I started out with a Nikon D100, and grew to a Nikon D300 in those 5 years. The Nikon D200 was in my possession only about 6 months or so. Man, the noise on that body was humongous.
The Lightroom library shows me that I started (semi-serious) with photography about 5 years ago. 2005 was a bit of a slow year though.
It seems that the number of photo’s I make grows exponentially.
Adobe Lightroom Folders
At this rate, my Drobo wil run out of space in about a month or so 
For those who follow the photo’s on my flickr account may notice that I do like HDR(like) post-processing on my images. I use Photomatix’s Tonemapping functionality to create the basic HDR. After that I add (a lot of) drama to the picture by using Nik Color Efex Pro.
Nik Color Efex Pro has a plugin called Tonal Contrast. This plugin adds the detail/drama in the picture. Last weekend I ran into Topaz Adjust from Topaz Labs. This plugin is able to create the exact same drama in the picture. The difference is that Topaz costs only $49,99, while Color Efex Pro (with the Tonal Contrast filter option) costs $299,95 (but you also get a lot more filters for that price).
The following pictures are the result of either Nik Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast filter or Topaz adjust. The differences are minimal if you ask me.
Nik Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast Post HDR Processing
Topaz Adjust Post HDR Processing
So if your looking for HDR-like drama in your photo’s you might wanna consider Topaz Adjust. It’s relatively cheap compared to Color Efex Pro, but you get 52 filters for that price (instead of one filter with several presets).
Last Sunday we went (a couple of guys from the camera club) to the (almost) abandoned town of Doel in Belgium. The town is located near a nuclear power plant, and due to planned harbor expansions, the government started buying (or bought) houses in the small town.
The people who left, left a lot of stuff behind in their houses. Stuff that nobody bothered to clean up. This makes it an excellent environment for a little urban-exploration.
Smelly Fridge
My photo’s from Doel can be viewed on my flickr page.
Been experimenting the last couple of days with off-camera flash. Not entirely to my satisfaction, but learning every second more and more about (studio) flashing.
At the moment I have a Nikon SB-600 which is nice, but two (or more) would be a lot nicer (Photography Acquisition Syndrome, anyone???). Also some stands, claps etc. would be nice. Getting a flash off the floor (or cases) and into the air requires a lot of ingenuity.
This way, the gear-wish-list keeps growing and growing. Oh man, that Nikon 200-400mm f/4 lens is not getting closer this way….
Ordered a Phottix remote trigger set Tetra 1 x triger 2 x reciever kit last night for a couple of bucks (due tomorrow from Arend Handelsonderneming). About time that I started to get more familiar with creative off-camera flashing….. Did I say ‘creative’ and ‘I’?
A good time to start with some self portraits to get used to the lighting….. So expect som creepy pictures here and on my flickr page.
for sale at the Media Markt in Groningen (NL) for a lousy €3499,- A real bargain if you ask me (or just an enormous blunder….)
New Nikon 70-200 f/1.2 VR? (click image for the original pdf)
Since the ad runs till May 17th, you need to be quick…. very quick
Sharpener Pro is a piece of software to sharpen the photos just before printing/publishing. Different formats require different types or levels of sharpening. As you can imagine a 4×6 image requires different sharpening parameters than a life size poster.
Nik Software provides the tool for doing this relatively easy. Custom user pre-sets can be made. So you’ve got easy access to the settings you use most.
After making Nik Color Efex Pro and Siver Efex Pro Lightroom compatible, Nik Software released an Adobe Lightroom compatible version of Nik Sharpener Pro (which also works like the ‘old’ Photoshop plugin). Just as the other two pieces of software this one is also an update which can be downloaded from the Nik website.
After installing the software, a name and serial number are required. Just use the serial number of your original (v3.0) software to register the software.
Last Tuesday we had the ‘Digital Presentation Night’ on our local camera club. I expected that most of the members would ‘just’ bring photos. Therefore I decided to do something different.
I like black&white photos, so I made a small presentation showing the original photo (unedited) and the final (B&W) result. The responds was actually better than expected.
The original presentaion (created with Adobe Lightroom) can be viewed here (flash-required).
A while ago, Nik Software released the Nik Color Efex Pro plugins for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (or so it seems ). Now they also release the awesome B&W filters Silver Efex Pro plugins for Adobe Lightroom v2.3.
No need to open the images in Photoshop for the Black and White conversion process. Just do it from within Lightroom.
Nik Silver Efex Pro 4 Lightroom
The new installers (either Silver Efex Pro or Color Efex Pro is nothing more but an small update of the original software with the added support for Lightroom. The update is free for registered users. New users pay $199,00.
Downside (apart from the price for new users) is that the custom templates created under the Photoshop CS version are not directly accessible under the Lightroom version.
Another point of attention is that a new copy is created every time you open the photo in the Lightroom plugin. This copy isn’t removed when you press cancel in the Nik plugin. This behaviour was also present in the earlier Lightroom versions when you editted a photo in Photoshop. So I hope that this (bug) will be gone with a new release of the NIK software. Read more…
Metallica @ Ahoy
Last Monday I visited the Metallica Death Magnetic Tour concert in Ahoy, Rotterdam (NL). A relatively small establishment for a rock band like Metallica, but great for the fans (if you got tickets), since the podium was centered in the middle of the arena. So everyone was relatively close to the stage.
I brought my Lumix LX3 for this occasion (since I won’t be allowed entrance with my D300 + 70-200mm lens). This was the first time I brought a (P&S) camera to a concert, so I had no idea of what to expect of the quality.
I must say that I did try several settings, but the iA (Intelligent Auto) mode left me with the best images. Downside is that this mode produces only JPEG’s and no RAW files. The A, P, S and M modes are too susceptible to the light changes (over- or underexposed, or just blurry images), and the light conditions change a lot (almost every second).
The movie-mode of the camera performs relatively well. Extremely bright lights results in vertical lines across the movie. The audio is not that good, but hey… it’s a digital still camera with filming capabilities.
The only downside of the camera was (and still is) that it lacked zooming to 400 or 600mm :).
The photographic results can be seen on my flickr page.
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