It's time for a change

Today Adobe announced the end of the creative Suite, completeing the transition to Creative Cloud. 

There will be new versions of adobes products all rebranded as the Creative Cloud (CC), so look for Photoshop CC, InDesign CC and so on.

At this time I am still looking to see if there will be new features added.  One feature is a new motion Blur tool that will look at an image and try to compensate for the movement of the camera when the photo was taken and then attempt to bring the photo into focus. Here is a link to a page on Adobes site where you can learn about this feature.

I have been a a subscriber to the Creative Cloud for a few months now and love it. I have photoshop and lightroom on my desktop and Macbook air, updates are easily performed and I like the idea knowing if I was out of town I could add a program to my laptop on a moments notice.

Subscription prices will be $49.99/mo. with an upgrade option from CS3 for $29.99/mo., Student teacher and individual app. subscriptions will be $19.99/mo.  There is also team and enterprise pricing available.  

My hope is the cloud will cut down on Photoshop and adobe products piracy. So I hope this will keep the cost of the subscription service the same for  long time.  

Iris and roses

Photographed A bunch of fresh cut flowers and used the oil paint filter and a couple of fly paper texture layers to create this effect.

Projects like this can bring images that you may have saved but just didn't know what you wanted to do with them.  Have some fun experiment with some photoshop filters and bring new life to photos you haven't looked at in a while.

D600 Number 4 has DUST ISSUES as bad as D600 Number 1

My 4th D600 came yesterday Friday April 26th , I waited until Saturday morning to un pack it and put my new 16 to 35mm Nikkor lens on it and go out and shot.  I took one shot came in and imported it into LR5 and used the new spot visualization feature to see how things looked well the first screen capture below show oh maybe 50 to 75 spots.  Ok I will give them the benefit of the doubt maybe its just a dirty sensor.

So below is a screen capture after 45 shots, more dust. I again used the same settings in the LR 5 dust visualization feature.  I went out and decided to shot again for a total of about 100 photos.

Below is photo number 117 on this new camera, The lens was never removed from the body and I kept the Aperture at f22. Shot number 1, 45 and 117 are all of the sky with some clouds.  By this last photo The Chunks of crap were starting to show on the unprocessed files.  

 To compare below is a recent shot from my D7000, last cleaned in Mid February before heading off to Death Valley.  I am taking 3 online course and have changed the lens on my D7000 many tomes everything from a lens baby to my 70 to 200mm. The image is spotless clean.  

I know there are many Nikon fanboys (I am or was one, I have many Nikon point and shoots a couple of bridge cameras, a D90, D3200, D7000, and a  V!) who say its just a little dust clean the sensor and get on with it.  But the above examples show that this is more then just an inconvenience. There is a serious defect in these cameras.  

All I wanted is to have a full frame camera that used the same SD cards and Batteries as my D7000 and V!, so I could have a really nice travel kit.

The fact that Nikon will not officially say this is truly a problem and the fact that they expect people to keep pay the return shipping fees on all these defective cameras shows this company has very little compassion and caring for its costumers.

I have again sent these images to my dealer and am waiting for a return number so I can send back my 4th D600 and I think my last D 600.

Mirrored dreamscape

Playing around with Photoshop CS6, layered a blurred version onto of properly exposed photo

D600 Update

Ordered my 4th Nikon D600 last evening, it should be here on Thursday, I have my fingers crossed for a dust free experience.  I will be reporting on the status of this camera over the weekend.

Lookout tower at night

Well it looks like Spring will never get here so I decided to go out and shoot at sunset a couple of days ago,  I went to Rome, NY and shot the Blu hour.  This photo was taken just at the end of the magic blue hour just before the sky went black.

Temps were in the low 30's and there was a 15 MPH wind forcing me to hold the tripod during some of the exposures that night.  

Lightroom 5 Beta

By know I am sure most people who are interested have seen the news that Adobe's Lightroom 5 beta has been released,  I will be downloading it today and will be looking at it over the rest of this week.  One thing I am upset about is no support for MAC OS 10.6 I have a Macbook air I travel with and really don't want to upgrade the OS.  Sometime I feel Apples upgrades are made to run on more powerful chip sets and what an upgrade does is slow older machines to the point where you want to buy a new one.

