We push participants outside their comfort zones and encourage them to make work they’ve never made before, and more importantly, to engage in the process of making images differently and more fully. This can be difficult. Sometimes people say they don’t want to be pushed, but we push anyway. Some people have a hard time finding and starting their projects. Daily group critique is an important part of this process. This workshop had some challenging, teary moments including a ‘photographic intervention’ but amazing transformations happened by the end of the week. People had grown so much, were trusting their instincts and were intensely engaged in their process of making powerful imagery.

At the end of our weeklong workshop we had a big feast and watched a slide show of everyone’s best images. It was amazing. These are photographers working outside of their areas of expertise – experimenting with whole new styles and genres. Here’s a condensed version of their work:

“I’ve never been more exhausted and never felt more alive. I feel as if my awareness of the world has expanded, and I’ve become more sensitive to the light and moments around me. PhotoMuse changed my way of seeing and showed me how powerful photography can be in a very real and direct way.”
– Danielle Tsi

We’re considering bringing this workshop to NYC, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and other locations. Let me know if you’re interested.

At this year’s Night Photography Festival in Mono Lake, CA, I had a blast teaching an advanced class and making images side-by-side with so many people. But it was all the guest speakers, instructors and fantastic night photographers all in one place that was so unique about this gathering. Lance and I reserved Bodie State Park for two nights instead of one this year so that our group of 40+ could have ample time exploring and making images in the king of all ghost towns. Despite having this exceptional nighttime access to such an extraordinary place, I felt compelled to make portraits of the photographers themselves instead of the ghost town.

Now I’m no portrait photographer, and I don’t have any experience doing this, but I wanted to explore this idea of making portraits of night photographers in their habitat. These are 1-2 minute exposures by moonlight where I’m adding light on the subject with a flashlight (not a flash!). Since I prefer side-lighting from two sides with a handheld flashlight, it was challenging for the subject to keep still during the light painting and throughout the rest of the exposure.

As it turned out, other photographers started adding their own light while my shutter was open and some became a collaborative effort. So a tip of the hat to Lance Keimig, Troy Paiva and Tom Paiva for their added light and all the subjects for their collaboration and enthusiasm with this – it was a blast working with all of you. Perhaps those of you that know their work can pick out their handiwork?

I’ve included the names of these photographers below their portrait. They are all much more experienced photographers whose work I admire – please Google their names and check out their work if you aren’t familiar with them. And feel free to leave comments below.

the first copperplate photogravure from a digital positive, 1994 © SM

Bostick and Sullivan moved to Santa Fe and their alt printmaking supply business sky-rocketed, as has the alt-process printmaking niche. Thank goodness. IMO, Dan, Melody (Bostick) and Dick (Sullivan) deserve the lions share of credit for the alt-process resurgence we’ve seen over the last two decades.

But digital negs for alternative printmaking processes don’t make good prints by themselves – you’ve got to jack with them. For twenty years we’ve created convoluted methods of making Photoshop curves with Dmax and Dmin end points, and used complicated 3rd party RIP software and god-knows-what weird scripts to make it all happen. Dan and I, not to mention a handful of wannabees, have flown around the world teaching small groups of printmakers how to make their images come alive on these processes. Some have been more vocal about creating precise negs with the science of colorimetery on their side. I’m all about the color science, but these days I’m also devoted to elegance, and trying to see the bigger picture. I’m ready to jump ship from the very techniques that I’ve helped develop and teach over the years and push forward with newer, easier methods.

Let me tell you, all of this sucks. Not the print making part – that’s where the magic and passion lies. It’s the curves, MeasureTool, QuadTone inksets, weird drivers, scripts, even Photoshop that suck – we’re living in the dark ages. We’re working with glass plates with horrible halation problems.

Cyanotypes as seen onscreen prior to printing © SM

Today I hop on a plane to Mexico to see an old friend. Byron Brauchli left Austin for Xalapa ten years ago to make gorgeous alt-process prints for people who love them. We made the first copper plate photogravure prints from digital positives back in 1994 and taught workshops at Flatbed Press in Austin. This time we’re teaching a workshop on elegance. The elegance of making simple negs for alt-process printmaking without much fuss. We’re using common inkjet printers with their regular printer drivers and making common ICC profiles with free software that, with one easy step, provides print to screen matching and negs that print with perfect tonality. With these simple profiles we can see onscreen exactly how our images will look if printed with cyanotype rich blues or gentle warm palladium blacks. And we can print negs with one easy step that reproduce our images as perfectly as we’ve experienced them in the digital darkroom. It fits into a modern photographic workflow. No overwhelming technical gymnastics involved. It’s very clean. Back to making images, and making prints. Back to making.

