Pixel Problems

Pixels aren't just used in the sensor of a digital camera. They are also used in LCD screens. However these three problems can be found happening in the sensor of digital cameras.

Hot Pixels: A hot pixel is a permanently lit white pixel is called a glowing pixel. Hot pixels are most commonly seen against a dark background.

Dead Pixels: A dead pixel is a defective pixel that remains unlit. Dead pixels are most commonly seen against a white background.
Stuck Pixels: A stuck pixel is most commonly seen against a black background. Stuck pixels can be seen in the colors of red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, or magenta. The most common of stuck pixels are red, green, or blue pixels. "Each pixel on an LCD monitor is composed of three sub-pixels (one red, one green, and one blue) which produce the visible color of the pixel by their relative brightness. A stuck pixel results from a manufacturing defect, which leaves one or more of these sub-pixels permanently turned on or off."

"Stuck pixels are not guaranteed to be correctable, and can remain faulty for the life of the monitor, however might be fixed by flashing numerous colors with a very rapid intensity."

Quote source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_pixel

The reason I have brought this issue up is because my Nikon D80 is currently experiencing stuck pixels. There are two spots on certain photos, usually night photographs with dark skies or a dark background that appear in the colors of blue, green, or red. So if you find that there are a few little spots appearing in your photos after you shoot them, zoom in and see just what it is. It maybe possible that it could be dust from your lens, but if it is showing up in the form of colors then you maybe experiencing a pixel problem.

Below are two examples of photos that I shot. Both have STUCK PIXELS. Photos were shot with the ISO set to 400 and roughly 8 second exposures.


I do not currently know of any way to remove this issue except replacing the sensor. For LCD screens there are ways you can remove the three types of Pixel Problems I have mentioned. I hope this isn't an issue any of you suffer from. It can be very irritating to have to remove spots from your photos.

HDR mis-perspective

I shot this photo from a bridge over looking another bridge. It appears that the steel beam is floating in the photo. The way the bridge in the background appears to move through the picture plane shows a different perspective than the beam's perspective. This is how I shot this. The only post editing done is the HDR conversion.

I woke up Wednesday morning and found there to be a nice light frost on the ground. Here is a photo I made of some frosty leaves.

Thankful....

Today is Thanksgiving and one of the things that I am most thankful for is all of you. Yes all of you that take the time out of your day and life to visit my site, read my words, and see my photographs, I truly appreciate your words and time.

Thank you!

HDR Graffiti

For a few weeks now I have been thinking about different concepts in which I could apply HDR and this is one of them. More to come...

Northampton, MA

Composition I found in Northampton on Sunday. All this week I will be posting photos that I shot this weekend. I hope you look forward to seeing them, as I look forward to posting them.

Fashionable Portraits

I had that chance to do a portrait shoot this past Sunday. I had a lot of fun and the girl I shot with knows how to pose really well, which makes the shoot fun and go by much faster. Here are two of some of the best photos.

Friday Night

Here are a few photos from when I had access to a train building.

Box of parts.

Air Filter

Big Train

This weekend

This weekend has been a very long one. I spent most of the weekend behind the camera. It all began with a small post-birthday party for my friend Peter, set in a candle lit train car. Friday was also a small Holyoke Pixel Club meeting. I sat listening carefully to stories of Holyoke and the existence of the rail system in Holyoke. I was given a rare opportunity to photograph inside a building that is home to some massive train engines. I could spend a few days in there and come out with a pretty impressive body of work. Especially if I had the presence of the employees that work within this building. The talk of a photo documentary came up. Something I am hoping to have the chance to do.

Saturday I got together with some family in Connecticut. Had a pre Thanksgiving in which I took the opportunity to photograph and do some creative portraits. Saturday night I made my way to Northampton for a little while. I endeared the cold with a friend and walked around and made a few photographs. Some of which I am proud to place in my collection of Northampton photographs, as part of my project.

Sunday, I again made my way up to Northampton. I had a portrait shoot set up with a very fun individual that I some times photograph based on her interesting style. I also took the time before the shoot to make a few photographs that I knew would make a wonderful addition to my Northampton Project. The energy in Northampton was very positive and relaxing. At one point I walked by a group of girls from Smith who were singing Christmas Carols. And yes, I did snap a photo of that.

Although I did shoot quite a lot this weekend, I will not be posting anything up until tomorrow. I am feeling a little bit under the weather and after all the energy and work I have put in this weekend. I am ready to get a good nights rest.

