Lens decision!

I appear to have made a decision with regards to upgrading to a full-frame camera. Well, sort of- I've bought a Nikon 28-300mm full-frame lens to replace my very cheap Tamron 18-250mm zoom.

I guess this means I'm sticking with the Nikon system rather than switching to Canon for the EOS 6D, which is something I'd been flirting with. There are a couple of advantages of this; firstly, I can upgrade and replace my lenses and other kit piecemeal without leaving holes in my lineup since my existing lenses will work on a Nikon full-frame (even if they won't be making the most of its capabilities) whereas with Canon I'd have to replace everything in one go- camera body, lenses, flash, remote & triggers. The other reason for sticking with Nikon is Canon's lens line up, specifically on the telephoto side of things. Here's what I mean- this is the Nikon lens I bought and this is the Canon equivalent. Both are 28-300, f/3.5 - 5.6, image stabilising, full-frame etc. etc. The Nikon one (at time of writing) is around £650 on Amazon, the Canon £2050. Their product lineup would seem to suggest that Canon will let you have 50mm into the hundreds fine, but if you want to start lower, they deem that to be a 'pro lens' and you're into more serious money. That's not an option for me and I can't see an alternative in their lineup, nor from the likes of Sigma, so that sort of decided it for me.

I know I could get a 75-300 or some such but I'm not willing to take on an extra lens. The idea is to build a lineup of:
+ Super wide-angle
+ Prime portrait (35mm or 50mm)
+ General versatile & telephoto

The 28-300 will certainly offer benefits over my current lens- not only is it longer (on crop sensor, anyway), but it's got vibration reduction, advertised as making up the equivalent of four shutter stops of speed, allowing you to shoot slower. Not only that but it's f5.6 at the long end, compared with 6.5 on what I have now. All told, it should make for a considerably quicker lens (and hopefully sharper, too).

All of this, combined with me finding a cheap Nikon refurb was too much to resist. I'll update more once the lens arrives. Hopefully in the next couple of days.

HDR Machinery update

I'm still using Machinery for my HDR processing. Overall I'm really happy with the software, particularly in contrast to Photomatix which it beats hands-down in terms of speed and transparency of process. It's ghost removal isn't anywhere near as good but I suppose you can't have everything.

That said, it's had a couple of updates lately up to version 2.8 which have seemingly removed a couple of features that I routinely use to achieve the particular look that I want. First, the 2.7 update (or possibly 2.6) removed a 'midtones' slider from the HDR processing panel and 2.8 seems to have shifted the 'lights' and 'shadows' slider to post-processing rather than having them affect the HDR process itself and I'm struggling to achieve my usual look as a result.

Hopefully I'll find a method to recreate what I could do before, I'd hate to think the product update has meant a genuine loss of functionality.

Update: Seems like the the light/shadow sliders are actually feeding into the HDR process as they did before but I'm still not still not sure that I'm able to use them to get the same contrast in, for example, clouds as I used to be able to without making items in the foreground unworkably dark. I'll keep plugging away at it and also maybe see if I can find an installer for v2.6 while I'm at it. Being able to dual-install both versions would be nice but I don't know how workable that is.

Nikon D7100 vs. D600

As mentioned before I'm a D7000 owner, Nikon's top-tier cropped sensor model. I'm keen to upgrade to a full frame camera and had been waiting with bated breath for the release of Nikon's entry-level full frame model, the D600, which I felt didn't quite deliver what I wanted from a model at that position in Nikon's product hierarchy, both in terms of price and functionality. The latest twist in the tale is the introduction of the D7000's successor, the D7100 released a short time ago.

As a bit of background, Nikon have got a point where all of their current models have been released in the space of a little over a year and it looks like there are some baselines being established across the lineup- the Expeed 3 processor (used across all current models) and the 24.7mp sensor on the lower half of the portfolio, for example.

What I find curious is that the new D7100 offers a number of key technical specs which are superior to the D600 despite being from a lower tier. Obviously this isn't unusual if the higher tier camera is an older model but the 600 launched a mere five months prior to the 7100.

My interest is particularly from the viewpoint of HDR photography, which is what I find myself doing, most commonly. Much has been made of the impressive dynamic range of the now-standard Expeed 3 processor in the D600 and its ability to provide 1-shot HDR from RAW as well as an in-camera HDR function. So it's safe to say that the D600 is a very capable HDR camera despite only provide 3-step auto-exposure bracketing (AEB), something I've commented on previously. This does not detract from the oddness that the D7100, with the same sensor and processor, still provides 5-step AEB on a lesser model. Why almost immediately one-up your own new camera, which made much of its HDR capabilities, with one from a lower tier?

So why is this a problem? If the 7100 is superior for HDR, why not just upgrade to that? Because the 7100 is still crop sensor just as the 7000 was, thus forcing HDR shooters into deciding between superior HDR capabilities (not to mention the D7100's increased focus points and built-in WiFi) on a crop sensor or a full-frame model that doesn't quite deliver what it should on the HDR front, the likely result being that, like me, they may either refrain from purchasing altogether or, worse from Nikon's POV, notice that the Canon EOS 6D doesn't force them to choose.

Edited on 17/04/2013

HDR compare and contrast

I stumbled upon HDR One magazine the other day and obviously it's a great resource for the type of photography that I most commonly do. As well as the articles themselves, it's also provided some great suggestions of HDR software out there. I've picked up a demo of Machinery to try it out and it's definitely an interesting contrast with Photomatix. Machinery does profess an intent towards natural HDR, which isn't usually what I aim for but maybe I should. All the more reason to experiment.

