Photographing the Northern lights

Also in this Edition

• Viewer Mail
• The Usual Announcements
• Personal Appearances
• Next Time in Cameracraft

Photographing the Northern Lights

I receive a lot of requests around Aurora Borealis season asking for tips for photographing the Northern Lights.  I usually tell them that it's no different from doing any other kind of long exposures - but you have to do a few extra things to make it look the way it looked to your eyes.

1) Shoot RAW.  This is because RAW files are more maleable that .jpgs, plus it's almost impossible to know what white balance setting to use.  When you shoot RAW you can determine the white balance when you open the file.  (As always, click on any image to view larger and sharper.)

Why I Don't Recommend the Leica Monochrom Cameras

Also in This Issue

• Photography Isn't Art
• Announcements of Upcoming Events (Seminars, Safari, Cameracraft Magazine)
• My New Competition
• Live Streaming with the Sony A7 IV
• Geeking with Gary (google URL shortener depreciation)

Let's get right to it then, shall we?

Why I Don't Recommend the Leica Monochrom Cameras

One of the attendees of the Plymouth seminar in April had one of Leica's B&W Monochrom(e) cameras, which promised much higher image quality because there was no RGB layer on top of the sensor, completely eliminating the need for the demosiacing step that adds color to the image.  He was very proud of his acquisition.  During the seminar I explained why I would never recommend one (and would never use one myself).  Sure, it takes you back to the days of shooting B&W film, and sure, the promise of better quality images is quite appealing (even if it's only a theoretical advantage), but ultimately you give up a lot of control over how your final image is rendered.

Then I showed the attendees some examples of what you can get if you start with a color image and use Photoshop's Channel Mixer to control how individual colors get rendered to specific shades of grey (click on any image to view larger and sharper):

Normally green and red will render as the same shade of grey when shot in B&W mode; using Photoshop's Channel Mixer lets you dictate how certain colors will translate to which shade of grey.

This last imagae was made in a B&W darkroom, starting with a color negative and using two different colored filters in the enlarger to influence how certain colors would render.

Basic 2-light portrait setup

Also in this issue:

• Rescuing out-of-focus images
• Next time in Cameracraft
• New ebooks and updates
• More!

Basic 2-Light Portrait Setup

I've blogged about a lot of things, but I don't think I've ever demonstrated a basic two-light portrait setup.  This is for a series of pictures of middle school students I did back in April:

And here's the simple two-flash setup: 

A month on the Road

You haven't heard from me in awhile.  It's been a whirlwind - first our cat Oliver died after being with us for 12 years (tribute here), then I conducted my first seminar in five years in Plymouth, Massachusetts at the end of April, then the next day we took the motor home on a month-long cross-country trip to California to visit my brothers and the West coast grandkids.  Two days after that trip ended my granddaughter's Bat Mitzvah happened in Boston (and my wife did a lot of the baking in those two days!)

I'll share some pictures and some captions.  Nothing award winning here or anything...  (As usual, click on any image to view larger and sharper.)

Overpowering the Sun with a Global Shutter

Sony A9 III 1/80,000th of a second, outdoors on a bright day with wireless flash.

Behind the Scenes shot of the above.  Who needs a studio anymore?

Also In This Issue:

• Brief comparison between Adobe, DxO, and Topaz Noise Reduction tools
• Books in the Pipeline
• Seminars and Photo Safari!  
• More Travel Photos

But first, some announcements. 

Three amazing surprises

Greetings from Norway!  This month I'm going to share with you three things that actually surprised me (and that's not easy to do!) while processing my vacation images.  So let's get right to it.

Ten Quick Things

New Years' in Boston.  There's one fundamental thing even experienced photographers forget...

My wife and I got Covid just before Thanksgiving (then I got it again), so we were down for a month and that's why you haven't heard much from me lately.  In the meantime there's so much to share that I'm just going to do a huge data dump this month.  I'll keep it all short.  Here we go.  (As always, click on any image to make it larger and sharper!)

Let's Have A Show Of Hands

Once upon a time I was a photographer for a cutting-edge children's performing ensemble which combined singing, dancing, and precision sign language.  My story appears after a few announcements.  

Also in this Issue:

• Another possible travel opportunity
• The Return of the Seminars
• Streaming Seminar is on sale!
• Announcements

How Long do Inkjet Prints Last?

These inkjet prints are 26 years old!

Also in this issue:

• Announcements
• Come join me on an African Photo Safari!  November, 2024
• The Amazing Mark Stewart

How Long do Inkjet Prints Last?

We all know the popularly-held wisdom: Inkjet prints will fade.  Maybe they'll last 5 years, whether behind glass or not.  The only way to get lasting inkjet print is to use pigment-based inks (along with special papers) which are quite expensive but can last up to 100 years.

That's conventional wisdom.  Now let me share with you my own data point: I have framed and displayed inkjet prints dating back from 1997, and their colors are still strong - I estimate they faded perhaps 3% over the years.

What ancient printer produced such astounding and expectation-busting results?  It was HP's very first photo printer, the PhotoSmart (tm).  HP was a pioneer in inkjet technology, coming out with the very first ThinkJet (THermal INKJET) printer in 1984 as a quiet, lightweight printing technology for their portable computers.  In 1997 they produced the first printer that could actually make images that looked and felt like real photos (right down to the glossy surface and the thick paper stock) for a whopping $500, cheap by high-end printer standards of the day.  And of course I bought one. 

My Worst Trip Ever

Establishing shot in Windhoek

In this issue:

• Announcements
• Next Time in Cameracraft Magazine
• My Worst Trip Ever

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Announcements

• Sony A6700 Ebook is just a couple of weeks away from being completed!  You can pre-order your copy at a discount before it's released.  It will be available in all the usual formats.
• Version 2.0 of the Friedman Archives Seminars will be hitting the road soon.  (More details next month.  Let me know if your local photo club would like to bring me over at no cost!)
• Wanna use your camera on an African Safari?  I'm currently looking into arranging a photo safari for November 2024.  Come give your high-end equipment something to do and shoot with me!  (Email me for more info... Gary at Friedman Archives dot com.)

Full-Frame vs. Smartphone (don't laugh...)

Probably my most influential blog post in the last 18 years - the one where I got the most number of people to re-examine long-held beliefs about what they thought was true - was the "Full Frame vs. Small Sensor (don't laugh)" post from 2017, where I pitted my 42 megapixel Sony A99 II against the tiny 20 MP RX100 V point-and-shoot.  When enlarged to poster size and scrutinized, nobody could tell which camera took which image.  

I was reminded of that when I started putting my new smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, through its paces.  This phone's two claims to fame are optical zooms on two of its lenses, and a whopping 200MP sensor on a third.  Check out these shots of the replica of the Mayflower ship taken at 200 MP resolution from far away (as always, click on any image to view larger and sharper):

And the 100% crop of the above:

Yowza!  That's pretty incredible for a phone.  I wonder what the quality difference would be if I pitted this new engineering marvel against my other engineering marvel, the Sony A7R V?