I just wanted to thank Peter from Rambling Van Dog for the privilege he granted me Friday night. Thank you Peter.

Lost but not forgotten...

Presumed to have been lost in the theft of some equipment, I found a few photos and decided to give them something new that I have been cooking up. Some feed back would be much appreciated. Even if you think they are horribly wrong on every conceivable level. Please tell me.

Race St. Road Rage

While stopped just before the stop sign on Race St. in Holyoke, a very excited individual pulled up behind me. He came within inches of my car. Now, if you're familiar with Race St, then you know just how wide the street is. Enough for a car to go around you, if you have your blinker on and you're pulled over to the side. This individual was so excited he got as close to me as he could, pressed his hand on his horn, flashed his lights, and started screaming wildly into the night. Refusing to move from my light of sight with the composition I was awaiting to shoot, I put my hazards on. Upon seeing this, the man in the van became even more thrilled and finally came out from behind me, pulled up next to me and opened his window. After ignoring his out bursts of joy, I finally let my window down, figuring I would entertain this man even more. I said nothing, looked at him, and listened to him scream at the top of his lungs about how I can't pull over, I can't sit there, I can't park there. I held up my camera and said "Kind sir, I am not parked here on the side of this road, I am merely working." At which point I was told to (lenshare does not condone this type of language) "get off my fucking ass and get out of the car and take the fucking picture." Very impressed with his choice of words, up went the window. Cocking his head back like an irate cartoon character in sever distress, he sped off into the night to continue his rage else where. Here are three photos from Race St. and one not from Race St.

This first image is actually the one I was trying to capture while I was being verbally assaulted.




Lonely backboard once used for game of basketball.
As I stood in the parking lot shooting this photo, people were screaming to me from the apartment complex behind me. The one thing I remembered hearing was, "you better watch out or shes gonna jump you" Apparently there was a woman heading in my direction cause she needed her picture taken? Such interesting people I encountered tonight.

Province Town at Cape Cod, MA

The sea left for the afternoon creating this landscape.

This woman was so deep in thought. She seemed very upset.

This child was following us around the town on his bike. He was ridding around with a stern look on his face as if he was the biggest badass. I made a photograph of him and it cracked a smile on his face. Here is one of a few photos of him. He was very happy afterwards and rode away with a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye.

The right time...

I have driven down this street before. I saw this composition before. It wasn't the right time to photograph it. The sunset this past Sunday was the perfect time to shoot this composition.

Sunday Sunset Photos

One of the many factories that borders the canal system in Holyoke.
















































Part of the Parsons Paper Mill that burned down this past summer.

HDR from the High Way

A view of Holyoke from the high way

Foggy Friday Night

Friday night was a pretty awesome night for shooting. Here are a few photos from Holyoke at 3:30 in the morning. It was very quiet except for the one hooker who bum rushed my car offering her services.

Veterans Park, Holyoke, MA

View down High St, Holyoke, MA


End of High St

I received an email from a friend of mine two days ago. Inside the email was a link to a site that has the work of David Hubert. David has put together a two minute video of some 3000 images he shot while in London. This is an extremely dynamic display of his photographs. Watch this video and be prepared to be amazed.

Here is a quote from David describing his video: "I really wanted to make a video of London while I was there earlier this year but I didn't had any camcorder, so I took pictures instead. In fact I took more then 3000 pictures and put them all together in less then 2 minutes."

*quoted from http://vimeo.com/2169237*


London (harder, better, faster, stronger) from David Hubert on Vimeo.

RED

There is no doubt about it, the future of photography is progressing quickly. From the Pentax D-SLR that can already produce in camera HDR to the touch screen cameras that Nikon have put out, we are seeing some radical improvements with photography almost daily. Just yesterday I was introduce to what I think is a spectacular example of technology. RED a company that until yesterday I didn't know existed has some very serious pieces of equipment. Basically RED has produce a camera that can allow you to shoot still photographs as well as produce motion images all with the same camera. This is not the same type of technology used in the smaller cameras such as the D90 by Nikon that allows you to record video. Of course a camera that is this impressive comes with a price tag that will shock most people.

Here are a few links that provide in depth explanation of these amazing cameras.

http://www.red.com/epic_scarlet/

http://www.red.com/

Race Point, Cape Cod, MA
April 2008

This man was part of a group of people that lined the beach to watch the whales that were visible from the shore.