One feature I found kinda funny in a review I was watching, is the new spot removal feature.  It made me wonder how much money Nikon paid to have this feature added to LR5.  The photo show had spots that looked just like what a D600 would look like after a single day of shooting without changing your lens.  Don't get me wrong I really like the new feature especially the new brush tool for spot removal.  It will be really nice taking out power lines, or fence post without having to go into photoshop.

Well thats just a few thoughts, I will write more after taking a look at the program and seeing how all the new features add up.

New Galleries added

This evening I added a Death Valley and HDR gallery . I hope you enjoy the images

Black and white

I was trying out new editing techniques with in NIK Silver EFX pro.  I feel like the results I obtained, except for the clarity, represent what could have been shot back in the early 1900's when this car was new.

Why I like sunrise

The photos below are an example of why I like to shot during the golden hour of sunrise.  I have found that sunrise will go through many more color changes then the sunset golden hour.  In the morning the soft pre-dawn light almost always gives way to a beautiful Blue sky moment, I won't call it the blue hour because at sunrise the blue sky is very brief when compared to the cobalt blue sky after sunset.

Below there are 2 examples of morning color taken at sunrise.

Golden orange sun rise from the southern shore of Oahu Hawaii.  We were up early and looking for places to shoot.  After finding a small place to pull of the road it was a short walk to the water and out onto the old lava flow.  The sunrise was very dramatic that morning and went through many different color changes

Below is an image taken about 15 minutes eariler then the one above from the same lava flow. 

Death Valley.

Here is another shot from my recent trip to Death Valley. This time of year the Valley is cool in the mornings and spring like in the afternoons. We were up shooting at sunrise and again at sunset. This picture was taken in Badwater as the sun was setting with a Nikon 16 to 35 mm lens

testing new server settings

Just checking to see if we are working again

Foot prints in the sand

Walking along the tops of the sand dunes seems to be the easiest way to get from place to place

Another Sand dune photo

Taken after sunrise,

Mesquite Flats sand dunes at sunrise

Last week I was in  Death Valley Workshops with The Digital Photo Workshops and guest instructor Rick Sammom.  This photo was taken at the Mesquite Flats dunes just before sunrise.  The sands went through some amazing color changes as we went from darkness to early morning light. 

After a few hours of getting our boots full of sand as we moved from place to place we returned to the hotel at Furnace Creek Ranch for breaksfast and a few hours of class time.  The Digital PhotoWorkshop instructors each with expert knowledge in several topics are always available to answer any question you may have on post processsing techniques. The workshop functions on a very relaxed schedule where you are in control over how much you want to learn.   Give The Digital Photo Workshops a look the next time you are looking for a photo work shop, you will not be disapointed. 

Death Valley at sunrise

I am here in Death Valley to attend the digital photo workshop with Rick Sammon. I arrived in Furnace creek late last night and to get my self on the workshop schedule I was up early this morning, to get some photos from a few sites we will not be visiting with the workshop.  This photo was taken about a mile from the hotel and is also the site of the Death Valley Earth cache.  This picture was taken at the site of the Harmony Borax Works and is 251 feet below sea level.

North Pond

I was out testing a rental D600 this past weekend.  The rental company said that their D600 's do not have a dust problem.  Well I needed to clean a lot of dust from the sensor when the camera arrived.  I am now testing it again with out changing lenses to keep any dust from the outside to a minimum.  I have made about 500 shots sofar this week, over the weekend I am going to make some dust test shots and compare them to the test images I made after cleaning the sensor.  I will post my results.

The sun came out today

Santa left me a Panasonic Lumix IR converted camera well it took a week for the sun to come out so I could get outside and just do some quick snaps.  I am heading to FL soon so I will have more IR shots to share over the next couple of weeks.

This was just a shot to see how trees, clouds and Buildings reflect IR light.

Happy New Year 2013

Here's to the bright New Year, the photos yet to be made, and to the memories they will hold.

Crown Royal and a Royal Flush