Tag: photos

Marie at my desk

There is some sensor dust that is wedged in there, but I was worried that my Adorama order wouldn’t arrive before I had to leave. Since, I am “a customer support person’s worst nightmare,” Marie decided to call them for me to confirm the order.

While waiting, I put the Heliar on my Leica and snapped some photos.

Marie at my desk

50 F5.3 Heliar on M8
South of Market, San Francisco, California

Olympus E-P2, Lumix G 20mm f/1.7
1/60sec @ ƒ1.7, iso 1250, 20mm (50mm)

The [heliar][heliar] is about as plane-jane lens as you can put on a camera: a normal lens with modest apertures. About the only thing it has going for it is that it is the sharpest lens Popular Photography has ever tested. Well, that and [its nickel plating][50mm heliar] looks gorgeous when collapsed into a Leica digital body.

50 F5.3 Heliar on M8

50 F5.3 Heliar on M8
South of Market, San Francisco, California

Olympus E-P2, Lumix G 20mm f/1.7
1/60sec @ ƒ1.7, iso 1250, 20mm (50mm)

In the days of super-wides and full-frame, sometimes it’s fun to shoot normal. Take out your 50mm and shoot a portrait today, you might be surprised at the result.

[heliar]: http://www.antiquecameras.net/heliarlenses.html “A Short History of the Heliar Lens—Angique & Classic Cameras”
[50mm heliar]: http://www.cameraquest.com/voigt_5035N.htm “New Nickel 50/3.5 Voigtlander Heliar—Cameraquest”

Posted on by tychay 2

Family Photos

Take photos of your family.

Bernadette’s 1st Communion

My mom, aunt, and uncle in Kyoto Japan 1941. My other aunt (who hadn’t been born yet) sent me this photo today.

Distance is no object—that’s why we have Skype and screenshotting (Cmd-Shift-3 on the Macintosh).

Ken, Dad, and Mia on Skype

My brother, father, and sister-in-law in Providence 2010.

I’m going to try to use ScanCafe to digitize my parents old photos quickly. I am receiving it as “a thank you gift” during KQED Public Radio’s last pledge drive. The idea is they send you a box, you fill it with photos and slides, and then they give you DVDs with them digitized.

We’ll see how that goes.

Update: Here they are (and some of the ones here).

Posted on by tychay 5

Preset looks

After a year of bouncing rumors and requests among friends and watching Adobe erode Apple’s marketshare, Aperture 3 is finally out. As far as I’m concerned, the people who are disappointed in the update probably shouldn’t have bought Aperture in the first place.

One of the things in the new Adobe Lightroom that is implemented (and improved on) in Aperture 3 is the concept of presets. This is one step closer to having me abandon my insanely slow Photoshop workflow for something that is fast, can be undone, and doesn’t chew up disk space. But the thing that was bothering me was, will it blend? Can I really get away with not leaving Aperture unless I really, really have to.

Let‘s see what I can create in a few minutes of fiddling around.

Vintage Film

The Fallout75’s Vintage Film effect tries to mimic the fading that occurs when a photo starts to fade over the years: the process is outlined here. Here is what I get in Aperture when I try to follow the same rules:

Paul Kim - Vintage Film

Paul Kim -Terrys Vintage
Automattic, Embarcadero, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, NOKTON Classic 40mm f1.4 S.C.
1/750sec, ISO160, 40mm (53mm)

This is my Vintage Film preset. Mouseover the image to see the original.

Here is the output in Adobe Photoshop CS4 when the action is run:

Paul Kim - Fallout75 Vintage Film

Paul Kim -Fallout75 Vintage Film
Automattic, Embarcadero, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, NOKTON Classic 40mm f1.4 S.C.
1/750sec, ISO160, 40mm (53mm)

This is Fallout75’s action. Mouseover the image to see the original.

You can see that Fallout75 has two undocumented effects: a brightening of the center region and a vignetting on the edges. I can emulate this, but I didn’t know what I created the current version of the action. I suppose that’ll be for later.
Continue reading about One more preset and downloads after the jump

Posted on by tychay 5