Scott Loftesness

Canvas Print - San Francisco Skyline from Fort Point

I've not had much experience with printing photos on canvas - but recently decided to give the folks at Snapfish a try - due mostly to their Flickr integration.

The photo I tried was this New Years Day 2010 photo of the San Francisco skyline - as seen from Fort Point down by the Golden Gate Bridge:

I ordered an 8x10 canvas of this photo - and I was delighted with the result. This photo was post-processed using some of the techniques learned from Trey Ratcliff's texture tutorial - and it truly looks superb on canvas!

I've made this photo available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. You can't use this image for any commercial purposes (contact me if you want to) - but feel free to share/remix it as long as you provide attribution back to me here on my blog.

A Beautiful Evening at Baker Beach

Hey, That's Me!

I was surprised to look at Trey Ratcliff's StuckInCustoms.com post this morning - and see a picture of several of us photowalking Stanford last Thursday afternoon. The photo was taken for the Stanford Daily.

Meeting Trey and some of the other photographers was great fun - see my earlier post. By the way, I'm the guy on the right - Trey's the guy on the left. You can barely see my tiny camera (Canon S90) on top of my tripod!

Blue and Gold - Textures with the Canon PowerShot S90

As I mentioned earlier, on Thursday afternoon I went photowalking at Stanford with Trey Ratcliff of StuckInCustoms.com. In spite of the drizzling weather, we had a great time photowalking Stanford - much of it spent inside Stanford Memorial Church (see the full set of photos here).

I've also been interested in Trey's use of textures in some of his HDR photos. His textures tutorial details the process he uses - based upon a set of textures he's captured on his travels around the world.

I've put together two examples of this texture technique - based on the same image - shot on New Years Day 2010 from Fort Point in San Francisco. These aren't HDR - but they were shot using the Canon PowerShot S90. The first is blue, the second is gold!

Enjoy!

Photowalking Stanford with Trey Ratcliff

[Update: Feb 5, 2010: Here's the Flickr group Stuck in Stanford with photos from the group that walked with Trey Ratcliff last night.]

Late today, in a light drizzle, about 50 photographers joined ace HDR photographer Trey Ratcliff for a photowalk on the Stanford campus. Trey's website StuckInCustoms.com is the best resource for HDR photography on the planet. His new book, A World in HDR, is equally great. It was great fun to meet Trey and hear some of his tips for shooting HDR in the real world.

The weather was just mild enough for us to enjoy ourselves - and perhaps the best time was had by all inside the Stanford Memorial Church where we spent the bulk of our time. Here are two shots of mine taken inside the church using my Canon PowerShot S90 shooting HDR. These were post-processed using Photomatix Pro, Photoshop CS4 and the Topaz Adjust and Noiseware filters.

You can also follow Trey's HDR exploits on his Stuck in Customs Facebook page. For my Canon PowerShot S90 HDR setup instructions, see this post.

HOW TO: Setting up the Canon PowerShot S90 to Shoot HDR

A friend has asked how I've been setting up my Canon PowerShot S90 to take the HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos I've been sharing.

Here's what I've been doing:

1. Put the S90 into Aperture Priority mode by setting the mode dial to Av. By shooting in Av, you ensure that the camera isn't adjusting the aperture (which could cause focus issues) but, rather, only shutter speed.
   
2. Select a fixed (not Auto) ISO (see p. 76 in the S90 manual). In daylight, choose 80 or 100. You want a fixed ISO so that the camera isn't trying to adjust ISO between shots.
   
3. Select Large format JPEG or RAW (see p. 72 in the S90 manual). (I find the Large JPEGs are the easiest to post-process while purists say to shoot in RAW. The S90 does a superb job of processing in-camera, so just choose Large JPEG when you're getting started.)
   
4. Turn on Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB mode - see p. 93 in the S90 manual). Chose the middle option - "Takes 3 different shots at different exposures". While still in that setting, press the DISP button and turn the dial to select +/- 2 stops. This ensures that the camera takes 3 shots: one properly exposed, one underexposed by 2 stops, and one overexposed by 2 stops. These three photos are what Photomatix Pro then uses to create the HDR image.
   

Now, the S90 is ready to go.

For best results, mount the S90 on a tripod to prevent any movement as the three shots are being taken. If you don't have a tripod, you can try handheld HDR - just try to brace your arm against a support to minimize any camera movement. When you hit the shutter button, the camera will take the 3 shots - about a shot per second. After 3 seconds or so, it's done.

