a terrible-looking car. I’m ashamed to say that that I came this close to making the Yugo GVX a Car Lust instead of a Car Disgust.
–Chris H.
Amazon.com Blog Post Quote > End “
If you would like to read more of the Amazon.com blog you can Click Here.
Free Video Tutorials on Video Editing and More…
I have recently bought my first camcorder and have been spending more time playing around with video editing and other video related techniques. I was suprised that there is actually more to learn about video editing than there was about still photography (something I love to do). I started to look for tutorials that would help explain this complex yet fun process.
One of the best I have found is on the Digital Juice web site. Digital sells video related products like background animations, sound effects, music and more all for video editors. They also have their DJTV tutoiral videos that are just incredible. They cover a wide range of subjects the videos are free and are available in several different resolutions including ones for iPod that will also work with the AppleTV unit. If you would like to check out DJTV you can, there address is:
Howdy! Hello! and Welcome!
Well, we have decided to try blogging. This is the first time we have ever blogged and so it will be a learning experience and hopefully something fun too. To get things off to a good start we have a couple of things of interest to share today.
1. We have posted our video review of Image Trends Inc’s SensorKleen Pro 2.0.2 application. This interesting application takes a series of images from your dSLR (Digital SLR) camera, analyzizes them and then removes dust and other debris that was on the cameras sensor and removes it. While we find this program to be interesting it does seem to have some issues with images that are high in noise (high ISO images). Images with low noise it seems to do a very good job on, but if the noise is too high it will reduce the dust and debris ghosts in the image but will not completely remove them. For that you need to use SensorKleen Pro’s manual Smart Brush tool. Unfortunately you can’t use the manual Smart Brush tool to train SensorKleen Pro where the dust and debris is in the image and then have it batch process the images to remove it. Since the debris is in the same area from image to image it would seem that this would be a good feature to add to the next version of SensorKleen. Personally, I wouldn’t want to have to manually process several hundred images because I shot high ISO.
What our video review and decide for yourself. Even if you decide that SensoKleen Pro isn’t for you, Image Trends Inc. has some other products that are very useful. I especially like the Fisheye-Hemi plug-in for Photoshop. You can view our video review by Clicking Here . If you would like to visit Image Trends Inc’s web site you can do so by Clicking Here.
2. While watching the latest Photoshop User TV episode on my Apple TV unit today the mentioned the Lexar web site and their photography area and that there was a cool tutorial for a Hollywood style effect on there from Scott Kelby. I of course ran right over and took a look. The tutorial is short and sweet. If you do portrait shots and want to add some pizazz to them then you will want to take a look at this tutorial. To view the tutorial Click Here. Look for the tutorial titled “Giving your images that Hollywood look using Photoshop CS3 – Part 1″