Meet Holga

I am not talking about that beautiful Russian girl you met while traveling through Europe. I am referring to the plastic 12o film camera. Spawned from the Diana camera, the Holga has been making a name for its self steadily since the 80's. Personally I own two Holga cameras and love using them as often as I can. I was first introduced to the Holga while I was in school. Since then I have used them regularly. Labeled as a toy camera, the results that can be achieved from using the Holga are anything but that. I take using my Holga very seriously and think of it and treat it the same as my D-SLR. The growing trend of Holga cameras has led to new developments and new products being created for the Holga. What draws most people to the Holga is the blur, vignetting, and in some cases the light leaks this camera produces. This camera will by no means break the bank. At an affordable price of only $24.95 for a Holga with no flash, this camera is worth every penny spent. The Holga uses 120 film. There is an attachment you can purchase that allows you to shoot using 35mm. You can also get a Polaroid backing that allows you to use Polaroid film.

Digital Holga

With all the advances in digital photography there have been quite a lot of products hitting the market. One such product is the Holga Digital Body Cap Lens attachment. This is a cap that holds a Holga Lens and can be mounted to your D-SLR.

As I was writing this article, I came to find out that the site that sells the Holga Digital Body Cap Lens is temporarily not shipping orders. The owner of the site has been in an accident and the store is down for a few weeks.

Http://www.holgamods.com

This site has a list of mods that you can do and can be done to your Holga. The owner of the site has dedicated his life to modifying the Holga and other toy cameras. Dont let the site's store being temporarily closed deter you from visiting.

Now if you find yourself thinking, film? I don't want to shoot with film, I don't want to buy another camera or have to worry about developing film. Then I have another wonderful digital Holga trick you might find yourself downloading as soon as you're done reading this.

Adobe photoshop has an action that you can down load right from the adobe site. It mimics the look of the Holga by using an action that you can manipulate to your ideal standards or desires. This action can be found at,

adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm

A quick google.com search will also lead you to a few other great actions that are close to the result the Holga produces. Goolge Holga Simulator and you will find a whole list of actions including the Adobe one.

One of my Holga prints. 36"x36"

HDR Portrait

Sunday evening I sat in Barns and Nobel reading an HDR photography book. Well, I guess I wouldn't say "reading" as much as skimming through. At the end of the book was a portrait. I read the caption and little blurb next to the photo. It explained that the person you're shooting should remain still and even eye movement could disrupt the photo and cause a major issue. So, being the photoshop geek that I am, I started thinking. If you have a single photograph that you can not re-shoot but would love to have in HDR. Then you're in luck. I took a portrait of a model I shot back in September and brought it into photoshop. I made 5 copies of the photo. I started with one photo, went to Image-Adjustments-Exposure. I brought the exposure up 2 full stops +2.00, then +1.00 one image stayed at 0.00, the next photo went to -1.00 then the final image went to -2.00. This gave me 5 photos with 5 different exposures. I saved each one into a folder on my desk top. I then opened my Photomatix. Generated all 5 images into one HDR image and with a little bit of Tone Mapping , an HDR portrait is produced using one photo.

NOTE: This method works effectively. However, you must have a photograph that has a perfect exposure. If this image was over exposed and the sky was blown out it would not be as effective. Given the right exposure, using one photograph will produce and HDR photo.

HDR single photograph steps

1. Open the image you want to turn into HDR.

2. Make copies of the original image based on how many you think you will need. For this image I used 5 copies.

3. Start with one image, Go to Image-Adjustments-Exposure. Set the exposure to +2.00

4. Repeat step 3 for all of your copies. Changing the exposure by 1 stop each time. This means your next photo would go from +2.00 to +1.00 third image would remain untouched should be at 0.00 the next two would be bracketed at -1.00 and -2.00. This would give you 5 photos with varying exposures from +2.00 down to -2.00

5. Save all the photos into a folder. Open your HDR software.

6. When I generated the image it said couldn't detect exposures. I clicked ok, and it went a-head and generated the images.

7. Using the tone map tool I edited the image to what I wanted to see.

I used Photomatix to produce this image. I am unsure how this process would fair up using another HDR program. I know there are a few other HDR programs out there now. But I choose to use Photomatix. Give it a try and see what you come up with. I know I was excited to see it worked out.