I must emphasise at this point that I have, at time of writing, only had to run a couple of images through it so there's lots more exploration to be done but here are two images- the first done in Photomatix, the second done in Machinery: The difference is obvious- Machinery certainly does create a more naturalistic HDR image. Also look at how crisp that bastard is! Not only does Machinery provide built-in sharpening but the halo-ing effect (so often the bane of HDR) is reduced, presumably due to the more natural look. Take a look at the streetlights on the left of the image, for example (both in the foreground and the BG) and the superior detail on the shelf of Buddha figures. It's also astonishingly fast and does a genuine live change as opposed to Photomatix's two-stage 'guestimate' process, which has always bothered me, to be honest.

Obviously this image comparison also depends on the settings and post-HDR-processing each image has been run through. They've both had the contrast lowered and brightness increased. The Photomatix image was sharpened a touch and the Machinery one had it's saturation upped a bit since lowering the contrast left it a little washed out (or maybe I'm just too used to Photomatix output).

Overall, perhaps as you'd expect, it seems that the different softwares both have areas in which they are superior but it certainly seems that the de facto industry standard position that Photomatix seems to enjoy can be challenged. In any case, I definitely need to do some more experimentation with Machinery to see what I can get out of it but first experience has definitely left a positive impression.

More exposure

A couple of bits of exposure over the last couple of days- first, a photo I took of a statue of Cupid in... Norway (or was it Denmark?) headed up an article on Wired.com. It's not my favourite photo by any means, but it serves the purpose. Then today, my city's local newspaper used an HDR photo I took of a local landmark in this article.

This is where stuff gets interesting- MEN didn't tell me they were using my picture, nor did they link to my Flickr account- a randomer commented on my Flickr account telling me that they'd used it. Then one of the other photographers whose photos had also been used. While it's fine for them to use my photo by the terms of the creative commons licensing I've placed on them, the other photographer enforces copyright on his and they'd not contacted him prior to using his photo either. Poor show for a professional publication.

I'm just grateful of the exposure, however, even if they're not generating me traffic through a link.

Southeast Asia photos

I struggle to know what to write about travel photos so I think it's safe to say I'll never be a travel blogger. It suffices to say that, for my Southeast Asia trip, I took in a great number of locations over three weeks and got a few dozen decent photos out of it. In lieu of a more wordy description, here's a small selection of the photos taken on that trip. The full selection and perhaps a bit more info on each shot can be found in the Flickr set.

Southeast Asia trip #1

It's been a while since I posted and at least part of the reason for this is that I spent the first part of the year touring around a large slice of Southeast Asia.

I took a huge number of photos of course (around 3000) so it's taking forever to process them. One thing I've found myself doing is taking nothing but HDR cityscape and architectural study. These do tend to be some of my stronger pieces but I do need to be mindful that I don't miss opportunities to capture other subjects better suited to different techniques.

Anyway, even the HDR ones are proving tricky, possibly because I still need to better understand my HDR software but I'll continue to plug away at it. In the meantime, here's one that's come out successfully- the view of Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) from the bar at the Sheraton hotel. And happy New Year, everyone!


Unfortunately I had to take the shot freehand- no tripod available, which would have made it crisper but it came out well, considering.

Contrasting views

Not a huge amount to say by way of photographic updates but I've had a couple of nice sunsets viewable from my apartment so here they are captured in HDR. The first one has an off-the-shelf filter applied beyond the HDR process whereas the second is straight-up HDR with only the usual brightness/contrast/sharpness tweaks.

Halloween 2012

I was invited to a Halloween party held by a colleague this year and this allows me to indulge my love of fancy dress that appears to have developed in adulthood.

I had an idea for a two-tone approach of a black and white based around a suit, white facepaint and contacts. This did mean that I had to remove all of my hair, however, since it didn't comply with the colour scheme.

Quite pleased with the end result since there were a lot of unknowns (never used contacts, glued on prosthetics or shaved my head before) but the whole outfit only cost me £7 since I just had to buy the glue and the contacts, the rest of the outfit being recycled from previous work events.

D600 revisited

I've continued to follow the D600 after its ridiculously pricy UK launch and, at time of writing, it's come down in price 21% on Amazon to a much more reasonable £1540. This puts it much more within my price range for what I'd be prepared to pay for a camera at this level, i.e. entry-level full-frame, but there was one more disappointment when we had the release announcement which is that it only does three-stage Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB). For those you who aren't aware, AEB makes HDR photography (which I do a lot of) very easy- I switch it on, hold down my shutter release and my camera will take three photos at varying levels of exposure for my HDR software to combine.

...and that's my point, this is what I do with my current camera, a D7000, and the D600 doesn't give me any more exposures. The D800 will let you do up to seven so I was hoping for at least five from a camera that costs twice as much as my 'humble' D7000.

Or so I thought, but then reading about how the D600's sensor already has a superior dynamic range and so each of those three exposures is still delivering more from an HDR perspective. Just how much more is a bit more difficult to quantify.

I also realised that, in order to get the benefit of the new camera, I'd also have to replace all my DX (cropped) format lenses so I'd be looking at at least a £3000 spend in total.

Maybe not something I'll be doing too soon, then...