Journal Entry for Tuesday, Jan 24th

Sunrise at Lake Mead Rock Hound Hikers Today I created yet another subject category on my Photo Gallery blog to showcase photos of fellow hikers who attend the weekly rock-hound hikes sponsored by Henderson's Heritage Park Senior Facility. Over the upcoming weeks and months, I will attempt to 'spotlight' each of the persons who have accompanied me on hikes, past present and future. Click the following link to view pictures in this new category … Rock hounds. Today's Food for Thought: "If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up." – Richard Avedon

Journal Entry for Thursday, Jan 19th

Rock Hound Hike To Lake Mead Today was the first scheduled rock hound hike for 2012. Two weeks ago I signed up for 15 hikes – thru May of this year. After today’s hike along Lake Mead’s Lakeshore Scenic Drive, I created two separate blog pages to provide information and showcase pictures that I took. Lakeshore Road Scenic Drive (Part I) and Lakeshore Road Scenic Drive (Part II). The picture on the left is of a Great White Heron that I captured while at our stop to Boulder Beach. Today's Food for Thought: "Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life!” – John Muir

Journal Entry for Friday, Jan 13th

People & Portraits - A New Photo Category Today I created a new photo subject category on my Photo Gallery site titled, People and Portraits. In reviewing last years pictures, I suddenly realized that the majority of my pictures are absent of people. It seems that for whatever reason, I have usually made it a point to take pictures without people. Maybe it’s because I felt that they usually seem to detract attention from the intended subject matter. As a result of making this discovery, I’ve decided to try and take more pictures this year that are inclusive of people, thus the new subject category. Wikipedia defines portrait photography as “the capture by means of photography of the likeness of a person or a small group of people (a group portrait), in which the face and expression is predominant. The objective is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the subject. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is the person's face, although the entire body and the background may be included. A portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the camera. Storytelling photography conveys emotion, mood and ideas in which expressions are captured and the person will not need to be looking directly into camera.” Hopefully this endeavor will lead to some more interesting pictures. Check out my first photo in this new category and let me know what you think. People & Portraits

Journal Entry for Friday, Jan 6th

Some New Triptychs Today I decided to review last year's pictures to see if I had any candidates for creating some triptychs. A review of my fowl and bird pictures revealed several promising prospects. When creating a triptych, I try to find a grouping of pictures where three shots together tell a better story than any one picture by itself. After a little work using my Scrapbook program, here is what I ended up with. One using some shots of a Greylag Goose and one of some shots of a Great Blue Heron. Check them out here … Greylag Goose and Great Blue Heron. Today's Food for Thought: "In order to see birds it is necessary to become part of the silence." – Robert Lynd

Journal Entry for Wednesday, Jan 4th

Learn Your Camera’s Functions Today’s Photo Tip: Take the time to study your camera. Congratulations! You got a new SLR or Micro Four-Thirds digital camera for Christmas and you can’t wait to start using it. Pull back the reins for just a minute. After making this kind of investment, it would be a shame not to take advantage of its full capabilities. The key to taking good pictures is to learn what your new camera is capable of. To accomplish this you must dedicate several days (that’s right, days not hours) to reading the manual, learning its features, buttons, levers, dials, menus, and settings, both auto and manual. Not only will this save you time and effort in the long run, but it will help to prevent you from relying on the cameras’ ‘auto’ functions, which though generally quite good, will severely limit your future picture taking abilities. Remember, “auto control” is the basic beginner mode, effectively turning your SLR or Four-Thirds camera into nothing more than a simple point-and-shoot compact, with all the exposure settings taken care of. Unfortunately, because most stock camera user manuals are poorly written and do not adequately discuss the differences between or the benefits of various options and menu settings, you need to find and purchase a book that explains your camera and its functions in much greater detail. Personally, I had dozens of unanswered questions until I found the book for my camera titled, The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2, The Unofficial Quintessential Guide. I can’t stress this enough – finding a good book on your camera written by a knowledgeable professional photographer and then taking the time to slowly read it with your camera in hand, changing defaults, settings and making recommended changes as you go, will make all your future picture taking experiences much more rewarding. Once you have reviewed all of the available menu and button settings pertaining to such things as format (RAW vs JPEG), ISO, various exposure modes, metering modes, effects of shutter speed and aperture, focus modes and drive modes, start taking and reviewing pictures using various settings. Remember, in the digital world it doesn’t cost a dime to take hundreds of pictures that can then later be delete in an instant. In doing this, you will begin to see and understand the immediate effects that changing these settings will make. In addition, you will get practice in learning how to read the information on the camera’s LCD screen, use it to zoom in and check for sharpness or noise, and use a histogram to evaluate exposure.

