Saturday evening found me over by the canal on the Princeton/West Windsor border, Sunday afternoon I was back nearby at the Updike Farmstead (previous posts – here and here). Both areas qualify as falling within the remaining buffer and both will remain so since they are protected areas.
Delaware-Raritan Canal, February 27, 2010
Post-sunset, same spot, it was all about the color.
Updike Farmstead on Sunday:
Updike Farmstead, February 28, 2010
Old growth forest, deer tracks.
I brought Bix with me on both outings. On Sunday, there was a large herd of deer watching us. At first they hid in the trees. But then on our way back, the deer, having had enough, darted out across an empty field and back into the woods. I have never seen a herd this large, 2-3 dozen strong. Bix, whose fur is so overgrown he can barely see, missed the action visually but was all too happy to explore the tracks left out in the open.
iTunes just sold their ten billionth song, Johnny Cash’s Guess Things Happen That Way. Kind of cool that it’s Johnny Cash, that the title fits, that its got a great jaunty spare 50′s production quality to it, and that it’s out of the current mainstream.
*This is a 2/26 re-edit of this post. I first published it on 2/24 running the photos in color. Since then I came up with a b&w conversion I am much happier with – so out went the color.*
I rushed last weekend to complete some more work on the buffer project. I know I’ll continue when the weather gets nicer but I wanted to get some more images while the snow was still around. It seemed having the contrast would make the images more graphic and this past Monday onward the forecast called for warmer weather (40′s) and rain. Surely, the snow would be gone within a few days…
Well, we still have 6″-8″ left and now are due for 10″-16″ more, starting tonight and continuing into Friday.
Washington Road Fields
Washington Road Fields
Harrison Street, Millstone River
Harrison Street, Millstone River
Seminary Drive Fields
I have reworked the five images from the previous buffer posts (here and here) with the new b&w conversion.
Seminary Drive Fields
Seminary Drive Fields
Alexander Road Fields
Alexander Road Fields
Alexander Road Fields
Some equipment and software notes:
All of the raw images were processed in Aperture 3, some received additional work in Photoshop.
The b&w conversion was done in Aperture 3. I created a platinum-esque preset which tones the image and alters the tonal curve a bit.
The top five images are composites made with the Canon TS-E 24mm II lens, in each case combining three images into one.
I’ve been testing a new tripod head, the Arca-Swiss C1 Cube. It’s a joy to use – simple, very quick, rock solid, and an engineering marvel. Its built-in levels are quite accurate and negate the need to add a bubble level to the camera’s hot shoe. I’ve come to love the fact that it has two pan controls. One at the bottom and one at the top, above the leveling controls. This way you can orient the head with the bottom control first (a rough line up or if the head needs a different orientation relative to the tripod), level the head, and then fine tune the pan with the topmost pan control. Since the head is already level adjusting the top pan won’t throw it out of alignment.
Apple has just released an update to Aperture 3. You can access the update via Software Update in your System Preferences or as a standalone file from here.
Photoshop turned 20 yesterday – so it’s time to bring out a couple of quick stories.
I first started using Photoshop back with version 2.5. It was on a Windows PC in 1992 or 1993. Back then, if you bought a mid-level or higher scanner Photoshop was often included for free and that’s how I came to own it. While I didn’t dive in head first, I played with it for many years and initially used it as a tool to clean up and prep scans. It wasn’t until the advent of good digital cameras in the late 90′s, early 00′s, that it became integral to how I work.
I have two brushes with Photoshop greatness in my career. The first is indirect and occurred when Adobe Camera Raw came out. In spite of the all the hoopla over it I found it to be challenged at best when working with Nikon raw files. My comments led an extended email correspondence with author Bruce Fraser and to spending lots of time photographing a MacBeth ColorChecker so that Bruce could test the files and pass information along to Adobe.
The second was much more direct. One of the successive versions of Adobe Camera Raw had a bug or two in it. I found them and posted them on an Adobe forum. Shortly after I got an email from Thomas Knoll, co-author/developer/inventor of Photoshop, with an invitation to be a beta tester for Adobe Camera Raw. I did that for a couple of years, Camera Raw versions 2.2~3.3. After 3.3 the beta program seemed to fizzle out. Releases went right to public betas or whatever part of the program I was in was asked to do less. It was never quite clear since communication was often one-sided (from Adobe outward.)
By the spring of 2006 I was starting to use Apple’s Aperture as my main raw processor and it was time to move on. Regardless of all the shifting about with raw processors over the years (Nikon Capture, MacBibble, ACR, DPP, Aperture) as digital capture matured from an infant to a pre-teen (?), the one constant has been Photoshop for almost all work beyond the initial raw conversion.
