Ed "Over" Ip » Photography

SmugMug Discount Code $5 off

eip — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:39:38 +0000

I am a believer of SmugMug. I am a software developer during the day and much prefer to sign up with SmugMug instead of rolling my own CMS of sort. Just about every aspect of your site is customizable (assuming power-user or pro account). With that said, if you please do me a favor and use this discount code – 8yO0usBDdkCN6. It will save you $5 and earn me credits towards account renewal.

Trey Ratcliff HDR Tutorial

eip — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:43:20 +0000

I came from a film background and am somewhat of a traditionalist. However, after Trey Ratcliff’s HDR tutorial, I might just have to give it a try!

Photographing Children

eip — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:37:21 +0000

My forte has always been in landscape and I normally stay away from people photography simply because I, for lack of better words, just don’t have the patience for it. Landscapes do not move (for the most part) and absolutely do not talk back. The worst you have to do is wait for the right time of the day. However, as of late, I feel the need to expand my “range”; I need to broaden my skills to cover people and events. As such, over this past Easter Sunday, I spent about an hour taking pictures of my nieces. While the results were fantastic, at least far exceeded my expectations, I walked away with a few lessons learned:

Children and reflectors don’t go together. I love the quality of fill light with reflectors but most kids will try to squint through the shots. Consider off camera fill flash.
General portrait problem…NEED to use that prime lens (50mm) or something long to blur out the background. In this case, the pictures were taken outdoor so background foliage wasn’t a huge distraction. It was a very bright sunny day so had to close down the aperture to get the right exposure. A long lens would have helped in this case.
Consider using an assistance/handler especially if the “model” is less than 8 yrs. old. With kids moving around doing the things that they do, good shots often meant quick shots. Having to deal with lighting, composition and technical aspect of photography is enough to keep one person busy. Trying to keep hair out of the child’s face alone can kill any spontaneity. On top of that, be careful how much skin is showing (midriff, skirt line, etc). A handler can help spot those things.

20″ Apple Cinema Display color over saturated

eip — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:32:19 +0000

I have a 20″ Apple Cinema Display (ACD) purchased (actually received as a gift but never mind that) around 2003 and a MacBook Pro 15″ (MBP) purchased around 2006. Both of them has been calibrated using Eye-One Display 2 with 6500k white point, 2.2 Gamma, and 120 lum (+/- a little). For some reason, the colors on ACD appear to be over saturated particularly yellow and red while the MBP is a lot more natural. If the images look “right” on the ACD, they are flat on the MBP (and monitors/LCDs attached to PCs). When the images look right on everything else the ACD bleeds yellow and red, and appear too dark.

What gives?! I wonder if I can use a slighly cooler white point to achieve a correct display?!

Update 04/16/2009: Several posting in an Apple forum said that closing the MBP screen will produce better result. I tried it with only ok result — color saturation is better but still not completely satisfied.