It was really fun having Angela and Mark Walley out filming during our annual workshop in Big Bend, TX. They are super talented and do amazing work. Between the photographers and videographers the creative process was quite alive that week with image making all day and all night long. You can check out more about WalleyFilms at walleyfilms.com

As a long time still photographer, I’m pretty blown away with the power of video as a communication tool. As our DSLR cameras gain HD video capability I’m enjoying getting my feet wet. I think all photographers need to keep an eye on this medium and think about how we can embrace it and make it a part of our work. This is my first experience incorporating it into my own business and I’m looking forward to more exploration with it.

A: Photoshop wasn’t designed to work with camera RAW files – it was designed to work with film scans. IMO, the Camera RAW plugin and Adobe Bridge represent an inelegant approach to modernizing an application based on 1980′s technology.

Lightroom is the new Photoshop written from the ground up with Camera RAW imaging in mind. It’s a paradigm shift. With it, we inch closer to a workflow that allows us to do everything (adjustments, retouching, printing, etc) directly from the camera RAW files, or our “Digital Negatives” as I like to call them, without cumbersome TIFF and PSD files. JPEGs are a temporary format designed for transportation and internet use. Maintaining a collection of Digital Negatives without all the other files is simple and elegant, takes up a lot less drive space and simplifies file management and archiving.

If and when you choose to become a Lightroom user, I’d encourage you to use it to import images directly from the camera’s memory card, all the way through your workflow including printing, client file delivery and website creation. Think of Photoshop as a temporary retouching tool that you’ll one day be able to retire once Lightroom gains those more extensive capabilities. If you need to goto Photoshop, do so quickly and return back to Lightroom for everything else (printing, client file delivery, etc).

Some people’s work revolves around Photoshop and image compositing. Maggie Taylor and Dan Burkholder are two friends whose work I admire whose creative process has been deeply engrained in Photoshop for decades. Lightroom isn’t necessarily for them, and that’s OK. Photographers that don’t do much compositing or extensive retouching are better off adopting Lightroom for the majority of their workflow, even if it involves Photoshop at times. Those that say “Why use Lightroom when Photoshop does more?” just don’t get it. It’s about simplicity and elegance. It’s about rethinking the whole process of working with images. Lightroom isn’t for all everyone but it represents the future for 90%+ of DSLR photographers. Photoshop will remain a powerful tool for those doing extensive retouching/compositing and for non-photographers like 3D illustrators, architects, graphic designers, etc.

The elegance and simplicity of Lightroom’s workflow has changed my whole relationship to photography. I’m able to spend less time behind the computer and more time behind the lens. I used to spend hours and hours perfecting an image in Photoshop but now I do so behind the camera. When I’m shooting, I strive harder to get it right in-camera because I want to avoid using Photoshop at all costs. Instead of saying “Oh I’ll fix that in Photoshop” I just shoot something else or I’ll work to perfect the lighting. I spend less than 5% of my time in Photoshop now and look forward to the day when I can retire it altogether.

Is it real?
15 years ago I had an exhibition of palladium prints and it really bothered me when someone asked “What did you do in Photoshop? Are these real?” These days when people ask these questions at my exhibitions my response is “all of these images were made completely without the use of Photoshop.” And that means something. For the viewer or print buyer, it’s powerfully confidence building. Someday Lightroom will have a lot more extensive retouching capabilities than it has today. But for now, saying that an entire exhibit was printed entirely with Lightroom means that the retouching is minimal if at all, and that no compositing was done. It looked like that in camera. Some mastery of the craft is evident. It has integrity – similar to in-camera transparency. And it’s “real” – however the viewer is defining that. :-]

Developed in LIghtroom using almost no adjustments. Yes, it’s real. No Photoshop work at all.

Today, the NYTimes is featuring an essay of Jenny’s in that very column. It’s a deeply personal piece that reminds us to appreciate what we have, and do what we can while we can. Whither on paper or on your device, please check it out.

I love telling people what I’m doing when I’m shooting and night, and often show images to explain the concept of making this kind of art. But these guys didn’t want to see my images; they called for backup. As we waited for a few more vehicles of military police to show up, I was told not to move. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, and that I really didn’t have anything to worry about, except for my friends who were a hundred feet away around a corner. When 2 more vehicles of solders showed up, things got more heightened. The new arrivals questioned the first solders about me and several were simultaneously talking on walkie talkies. “What kind of pictures are they?” “Did he get the ships?” “Who does he work for?” “What does he look like?” etc etc. Obviously, this “what does he look like?” questions implies that looking a certain way is also suspect. For the record, I’m an average-sized, 37 year old male with short dark hair. That night I was wearing cargo pants and a button-down shirt. By the time they actually decided to talk to me, I have to admit I was struggling to keep a worry free attitude. Being surrounded by military police vehicles with flashing lights and lots of well armed solders in camo and not being allowed to move can be intimidating.

