This edition of Michael Clark’s newsletter is a doozie. Aside from reminding me of my annoyance with Canon for not having a decent competitor to the D300, he has an inspiring article on shooting the Patagonia Expedition Race. This is wow.

The race is described on the official site as:

It is a journey to the end of the world, to the unknown, a trip to a virgin and wild territory, to southern Patagonia, the tip of the American continent. It is a race marked by the mystique of exploration, of discovery and facing the untamable Mother Nature. It is an adventure at the end of the world…

Reading that in isolation, I’m thinking “yeah, sure”. Reading that after Michael’s story and seeing his photos, I’m thinking “wow, Wow!”.

He quotes Kent Kobersteen, a famed photo editor from National Geographic:

The really strong photos come from those situations where the last thing you want to do is take pictures – where everything is going to hell, where the storms are raging and everyone is trying to hang on.

They were definitely in the right place:

And we were in an alpine jungle with trees so dense that not even a helicopter could find us in this valley.

Well worth a read (pdf). Or even just a download to look at the pictures!

A closing thought:

There are two basic ways to find inspiration. One is to go on a trip and the other is to put the camera down for a while.

– Jay Maisel, page 20

Photoshop TV’s Matt Kloskowski highlighted a great tip for soft focus, based on a sharpening technique.

Basic idea looks like:

1. Create a copy into a new layer
2. Apply the High Pass filter (use more radius than usual for sharpening)
3. Inverse the layer
4. Set the blend mode to Soft Light
5. Adjust the layer opacity to taste

Without step 3, the photo is sharpened. With step 3, you get a lovely soft focus effect. The advantage to this approach is the effect can be selectively removed by painting on the layer with 50% grey.

This was an a ha! moment for me. I use high pass filter sharpening, but it simply never occurred that it would also work for soft focus.

After a year or two of watching Photoshop User TV, I’m still learning heaps. Thanks guys!

From On Being a Photographer:

These basic principles are:

1. Photographers are not primarily interested in photography. They have a focused energy and enthusiasm which is directed at an outside, physically present, other. They bring to this subject an exaggerated sense of curiosity, backed up by knowledge gleaned from reading, writing, talking, note-taking.
2. The photographer transmits this passion in “the thing itself” by making pictures, therefore the subject must lend itself to a visual medium, as opposed to, say, writing about it.
3. The photographer must assiduously practice his/her craft so that there is no technical impediment between realizing the idea and transmitting it through the final print.
4. The photographer must have the ability to analyze the components of the subject-idea so that a set of images not only reflects the basic categories but also displays visual variety. Intense clear thinking is a prerequisite for fine photography
5. The photographer is aware that, like all difficult endeavors, to be good at photography requires an unusual capacity for continuous hard work and …

Good luck.

Brilliant book. One that I was drawn to by the sample chapter (pdf), and one I will read again.

If the discussion between David Hurn and Bill Jay was held today, it would be published as a seven part podcast. I’m glad that it comes as a book. This means it stays in my house for years rather than days.

From the Adobe(r) Lightroom podcast with Catherine Hall:

Pose by asking the participants to role play. For instance, imagine you are in Paris …

This approach has worked really well for Catherine in her shooting of weddings. Especially as the models are usually not professionals, but rather everyday people. By asking them to role play, they can be enticed into interesting poses to match desired composition, without the stiffness associated with directing specific poses.

George Jardine’s interview technique is simply sublime. This is one podcast series where I do not miss an episode. I went back and listened to the early shows. There is much to learn about photography in these interviews.

From the LightSource podcast with David Tobie from Data Color:

The in-camera highlight clipping is based on the color space that is set.

This is apparently true even if you are shooting RAW.

The implications of this are that you can no longer trust the clipping information. It will clip earlier, as RAW typically captures a wider gamut than say sRGB.

This episode is worth a listen if you are starting to reach the point where colour is important. Especially how colour looks on screen as compared to in print.

Deciding on a new lens is hard. There are many options and many factors to consider, such as your photographic style, cost, and build quality.

My approach is to look at times when there are photos I have missed due to not having a particular capability in my kit. The area that I’ve noticed this of late has been at the wide end of the spectrum. I own a wide angle lens, but as it is the kit lens, it doesn’t spend much time on the camera. Time for an upgrade.

The lens I selected is the 17-40mm f/4 Canon. I used this web site to compare the different capabilities of the lenses I was considering, and used amazon in the US for a rough guide to prices.

Once I decided on the lens, purchasing it becomes tricky. The cost of buying glass in Melbourne is not small if you walk into a camera store. I was lucky enough to be flying through Hong Kong and Canada, so had some more options.

Here is a comparison of prices I found when hunting, to give you an idea of the differences:

• $1,439.00 Canon recommended retail price
• $955 + shipping, photobuff, Australian online retailer
• $918 Don’s photo, downtown Winnipeg
• $900.00 Hong Kong shops, Stanley Street in Central
• $851.00 + shipping + maybe import tax, mpex.com, US online retailer
• $799 + $80 shipping + maybe import tax, ebay.com.au, via HK online retailer

There is also the fun of calculating various taxes, and considering the risk associated with returns and warranty claims. In the past, I bought my 70-200 f/4 from mpex.com and had no problems with shipping.

This time, I collected the lens from Don’s Photo in Winnipeg as there were a few other bits I also wanted to grab. They ended up doing me a good deal on the whole sale, and I’m confident that I can return it to them should there be a need.

The process is simply too hard. Unfortunately, due to the cost of glass in Australia, I’m likely to have to revisit this process on my next purchase.

If you know any other places to get reliable and cheap sales of Canon lenses, let me know in the comments.