Journal Entry for Tuesday, Jan 3rd

Resize v.s. Resample? Today’s Photo Tip: Always Use Resampling to Reduce Image Size. When reducing (or enlarging) a photo, should you resize or resample it? In simple terms, resampling uses various algorithms, while resizing does not. As a result, resampling produces much smoother photos, while simple resizing may eliminate thin lines and produce some pixel steps in the image. The most common algorithm used to reduce photos is bilinear; while the most common algorithm used to enlarge photos is bicubic. Resampling only works on images with 24-bit color definition (16 million colors). The good news is that all JPGs are 24 bit color depth images. NOTE: Another common algorithm is the Lanczos filter, that compared with other filters, provides  (with a = 2) the "best compromise in terms of reduction of aliasing, sharpness, and minimal ringing", and when used (with a =3)  "it keeps low frequencies and rejects high frequencies better than any (achievable) filter previously available" and should be the default choice whenever possible.   For best results always check the "keep proportions" check box for the best results. If this box is checked you only need to give the new width in pixels and the height that keeps the proportions of the image will be automatically calculated or vice-versa. Often you will also be able to choose a percentage for the size reduction instead of a width/height in pixels. Often you will also be able to choose a percentage for the size reduction instead of a width/height in pixels. If needed, try using the “unsharp mask filter” to help sharpen the image.   What does all this mean? Why even perform resampling in the first place? To reduce file size for emailing and web posting. As an example, selecting reduce by 50% using the Lanczos3 filter, I recently resampled 24 pictures using the “batch convert” feature in FastStone Image Viewer. This process only took a matter of minutes and reduced the total file storage for all 24 images from 69MB to 11.8MB. Even with this huge reduction in file size, there was almost no visible difference when viewed on the computer screen. NOTE: Always save the ‘resampled’ images to a new folder. That way when you are done with your emailing or uploading to your web or blog site, you can simply delete the folder, leaving the originals intact.

Journal Entry for Monday, Jan 2nd

Year-end Tasks Today’s Photo Tip: Always keep your picture files organized. I’ve spent the past several days performing file cleanup, backup and rearranging, in preparation for a new year of photographic experiences. I'm sure this is the task that everyone dreads and always finds an excuse to “put off to another day”; but I say don’t be like everyone else; do it now! Needless to say, rearranging pictures and folders always seems to have some negative effect on the cataloging of various software programs, creating yet again the need to go back and ‘re-do’ some things; however, spending the time now to maintain an efficient filing system by making pictures easier to find, deleting unnecessary files and clearing disk space for the upload of a new years’ worth of photos is always a good investment of time and energy. Of course when you’re done, don’t forget to back everything up. I also performed some required maintenance on my Photo Gallery site. During this process I realized that I had conveniently “put off for a future time" the creation of some slideshows on some of my DayTrip pages. As a result, I created and added 4 new slideshows to the bottom of the following DayTrip pages: Weiser Ridge & Quarry, St. Thomas, Nevada, Lovell Wash, and Rogers Spring.

Journal Entry for Sunday, Jan 1st

Happy New Year Today’s Photo Tip: Learn the Elements of Exposure. For my first post of the year I thought I would start off with a few photography tips on exposure.  Probably the most import element needed for capturing good quality photos is adequate light. In photographic terms this is referred to as exposure. The two most important physical components that can provide you with an up front advantage in this arena is a ‘fast’ lens and large image sensor. THE LENS: A lens’ speed basically refers to the maximum amount of light that it can transmit in a specific length of time.  Essentially, a lens that transmits a lot of light is called a “fast” lens. The speed of a lens is determined by maximum size of the lens opening known as aperture. The aperture controls the amount of light that reaches a digital camera sensor. The diameter of an aperture is measured in f-stops. A lower f-stop number opens the aperture to admit more light onto the sensor. Higher f-stop numbers close the lens opening so less light gets through. A lens with an f-number of f/2.8 has a larger aperture than one with an f-number of f/11. The aperture, or aperture range, is indicated on the front of a lens.   IMAGE SENSOR: An image sensor is a solid-state silicon chip containing millions of photosensitive diodes called photosites (or sensels) that record light (photons), that converts an optical image into an electronic signal that displays color, tone, highlight, and shadow. Today, most digital still cameras use either a CCD image sensor or a CMOS sensor. Neither technology has a clear advantage in image quality. CCD is a more mature technology and is in most respects the equal of CMOS which are less expensive to manufacture than CCD sensors. Both types of sensor accomplish the same task of capturing light and converting it into electrical signals. Sensor size is analogous to choosing between 35 mm, medium format and large format film cameras. Most digital sensor specifications are expressed in either their size by inches or as a crop factor based upon a full-frame 35mm sensor. Beyond this point everything can get quite techinical and complicated. Suffice it to say, generally the larger the size, the better. With all that said, what are the manual settings can you employ when taking a picture that will help you get the best exposure possible? Bryan Peterson illustrates the three main ingredients in the following diagram. Each of the three aspects of the triangle relate to light and how it enters and interacts with the camera. ISO is the measure of a digital camera sensor’s sensitivity to light. Aperture is the size of the opening of the lens at the time a picture is taken. Shutter Speed is the amount of time that the shutter remains open during the shot. The intersection of these three elements becomes the image's exposure. From here there is no easy answer. Mastering exposure is a juggling act that takes a lot of practice. Not only does changing each element impact the exposure, each one also has an impact upon other aspects of the final image, i.e. changing aperture changes depth of field, changing ISO changes the graininess of a shot and changing shutter speed impacts motion blur. Remember, taking digital pictures is free. To learn the various effects that each of these aspects has on a shot, practice by shooting in intelligent Auto mode, Manual mode, Shutter priority mode and Aperture priority mode. The last two semi-automatic modes allow you to make decisions about one or two elements of the triangle and lets the camera handle the other elements. Practice is the best teacher. Today's Food for Thought: "You must always remember that the camera is merely a box with a hole in it which transmits light onto a light sensitive surface to make an image. Everything else is superfluous." – Scott Eric Williams