I’m used to getting stopped by police and Border Patrol for making images at night. Working with photography at night is a foreign concept to most people, but easily overcome. In situations like these I don’t panic. Instead I show my enthusiasm for the creative process I’m involved in. I respect their authority, show them example images on my phone, move if they ask me to and express genuine appreciation for them keeping an eye out for us. I also know that US citizens have a right to photograph in any public space in America. People can even take photos of private property, military bases, police on duty, etc, as long as it’s done from a public space. Photographers can’t trespass and should always be respectful of other people and their property while making images. Again, my tripod and I were set up on a sidewalk, a public space.

Gesturing with his hands in one direction and then another the head MP says to me “your talking pictures… and it smells like terrorism!” He says it again, this time slowly with greater emphasis: “your talking pictures… and it smells like terrorism!” He says it one more time, in classic loud, drill sergeant style followed by “Ya see?”

“OK,” I say, “Can I show you the image I was just making?”

“No, no, no” he says and goes on and on about how important this navel base is and how there are lots of ships here. “And believe me, there ARE terrorists in this area!!” he says loudly while making a circling gestures over our heads

Rule number six on the Photographer Rights Card includes this line “Photographing from a public place cannot infringe on trade secrets, nor is it terrorist activity.” What I wanted to say to this soldier was “I’m on public sidewalk under a bright streetlight and can legally make whatever images I like from here, including those of the navel base you’ve just informed me about. If I was a terrorist I probably wouldn’t be so obvious – I’d probably shoot from a car across the street wouldn’t I?” But I didn’t say these things. No need to question their authority. No need to increase my chances fog being detained any further. And that’s what I was worried about at the point – that I might get pushed into a vehicle and taken somewhere for further questioning. Perhaps they would label me as a potential enemy combatant and deny my civil liberties. That might sound extreme, but this possibility was starting to seem very, very real. I overheard the words “confiscate” and “take him” on the walkie talkies as I talked with the soldier. I didn’t want to reveal that I was out with other photographers that were just a hundred feet away, let alone leave them behind when I had the keys to the car.

The officer wanted to know my name and where I lived. Now, what would you do in this situation? Would you willingly do whatever they say or demand that your civil liberties be honored? I was so nervous that I couldn’t even remember that I didn’t have to answer such questions. I told them my name, and where I was from. I told them that I show my work in galleries, and that my images sometimes take hours to make, and often involve painting with light from flashlights. “Come on, let me show you the images I’ve been making tonight.” I said. He initially declined, but curiosity got the best of him. One look at the image above and the others I had made that night and his relief was obvious and his tone went from drill sergeant to buddy. “Awww, so you aren’t taken pictures of tha ships, or tha entrance or nothing are you? Well that’s real interestin’ You’re an arteeast! ” We shook hands and I was glad to walk away and check in with my night photography buddies who, despite all the flashing lights had missed the whole ordeal. “We would have gotten detained in solidarity with you!” they joked. It was nice to feel free, and be with friends.

Unnecessary harassment is getting more and attention in the press lately as our post 9-11 world seems to be getting even more on edge when it comes to citizens with cameras. Things have become so heightened that there are recent stories where police assault harmless, ordinary people with cameras, arrest them and charge them with assaulting a police officer. Police have been known to simply steal cameras out of civilian’s hands and deny the camera ever existed later. In the UK, section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, actually gives police the right to detain and search anyone upon suspicion and seize anything considered to be in connection to terrorism. In the UK, the I’m a Photographer, not a Terrorist campaign has successfully suspended section 44 while it’s under further investigation. In the US, police and citizens alike have always had the right to take pictures in public. Recent events suggest that more dialog and increased awareness might be in order.

How to deal with the authorities when photographing at night is a regular topic that Lance Keimig and I talk about during our night photography workshops and is discussed Lance’s new book. In my opinion, these situations are like any other confrontation. Don’t let the situation get heightened. Don’t be disrespectful or threatening in any way – even in the most slight, psychological way. Don’t demand that your rights be respected. Don’t assume that they will respect your rights, either. Be patient and try not to get offended. They are doing their job and may not be trained as well as they should be. Be patient. These situations can be scary and people act differently when they are scared. If you can control your reaction you’ll probably control the outcome.

I have conflicting feelings about my experience. I’m glad they didn’t automatically assume I wasn’t a tourist, but I wonder what my experience would have been like if I had a full beard, or was wearing a hoodie. I’m glad they are keeping an eye out for suspicious activity. I do think security and civil liberties can co-exist. And a helping of sanity, patience and friendly communication can go a long way.