I post-process in Lightroom - using it to import the photos from the S90. I then use Photomatix Pro and just point it to the 3 shots in the file folder to begin generating the HDR image. Once the image has been generated and tone mapped, I save it back into the same folder and then import that image also into Lightroom - telling Lightroom to just add it to the catalog but not to copy it as the image is already in the folder.

For the best overall tutorial on HDR processing, be sure the see Trey Ratcliff's Stuck in Customs HDR tutorial.

Canon PowerShot S90 HDR - Continues to Amaze!

I've continued to be very pleased with the HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos I've taken using my relatively new Canon PowerShot S90 camera. See my Canon S90 HDR Flickr set for some recent examples of some of the photos that I've been shooting!

For my S90 HDR shooting, I've been using a lightweight Manfrotto tripod that, frankly, I was about to get rid of because it's just not substantial enough to support my Canon 5D Mark II. But, as it turns out, this tripod is absolutely perfect for shooting with the Canon S90! I've been getting a bit of a kick out of walking around with this tripod - with this little tiny camera mounted on it!

If you're looking for an entry-level digital camera that shoots RAW, includes auto-bracketing suitable for HDR, and almost disappears in your hands, be sure to checkout the S90 - it's an awful lot of digital camera in a tiny package - and continues to amaze me!

Really Enjoying Photography Podcasts

Twice a week, I ferry the family dog to a session of "doggie day care". The round trip gives me about 45 minutes in the car to listen to anything I want. I could just listen to the news on the radio - but that often puts me in a cranky mood. So, I look for something better.

Increasingly, of late, I've been using that travel time to listen to photography-related podcasts on my iPhone (plugged into the Aux input in my Honda Civic Hybrid). These podcasts have proven to be quite interesting - and have introduced me to some things I otherwise might not have learned about. They are MUCH more fun than listening to the often depressing news of the day!

Today, for example, I listened to two podcasts by Frederick Van Johnson. He's the host of the ”This Week in Photography” podcast - which I sometimes listen to - but I am finding his individual podcast interviews to, frankly, be more focused and interesting than the group chat that takes place on TWIP.

On today's drive, I really enjoyed his podcast interview with Michael Corsentino - who, as it turns out, is a master at marketing his wedding and portrait photography simply by his choices about client presentation.

Coming home from our Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp in Santa Clara tonight, Frederick's interview with Trey Ratcliff of StuckInCustoms.com was especially great! Trey is one of the great HDR (High Dynamic Range) photographers - a technique that I'm also enjoying a lot. If you're into HDR, you've got to listen to this podcast!

Yesterday, while driving over to Oakland for a client meeting, I was fascinated by Dave Warner's LensFlare35.com interview of Jasmine Star. Dave knows how to ask the right questions - his 1:1 photography podcasts are another favorite of mine!

If you're into photography like I am - and have the time to listen - be sure to check out the rich treasure trove of great photography podcasts available on iTunes!

A Bit of HDR - Canon S90 HDR

Yesterday, a day with some dramatic clouds here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I took the opportunity to head up to San Francisco and shoot a few HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos using my Canon PowerShot S90 - here's a link to the slideshow - and below is one of my favorites taken at the Palace of Fine Arts.

More Canon PowerShot S90 HDR Photography - Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

I had such fun on my brief excursion to Stanford yesterday shooting HDR photos for the first time on my new Canon S90 that I got going early this morning for a trip over the hills to Half Moon Bay and environs.

I have several favorite spots for taking shots in Half Moon Bay and I visited each of them in turn this morning while the light was still good and low over the winter horizon. But, of all the places, the best shot of the day came from one of my favorite walks among the cypress trees in the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. See what you think - view it larger here!

The sun glow in this photo is amazing - especially considering that the sun was actually a bit beyond the upper right corner of the photo. Today, I again used a tripod for the S90, shot three JPEG images at 0 and +/- 2 stops in aperture priority, f/8, ISO 80, and post-processed using Photomatix Pro and Lightroom 2.6. (Here's a link to a similar shot taken last July with my Canon 5D Mark II.)

Shooting HDR with this superb tiny little camera is turning out to be a whole lot of fun! Throw the S90 on a lightweight tripod (it looks so tiny up there!) - and you can go almost anywhere and take some really superb HDR shots - without the weight of a big camera and lens! After all, the only reason I bought the Canon S90 was because of my rotator cuff surgery in my right shoulder about 10 weeks ago which made shooting with my Canon 5D Mark II impossible for a period of time. The S90 has kept me in the game - learning new things about using compact "point and shoot" cameras to make some great photos!