Traveling, Equipment thats a necessity

Inside every serious photographer's camera bag there should be a memory card backup. This is a device used to upload your memory card and acts as an external hard drive storing your raw/unedited photographs. To the left is a Hyperdrive Space memory card back up. Hyperdrive has a NEW memory card back up, the Colorspace UDMA. This device is a must have for those serious photographers that travel the world and shoot a large amount of photographs. You can shoot, upload, delete the files from your memory card, and continue shooting with out a worry. I recommend and suggest taking a look at the New ColorSpace UDMA. There are five models out, ranging from 120 gb up to 500 gb. These devices allow you to view your raw files through the screen and upload 2 gb in a minute. Speed and versatility make this tool a worth while purchase. Prices start at $369.00 and go up to $559.00

http://www.hyperdrive.com/

Another extremely important device that you should be carrying in your photo bag or your lap top bag is an external hard drive. Accidents do happen. Lap tops do fall. The difference between an external hard drive and a memory card back up is that a memory card back up stores your photos right out of the camera where as an external hard drive holds more than just photos, and can hold your post processes images and stores other forms of data. An external hard drive is a must for anyone traveling and shooting. I've seen external hard drives start at about $80.00 and go up to as much as $500.00 Western Digital is a great company that puts out some amazing products.

Western Digital online at http://www.wdc.com/en/

Wireless remote

I use the wireless digital remote by Nikon. I am limited by its uses. I can not use it in Bulb Mode. It would be ideal to be able to use it in Bulb Mode while shooting long exposures, mainly at night. I could use the cable release, however I just came across this product.

http://www.gadgetinfinity.com/product.php?productid=16830&cat=285&page=1

Its a wireless remote system that comes with a transmitter and a wireless receiver that attaches to the shutter release port of the camera. Priced at $39.99 its an affordable buy.

Nikon Product
Mc-Dc1 ($14.95) The Mc-Dc2 ($26.99) is compatible with the D90.

Off camera or on camer....

Firing a flash off camera can permit you to do some very creative lighting and flash photography. Thank you to a good friend of mine, Peter from Rambling Van Dog, I have become aware of a new product. One that I will be picking up very soon. Cactus Wireless Trigger V2S is a wireless system that allows you to remove your flash from the hot shoe and fire it remotely using this two piece system. There is also a pc sync socket that can allow you to fire non-hot-shoe flashes. The system also includes a PC sync cable.Here is a more in depth review of the product. Includes price and location to purchase.

http://www.beyondmegapixels.com/2008/10/review-cactus-wireless-flash-trigger.html


If you are looking for something with a little bit more of a punch. Then I suggest the Pocket Wizard PLUS II. This transceiver allows you to fire your lights or camera up to 1600 ft away. The price tag is at around $188-$200




Since we are on the subject of flashes and lighting. I recommend checking out,

http://www.alienbees.com/

Alienbees is a great company with an outstanding product. They too have wireless flash triggers. Their lighting systems are very affordable, very durable and versatile.

Northampton

I have seen a lot of people playing musical instruments in NoHo. I even learned a few weeks back that you need a permit to do so. One that you have to renew yearly. But, I have never seen someone play a banjo. It was interesting to watch as this man played for a woman and her daughter. Both the woman and her daughter were so pleased and thankful for the experience.





Yes, that is a chair. But on the ground underneath the chair is paint splattered on the ground as if it was a painting and the chair is an installation within the painting. There was a table to my right where a chef was sitting. He saw me take a picture of the chair and as I began to walk away he called out to me. We engaged in a conversation about me shooting the chair and what I was doing in Northampton. He automatically assumed I was a Hallmark Institute student. My response, was of as follows, " HA you must be joking, No I am not a Hallmark Student. I am working on a serious project that I have invested two years into thus far." He explained that there were a lot of Hallmark Students coming down into the city to shoot. Hallmark Students give me such a stigma when I am out shooting. That is the number one question I am asked. I am so used to it I just shrug it off.

Herrell's Ice Cream


















Portrait of a playful youth enjoying the last of the warm days.

Photographs, this past week.

A few photographs from this past week.

It was such a great day to just relax in the sun. Our warm days are long gone now.

Friday night I shipped off to Salem, Ma for Halloween. While we were out there we stumbled upon some people dancing. I was the only person shooting with an external flash. My SB-600. Before I pulled it out, I gave the pop up on camera flash a chance. Not happy by any means I yanked out my SB as fast as I could. I doubt anyone around me was able to get a shot as bright as mine.

That is right, he flipped over 3.5 people. I say .5 because there was a child standing there with them. I have a lot of respect for people who can do such physical feats.

Is this not a funny shirt?