The last image in the above group titled “Liberty’s Final Hour” was a one hour exposure taken from 9:30pm to 10:30pm May 17th. I’ve also compiled a time lapse video of this final hour plus a half hour after closing time during which people shuffled out and the lights and fans were turned off.

Austin American-Statesman photographer Jay Janner recently made this portrait of Dan in his Driftwood, TX studio – the first of it’s kind in front of Dan’s handcrafted photo booth in his Driftwood, Texas studio.

FLYP magazine published a great article on his work and career. Highly recommended viewing. Included in the article are two videos where he talks about his devotion to photography and what makes a great portrait.

If you haven’t already I’d encourage you to spend some time at Dan’s website. Better yet, order his book Periodical Photographs from Aperture.

All of these displays use an LED backlit lightsource, IPS LCD panels and eco-conscious materials. These first two technologies are crucial for demanding professionals. The LED lightsource provides consistency across the screen, a boost in color gamut, power savings, lower heat generation and can achieve the lower luminance (brightness) levels that print professionals need. The IPS LCD panel provides a wide viewing angle so that the viewer doesn’t experience the density shifting that’s become so common with laptop and most LCD displays today that use the less expensive TN LCD panel technology. A lot of companies (like Samsung and Dell) used to offer good value IPS displays before the recession but have since lowered the quality of their displays by abandoning IPS technology. Interestingly enough, Apple (and to a lesser extent NEC) is one of the only companies that’s currently increasing the quality of their displays while lowering their pricing.

The NEC MultiSync PA241W display includes internal 14bit 3D LUT calibration hardware, a matte surface and a 4 year warranty that the Cinema Displays do not. NEC displays are not compatible with 3rd party calibration packages like Color Eyes Display Pro and instead require the $280 NEC SpectraView calibration system that’s sold separately. Apple’s LED Cinema Displays have built in speakers, camera and laptop power connections that lead to less clutter on the desktop. Both brands include an internal USB hub and several USB ports for convenience. Apple hasn’t actually announced the 27-30″ LED Cinema Display but it’s widely expected to come to market within the next few months. The already announced NEC MultiSync PA241W is expected to start shipping in the US in a few weeks.

Calibration
We can’t talk about high quality displays without also talking about calibration. After all, any display isn’t going to perform as desired until it’s calibrated to match the lighting in the environment that the user’s eye has chromatically adapted to. A well calibrated display will show white as matching paper white. When viewing a white Photoshop document, for example, it shouldn’t look cooler (bluer) or brighter than a white piece of paper as viewed a few feet away. Customizing the white point color temp and luminance setting via display calibration software to match print viewing or ambient lighting is a must. While the NEC has to be calibrated with NEC’s excellent Spectraview calibration package, I recommend Color Eyes Display Pro for calibrating displays that don’t come with calibration hardware (like the Cinema Displays). Color Eyes Display Pro’s iterative calibration process does such an impressive job smoothing out gradations that you won’t miss the calibration hardware that far more expensive displays include.

Commentary
A lot of people, (myself included) have had a knee-jerk reaction to Apple’s highly reflective glossy displays. I have to say – it’s really not that bad – especially if you have excellent, well placed lighting in your work environment. If the display makes you think about improving your lighting that’s not such a bad thing. After all, it wasn’t that long ago when we all worked behind glass faced monitors. I’m seeing a number of demanding clients using Apple’s new LED displays and, reflectiveness aside, they all have great things to say about them. I too have put them to the test and found that they perform admirably. Better than the previous generation for sure.

Photographers use lenses and display prints behind “museum” glass that have highly effective antiglare coatings. If Apple were to bring the same antiglare, museum glass coatings to their Cinema Displays, the cycle would be complete. Glassless, matte surfaced displays have become a regular option for MacbookPros so it’s not out of the question that they might come out with glassless matte surface LED Cinema Displays. Apple does have options for lowering the reflectivity on their Cinema Displays and I look forward to seeing what solutions they come out with in the future. This is definitely something to watch, and the existing 24″ LED display and 27″ iMac are both pretty nice in the meantime for the price.

As long as we’re talking about Apple’s “Pro” products, I think Compact Flash card readers should be built into these Cinema Displays, as well as MacBookPros and MacPros. Professionals, after all, use Compact Flash cards, not the consumer oriented SD cards found in smaller cameras.

Don’t get me wrong, I love expensive Eizo, Barco, and Quato displays (and NEC’s other displays). My clients and I have enjoyed them for years. But not only do most of their displays use the older CCFL backlit technology, the cost difference just doesn’t justify the difference in quality like it used to. Imagemakers like myself have to ask if the difference in cost might be better spent, say, on a new lens or printing equipment.

Update (7-27-10)
As expected, Apple just announced the 27″ LED Cinema Display for $999 and lowered the price of the 24″ LED Cinema Display to $799. For those on lower budget, the Viewsonic VP2365wb 23″ is an IPS 1920 x 1080 DVI display that performs surprisingly well for $300.

• • Speed is greatly improved.
• • Importing has been improved and refined.
• • Tethering for popular Nikon and Canon cameras is now supported.
• • Watermarking is improved (although still not ideal).
• • Luminance Noise Reduction has been added to complement the new demosaicing and color noise algorithms.
• • New Vignette styles.
• • Adjustment Brush and Gradient tools can now be stacked to strengthen the effect.
• • New Print Layout capabilities with Rotate to fit and Rotate Cell options.
• • Video files can now be imported from DSLRs along with still images.
• • The X key conveniently toggles the orientation in the crop tool.
• • Perspective Control and Soft Proofing are not in this beta (but are in development for future release).
• • While LR3beta1 catalogs can be updated for use in LR3beta2, LR2 catalogs still cannot be. This is after all, a beta release that is not intended, nor recommended for production work.

Commentary
The biggest thing for my own workflow is the speed and overall responsiveness of this release, which is better than any 1.x or 2.x  release. When I upgraded to the 21mp Canon 5Dmark2 I’ve been frustrated with the responsiveness of Lightroom ever since – until now. It’s pretty hard to go back to 2.6 for production work. On high resolution 20+ megapixel files, LR3beta2 is far, far faster – sometimes more than 20 times faster when lots of localized adjustments are used.

The second biggest thing for me about this release is the Luminance noise reduction. Luminance noise reduction used to be something to avoid in LR 1 and 2 because it would blur an image and it’s detail. Luminance noise reduction in LR3beta2 maintains image detail nicely while smoothing out Luminance noise. For those that want a little “film grain” in their images and prints the new Grain too lets you do just that with controls for grain size and roughness. With these new controls I’m finding that I can take noisy high ISO images, smooth out the noise without loosing detail and get a more desirable result by adding grain if I so desire. IMO, Lightroom now offers more control than any other RAW software, in this aspect.

The third most significant development for my own workflow is the grain tool. I make a fair amount of 60×96 and 36×60 inch prints and I find that adding noise (and increasing localized contrast) makes these prints more desirable. I’ve been groaning as I render the files to a  TIFF so I can goto Photoshop and add this noise. With LR3′s new grain tool, I can now add the grain and print directly from Lightroom. One less reason to goto Photoshop and suffer with huge files – whew. What’s more is that I can save grain presets for each of these print sizes in Lightroom and quickly apply them, or not, depending on the print size I’m working with.

Ian Lyons’ has a review at Computer Darkroom

You can download the new beta at: the Adobe Labs Lightroom 3 Beta2 page.

Parametric workflows, like those available through Adobe Lightroom, Express Digital Darkroom and Apple Aperture are clearly the way of the future and offer huge productivity advantages over one-image-at-a-time, pixel editing workflows like Photoshop’s. While photographers switch to parametric applications, Photoshop will continue to be an excellent application for non-photographers like designers, architects, 3D professionals, etc.

Happy birthday Photoshop, you have been great. Let’s take a fun ride down memory lane. But let’s not reminisce and look to the past for too long. Let’s stay focused on the future, which for most photographers, lies elsewhere. The future is great – and it’s all parametric.

Update: The iPad background image is licensed from RIchard Misrach. (via Mark Menjivar)

Update: See this in-depth article about the image and Misrach at ARTINFO

In his own words these images are "Untouched by Mac hardware or Adobe software. It’s liberating in so many ways. For the first time we have both camera and darkroom in the palm of our hands." Dan has, at the moment, four "iPhone Artistry" workshops planned around the country that focus exclusively on iPhone based image capture and development. Visit iphoneartistry.com to see more images.

Dan is also credited for inventing the digital negative for contact printing process, pigment over platinum and pigment over gold leaf printmaking.

Tom Hogarty, Lightroom’s Product Manager, has lots to say about this beta in his blog. In it he says:

“We’re only halfway through our noise reduction efforts but believe that you will be very pleased with the results so far. We’ve actually disabled the previous Luminance Noise Reduction so that you can focus on evaluating the Color Noise reduction implementation.”

I’m finding a few reasons to actually increase luminance noise reduction on high res long exposures in low light, so I’m yearning to see these sharpening tool evolve a little further from where they are in this beta. But I’m impressed with the results so far.

Tom also points out that images previously developed in previous versions of Lightroom will initially appear the same in LR3 with a warning triangle that appears above the upper left hand corner of the Histogram. If this triangle is pressed, the image will be re-rendered using LR3′s new processing, including the new demoasiacing, sharpening and noise reduction algorithms. The screen grabs above were taken before and after clicking this triangle using LR’s detail panel defaults. It appears that LR3′s new process quality improvements are best seen on high ISO images, especially those from 20+ megapixel cameras files.

6400 ISO for testing
Being able to take photos at 6400 ISO has huge benefits for the night photographer. Night photographers tend to waste a bunch of time taking long exposures only to discover they need to reshoot with a better exposure. Testing exposures at high ISOs can save huge amounts of time but doing so has been clunky as it requires complicated math when using a camera that has a ISO ceiling of 1600. Now that that ceiling has been lifted to include 6400 ISO we can make a direct translation from ISO 6400 exposures in seconds to ISO 100 exposures in minutes. For example, a 15 second exposure at ISO 6400 is the same as a 15 minute exposure at ISO 100 (Canon’s native ISO). Nikon users can figure that a 15 second exposure at 12,800 ISO is the same as a 15 minute exposure at ISO 200 (Nikon’s native ISO).

Either way, this means a night photographer can quickly determine the optimal exposure at a high ISO before committing to a long, final exposure at the native ISO. This has provided me with significant time savings and more optimal exposures on the 5Dmark2.

Low noise
To make a long story short, the noise levels are shockingly low, even during very long exposures (like 30+ minutes at ISO 100). Even 6400 ISO images are less noisy than one would expect, and because the noise is embedded within such a high resolution (21 megapixel) image, the noise isn’t visible at all on 8×10 inch or smaller prints.

Live View
The Live View mode not only helps with frame composition at night, it zooms into a small area in the center allowing for incredibly precise focusing through the lens that’s far more reliable than focusing through the viewfinder or by using a focusing notch on the lens itself. This works when the depth of field preview button is depressed so, when there’s enough light, one can visually check depth of field as well. One needs to shine a flashlight on the object of focus but the level of confidence this provides, and success rate, is fantastic. The very latest DSLR’s from Nikon and Canon have Live View and most DLSRs are bound to have this feature from now on.

Resolution and flexibility
21 megapixels offers a lot of image detail and it leaves me with a feeling similar to switching from medium to large format. Processing these files is slow but I’m in awe of the detail and sharpness. While I was concerned that 21 megapixels might be too much for some projects I’ve found the 10 megapixel (half RAW) and 5 megapixel (quarter RAW) sRAW options to be quite useful.

Exposure length recording
Cameras record long exposure times in seconds. Most cameras only record 3 digits worth of seconds (illustrated below left) so any exposures over 999 seconds aren’t accurately noted in the EXIF data. The 5Dmark2 lifts this 3 digit limit so that longer exposures are accurate noted in the EXIF data (as illustrated below right).

Long Exposure Noise Reduction
Like most DSLR’s, the 5Dmark2 has the option to enable long exposure noise reduction. With this option enabled, the camera takes a second dark exposure and subtracts the noise signature from the original image (also known as dark frame subtraction). This is applied both to JPEGs and to RAW files and results in a significant reduction in noise that is superior to noise reduction efforts in RAW processing applications and even filters in Photoshop. So if one takes a 15 minute exposure, the noise reduction takes an additional 15 minutes to complete. Most DSLRs have this feature.

Low ISOs translate into long star trails
Like any other Canon, the ability to use 100 and even 50 ISO has the significant advantage of capturing longer and more impressive star trails. I’ve taken many night images at 50 ISO that I couldn’t have done at any other ISO.

All of the above advantages aren’t unique to the Canon 5Dmark2 and can be found in some of the other newest cameras from Nikon and Canon. The features below are unique to the 5Dmark2.

Long Exposure Noise Reduction Buffering and Usability
The 5D and 5Dmark2 both allow you to start taking a new photo, while temporarily holding (buffering) the noise reduction processing for later. Both cameras allow you to buffer several images worth. For example one can take four 10 minute exposures back-to-back and the camera will process noise for 40 minutes afterwards. The 5Dmark2 is unique in that it tells you how many images are in the buffer when the power switch is turned to off. The camera doesn’t actually turn off until it’s completed the noise reduction processing. The 5Dmark2 also gives the user full control over image review and menu access during noise processing. All of these things add up to significant productivity savings for the night photographer who might otherwise be waiting around 30+ minutes for his/her camera to finish noise processing.

Battery Life
With continuous shooting starting at 9pm I found I could shoot till 3-4am on a single battery on the 5Dmark2. This is well over twice the battery life most cameras have, including the original 5D. Canon tells me that moving the mirror, shutter and lighting the LCD display are the primary culprits of battery drain. It’s also been suggested that 4-8 hour exposures shouldn’t be a battery life problem since the sensor uses so little energy during the exposure itself. I’ll have to stock up on some neutral density filters and test this theory. If it’s true that we can achieve 8+ hour exposures without battery problems, then we can achieve the long star trails that we’ve come to know and love from film-based night photography. I know one can always “stack” lots of short exposures, but doing a single long exposure would fun to test.

Update (6-13-09)
Several people have asked me “Don’t Nikons like the D700 and D3 do all of these as well?” As for the long exposure noise reduction bufferin, battery life and lower ISO items mentioned above, the answer is no. Even Canon’s flagship 1Dsmk3 doesn’t have these (except the 50 ISO). For some reason it’s only the 5D family that have these features. When other cameras are processing long exposure noise reduction the camera is dark and unresponsive – you can’t review images, go through the menu or start taking a new exposure. In addition, if you turn the power to off on a Nikon you don’t loose the exposure but you will loose the noise processing. Canons are smarter about staying on the finish noise processing before shutting down.

Nikons have some unique features for night photography that are worth mentioning. First of all, the latest Nikon cameras have slightly better dynamic range and light sensitivity at 200 ISO than the latest Canon cameras do even at 100 ISO (visit www.dxomark.com for more info). Image Overlay allows for several separate frames to be taken and combined into a single RAW file. A night photographer might use this to take a photo at last light, wait a while and do a second exposure for the sky in complete darkness. Image Overlay could also be handy when working with complex light painting.

Update (10-23-09)
At recent night photography workshops I’ve had Nikons, Canons, Pentax, Sonys, Leicas, Hasselblads and Phase One cameras shooting side-by-side and I’ve closely compared the results. Newer cameras are obviously much cleaner and less noisier than older bodies. The D700 and D3s really are the cleanest 12 megapixels you’ll ever see and the smoothness is so fantastic that many owners just skip the long exposure noise reduction altogether which is nice. The D3s is my favorite camera in the whole world in terms of feel and usability – gotta love it! But the benefits of the additional resolution from a higher resolution camera adds up. While higher resolution cameras (like the 5dmk2, 1Dsmk3, 1Dmk4, even the D3x) aren’t as noise free as Nikon’s 12 megapixel brethren, the noise of the 5Dmk2 is slight, small and unperceptable on small prints. When larger resolution files with a little bit of noise are lowered to the equivalent of 12 megapixels the noise smoothes out and the overall image becomes cleaner. Different solutions for different people. For some an immaculate 12MP is better than a very clean 21MP and visa versa. On one hand I like the smaller file size of a 12 mp file and on the other hand the additional resolution of a 20+ megapixel file translates into quality when printed large. A D700 or D3s might be the best “low light” cameras for, say, wedding photographers making smaller prints but the 5Dmk2′s extra resolution, lower ISO’s and long exposure noise reduction buffering are huge advantages for long exposure night photography.

Hasselblad, Phase One and Leica cameras perform *much* better at their native ISOs than at higher ISOs at night. Phase One plus backs curiously won’t allow the long exposure noise reduction to be turned off, so the user always has to wait for processing before the image can be seen or before the next shot can be taken. This eliminates the possibility of multiple exposure image stacking. These cameras don’t quite have the exposure flexibility that having a programmable, digital remote timer provides.

I think these differences are fun to talk about and hope readers don’t view this article as a religious Canon vs Nikon article – it certainly isn’t. I like them both as well as other brands and strive to be as unbiased as one can be.  Each brand has it’s advantages and disadvantages and the discussion between them is valuable when brand loyalty (which is destructive to conversation) is set aside. Long exposure night photography is especially fun way of analyzing these differences because it stretches cameras to their limits and is an area that, for the most part, manufacturers haven’t spent much time tweaking their cameras for.

When asked about the choice to move to all-glossy displays Phil Schiller responded “You offset the reflection by the brightness, and consumers love it” at today’s announcement event. I find this comment disappointing and it shows a disconnect with creative professionals. Consumers *do* love bright, glossy screens. Creative professionals, however, don’t like *either* extreme brightness or glare. When calibrating a display, creative professionals typically turn the brightness down to the 90-150 cd/m2 luminance range and choose a warmer color temperature for paper white matching. In order to achieve this critical, display to paper white matching one can’t “offset the reflection by the brightness” as Phil suggests. 

I travel through several photography and design studios every week and the comment I regularly hear about the new iMacs is “I love the machine except for the terrible, glossy display.” In the same fashion, the new laptops and cinema displays will force creative professionals to struggle with glare, excess contrast and the perception of extreme shadow detail. I’ll probably recommend that creative professionals consider non-glossy displays from NEC, EIZO, Samsung and (gasp!) maybe even Dell (for value). 

The new laptops don’t offer a significant CPU speed increase and future models aren’t expected to have the same increases that we have seen in the past. Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) speeds are likely to increase substantially and it’s in this area that the new laptops are much faster. Some applications have already been updated to take advantage of the GPU acceleration trend. Apple’s Aperture, Final Cut products and Adobe’s Photoshop CS4 all utilize the GPU for greater performance. Photographers, however, are relying less on Photoshop and more on Lightroom which unfortunately doesn’t offer GPU acceleration. Because Lightroom has become “command central” for most professional photographers the new laptops won’t offer the performance boast they were hoping for. 

I think todays products leave creative professionals with the following questions:
“When will Adobe update Lightroom, Distiller and InDesign to utilize GPUs for greater performance?”
“What is a ‘best value’ non glare display that I can rely on instead of Apple’s new ACDs?”
“Will Apple listen to professionals and consider offering non glare versions of their displays?”
“Will a 3rd party consider offering a film product that transforms a glossy display into a non glossy one?”

As a side note, Balancing Rock (pictured below) is likely to collapse within the next 75 years. This is kind of a nice reminder that, no matter how “frozen in time” any natural formations are, they are part of a timeline far, far longer than our own lives, and are constantly evolving. Although initially saddened by this loss, I feel glad to be alive and to be able to see the things that are here during my own short sliver of a larger timeline. More importantly, it makes me want to get out there and see even more while I’m here.

I think the reports of the firmware update changing the color temp are misinformed as it is unlikely that such an update would make that change. The new color temp is surely due to the new backlite light source hardware which, in an industry-wide trend, are moving to warmer color temps to get closer to natural daylight. The super cool, blueish LCDs that have been so prevalent over the past 5 years will hopefully become a thing of the past. Warmer displays are critical for print-to-screen matching and more accurate color viewing

Here’s a quick test: compare the whites on your iPhone (or any other phone) and compare that to a white piece of paper. It’s important that they be reasonably close for fairly accurate color viewing and print to screen matching. The iPhone 3G does this better than the devices before it and when combined with Safari’s color managed browser, the color quality is stunningly good, even without display calibration. And no, there aren’t any iPhone display calibrators yet and I’d say they are unlikely to come with the quality being so good out of the box.

Another fun test is to look at a photo of yourself (from your website, facebook, whatever) on an iPhone and other phones. The differences between an ATT iPhone and a Sprint Treo for example are amazingly different. This tests not only test 1) the quality of the display, but also 2) the browsers ability to manage color and 3) the network’s compression levels effect upon the images.

I say don’t worry about these silly reviews that complain about display yellowing. The new display may be yellow relative to the old display but the old was just too blue relative to any ambient light that we live in.

The word from this very demanding and picky user is that the color and image quality on the new iPhone is shockingly good and otherwise unsurpassed for a handheld device.

Those of you that have visited the Onsight studio might recognize these photos of Chateau Miraval that have graced the studio walls for the last 10 years. You may also recognize these scenes from the likes of Vanity Fair, People, Us and other magazines and newspapers this week because Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt just leased the place and the paparazzi are typically all over it. My wife’s aunt and uncle have owned Miraval for a couple decades and enjoy the rustic setting where they make organic wine and have been restoring the ancient structures and terraces. Miraval is also home to an exceptional recording studio in a medieval structure where the likes of AC/DC, The Cranberries, The Gypsy Kings and Pink Floyd (yep, thy recorded “The Wall” there) have come to get away, enjoy nature and record albums.

Miraval is magical, rustic and is in many ways is the same as it was centuries ago. It’s not extravagant or excessive in the ways that American estates typically are. Between Miraval and their place in Africa I think the JP’s should be commended for escaping the materialistic, hysterical, fast paced, LA/American lifestyle for something more down to earth. That’s not a bad thing when you’ve got a growing number of munchkins to keep up with.

When I went to Miraval in 1999 I went to my local camera store to buy a few bricks of medium format B&W film. On impulse I bought just 3 rolls of color negative film as well. I had always been a B&W photographer exclusively and those 3 rolls and these images represent my entry into color photography. The 33″ square prints at the studio (and the homes of the few that have bought some) were made during the late 90s on the venerable Iris 3047 printer before Epson came to dominate the archival large format printing market. They are “archival” but given the 20 centuries that Miraval has been around I wonder exactly how long they will make it and what other prints may have come and gone on those walls.